Skydiving, Skinny-Dipping

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  Brandon spoke for them. Actually, he shrugged and said, “We’re rich.”

  Probably at about 10:00, we hunkered down for the night. The wind had picked up pretty steadily and it rattled the sides of the tent.

  “Basecamp nookie?” Len asked, a glint of hopefulness in his eyes.

  “Do me, big boy,” I teased.

  The best part was that with the wind howling so loudly, no one could hear me. And my awesome boyfriend hit all the right places. I sang for the angels.

  We woke at first light and packed up our gear. Snowsuits required. Hats, gloves, boots, crampons. Once everyone had finished breakfast, because this was not the kind of hike one started on an empty stomach, our leaders positioned themselves two to the front and two to the rear, and we hiked.

  For hours.

  The wind picked up and even blew some snow around. We made camp for the night. Each individual or couple was responsible for our own food at the satellite camp. Len and I slept hard. No nookie.

  Next morning we packed and started again. Up the mountain. Up. Up. Up. We reached a giant crevasse. If you looked down into it, you couldn’t see the bottom. That was how far down it went.

  Kyle hooked himself to a rope and scaled the crevasse, then Mandy, the medic, hooked each one of us, one at a time, to the rope, and Kyle helped pull us over to his side. It reminded me of the day Len and I had first done the zipline. Only, one didn’t zip across this line. We pulled with our arms while our legs dangled.

  Halfway across the giant gap, I looked down and thought I might pee my pants. But I had Len at my back, cheering me on, giving me the motivation to keep going.

  At one point, we got so warm from all the climbing and clear weather, that people started unzipping and/or taking their coats off.

  Who would’ve thunk, sweating in below zero temps? In all seriousness, the idea of it seemed impossible, but there we were or there they were—undressing in this weather. Len and I wore state-of-the-art winter gear that wicked away the sweat and moisture to keep us totally dry. The kind of state-of-the-art winter gear only Meredith and Brandon could afford to pay for. Because they wanted us here, they paid for all of it.

  Taika’s crampon hit something in the ice and she slipped, sliding backward down the slope. Jan and Len lunged for her, each getting an arm. Taika screamed. I screamed. I thought even Jan screamed. Our leaders doubled back and the ones at the end ran forward to help, but her man and my man had already saved the day. We stopped for a rest after that because that close call ended up way too close for comfort.

  It turned out her crampon had hit a shovel from probably the late 1800s or early 1900s.

  Every so often, Len pulled his phone out to video our progress, even though he continued to wear that stupid helmet with the camera attached. We posted all the time to social media. And we even ran a travel blog, so our reach went way beyond that of friends and family. My dad loved the blog. He and my mom commented on every update. They loved to show us off to their friends. Yes, us. Len and I were a package deal with those two. Especially since my dad had recovered fully from the heart attack and the stent kept his pesky artery unblocked, we surprised them with a trip to Mexico. My parents went swimming with sharks.

  At camp three, we stopped on a ledge of the Lhotse wall. At each interval, we had to take time to acclimatize to the elevation so we didn’t get elevation sickness. That can kill fast. Like a diver getting the bends. It was all rope climbing once we left camp three.

  For our final camp, we hit a compacted snowfield. Solid. Relatively safe, considering we were up on a mountain. But before we reached camp four, we had to climb with the ropes again. At least we stayed to an elevation where supplementary oxygen hadn’t become necessary yet.

  Plus side.

  Once we left camp four, because of how steep and slick the sides were, we used ropes the whole rest of the way up. It got so cold. I didn’t remember ever being so cold in my life. Even Len’s arms couldn’t warm me up.

  For weeks and weeks, we worked our way up, trudging through ice and snow, but oh my goodness, nothing could have prepared me for seeing that summit come into view. It reminded me of that first camping trip with Len and we stood at the top of Michigan’s highest peak. I didn’t think much could compare to the beauty surrounding us there. Being here, I knew how wrong I was.

  How very, very, wrong I was.

