The rest of my first day as a Zion volunteer goes really well. At lunch, Rachael tells me about the trail project I’ll be working on tomorrow.
“It’s called the Zion Canyon Touch Trail and the idea is for it to be a quarter-mile loop, and every hundred and fifty feet or so we’re going to have an educational display that kids can touch or interact with. This trail will be flat and paved, with a handrail, so it’ll be fully handicapped-accessible. And for the surface we’ll be using local dirt and mixing it with a natural polymer that’s resistant to wear and better for the environment than asphalt.”
“So what will I get to do?” I bite into my applewood-bacon cheeseburger, which is cooked perfectly. I blot at a strand of cheese that sticks to my lips.
“I’m going to leave that up to Elliott.” Rachael spears a forkful of her salad. “He’s one of my seasonal employees. Very hardworking and nice. I’ll be out on patrol tomorrow, so he’ll be supervising. I would definitely be prepared to get dirty and sweaty, though.”
“I actually met him the other day when I was running,” I say. “He was parked by the Visitor Center when I stopped to get a drink.”
“Dark hair, dark eyes, big biceps?” Rachael asks.
“Yeah, that sounds like him. I mean, I’m not really checking out guys’ biceps these days, or anything.”
Rachael swallows her bite of salad. “Sorry. Of course you’re not,” she says quietly. She takes a sip of her water. “Look, I know the two of us aren’t that close, but if you ever need to talk, I’m here. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who’s a little more distant from the situation.”
I concentrate on my burger. “Sure. Okay.” I know Rachael is trying, but I can’t imagine opening up to her. There’s not even really anything to talk about. Dallas is gone. I miss him. I feel like what happened was partially my fault. I don’t understand why he died and I didn’t. All those things hurt, and no amount of talking is going to change any of them.
We finish our meals and I head back to the booth, where Halley and I spend the rest of the afternoon with Clint, taking payments and handing out maps of the park. She lets me work the window the last hour of our shift, just so I can test myself on how well I know the parking procedure and how to get to the various campgrounds, picnic shelters, and trailheads.
When the clock hits five, Halley grabs her purse. “And we’re done for the day.”
“You ladies have a nice evening,” Clint says.
“He stays until seven,” Halley explains as we exit the booth and Clint waves.
I turn back to Halley. “Well, thanks for showing me around today. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You’re welcome,” she says. “Oh, and tomorrow? You’re definitely going to want a water bottle and sunscreen.”
“Right. Trail building. Good looking out.”
I meet Rachael back inside the Visitor Center and she drives me home. We stop at Zion Pizza and Noodle Company on the way and pick my dad up his favorite meat-lovers pizza, hilariously called the Cholesterol Hiker. I look over the choices and smile when I see there’s one called the “Good For You” pizza. That’d be my mom’s choice for sure.
“Will this be okay for you?” Rachael asks. “Or would you like me to order you something different? The salads here are pretty good.”
I skim over the Cholesterol Hiker’s ingredients—a lot of cheese and a lot of meat. “This is fine,” I say. “It’s a little high fat for me, but Halley told me I’ll be getting a major workout tomorrow.”
Rachael grins. “You have no idea how excited I am to have you helping me out on this trail. It means so much to me.” She pauses. “And you mean so much to me. I’m sorry about the circumstances that brought you here, but I’m really glad we’re getting another chance to get to know each other.”
“Me too,” I say, and I mean it. Rachael invited me into her home when I needed a place to escape to, she offered me a job and saved me from a long hot summer of hiding in my bedroom, and she’s been nothing but nice to me since I got here. I used to think that liking her would be a betrayal of my mom, but now I think that even my mom would like her under different circumstances.
While we wait for the pizza to cook, I look up the piano key bracelets on my phone and see that I was right—there are about ten different websites selling them as a Dallas Kade memorabilia item. It’s a nice gesture, I guess, but seeing them everywhere is just one more thing that’s going to remind me of the accident, of the fact that if I hadn’t been so petty and jealous, Dallas would still be alive.
It doesn’t take me long to figure out what Halley meant about hard labor. Rachael drops me off at the Zion Lodge the next day, a little ways up the road from the Visitor Center. By the time I swill my very necessary cup of morning coffee, Elliott has gone somewhere and returned, his pickup truck brimming with tools and supplies. It looks more like we’re going mining than building a trail.
He pulls what looks like a couple of axes out of the bed of the truck and hands one to me. It weighs twice as much as I’m expecting and I almost drop it on my foot.
“Do you know what that is?” Elliott asks.
I’m guessing it’s something I’m not qualified to hold, let alone use. “An ax?”
“It’s a Pulaski. Forget the ax side. You’re going to use the adze side.”
“The what?” I consider the other side of the tool. It’s got a sturdy metal head on it with a blunt edge that resembles a garden hoe.
“Adze,” Elliott repeats. He gives Halley and me each a pair of work gloves and then tosses her a cloth tape measure and a bundle of bright orange flags. “Halley, your job is to mark the lines so Jen and I know where to break up the ground. You’ve got the diagram Rachael sent, right?”
