2
“Do you have the keys?”
Nina rolled her eyes and stuck her head out of the car window.
“Jess. How do you think I was able to open the window to yell at you? Of course I have the keys.”
Jess wrestled with her oversized designer scarf and called over the mass of wool. “Okay okay okay! I just wanted to be sure, Nina, okay?”
“Okay,” Nina laughed. She drummed her fingers on the leather of the steering wheel. “Can we please just go now?”
“Yeah come on Jess!” Anna called from the back seat.
“Seriously. We are actually like never going to, like, leave,” Esme whined, twirling a strand of long black hair.
“I’m coming!” Jess opened the door to the passenger seat and squeezed in. “I’m sorry but you know I’m not going out until I look good. And I mean good.” She flipped open a compact of blush and began powdering her cheeks with shimmery rose.
“We’re going hiking,” Anna retorted. “You don’t have to look good.”
Nina twisted around in her seat and fixed Anna with a look.
“Honey, we always have to look good,” she said. She reached out a hand to rub a bit of lipstick off of Esme’s teeth with a perfectly manicured fingertip. “What if we need to take a cute Instagram pic?”
Anna rolled her eyes.
“Whatever. Can we just go already?”
“Yes, we can!” Nina sang. She twisted the key in the ignition, and the car roared to life. She pushed her sunglasses down over her green eyes and backed the car out of the driveway.
The early autumn sunshine fell from the sky as easily as the leaves fell from the trees. Nina rolled down the windows of the car and tossed her hair back over her shoulders, enjoying the way the breeze ran its fingers through her fiery red mane. Jess played the role of DJ, plugging her iPod into the car’s expensive speakers and blaring music as the girls rolled down the highway. Anna sang along in her off-key voice, absentmindedly playing with her chipping nail polish. Esme pulled a silver cigarillo from her purse and began to smoke a cigarette delicately, leaning ever so slightly out of the window in order to prevent the ash from falling on her designer leather jacket.
“This is going to be the absolute best picnic ever!” Nina grinned as she turned the car off of the highway and onto a small side road. Anna smiled and leaned forward into the front seat, squinting at the road ahead of them.
“It’s hard to see with all the dust from this weird side road,” she said, blinking rapidly.
“Yeah, but I know where we’re going,” Nina assured, tucking her wild red hair behind her ears and settling back in her seat. “It is just up ahead a couple of miles this way.” She glanced quickly at the GPS, and then at Jess. “At least, that’s what Jess said.”
“Whaa?” Jess looked up from her phone, mid-text message. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s what it said on Google maps, so yeah.”
“See?” Nina pursed her pink lips in a smile. “Google maps knows what’s up, even if I don’t!”
“Alright,” said Anna. “I am just really excited to get out there and get into nature, you know? Get gritty… maybe climb a tree or something…”
Nina’s perfectly shaped eyebrows shot up her forehead.
“Oh no,” she said, her gaze holding the curving of the road before her. “I am not climbing any trees. My Louboutins are not going to go through that kind of hiking shit.” She fixed her red-bottomed heels with a fond gaze.
“How are you going to hike through the forest with heels on?” Anna asked.
“Yeah, Nina, you should have at least worn wedges,” Jess offered. “Like those are full blown stiletto.”
“Well it’s not like we’re going on a hike or something,” Nina defended.
She kept her eyes on the road and fought the feeling of annoyance that had begun to bubble in the pit her stomach. Why did her friends have to ask so many questions? And why did they always have to pick on her? It was probably because they were just jealous they weren’t making enough money to afford more than a single pair of Louboutins.
Nina inhaled deeply and added. “We’re going on a cute picnic. That does not require full blown woodsman attire or anything like that. You can still look cute on a picnic.”
“Yea but what if you step in some animal shit? Poopy stilettos… not so cute,” Anna fired back.
Nina bit her bottom lip and forced a stiff smile across her face.
“You just worry about you, you little forest adventurer,” she said through gritted teeth, her voice jumping in pitch. “I’ll take care of myself and my cute shoes too, alright?”
“Is there like a rest stop somewhere? Because I totally have to pee,” Esme whined.
Nina reached forward and cranked the music.
“I can’t hear you!” she yelled. She smashed her foot down hard on the gas pedal, and the girls shrieked as she sent the car flying forward along the bumpy dirt road.
***
“We’re Here,” Nina sang as the BMW screeched to a stop, kicking up a cloud of thick dust as it came to rest in a small lot just off the roadway.
Huge trees, their limbs calmly shaking colored leaves to the ground, stretched as far as the eye could see. Grasses and bushes tangled and wrestled for dominance amidst the thick trunks of endless trees. Some branches had become completely bare and stood stark and impressive, dark and strong against the concentrated blue of the sky. Other trees still clutched desperately to their last green leaves, as if trying to will summer to stay forever.
