by Amy Field
And then he was standing behind her, exactly opposite of Jacob had stood just a few moments before. “Fantastic view, isn’t it?”
She looked turned slightly. Lance’s face was hard to see with the rising sun, but there was no mistaking the rage in his eyes and the leer of his mouth.
“It was, till you came along.”
He leaned in close, so that he was almost whispering in her ear. “It wasn’t the landscape I was talking about.” He moved so that his body was clearly invading her own personal space, but he never actually touched her. He was like some great snake playing with his prey.
She thought about Jacob, and about how he would want her to handle a situation like this. She knew that yesterday had not gone especially well, and she knew that was at least partly her fault. She meant to be firm but kind today; her chance to practice had just come early.
“Listen, Lance,” she said, trying to put on a genuinely sympathetic voice. “I was wrong with some of what I said yesterday. I’m sure you really are a great guy, and that you’ve got lots of wonderful qualities that loads of girls would want. I’m just in a really difficult place emotionally right now, and you coming on so strong kind of freaked me out. It’s not that I don’t like you,” she actually reached out and touched him on the arm. “It’s just that I need a little bit of space. And I need some time to figure things out.”
He smiled a little, and it wasn’t his creepiest smile, which allowed Katie to relax slightly. “I do understand, Catherine. I do. And I can help you figure out just what need. You just need to let me in.”
She bit her lip again, which she knew could be easily misinterpreted. She needed to be firm but kind. “The thing is, Lance, you’re just not the type of guy I want to let in right now.” His eyes blazed. She tried to do some damage control and play to his ego. “Maybe because you’ve got it all together, because you’re so successful or whatever. Maybe what I need is just some minor league hockey washout, or a wheat farmer who can’t see past this year’s grain prices. You’re just too good for me.”
Okay, now she was in trouble. She was laying it on too thick, and even he wasn’t dense enough not to notice. He moved in closer again, close enough that she could feel his breath hot on her neck, which broke out into goose pimples involuntarily.
“Believe me, Catherine, I am exactly your type. We could do amazing things together, you and I: have a lot of fun, go anywhere we wanted, do anything we wanted to do. I am, literally, the best guy you will ever meet.”
As soon as he said the words her eyes darted involuntarily over to Jacob. She didn’t have to say a thing.
Instead of getting angry, however, Lance grew weirdly sympathetic. “Look, I get it. He’s big. He’s strong. He’s foreign and so exotic. And he seems like such a ‘good guy’. But believe me, Catherine, guys like that, they don’t want girls like you. You’re damaged goods. You’ve been spreading it for whatever guy actually paid you attention since you were what: fifteen? Sixteen? This guy wants a virgin, both in spirit and in fact, and we both know…” He leaned in close again, whispering into her ear. “You are neither!”
She shuddered and struggled to hold back the tears. He was right, of course; she was no virgin, but she wasn’t the undiscerning little slut he was making her out to be either. It may well be that she wasn’t good enough for a man like Jacob, but she knew damn well she deserved more than a man like Lance.
Something in her snapped. Before she knew it, she had raised both hands and pushed hard, from the chest, into Lance’s own. He tripped over backwards and landed on his butt, hard.
“Now you listen here, you lecherous creep.” Her voice was strong with a conviction no one had heard since she had arrived in Europe, and she hadn’t heard herself since shouldn’t remember when. “I am not some statistic in some study you’ve produced to confuse a jury and beat out the competition. I’m not some intern you can easily intimidate either with threats to my career or promises of opportunity. I’m not even some successful business woman who would find laying you as satisfying a conquest as you would be. And I am most certainly not another notch for bedpost or knock in your belt. I am a woman, with ideas and hopes and dreams and fears and love the likes of which you have never seen. You have done nothing since you arrived here but treat me and the other women on this crew with leering eye and disrespect. You aren’t suave or smooth; your slick like a car salesman and creepy like a child molester. You’re the guy in bars that girls avoid, and the only reason any woman would ever sleep with you is because her self-esteem was so broken that she was trying to prove to herself that she was unworthy, unwanted, and unloved. I am not the unlovable one here, Lance, you are, and you keep your distance or, lawyer or not, I will find a Swiss policeman and have you drawn up on every single sexual harassment statue they’ve got in the book. Do you understand me?”
She stood boldly over him, though he didn’t cower. He seemed to be watching with some vague amusement. Jacob had abandoned the breakfast preparations and approached some time ago but was watching from a few feet away, and better than half of the group had just watched and heard the whole interaction. Jacob closed the distance between then and approached.
“What’s going on over here?” He sounded angry.
Lance looked up at him, then reached out his hand. Jacob pulled him up and Lance dusted himself off. He smiled his most repentant smile. “Nothing, nothing at all. I was just trying to be friendly but the lady here has made it very clear that she would like her space. I’m a gentleman, so I’m very happy to do that.” And with that he was off.
Jacob invited Katie over to where the group had assembled, and a few of the women placed their hands on her and gave sympathetic coos of support. Lance, for his part, went back inside the lodge. The rest of the crew ate breakfast, mostly in an awkward silence, and Lance did not return from inside the lodge. After the dishes were done Jacob retrieved him and they started out again along the trail.
