Chapter Five
By the time the aftershocks had settled, the earthquake had taken the lives of nine thousand people in Nepal and injured tens of thousands more. The avalanche at Base Camp killed twenty-two people.
The Everest season had been over as soon as the earthquake hit. It was nothing but chaos and tragedy after that. Luke ended up leaving for college early while Dad and I stayed on in the Khumbu Valley, helping to clear rubble and start rebuilding the upper Sherpa villages.
I reflected on the earthquake as I walked the third of a mile up-glacier to say hi to Doc Teresa. As I got closer, there was no mistaking which of the many camps in that direction belonged to Global Adventurers. Theirs was four times as large as a typical expedition camp, with all tents being the same shade of bright yellow as their Yellow Yeti logo. Furthermore, their main tent was as enormous as a circus big top, and it had eight-foot-tall Yellow Yetis silk-screened on all four pitches of the roof.
One of the Global Adventurers Sherpas told me Doc was in the medical tent. Yes, the company was so big it had its own medical tent. Indeed, I found her inside, fully in her element, unpacking a box of dexamethasone syringes and rocking out to nineties grunge.
“Whoa, MiniBoss,” Doc said. “You look about twenty-five! What’s going on with your hair?”
“I’m growing it out.”
“It’s lovely.” She continued to stack syringes on a table.
“What are you doing working? You’re a client this year.”
“I’m still working a little. I mean, we all know that even if I wasn’t on staff, I’d still end up treating people, so Global waived most of my fees.”
I helped Doc transfer the dex syringes into the medical safe, and then we unpacked containers of blister tape, lip balm, and cough syrup. When I was younger, I wanted to be Doc. She was fun and outgoing, always at ease and making me laugh when I was least expecting it. And even though she was old—around forty-five, I think—she was pretty, with thick, crimpy hair and a permanent rosiness in her cheeks.
“So, what in the heck possessed you to climb this year?” I asked.
“What in the heck possessed you like a million times?”
“Because it’s there,” I said, using the tired George Mallory quote.
“Oh stop.”
“Really, you’ve always scoffed at all of us. And now you’re climbing.”
“I don’t know. I guess I got the itch to see how the world looks from the very top.”
“You think you’re ready to go to twenty-nine-thousand feet?” I asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be. I’ve been training nonstop. I climbed Denali last summer with Global, and Luke took me up the Liberty Ridge route on Rainier in October.”
“Luke?”
“Yes, Luke. Bless his heart. One of his friends came along, too, and three of the UW professors who will be here in a few days.”
“That was nice of him.” It was odd to think of Doc and Luke keeping in touch outside of the Everest climbing season. Though, it made sense, because they both lived in Seattle.
“I just adore Luke. I have him and some of his roommates over for dinner every few months. Those guys are sweethearts. And the girl, too. They’re a lot of fun.”
She probably knew more about Luke’s real life than I ever would. I wondered if the girl was a roommate or one of the guys’ girlfriends. Further, I hoped this girl wasn’t ^Olivia200x^. I didn’t want her to be pretty and a sweetheart.
An older man with short white hair popped into the tent. It was Jim, Global’s expedition leader. “Hi, Teresa, did we get any more gauze in?” he asked. “I’m going to change my bandage.”
Doc tossed a roll to him, along with a fresh two-inch sterile bandage. Jim had been on Everest as long as Dad, but they barely knew each other. Jim led mountaineering expeditions for Global Adventurers all over the world on the highly commercialized peaks, while Dad stayed local to Nepal, China, and Pakistan, specializing in Himalayan climbing.
“Hey, Emily,” Jim said, finally noticing me. “How are things down at Winslowe Expeditions?”
“Good. We just got in today.”
He sat down to tend to his injury, then looked back up. “Wait a minute. Didn’t I read somewhere that you and Greg did a winter ascent of Nanga Parbat?”
“Yes, they did,” Doc answered for me. “A very stupid ascent of the sketchiest, most avalanche-prone route on the whole damn thing.”
“Says the doctor who’s decided to climb the world’s tallest mountain this year,” Jim said.
I laughed.
“Well, I didn’t mean to interrupt you two,” he said. “Emily, I’m having a meeting here tomorrow at eight for some of the expedition leaders. Things are pretty crowded this season with everyone trying to use up their permit extensions. Have your dad stop by if he can.”
“Sure,” I said.
Once Jim was gone, Doc started unpacking another bag of supplies. “I’m actually surprised to see you here this season, Em,” she said.
“Why?”
“It’s the end of your gap year. I thought you’d be headed to Washington to get ready for school.”
“Nope. Change of plans. I’m not going.”
She stopped unpacking and looked at me. “You deferred your enrollment again?”
“No, I canceled it altogether.”
“Because of your mother?”
“What? No.”
Port Townsend was a tiny, isolated town at the top of a long peninsula. Amy’s move there was what first planted the idea about taking a gap year. It would be lying to deny that she was a factor in my decision this time around, but that’s all it was. Just one of many factors.
