by Roxie Noir
“You almost cheated on Graham with the guy whose picture you see if you look up ‘sexy beast’ in the dictionary,” Theresa said.
“I know you don’t like him, but this is a big deal to me,” said Ariana. “Should I tell Graham? I don’t like there to be secrets between us.”
As if on cue, her phone, sitting on the table, buzzed with a text message. It was a photo, and Ariana couldn’t make it out at first until she opened it on her phone, still sitting on the table.
“That’s a dick,” said Theresa, authoritatively. “Is that Graham? That’s Graham’s dick. Oh Jesus.” She hid her eyes with both hands.
Ariana was utterly speechless. Graham had never sent her anything like this before, and she had no idea why he was starting now.
Her phone buzzed again.
Cant wait to see u tonite :) it said.
“What is it?” asked Theresa, still hiding her eyes behind her hands.
“Weird,” said Ariana. “He thinks I’ll be back tonight, but I told him when I left I didn’t know when we’d be home. I’ll text him and—”
“He’s cheating on you,” Theresa said. Then she covered her mouth with both hands.
Ariana stared, open-mouthed.
“I’m sorry,” said Theresa. “Maybe he’s not? But he suddenly sends you a dick pic and a sexy message when you’re across the country? It kinda seems like...” she trailed off, staring helplessly at Ariana.
Ariana looked back at her phone. She scrolled quickly through the rest of their messages to each other — his mostly one-word answers, hers long and detailed.
“How could he be cheating on me?” she asked.
“You’re gone a lot,” Theresa said.
“Why?”
“He’s a shitbag?” said Theresa. “I don’t know why he’d cheat on you, but—” she gestured futilely at the phone.
“I have to go,” Ariana said. She stood from the table and headed for the door. “I have to call him.” She walked through the door and, moments later, Theresa saw the white rental car swing out of the parking lot.
“Okay, cool,” said Theresa to Ariana’s now-empty seat. “I’ll just pay and walk.”
* * *
It was almost ten that night when there was a soft knock on Ariana’s door. She was curled up, in her pajamas, in the center of her king-sized bed, her phone still in one hand, and ignored the knock.
The knock just sounded again, louder. Finally Ariana got up and answered the door. Theresa stood there, holding two mini-bottles of Jack Daniels.
Ariana sniffled. Her sinuses felt swollen from crying and her eyes were raw. “Where’d you get those?” she asked.
“Plane,” said Theresa. “The CRF doesn’t care if you buy booze with their money.”
“Really?”
“Sure.”
Ariana dragged herself back to the bed and collapsed dramatically. Theresa opened one tiny bottle and handed it to her.
“It went bad?” she said.
Ariana tossed the whiskey back, swallowed, and nodded. “God, it just took so long,” she said. She screwed the cap back onto the empty tiny bottle and set it on the side table.
Theresa produced another from her pocket, handing it to Ariana.
“First he swore he wasn’t, and then we fought, and then he said he was, but just this once, and I got really mad about that, and it just went on and on.” She paused to unscrew the next little bottle and also tilted it back, then put the cap back on, setting it neatly next to the first empty one on her bedside table. “He’s had two other girlfriends in the past year, not counting me. Girlfriends, he called them his goddamn girlfriends.”
“That fucking asshole,” said Theresa.
“And then he tried to blame me!” said Ariana. She was starting to cry again, just a little. “He said if I were around more, he wouldn’t have to look somewhere else for pussy.”
“It is not your fault,” said Theresa, firmly. She produced a third tiny bottle and handed it to Ariana.
The other girl looked down at it. “How many of these do you have?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Theresa said. Ariana obeyed, downing the little bottle and then tossing it at the garbage can. She missed.
“A year, Theresa,” Ariana went on. “He’s been cheating on me for a year and I had no idea! Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Did they know?”
“Did you?”
Theresa shook her head. “I just thought he was a loser,” she said. “Honestly, I’m surprised he got up off his ass enough to find those sluts — oh no, no, I’m sorry, don’t cry!” Ariana erupted into a fresh set of tears.
“I just feel so stupid!” she said.
“It’s okay,” said Theresa. “Karma’s gonna tear him a new one someday.” She put her arms around the other girl and they sat like that, in the middle of the bed, for a long time.
Finally, Ariana spoke up again.
“I guess it’s not really that big of a deal,” she said. “It’s not like we live together or something.”
“True,” said Theresa.
“My life isn’t even going to change that much,” she went on. “Still mostly traveling for work, still got my own apartment.”
“Still buy your own wine and order your own pizza,” said Theresa. “You just don’t have to share it now.”
Despite herself, Ariana snort-laughed. “I guess,” she said.
“We’ll go to bars together when we’re out,” she said. “I heard there have been some more Loch Ness sightings. You interested in some Scottish men?”
Ariana laughed again, weakly.
“I don’t even know if we’re going camping tomorrow,” she said.
“I thought you got a tent and a pack and stuff for us,” said Theresa. “And then got hit on pretty hard by Jake the lumberjack?”
“I didn’t even finish my story,” said Ariana. “We almost kissed, and then I shouted ‘I have a boyfriend!’ and ran away.”
