“What if you were paying your own way for college?” I asked. “What would you study then?”
“I would have stuck with atmospheric sciences. So I could forecast my own weather for climbing. Self-centered and frivolous, I know.”
“You weren’t majoring in that just for climbing.”
“Well, I truly love that field, but climbing was the whole reason I got interested in it in the first place.”
He turned his attention back to World’s 19ers, flipping toward the back to the Alaska Range section. My throat was thick, knowing that if he became a doctor, he wouldn’t have a chance to explore any of the mountains in this book.
“So if you weren’t beholden to anyone, you’d get your degree in atmospheric sciences, and then what?”
He ran his hand across the page in thought.
“I’d climb. Cerro Torre. All the Top Five. And hopefully I’d be good enough at it that a company like Esplanade Equipment would fund the trips. Then, when I’m old and I’ve climbed my heart out all over the world, I’d turn into a weekender and settle into a nice desk job forecasting for all the climbers and backcountry skiers who are still out there in it.”
Goose bumps pricked my forearms. “I think that sounds like a great plan.”
The sharp look on his face doused my enthusiasm.
“It’s not,” he said. “It’s like a dysfunctional, ironic circle. My dad was killed on a Western mountaineering expedition, and his death was the only reason I’ve had such privilege in my life. Had he not died, I would have never gotten a pity scholarship to boarding school in Kathmandu and then college in the U.S. I’d be here, hauling loads up the mountain for Greg. And yet, if I had my way, I’d throw myself into the very sport my father died supporting, which I have the privilege of participating in only because he died.”
I sucked in a breath.
“That’s not all. If I had my way, I wouldn’t come back to Tengboche when I finish college, other than to climb Himalayan peaks and visit Mom and Pasang. I’ve been away from here too long. It doesn’t feel like home anymore. In an abstract way, the Khumbu Valley ceased to be my home the day my dad died. The Global Sherpas have been a tangible reminder of that this season. But to take my education and go elsewhere with it would be selfish. Counter to the reason scholarships like mine exist in the first place.”
He closed the book and put it to the side. His head hung low like the dilemma was physically weighing him down.
I wanted to say something that would erase the feeling that he owed a hundred faceless donors a life that was wrong for him. But that was the American in me. I’d spent enough time in this part of the world to understand the other side and how deeply that affected Luke.
Instead of saying anything, I pushed his sleeve up a little to find his bracelet. He leaned in to me as I traced the bracelet’s ridges, thinking of how it had been with him for every Circ high point and for the atmospheric science classes he liked so much. Perhaps he’d even fiddled with it in class just as I was doing now. This very bracelet had been with him every night as he slept, whether in his warm bed in Seattle or in a sleeping bag somewhere in the crisp mountain air of the Cascades. In a way, it was like I’d been with him.
I don’t think he knew that I had kept the bracelet he made, and that it had been with me through everything, just like mine had been with him. I reached back for my Yellow Yeti jacket and pulled out my knife.
With it tightly closed in my palm, I paused to look at him. His eyes were still burdened, but now there was curiosity in them, too.
Wordlessly, I placed the knife in his palm, folding the bracelet-lanyard on top of it for him to see. It was in much worse condition than the one on his wrist, but it had been with me continuously all the same.
In response, he pushed me onto my back, pinning me beneath his arms. The burden was gone. Now it was lust, pure and unbridled. His hand fumbled for my headlamp, snapping it off so no one would see the shadow-profile of us as his lips crashed into mine.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Stepping into Winslowe Expeditions’s main tent after we got down from the rotation was like coming home. Though it was small and lacked all the niceties of Global’s big top, I liked it much better. Dinner wasn’t ready yet, but the smells coming from the kitchen tent next door were delicious. Pertemba’s food wouldn’t be as good as Mingma’s—nobody’s could be better than hers—but it would be miles tastier and more satisfying than Randall’s fancy but poorly adapted high-altitude cuisine. After dinner, I planned to make the batch of peanut butter fudge cookies I owed Luke.
There were three clients playing Monopoly in the tent. One was a repeat client from about five years ago. We exchanged a wave. Dad was at the other end of the table, reading something on his laptop. Weather, probably. I couldn’t resist going over and taking a peek, since I hadn’t checked any weather websites since before Rotation One started.
Dad gave me a hug. “I hardly recognized you it’s been so long.”
He was joking, but I felt that way about him for real. His clothes looked tired and dated, and though he was slightly younger than Jim, he looked much older.
“The weather patterns have been unusual this year,” he said. “It’s going to be a real gamble with the summit windows.”
“Seems like it,” I said. I’d overheard Jim and Norbu discussing the same thing.
Not wanting the Monopoly crew to listen in on our conversation, we shifted over to the communications tent.
“That was quite a scare you had in the icefall,” he said when we sat down.
“Yeah.” I quietly adjusted the waistband of my pants so that it didn’t put as much force on my bruised waist.
“I’m surprised you all were still in the icefall that late.”
“It wasn’t that late. I was with the last client, and he was lagging.”
“They have you with the slowest client?”
Slowest, in Dad’s eyes, meant most dangerous.
