My Guys Page 2

“Have you been acting long?”

  “My mother would tell you I was born acting.” He flashed me another one of those smiles that made his eyes so vividly blue and then I couldn’t remember what we’d been talking about. I wrestled exaggeratedly with a nail to have a reason to look down.

  “So why are you remaking your life? I hope you haven’t been given six months to live or something.”

  “No, nothing so bad as that.”

  “But bad?”

  “I suppose people who are happy with their lives don’t remake them.” I felt the bubble of joy that had been forming around us lose some of its air.

  “You weren’t happy?”

  “Actually, I was.” I had thought that I was happy—or if not happy, certainly content—and I’d thought I could stay like that, forever and ever.

  “And you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Do you want to talk about Deb?” The bubble popped.

  “No, I do not.”

  “Then let’s just leave the past in the past.”

  “Who says I have a past with Deb?”

  “Don’t you?” I looked up and met his eyes. They were surprisingly direct—cautious but not evasive. “You probably have other things to do.”

  “Not done with this yet.”

  I looked at the pile of wood, nearly gone. We’d been making good progress and not because of me. Without letting his end of the conversation flag, he worked quickly. Each nail only took one yank. I watched the grace of his movements, wishing I hadn’t been hostile.

  “You’re good at that,” I said, making peace.

  “Surprised?”

  “You have a poet’s hands.”

  “Look closer.” He held his hands out to me. The long, pale fingers were nicked and scraped, the square nails ragged. He flipped his hands over and I saw calluses at the base of every finger and a round scar like a puncture wound in the palm of one hand. I ran my thumb over the scar.

  “A working poet,” I said.

  He twisted his hand in mine so that our fingers interlaced. Which was the weirdest thing. So weird I couldn’t stop it from happening.

  “Lissie,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Definitely Lissie.”

  “Nate, you’re going to chase the new girl away before I even have a chance to introduce myself.” Standing over the two of us—and we were still holding hands I realized, shaking myself free—was a very large black woman with very blue eye shadow, very red lipstick, very blond, very short hair, and a clipboard. “Now you come up here because there’s no way I’m going down there.”

  Dutifully I got to my feet. Nate did too. She probably wasn’t any older than I was, but it felt like Nate and I were misbehaving children who’d been caught out.

  “I’m Rebekah. I’m the Stage Manager for this show.” She stuck out her hand and I shook it.

  “Melissa,” I said.

  “And where did you come from?”

  “The internet. I mean, there was an event on Let’s Meet and I saw it on the internet, so I came.”

  “Oh, they did that, did they? That was a good idea Carol had. Hey Carol,” she shouted across the theater, “that was a good idea you had.”

  I recognized Carol as the one who’d taken us on our tour earlier. She gave Rebekah a thumbs up.

  “Now,” Rebekah said, turning back to me, “you’d like to be a stage hand?”

  “Um.”

  “Sure you would. I’ll put you down for it.” She lifted her pen.

  “I wasn’t expecting,” I said. “I mean, I’ve never worked on a show before. I came down today to help out a little, you know, see what it’s like.”

  “Well, you can’t see what it’s like if you don’t find out what it’s like.”

  “What would I be doing exactly?” I wondered if selling used cars was her day job.

  “Move things around, help the actors with their props, maybe iron some costumes.”

  “Be her bitch,” Nate said.

  Rebekah gave him a hard look before turning back to me. He winked at me.

  “What he means to say,” Rebekah explained carefully, “is you’d be my assistant. Very helpful to me, that would be. I can’t do it all, you know.” She gave an exaggerated sigh. Everyone was so dramatic here.

  “I’m sure you can’t,” I said politely, “but—”

  “But what now?”

  “I’m just not sure—”

  “Eat the green eggs,” Nate said. “They’re yummy.”

  “But I don’t know what I’m doing. I might not be any good at it.”

  “Right now we’ve got nobody doing it,” Rebekah said. “You think you can do better than nobody?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Great.” She touched her pen to her clipboard. “Melissa ...?”

