All I could do was cross my fingers and hope I was fast enough to outrun that kind of devastation.

Not the Usual Suspects

If I had been forced to guess what kind of people would book a trip into the Wyoming wilderness for a week, I would have picked middle-aged businessmen who always wanted to live the fantasy that they were John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. I would have picked disenchanted hipsters, those who were bored by everything in metropolitan cities and decided to venture out to get in touch with Mother Nature. I would have pegged women like me and Emrys financially secure and maybe a little lost and definitely overworked, who were looking for something to shake up the status quo. I, however, would not have picked the obviously affluent and well-to-do family that hailed from the Upper East Side who was currently seated across from me at the long wooden dining table. The mom fiddled with the diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist while the plastic smile on her face never faltered. The dad kept glancing discreetly at his cellphone while the teenaged son refused to look away from the handheld video game that beeped incessantly in his hands. I, begrudgingly, wondered what kind of cell plan they had because my phone was a brick with zero bars in this dead zone while they seemed to have no trouble interacting with the outside world. It was like fate was trying to force me to unplug and stop thinking about every single thing that I’d gotten wrong. The teenaged girl in their group was a few years older than the boy, and from the minute Cy entered the room with Em in tow, she hadn’t taken her wide-eyed gaze off of him. I couldn’t blame her; he was impossible to ignore. I wanted to nudge her mother and clear my throat at the inappropriateness of such a blatantly sexual appraisal when Cy was so much older than the girl.

I also never would have pegged the two other men who would make up our caravan as choosing this place as their first choice escape from reality. Two men who barely spoke to one another, who watched the rest of us at the table with suspicious eyes, and who offered up very little information about themselves when introductions were made. My initial thought was they were a very unhappy couple using this trip and its remote destination as a way to rekindle their romance. But their body language and the stiff way they interacted with one another, as well as with the rest of us, made it seem like they could barely stand to be in the same room as each other, so the likelihood of them being a couple in love seemed slim. Since they didn’t appear to be friends either, I couldn’t really figure out any other reason for two men to be traveling alone together into the woods. It was odd. I think they could tell I thought it was strange because the younger of the two men, the one who was probably around my age, kept giving me a harsh look from underneath furrowed eyebrows. I simply stared back at him until Emrys placed herself next to me with a flourish and a sigh. Once she was seated at the table, all attention shifted to her. Even the gamer boy lost interest in his device so he could make moon eyes my too-pretty-for-her-own-good best friend.

The vibe around the table was tense and uncertain. I forgot all about grabbing a snack before dinner as I evaluated and assessed, and in turn, weighed and judged. It felt like it was some kind of audition, not just a bunch of strangers meeting for an adventure of a lifetime. Cy’s introductions were brief and to the point. He offered up everyone’s name, the two silent men being Grady and Webb, and the family of four being Marcus, who was the disinterested father, Meghan, who was the distressed mother, and Evan and Ethan, the kids who both seemed like they wanted to be anywhere else. He also mentioned where we were all from before he took a seat at the head of the table and seemed happy to shut us all out so he could be alone with his obviously pensive thoughts. No one offered up any more info than what was given so it made the moments that passed incredibly awkward. I shot Emrys a look that she pointedly ignored. Lane was the only one at the table who seemed able to keep up a steady stream of conversation, but that was a lot to ask of one person when the other nine were clearly caught up in their own noise and issues. Eventually, he heaved a deep sigh, rolled his eyes at his older brother, and excused himself to help the elusive Brynn, the woman the brothers kept mentioning, in the kitchen. I hadn’t met the woman yet, but I was ready to tackle hug her and smother her in love, if the food she was bringing to me tasted as good as it smelled coming out of the kitchen.

“So, what do you do for a living, Ms. Santos?” That came from the Manhattan dad who was either a workaholic or totally had a girlfriend on the side. His phone pinged every five minutes and he was taking great pains to make sure neither his wife nor his children could see the screen every time he replied. The idea of him stepping out on his family made my skin crawl. When all the lies Chris told came to light I realized I’d spent our entire relationship being the clueless other woman. No one liked a cheater but when you were stupid enough to get your heart broken by one it made you even more judgmental and critical of the way others treated the people they were supposed to love. I decided on the spot I didn’t like the dad, and there was no way in hell I would ever trust him.

Emrys smiled in her disarming and easy way and I had to stifle a giggle as it made almost every single one of the men at the table shift in their seats. The two non-talkers were definitely not a couple if they were affected Emrys. She was potent and my most favorite thing about her was that she was very aware of her power and the exponential impact she had on people. It was nice that she had decided early on to use her influence for good instead of evil.

“I work in Human Resources.” She waved a hand in front of her and laughed lightly. “I push paper around all day, pretty much. There’s a form for every other form. It’s endless.”