by Kristin Lenz
I took my time getting home, wandering around the neighborhood, wishing I was hiking in the mountains. I remembered my mom’s words.
There’s a difference in being alone in the woods and being alone in the city. In the woods, I feel like I’m meant to be alone. In the city, I just feel lonely. Mom had left suburban Detroit for good when she was nineteen, and she rarely came back. I just couldn’t believe she wanted this for me.
My grandparents lived in a dollhouse with shutters painted sky blue and plastic flowers in the window boxes. Grandma’s ceramic goose waited for me on the front porch. She gave me her usual glassy stare. She was still dressed in her Fourth of July star-spangled outfit. I had discovered the rest of her outfits down in the basement the other day. I thought they were old baby clothes, which was weird enough, hanging neatly in the cedar closet, enclosed in plastic. Is this what happened to people when they got old?
I patted the goose on her head and opened the front door. The smell of mothballs settled in my nose.
Grandma and Grandpa began their daily chorus of questions about my school day. I shrugged off my backpack; school was okay, my day was okay. Grandma continued to buzz around me, as pesky as the Michigan mosquitoes.
“Isn’t there a game tonight?” she hinted.
For a second I thought of the basketball guy at school, but then I remembered it was football season.
Grandpa sat in his recliner, tucked away in the corner, nose back in his book.
“Cara should go, don’t you think? Norman? Norman!” Grandpa’s eyebrows lifted, eyes peered over the top of his reading glasses.
“That’s okay,” I said.
“We could go with you, if you’d like,” Grandpa offered.
“You know I can’t get up those rickety bleachers,” Grandma said. “We don’t need to go. Cara needs to go with her friends.”
Friends. Ha. My friends were clear across the country.
I passed through the cluttered living room. Grandma was particularly fond of porcelain angel figurines. Round cheeked and iridescent glazed, they sat on end tables and shelves, in a curio cabinet and on the mantel. She tickled them clean with a feather duster practically every day. I didn’t remember seeing all the knickknacks during my last visit. Grandma must have been steadily accumulating the stuff since then.
I headed toward my room. “I’ve got lots of homework to do.”
I actually did have a lot of homework. Not that I was going to do it. Going to high school was a heck of a lot different than being homeschooled. And I didn’t plan on sticking around long enough for it to matter.
“Homework on a Friday night? Girl her age shouldn’t be sitting home on a Friday night.” Grandma’s words followed me into my room.
“Let her be, Margaret, let her be.”
“Well, I suppose it’s better than going around with some boy, smoking dope. Who knows what she’s done with Mark and Lori and that rat pack they hang out with.”
Grandma’s words prickled my skin. Scaling cliffs was enough of a high for my parents; they didn’t smoke pot. Maybe some of their climbing friends did, but not Mom and Dad.
I shut the bedroom door, plugged my dead phone into the charger, and flopped onto the bed. I grabbed a book off the nightstand. Agatha Christie. My mom loved mysteries, and I had found the hardcover Agatha Christies lined up on a shelf in the closet.
I flipped to the folded-corner page where I had left off last night. I read the words and turned the pages, but my thoughts veered. Grandma had ruffled my feathers. That’s what Mom always called it when I got angry or annoyed at a competition. “Don’t let your feathers get all ruffled.”
I was surprised that my mom, such a tough tomboy, had grown up in this fluffy girly-girl room. The dresser was painted white, the wallpaper had red stripes and roses. There was even a vanity with a cushioned stool that I’d been using as a dumping ground for my clothes. I flipped onto my stomach and inched up toward the headboard. There it was, in the corner, almost hidden by the mattress. LB + MJ carved into the headboard, enclosed by a heart.
Mom met Dad right after her freshman year of college. They had summer jobs as camp counselors in the mountains in North Carolina. Mom taught arts and crafts, and Dad worked as a river guide, guiding kayakers and rafters through rapids. The mountains were Dad’s home, but it was the first time for my mom, who had never been outside of Detroit. She fell in love twice that summer, first with the mountains, then with Mark Jenkins. I traced the carved heart with my finger.
