by Zoje Stage
“What are you guys whispering about?” Tilda leaned on her elbow, joining the conversation.
“I thought I saw something.”
“What kind of something?” Beck asked.
“A cigarette lighting up. Up there.” She pointed across the creek. “Isn’t there a shelter there?”
“Imogen. I never promised we could have the entire Canyon to ourselves. This was the best I could do.”
“I’m not blaming you. But—”
“There could be people here. It’s entirely possible. I don’t know what else you want me to do.”
It sounded like they sighed in unison, vexed in different ways. Tilda noticed too, and laughed.
“We heading to the river tomorrow?” she asked Beck.
“That’s the plan.”
“Awesome.”
On their backs, they watched the sky. Tilda asked Beck a few more questions about the river and tomorrow’s walk. Imogen lay there silently, feeling left out, misunderstood. Okay fine, there could be people there. But it meant they were vulnerable at night when their flashlights were on: someone could see their camp from above. And no one wanted to be spied on while their pants were down. The second she thought it, she understood why she shouldn’t say it aloud—then Tilda really wouldn’t be comfortable squatting out of doors.
Tilda fell asleep first. Then Beck. Imogen visualized sight lines and angles, so she could lead them to a better-shielded latrine tomorrow.
It didn’t have to mean anything—a person camping in the rain shelter. It could be unrelated to the stolen protein bars. But it bothered her in the same way the man’s presence at Finger Lakes National Forest had. A niggling worry. Something—someone—slightly out of place.
Imogen fought the urge to flip onto her stomach, direct her little LED flashlight onto the rocks across the way. Whoever was up there had retreated to a deeper place within the overhang to enjoy his smoke. But she wanted him to know.
We know you’re out there. Don’t fuck with us.
While she’d intended to keep her Swiss Army knife in her fist, closed, she drew open the largest blade as she curled up on her side, and laid the knife within easy reach of her bundled pillow.
13
Tilda felt okay in the morning, in daylight, visiting the makeshift latrine on her own, though now Imogen was more squeamish about it so they went together. On the way there—and back—Imogen looked for footprints coming in from other directions, or any indications that someone else had been out and about during the night. She didn’t see any.
“I sleep fantastically out here!” Tilda declared as they got back to camp and put away the toilet paper and trowel.
“Me too,” Beck said with gusto. They were all excited to head to the river; they’d earned a day of glorious sitting around.
“I swear since I hit my thirties, I can’t sleep for crap back home. I’ve bought like four different mattresses, a zillion pillows, a white-noise machine that played rain sounds and made me have to pee all night.”
“Same—minus the buying stuff,” said Imogen. She was managing to sleep decently here, but they weren’t the comatose, worry-free nights she’d been hoping for. Having two strong women with her helped, but she was disappointed that other people, somehow, were still a concern.
Tilda inhaled a deep, cleansing breath, her eyes closed as she faced the sun. “I thought October would be cold, but this is perfect.”
In spite of having planned a leisurely day, they gobbled up breakfast as if they were in a hurry to get on with it. Imogen could stare at a rippling creek all day and was looking forward to spending a few hours with the Colorado, watching its microscopic progress as it continued carving its masterpiece, the Grand Canyon.
Their dishes were left on a rock to dry in the sun. As Beck organized the day’s snacks, Tilda folded up Beck’s mattress pad, which they planned to bring and share as a cushioned seat. Imogen knelt beside her sister.
“I’m thinking we should just take our packs with us.”
Startled, Beck peeked over her sunglasses. “Why?”
“Just in case. We can’t rule out…I know it’s unlikely, but it’s not impossible, you know. With the protein bars. And not knowing who’s here.”
Beck gave the terrain a three-sixty once-over. “I’m not sure anyone’s here.”
“It couldn’t hurt, right?”
“It’s kind of a lot to lug down to the river. The trail gets a little tight, walled in.”
“Now what are you two scheming about?” Tilda watched them, perched on a rock as she laced up her boots.
