by Ruthie Knox
Kal appeared with both hands wrapped around a steaming white paper cup. He took a sip, closing his eyes with pleasure. “I’ve been dreaming about this Starbucks for weeks. Thanks for spotting me the cash.”
She waved a hand at him and took a deep drag on her cold latte. She wanted the caffeine to travel straight into her veins and restore her sense of purpose.
After Kal left her room, she’d taken a shower. Beneath the spray, she started bleeding from a scratch on her biceps that she’d acquired at Base Camp weeks ago. She’d thought it healed, but flesh mended slowly at altitude. Rosemary stood under the tepid spray, water mixing with a runnel of fresh blood dripping to the plastic floor of the shower, unable to remember how to stanch it.
It wasn’t her fault there’d been an avalanche. No one could blame her for that, or for needing a bit of time to recuperate, a day or two to visit her daughter before she dove back into the fray.
Setbacks were setbacks because they set one back. It was only natural she’d feel blue under the circumstances. It was to be expected that she’d find it difficult to concentrate, and to locate her enthusiasm for the plan she’d spent two years putting in motion.
She’d had a setback. She would regroup.
Rosemary drank cold coffee through her straw until the sucking noise brought her out of her fog. When she looked up, Kal sat across from her, still and calm.
“We need to talk about your situation,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got people I can call.”
“How?”
“There’s a phone at a place down the road I can call home with and get my mom to wire money to Kathmandu for a plane ticket.”
“How would you get to Kathmandu?”
“There’s a bus.” He leaned back in his chair, crossing one ankle over his knee. There were holes in his jeans. He looked rakish, at ease in this environment.
“From Jiri.”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“That’s days from here. On foot.”
“I can walk.”
“In sandals, wearing those clothes?”
“Sure.”
She crossed her arms and leaned into the table. “Where would you sleep? What would you eat?”
“I know people in the Khumbu. I’ve got relatives, friends—and anyway, Sherpa are friendly. I’ll just talk to folks, tell them my situation, and they’ll take care of me.”
“That’s your plan.”
“Sure.”
His easy grin made her want to shake him. “You’ve been robbed, but you won’t report the incident to police. Instead, you’ll walk from Lukla to Jiri, relying on the kindness of strangers to keep you housed and fed, then telephone your mother to wire you money for a plane ticket to New York?”
“Right.”
“That’s a terrible plan. Your mother will be beside herself with worry, with no idea where you are, no idea when you’re coming home, if you’re coming home at all. You could be robbed again, or worse—”
“I don’t have anything worth stealing.”
“Don’t interrupt me. You haven’t even proper clothing, nor money to hire a porter to help you keep track of the route—”
“I know the Khumbu backward and forward.”
“I said don’t interrupt me. You were foolish enough to lose your means to get home, and I won’t stand by and allow you to make a string of even more foolish decisions when you’ve just survived a significant trauma and require rest and food and…and…”
People had begun to glance over from the other tables, Rosemary’s shrill voice cutting through the crowd, but he just watched her with his legs crossed and his posture loose, as though nothing she was saying could possibly get through to him, with no worry to spare for the desperation of his mother and whoever else he’d left behind at home. She couldn’t think what else to lob at this man that might tamp down the alarm that was making her heart beat so loudly in her chest.
He cleared his throat. Cocked an eyebrow.
“It’s a terrible plan,” Rosemary repeated.
“You have a better one?”
She thought of her bricked laptop. She’d left it tucked beneath the bedcovers in her locked room. She hadn’t plugged it in, or asked about the Wi-Fi, because if she did those things she’d have to face the world outside Nepal, the people who were no doubt as worried about her as Kal’s people were worried about him.
She wanted to see Beatrice.
She didn’t want to check in with her ex-husband, Winston, or drop a note to Indira, or to her editor. She simply wanted to show up on her daughter’s doorstep and see her.
The rest, Rosemary didn’t know how to face yet. It didn’t make her feel brave. It made her feel cowardly and bloody awful.
Maybe Kal was as afraid as she was. Afraid that he wouldn’t know how to go home again, or that he wouldn’t remember who he was when he stepped off a plane.
“Of course I have a better plan.” The starch in her voice was the very essence of hypocrisy, but Rosemary carried on. “You’ll come with me.”
“When I asked if you wanted a travel buddy, I assumed I’d have money to pay my own way.”
“Yes, well, when I asked what you intended to do about having been robbed, I assumed your intentions wouldn’t be asinine.”
He sank even deeper into his chair, sipping his coffee and jiggling his ankle on his knee like a child. His sandals were ridiculous. He didn’t even have a proper jacket.
There was no way on earth Rosemary intended to let this man out of her sight until she’d seen him safely home.
“So let me make sure I’ve got this straight.” He set his cup down, planted his elbows on the table, and leaned close enough that she could smell the coffee on his breath.
When he grinned, his eyes bright with amusement, Rosemary wanted to smack him for having the power to warm her fanny while being actively obtuse, childish, and irritating.
She wanted to find him repulsive.
