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“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.”
