“Todd, this is Oscar Barajas and Gwen Foster,” Tracy said, ushering him into the house. “Oscar and Gwen, this is Todd Harris.”
Gwen saw something shift in Todd’s eyes—an acknowledgment that he was in the minority here. He probably wasn’t used to being around people of color—at least, not ones who didn’t work for him. She thought of the looks she’d gotten at REI when she’d gone shopping for supplies, and had been the only black person in the store: not hostile, not unwelcoming—in fact, a couple of the clerks were overfriendly—just simply noting the unusual fact of her presence. But Todd shook their hands firmly and met their eyes. “So we’re just waiting for the Pattersons?” he asked.
“They’re not coming, unfortunately,” Tracy said. “Carolyn is sick.”
Again, a flicker in the eyes, but he quickly recovered. “That’s too bad. They’re both great people.”
“I know. We’ll have to manage without them. But in some ways it’s easier—now we can take one car.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Todd said, still not convinced. “Hey, is it okay to leave my car here?”
“Absolutely,” Tracy answered, and Gwen had to look away. What a rarified world Todd lived in if he thought this neighborhood was iffy.
After Todd declined the offer of coffee or food, Tracy took everything back to the kitchen and led them all outside. There, they did a pack check, and with Tracy’s help, Gwen winnowed down to a single long-sleeved shirt, removed an extra jacket, kept one extra set of socks and underwear instead of two. With the extra space Gwen could fit the sleeping bag inside the pack and pile everything else on top.
Once their packs were reorganized, they loaded up Tracy’s Volvo XC60. Gwen watched Todd heave the cooler and packs into the car; she saw Oscar help figure out how to fit everything; she saw Tracy direct the whole process. The back of the SUV was soon full to the roof.
Gwen felt like a neophyte, useless. What had she been thinking? She looked at her own Honda across the street, flanked by the BMW she knew to be Oscar’s and the Audi she assumed was Todd’s, and had an urge to just make a dash for it, drive away, get out while she still could. She could drive to the office—that’s where she really belonged. Not with these people whom she barely knew. Not in the outdoors, in some remote corner of the mountains.
You just can’t do this, she thought, and the words appeared so fully formed that she realized they came from someone else: Chris, the last man she had dated. Chris was a field deputy for the local city councilman, a charismatic, talkative guy she’d met when he toured the agency. They’d had a whirlwind year of dinners, neighborhood events, Saturday brunches with his politically active family and friends. Gwen had found this all thrilling, until eight months in, Chris began to say that she worked too much, that he didn’t like her clothes, that she needed to lose ten pounds. (“What kind of self-respecting black man,” remarked Tanisha, her best friend at work, “complains about a black woman’s curves?”) He hadn’t been terribly sympathetic when Robert died, and he’d been dismissive when she’d started going to SportZone. When she told him she aspired to do a really big hike one day, like Half Dome or Whitney, he’d scoffed. “There’s no way you can do that. That kind of thing’s for people who are really in shape.”
Gwen was hurt when Chris left her for a Princeton-educated lawyer, but in the wake of Robert’s death, all losses were relative. How, she thought, did she manage to attract such jerks? Why did she get involved with men who told her what she couldn’t do? Chris’s insults stayed with her, though, and she still felt them now.
But then she turned and caught sight of the mountains, the San Gabriels starting to the west and extending to the east, getting taller as they went. There was 10,064-foot Mount Baldy in the distance, and closer, Mount Wilson with its satellite spires, and closer still, Musgrove Point. Last spring, she had hiked to Musgrove Point with Devon and three kids, including Robert. It was the hardest hike she’d ever done. The trail was three miles up, two thousand feet of elevation gain. It was punishing, and Gwen would never have made it if Devon and Robert hadn’t pushed her along—cajoling, teasing, encouraging. On the top she’d taken the picture of Robert that now hung on her bulletin board.
They’d stayed an hour up there, eating lunch, taking in the view. From that high up she could see the buildings of downtown, the curve of the coast, the way the ocean hugged the land. How small the problems of people seemed from this perspective, how miniscule the neighborhoods and buildings. A few hearty wildflowers were still in bloom, and she was lifted by their beauty. I’m so happy to be alive, Gwen remembered thinking. She might have even said it out loud.
Ten days later, Robert was dead, and part of what tortured her in those first confused weeks was that his death had come so soon after this day, when all the world seemed well. While she had been exhilarated, he must have been miserable, already making plans. She would have said so much more that day if she had suspected what was coming. She hadn’t even had a chance to tell him how much he meant to her.
“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” someone said, and Gwen turned to find Todd standing next to her. She didn’t know how long he’d been there.
“Yes,” she replied. “It’s amazing how much you can see from here.”
“When I was driving up, I just kept looking from one view to the next. That’s part of why I was late.”
“Where do you live?” she asked.
“Over on the Westside. I didn’t even know this neighborhood was here.”
Gwen felt a twinge of distaste. But this guy, whatever his limits, was making an effort to be friendly, so she would try to do the same. For a moment she wondered if she should have signed on with a professional guiding service, maybe even for a women-only trek—but the descriptions she’d found on the Internet had put her off: Hiking and Journaling for Inner Peace, one of them said. Another promised, Find Yourself in Nature! But she wasn’t going on this trip to find herself. She was going to find the mountains.
“Okay, kids. Ready to go?” asked Tracy.
“Let’s do it!” said Oscar, grinning.
And then there was the awkwardness of who would sit where, which Todd solved by saying, “Why don’t you ladies ride in front?”
They all seemed to understand that, whatever the arrangement, Tracy would be driving. And so the men got in back, Todd directly behind the driver’s seat and Oscar behind Gwen. Tracy took a deep breath and smiled, her energy so palpable it seemed to light the whole car.
“Ready, captain?” Oscar asked, and Tracy nodded.
“Ready.” She turned the key in the ignition, put the car into gear, and drove off down the hill.
Chapter Five
Oscar
As they headed north on the 2, and then west on the 210, Oscar stared at the huge swath of bare brown mountain. Three years ago, the Station Fire had set half the range aflame. During the day, dense smoke formations like nuclear clouds had loomed over the peaks; at night, the dark shapes were lit bright orange. Bears, deer, and mountain lions had fled down from the mountains, some ending up in suburban backyards. When the fire was finally out three weeks later, over 160,000 acres had burned and two firefighters were dead.
“All that damage,” Gwen remarked. She was sitting rigidly, fingers drumming her thigh. “It looks like a giant blanket’s been draped over the mountains.”
“It does,” agreed Oscar. A nice woman, and not bad looking, with a pleasant shape, he thought—but she was in way over her head. He’d watched her struggle in Tracy’s class with some of the tougher exercises and wasn’t sure she could handle this hike.