ADDICTED TO DANGER by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SIMON & SCHUSTER
Published: 2003-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

seven

MARTY

We spent much of our thirty-six-hour train ride across China drinking Chuck Goldmark’s hot buttered rum. He had given it to us with instructions, “Have fun on your way to Mt. Everest and a raucous celebration when you come down,” and fun we had—too much. We grew wild with drink. One member of the expedition became so angry he punched his fist through the door to his compartment, infuriating the Chinese and embarrassing Lou Whittaker, who felt responsible. I grew maudlin. Lying on my upper bunk across from Marty Hoey, I fumed. Since Aconcagua she had not once written me, though I had sent her several letters. Although we had agreed not to be lovers, I resented our decision, so, vulnerable and hurt, I lashed out in a handwritten note:

I still harbor the suspicion that I am one of a succession of attachments, a long line of men—that I am not unique to you. You are a woman of many men and I would never expect you to be otherwise. All I ask is that you level with me and not play games (I’m not suggesting you have). This is probably a turnoff because the challenge is gone, now that you’ve caught me.

What you are for me, on the eve of Everest, is the woman I wish I could have met in another time, another place. I think, I believe, that we would have made—could possibly still make—an incredibly good pair. You may wonder, “Who the hell is this Wickwire?” He’s someone who cares about you in a way few others have, and who would love you for all the days to come…. This may be my last chance to talk with you for a while, but I feel the need to do so. You are so precious to me. I’m not like the others. I just want to know where you stand.

An hour later Marty walked by my bunk and flung down her reply:

Please quit assuming and/or comparing this situation to any others you might imagine that I have. No matter how I feel, you are correct, I will not risk what you have spent in years and toils-of-the-heart for your wife and family. They deserve your finest for supporting and standing by you, through so much of your glorious, notorious history. To risk what you have intricately, intimately designed would be foolish. So many would be hurt: all of us!

In many quixotic musings I have found us in that magical Brigadoon, without its pasts or presents, where we submerge into our dreams … but then, the nightmare of awakening once again.

Well, I’m not one to live by fatuous hope. This brings me to bumping heads with the demon you have borne in me. I cannot be true to myself; that is, to my passion for you. In a sense I must live a lie for the sake of our integrity. What a joke on us! The irony, the tragic flaw of man’s morality. So I must say that you must not risk anything; that there will always be a restriction on our relationship.

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