“Just figuring out what all to take with us,” Beck replied.
“For two sisters who practically never agree, I commend you for how calmly you fight.”
“We don’t fight. This is just how we…”
“Do things,” Beck finished.
Imogen gave her a smirk. “I was going to say communicate.”
Beck gave her a what’s-the-difference shrug. They both knew that ninety-five percent of the time they resolved their arguments by doing everything Beck’s way. Beck was accustomed to winning; maybe that was why neither of them put in as much effort anymore. But Imogen didn’t want to give in, not this time.
“I just think it couldn’t hurt to be careful,” she whispered. She knew how she sounded, with her constant invocation of being careful.
Beck considered her. “Will it really make you feel better?”
“Yes.”
“What if we just take the food bag?”
Imogen weighed the offer. It was better than nothing. “Okay.”
“Okay. You carry it.”
Imogen pulled the drawstring closed and slung the bag over her shoulder, ready to go.
“You’re taking everything?” Tilda asked, fists at her waist. It didn’t look like a Wonder Woman pose now, not while she oozed impatience.
“So critters won’t get at our vittles while we’re gone,” Beck said. But she exchanged raised eyebrows with Tilda, and Imogen recognized that she was being humored.
Beck carried a daypack filled with the actual necessities: fresh water, sunscreen, toilet paper, Imogen’s tiny notepad (in case she got inspired), Tilda’s camera, and the eggshell mattress pad. They all took their walking sticks.
It was a short hike to the river by Canyon standards, about a mile, right along Boucher Creek. At one point the trail narrowed so much they were practically walking in the water, and they could reach out and touch both of Boucher canyon’s steep walls. It was tight, as Beck had said, but plenty wide enough to have accommodated their fully loaded packs.
The Colorado River bubbled with rapids wherever separate creeks came down to join it, the water turbulence augmented by the boulders that had migrated down from the inner canyons. They heard the river roaring its hello. And then they were there, though the river gushed past without acknowledging its human visitors. The Canyon walls rose high and imposing on either side, with white ribbons of Zoroaster granite rippling through the silvery Vishnu schist. The geologic striations made Imogen think of historic costumes, a proud display of finery that told a story—many stories—to those with a knowledgeable eye.
They dropped their stuff and went close to the water’s edge. It was like a sacred summoning and they stood there for a moment in silent awe. The water swept by. Before the Glen Canyon Dam had been built, the river had been a muddy brown year-round, not just during the spring floods. Its wild passage tamed, now it shone green. Still, standing on the bank, Imogen felt its power. White rapids knobbed the river’s passageway throughout its run through the Canyon. There weren’t as many professional rafting trips in the autumn, but if they stayed at the river long enough they’d undoubtedly see some pass.
For Imogen, being in such close proximity to the raging water wasn’t dissimilar to how she felt while standing at the top of Niagara Falls, or on a bridge, or at the Promontory of Catastrophic Possibilities—with those whispering little monsters. Come on, one little step f
orward. She took a step backward. And another. And finally made a nest in a sandy spot and kicked off her shoes.
A moment later, Tilda and Beck joined her. Tilda tossed off her sunglasses and performed some kind of side-stretching yoga pose that Imogen couldn’t name, though she was happy to dig out the camera and document it. Beck propped her eggshell pad so it leaned against a rock, then secured her canvas sun hat and sat, legs extended, utterly content.
Time passed. They nibbled on a sleeve of crunchy crackers. Took turns napping on the mattress pad. Ventured off alone for short walks. Waved at the yip-yipping rafters every time an excursion bobbed past. Tilda attempted to toss a rock across the wide river. She had a good arm, but the rock splashed into the water and immediately vanished. Imogen wrote a few inadequate sentences in an attempt to describe her surroundings; at least she could blame that on the Grand Canyon, immune to common words, and not her wayward muse. Once or twice she wondered if everything was okay back at camp, but she didn’t want to ruin the healing, calming bliss of their first unstructured day, so she didn’t dwell on it.
