Happiness for Beginners (10 page)

“How many of you are here for credit?” Beckett asked then. Just about every hand went up. Another reason for so many college kids: It's much harder for grown-ups to get credit for anything.

“I'm Kaylee,” a girl piped up next, as the hands went back down. “I'm a sophomore at Auburn, and I'm a Pi Phi, and I'm hoping to come back a total hardbody.”

They'd set the tone, then. One by one, the kids jumped in, using that same template. Name, year, university, Greek affiliation, and a ten-words-or-less goal for the trip. They were all sophomores and juniors. They all went to big Southern universities. The boys were all hoping for a narrow escape from death, while the girls all, universally, hoped that three brutal weeks in the wilderness would send them home skinnier. Everybody was here for a stupid reason.

Everybody, that is, except me, and I guess that girl Windy, too. And possibly Jake. Though it occurred to me I didn't really have any idea why he was here.

I hung back. My life did not fit into that template, and I dreaded having to announce it publicly to the group. I figured I'd wait to see what Jake said, and maybe crib a little from him. But Jake wasn't volunteering, either. He seemed to be waiting for me.

When every single person had taken a turn but the two of us, Beckett looked back and forth and said, “Well? Who's next?”

Jake pointed at me. “She is.”

Everybody turned in my direction—the guys in their
LIFE IS GOOD
T-shirts and leather, and sharks' teeth necklaces, the girls with their unnaturally tan faces and lip gloss. I surveyed the group. They were not, to say the least, what I'd been expecting. It's possible I'd been in denial, given everything Duncan had insisted about the type of people who'd sign up for a course like this, but I'd expected crunchy-granola hippies. And nature freaks. Shoppers at Whole Foods. Readers of
Outside
magazine. Hemp enthusiasts. Athletes. Perhaps a poet or two. Instead, I was surrounded by the kids you see at spring break on reality TV. Terrifying prototypical teenagers, self-centered and heartless in the way you only are before life has shoved you down and sat on your head for a while.

My turn.
Who was I? Why was I here?

Time ticked. They stared.

At last, I forced out some words—any words. “I'm Helen,” I said. “I don't go to college. Anymore, I mean. I graduated already—years ago. I went to Vassar, though, back when I was your age, but I wasn't in a sorority or anything because we didn't have them there.” I'd lost these kids already. I was from another planet. “I'm thirty-two,” I went on, digging myself deeper, “and my life sort of fell apart last year.”

They were blinking at me as if they literally had no idea what it might mean for someone's life to fall apart. But that couldn't be right. Everyone, no matter how carefully they do their eyeliner, knows something about disappointment, or loss. That said, the older you get, the
more
you know about those things. Maybe it wasn't that they didn't know anything—maybe it was just that they didn't know
enough
. Something about those blank looks pushed me forward and made me want to force them to get it, even though, of course, that just goes against the physics of human life: People can't understand things before they can understand them.

“I got divorced, actually,” I heard myself say. “We'd been trying to start a family, but that went off the rails.”

My gaze flickered past Jake, who shook his head imperceptibly as if to say,
Abort! Abort!

But I couldn't. I couldn't find a stopping place. They were all so quiet. I'd stunned them, and not in a good way, and my mouth refused to shut down until it had stumbled upon some kind of redemption.

“I remember in high school,” I went on, turning my own volume down to match the quiet in the room, “I had this crazy crush on a boy who was completely out of my league. He was handsome like a Greek god, and I was just a plain old slightly awkward mortal. I had no business liking him, but he'd helped me up one time when I'd tripped on the stairs, and I couldn't let it go. One day in study hall, as I stole glances at him, I decided that I was going to kiss him at graduation. It was three years away, but I made this solemn vow to myself. And I wasn't going to do it because I thought it would make him suddenly fall in love with me. I was going to do it for me. As a gift to myself. Because I refused to swoon so achingly over him for so long without ever getting even one thing out of it. I pictured it over and over. I planned out different forms of attack. And guess what?” My gaze had fallen to the floor and I didn't look up or wait for an answer. “Graduation came, and I never did it. I didn't chicken out, exactly. I just realized that day that the reality of it would spoil the fantasy. And I
preferred
the fantasy. And guess what else? I ran into him about a year ago at the gas station, and I didn't even say hello.” I looked up, at last. “You can't understand this yet, but that's most of life: breaking your own promises to yourself.”

