Before #2
Kito began his usual routine with the pulse oximeter, handing it first to Brooks.
I poured myself coffee and clutched the plastic mug in my hands, trying to warm my fingertips.
We’d all learned quickly that this was the best way to get a higher blood-oxygen reading.
It was still a competition, even if the thing we were competing against now was our own anxiety.
Blood-oxygen numbers could get extremely low during the ascent, much lower than a person could ever withstand at sea level.
And our resting pulse rates would rise. How we were feeling combined with the numbers was apparently the best predictor of our safety and whether we could or should continue on.
It was scary watching the numbers get worse each day—as though we were slowly but surely killing ourselves.
Which we were, in a way. By 13,500 feet, we already felt a little unwell most of the time—headache, nausea, hard time breathing, lightheadedness.
And that was with daily altitude medication.
It was always an option to turn back and reverse your symptoms as soon as you descended, at least theoretically.
But as we’d already heard from Bakari many times, it was sometimes, in rare cases, still too late.
And so how sick, exactly, was too sick? And would any of us really know when we were approaching the point of no return?
The uncertainty had begun to feel like a sixth member of our crew.
Van reluctantly took the pulse oximeter last. “Ninety,” he said. “Pulse, one hundred and five.”
We all fell silent as Kito wrote down the numbers in his ledger. They were not good, especially for Van, who had been second to me each time. And we still had a long way to go.
“And how are you feeling, Van?” Bakari asked.
“The headache is still pretty bad, even though I already took four Advil.”
Bakari nodded, rubbed his chin, considering. “Do you feel like you can go on?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Van said without hesitating.
Richard, Scotty, and Brooks exchanged a look, but none of them said a word—masculine bravado carrying the day.
“Are you sure, Van?” I pressed, because someone needed to. “You should think of your family.”
“Frankie is right,” Richard said. “I’ll turn back with you right now if you want.”
“I’d never ask you to do that,” Van said, looking genuinely moved by Richard’s offer.
“But I would. Happily,” Richard said. Whatever tension had passed between them earlier was forgotten now.
Van’s expression softened as he stood. “I know that, and I appreciate it, my friend. I do.” He clapped Richard on the back. “But I’m seeing this thing through to the bitter end.”
* * *
An endless line snakes down the block when we arrive at Las Nacionales.
People will wait for hours these days for a table, but I text Thalia when we get there.
Any chance for two? I always feel uncomfortable asking, but Thalia insists.
In fact, if the NYU gang doesn’t keep coming by the restaurant at regular intervals, we’ll get a text to the group chat: Where the fuck are all of you?
Thalia is one of those hot, young, tattooed chefs that New York magazine loves to profile.
Her skills are unparalleled, her story compelling—the daughter of Cuban immigrants who graduated with honors from NYU, then worked her way up from dishwasher to sous chef at some of New York City’s premier restaurants.
“This is my friend Thalia’s first restaurant. She’s been busting her ass for years to get here. I’m so happy for her.”
“She’s part of your college group?”
I nod. “They’re like family. I never really had much of one growing up. My mom did her best but…”
Richard glances my way. “My family left a lot to be desired, too.”
Thalia appears in the doorway then, a wave of applause breaking out. Thalia is very cool, and very hard to miss.
“It’s good to see you, my love,” she says, waving and coming outside to grab us from the line. She leans in to hug me and whisper in my ear. “Cute…but now we’re going with old?”
Thalia says she doesn’t approve of the guys I date because they are less than me—less accomplished, less focused, less interesting—and not all that interested in me.
She’s not wrong. There’s a reason my relationships always crash and burn.
I’m thirty-nine years old, and ten months is the longest any of my relationships has lasted. Even I know that’s weird.
Richard looks appropriately starstruck as Thalia seats us at what I know is her own favorite table, tucked in the corner beneath a set of stylish sconces. “Thank you so much for accommodating us,” he says.
Thalia smiles at him, but her eyes are appraising. Then she nods as though she’s decided to bite her tongue. “It’s my pleasure,” she says. “You two make yourselves at home. And don’t worry about ordering. I’ll take care of you.”
“Thank you for bringing me here,” Richard says, looking around like a delighted child. “It’s so…alive.”
It stings. “Is that why you’re here with me? Because I make you feel alive? Or young?”
He considers this for a moment. “Is that so wrong?” he asks. “I probably make you feel some way that you like, too. A way that’s more about you than about me. Isn’t that how it is with all relationships? Partly about the other person, partly about ourselves.”
“That’s true, I guess.”
“So—why are you here, then?”
Because I avoid intimacy by seeking out doomed relationships? That’s what Noah would say. He has said this about some of my other boyfriends.
“Because you make me feel safe,” I say. And that is true.
But maybe I also want a chance to have that night, all those years ago, end differently. To rewrite history with Richard.
“Safe.” Richard grins in a lopsided way. “I can live with that.”
“Thalia is so talented,” I say, changing the subject as I eye the neighboring tables, all full. “It’s great to see this place doing so well. She really earned it.”
“Like you and your show,” Richard says with an encouraging smile.
“I had a little money saved, so I could focus on being an artist without having to wait tables. Kind of feels like cheating.”
A stylish sommelier with an eyebrow slit and a nose piercing appears with a bottle of red wine that Thalia sent over. “This should go well with the dishes she’s preparing.”
“Thank you.” I smile at him as he pours.
Richard lifts his glass, we clink, and then each take a sip. “I know what impostor syndrome feels like. I get it.”
“Aren’t you like the head of Goldman Sachs? Pretty sure you’re not faking anything.”
“Yes, but I married a Dunlop first.” He swirls his wine.
“Now, would I have been as successful if I hadn’t always known I had that to fall back on?
I’m not so sure. It gave me confidence. But I also don’t think it takes away from what I’ve done.
Just like I don’t think you having some savings changes what you’ve accomplished. ”
Savings. Suddenly, I want to confess every ugly detail about the Senator and the NDA. I want to spread out all my shame in front of him like a blanket, to lie naked on it with him. “Thalia built this place while having to support herself. It’s different.”
Richard shrugs. “Everybody pays, sooner or later.”
“Well, I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes. I’ve brought a lot of problems on myself.”
“I think that’s called being human.”
This is my window—I know it is. “There’s something I need to tell you,” I begin. “It’s not great.”
Richard looks concerned. “Okay.”
“This guy from my past took a picture of us together when we went for coffee the other day. He texted it to me as some kind of threat. He implied he would give it to your wife.”
“Has he asked for money?” He looks irritated but not nearly as alarmed as I would have expected.
“Not yet.”
“That’s probably coming.” He takes another sip of his wine. “We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“You’re not upset?” I ask.
Richard laughs. “I mean, it’s not the best.” And then we both laugh. “But listen, I’m an adult. You didn’t force me to have coffee with you. I asked you to meet me, remember?”
“That’s true.”
“As far as I’m concerned, we’re in this together.”