“No,” I repeated. “It’s because I want to stay here, in the mountains.”
“And do what?”
I wanted to tell her my whole plan—including the part about releasing my summit records after this season and trying for a sponsorship—but I hadn’t ever said it aloud before, and it somehow felt like I would jinx it if I did. I’d tell her later, after I discussed it with Dad.
“I’m going to help Dad with Winslowe Expeditions,” I said simply.
She arched an eyebrow at me.
“What?”
“I’m surprised Greg is onboard with that.”
“He doesn’t know yet. I was waiting until we got settled in here.”
She groaned. “Why does this not surprise me? Let me ask you something. Have you and Greg ever discussed doing anything other than going back to Washington to attend Townsend College? Even the possibility of doing something else?”
“He’s not going to care. He didn’t even blink when I decided to do the gap year.”
She swore under her breath. Why did I suddenly feel like I’d made a grave mistake?
“Sorry,” she said, seeing how confused I was. “He wouldn’t want to worry you. But here’s the thing. You should probably go tell him about Townsend College. And don’t drag your feet. I know how you two can be when it comes to talking about things.”
I didn’t have a chance to protest, because she handed me a bag of medicine to sort through and then changed the subject to her favorite topic: the latest Everest Base Camp gossip.
I sat at the small side table in the Winslowe Expeditions main tent, absentmindedly watching videos on my Circ feed. Two days had passed, and I still hadn’t told Dad about Townsend College.
Doc was right about Dad and I not being talkers. And now that she’d implied that there was a big problem with my decision not to go to college, I had all the more reason not to bring it up. I also didn’t understand the urgency, other than needing to cancel my plane tickets. But there was plenty of time for that.
Still, Doc’s words grated on me. As much as she was known for being dramatic, Dad was known for being poker-faced. Even as well as I knew him, if there were something wrong, there was a chance I might not have picked up on it. I mean, what if he was sick or something? My chest tightened.
I’d decided to bring it up after dinner tonight, but then some of the Swedish expedition’s guides came by to discuss the drama with Go Big Mountaineering not cooperating with this year’s route-fixing plan. I’d moved over to the small table to give them some privacy, where I still sat.
I clicked over to Luke’s account on Circ. There had been no #YCCM Circs since the one he sent in Tengboche, but he had been on Circ, making work-related posts tagged with @UWash, @HuskySports, @GlobalAdventurers, #HighAltitudeScience, and the official hashtag for the UW Team, #DawgsOnEverest. I knew he was now in Base Camp because he’d posted a Circ of his clients this morning on the lower reaches of the Khumbu Glacier, posing by the piles of tangled prayer flags and Welcome to Everest Base Camp signs. By now, he had a lot of comments. I scrolled the names, quickly seeing that most were UW students, and most of them women. I tried not to be jealous when I saw ^Olivia200x^ among them.
Over at the main table, Dad and Tshering were still deep in conversation with the Swedish guides. Sometimes, when I observed Dad from a distance like this, I wondered what the average American would think of him. Would they see him as an irresponsible man who refused to grow up, as I knew my grandparents thought and Doc sometimes implied? Or would they see him as I suspected some of the Sherpas did: an off-kilter, hippie weirdo raising a daughter in the Himalayas? Or would they see him like the trekkers and some of the people we met abroad did: an extreme sports kamikaze who completely disregarded his daughter’s safety.
As for me, I saw him in the way the guides who worked for Winslowe Expeditions did: a climbing legend who still had unsurpassed wisdom and skill in the mountains. He was someone to respect and someone whom you wanted very much to respect you back. And for me, he was a rescuer of sorts—a personal savior—and I was grateful he had been willing to pluck me from my former life and include me so completely in his world right from the start.
Now, Pertemba was bringing out butter tea, which meant the Swedish guides would be here even longer. Just as I was considering giving up for tonight and going back to my tent to watch Mean Girls for the thousandth time, an enormous man in a Yellow Yeti parka stepped into our tent. He was so massive that it took me a second to identify the much smaller, square-shouldered, purple ball-capped man behind him as Luke.
But instead of coming over to hang out with me, Luke sat down next to the Swedish guides. Suddenly, it was like I was a child, sitting all alone at the kiddie table while the grown-ups talked business. For a terrible second, I thought Luke wasn’t even going to acknowledge me. But then, as he settled into his chair, he looked over and nodded. His lips were rippled in his trademark W. Amused and content.
“Got that karaoke machine up and running yet?” Dad asked the behemoth guide.
Oh, jeez. You don’t tease about another team’s karaoke machine when you’re sitting under thirty tissue-paper flower decorations that your daughter made this afternoon.
“Catching up on the latest Going on Eighteen?”
I looked up. Luke was standing across the table from me.
