Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight (42 page)

He looked up at me and smiled in warm
welcome. He had spread out his sleeping mat and bag, but hadn’t
touched my bag, opting for giving me my privacy, and trying to
avoid invasive behavior, even if it was conducted in the name of
helpful administration of my comfort and care. It was a
relief—moving out would be far less humiliating and traumatic by
simply transferring an unopened backpack.

“Gray? Please don’t be upset with me.” I
began, and my voice shook, embarrassing me. That got his attention
and he dropped what he was doing to move over to me and take me in
his arms like a child.

“Did you lose the pan in the creek?” he
asked, slightly amused.

I wish.

“No, it’s about tonight. I’m…scared.”

That was true. The amusement in his face
evaporated.

“If you’re worried about the bears, don’t
be. We’ll tie all the food up in the air, and thanks to Elsie, no
one smells good. We’ll be fine. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll hold you
all night if it will help you sleep.”

I couldn’t deny that part of me would love
that, but instead I had to move forward with preventing exactly
that. Wiggling free of his hold, I turned and faced him.

“Gray, it’s not the bears…it’s the holding
me all night part that I’m worried about. I think you’re aware of
how weak I get when I’m around you…like that.”

I thought of the kisses on my neck in front
of the hotel room window, and about falling trees.

“I’m very serious about waiting to be
married before taking things to the next level. It’s just
that…well…I’m finding out that my body and my mind aren’t always on
the same page…when I’m close to you.”

He smiled hugely. This confession was
obviously very good news to him, though that had not been my
intention, and apparently it wasn’t helping my cause here.

“Plus, I haven’t broken off my engagement to
Ash. So all things considered, I think the best thing for me to do
here is to sleep in the girl’s tent, where I belong.”

I wasn’t sure if it was my reference to my
prior engagement or the fact that I was resolved to sleep somewhere
other than with him in his tent that caused the most displeasure in
his expression. There was enough storm raging in his eyes to
accommodate both unpleasant issues.

With no further speechmaking, I unzipped the
tent and hauled my pack to the opening. Suddenly he was in my
space, and in my face, blocking the way.

“Look, I won’t argue with you, if you feel
it’s what’s best. But I want you to know that I had no plans to
take you…with me to any levels out here. I have very different
ideas about what our first time together, in that way, will be
like.”

He was hot and his eyes matched his
temperature. I felt myself melting from the heat, and the
possibilities, but it reconfirmed that moving out was definitely
the right choice.

“And I’m sorry I got ahead of myself,
telling Elsie we’re engaged. That was unfair to you. I realize that
now. Will you forgive me for that?”

The intensity had eased a bit and I nodded
in assent. He wasn’t finished, though. He framed my face with his
hands.

“But, Ellie, you belong with me, and no one
else. I’m going to do everything in my power to make you believe
that. I love you far too much to ever give up on you…just so you
know.”

Then he kissed me. It was soft and sweet and
seductive and mind blowing. I had to get out of there before he had
me pleading for some level-taking with him.

Phil was very pleasant the rest of the
evening. There seemed to be a total transference in moods between
the two men. I felt bad to have upset Gray, especially since he’d
been so blindingly happy up to the point where I’d switched it off
with my resolutions. The difference was obvious and unpleasant for
me.

Elsie, fully aware of the cause, was trying
hard to keep the emotional atmosphere around the campfire upbeat,
as opposed to lacrimonious. This consisted principally of
distracting and keeping me engaged with funny stories and the
occasional question about me and my short past, which were met with
even shorter answers. When that didn’t work she changed her
approach to simply trying to relax me.

“Ellie, would you like me to brush your
hair?” she offered, pulling out the last stop.

No one had ever touched my hair, in that
way, but my mom. I absolutely loved having my hair brushed, though
I experienced it very rarely. So without a word I rose, went over
to my pack, now inside ‘Chet Elsie’, and retrieved my hairbrush.
Then I parked myself in front of her, sitting parallel to the
campfire on a small foam mat, slightly larger than the size of my
butt, and handed her the brush. I leaned forward with my hands
around my bent knees and rested my chin and my eyes.

