Page 47 of Aim for Love

“Well, no,” I admit. “But I want to live here and it’s been hard to find something reasonable.”

When we walk back through town, we come across Tyler and Zoe and she startles. I don’t watch football and I never looked Tyler up, but Nora and Sophie told me he used to be a big deal. “Is that…”

“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” I murmur, cutting off my mom before she brow-beats Tyler into a spontaneous interview for her paper. “He hates that.”

Her journalism spidey-senses are clearly pinging, although she doesn’t say anything when I introduce the couple by their first names. “Zoe writes for the paper you were looking at,” I add, to distract her. “My mom runs a newspaper back in the city,” I explain.

“I’m sure it’s a bigger production than this one,” Zoe says with a smile. “Although the actual production of this newspaper is a pretty big deal. Mark has to drive over an hour to get print copies.”

My mom starts grilling Zoe on what she covers, so I step to the side with Tyler. I want to ask him if he’s seen Hunter, but that would be silly. Hunter isn’t going to confide in Tyler, even—or especially—if he had something to confide such as, “I miss Mollie.”

So I ask him where in town he thinks I should take my mom for dinner, instead.

Later, still wandering around town as the sun sets and we have to put on jackets, we even run into Mr. Rogers—Roger Smith, that is, my soon-to-be-boss—wearing a signature button-up sweater.

“It’s too much work for me,” he admits to my mom, when she bluntly asks why he wants to hire me. “I’m supposed to be retired! And here I am, notarizing documents and filing all my own busywork.”

“Are you? Retired?” My mom looks keenly interested. I wonder if she’s actually thinking about this for herself, or if she’s formulating a story about life after retirement for the newspaper.

“Well, I retired from my practice in the city, moved here, and got bored! I didn’t want to sit around on my porch all day, not using my brain anymore,” he says. “Turns out, there’s plenty of work to be had here. Administrative stuff, you know. I still make people drive to Montrose or Grand Junction for the big things and specialty work. It’s a slower pace than my heyday, but that’s about right for me now.”

Over dinner, we sit at the bar and my mom talks to the people next to us about ski season here. She loves to ski but the drive from Denver to the mountains on winter weekends has become prohibitive.

By this point, my mom has talked to almost more people in Telluride than I have. She must be formulating an essay on the town in her mind. It will be complete with prosandcons, I have no doubt.

When we get back to our hotel room—the same one Nora and Sophie vacated the other day—my mom surprises me. She turnsto me and says, “I like it here. I think I should move here myself.” Her eyes twinkling, she unlocks the door and walks in.

Blinking in her wake, I wonder if my mom is unhappy too. Or if I’m not quite as crazy as I’ve been led to believe.

seventeen

HUNTER

It’s been rainingevery afternoon of this backpacking trip, so we have a lot of down time. We don’t force the miles when it will be a slog for the hikers. At least this group hasn’t complained as much as some of them do.

For the first two days, I avoid Scott. It’s easy enough; he doesn’t go out of his way to talk to me, either. There’s a woman on the trip who is exactly Scott’s type: pretty and jokes about everything, including the mud. He spends most of his time flirting with Diana.

Not that he isn’t meeting the requirements of his job. He’s meticulous about it. When he leads, he explains the route and shows the map to the group. When he brings up the rear, he counts the hikers and checks with the slow ones on hot spots in their shoes and cramps in their legs. He does it all quietly, only laughing and joking when we’re all seated around the campfire at night or huddled under dripping trees in the middle of the day. Keeping everyone’s spirits up. Just another part of his job.

And there’s no reason for me to doubt him, not really. I know Scott’s good at his job, and I’m reminded of it daily as I watchhim closely for mistakes. He catches me watching him and says nothing, simply carrying on like nothing is off. I wouldn’t blame him for getting angry, not really. I’m not Scott’s boss. I don’t have any business judging his work. Still, he simply lets me watch. And keeps proving himself, damn him.

By the third day, the hikers have questions. A trip like this tends to bond people quickly, all of us out in the woods with nothing but each other to lean on. They’re looking for distraction from the discomfort of heavy bags and tired feet.

It starts with Scott’s current love interest. “Are you two in the middle of some kind of bro fight?” Diana when we’re all waiting out another rain storm. Scott and I are stationed at either end of the group, not looking at each other.

“Yeah, you never talk to each other.” Another hiker chimes in—Sara, a mom who came on this trip without her kids and has made everyone around her a stand-in.

“We’ve done this trip so many times, we don’t really need to confer anymore,” I offer, refusing to look down at Scott.

“You go out of your way not to,” someone else says. People become more observant on these trips, too. It starts out with a lot of questions about the flowers and the trees and turns into questions about life and relationships. I should have remembered that. It’s one reason why Scott hooks up with someone on or after almost every trip: the false closeness and the close encounter with existence.

“He’s mad at me,” Scott volunteers then, inflaming my annoyance with him. “I did something stupid and he hasn’t forgiven me.”

I grit my teeth to avoid snapping that he doesn’tdeserveforgiveness. Not yet.

“What kind of stupid?” The group is intrigued now.

“Yeah, like, sleep with his wife stupid or ate his leftovers stupid?”

---