North ground to a halt. He stared at her.
“What?” She marched past him.
“You,” he said, “are a terrible listener.”
It dawned on her. “You told us on the funicular, didn’t you?”
“I told you on the funicular.”
“Well, I was a little distracted after that insane stare-down you gave me.”
“Balsam woolly adelgid.” North started moving behind her again. “It’s an aphid-like pest that’s been killing the Fraser firs. But … yes. Acid rain, too.”
Marigold waited for him to catch up before giving it another try. “Please tell me what you’re doing here. And don’t you dare say ‘working’ again.”
“I’m not.”
Her blood pressure rose. “You’re not working.”
“No. I’m not.”
She gritted her teeth, tired of the verbal games. But North seemed to regret his decision to be difficult, because he quickly acquiesced. He gestured to a patch on his shirtsleeve. Marigold’s eyes widened as she read it. “Volunteer? You’re a volunteer?”
“Rangers wear khaki. Volunteers and seasonal hires wear blue.”
“You’re not even a seasonal hire? You’re not being paid? For operating heavy machinery filled with live human beings?”
“It’s totally illegal.”
“This park is run by the state government!”
“Crazy, right?”
“What? I just … What? How did this happen?”
He shrugged. “My dad knew a guy.”
“North Drummond.” Marigold stopped in her tracks. “You know perfectly well you’ll have to give me more than that.”
North stopped, too. He stared at her with that same unyieldingness … and then his eyes gradually softened. “Yeah, I know.” He managed a faint smile. “Come on. It’s just ahead.”
The sounds of the other visitors disappeared as he led her past a trail marker with a blue diamond, white triangle, and white circle. Marigold looked up. They had walked underneath an immense overhang of rock.
North glanced at her, and she smiled back in relief. “Right?” he said.
Marigold nodded in agreement.
A bit farther, they arrived at a rock formation jutting out from the side of the mountain. It hung like a canopy over another slab of rock, creating an irresistible, human-sized place to rest. The sheltered stone was still damp, but there was a spot that looked mostly dry, so they sat down and crossed their legs. The butt of her shorts instantly grew wet. Marigold barely noticed. Her nerves were jangling again, but the anxiety was mixed with excitement.
She was glad to be here with him. Alone. In this secluded place.
North removed his hat and tossed it onto the rock beside him. He rubbed his chestnut-brown hair, trying to get rid of the hat shape. It only partially helped.
Marigold had always liked North’s hair. It was the same warm brown shade as his eyes. She smiled again, and he smiled back. And then their smiles faded away together. It looked like he wanted to say something, but he was struggling to find the right words. For the first time, Marigold wondered if maybe it wasn’t easy for him to explain what he was doing here. Maybe he didn’t have a good answer, not even for himself.
At last, he spoke. “My sister came back. In May.”
It shocked her. It would be difficult for her to feel more shocked.
“We’d been talking—me and Noelle—and … she came back. And, this time, my parents listened to her.”
Marigold hated to interrupt, but she couldn’t help herself. “You mean they gave it to her? She’s running the farm now?”
He nodded.
“Well, that’s … that’s great.”
Another nod. He stared at his hiking boots.
What was she missing? Noelle had returned—something unexpected and wonderful had happened—but then North had cut off communications with Marigold. “Okay,” she tried. “Your sister took over the farm … so you needed a new job? Except, as you pointed out, you’re not actually working here.”
“I’m here because I need something to do until I figure out what I want to do.”
“You want to go to college. You want to work in radio.”
North picked out a sharp rock from the tread on his right boot. “My dad’s best friend is a ranger here, and he told us about the open volunteer position. I was stationed in the museum, but on my first week he overheard me giving an improvised lecture to a tour group and was taken aback. Impressed,” he added, with a touch of embarrassment.
“Two of the operators had just quit, and the rangers were desperate. They don’t like the funiculars—giving the same two speeches, twice per hour. My dad’s friend knew I had a lot of experience with big machinery, so he sort of … threw me into it. That same day. It didn’t take long for them to teach me how to operate it, and I already knew the trivia from the museum, and because I wasn’t getting paid I didn’t feel like I had to follow the park’s usual monologue…”
“Let me guess,” Marigold said. “The rangers received so many raves from the park’s visitors that they switched you over permanently?”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“Wow.” Now Marigold was the one staring at her shoes, a pair of red sneakers. “Wow,” she said again. “You should be proud of that. Congratulations.”
“The other volunteers aren’t happy with me.”
Marigold glanced up. “Because you were singled out for the better job?”
North shrugged. “Most of them will be gone after the summer season, anyway.”
“So … you’re staying, then.”
When he didn’t reply, her outrage exploded back to the surface. “But they should be paying you! You should have a salary and health insurance and a 401(k).”
North hesitated. As if he wasn’t sure he wanted to say what he was about to say. “They are. If you’d come next week, I would’ve been wearing pants.”
Marigold blinked.
