Wildfire

by Carrie Mac

  He rolls his eyes.

  My face falls when I remember that I have to tell him that I’m not doing Fire Camp.

  “What?” Pete says. “What’s wrong?”

  I’ve just realized something. Why wouldn’t I do Fire Camp? Just because I flunked eleventh grade and my grandma died? Well, okay, two very good reasons not to go, but also, two very good reasons to go. Especially because going will get my dad off my back about my plans for the fall. Which I do not have at all.

  “I was just thinking about what a terrible packer you are, and how I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me if we’re going to be ready to drive up there in ten days. Well, actually, ten days is way too much time. Why are you even here, Pete?”

  “You know me so well.”

  “You’re an even worse last-minute packer than I am.”

  “I’m turning over a new leaf?”

  “You are not.”

  For a moment, he lets me guess, or he thinks that’s what he’s doing.

  “Not guessing,” I say.

  “Really? Maybe just one guess?”

  “We got the dates wrong and Fire Camp started yesterday.”

  “Nope.”

  “Give.”

  “My flip-flops.”

  “Give!” I grab them and march to the front door and chuck them as far as I can. “Now fetch.”

  “I can live without them,” he says.

  “And I can live without knowing what you have up your sleeve.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I can so.”

  “You, Annie Poltava, absolutely cannot.”

  “You and Preet are pregnant.”

  “Not funny.”

  “I would make a great auntie, though.” He stares at me. “I don’t know. Just tell me. Or settle down and shut up and watch Ponyboy’s life unravel.”

  “Let me get something from my truck.”

  I watch the TV for the two minutes it takes him to get his backpack.

  “I thought we were doing duffel bags,” I say.

  He hands me a small cardboard box and then takes another out of his pack and holds on to it, not opening it.

  “These are from Preet,” he says. “But she says don’t open them yet. Actually, on second thought.” He takes back my box and puts them both into the pocket under the lid of his pack. We call that our safe, and each of us packs important things in there, like our ID, money. My Altoids tin full of talismans is in mine, with the square of pyrite I found, and the little Idaho star garnet I spotted in the purple sand of the creek in the Nez Perce National Forest when Pete’s dad took us there three summers ago.

  “I’ll take care of them,” Pete says as he zips up the pocket and flips the lid over. “Preet has a plan.”

  I completely forgot that Preet is gone now. To India, until September. Remembering this doesn’t make me happy, exactly. Or not quite. It makes me feel a bit untethered. Like if this were a movie, I’d spend until then trying to be the Good Person I want to be, while fighting the urge to mess it up for her by doing something a Bad Person would do, like telling Pete that Preet is the wrong person for him, because I’m his only person.

  “Show, don’t tell,” my mom used to instruct her piano students. “Show us the song. Show us what you think of the song. Show your feelings. Don’t just play the notes.”

  Don’t just say the words.

  But how to show it? That’s not what we do. Maybe I should lean in for the second kiss I’ve been waiting so long for, maybe when we’re head to head, looking for minnows at the edge of a marsh with fluffy cattails tall and shedding all around us. Or at night, just after we’ve turned our headlamps off and put the Uno cards away. If only there were someone to ask. But there’s just Pete, which is exactly the problem/not-problem. There he is, standing in front of me, saying words that I’m not hearing.

  Focus, Annie.

  “So here’s some news,” he’s saying. “We’re hiking to Fire Camp.”

  One good long look at his face and I can tell that he is completely serious.

  “I can’t just leave, Pete.”

  “Yes you can,” he says. “I checked with your dad. I gave both dads the maps, routes highlighted.”

  He pulls me up and out of the room before I can formulate a response. He steers me down the hall to the door that leads to the basement. Where half of our camping gear is kept. The other half is at his house. It only works together, though. Like, I have the stove. He has the fuel. That sort of thing.

  “What route?”

  “That part of the Pacific Northwest Trail that evil Jill said was awesome. She took it all the way to Loomis.”

