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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.”
