The Middle of Somewhere

by Sonja Yoerg

Genres: Family Life; Literary Fiction; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

A troubled, young widow hikes from Yosemite Valley deep into the wilderness on the John Muir Trail to elude her shameful past in this emotionally gripping story from the author of House Broken.

With her thirtieth birthday looming, Liz Kroft is heading for the hills—literally. Her emotional baggage weighs her down more than her backpack, but a three-week trek promises the solitude she craves—at least until her boyfriend, Dante, decides to tag along. His broad moral streak makes the prospect of confessing her sins more difficult, but as much as she fears his judgment, she fears losing him more. Maybe.

They set off together alone under blue skies, but it’s not long before storms threaten and two strange brothers appear along the trail. Amid the jagged, towering peaks, Liz must decide whether to admit her mistakes and confront her fears, or face the trail, the brothers and her future alone.

Release date: September 1, 2015

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 336

Sample

Written by today’s freshest new talents and selected by New American Library, NAL Accent novels touch on subjects close to a woman’s heart, from friendship to family to finding our place in the world. The Conversation Guides included in each book are intended to enrich the individual reading experience, as well as encourage us to explore these topics together—because books, and life, are meant for sharing.

Visit us online at penguin.com.

 

CHAPTER ONE

Liz hopped from foot to foot and hugged herself against the cold. She glanced at the porch of the Yosemite Valley Wilderness Office, where Dante stood with his back to her, chatting with some other hikers. His shoulders shrugged and dropped, and his hands danced this way and that. He was telling a story—a funny one, judging by the faces of his audience—but not a backpacking story because he didn’t have any. His idea of a wilderness adventure was staring out the window during spin class at the gym. Not that it mattered. He could have been describing the self-contradictory worldview of the guy who changes his oil, or the merits of homemade tamales, or even acting out the latest viral cat video. Liz had known him for over two years and still couldn’t decipher how he captured strangers’ attention without apparent effort. Dante was black velvet and other people were lint.

Their backpacks sat nearby on a wooden bench like stiff-backed strangers waiting for a bus. The impulse to grab hers and take off without him shot through her. She quelled it with the reminder that his pack contained essential gear for completing the three-week hike. The John Muir Trail. Her hike. At least that had been the plan.

She propped her left hiking boot on the bench, retied it, folded down the top of her sock and paced a few steps along the sidewalk to see if she’d gotten them even. It wasn’t yet nine a.m., and Yosemite Village already had a tentative, waking buzz. Two teenage girls in pajama pants and oversize sweatshirts walked past, dragging their Uggs on the concrete. Bleary-eyed dads pushed strollers, and Patagonia types with day packs marched purposefully among the buildings: restaurants, a grocery store, a medical clinic, a visitor’s center, gift shops, a fire station, even a four-star hotel. What a shame the trail had to begin in the middle of this circus. Liz couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.

She fished Dante’s iPhone out of the zippered compartment on top of his pack and called Valerie. They’d been best friends for eleven years, since freshman year in college, when life had come with happiness the way a phone plan came with minutes.

Valerie answered. “Dante?”

“No. It’s me.”

“Where’s your phone?”

“Asleep in the car. No service most of the way. Even here I’ve only got one bar.”

“Dante’s going to go nuts if he can’t use his phone.”

“You think? How’s Muesli?” Valerie was cat-sitting for her.

“Does he ever look at you like he thinks you’re an idiot?”

“All the time.”

“Then he’s fine.”

“How’s the slipper commute?” Valerie worked as a Web designer, mostly from home, and had twenty sets of pajamas hanging in her closet as if they were business suits.

“Just firing up the machine. You get your permits?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Try to sound more psyched.”

How could she be psyched when this wasn’t the trip she’d planned? She was supposed to hike the John Muir Trail—the JMT—alone. With a few thousand square miles of open territory surrounding her, she hoped to find a way to a truer life. She sure didn’t know the way now. Each turn she’d taken, each decision she’d made—including moving in with Dante six months ago—had seemed right at the time, yet none were right, based as they were on a series of unchallenged assumptions and quiet lies, one weak moral link attached to the next, with the truth at the tail end, whipping away from her again and again.