“Did you literally run?” asked Theresa.
Ariana just nodded, miserably.
Theresa pulled her close again, stroking her hair. “You’re a mess,” she said.
Ariana just sighed.
* * *
When Ariana woke up, there was one instant where she felt almost normal. Then, she remembered what had happened last night: the tent in the office, the dick pic, the phone call, the crying, the tiny bottles of Jack Daniels. While she wasn’t exactly hung over, her head pounded.
Her room didn’t have a coffee maker in it, so she slipped into her pajamas and headed downstairs. Normally she didn’t like to be seen by others in a state of undress like this, but today she just didn’t give a shit.
Look at my busted ass, world! She thought. Hope you’re enjoying the show.
She walked groggily to the coffee machine, grabbed a styrofoam cup, and put it under the spout.
Then, just as she pushed the button down, she heard a deep voice behind her.
“We still going out today?” it asked.
Ariana froze, just for a moment. It was Jake, of course, the very last person she wanted to see her in her current state of disarray.
She swallowed, then turned.
“I, uh, wasn’t sure what time to meet you,” she said. “Or where. Sorry I left so suddenly.”
Jake shrugged, and she could tell he was trying not to act hurt. “No worries,” he said. “I got all the stuff we need. I grabbed a couple packs I think will fit Theresa, she can pick one and we’ll be on our way.”
Ariana stepped away from the coffee machine, leading him from the most crowded part of the hotel lobby.
“Look, I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said. “It was, I just, you know,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I overstepped my professional boundaries, and I shouldn’t have. Just business, from here on out.”
She nodded, sipping more of her coffee. “Thanks for understanding,” she said. At last, she let herself look at him.
Even in his hiking gear he looked incredible: his t-shirt showed off his bulging arms and wide shoulders. He hadn’t bothered to shave that morning, it looked like, so he had at least a day’s worth of stubble sprouting from his chin.
Ariana looked away again. You’re in no state to be thinking any dirty thoughts, she told herself sternly.
“Think they’ll mind if I grab some coffee?” he asked.
“I doubt it,” she said, and he reached past her for a styrofoam cup of his own.
He poured it, then emptied in two packets of sugar and what seemed like half a cup of cream.
“You take any coffee with your milk and sugar?” she teased.
“Very funny,” he said, tossing his stir stick into the trash. “So, are we still going, or did I show up here at the crack of dawn for nothing?”
Ariana wavered for a moment.
“Don’t make me do paperwork all day,” he said.
“All right,” Ariana said. “Let me go get dressed and collect Theresa.”
Chapter Nine
He felt better as soon as they got out of town, like he always did. Jake felt at home in the forest, away from people. As soon as they got there he felt his senses sharpen, his ears prick up at every bird call. Over the smell of the road, exhaust and asphalt, he could sense almost everything going on inside the forest: rain, rotting wood, deer and squirrels and black bears, all that life just humming along. He nearly forgot that Ariana had a boyfriend.
They were on the trail by ten in the morning, which wasn’t bad considering that he’d wanted to get out much, much earlier. The first part was the hardest, so they didn’t talk very much for a while. Jake brought up the rear of their little hiking party. He could have hiked nearly twice as fast, easily — he could have gone cross country no problem if he’d shifted — but he stayed with the girls, not wanting to outpace them.
After all, he was there to spend time with Ariana. Even if she was taken, he found her totally irresistible. It was pathetic, he knew, but he just wanted to spend time with her.
For lunch, they found a wide, flat rock and sat down to eat sandwiches.
“How much further?” asked Theresa. She took a huge bite of her peanut butter and jelly, then chewed hungrily with her mouth open.
“About three miles,” said Jake.
“That’s not so bad,” said Ariana. She hadn’t spoken much today, and every time Jake looked over at her, she seemed deep in thought. He could sense that something bad had happened last night, and he just hoped it hadn’t been because of him.
Of course, that was just his luck. The only girl he’d been attracted to in ages, and she had a boyfriend already. Jake had the vague notion that other women were throwing themselves at him — at least, women were always very friendly to him, something he gathered was not always the case with men — but he had just never felt this for anyone else. Something about her just seemed right in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
As the two of them brooded, Theresa chatted on. “It’s so pretty out here,” she said. “And we’ve only seen one other hiking party this whole time.”
“It’s not the most popular trail,” Jake said. He’d already finished his sandwich, and stuffed the plastic bag back into his pack. Leave no trace and all that. “There are some gorgeous waterfalls and cliffs on it, but they’re a two-day hike, easy. Once you have to overnight somewhere, the number of people interested decreases pretty dramatically.”
“All the better to see Bigfoot,” she said.
“Sure,” said Jake.
Jake thought he had a pretty good idea what Bigfoot was, actually, and he knew it was partly his own fault for the three sightings in two weeks. But, on the other hand, he’d gotten Ariana to come to Evergreen, and that wasn’t a bad thing.
The guy who saw Bigfoot by the lake, well, he was probably just drunk and seeing things in the twilight. It happened, and people got too excited.
