Clementine parks at the rutted dirt entrance point to a fire road, just outside a gate, and turns off the truck.For a moment she looks out the windshield at the woods, then over at me, her eyes somber.
“Ready for a hike?”she says.
“Wait, we have tohikeup there?”I tease.
She lookspissed.
“Kidding,” I say, feeling lame that my joke didn’t land.“I volunteered for a hike.”
“Oh,” she says, relief in her voice.“Okay, good.”
We get our stuff from the back, spend a few minutes adjusting hats and putting on sunscreen, and then we set out.Even though it’s technically called a fire road, the path is both too narrow and way, way too rocky for any vehicles to get up here.Maybe once upon a time, but not now.
Thirty minutes pass.Then forty-five.I start wondering whether I’m right about her silence, or whether I reallyshouldsay something.
We stop to drink some water, and I turn around to look at the road below us.I’m always amazed at how quickly I climb when I’m hiking, because it feels slow, but when I look, it’s been so far.
Down below, there’s almost nothing but forest.In the far distance I can barely make out a town — not Lodgepole, we’re not facing that direction — and beyond that, a long grassy stretch, but even that’s hard to see.
Nope.From here, it’s just trees, birds chirping, the sound of the breeze.Clementine screws the lid back on her water bottle and hooks it back to her frame pack.Then she looks back at the vista.
There’s a long moment where neither of us says anything, and we just look out at the scenery.Then, at last, Clementine speaks.
“Did you hear Judson Hollins from high school is running for state senate?”she asks.
I glance at her, but she’s looking out at the view, not at me.I’m relieved all the same.
“That’s old news,” I say.“You didn’t hear the rest of the story?”
Clementine looks up at me.For a moment, her eyes are serious, but then she raises one eyebrow.
“I guess not,” she says.
“He got a stripper pregnant,” I tell her.“He’s not running any more.”
Clementine’s eyes go wide.
“Judsondid?”she says, and then presses her lips together like she’s trying to suppress a smile.“That pompous, preachy, holier-than-thou asshole got a stripper pregnant?”
“Clem, youhaveto get on the internet more,” I say.
“That poor girl,” she says.“Did Charity stay with him?”
“She did,” I say.“So far, anyway.We’ll see what happens if he gets caught again.”
“Shit,” she whispers.
We start hiking again, and for a few moments, Clementine is quiet again, thinking over this new information.
Clementine couldn’tstandCharity in high school, because not only was Charity the picture of the prim, proper nice girl, she looked down on anyone who wasn’t as prissy as her.
“What’s that word for kind of enjoying someone else’s misfortune?”I ask.“I think that’s what you’re doing right now.”
“Schadenfreude,” Clementine says.“And yes.Yes, I am currently having someschadenfreude, Hunter.”
I duck under a branch, then hold it out of the way for her.
“Though I prefer karma, because she wassuch a bitch,” Clementine goes on.“Remember when she caught us making out in the equipment room after school one day and then, every time I saw her for the next month, she told me she’d pray for my impure, sinning soul?”