Maybe, she’d whispered to herself, she could have a relationship with Dante and share a home if she pretended there was no reason she couldn’t. She loved him enough to almost believe it could work. But she’d hardly finished unpacking before her doubts had mushroomed. She became desperate for time away—from the constant stream of friends in Dante’s wake, from the sense of sliding down inside a funnel that led to marriage, from becoming an indeterminate portion of something called “us”—and could not tell Dante why. Not then or since. That was the crux of it. Instead, she told Dante that years ago she’d abandoned a plan to hike the JMT and now wanted to strike it off her list before she turned thirty in November. She had no list, but he accepted her explanation, and her true motivation wriggled free.

The Park Service issued only a few permits for each trailhead. She’d faxed in her application as soon as she decided to go. When she received e-mail confirmation, a crosscurrent of relief and dread flooded her. In two months’ time, she would have her solitude, her bitter medicine.

Then two weeks before her start date, Dante announced he was joining her.

“You’ve never been backpacking, and now you want to go two hundred and twenty miles?”

“I would miss you.” He opened his hands as if that were the simple truth.

There had to be more to it than that. Why else would he suggest embarking on a journey they both knew would make him miserable? She tried to talk him out of it. He didn’t like nature, the cold or energy bars. It made no sense. But he was adamant, and brushed her concerns aside. She’d had no choice but to capitulate.

Now she told Valerie, “I am psyched. In fact, I want to hit the trail right now, but Dante’s holding court in the Wilderness Office.”

“I can’t believe you’ll be out of touch for three weeks. What am I going to do without you? Who am I going to talk to?”

“Yourself, I guess. Put an earbud in and walk around holding your phone like a Geiger counter. You could be an incognito schizophrenic.”

“I’ll be reduced to that.” She dropped her voice a notch. “Listen. I have to ask you again. You sure you feel up to this?”

Liz reflexively placed her hand on her lower abdomen. “I’m fine. I swear. It’s just a hike.”

“When I have to park a block from Trader Joe’s, that’s a hike. Two hundred miles is something else. And your miscarriage was less than three weeks ago.”

As if Dante could have overheard, she turned and walked a few more steps down the sidewalk. “I feel great.”

“And you’re going to tell Dante soon and not wait for the absolute perfect moment.”

Despite the cold, Liz’s palms were slick with sweat. Her boyfriend knew nothing of her pregnancy, but her friend didn’t have the whole story either. Valerie had made her daily call to Liz and learned she was home sick, but she’d been vague about the reason. Knowing Dante was out of town, Valerie had stopped by and found Liz lying on the couch, a heating pad on her belly.

“Cramps?”

“No,” Liz had said, staring at the rug. “Worse.”

Valerie had assumed she’d had a miscarriage, not an abortion, and Liz hadn’t corrected her. Next to her deceit of Dante, it seemed minor. Valerie had made her promise she would tell him, but when Liz ran the conversation through her mind, she panicked. If she revealed this bit of information, the whole monstrous truth might tumble out, and she would lose him for certain.

“I will tell him. And I’ll make sure I’ve got room to run when I do.”

“He’ll understand. It’s not like it was your fault.”

Liz’s chest tightened. “Val, listen—”

“Crap! I just noticed the time. I’ve got a call in two minutes, so this is good-bye.”

“’Bye.”

“Don’t get lost.”

“Impossible.”

“Don’t fall off a cliff.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Watch out for bears.”

“I love bears! And they love me.”

“Of course they do. So do I.”

“And me you. ’Bye.”

“’Bye.”

Liz put the phone away. She checked the zippers and tightened the straps on both backpacks. On a trip this long, they couldn’t afford to lose anything. Besides, a pack with loose straps tended to creak, and she didn’t like creaking.

Dante was still chatting. He glanced over his shoulder and flashed her a boyish smile. She pointed at her watch. He twitched in mock alarm, shook hands with his new friends and hurried to her.