Halley pulls a folded piece of paper from the back pocket of her jeans. “On it.” Her blond braids swing back and forth as she jogs across a big grassy clearing in front of the lodge to an area closer to the river that’s a mix of sagebrush and sandy soil.
I start to follow her, the deceptively heavy ax, no, adze, hanging at my side.
“Hold up,” Elliott says. “I’m going to show you how to use that, but not here where all the old men are staring at you.”
I glance around quickly, fidgeting with my headband to make sure my scar is covered. Sure enough, a couple of men about my dad’s age are leaning against a minivan in the parking lot and checking me out. Almost without thinking, I check their wrists for black-and-white bracelets. If these guys are wearing them, I can’t see them. Middle-aged men aren’t exactly the demographic Dallas and his producer were shooting for, but back when he was teaching piano online he had fans of all ages.
“Creepy,” I mutter.
“Yep. The local people here are awesome, but you never know what you’re going to get with the tourists.” Elliott takes me out into the sandy area a few yards away from where Halley is marking. “Have you ever swung one of these?” he asks. “Or an ax?”
“Uh, no. I’ve never even swung a hammer.”
“Seriously? Well, you’re about to get an education, rookie. And a workout.”
Elliott takes his Pulaski in both hands and has me mimic the way he’s holding it. I feel a strange combination of ridiculous and badass, like when I dressed up as Black Widow for Halloween and wore my costume all day at school. Dallas went as Captain America, which I joked was barely even a costume given his all-American good looks and boy-next-door demeanor. I think that was a lot of what shocked me about his cheating—he was always so nice, so proper. I never thought he would hurt me like that.
I try to push the thought out of my mind. I shouldn’t be thinking about the bad things, not now that Dallas is gone. But part of me wonders if someday that girl will come forward, sell her story to some tabloid website for a few bucks.
Elliott lifts the tool about waist high and slams it down into the sunbaked dirt.
I jump. “Sorry,” I say. “I’m paying attention. I swear.”
“Good.” He does it a few more times and I can see the chunks of earth breaking apart.
I’m not convinced I’m going to be able to mimic his form with the heavy tool. “Wouldn’t a shovel be easier?”
“Nope,” he says. “But there’s one in the back of the pickup if you’re afraid to give this a try.”
“I’m not afraid.” I do my best to replicate Elliott’s form with the Pulaski, surprised when the ground cracks under the force of my stroke.
“Nice job, Crusher,” he says. “Only about two million more to go.”
I consider the twisting path of flags that Halley is meticulously placing. Two million might be a conservative estimate. “Are we the only people working on this?”
“We are today. This is Rachael’s baby, so it’s primarily her team handling it. That’s Halley and me and two other park guides . . . and you, I guess.”
I snicker. I’m on Rachael’s team. God, my mom would die.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” I say.
Elliott and I join Halley and start to break up the ground between the red flags that she’s carefully inserting in the ground every five feet.
“How deep do we need to go?” I ask.
“At least six inches,” he says.
Crap. I’m only getting about half that deep. I try to put more force behind my strokes, letting the blade of the tool fall with gravity instead of trying to keep control over it.
“Now you know what working on a chain gang would be like,” Halley teases. “I guess this explains why all our volunteers have quit.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Elliott says. “She’s hoping to do this full-time after college. She likes the pain.”
I shrug. “At least it’s a good workout.” It’s also helping to clear my mind. I focus on the way my body moves with the tool, on the way my muscles relax and contract during each strike. The repetitive motion reminds me of running.
Elliott and I are mostly quiet except for the repeated thunking of our Pulaskis hitting the dirt. Halley chatters to both of us as she measures out the trail and marks it with flags.
“So what’s your deal, Jen? What kind of stuff do you like to do?”
“Um . . . running?” I offer. “Reading? Studying. My school was really intense, so I didn’t have a lot of time for outside stuff.”
“Okay, so what kind of stuff would you do if you had free time?” Halley presses.
The truth is, I spent most of my free time with Dallas. When we didn’t have Premed Club, we hung out at my house a lot since we could walk there after school. We usually ended up studying, messing around online, or hooking up if there was no chance of being caught. Sometimes all three if my mom was working late.
I try to come up with answers that are true but that won’t give away my identity. “I like horses,” I say. “And running . . . which I already said. And I took a poetry class that I ended up liking more than I thought, so maybe that too.”
“Awesome,” Halley says. “You know, there’s a horse corral right over there.” She points at a spot across a far parking lot, just on the other side of the Virgin River.
“Really? Maybe we can ride sometime when I’m here.”
“Sure. They do two different options, a one-hour or a three-hour ride.”
I make a mental note to ask Rachael about it later. “What do you like?” I ask Halley. I’ve become pretty good at deflecting questions back on other people.
“Well. Like you, my school curriculum was very rigorous, and I sometimes help my parents out at their restaurant in the evenings. But when there’s time, horses, hiking, camping, hanging out with my friends.” Halley pauses. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
I feel my skin blanch. I swallow hard before answering. “I used to,” I say. “But it . . . didn’t work out.”
Elliott’s eyes meet mine for a moment. His expression softens. “So everyone is single and everyone likes horses. Glad we got that settled.”
