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I
have
to read, since I’m part of the group. So I pull out my piece of paper: “Daniel, Josh, the film major guy, Kent, the short guy from Psi U, Eric …” The group is silent.
    Then at last Tina laughs a little. “That’s it? A list? We’re spilling our guts here, and you came up with a
list?”
    I shrug and mumble something about not being able to muster up anything else.
    “Okay, well, there must be some reason you wrote the list,” says the Realtor. “You must have been thinking about your relationships or something. Why don’t you tell us about what was going on in your head?”
    “I don’t know,” I say, furiously stirring my instant coffee. I’m on the spot and have to come up with something. So I tell them I was just thinking about the crazy string of guys I’ve been with, marveling at what ridiculous situations I get myself into.
    “Such as?” Tina asks.
    The men in the group start examining their spoons and the ants on the rock.
    I start telling them about how I can’t seem to meet the right guy, how somehow I end up on spectacularly bad dates. I laugh. “Just bad luck, I guess.” Tina and the Realtor nod along, they know about bad dates. Tina raises her eyebrows, waiting to hear more. Encouraged and wanting to lighten the mood and shift attention away from me and how I feel about my list, which is not so great, I launch into stories about my most disastrous dates. There was the guy who pulled over on the side of the road and told me his ex-wife had a temporary restraining order against him and he’d spent time in Atascadero—not a nice hotel in Carmel, ha ha, but the California facility for the criminally insane. And the chef who got so drunk he actually left skid marks on my couch. In the midst of telling these stories, which always vastly amuse my friends—the worse the date, the better, as far as the retelling is concerned—I pause and see that no one in this group, not even Tina, is laughing. They’re digging around in their oatmeal as if there’s gold hidden in there.
    I wipe my eyes, look around at the landscape, and comment on how lovely the sky is this morning. Gretchen puts an arm around my shoulders briefly, and then we do the dishes.
    For the last two days, we explore the canyons with only a day pack, feeling light as lizards as we scramble on rocks in the sun. We jump into cool sandstone pools and find a shady arch to nap under. The final night, after hiking fifteen miles, we ascend a 1,000-foot mesa in the dark. We manage it slowly, giving helping hands, taking breaks. I find a wellspring of strength in myself, not in climbing the mountain but in patiently encouraging the slowest hiker from behind, singing Aretha Franklin and punk-rock songs to keep her spirits up for the last grueling hour. When we finally reach the top of the mesa at midnight, we throw down our sleeping bags and sleep huddled together in the wind.
    The trip ends up having some lasting effects on the group. Gretchen, the timid college grad, having hiked her way through some self-esteem issues, goes to New York City for a master’s degree, loses weight, and transforms into a chic, pale-skinned intellectual. The socks manager quits smoking for good and gets involved in an Audubon program, making a bunch of new friends. The skinny Realtor finds a rich new boyfriend and gains a few pounds. The institutional food manager buys a vacation home and retires part-time, spending more time with his grandchild. The computer guy gets a new job and a girlfriend. Dennis and the venture capitalist break up with their respective partners, take a trip around the world together, and get married, inviting us all to come play paintball at their wedding, which I do not attend. I have an X-ray taken of my spine; the seventy-five-poundpack has compressed two discs, apparently permanently, and my doctor tells me I can never backpack again and that I should take up yoga.
    On the bus ride back to the motel, I’m not sure what this