Page 8 of Valley Girls
“Not all of us hate where we come from, Thea,” Rilla said.
“I don’t hate West Virginia. I just never want to go back.”
“Well, I do want to go back. I have friends there. I have afamilythere.” Family who hadn’t left her.
Thea’s eyes widened and she nodded slowly like Rilla was too young and dumb to understand. “Okay, sure. That’s a word you can use. But hey, guess what, girl? You’re not going home.” Thea whipped the door open, before continuing. “Don’t party. Don’t get into trouble. Don’t do stupid-ass things that are going to get me fired. The Valley is a small world. You can’t get away with anything.”
Rilla’s stomach sank.
Thea sighed. “If anything, do it for yourself. You’re in Yosemite for the summer. This is a chance not many people get.” She’d already opened the door. “Come on before I let a squirrel in.”
The falls above continued to crash and roar in Rilla’s ears, as she followed Thea inside.
Thea stepped into the galley kitchen just inside the door, and Rilla ignored the sleepy looks from the other rangers sitting in the living room, eating breakfast, and working on a laptop in a recliner. Rilla’s body tightened with exhaustion and unshed tears. She kicked off her boots, adding them to the pile by the door.
The house was small—only one bathroom, two bedrooms with bunks where Thea and the other rangers slept, a little galley kitchen, and the living room filled with shoes, coats, laundry, piles of books, and outdoor gear. The lopsided squares of commercial carpet askew in the center of the main space looked suspiciously like leftovers from the carpet in the dining hall at Half Dome Village.
“How’s it going?” one of the rangers asked.
Rilla straightened and swallowed. “Fine,” she choked over her swollen throat, chin high as she stepped over a saddle someone had dumped right in the entrance to the hallway.
“You’ll feel better if you eat,” Thea called from the kitchen.
But Rilla couldn’t be around anyone. She made it to the end of the hall, up the ladder leading to the attic Thea had shoved her into, before the tears came.
Throwing herself belly down on the cot, Rilla sobbed into the wool blanket until her eyes were exhausted of tears and her face itched from the wet wool. Turning her chin to the side, she stared at the light through the cracks in the floor and listened as, one by one, the women below left. Until all that remained was her puffy, itchy face and the dull roar of the waterfall outside.
•
Rilla woke a few hours later, from dreams bright and sickening, her sweaty cheek smashed into the edge of the cot mattress. She blinked at the slatted underbelly of the roof, straining her neck to look out the only window. Still in California. Thea hadn’t kicked her out.
Sleep hadn’t calmed the pitch of her feelings, and she hated that she didn’t understand what she wanted. One second she found herself consumed with homesickness, and the next all she wanted was tobelonghere. Like Thea did.
A clammy feeling crawled over her, but she dragged herself out of the cot and slid to the floor. She needed water. Her dreams—hazy and unformed—still lingered on her skin, and her stomach churned with the lingering sensation of a narrow escape.
Shuddering, she eased downstairs to the shower.
The house was silent and cold. She rushed in the shower and crawled back up the ladder to her warm attic. Sitting on the floor, she steadily combed out the snarls in her hair until she felt like she might be able to stand up. She pulled on a sweatshirt, sunglasses, and hat, and shoved a cold Gatorade under her arm on her way out the door.
She didn’t know what to do next. It was the day before all over again. Except, somehow, she had to do something different.
Unscrewing the Gatorade cap, she carefully took a sip, and sank into a chair on the porch. The same Valley sat awash in sun. The same loneliness aching all around her.
The cool dry wind gusted, lifting the heavy ends of her wet hair and stirring the oaks overhead. She closed her eyes, feeling it over every inch of her skin. The white lines of all the roads that had led her there, on that porch, ran through her mind and left her stomach churning again. She wanted to go home. She wanted to see Curtis. It was all she truly had. She had nothing here.
“Thea around?” A voice shattered the stillness.
Her eyes struggled to open.
Walker stood below. One leg up on the steps. He wore sunglasses, with a leather cord tucked behind his ears and around the back of his neck, and dust-smudged red track pants with blue stripes running down the sides. No shirt.
She shook her head. It hurt. The sweat from her bottle dripped over her fingers, onto her thighs. The wind flattened her hair against the rusty metal of the chair.
“Know where she is?”
Rilla unscrewed the cap and took another sip before answering. “I sure don’t.”
“You all right?”