I flash him a grateful smile. He must have picked up on my discomfort.
“I thought you were afraid of horses,” Halley says.
He scoffs. “I’m not afraid. I simply respect the fact that they’re big and strong and that they could kill me.” He turns back to me. “I work at a veterinary clinic in St. George during the school year. I’ve helped restrain horses so my boss can do exams.”
Halley turns her attention to Elliott. “I can’t wait for college. I hope it won’t be too hard to make new friends.”
“I’m sure you’ll do just fine.” He tugs on one of her braids. “You’re rooming with a friend of yours, right? So you’ll have a head start.”
“Yeah. Tazmyn and I are rooming together at BYU,” Halley says. “Tazmyn is my best friend,” she explains to me. “We went to the same elementary school, and we’re in the same ward at church.”
“Nice,” I say. I’m curious to ask Elliott more about his college experiences so far, but I know that every question I ask will invite a question in response. Right now there are a lot of questions I don’t want to answer.
Elliott drops his Pulaski for a second to look over Halley’s progress, adjusting a few of her flags so the marked trail goes around a small cluster of sagebrush and not right through it. “Remember, Rachael said whenever possible not to disturb the natural flora.”
“Right. Sorry.” Halley studies the diagram from Rachael again and goes back to her marking. She’s quiet for a few minutes, but then she says, “Hey, Elliott? I heard that the lodge staff are having their secret Fourth of July party again this year. Are you going?”
“Would you like me to go?”
“Heck yes!” Halley exclaims.
“Halley likes to party with the cool kids who work at Zion Lodge in the summer, but she needs a man to show up with in order to feel legit,” Elliott explains.
Halley rolls her eyes. “More like I need a ride, since the shuttle won’t be running that late.”
“I’ll think about it,” Elliott says.
I smile, but focus on my digging, surprised and strangely proud at the line of dirt I’ve broken up. I blot the sweat from my forehead, noticing that my headband is drenched. I’m sure all the makeup I tried to use to cover my scar has also melted off. I stop and take a long swig from my water bottle.
“How are your hands?” Halley asks. “Sometimes even with gloves you end up getting a blister from working with tools like that.”
I tug off one of my gloves. The area between my thumb and first finger is pink, but there are no blisters forming as far as I can tell. “They’re okay.”
“Your face is red. Did you remember sunscreen?”
I nod. “I put it on at home and I can reapply at lunchtime.”
“Okay,” Halley says. “But you’re a volunteer. Just remember you can take a break whenever you need.”
I shake my head. “I’m fine.”
“You’re so quiet,” she says. “I feel like you could totally be miserable and we wouldn’t even know it.”
“You talk enough for all three of us,” Elliott tells Halley.
She grins. “That’s because I have a lot to say.”
“You’d better hurry up with those flags or Crusher here is going to lap you.” The two of them go back and forth teasing each other for a couple of minutes. I start breaking up a new area of ground and Halley returns to her measuring and marking.
Rachael shows up at lunchtime with sandwiches and cold drinks. I’m reaching for a can of Coca-Cola when Elliott grabs my wrist. I’m so surprised by the touch that I drop the Coke right back into the cooler.
“Try this.” Elliott holds out a different can of soda in my direction. It’s bright orange.
“Cactus Cooler?” I say dubiously. “It’s not prickly pear flavored or anything, is it?”
“You’ll like it. Trust me.”
Shrugging, I pop the top. “Looks like orange soda to me.” I take a long drink, surprised by the twist of something tangy running through the sweetness. “Wow, that’s tasty.”
“It’s orange-pineapple,” Elliott explains.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” Halley says. “But FYI, prickly pear is delicious.” She gestures toward the lodge behind us. “The gift shop sells prickly pear everything—chocolate, caramels, jelly, you name it.”
“Prickly pear jelly?” I wrinkle up my nose.
“Don’t knock it till you try it,” Rachael says. She drops down to the ground next to the rest of us and starts distributing the sandwiches. The three of us eat mostly in silence. I watch some of the lodge guests toss a Frisbee around. A Zion Park shuttle pulls up and a bunch of people pour out—mostly retirees and families with little kids. I smile to myself when I think about how soon they’ll have a special trail just for them.
After we finish eating, I return to digging the trench. Rachael hangs out with us and helps for a while. She verifies Halley’s placement of the flags and moves a couple to adjust the path of the trail just slightly. Then she picks up a Pulaski and goes to town on the dirt. She doesn’t necessarily look like she’s in good shape, but she has incredible strength and endurance.
“I’m amazed by how much progress we’ve made in a single day,” she says.
“Me too,” Elliott says. “You didn’t tell us your stepdaughter was Superwoman.”
I grin. My hands and arms and back are aching from using the Pulaski for hours, but there’s no denying that the three of us did a ton of work today.
“See you tomorrow,” Elliott says as I hop into Rachael’s Jeep.
“Bye.” I give him a half wave.
My phone buzzes with a text. Before I can even fumble it out of my pocket, another text comes in. My fingers close around my warm plastic case and I tap at the screen. Two messages from Shannon. The first one says: Genevieve? Are you there? The second one is marked 911 but it’s just two words: Call me.