The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost by Rachel Friedman

I’ll never know, but many years later, my father revealed they also thought the trip was a good idea because I was developing a bit of an attitude problem—a spoiled teenager’s sense of entitlement. “We wanted you to appreciate what you had,” my dad explained, then paused ominously before adding: “By taking it all away.”
    The first night on our trip we had to canoe several miles to the campsite. This was after we had been forced to go through our backpacks and hand over the shampoo (one of Outward Bound’s mottos is to not leave behind anything in the environment that wasn’t already there) and electronic devices (apparently you couldn’t commune with the trees with Sheryl Crow blasting through your Discman). We had hiked what felt like three dozen miles in boots I had neglected to break in before the trip because, really, I don’t hike. And now we were barreling down the AllagashRiver in the midst of the century’s worst rainstorm. We were out there for hours, soaked and shivering, the rain beating us back with every paddle thrust. My arms ached; my head throbbed. I started to cry, but no one could tell because it was dark and pouring. I cried all the way to shore. When one of the guides gave me his hand to help me out of my red canoe, I couldn’t believe I had made it. I felt this huge surge of pride, the kind that comes with totally reimagining your limitations.
    Even though the physical demands of the club are nothing like Outward Bound, I find myself hearkening back to that night on the river because it’s taking that same level of mental fortitude to stick it out in this disgusting place. Like in Maine, determination takes over, determination I thought I lost after quitting music and was certainly not expecting to find within the uninspiring confines of this depressing Irish nightclub. Each time I cash my minuscule paycheck, I’m proud that I’m supporting myself financially for the first time, however shabbily.
    Life in our apartment on the canal is filled with delicious foreign food and cheap wine. We organize international cooking nights where we each contribute a native dish. I’m on my way home from a leisurely day of underemployment on just such an occasion when the aromas coming from our place assault me a few steps away from the front door: onions, garlic, parsley, and tomato. Inside, Patchi hovers over the stove, gently ushering the fragrant steam rising from a massive steel pot out the small kitchen window.
    Patchi’s soup has been simmering all day. At dawn I was annoyed to be awakened by blaring Spanish heavy metal and plates crashing around. Annoyance gave way to surprise when I found Patchi fully conscious in the kitchen at that hour, chopping carrots. Normally, he sleeps until around noon, when he emergesfrom his room looking like he lost a fight with an electrical socket. He’ll absentmindedly scratch at his ample chest hair for a few seconds, then light a cigarette and shuffle into the bathroom.
    Patchi’s early-morning soup preparations remind me of my mother, the only other person I’ve witnessed toiling over an evening meal before the rest of the house has risen. She’s a phenomenal cook who routinely presents food that looks like it belongs on the cover of
Gourmet
magazine, while the most intricate meal I personally have mastered is boxed mac and cheese.
    â€œWant to help me, Rachel?” my mother would ask when I was ten or eleven or twelve—probably she tried multiple times to teach me how to follow a recipe.
    My father would be parked in his big leather chair, grading papers with a special red felt-tip pen that I deeply coveted. I’d be next to him on the rug, reading, my knees curled against my chest, my back against his legs.
    â€œThank goodness for your mom,” he’d say, winking down at me. “I can barely crack an egg.”
    â€œNo, thanks,” I’d always tell my