I continued to think about Luke. About whether or not I could take the leap to follow him to Washington. And I was pretty sure I could.
It would be scary to go to the United States without a job already lined up, but I could stay with Doc for a few weeks, and once I found a job, I could move into that vacant room in April’s house. I’d ask her for more details later tonight. I wanted to talk to Dad about it first, to make sure that turning down Barrett Browning’s personal Tanzania offer wasn’t the stupidest thing in the world. Especially considering that my time in Tanzania could lead to an actual career with Esplanade Equipment, where I could help start up future CentralPoint sites. Like Patagonia.
As I rolled the cookies into balls and set them in neat rows on the cookie sheets, a vision came to me. I was sitting on the porch of that little white bungalow, a blanket over my lap. Luke came out of the front door, two mugs of hot chocolate in his hands, smiling as he handed me one and sat down.
I had wondered what it would be like to be with him in his world.
Amazing.
That’s what it would be like.
I challenged myself to picture the white bungalow again, but this time in Washington. I added drizzle to the vision and put the house on a hill with a view of the Puget Sound and the forested islands beyond. The sky would be gray with low clouds in the direction of the water, yet to the east, where the clouds were higher and thinner, the sun would be a breath away from breaking through into a misty rainbow.
I remembered Puget Sound views like this from when I was a child, especially along the drive from the South Sound, where Amy and I lived, to my grandparents’ house. It reminded me that not all memories of Washington made me anxious.
I could do this. I could continue my life back where it started.
Now, I envisioned the bungalow having a campfire ring out in the front where a big, warm fire was going with friends gathered all around it. These friends were fun, outdoorsy people, and we’d all be talking about the different things each of us had done that day. Paddleboarding, paragliding, hiking, rock climbing. Maybe some of the friends would be getting in from a big expedition, which was the reason we were gathering in the first place. Maybe Luke and I would have been among them. A mountaineering trip to Bugaboos in British Columbia, perhaps?
Dad found me as I was pulling the first sheet of cookies out of the oven. In a peace offering of sorts, Tattletale Pertemba said he’d bake the second sheet for me, and I followed Dad over to Winslowe Expeditions’s tiny communications tent.
“Let’s talk about tomorrow,” he said after somehow managing to swallow down a red-hot cookie. “I’m going to be blunt here. Your clients are under no illusions about the danger of this mountain. They know there is no guarantee that they’ll be coming back down. By this point, they’ve signed three or four waivers acknowledging this. You are a guide, not an emergency responder. It is not your job to put yourself in unnecessary risk to get someone to the top, or to get them down if you would be clearly risking your own life to do so. It is not the Sherpas’ job, either.”
Sheesh. “Okay, Dad—”
“This is serious. I’m not worried about your technical skill, judgment, or performing at altitude. But I know you, and I worry about the people part.”
His voice trembled, and I realized that me working for Global had been a bigger deal to him than he’d let on. It wasn’t just that I was guiding for my first season with somebody else’s company, it was the first mountain I was climbing without him. From here on, he could no longer personally look out for my safety.
I put my arm around him. Heck. I also wished it was him and Winslowe Expeditions I was about to launch this summit attempt with.
“You need to be prepared that if you find yourself in a situation that is risking your own life or others’ lives, you will need to leave your client behind,” Dad said, his voice still rough. “It will feel wrong, and it will be the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do, but never forget: it’s a commercial game up here. We offer a product that lots of people want: a chance to stand on top of the highest mountain on the planet. We don’t do it because we are bighearted. We do this to make a profit. Do not sacrifice yourself for that.”
I grimaced. He was right, but it was too terrible to think about. Especially as I pictured the trusting faces of Johnsmith, Phil, and Glissading Glen.
“Okay, Dad.” I exhaled, trying to force the inauspicious thoughts out of my head. “I need to get back to Global soon, but I wanted to see what you think about Tanzania first. I have to email Barrett before we leave. Like tonight.”
“Tanzania? You’re still considering that?”
“Well, kind of, but I’m actually thinking of—”
I stopped because Dad had pulled his soft-sided briefcase out of one of the big electronics boxes. My curiosity had me sitting up straighter as he lined up the numbers on the lock. It was the one lock that even I didn’t know the combo to. He popped the lock but didn’t unzip the case.
“If you go to Tanzania, just know that you’d be giving up climbing for a long time,” he said. “With your skill and passion for mountaineering, it doesn’t make sense to me why you’d be willing to do that. Let’s talk more about your idea of trying for a sponsorship.”
“That was part of my original plan for what I was going to do instead of college. Another reason I’m hoping to summit this year but, still, it’s such a long shot.”
“Not as much as you think. I’m positive you would already have sponsorships from some of the smaller companies if we hadn’t been keeping your name off Miss Eleanor’s register. If you work on your rock and ice climbing so that you’re climbing a few grades harder, and if you get a couple more peaks under your belt, with peers instead of me, I bet Esplanade Equipment would sponsor you. Do you understand what a big deal an Esplanade sponsorship would be?”