  “Lissie,” Nate corrected.

  “Lissie what?”

  “It’s Melissa,” I said.

  “Not anymore.”

  Chapter 2

  I knew as soon as I walked in that it was a setup. Amy waited for me in the lobby, her hands clasped together nervously. Next to her was a guy—my date.

  “Melissa!” Amy waved me over. The guy and I checked each other out. He had to be older than I was, judging by the lines around his eyes, but he had a healthy outdoorsy look and a friendly face.

  “This is Bob,” Amy said. “I don’t know if you two know each other?”

  I shook my head and held out my hand. “Hi, Bob.”

  He took my hand but only nodded, then looked towards Amy.

  “Melissa works with me,” Amy told him. “She was asking me about rock climbing the other day and I remembered how you were always asking me about climbing, so I thought ...” She trailed off. “Bob works in the IT department,” she told me. “He’s always super helpful whenever my computer is acting up. Bob’s like my own personal help desk.” She laughed. Bob and I smiled—at Amy, not each other.

  Amy was the last person you’d expect to be an accountant. She had a tan year-round and what seemed like a permanent ponytail. She was always going hiking or biking or climbing, always just back from, or about to go off on, some kind of adventure. When I’d thought about being someone other than Melissa, it had occurred to me that maybe I’d like to be Amy, which was why I was standing in the lobby of Climb Time, our local climbing gym.

  “So climbing,” Amy said. “Are you excited?”

  I nodded.

  “Let’s get your gear then.” She walked us over to the front desk and we went through a slow process of signing waivers and trying on shoes. My heart had been beating fast when I walked in, but by the time we got suited up and stepped into the climbing gym proper, I’d almost forgotten I was there to do something crazy.

  The gym was a hollow shell—a vast, open room ringed by ropes. The walls were studded with climbing holds in a rainbow of hues. There were as many people as there were ropes, some on the ground, some on the wall, a few here and there swinging gently in space. The floor was soft. It sprang under my feet like a moon walk. There was music playing, something techno with a driving beat, and everywhere people talking—calling from floor to wall and back. It was almost as loud as the theater, minus the table saw’s screeching whine.

  “Who’s first?” Amy asked, pulling one of the ropes towards her. Bob stepped right up to it and Amy helped guide the rope through his harness, tying it securely. She pulled the other end of the rope through a little metal contraption attached to her harness.

  “You’re on belay,” she said, which she’d explained meant that she had the rope secure and would keep him safe. “Climb when ready.”

  Bob looked at her doubtfully. He wasn’t a big man, but he was a lot bigger than Amy who was five-foot-nothing and probably only weighed a hundred pounds.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “The belay device does the work.” She tapped the metal contraption. “Trust me?”

  He didn’t answer that question, but he did step up t
o the wall. I watched him climb. It didn’t seem so hard. Hand, hand, foot, foot—like climbing a ladder. The wall we were on went straight up, so it wouldn’t be exactly like climbing a ladder, but at least it didn’t bend back over our heads like some of them did.

  I was distracted from Bob’s steady right, left, right, left by a guy climbing on one of those walls that bent backwards. He swung up it with feral grace, his movements unpredictable but smooth. Sometimes he faced the wall like Bob was doing, but sometimes he was sideways to it, hanging from a single arm, his legs pulling like an extra set of hands. His shirt was off, revealing back muscles that bunched and lengthened across the bronze expanse of his back. As I watched, he paused to shake the sweat from his eyes, then sprang upward.

  I gasped when he fell and came swinging out over his belayer’s head, but he wasn’t concerned. He shook his head, annoyed with himself, and kept swinging—one toe lazily pushing off the wall like he was rocking a porch swing on a hot day. He looked down at his belayer, a thin girl with dirty-blonde hair a few shades lighter than his, and smiled a perfect white-toothed smile. Surfer dude goes climbing.