  As a group, we hiked our way to the top.

  We were literally on top of the world.

  As a safety precaution, Kyle instructed us all to don our oxygen masks. Tears filled my eyes. Normally I wasn’t a happy crier, and maybe it was as much from relief as anything else, but it could not be helped.

  I turned away from the vista spread out below us to find Len. I wanted to see his reaction. But I couldn’t see him. Then I felt a tug on my jacket and I looked down. As best he could, Len bent on one knee, his thick glove off one hand so he could hold an open ring box.

  Our group surrounded us. They all had their cameras out videoing us instead of the view. I covered my mouth, well, my respirator, with my hand.

  “Kami, when we met, you couldn’t jump out of a plane. Now not only have you conquered that feat, but you’ve swum with whale sharks and hiked to Machu Picchu. Navigated a ship through a hurricane. Now you’re here at the top of the world. And I’m asking for one more big thing…” He took in a breath. “Conquer marriage with me, baby.”

  I looked him square in the eye. “No,” I stopped for dramatic effect, giving the best acting performance of my life. “I don’t think so.”

  His face dropped. The mood of our group dropped. I threw my head back and full-on belly-laughed.

  “Of course I’ll marry you, you nut.” I had to shout it because the wind thundering across the summit of Mt. Everest boomed in our ears.

  Everyone started laughing along with me, except Len, who stood and tore my glove from my hand so he could slide the gorgeous gem on my finger. He pulled up my mask for just a moment so he could kiss me.

  Bonus first chapter from D.I.E.T. (Did I Eat That?)

  The Shock

  One:

  “Geet!” My boss and admittedly one of my best friends, Dion, called out to me not in greeting, but waving a flat card in his overly zealous hand. “Did you get yours yet?”

  Get mine yet? I hadn’t been home yet to check my mail. Was I supposed to be getting one, whatever it was, he waved around like a lunatic?

  Instead of moving to my station, I stopped and waited, suspicious of what was going to come out of his mouth. “That depends… what am I supposed to be on the lookout for?”

  “Girl, you really haven’t seen? Henri and I are already making plans… I just got off the phone with him after I got off the phone with her and she told me to expect it. I’m so freaking over the moon—ten percent off styling products for the rest of the day!”

  Ten percent? Wow. He must really be ‘over the moon’.

  “That’s great, but what is it?”

  “Our Kami is getting married!” he shouted and danced around the salon. “Married… Married…” he continued to singsong as he made his way over to my station to hand me his invitation.

  “It’s an invitation to a reception, not a wedding,” I said, looking over the front and back to see if I’d missed any pertinent information. Nope. What it said on the front of the card was all that was there.

  “I know!” Dion shouted. But right as I was about to attempt to calm him down a bit in order to find out what exactly got him this excited, the front bell chimed and we both turned to see two of our regular clients walk in.

  I led my first client into the back room. We were a full-service spa. Dion did hair. The best hair in the state of Michigan now that Kami was off galivanting all over the world with her now fiancé. It took us a while to fill her shoes but after a month of nonstop interviews, we hired on two new stylists. Once word got out that Kami was snatched up by the Meredith Lowenstein, every woman of means or with a high balance credit c
ard sought us out. We could’ve done with four new stylists but Dion wanted to keep the waiting list going because in the rich set, a waiting list obviously meant the best.

  I, however, held the privilege of being Affinity’s only in-house masseuse. Mrs. Danvers needed my ‘magic hands’ because her divorce was turning nasty now that Mr. Danvers found out about the pool boy and Mrs. Danvers found out about the pool boy, too. Then there was Ms. Jacqueline, who’s Booboo Pookie was sick at the vet and then there were the Bellamy twins who made their money off of nudie pics on the internet, in calendars and even a coffee table book. Their muscles got tense from holding those poses all day. I say, good for them. If I looked like them, I’d show it off, too.

  The never-ending parade of clients coming through the door kept me from getting to the bottom of why Dion got so overly excited about an invitation to a reception. And when I finally handed off my last client of the day, Dion was arm-deep in product to put the finishing touches on a glamorous hairstyle.

