“Perfect day for it,” Paul says, coming over to check Aiden’s work on my harness. “No clouds, not too cold. Sun’s been warming the pamper pole for a good couple hours now.”
“The what pole now?” I say.
“Thepamperpole.” He pats the one closest to him, like this is something I should have heard of. It is nothing I have heard of, let me tell you what. I don’t see anything on this pole that would pamper me.
“I’m about to rock this,” says Sheree, beside me, swinging her arms back and forth as though she’s loosening up for competition. “I used to be the fastest kid at campon this pole.”
“Now, Sheree,” Paul says, shaking his head. “Remember, we don’t use the pole for competition. This is about challenging ourselves, not each other.”
Jeez, these self-affirmations. I love this guy, but he’s so earnest it makes my teeth hurt sometimes. Plus, despite or maybe because of my fear, the pole jokes are stacking up in my brain like cars on the highway. I think Aiden senses it, because he moves beside me and places his big, calloused hand on the nape of my neck, strokes his fingers on the skin there. I shiver, forgetting for a minute all about my jokes, but then I shift away, angry at him for ambushing me with this.
Paul curls his fingers around one of the little metal U shapes stuck in the side, explains to me that these are the hand- and footholds I’ll use to climb to the top of the pole. And I’m not just supposed to climb it. I’m supposed to climb it, stand on the tippy-top, and then jump off, trying to hit a rubber ball that’s hanging from one of the wires.
“Paul,” I say, hoping he doesn’t catch the nerves in my voice. “The thing is, I’m not much of a climber. I’m very careful about moisturizing, is the thing. Touch my hands— they’re like satin!” I look up to Aiden, pleadingly. He can’t possibly, truly want me to do this. If I die we’ll never have any more of all that amazing sex we’ve been having. But he’s not speaking up on my behalf; this was his idea, after all. “Got a surprise for you,” he’d whispered in my ear this morning, his mouth right against me as he leaned over my top bunk, not even needing to stretch to do it, and my toes had curled in pleasure.
BecauseI am an idiot.
“I’m sure you’ve got nice hands,” says Paul. “I’ve got gloves if you wantto wear them.”
“You know what I like about you, Paul? It’s how you’re always so prepared.”
He gives me a look I’ve come to recognize on him, a mixture of amusement and confusion that suggests he’s not quite sure whatto make of me.
“I’m up first,” says Sheree, bouncing on the balls of her feet while Tom beams at her in pride. Easy for him, he’s got Little Tommy strapped to his chest and also a diagnosed heart arrhythmia. No one’s going to make him go up. “You canwatch me, Zoe.”
Ten minutes later and I’m wringing my hands, my eyes on Sheree’s rising form, the space I’m keeping between me and Aiden pointed, deliberate. Little Tommy is making wet, happy gurgling noises while Tom uses his own hands to guide his son’s chubby little ones into a rhythmic clap. “Go, Mama, go!” he says, over and over, hoping Little Tommy might repeat after him.
“Aiden,” I say, as quietly as I can so that he’ll still hear me, “I don’t think I should go. I might faint again.”
“The fainting was a one-off,” he says, echoing what I’ve said to him so many times. I barely manage ahmphof disagreement, boring holes into the side of his face with my eyes. “Watch Sheree,” he adds. “She’s good.”
I do watch, especially as she nears the very top. It’s not so much the climb that gets to me. It’s this part right here, this part that I know I need to pay attention to if I’ve got a hope in hell of getting up there and not making an ass of myself. But it’s hard to see, from this distance, by what magic she makes it up, even though Paul’s doing his best to narrate it for me—Notice the way she moves slowly to a crouch, watch how patient she is before she attempts to stand.
She does it beautifully, her arms extended out in front of her at first, parallel with her bent knees, before she slowly spreads them out to her sides, pushing up to her full height. She looks simultaneously small and larger than life up there, and it seems like an eternity that she stands, balancing herself, her legs tight together, her body as still and patient as the pole itself. She looks as if she could wait up there all day, as if it doesn’t bother her at all to be there, anticipating that leap.
When she jumps, I slap a hand over my eyes, let slip a gasp of surprise and terror, my heart in my throat. It’s that moment, thatleap, that terrifies me.
But all I hear is her proud shout, Tommy’s shriek of delight, Paul and Aiden’s applause.
I pull at the straps of my harness. I know I could get out of this. I know I could look Aiden in the face and tell him no again—and he’d listen. But I’m in this harness, everything this weekend has been so good, and I have the strangest sense I’ll disappoint him, and Paul, and most of all,worstof all, myself.
While Paul’s helping to lower Sheree, Aiden moves in front of me, sets his big hands on my shoulders, and then he waits. Waits until I look up, meet his eyes. “Took me three tries to get up there, the first summer I did this. Kept stopping at the halfway point.”?“I won’t do that,” I say, sure of it already. It’s not the climb.
“I know,” he answers, and I feel a jolt of something so affectionate, so desperate—something inside of myself that’s jumping out toward him in sudden, simple gratitude for his confidence, for the way he sees me, for what he sees already about this. It’s scary, the way Aiden and I know each other, when we’ve spent all this timetrying not to.
“It’s being at the top,” I say. “What if I get up there and can’t do the jump?”
He shrugs. “Dunno, Zo. Guess you’ll have to figure how easy it is to climb back down.”
* * * *
It’s prettyeasy, at first.
I almost enjoy the part where I’m getting familiar with the movement, the crab-like crawl I have to adopt to get from one handhold to the next. There’s a comfort in feeling my muscles work like they’re supposed to, in being strong from the strength training I do, in being flexible from yoga. Even my breaths are careful, focused—in through my nose, sharp and noisy out of my mouth. All that physical work, all that gym time—one non-worthless thing I’ve done with my hazy, unstructured existence, I guess.
But then I look down, and my mind stutters with the incongruity of it—me up here, and everyone else below. Where I’m going, there’s no wide, steady platform waiting, there’s no cheerful companion to send me across a zip line, where there’ll be someone waiting on the other side. The higher I go, the more alone I get. My stomach clenches with fear, and I refocus, resolving not to look down again.
“Hey,” says Aiden, calling up to me. His voice is close enough still that he doesn’t quite have to yell, and this soothes me slightly. “You doing all right up there, Satin Hands?”
