Cubby
“This changes everything!”I insist, pacing around the dining room and kitchen. It’s been a few days since my surprise butt encounter with Chase, and I still haven’t quite gotten over it. “Like, the whole summer is different now.”
“That’s not true, Cubby,” Meg says flatly. She’s at the dining room table, hunched at her laptop and drinking coffee. “You get crushes all the time. This really doesn’t change anything.”
“But he can see us from his house! I was going to do a naked sunbathing photoshoot on the dock. Photoshoots, even!”
Meg yawns. “I don’t think my family would want you sunbathing naked on the dock anyway.”
I throw my hands in the air, exhausted. “That’s not the point! The point is that it’s going to be a lot harder for me to make my vlog with him staring at me all the time!” I fan myself. “And now I’m all in a tizzy!”
Meg laughs. “A tizzy?”
“A fucking tizzy!” I pull out the chair next to her and collapse in it. “How’s the documentary coming?”
“Good,” she answers, her eyes still on the screen. “This migration footage turned out even better than I expected.”
Meg rarely compliments her own stuff, so I’m not surprised when I glance at the laptop and see a gorgeously framed, captivating shot of countless little salamanders with yellow spots, working their way through a wet forest.
“Whoa,” I say, impressed.
“You can’t get too obsessed with Chase,” Meg says and pushes her coffee toward me. “There’s no money in nature docs. You have to launch your career so we’re not both broke.”
I lift the mug. “Here’s to having no other options but success,” I say cheerfully, then choke back some of her cold black coffee. “So, you think I should ask him out? Or wait a week?”
Meg closes the laptop. “I think you should get your butt in the shower. If we’re going to film outside today, we should do it early, while the light’s still good.”
I stand up. “Right. Wardrobe.”
Luckily for me, I’m excited enough about the project that, once I get started working, all other concerns float away. I’ve always been able to do stuff either a thousand percent or zero percent. I’m no good at dialing myself down or faking enthusiasm. But when I care about something, I throw my whole life into it.
I can’t imagine explaining my passion for sex-ed to a guy like Chase—he seems so modest—but I feel that drive and enthusiasm for the videos I’m making this summer.
About an hour later, Meg and I are on a hiking trail, the winding, rocky paths curving through cliffs dotted with wildflowers and shadowed by the forest. I’m dressed in a cute purple top, like a flannel shirt but short-sleeved and with some sparkle in the thread, and I walk backward occasionally, smiling into the camera.
For content, I tell the story about meeting Meg and going on my first camping trip. She’d tried to take me on an easy beginner’s trip, but I insisted on accompanying her on a photoshoot instead.
I stare straight into the camera. “I have literally never been as miserable as I was in that bog.” I whip out my handkerchief and dot my forehead. “A bog!” I repeat.
I hit all the highlights—the frog that got in my sweatpants, the unnecessary outfit changes I dragged through the forest, and the way Meg saved me from myself when I thought a rock was an alligator, although it turns out there aren’t alligators in Massachusetts anyway. I laugh about the hard stuff, and that lets me tell the real heart of the story too.
The problem wasn’t that I was bad at being outdoorsy or anything like that. It was that no one had taken the time to let me be me.
Just one friend, one welcoming person like Meg, and a whole new world can open up. That’s the story I share on the hike, huffing and puffing along.
We do a few extra takes at the peak of the trail, a lookout with the lake shimmering down below, then gobble down our snacks and head back to town. We’re frontloading filming to get material built up before we start releasing it online, and I’ve already got some ideas for an evening photoshoot.
This is the other reason for my no-boyfriends rule. Distractions would be bad enough right now, but honestly, I’m scared too, that the reality of my chosen career is going to mean no one will want to date me. I’m putting myself online in a way very few people would be comfortable with, and that introduces a whole host of complications for a potential partner.
It’s way safer to just close that door now, instead of risking leaving it open.
“It’s nice hearing you talk about that,” Meg says as we cruise down the mountain in her car. We’re going slow, and the windows are halfway down to catch the fresh air. “How I took you camping.”
“And saved me from the alligator.”
She smiles. She’s still got that easy, chill expression on her face, partially hidden behind her black sunglasses. “Right.”
“I’ve told you all that before, though,” I point out. “That’s one of my favorite Meg memories.”
