Twice Shy
: Chapter 13

NOT TO BE DRAMATIC, but I would rather drink battery acid than be in the throes of a crush.

Crushes are fun in theory (ask me about my many dreamland husbands), but in reality, they’re energy vampires that are more trouble than they’re worth. The preoccupation is exhausting. I get sick to my stomach from swallowing too many butterflies, I lose sleep, my already intrusive penchant for fantasizing levels up a thousand degrees. I start worrying too much about whether my hair looks perfect or if I’m talking too loud, and prescription-strength deodorant becomes the safety pin holding my precarious shit together. All this emotional work, only to always end up being hurt by it? When I drag a glance over my dating history, the polls are conclusive. Nothing good ever comes from a crush.

Wesley’s wearing a knitted white cardigan this morning, lounging against the wall and peeling a banana, when I stroll into the kitchen with my camping gear. Cardigans are my kryptonite. I don’t know how he knows, but he knows. What am I talking about? Of course he doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. Oh lord, this is already wretched.

He makes a come here motion and shows me one of the X’s on the treasure map. “I figured we’d start over here, then work our way northeast. The truck won’t be able to pass beyond this point”—he raps a cluster of trees—“so I hope you won’t mind carrying the pack with our food and smaller supplies?” His questioning look prompts me to nod.

Wesley’s pack is considerably larger, containing our tent and sleeping bags. He’ll also be toting a shovel. I think about the roll of toilet paper in my pack and regret every choice I’ve ever made that’s led me to this point.

“Great.” I unscrew a bottled water, proceeding to chug the whole thing.

“Hey.” He bends his knees and tilts to look me in the eye, the ghost of a smile quirking his lips. “You all right? You good?”

“Yep.”

The playful light in his eyes falls flat. “You don’t want to?”

“Are you trying to talk me out of this?” I pick up my pack, narrowing my eyes at him jokingly. “That treasure’s mine, Koehler. Let’s roll.”

The smile returns, bigger now. “Okay, Parrish.”

It’s shaping up to be a balmy spring day, and the drive is gorgeous. Wesley’s pickup barrels through tunnels of green, bright and rich, like being inside an emerald. Irises and bleeding hearts are in bloom, garden-variety flowers petering out the farther we go, overtaken by native plants. He calls them all by name, pointing out lady’s-slipper orchids, phlox, silverbells growing directly out of cracks in the road. We’ll eventually have to get the road repaved, as it looks like it’s endured several earthquakes and an apocalypse. The prospect makes me a little sad. I’m starting to like the wildness of Falling Stars, nature reclaiming what we stole.

All too soon, we’re parking in a field and Wesley’s killing the engine. “This is it,” he announces, opening his door.

“Already?” I grab the map, calculating how far we are from the first X, then how far away the second X is from the first. There are five potential treasure sites. Over two hundred and ninety-four acres.

“Hope you’re wearing hiking shoes.”

I am. With special Dr. Scholl’s socks that are supposed to prevent blistering. The last thing my dumbass libido needs is for my feet to give out on me, leaving Wesley responsible for carrying me home.

“Hope you’re wearing shovel-digging gloves,” I counter.

“Hands are already callused.” He raises his brows, a touch haughty. “I’m in landscaping, remember? No stranger to shovels.”

Oh. Right.

I have no business dwelling on his callused hands, or how sturdy and capable he looks when he shrugs his pack on. I bet he could lift me up on his shoulders right now without a faltering step. If I’m going to survive this, I’ll have to pretend he isn’t my hot exploring companion but a . . . guard bear . . . or something. A bear with the stubble of a beard and minty mouthwash on his breath. And a cardigan. Oof.

I’m fine. I’m fine! I’ll fight this off like an infection.

“So, Koehler,” I begin casually as we slip into the trees. Effortlessly casually. Breezily, in fact. “How’d you get into the landscaping business?”

“I grew up on a farm. Tell me about your dad?”

I nearly walk into a tree.

“Sorry.” He looks it, too. “I didn’t mean to put it so bluntly. It’s just, I’ve been wondering. I know the name Parrish came from your mom’s side of the family. You’ve never mentioned your dad . . .” His face is reddening.

He’s awkward, but I’m about to be even more so. “I don’t know who my dad is.”

“Oh no, I’m sorry. I’m not the best conversationalist—I’m much better in text messages and notes left in dumbwaiters.”

“It’s all right.” I offer him a rueful smile. “You want to hear something bonkers? Whenever I think about my dad I picture Mick Fleetwood. You know who I’m talking about? One of the guys from Fleetwood Mac?”

