Page 50 of The Apparent Trap

It all looks great on camera, but I do find myself wondering if Carmen’s nervous to be filming so much with Lee, or if she’s enjoying it more than she expected, the way she did at Thanksgiving. I’ll never know, of course, since she’s such a determined pro in front of everyone.

When we’re done with fish, I’ve got one more segment for us to do before the sun disappears, and it’s meant to be one of the quirkier fun ones that tend to do well online. In my research and in chatting with some of the people here, I’ve learned that Swedes in these northern regions start doing mandatory cold-plunge training in elementary school. For a population that lives on lakes and spends a lot of the winter outdoors, it’s seen as imperative. So I decided it would be fun to get a PE teacher to take us through what the students do and see if our reporters could hack the same training as a Swedish seven-year-old.

Our guide is Herman, a tall, friendly-looking man with long straight hair pulled back in a ponytail under a beanie. “It’s an essential part of life here,” he’s saying to Carmen as she interviews him. They’re standing in front of a giant frozen lake with a section that’s been cut out to reveal the churning cold water underneath, with a portable ladder fastened to the side. There’s a huge firepit on the land next to it, along with a heated changing tent. “When I was in the military, I was one of the few people from Lapland, and I have to tell you, we did so much better in these exercises than the kids from Stockholm and the south.” (I love how everyone here in the north thinks of southern Sweden as some tropical paradise.) “You have to stay in the water for a full two minutes and then say your name and military number without stuttering—because keeping calm is how you survive.”

“How you survive?” she asks. I hadn’t noticed before, but Carmen is looking ever so slightly unnerved.

“Oh yeah,” he continues, enthusiastic and totally oblivious to Carmen’s change in demeanor. “The cold isn’t what kills you. It’s low humidity here, so you don’t freeze the way you would where you’re from. The issue is hyperventilating and fast breathing. It can make you lightheaded from blowing off too much carbon dioxide, which narrows blood vessels and reduces blood flow to the brain. That dizziness in icy water can come on fast and be just as dangerous as the cold itself.”

I see Carmen’s eyes widen.

But before anyone else can notice, she shakes it off and finishes the interview, getting some pretty hilarious tidbits about kids and their mandated ice picks.

The problem comes when it’s time for Carmen and Lee to join Herman for a cold plunge. We’ve planned it all out—they’re going to do exactly what the kids do: jump into the water fully clothed (since they need to be used to the weight for any real-life accidents). Then, with their own sets of tethered ice picks, they’ll try to pull their way out. If they can’t manage it, they’ll both not only have the ladder they can go to, but also, as an extra precaution, they’ll both be harnessed in and tethered to a rope that can be used to pull them out.

But Carmen looks like she’s about to throw up.

I pull her to the side while Amir and Simon chat through logistics with Herman and Lee shoots the shit with two of the other guys who are here for safety watch.

“Are you okay?” I ask quietly, not quite sure how to deal with an unsure version of Carmen in a work setting.

“I’m fine.” Her words are automatic, and she’s not looking at me.

“Carmen,” I say slowly. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong. Let’s do this.”

I stare at her until she finally turns and her eyes meet mine. I can see the fear in them.

“Why didn’t you tell me this scared you?” I ask.

“I’m fine,” she insists. I almost want to laugh at how much she sounds like her own father last night. Two stubborn people claiming to be fine when they’re clearly not. “I can do this.”

“I know you can do this,” I say, “I’m asking if maybe you shouldn’t.”

“I’m not going to let everybody down just because I don’t like being cold. I’m the person who pushes through. I can do this. I will do this.”

I feel a wave of empathy for her. For everything that makes us incredibly different, this is the first moment I’m realizing she must also have a layer missing, just like me, from being down an adult in her life. Yes, we came to it in different circumstances, but either way—it makes you harder. It makes you more grown up earlier than you should have to be. I’m suddenly seeing all the places where we both had to step in and replace someone far older than us because there wasn’t any other option.

She’s scared, but she doesn’t want to let her team down. She doesn’t think she has a right to ask if there’s an alternative. And as she just said, she’s used to pushing through.

But I know that in this moment, I can do for her what I’ve so often subconsciously been hoping someone would do for me.

“I actually wasn’t thinking you’d let anyone down. I was already wondering if maybe we’d be better off anyway having you standing with Herman so you can be asking questions. We have Lee doing it, and I’m fine stepping in to be the other person for the visual. That way we won’t be missing out on valuable explanations as it’s happening.”

Her eyes narrow at me. “You don’t actually think that would be better. You don’t want to be on camera. You just feel like you should, especially because you already feel bad that I have to film with Lee.”

I shrug, trying to play it off, even though she’s not wrong. “It’s only a few shots, and it’s just to give the visual example of novices. I’m not the story. It’s the difference in culture compared to people not used to it. That’s the story.”

I can see her weighing it. “Don’t you think it’ll be obvious to everyone else what happened?”

“Nothing happened,” I insist. “I just changed an element. You think a bunch of men pay attention to what we’re doing, let alone would catch on to maybe a woman being mildly uncomfortable with something?”

She snorts a laugh, and I can already see her getting calmer. She looks over at Lee, who hasn’t noticed yet that anything’s wrong. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I don’t care about the cold. I grew up in New York.”

“California girls probably aren’t the best for ice plunges,” she says with a chuckle.