A new order had emerged within the hiking party. Lance had drifted to the back near Dina, and Jacob had noticed, asking Laurence, the philosophy professor, if he’d stay near the back to keep an eye on them. Some of the couples in the middle had rearranged themselves, and Katie had found herself drifting into Jacob’s protective shadow.
She could feel Jacob’s watchful eye on her, even though most of the time she was right behind him, and she felt safe in a way she hadn’t in ages. Jacob had a way not only of making you feel like you were safe with him, but that somehow you were better, stronger, and more confident than you had realized ever before. It made her want to be around him, and as they rose up the mountain and her body acclimated to the altitude, she realized that a part of her wanted to stay hiking right beside him forever.
Despite the comfort she felt in his presence and the few things she knew about him from what he’d said to the group and what she’d learned through his sister, Katie hadn’t actually talked to Jacob, that much, at least about Jacob.
“How many of these backpacking treks do you manage in a year?”
He glanced back and smiled at her. “As many as I’m able. Usually between 35-40, depending upon the length of the trek and ability of the hikers.”
“And you love it?”
“With all my heart.” He nodded and licked his lips.
“Have you ever thought of doing something else?”
He laughed again, a nervous barking sound, not like the free and easy chuckle she had heard before. He saw her response and covered his mouth in embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Yes, I’ve thought very hard about doing other things. In fact, I trained for a very long time to do them, but trying to do anything else was precisely what drew me back here.”
“How so?”
“Well, as you know, Dina and I grew up not too far from Mont Blanc, and our parents still have a small mountain lodge and motel they run. Well, times have changed. Not so many people are after an ‘authentic’ experience when they come to the Alps; instead they want some l
ight hiking, followed by the couple’s massage and the mud bath at the spa. So my parents wanted me to have other opportunities.”
“I understand,” Katie said, following along. “My dad has been successful with a chain of gas stations—petrol stations I guess you’d call them—but he was born and raised on a farm, and he always wanted to make sure we’d have opportunities he never had.”
“Ya, exactly. So it was decided I would volunteer for the Swiss Guard.”
Katie wasn’t sure she heard that right. “What? With the pope?”
Jacob nodded. “Ya, ya I know. And yes, I did wear the funny outfits.”
This sent Katie into paroxysms of laughter. “You were one of those funny-looking guys who stand next to the pope?” The image was comical enough that she couldn’t stop laughing. Those a little further behind started to give them looks.
Jacob chuckled easily but then said more quietly, “Catherine, please, you’re disturbing the other hikers. And I share this in confidence, no?”
“Okay, okay, but how did this happen?”
“Well, in Switzerland military service is compulsory for boys. You can wait to be called up and so assigned randomly, which usually means doing grunt work somewhere and not learning very much, or you can volunteer for the Swiss Guard and get an education, so I did.”
“What kind of an education?” She was genuinely intrigued. She had no idea those soldiers, who all looked ornamental, had any real function.
Jacob shook his head. “Is a common misconception, and one which the guard does not really want people to learn is false. In truth, we are some of the best-trained security forces in the world. I became in expert in krav maga, a sharpshooter, and a security systems specialist.”
“How long were you there?”
“Seven years. Till my marriage.”
Her face fell. He smiled sadly.
“The guards have to be unmarried, and our unit was run kind of like a mini-monastery. While I was over there I fell in love. Her name was Mona, and she ran the coffee cart I would stop by on my way into work each day. She was beautiful and fun and had an easy laugh. She was putting her way through school by working the coffee?”
Katie nodded her head. She could see the tears glistening in his eyes and knew what must be coming.
“We had decided to marry, but because I would lose my appointment we wanted to wait until she was finished with school.”
Katie nodded. He did not continue. “I’m sorry to ask this, Jacob, but this is the first you’ve mentioned her—Mona, I mean. Does she live with your parents? Or back in the lodge on…”
“No, no,” he said, wiping his eyes unashamedly. “That last year she got sick. It was cancer of the bone. I was able to donate marrow for a transplant, but it was too much. She did not survive.”
“So you never married?”
“We did,” he said. “On her deathbed. Even though I knew it meant I would lose my place in the guards. I loved her so much, it seemed the right thing to do.”
Without even noticing it Katie was crying now too. This was the most romantic thing she had ever heard. She didn’t know guys like this really existed.
“I’m so sorry, Jacob.”
He turned back to look at her. “Why?”
“Well, for all you’ve been through, all you’ve lost?”
He smiled through his tears. Katie had never seen a man so big and so strong so unashamed to be crying in public. “Thank you, Catherine, but I am not sorry. I am not sorry for one bit of it. I know that God gave Mona to me to love, and me to her, and I know that I could not ever have met her had I not joined the Guard, so I’m not sorry about that either. They were good years. And it was her death that brought me back here and helped me to start my own business acting as a guide, which put me back into the mountains where I belong. I am not sorry, except, perhaps, for ways I could have done it better. No, when I look back at my life so far, I am only grateful: very, very grateful.”
