Today's Reading
PROLOGUE
ONE YEAR AGO
Objectively speaking, this concert is a disaster. Which makes it exactly what I need tonight.
Earlier, when the surprise May cold snap came down in a blast of arctic air, the lead singer of the opening act kicked off their performance by drunkenly slurring, "We hate playing Canada." Two hours after they wrapped up their sullen set, the crowd's still shivering, waiting for the headliners to take the stage.
But I love a good disaster. My specialty is "working the problem," a skill I perfected as an emergency physician: list all possible solutions, rank them from most to least useful, and try them all exactly once. Don't freeze if one or two or six solutions don't work; getting stuck can literally mean life or death.
Crises are when you discover who you are—when you get to choose who you want to be.
And tonight, I need to be who I used to be. I need to get back in balance.
Because I don't feel so steady these days.
Sometimes, I'm mostly myself: little, but fierce. Still pissed off at the state of the world, if a bit tired of throwing myself into finding solutions.
Other times I feel like even the tiniest pebble tossed into my inner waters would make a ripple big enough to take me under.
So here I am, back in my town for a weekend, looking to soak up some chaos and energy to tide me over for a while. Everything I love is here—grumpy mountains, turbulent rivers, and Liz, the best friend who's more of a sister to me than anyone I'd match to with a cheek swab.
I wish she'd come to this festival with me. Then I'd have someone to hug for warmth—someone to hug, period—and she wouldn't be staying home to do yet more unpaid work for her douchecanoe boss. The only familiar face I've spotted in this farmer's field is an acquaintance at best, a friend of Liz's husband who goes by the frankly unbelievable name of McHuge.
He's big, sure. But I've seen bigger. Like that time an NFL defensive back gave the keynote speech at the Pacific Northwest Trauma Society conference. Or in Jason Momoa movies. Probably.
All evening, I've watched guys slap him on the back before asking if he could spare a twenty. Long-legged women wearing flower crowns leap into his arms, then walk away five minutes later with his food and tea. They all promise to pay him back; he brushes them off with hippie platitudes about energy and karma.
Everywhere I look, McHuge's head and shoulders rise above the crowd, dark-ginger curls and pale skin popping against the blue-green mountains bracketing the Pendleton Valley. We're not hanging out together, but when aggressively intoxicated people lurch in my direction, he materializes to gently redirect them before nodding and stepping a respectful distance away.
He's not my type. Obviously. I'm only watching him because I can't figure him out.
Besides his size, there's nothing physically remarkable about him. He's got longish hair and a big beard—not an uncommon look in Pendleton and Grey Tusk, the famous ski resort half an hour south of here. Prominent nose balanced by full lips. Generous auburn brows over eyes of dark mossy green flecked with gold. No visible tattoos or piercings.
He's not what I'd call pretty. Rather, he's attractive in a rough way; clean but not quite tame. There's something about the way he crosses his bulging arms and vibes to the music that makes me picture him in one of those medieval woodsman hats, playing levelheaded Little John, solving everyone's problems by giving them his stuff.
My mom was like that: generous to a fault, unable to hold on to anything if she thought someone wanted or needed it. Then along came my dad, convinced he deserved everything for nothing. A perfect match, as long as you weren't their kid.
That history is why I turned McHuge down half an hour ago when he offered me a flannel shirt big enough to fall past my knees. That, and I'm sensitive about my height. If I look too cute at a concert, people pick me up and surf me across the crowd, and some asshole always takes one of my shoes.
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