Instead, she dropped into a slow-motion replay of his dark eyes on her in the flickering light of the bedside lamp as she rode him. The heat and the smell of their bodies. The strength in his hands.
His mouth.
“My plan is terrible,” he said.
“Yes.”
His mouth was mere inches away. What would it matter if she kissed him here, halfway around the world from anyone who could possibly care?
“But you’re going to rescue me,” he said.
“I don’t know that I’d put it in those exact terms.”
“You’re going to buy me plane tickets, feed me, pay for my hotel room, make sure I’ve got warm clothes and good shoes, keep an eye on me so I don’t get into trouble, and deliver me to my mom’s doorstep in one piece. Is that about right?”
“More or less.”
The gap between his front teeth showed when he smirked at her. It made her feel as though she were sitting atop a small boulder of uncomfortably warm, wet lust.
“My only question is, what am I gonna have to give you in return?”
Heat spread up the sides of her neck, her nape prickling. The man was a devil. The worst sort of devil. Rakish, provoking, confounding…
He made her feel alive.
Rosemary smiled and told him, “I’ll let you know.”
Chapter 6
Kathmandu was crowded and dusty.
Nothing new there.
Kal stood at the edge of the street, waiting while Rosemary shopped at a textile stall. “What do you think of these?” She held up a pair of loose pants in a bright, colorful pattern.
“For what?”
“For you. You need a change of clothes.”
“The clothes I have are fine.”
“They’re filthy.”
“Sure. Okay.”
“It’s okay that they’re filthy?”
“No, I mean, the pants are okay. The new ones. Whatever.”
She frowned. “I’ll keep looking.”
Kal kn
ew he’d burst her bubble. She was only trying to lighten the mood a little, get him out of his head. He needed to make more of an effort.
He looked around, trying to see the Nepalese capital city the way Rosemary might—to feel the enchantment of the bright-colored textiles for sale and the rickshaws and mopeds weaving through narrow streets. He tried to feel friendly toward the athletic tourists in Thamel district, here to set out on their treks to Annapurna or the Khumbu, but what he saw was earthquake damage and imported souvenirs and Nepalese people busting their asses to get their hands on a dwindling stream of tourist dollars.
It wasn’t sustainable. A year’s worth of graduate school, a master’s thesis in public administration that he’d never defended or turned in, three internships, and two failed pilot projects told him so.
Only one thing had to shift—an earthquake, a change in the political situation, a couple avalanches on Everest—and the tourists would stay home, leaving the people of Nepal scrambling to feed themselves and keep their children safe.
Until the earthquake, Kal had been naive enough to think he could fix it.
Rosemary snapped her fingers to get his attention. “Come over here and help me find you a shirt to wear.”
He joined her at a table piled with souvenir T-shirts and rummaged until he found one in his size. “This works.”
“Let me see.”
He held up the orange T-shirt. It read ANNAPURNA BASE CAMP in large white letters.
“Have you been to Annapurna Base Camp?” She was trying to be breezy and fun, but something was off—something more than his being a killjoy. Rosemary had gone pale, her features sharp in the wrong way.
“I have.”
“I suppose that makes it legitimate.”
“So we’re set?”
“By all means.” Rosemary pushed the pants and T-shirt into his arms and handed him her travel wallet, which seemed strange until he noticed the tremor in her fingertips and guessed she didn’t want to work the zipper.
“You all right?” he asked.
She pinched her lips together. “I’m fine.”
Kal drew closer, lifted her wrist, took her pulse. Her heart was pounding, her breathing shallow. Shit. He’d been so caught up in his dark, guilty garbage, he’d forgotten she’d told him she was hungry an hour ago. “Let’s get you something to eat.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t much appetite.”
“It’ll come back to you.” He paid for the clothes without haggling and took her hand, leading her through the heart of Thamel toward a food cart he knew.
They’d had to wake up early for the flight, only had a chance to grab a pastry on the go. It was past lunchtime. Kal knew better than Rosemary how important it was to take care of your body after a trauma. Regular meals, lots of sleep, pleasant company. She needed a spa weekend, not a shopping excursion in the crowded, overwhelming streets of the capital, where they had to fight to move forward through the stream of people and traffic.
He got so distracted berating himself, he didn’t notice he’d walked right past Thamel Trekking Adventures until a hand landed on his arm and Brian was right in front of him, his white beard as bushy as ever, his smile just as disarming.
“Hey!” Brian said. “You a ghost or something?”
“What?”
“You walked right past me! I thought, maybe it’s not Kal, but it’s you, man. How you been? You come in from Everest?”
“Yeah.” Brian looked back and forth between Kal and Rosemary, now even spacier than she’d been a minute ago. “This is Rosemary Chamberlain.”
Brian extended his hand and pumped Rosemary’s up and down. “I’ve read about you. You’re with the British group, right? Seven Summits, all women. That’s awesome.”
“Thank you,” Rosemary said politely.
“So where were you when the snow hit?” Brian asked. “Not in the icefall, I’m guessing, or you’d be”—he drew his finger across his throat—“not to be morbid. The gallows humor, you know?” He shook his head. “It’s just awful. You know.”
