Page 42 of Happiness for Beginners

I smiled. “Me, neither.”

As the kids loaded on one by one, Hugh leaned into me and whispered insults about each one, zeroing in immediately on everybody’s most ridiculous and vulnerable traits: the ankle tattoo that said BFFs, the muffin top, the fake tans. He was sharp, I gave him that. And maybe a little mean. But I wasn’t in a position to be picky.

The conversation on the bus was boisterous and cheery—all the kids raring to start their near-death and slimming adventures. I was the only person, as far as I could tell, who was terrified and subdued. Adrenaline prickled in my veins. I tried hard not to notice the way Jake was leading the frivolity, but, of course, the harder you try not to notice a thing, the more it becomes center stage in your mind. Especially when that thing is a person in the seat right behind yours.

The first topic for the morning was everybody’s One Book. I guess it did say a lot about a person: If you could only have one book for three weeks, what book would it be? Most of the boys had brought thrillers, and they all agreed to trade. The girls showed more variety. One brought the Bible. One brought a workout manual. One brought a cupcake cookbook, of all things. One brought her favorite book from childhood,Anne of Green Gables,for the literary equivalent of comfort food. Windy brought a psychology textbook for a summer class she was taking.

She was also in the seat behind me—with Jake, by the way, who she had yanked in as he passed. “What book did you bring?” she asked me.

I turned around to find the whole bus looking at me. Waiting.

“I didn’t bring a book,” I said.

“She forgot her book!” one of the boys shouted, like it was hilarious.

“I didn’t forget it,” I said. “I chose not to bring a book.”

Another incomprehensible statement from me. One guy scratched his neck.

“I just wanted to, you know, reallybe hereand soak up every single moment,” I said, realizing as I said it how stupid the idea sounded. “I didn’t want to miss anything.” Just saying the words made me want to go right home and misseverything.

I turned back around and faced away, but Windy leaned over after me.

“I’m Windy, by the way,” she said.

“I remember that from yesterday,” I said.

“But with an ‘i.’”

It wasn’t computing. “With an ‘i’?”

“It’s not ‘Wendy,’ like inPeter Pan.It’s ‘Windy,’ like”—here, she waved her arms around—“whoosh,whoosh.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Guess what my little sister’s name is?” she said then, and before I could guess, she said, “Stormy.”

“With an ‘o’?” I couldn’t help it.

“Yep,” Windy said, all cheer. “We’re from California.”

She waited a second, to see if I’d add anything else, which I didn’t, and so, at last, she rejoined the bigger conversation, and I was forgotten. My seatmate had fallen fast asleep, and I sat still with my hands folded on my lap. I could have pretended to listen, but I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t see how they could all be so nonchalant in the face of what we were about to do. Mike’s words “you’re not exactly a jock” ricocheted around in my head as we followed the winding two-lane highway farther from civilization. Soon we were cutting through angles of pushed-up earth and zooming past striped rock sediments. The colors were so different here. On the East Coast, the rocks were all shades of gray, but here the earth was red and purple and orange, and the greenery was sparser, and the earth was sandier. I watched it blur by out the window, and I decided it was the change of colors, more than anything, that made me feel so very far from home.

When Beckett stood with his clipboard to start making announcements, he opened with: “It’s all uphill hiking today, people. The whole day. Every step. Let’s get focused.” I gave him my full attention and even pulled out my journal to take notes. Focused, I could do. A whole day of uphill hiking? I wasn’t so sure.

I wrote feverishly as Beckett gave us the plan for the day. We’d hike as a group of twelve, plus Beckett—splitting into our tent groups of four each afternoon as we reached our camps. We’d cook and sleep in our tent groups, and reconvene in the morning to hike together.

“So we get to sleep in tents?” a girl asked.

“Weren’t you at Outfitting?” Beckett asked. “Did anybody here receive a tent?”

The girl looked around.

“No,” Beckett answered. “There are no tents. We sleep under tarps.”

“Why do they call it a tent group, then?” she asked.

Beckett looked up toward the heavens, like he’d had all he could take, and then said, “That’s just what they call them.”

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