From the vista point on Rabun Bald, the Blue Ridge Mountains cascaded in the distance, giving way to the rolling foothills. Mary Kate closed her eyes and tried to imagine the view from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, the one she would see in exactly twenty-one days.
As she started down the steep slope, the loose gravel rolled under her left boot, throwing her off balance. She went into automatic recovery mode, jamming the pole into the dirt to stop her slide. Just as she was congratulating herself for avoiding a fall, her right foot skidded out from under her, dumping her on her behind. Tom Muncie was right about the descent being every bit as tough as going up, and requiring far more concentration. Her knees were throbbing, and the heavy pack had pounded into her lower back with each step until she figured out that adjusting the straps across her stomach helped her carry it higher.
This trial run up the second-highest peak in Georgia had been a success. The blooming bruise on her backside notwithstanding, she had done everything Tom had recommended in the brochure to test herself for the Kilimanjaro climb—two straight days of hiking steep, rugged terrain, fourteen miles in all. She was tired, but not exhausted. With that goal behind her, she was confident there wouldn’t be any surprises two weeks from now when she started up the real mountain.
All of her new equipment had checked out. The backpack she had ordered over the Internet was perfect for a day hike. It had a built-in water bladder that held two liters, with a hose that clipped to her shoulder strap so she wouldn’t have to reach around for a drink. The deep inner pouch was big enough for a fleece jacket, a rain poncho and an extra pair of shoes and socks, none of which she had needed this weekend, but she wanted to get used to carrying them. Her first-aid kit was stuffed into one of the pouches, along with a few snacks and an extra bottle of water. The webbed pockets on the outside held her camera and binoculars.
The best news was that her feet felt great, thanks to the fact she had worn her boots practically everywhere but church for the last three months. Tom said the loudest complaints on Kili came from hikers who bought brand-new boots and didn’t break them in. Now she had done everything she could to prepare. The rest would come down to how well she handled the altitude, which was four times higher than she had hiked today in the Smokies.
She couldn’t believe it was almost time to go, her six months of planning and preparation nearly over. She wished she were leaving tomorrow, but that had more to do with getting away from Mooresville than with going to Africa. She was tired of trying to explain to practically everybody why she wanted to do this, and especially why she didn’t want Bobby to come along.
If only he had been reasonable last February, when she watched the documentary at his apartment. He had been working on the school budget that night, paying little attention to the television. From the get-go, he said it was stupid, that it wasn’t such a big deal to climb Kilimanjaro because practically anybody could do it. But Mary Kate was fascinated by the idea and asked him right then if he would do it with her. He said no, that he would rather spend his vacation relaxing on the beach. Unable to get it out of her head, she checked out a few of the tour companies on the public TV Web site and found one that claimed a high success rate to the summit. Some of the routes had only a forty percent summit rate, and she showed that to Bobby so he could see that it wasn’t as simple as he thought. He blew her off again, but by that time she was burning to do it, even if it meant going by herself.
Then out of the blue he changed his mind, announcing just last week that he had decided to come too. He said he didn’t want to have to worry about her the whole time she was gone, and if he went, he would make sure they made all the connections and met up with their group. The way Mary Kate saw it, that would have been marginally okay—his natural condescension aside—if he had changed his mind a few months ago and started working out with her and taking the whole thing seriously. The fact that he waited until the last minute to be patronizing pissed her off. And of course, he had made his big declaration during Sunday dinner in front of her whole family, prompting her mom and dad to say how relieved they were. Her sister Carol Lee had practically swooned.
That’s when the fireworks started, because Mary Kate had simply said thanks, but no thanks, and to pass her the cornbread. Everyone at the table froze and looked at her as if she had asked for heroin, so she just leaned over and got the cornbread herself. Then they started talking all at once, and after she had her bread buttered, she explained that she wanted to go by herself, that’s how she had planned it for five months, and now she was looking forward to doing it on her own. Besides, he hadn’t trained at all, and she didn’t want to have to keep stopping and waiting for him to catch his breath.
She could still hear him whine, and couldn’t resist mocking him, even though he wasn’t around to hear it. “It’s just a hike, Mary Kate. Anybody can do it.” She shook her head thinking she needed to stop thinking about all of this if it was going to make her talk to herself. Besides, this weekend wasn’t about him. It was about her making sure she was ready to go.
