Page 65 of Happiness for Beginners

“Tonight?”

“Sooner is always better than later.”

Was Jake really thinking of trying to find our lost hiking group in the middle of the night? What did he think we’d do—hold his hand and lead him there? The stars weren’t even out. Even people who could see would be stumbling into trees.

But Beckett looked at the sky and shook his head. “It’s too dark. If they were on the trail, I’d say go for it, but they’re off it somewhere, and we don’t know where.”

I knew where, but I didn’t say anything. Was I protecting Jake over helping Hugh?

“We can’t start an evac until the morning, anyway. An hour or so won’t make a difference.”

With that, it was decided. We’d wait to leave until dawn. “Bunk in with Windy’s group tonight,” Beckett told me.

Then he gathered the group together, clapped his hands for everybody’s attention, and filled them in. “This is serious, people, and this is not a drill. We will be doing an evac tomorrow. No breakfast in the morning. We will strike camp by 5A.M.—no food, no coffee—and head out. You can all fuel up at the site while Jake and I tend to Hugh. Be sure to save us something to eat.” Then he looked around, surveying our faces. “Tomorrow’s going to be a bitch, folks. Hit the sack right now, and soak up every ounce of rest you can.”

***

Our tent group was already set up and had to move their bags over to make space for me under the tarp. I would have gone for the other side—the side farthest from Jake—but the group made space by parting in the middle, and I wound up right next to him.

Everybody begged for more details as I wriggled into my pj’s inside my bag, but I wasn’t feeling talkative. I didn’t give them much to work with, and pretty soon, they took Beckett’s advice, curled up, and conked out. Except for me. I couldn’t relax. I lay flat on my back trying to massage my palms into relaxing. It was so dark, the tarp ceiling above me could just as well have been the sky. I couldn’t stop thinking about Hugh there by the side of the trail, his face so gray. I’d done the best I could—with my one page of first-aid notes. It wasn’t nearly enough, and I knew it. It was a strange, lonely feeling.

“You did good, you know,” Jake said then, his voice right near my ear. He’d been quiet for so long, it seemed impossible that he was still awake.

But I was glad he was. I closed my eyes. “I’m afraid Hugh’s going to die.”

“Don’t think about that,” he said. “We’ll do everything we can. He’ll probably be fine.”

“Probably?”

“It’s possible the Sisters might talk him to death.”

I laughed a little bit. “I had no idea what to do,” I said. “I had one page of notes to go on.”

“That’s more than anybody else would have had.”

“Except you.”

“Yeah, but I’m in the industry.”

“And now he’s there. And we’re here. And I can’t sleep.” I was genuinely rattled.

“You need to sleep, though,” Jake said. “Tomorrow’s going to be brutal.”

But I didn’t close my eyes. Instead, I said, “Shouldn’t Beckett have come to find us? When we didn’t show up in the afternoon? Shouldn’t he have known something was wrong?”

“He’d decided to go back and look for you after dinner.”

“After dinner?”

“He wanted to ‘fuel up’ first, and he didn’t seem too worried. I think he just expected your group to—”

“Suck?”

“Dawdle.” He gave me a little smile. “But you’re right. He’s not exactly a trained professional.”

“How old do you think he is?”

“If I didn’t know you had to be twenty-one, I’d say seventeen.”

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