He laughs. “Are you serious? Why?”

I know this sounds ridiculous. And illogical. “Mick Fleetwood was about forty years old when I was conceived, and also, he’s Mick Fleetwood. I know he’s not my father. And yet.”

He arches a brow. “And yet?”

“It’s funny what the human brain does with one little puzzle piece when it’s missing the rest of the picture. My parents met at a Fleetwood Mac concert. She was more of a Johnny Cash girl, but her friend had an extra ticket.”

Wesley’s eyes are fixed on the forest floor, a wrinkle in his brow. “Mm.”

“That’s all she’s told me about him. Fleetwood Mac’s the only piece of information I’ve got, so even though my dad was probably some scrawny teenager, all my life I’ve pictured the middle-aged guy on the cover of the Rumours album.” Which I bought with my first paycheck, and have memorized. “I think he must have blue eyes, though, because mine are blue and Mom’s are green.”

“My parents have been together since middle school.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, it kind of sucks for all their kids that our parents found their perfect match so young. They think it should be that easy for everyone. All I ever hear when I visit is that the clock is ticking and I’m going to die alone.”

I wince. “You’re not going to die alone.”

He shrugs. “I’m fine with it if I do.”

I sense that he’s starting to clam up, so I change the subject, digging my compass out of my pocket to pretend I know what I’m doing when I aim it this way and that. I got the thing from a box of Lucky Charms when I was a kid. “You sure we’re not gonna run into Bigfoot today?”

He knows what I’m doing, but it works—he grants me a sidelong almost-smile. “You haven’t been paying attention in class. Sasquatches don’t live in Appalachia.”

“Sasquatches, the Loch Ness Monster,” I remark, unable to hide my curiosity. “Do you believe in them?”

“Will you laugh at me if I say yes?”

“I would never.”

He considers this. “Then I might believe in them. Or I might believe in the possibility of them. Wouldn’t it be incredible, if these creatures are real and they’ve successfully eluded humans all this time? I mean, humans have taken over everything. We cage animals, we pillage, we destroy.”

I raise my eyebrows.

“Meanwhile, here are these other ancient beings who just want privacy, and they’ve outsmarted us,” he goes on. “A giant middle finger to the assholes who’ve ruined their habitats.” He frowns, coming to a standstill. “I’m sorry for saying assholes.”

I shake my head, suppressing a laugh. “It’s fine.”

“I don’t like to swear in front of ladies.”

“It’s fine. I swear all the time. Anyway, you were saying . . . ?”

“I got carried away. I won’t curse again.” I throw him a dour look and he continues: “Okay, so these people who hunt for Nessie, who have their own TV shows dedicated to getting video evidence of the supernatural, it’s all a money grab. They desperately want to replace them, for money and clout, but if they replace Sasquatch, if they replace Nessie, that means the end of those creatures’ way of life. They’d never have peace again. If they’re legitimate, scientists would get tons of funding to do a real search, forcing them out of hiding. It’s not in their best interest to be found—which means the hunters don’t care about these creatures, really. It makes me happy to think they’re out there existing, that they’ll never be found by those they don’t want replaceing them.”

“You don’t want to replace them?”

“I do want proof,” he admits, “especially of the Loch Ness Monster. That’s my favorite myth; there’s a ton of evidence to back up its existence, and not just the existence of one, but probably more. Maybe even more than a handful. But, I only want proof because I really need to know these myths most of the world doesn’t believe in have gotten away with it. That they’ve pulled off the greatest trick ever, living so stealthily that they’ve become legends and to believe otherwise nowadays makes everyone skeptical. I want to believe there are still wonders out there left unspoiled.” His face hardens. “But I wouldn’t interfere. I wouldn’t so much as take a picture of a Loch Ness Monster. I’d never violate its right to privacy.”

“You wouldn’t tell anyone?”

“I wouldn’t tell a soul. Not a single soul, not for a billion dollars.” He glances at me, expression unsure. “You want to laugh.”

He is wholly misinterpreting my smile. I have never adored a speech more than I adore Wesley’s talking ardently about mythical creatures with longing in his gaze. I have never had reason to hope the Loch Ness Monster exists, and now I’m 100 percent invested. I need Nessie to be real, for Wesley.

“Not at all,” I assure him. “I believe in things, too. Like, all the UFOs that have been spotted? I think we probably have aliens walking around on Earth.” I shrug.