The other two, though. Jake wasn’t the only shifter in the area — there were at least two others, and those were only the shifters that he knew of. In theory, there could be dozens, though he was pretty sure he’d sense a sudden influx of them.
But one of them, Boone, really liked the area around where the woman had seen Bigfoot. Moreover, it took a little while to fully shift in and out of bear form. Most of the change took place instantly, but the little effects could take a long time — the reason Jake himself had worn long sleeves on Monday. Had she seen Bigfoot, or had it been Boone, mid-shift, not worrying about being seen because there were never people around up there?
The third sighting had been him. He’d stayed too long in bear form that weekend and hadn’t fully shifted out before getting into his truck and driving back to town, and Dustin had seen him from across that parking lot. He’d thought he was more human-looking than that, but at least Dustin was an old drunk who told too many tall tales and the girls didn’t believe him.
“Most people think Bigfoot is an ape,” said Theresa. “Gigantopithecus, to be exact.”
“And that’s some sort of giant ape?” Jake asked. Though he’d been hearing about Bigfoot for years now, he’d never heard this particular theory.
“They allegedly went extinct a couple hundred thousand years ago,” she said. “But their range was over a lot of Asia, and there’s no reason to think they couldn’t survive in the Himalayas, and then cross the Bering Land Bridge to the northwestern U.S. at the same time humans did.”
“There’s also no real reason to think they did,” Ariana said. It was the first time she’d spoken in nearly an hour. She seemed better, having eaten lunch.
Theresa just rolled her eyes. Jake got the feeling that they had this conversation a lot.
“The Himalayas?” he asked.
“It’s a mountain range in Nepal and Tibet,” said Theresa.
He and Ariana exchanged a look, and he thought he saw a smile begin around her eyes.
“He knows what the Himalayas are,” she said.
“Oh, sorry,” said Theresa. “Yeah, the Himalayas have the Yeti.”
“Have you ever been there?”
“Not yet,” said Theresa.
“That’s a pretty tough one,” said Ariana. “We’d have to have pretty good evidence to get on that plane. Trekking through the Himalaya is a lot more serious than staying in a lodge in a cute Pacific Northwest town and going backpacking for a night.”
“Did you know the people who lived there actually evolved so that they could get oxygen out of the air better?” asked Theresa.
The three of them rose and strapped their packs on again, the girls taking the lead.
“It’s because they live at such high altitudes,” Theresa was going on. “Sixteen thousand feet at least...”
Jake was glad when the trail got too steep for Theresa to impart facts and hike at the same time.
* * *
Finding the log book and taking a picture of the names inside was almost too easy. They were done by five in the afternoon, long before the sun went down, so the three of them had a leisurely dinner of freeze-dried food reconstituted with water from a creek. The girls set up their tent and got their sleeping bags situated inside, while Jake put out his tarp and laid his sleeping bag on top.
“You didn’t bring a tent?” Ariana asked.
“I’ve got another tarp if it rains,” he said.
“What if there’s a bear?” she asked. “I saw that poster on your office door about grizzlies in the area.”
Jake grinned. I’m the problem, he wanted to say.
“You think your tent is gonna protect you against a grizzly bear?” he asked.
Both the girls were very quiet for a moment.
“There’s been one confirmed grizzly sighting in the past hundred years,” he said quickly. “It was from a helicopter in an area even more remote than this. They don’t like people. I don’t think you need to worry about them.”
Both girls relaxed a little.
“Now, mountain lions
....” he said.
Ariana picked up a pebble and threw it at him. “Don’t tease us,” she said.
Jake grinned again. “But it’s so easy,” he said.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
“Your biggest threat is probably raccoons,” he said. “They love human food, and half of them are rabid.”
“Can they get through tent nylon?” asked Ariana.
“Less likely,” said Jake. “They’re smart, though, and they’ve got those creepy little hands.”
“They’re so cute though!” interjected Theresa.
Jake shrugged.
“So, are you from here?” asked Ariana after a long pause.
“Not originally,” he said. “I’m from Alaska.”
She whistled, low. “I thought we were far from civilization now.”
He laughed. “We’re only two and a half hours from Seattle,” he said. “That’s practically inside the metro area.”
“Why’d you move here?” she asked. “No lumberjacks in Alaska?”
He shrugged. “Alaska gets old after a while,” he said. “Even in the cities, it’s hard to get out. The roads are snowed over most of the year. It’s a weird place to be. Washington state is much better.”
These were all compelling reasons, but not the real one. The truth was, he’d left Alaska on bad terms with his shifter pack, but he couldn’t tell the girls that, obviously.
“Do you miss it?”
“Of course,” he said. He did: he missed the endless rugged wilderness, being able to be a bear for a week or more, feeling like he had the entire state to himself. He missed his parents, he missed having a whole community of other shifters around who understood him. “But the tradeoff is worth it, I think.”
Theresa yawned, then stood. “I’m gonna turn in,” she said, and walked toward the trees. “Man, am I gonna be sore tomorrow.”
She crunched off into the woods about ten feet, and Jake politely looked down into the fire. Ariana looked up, where she could just see the stars through the tops of the trees.
