Page 100 of Happiness for Beginners

I washed my hair four times. And conditioned it twice. And combed the tangles out. I scrubbed every inch of my body. All while standing under the most glorious spray of hot steamy water in the history of the world.

There was a banquet that night, and the girls gussied up. It was like they were seeking revenge for all the product deprivation they’d been forced to endure. Every room in the girls’ wing of the corridor overflowed with beauty activities: girls with blow-dryers, girls working curling irons, girls blinking on mascara, girls squirting fruit-scented body spray. So much applied femininity! It was fascinating to see them transformed. They looked different, for sure, but in the end, I’m not sure they looked better. Instead of ponytails and ChapStick, they suddenly had poofy hair and cat-eye liner. I kind of missed the faces I was used to.

I confess to a little mascara, myself, and a dab of lip gloss—but I didn’t want to go overboard. I tied my hair back in two low ponytails and slipped into a light, fluttery sundress I’d brought. The younger girls were excited about makeup and looking different, but I was excited about wearing something light and fluttery andfeelingdifferent. Just the difference between my three-pound boots and the flip-flops I’d put on felt like an entire universe.

I let Dosie paint my nails with little dotted flowers, and while she was working, she said, “I like your hair like that.” Then she tilted her head toward me and said, “You know, you’re prettier than I gave you credit for.”

“Oh,” I said, not sure how to respond. “You’re nicer than I gave you credit for.”

She looked up in surprise, and I wrinkled my nose at her. Then she smiled and went back to work.

Windy showed up before dinner in jeans and a halter top, with her hair in her trademark chignon. She pointed at me from the doorway, and then crooked her finger. “I need you,” she said.

I followed her down the hall to her room. “I have something for you,” she said, then. When we arrived, she pointed at the bed, and there was a little daisy chain. “It’s for your hair tonight,” she said. “For when you win your Certificate.”

“Did you make this?” I said.

She nodded. “The meadow out back is covered in daisies.” She lifted it onto my head and tucked it into place. “If you dry it just right, it’ll keep forever.”

“How do you dry it?”

“Actually, I can’t remember.”

“We’re going to keep in touch, right?” I asked then.

She nodded. “I can be your personal Pickle consultant.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Actually, you are the only person from this trip I expect to keep in touch with.”

“Except for Jake.”

“Jake?”

“Since he’s your brother’s friend.”

“Oh,” I said. “Did he mention that to you?”

“Yeah,” she said, “he kinda did.” Then she realized she might be getting him in trouble. “But I didn’t tell anyone! Swear to God!”

“That’s fine,” I said. “It was a dumb secret, anyway.”

***

The “banquet” was pizza from Pizza Hut, imported from the next town over, which is what everybody had been discussing, craving, and fantasizing about since day one. Not the fanciest food, but the old ballroom of the lodge had windows that overlooked the lake and bulb lights strung all around the ceiling, and so it felt fancy, even still.

As the boys arrived, one by one, with all their beards shaved away (except for Beckett, who had left a stringy version of a Yosemite Sam), they almost looked more altered than the girls. We were a fine-looking bunch that night, I had to admit. Once we’d scrubbed three weeks’ worth of sweat, dirt, grit, sand, and muck off our bodies, all that sunshine and fresh air could shine through. We were tan, fresh-smelling, clean, and healthy, if also a little blistered and callused. I had never felt so happy to be clean. Beckett had the Steve Miller Band playing over the speaker system, and Vegas and Caveman had spiked the lemonade with vodka. It was a heck of a party.

Jake was the last to arrive, not that I was counting, and he rounded the doorway just as Windy was pulling me toward it to go look for him. He was less than five feet away as it happened, and right as he looked up I could have sworn his gaze hit me first before jumping over to Windy. And here’s something else I could have sworn. At the moment he saw me, I thought I heard him say, “Whoa.”

But that couldn’t have been right. It must have been someone scooting a chair, or Beckett messing with the microphone. I just wasn’t the type of person to inspire a word like that from a guy. I inspired other words, maybe. Words like, “Careful!” Or “Are you going to eat that?”

Still, my brain would circle back to that moment over and over for the rest of the night, unable to let it go, even as I doubted it more and more. I even indulged in the paranoid fear that it might have beenmewho said “Whoa.” But my heart, at least, thought it knew what happened: Jake had seen me in that moment, and something he’d seen had surprised him, and possibly impressed him, and no matter how self-doubting I insisted on being, it was too real to deny.

Of course, in that same moment, I felt the exact same things. Jake arrived at the party—so overwhelmingly appealing in his red Mexican guayabera shirt and frayed khakis and flip-flops—that I felt the impact of the sight of him as a visceral shudder in my body. He was tan, and clean-shaven, and he’d gotten his hair cut. He’d found somebody to fix his glasses, too—and so now he looked just like the guy I’d driven out here with, but better, and he was using those newly repaired glasses to focus all his attention on Windy.

It was too much. My only option was to walk away. I didn’t even excuse myself. I just turned and headed out. I don’t even know if they noticed.

Outside, on the deck that overlooked the lake, I took some deep breaths. So what?So what?I was proud of myself, dammit. I had done exactly what I’d hoped to do on this trip. I’d triumphed. I’d arrived. I’d signed up for a hell of a challenge, and I had kicked its ass for once instead of the other way around.

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