My phone chimed. Back to life. A message from Coach Mel.
How’s your training going?
I deleted the message and tossed the phone on my clothes heap. Now that my parents had been found, everyone assumed I was fine. No need for special care and attention. Uncle Max was gone, but no one really understood how important he was in my life, what a gaping hole his death had left.
Becky and Zach and my other teammates continued on with their normal lives. Back at home, going to school, training. That’s what my parents expected of me. What Coach Mel expected. New home, new school, find a climbing gym to train. Planet Granite. Right in my own backyard, according to Nick, yeah right. Some plastic wall in a converted warehouse, not the real rocks in my own backyard, in the mountains.
I spun the beads on my bracelet from Ecuador. Was Mom still wearing hers? Out the window the moonflowers beamed from a tangle of overgrown ivy in the backyard. Brown crinkled leaves were clumped along the chain-link fence. The streets would be a blaze of color in a few weeks. No matter where we lived, North Carolina, Colorado, Oregon, California, autumn was my favorite time of year. The crisp air sparked my energy, the rocks felt cool to my touch, my fingers searching for the next handhold, a groove, a tiny pocket, anything to cling to.
Tears swelled behind my eyes, and I rolled off the bed, opened the closet door, and dragged out the heavy cardboard box stuffed in the corner. I blinked away the tears and dug past the stack of climbing magazines on top until I reached my books.
The cover of Thoreau’s Walden was hanging on by a thread. I gingerly thumbed through the yellowed pages, searching for passages I had highlighted and the ones my dad had underlined. This was the type of homework I did with Mom and Dad, not the boring textbooks I’d been assigned here. When you’re homeschooled, you can spend days immersed in a book, dissecting and discussing, hiking and thinking. Here, I changed classes every fifty minutes. My brain didn’t work that way. I needed time to study, think, absorb. By the time I settled in and concentrated on what we were doing, class was over. And everything had gone straight through my head like a breeze through an open window.
I read the underlined words silently, then aloud, whispering, trying to make sense of them. “ ‘Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.’ ”
The cover released its final hold and fell off. Figures. Thoreau’s words made sense when I read them outside in the woods, but they were meaningless sitting on the floor of a suburban closet.
I didn’t want to climb in Michigan. Another protest of sorts. Fine, send me away from the mountains, then I won’t climb. I’ll get rusty and flub my next competition, just like I had the last one, and what will you think about that, Mom and Dad?
I picked up an old copy of Climbing Magazine and flipped to the back where there was a list of climbing gyms around the country. Under Michigan, it said Planet Granite, Pontiac. I didn’t know where Pontiac was. Maybe I didn’t even care. I just wanted to go back to California. I needed to go home.
The phone rang from the kitchen, and I raced out of my room and down the hall. Grandpa beat me by three seconds and picked it up with a grin.
“It’s your mother. Would you like to talk first?” he asked.
I nodded and took the phone.
“Mom?”
“Hi sweetie.” Static cut through Mom’s voice. She sounded small and far away.
&nbs
p; I took the phone into my room and shut the door. “Where are you?”
“We’re still in Ecuador,” Mom said. “But we’ve left Mount Chimborazo. Your dad is—”
Static took over her words.
“You disappeared for a second,” I said. “Is Dad okay?”
“He’s fine—Max—taking it very—” Mom’s voice disappeared every few words.
“He needs to come home,” I said. “I need to go home too.”
“I wish it were that easy.”
“What’s so hard about it?”
“Your dad doesn’t think he can handle going back to the cabin now.”
Mom’s voice came through clearly for a moment, then static drowned her out again. Dad and Uncle Max had restored our cabin in California themselves. It was a run down, abandoned shack when we first found it, and they spent an entire year turning it into a cozy home. But I had helped too. I had pounded nails and grouted tile right alongside them.