After a couple of hours Beck returned to the river’s edge and gazed upstream, as still as a rock formation. For a second Imogen feared something was wrong, that Beck had spotted something alarming. Then it seemed more like an act of meditation, breathing in the environment. As the minutes stretched, Imogen sensed that her sister was troubled, but she didn’t know why.
When Beck finally rejoined them, Tilda and Imogen were both watching her. Somehow it wasn’t surprising when she took a seat at the point of their triangle, facing them. They sat up a little. Beck didn’t often open up in such a formal manner, and Imogen was dying to know what was on her mind. Judging by Tilda’s keen attention, she was too.
“There’s something I haven’t told either of you…”
The admission, even unfinished, made Tilda and Imogen exchange glances.
As Beck went on, her eyes wandered from the dirt beneath her fingers, to the rock wall across the river. “I had an epiphany. After I read Imogen’s new book. It didn’t come to me right away—it was several months later, actually, after the synagogue…Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
At the time, Beck had only pointed out a few small plot holes; this was the first Imogen was hearing about a revelation.
“I realized…” Beck stopped, searching for better words. “I planned this trip for all the reasons I told you, but also because…I couldn’t figure out how else to get you two face-to-face, where neither of you could run out of the room.”
Imogen felt the dread clambering down her spine, a toothy imp who used her bones as a ladder. Where was this going? Tilda looked just as clueless.
Beck turned to Imogen. “There’s something that never got resolved…” She turned to Tilda. “And it’s affected Imogen ever since. And maybe we can’t resolve it completely, but it can’t go on like this.”
Oh God. Imogen angled toward the river. Could she make a run for it? Jump in so she’d never have to hear the rest of Beck’s epiphany? If it involved her and Tilda—and fuck, why had she encouraged Beck to read Esther’s Ghost?—it could only be one thing. The Thing. And Imogen was more than capable of bringing it up on her own, if it was something she wanted to talk about—and she didn’t. She didn’t think Esther was anything like her, and hadn’t expected Beck to connect the book to Imogen’s own life. She adamantly shook her head.
“Beck, that was fiction, total fiction.”
“I know. I know you think that. And that’s part of the problem. It’s so deeply in you that you don’t think it’s a problem anymore, but it is.”
Imogen looked at Beck, saw the sheen of tears in her eyes, and quickly looked away.
“What are we talking about?” Tilda asked.
“The Thing,” Beck said. “Imogen’s book is about a woman who thinks she’s been raped by a ghost, because her friends don’t believe her.”
“Not because her friends don’t…” Imogen willed herself to dematerialize—as if this whole conversation weren’t bad enough, her sister had totally misinterpreted her novel. “Esther knows she was raped by a ghost, that has nothing to do with her friends. Her friends don’t believe it, but that isn’t what makes Esther think it was a ghost.”
In spite of Beck’s obvious concern, she still had the wherewithal to give Imogen a pinched-lip look of doubt and disapproval.
“I appreciate your concern for your sister…” Tilda weighed her words with great care. “But I don’t think you can force us to talk about this.”
“I agree with Tilda. There, we’re in agreement.”
“You’re in denial,” Beck said like a bullet. “And it’s ruining your life.” She met Tilda’s frosty gaze. “And it affected you a helluva lot longer than you might admit. It didn’t go unnoticed how every boyfriend after Rob shared some quality of his—a big laugh, an over-the-top sense of humor—for years. And they all flattered you in the same way, and said the words boyfriends were supposed to say, and they were all fake. Or worse than fake, they were exactly what they were: assholes. And you got more and more insecure and turned outward…” She tossed her frustrated hands in the air. “You needed someone’s approval, and when you finally realized the boyfriends couldn’t give it, you looked for it from everyone else. From strangers.”
Rage bloomed on Tilda’s neck and cheeks, a deepening purple rash. “That’s what you thought? All this time you just went with the flow and never said anything? Great. Great—and here I thought, here I was grateful, that we stayed friends.”