Her best friend Deb Demers had suggested this place for her trial run. Rabun Bald, at almost five thousand feet, was the ideal place to try out her gear and test her stamina. They had done this hike together four years earlier when Deb was going to college not far from here. Today was almost like old times, except Deb was waiting for her on a ridge down below. They had gone to the summit together yesterday, but Deb had been cussing her out ever since, especially last night when she was soaking in the tub at the motel. No way was Deb going to do another seven-mile hike today.
Other than her penchant for occasionally taking Mary Kate’s name in vain, friends didn’t come any better than Deb. When Bobby first said he didn’t want to go to Africa, Mary Kate had asked Deb to come, but Deb’s mother was sick with lupus, and sixteen days was too long to be gone.
The two of them had been practically inseparable in high school, which prompted a few spiteful rumors about them being lesbians, but they weathered that storm, thanks to Mary Kate’s mom being a teacher and basically telling everybody to knock it off or else. That had led to a humiliating mother-daughter talk, in which Mary Kate was advised to take a cue from her other classmates and go out with a few boys.
Of course, her mom didn’t know then what Mary Kate knew, which was that Deb really was a lesbian, and that she had seriously considered the possibility that she might be too. She had never been all that interested in boys, at least not like most of her friends were. The closest she had ever come to a crush back then was a fascination with Darcy Mathis, the prettiest girl in her high school, and again in college with her roommate Jessica. Her curiosity had led her to test the waters in college with Becky Dugan, a basketball teammate, but the spark wasn’t there. It was there for Becky, though, and Mary Kate hadn’t minded all that much. Gay people were just like everyone else as far as she was concerned, and she didn’t care what people at college thought about her. The people in Mooresville were a different matter, though, because that reflected on her whole family.
She caught a glimpse of Deb’s red shirt on the ridge right below and gave a yell. When she arrived at the ledge, she found her stretched out in the shade with a book.
“It’s about time you got here, Mary Kate. I already ate your lunch.”
“You better be lying, girl. I’ve been thinking about that sandwich for the last three hours.”
Deb pulled it out of the thermal bag and set it on the rock next to her. “Okay, I saved your sandwich, but I ate all the cookies.”
“All of them? There was a whole bag.”
“I know, but the chocolate chips were melting. I didn’t want you to get your new clothes all messy.”
Mary Kate looked down at her filthy shorts and shirt, then back at Deb, who was batting her eyes innocently. She poked the side of her boot with the sharp tip of her walking stick.
“Ow!”
“Big baby.”
“If you hurt me, you’ll have to carry me down on your back.”
“I can get you down a lot easier than that. I’ll just push you off.” Mary Kate dropped her backpack and collapsed beside it, remembering too late her new bruise.
“You got here sooner than I thought you would. Did you go all the way up?”
“Of course I did.”
“I guess it’s a lot quicker when you don’t have to drag somebody else’s ass behind you.”
“I’m too polite to say something like that.” She bit around the crust of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, saving the creamiest part for last.
“Since when?” Deb unscrewed the top from a sports drink and handed it to her. “You think you’re ready?”
Mary Kate answered with a nod and chased the peanut butter down her throat with the sports drink. “I wish I could leave tomorrow.”
“It’s just two more weeks.”
“I know. But I’ll be crazy by then. Especially if I have to listen to Bobby keep whining about not being able to come.”
“Say the word and I’ll kick his ass.”
Mary Kate had no doubt she could. Deb was as tough as they come. “Why should you get to have all the fun?”
“Why’s he being such a prick about this?”
Deb liked Bobby just fine, but only when Mary Kate did. When she was mad at him, Deb was even madder. That was a true friend. “He’s just being Bobby. He’s thinks he’s supposed to save the day because he’s a guy and I couldn’t possibly do this by myself.”
“I don’t know how you stand it. I’d have beaten the shit out of him by now.”
It wasn’t hard to picture her doing that, and it made Mary Kate laugh.
“Makes me glad I’m queer,” Deb said. “I don’t need to act all helpless just so some guy can feel like a big man.”
“You don’t think I’m acting helpless, do you?”
“No, and I bet that’s precisely what’s bugging him.”
She was probably right about that, Mary Kate thought. “Because he doesn’t get to play the knight in shining armor.”
“Right. I never have been able to figure out what you see in him.”
“Come on, you know he’s a nice guy.”
“He’s all right, I guess.”
That was probably the highest mark Deb could give him, so Mary Kate took it in stride. “He just avoids you because you beat up his brother.”
“Shit, that was eleven years ago.”
