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KIT

T he bus slows as we turn down a tree-lined lane and then stops inside the gates of the resort, where we will spend one last night in luxury before venturing onto the mountain. I climb out, intentionally cutting Miller off to do it, and come to a shocked halt.

Tents. All I see are tents. And sure, they’re nice tents, on platforms, but they are still fucking tents.

I’ve come to such a short stop that I’m knocked into from behind by someone, and naturally that person is Miller. He reaches out, grabbing me by the waist to keep me from toppling forward, and for a half second, my back is pressed to his very firm front and his incredibly large hand is tight against my stomach and half around my hip.

I’m a tall girl. It takes a whole lot of man to make me feel dainty by contrast. There’s a tiny clench of desire in my core before I can stop it. I’ll go to therapy for a decade if necessary in order to forget it ever happened.

“I really hope you’re able to walk uphill a little better than you climb off a bus,” says Miller, releasing me, “or Kilimanjaro is going to be painful for everyone hiking behind you.”

My jaw grinds as I move out of the way. If that person is you, I will go out of my way to make it painful.

The white-clad hotel staff exits the largest of the tents and form a line to greet us. Somehow, they seem to already know who each of us is…a nice touch, yes, but I wish I could swap that nicety out for an actual hotel room.

One with a door.

“Miss Fischer?” asks a smiling man. “Come. I will show you to your lodging.”

He leads me to one of the tents, opens the flaps, and secures them to the sides before he gestures me in.

Inside, there’s a bathroom and a canopy bed shrouded with mosquito netting. It’s actually quite nice, if you’re someone who doesn’t worry about being murdered. I’m from New York, however, so wondering if I’m about to die occupies roughly fifty percent of my waking thoughts.

The bellman shows me how to operate the shower and indicates the way I can secure my tent—a way that will stop no one with opposable thumbs. When he’s gone, I go straight to the bed and pull back the covers to discover what will prove a woefully insufficient sleeping situation. At home, I sleep on a temperature-controlled mattress that raises and lowers on command, on sheets my mother orders from France, and this...is very far from that.

I wasn’t always this way. With Rob, my ex, I was different, but I was also younger then. With every year, I get a little more inflexible, a little less able to roll with the punches.

You said it was a five-star hotel. This is not five stars.

Dad

“Five stars” is relative. I’m sure you’ll survive. You and your sister could stand to learn a bit about how the other half lives.

This from the man who will return a gin and tonic that is accompanied by a slice of lime rather than cucumber and who bought a private plane in a fit of pique after a flight he was on didn’t have lie-flat seats.

It’s a TENT. I have no DOOR. When I’m murdered in my bed, I will hold you responsible.

Dad

Once dead, you won’t be able to hold anyone responsible. Technically.

With a groan, I flop down on what I pray is a newly laundered blanket to mope.

Yes, I sort of knew what I was in for, but it’s hitting me with renewed vigor. Because I’ve gotten used to a certain lifestyle. I’ve gotten used to my morning protein shake, my expensive supplements, an ice-cold eucalyptus-scented towel when I finish working out at my bougie gym. I’ve gotten used to sheet stitching so delicate you can barely feel the seams, and long, hot showers with my rose-scented bodywash followed by a six-step routine for my skin.

And I realized I would have none of those things for a few days but…what if I can no longer exist without them? What if I’m incapable of sleeping without my temperature-controlled mattress and my perfectly seamless sheets? What if I can’t stomach the food, if my gut revolts against all the starch? It would be bad enough to be sleepless and shitting my pants in front of anyone , but to do so in front of West?

It’s a fate worse than death.

I sit up.

I can’t do it. I just can’t. There are seven other routes, and I have money. There’s got to be a way to switch.

Reinvigorated, I leave my tent and cross the grounds, which are bustling with the arrival of a second bus. Couples wander by hand in hand, smiling. I guess they knew what they were getting into with the sleeping situation.

I enter the large tent, which has some kind of dining area on one side and employees behind a counter at the other.

