Pickleballers

Chapter Eighteen

Eighteen

Washington State teemed with world-class hiking trails, but when it came down to breadth and majesty, the Olympic Mountains could not be rivaled. Annie popped out of Meg’s car and stood stock-still, gaping. “Whoa,” she whispered. Even from the parking lot, the view was impressive. Before them, the mountains loomed like stone giants, dignified and powerful. In mid-July, snow lingered like pointy hats on the peaks. As she and Annie wrangled their packs from the hatchback, Meg drew in the earthy scents particular to the Pacific Northwest: pine mingled with the dense smell of wet dirt and decomposing wood.

Meg’s fingers landed on her phone in her back pocket. She hesitated, resisting only an instant before checking for a text from Ethan. But no. There was nothing. There hadn’t been anything for a full day. Burying her disappointment, she pocketed her phone, displacing her car keys, which tumbled onto the asphalt.

Annie rolled her eyes. “Gimme those keys. They’re gonna end up in a stream somewhere.” She zipped them into her pack’s waterproof storage pocket. “Oh, good,” she exclaimed. “Here’s Rooster.”

Rooster’s vintage Buick chugged into the lot, bumping over the gravel and sending up pebbles as he peeled into a spot. Rolling out of his car, he stretched his arms into the sky and gave a low whistle at the view. “Beautiful.” He asked, “Did I tell you Laverne gave me a hall pass so I could hook up with you two out here?” before he was disabused of ever using such terminology again.

“I may not know the hip lingo, but I know a great idea when I think of one. Get a load of this.” Rooster paused for suspense. “I rang up a friend of yours. I thought I’d surprise you both and invite him along for the hike.”

Rooster’s passenger door banged and rattled a couple times before it jerked open and out tumbled Ethan Fine. Well, wasn’t that a kick in the pants, Meg thought, her fingers gripping the straps of her pack. Thanks to Rooster’s good-intentioned cupid act, the guy who’d just rejected her would be her companion for the next god-knew-how-many hours. So much for a stress-free hike in a magical setting. Instead, she’d be breaking a sweat while her heart was breaking. Perfect.

Meg and Ethan blinked at each other, both trying to get a handle on how to approach this unexpected turn of events. Annie’s gaze shifted nervously between them.

“Hi.” His tone was cool. But polite.

“Hi.” She tried not to let her voice waver.

Rooster tilted his head. “Well. Not the warm reunion I imagined.” He shrugged. “But hi-de-ho, let’s hike.”

Ethan tossed a glance over his shoulder at Meg and, with a noncommittal shrug, followed behind Rooster. Annie beckoned to Meg, hoisted her overstuffed backpack, and took to the trail. Meg was left with little choice. Here she was at the entrance to a beautiful hike, her plans for escape foiled. She could stand here all day looking like she’d raided an REI store for no reason, or she could go along. Letting out a frustrated grunt, she trudged after them.

At the wooden trailhead sign, they tied permits to their packs, snapped photos of the trail map, and reviewed the notices and sighting announcements. In his loud, gravelly voice, Rooster read, “?‘In the case of wildlife sightings, take precautions. Make noises to alert animals of your presence. If you spot an aggressive animal, back away from the area and alert a ranger when able.’?” He narrowed his eyes. “What kind of animals do they have in the Olympics?” Rooster wondered.

Meg got nose to nose with the fine print. “Cougars, and mountain goats, and bears.”

“Oh my!” Annie tried.

“Yep. Okay,” Meg said, and marched forward on the trail.

“Cougars, and mountain goats, and bears,” Rooster chanted in a growly singsong.

“I can still hear you,” Meg said, fighting a smile.

“ Oh my! ” Annie whispered.

Catching Ethan’s lips twitching with a grin, Meg scowled and bounded forward.

The group made their way into the woods. Scooting ahead, Rooster led Ethan up the gradual rise. The guys’ easy conversation floated down to where she and Annie followed. “It’s fine. This’ll be fine,” Annie said, giving her friend a sidelong glance. Meg was pretty sure that was what the captain had said right before the Titanic hit the iceberg.

Distracting herself, Meg put her focus on the narrow trail that snaked through the towering old-growth trees. Pace after pace, her anxiety began to thaw, and soon, the splendor of her surroundings dimmed her inner monologue. And although her antsy fingers still drummed against the straps of her pack, one thing was certain. It wasn’t so easy to be blue when surrounded by the green majesty of the Pacific Northwest.