“Only volunteers wear shorts,” he explained. “If you’re paid, they give you pants.”
As quickly as it had arrived, Marigold’s anger dissipated into disappointment. She pulled her knees up to her chest. “Oh.”
North rubbed the back of his neck. “They told me today. Right before I saw you, actually.”
“That’s why you were called into the park office?”
He nodded. “They offered me a full-time job. I accepted.”
“Oh,” Marigold said again. The wind rustled the trees. A droplet of water fell from a dangling branch and landed beside her. She shivered.
“What is it?” His voice was quiet.
Marigold shook her head.
North didn’t prod, but he did notice the goose bumps on her arms. “You’re freezing. Why wouldn’t you bring a jacket?”
She shot him another aggressive glare. “Nice. Shorts.”
North laughed as he unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a plain white T-shirt underneath. He held out the work shirt.
Marigold continued to glare.
“Take it,” he said.
She made him wait for another five seconds before accepting it. “Thank you.”
He seemed pleased for the victory. “You’re welcome.”
Marigold draped it over her arms and legs like a blanket, and her eyes shuddered closed. The shirt smelled like North’s sweat and North’s detergent and North’s Christmas tree farm and something else North that slipped even deeper, that reached inside her physical body to fan out her memories like a magician revealing a deck of unblemished cards.
She saw their first kiss in her old apartment, illuminated by the glow of the tree that he’d just helped her decorate. The snowy nighttime rides in his truck, his right hand clasped over her left on the center console. The hours at her computer, watching him record his voice, breathing life into her animations. The first time they made love. He was feeding his neighbors’ alpacas while they were in Florida, and he led her inside their house. They both got
rug burn from the dining room carpet. It was more romantic than it sounded. And then the last memory: clinging to that stupid microwave in that stupid parking lot while North told her that he had no interest in a long-distance relationship. Better to stop this charade now. That was the word he’d used. Charade.
“What are you thinking about?” North asked.
Marigold opened her eyes. She was still frowning, but it had grown into a frown of concern. “Where will you live when you move out of your parents’ house?”
North winced.
“You’re not going to,” she said.
“I will.”
“Bullshit.”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes, and her frustration rose. “Is it at least for a good reason?” she asked. “Do they still need your help or something?”
“My parents will always need my help.”
“Bullshit,” she said again.
North turned his full body toward her, furious. “Why are you even here? Why?”
“Because you wouldn’t talk to me!”
“And that didn’t tell you something? Like, that I didn’t want to talk to you?”
It was a slap in the face. “You ass.”
His energy deflated the moment he realized how much he’d hurt her. “Yeah. Maybe. Probably.”
Marigold felt like a fool. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t want to cry in front of him. She pushed back the tears. “I’m here…”
North waited.
She tried again. “I came here … to rescue you.”
Now he was the one who was surprised. His forehead wrinkled as she sprang to her feet, a Marigold-shaped ball of nerves. She clutched his shirt against her chest and paced before him. “So my plan was to help you look for someone who could run your parents’ farm. I was going to convince you to move to Atlanta and enroll in community college. And then we’d save up, or you could get some grants or loans, or all of the above, and then you could finish at one of the other schools. By then, you’d qualify for in-state tuition. Atlanta does have the second-highest number of colleges after Boston, you know.”
North’s mouth was agape. “We would save up?”
“You. I meant you.” Marigold felt flustered. “But yeah. So my apartment has a second bedroom, and I need someone to split my rent, because I’m broke. We’d be helping each other out, you see?”
His jaw grew wry with understanding. “Ah. You want me to help pay your rent.”
But he didn’t understand, not at all. “If I didn’t care who my roommate was, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be on Craigslist!” Marigold threw her arms above her head. “I want you to be my roommate.”
North stared at her until she stopped pacing.
“What?” Her voice trembled.
“You want me … to be your roommate.”
“Yes.”
He swallowed and shook his head. “Marigold. I can’t do that.”
“Because of this job?”
“Because of you.”
“Oh.” His shirt dangled limply at her side. Marigold glanced down the trail, fighting the tears from welling up again. “Okay. Yeah, I guess it would be weird for you to move in with your ex-girlfriend. Someone you’d dumped.”
North looked strangely stung. He stumbled to his feet. “No.”
“No? What do you mean, no?”
“I didn’t dump you.”
“North, I was there. You broke up with me.”
“Because you were leaving and I couldn’t go with you! I didn’t want to.”
Marigold shook her head in confusion. “You didn’t want to leave?”
“I didn’t want to break up with you.”
“But … but you did.”
His shoulders drooped miserably. “I know.”
“Oh.” It was a whisper.
North crossed his arms to protect his last shred of dignity. “I stopped texting you because it sucked, all right? It sucked hearing about your new life and your new job, and I knew any day you’d tell me about a new boyfriend, too.”
“But we were friends. You could’ve told me this. You left me in the dark.”