I stepped out of my room, trying to get better reception, but the problem was on Mom’s end of the line. She had given up calling my cell, but now it was just as bad on the landline. It sounded like someone was crinkling wrapping paper in my ear.
“He feels like he owes Max. If he can’t give Max his life back, he’s going to live his life for him. Something like that, but more complicated. It’s hard to explain.”
“What about me? Our cabin is even more special because of Uncle Max. We can’t leave it.”
“I know. I agree. But—Dad’s—ready yet. And we’ve—talk— what’s best for you. —want you to stay—school. —best place—with Grandma and Grandpa.”
“Mom!” I shouted. “I can hardly hear you!”
“Max’s dream—K2. —first—head south—Peru, then—”
The phone was silent.
“Mom? Are you there?”
Silence.
“Oh come on!” I smacked the phone against the wall. I dialed Mom’s cell. Busy signal. I waited a few seconds and dialed again. Still busy.
My parents and I had been arguing about school for years. They kept saying it was time for me to have a real education. They said I couldn’t count on a climbing career; I needed something to fall back on. Like accounting or something. They wanted me to go to college, and their version of homeschooling wasn’t going to cut it. They said I needed a real school with real homework, real tests, and real grades. They said I needed a real life. I told them to get real.
“You’ve made a life out of climbing—you don’t think I’m good enough?”
“Get off it, Miss Junior National Champion,” Dad had answered.
Mom had given her spiel about having choices. About how she and Dad didn’t have an education to fall back on if climbing didn’t work out, like if she or Dad got injured.
We were still arguing about it on the plane ride to Ecuador. “I’m confident you can handle school and climbing,” Mom had said, “and we’ll plan our trips around the school holidays.”
But I was supposed to be attending school back in California, not in Michigan. And what was she talking about when she mentioned K2? K2 was in the Himalayas, not South America. And Peru? Was that where they were headed next? Seriously, they were going to Peru and leaving me in Detroit?
I gripped the phone tighter and willed it to ring. Nothing. I punched in Mom’s number one more time, but it immediately went to voice mail. I didn’t bother leaving a message.
“You’re done already?” Grandpa said.
“We got cut off.” I sighed and dropped the phone into its holder.
“I wanted to talk to her too. Maybe she’ll be able to call back.”
I shrugged and twisted the beaded bracelet on my wrist.
“What did she say?” Grandpa asked.
“Nothing.” I trudged back to my room.
14
On Monday morning, I paused outside of the kitchen when I heard the bitterness in Grandma’s voice.
“What kind of parents just go off and leave their child? Lori never would have done this by herself,” Grandma said.
“I know, I know,” Grandpa muttered.
“Mark was trouble from day one. You remember I told you that when she first brought him home.”
“I know, I know.”
I entered the kitchen with barely a creak of the floor. If I surprised Grandma, she didn’t show it.
“Good morning,” she sang. “Tea?”
“Thanks.” I sat down across from Grandpa.
“Here’s your sports,” he said, passing me a section of the newspaper.
Grandpa thought that since I was into rock climbing, I must be some kind of jock and therefore must like all kinds of sports. I didn’t mind. It was nice that he was trying to understand me. I looked down at the paper, not even seeing it, and cupped my hands around the steaming mug of tea.
Tea has always brought me comfort. Both Mom and Dad drank tea instead of coffee, not the average Joe Lipton in a bag like my grandparents but exotic greens and oolongs we’d brought back from China, steeped loose in a pot. Herbal teas we saved for cool nights around the campfire or for when we curled up on the couch, reading, in the evening. And always before a climbing competition. It was a ritual.
My nerves were like earthquake tremors, but give me a warm mug of peppermint tea and I became a different person. I breathed in the scent, and the warm liquid relaxed my muscles one by one. I focused on the route I was about to climb, and everything else disappeared. By the time my feet left the ground, I was alone in the world. Handhold to handhold, foothold to foothold. Slow and steady, like a snake slithering, just me and the rocks. The world disappeared until I reached the top of the cliff, clipped the last bolt, and looked down at my belayer.
