Leaving Everest

by Westfield, Megan

  Oh no. I couldn’t fail at two short of the goal! I wiggled, giving each bicep a fraction of a second of rest, then pulled again. Ever so slowly, I raised up through the angles, the exertion making me exhale in ugly puffs. I dropped down hard and fast, which left me in a dead hang. I didn’t even have enough strength to keep my grip on the handles. I was slipping…

  I put my feet down and stood up. Damn it.

  I turned around. He was grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

  “Congratulations, Skywalker,” I said. “You’re the champion. What are you going to make me do?”

  Still grinning, he shrugged.

  “I don’t want this hanging over my head, so you better decide.”

  “But I don’t know yet.”

  I scowled.

  “Hey, if you don’t like the terms, then maybe you shouldn’t go around claiming you can do seventeen pull-ups.”

  That accent of his! I’d gladly do anything he pleased so long as he kept talking.

  “You have to decide,” I said, still trying to play it tough on the outside. “Before we go back.”

  “Well then, we can’t go back yet.”

  Good call.

  He dragged the air mattresses up to the top of the pull-up ice block. I followed.

  We put on down jackets, hats, and mittens to avoid getting chilled, since we were both sweaty. From where we were sitting, we had a primo view of the entire glacier and Base Camp.

  “The Everest Base Camp signs should go here instead of down there,” I said. “This would be a much better money-shot for the trekkers, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” was all he said. No quip about them not being able to make it the extra half mile to this spot or speculating about what would happen if Pokémon Go hid a character at the bottom of the icefall or anything like that.

  He had pushed his sunglasses onto his head. There were lines of tension around his eyes, and I wondered why. I had the urge to reach for his hand. An urge so strong that I had to tuck my hands inside my sleeves to keep myself from doing it.

  We both took sips from his water bottle and split the four gel packets I’d brought. I assumed we’d head back down to Global City after we finished with the gel, but he didn’t make a move to stand up.

  “Global’s pretty different than Winslowe Expeditions,” he said. “It’s gotta be kind of weird for you.”

  “It is. But not in a bad way. I’m just happy to have the job. It would be nice if I could find another job with Global Adventurers after the season is over.”

  “That’s not a bad idea. They’re a huge company, so they probably have lots of openings. And their headquarters is in Seattle, which is convenient.”

  “I’m sure it was weird for you working for them, too. I mean, you’re used to Winslowe Expeditions style.”

  “Yes, but Global owns the company I guide for on Rainier, and I already knew their policies and some of the people.”

  “Hulk?”

  “Yeah. We guided on Rainier together last summer. And Theo—he’s the redhead with Walkabout—is a friend of one of my roommates. I also know most of the UW clients because I helped them train this winter.”

  I sighed. “All the faces—that part’s hard. But I know I’ll recognize everyone eventually, and the clients and staff have been so nice. I just hope I fit in okay.”

  He gave a little laugh.

  “What?”

  “Of course you fit in. Everyone loves you.”

  Not Americans. I had never fit in among my peers as a child, and even though I got along well with fellow mountain people, I suspected that regular city dwellers would still see me as an odd duck. Further, I was quiet around people I didn’t know. Luke, on the other hand, was gregarious. Everyone always took an instant liking to him.

  “You’re the one everyone loves,” I said.

  “No, not everyone. The Global Sherpas don’t love me at all. Haven’t you noticed?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s nothing overt. They’re Buddhists. They would never say anything. But I can tell.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It does, though.” He fiddled with his water bottle. “Think about it. I went off to the U.S., and I’m back in Nepal within two years, earning U.S. wages and hanging out with the sahibs while they haul my shit—literally—off the mountain. You just don’t do that if you were raised here. You don’t come back to Everest on the sahib side with a Western expedition.”

  Oh my god, I hadn’t even considered this. If anything, I assumed he’d get along better with the Sherpas since he could speak their language. This explained the worry lines around his eyes.