This was what Meg loved most about living in the PNW. Around her, ancient trees bent at odd angles, their boughs dressed in mossy shag carpets. Sprouting from those spongy blankets, fern fronds uncurled their fiddle tips. The heavy scent tickled her nostrils. Beneath her feet, the earth was as dark and wet as Seattle’s famous coffee grounds, and above, the sky was a creamy shade of gray. Those born or bred in the Northwest felt as at home in the woods as the moss. Their rain-swept surroundings nourished them. Meg paused a moment to appreciate the small glints of sun that flashed on the bright treetops, setting them afire in contrast to the dull matte of the sky.

Even the boulders were magnificent: great Ice Age relics that could tell the history of this area, but instead chose to maintain their stoic and watchful silence. Those sturdy sentinels weighed down the forest floor and kept it from soaring away like some fairy-tale setting. With respect and awe, the four of them strolled wordlessly, allowing the power of the place to seep into them.

The tinkling sounds of a stream grew louder, and when they rounded a bend, they saw a brook trickling below a wood-planked bridge. The scene looked as pastoral and perfect as a movie set.

“Like heaven on earth,” Rooster crooned. “Come on. Let’s snap a picture.”

For the first time since leaving the parking lot, Meg and Ethan caught each other’s eye, and neither of them knew what to do with that. The discomfort stretched as Rooster directed them to stand in front of the bridge, nudging them to get closer. They adjusted stiffly while Meg’s insides squirmed. The space between them might as well have been a wall.

For a long moment, Ethan and Meg posed like a miserable pair of air-bookends until Annie came to the rescue and squeezed in the middle, flinging her arms around them.

Rooster aimed his phone. “Here. I’ll take a selfie of the three of you.” When Annie clarified that a selfie could be taken only by oneself with oneself in the picture, Rooster balked. He insisted that a selfie meant the photo was “a picture you took yourself.” The matter was debated in good cheer, which may have been Rooster’s intention all along. At length, Rooster acquiesced and decided that all four of them should stand near the bridge and capture a group selfie.

The photo shoot complete, Annie settled herself on a fallen log. “You guys go ahead. I am going to rest here for a few minutes. I’ll catch up.”

Ethan leveled his gaze with Annie’s. “You all right?” he asked, his brows dipping with concern. “Can I help?”

Annie shook her head. “It’s a bridge.”

Plunking down beside her friend, Meg put a gentle hand on Annie’s shoulder. Of course. How could she have forgotten? For as long as she had known Annie, her friend had nursed a fear of crossing bridges. Yet Annie’s apartment was on the Eastside and the hospital was in Seattle. The only way to cross Lake Washington was via I-90 or the 520 bridge. “I thought you worked it out. I mean, how are you getting to work every day?”

Annie hung her head. “Here’s the thing. I don’t drive. I’ve been carpooling with one of the nurses. I close my eyes and hold my breath until I’m over the bridges.” It was a surprising revelation. Not to mention amazing breath control. “Actually, that’s not completely true,” Annie amended. “I take a breath in between the bridges. When I’m in the tunnel.”

“This is a little bridge,” Rooster said. “It’s really low. You’d only fall like two feet, even if the boards all rotted and we came crashing through—”

Annie threw her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. “La-la-la,” she sang.

“I have an idea,” Ethan said. “Here.” He reached out a hand and pulled Annie to her feet. “Come on. We’ll carpool.” Annie looked to Meg to check her reaction, but before she could utter a peep of resistance, Meg and Ethan had swooped to either side of her and linked arms.

Eyes squeezed tight and her fingers stuffed into her ears, Annie allowed herself to be tugged along. The bridge, which was strongly built and wide enough for the three abreast, accommodated them easily. One step at a time, they supported her across the bridge while Rooster followed. At last, they shook her gently, to alert her to the presence of solid earth.

Annie turned her head back to look at the bridge. She tugged down her Columbia fleece and pulled up her Gore-Tex hiking pants. “What are we standing around for? Let’s go, people!”

Bounding forward, she turned toward Ethan and squinted at him in mock fury. “Thank you,” she mouthed.

He gave a single nod and clapped her on the shoulder.

How could he be so sweet, and yet so misery-inducing? It was infuriating. While the rest of the crew traipsed forward, Meg hung back on her own. Her mind poked through the bin of their brief fling, trying to figure out where it had gone awry. But before long, the drop-off grew sheer enough that she needed to pay closer attention. Meg shook herself out of the gloom and concentrated on her footing. The terrain had shifted, and now the path sloped upward, and the soft dirt gave way to a steep incline of rocks and stones. Beside the path, the mountainside dropped down sharply.