  After clocking out, I bundled up in my Sherpa gear to face another freezing night of polar vortex insanity complete with snowdrifts taller than my Jeep and potholes deep enough to be mistaken for sinkholes—perfect for ruining the alignment on a car—taking off to run some errands and grab dinner. I’d been out of work for maybe fifteen minutes when my phone rang while I was waiting in the drive thru of Happy Burger. Kami’s name lit up the screen.

  “Kams!” I answered.

  “Geet. I’m so glad I got you. How’ve you been?” she asked, and I’d swear she was bouncing on the other end of the phone, waiting to tell me her news.

  “Fine. Clearly not as fine as you. Dion got his invite today.”

  “Yeah—you have one, too. But I needed to talk to you. I got Dion this morning before he left for work,” she said.

  “What’s up?”

  “Len and I decided we want to get married at Albatross Monument on Cape Horn Island, Chile. We’re having a reception closer to home for people who can’t make it, but Geet… I’m really hoping that you aren’t one of those. We want you there with us. Dion, Henri, you. The Lowensteins and a couple of Len’s friends. Please, I can’t get married without you there.”

  “I—Cape Horn?” I kind of, okay, I totally screeched.

  “Please,” she begged again. “If it’s the cost—”

  “That’s not it.” And it wasn’t. I could afford the trip. I’d been saving for a major trip for the past couple of years. But a major trip required a travel buddy because who wanted to globe trek alone? It’d been a couple of years since I even went out on a date and Kami, until she met Len, wouldn’t leave the city unless she headed home to see her parents.

  “Then what is it?”

  I decided to be honest, because if you couldn’t be honest with your best friend… “Do you realize how many steps there are to get to Albatross Monument?” I’d heard of that; it was located on the southern-most scrape of land before you reached Antarctica. Antarctica.

  “Geet, it’s not that many steps.”

  “Says the beauty queen with the body of a fitness model who climbed to the summit of Mt. Everest. You do remember what I told you my nickname in school was? Doughy. They called me doughy and they called it for a reason.”

  She giggled but ignored that. “Got engaged on the summit of Mt. Everest,” she corrected me and I couldn’t help it, my mouth dropped open.

  “He purposed at the summit of Mt. Everest? Shoot Kams—I think you found the one perfect straight man in the world.”

  “He’s definitely a keeper, but I’m sure he’s not the only one… and you’re deflecting.”

  I pulled up a search engine on my phone to look up Cape Horn Island. “It says on the website that there are only seven cruise ships capable of disembarking at Cape Horn Island and Albatross Monument—a monument dedicated to the thousands of sailors who died on a voyage through tides so hazardous, even some modern ships aren’t able to maneuver close enough to make land, btw—and once on shore, you’re met with one hundred sixty-two ocean-sprayed steps, but that’s not even the worst part. Oh no… that comes up when the stairs level off to a slippery, wooden path that leads you through a tundra of relentless drizzly-misty squalls, strong enough to blast you off into the frigid, soggy land on either side.”

  “Okay… but you said it yourself, it’s only a hundred and sixty-two steps. You can handle that,” she said, and I hoped she picked up on the hand I mentally put up. “Please, Geet,” she softly spoke. “I need you.”

  Crap. Kami was basically my sister from another mister. I wanted to be there for her. God help me… I sighed and said defeatedly, “Yeah, whenever it is, I’ll be there.”

  She squealed. Squealed so loud I had to mute her for a second. When I unmuted her she was already talking again. “…won’t be sorry. This is the best news, the best.” Then she stopped talking to me to shout, “Len, she’s coming.”

  Despite my apprehension, making one of my best friends this happy was worth whatever I had to do to be able to tackle Cape Horn.

  “I have to go now, Geet. We’re getting ready to make land.”

  “Wait—when is it?” I asked.