The car door flung open, and a single shiny, black stiletto slid to the ground. Its match followed, and then Nina stood and stretched. She threw her long, pale arms up toward the sky, the diamond rings decorating her fingers catching the late afternoon light and sparkling madly, dancing and dazzling under the kiss of autumn sunshine. She slammed the door behind her and walked gingerly across the makeshift car lot until she stood at the precipice of a narrow path.
“Is this the right path?” Nina asked.
She ducked her head beneath a low hanging branch and whipped her sunglasses off her face. She had to blink her eyes several times in order to adjust to the dimness of the forest. The trees stood together so thickly that it would be impossible to squeeze between them. Their branches curled to form an archway of tangled chestnut and dying leaves that effectively blocked out most of the sun’s light. Nina took one careful step forward and winced. The forest floor was damp and mushy beneath the carpet of crisp fallen leaves. She stepped back from the ragged path and looked at Jess.
“Is this seriously where we are going?” she barked.
Jess looked up from her phone, stared at the path, then looked back at her phone. She began punching at the screen with her long, pointed pink nails. After a few moments, she nodded.
“Yea,” she confirmed. “This is where we are supposed to be.”
Nina turned back to face the tiny opening.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she said.
“Oh, come on, Nina, it will be fun!” Anna smiled, grabbing Nina’s arm.
Nina made a face. Her toes already hurt, and there was no way she was going to risk lugging her designer purse through this tiny slit of a path. If one branch snagged it, it would be all over.
“Let me put my purse back in the car,” she sighed, shaking free of Anna’s enthusiastic grip on her arm and picking her way back to the BMW.
The sun was too warm, and she wished she had worn shorts instead of the tight tartan pants she had decided upon. She dropped the purse into the back seat and paused to bend and cuff her pants at the hems.
“Alright, let’s go, everyone,” Anna called. “We can walk for a bit and then find a cute clearing where we can all hang out, ok?”
Jess snapped a selfie and then nodded.
“Yea, but like, we need to make sure we find, like, good lighting and a cute background and stuff or else the Insta pics will look stupid, and there will be no point to even having come all the way here, ok?”
Esme nodded. “Yea,” she agreed.
“Okayyyyy you guys,” Nina said. She brushed a fly off of her jacket. “Ew.” She pushed past Anna, her curvy hips bumping into a tree as she tried to move down the path. “Ugh. Can we just find this clearing?”
“We just started walking, girl,” Anna laughed. “We’re here to get some exercise and enjoy the scenery, too, you know, not just take some cute pictures in the clearing.”
Nina swatted at a low hanging branch.
“Whatever,” she grumbled, narrowly avoiding a pile of animal excrement. “Let’s just get moving.”
The thin trail wound around pines and other various trees, the names of which Nina did not know, and had no desire to ever learn. Every few minutes she would smash one of her hips into the side of a particularly thick tree trunk, sending her staggering slightly forward on the toes of her shiny black heels.
I’m going to be purple and blue all around the hips, she thought as she bumped into yet another tree.
“Having fun, Nina?”
Anna’s perky tone slammed into Nina’s ears and disgruntled her just as much as her hips slamming into the trees. She spat a bug out of her mouth and yanked a thorn out of her tangled hair.
“Just… just tell me when we get there.”
After what felt like hours of walking, the trail very suddenly came up short. Nina nearly tripped over her own feet at the absolute abruptness of the trail’s drop off.
“Shit!” she cried, jumping backward. Small stones crumbled from the body of the trail and trickled down the short incline that signaled the end of the path. She flicked her hair from her face and huffed out anxiously. “They should put signs up or something. I could have totally broken my neck.”
Nina’s anger melted away as she looked up and realized where they were. The forest had spread itself open before them; the tightly knit groups of trees had stepped aside, allowing them to bask in the green, earthy glory of a beautiful clearing. Here, the grass was short and soft, not tangled and reaching past their knees, and the top branches of the trees curled back and away from the sky, almost in exultation of the sun, allowing sunlight to bathe the grass in warmth. Nina scooted down the small incline, her heels dragging and catching in the dirt, sending skinny avalanches of rubble tumbling down behind her, kicking dust onto her precious heels. Yet it didn’t matter, they had made it; she had made it. No more bumping into tree trunks, no more smacking dirty leaves out of her face, at least for the moment, she could sit and relax and put her heels up. Not only that, but she noticed as she staggered down and across the grass that she was very hungry.
“Aww, that was so fun!” Anna yipped as she jogged past Nina and threw a blanket on the ground. “And this spot is so perfect! Best day, like, ever.”
Esme sat down on the blanket and took out her phone.
“What the fuck,” she said. “No signal? Seriously?”
“Well yea, Esme, we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere,” Nina said. She lifted her foot and picked leaves off of her heels.