I glanced up to see Grandma nudge Grandpa. She sent him signals with her eyebrows. I wasn’t interested in decoding the message. Grandma was clueless about my parents, my life; I didn’t need to hear her theories.
I shoved my chair back. “I gotta go.”
My sack lunch waited on the counter as usual. I knew I should appreciate that Grandma made it for me, but she was ruffling my feathers again. I grabbed the lunch, hoisted my backpack, and headed out the door.
I was almost looking forward to school; Grandma and her knickknack clutter were suffocating. I probably smelled like mothballs. Outside, the sun was brilliant; a giant sponge sopping up yesterday’s humidity. I gobbled up the clean air. Bloomfield High had hardly any windows. It was a giant, rectangular, two-story brick building. You know what kind of building has no windows? A prison.
In California, the local high school was like a sprawling villa tucked in the hills. Whitewashed stucco, open corridors. You left your classroom and walked outside under a veranda to get to your next classroom. Not that I ever went there, but when my parents talked about me going to “real” school, that was what I pictured.
I took one last deep breath of fresh air and entered to serve my time. The door hissed shut behind me. Four hours until I could escape at lunchtime. I touched the bruised bump on my forehead from Friday’s crash with Basketball Guy. At least it was mostly hidden by my bangs. I was steering clear of the cafeteria today.
Something was on my desk in Algebra II. I slid into my seat and picked up the little blue and white package. Snack-size Oreos. Basketball Guy was at the front of the room, leaning over the pencil sharpener at the teacher’s desk.
I pushed the package of cookies to the corner of my desk and took out my notebook and pencil. The lead point was broken. Okay then. I headed to the sharpener and waited my turn.
“Regular or the super special?”
Basketball Guy was asking me a question. His shoulders hunched to come down to my size. Since I was only five-foot-three, he had a long way to go. I gave him a blank look. Was he asking me about cookies? He flashed his lopsided grin and held out his hand, waiting for …
My pencil. Duh. He took it and said, “Just a regular sharpening today, okeydokey.”
What a goof! But cute.
His cheeks were still flushed with those two pink splashes. A faint scar cut into his upper lip, and I wondered what had gashed his skin once upon a time. That thick wavy hair. What ethnicity was he? Italian? Maybe some Latino blood? A curly lock fell over one eye as he bent down to sharpen my pencil.
“Thanks for the Oreos.” I tipped my head in the direction of my desk.
“I owed you.” He squinted at my forehead. “You have a goose egg!”
I raised my hand to the bump on my forehead and smoothed my bangs.
“I’m so sorry!” he said. “Does it hurt?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. Really. What about you?”
He rapped his knuckles against his skull. “Hard as a rock.”
He gave my pencil back to me and nodded at the bracelet on my wrist. “Are those acai beads?”
“Um, no, tagua nuts. From Ecuador.” I held out my wrist for him to see.
“Cool. My dad brought my mom a bracelet like that from Brazil.” He touched the beads on my wrist. “But it’s made from acai seeds.”
He gave me another grin, I smiled back, and we returned to our seats.
A guy gave him a fist bump as he passed. “Triple T.”
A basketball nickname? Tim, Trent, Trevor? How was I going to find out this guy’s name?
I fiddled with my bracelet. My nails had grown out into a ragged mess, and the crosshatch of scratches on the back of my hand had healed into raised red scars. I hoped he hadn’t noticed.
The teacher’s scribbles on the whiteboard might as well have been written in Chinese. I twirled my ponytail, squirmed in my seat; my legs twitched. How could long-legged people like Triple T tolerate being cramped in these uncomfortable chairs? His profile from across the room was much more interesting than the mess of quadratic equations on my desk. He didn’t seem to be having any trouble with his problems. He hunched over his desk, pencil moving smoothly across the page, working out the answers.
