I don’t shower, because the noise would wake Mom. I splash cold water on my face and put on some moisturizer. I don’t need makeup. My skin lately is starting to have its own natural glow, another sign that things are starting to change, starting to intensify the way Mom said they would. I put on mascara and apply some lip gloss, then turn my attention to the wild waves of hair cascading down my back. There’s a clump of tree sap clinging to a strand, evidence of last night’s flying practice. I spend the next fifteen minutes trying to get rid of the sap, and when I finally remove it, along with a fat chunk of my hair, I hear tires on the gravel road outside.
I slip quietly downstairs. Jeffrey’s right. Mom’s not in her room. On the kitchen counter I write her a note: Mom, going out to see the sunrise with friends. Be back later. I have my cell. C. Then I’m out the door.
This time I’m nervous, but Tucker acts like nothing’s changed, so completely normal that I wonder if maybe I imagined all the tension between us yesterday. I relax into our familiar banter. His smile’s infectious. His dimple’s out the whole drive, and he drives fast enough to have me clutching that handle above the door as we round corners. He takes a secret side road to get into Grand Teton, bypassing the main gate, and then we’re zooming down the empty highway.
“So what day is it?” I ask.
“Huh?”
“You said it was a special day.”
“Oh. I’ll get to that.”
We drive to Jackson Lake. He parks and hops out of the truck. I wait for him to come around and open my door. I’m getting used to his “yes, ma’am” manners, so much that I’m starting to find his gentlemanly ways sweet.
He checks his watch.
“We’ve got to hike fast,” he says. “Sunrise is in twenty-six minutes.”
I lean down to tighten the laces on my boots. And we’re off. I follow him up and out of the parking lot and into the woods.
“So what classes are you taking next year?” he asks over his shoulder as we make our way up the hill on the other side of the lake.
“The usual,” I say. “AP Calculus, College English, government, French, physics, you know.”
“Physics, huh?”
“Well, my dad is a physics professor.”
“No kidding? Where?”
“NYU.”
He whistles. “That’s a long way from here. When did your folks split up?”
“Why are you suddenly so chatty?” I ask a tad sharply. Something about the idea of telling him about my personal history makes me uncomfortable. Like I’ll start telling him and won’t be able to stop. I’ll blab the whole story: Mom’s half-angel, I’m a quarter, my vision, my powers, my purpose, Christian, and then what? He’ll tell me about the rodeo circuit?
He stops and turns around to look at me. His eyes are dancing with mischief.
“We’ve got to talk because of the bears,” he says in a low tone, hamming it up.
“The bears.”
“Got to make some noise. Don’t want to surprise a grizzly.”
“No, I guess we don’t want to do that.”
He starts up the trail again.
“So, tell me about this thing that happened with your grandpa, where your family lost the ranch,” I say quickly before he has a chance to get back to the subject of my family. He doesn’t break his stride but I can almost feel him tense up. The tables are turned. “Wendy says it’s why you hate Californians. What happened there?”
“I don’t hate Californians. Clearly.”
“Whew, that’s a relief.”
“It’s a long story,” he says, “and we don’t have that long to hike.”
“Okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine, Carrots. I’ll tell you about it someday. But not now.”
Then he starts to whistle and we stop talking. Which seems to suit us both fine, bears or not.
After a few more minutes of hard climbing, we come out on a clearing at the top of a small rise. The sky’s bathed in a mix of gray and pale yellow, with a tangle of bright pink clouds hanging right above where the Tetons jut into the sky, pure purple mountain majesty, standing like kings on the edge of the horizon. Below them is Jackson Lake, so clear it looks like two sets of mountains and two skies, perfectly replicated.
Tucker checks his watch. “Sixty seconds. We’re right on time.”
I can’t look away from the mountains. I’ve never seen anything so formidably beautiful. I feel connected to them in a way I’ve never felt anywhere else. It’s like I can feel their presence. Just looking at the jagged peaks against the sky makes peace wash over me like the waves lapping on the shore of the lake below us. Angela has a theory that angel-kind are attracted to mountains, that somehow the separation between heaven and earth is thinner here, just as the air is thinner. I don’t know. I only know that looking at them fills me with the yearning to fly, to see the earth from above.
“This way.” Tucker turns me to face the opposite direction, where across the valley the sun’s coming up over a distant, less familiar set of mountains. We’re completely alone. The sun is rising only for us. Once it clears the mountaintops, Tucker takes me gently by the shoulders and turns me again, back toward the Tetons, where now there are a million golden sparkles on the lake.
“Oh,” I gasp.
“Makes you believe in God, doesn’t it?”
I glance over at him, startled. I’ve never heard him talk about God before, even though I know from Wendy that the Averys attend church nearly every Sunday. I would have never pegged him as the religious type.
“Yes,” I agree.
“Their name means ‘breasts,’ you know.” The side of his mouth hitches up in his mischievous smile. “Grand Teton means ‘big breast.’”
“Nice, Tucker,” I scoff. “I know that. Third-year French, remember? I guess the French explorers hadn’t seen a woman in a really long time.”
“I think they just wanted a good laugh.”
For a long while we stand side by side and watch the light stretch and dance with the mountains in complete silence. A light breeze picks up, blows my hair to the side where it catches against Tucker’s shoulder. He looks over at me. He swallows. He seems like he’s about to say something important. My heart jumps to my throat.
“I think you’re—” he begins.