  “Now what?” I heard Bob say. Reluctantly I took my eyes from the Adonis above me. Bob was at the top of the wall.

  “Sit back and let go,” Amy directed. She lowered Bob back down to us. “You did great. Didn’t he do great, Melissa?”

  “You made it look easy,” I said, even though he’d made it look boring.

  Bob shrugged to indicate that it was no big deal. He untied himself from the rope and handed it to me without looking at me. OK, fine, I thought. I’m not interested in you either. I’m interested in the half-naked hunk.

  Unlike Bob, I didn’t question whether Amy would keep me safe. All around us people were going up and down and falling off and getting back on and no one seemed to be in any danger. Obviously they knew what they were doing.

  I stepped up to the wall and took the highest two holds I could reach in my hands, setting my feet on the lowest holds. Easy-peasy. I moved one hand higher and then the other one. Now my feet. Hand, hand, foot, foot. No problem.

  No problem, that was, until I was about three quarters of the way up and found that the next hold was just beyond my grasp. I was stuck, my grip weakening. I didn’t want to fall off, not when Bob had made it all the way to the top, but Bob was four inches taller than I was. It seemed unfair.

  What would surfer dude do? I asked myself. I turned sideways a little, letting my right hip brush the wall. Then I reached up again. Got it! I slapped a hand against the wall at the top and grinned at the ceiling. I’d done it.

  “You’ve got good instincts,” Amy said when my feet touched the ground. “What did you think?”

  “I think I want to do it again.”

  She laughed. “We’ve got you hooked. Bob’s turn though.”

  We continued alternating turns until Amy moved us to a new wall. “This will be harder,” she said. “Try to stay on the holds marked with blue tape.”

  Bob fell off before he was halfway up. It was the first time either of us had fallen, but the fall itself was anti-climactic. He hung right where he’d been. He put his hands back on the wall and tried again but didn’t get much further before falling again.

  Watching Bob struggle bored me so I wandered deeper into the gym, checking out the action on the walls as I passed. I’d never seen so many bulging back muscles. Even the women—especially the women—rippled beneath their tank tops.

  Through a doorway in the back I found a whole other room I hadn’t seen yet. On one side was a wall that grew steeper as it went up until it curved right into the roof. I watched in wonder as a scrawny teenager wrestled his way across it upside down.

  On the other side of the room was something different. At first glance it was another hold-covered wall, though not as tall, but beneath the wall was a padded mat which must have been meant to substitute for ropes because there weren’t any ropes. People climbed up the wall and when they reached the top they just ... jumped. I shook my head. Never, never, I thought. The padding looked cushy, and no one seemed to be any worse for their drop, but I couldn’t imagine having the nerve.

  I had drifted pretty close to the mat when someone crashed into it from above, releasing a cloud of white dust. I screamed before I could stop myself.

  “Are you OK?” The man scrambled to his knees and grabbed my arms. “Did I fall on you?”

  “No, I just ...” I recognized him as the guy who’d swung out over our heads earlier. He still had his shirt off but he wasn’t wearing a harness anymore—nothing on but shorts and a pair of climbing shoes. His chest was hairless and damp with sweat. It wasn’t as well developed as his back, but he was smooth and hard, and beneath the lean chest was a glistening six pack. I swallowed and lifted my eyes to his.

  He checked me out with a concerned frown. “I didn’t hit you?”

  “No, really. I didn’t see you until you fell and it startled me, that’s all.”

  He released my arms. “Were you going to boulder?”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  “Bouldering? Yeah. Bouldering is like climbing without a rope but not so high.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s fun, why else? Give it a try.”

  Nervously—hadn’t I just agreed with myself that I wasn’t going to do this?—I stepped up onto the padding and walked over to the wall.

  “You’re like a total beginner, aren’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Right. So this isn’t the stuff for you.” He led me farther down the wall to an easier section. “Try this yellow one. Left hand here.”