His eyes light up. “Right? It makes sense! I think extraterrestrials are here, too. Maybe hiding in plain sight, looking the same as we do, or possibly shielded from the visible spectrum by advanced technology. Or, the government has them in captivity but they’re not telling us because it’ll expose the inhumane experiments they’re performing on them.” He slows down. “Look.”

It’s the entrance to a caved-in mine. The mine’s drawn on the map, too, right next to the first X. It’s barbed-wired, boarded up with a rotted beware sign. I wouldn’t have noticed it, obscured by a mass of thorny vines.

I whistle. “Nice catch.”

We drop our bags and stretch our limbs, my muscles sore already. After I strike gold and become a billionaire, my first purchase is going to be a track extending all the way out here, with one of those San Francisco trolleys to go with it.

“So. Aliens. Area Fifty-One,” I mention as we forage with our noses to the ground. I’m pleased I can contribute more to the alien conversation, wanting to keep the topic alive when it brings out such a marvelously, talkatively zealous side of Wesley. It’s clear he’s given myths and conspiracies a lot of thought.

One side of Wesley’s mouth hooks back in a grin. He reaches toward me, hand grazing my chest as he touches the pendant on my necklace. It lasts only a second, then he lets go, gaze averted to the ground. As soon as I can breathe again (it takes several seconds), I touch the pendant myself and it hits me.

The engraved 51.

On this jewelry that I thought was Violet’s, since I found it under Violet’s bed, which was actually . . .

“This is yours!” I cry.

Wesley bites his lip to keep back another grin, but it escapes. “Yes.”

I gape at him openmouthed. “Why didn’t you say anything? I thought it belonged to Aunt Violet.”

“I know.”

“I thought it was for her—for her fifty-first anniversary or something!” I sputter.

“I figured. Violet bought that for me as a present. It was an X-Files key chain; we used to watch that show together.”

“And here I’ve been wearing it! Well, don’t I feel stupid.” I immediately reach for the back of my neck, fumbling with the clasp, but his hand shoots out, fingers closing over mine.

“No, keep it,” he tells me earnestly. “Please.”

I grumble, embarrassed. It’s good I can look away, busying myself studying the ground for any markers, any disturbances that might hint at treasure in the vicinity.

“I like that you wear it,” he tells me in a tone so soft and genuine that my chest cavity feels hollowed out. “For months, I wasn’t able to replace it. Then one day, there’s that missing piece of my key chain around your neck.”

“Wesley.”

He stops. I raise my arm to a tree with a trunk curving into the shape of an S, the side facing us scratched with a large X at eye level.

Wesley stares. “Well, that was a lot easier than I thought it’d be.”

“No kidding. An actual X?” I glance from the tree to the map and back again. “They guessed the location with perfect accuracy.”

He unzips the outer pocket of his bag and withdraws a tool that resembles an oversized box cutter. Then he presses a button and waves it over the grass at the base of the tree. “What’s that?” I ask.

“Handheld metal detector.”

“Ooooohh, aren’t we a Boy Scout.” I’m teasing, but he nods in the affirmative.

“Eagle Scout.” He scans my face, adding wryly, “I was super popular in high school, as you can imagine.”

To look at him, you’d think he would have been super popular. A hot jock type. But Wesley Koehler isn’t anything at all that he seems.

Every new detail about him makes me want to know more. “Did you grow up near here?”

A small light on the metal detector flashes green as it beeps. He switches it out for a shovel, then juts a thumb. West, according to my compass. “In Stevenson, where my family still lives. You won’t have heard of it, it’s a very rural town.”

I’m amazed that he knows which direction is west without looking up. “I bet you were big into FFA in high school.” He definitely seems like the Future Farmers of America type.

“I got detention for being late to English all the time because I was taking care of other students’ plants in our ag class’s garden.”

“Giving those kids A’s they didn’t deserve, I bet.”

“Worth it. None of them knew anything about tomatoes.”

The tip of his shovel clinks against something underground. We lock eyes. “Aye, here be ye gold, matey,” I say, dead serious.

Wesley snort-laughs. We kneel, dusting dirt away, and wrench a dinged-up cookie tin out of the ground. Royal Dansk Danish butter cookies.

“Not quite a treasure chest, is it?” I observe doubtfully, the bars of gold in my mind shrinking down. Maybe it’ll be gold coins instead.

“Hey, I like cookies. I’ll take it.”

“Mmm, decades-old cookies.” I try to prize the lid off but it’s rusted shut. I hand the tin to Wesley, who pops its lid off in one easy motion. I’ll be honest, it makes me a little bitter.

“Well, it’s not cookies.”

It isn’t gold, either.