“Mm,” Rosemary said.
Kal didn’t know what to say.
He did know.
He knew that Brian had lived in Kathmandu since he was a hippie teenager, where he made a career for himself first as a guide leading trekkers to Annapurna and Base Camp, later training a staff of younger guides to do the work for him.
Kal knew Brian was always cheerful no matter what time of day you talked to him, whether business was booming or terrible. He’d never once seen Brian look upset or sound disappointed.
Not even when he’d disappointed him.
“So where were you?” Brian asked again.
“Camp Three.”
He whistled. “Way the fuck up there. You come out on a chopper?”
“From Camp One, yeah, to Lukla.”
“Better you than me, brother.” Brian glanced at Rosemary. “I can’t stand heights, myself. I’ve got a morbid turn of mind.”
“You don’t seem morbid,” she said.
“That’s because I’m not hanging off the side of a fucking mountain, if you’ll forgive the obscenity.”
Rosemary smiled wanly. Brian’s eyes came back to Kal’s face, and Kal’s stomach dropped. “So, listen, I’m glad to see you. I left you a couple messages, not sure you got them since you didn’t call me back. I’ve been thinking, I want to take another stab at this thing. I’ve even got some ideas how to make it work better—did you get that email I sent?”
Yeah, I got your email. I skimmed it over fast, with my heart in my throat, and deleted it without writing you back. Then I went out and got drunk.
Yeah, I got your messages, and they made me feel guilty, but they didn’t make me want to call you back.
Kal had abandoned the whole fucking mess of it, left his thesis on his hard drive and Brian on the hook for however much money he’d lost, the guides he trained out of luck for work, all of them hoping he could deliver on something he never should have promised in the first place.
He liked Brian, was the thing. He’d always liked Brian.
“Kal?” Brian asked.
Rosemary sank quietly to a seat on the roadside and clasped her hands together over the back of her head.
“Whoa,” Brian said. “That was unexpected.”
“She needs something to eat.”
“I’m okay,” Rosemary mumbled. “Give me a moment.”
Kal squatted down beside her. “You going to pass out?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think I’m just…I don’t know. It’s too many people, and I didn’t realize how many times I’d been bumped into until it was one time too many and I thought I might scream, so I sat down instead.” She waved a weak hand at him. “Carry on with your conversation. I’ll keep.”
Kal glanced at Brian. “I was taking her to the momo guy.”
“Just down the way?”
“Yeah. Can I catch you later on?”
“Sure, do what you need to. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Give me your hands,” Kal said. He pulled Rosemary to her feet, tucked her arm in his elbow, and asked, “Can you walk?”
“Of course I can walk.”
He’d never been so grateful for her stiff upper lip. Or for an excuse to jet. “I’ll call you,” he told Brian over his shoulder.
It was a lie, and it felt like shit.
Brian smiled. “You do that.”
A few minutes later, he and Rosemary fetched up at the food cart and Kal ushered her into in a plastic chair. “What’s the matter with me?” she asked.
“I think you’re having a panic attack.”
“No.”
“You ever had one before?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Then you wouldn’t know.” He’d had a few, after the earthquake. After he gave up on his dreams.
Kal went up to the vendor and bought food with money from her wallet. He set a plate of fried dumplings in front of her, arranged in a
circle around a small bowl of sauce.
“I know,” he said, “dumplings again. You’re going to think I’m trying to seduce you, but these are fried momo with mashed potatoes, and you, my friend, need to get some sugar to your brain before you pass out on me. This guy’s momo are the best.”
Rosemary picked up a dumpling. She dipped it in the sauce. Kal ate an entire momo in the time it took Rosemary to swallow the first bite. She accepted the bottle of beer he proffered, drank half of it, and closed her eyes. “I think I’m crashing.”
“You’re okay. Drink a little more.”
She finished the bottle, then looked at him. “I’m sorry. Let me buy another one.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll catch up on the flight later.”
“Do we need to get to the airport?”
“We’ve got a few hours yet. So, you been to Kathmandu before?” Keep her talking. Distract yourself.
“On the way in.”
“Any other times?”
“No.”
“Some of my first memories from when I was a kid are from here. You know how you have memories of being a kid but you don’t know if they’re really memories or stories someone told you?”
“Sure.”
“It’s like that. I can remember a garden with a lot of flowers, and this time we went to the monkey temple and one of the monkeys tried to bite me.”
“They say they have rabies.”
“They do say that. I guess I dodged a bullet. Did you go to any of the temples when you were here before?”
“I didn’t have time.”
“You’d like them.” Kal tried to think of another question that would keep her talking, keep himself from thinking, but she beat him to the punch.
“Who was that man you were talking to?”
“What man?” he stalled.
“At the vendor’s stall. The man with the beard.”
He looked past her to the street. “Just somebody I used to work with.”
“You worked for the helicopter tour company?”
“No, it was on something else. A project.”
The project had been the subject of his master’s thesis, the culmination of plans and preparation he’d begun as a raw undergraduate intern on fire to make a difference in Nepal.