Ahead of her, Annie slogged forward, hugging the rising mountain wall. With each step, her body slowed and stiffened. They continued this way for several tense minutes. At a spot wide enough to stand two abreast, Meg caught up to Annie. “How ’bout we check the trail app,” Meg said. “Make sure we’re going the right way.”

“I used to hike around this area a lot,” Ethan said, and Meg remembered that he had grown up on the peninsula. This mountain might have been his playground. “There’s pretty much just the one way up.”

But Annie’s face was fraught with nerves. “Is it the drop-off?” Meg asked. Her friend did not respond, but her eyes darted toward the precipice.

“Let’s take a look at the route,” Meg insisted, pressing on her phone. Ethan may know the way, but she could take care of herself. “Looks like we keep going forward. It splits off later, but here it’s one trail. It’s practically a straight line. With curves…”

Rooster peered over Meg’s shoulder. “Isn’t that another bridge? That looks like a doozy.”

Meg shot him a glare that could have stopped a hostile takeover.

“I should have stayed at the inn,” Annie moaned.

“And miss all the dramatic tension?” Rooster commented wryly. “Lighten up, kids. Look where we are!”

Meg’s head tipped up. Beside her, old-growth hemlocks and cedars grew as wide as Volkswagens and as tall as halfway up the Space Needle. She drew in the earthy scent, taking it all in. After getting the nod from Annie—hesitant as it was—Meg led the way.

Heeding Rooster’s suggestion, she focused on the present, observing each detail as she strode between the evergreens. Meg’s steps sprang on the thick and spongy earth, over remnants of fallen trunks that had decomposed years before. The air brushed her cheek, cool and crisp. In patches, snow lingered, and in the distance, frozen peaks gleamed like jagged, white teeth. Ahead, Ethan’s boots left sexy indents in the dirt and his lightweight pants cradled his perfect ass. How was that for focusing on the present?

“Hold on.” Rooster halted midpace. “What’s this?” He pointed to where the path diverged. The main trail moved into the shelter of the woods, but a sliver of a trail shot off to the side and clung precariously to the ridge.

“That’s the old game trail,” Ethan offered. “I haven’t been on it since I was a kid. It’s like a shortcut, but I don’t think it’s used anymore since the park service revamped the main trail.”

Meg trotted a few paces down the slender offshoot. There, nailed to the jigsaw bark of a ponderosa, she spotted a paper shoved inside a plastic sleeve. Someone had written Experienced Hikers Only , and then a contradictory dare: There is no success without challenge .

Meg stared down the wisp of trail that clung to the side of the mountain. “We have to go this way.”

A disbelieving cough escaped from Rooster’s throat. “Like hell we do.”

Not unkindly, Ethan said, “I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

Annie surveyed the path dubiously. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to travel on the main path?”

Meg glanced at the light gray sky. Ahead, she heard the melodic tinkle of a stream. She recited, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rooster interrupted. “And that made a big frickin’ difference.”

“I don’t think that’s the exact quote,” Annie quipped.

Meg’s gaze took in the two paths. How many times had she taken the easy route, too complacent to shake things up? Crafting collars instead of creating art. Escaping to Bainbridge instead of staying to battle it out for the beginners’ spot. And even with Ethan, she had managed to circumvent any conflict. Rather than demand that he explain his sudden change of heart, she had slunk away—only to end up hiking up a mountain with him and still not having the guts to find out why he was acting like they were water cooler acquaintances on a cubicle break.

She had made one non-choice after another. When was the last time she had pushed herself to try something because it was hard?

She squared her shoulders. “As I see it, we have two choices,” Meg told them. “We can climb this mountain the easy way, the way everybody and his grandma does it; or we can accept the challenge and try something new.”

Annie raised a hand. “I vote the easy way.”

Rooster lifted his hand and grimaced. “Easy way.”

“I mean…” Ethan shrugged to indicate his agreement with Annie and Rooster.

That was it! The three of them, joining forces! Ethan had drawn a line in the sand. And heck if Meg was going to take one more moment of his controlling attitude.

“Forget it,” she insisted. “You’re all coming with me. This whole hike was my idea, so I get to pick.” She stopped short of stomping her foot. She knew she was losing her cool, but she was six feet deep into this temper tantrum, and she wasn’t about to back out.

Without another word, Meg bushwhacked down the path and disappeared into the thick of the woods.