Everything Beautiful Is Not Ruined

by Danielle Younge-Ullman

  Never having hiked anywhere, I don’t volunteer. In fact, I do my best to make myself invisible, because pretty much everyone is better qualified for this than me. Ally, Melissa, and Seth hang back too, and Jin somehow gives the impression that these jobs are for suckers and she wants nothing to do with them.

  Henry volunteers for the back end, and, surprise, surprise, Peace-Bob takes the lead and starts looking for the cairn. We all look for it, but past the beach is a dried-up riverbed, all rock, practically made up of boulders, and there are rocks everywhere else, too, so finding a piddling little pile and distinguishing it as human-stacked is near impossible.

  We stand around the beach for a few minutes, then follow Peace-Bob up one side, where he thinks he sees something.

  He’s wrong, so back to our starting place we go.

  Each time, Peace-Bob is sure, barks out, takes off with enthusiasm, and we follow.

  Pat and Bonnie do not assist, and claim not to know where the path is.

  But I can’t help recalling how they let us set up our tent in a water trap last night. . . .

  Finally Peace-Bob takes off along the side of a wide riverbed where he thinks he really sees a path. Our backpacks are excruciatingly heavy, mine even more so because everything in it is soaked. The heaviness makes balancing difficult—every step feeling like I’m either going to pitch forward and fall on my face, or backward to land like an upside-down turtle. In addition, my skin is rubbed raw at the shoulders and at the waist, where there’s a clip that’s supposed to help distribute the weight of the pack. The chest clip squashing my boobs is the least of my worries, but also uncomfortable.

  I look down at the supposed path and put one foot in front of the other.

  Soon we are forced out onto the riverbed, because of course the path Peace found is not a path. No one has seen a damned cairn. The rocks are strangely angular and unstable, and most have barely enough surface to put a foot on. Even without the backpacks, it would be slow going and deathly hard to balance. With them, it’s treacherous. Someone is going to sprain an ankle, or break their neck, and/or die. Probably me. Hopefully me.

  Finally we clamber off the riverbed to another supposed path.

  “What the hell was that?” Tavik says, staring at Peace-Bob like he wants to take his head off. “You trying to kill us?”

  “What, are you upset about a few rocks?” Peace-Bob retorts, beads of sweat dripping from his facial hair. “Shut up.”

  I kill mosquitoes number 836 to 846.

  “We are exactly two minutes’ distance from where we started,” Jin says. “And that was hours ago.”

  “Three hours,” Tavik says.

  “So,” Bonnie says in what I’m beginning to recognize as her therapy voice, “let’s assess what’s happening here.”

  I let my pack down, and sigh.

  “Ingrid,” Pat says. “You look like you want to say something.”

  “Nope.” I shake my head, awash with frustration and exhaustion. “Not me.”

  “Come on. What’s your assessment? How are you feeling?”

  “Awesome,” I say tonelessly.

  Jin snorts.

  “No, really, I’m a whole new person. This is fabulous,” I say. “I hope every day is just like this.”

  Tavik laughs.

  Pat steps closer, pins me with his gaze. “I would like to hear what you’re really thinking and feeling—what’s behind the sarcasm.”

  “Seriously?”

  Pat nods.

  Everyone is looking at me.

  I take a moment, look around, considering. I am accustomed to keeping a lot in, holding my head high, et cetera. This is about dignity, survival, about having walls up for a reason, about the show going on no matter what, even when it becomes the Nothing to See Here, My Life Is Perfect show. I have been trained this way from birth, practically, and by now it’s like part of a pact—a pact between Mom and me.

  But I’m starting to feel like it’s a rotten pact.

  “Ingrid?” Pat is waiting.

  “All right,” I say. “First, I think it’s not Peace’s fault, or not all his fault anyway, that we’re in this situation. Second, regarding how I’m feeling? I feel like crap and everything hurts, and I’m pissed off.”

  Pat smiles like he’s won something. “Why is that?”