“Elsie, I’d really love that. Thank you so
much for offering.”

She chuckled quietly in pleased satisfaction
at her success while she began fingering through my hair. Then she
engaged the brush, guiding it over the long strands with the soft
touch of an expert, careful not to yank or pull. It was
fabulous.

Through surreptitious peripheral view
glances I could see that both men were paying rapt attention to the
philocomal (love of hair) activity taking place on the girls’ side
of the campfire. I wanted to be self-conscious, but the stress and
anguish of the afternoon were melting away so nicely with every
stroke from the brush that I could only concentrate on how good it
felt.

I wondered if either of them had the same
vicarious pleasure reaction to seeing another person getting their
hair brushed that I always did. Just watching made me feel
instantly sedated. Being the recipient was something more blissful
than mere sedation. Elsie had struck upon exactly the right therapy
for me.

Her final procedure was to assemble a
ponytail and then take sections of hair and twist them into small
strands of golden rope—eight in all.

“This will look really cool in the morning
when you take it out,” she explained, enthusiastically.

I smiled to myself. I’d found another friend
with unexpected talents. Who would have thought that Elsie
Wilderness had ‘really cool’ hair techniques to share?

Just as I had predicted at our introduction,
Elsie took me into the woods to pee before we turned in for the
night. I broached the embarrassing request for accompaniment with,
“So…I’m gonna go take a pee now. Do you want to come along and get
killed with me now…or do you just want to get killed looking for
me?”

She did those speedy mental computations
after I spoke my normal nonsense and shot back with, “Listen here,
little girl. I’m in charge of this operation. Nobody dies unless I
say so.”

Then we made our way into the moonless dense
darkness.

She’d brought along a really useful plastic
device that reminded me of an ultra-squat watering can with an
exaggerated extra-long thin spout. The base was much more shallow
than a regular watering can, and oval shaped. The opening at the
top was as large as the circumference of the base itself with a
smoothly turned down edge. She explained that it was a female
adapter, designed to direct urine out and away from your lowered
pants and shoes.

This was a welcome innovation, though I
found it highly comical to imagine a team of designers and
injection molding professionals devoting time to such an endeavor.
Clearly, though, the product filled a particular need. I’d
experienced such troublesome issues when relieving myself out of
doors on camping trips with my dad and grandpa, where no female
direction or support had been available since my mom did not
camp.

It had gotten fairly cold once the sun had
set, so it was nice not to have to pull my pants all the way down,
or squat near the cold ground. Once we were done she simply rinsed
it out with water from a container she had brought along for that
purpose.

Neither man had moved from their spots near
the fire, probably because one was making sure I’d be staying with
Elsie, and the other was hoping I might give him a look saying I’d
changed my mind about that.

I was about to follow her into our tent for
the night when Gray came out of nowhere and hugged me from behind,
kissed my neck and whispered, “I promise I’ll be good if you come
stay with me. No levels.” The feel of his warm lips touching under
my ear in tandem with his assurances was nearly enough to override
my decision—a ridiculously easy call to make—but then I caught
myself undercutting my own resolve and wiggled free before it
worked on me.

“Good night Gray.”

I turned to face him and smiled. Then I
punctuated my intent with a yawn.

“I love you, Ellie,” he whispered, full of
feeling.

I had never expressed that sentiment to him
before, out loud, that is, and though I was certain it would sting
him, this was not the time to begin.

“I know,” I whispered back, moving as
quickly as I could to take refuge in the girl’s tent, zipping the
door behind me.

It was one of the longest nights of my life.
It would have been anyway because the sounds of the night were loud
and strange and scary when heard through the filter of my grizzly
bear alert early warning system. But I had other unsettling
thoughts flashing in and out of my head.

