Oh great. In addition to climbing a mountain, I’m getting hit with a pyramid scheme.
Jodie declined.
“Well, okay, but you’ll regret it when your body falls apart in a couple years.”
“I’m in my twenties.”
“Wow, you look older than that. Tick-tock, tick-tock.” Then he pivoted to explaining how he personally planned to live forever, citing protein powder, red light masks, and his positive attitude as the primary mechanisms.
By the time they reached the trailhead, Jodie had mentally composed and discarded three different texts to Stephanie, none of them nice.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Dale asked, looking her up and down.
She looked around at the distinct absence of changing rooms. “Um, yes?”
It went even further downhill from there, which was ironic given that they were going uphill. He was nearly a foot taller than her with legs he used to their full potential, and within five minutes she was lagging behind. He came back around a bend looking for her.
“There you are.” He reached for her backpack and slipped it off her shoulders and slung it on his before she realized what he was doing. “I was worried.”
And for one brief, shining moment, she thought maybe she’d misjudged him.
“You were worried about me?”
“Yeah, that I was going to have to babysit you the entire hike. But maybe you’ll move faster if I’m carrying your backpack.”
That did it. Her dander, as her grandmother used to say, was fully up.
She power-walked past Dale. He was surprised enough to let her, and then annoyed enough to catch up, and then they were side by side on the trail and he was explaining why women always thought they could beat men, and she was explaining that she hadn’t realized it was a competition, and then he said thething about her knowing her place and watching herass expandand Jodie stopped responding entirely and just walked.
“I’ve never been on a grudge hike before,” Dale said, somewhere around mile six.
“Glad I could introduce you to the experience. How many more miles is this?”
“Well,” Dale said pleasantly, “I was going to suggest the four-mile loop, but we passed that turnoff about half a mile ago. So now we’re committed to sixteen.”
“Oh, is that all? I was hoping for twenty-five.”
She would remember the sour look on his face for a long time with great satisfaction.
She would remember less fondly the root she didn’t see a mile later. Her ankle turned, she went down hard on the trail, and she knew immediately from the white-hot stabbing pain shooting up her leg that she was not walking out of here without help.
She looked up and watched Dale continue on without breaking stride.
“Dale. Hey, Dale? Dale!”
He stopped, turned, and looked down at her. She waited for him to crouch down, ask if she was all right, and offer a hand.
Dale looked at her ankle. Then he looked up the trail. Then he looked back at her with an expression that said he was doing complicated math.
“I’m going to go get help,” he said.
“Okay,” she said carefully. “You could also just?—”
“I’ll send someone back up for you when I’m done.”
And then Dale, Dr. Boyfriend’s sister’s husband’s cousin’s nephew, turned around and walked away up the trail without her.
“Hey! Hey, wait. You have my pack.”
