My stomach drops. “Ben told you that?”
“He’s been assessing you.”
This stops me in my tracks. I look back at Ben, who’s almost caught up to us. He gives me a friendly smile and I return it with a fake one, thinking about the fact that he’s been spying on me since we met. I thought we were building a team, but he was reporting on me this whole time. The thought of it makes my blood boil.
I hate to be watched more than anything.
“Would’ve been nice to know,” I say to Jenny.
“Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t. Isn’t it what you’d do in my position? You contact me out of nowhere after ten years of radio silence…”
“I needed a job.”
“So you said. And I gave you one, but that’s all I owe you, Cassie. Nothing more. Whatever happened out there… This pays my debt.”
I start to protest, to say that I hadn’t been calling in any favors, but that isn’t true. I knew exactly what I was doing when I called Jenny. When I’d filed my report about our rescue, I’d made her the hero. I knew she was ambitious, and I helped her along the path I didn’t want. “Fair enough. And I’m sorry about the radio silence.”
“Thanks for saying that,” Jenny says. “Friend hat?”
“Friend hat.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to be the boss.”
“I get it.”
“I want you to succeed here.”
“Thank you.”
“But I’m not quite sure what to do with you. What to make of all this. What were you doing, all this time?”
“Just… living my life.”
Once I’d left SAR and gone to college, I drew a hard line with my past. I learned quickly never to talk about that summer. At first it was because every time I mentioned it, someone brought up Cameron. Her case had garnered national attention—when a beautiful, white nineteen-year-old goes missing, the media takes notice. While we were searching for her, there’d been wild speculation about what had happened. Was there a killer on the loose? Had she been kidnapped? Was her boyfriend to blame? And even after we found her, that speculation persisted. Somehow the truth didn’t spread as far and wide as the rumors.
Either way, I didn’t like everyone’s ghoulish fascination with something I was trying to forget, so it was easier not to mention Yosemite, or T-SAR or any of it. Eventually, the whole place faded into my background, which proved useful when I needed a place where I could disappear.
“I really do appreciate everything you’re doing for me, Jenny.”
“I’m happy to help. Just don’t make me look bad, okay?”
Ben catches up with us and punches me lightly in the shoulder. “On a scale of one to ten, how mad would you be if I told you there’s video of your reaction back there?”
“What?”
“It’s priceless, I promise.”
I try to keep my voice calm. “What are you planning on doing with this video?”
“I thought TikTok?”
“Can you not?”
He frowns. “What’s the big deal?”
“I hate all that social media stuff.”
“Sure, no problem.”
“Thanks.”
The cloud lifts, and Ben is back to his sunny self. “How about I show you Wild Willy’s Hot Springs to make it up to you?”
Jenny laughs. “She knows Wild Willy’s.”
“Oh, right. I keep forgetting you’re from here.”
“No worries. That does sound great though, thanks, Ben.”
He rubs his hands together. “Perfect. I’ll invite Gareth and Mia too, yeah?”
“Sure.”
The radio at Jenny’s hip crackles. “Sierra 1, this is Victor 1.”
She raises her radio to her mouth. “Sierra 1, over.”
“We have a wet rescue at Tenaya Lake.”
Jenny looks at us. “You got this?”
“On it,” I say.
Jenny clicks her radio on. “SAR Peters and SAR Cowell are assigned.”
“Copy that.”
Jenny gives me an encouraging pat, as if to hurry us along, and I let Ben take the lead, falling into rhythm behind him, my heart rate inching back up. A wet rescue can mean anything from hypothermia to a drowning. Either way, this one is real.
It’s time to prove to myself, and Jenny, that I belong.
PHOTOGRAPH—Indian Museum of Art
Liked by mamajada and 35 others
@JadaJohnsonInsta Three days in! Or is it four? Time flies when you’re #ontheroad! We’re not on a schedule, stopping where we feel like it. So now it’s time for a #photodump!
This is us in #Indiana #Missouri #Oklahoma. The #indianmuseumofart was AWESOME! Check out this funky building—doesn’t it look like a spaceship?
Next up was the #GatewayArch. Oh yes, we’re doing ALL THE THINGS! Jim was DYING to see this cowboy museum, so here we are—check out Jim’s hat! Giddy-up!
Next up, we try to figure out how to #pumpanddump this Airstream. Yuck! @jimislivingthedream will be bringing that to you live! Check out our #reels.
Laters, bitches!
#JadaandJimForever #LongHaulSummer #AirstreamLiving #HopeWeDontBustBeforeWeGetThere
mamajada Are you eating three meals a day, honey? You know you get cranky when you skip your food.
theyfreedBritney What the hell is a pump and dump?
jimislivingthedream @mamajada don’t worry Mrs. Johnson! I’m feeding her on the regular.
bellasgram @theyfreedBritney Do NOT google it.
Papajim @jimislivingthedream call us when you get to the pumping station, and we’ll talk you through it.
MAY 25
May 25—Lee Vining RV Park
We’re solid in the new RV now. We spent a day cleaning it out from top to bottom—it took twelve hours because that place was FILTHY.
Found: three dead mice, moldy cereal, one USED condom, six old newspapers, a container of matches from a bar, and forty dollars in change. The change was EVERYWHERE, under every pillow we lifted, every corner we checked, like the dude who owned it before had thrown a cupful of it up in the air as if he was making it rain in a casino.
Sandy said I could keep the forty dollars and buy myself a treat, like she was my mama or something, which I did NOT appreciate. We had a fight about it, but then we got to make up, which was pretty awesome. If I’m serious about this writing thing, I’d try to put down how she makes me feel when she kisses me DOWN THERE, but I feel shy about it, like I’m writing one of those romance novels Mama abandoned in our trailer when she ran away.
Once the trailer was clean, we were disgusting. The shower in the RV isn’t working well yet, so Sandy suggested we check out one of the hot springs out Mammoth way called Wild Willy’s, a kind of natural bath, and she was right, like she always is about everything.
I don’t know who did it—a lot of people, I guess?—but there’s this pool made of concrete, full of water that comes out of the springs just out in the open in a field. It has taps for hot and cold water so you can adjust the temperature just like a bath! I’d always thought a hot spring would be a pool in the woods, something you’d happen on and sink into in relief. But this one is in a place that’s more like a moonscape, with steam rising from the rock. When you sit in it, you have this awesome view of the High Sierras and rolling, grassy meadows and the sky, the sky, the sky.