Free Skywalker--Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail by Bill Walker Page B

and a drink?” Bettina asked.
    No brainer. “Yes.” Let me say right off the bat, I had more than a drink in mind. But, it might not be what you think.
    We got in her Cadillac and she drove up a steep hill to a picturesque chalet (the smallest of her three houses), which was two streets down from Dolly Parton’s vacation home.
    “Has everybody in Idyllwild learned to stare at the pavement when Dolly walks by?” I asked.
    “No,” Bettina answered. “She gets mad when people don’t come up and greet her.”
    Bettina opened her house up to us like long-lost relatives, and we sipped drinks on her veranda which had a majestic view overlooking the mountains.
    I’m usually shy in these matters and operate through indirection. But this time was different; I was in a pickle. So I popped the question directly to Bettina.
    “Bettina,” I asked. “Is there any way in the world I could sleep a few nights out here on this veranda?”
    “Honey,” she answered, “I’ve got a whole second floor with two bedrooms empty. You can stay there until you learn to walk again.” Better yet, with Just Jack I had a witness to the great trail magic I had just scored. Hikers love swapping stories about what they’ve scored in trail towns. I had just scored a luxurious mountain chalet to recuperate. But Jack had greater ambitions than being a mere witness.
    All I can say is that it’s honest-to-God a shame that his feelings weren’t fully reciprocated by Bettina. He sure as heck would have been a step up from her three previous husbands. I know because I would hear one vehement monologue after another about all of them in the next two weeks at her house. Instead of making common cause with Jack though, Bettina took a strange shine to me. And it would play itself out in bizarre ways over the next couple weeks.
    You could have reasonably assumed I was Nurse Renee’s biggest critic in Idyllwild. Not by a long shot. Bettina was.
    “She almost cut a friend’s finger off, I swear to God. She’s worked for every medical clinic in southern California and keeps getting fired. She’ll be gone from here by the end of the year.” And on and on, day after day. It was depressing. But her tirades weren’t limited to Renee, either. I had chatted with a much older, much heavier woman in a restaurant the night I had hobbled into Idyllwild. Her name was Teva.
    “I know everybody in Idyllwild,” Bettina repeatedly said.
    “Do you know an older lady named Teva?” I had asked her and described Teva. It probably wasn’t a great description because I only met her that once for about five minutes and never saw her again. That last fact didn’t register with Bettina, however. Any time I went into town after that she would question me obsessively after returning about whether I had seen Teva.
    Another lady in town who puts up hikers came to Bettina’s house to bring me some get-well cake. The lady could barely make it up the steps to the veranda because she had gained 85 pounds in one year. But that didn’t stop Bettina from getting paranoiad about her.
    “Sky, when is your friend going to bring you some more cake,” she kept chiding me. “You miss her, don’t you?”

     
    “Renee, this is Bettina McAllister,” Bettina said. I couldn’t believe my ears. Renee.
    “I’m with Skywalker,” Bettina continued on her cell phone. “We all think you owe Skywalker a look at his feet.”
    Bettina paused for a comment on the other end and then answered, “Right now in Iberico Restaurant.”
    We were in the finest restaurant in Idyllwild, which happened to be about the only place Bettina ever ate. Bettina had convinced the couple, Ron and Dana, whom we were eating with (who were actually friends of Renee’s) to give her Renee’s home phone number. Mega-blunder. Fifteen minutes later Renee arrived in the restaurant. It was a weeknight about 9 o’ clock so she had been working all day. She stood right in front of our table, uncomfortably shifting