I nodded. Esplanade was the best-of-the-best in terms of mountaineering products and the caliber of their athletes.
“Mountaineering is, and has always been, such a core of their entire brand that I wouldn’t put it past them to consider sponsoring a long-term project like the Top Five. If they had the right athlete. I may be biased, but I think they could see that in you.”
My chest swelled. It was one thing to imagine an inroad to something impossible, but quite another to have someone else independently confirm it. Dad was an internationally respected alpinist, and to have his endorsement of my skill meant more to me personally than some company making the same determination.
“Do you think there’d be a chance they’d sponsor two people for the Top Five?” I asked.
“Well, you couldn’t do it alone. You’d need partners.”
“What about Luke? Do you think he’d have a chance at a sponsorship with them, too?”
Dad thought about this. “He doesn’t have nearly the experience you do on peaks above fifteen-thousand feet, but he’s been tearing up the Cascades ever since he started college. And if he’s anything like Gyalzen…”
He looked away, but not before I saw the sheen in his eyes. Going back to Tengboche to tell Mingma that her husband—Luke’s father—was dead was the hardest thing Dad had ever done.
I stood up and hugged him.
“Gyalzen could have done it,” he said, composing himself. “Luke needs more experience on the really high stuff, but I think he could do it, too. Is that what he wants? I thought he was going to medical school.”
“Maybe. I don’t think he’s fully committed to that yet.”
“You guys and those World’s 19ers books you are always lugging around.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have a better partner than Luke.”
“I know.”
“Be careful with him.”
For a split second, I thought he was about to give me another protective-Dad warning. But what he actually meant was for me not to hurt him.
Dad opened the briefcase that was still on his lap. “Listen, Emily,”
he said. “Something’s been bothering me, and I know you’re not going to want to talk about it, but it’s my job to say it even though you’re twenty. Even if you were forty. I’ll still be your dad even when you’re in…Tanzania. If it comes to that.”
He paused to look directly at me, to make sure I was paying full attention.
“I worry that one of the reasons you decided not to go to college is because of what happened with Amy. We never talk about it, and that’s my fault. I knew you didn’t want to, and I left it at that. I should have insisted.”
I shifted in the chair and crossed my arms. “You’re right about me not wanting to talk about her. I still don’t. And that’s okay. I’m okay with the fact that I do not have a relationship with my mother.”
“I understand that, because I didn’t have much of a relationship with my own parents. Teresa has always voiced something different, though. And you know what? With how things have come together this season, my opinion has changed. I don’t think it was a coincidence that you first considered taking a gap year shortly after Amy was released and started living in Port Townsend. I have a bad feeling that all this is wrapped up in your decision about Tanzania.”
I wanted to scratch at my skin, which was crawling with invisible pinpricks. I didn’t know where this was going, but I didn’t like it.
“Amy has been wanting to contact you,” he said. “Since she got out.”
I gave him a sharp frown I hoped would discourage him from going any further. He ignored me, riffling through the briefcase. “She wrote you a letter. It got here last week.”
Sheer panic grabbed me, panic equal to the moment the snowbridge had collapsed in the icefall.
“I don’t blame you if you have no interest in reading it,” Dad said. “You can tear it up and throw it away if you want. But for something—someone—in the past to completely halt everything you have been moving toward, that’s when we have to turn around and look back down the trail. If you don’t, you’ll never get higher than where you are right now.”
He pulled an envelope out of the case. Chills ran through my body even before the paper hit my hand.
It was my own stationery from when I was a little girl. Childhood stationery I had never used. Inside the bubble-gum pink envelope would be scallop-edged paper decorated with unicorns. I could taste the pasta from lunch in the back of my throat. It was like the night of the arrest was happening all over again.
“Emily?”
I snatched the envelope from his hand and shoved it deep into the interior pocket of my jacket. I stood.
“You okay?”
I nodded vigorously. “We’ve got an early morning. I have to get back.”
It took 100 percent effort to fake nonchalance as I gave him a good-bye hug, hoping he didn’t notice how much I was sweating. I left right away, before I lost it completely.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I waited outside the communications tent until my eyes had adjusted to the dark. With the sky clear and star-filled, there would be just enough light for me to walk without my headlamp. Tonight, I wanted to be invisible.
Instead of taking the Base Camp trail, I went the direct route between Winslowe Expeditions and Global City, struggling over the rocks and ice. Despite the exertion, I was shivering, just like I’d been that night in Port Townsend. My mind traveled back to my previous life, back to the ballet class Grandma paid for, suffering through the minutes until I could change out of the itchy pink leotard and get away from the girls who always made sure there was no space for me at the bar.
I was back to our unkempt apartment, eating raisins and saltines for dinner again because it was almost bedtime and Amy wasn’t home from wherever she went during the day.
Back to those woods behind my grandparents’ house, where I ran free and wild, dodging around trees and powering up hills, eager to see what was on the other side. Tired but happy. Until the raindrops started to fall.
