14

It isn’t until we’re behind the first motor home of the day that I realize just how long this trip is going to take. We’re lucky Christopher Haines is driving down with us even though he’s been a total suck-up to Mom. At least he’s a suck-up who knows the way to a house with a decent bathroom.

Mom’s face scrunches up in impatience as we inch up the serpentine roads, her fingers drumming on the steering wheel.

“Thank goodness for passing lanes,” she mutters as we accelerate past the bulky vehicle. We made a wrong turn somewhere, and now we’re backtracking through the valley floor. We slowly drive past campsites and cinder block bathrooms, skirting cyclists and hikers in an overabundance of plaid.

I shrug and look out the window again. The boulders are immense, making ants of those of us on the road with their incredible height. Wide-bottomed trees snuggle against the thin ribbon of road, and grass and wildflowers struggle to cover every available growing surface. Farther along, the sky seems almost within reach of the massive woods.

“Just look at those trees,” Mom sighs.

“They’re giant sequoias,” Chris says, well into his tour-guide act.

“So were you a Cub Scout or what?” I ask.

Chris laughs uncomfortably. “No.”

The little silence that follows makes me happy, even though I know my mother is glaring at me in the rearview mirror. I deliberately lean toward the window and look up. We’re dwarfed by dramatic granite cliffs and looming chains of snow-capped mountains. It’s actually gorgeous out here.

“So, Chris? What are those little brown metal boxes? Do they recycle up here?” Mom points out the window.

Chris looks over his sunglasses. “They’re bear boxes.”

Mom gives a theatrical shudder. “Bear boxes? There are bears?”

I roll my eyes at Mom’s theatrical shivers. “Well, we’re in the woods.”

Chris grins. “Pretty much anything will get into your food—or your car—if you leave it out, and nothing stops a bear from eating something unless he can’t get to it.”

“It’s not like that’s an issue since we’re staying in a cabin.” I don’t address my comment to anyone in particular, but my mother knows I’m talking to her.

“Well, it’s just an issue when you put out garbage,” Chris corrects me. “But the Dumpsters are pretty far from the cabins, and they lock too.” He turns back to Mom.

“Bears aren’t really a problem, Mrs. Seifert. I’ve seen a couple of bears up here before, and mostly they’re pretty nonaggressive.”

Whatever. I roll down the window and smell the air, tinged with pine and wood smoke. When we were packing, Mom left a box on the counter for any seasonings and specialty items from the kitchen she thought I’d want, since cooking in the back of beyond is bound to be a little limited. As I look at the long stretches of woods and quaint A-frames, I wish I’d packed more than fresh herbs and dried spices. I feel like I should’ve brought the whole refrigerator. Plus pots.

“Tent-cabins are what they call those little huts.” Chris points out a distant campsite from his post in the front passenger seat. “They’ve got outlets. You can bring a heater.” Mom makes some agreeable noises about tents and camping in general, like she’s an expert, and I shake my head in disbelief. Chris offered to sit in back when we got started, but Mom told him he’d better navigate, and then she proceeded to yak for three hours. It’s taking forever to get to the cabin. Between tourists braking abruptly and pulling over to snap pictures of the gushing waterfalls, ground squirrels, tall trees, and patches of snow in the woods and Mom not actually listening to Chris when he tells her to turn, I’m going insane. Plus, Mom’s been doing this subtle interrogation thing the entire drive, asking Chris about his grades, his friends, and his college choices, which I think is pointless. After this long cooped up in the car, even if he were someone interesting, he’d be working my last nerve. He’s just too patient, and he and Mom are having too much fun.

“The old Wawona Hotel is just off that way,” Chris continues, pointing. “They’ve got a Pioneer Center or something around there too, you know, horses and buggies and that kind of thing.”

“Oh, Lainey should like that,” Mom says brightly, her eyes checking for my reaction in her mirror.

Chris laughs. “Yeah, it was pretty good when I was about eight or nine.”

“Oh.” Mom smiles again. “Well, I’m looking forward to seeing it anyway.”

He shrugs. “There’s a nice golf course out there, uh, the Mariposa Grove, and…the Wawona has a decent restaurant. Maybe you’d like to go, huh, Lainey? You think?”

The thin bubble of personal space I’d constructed between the front and back seats pops abruptly. What? Did he just ask me out? Is he kidding me? “I didn’t bring any clothes…. Actually, I thought I’d…um…cook something.”

“Lainey,” Mom chides, “where’s your sense of fun? That place is a national landmark, and they’ve got a world-famous chef!”

