Page 56 of Happiness for Beginners

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess.”

“He’s the cutest guy here!” she said, daring me to challenge her.

“If you say so.”

“Can you think of anybody cuter?”

I shook my head. “They all just look like second graders to me.”

“Can I tell you about the moment we met?”

“Um. Okay.”

“I was climbing the stairs that first day at the lodge, and I dropped my duffel bag. It rolled down the stairs, and when I started to go after it, there he was. He’dcaughtit. And he brought it up to me. As he handed it over, I thought, ‘This is the man I’m going to marry.’”

Holy hell.

“You know what I mean?” she went on. “When you see someone, and you justknowyou love them?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” I said, trying to be the voice of reason. “I think love has to grow out of knowing someone really well. It takes time.”

“Not for me,” Windy said.

“I think what you’re talking about is infatuation,” I said.

“Did you know that he can juggle? And swing dance? And do a Scottish accent?”

“He told you all that on the steps?”

“No. On the bus.”

“That’s right.”

“I got a lot out of him during Truth or Dare. He kept trying for Truth. But we forced him into Dares.”

“What kind of Dares?”

“Daring ones.” She turned around and did the eyebrows again. “It kind of turned into a feeding frenzy.”

A feeding frenzy? What were they feeding on? “What happened?”

“I’m sworn to secrecy,” she said. “Sorry. What happens on the roof stays on the roof.”

What?!I wanted to shout.What happened on the roof?

Windy walked on a minute, no doubt enjoying the pleasant tap of her boots striking the trail.

Then I said, “I still don’t think you can love that guy Jack if you’ve only known him two days.”

“Jake.”

“Whatever. It takes more than a game of Truth or Dare to spark real love,” I said. “No matter what happened on the roof.”

Windy turned around and gave me the most blissed-out grin I’d ever seen. “You only think that,” she said, “because you weren’t there.”

Chapter 10

As the week wore on, we got our sea legs. We got used to the weight of our packs, and the dehydrated food, and the pinecones. We adjusted to the altitude and got better at breathing. We crossed our first icy river, and saw a moose across a valley. The men grew beards and the women grew out their leg hair. We had classes most nights after dinner—on the constellations, on map-reading skills, on how to, say, identify the differences between the tracks of black bears and those of grizzlies. We climbed our first pass, one called “U-Turn” because, apparently, it was common for hikers to arrive, glimpse the terrain ahead, and turn around.

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