I lift an art deco diamond ring from its bed—a faded washcloth—and twist it to catch the light. Wesley selects another piece of jewelry, an engagement ring with a large emerald flanked by two diamonds on a gold band. The third item in the tin is a diamond bracelet.

“Holy cow!” I exclaim. “I bet these are worth a crap-ton of money.” I pick up a small white card that has one line on it in gold typeface: We’ll always have Paris. “Interesting.”

Wesley eyes the card from opposite me, reaching for it. “May I?”

I hand over the card, trading him for the emerald ring. The metal is cold as I slide it over my finger, mentally pressing play on the scenario of standing on the Pont des Arts in Paris while a man on bended knee proposes to me with such a ring. Below us, the Seine glitters.

“This is extraordinary,” I murmur, trying on the bracelet. “We have to check the others. What if there’s treasure in one of the other spots, too?”

Wesley nods. “We should definitely check them all.”

IT ISN’T LONG BEFORE I’m regretting that bottle of water I chugged right before we left. I order him to stay put on the bank of a stream while I replace somewhere to relieve myself. Paranoid he’ll see me from across a football field’s worth of distance, I get hopelessly lost in the weeds and don’t stumble my way back for thirty-six minutes. Wesley rises from his designated rock on the riverbank when I emerge, face white with panic. His hair is a mess, like he’s been running his fingers through it nonstop. I notice he has rerolled his sleeping bag to compress every molecule of air from it and tucked it into the top of his pack along with the many bells and whistles he’s also reorganized during my absence. “I was about to go looking for you! I was prepared to get slapped for it, too, depending on what you were doing when I found you, but there are bears around here. Don’t wander so far.”

I wield my trusty can of bear mace that I pray I won’t have to use, smiling. It hurts. My left cheek said hello to a briar a little too closely and got clawed. “I’m all good!”

“Here, you should put on more bug spray. It’s been a few hours.” Wesley starts fussing with Off! Deep Woods and a creamy green ointment that smells powerfully of mint. I wrinkle my nose as I slather it on, but it’s not good enough for Wesley and he makes me slather it on even thicker until I’m head-to-toe green goop. I’ve never felt so unattractive in my life. Wesley stands back, appraising me with satisfaction. “It’ll keep the ticks off you,” he says, painting himself into Shrek.

“I smell foul.”

“Better than getting Lyme disease.” He tosses me a canteen of water. Wesley puts conscious effort into avoiding single-use plastics and wouldn’t be caught dead with Aquafina. “Drink all of this, so that you don’t get dehydrated. We’ve got a long hike ahead.”

“Thank you, Eagle Scout.” I pat his shoulder in a friendly way. His shirt is damp with sweat. “You too, mister. Have a canteen.”

“I drank two of them while you were gone. Do you want to sit for a while? Take a break?”

“I’m ready to keep going if you are.” There’s no stopping me now. I’ve got gold fever. “Gimme that map.”

He gives me the map and a granola bar. “To keep your blood sugar stable until we stop for lunch.” He tries to be discreet about watching me eat it to make sure I finish the whole thing, but his long legs propel him at a brisker clip and being ahead of me, he has to keep twisting to see what I’m doing.

I can’t even pretend to be annoyed—it’s just so nice that someone cares. I peel the granola bar open, savoring it in tiny bites.

It takes close to two hours to reach the second X on the map, leading us to a long-abandoned rail yard. The metal detector is useless here, with scrap metal all over the place making it scream its head off. We toe aside unattached rails, pick up spikes and drop them into the weeds. Axles. Piston rods. A crushed lump of metal I’m calling a whistle, even if it isn’t. We complain about mosquitoes and how it shouldn’t be this warm so early in May until we’re sick of each other and ourselves. Then, marvel of marvels, I replace our hard-won loot inside an old switch lantern with its blue lens busted out. Probably from all the rocks we’ve kicked.

“This can’t be it,” I say, holding up the treasure. It’s a cassette tape.

“Has to be. There’s nothing else here.”

Also, the only marking on the tape’s label is the letter X, in blue pen.

“Maybe it’s a decoy,” I reply slowly. “Maybe somebody got to this treasure before we did and replaced it with a cassette tape.” I can hear my incredulity. “For some reason.”

“Maybe it’s unreleased Beatles recordings,” he replies mysteriously.

I brighten, giving his forearm a series of rapid pats. “Hey! What if it isn’t music: what if it’s a secret murder confession?” I rack my brains, trying to remember where the Zodiac Killer lived. “Are there any famous unsolved murders around here?”

