For the Best (13 page)

From the ground floor area beside the snack
shop, I could hear the nightly entertainment. A local singer
songwriter strummed a guitar while crooning about the land around
us. Finally, Hanna emerged. She stretched in the darkness sipping
something from a thermal cup.

“You’re looking very happy to be
finished.”

She jumped at the sound of my voice. A slow
smile couldn’t hide that seeing me there meant something to her.
“Have you been waiting long for me?”

About a year
, I thought but said, “A
little while. I wasn’t up for hanging with the crew and there is
nothing to do in my room but close my eyes. With a sagging bed
probably as old as this building and interior walls so thin you can
hear people turning in their beds sleep doesn’t come easy.”

She joked, “Are you kidding? Those rooms are
comparable to a four star hotel.”

I smiled shaking my head. “I hear I am
missing out on some local delicacies.”

“Like what?”

“Huckleberry pie, Huckleberry beer, and
Huckleberry shakes. You want to venture out in search of one or all
three?”

“Is Kali already in the room?”

“Yep.” I winked dangling her car keys so the
reflection of the moon glinted off the metal.

Our footsteps crunched over the gravel until
we crossed the paved road ascending to the employee parking and
found her car.

“You drive,” she commanded yawning. I felt
bad. She had taken the morning shift and came back for the evening,
over ten hours. Without her confronting her roommate she was stuck
killing time until she could claim her bed.

She started up a conversation in the
darkness of the car. “I met this guy today from Indiana. He was
asking about one of the overnight trails extending into the
Canadian side of the park. I told him I wasn’t much for the
backpacking trails. He teased me about being a day hiker. He was
reveling in freedom, independent and idealistic going it alone. I
practically had to force him to buy bear spray. I think he must
have been suicidal.”

I smiled in the dark as the high beam of the
headlights swept the river running parallel to the road. “Maybe he
wasn’t that naïve. Maybe he was just trying to impress a pretty
girl.”

She laughed. “Maybe but I notice a lot of
guys that aren’t from around here try and cowboy up.”

“Cowboy up?” I asked foregoing the highway,
immediately turning and parking at the corner establishment that
advertised on a marquee: beer and pie.

“You know, all indestructible and full of
bravado.”

We met at the front of the car walking side
by side into the bar and restaurant. “He’ll probably meet up with
some other hikers on the trail.”

Inside we found a high top table for two but
couldn’t get service. I went to a long copper bar and ordered
drinks. A few seated patrons were checking out the scene. I noticed
them noticing Hanna and tried not to let the old insecurities get
me down. I paid, not opening a tab since being a minor that pressed
my luck.

“If you don’t drink it I will.” I put the
huckleberry beer in front of her and swigged from my own. A slanted
glance from her told me she would have preferred dessert to the
beer. “Come on. Nowhere but here would you and I not get
carded.”

She took a sip.

The band was playing all covers. A lot of
stuff she and I used to listen to when we were growing up. Her lips
kept moving with the words. I knew she was enjoying herself. Stars
surrounded the dance floor, lights from a disco ball competing with
the mounted mule deer, elk, and moose heads.

“Want to dance?” I asked finishing my
beer.

“Yeah.”

We joined the sparse crowd. She moved to the
beat. Watching her hips and long hair swing as she turned, I
suddenly wished the band would play all night. I found her rhythm
and moved in kind. My hand slid to her waist and I pulled her
closer keeping time with our bodies.

She smiled and shook her head laughing.
“This won’t be good.”

“No?” I smiled and winked teasingly.

One of the guys at the bar was looking at
us, at her. He held his longneck up saluting me in
congratulations.

The song finished and the band slowed it
down. I pulled her close. She rested her head on my chest and I
held her tight. She smelled so good, so right...like my memories.
Unable to help myself I kissed a spot behind her ear that used to
make her melt. She shivered. I took it as a sign.

Hanna

I felt Tanner brush his mouth against my ear
and a warm shiver went down my spine. This wasn’t how our summer
was supposed to turn out. Maybe I was unintentionally leading him
on. Maybe I should have discouraged him from coming to Glacier.
When I thought about our past a wave of shame hit me.