“Can we please eat now?” Jess begged. She threw herself dramatically onto the blanket. “I’m starving. I totally did not expect that to take like, eighty-seven years or whatever.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re on a picnic, you guys, so obviously we’re eating!” Anna sat down and began to unbraid her hair. “Take out the food, Nina. Time to get our picnic on.”
Nina stopped. She stared at her friends. Her green eyes widened, and she blinked.
“Hurry up. I’m freakin starving,” Jess whined, flicking a bug off the leg of her pants.
Nina felt her cheeks growing hot. She opened her mouth, then found she could not form words and quickly slapped her lips shut again. She closed her eyes and breathed out slowly, grabbing at her stomach, trying to remain calm.
“Nina?” Jess said. “You totally didn’t leave the food in the car, right?”
Nina opened her eyes and stared at Jess.
“Why the fuck is it my responsibility to remember the food? Like holy shit, I drove us all the way here. How the hell is it my job to do fucking everything?”
Anna stood up quickly, her eyes fire.
“Look, Nina, it was you who demanded we order a catered picnic, and it was you who packed it all up in the car and everything, so I think it kind of sort of makes it your job to remember to bring it,” she said through a forced smile.
“What the hell! And I’m also supposed to carry it through this marathon of trees and shit? How the hell is that even fair?” Nina yelled.
“Well, how is it fair that we all had to listen to you complain the whole hike here?” Anna yelled back. “Maybe just don’t wear your stupid high heels in the woods and you would have a lot more fun, Nina!”
“Nothing about this is fun, Anna! I just came along because my mother is always talking about how important it is to have weekend hangouts with your co-workers, okay? I don’t want to be here, and I also don’t want to spend my whole freaking Saturday driving to the middle of fucking nowhere with people who are so totally ungrateful!”
The girls stared at Nina. Anna’s eyes were on fire. Jess’ mouth hung open in a disgusted snarl. Esme blinked.
“Whatever,” Nina growled. She threw her hands up in the air and turned around. “I’ll go get the food,” she announced. “So you guys all just sit pretty over there, alright? Take some fucking wonderful Insta pics and make sure not to tag me in them!”
“Hey,” Jess yelped as Nina began to trudge back to the path. “I am like, totally, totally grateful right now, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks. Like for real,” Anna called, her voice softer now. “We’ll be right here, okay babe?”
“I’m like, seriously hungry,” Esme whined.
Nina took a step towards the small incline and flopped forward, her heels catching and sinking in the soft dirt.
“Shit!”
She threw her hands up to the top of the short slope and dragged her body up and over the ridge. Her nails filled with dirt and she had to roll quickly in order to avoid losing a heel. She wiped a hand across her face, decorating her cheek with a smear of dark black mud.
“Whatever,” she grumbled.
Nina pushed herself back onto her feet and stood teetering atop her heels for a moment. Then she took a breath, narrowed her eyes, and plunged onwards, back into the dark green and brown world of the forest.
When she had put enough distance between herself and the girls she had left lounging in the grassy clearing, Nina began muttering out loud to herself.
“I just do not understand why I even bother,” she huffed, slapping a black fly away from her neck for the third time. “I mean, like come on, you guys. I totally drove you all the way here and did not even ask any of you for so much as a single nickel of gas money. And yea okay, I decided on the lunch, but that is only because you wanted to make freaking peanut butter sandwiches and how is that even acceptable? Like, are we three years old? No. No. So I’m sorry that I forgot one tiny little thing, because apparently, I have to do everything…” Nina’s complaints paused as he yanked her heel out of a small patch of mud. “Yuck… or else nothing gets freaking done ever, so like… oh, what the hell?”
A sheer rock face, taller than Nina and much wider, had presented itself to her, completely blocking the path. She stared at it obstinately for a moment, too stubborn to believe it could truly be there. There had definitely not been a sheet of rock clogging the middle of the path on their way from the car to the clearing. That was something Nina would have remembered, especially if she had had to slide down the rigid stone face in her skin tight tartan pants. She tapped her forehead pensively, her long nails making small clicking sounds as they bounced off her skin. Then she groaned and turned around and began picking her way through the leaves and dirt back towards the clearing, retracing her steps to discover where she had executed an incorrect turn.
“Okay. We went straight for about seven million hours,” Nina recalled their path aloud, tucking her brightly colored hair back behind her ears. “And I know we made one left turn and then another left turn.”
She stopped at a fork in the path and leaned forward, first towards her left, then towards her right, trying to get a look at each different tributary of the trail. They were near mirror images of each other, both lined with leaves losing their colors, and trees growing so close together they blocked out most of the day’s warm light.
“Okay.” Nina closed her eyes and pressed her soft fingers to her temples. “Okay.”
