I could. I knew I would in an instant, given the chance.
“Ben!” I jumped and turned to see Mr. Howe walking into the kitchen, with his arms full of groceries and a huge grin stretched across his face, visible even beneath his beard. “So glad you could make it. You’ve met Lucia, I see.”
I leapt up to help and Lucy did, too, and later we ate lunch together on the screened porch, looking out at their yard. The food was good and they were funny and kind, and they both said they hoped I’d come over again. I told them I would. I didn’t want to leave.
After dessert, Mr. Howe took me into his book-lined study and showed me some of his climbing photos. I liked looking at those, to see places I’d never go. It was like looking at photos of a moon landing. He also showed me a ladder-backed chair he said my father had made. I didn’t believe him at first, the detailing was too delicate, but sure enough, when he flipped it over I saw the initials carved into the wood on the bottom of the seat: GG, for Gus Gibson.
“Did you know him?” I asked. “My father?”
“I sure did. We met when Lucia and I first moved back here. We used to surf together in the mornings before school. Gus loved the ocean the way I love the mountains.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Do you talk to him?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“I mean, he writes sometimes and sends money. He’s a doctor now, lives in Connecticut. But I don’t think my mother would want me, you know, having a relationship with him. After what he did.”
Mr. Howe frowned but didn’t mention my father again. Instead he asked for my help with the orienteering club that fall, and I can see now how maybe that sounds weird, the way I’m describing it. Like, here was this guy who knew I was fatherless and wanted to get too close. But it wasn’t that way, and after talking with Lucy, I got why. Everyone needs things they can’t have. So despite knowing absolutely nothing about orienteering or reading maps or even how to survive outside of my own stupid head, I said I’d help. Because Mr. Howe needed a son. And what I needed, above all else, was to succeed in making other people feel good about me.
5.
I HOPE IT’S not sounding as if i had no training for the job I’d been hired to do. I mean, I didn’t at first, but that changed in the weeks before school started. Mr. Howe had me take a CPR certification class as well as a first aid course, and I also completed an online wilderness safety training module. That was all in addition to the hours I spent on my own, poring over the International Orienteering Federation’s official rulebook, trying to figure out what I’d gotten myself into. Rose never wanted to hear about any of it—she didn’t consider not getting lost a sport—but I was diligent in my studies. I was ready for the challenge.
Well, ready or not, on the first day the club met after school, only four students bothered to show up. That was disappointing. Three guys and one girl. I knew them all, obviously; Teyber Union was only so big.
There was Duncan Strauss, a junior, a well-known pot dealer, and someone who seemed to miss as many school days as I did; Clay Bernard, a clean-cut sophomore with a personality not unlike my own—that is to say, studious, quiet, and somewhat bland; and senior Archie DuPraw, who was kind of a wild card, and while Archie and I tolerated each other in a wary way, I certainly didn’t expect to see him in an extracurricular setting like that. Archie never took anything seriously, from what I could tell. He was the type of guy who, at seventeen, still got off on sniffing glue, getting blackout drunk, and doing stupid shit, like mumbly-peg or playing chicken on the train tracks. And not necessarily in that order.
But the real surprise was the girl. It was Avery Diaz, from the auto repair shop. It startled me to see her walk in the classroom on big, dumb Archie DuPraw’s arm—I had no idea they were friends, much less anything more.
Not much happened that first afternoon. Mr. Howe and I went over some of the activities we’d be doing: hiking, map reading, learning basic survival skills. There would be two backpacking trips during the year and anyone who went on at least one of those trips would earn PE units, which explained Archie’s presence, since rumor had it he wasn’t going to have enough units to graduate in the spring. The plan was also to participate in a number of team orienteering competitions throughout the northern part of the state, mostly out in the Sierras, although I got the feeling Mr. Howe didn’t approve of racing. “L’art pour l’art,” he told me, which I later found out meant “art for art’s sake.” After I handed out the club permission slips, we let the group go for the day.
I was walking across the parking lot when I heard someone call my name. I turned and squinted into the afternoon sun to see Avery running toward me. Alone. I stopped and waited for her.
“Hey,” she said. “I didn’t know you were working with Howe.”
“Yeah. I just started.”
“That’s cool.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stood there and felt awful. Depressed, I guess, and all that, which was stupid seeing as there was nothing wrong. The wind was blowing and Avery’s dark hair looked messy—it was sticking out in places. I had the urge to run my fingers through it.
“How’s your mom?” she finally asked.
I shrugged. Looked away.
“My dad and her were good friends growing up. Did you know that?”
“I didn’t know that.”
Avery smiled. “After my mom died, I wanted him to date her. So he wouldn’t be lonely. That would’ve been something, don’t you think?”
I put my hands in my pockets. Rocked back on my heels and cleared my throat. “That wouldn’t have been such a good idea.”
“I know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“I gotta go,” I told her.
—
I headed straight for the inn. It was full of autumn visitors, and it took a while to find Rose. She wasn’t outside with her brother, who was sitting in the garden reading Proust, of all things, and she didn’t answer any of my texts. Turned out she was helping her mother set up a wine tasting for a group of eager guests in that bright wicker-filled space they called the parlor. She took one look at me and dragged me up to her room.
“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.