“Leez!” He placed his hands on her cheeks and tucked her short brown hair behind her ears with his fingers. “You’re waiting. I’m sorry.”

She was no more immune to his charm than the rest of the world. The way he pronounced her name amused her, and she suspected he laid it on thick deliberately. He had studied English in the best schools in Mexico City and spent seven years in the States, so he had little reason for sounding like the Taco Bell Chihuahua.

“It’s okay.” She rose onto her toes and kissed his cheek. “We should get going though. Did you get the forecast?”

“I did.” He threw his arms wide. “It’s going to be beautiful!”

“That’s a quote from the ranger?”

“Más o menos. Look for yourself.” He swept his hand to indicate the sky above the pines, an unbroken Delft blue.

Things can change, she thought, especially this late in the season. Her original permit had been for the Thursday before Labor Day. It could snow or hail or thunderstorm on any given day in the Sierras, but early September was usually dry. She’d had to surrender that start date when Dante insisted on tagging along, because he didn’t have a permit. They were forced to take their chances with the weather, two weeks closer to winter.

And here it was, September fifteenth. A picture-perfect day. Dante’s beaming face looked like a guarantee of twenty more like it.

•   •   •

When he’d first seen the elevation profile of the John Muir Trail, Dante said it resembled the ECG tracing of someone having a heart attack. Up thousands of feet, down thousands of feet, up thousands of feet, down thousands of feet, day after day.

“You’re going to love Day One in particular,” she’d said, pointing out Yosemite Valley at four thousand feet, then, twelve miles along the trail, their first night’s destination at ninety-six hundred feet.

He’d shaken his head. “Impossible.”

“Difficult, yes. But entirely possible.”

He’d argued that since they would arrive at Tuolumne Meadows the second day, and could easily drive through the park and pick up the trail there, they should skip that nasty climb.

“That would be cheating,” she’d said.

“It could be our little secret.”

“I’m doing the whole John Muir Trail.”

He’d sent her a doleful look, but didn’t bring it up again.

At least not until they’d been climbing for two hours. Panting, he undid his hip belt and slid his pack to the ground. Dark patches of sweat stood out on his green T-shirt. Liz stepped aside to let a group of day hikers pass. She leaned forward on her trekking poles, but did not take off her pack. They’d already taken two breaks and hadn’t yet reached the top of Nevada Falls, two and a half miles from the start.

He plunked himself onto a boulder, took off his cap and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “It’s not too late to turn around and drive to Tuolumne.”

She stared out across the valley. “Breathtaking” didn’t begin to describe it. A mile away, the falls shot out of the granite cliff like milk spilling from a pitcher and crashed onto a boulder pile before being funneled into a foaming river. She could make out the tiny colored forms of people at the falls’ edge. The tightness in her chest loosened slightly at this first hint of vast space. Above the falls was Liberty Cap, an enormous granite tooth, and beyond that, Half Dome. Its two-thousand-foot sheer vertical wall and rounded crown made it appear to once have been a sphere split abruptly by an unimaginable force, but Liz knew better. A glacier had erased it, bit by bit.

Her back to Dante, she said, “Let’s keep going to the top of the falls. Then we can have lunch, okay?”

The trail leveled out after Nevada Falls, no longer as steep as a staircase. After a set of switchbacks, they passed the turnoff for Half Dome, where all but a few of the day hikers left the main route. The early-afternoon sun was a heat lamp on their backs, and by two o’clock they’d finished the three liters of water they’d carried from the valley floor. At the first crossing of Sunrise Creek, Liz unpacked the water filtration kit. She’d shown Dante how it worked at home—for safety’s sake—but gadgets weren’t his strong suit. He might be inclined to coax bacteria, viruses and parasites out of the water with a wink and a smile, but she was the professional gizmologist. She designed prosthetic limbs, myoelectric ones that interfaced with living muscle. He worked for the same company, on the sales side.

Crouching on the grassy bank, she attached the tubes to the manual pump and dropped the float into a small current. It took five minutes to filter three liters. She handed Dante a bottle. He took a long drink.