“She’s just not in vacation mode yet,” Chris says agreeably.

“Whatever,” I mutter.

“You can cook us something tonight,” Mom says, trying to sound placating. I sigh and look out the window.

“It’s a nice place,” Chris says, turning around. He seems very intent. “You’d like it. We should go.”

I blink at him. He’s practically ordering me to go out with him.

“Chris…”

“Mom and Dad are having some friends of theirs over tomorrow night,” Chris adds. “It’s a card party. It’ll be more fun to go out. You’ll thank me.” He shrugs.

“Fine.” I have no idea why he thinks his company is preferable to his parents’, but I’ll say just about anything at this point to get him to turn around and leave me alone already.

The cabin isn’t as posh-looking as I expected, at least from the outside. It’s old and comfortable, an A-frame nestled beneath tall trees with dark-stained redwood decks and leaf litter on the stairs. There’s a sweet, piney smell in the air. It’s quiet, except for the sounds filtering from the cabin across the street, which is filled with hyperactive adults running up and down the stairs, unloading their SUV.

Mr. and Mrs. Haines meet us at the door, looking relaxed and happy. When I see Mr. Haines, I realize how much Christopher takes after his mom, who shares his olive coloring, broad shoulders, and dark wavy hair. Mrs. Haines is wearing a bright floral wrap skirt, T-shirt, and clogs, and I feel sweaty and overdressed in my jeans and hoodie. Mr. Haines looks like a Clark Kent–type dad, mild-mannered, tall, and soft-spoken, wearing rimless glasses. His silvery hair is cropped military short, in contrast to Chris’s twisty mop.

“Welcome! We’re so glad you could make it!” Mrs. Haines says, enveloping Mom in a big hug. As always, she talks a mile a minute, inquires about the drive (isn’t it gorgeous?), exclaims over the traffic (it was horrendous!), thanks Mom for fetching Chris from school, kisses him soundly on the forehead (earning herself a look of mild reproof), and generally makes our appearance a noisy and confusing event. Mr. Haines shakes my hand, takes the box of kitchen stuff we brought from home, and retreats behind the dining room table with a vague smile. He must do that a lot.

“Thanks for inviting us, Mrs. Haines,” I mutter dutifully in the limited space between Mom’s gushing and Mrs. Haines’s welcome.

“Oh, you’re grown up now, Elaine—you’re old enough now to call me Ana,” she insists, squeezing my shoulder with a friendly hand. “We’re so glad you’re here. But we’ll catch up later—Christopher, show them their rooms!”

Mom and Mrs. Haines have chattered away any feeling of awkwardness I might have had about spending time in the cabin. It is clean and comfortable-looking, and the airy rooms make me think of reading quietly during long evenings and getting up early to see the sun. The carpeting upstairs is straight out of the seventies, some kind of brown pile, but it’s soft and thick. The walls are a light tan instead of the homestead pine planks I expected, and the bedroom has bunk beds. Mom’s right on my heels when Chris shows us where to dump our stuff and points out the bathrooms.

“Do you want the bottom bunk?” Mom asks politely. I shrug. What I really want is for her not to share a room with me, but I can see she’s going to, and she’s going to be chipper and upbeat and ignore the fact that I’m grumpy and not really speaking to her.

I dump my stuff on the bed and call out to Chris, “So, is there anyplace to get groceries around here?”

“We’re mostly stocked.” Chris appears in the hallway. “Mom and Dad usually take care of the shopping on their last day and then buy fresh stuff the next time. Is there anything special you wanted? What do you want to cook?”

“Whatever.” I shrug, suddenly feeling tired.

“Don’t you usually cook at home?” Chris wants to know.

“Well…”

“Oh, Lainey, don’t be modest! This girl has won contests.” My mother comes out of the room and places a hand lightly on my shoulder. “Why don’t you two go in the kitchen and see what you need? I saw a grocery store on the way up if you want anything more.”

If I wanted to cook before, I fully don’t want to now. I turn around and give her a look.

“Lainey…go. Show your stuff, huh?” Mom pushes me toward the stairs.

Gritting my teeth, I go down to the main level. Mrs. Haines—Ana—has put out soda and a plate of vegetables, dip, and chips on the counter, with paper plates for us to help ourselves. The pantry is open. Mrs. Haines looks like she’s taking inventory, and on the counter are boxes of breakfast cereal and biscuit mix, cans of beans, boxes of pasta, and frozen foods. Mrs. Haines straightens from putting something into a cabinet.

