Descending Star

DEVOLUTION

Down on the Wall, the women on Heart Ledge had advised Zoey that quality merch and career opportunities would await her at the top, if she failed to pitch and nosedive. The moment she sat cross-legged on the summit with a bowl of Dinty Moore stew, a manufacturer rep handed her a knapsack containing two pairs of fresh rock shoes, one in shocking pink and the other in fluorescent yellow.

"Wow, thanks!" said Zoey.

"That's just the first installment. Thanks for wearing Merrill today, Martine. You'll never pay for rock shoes again. You'll get the details in the mail. Good work this morning. Or should I say, good dance. Epic."

"Wait... uh, do I have to wear your logo on my clothes and stuff?"

"No, no. Just wear the shoes. But why wouldn't you?"

"True," she agreed.

Halfway through her bowl of stew, a pair of imposing corporate types took turns asking her why she wasn't already on the North Face climbing team. She cited senior year, drama club, and college among other reasonable excuses for this neglect, but they drove a hard bargain, with assists by sharp nudges at Zoey's ribs from Penny and Amy. She managed to get rid of the North Face crew by begging for a few days to think it over.

When they walked away, Penny whispered, "Zoey. They just offered to bankroll your college tuition."

She made a glum face and admitted, "Yeah, but then they send you all over the world for months on end like some nineteenth century high seas bilge operator. Don't make me think about my next twenty years. Right now I just want another bowl of stew. No, Penny, no," she insisted, hopping to her feet, "Sit down! Sit thee doon! I'll get it."

The chow line magically parted for her– another annoyance– everyone's awareness of her, and how they constantly made a big deal about her began to get grating– when she saw, at the soups, none other than the poor boy from La Push whom she'd been alternately ignoring and abusing for the past month. She bounded up behind him, reached up around his broad shoulders to mask his eyes, and taunted, "Chief Jacob, guess who!"

He turned and hit her with that big grin she'd first been enchanted by, on the hero shot that Ben had sent from First Beach, the smile that said all was forgiven. He put up a high palm. She laughed and leapt to hit it.

He admitted, "My heart was in my throat for seven straight hours. That... was... awesome!"

"Thanks! Get your soup, and we'll hang. I can't believe you huffed it all the way up here." She started to go back to the end of the line, rather than cut, and everyone told her not to be nuts, so she stood with Jacob and got a refill of Dinty Moore.

Zoey drifted toward the tall cairn behind the stoves and sank to the stones, cross-legged, to pick at her second bowl of stew. Jacob sat with her. She thanked him for coming all the way down here and hanging out for so long, and she apologized for being such a jerk.

"No," he insisted, "not at all, like I totally get it. I mean I didn't before, but now I do. You had to focus, and I understand that now."

"That's very kind," she said, "but you were going through stuff, too, and I was completely unsympathetic. Say, hold up your hands; let me see the rope burns."

He held up his palms, and she frowned with astonishment at the absence of any trace of the deep burns he had suffered on his forced descent down the rope .

He dismissively said, "That was around three weeks ago."

Still, she insisted, he had cut himself through the muscle of his palms, almost down to the bone. She couldn't reconcile that with the absence of any fresh scars. He shrugged and said that he'd always been able to heal up fast after bouts of stupidity, even as a kid.