  “You’re taking trail advice from the idiot who said we couldn’t be in the same tent based on the shape of our genitals? From the person whose letter we had to expunge from our files?”

  “That’s a good word,” Pete says. “Expunnnnnge.”

  “And it wasn’t easy!”

  “The expunging or the applying it in an appropriate context?”

  I just stare at him.

  He continues. “I listened to her talk about it with the trail maintenance guy. And it’s not like it’s the Evil Jill Trail. You and I have hiked parts of the Pacific Northwest Trail before. This is just going to be our first thru-hike. My dad looked at the maps, and he agrees that we can do it. It’s rough in some parts, but then there’s lots of alpine too.”

  “The flowers won’t even be out yet.”

  “Some will.”

  “And grizzlies?”

  “Doing their own thing, as usual. That’s your department.”

  “Our spray is expired.”

  “My dad says it’s fine for a long, long, long time after.”

  “Can he get us a new one?”

  Pete shakes his head. “We’re leaving today.”

  “Wait.” I drop everything. “Now?”

  “As soon as we’re packed.”

  “I can’t.” I look around for something tangible to be my excuse. “What about the dogs?”

  Our dog-walking business, which I haven’t helped with since Gigi died.

  “Preet’s little brother is taking it over until we get back.”

  I keep staring.

  “He’s saving up for a car.”

  We both laugh. That would take a thousand dogs.

  “But I have to—”

  “You don’t have to anything.” Pete grabs my toiletry bag and starts rooting through it. “Gigi’s gone. And you have to get out of this house and remember what you love.” He holds it out to me. “Where is your EpiPen?”

  “Glove box.”

  “It needs to be in here.”

  “You told me it should be in the glove box.”

  “And now it needs to be in with your toothbrush and stuff.”

  “I’m not ready to go, Pete.”

  “You will be, once we’re on the trail.” He grabs my pack off the shelf, floppy and worn and still smelling of dirt. “Come on. Let’s get packing.”

  “Pete? Seriously?” I peer into the toiletry bag. My toothbrush, the handle cut in half to save weight. A small tube of toothpaste. A couple of spare tampons. Where’s my DivaCup? I shouldn’t need it, but I like to have it just in case. Bug bite cream. Two hair ties. Not even a comb. I may, in fact, be a Neanderthal when we’re in the backcountry. I should at least add dental floss. Some Dr. Bronner’s.

  “I’ve got a little thing of Bronner’s,” Pete says. “And I’ve already packed all the food. And loaded the water bladders. And yes, I cleaned them first. Would you be inspired and amazed to hear that our dads paid for all the food? And your dad paid for the trail pass too.”

  “So he’s okay with me just going? So soon?”

  “He thinks it’s just what you need.” Pete st
uffs my sleeping bag into the compression sack and then wedges it at the bottom of my pack, just where I like it. “He’ll be here to say goodbye.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to say goodbye?”

  Pete takes my favorite pair of hiking socks out of a pack pocket and throws them at me, then tosses me one of my hiking shoes and then the other. They don’t look much different from running shoes, but they act more like hiking boots, without the bulk. Good tread, structured heel, but super flexible too, for jumping from rock to rock, or over streams, or scrambling up hills. Okay. Now I’m getting excited. But I still want a day or two to—

  What? Watch a Police Academy marathon or Sophie’s Choice, just to recite the lines to the empty room?

  “It’s not dead-goodbye, Annie. It’s a see-you-in-a-few-weeks kind of goodbye. ‘I’m almost an adult, Dad’ kind of goodbye. ‘Trying not to be a screwup here, Dad’ kind of goodbye. ‘I’m a capable and smart person who should not waste her summer—or life, for that matter—watching the Movie Classics Channel, Dad’ kind of goodbye.”

  “Enough,” I say. “I get it.”