Reaching my tent, I crawled right into my sleeping bag and set my alarm for two a.m., just five hours from now.
I needed to get to sleep immediately, but of course I couldn’t.
I didn’t read the letter. I wanted nothing to do with it or her. Ever.
Instead, it was Luke’s words from a couple of days ago that were in my head. The same phrase, over and over.
I’m always wanting more of you than I can have.
Always?
No, not always. I was only twenty. He was my first love. My only love. These things didn’t last.
And yet I had spent the whole day telling myself it was okay to go all the way back to the United States for him. I would end up stranded. Stranded in a place I’d never wanted to be in the first place.
Even if Luke could somehow promise me permanence, it wouldn’t be right this early in the game. What did I expect? A marriage proposal? We’d been together a month. I wouldn’t even recognize him in street clothes, surrounded by a bunch of other people our age. He’d never seen me in anything other than trail clothes or mountaineering gear. In fact, I didn’t even own any real clothes. I had no idea what American college students wore. My surgical-scissors hair trim would never hold up against girls like Olivia with those perfect, blond spirals.
Cold sweat pricked out across my temples. This was not what happy felt like. The happy I wanted was steady and reliable. A boyfriend could never provide that. Nor should he. It was up to me to build my own complete and solid happiness. The boyfriend should be icing on top, not the cake itself. If you put your whole world in one person, and that person leaves, they take everything.
The letter was just the reminder I needed.
This was what it felt like to be abandoned.
It had happened with all four of the people in my life who were supposed to be there forever: my mother, my grandparents, and my father. Luke would leave me behind someday. He didn’t think it now, but he would.
It’s why going to Washington for Luke wasn’t viable.
My thoughts were coming faster now, jumbled and out of order.
Luke was my whole world, past and present.
But he might not be my future.
With all my heart, I wanted to be able to follow him to Washington, but I would just be setting myself up to be abandoned again. And considering that, I couldn’t risk losing the opportunity in Tanzania. It was the only option I had, and it was a good one, seeing as it could lead to a career with Esplanade Equipment. A career wasn’t the same thing as the sponsorship I dreamed of, but it would be even better from a long-term perspective.
Coworkers could be like family. I knew this from Winslowe Expeditions. So could neighbors. And animals. The first stray puppy I met in Tanzania would be mine.
The CentralPoint facility Barrett was building would certainly not be small and painted white, but it could be my white bungalow in all the most important ways. It would be full of people. Travelers. Tanzanians. Fun Esplanade staff members. And in Tanzania, a goat won’t be a problem. A nice milking goat for making fresh chèvre.
The facility would be sparse but clean. I could braid a rug out of old climbing rope and make some decorations to spruce it up. There I’d have photos in frames instead of dangling from the ceiling of a tent, curling from the cold and condensation.
There might not be mountains to explore in Tanzania, but there were other types of adventures in Africa, like wildlife preserves and sleeping in the bush. And I’d be helping the local people through the facility’s community projects. Helping people was right up my alley.
But Luke.
I thought of him again at the rock, how there had been stars reflected in his eyes when he looked at me. Even in memory, the beauty of it caught my breath. And then wrenched me with guilt.
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.
I shut my eyes tight to the feeling of his lips, soft as down against my forehead.
Be careful with him.
How could I do this to Luke? My Luke?
But I
would. I had to.
As much as I was in love with him, I had to build a life where I was the center instead of the satellite in someone else’s life. I’d never find permanence if I was waiting to be cut loose at any moment. The mountains, and any prospect of earning a sponsorship, would have to go on hold for now. Before I lost the nerve, I sat up, turned on my phone, and accepted the job in Tanzania.
Chapter Forty
We set out into the icefall under the best of conditions: there were no expeditions ahead of us, the sky was clear with the moon lighting our way, and the brutal cold of the night was keeping all the mousetrap seracs glued in place as best as they ever would. Despite this, the group’s celebratory spirit from yesterday was gone. Everyone knew we had a long road ahead to the summit and to getting safely back down.
Tonight we’d be at Camp Two. Tomorrow night, Camp Three. We’d spend half a night at Camp Four, then we had about twenty hours of pushing through the topmost—and hardest—section of the climb to the summit and back down to Camp Four. We’d sleep there that night and then take another day and night to descend into Base Camp, where everyone would celebrate, and then disperse out of the Khumbu region and back to their regular lives.
I had one thing on my mind: a prayer that we’d get through this without any of us ending up in an ominous situation like Dad warned about last night.
Just one more time up, and one more time down.
And just one more night alone in a tent with Luke. Tonight. At Camp Two. Because tomorrow night, at Camp Three, I’d be sharing with Doc and Claudia again.
Instead of looking forward to having the excuse to be alone with him, I dreaded it. It put the pressure on about giving him an answer about Washington, but I also believed the middle of a summit attempt of the world’s tallest mountain was not the right place to tell him I would be going to Tanzania, not Washington.
Leaving Everest Page 22