“Hi,” I say with my most winning smile. “I was wondering if I might be able to change tour groups and go on a different route?”

The two women behind the desk look at each other with raised brows. Their shoulders sag at the same time. “I don’t know what is in the water today,” says the shorter of the two. “No one ever asks to shift tours this late, ever, and you’re the second request in an hour.”

My stomach tightens. Did Miller ask to move to the other group because of me ? How incredibly insulting. I’m the only one who is allowed to be mad. And God, it would just figure if I changed to some shittier, longer tour only to discover that West had changed too.

“Someone changed? Do you know who?” I ask.

“A couple just switched to the Machame route,” she says. “So if you’re on that route, we might have space available on Lemosho.”

Fuck . I shake my head. “I was hoping to switch from the Lemosho route. Is there any way to add a person onto Machame? I’m happy to pay extra.”

She smiles, but her eyes are saying rich fucking westerners will waste money on anything .

“I’m sorry,” she replies. “It just isn’t possible. We’d need to move porters from one route to the other, and since the Lemosho route takes two days longer, those porters wouldn’t get any rest between journeys.”

I’m tempted to suggest that I don’t need the porters, that I can carry my own belongings or make do with less, but who am I fooling? I’m standing here with a fresh blow-out, wearing a designer T-shirt I own in five colors because it doesn’t irritate my skin…No one is going to believe I will need less help than others on this trip. Even I don’t believe it, and I’m capable of tricking myself into an awful lot.

“Okay,” I say, swallowing hard. “Is there, uh, room service? I didn’t see a menu.”

She shakes her head with another apologetic smile. “It’s best that you not eat in your tent—it draws animals.”

Gulp . I’m not about to argue with that one. Trekking to Mt. Kili with West might be a fate worse than death…but not death by lion attack.

The woman directs me toward the dining hall. I’m chagrined to find Deb and Daniel there as I carry my salad to the table. Daniel laughs, again, at the fact that I didn’t even know what route I was on, and then describes how much better Machame is than Lemosho. “So much faster,” Deb says. “But not everyone can stomach ascending that quickly.”

“It’s stomaching the days without a shower that troubles me,” I say with a laugh, though I’m not entirely joking. This is going to be so hard, and I’m furious at my dad for all of it.

I wonder what Rob would say if he could see me now, mad that Daddy made me go on this expensive once-in-a-lifetime trip, one I didn’t have to pay for. I picture him with his wide smile and his sun-warmed skin, raising a brow, amused even as he was about to set me straight.

He’d probably tell me I was turning into a not-nice version of Maren, and I guess he’d be right. I’ve always been a not-nice version of Maren, and perhaps that’s part of what offended me so greatly about Miller breaking up with my sister.

Because she’s a hundred times better than me, yet he still decided she wasn’t enough.

* * *

When I get back to the tent, I send out my last texts since I’m not sure what the internet situation will be going forward.

You know what would make this trip better? If someone hadn’t stolen Umbrellas in Paris from me.

Maren

That’s MY lipstick. But yes, I have heard a nice red lip helps with mountain climbing. It’s why so many people now survive Everest. Too bad you don’t have any left.

I text my mother, asking her to let the world know my dad was responsible if I die. She replies by saying she’d likely blame him whether or not it was true, and then asks if I can give her a call because she can’t remember the password to her checking account.

When all this is done, I video call Blake, which is how most of our relationship is conducted since he splits his time between Vegas and New York.

I don’t mind the distance, and I like the way we’re able to withstand it all without the drama and jealousy that plagues my mother’s relationships so often. There was always an ache when I was separated from Rob. I prefer this—the absence of an ache.

Blake picks up the phone and tips back in his chair. He’s what I would call generically handsome—nice features, nice hair—the face of someone who could be a news anchor. Any time I walk through an airport, I see at least ten men I think might be Blake for a half second.

“There you are,” he says. “I was gonna give you a call tonight.” Blake is not one to think of things like the difference in time zones. He doesn’t mean any harm. He just has never really had to think about anyone but himself.