Had I already crossed the line and ruined
things with Ash? Was he here in a tent just feet from mine strictly
to do his job now, and not because he loved me? I absolutely
deserved it, if that’s how it was, but it caused me physical pain,
in my head and my stomach, just to consider that very real
possibility. Then the pain would intensify when I thought about my
actions, and how they had surely caused this same kind of pain to
him. He didn’t deserve that. Ash was good and kind and honorable
and I loved him to the point of obsession. But after Gray had
explained some missing details to me, I was astounded to realize
that there was room in my heart and mind to obsess over him as
well.

What was wrong with me and what was I going
to do about it? I wished I had some fresh beef. I’d strap it to my
butt and let the bears take care of the rest.

The next morning Elsie got me up early. I
pulled at the twists she had put in my hair the night before,
interested to see the results. The twists did amazing things to the
look of my hair. Once undone, the strands of hair cascaded in
perfect ringlets, falling from every direction. It looked familiar,
but I couldn’t place it.

Satisfied with her hair styling handiwork,
she unzipped our tent and we quietly left camp to go downstream to
bathe and wash out some sweaty clothes from the day before. We
found an eddy in the creek and stripped to our underwear, using her
unscented soap to clean up. She had brought along a pan of hot
water from the fire that we used for making our washcloths warm. It
made the experience almost pleasant. After switching into fresh
clothes, I took yesterday’s sports bra and panties and washed them
out in the creek, wringing and re-wringing them. We were not
breaking camp today so we’d be able to hang up our wet clothes and
towels during the day, letting them dry in the sun.

The plan was to take several day hikes from
our base camp, meeting back for lunch and then again for dinner.
While we worked quietly at the stream on our bodies and our
clothes, Elsie finally brought it up.

“So, I’m hoping that you know Phil from
somewhere?”

It was a statement but she asked it like a
question. I saw no need to lie to her. She’d already seen the
worst.

“Yes. He’s my fiancé.”

That information wasn’t what she was
expecting and her mouth hung open in shock.

“Gray knows I’m engaged to a boy back home,
and I never agreed to marry him instead, I just agreed to
reconsider my options, once he explained his feelings for me.”

She collected her expression and now it was
downgraded from shocked to just very intense.

“But, as I’m sure you’ve figured out, Gray’s
extremely optimistic, and he doesn’t take no for an answer.”

She smiled at that and I could tell that she
knew what I meant.

“We got our wires crossed. He was in love
with me and didn’t tell me, I guess because he thought I was too
young. Then, while he was waiting for me to grow up, I fell in love
with one of the security people he hired to protect me without my
knowledge.”

I shook my head and got back to gathering my
things, making ready to head back to camp.

“So it’s all messed up now,” I
summarized.

“I see you’re wearing two rings,” she
observed as she looked at my hands.

“Could you say no to either one of
them?”

It was a weak defense, but it was all I
had.

“Sounds like there were a few mitigating
circumstances.”

She smiled with a gleam in her eye,
reassuring me slightly.

“Listen, honey, if I could trade problems
with you, I certainly would,” and she held me with her eyes,
looking for my reaction.

I laughed at that. I knew she was right. But
it wasn’t about who would make me happier, the problem was about
who would be hurt that was upsetting me so badly. If I could know
which person I was better for, if I could tell who would get past
me sooner, if there was a way to be at peace with whatever I
decided—for all of us to be…

“It sounds like you need to put your foot
down. Tell them both to back off and give you some space, and some
time, for crying out loud, what are you about fifteen?” she
chided.

“I’m old enough to drink wine at The
Fairmont Banff Springs, actually older than that, by a year,” I
replied, sounding like it was some accomplishment on my part to be
nineteen.

“Well, you’re not old enough to marry either
one of those characters, or anyone else, for that matter. You need
some time. You’ve got to live on your own, make your own decisions,
and be in charge of your life for a while. If you hand control over
to one of them before you ever taste it for yourself, you’ll always
wonder how it might have been, what you missed, and whether you
were rushed into a decision that was made for you.”