“Dude.” Geoff’s a good guy, but a master of eloquence he is not. He turns and keeps our pace as we move toward camp. “The camera guys are on their way,” he says over his shoulder. “They’re probably just around the corner.”
Yep, there they are, coming around the canyon bend.
“Seriously?” I say with a groan. “We were supposed to have two hours!”
“Yeah, well. We heard you yell all the way back at camp, and no way was Rich going to shrugthatoff.”
I like Geoff, but I kind of want to strangle him for his nonchalance in the face of all this.
Jason, a ways behind both Geoff and me, is muttering a furious string of swear words. I want to take his hand, death-smell be damned, but I still hear those words again, that tone of truth that even he didn’t want to face.
Maybe I don’t.
My blood is cold in my veins and the hurt is a jagged lump in my chest and I can’t reach out, not right now. I ball my hands into fists and keep walking.
“Jason! Emily!” It’s Rich’s voice, as he and the cameramen run up to us. “You guys all right? We were worried about you.”
“I can tell,” I snap back. “Seeing as your first impulse was to sendcamerasand not a medical team.”
“I can radio the med team if you need it, but—” Rich gets close enough that he starts making the same choking noise. “Oh, wow, did you—”
“Yes!” Jason yells. “My junk has been fucking skunked! You happy?”
The cameras are fairly close to us now, the cameramen making their own gagging noises but bravely soldiering on with the filming.
Rich doesn’t respond, just steps back off the trail, giving a wide berth as Jason and I stomp by. I see him motion to the cameras, though they’re already following us. I get the feeling he’s actually happy with this development.
I am anything but.Those cameras pointed at us—especially now, where we are in literal spotlights—make everything feel magnified, every little crack in our relationship brought closer to the surface.
I’m good at dealing with the practical. I need to focus on that.
We pass by our sad little romantic campsite, and I ask Geoff if he could put out the fire and gather up our stuff. He quickly agrees, probably to get out of the skunk parade.
“I’ll get you some clothes from our tent,” I continue, doing my best to ignore everyone here but Jason. “You can go to the trailer and take a shower.”
“Fantastic,” Jason growls.
“What? No, not a chance,” Rich yells from behind the cameramen following us. “You aren’t stepping foot into my trailer smelling like that.”
My hackles are so high I practically feel myself lifting off the ground. I stop and turn, but Jason keeps walking by me. A cloud of that intense stench hits me, and I cough again before I can manage to speak to Rich. “He needs a shower tonotsmell like that.”
“No way,” Rich says. “We work in there.”
“What do you suggest, then? You want him to smell like this tomorrow when he’s climbing with the Not-Wives? How close to the cliff do you think any of them are going to get when their instructor is a walking cloud of eye-watering stench?”
“Thanks for that,” I hear Jason mutter. But he’s stopped walking now, too, standing a few feet ahead of us on the trail, his arms crossed.
Rich considers this, clearly weighing Jason stinking up his trailer against the loss of the triumphal climax of his film—which I’m not wrong about.There’s no way in hell these ladies are going anywhere near Jason tomorrow if he smells like this. Geoff orTim could technically take the lead, but Jason is the host, the one with the dramatic flair, and the one the Not-Wives know and trust.
“Fine,” he says. “You can use the showerifyou bathe yourself with tomato juice first.That’s how you get rid of the stink, right?”
Jason groans. “That doesn’t actually work, it’s just an urban legend—”
“Julie?” Rich says into his walkie-talkie. “I need you to get catering to gather as much tomato juice as they have. And get a tub.”
There’s a little crackle and then a confused female voice. “A tub?”
“Yeah, like one of those big plastic ones, maybe something from the equipment trailer. It needs to fit a body.”
