Page 19 of Big & Lily

Lily runs her hands across the rustic wood plank walls as if she’s in an escape room. “Um, where’s the bathroom?”

“About forty yards away. You’ll see the sign. Just follow the trail. Toilets and showers.”

“Communal bathroom?”

“Don’t panic,” he says. “There’s running water, the hot generally lasts, and the pressure’s okay. Make sure you bring the pans with you.”

“The pans?” We ask in unison.

“Yeah, every cabin has ’em. To scare off the bears. They tend to wander into camp, especially after dinner. If you see or hear one clang the pans together. It usually does the trick. We’ll talk about bear safety later this evening, but the camp bears are more like Labradors. Not like the ones out there.” He points up to the ceiling. “No worries, though. You’ll all have bear spray, and I’ll be carrying, in the event of a situation gone too far. Although it rarely comes to that.”

Lily looks like she’s going to cry. My pulse thumps in my ears. This straw has broken the back. Nope. I can’t do this. Lily can have her little adventure. I’ll talk to Brick privately. There must be a flight out. Now that I have the wristbands and Mimi’s pills and an end goal, I’m willing, no, happy to fly back over the Chitina River and Kennicott ghost town and find a way back to Anchorage.

“I’ll leave you to it, ladies. Dinner’s in half an hour.”

After he closes the door, I put my hands on my hips. “You said this was one step away from a cruise. There’s no bathroom, Lily. It’s not even down the hall. It’s down a dirt path.”

“You knew you weren’t going to be at the Four Seasons, Big. We’re in the wilderness. Be a little wild.” Lily throws her cashmere pashmina over her shoulder with aplomb.

“Tell me you are totally fine with sharing a bathroom with strangers and Yogi Bear out there.”

“Whatever. I didn’t come here to be some uptight crank.”

When the knock comes, I realize how much our voices are raised. We are kids again, fighting over blow-dryer time or who took the last Ding Dong. We call a silent truce, and I open the door to Luna and Mimi.

“What’s going on in here?” asks Luna. “We can hear you in our cabin.”

My face is hot with embarrassment. Bickering sisters, what a cliché. What no one can discover, according to Lily, is that my sister is out of her mind with stress and fear and grief. She’s working so hard at hiding it from everyone that it comes shooting out at me like a missile, and I’m so nauseated and jet-lagged and overwhelmed by this whole situation that I can’t rise above and keep it together when she goads. What a pair. Honestly, it’s another reason to head home. Lily can redirect her emotions into something useful and productive instead of at her favorite target.

“I’m sorry. We’re just tired,” I say. “Don’t mind us.”

Luna raises an eyebrow. “I know why you two are here.”

Lily freezes. She has been working hard at this. “We’re on vacation. See the world and all that. Don’t want to be one of those geocentric Americans.”

“We’reinAmerica, Lily,” I say. I can’t help myself even knowing it could set her off again and we’d have another battle royale in front of our new friends.

“Oh, you know what I meant.” She flaps her ringless hand at them. “Just here to see what it’s all about. The mountains are calling and we must go,” she says, paraphrasing the wall art in our room.

“No,” says Luna. “Your purpose is higher than that. I can feel it.”

“Luna feels things,” whispers Mimi. “Important things.”

Luna wraps an arm around her wife and gives her a quick squeeze. For a moment they both seem terribly sad, but Luna breaks whatever spell is cast over them. “Dinner? Who else is starving besides me?”

Lily, who wants to stop the conversation about higher purposes, shouts, “I am!” Then she links arms with me, in a weird show of solidarity or to prove the point that Luna doesn’t need to feel any important things about us, and we all head to the barn where Brick had said dinner would be served.

After the monastery-like cabins and the communal bathrooms down the bear trail, I don’t expect much from dinner in a weather-beaten barn—sammies from the Yeti and seating on bales of hay. I couldn’t be more wrong. We approach the open sliding barn doors and see golden light spilling out of the building. Inside, a long farm table is set for dinner, with white plates, vases of wildflowers, and candles that reflect off the glasses and cutlery. Twinkle lights drape the rafters. For a second my breath catches—it’s magic. And, just as suddenly, the reverie is broken as Lily makes a beeline to find a seat next to Just Normal Dane.

“Excellent, you’re all here,” says Brick as we take seats.

The table is flanked by two long benches with cushions that match the cloth napkins. Through another door, Jace and a woman with a long braid and a bandana around her head enter carrying large trays of food.

“This is the best grub you’re going to find in Wrangell-St. Elias, folks. And I’m not just saying that because the chef, Heidi, is the owner of my only drinking establishment,” says Brick.

“Ha, and your sister who used to beat you up when we were kids. And still can.” Heidi says.

“She’s not wrong about that,” he says, holding up his hands in mock defense. “Folks, you’re all in for a treat.”