“You know it,” I replied. I don’t know if it was more embarrassing that he remembered that I used to be obsessed with Going on Eighteen magazine, or that he correctly assumed I still read it now, as a twenty-year-old.
More than the embarrassment, I was relieved that he’d come over…until I saw his expression, which was hesitant. I’d put him in a weird position. What if he’d come over out of obligation, begrudgingly leaving the adults to come say hi to Greg’s daughter?
He sat across from me, automatically pulling checkers out of the built-in caddy on the side and setting them up on the checkerboard-painted tabletop. He pushed the red checkers across to me.
“Don’t you need to be over there?” I asked. With the grown-ups.
“They’re talking about our permit snafu,” he said. “And I do believe I have a reigning checkers title to uphold.”
Despite his light words, his face was tense, and he was flipping one of the pieces around his fingers nervously. This was very un-Luke-like. Did he really want to play, or did he want me to excuse him a second time so he could go back to the big table? I had a fifty-fifty chance.
“Okay,” I said, setting up my red checkers. “After all, I have a checkers title to unseat.”
His face immediately relaxed. I’d guessed right.
Pertemba brought butter tea to the behemoth guide as well as to Luke and me. As to not hurt Pertemba’s feelings, I took a sip, trying not to grimace as I swallowed. Nak butter tea was one of the few Sherpa foods I’d never been able to adapt to.
Luke laughed. “Here,” he said, reaching for my cup and drinking it down on my behalf. I tried to ignore the swell of my heart in reaction to his gesture. In reaction to him in general.
I thought about Luke’s whisper in the dark at Mingma’s house.
Do you ever think about Cerro Torre?
He’d said he did, too, but I didn’t understand how it could be true. Medical school and all the years of training afterward were not compatible with climbing at the level needed for Top Five mountains, so by default he actually had to have given up the dream. Yet, here he was, a guide on Everest, and Rainier, too. It didn’t make sense.
As we started to play checkers, my mind remembered the game, which I hadn’t played in ages. I also remembered what it was like to hang out with Luke, just the two of us in our own little world.
“So what’s the snafu with your company?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes. “It’s a permit mix-up with the film crew.”
“What are they filming?”
“Uh. Our Cuban team.” He said it like I should know this already.
I gave him a blank look.
“Emily, seriously, do you never read the news?”
“Whose news?”
“Your country’s news. It’s a big deal.”
“Yeah, I’m totally up on the news. They started delivering USA Today to the remote villages of the Himalayas, you know.”
“And to smartphones.” His eyes sparkled mischievously. God it was good to see that.
“No Cuban has ever reached the summit of Everest, let alone a whole team,” he said. “And now, they are attempting it, with an American company, which is only possible because of the U.S. lifting the embargo—”
“Okay, I get it. So it’s a Summit Show.”
“A big, international Summit Show, and they’ve had a crew from Walkabout Media & Productions with them since Kathmandu.”
I was listening to him. I really was, but his voice itself was majorly distracting. There were some Americanisms in his speech now that hadn’t been there two years ago. Americanisms in a British accent…sigh.
“Anyway,” he continued, “the permit snafu is because Walkabout’s testing this new high-altitude drone camera for part of the filming, and now there are more crew that need to go up on the mountain than Global’s corporate office realized when they arranged for the permits last year.”
“Sounds like a big mess.”
“But not as big of a mess as you are in right now,” he said, swooping in for the kill that led to his win of the first game.
We automatically put the checkers back on the board and started another round. In so many ways this was just like old times, when Mingma would go to bed early, leaving Luke and me to play games at the small table while Dad and the clients did their own thing over at the big table. Except, in the latter years, Luke and I would be sharing earbuds, listening to our favorite band, Jackal Legs, and my whole body would be abuzz with possibility. Just. Like. Now.
“Your turn,” he said. The tent’s harsh fluorescent light cast a shadow along his profile, making his cheekbones and jaw even sharper. I reluctantly pried my eyes from him.
Luke’s handsome face was not helping me adjust to our new normal—one in which two years had passed since we’d missed our chance and we were relearning to be friends again outside of our Circ game. Friends being the key word here, and not a love triangle between Luke, ^Olivia200x^, and me.
We were midway through the third game when the two Swedes left. I used the distraction to double jump my checkers, setting me up to win the game.
“Two to one,” I announced.
“Tashi,” he said, using the name Sherpas had given me once I started getting up in the mountains and grabbing summits with Dad. It meant lucky.
We put our pieces back on the board, but before we could start, there was jabbering over the behemoth Global guide’s radio, and he waved Luke over. “Jim wants us back for a meeting.”
Luke gave me a quick hug good-bye. I didn’t dare inhale as my arms squeezed a puff of air from his down jacket.
“You might be up one, right now,” he said, “but you won’t be for long.”
My heart surged. Yes, this was good. Despite our conflicting expedition schedules and living on different parts of the Khumbu Glacier, we would be making an effort to hang out. And hopefully very soon.