“Let’s keep going,” he suggests, plucking the tape from my fingers. “Maybe we’ll replace something better at the next spot.”

We break for lunch on a soft hilltop, the heat of the day swelling to a crescendo. Our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are warm and mushy, but I’ve worked up such an appetite that I inhale mine in three seconds flat. I didn’t pack enough water, so to ration it out Wesley offers to split a canteen. Every time it’s my turn to take a swig, I get the world’s most pathetic thrill out of knowing our mouths have both touched the same spot.

Getting up after my legs have had a chance to rest is torture. “Aghhhh,” I groan.

Wesley gives me a once-over. “You want to sit for a while longer?”

“Nope.” I meet his concern with obstinacy. “Unless you’re getting tired.”

“Pshhhh.” He grins, and off we go. I have to grit my teeth for the first few minutes, before my muscles loosen up and cooperate again. My back isn’t as compromising.

I shift the weight of my pack for the tenth time in as many minutes. Wesley’s slightly ahead of me, so he shouldn’t have noticed, but he tugs it off my shoulders, slinging it over one arm to lump my burden with his. I try to protest, but he shakes his head.

There are biting winds in my hollow chest cavity now. Sharp, silvery arctic winds. A crush’s physical effects are just as intolerable as the emotional ones.

We replace the third X at two thirty in the afternoon, in a wishing well. It isn’t a proper wishing well. It’s a decorative lawn ornament, with cute wooden shingles and a charming bucket you can pulley up and down. When we come upon it, the bucket’s at the bottom. We crank it up, set aside clear plastic operating as a protective cover, and lift out two plastic-wrapped photographs.

One of the photos is of Uncle Victor, before he got sick, standing in front of the mirror that’s built into the white wardrobe in the living room. His clothing and the salt-and-pepper hair tell me it was taken in the eighties. He’s squinting with a Polaroid camera held up to one eye, flash brightening as he presses down on the shutter release. His other hand is in front of him, pointing down at the floor. The other photograph is exactly the same, identical down to the ghostly lens flares, except Victor’s pointing upward.

I get full-body chills.

“This is weird. I think Victor knew a little more about this whole treasure legend than he was letting on.” I shake my head in disbelief.

Wesley’s not studying the photos. He’s watching me. When I look at him, he scrubs his hands over his face, messes up his hair, and groans into his steepled fingers, “I have a confession to make.”

Oh no. For a moment, the possibility that this is all made up, that Wesley put these treasures here, floats to the surface. But then he shows me the card from the first treasure: We’ll always have Paris. There’s print on the back, which I didn’t look at before.

hollywood ice, finest celebrity imitation jewelry. the casablanca collection.

My jaw goes slack. “So the jewelry is . . .” I can’t bear to finish the thought.

He bites his lip, rueful. “Fake. Yeah.”

“Casablanca . . . That movie’s in Victor’s VCR.”

“Violet watched it every year on her wedding anniversary. I knew as soon as I saw the card that this must have all been planned by Victor. I’m thinking he buried it a long time ago, to lay the groundwork for a buried treasure urban legend. Either that or he thought of all this while he was sick and got someone to help him. A gift for Violet, to replace after he died.”

“Oh.” I am feeling extremely stupid for getting so excited over the jewelry. The rings and bracelet are pretty, but they’re costume jewelry. Probably worth about fifty or sixty bucks, if they’re from a legitimate collector’s edition. “I thought it was real treasure.”

“I should have told you. It’s just that you might have wanted to turn around and stop looking, if you knew this wasn’t real.”

And he wanted to keep going?

I want to ask why. I’m afraid he’ll give me an answer.

Wesley tips up my chin with a fingertip, willing me to meet his eyes. They’re flooded with guilt, and if I weren’t already kneeling on the ground, that touch would have tripped me. But then he second-guesses it, letting go. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s all right. It’s . . . sad that Violet never found this.” After her husband died, she started filling up the house with junk to replace him. I think it’s likely that she didn’t put up a Christmas tree or ornaments ever again, so Victor’s surprise went undiscovered. I am horribly disappointed on his behalf, and devastated on hers. If she had known he’d left her something like this, maybe it would have changed her grieving process. Maybe she wouldn’t have built the hoard monster that bricked up the door to Victor’s bedroom, keeping his secret dormant until after her own death.

I gather up the rings and bracelet, the cassette tape, the photographs. “They are real, though,” I tell him after a while. “They’re not diamonds, but to Violet, this would have been better than treasure. And this was one of her dying wishes.” I stand up, slipping each piece carefully back into my bag. “We might as well see it through.”