Page 61 of Valley Girls
Thea opened the door, fifteen minutes later on the dot, and leaned inside. The rain poured off her jacket in thin streams. “You ready?”
“Yep,” Rilla said, zipping up her backpack she’d been stuffing snacks into.
“Did you bring some schoolwork?”
Rilla stopped.
Thea gave an exasperated sigh and snapped her fingers. “Come on. You’re going to be in the truck all day. Use your time wisely.”
Rilla turned and huffed back to the attic. Retrieving some math andThe Scarlett Letter, she stuffed them on top of her snacks and pulled her hood over her head, heading into the rain to Thea’s waiting truck.
“Why does the park have to evacuate if it’s not going to go that high?” she asked, shutting the rain out.
“There’s only one road out of the Valley, basically. If it gets flooded, we have a bigger problem than tourists getting wet.”
Rilla put her backpack on the thick rubber floor mats and knocked her hood down. The heat was blasting, despite the fact that it was the warmest morning since she arrived. The clock on the dash said it was only 8A.M. She deflated. It felt so much later. “Does this happen often?”
“Not during the summer season, but it’s been colder this year.”
“Ha. Global warming,” Rilla said dryly.
Thea put the truck in drive with a jolt. “You know, global warming doesn’t mean everywhere gets super warm right? I just assumed they had better science at Alleghany these days.” Thea gave a condescending chuckle that made Rilla want to slap her. “It means climate change. Like, more extreme temperatures, more extreme weather events ... hurricanes, tornadoes, bigger floods.” She turned out onto the slick pavement of the road. “Colder springs where the snow pack in the high Sierras doesn’t melt until a large spring storm from Mexico pushes up and wallops the Valley with a deluge of water.”
Rilla frowned. “Our science is good. They just don’t teach about global warming. Not everyone agrees.”
“Scientists agree.”
“All of them?” Rilla snapped. She didn’t even care, but she hated that Thea made her feel like a country dumbass who had failed out of abadeducation.
“Yep,” Thea said, putting her blinker on and waiting for the heavy line of traffic to make a space for her big park ranger SUV.
“Okay, fine. Global warming.”
“Global climate change,” Thea corrected.
Rilla clenched her jaw and looked out the window. Leaving West Virginia had turned Thea into an asshole. “Up in ‘airs’,” as Granny would have said.
Clouds clung to the cliffs, obscuring the tops from view while smaller, thin wisps floated along the bottom. A low rumble of thunder rolled through the Valley, echoing back in on itself and up into the truck where Rilla sat.
Thea drove the wrong way on a one-way street and then eased across a walking path to pull up to Rilla’s old friend—the firehouse-jail. “You’re not on parking duty today?” Rilla asked as Thea parked and turned off the truck.
“I’ll probably have to direct traffic. But right now, I have roll call. You can get coffee and some breakfast. Just don’t touch anything, or get in anyone’s way. Or talk, really. Try not to talk.”
Rilla rolled her eyes, pulled up her hood, and followed Thea through the rain to the side door of the firehouse.
Inside, it was a very different Yosemite than she was used to seeing—no tourists, no workers like in HUFF. These were the lifers. The corporate fast track to an Ent—the sentient trees inThe Lord of the Rings.
Thirty or more rangers and volunteers milled around the ambulance parked inside. Their jackets glistened and boots left wet footprints on the concrete. Scraggly beards on old and young, and hair chopped short or braided off the faces of the women. The feel of weather worn, but alive and green. They talked in clumps. Looked at a phone with their heads together. A few sat on the floor, eyes closed and heads resting on the concrete walls. This was what goth Thea had become. A motherfucking baby Ent.
Rilla made a beeline for the big thermos of coffee and the tray of bagels set up on a table in the back. She grabbed a bagel and scooped out a glob of cream cheese.
“Who let the Valley rat in?” Walker said.
“Huh?” she asked stupidly, realizing a half second too late that he meant her.
His hood was up, but under the dripping edge, his eyes teased and he needed to shave.Had he heard about the rope dropping incident?
“You gonna just hog all the cream cheese?” he asked, voice thick with sleep.