  * * *

  —

  Pete says he got everything we need from his house earlier and we don’t have to go there on the way out of town, which is a serious olfactory relief, because Pete’s basement is like a giant, smelly used-outdoor-gear store. That pong of it all makes my eyes water. You can even smell it upstairs too, if they leave the door open. Musty, fungusy, dirty, but it does have everything you’d need for ice climbing, a bicycle trek in Tasmania, a thru-hike in Bolivia, a kayak trip through class 5 rapids, or BASE jumping in Turkey. Pete’s dad has done all of that, and still does all of that, even though his best friend died when he jumped off a cable car in Turkey and was sailing down with his squirrel wings out but then hit the rocks before he hit the water. Everett pulled Luca out, but he was lifeless. Everett said he would never jump again, but then he found a letter that Luca had written to him in case anything happened during one of all their crazy stunts, about their friendship and how they saw life, and how miraculous the planet is and how it’s good to be alive today, which Pete and I say to each other all the time. It’s from a song by Michael Franti, soul rocker and troubadour. Everett took us to see him play at the Gorge, which was about as magical as it gets, with a pink sunset beyond the stage, and thousands of beautiful people nestled almost shoulder to shoulder in the gap between high bluffs, like a cauldron of sparkling hope with the stars popping into place as night fell.

  * * *

  —

  Pete and I both carry relatively small packs for backcountry hiking, like Pete’s dad taught us to, and like Luca taught him. Sometimes we see other hikers on the trails and they’ve got packs so heavy that they have to put them down on a waist-high log to get them off, and then they have to put them back on the same way.

  I hear a whistle from upstairs, and heavy steps.

  Then there’s my dad, who prefers his hunting trailer to a tent, and a generator’s rumble to nature’s silence. But he doesn’t mind if I want to sleep on the ground or hike off to wherever. He lets me go do exactly that pretty much anytime, anywhere. There’s not much he doesn’t let me do, and it’s not because he’s ignorant of the shit Pete and I get up to, but because he’s a firm believer that if you try to hold someone back, they’ll only use greater force to run away.

  Which is what happened with Mom, so Pete and I don’t doubt his parenting philosophy—if he even sees it as a “philosophy.” Instead, I am ever grateful for his blissfully long leash, and he is ever grateful for my level head.

  Pete’s level head, that is.

  “Down here, Dad.” I will admit that even just pulling out the bin with our folding stove packed into my titanium pot is getting me excited. Sporks, collapsible bowls/mugs, leftover packets of hot chocolate from last time. “Did you bring the tent from your house, Pete?”

  “Yup. Not the fly, though.” Usually, he carries the tent, I carry the poles, and then we switch on the way back. “It’s not going to rain. We’ll save weight.”

  My dad comes down the stairs. He has to duck too, but he’s a good two inches shorter than Pete now. He’s come home to say goodbye with his code enforcement officer uniform still on, big sweat stains under his arms, buttons straining against his beer belly.

  “Pretty good surprise Pete had for you, right, kiddo?” He picks up a plastic bag and then drops it right away when he sees that it’s my DivaCup. “Sorry about that.” His cheeks go red, just like mine, even though he’s way less weird about body stuff than a lot of parents. “Just what you need, I think.”

  “The cup?” I laugh.

  “No, smart-ass. This trip, with Pete.” He hugs me to him. “You need to go. Get outside. You like all that. It works for you. It’s exactly what the doctor ordered. And what Gigi would’ve ordered too.”

  “You’re probably right, Dad.” I look up at him, his big, bushy beard all messy like the mountain man he mostly is. A softer version of a mountain man. One that cries and says thank you to a deer when he shoots it. “What’ll you do, though? Won’t you be lonely?”

  “I will absolutely be lonely.”

  “But you don’t mind, I know.”

  “My garden keeps me company.” He squeezes me again. “There will be tomatoes and peppers and watermelons when you get back. And so much kale you will be sick of it within three days.” Another squeeze, this one so hard he almost lifts me off my feet. “And all the hummingbirds will keep me company too.”