  “Because I don’t appreciate you letting us wander around like idiots all afternoon, risking our necks walking on the damned rocks with zillion-pound backpacks when I’m sure you know exactly where the real path is.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Well, if you don’t, then you’d better use your emergency cell to get Duncan back here, because in that case neither of you is qualified to keep us safe out here, and we should all get our money back. But I don’t buy it. And I especially don’t buy it after what you did to us with the tents. Based on that, I don’t trust you. I believe this is the same crap, and I think it’s wrong, and I also think it’s unsafe.”

  “Hmm,” Pat says, and shares a look with Bonnie.

  “So, actually, I’m not going to go anywhere until we have this sorted out.” I fold my arms over my chest and sit down.

  “You’re not willing to follow Peace anymore?” Bonnie says.

  “I’m perfectly willing to follow him, or anyone else, once we’re on the actual path. But until I’m sure we’re not wasting our time and energy and going in circles, no.”

  Seth murmurs something that sounds like agreement and sits down next to me. Tavik sits down too. Melissa just looks at her shoes. Ally bursts into tears. Harvey and Henry are barely listening, and instead are engaged in a silent game of poking each other with sticks. Jin stays on her feet, still glaring at Peace-Bob.

  “All right,” Bonnie says finally. “I think I can help. Follow me.”

  As we set off, Pat turns and gives me a wink.

  “Thanks for your participation,” he says.

  Participation, my ass.

  MARSHMALLOWS

  (Peak Wilderness, Day Two, Continued)

  Bonnie takes us straight to the trail, and we hike in silence for the rest of the afternoon. The terrain is tough, the path like a small roller coaster, up and down literally every few feet. There is zero flat surface, and it’s always more up than down—we’re ascending onto a ridge of some kind. My glutes and quads are screaming, quivering, threatening to pack it in with every step. In addition to the hills, it seems like every other step there’s another tree root to trip over, or another small rock to roll one’s ankle on. And my feet inside my not-so-broken-in hiking boots? I’m afraid to look, but they feel like hell.

  I am not the only one in pain. While I keep quiet about mine, Ally is near the end of the line, falling apart to the point that Henry has to stop us multiple times so she can rest. He and Harvey eventually start taking turns carrying her backpack because it’s the only way we’ll ever get to the end of today’s trail.

  During the course of this god-awful hike, I try (a) pretending I’m somewhere else, (b) being stoic, and (c) channeling the dark side of the Force—i.e., being really, really angry, and sending that anger into every step I have to take.

  (C) is the most effective, though the energy it gives me begins to fade with the daylight.

  It’s almost dark again when we finally arrive at the campsite.

  This is worse the second time because now I know it means mosquitoes for dinner, and zero chance of my clothing and tent getting a chance to dry out. But I’m starving and so sore all over, and will therefore probably just close my eyes and eat. And I’m tired enough that maybe the wet sleeping bag/pajamas/tent won’t bother me.

  Ally collapses onto the sand and pulls her boots and socks off, making a pitiful sound. Her feet are covered in blisters, many of them burst and rubbed raw, and she is even bleeding in a few spots. I search in m
y pack, find some Band-Aids, and bring them to her, but Bonnie is there already, with antiseptic ointment and gauze and some heavy-duty wrapping.

  I am relieved to see Bonnie making this effort—the way things are being run, I’d almost expected them to send Ally out into the woods, barefoot, to find magic herbs with which to make her own cure, and leaves to wrap her feet with in lieu of bandages.

  Tavik and I get straight to finding a nice, non-sloping, high-ground spot for the tent. And then, with Peace’s help, get it put up in a completely cooperative, nondramatic way. Miracle. It’s still wet inside and out, especially on the side I slept on, but there’s a bit of wind and the tent fabric is thin, so there’s some hope it will be partially dry by bedtime.

  As soon as the two guys wander off, I scramble into the tent, zip both layers of doors closed behind me, set my pack on the dry side, and then pull out my bathing suit and put it on, watching the door every second.