“So cold and delicious!”

She disassembled the filter and carefully placed the intake tube in a plastic bag she’d labeled “DIRTY!” “And what’s strange is that every stream and lake tastes different. Some are flinty, some are sweet, some are just . . . pure.”

She zipped the pouch closed and looked up. Dante had that expression he reserved for her. His dark brown eyes were soft and a smile teased at the corner of his mouth, as if someone were poised to give him a gift he’d been wanting forever. She held his gaze for a moment—his love for her running liquid through her limbs—and got up to stow everything in her pack.

Liz had consulted the map when they’d stopped and knew they had to climb more than five miles and fifteen hundred vertical feet before making camp. Her feet were sore and her thighs complained as she hoisted herself—and her thirty-pound pack, nearly a quarter of her body weight—ever upward. She was fit, as was Dante, but this first day was asking far more of her body than it was accustomed to. Hiking would get easier as they got stronger, but there was no getting around it: today was a bitch.

They walked in silence, kicking up small clouds of dust. The creek stayed with them, then disappeared, and they were left with only pines, boulders and trail. After an hour or more, they came over a rise. The trail followed the crest for a short stretch, then dipped toward a creek bubbling down a seam between steep slopes. On the near bank two hikers were resting—the first they’d seen since the Half Dome turnoff. Each man sat leaning against a pine tree. The nearer man was large, and imposing even while seated. He’d taken off his boots and socks, and his long legs were crossed at the ankle. His head was tipped back, and his eyes were closed. When the other, smaller, man swiveled in their direction and lifted his hand in greeting, Liz immediately noticed their resemblance. The same lank, sandy hair, the same square jaw and full mouth. Brothers. They even had identical cobalt blue packs.

“Hey,” she said.

The big one opened his eyes and massaged his jaw. “Hello.”

Closer now, she judged they were both in their twenties. The big one was definitely older. He had the swagger as well as the looks.

“Hello,” Dante said, stepping off the trail to stand next to Liz. “How’s it going?”

“Excellent. Just taking a breather.”

“I hear you. I feel we’ve climbed halfway to God.”

The big one gave an appreciative snort, and took a swig from the two-liter soda bottle that served as his water container. “Is that where you’re headed?”

Liz glanced at Dante to see if he thought this an odd remark. He smiled good-naturedly and said, “Well, maybe eventually, if I’m lucky. But today, just to . . . what’s the place, Liz?”

“Sunrise Camp.”

“Yes, Sunrise Camp,” Dante said.

The man nodded. “You on a short trip, or doing the whole JMT enchilada?” He raised his eyebrows when he said “enchilada,” and gave it a Spanish pronunciation.

Liz frowned at the possibility he meant it as a slight on Dante, but checked herself. He seemed friendly enough otherwise. “The entire JMT,” she said. “At least that’s the plan.”

“That’s a lot of quality time for a couple.”

Liz didn’t know how to respond.

Dante stepped in. “How about you?”

The brothers exchanged looks. The younger one said, “Depends on how we feel. Could be a long trip. Could be a short one.”

Dante nodded as if this were the sort of freewheeling adventure he wished he could join.

“Well,” Liz said, anxious to leave these two behind, “have fun whatever you do.”

“We always do,” the younger brother said.

She started down the trail, with Dante behind her, and stopped at the creek’s edge. On the opposite side, one path followed the stream uphill, while another led downstream for a while, before dissolving into the forest.

She turned to the men, and pointed at one path, then the other, with her trekking pole. “Do you happen to know which way it is?”

The older brother pointed upstream.

“Thanks.”

Aware of the eyes on her, she gingerly crossed the creek, stepping on half-submerged rocks and using her poles for balance. The added weight of her backpack meant a small slip could result in a fall. When she arrived safely on the far bank, she waited for Dante to cross and turned left up the hill.

The trail followed the stream for a stretch, then cut steeply up the slope. Her pack felt heavier with each step. The footing became uneven, and she had to concentrate to avoid a misstep. She could hear Dante breathing hard behind her. Twenty minutes after they’d crossed the creek, she stopped, panting.

