Descending Star

SUMMER SCHOOL

Zoey's July courses started with five or ten minutes of fanfare: interviews and photographs for the local paper, and some autograph requests. Then she settled into an easy routine. Two sessions per day, one at ten and another after lunch, two hours each. The first hour consisted of stretching and strength conditioning. Then the students spent the second hour on the climbing wall, ten teams of five.

Each course ran for three weeks. She told the students from the outset that she would not transform them into free solo rock climbers in a month. "You're going to acquire the skills to enjoy safe protected gym climbing, on rope, with a spotter on the ground. You'll also learn how to safely take those skills out into the field, as part of a team of at least three: a leader ahead of you, a belayer below you, and roped protection at all times. I can't teach you how to lead a climb in a month. No one can. Strength, experience and wisdom: you need all three, and that's up to you. They take time and dedication. There are no shortcuts to leading a team."

She cringed throughout these little peptalks, because she heard herself and sounded just like Coach Lowry back home.

Inevitably someone in each class asked about free solo climbing, and she jumped on each opportunity to say, "If you're here to learn how to climb rock unprotected, you're in the wrong place."

Like Coach Lowry, she didn't put up with showboating. Early on, she benched a couple of men, one of whom was three times her age. She pointed to one of the picnic tables and told them to take a rest. For that incident, she took a speech right out of Coach Lowry's playbook, verbatim.

"People, listen up. You can die from a ten foot fall, if you're extremely unlucky. You can survive a fifty foot fall, if you win the lottery– though if you do, you'll likely wish you hadn't. Over fifty feet, you're dead. This wall is sixty feet high, with a ceiling. See that horizontal red line that I've painted across my wall? Above that line is the Death Zone. I'm going to teach you how to safely cross that line, but you have to meet me halfway, by giving me your full and undivided attention. Ladies and gentlemen, you do not have permission to die on my course. Die on your own time. Not mine. If I see you trying to die, you will take a seat and spend this course as a spectator, with no refunds."

The picnic tables became a congregation point that summer. People brought lunch and hung out in the Newtons' parking lot, just to watch. After every class, people tended to linger, and a party atmosphere prevailed. That was when, on many days, Zoey flouted her own advice and skittered up the wall, with an Allen wrench and a holstered cordless drill, to make adjustments to the wall. She went up into the Death Zone herself, with no protection whatsoever, to hang on a few fingers, tighten the artificial rocks, and shore up the wall itself with additional deck screws.

In her mind, she divided her days into the easy Jacob-Free Zone, from morning to mid-afternoon, versus late afternoon, when he raced to Forks from summer school to hover and buzz around like a noisome fly. The riot act she'd given him about his unseemly possessiveness hadn't made a dent.

One afternoon Micaela said, "Where's the lost puppy?"

Zoey glumly answered, "No doubt he's breaking speed limits on the way down here."

"I know a bunch of guys I could fix you up with. Guys your own age. If he sees you out with other men, that might help brush him off."

"Half my students have asked me out. There's at least one after every class, it seems. One was old enough to be my dad. Honestly the last thing I need is a man in my life."

"Tell Jacob that."

"I did."

That day, Jacob showed up later than usual and especially irate, because he made the mistake of crossing through the store, where Leah Clearwater took first pass at him.