“We should see it while we’re here,” Ash says, and they all go quiet. “If we have time,” she amends.
“We should,” Hope agrees, and Caro’s shoulders relax.
The three of them chew in companionable silence. Being in a canyon, Caro thinks, is like being inside a seashell. The pink and red curves of the walls, the way sound seems to cup itself around you. There’s a vastness in the sound of the canyon, too, the sense of spaces as wide and expansive as the ocean.
They hear echoes from farther up the canyon, people coming down. The college kids must be catching up with them.
“Aw,” Hope says. “It was nice having this place to ourselves.”
“I’m surprised we had it as long as we did.” Ash balls up the bag from her sandwich and puts it into her pack.
When the other group comes around the corner, Hope stands up and holds out her disposable camera. “Hey,” she says. “Would you guys mind taking a picture of us?”
“No problem,” says the red-haired girl, taking the camera.Roz, Caro remembers.That’s her name.
Caro and Ash exchange glances. This feels daring, like Hope is challenging someone to recognize her. Does she really think they’re going to look right at her andnotknow who she is?
“Okay,” Roz says, once the three women have assembled themselves next to the log. She lifts the camera and pushes the button. It clicks. “Let me get another,” she says, “in case.” She lifts the camera again, presses the button, frowns. “I’m supposed to hear a click, right? Last time I heard a click.”
“She doesn’t know to wind it,” Ash says under her breath, and they dissolve into laughter. Roz looks upset, and Caro hurries to help her. “Don’t feel bad. We’re just old,” she says, which seems to mollify Roz. She shows Roz how to wind the camera and comes back to join her friends in their pose. They’re tucked in tight together, arms around shoulders and waists, canyon walls behind them, feet in the water.
“Thanks again,” Hope says when they’ve finished. “No problem,” Roz says, and away the kids go, quick and sure-footed, still confident. Caro hopes they’ll be safe. They’re past the biggest descent, they have a rope, she did this canyon herself long before she was their age, but that’s the thing about this place. They could jump in somewhere else, a spot that looks deep and safe, and get hurt instead. They could fall, it could flood, loose rock could tumble down from above…
Life is so fragile and impossible and stubborn and common that it takes Caro’s breath away.
“They’re not your responsibility,” Hope reminds Caro, catching her eye. “You’ve helped them as much as you can.”
8
PAGE
”WHERE’VE YOU BEEN?” CARMELasks as I walk into the staff kitchen. It’s the brief afternoon pause right after two, when the rush of guests checking out or eating lunch has ebbed and the day’s new guests haven’t yet reached full mass.
“It’s my day off.” I open the fridge and take out a leftover sandwich wrapped in brown waxed paper. Carmel is the head chef at Bristlecone, the resort’s restaurant, and she and Ty, the food truck cook, bring leftovers in here for us to eat so they don’t go to waste. They’re both at least a decade older than most of the staff. They, and Sonnet’s manager, Colby, take care of us in a sort of non-coordinated, completely unofficial way—with the food, with checking in on us, stuff like that. At the end of every summer, Carmel gathers all the staff together and takes a picture because, as she says,We’ll never have exactly the same group again.
“Lucky you.” Skye’s sitting at one of the tables. As usual, there’s a hint of snark in her tone. As usual, I ignore it. There’s nothing lucky about having a day off. We all have them once a week. Skye’s one of those girls from LA who decided to work here for the summer because they believe they’re outdoorsy and cool. Eventually they learn they’re not actually as outdoorsy as they thought; they’ve just had parents rich enough to buy them all the gear and experiences they want.
It can be a rude awakening.
Still, Skye is having a good summer, even though she hates the bunk tents the staff sleep in (she’s not into “communal living”). She’s amassing more and more followers every day on LikeMe. Onherdays off she packs designer dresses in her backpack, hikes to different picturesque locations in the park, and takes pictures to post on social media. Malcolm, one of the other employees—the one who’s sitting with her now and who has dirty-blond hair and gentle, deerlike brown eyes—goes with her whenever he can. They’re together. They’re the two hottest people here, so it’s inevitable, although for a minute at the beginning of the season Skye was crushing on Ty (even though he’s way too old for her) and Mal seemed pretty into me.
This is my third summer working at Sonnet. I’ve been here ever since I graduated from high school, and I’m one of the few employees who stay on year-round. It’s a good place, much better than the wedding venue where I used to work with my grandma. Colby, our manager, trusts me. We started in our different positions at around the same time. He’d been to a fancy Ivy League university back East and majored in hotel management (I didn’t even know you could major in that). He ran a couple of hotels in the Pacific Northwest before taking the job at Sonnet, and he’d never even been to Eden before. He always says I saved his life that first summer.
In theory, Colby and I should not have that much in common. He’s at least ten years older than I am, he’s grown up in places with lots of water and money, he’s charismatic and genuine, while I’m quiet and hide all the time. But for whatever reason, we clicked right away. So when he told me he needed to be gone for a while to handle a personal matter and asked if I thought I could take care of things here, I said yes. Of course. He already lets me do some of the things that are technically the manager’s job, so I’ve had experience with nearly everything he needs me to do.
I like the round-robin style of working at Sonnet. The staff takes turns manning the reception desk, the gift shop, the food truck, and waiting tables at Bristlecone. I don’t wait tables, though, since I’m not twenty-one and can’t serve alcohol.
We also don’t cook. Ty and his backup cook handle the food truck, and Carmel and her line cooks handle Bristlecone. They are the most experienced of the staff, with prior catering and restaurant experience. They live year-round in Spring Creek, the closest town, since Bristlecone and the food truck don’t close in the off-season. (Off-season tourists still want a fancy place to eat, and the food truck travels around to festivals or events in towns near here.)
We also don’t help with housekeeping, unless it’s to light the fires or bring over fresh linens and towels on one of the golf carts. There was a theft a few years ago, so the housekeeping staff are well vetted. They’re locals who come in and take summer jobs. The people around here don’t make much money, so you often see them picking up extra work during the summer—housekeeping (usually women) or working for the city keeping up the parks and the cemetery (usually men).
It’s awkward and depressing as hell whenever I run into my old biology teacher Mrs. Phillips at the resort, but we’ve both settled on pretending that we don’t know each other from before. We act like we only know each other from now. “Hi,” she says. “Hi,” I say back, colleagues now, and we step around each other and on we go.
“What have you been up to today, anyway?” Carmel sits down at the table across from me.
“Not much,” I say. “Went for a drive.” I lift my sandwich, hold it in Carmel’s direction as if to toast her. “This is great. Thank you.”
“No problem,” she says. “Your car still running okay?”
