Page 22 of Valley Girls
“Well, you couldn’t have picked a better place to start climbing,” Gage said, sun lighting his face as he leaned against the door. The sunglasses, coconut-scented tree air freshener, and ChapStick hanging on the rearview mirror tilted as Petra followed the mountain road. “It’s like going to heaven to become a believer.”
Rilla looked back to the road ahead, hand open to clutch at the wind. Outside the window, the trees and brush were changing. The air was sweeter and cooler.
Petra turned off the smooth asphalt to a dirt road. The car hopped and wiggled and squeaked; and the manzanita bushes flattened and puffed as they flew through the shallow valley, passing the few standing charred pines and cedars. The trees were so big and old, they’d managed to absorb the fire and remain alive, unscathed at their core. Great clouds of golden dust boiled up and rolled into the open window. No one moved to prevent it, they just accepted the gentle layer of dust settling on their skin. Maybe that’s why they all looked so tanned.
Led Zeppelin blared, familiar and eternal.
The sun deepened.
Hico and Gage rattled in the backseat, expressions immovable.
Rilla sank into her seat, feeling at ease for the first time since she’d arrived. Though they were surrounded by a ring of snow-capped mountains in the distance, the wide-open feeling stood in stark contrast to the immensity deep inside the Valley. For a place so huge, the Valley felt as if it could fold in on her at any minute. Here she was closer to the sky. Let loose and un-cinched. For one brief moment, she didn’t have to convince herself she was okay here—she simplywas.
They turned down smaller and narrower dirt roads to a dead end at a big house with nothing but trees and far mountains in sight.
“Welcome to the Grove,” Petra said, turning off the car.
“Wow,” was all Rilla could think to reply, not taking her eyes off the house as she unfolded her legs and crawled out of the dusty hybrid.
The redwood-trimmed structure stood below the edge of the hill, in the midst of a clean forest of pines. In some ways, it felt like West Virginia; but when Rilla took a deep breath—expecting the pungent scent of pine and earth—there was nothing to smell. The scent of home was just a thread for her to follow, not a world to sink into.
“My grandparents are traveling through Europe this summer, so they let me use it,” Petra explained, leading them onto a catwalk to the uppermost deck of the house.
Rilla blinked. She knew rich people, but not peoplethatrich. And their granddaughters didn’t look like this. Petra’s twin braids were sloppy and falling out, and she wore a pizza-printed tank top that looked so hideous the thrift store probably had given it away. Money did not look like that in West Virginia. But then, maybe there was a point where you had so much money you could afford to look poor.
“It’s not Camp 4,” Hico said. “But it’s as close as we’re gonna get.”
“Who even wants to be in Camp 4 anymore?” Petra said. “Bea stayed there at the end of her trip and said she was kept up half the night by a kid crying. And, oh my god, all the rules.”
“I meant what Camp 4 was, not as it is now,” Hico said.
“It’s still Camp 4,” Gage said. “Just ...”
Everyone seemed to silently nod in agreement to whatever Gage didn’t say.
“What did it used to be?” Rilla asked, thinking of the birdlike line watching her huff past the ranger shack.
“It used to be this,” Petra said with a spin to raise her hands to the roof. “Except, a short walk to climbing, instead of the drive.”
“It used to be the climber’s campground,” Gage said. “Where people lived for months. Climbing, as we know it, was basically born there. There’s so much history there.”
Petra stopped and turned back. “Get the other side, will you, Rilla? God, can you imagine the golden years of Camp 4?” Petra took one side of the container Gage and Hico were trying to carry along with their packs.
Hico handed over his side to Rilla with a relieved-sounding “thanks.”
The container yanked on her arm, much heavier than she expected, but Rilla gritted her teeth and kept her gait smooth, hoping no one could see her struggle.
“I can smell the food from here. I’m starved,” Hico said, opening a sliding glass door.
Fragrant spice, fried meat, and warm bread all mixed with the smell of a stranger’s home, enveloping Rilla like a cozy blanket. Though unfamiliar, it was the kind of smell that made Rilla feel at home. And hungry. Her stomach growled.
“Rilla?” Adeena shouted from the kitchen. “Damn it!” She pounded her spoon on the edge of the pot and glared at Petra.
Rilla remembered being introduced to Adeena the day before, but she was surprised she hadn’t noticed how short Adeena was. Somehow, she assumed all climbers were tall—with Petra and Thea, who were five-ten and change, and Walker, who was easily six-three. Both Gage and Hico were tall enough she just added them to the tall category. But Adeena was tiny—no taller than five feet and narrow framed, with thick, wavy black hair falling out of a ponytail, light brown skin, and wide green eyes. Not what Rilla expected either Pakistanis or mountaineers would look like.
Adeena lowered her chin to Rilla. “Did she abduct you? This jackass stuffed you into the trunk to get you here, didn’t she?”
“Ha! I told you I’d find her first,” Petra smirked.
