About Some Kind of River

by Andi Marquette
49 pages / 20000 words
ISBN-13: 978-1-60370-270-6
ISBN-10: 1-60370-270-9
Available file types - html. lit, pdf, prc

Rafting guide Dez figures her best friend Mel just isn’t into her. She knows Mel is a lesbian, just like she is, but she's never seen a glimmer of interest from her friend, and would never screw up their relationship by making a pass.

Luckily for Dez, Mel is a little more determined than she is, and will keep trying to get Dez's attention, even when Dez is truly clueless. When a chance game of truth or dare with their friends leads to a revelation, can Dez admit that she might just be Mel's type?

Sample

I parked my gray Toyota pick-up in front of the Little Salmon Rafting Company and studied the wooden building for a few moments, grinning. I reached for the sheet of paper on the passenger seat and read through, yet again, the roster of guides and other staff slated to spend the summer with the LSRC. The name jumped off the page, like it did every time I read this damn thing. Hammond, Melanie J. My heart skipped around in my chest a bit.

I tried to ignore it and dutifully read the rest of the list. But I went right back up to Mel’s name and lingered over it a bit. Get over it. Jesus. I’d worked with her every damn summer for five years. We were buddies. Nothing more. I folded the paper, put it in the glove compartment, and glanced out my windshield at the building, a one-story wooden structure trying to mimic an Old West general store. The LSRC’s carved wooden sign hung off the porch roof. It had been reprinted in bright blue, red, and yellow. The familiar cartoonie raft splashed through a spate of whitewater that seemed to arc outward toward the viewer, making the idea of tearing through the Little Salmon’s rapids all the more inviting.

I exited my truck and inhaled deeply, stretching the miles out of my legs and shoulders while I gazed up at the surrounding treeless mountainsides. Like another planet, I thought, picking out only a few swaths of green vegetation higher up their faces, above the valley floor, which looked lush in comparison. I watched an RV slow down on the main drag as it entered Riggins, population about five hundred thirty in the winters. Lots of traffic for a town this size, but during the summer recreational season, the population might double because Riggins sat at the confluence of two rivers, the Salmon and the Little Salmon. Highway 95 divided it vertically; most of Riggins proper backed up against the west-side mountains.

Even more awesome, the Payette River carved its own canyon twenty miles south and slightly east. In drier years, the Salmon, Little Salmon, and Payette Rivers still provided enough whitewater for boater nuts like me and Mel and plenty of calm places for the more staid tourist-driven raft trips.

And speaking of boater nuts…I watched a dreadlocked dude strap a dark blue whitewater kayak to the rack on the roof of his beat-up car. I smiled to myself. An assload of money on his boat and gear, none on his car. As long as it gets you to the river, I thought as I headed toward the double glass doors at the end of the battered wooden boardwalk. According to the roster, Brad was still on board. He kept the place cleaned, inventoried, and inviting. I’d worked for a couple of other rafting companies over the past four summers—one in Colorado and one in Wyoming—and hated the accumulated grunge in the dingy main offices. I’d spent enough time on western rivers to know that more often than not, the more slipshod a rafting company’s appearance, the more slipshod the guiding. I signed up for a second summer with the LSRC because the owners and Brad kept it clean, organized, and professional.

I waited as a couple of giggling teenaged girls preceded me indoors. I pulled my shades off and entered the LSRC’s funky north woods interior, sniffing. Pine-Sol, wood, and bleach. Brad’s touch, I thought with relief. To my right stood neat racks of t-shirts, shelves of books about rafting, boating, and local history. A beverage cooler filled with bottled water and sodas was positioned against the wall, set at a right angle to the counter. To my left, more shelves held stacks of sweatshirts, shorts, and assorted tourist doo-dads like Frisbees, beach balls, and a section of dog toys and dog treats. Brad loved dogs and his black lab, Mike, was something of a mascot for the company.

From the doorway, I scanned the staff behind the counter, pleased to see Travis and Jenny, both of whom I’d worked with last summer. My eyes fell on a third woman whose back faced me. She seemed to be speaking animatedly on the business phone. Mel? Nah. Mel had kept shoulder-length hair the five summers I’d known her. This woman’s hair was cut short, a tousled run-your-fingers-through-it mass of light brown blond-streaked invitation. Besides, Mel’s hair was darker.

I studied her, puzzled. She had Mel’s athletic build and she stood about Mel’s height, but the hair…whoever she was, she was damn nice-looking from the back. I let my eyes wander along her blue tank top to the top of her black river-runner shorts. I couldn’t see her ass, but I was willing to bet it filled those shorts nicely. Travis stepped to the counter to help someone, blocking my view. I set my shades on the top of my head and headed toward him, curious.