Chapter Sixteen
Luke was already waiting at the Everest Base Camp signs when I arrived for the workout we’d planned over dinner last night.
“You ready for this?” he asked.
Bold with yesterday’s confirmation that he did not have a girlfriend, I met his eyes and held them. “Am I ready for this? The question is, are you?”
We lined up on the trail. He pressed some buttons on his watch and then looked at me over his shoulder, his eyes flirtatious and taunting: catch me if you can.
My heart fluttered. You Can’t Catch Me.
His watch beeped, and we were off in a sprint up the Base Camp trail. I loved the feeling of the freezing morning air searing my lungs.
Sprinting at this elevation was closer to trotting than running, but we pressed on as fast as we could until we reached the place where the glacier dead-ended into the fearsome Khumbu Icefall. Luke won by a few steps.
“You had a head start,” I said.
“Uh-huh.”
We jogged slowly back down the trail to the Base Camp signs where we stretched before the next round. This time, when Luke clicked his watch, I was ready. I elbowed him out of my way so I could stride ahead. I reached the end first and looked back at him with a smirk.
“Don’t even think that you won that one,” he said as soon as we’d caught our breath. “You were disqualified the second you brought those elbows out.”
“Whatever. One more?”
He groaned, but I knew he wouldn’t say no.
We took the final lap much slower. There was a fine line between keeping in shape to counteract the languid Base Camp life and not exerting ourselves too much, which would cause further muscle degradation from two months of living at this altitude.
Grabbing our packs, we went back up-glacier to find a good spot for pull-ups and abs. Since there was no pull-up bar in camp, we made our own using our ice-climbing axes and a tall block of ice.
“Fifteen?” I asked.
“You can’t do fifteen.”
“Watch me.”
We pulled off our gloves, gripped the ends our ice axes, hung by our arms, and started the pull-ups. We both did fifteen.
“Jeez, Emily,” he said with a whistle.
I was starting to get an altitude headache, but I couldn’t have kept the smile off my face if I tried.
Over on a flat section, we spread out two backpacking air mattresses and rotated through crunches, lunges, and planks.
On the next set of pull-ups I did an extra.
“You didn’t tell me we were going to sixteen,” he protested.
“Seventeen next time,” I said boldly. “If you can hack it.”
“Of course I can.” He eyed me. A tingle ran through my body. “I don’t think you can.”
I scoffed.
“Let’s make it more interesting,” he said. “If one of us makes it and the other one doesn’t, then that person owes a favor.”
I wasn’t sure I could do seventeen ice-ax pull-ups with arms that were already tired from the previous two sets, but with how much he had slowed down on the last round, I figured that I had a better chance than he did.
“Okay, deal.”
He reached out so we could shake on it. His hand was strong, hot, and callused. Another tingle ran through my body.
We did our next round of exercises and then went back to the ice axes.
“We’re going one at a time,” I said. “So I can make sure you don’t cheat.”
“Me?” He flashed both of his dimples, and my mouth went dry.
He faced the ice, gripped the handles of his axes, and began lifting himself easily and steadily. The form-fitting, long-sleeved performance top he wore did nothing to hide the definition and stretch of his lats, shoulders, and back muscles. His shirt gradually rode up, giving me a peek of his tan, taut waist, beneath which his workout pants cupped the tight, perfect bubble of his rear end.
I swallowed. The power of his body was incredible, and watching him this way, I saw there were nuances about him that I did not know in my role as just a friend. I wanted to know those nuances, too. And I wanted to be free to study him at all times, not just at times when I thought he wouldn’t notice.
Luke hit ten and was still pulling steadily. He slowed at thirteen, and by sixteen, he couldn’t pull higher than a forty-five degree angle. Just as I was imagining what sort of reward I might demand of him, he rallied and pulled the rest of the way up.
He hopped off the axes like it had been easy as pie. I shook my head. Without thinking, I reached for his bicep to give him a painful pinch. His eyes flew down to my hand on his arm.
It was like Luke and I were two halves of a strip of Velcro. Each time even a single of the tiny hooks caught, I was incapacitated. Imagine what it would be like if we were closer, if even more hooks caught…
To distract myself from that line of thinking, I did some arm stretches and made a show of getting ready for my turn.
“Whenever you’re ready, MiniBoss.”
I wiped my mind blank and stepped up to the axes, intending to soar through the burn by going as fast as I could. That got me to twelve. I suffered through thirteen and fourteen. Had it not been for the contest, I would have given in to my quaking arms right there. Crookedly, I pulled up to fifteen. I went for sixteen, but nothing happened. I exhaled and tried again.
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 and 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.