“I’m the newest.”
“Why didn’t Jim have you turn him around if he was going that slow?”
The question surprised me. Dad wasn’t one to criticize other expedition leaders, even to me. I decided then to not give him the full details of the snowbridge collapse.
“Jim doesn’t use cutoffs on the first rotation,” I said. “And he likes to time it so the clients have some daylight when they hit the upper reaches.”
Dad gave a disinterested hmm. Years ago, he had switched up the Winslowe Expeditions acclimatization plan to include a week of climbing over on Pumori. It was safer this way because the clients would have one less rotation through Everest’s unstable icefall. He and his clients were leaving for Pumori tomorrow.
“When’s your second rotation?” he asked.
“Five days.”
He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “That could put you up there right in the middle of the storm that’s coming. It doesn’t sound like Jim has been keeping a close eye on it.”
I wouldn’t know. Being the most junior guide of a dozen, you don’t exactly have access to the expedition leader in the same way as when the expedition leader is your dad.
“They have Zebra Weather with the personalized forecast option.”
“It doesn’t matter what they have. Even the top models have never been fully accurate, and none of them account for the unpredictability this spring and more extreme weather we’ve been getting in the past few years.”
Jeez!
“Tell me Jim’s not having you guys overnight at Camp Three on the next rotation.”
“It’s how it’s done at Global.”
“It’s not necessary. I don’t like the avalanche risk up there. Plus the storm.” He reached for his radio.
“What are you doing?”
“Global, this is Winslowe Expeditions.”
“Hi, Greg, what’s up?” Jim replied.
“Meet me on nine-nine.”
“Dad, don’t, please!” I lunged for the radio
. He held it out so I couldn’t reach. “You have your philosophy, he has his.”
“Hi, Jim,” Dad said into the radio. “Did you see the storm warning? What are your thoughts?”
“It looks like it’s coming right for us at the moment, but my hunch is that it’s not going to hit here. The one last week passed to the east, so I’m willing to bet this does the same.”
“I’m not so sure. I’ll be keeping a close eye on it.”
“Right-o, Greg. I’ll be doing the same.”
“Okay, good. Later man.”
Dad adjusted the volume on the radio and clipped it into its holster.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said.
“Perhaps, but to be honest, Emily, I wish you weren’t working for them.”
“It’s kind of too late for that now.”
“Yes, but I wanted to say it. See, I’m trying to be better about talking about things that are unpleasant.”
“Good job, Dad. A for effort.”
“Let me ask you something—and don’t answer aloud. Now that you’ve been through one rotation as a guide, how do you like climbing with partners who couldn’t get themselves off the mountain if they needed to? How do you like the speed you’re going? Is it the same experience being on the mountain with clients as it is when just you and I climb? Do you find the fixed line convenient and nice, or would you rather be on a rope team climbing with your ax instead?”
“I know where you’re going. No, climbing with the clients is not nearly as great as climbing without them, but I don’t see why you’re so down on it. Guiding is competitive. This is so many people’s dream job!”
“But is it your dream job? You did all of middle school and high school online and in a homeschool workbook. You didn’t go on field trips. Or have career day. At a regular high school, you would have had a group of friends all setting out on different career paths, and you would have discussed that sort of thing. You’ve seen so little of what is out there, and I worry that you’ve given up on college too soon.”
Not this again.
He reached over to the table for a stack of printouts. “These are some career worksheets I found online for you. To help you think about some of your options. They’re for millennials. I read that your generation has trouble with making decisions.”
I groaned.
“Really, Emily, I think the bottom line is—with climbing and everything else—don’t you have to know what’s out there before you can know what you want?”
His words hit a nerve, and I was touched he had put so much thought into helping me, so I took the worksheets. I’d probably fill them out, too, just out of curiosity. We stood up to head over to the main tent for dinner.
“Your grandparents have been emailing me about you staying with them this summer.”
Yeah, stay with them and Amy. Great idea, Dad.
“Just tell them thank you but no thanks.”
He frowned. “It’s your choice, but I will say this. Your grandparents want to help you. Let them. Take them up on the offer and stay with them until you decide what to do.”
There was nothing new about them wanting to help me. They’d been trying to “help” since their guilt kicked in a year after they made it clear they were done mopping up Amy’s messes.
Grandpa’s exact words had been I don’t care if he’s on the top of Mount Everest, he’s coming back here to get his daughter.
Dad hadn’t been on Everest, but he had been about to start his third attempt at K2 and, still to this day, he’d never had a chance to attempt it again.
It was late when I got back to Global City. I had the cookies for Luke, but he was stuck doing a video game tournament with the UW team, and I didn’t feel like hanging out with a bunch of people right now. I brushed my teeth on the outskirts of the A-Team sub-camp and then hunkered down in my tent.
The talk with Dad tonight about careers made me anxious to get a follow-on job locked in for June. I couldn’t assume I’d get another job with Global, especially after this last rotation. If nothing else, the accident in the icefall was a reminder that as much of a blessing as this job had been, it also had the potential to backfire if I didn’t perform well as a guide this season.