I raised my head to look into his hungry
eyes. “Tanner, let’s go.”

He took my hand and led me out to the car,
opening my door. Once he was in the driver’s seat, I captured his
hand before he turned the ignition. “Let’s just talk for a minute.”
I sucked in a steadying breath.

“Okay, I think we should.”

Tanner was waiting for me to speak. “There
are things that you don’t know. That’s the way it is supposed to
be.”

“No, it isn’t. I don’t care who you’ve been
with. It doesn’t matter. I deserved the breakup. But I didn’t
deserve the pain of not knowing what happened to you all those
months.”

My hands began to shake. Anger affected me
that way. My voice rose. “You don’t care who I’VE been with. You
fucked several of my classmates. One of those girls got the idea
that if I was kicked out of school for dealing she would have a
better shot with you.”

Tanner was caught off guard. “Someone we
knew was who went to the principal?”

“My first suspicion was Peyton, but when I
confronted her she informed me of the others.”

His face fell.

“You were rewarded for that video. You know
what I got…a lot of propositions - mostly from Didge, Benny, and
the judges.”

“Didge, he did that?” He kept shaking his
head trying to clear it.

“Yes, Didge did that, but it was Benny who
extorted $1000 from me for what he said was the only copy. He then
turned around and used the same cash as the prize for the video
winner. Imagine my surprise when I heard you’d won. I felt liking
dying when you tried to give my own money back to me in the end so
I could keep my car.”

He white knuckle gripped my steering wheel
unable to speak past whatever he felt. Eventually he started my car
and drove us back to the lodge. I can’t say it was satisfying
seeing the look of betrayal on his face.

At the late hour, the West Entrance was
unmanned. As we crossed the lodge bridge the headlights reflected
back from a large low to the ground animal’s eyes. Tanner parked
but didn’t shut off the car. I reached for my door handle and felt
his hand encircle my wrist.

“Wait!”

Yogi lumbered down the gravel trail rocking
his head back and forth. Stress pressed beneath my chest until I
felt I could take the bear. He finally took to the woods, and I
left Tanner to himself.

Hanna

Across the turquoise lake, the glacier
loomed casting white against the red and charcoal faced rock. The
park’s glaciers had once numbered one hundred fifty and less than
thirty remained, those disintegrating with each passing year. I
pondered someday the park would lose the meaning of its name.

I set out for the Bullhead Lake Trail. The
current rushed over the rocks before falling down to the stream
below. Mountains rose along one side. I saw a ranger on the path up
ahead doing an early morning trek scouting bear conditions. I asked
permission to follow and shadowed him in hiking silence.

Each morning most of the trails were walked
by a ranger as they checked for bear activity. When bears were in
residence along the trail the park service closed the area, but
otherwise it was up to the visitors to watch out and deal with
close encounters. He stopped to point out a few sows grubbing
around on the hill sides and decided to close the trail for the
day. I ceded a further journey turning around at his request.

On the return, I stopped at Redrock Falls
watching them cascade off Swiftcurrent Glacier bidding the ranger a
good day. Craggy cliffs surrounded, the upper falls rushed tightly
through, pooled in a deep hole and then spilled another forty feet
to swirl before calming.

I kept thinking back to the last night,
feeling relieved at the weight I’d gotten off my chest. I heard a
rustling in the brush and decided not to linger. Speed walking back
to safety, I sang off key to a song. Bear bells clanging from my
belt didn’t reassure me that I’d stave off a predator so I bellowed
out butchered lyrics that came to mind. Once I passed the trailhead
at the motor lodge I took the trail around the lake leading back to
the grander lodge going the long way.

I spotted the boat ahead and toyed with the
idea of hitching to lessen the distance. I saw Tanner at the steps
leading into the vessel. He stared. I wondered how long he’d been
watching.

Hesitantly, I approached.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Quickly, I explained about my excursion
tagging along with the ranger. He nodded. “You are good at finding
the ins and outs.”