  The twenty feeders all around the front lawn and backyard started out as one of my mom’s projects. Which fizzled just after the summer during which she’d built and bought and scavenged the feeders and cajoled my dad into planting only red and purple and pink plants so the yard would be a “blazing twenty-four-hour diner under their flight path.” The feeders sat empty when she was gone, and then when my grandma moved in, she happily took over the hummingbird project, even though she said she would not be taking up her daughter’s fleeting interest in chickens.

  Dad took over that. Now he’d have the feeders too.

  “A pleasant triumvirate, the chickens, the garden, the hummingbirds.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes, Banana?”

  “You have to let go of me if I’m going to finish packing.”

  “Yes!” He heads for the stairs. “I’ll find you some fruit for the trip.” Just as I’m about to remind him that fruit takes up too much room, is too messy, and goes off too soon, he shakes a finger at me.

  “I know, I know,” he says. “For the ride to the trailhead. Plus, carrots. Which do travel well, so don’t say you won’t take those.”

  Rope for hanging up our food for the night, out of the reach of bears, water filtration system, first-aid kit—we’ll check that before we go—bug spray, sun hat. I pause for a moment and catch my dad before he’s at the top of the stairs.

  “You’ll really be okay? If I go?”

  It’s not that he hasn’t been alone before. He took a job as a code enforcement officer in Bellingham when I was four and didn’t come back except to pick me up until I was eight. He and my mom didn’t divorce, but they didn’t like being in each other’s company either. After Gigi moved in, we waited for my mom to come back so things could be as normal as they ever were. A week went by. Then three. When it was obvious that she might not come back at all, my dad managed to talk the code enforcement office here into casual work and came home. We didn’t have much money until he started working there permanently, but that didn’t matter. He was here, Gigi was here, and my life seemed calm for once, even if I missed my mom and wondered where she was and what she was doing.

  Dad loved Gigi, even if she was his mother-in-law. He clearly got on better with her than he ever did with his wife. Gigi, who sat with him and played cribbage every night between movies even though he never won. Gig
i, who would watch action blockbusters with him anytime even though she hated the majority of them. They shopped for groceries like an old married couple, peering through their drugstore reading glasses to report how much sodium was in a can of soup (Gigi, who never cooked) or to see if the tiny print on the sticker on the “fresh” figs said they were actually from South Africa (Dad, because he only bought local when he could).

  Now Gigi is gone, and she was his best friend.

  “I’ll be fine, Banana.” He blows me a kiss, and one for Pete too. “I have the chickens and the hummingbirds, and there’s tomato blight to conquer. Not to mention the aphid situation.”

  He stops by his pantry and grabs a jar of peaches.

  “Don’t talk to me about how much it weighs,” he says as he tucks it into the top of my pack. “Eat it at the trailhead and leave the jar in the truck. Done up tight, though. Ants.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” I grab his beefy arm as he steps away. “I love you.”

  “I love you, kiddo.” He pulls me into a bear hug that actually is like being hugged by a bear. Big, hairy, smelly, strong, his beardy chin resting on top of my head. We have this thing where neither of us wants to let go first, but this time I do, because he really does hold on forever.

  * * *

  —

  Now that I’m all packed, I am positively looking forward to this. Pete is right. This is exactly what I need to get me out of my head, out of Gigi’s room, and off the Scale of Stupid for a while. Or two out of three, maybe, because our tent is about the size of our couch, and if you put two people on a couch, lying down—facing each other or spooning, it doesn’t matter—the degree of closeness can significantly up the Scale of Stupid, especially if one of them wants to kiss the other.

  You can get onto the Pacific Northwest Trail not far from where we live. It’s pretty new, still rough, and unmarked in places. It’s over twelve hundred miles if you thru-hike from Glacier National Park all the way to the Olympic Peninsula. We’ve been on parts of it, and both of us volunteered to do trail maintenance last summer near Ross Lake. There was an illegal rave a couple of miles south of our base camp, so Pete and I decided to sneak out and go to it, even though the whole area was on fire watch and our group leaders were waiting to hear if we would have to evacuate because of a wildfire burning across the river from where the rave was.