“Does this look right to you?”

His face was flushed with exertion. “You’re asking me?”

“I don’t know. The trail hasn’t been this lousy.”

“Maybe it’s just this piece.”

They struggled uphill on an ever-worsening trail for another fifteen minutes. And then the path disappeared.

“Damn it,” Liz said, and jammed her pole in the dirt.

They retraced their steps to the junction. The brothers hadn’t moved. They regarded Liz and Dante from their side of the creek.

She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice and pointed to the downstream trail. “It’s this way.”

“Really?” the older brother said. “I was sure it was the other way.”

The younger one added, “Thanks for saving us the mistake.”

“No problem,” Dante said, waving.

They started off again. Before the trail veered to the left, Liz looked over her shoulder. The older brother stared in her direction. Given the distance, she couldn’t be certain, but she thought she detected a smirk on his face.

CHAPTER TWO

At six thirty, the sun hovered above the horizon, and they stopped for the day. The campsite overlooked Long Meadow, a vast expanse ringed with pines. The Echo Peaks and Matthes Crest stood guard in the distance. Tawny grasses in the meadow awaited the first precipitation since early May, and the tops of the peaks had lost their snow.

Dante groaned as he lowered his pack to the ground, then sat on a fallen log to take off his boots. Liz unpacked the tent and began clearing pinecones and other debris from the rectangle she’d chosen for their shelter.

“How are your tootsies?”

He crossed his ankle over his knee and examined the damage. His boots were new, as was the rest of his gear and clothing, but unlike everything else, he’d refused Liz’s advice on which boots to buy. She agreed that his choice, Italian Zamberlans, were fantastic boots, but doubted he would have time to break them in and suggested he pick a lighter, more modern style he could wear off the shelf. He’d ordered the Zamberlans, and she had packed plenty of moleskin.

“Several, but not all, of my toes have sore spots.” He pointed out the red areas and turned his foot over. “And this looks perhaps like a blister on my heel.”

Liz unfurled the groundsheet with a snap. Blisters on Day One. Not a good start. “Tomorrow morning please mole-ify all of them.”

“Okay, Mama.” He sniffed his underarm. “I smell like a pig!”

“Well, you’re in luck. I read there’s a standpipe nearby because of the High Sierra Camp. We don’t have to filter water, and if you carry it away from the pipe, you can wash, too. Luxurious, huh?”

“Yes. It’s wonderful that, after today’s efforts, I will be treated to a bath in a saucepan.”

“A cold bath in a saucepan.”

“Of course.”

She clipped the tent ceiling to the arc of the central pole, then fitted the crosspiece through the grommets, forming the roof. “Ta-da!” She’d hoped Dante would clap, but he continued to worry his toes.

A hiker came around a stand of trees a dozen yards away. Though the light was failing, he wore sunglasses and had trouble finding his way. He wasn’t anywhere near the trail.

“Hey, there!” She waved at him. “Are you lost?”

“Maybe.” He took a step, caught his toe on a log and stumbled a few steps before righting himself. She guessed he was orienting by sound. “I’m looking for the High Sierra Camp.”

“Oh, lucky you. I hear those camps are swank.”

Probing delicately, he took baby steps toward them. “I hope so. I just learned about it today.”

Dante looked up from his podiatric pity-party and addressed Liz. “Why aren’t we staying there?”

“Because we’re stoic.” She noted Dante’s pout. “Well, some of us are. Besides, you have to reserve months in advance.”

The man stopped dead. “Are you shitting me?” He unclasped his hip belt and threw the straps off his shoulders as if they were the strangling arms of a rabid orangutan. The pack hit a boulder with a crunch of metal and glass.

Liz said, “Was that a camera?”

The man ignored her and she regarded him with concern. She couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t taken off his sunglasses, nor could she fathom why anyone who seemed so unhappy about roughing it would be backpacking alone. Dante, at least, had a reason for being here, even if he had no clue what he was getting himself into. She had tried to warn him, but when he began to take her warnings as evidence for her lack of feelings for him, she backed off. But this stranger was another story. Why would he put himself through this? Did he lose a bet?

