Page 51 of The Chaperones

Emmy, the park ranger

Although there aren’t official work hours on the island, our responsibilities generally end with dinner. I make one final round of both loops to ensure everyone has returned from their hikes, that they know how to start their camping stoves, the only fire allowed on the island.

I pull up next to the kitchen, where Raymond is stirring one of the largest pots I’ve ever seen.

He holds a hand up in greeting. “Soup will be ready in a half hour. I promise it’s worth the wait,” he says. While it smells amazing, I’m bone tired, ready for this day and all its anxieties to be over.

“I have no doubt that’s ten times better than the frozen ravioli waiting for me back at my cabin, but I’m spent. Thanks, though.”

“I’ll pretend I’m not offended that you’re choosing frozen food over me.”

“No, it’s not—”

“Emmy, I’m joking. If you change your mind and want to drive down for a bowl to take back to your cabin, I’d be delighted to provide you with something a little more soul filling.”

The ease with which he says my name gives me goose bumps, like I could run into him on the streets of Ventura and he would remember me. Not that Raymond Zhao strolls the streets of Ventura. Or would recognize me out of context. He’s just very good at his job.

“I may take you up on that,” I say, knowing that I won’t. Despite my love of his show, food is food to me. Frozen ravioli or fresh noodles. Sustenance is sustenance. Not that I would dare tell Raymond Zhao that.

Near the kitchen area, the parents have set up a hangout spot. I clock the open bottles of wine and the beer cans amassing in and around the trash bags on the ground. We don’t have any policies about open containers, so long as the campers clean up after themselves. Still, it makes me uneasy that it’s not even nightfall and already the parents are slurring their words, cackling as the wind threatens to steal their hats, oblivious to their children, who run wild across camp. It’s cool enough that they’re all wearing their matching fleece coats, which look almost cultish. By the small grove of eucalyptus trees, the art teacher sits on the ground with a circle of children. She peers over and nods at me, her wide eyes promising that she’ll watch over everyone, even those too old to be her charges. I bow my head in thanks at our unspoken agreement.

At the lower loop, everyone has started to prepare dinner. There’s booze here too. It’s more covert, though. I stop to chat with two women who are doing a girls’ trip. They joke that they needed an ocean and no cell service to guarantee their husbands wouldn’t call them about bedtime routines and iPad passwords. I drive slowly around the loop, aware that I’ll have to pass site eleven. When I pull to a stop at his campsite, John Smith is crouched behind his blue tent. It feels suspicious at first, until I realize that it’s the only place where his stove is protected from the wind.

I cut the engine on my UTV, but I don’t hop out.

“All good here?” My body feels charged. I clock the service arm at my hip, the radio and body cam hooked to my bulletproof vest. I’m in control, even as it feels like I’m not.

“All good,” he says without coming around from behind the tent, where I’d have a clear view of him. “Have a nice night.”

I drive away, telling myself he’s just a weirdo. We get lots of odd folks on the island. In my experience, it’s the charismatic types, not the rude loners, who are the greatest threat. This guy wants to be left alone. So, I’ll leave him alone. I follow the path until it intersects with the fire road up to my cabin. I stop when I see Joaquin at the kayak center, pulling down the boards on the kiosk.

“You ready for tonight?” I ask.

Joaquin shoots me a toothy smile. It makes me melt a little.

“We’ve taken this land from Hutash, and now we must repent.” He holds his arms up in surrender to a gust of wind. Joaq was an acting major in college and tends toward the theatrical.

I laugh, which he takes as an opening, approaching the side of my vehicle. He’s near enough that I can smell the ocean on him. This is as close as he ever gets, within reach if I want to grab him. Sometimes I do. When we’re left alone on Little Scorp after all the other guides and rangers have conveniently disappeared. When he walks me back to my cabin after the parties the adventure company throws every night. Sometimes, I’ll take his hand and lead him inside. I’ll say yes when he asks if he can kiss me. Yes, he can take off my shirt, then his. If I say no, he never gets angry or disappointed. Just pecks me on the cheek and says he’ll see me later. Joaq lives in Ventura, too, yet we’ve never spent time together off the island. I know he wants to take me to a restaurant, that he wants to be together. I know this limbo isn’t fair to him, especially since I’ve never told him why I’m so scared of letting him in. But Joaq’s intuitive. A few weeks ago, the last time I said yes, we were lying in my bed, and his hands were combing my hair. “Someone must have really hurt you,” he whispered. At first I was startled. Offended, even. The presumption. But the look on his face was so gentle, so loving, that I was consumed by sadness. My scars were so obvious I couldn’t hide them from this kind, safe man, a man I will never let myself love.

“How was the school kayak trip?” I ask him.

“Oh, shit, no one told you.” Joaquin bounces excitedly as he reenacts one of the mothers pushing a kid in. “Thought I’d heard it all,” he says, laughing.

“Was the kid okay?” They must have been, if it’s already become lore.

“I’d be more worried about the mom who pushed her in. Retaliation and all. You know how these families are.”

I don’t know how they are. I can tell he doesn’t either.

“Well, until tomorrow morning, they’re no longer my problem,” I say disingenuously. Every night I tell myself that I put the campers out of my mind as soon as I lock up my firearm and turn off my body cam and radio. I never lose sight of the fact that I’m still on the clock, though. That I’m the only EMT on the island.

“You coming to Little Scorp?” His casualness is forced and transparent.

“Not tonight.” He nods, clearly disappointed. I want to say something to cheer him up, to tell him next time, but it’s over between us. He saw more than I wanted him to see.

As I drive up the hill, I can hear all the questions he will never ask lingering in the growing space between us. That familiar pang hits me. I’m being unfair to him. I don’t know how to be any other way.

When I arrive at our housing, the cabins are dark. Everyone’s already down at the beach for a sundowner. I head to my cabin to lock my gun in the safe. I leave the radio on my desk, plug in my body cam to charge, and remove my vest and hang it in my closet. With a quilt my mom made, a lamp I bought in college, and some photographs of my travels, I’ve done my best to make my cabin feel like home. While it isn’t much, it feels more mine than my apartment on the mainland.

I head to the kitchen to microwave a Trader Joe’s tikka masala. It pales in comparison to the soup Raymond Zhao offered me, but it’s done in a matter of minutes and doesn’t require me to make small talk. I take it outside and sit on the porch to watch the final shards of light fade. Everything around me is quiet, even the western gulls. I try to relax into the end of what has proved to be a relatively uneventful day. I’m always grateful when another day has passed with no incident. This feels especially true with these school families, with John Smith and the impending storm. A gust of wind roars up the side of the hill, reminding me that a lot more will happen before morning. It’s better that the storm is arriving at night, though, when everyone is in their tents and all they have to do is wait for it to pass. Still, I can’t fight the anticipation I always feel at a day with no boats. While it’s more peaceful on the island with no day-trippers, for the next twenty-four hours, we are entirely alone. Possibly longer. Until the storm passes, there’s no one who can help us.