The forest flashed alternating shades of dark and light across her closed eyelids as she tried to envision the path she needed to take. After several moments of standing frozen in the forest, Nina opened her eyes and tilted her head back so that her green orbs met the slices of piercing blue sky that peeked through the tangle of tree limbs above. She breathed in through her nose and bit her lip. Then she spun on her heel, a mistake as she nearly toppled over, but caught herself just before she face planted on the muddy ground. With an exasperaged sigh, she stalked down the path again.
“I’ll just keep walking,” she grunted to herself, swatting the low hanging branches out of her way before they slapped her flushed cheeks. “If I go in a straight line long enough, I will eventually get out of this shithole forest and end up back at the car.”
***
The light fell a deeper and deeper shade of green, tickling the toes of Nina’s precious stiletto heels with dusky kisses. On she marched, dragging her blistered feet forward, blinking angry tears out of her eyes, biting her bottom lip so hard she drew blood. Forward, first with intention, and then, as the hours wore on and the sky grew closer in shade to black than blue, forward blindly. She smacked leaves and bugs from her face with vicious slaps and stumbled shrieking as rabbits scurried across her path. When her stiletto finally cracked in two, she fell to her hands and knees in a haggard pile of tangled red hair, scratched and bloodied hands, and tears.
“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” Nina screamed.
She pounded the dirt floor with her fists. She grabbed at her foot and pulled the shoe into her hands, leaving her bare toes resting in the mud. Desperately, she fished the fragmented heel from the place it had caught beneath a flat piece of stone. She held it in her shaking hands, tears pouring down her face. She cradled it to her chest. Then her soft complexion clouded over with anger. Her thick brows smashed downwards to frame her green eyes in a look so dark with rage it rivaled the falling night in its darkness. She raised her hand high and hurled the broken shoe across the forest. It shot through the air, tumbled past the branches of a tree, and fell to rest far away, somewhere beyond Nina’s vision. She sat silently for a moment, staring after the shoe, breathing, choking on her shuddering tears.
She sat that way for some time, until she had run her eyes dry. She let herself fall fully into the heaving of her chest. She grabbed at her waist and held herself as the sky faded from dusky purple to complete darkness. When at last her body stopped shaking with anger and frustration, she swallowed. She rubbed at her eyes, clearing them of tears. Then she sniffed deeply and ran her stinging hands over her legs. That was when she felt something hard in her pocket. She froze. Her eyes jumped to life, and her heart began pounding against her chest so rapidly that her breasts trembled and her fingers shook. She shoved her shaking hand into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone.
In the chaos of getting lost she had completely forgotten she had left her cell phone in her pocket, not her purse. She pressed the round bottom at its bottom center, and the screen jumped to life; familiar, bright, as comforting as a smile from an old friend. Nina’s dirt-caked face cracked into a smile and she laughed. She slid her bloodied fingers across the screen, leaving a trail of smudged dirt across the device. She didn’t even care. The discovery of the cell phone so invigorated her that she found herself jumping up and onto her feet, one heel on and one heel tossed to die somewhere in this jungle of a forest. She punched the buttons on her phone enthusiastically, entering Anna’s phone number. Then she held the phone up to her ear, not even daring to breathe, waiting in anticipation for the relief that would flood over her as soon as she heard that first ring. She stood there, frozen but for the slight trembling of her chest, the shivering of her fingers against the bejeweled phone case. Nina sucked in her lips, knowing that the first ring would save her.
Nothing.
She blinked her eyes rapidly, staring straight ahead, mouth forming a straight thin line. She still did not breathe. She clutched the phone tighter against her ear, her knuckles turning white. In her mind, she saw two syllables take form. Just. Ring.
Nothing.
Nina wrenched the phone from her ear and stared down at the screen. She squinted at the tiny bars on the top of the display. Then her stomach dropped, and all the breath she had been holding in came flooding out of her, deflating her hopes.
No signal. No bars.
“What the fuck,” Esme had said. “No signal? Seriously?”
“Well yea, Esme, we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere,” Nina had snapped back.
“FUCK!” Nina screamed to the sky.
Before she knew what she was doing, Nina was hurling the phone through the air, sending it dancing across the darkening forest. She heard it smack into a tree and land softly, somewhere in the dark depths of tall grass. She stood open mouthed, breath heaving her chest up and down, staring after her phone in disbelief at what her rage had just caused her to do. She remained frozen like this for a long moment, doing nothing but breathing, realizing the absoluteness of her situation.
After a long time, Nina fell back down to the ground. She thought about getting up again and trying to find her phone, but realized it would be a fruitless journey. After all, whether or not she had the iPhone in hand, she still would not be able to call for help; she still would not have any reception.
“Well yeah,” she said out loud, her voice flat and tired. “We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
A shadow suddenly fell across Nina. It draped itself over her shoulders and fell heavily over her head. The hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention, and she sat up perfectly straight.
“The middle of fucking nowhere,” a low voice growled. “Poetic. We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere; sure is beautiful, isn’t it?”