Page 83 of Promise Me Sunshine

“We have squirrels in the city, Jeffy,” Jericho says with a laugh, watching his friend pat a tree with awe.

Jeffy doesn’t care. He’s just discovered the river through the trees and he’s already down the path, shucking his shoes off, rolling up his pants legs, knee deep in the water, hooting at the cold and snapping pictures of the riverbed.

Miles, meanwhile, sets up camp with the tenacity of a Marine. Two tents, camp chairs around a firepit, and a picnic table set up with a cooler and drinks and sandwiches. And…

“A hammock!” I sprint to the far side of the campsite and gracelessly attempt to hoist myself into the hammock. My face presses fabric, my feet dangle, the world tips, but then—phew—I’m flat on my back and watching the green-red-golden canopy open its hands toward the sky.

A sparrow flits between two leaves, pauses on a branch, and then a second one arrives. They both launch themselves into the unknown, one after the other.

My view is eclipsed by a big, frowning forehead.

“I had thought you might like this amenity.”

“You’re wrong. I hate it.” It’s the kind of hammock that the fabric sort of wraps around you, so I’m a lying, grinning cannoli. “I think my blood pressure has dropped about seventy points.”

“That sounds like a major health emergency. Here. Sit up.” I follow his directions and then there’s room for two if we sit perpendicular to the hammock. It dips considerably and I tumble into Miles’s space as we recline like an easy chair, legs over the side. He hands me a sandwich. I try to get back into my own space but just end up rolling into his gravity. I give up and settle into him. Head on his shoulder and sort of spooning into his side. For a moment he’s stiff, clearing his throat, and then he takes a bite of his sandwich and relaxes. I do the same.

“PB&J. Perfection.”

“Good camping food,” he agrees. Apparently his legs are long enough to push us gently against the ground.

The sandwiches are gone, the sun is warm, I’m floating above the earth. There’s a big warm noisemaker under my cheek and it tells me over and over, bump-bump we’re here. Bump-bump we exist. Bump-bump we’re alive.

“Hey. Wake up, children.” I flutter my eyes open to see Rica blocking out the sun. “Let’s go do something!”

Miles stretches a little and clears his throat. “There’s a swimming hole about a fifteen-minute hike from here. Wanna check it out?”

She points at him. “Yes. Let’s do it.”

I’ve dimly heard the conversation about the swimming hole, but I’m still slowly coming to terms with the fact that I’ve somehow ended up completely on top of Miles. He’s on his back, legs over the side of the hammock, and I’m curled like a snail against him. Head on his chest, arm across his middle, one leg over top of his. We’re lucky I didn’t unbutton his shirt and crawl inside. My heart is beating uncomfortably fast.

I freeze, unsure how to extricate myself from this without touching him even more. His hand lands on top of mine, over his ribs, warm and firm, and I feel his fingers in between mine. He lifts my hand. Wait, is he about to kiss my palm? I’m sweating.

He lifts up halfway so that I’m on my back now and he’s three quarters over me. I can’t see his face against the sun; my heart is beating all the way out to my toes, my lips, my scalp.

And then he tosses my hand to the side, hoists my leg away from him, and stands all at once. The hammock rebounds and the fabric cocoons around me.

By the time I extricate myself from the hammock, theothers are in various states of dress and undress around the campsite. Miles has already changed into swimming trunks and a T-shirt. Jericho is shirt off and hopping his feet back into hiking boots, a towel slung around his shoulders. Jeffy’s changing underneath a gigantic towel, and Rica unzips from the tent and emerges in a bright yellow sundress and sneakers with big white socks.

I grab my bag from the car, unzip my towel, and then toss everything else into the tent.

“You’re not changing?” Miles asks me.

I shrug. “No bathing suit. I’ll swim in my skivvies.”

“Swimming!” Jericho is confidently leading us in the wrong direction.

Miles turns us around and leads the way toward the swimming hole. Jeffy and I take turns schlepping the gigantic backpack he’s packed with chips and drinks and sunscreen and bug spray and Mad Libs. He is taking this extremely seriously.

We’re surrounded by layers of gray-green rock and stately, swaying trees. The shallow river slides swiftly over sheet rock as smooth as a dance floor. The water gathers and swells at a great blue hole that seems to have no bottom. Jericho wades directly into it and dunks himself, Jeffy tests the water, and Rica has set up a bed of towels and lounges like a cat, eating chips.

Miles motions me up the side of a rocky outcropping. We get to the top, fifteen feet above everyone else. “If I had a list,” he says, “this would be on it.”

“What?”

He nods toward the little cliff. “Cannonball.”

“Me? Now?” I look down at the seven-thousand-foot drop, the hole in the water that clearly opens up into the underworld. “I respectfully, eternally, decline.”

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