Chapter Ten Nathan #2
I catch our Uber driver sizing me up in the rearview mirror. He’s probably wondering why the two of us are hiking together when she’s dating someone else.
“Flight crew,” I tell him, then point to us each in turn. “Pilot. Flight attendant.”
He nods. “Nice.”
The hike is nice at first. The bright-blue sky presents a gorgeous backdrop for the gold and crimson hues of autumn. We’re surrounded with the fresh scents of pine and dirt, and we’ll appreciate the crispness in the air once we warm up from exertion. Plus the steps start out gradually at first.
While most tourists head left to ride the bright-red train to the top of Pike’s Peak, we veer right and present our tickets. Others on our path range from serious hikers to grandmas with elementary school–age grandkids.
Then there are the crazies.
A man charges down the stairs past us, the steepness making his descent seem more like a controlled fall. One missed step and he won’t have any control at all.
Claire watches his progress, mouth agape. “I would break my face if I tried that.”
A man wearing a weighted vest passes us going up. “That’s why they’re not supposed to come back this way,” he points out.
Though I’d consider him a crazy too.
“Are you training for the Olympics?” I ask. World-class athletes come here for the lower oxygen levels.
“Nah. But I am training for the Inclinathon.”
I let out a hoot. “That’s worse.”
Claire wipes her shiny forehead. “What’s an Inclinathon?”
The man is already too far ahead to answer. Meanwhile, I’m huffing and puffing at our snail’s pace. “If you hike up and down thirteen times in a day, it’s equivalent to a marathon.”
She stops and stares at the mountain ahead, her arms flopping by her sides. “What? You said it takes two hours to the top, so how is that possible?”
I pause with her, and more importantly, join in her awe. “It takes the average person two hours.”
She shakes her head. “I’m just hoping to make it up once.”
“You’ll make it.” She seems to struggle with self-doubt, so I don’t tell her there’s a whole club for people who climb the mountain five hundred times a year.
Instead, we’ll focus on the impossible things she’s already accomplished.
“You know what I think is impossible? Doing the splits. But I bet you can do that.”
The wrinkles in her forehead disappear. She shoots me a relaxed smile and resumes climbing. “My heart may be out of shape, but I still stretch every night. Especially with flying. I get so tight. Sometimes I even go behind the galley curtain on the plane and just hang forward to touch my toes.”
I imagine the surprise of a passenger pulling the curtain open to hand Claire a dirty glass and finding her bent in half. We don’t have such room in the flight deck, but it’s not as if I could contort my body like that anyway. “You know what else I think is impossible? Touching my toes.”
She laughs. “I once heard that everything is impossible until it’s not.”
I nod at the wisdom. “Same with flying.”
We climb for a while, reveling in the ability to do the impossible.
As our ascent grows steeper, the breaks come more often.
We alternately pass other climbers, who then pass us when we stop.
Here and there we pass someone we don’t see again because they didn’t bring enough water or they didn’t realize how hard it would be, so they take one of the bailout trails.
Then there are the diehards who pass us and disappear.
Rather than mile markers, our progress is marked by the number of stairs we’ve climbed. We’ve made it to fifteen hundred. Over halfway there. But the steps now start to resemble a ladder.
As a reward for not giving up, the view grows more and more amazing—as long as you don’t have vertigo. Claire clearly underestimated her abilities, because I’m the one who needs to stop and catch my breath more often. I pretend I’m pausing to take pictures.
By the third time she’s onto me. She shoots me a wicked grin over her shoulder. “You don’t strike me as a selfie kind of guy. Need a breather?”
My laugh is a mix of surprise and self-deprecation. “Guilty. I’m going to have to add more cardio to my workouts.”
The grandma and grandkids pass us again.
I glance at my watch. In the time we’ve been climbing, we could have flown from here to Minneapolis. Not that we’d be able to land in their snowstorm.
“Ready?” Claire asks.
I face the mountain again. My chest rises heavily.
“You should tell me a story while we climb,” she suggests. “Take my mind off the way my thighs are burning.”
I bet her thighs aren’t even burning. She’s just trying to make me feel better. As for a story? I motion for her to go ahead of me. The first story that comes to mind is Jack and the Beanstalk. “Once upon a time . . .”
She puffs a laughs. “Not a fairy tale. A personal story.”
Well then. That changes things. My life is definitely no fairy tale. But how much am I willing to reveal?
“Tell me about learning to fly.”
That’s a good one. Where to begin? “I grew up on an orchard.”
“How beautiful.” She shoots me a smile over her shoulder. “The closest trees to my childhood townhouse in San Francisco were the ones painted on a mural across the street.”
“That’s beautiful in its own way, and it’s one of the reasons I love to fly.
I get to see all different kinds of beauty.
” I shrug not because I take our job lightly but because it’s too profound for words.
I’m forever grateful. “My world was beautiful, but also a lot of work. As a kid, what fascinated me the most were the crop dusters. I did a school project on them, and it was my science teacher who encouraged me to pursue aviation. If not for her, I might still be an apple farmer.”
Another grin. “I’m picturing you in overalls.”
“The only overalls I’ve ever worn are blue-and-green plaid with a Seahawks logo.” I don’t mention that Joey wore a matching pair, but for the first time, I can remember that game fondly. I’m not missing time with my former fiancée, because I’m enjoying my time right now.
“That’s not any better,” Claire teases, and it takes a moment to remind myself that she’s talking about overalls and not dating. Because this isn’t a date.
Back to the subject. “I never wore overalls for farming because I got my pilot’s license at sixteen and my instructor’s license at eighteen. I was too busy spraying crops, giving tours, and teaching others to fly.”
“Wow.” She sobers. “How great to know exactly what you wanted to do as a kid, then to actually get to do it.”
I can tell by the dip in her tone that she’s thinking of her dance career. Of her perceived failures as a flight attendant. Of her unknown future.
“Well . . .” She needs encouragement, so I’ll open up a little more. For her. “I thought I’d train to become a commercial pilot as soon as I turned twenty-one, but I fell in love with someone from my hometown and didn’t want to leave.”
“Joey,” she says, startling me.
I forgot I’d told her my ex’s name, and I’m even more surprised that she remembered. “Yeah.” Her knowledge makes it easier to finish my story. I already feel known. “So I got a late start but finally pursued my dream of commercial flying. It just took more sacrifice than I expected.”
This time when she stops, I don’t think it’s because of the mountain we’re on. It’s because of my emotional challenges. And because of hers.