The night at Graymoor Friary, despite its promise, was not “cool.” Although it was a working friary, we never saw a Friar and the accommodation for hikers was just a picnic pavilion with a concrete slab floor. Add to that two obnoxious section-hikers (the old, white, male variety who loved explaining long distance hiking to two young women three months into a long distance hike) and a cold, pouring rain all night and I woke up in an unusually foul mood. I was up and packed before everyone else, itching to get out of there. Erin also woke up in a bad mood. Sleeping on the cold concrete meant her knee was stiff. I tried to be patient, as she moved slowly through her morning routine, clearly struggling. My impatience must have shown through—my face has never hidden a feeling—because Blue, in one of his signature bursts of kindness and sensitivity, told me to go ahead, that he’d hang back with Erin.
I took off quickly, the frustration of the morning fueling my speed. After a few miles, the anger was gone and I realized that I was enjoying hiking. The terrain wasn’t taxing and it felt good to push myself to hike faster than I had before. My body was strong, I realized suddenly, and that was not something I’d felt in a long time. Before I knew it, I was only a mile from the shelter. I waited for Erin and Blue, sitting on the ground leaning against a wooden fence post, and just before they arrived, the sun peaked out of the clouds. We cheered the sun and each other and walked the rest of the way to the shelter together, Erin swearing she felt better. At the shelter, our good moods improved when we noticed a note that said there was a road a few tenths of a mile away and a pizza place that would deliver if you could find a way to call.
“I have a cell phone. Would that be helpful?” a guy sitting in the shelter, who I’d barely noticed before, chimed in. I turned and reassessed him.
“Who are you? Our guardian angel?” I asked, ordering up two large pies.
Over pizza, we hatched a plan. We’d all hike sixteen miles that next morning from the shelter to the Pawling train station. From there, Erin and I would head into the city and Blue would take the train to Connecticut to his grandma’s house. We would all meet up a few days later at a shelter in CT.
We woke up super early, and as we packed up, I said to no one in particular, “Here’s my wish—we somehow find a ride to the train so that we don’t have to hike all the way to Pawling this morning. That way, even if we don’t have a place to stay, we can spend the day in the city.”
“You guys could probably stay at my place.” It was the hiker with the cell phone again. We’d learned the night before that he lived in NYC, but was out for a few days of backpacking. “My girlfriend could let you in.”
“Who are you?” I asked again.
The four of us hiked together four miles down the trail to the Mountain Top Market and ate gas station breakfast burritos while Erin tried one last time to reach her friend Chris G. While she was on the phone, I saw a flyer for a local cab company hanging on a cork board with a bunch of other advertisements. I snatched the flyer off the board and ran outside to tell Erin that my wish had come true and bumped into her running in to tell me that she had talked to Chris and we could stay the night with him.
Within 30 minutes, we were paying our cab driver and buying tickets for the train to Penn Station. E and I both had strong attachments to New York City. Erin, from her time living and working with her sister in the Bronx for a summer, and me, from the frequent weekend trips I spent exploring Manhattan during my two years as summer camp counselor in the Delaware Water Gap. As we rode South, we talked excitedly about the time I’d taken the bus from camp to visit her and several people had mistaken us for “real New Yorkers.” If anyone thought twice about two dirty backpackers riding the train into the city, they didn’t show it.
“You guys don’t even stand-out,” Chris G laughed, as he ushered us into a subway car headed up to Harlem. He told us about his work as a teacher and warned us that while he had plenty of room for us to stay, he also lived in a community with the priests who ran the school.
“Hey, as long as they don’t make us sleep on cement, we’re cool with the brothers,” Erin said.
We dropped off our bags, took long showers, put on our cleanest clothes and took the train downtown. Chris and I teased Erin about her “town pants,” the black leggings that were now sagging in the butt from her weight loss and constant wear.
“At least my pants don’t zip into shorts,” Erin fired back, pointing to my equally sagging, and very ugly, convertible hiking pants.
We walked around Times Square, were quickly overwhelmed, and ducked into an Irish Bar.
As we ordered our second beer, Erin blurted out, “So, dude. I think that guy Ben likes you.”
“What are you talking about?” I stammered, taken aback. I was already flushed from the beers or I would have certainly reddened at her statement. I secretly liked thinking someone like Ben might like me, but I definitely didn’t want anyone else to know that (even Erin, who I shared everything with).
“I don’t know, I just got that vibe,” she said, looking at me knowingly.
“Dude. Whatever. He’s just flirty. He knows I’m with Kevin, so whatever,” I said more dismissively than I felt.
Chris chimed in. “You said whatever twice.”
“Yep, that totally means you like him,” Erin piled on.
“WHAT… EVER,” I mock-huffed. The conversation moved on but I blushed as I finished my beer and pulled the lip balm Ben had given me out of my pocket.
After the beers, Erin and I both confessed that what we really wanted was not a night out in the city, but a comfortable couch and a home cooked meal.
“I thought it would be fun to be here, but I just want to get back to the woods,” I told Erin as we lay in bed that night, “but, like, after we get to sleep in these beds.”
We got to Grand Central the next morning and found we had two hours until our train left. We passed the time eating (of course) and trying on clothes in Banana Republic.
“Oh my god, I’m a girl again!” Erin squealed from her dressing room.
“Oh my god, I’m a size 8!” I squealed back from mine.