With that, I hit bottom. My attempt at redemption—to say something wise and useful for them—ended with the kind of silence you give the crazy cat lady after she tells you about the time Mr. Mittens ate a cockroach. I guess if the only person you ever process things with is your mean little rat-tailed dog, it's all bound to come out sideways sometimes.

That was all I needed, apparently: a crushingly awkward silence and a sudden 3-D glimpse of myself through the group's eyes. I had to lose all hope, and it released me, somehow. “So that's why I'm here, I guess,” I said at last. “To get stronger and toughen up. To care less. To rise up from the ashes of my existence like a really badass phoenix and give life the finger, at last.”

After an overly long beat, Beckett turned to Jake. “Okay,” he said, stretching out the “ay” sound in a
that-was-totally-bananas
tone. “And what about you?”

We all turned toward Jake. That's when I got a look at him for the first time, in context, and noticed that he really didn't look like the rest of the guys. They were all wearing baseball caps, and cargo shorts, and Patagonia shirts. Despite individual variations of size and coloring and hair length, they were all somehow
alike
—the boy versions of all the girls in the room. But not Jake—in his red vintage Hawaiian shirt, and frayed khakis and flip-flops. He wore a tattered canvas fisherman's hat with a home-tied fishing fly pinned to it that should have made him look like a total goofball. But it didn't somehow. Perhaps it was the implied power of all his muscles. Or the hipster glasses that gave him a Cary Grant–like star presence. Or maybe the goofiness of that Gilligan hat proved beyond a doubt that he truly didn't care what anybody thought of him. But the whole room, including me, was thinking the same thing at the same time:
This guy is going to be the boss
.

Jake gave the entire group a big, flirty grin. “Why am I here?” Then he pointed at me with his thumb, and spoke these words: “What she said.”

The whole room burst out in a loud, tension-relieving laugh. Even I laughed for a minute. Until I realized none of us were laughing
with
me.

“Actually,” Jake said then, as everybody fell quiet. “Seriously.” He looked around. “I agree with the redhead.” He squinted at me a little. “Or the strawberry-blond-head.” The remaining laughing died down, and a few kids glanced over in my direction. “What's-her-name's not wrong. Life
is
going to kick the hell out of all of us. Everybody here. Me included. And I think I'm here to learn to survive it. And take it like a man. Or maybe learn to kick back a little.” He turned his eyes toward me. “Like her.” With that, maybe even just that one look, he saved me. “Oh, and my name's Jake, by the way,” he added. “And I didn't go to Vassar. But I did just graduate from Harvard.”

A second silence hit the room—but this was one of awe. In that moment, Jake became our official alpha dog. Theirs, because he was cool, and confident, and hip, and friendly, and had just graduated—which essentially made him a senior. And mine, too. Because even after I'd been as mean to him as I could all day, he still went to the trouble of rescuing me.

Beckett, though, didn't want Jake to be our alpha dog. He stood as fast as he could to snatch back his position as leader, and, when Jake sat back down, Beckett demanded in a voice that sounded suddenly deeper, “Does anybody know where we are?”

The kids all kind of looked around. Did anybody
not
know where we were?

“More importantly,” Beckett went on, now that he had our attention, “does anybody know where we're going?”

“The wilderness,” a guy said.

“The backcountry,” offered another.

“The middle of nowhere,” said a third.

“Are we going to Disneyland?” Beckett asked the group, looking around.

“No,” everybody said now, getting in the groove.

“That's right,” Beckett agreed. “We are going to the opposite of Disneyland. We're going to the Absaroka mountains. Not pronounced the way it's spelled, by the way. Say it with me: ‘Ab-SOAR-kas.'”

“Ab-soar-kas,” we all said.

“One of the steepest, wildest, most bloodthirsty ranges in the U.S. It will chew you up and spit you out like cherry pits. This is not kid stuff, kids. If you have any hope of surviving,” he paused here for emphasis, “you will follow my rules to the letter.”