  “Would it have been the same if you were with Winslowe Expeditions this year?”

  “I don’t know. It was kind of pushing it there at the end because of my schooling in Kathmandu and how I wasn’t doing the same level of manual labor once I was old enough. I don’t even consider myself a Buddhist anymore. But I’m related to a lot of the Winslowe Expeditions Sherpas, and that makes it different. The Global Sherpas are not from Tengboche. They’re not my clan.”

  He was playing it off casually, but I knew him better than that.

  Luke nudged me with his leg. “Hey, don’t worry, they’re good guys. And they’ll be nothing but great to you.”

  “I don’t care about me. I just feel bad that—”

  “No. I don’t blame them. All they know of me is I’m the jerk who left the Khumbu only to come back to rape the mountain along with the other Westerners. I was pretty sure it would be like this, and it is.”

  And to think he’d put himself in this position just so he’d be able to come back here and check on Mingma and Pasang.

  He watched me closely. “I knew what I was getting into,” he repeated.

  I nodded, and then something clicked. The worry lines weren’t because of the Sherpas. They were because today was April nineteenth. The day Luke’s Dad had died on Cho Oyu.

  “Today’s the day, isn’t it?” I asked.

  He looked into the distance. Toward the west, where Cho Oyu resided in China, at the far reach of the Mahalangur Range. He nodded.

  It was as much as had ever passed between us about his dad.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It shouldn’t matter to me. I have hardly any memories of him. Not like you. You were twice as old.”

  He was talking about Amy. After all these years, he still assumed that I’d come to the Himalayas because my mother had died. So did everyone else. But Amy hadn’t died in a tragic accident. She hadn’t died at all.

  I had no desire to hash over the details of what had happened ten years ago, but now that Luke and I were older, I also knew it wasn’t okay to let this go on. Sometime—not on the anniversary of his father’s death—I would tell him the truth about Amy.

  Luke pulled his cell phone and earbuds out of his pack, offering me the left side. Without looking at the screen, I knew for certain that he would play Jackal Legs. And I was right. My heart skipped a beat.

  I kept thinking about what he said about Global’s Sherpas. Despite being a very direct person—which, by Khumbu standards, was practically the same as being aggressive—Luke was considerate and sincere, and he’d always been popular in Tengboche and at our Winslowe Expeditions camp.

  I didn’t know if I would have had the nerve to put myself in a similar situation. In fact, I hadn’t had the nerve. It had been one of the reasons I’d always dreaded college. I would have been so out of place among the American college students and a randomly assigned roommate who would probably be a lot like Olivia. Someone who would see me as a weird outsider, just like my classmates in elementary school had. I may like crafts and baking, but I had no interest in or was clueless about everything else: fashion, makeup, guys, trends, partying, having female friends, dieting. I’d spent my life in remote locations and almost exclusively surrounded by men; all I knew about being a woman—an American woman—was from watching movies a
nd reading Going on Eighteen.

  Luke and I had been listening to Jackal Legs for almost twenty minutes when he paused the music in the middle of a song.

  “I know what I want for my pull-up favor,” he said. His eyes flicked over to me.

  “What?”

  “Peanut butter fudge cookies.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  “You could demand anything in the world and all you want is a batch of cookies?”

  “Yeah,” he said. His dimples showed faintly. I wanted to skim the back of my hand across them. “I haven’t had one of your peanut butter fudge cookies in two years.”

  “Okay, but you’ll have to wait until I can go down to Dad’s camp. I’m pretty sure Randall wouldn’t let a guide bake cookies in his gourmet kitchen.”

  “Deal.”

  We shook hands for the second time this morning, this time through mittens. His eyes were slightly narrowed, much like they’d been at Mingma’s house when I first turned around and saw him in the doorway. It was like he was testing me somehow. I challenged myself to hold his gaze, and as I did so, my pulse reverberated through my body like the beats of a drum. Did he like what he saw? Was I passing the test?