“Are you guys hungry yet? I was going to start dinner, but I haven’t been shopping yet, and I wasn’t sure what you wanted…. Lainey, what do you like to eat? Shall we order pizza? Curry Village actually has a place where we can pick some up, or get burgers, or—”

“Lainey’s cooking,” Chris announces. He seats himself on a bar stool. “She’s an amazing baker; she always brings stuff to Vocal Jazz—you’ve got to taste something of hers.”

Chris makes it sound like I came just for the sole purpose of cooking a meal for him. “No! I don’t have to! I just thought—”

Ana interrupts with great enthusiasm. “Marvelous! Christopher, stay in the kitchen and pick up some pointers from this, huh? You’ll be cooking for yourself when you go away to college next year.”

I am the focus of three pairs of interested eyes as the Haines family lines up on the other side of the bar and watches my progress. I want a cooking show someday, but this studio audience is way too close. If I were at home, this would be a piece of cake. Cake… I see a box of mix. But we can’t have that for dinner. “Um…”

Without my notebooks, I’m lost. This is my vacation. I wasn’t planning on showing off for anyone but myself.

“Well…” My mind is gibbering as I survey my domain. Where’s Saint Julia when I need her? The kitchen is huge, with a gas range, a double oven, what looks like some kind of grill backed by a brick wall, and lots and lots of pine drawers and cabinets.

“Uh…” I’m rescued by the sight of a bag of apples. “If you have an apple corer…”

Ana frowns. “Well…no. But will a knife…?”

“No problem,” I say quickly, switching gears from the baked apple idea I was going to use. “Christopher, if you could slice some apples…”

“Apple pie?” he asks shrewdly.

No dice, smart guy. I can’t stand making pastry crusts. “Crumble.”

“Huh.” Chris sounds mystified.

The quick dessert is already in my head, but with five people, I’ve got to make something else reasonably speedy and filling. Chris gets busy slicing the four apples I handed him, and I leave him to his mother’s interference (“Thinner, honey. She said ‘thin.’”) and ponder the main event. I cast around, desperately looking at the groceries on the counter. Mom and I usually have fresh food around the house, but the canned beans and chicken broth give me an idea. If only there’s some frozen corn…. I grimace when I find canned, but it’s better than nothing.

“Chowder,” I mutter. What will I need? I strain to recall an episode of a Jacques Pépin cooking show. Then Mr. Haines brings over the box of ingredients from home, and I take a deep breath with relief. My cilantro is a frothy green flag, waving me onward. I fill a glass with water and stuff the herb into it after snipping off the stems. This way, it will be fresh for a while longer.

“Need any help?” Mom appears at my side, beaming smugly.

I ignore her expression. “Menu suggestions,” I say, feeling overwhelmed. “I’m thinking a corn chowder with maybe some muffins?”

“Oh, I have a mix,” Ana interjects. “I found one in the back of the pantry.”

My mother gives me a level look, and I return it. Mix. We never use mix. That’s blasphemy at our house. But it’s better than nothing by far. “Thank you,” I say fervently. I turn to my mother.

“Do you think there’s hominy at the store?”

“Hominy? Well, I’ll look.” Mom purses her lips doubtfully. “If not, it’ll be fine without, won’t it?”

I nod. I prefer to have everything I need when I cook, but you can’t think of everything.

“If you’re going to the store, I’ll go with you, Vivi,” Ana announces. “Loren’s coming down Tuesday night—I think we’ll need a little more food. At least some frozen pizza. Loren eats like a sumo wrestler. You know that boy tries to live solely on ramen noodles at school?”

“Apples are done,” Chris announces.

“Great. You guys have a muffin tin?”

“Uh…” Chris starts slamming cupboards. “Think so…”

“Okay. Could you oil it and then crush me a package of graham crackers?”

Chris looks up. “Graham crackers?”

“Yep. All the way into crumbs, please.”

“What are you doing with graham crackers?”

I wish I knew. “A good sous-chef follows directions, Chris.”

“Right.” Chris grins. “I can do that.”

I give him a panicky little smile as I try to think of what to do next.

At least being put on the spot like this has pushed everything else out of my head. Mr. Haines is still watching me cook and offers to fill the muffin tin when I get the batter stirred. I’ve added some of the canned corn, drained, a can of chopped chilies, and some sliced, jalapeño-stuffed green martini olives to the mix to make it seem less commercial. Mr. Haines works with great concentration, filling each indentation to an exact depth in spite of the chunky texture of the batter by shaking the pan and occasionally smacking it on the surface of the counter to remove any air pockets. After a particularly loud slam against the counter, Chris and I share a glance of fleeting amusement. Mr. Haines carries on, carefully filling and leveling each muffin. I almost feel a little guilty that all we’re going to do is turn out his works of art and eat them.

