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“I brought a gift for your mother.”
“What is it?”
“Perfume.”
“That’s really nice, but she’s not exactly a perfume kind of person.”
“Kal, she’s a woman. This perfume is exquisite, and if you think your mother won’t like it, you’re an idiot. Yangchen!” Rosemary greeted Kal’s mother over his shoulder with a smile. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“You’re welcome. For me?” Rosemary handed her the wrapped box.
“Just a little something.”
Patricia and Sangmu crowded around as Yangchen opened the box, Patricia asking, “What is it? What did she get you? Did she bring something for me?” and Sangmu shushing her but unable to keep from leaning over her mother’s shoulder.
Yangchen seemed not to notice. She unwrapped the box slowly, with care, and examined the perfume box on both sides.
“It’s one of my favorite scents,” Rosemary told her.
“It’s very expensive.”
“I saw it and thought of you.”
“I’ve done the tester from magazines.” Yangchen beamed. “Come, let me introduce you to some people.”
As she walked away, Rosemary met Kal’s eye and shot him with an imaginary gun. Pow. Told you so.
He shrugged, smiling.
After that came a whirlwind of people and food and questions. Kal’s family members wanted to know her story—where she’d come from, why she was in New York, what had taken her to Everest, where she would go next. Rosemary enjoyed telling them, and enjoyed the experience of being dropped inside Kal’s family, alternately feted and ignored, worldly and ignorant, important and irrelevant.
When dinner was served—an eclectic collection of take-out favorites from an Indian restaurant—she ate until her stomach felt tight, listening to the conversation and watching Kal across the table from her. Everyone seemed to think very highly of him. His opinion was frequently solicited, his involvement in every aspect of family life apparent even to an outsider.
She hoped to find a private moment to speak with Yangchen and perhaps broach the subject of her story, but the right moment didn’t present itself until dessert was served, and then it didn’t so much present itself as fall into the middle of the conversation like a brick dropped from the sky.
“Rosemary’s going to make Mom famous,” Patricia announced to the whole table. “They’re going to be on TV and everything, talking about Everest. That’s why she gave her expensive perfume.”
Eleven pairs of eyes turned to watch as her cheeks heated and she fumbled for the right response.
Bugger.
Yangchen’s expressionless face perfectly matched Kal’s. The whole family had gone blank, in fact. Bugger, bugger, bugger.
“The perfume was a gift,” was all she could think to say.
“It’s very nice,” Yangchen said.
“I would like to interview you. If you’re willing. I haven’t—I mean, it isn’t such an elaborate and evil plan as it might have sounded, just now, the way Patricia so colorfully described it, it’s only we were speaking on the stairs, and I’d mentioned my interest in interviewing you, which is quite keen.”
Yangchen inclined her head, the barest hint of a nod.
“I know you haven’t given interviews previously, and I don’t know whether you’d like to be interviewed formally or to share some memories, you know, informal recollections, but my hope was to write a piece about you that might offer an alternative perspective to what’s already out there. I’m meant to be writing a book, you see, about my expedition, and what it’s like as a woman to undertake this sort of thing.”
“She needs someone to write about.” Kal popped a forkful of food into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, and sipped from his water glass before adding, “With her summit attempt canceled and all.”
Rosemary wasn’t sure this was an entirely helpful observation.
On the other hand, she wasn’t sure what would be helpful with Yangchen, or if anything she’d said had been correct. The table had gone so quiet, she could hear the ticking of the wall clock and feel her heart beating in the bottoms of her wedge-heel-clad feet.