The man kicked his pack several times, shouting, “I’m gonna kill him! I’m gonna kill him!” with each kick. Spent, he staggered in a small circle, tripped on a rock and came down hard on his hip. “Goddamn fucking rocks everywhere!”

Dante jumped up to help him but realized he was barefoot and sat again. He didn’t do barefoot. “Are you okay?”

The man had lost his sunglasses in the self-induced fray and was searching for them on his hands and knees.

“Are you visually impaired?” Liz asked, thinking the impairment was more likely mental.

For some reason, this question calmed him. He looked straight at her.

“Oh!” She pointed at him and couldn’t help jumping up and down in excitement. “You’re that guy!” She turned to catch Dante’s eye so he could verify her I.D., but he was digging in his backpack. “Dante!”

He didn’t look up. “What? I’m trying to find my camp shoes.”

“It’s that guy! The one in the movie!”

“Oh, here they are.” He bent to strap on the shoes. “My feet are killing me. What movie?”

Liz continued to point at the man, so when Dante finally finished with his shoes, he’d know whom to look at. The man sat on a rock in the Thinker pose and rubbed his hip with his free hand. He seemed to be reminding himself to refrain from betting on a day never getting worse.

“The movie we saw last week. He played the dumb cop.” She shrugged at the man in apology.

He raised his hand. No offense taken. “Matthew Brensen,” he said. “Just to end the suspense.”

“That’s right!” she said, then caught herself. “Of course, you would know that.”

“I would.”

Dante walked over, introduced himself and Liz, and shook Matthew Brensen’s hand. The actor was not a big star—he’d never win an Oscar—but was famous enough that his embarrassing moments had a better than even chance of ending up on Entertainment Tonight.

Brensen said, “Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m doing out here?”

“Having a bad day?” Liz offered. The excitement of a celebrity sighting was wearing off. She was tired and wanted to eat dinner before it got any darker and colder.

He nodded sadly. “I let my fucking agent sign me up for a lead in a goddamn backpacking movie. Smart, right? But, okay, I go with it. Expand my scope and all that horseshit. Then the director says I need to find out what it’s like.” The anger flared in his voice again. He spread his arms wide. “So here I fucking am. And you know what it’s like? It fucking bites!”

Dante nodded sympathetically. Brensen pulled out his phone, and cursed when he couldn’t get a signal. Over their heads the sky was chambray blue, fading to pale pink at the horizon. The setting sun cast an amber glow on the distant peaks. A handful of deer had gathered in the meadow, heads low.

“Tell you what,” she said to Brensen. “Dante’s about to have a cold bath in a saucepan. You’re more than welcome to join him.”

•   •   •

The next morning, as soon as she judged it light enough, Liz crept out of the tent, leaving Dante dead to the world. Their body heat had warmed the interior; leaving it was like walking into a freezer. She pulled her fleece hat from the pocket of her down jacket and slipped it on, tugging it over her ears.

She poured water from a Nalgene bottle into the pot—the only one—and lit the stove. The quarter-sized circle of blue flame hissed, and she smiled. Morning in the mountains. She climbed a nearby granite shelf to get a better view, her thighs complaining about yesterday’s hike.

No questioning how Sunrise Camp got its name. The meadow stretched two miles in front of her, cast in near darkness, but the sun had found the Cathedral Peaks, painting them a warm orange, a promise for the coming day. The air was completely still, her breath in her ears the only sound. It was morning distilled, the sun rising on a quiet world, a mute witness. To Liz, it was both the oldest miraculous event, and the newest. This one belonged to her, and she to it.

She swallowed hard and shivered. Hugging herself, she descended to the campsite. The water would be ready. Coffee beckoned.

While Dante slept on, she prepared for the day. She retrieved the bear cans from where they had stashed them last night. The cans were large bear-proof plastic cylinders in which the Park Service required they store all their food, toiletries and trash. Liz and Dante each carried o