  Suit on, I start to assess the situation with the rest of my clothes. There is the dirty pile of stuff I wore yesterday and today—socks, underwear, bra, cargo pants, T-shirt, hoodie—and the damp pile of clean things—basically all the same items, plus one pair of flannel pajamas and a small towel. (Don’t even talk to me about how long flannel is going to take to dry.)

  I have one bar of soap.

  And it’s gotten chilly since the sun went down.

  And I have basically nothing that is both dry and clean to put on once I come out of the lake, except the hoodie, which isn’t long enough to cover my butt.

  In the end I lay the damp clean clothing, plus my sleeping bag, on a large rock, hoping this will help, and ball up the dirty clothes, all except my underwear, socks, and bra, in my corner of the tent. I have no illusions that I’ll be given any extra time tomorrow morning to get these things dry if I were to wash them, but perhaps if we get to camp with a couple of hours of daylight tomorrow afternoon, I can do it then.

  And so I head to the lake, leave my tiny towel on the beach, and walk into the water with my bar of soap plus bra, undies, and socks, because these items are nonnegotiable in terms of cleanliness.

  The water is take-your-breath-away cold. And not the kind that becomes refreshing and awesome once you’ve swum around in it for a few minutes. More like the kind that gives you hypothermia.

  Melissa, Jin, and Tavik all test the temperature with hands and feet before backing away.

  “You’re a nutcase, going in there,” Jin says from the shore.

  “I c-c-can’t disagree,” I say, teeth chattering. “B-b-but I can’t s-stand the s-s-smell of myself.”

  Jin rolls her eyes and blows her herbal smoke at me. “You’d suck as a street kid.”

  “You m-mean that as an insult, right?”

  “Totally.”

  I hop and wade farther in, gasping, until I’m chest-deep, then dunk backward to wet my hair, gasp some more, and proceed to give myself and my stuff a thorough soaping, followed by the best rinse I can manage. The blisters on my ankles and feet sting like hell at first, but the good news is, soon I can’t feel them anymore.

  I emerge, a triumphant icicle, the heavenly, clean scent of soap all around me, and shiver my way back up the beach.

  Peace is in the tent, so I decide to check on the sleeping bag and damp clean clothes instead of going in there and enduring whatever disgusting comments he’s guaranteed to make. I’m going to have to wear the damp undies with the damp pajamas, and/or the sweater, and hope they dry from the currently nonexistent heat of my body.

  At the rock, I am dismayed to see that everything I put there has blown off into the sand.

  I want to throw myself on the ground and give up.

  Instead I drop the soaking wet (clean) clothing from the lake onto the rock in a bundle, and then shake as much sand out of everything else as possible. But the sand is fine, and doesn’t shake all the way out.

  I never imagined “I have nothing to wear” as such a literal sentence.

  I’m standing there, teeth chattering and shaking my head and trying to tell myself how ridiculous it is that I want to cry. I am making a pitiful attempt to summon back the anger I’ve been feeling—and using—all day, when Bonnie comes over.

  “What’s up?” she says.

  I tell her through gritted teeth.

  She regards me gravely, then thinks for a moment.

  “I say you put on the damp pants—skip the underwear—with the sweater for now, then get a stick, or a couple of sticks—long ones—rig them up somehow like a drying rack, and hang everything on there.”

  I nod.

  “You need to hang things to get them dry,” she adds.

  Gee, I never knew that.

  “All right . . .” I say, keeping the snide thought to myself, since I’m grateful she’s at least willing to give me some direction—probably only because it would look bad on her record if I died of exposure, but still.

  “Ideally it’ll dry overnight. If it doesn’t rain,” she adds.

  “Right,” I say, nodding again, shivering . . .

  “Actually,” she says, glancing over to where Harvey and Melissa are on campfire/dinner-making duty. “Anything you really want to be sure to get dry, you could hold near the fire.”

  This is, for real, the best idea I’ve heard all day, since we’ll be around the campfire for dinner and then likely for circle, too.

  Dear Mom,

  With all the ladylike modesty you tried to teach me, I’m sure you’d love to see me now . . . sitting around a campfire with a bunch of strangers, sans underwear and bra, roasting my undies on a stick.