“I’m eleven hours ahead,” I remind him. “I’ll be on my climb in eleven hours.”

“Oh shit, for real?” he asks. “I assumed you’d be on London time.”

Which would still make it the middle of the night if he’d called, but there’s no point in quibbling.

“How is it?” he asks.

I stretch out on the bed, arranging the mosquito netting with my foot. “Well, my five-star hotel is a tent, so I’m not optimistic about the luxuriousness of the coming eight days. And you’ll never guess who’s here…Miller West. He practically lived with us for an entire summer at the Hamptons while he dated my sister—he drove out every single weekend—and then dumped her by text.”

Blake laughs. “Another of your mortal enemies, then?”

“Indeed. We’ve already argued three times and the trip hasn’t even started. I don’t think I can deal with him for a full week plus.”

“Go up with another company,” Blake says, and I fight a twinge of irritation. He’s somewhat prone to solving problems I didn’t ask him to solve, in ways that are not nearly as easy as he tries to make them sound.

“The trip’s already paid for. And it’s expensive. Like, ten grand. I can’t throw ten grand in the trash because I don’t like the guy.”

Blake shrugs, as if ten grand is meaningless. And I suppose it sort of is, but changing companies would also mean a last-minute scramble to research alternatives and find one with space and probably changing my flight home. It’s a whole lot of effort because I don’t like one person on my trip. And I’m currently with what’s considered the most luxurious of the companies that climb Kili and I’m already complaining. I doubt a cheaper company is going to make me happier .

“Look, go to reception and slide a crisp twenty-dollar bill to someone, and you can probably get them to do anything you want.”

I wince. He sounds like a dick who thinks he can buy anyone and anything, the kind of person I’d loathe back home. My dad would probably say I shouldn’t be marrying someone who is already showing early signs of narcissism, but clearly my dad doesn’t have the greatest judgment either—I mean, look where his judgment has left me now. Plus he once chose to marry my mom.

Blake has found a couple of houses he wants us to look at when I get back to NYC. He’s wanted us to move in together for a while now, and though I’ve resisted his push to move to the suburbs, he’s probably right: it’ll be easier there once we have kids. We discuss a restaurant we both want to try and then I remind him that the sign-up deadline for our next marathon is looming. We’ll have to do most of our training separately, but at least we can commiserate after our long runs.

“Oh, shit,” he says. “Were you serious about that?”

I sigh. “Blake, we discussed it. We picked out a hotel. I’ve already registered.” I researched that trip for a week and he was endlessly enthusiastic at the time. Now he’s acting like this is news.

“Do you know how many flights that’ll take?” he asks. “It’s in the fucking arctic circle.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. Yes, I know how many flights it will take. I showed you the flights. I showed you the train ride. And you fucking agreed . “Right, that’s what makes it so cool. Twenty-four hours of sunlight, polar bears. What could be more memorable?”

“Look, if you really need to do something different, let’s just do the London marathon instead. Direct flight. In and out.”

I want something magical, something exciting, because my regular life is fairly dull. There’s nothing wrong with running through London, but it isn’t what we discussed. It isn’t twenty-four hours of sun and polar bear sightings, with a side trip to a city that has abandoned the concept of time. But a successful marriage means compromise. It’s fine that he doesn’t want to do it. I just wish he’d fucking said so before I put in the work.

“Okay,” I say, grinding my teeth to hold in my disappointment. “I’m not going to have Internet for the next week so can you get all the details?”

He agrees readily...just like he agreed to the Norway marathon back in November, so I’m not holding my breath as we end the call.

It’s still early, but there’s not much to do so I slide into bed. The sheets are rough and too warm and this is the height of luxury compared to what I’ll go through for the next week. What if I can’t adjust? What if I’m sleepless every night, prickled by small irritations, my body too soft and pampered to deal with a sleeping pad on the hard ground?

All this just to get a story for my dad, knowing full well he’s unlikely even to publish it.

It’s the “all this” he’s after—the mysterious lesson he hopes I’ll learn along the way.

And Miller West is going to be gloating the entire time, watching me learn it.