Page 2 of Valley Girls
Thea groaned. “Not so far. I’m up to my eyes in administration. And parking duties.”
Walker looked horrified. “Parking? I finally get on the team, and you’ve abandoned me?”
“It’s the price I pay for living the dream,” Thea said, reaching for his bag. “I haven’t even been climbing this season.”
“What?” Walker asked, swatting Thea’s hand away and picking up the bag himself. It clinked with that same metallic sound as he threw it, bulging and awkward, over his shoulder and stepped off the curb, into the shadows toward the truck. “What are you even doing with your life?”
Thea grabbed Rilla’s duffel. “Listen, whippersnapper, I got real tactical shit going on these days. Those minivans don’t park themselves.”
“Oh. Well. My apologies,Ranger Martínez,” Walker called dryly.
Rilla swallowed, shouldering her backpack. The wind snapped at her neck, biting open the loneliness she’d thought a warm welcome would resolve. Rilla rushed to catch up with Thea.
“You feeling okay? Relieved to be out here?” Thea asked. “Ready to buckle down and pull it together?”
Rilla knew what she was supposed to say to the long-gone sister who’d doubled back to disaster. “Yep. All good. I’m fine.” She did two thumbs-up to prove she was whatever normal was. Thea knew all the sordid details via Mom, but Rilla didn’t want to rehash any of it. “That bus ride was eternal, though. We broke down in Salina, Kansas. I probably smell. Someone was cooking liver and onions on a hot plate the last few hours. I—”
“Sorry to make you ride crammed in the middle after that bus,” Thea interrupted. “But it’s all I’ve got.”
Just then, Walker hollered, “Are you tying me to the hood or something?”
Rilla gulped back the rest of her chatter.
“Rilla’ll get in the middle,” Thea answered. She took Rilla’s bag and threw it alongside Walker’s.
The door hinges squeaked. “Come on then, West Virginia,” Walker called in Rilla’s direction. “I want to get there.”
Rilla ducked underneath Walker’s outstretched arm, sliding into the middle of the blue vinyl bench seat. He followed, putting his arm on the back of the seat to make room for his shoulders.
Rilla was aware of every part of his body filling the cab—from his fingers draped on the vinyl seat behind her neck to his ratty sneakers pushed up onto the floorboard. But it was hard to tell if he noticed—folded up and turned in on herself as she was.
Rilla smoothed back her hair and tried to avoid making eye contact with herself in the rearview mirror. She’d put makeup on in the bathroom in L.A. that morning—dark eyeliner and coats of mascara to make her narrow blue eyes as cutting as she could manage. But it looked all smudged and terrible by now, she was certain.
Thea shut her door and the dome light clicked off, bathing them in darkness.
Folding her hands in her lap, Rilla looked out the front window, at the amber-lit street and more lines on pavement.
Mom had reminded her before she boarded the bus—girls like her didn’t get chances like these. They didn’t leave Rainelle. They didn’t see the country. They didn’t get to start over, in a place where they could be anyone. They didn’t see their feet past a pregnant belly at the end of age seventeen. Rilla’s shoulders had sagged listening. Those were all truths her mom knew by experience, and none of Rilla’s protests convinced her this wasn’t the same. Rilla had never envisioned leaving like this. She’d never really envisioned leaving at all. Come hell or high water—and both surely came—West Virginia was home.
On the bus, she’d decided California was a chance to prove to everyone at home that they were wrong about her. Wrong about it all. Thea probably wouldn’t want her for long, but in that time she’d make everyone back home sorry. She’d show them.
Suck it, everyone back in Rainelle.
Two
“Don’t get into trouble,” Thea’s note said at the end. Instead of something sisterly, orlove you, or even a smiley face, there was a scratched admonition on the back of the map of Yosemite Valley.
“Get your schoolbooks from the office. You can eat in Half Dome Village—just sign my name on the sheet at the register. Call Mom and tell her you’re okay. And don’t get into trouble.”
Rilla folded the map into a tiny square and tried not to let it sting. All her eagerness to prove herself had drained away.
Last night, Yosemite Valley had been nothing but a blurry blob of darkness before Rilla had dropped straight into a squeaky cot in the attic. Fourteen hours later, she’d crawled down the attic ladder to find the Valley drenched in sunshine, and Thea at work.
Alone, the silent house echoed in her chest. No one to call. No one to kiss. No one to even talk to.
Rilla stared at the brown painted porch steps of the bare-bones craftsman bungalow Thea shared with three other rangers. The small house was plunked in a meadow in the heart of the Valley, in a neighborhood without fences, driveways, or different paint colors, and Rilla sat, unable even to lift her chin to the massive cliffs bordering all directions and the oaks shaking their silvery leaves in the crisp wind. This was supposed to be her new home, these mountains her new keepers. But she and Thea had done this before, just the two of them in Rainelle. Rilla remembered—when Thea got a chance, she left Rilla behind. Rilla couldn’t help but assume that it would happen again.
The sun touched the back of her neck—warming away the spring chill. All the wonder and awe she should have felt were missing. All she could see wasdon’t get into trouble. All she felt was alone.