The Haineses’ kitchen is all about canned, jarred, and boxed items, and it takes a while to find what I need. Chopped garlic is in a jar in the fridge, and I add a teaspoon of its pungent paste to about two tablespoons of olive oil in a deep saucepan. I add a chopped onion and a few scallions from home, wishing I’d packed more.

I don’t find the electric can opener until I’ve already opened a can of tomatoes with a manual opener and added them and about a half cup of salsa verde that I found in the back of the fridge, looking a little old but none the worse for wear. I open two cartons of vegetable broth I brought from home and measure four cups into the pot.

Both Mr. Haines and Chris look startled when I add a half teaspoon of cinnamon to the soup. I tense, not realizing that they were still watching me so closely. But they are my studio audience, after all.

“It’s good,” I promise them. “Really.” Aware of their dubious looks, I pull out my mortar and pestle and grind up about two teaspoons of cumin seeds. A pinch of thyme adds even more complexity to the dish. As soon as Mom gets back, I’ll add the canned hominy (may she please find some, oh please, please), chop the cilantro, and add the canned corn. I wish we had fresh. An investigation of the freezer doesn’t turn up any, but I do find some frozen fruit, a little treasure I keep in mind for later.

I assemble the dessert topping, using Chris’s crushed graham crackers seasoned with freshly ground nutmeg, two tablespoons of butter, two tablespoons of water, and a few spritzes of butter-flavored nonstick spray.

“Why do you use butter and butter spray both?” Mr. Haines asks, looking up from his muffin construction.

“Oh! Well, to start with, it’s lower fat,” I blurt in my best cooking show voice, and then freeze. Nice one, Lainey. My neck heats in shame.

“Good to know.” Mr. Haines nods. Chris flicks me a glance but doesn’t comment.

I feel like an idiot. Unnerved, I go for another rummage in the freezer. Finding frozen peaches makes my embarrassment seem less important. I drag them out gleefully, not even allowing the words enhanced with natural flavors (who knows what those are?) to dim my happiness. The addition of peaches will make the crumble phenomenal.

Mr. Haines is taking the muffins out when Mom and Ana get back almost an hour later. Mom hands me a big bag of frozen corn with a look of restrained triumph.

Thank goodness. “Oh! Great. Did you find…?”

Mom hands me a can with Spanish and English labeling, and I relax. “Hominy. Perfect.”

I dump in the hominy and get Chris started alternating the apples on the bottom of the graham cracker crust with a layer of peaches atop them. The peaches are frozen, but he and Mr. Haines eat more than a couple before the job gets done. Ana contributes a cup of her high-fiber breakfast cereal, crushed, which I add to a cup of plain rolled oats moistened with milk and a half cup of sugar to make the paste, which will bake into a crunchy topping for the fruit.

Chris eyes the chunky concoction over the fruit. “You got ice cream, right, Mom?”

“I did,” Ana says.

“We even got some of the kind you like,” Mom tells me, and I smile sheepishly.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I mutter. Mom shrugs and smiles. In spite of myself, I feel a little warmer toward her right now. It’s true she’s being unreasonable about everything and dragging me on this stupid vacation, but it’s hard to carry a grudge against someone who buys you a pricey little pint of soy ice cream out in the boonies.

The muffins are fragrant and golden brown. The soup is mildly spicy and delicious, the savory cilantro and juicy frozen corn a flavorful last-minute addition. The hominy is bland and creamy, the perfect comfort food. There is a complimentary silence as the first bites are taken.

“Nice job. You outdid yourself,” Mom murmurs.

“Elaine, this is amazing,” Ana gushes. “You have got to teach Christopher to cook!”

Chris gives them a disgusted look, and his parents share a laugh at his expense. Then Ana launches into a story about the first time she experienced hominy grits, somewhere in Charleston, South Carolina. Mr. Haines counters with an explanation of what hominy is and how it is made. I make short work of a muffin (it’s decent, even for a mix) as he explains how the early Americans used a samp mill to grind the grains and an ash hopper to rinse wood ashes and create the lye, which was used to soften the tough outer kernel of corn. As Mr. Haines talks, Chris gives me a sideways glance, his expression measuring, but I barely notice him. Mr. Haines, once he finally starts to talk, is really interesting.

“Are you a history teacher?” I ask him.

He smiles, suddenly awkward again, and I see a quick shadow of a vulnerable Chris in his expression. “Nope. Engineer.”