  One move at a time he talked me through following the taped path until my feet were about four feet off the ground. I looked down to guide my foot onto the next hold and froze. There was no rope. There was nothing holding me off the ground except me. This was exactly the position I hadn’t wanted to be in.

  “Help,” I squeaked.

  “You’re fine.”

  “I’m going to fall off.”

  “Maybe, but at least fall trying.”

  I stepped my foot up and gradually inched my butt over it. Pushing with all the strength I could summon, I tried to stand up.

  A second later I was lying on the mat on my back. A little ‘oof’ came out of me when I hit.

  “OK?”

  I smiled.

  “You liked it, didn’t you?”

  I had to admit I did. I also liked the view I had right at that moment—his bright, white smile floating amidst all that bronzed skin, jagged bangs falling over warm brown eyes.

  “I’m Derek, by the way.”

  “Lissie,” I said, using the name Nate had given me since Derek appeared to be about his age.

  “OK, Lissie, try again.”

  “I’ll just fall off again.”

  “If you keep trying, eventually you won’t.”

  Not sure I’d be doing this for someone without warm brown eyes and gleaming, rock-hard abs, I sat down in front of the starting holds and began again. And again. And again.

  Damn, I thought, finding myself on the mat once more. At least falling off got easier, even if climbing didn’t. I sat up and tried to push my bangs back. My forearms throbbed.

  “I can’t close my hands,” I told Derek.

  “Pumped, huh?”

  “That I fell off again?”

  “No, pumped. That.” He gestured at my forearms which looked like sausages stuffed into too-small casings and cooked over a very hot fire. “We call that pumped, when your muscles are so swollen you can’t use them.”

  “Oh. Then that’s what I am. I don’t think I can climb anymore.”

  “They’ll go down.” He took one of my arms in his hands to massage it. “When your arms are above your heart for so long, the old worn-out blood can’t get out so that fresh blood can get in. That’s one of the good things about a chalk bag—it reminds you to lower your arms while you’re climbing.”

  I twis
ted my head to look at the little bag dangling against my butt. Amy had fastened the belt around my waist and opened the drawstring at the top of the bag, but she hadn’t explained what it was for and I’d forgotten it was even there. Chalk. That explained the haze in the air and the white dust that puffed up around me every time I fell. I rubbed my damp hands against my pants. Chalk would have helped.

  “Look at Jenny,” Derek said. I followed his finger to the tiny girl with the long blonde ponytail who’d been belaying him earlier. Jenny was on one of the steeper walls. She had her head bent back to look up at the holds above her, her ponytail dropping straight toward the ground like an exclamation point. I wasn’t sure why Derek was telling me to look at her. All I could see was that she was young and beautiful and perfectly shaped, with a climber’s back and a model’s legs.

  “Watch how she shakes out while she chalks,” he said.

  I tried to focus on what she was doing instead of how she looked as she dipped one hand into her chalk bag, then the other.

  “Of course, it’s a fine line,” Derek said. “Hang around for too long and you’re burning strength, but a quick shakeout can be restful.”

  “That didn’t look restful, that position she was in.”

  He laughed. “Not for you just yet.”

  “How long have you been climbing?”

  “A few years.”

  “That’s all? You’re really good, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged it off. “I’m OK. I was always into sports, so I had eye-hand coordination and some muscle to work with.”

  I looked down at the shirt I’d worn—a three-quarter length sleeve that was too warm but covered the flappy underarm wings I hadn’t expected to develop until my fifties. But there they were—fleshy bags of something very different from muscle.

  “I don’t think I have any muscle to work with.”

  “Yeah, women don’t usually have much upper body strength to start. No worries. Sometimes strength is just a substitute for technique anyway.”

  I was going to need a lot of technique. “Well, thanks for the tips.”

  “Anytime. I figure a lot of people helped me out when I started climbing, so I try to pay it forward.”

  I stepped off the mat, meaning to walk back to the other room to find Amy, but right away I saw her walking towards me.