They walked in silence for a while as Katie tried to take all of this in. She could not imagine having been through what this man was through and been so comfortable with it all, not bitter, let alone grateful. Then she looked back at her own life, a veritable cakewalk by comparison, and though of how it was bitterness and frustration and envy that brought her here. She started to cry again, more softly this time, the tears stinging her cheeks and tasting salty in her mouth as it mingled with the sweat that poured down her face.
They hiked on for another two hours, but in was an easy, comfortable silence. She could remember as a little girl coming down for breakfast and seeing her parents, her dad reading the sports section of the paper, her mother the entertainment portion, and them being perfectly content just be in each other’s presence. She wanted that too, and with a man as good as Jacob.
The overlook on which they rested was breathtakingly beautiful, and the air was crisp and refreshing. Even still, Katie was beginning to feel the strain in her legs. No amount of speed skating, which was all about speed and aerodynamics, could have prepared her for multiple days of backpacking. She could do it, but it wasn’t easy.
As she munched on the panini that Jacob had grilled up just a few minutes earlier, she considered the guide with new perspective. He was an amazing physical specimen, she could see that this morning with his shirt off. He wasn’t sculpted like so many of the men she competed alongside, but his muscles were full and large and strong. She remembered a distinction her father had made once, after she’d been gushing over some boys she saw at the pool. He “man strength” and “gym strength”. Man strength was for men like him, like her father and like Jacob; it was born of hard physical labor and years of work and industry. Gym strength was a pale imitation, the sort of things that people who didn’t use their bodies for work anymore did to “stay in shape”. If you’d asked her even a month ago she would have told you she preferred gym strength, but here Jacob was proving her wrong yet again.
She thought about how strong Jacob must be to handle all his every week, almost every day of the year. And that his vacations were spent doing this, but hardcore. He spent his life helping people ascend to heights they’d never imagined, and all the while helped tired backpackers carry their equipment. To him, this was easy and natural. Suddenly she understood: Jacob must feel on the mountainside the way she feels on the ice—like it was made just for her. The thought pleased her, but also pained her. Could she grow to love the mountains as much as she already loved the ice? And, if in some dream world he would even come and visit her, could Jacob grow to love the ice, the glamour of parties and the glory of competition? It was impossible to know, and so she put the thought far from her mind.
After they cleaned up the lunch debris they started up the trail again. She glommed on to Jacob right away, but after a quick glance towards the back of the party, to where Laurence was still keeping a keen eye on Lance, he whispered into Katie’s ear.
“Catherine,” he said. “I love our conversations, and I want to get to know you better. But I am, how you say, on the clock? I need to make sure I’m giving attention to the other hikers, and especially to this older couple from the England. They’re having a bit of trouble with the altitude and I think I have some breathing exercises that can help them.”
Katie was shocked. Jacob was asking her to hang back a little bit with some of the other hikers so that he could work with this older couple. She tried not to act hurt, but it stung. She really liked Jacob and thought he liked her too. She knew that he wasn’t making excuses, that he really did need to spend time with all of the members of the party, and she could catch glimpses of their conversation as they went, which really did have to do with hiking, climbing, and altitude sickness, but she couldn’t help but be a little put out. The woman closest to her tried to engage her in a conversation about gardening, but when it became clear that Katie had little to add to the conversation, they fell into a steady, though not altogether comfortable silence.
Around three in the afte
rnoon the sky turned dark. Jacob passed word down the line that they were going to take cover underneath a nearby outcropping. They huddled together for more than an hour, and even though both a woman from Germany and a couple from Cleveland were invading what she normally would have considered her personal space, Katie was grateful for their closeness. It not only kept the cold and rain at bay, but kept Lance at a distance, who kept eyeing her, no longer with a lecherous leer, but now with a vacant stare. It was unnerving.
When they hit the trail again it was harder going, and some of their footholds had gotten washed out or were too muddy to navigate. After nearly an hour Jacob instructed them to turn back. There was an alternative switchback a couple of miles back; it took them out of their way and they would have to camp out overnight, but ultimately it would be safer than the trail they were on at present. There was some grumbling from the group as they were only a few miles from the town where they were supposed to rest for the night, but Katie was grateful. She trusted Jacob, and if he said it was dangerous than it must have been for a good reason.
The rain made the trails slow going, and the group hadn’t yet grown accustomed to going downhill together, so there were a number of scuffs, slides, and wipeouts. Eventually, however, Jacob found his switchback, doubled the crew over, and they made their way around and started up the far side of the mountain. They pushed hard, far harder than the day before. By the time they broke to make camp it was almost dark, and everyone, including Jacob, was tired, hungry, and irritable.
Katie had not made eye contact with Lance since the incident that morning, but she could feel his eyes on her at every turn. She’d had a problem with a stalker a few years back. That one had been a girl, a young skater who was fangirling on her, but who started following her, sending her random texts. One night she came home to find the girl in her apartment; the thought still sent shivers down her spine. She had no desire whatever to repeat that episode, especially with a man who was older, smarter, and had virtually unlimited resources.