  You know, like marshmallows.

  But not.

  Dead mosquito count: 1,050.

  Love,

  Ingrid

  I’m on dish duty after dinner, which means I leave the stick with undies, bra, and a pair of socks I added, carefully balanced on a log near the fire.

  “Um . . .” I look at Jin, who’s there having a smoke before circle.

  “What?” she says, exhaling in the opposite direction of my stuff, which is considerate-ish, for her.

  “Could you . . .” I gesture to my stick. “Make sure no harm befalls my . . .”

  “You’re hilarious,” she says, without smiling.

  “Look,” I say, feeling my cheeks getting red. “I’m mortified as it is.”

  “I know,” she says. “That’s what’s so hilarious. That and how you sound like a walking literacy textbook.”

  “Well, will you? Watch them?”

  “Oh, all right.”

  Back to the lake I go, this time to wash the pots.

  After, I stand for a few moments looking out over the water, the moon reflecting off its glass-like surface. It’s beautiful, yes. But the beauty doesn’t reach me the way it’s supposed to because I feel like it’s been shoved down my throat. I register the stark gorgeousness of the dying day, and what it fills me with is unease, and an ominous sensation of cracking inside—of cracking open, of a corresponding excruciating pain I have kept at bay by incredible discipline beginning to seep toward the surface.

  I don’t want to be cracked open.

  Cannot be.

  Have to stop thinking about this, thinking at all.

  Nevertheless, I let myself wonder again why—why my mom would knowingly sign me up for such a hard-core, no-comforts version of Peak Wilderness, if that’s what she did.

  Why would she do it when she herself—a very proper, elegant person, who always bought the best she could afford, even when we couldn’t afford much, who never left the house without makeup, who considered it unladylike to even say the word “underwear”—would have hated every second of this?

  My throat tightens and my eyes start to well up, and I stay turned toward the lake, hoping no one will see.

  Damn it. I’m not a c
rier. I am brave-face-mess-inside, like her. But everything that makes me feel safe and normal has been yanked from under me, and I’m stuck out here feeling naked, beaten-up, and far too vulnerable.

  I pull myself together in time for circle and find a semi-comfortable log, close enough to the fire to continue my embarrassing-but-necessary roasting project, to sit on.

  “Let’s talk about today,” Bonnie says, starting things off. “I think we had some fairly big happenings. I’d like to hear from every person.”

  And so we go around the circle, each getting a turn to offer our insights on the day.

  Ally is completely falling apart. Her eye makeup—which she did, in fact, find time to reapply this morning—is smudged and smeared beyond repair, her boobs-out, Instagram-ready posture is gone, and she looks like hell.

  “I want to leave,” she says to Bonnie and Pat. “Please, can you call Duncan and get him to come get me? I quit.”

  “You can’t quit yet,” Jin says. “Are you serious?”

  “Look at my feet!” Ally cries. “How am I even going to walk?”

  “Your feet will heal and then toughen up,” Bonnie says. “We’ll keep them well wrapped and in a couple of days, you’ll be fine.”

  “It’s not just that,” Ally says, her entire body quivering. “I’m fat!”

  “And . . . ?” Bonnie says, just as I’m about to say the reflexive No, you’re not!

  “Well . . .” Ally says, confused by Bonnie’s nonreaction.

  “Is it possible that seeing yourself as fat is causing you to believe you are limited . . . when that’s not, in fact, true?” Bonnie says.

  “Huh?” Ally says, her bewilderment momentarily stopping her tears.

  “The size of your body doesn’t determine what it can do, unless you believe it does,” Pat says.

  “Maybe you’ll surprise yourself,” Bonnie adds. “Tell me again what your most urgent goal is, for these three weeks.”

  “I want to get Angel back,” Ally says, new tears spilling over. “And completing the program and getting the credit . . . will look good on my file. My caseworker says it might tip the scales because . . . in addition to my parents being . . . how they are, I tend to quit things—jobs, summer school . . .”