She laughed again, remembering it like it was yesterday. Deb had caught Corey Britton cheating off her math test, so she changed her answers and got him to copy the wrong numbers down. He got a zero on the test and told his friends it was because she was stupid. He couldn’t talk after that because his jaw was wired shut from the knuckle sandwich she fed him, and there wasn’t a soul in Mooresville who hadn’t heard the story and teased him about it.
“Bobby’s not a bad guy. He just has a lot of old-fashioned redneck.”
“True.”
Whether Mary Kate wanted to admit it or not, Bobby was probably the best catch in Hurston County. He was college educated and had a good job as the assistant principal at the elementary school where she taught special education. He was nice looking, he didn’t use tobacco in any form, and he drove a car instead of a truck. It didn’t get any better than that in Mooresville. And he could be the sweetest guy in the world— except when it came to this Africa thing. On that, he had been a jerk from day one.
Bobby had made his biggest mess by telling practically everybody in Mooresville last year that he had gotten her an engagement ring for Christmas. And naturally, he gave it to her on Christmas Eve right in front of her whole family. That’s when the problems started, because Mary Kate wouldn’t take it. She told him she just wasn’t ready to get married. Her dad took him off in the other room and said who knows what, and her mom said she couldn’t imagine what she was looking for if Bobby Britton wasn’t good enough. Carol Lee just called her crazy.
Mary Kate didn’t want to tell everybody the real reason, which was that she just didn’t feel the way she wanted to feel about the person she was going to spend her whole life with. What she wanted was to find a guy that made her feel the way dreaming about Darcy and Jessica had. She wanted to be comfortable with Bobby the way she was with Deb, instead of knotted up about having to say and do all the right things.
The whole Bobby thing was in a sort of limbo for now, and had been since Christmas. They had talked about the ring and Bobby said he would take it back and wait for her to tell him when she was ready. He promised not to pressure her about it at all, and mostly, he had kept his word. He said if he got too tired of waiting, he would ask one more time, but that would be the last. And she had promised if she ever decided for sure it wasn’t going to work out, she wouldn’t string him along.
Though she hadn’t meant for it to, this Kilimanjaro thing was turning into a test for them, and Bobby wasn’t faring so well. It bothered her that she didn’t have his support for this climb, and even more that she didn’t seem to have his respect. Worse than that, he had lectured her about spending her savings when she might want to be thinking about putting together a down payment on a house. And he didn’t mean her house. He meant their house, even though they weren’t officially—
“You ready to get down off this mountain, Mary Kate?”
She wondered how long she had been staring off into space. “What I’m ready for is something else to eat.”
“Me too. This sitting around on my ass all day waiting for you is hard work.”
“Why don’t you go get the car and come get me?”
“Why don’t I just wiggle my nose and pop both of us back to Mooresville without having to drive four hours?”
“That’s too fast. I don’t want to get there until it’s too late for Bobby to come over.”
“Just tell him no.”
“Don’t worry, I will.” She had plenty of practice with that recently. Too tired, too much to do, cramps, headache… She had used every excuse she could think of to keep from spending too much time together. That’s how bad things had gotten, all because of this trip.
She pushed herself up and offered a hand to Deb. “You want me to carry any of your stuff? I drank most of my water, so my pack’s light.”
“That’s okay. I don’t have that much now that the cookies are gone.”
“You really ate that whole bag by yourself?”
“Correct.”
They walked downhill about a hundred yards in silence. Mary Kate had gotten stiff sitting on the rock, but the muscles in her hips and legs seemed to relax more with every step.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you something…something about Bobby,” Deb said, without turning around to make eye contact.
Mary Kate had suspected Deb had something else on her mind. Deb was usually careful not to butt in or give advice that wasn’t asked for, especially advice about Bobby. “What about him?”
“If you decide you want to marry him, I won’t give you a hard time about it. I know you’re still thinking it over.”
“I haven’t thought much about it lately. I figured we’d talk some more when I got back.”
Deb nodded, watching her feet instead of looking at Mary Kate. “I know I talk shit about him, but if he’s what you want, I’ll be there for you.”
“I know you will, Deb. I’ve always known that.” That was exactly what she wanted from Bobby, for him to be as easygoing as Deb and satisfied to let her have her own opinions. Instead, he always tried to smooth things out and strike a compromise so they could agree on practically everything. In theory, that might have been a good plan for building a relationship and avoiding conflict. But in reality, it felt like he was trying to water her down. “And I know if I get married, you’re the kind of friend who would wear a pink bridesmaid dress at my wedding.”
If looks could kill, the one Deb shot over her shoulder would have done it.