“He watches cooking shows,” Ana explains fondly, giving his hand a squeeze.

A kindred spirit!

Everyone makes a big fuss over the soup, but dessert is a hit I didn’t expect. The raisins in Ana’s cereal got plumped up with the peach juice and are exclamation points of flavor throughout the chewy, crunchy topping. The rich sweetness of the peaches is contrasted with the more-tart flavor of the apples. Chris smothers his serving in ice cream, then offers a scoop to me.

“Oh, no thanks,” I say. I’ve eaten more than I should have.

“It’s good,” Chris coaxes. “It’s vanilla bean.”

“Well, okay,” I agree awkwardly, and scrape out about a teaspoonful from the scoop. He’s incredulous but puts the scoop back into the carton and passes it along the table.

Everyone is clearing the table, groaning from fullness. Ana tells me I should sit and not do anything, but I get up good-naturedly and take my plate to the dishwasher. Christopher is bagging the leftover raw vegetables.

“Hey, Lainey. You’re not…on a diet or something, are you?”

“Christopher Sebastian Haines,” says Ana, catching his comment. “Really!”

“No, I was just saying.” Chris ducks his head, embarrassed. “You shouldn’t be. I mean, if you are. You look, uh, fine. I mean, okay. You know, good.”

My skin tightens with embarrassed heat as blood rushes to my face and neck. For a moment, I’m silenced by disbelief. Christopher Haines is hitting on me? My life has reached a new low. “Um…thanks.” I look around uncomfortably. “I…um, I’m going for a walk.”

“Oh, Christopher, you should go with her. Walk down with her to the river. If you’re quiet out there, you might see some wildlife.”

“If we’re that still, we’re going to come back with malaria from mosquito bites,” Chris mutters.

My mother says, “Long pants, long sleeves, and repellent. Remember the West Nile.”

“Watch out for the long grass,” Mr. Haines says mildly.

The grass? I shoot Chris a bewildered look.

“Deer ticks,” he says pleasantly. “They hang on to the tips of long grass blades and then jump on you when they feel your body heat. They give you Lyme disease.”

I flinch. Maybe I don’t want to go outside.

This far from home, the light seems to linger longer. The sun is filtering crookedly through the trees as we walk down the front stairs and away from the house. I wish Chris weren’t with me. Everything he says makes me feel uncomfortable, and he keeps on talking to fill the silence. I’m horrified by what he said. Does he really think I look “good,” or was that just him being polite? I’m even more horrified that I care.

“Lainey. Wait up,” Chris orders. I’d started away from him at a brisk walk, and I’m not ready to slow down.

“Keep up,” I call over my shoulder, and keep going. I’m aware I’m being difficult but don’t know what else to do. My plan for this vacation was not to spend moonlit nights walking by the river with Christopher Haines.

Chris closes the distance between us easily. “Wait. I’m supposed to be showing you the wildlife. Slow down.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m not sure I want to find it.” I keep striding. I hear his shoes crunch the pine needles on the road as he jogs to catch up.

There’s a silence as he catches up and walks at a stiff-legged lope to match my pace. I’m practically running just to keep him from walking right next to me. Finally, he shoves his hands in his jacket pockets and stops. “Lainey…,” he sighs. “What did I ever do to you?”

Oh no. I slow to a guilty walk, my face flaming. “Chris—”

Chris interrupts. “Never mind. Look, I just was going to say I was glad you guys came, that’s all. I wasn’t looking forward to just hanging with my folks all week, and Loren’s probably bringing friends down too, so I’m glad you’re here. That’s all I was going to say.”

I stop in the middle of the path, feeling a moth blunder into my head. “Yeah, thanks, Ch…Topher. It was cool of your parents to invite us. I’m…It’ll be fun.”

“Yeah?” Chris brightens visibly; even in the darkness I can see him standing up taller, straighter. My words making such a huge difference to him immediately depresses me.

“Let’s walk.” I start off again.

We move out of the trees and up a little rise where we can better see the sky, which is slate blue with a flaming rosy glow that fades to the palest of pink-washed gold. Chris continues his nature walk, pointing out bats making their graceless flight between the dark sentinels of trees. At least a hundred times I open my mouth to ask him how many badges he got in Cub Scouts or whatever, but I stop myself. He’s trying to be nice. I sigh and nod like I actually care.

A whine in my ear alerts us to mosquitoes, and we hurry back to the house, pulling our sweatshirts up around our necks. We’re almost to the door when Christopher, kicking a pinecone, says, “So…you and Keller still going out?”

What? I stumble on something invisible, then recover. “Who even said we were?”