  I reminded myself that he did not have a girlfriend, and I pushed further. “What did you say in the email you sent me?”

  “Which email?”

  “There was more than one?”

  He hesitated before answering, as if choosing his words carefully. “Two. But one I never sent.”

  “Let’s start with the one you sent.”

  “It pretty much just said hi.”

  Well, that was anticlimactic. His eyes bent into half-moons, knowing that he’d gotten to me.

  “Okay. And what about the other one?”

  “Wouldn’t you just love to know? And I’m not going to tell you.”

  “Oh come on!”

  “You never answered my question.”

  “About what?”

  “About why you never emailed me, not even to tell me you were taking a gap year. Greg has my UW email address. So does Doc.”

  I couldn’t just point-blank tell him that I’d been afraid I wouldn’t keep his interest in real life. That I’d stuck to the safety of Circs rather than attempt more and risk losing a connection that was solid. To tell him this was too deep. Too revealing. And too dangerous, considering we had another six weeks of working closely together.

  I couldn’t take the risk of being wrong about the attraction I sensed between us, of revealing things that I could not take back. Instead, I dodged answering him by giving a shrug of feigned bafflement and a wide-eyed, innocent smile.

  He shook his head and played along, but I could tell he was disappointed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Miss Winslowe,” a man hissed. The tent shook.

  “Miss Winslowe Emily,” he repeated. I flipped over and popped my head out of the door. It was Cook-Phurba.

  “Doc Teresa’s in the kitchen,” he said. “Eggplants. Red sauce.”

  I groaned. Doc used to do an eggplant parmesan extravaganza once a season for us at Winslowe Expeditions. And by extravaganza, I mean a kitchen disaster of epic proportions.

  “Please, come,” Cook-Phurba begged.

  “Okay, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  I reluctantly crawled out of my sleeping bag and put on my camp boots. I was tired from the workout this morning and could have used about three more hours of napping in the nirvana of my sun-warmed tent.

  If I was going to be sucked into the latest reiteration of eggplant parmesan extravaganza, there’s no reason Luke shouldn’t be, too. After all, Doc was one of his clients.

  I retied my ponytail and marched over to the UW section. I shook Luke’s tent with a one-two rhythm, which had always been like a secret doorbell between us. Groggily, he poked his head out.

  “Surprise! It’s eggplant parmesan night, and Doc needs help.”

  “No,” he groaned.

  Doc’s beloved eggplant parmesan recipe had been a thank-you gift from a knee restoration patient who claimed his family owned an Italian restaurant in Seattle. Although it was the world’s most complicated recipe, it never tasted very good, and Luke and I had a theory that the “secret recipe” had come straight off one of those chintzy cooking websites where they don’t even test their own recipes.

  “Come on. Get up,” I said.

  Doc spotted us the second we stepped into the big top, waving us over to where she was grating a monstrous pile of parmesan. Luke and I exchanged a knowing look.

  “Where’s Randall?” I asked.

  “I told him to take the night off. He went down to Lobuche for a hit of oxygen and civilization.”

  Good thing. Eggplant parmesan for the number of people at Global was quite an undertaking. Already, the kitchen was destroyed. Cook-Phurba looked on, wringing his hands.

  “It’s okay. She does this every year,” I assured him in Sherpa.

  I eyed the two boxes of eggplants that still hadn’t been cut. There were probably forty of them. “I can’t believe Jim let you order all this stuff.”

  “This is nothing compared to what Randall orders daily.”

  “Randall’s a professional, Doc.”

  The parmesan rind flew out of Doc’s hand. She lunged to grab it, almost knocking the entire pile of grated cheese to the floor. “Are you going to get in here and help or not?”

  Luke and I each carried a box of eggplants to one of the largest tables. He mangled his first eggplant, so I slid closer and walked him through the steps of slicing them properly. We had a lot of eggplants to get through and quickly settled into a rhythm. Other than being outside in the mountains, cooking was my happy place. Being alongside Luke made it even better.

