He says it’s unstable and the walls are crumbling and when it bursts there’s going to be a 500 foot wall of water that’ll wash us all down to the Gulf of Mexico. JT was ready to kill him—JT doesn’t talk a whole lot, but he finally asks Mitchell if he’s an engineer or a hydrologist and does he know about this and that, and he’s using all these technical terms and finally Mitchell shuts up. But the damage is already done. Evelyn is convinced it’ll happen during our trip.
And he’s not very nice to his wife either. Like this afternoon, she got all excited about finding a fossil and asked Mitchell to take a picture of it so she could show her kindergartners, and Mitchell told her it would never come out, it’d just be a picture of a gray rock. I swear she was going to cry. So I took a picture for her. I would NEVER stand to be married to someone like him!!!!! Even if I am FAT!!!!!
Tomorrow I am definitely riding separate from Mom. As long as she is in the same boat with me, I end up saying like two words. Because I know she’s evaluating everything I say. Oh Amy, I didn’t know you wanted to go to China someday. Oh Amy, I didn’t know you wanted to learn to kayak. Oh Amy, I didn’t know you were really afraid of flying. I hate revealing myself in front of her. I wish I’d come on this trip alone.
When I get back I have to go visit colleges. I wonder if there’s such a thing as drive-through liposuction. Here’s my list: State U. Here’s Mom’s list: Harvard, Yale, Brown, Berkeley, Stanford, Amherst, Princeton. She says anyone who gets a perfect score on their SATs should aim high. If she tells anyone here about my scores, I will KILL her.
Maybe I should go to the University of Alaska, where I can wear a down coat 365 days a year, and no one will really notice that I’m FAT.
DAY FIVE
River Miles 60–76
Sixty-Mile Rapid to Papago
21
Day Five
Little Colorado
It was midmorning the next day when their three boats floated into the confluence of the Little Colorado River. Instantly JT could tell that it hadn’t rained upstream, for the tributary was running its strange, aquamarine blue. On a hot summer day, the Little Colorado could get as crowded as a suburban water park, but JT decided to stop anyway, and not just because Mitchell had been talking about it all morning. People of all ages liked the Little Colorado; the water was warm, and they could lounge and play in its series of pools and waterfalls.
There must have been a dozen boats at the confluence that day, and JT had to do some tight maneuvering to find space to pull in. As his passengers eagerly scrambled out of the boats, JT warned them about the crusty travertine ledges; using Abo as a model, he showed them how to fasten their life jackets upside down, diaper-style, to avoid scraping themselves. Then he let them loose, and they ran upstream and joined the throngs, shrieking, splashing, sliding down waterfalls and hitching themselves into clumsy trains that broke apart, limbs in the air, hands grabbing for feet, frenzied laughter the likes of which JT was used to here on the Little Colorado but which most of the adults had not experienced since grade school.
While they reveled in the warm blue waters, JT went from boat to boat in search of gauze, for that morning, Lloyd had taken it upon himself to change the bandages on Ruth’s cut. He did a thorough, precise job, wrapping her leg liberally, which would have been commendable in a hospital but was unfortunate down here on the river where they were so low on gauze to begin with. By the time JT realized what was happening, Lloyd had already ripped open the last packet.
Hadn’t Ruth remembered they were low on gauze? Why didn’t she stop him from using so much? Sometimes it baffled him, how good, intelligent people could get so spacey
But today he got lucky, for the pontoon crew had a few extra rolls to spare. Thus at least partly replenished, he leashed the dog and hiked up a small hillside to a spot where guides left messages for one another.
It was here, years ago, that he’d left love notes for another guide, a girl named Mac, always a trip behind him, it seemed, until finally