Don’t flinch, Jennifer. Maybe she just didn’t want to come today, and suspects you of knowing that, and making her come anyway. But you’ll fix that by the end of the day. By the end of the day everything will be fine, and life can go on here, like you want it to.
Gnome Valley, Goblin’s Underpass, Lover’s Leap. Rocks shaped like mushrooms, like tortoiseshells. Gaps in the rock, long tumbles down to streams below. It’s beautiful. They bounce along a suspension bridge, dizzyingly high, Megan saying, “Oh be careful, oh be careful,” over and over. They photograph the boys at the sign marking the view of seven states. The boys point this way and that, claiming to be certain that smudgy mountain is North Carolina, that one Virginia. They’re being so lovely together, and Jennifer keeps sneaking looks at Megan, wanting confirmation that she sees it, too.
They pause at the top of the stairs leading down to a tiny gap between two enormous rocks known as Fat Man’s Squeeze. “Okay, boys,” Jennifer says, ushering each of them closer to the railing. “These stairs are slick. Hold on tight.”
Megan leans close behind Jennifer and whispers, “It’s all very vaginal.”
Jennifer laughs, a surprised loud laugh that makes Milo say, “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” Jennifer says. “Watch your step.”
“Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking that,” Megan says as they descend.
“Well, now I am,” Jennifer says. She’s smiling straight ahead, smiling big at the gap in the rocks. As they edge through the gap—indeed a tight squeeze—Megan says behind her, “Now we’re in the birth canal.”
They emerge onto an outcropping of rock, ringed by a stone wall, with viewing machines awaiting their quarters. Blue blue sky. Jennifer says, “Now we’re born,” but Megan doesn’t answer, hustling the boys past the machines back onto the path and then to a wooden platform for waterfall viewing, built jutting out from the side of the rock.
“Hurray,” Megan says under her breath to Jennifer. “Another precipice.”
“Don’t worry,” Jennifer says. “There’s a railing. They’ll be okay as long as they don’t climb.”
“But will I?”
“Are you afraid of heights?”
Megan winces, holds her thumb and forefinger a tiny amount apart.
“You live on a mountain.”
Megan shrugs. “It’s not really heights I’m afraid of. It’s edges.” She peers over. “They make me want to jump.” She looks at Jennifer and bounces her eyebrows up and down, and Jennifer laughs.
Ruby Falls involves a long elevator ride down to a cave, and then a guided meander to an underground waterfall. After the elevator each group must pose for a photo, and Megan and Jennifer stand side by side, hands on the shoulders of the boys in front of them. “Say squeeze!” the photographer says.
Their guide, and the guides they pass, all make jokes: “How are you?” their guide says, and the other guide says, “I’d be fine if these people would stop following me.” So many jokes that Jennifer wonders aloud to Megan if it’s someone’s job to write them.
“I don’t know,” Megan says. She seems stiff and distracted again, so Jennifer keeps her next thought to herself: how the haunting beauty of the cave inspires awe on its own, and then they try to ramp up the awe with red glowing lights and fantasy-epic music playing from hidden speakers, then undercut that effort with jokes. As if you need a break from awe. As if there is a danger in too much of it.
The guide stops them before the waterfall chamber. “You are now one thousand one hundred twenty-five feet below the surface of the earth,” he says, and beside her Megan gasps. The guide utters words of caution, then presses a button that starts more fantasy music and makes the lights go out. They enter the chamber, the air filled with the sound of rushing water. The boys make ghost sounds and giggle and behind them, to Jennifer’s annoyance, people snap pictures, ruining the ambiance with sharp bursts of light. A hand touches Jennifer’s, and she startles, because it’s not a little hand, not Milo’s hand, because he’s standing right in front of her and she’s holding on to his shoulder. Megan’s voice is in her ear: “This might be a good time to tell you I’m claustrophobic.” Jennifer laughs, thinking this is more comedy, but then Megan takes firm hold of Jennifer’s hand and squeezes it, much too hard for joking.
The big reveal: the music swells, the lights come up, and there it is, the waterfall. “Awesome,” Ben says, and Milo repeats. Megan holds tight to Jennifer’s hand.
“It’s not usually this bad,” Megan says to her, under the sound of water. “But we’re a thousand feet down, and I’d rather not have a panic attack in front of Ben. Or you and Milo. I’m okay right here because this is a big space, but the way back . . .”
“What if you held on to me and closed your eyes? Would that help?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Let’s try it,” Jennifer says. “You can pretend you’re walking through a field.”
“All right.” Megan sighs. “I’m sorry.”