The sun is setting by the time we finish eating and pile back into Jeb’s truck. The sky gets darker as we leave town, cross the bridge over the river and drive up the dirt road into the forest. The road is narrow, bumpy and steep. Now and then we have to pull over, leaning halfway into the ditch, to make room for the headlights of another vehicle coming toward us. Finally, the truck grinds up a set of switchbacks and reaches the top of the ridge. Jeb parks on the side of the road.
It’s not a campsite, really. It’s a patch of hard-packed dirt, with a few rocks and weeds sticking out. In the center of the patch, three logs surround a ring of stones. Inside the ring, a pile of charred embers marks a sign of campfires past. The moon, nearly full, floats above a mass of thick gray clouds. Mosquitoes throng around us.
Rusty gets a campfire going by the light of his headlamp. He spears three marshmallows on a stick and roasts them. “Sugar.” He pops the gooey mess into his mouth. “My drug of choice.”
“You’re gonna need treatment, boy,” Jeb says. “Rehab. Sucralose injections.”
Rusty grins. “I’m not an addict.” He spears more marshmallows on his stick. “I’ve got it under control.”
I fish a marshmallow out of the bag and set it to roast over the fire. I hold it steady in that sweet spot where it will turn crispygolden without catching on fire.
Jeb plunks himself down next to me. “You’re mighty quiet.” I scootch over to give him some room. Jeb’s a footballplayer—the kind of guy whose shoulders take up two seats on a Greyhound bus. “Thinkin’ about movin’?” he says.
“Yeah, that and college,” I say.
“You don’t sound too keen.”
“No. I guess I’m not.” When I applied, it seemed to make sense to go back to the University of Vermont. That’s where most of my high school friends are going. After all, I have only been in Arkansas for a year. I followed my mom on a visiting professorship position at the University of Fayetteville.
Vermont’s home, kind of. Mom’s a poetry professor. So we moved around a lot while I was growing up. Turns out there aren’t a lot of full-time jobs for people whose only skill is picking apart metaphors. So Mom moved from one little New England college to another, always hunting for a better position. I was happy when she got a tenure-track position at the University of Vermont four years ago, and I thought we would finally stay inone place. But last year, my senior year of high school, she decided to take the Fayetteville job. So we moved to Arkansas, of all places.
If I hadn’t met Rusty and Jeb, if they hadn’t taught me to rock climb, my life this year would have been a total write-off. But I did meet them. And they introduced me to a different way of living. I was just starting to get the hang of climbing. I was just starting to enjoy being out here. And now, I have to move again. I’m not so sure I want to go back.
“What is it you’re fixin’ to study?” says Jeb.
“General arts,” I say, without enthusiasm. “History. English lit. Philosophy.”
“Sounds practical,” Jeb says sarcastically. He’s only ribbing me, but this comment touches a nerve.
I reel in my marshmallow. It is caramel on the outside and nearly liquid in the center. Perfect.
“Okay, smarty,” I say through a mouthful of marshmallow. “What’s your plan?”
Jeb shrugs. “Get a job. Pay off my truck. Move out. Get my own place.”
“What about long-term?”
“Save up for a high-def TV,” he answers. “Watch lots of sports.”
I slap him on his granite-hard shoulder. “You’re pathetic.”
“You should take outdoor ed, Vanisha,” Rusty says from his log on the other side of the campfire. “You’d be good at it.”
The truth is, Rusty’s the only one of us who knows what he’s doing with his life. He’s already started studying to be an ambulance attendant. He jumped right into the summer semester after high school finished in June. He’ll be great at it too. Rusty never panics in an emergency. He never seems to have a moment of doubt about anything he’s doing. Unlike me.
“I can’t take outdoor ed. My mom would never pay for it,” I say. “She doesn’t think it’s a ‘real’ university degree.”
“Whattya mean ‘real’?” says Jeb.
“You know, like history or philosophy. Or science,” I say. I wish I was good at science. Then at least I could be something practical, like a doctor or a veterinarian. “She thinks you’re not well-educated unless you have a real university degree.”
“Well, ’scuse my dumb ass for livin’,” drawls Jeb, laying on a hillbilly accent.
“I didn’t say I agreed with it.”
“But you’re going along with it,” says Rusty. “Come on, Vanisha. What do you really want to do with your life?”
I shrug. But the truth is, lately, I’ve had a crazy idea in my head. I want to do something different. Something adventurous. Something meaningful. I picture myself rappelling out of helicopters and saving people from drowning. I imagine combing the woods for lost children. Or digging out skiers buried alive in avalanches.
But what do I know about that stuff? I was never even interested in the outdoors before I met Jeb and Rusty. And what if I’m no good at it? What if people die on my watch?
Doesn’t it make more sense to go to university, like I’m supposed to? Go get my BA and a job in an office somewhere,or in government? Or become a professor like my mother, writing essays about dead poets and publishing them in journals nobody reads?
My mom would admire me if I became a professor. She’d look down on me if I didn’t get a real university degree. Besides, I’ve already been accepted to the University of Vermont. Mom’s paid the tuition deposit. School starts in two weeks.
So I hesitate at this crux of my life. I’m afraid to make the move I know I should. Just like I hesitate at the crux of Edge of Flight.
Jeb yawns and goes to pull his mat and sleeping bag out of the truck. He and Rusty bed down on the ground beside the campfire.
But I just sit on the log, stare into the fire and wonder why I can’t make a decision that would put my life on a different course.
Jeb wriggles into his sleeping bag. He lays his head at my feet, like a loyal Saint Bernard. He looks up at me. “You can sleep in the back of the truck, if you’re a-skeered of the critters,” he says.
“I’m not a-skeered of the critters,” I say. I glance up at the dark clouds. “I just don’t want to get rained on.”
I take my sleeping bag and mat from the truck and lie down on the ground next to the guys. I ignore the rustlings in the underbrush, the mosquitoes droning in my ears, the faint sounds of hunters’ voices drifting through the dark woods and the thought of bikers with tattoos and leather jackets.
I close my eyes and try to sleep.
I am practicing not wimping out.