Yes. They do.
DAY TWO
Wednesday
On the chalkboard outside the Sonnet resort main office
MOVIE.................................
Mission: Impossible II, 2000, PG-13, directed by John Woo
FILM FACT.................................
Like Paul Newman before him, Tom Cruise is known for doing many of his own stunts—including the famous rock-climbing sequence (shot in Utah at Dead Horse Point).
7
CARO
THERE ISN’T A CLOUDin the sky or in the forecast. It’s an early, pearly blue above, the kind that often deepens to brilliant azure as the day goes on. They’re standing at the top of a cliff, getting ready to descend into the slot canyon of the Underground.
Caro smiles to herself as she hooks the rope through the anchor bolt screwed into the stone. She’s been looking forward to this part of the trip. For the past few years, hiking the Underground has required a permit, which you have to enter an online lottery to get. Caro hasn’t been lucky enough to be chosen since the permit system started. But Hope got one somehow.Hope Hanover magic, Caro and Ash call it behind her back, and sometimes to her face.
Caro wants, needs, physicallyachesto get away. She’s seen patients die before—it’s an occupational hazard, being an anesthesiologist—but the most recent loss has sent her reeling. It was a woman about her own age who died in childbirth from a uterine rupture. Caro had known her by sight. They lived in the same neighborhood, the cozy area called Sugar House with its bungalows and pocket yards. “Oh, hello,” they’d said to each other in the operating room, the way they’d said it to one another in passing on the sidewalks. Caro had learned that the woman’s name was Esther Nelson. Her husband was called Owen, and he’d been excited and nervous. Itwas their first baby. Caro had administered the epidural and was still in the room, as per procedure, when everything went to hell. They had saved the baby—a relief, a wonder—but Esther had hemorrhaged to death despite everyone’s best efforts. There were no words for how fast it happened, how bloody it was, how bewildered and shocked the husband had looked, how quickly all color and life had drained from Esther’s body, how alone the baby had looked even as it was surrounded by a team to whisk it away to the NICU. It’s been six weeks and Caro still hasn’t returned to work. She knows she needs to get back on the horse, back to the job.
She doesn’t know if she can.
Caro glances at the others. “Who wants to go first?” The sight of Ash and Hope makes her want to laugh—her wonderful friends, together in the flesh for the first time, wearing candy-colored canyoneering helmets with chin straps that make all three of them—even Hope—look like befuddled Easter eggs.
“Don’t laugh,” Hope says severely. “We have to be safe. Looking like M&M’s is a small price to pay.”
“I was thinking we’re giving Toad from Super Mario,” Ash says, which makes both Hope and Caro laugh out loud.
“Hope, you’ve been rappelling before, right?” Caro asks. “Want to show us how it’s done?”
“Sure,” Hope says. “It’s been a minute, but I’ll do my best.”
“SinceDownfall?” Ash asks.
“Yes, actually,” Hope says. By now, they’re largely accustomed to how much Ash knows about Hope’s career and movies and celebrities in general, but Hope sounds impressed. “That’s a deep cut,” she says. “That was one of my earlier movies.”
“Filmed in Colorado,” Ash says.
“Right again,” Hope agrees.
“I think it’s so badass that you do all your own stunts,” Ash says.
“Hardly.” Hope presses her soles into the sandstone wall and leans back to go over. Caro grips the rope to belay her down. “I’m no Tom Cruise. Ionly do the fun stuff that doesn’t require, you know, almost dying.” As if belying her words, Hope drops backward into the canyon. Her steps along the wall are quick and smooth. Confident. Caro’s impressed.
After Hope’s down, Caro belays Ash (who, despite having never done this before, is steady and sure-footed, a natural) and then comes down herself.Nice, Caro thinks as she secures the rope to the outside of her pack, where it’ll be handy the next time they need it.This hike should be a dream. The parts we can control, at least.She looks up at the sky again. It’s still a perfect, pale morning blue. From here on out, their view of what’s going on in the heavens will be limited to the glimpses they can catch above the canyon walls.
“Wow,” Ash is saying. “I didn’t expect there to be so many plants. It’s like hanging gardens everywhere you look.” She’s turning around on the sandy bank of the creek that they’ll follow through the slot canyon, staring up at the ferns, moss, and wildflowers growing from shallow alcoves in the walls, where they’ve found purchase and soil in spite of everything.
“Are they spring-fed?” Ash asks.
“Yup,” Caro says. Ash knows her plants, even in a different climate. “The water seeps from the walls.”
“They’re so beautiful.” Ash pulls her good camera out of her dry bag. “I’ll be fast, I swear. I don’t want to hold us up.” Hope’s still walking farther down the canyon. She hasn’t noticed yet that they’ve stopped.