I wondered if any of that was true, or if he was just trying to get back on top.

“This afternoon, we'll go to Outfitting for any gear you still need. After that we'll go to the Pantry to fill our packs, and then, after a good supper—I recommend the Mexican place on State Street—you will enjoy your last shower, and take your last shit on a toilet, and curl up for your last night in a bed.”

Beckett looked delighted to bear this news. “You are about to get pummeled on a daily basis. We're not going to the Four Seasons, people. Motel 6 will look like a luxury cruise when I'm done with you. You want to know where we're going? To a land with no toilet paper.” He nodded, pleased at the shocked expressions. “That's right. For the next three weeks, you're going to be wiping your ass with a pinecone. You're going to get absolutely filthy. There are no showers out there, friends. No shampoo, no deodorant, no Axe hair gel. You're going to look like hell and smell like a skunk. I don't know who you think you are or why you think you can do this trip. Maybe you think you're amazing. Maybe you think you're a tough guy. But I'll tell you something: The only tough guy in the Absarokas is Mother Nature, and she is going to drag your ass up and down the block.”

I glanced around the room. The kids were thrilled with the idea of an ass kicking.

Beckett pulled out a sample backpack and started showing us how to pack.

“Here's how we live in the Absarokas,” he went on. “We don't take anything—
anything
—we don't need. Every ounce counts when you carry your whole life on your back. You'll have a toothbrush, two ounces of toothpaste, and a plastic bag to spit into. You're permitted sunscreen and ChapStick and a comb. You are not permitted: makeup, lotion, jewelry, or electronics of any kind. And guess what? We leave nothing but footprints. Everything we pack in, we pack out. Ladies, if it's your time of the month—”

“Gross!” one of the guys shouted.

“You'll keep your used feminine supplies double-bagged and bring them back with you.
Pack it in, pack it out.
You cannot flick your used lady-products into the woods and get away with it. Leaving tampons on the trail is grounds for expulsion.”

Was this a problem? Did the women on these trips just fling their old tampons all around the forest? Did we need to cover this in the opening monologue? I really had not thought this trip through. I hadn't foreseen that we wouldn't bathe for three weeks. Or that we wouldn't be allowed to bring deodorant. Or the whole “wiping with a pinecone” situation. As my chest seized up with anxiety about the horrific wrong turn I had just made by coming here, I tried, at the same time, to give silent thanks for the fact that, at the very least, it wasn't going to be my time of the month.

What the hell had I been thinking? I wasn't a hiker! I wasn't outdoorsy! My favorite things in the world were soft beds, good books, and big cups of coffee. I did not want to have my ass kicked—by Mother Nature or anyone else.

How had I not figured this out before? This trip was the very last thing on earth I wanted to do. I suddenly felt a lurch of despair in my stomach. I should have gone to Paris in a jaunty hat and taken a cooking class! How on earth had I picked Bigfoot for my role model over Julia Child?

I looked around the room to see if anybody else was panicking. But those kids—those dumb kids—were enraptured. The scarier Beckett got, the more they loved it.

“You can bring one small camera if it fits in this pocket,” he said, pointing at a zipper on his daypack. “You are permitted one extra T-shirt, one extra set of socks, and one extra pair of underpants. You are required to bring a notebook to serve as your journal, and you may bring one book only for entertainment. You'll be issued anything you need at Outfitting. You'll pack your bags yourself, using our system, but don't even think about trying to sneak in shampoo or deodorant.” He glared at all of us, but the women in particular. “That's wasting space and adding weight. If I find it in your pack, I will make you eat it.”

Next, he pulled out a map and pointed at a green area with a bunch of wiggly lines like fingerprints on top of it. “Over the next three weeks, we will traverse this range.” He traced a route with a ballpoint pen. “We'll sleep in tent groups of four and hike together every day. We'll rise with the sun and travel six to twelve miles a day, some of them vertical miles. You will be exhausted. You may well have blisters. You will hate yourself and everyone around you. That's okay. Too bad. When we get to camp, you'll set up your sleeping tarps first, then your kitchens. There'll be a lot of farting on this trip, people. It's funny and hilarious. Get over it. Dehydrated food does that to you. Think of it as jet propulsion.”