  It took the entire afternoon for Cook-Phurba, Doc, Luke, and me to work through the cursed recipe, which included from-scratch marinara sauce and handmade breadcrumbs. The tent heaters had been going full blast in preparation for dinner, and with all the heat from the stove and ovens, I had to strip down to my short-sleeved undershirt.

  “Please tell me you made the dessert ahead of time,” I said to Doc as I set a pan of finished eggplant into a steam tray.

  She glared at me, some parmesan still stuck in her sweat-dampened hair.

  “We’ll make no-bake cookies,” I said. “If we put them outside to set, they’ll be ready to cut in thirty minutes.”

  She nodded her approval. And gratitude.

  “Come on,” I said to Luke as I headed to the adjoining walk-in pantry. “Let’s make sure Randall has all the ingredients.”

  He squeezed inside with me. Thankfully, the pantry was arranged with the same basic logic as Mingma’s, and I easily located the rolled oats and vanilla.

  “Do you see any chocolate?” I asked, trying not to be distracted by his proximity, by his smell, which made my body buzz with the desire to step even closer.

  “Powdered or solid?”

  “Randall has vegetable oil, so either will work.”

  “There’s chocolate chips on the top shelf,” Luke said.

  “Perfect.”

  He stretched tall to grab them, and that’s when I noticed something.

  Like me, Luke had stripped down to a T-shirt, an extreme rarity on this mountain, even while inside a heated tent. And there, on the bare wrist of the hand reaching over the top of my head for the chocolate chips, was the cord bracelet I’d tied there two years ago.

  All the noises out in the big top ground to a halt and blew away. It couldn’t possibly be the same bracelet. Mine had fallen off such a long time ago. But there was no denying that it was Dad’s vintage cord, lavender with turquoise flecks. It was faded appropriately with age, and the bumps of the singed knots were dark and slick like beads.

  I told myself it didn’t mean anything—that it simply hadn’t fallen off yet and he’d never bothered to cut it off. But when I looked from the bracelet to his face, it was clear that
he had been watching me stare at it. He held my eyes, locking them into place with a depth of intention.

  I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. Did this mean what I thought it did?

  That constant sensation this season of being separated halves of Velcro, always reaching back for each other—what if no part of that had been wishful thinking?

  Then, somebody was talking to us. Doc. “Hey, you two, can you grab me another package of napkins?”

  I grabbed the napkins, my face burning.

  Luke and I hurried back out to the kitchen, where we rushed to melt the chocolate chips on the stove, then measure and mix the rest of the ingredients. Even though we were completely wrapped up in the task at hand, there were so many questions hanging in the air between us.

  Jim found Luke at the stove, needing to talk to him about one of the UW clients. Luke’s face was a question mark as his eyes met mine.

  “I can finish the rest. Go ahead,” I assured him.

  His expression didn’t change. He hadn’t been looking for permission to leave; he needed to know what my reaction was to what had just happened in the pantry. My mind was still spinning, but I managed a small smile. What did all this mean, and what should I do?

  By the time I’d finished the cookies and put them outside to cool, most people were almost done eating. I slipped into the empty chair Luke had saved for me at the table with the UW team and the Walkabout crew. Red-haired Theo was in the middle of some story about a past film shoot, and everyone was dying with laughter.

  “If you think that was bad, I should tell you about the time April—”

  “No, Theo, really, they don’t need to hear this one,” April protested.

  But Theo had already started, and he kept talking right over the top of her protests. By the time he finished, the whole table was roaring, April included, and even I was dying of laughter.

  This was nice. Laughing took the edge off my nerves about Luke.

  The atmosphere in the tent was as celebratory as it was the night before the eve of our first acclimatization rotation. This was the night to cut loose because tomorrow at this time, all of us would be in bed so we’d be ready to start through the icefall at three a.m.