“We were friends, and we are. And no, I didn’t think about it then. I accepted it, yes, because…it was normal. It was your ‘type,’ the kind of guys you liked. I wanted better for you—and you knew that—but I didn’t judge you. And I didn’t think about why. I’m not kidding, Tilda, I’m almost mad at myself—how didn’t I see it? You went that way.” She made an airplane of her right hand. “Imogen went…” An airplane with her left hand, but it arced downward.
“You think my life’s that bad?” Imogen asked, unsure if she should be sad or offended.
Beck slowly shook her head. “I should’ve seen it before the shooting. That was only the nail in the coffin. You didn’t set out to live like a hermit. You had dreams of being in love once.”
Imogen intertwined her fingers in her lap, gripping them so tightly she was in danger of breaking something. “I made a decision. A long time ago. Not to…not to dwell on it, because I didn’t want it ruining my life. That was a decision.”
“I read your book. I’ve had months to think about it. You’re literally being haunted by your own life.”
Imogen gazed in stupefied awe at her sister, uncertain if she was right, but impressed by the poetry of her conclusion. For half her life—seventeen years—Imogen had trained herself not to think about The Thing. But that didn’t mean she’d forgotten. And the #MeToo movement begged her to reassess what had happened—with Rob, and with Tilda.
The party. The summer after their freshman year at Pitt. Tilda was out of town, vacationing with her father in Mexico. Beck had a girlfriend—her first true love—and they were always off on their own. Imogen had graduated from the Beechwood School at sixteen, an exemplary student, so the trio could matriculate to the College of General Studies together. Everyone called it night school back then, though classes were offered throughout the day. The program was ideal for people who had been out of school for a while, or had questionable grades, or had attended a small alternative high school run by hippies. That was how she found herself at a party without her wingwomen when she was only seventeen.
She’d never liked beer much, but she had a few sips. It was probably the Jell-O shots that got her tipsy. Rob, Tilda’s boyfriend, had offered to escort her home. She never figured out why she’d been so stupid. So naïve. So should-have-seen-it-coming. So it-was-probably-your-own-damn-fault. So don’t-complain-it-could-have-been-worse. No wonder Tilda doubted her after the fact. Imogen doubted hers
elf, though not in the same way: she’d always been useless. Words—no, stop, please—had never been a deterrent against violence.
Imogen withdrew socially after it happened, which, for a while, made her a better student: they’d all struggled at first, unaccustomed to the academic rigor of university classes. Tilda and Beck both transferred to Pitt’s School of Arts & Sciences for their sophomore year. Imogen didn’t bother; she dropped out midterm. Said she didn’t need to waste their dad’s money to become a writer. It sounded reasonable enough that no one questioned it. They were already on more solitary paths by then, the trio branching out like the three rivers of their hometown.
Reflecting on it now, with all she’d learned from the women who shared their #MeToo stories, The Thing had been as powerful as a river, carving her as easily as sandstone into a person she wasn’t sure she wanted to be.
There was a period—a solid punctuation mark—of uncomfortable silence. The roar of the river became the only audible sound. For so many reasons she didn’t want her sister to be right: it would mean Imogen was transparent, and it would mean that she could’ve been someone else. The very thought nearly brought her to tears.
14
You seriously think Imogen’s problems are my fault?” Tilda spat, shattering the moment.
“You didn’t believe her,” said Beck.
“I wasn’t even there! I was barely nineteen, not exactly the most experienced or reasonable age a person—”
“If that’s your reasoning, then you understood—or understand now—that your reaction was a problem. And that’s exactly why we’re doing this.”
“I didn’t come here for this.” Tilda got to her feet.
Beck bolted up, blocking her retreat. Imogen shook out her cramping hands. Her whole body was a knot but she didn’t know what to do. It was horrifying and thrilling at once to see Beck fighting for her. Truly, was Beck right? Imogen had thought she’d stuffed everything away so neatly, clamped the suitcase shut and put it on such an impossibly high shelf that she’d never have to look at its contents again.