I studied his look of defeat. “Will you get
in trouble if I come on board?”

He shook his head. “No, no paying passengers
until the 8:30 departure so it’s just us.”

I ran down the path and swung up the
platform where he reached out for my hand helping me down. I sat in
the first bench behind the helm.

“You want to steer?” he attempted to engage
me.

Shutting down my misgivings I grabbed the
tiller.

“Are we still friends?” he asked.

I captured his gaze. “The kind of friends we
used to be when we were kids?”

He closed his eyes, and nodded.

Tanner

Days passed before we became comfortable
around each other. We’d made a joint call to Trevor who’d been
beyond excited by stories of wildlife seen outside of a zoo.

I found myself in the basement of employee
lodging sitting on top of a dryer laughing, as Hanna rested
posterior on a washer. Glade had just made a sexual joke regarding
vibration. She was keeping the lid shut so he couldn’t throw in a
pair of long underwear.

“Nope, you don’t wear briefs or boxers under
those. Your skids will not dissolve in the vicinity of my
delicates.”

“Oh baby. You know all the words to say to
turn me on,” Glade flirted.

It bothered me, but I laughed. I would be
her friend and nothing more. A friend would laugh.

“Come on. Tanner got to put in his.”

“That is different.” She turned to me, back
to the conversation we’d been having before Glade stole her
attention. “Are you serious? Some people in your dorm didn’t know
how to do laundry? They actually paid for laundry service.”

“Yeah, I mean they were mostly spoiled
freshman, but they still did.”

“Did anyone show them?” She laughed shaking
her head. It felt good to see her laugh – to have gotten past the
worst.

Christmas
time age 13

Hanna and I were making Gingerbread cookies
for her mom. She had heard that ginger settled upset stomachs. Her
mom was nauseous from the chemo. Still warm from the oven, the
spicy sweet smell drifted throughout their house. Trevor was asleep
on the couch snoring loudly.

We took the crumbly sweets upstairs where
her mom was lying in bed propped up by pillows. Hanna’s mom was
always a childhood crush for me. Before she had gotten treatments
her hair had been to her chest, dark brown and thick like Hanna’s,
her skin golden brown.

She looked up with her warm eyes that always
showed love, not like my own mom’s always accessing eyes. “What
have you two been up to?” she asked as Hanna and I displayed the
baking tray.

“Eat me!” I mimicked the Gingerbread Man’s
voice from
Shrek
.

We started reciting the lines. Hanna cracked
up. It was always cool with her mom the way she could jump right in
and be a kid like us when the notion took her.

I had my two favorite females about to pee
their pants they were laughing so hard at my high pitched falsetto
imitation. Then Hanna’s mom puked catching it half on the throw
blanket she had across her and half in a trash pail. Her eyes
filled with tears and I quickly helped Hanna gather the mess.

“Don’t worry we’ll clean up,” I offered as I
grabbed the liner from the can and Hanna scooped up the blanket so
none of the vomit chunks dripped off.

The machines were out in the garage and we
slipped by Trevor without stirring him. Hanna lifted the lid and
added detergent while I shook half-digested cookie chunks into the
trash. I got some on my shirt. Grossed out, I took off my shirt and
threw it with the blanket inside the agitator drum.

“I’m sorry Tanner.”

The tears rolling down her face tore
something inside me. “It’s okay Hanna.”

I hugged her tight and she put her head on
my bare skin. The silkiness of her hair, the way she smelled, the
first time I got to feel a girl against me naked although it was my
nudity not hers. It all led to a guilty adolescent desire.

She clung to me sobbing. I knew from that
moment that I’d always want her. Even when there were other girls
she’d be the one who stole my heart.

Hanna

By the fourth week of June, I realized the
summer would pass us by in a blur of work obligations. Tanner was
off for the day and I had finished mid-afternoon. We were sharing a
slice of huckleberry pie a la mode.

“I’m not trying to push you but you need to
come up with better reasons for not going to college than funding,”
Tanner harped.