  “Six weeks. February fourteenth.” Now if she was here, standing in front of me, I’d give her crap over picking a cringeworthy valentine wedding, but was she crazy?

  “You want us to meet at the bottom of the world in February? You want us to die?” I yelled.

  “Girl, it’s summer down here. You think I’d do that to you?”

  “Oh— I knew that.”

  “Yeah you did,” she said, laughing at me. Jeeze, I missed her. “Summer doesn’t necessarily mean warm, though. I’ll send the itinerary… but now I really have to go. Love ya, Geet. Can’t wait to see you.”

  “Samesies, babe. Bye.” The moment she hung up my heart sank. Her life was moving at warp speed and I loved my job, loved working with Dion, but I wasn’t getting any younger. Only five more years until I hit the big 3-0, and everybody knew it was all downhill after the big 3-0.

  The car in front of me moved up a spot which allowed me to take my turn at the speaker, rolling down my window to the gust of super chilled air. “Go ahead with your order when you’re ready,” the Happy Burger worker said.

  “Yeah, I’ll have the number thirteen double olive super burger with cheese. Medium fry, but can I upsize to a large mocha?”

  “You can do that. Does everything look correct on the screen?”

  “Absolutely,” I chirped.

  She gave me my total and I moved up to the window to get my food. On the way home I passed a giant billboard. Super Fitness. The Jerk-free Gym.

  Right… jerk-free. I shook my head at the stupid advertisement and clicked my blinker to turn into my complex. Home again, home again… jiggity-jog.

  The snow started falling again hot and heavy, well technically cold and heavy, but that’s not the saying now is it? It started falling about two miles back and at this rate we were destined to be snowed in completely by roughly midnight. Good thing I went grocery shopping yesterday just in case the snowpocalypse kept me from venturing out my front door tomorrow.

  With my arm raised to shield my face, my food bag and I braved the wind whipping gale-force at us, attempting to push me backward one step for every two that I took until the brick building blocked me enough to get my key in the front door.

  I hung my keys up on the hook next to the door, looped my purse around my neck and held my mocha by biting down on the lip of the plastic lid in order to shrug out of my coat. I switched the bag between hands to slip my arms out, then hung the coat up on the hook meant for keys. The hard plastic bowed under the weight of the heavy material. My guess, I had probably three more times of hanging my coat there before the whole hook came down.

  It took several tries to toe off each clunky, ugly-yet-utilitarian boot. They might have been ugly but they were warm, lined with faux wool. Purse still around my neck, I grabbed the mocha and trudged into the living room,
setting the bag and cup down on the coffee table.

  Before sitting down, I walked into my bedroom to change into my warmest pajamas. An Eeyore onesie that Dion and Henri got me for Christmas. I loved it, snugglier than anything I’d ever worn. It even had an Eeyore hood and tail to swish.

  Now my sofa and dinner called to me. I walked out of my room, plopped down on my sofa, pulled the throw from the back to drape over me, tucked my legs up underneath me and unbagged my burger and fries. But before getting down to the business of eating, I used the remote to flick on the TV, clicked on ‘continue watching’ Homicide Hunter and flipped open my laptop, powering it up.

  If Kami expected me to trek to the top of Albatross Monument to see her say her “I do” then I needed to know exactly, down to the letter, what was expected of me. Chile. Of all the places I could’ve imagined popping my international travel cherry, Chile would not have topped that list. Yet here I was, listening to Joe Kenda narrate his old cases while researching hotels.

  Oh, they had a four star with unbelievable views. An infinity pool that looked like it dropped off into the ocean and a spa. That would be a change, I snickered to myself. But most of the tourist attractions involved some form of torture—what I meant was climbing. Cliffs, steps, if they could use it to steal the breath from my lungs, it appeared they made it available. Joy.

  I picked up my olive burger and took a big bite, chewing on the meat and my problem some more. As I swallowed, I realized the enormity of my problem. Len, Kami, the Lowensteins and the like would reach the top while I remained stuck no higher than the tenth step, clutching my chest and heaving my dying breaths.