“You always wanted me to talk to Noelle, but I was so angry with her. It wasn’t until after you left that I finally reached out to her, so when she returned … it felt worse than if she hadn’t. Because it was already too late.”
Everything was wrong inside Marigold’s chest. Her heart was cracking, thumping, splitting, swelling. All at once.
North extracted his shirt from her death grip, put his arms through the holes, and buttoned it back up. “I’m telling you that I can’t move to Atlanta because I don’t want to be your roommate. Or your friend. I never liked you like that. I mean, I did, of course I did, but…” He snatched up his hat from the rock. “It was always more complicated for me than it was for you. My feelings were stronger.”
Marigold was frozen. She’d never seen him look so vexed. Or so forlorn.
He tugged the hat onto his head. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She could only nod.
“I’m going back to work.” North leaned over and kissed her cheek, lightly. “You should take the other car down.”
* * *
Marigold held a hand to her cheek as she watched him disappear into the forest. He never looked back. His kiss had been the first time their skin had made contact in three months.
Her fingertips still smelled like him. It didn’t make her feel good. The kiss hadn’t felt good, either. Something was whipping circles inside of her, dizzying and nauseating, a realization as huge and terrifying and destructive as a tornado.
To have the strength to move away, Marigold had channeled all her energy into helping her mother, finding a job, finding an apartment, packing up everything she’d ever owned, and saying goodbye to the only hometown she’d ever had. Leaving required determination, so everything else had been placed on hold. From her first encounter with North, there’d been an expiration date on their relationship. It hadn’t seemed smart to acknowledge the possibility of something else. Or to admit anything out loud.
Marigold thought she’d been here to rescue him, but the act had been selfish.
She wanted North to move in with her not because she wanted to see him succeed (although she did), and not because she needed help with her rent (although she also did), but because she couldn’t bear to be away from him for another day.
It was obvious. It was so stupidly obvious.
Marigold was in pain because she was heart-crushingly, soul-achingly, bone marrow–deep in love with North Drummond. How was it possible that she hadn’t known until this moment?
North loved her. He loved her.
Marigold cried aloud—a strange, strangled sound—as the information washed over her again. That is what he was trying to say, right? Marigold shook her head, dislodging this last seed of doubt. She grabbed her purse and bolted down the trail, over the stones and logs. The world grew louder. Talking, playing, laughing, shouting. She ran onto the main pathway, pulse in her throat. She came around the final bend—
Just as his green car slipped out of view down the mountain.
* * *
The funicular closed at six. It meant that North would arrive for his final load of passengers in another ninety minutes.
She’d waited all day. She could wait a bit longer.
Marigold headed toward the buildings for warmth. According to the thermometer beside the concessions stand, it was fifty-seven degrees. She rubbed her arms vigorously, unsure how much of her shivering was from the temperature and how much of it was from her fear of what was still to come. It didn’t help when she realized the seat of her shorts was muddy and wet. She took her time in the restroom, trying to get the fabric as clean and dry as possible with paper towels while praying that North hadn’t seen the damage when she was pacing in front of him.
North. North.
As the clock ticked, second after agonizing second, his name soared through her like a ballad. They
felt the same way about each other. It wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be.
It was the longest ninety minutes of her life.
At six o’clock, Marigold was still freezing, but the sky was blue and bright. The summer sun was still a few hours away from setting. The rangers had done a good job of shepherding people down from the summit, because the waiting area was full when the Maria arrived. North flumped onto the platform. He looked exhausted. He ushered the passengers aboard wordlessly as Marigold hid at the end of the line, unable to resist one final surprise. Her stomach twisted with hope and butterflies.
When the tall man ahead of her stepped onto the car, North’s eyes locked upon hers. His expression briefly lit up before sinking back into something that was even more dejected. It reshaped itself again into anger. North held up a hand to stop her. “Oh my God,” he said. “You’re a worse listener than I thought.”
He still cared. He still felt strongly about her. His reaction made her feel brave.
Marigold smiled sweetly, knowing how to play this final game. “Please let me board.”
“Do you or do you not see this official government hand stopping you?”
“Volunteer government hand. And it’s your job to let me board.”
“You’re killing me today.” But he dropped it, shaking his head and stepping aside. “And now you’re doing it on purpose.”
Marigold grinned as she swept past him. “I am.”
There was an inhalation behind her, preparation for a retort, but then … nothing. As if he was suddenly bewildered. Marigold took a seat on the bench closest to his control panel. He shut the door. She glanced over her shoulder and gave him another coy smile.
North’s brow furrowed, but his eyes were alight as he reached for the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys. Appreciated guests and persistent interlopers.”
The other passengers laughed.
Marigold placed an elbow over the back of her bench and stared up at him. She was only a foot away. She batted her eyes.
His steady gaze never left hers as he engaged with the outdated controls, and the car lurched into its downward trajectory. “We, of the North Carolina State Parks System, do hope you’ve enjoyed your visit to Mount Mitchell today—”