Charting the Unknown Read Online Free Page B

here in the front row, Hank. Go Hank GO!”
    The foosball junkies who had been hanging around dispersed in disgust until I got quiet and scored several goals in rapid succession. My burly opponent began to look nervous. A vein started to bulge in his neck, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead. His friend clapped him on the back and said jovially, “Dude! You're getting smoked by a chick!” If I didn't find the moment so savory, I would have felt sorry for him. How could he have known I spent my Saturdays playing the neighborhood on the foosball table in our basement? I decided to stop toying with him and end his misery, sliding the score counters to 10 on my side and 1 on his. By that time, a lineup of testosterone hopefuls, unable to bear the thought of a woman ruling what was so obviously a guy's domain, had formed to play me. At the end of this line, I noticed a shorter, robust guy in jeans and an untucked, blue, button down shirt. His eyes crinkled when he smiled reminding me of pictures I had seen of Santa Claus.
    When it was finally his turn, he sauntered up to the table and said with cocky confidence, “Care to make it interesting?”
    â€œDon't see that there's much need of that…” I stated, grinning wryly.
    â€œHow about if I win, you buy me dinner, if you win, I buy you dinner.”
    â€œLooks like you win no matter what,” I said shrugging nonchalantly.
    â€œHow's that?”
    â€œEither way you get to have dinner with me.”
    â€œExactly,” he said, making the first shot on goal.
    Later that evening, he bought me take-out pizza. We ate it in the girls lounge because neither of us had a car.
    Foosball aside, Mike reminded me of Evil Knievel without the white leather outfit. He jumped his motorcycle over flaming piles of bush, and raced around dirt bike trails. When he wasn't doing that, he climbed rocks and snuck around campus with a posse of guys wreaking havoc. Subsequent impressions led me to imagine him standing in the middle of life like a young Clint Eastwood saying, “Go ahead, make my day.” When he was not climbing, jumping, or shooting things, he was betting.
    â€œSee that boulder down there? The one about 100 yards over this ledge?” he'd ask me as we hiked around Golden Ears in Lower Mainland, BC.
    â€œA buck says I can peg it with this pebble.”
    Unfamiliar with his impeccable aim, but always up for a bet or two, I countered, “You're on, but then I get a chance to throw.” His pebble would fly gracefully through the air and hit the center of the boulder most every time. Mine would land close. I was incensed but intrigued and continually out a couple of bucks.
    Over the course of years, my childhood love of adventure had largely been tamed. As I neared my twentieth birthday, it was achieved from an overstuffed Lazy Boy. While the snow floated unnoticed across a large picture window, I would sit curled up under a goose down duvet sipping a cup of hot cocoa and allow myself to be transported via the written word through time, circumstance, and geography. It took little effort to superimpose my own image in place of the hero. It was sufficient enough stimulation and created within me the idea that thrill seeking was still part of my nature.
    But backseat gun slinging is quite a stretch from actually grabbing a vine in the middle of a dank, scorching jungle and hurtling yourself over a precipice to elude oncoming tribal head hunters. When I first met Mike, I was unaware of this distinction. I was smitten by his motorcycle riding, skydiving, and rock climbing. It all reminded me of a character in one of my books.
    In a favorite coffee shop one morning, I told Mike with sparkly eyes that I was an adventurer too. He believed me. I said it with such conviction that even I believed me.
    â€œThat's great news,” he said with a mouth full of muffin. “How about going rock climbing with me this Saturday?”
    I had never