Since I wasn’t sleepy yet, I repeated some of my searches of U.S.-based guiding companies. That led me to a seasonal jobs website, where there was a staffing call for Esplanade Equipment’s new CentralPoint project, a nonprofit venture that would establish eco-friendly community lodges in the major adventure hotspots around the world.
The sample list of jobs were mostly the kind that didn’t require a college degree, and though the pay would be low, room and board was included. The list of proposed locations was amazing, as almost all of them were places with great mountain climbing, including the city of El Chaltén in Patagonia.
What better way to train for Cerro Torre than living right there in the nearest city, where I could have an actual job and get to know lots of other mountaineers? It would be so cool!
I clicked over to the application portal. All you had to do was fill out an online application, include a résumé, and write a statement about why you would be a good fit for the CentralPoint project. The hardest part would be the résumé, seeing as mine was nothing but a few scribbles on a piece of paper at the moment.
Briefly, I wondered if it was disloyal for me to pursue something that might line me up for the great peaks of the Patagonia without my fellow dreamer, but he was on track to become a doctor, not a climber. This was the most excited I’d felt about my future since having that awful conversation with Dad. I knew it was unlikely I would get one of these jobs, but I’d at least try. Tomorrow would be résumé-writing day.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I walked over to the command center right after breakfast to work on my résumé. When I arrived, April was the only one in the tent, Skyping with—
I did a double take. Was that Josh Knox, as in Josh Knox who was pretty much the best rock climber in the whole world?
“Sorry!” I yelped. “I’ll come back.”
“Don’t worry about it. We were just getting off.”
I went over to the long table of Global laptops, trying hard not to eavesdrop as they said their good-byes.
“That was Josh Knox, wasn’t it?” I asked when she hung up.
“Yeah. He’s my boyfriend.”
“Oh. Wow.”
She laughed. “So I’m guessing you rock climb.”
“Not like that! But I love it.”
“I’m just starting out,” she said. “It’s pretty fun.”
I bet, with Josh Freaking Knox as the person teaching you.
April turned on the second screen at Walkabout’s editing station to catalog the rest of her drone footage from Rotation One. I typed up my résumé and then dropped it off with Doc at the UW sub-camp for her to look over.
I still had some time to kill before lunch so I settled in at one of the small tables in the big top with a cup of coffee and Dad’s career worksheets. As I did, my phone pinged with a #YCCM Circ. It was the tub of peanut butter fudge cookies I’d given Luke this morning at breakfast. The cookies sat high atop a boulder, and he’d shot the rest of the video like the cookies themselves were doing a self-Circ. I smiled and shook my head. For the first time ever, there was something written after #YCCM: #Heaven.
I replied in our usual way: identifying the location the Circ had been taken. In this case: #DawgsOnEverest camp. I added an eye-wink emoticon.
The first worksheet in front of me was massively thick—almost too thick for its staple. I did the first two pages before skipping ahead to the back, skimming over the long lists of professions that were grouped in a seemingly illogical way.
The second was a fun multiple choice quiz that quickly determined that I should become a baker. I could see that.
The third worksheet required free-form sentence answers that I didn’t see how would result in magically telling me what my career destiny s
hould be. At the table in front of me, Phil, who had been playing solitaire, stood up to get another cup of tea.
“What are you working on there?” he asked when he returned.
“Oh, just some quizzes from my dad. He wants me to explore other career options before I commit to full-time guiding.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“You’re a lawyer, right?”
He chuckled. “No. But close. I work in a courtroom. I’m a stenographer.”
I knew it! Phil wasn’t some rich lawyer or doctor or businessman. I couldn’t wait to boast to Luke that I was right about Phil being different.
“How’d you pick that as a job?”
“The town I was raised in was tiny, but it was the county seat. Working for the government was what people there did if they weren’t in logging or manufacturing. I can tell you more about stenography, if you’re interested. Though I should mention that we’re losing a lot of jobs to automatic transcription these days.”
An indoor career? Hopefully never. “I guess I should see what these worksheets suggest first.”
Phil returned to his table and laid his cards out into a new game. I looked at the papers in front of me and sighed. I didn’t need to do the worksheets. I knew what I wanted. I just didn’t know how to get there from here. Or if it was even possible. Could a sponsored climber have a life of adventure in mountains all over the world and a steady home base to come back to? Maybe having a flexible job in addition to being a sponsored climber was the key. Like being some sort of seasonal specialty baker or something. Hmmm…
Regardless of how everything came together, it was my current job with Global that would afford me the opportunity to get that record-breaking seventh summit, and that was key to the sponsorship side of the equation.
Luke came in then with a group of the UW clients. His hair was wet and spiky from a recent shower. He walked right by me with a little wink, leaving the good, fresh scent of soap floating in his wake.
This, of course, made me ultra-conscious of the fact that I hadn’t showered since before we left on Rotation One. It took a big effort for the Sherpas to make the water for showers, and a long time for it to heat up in the solar shower bags, so the guides usually waited until a day or two after each rotation for the clients to have their turn before we took our one-a-week shower allotment. As soon as we were through with lunch, I was going to beeline for the A-Team shower.
Leaving Everest Page 14