Page 2 of My Favorite Bad Decision
“If you actually care about him,” my father continued, “then perhaps you need to let a few things go before you say yes. Anything less isn’t especially fair to Blake.”
And I could have argued that my dad doesn’t give a shit about what’s fair to Blake, but I also knew he was right, which is why I didn’t fight this harder, why I didn’t insist I needed more than three weeks to get ready for a climb people spend a full year preparing for.
Right now, though, I sort of wish I had.
I head down to baggage claim, where a man in a Smythson Explorers tee holds an iPad with my name on it.
Another daughter would be grateful her father had sent her here and had chosen the most luxurious Kilimanjaro outfitter to take her up the mountain.
Thisdaughter remains pissed off she was forced to come.
“Hi,” I tell him with a small wave. “I’m Kit.”
He nods his head. “I’m Joseph. If you’ll point out your bag, I will get it for you.”
I feel silly—if you’re theoretically fit enough to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, you’re fit enough to lift your own bag. I’m also several inches taller than this guy, but since I’m not here willingly and have not adequately prepared for this climb, I guess I won’t waste my energy arguing.
While we wait, I reach for my phone to tell Maren about the encounter with Miller but think better of it. She’s already unhappy in her marriage. If I tell her he’s here, she’ll spend the entire night peppering me with questions. She’ll want to know how he looks, if he’s single, if he seems lonely, if he’s asked about her. She’ll allow herself to hope that Miller has missed her, that seeing me has reminded him of what they had.
Maren is like that—a dreamer—which is how she dreams herself into abysmal relationships like the one she’s currently in. She fills in all the hollow spaces with what shehopesmight appear there in time, ignoring one key fact: few men turn out to bebetterthan they seemed when they were trying hard to make you like them.
I’ll tell her when I get home. Or maybe I won’t even do that. She thinks about him too much as it is. I see it in her face every time she discusses her miserable marriage—that wistful thing, as if she’s watching a different life unfold. “The problem is that I married Harvey when I still wanted someone else,” she’s said more than once. And we all know exactly who she’s referring to. A decade after it ended, it’s still about Miller.
I point out my camping backpack and small suitcase when they descend onto the carousel. Inside there are multiple clothing changes, a sleeping bag, hiking boots, and the little I’ll need above and beyond that to survive the next eight days.
I would argue that what I actually need is a Four Seasons and a pool, but apparently, we are limited to fourteen kilos each on the way up, so that’s probably off the table.
Joseph lifts the bag and nods toward the doors. He doesn’t appear to be struggling under the weight, but I still hope Miller isn’t around to witness this moment of me looking very much like the spoiled Manhattan princess he believes I am.
And to be honest…the spoiled Manhattan princess Iactuallyam. I did fly here in business class.
“Have you been to Africa before, Miss Fischer?” Joseph asks as we walk through the doors.
“Once, when I was—” I step outside and a wall of pure heat and humidity slams into me. It’s February back home—when I left, it was thirteen degrees. Here, below the equator, it’s the height of summer. And feels it. “I was, uh, fifteen when I was here last.”
“But have you climbed Kili?” he challenges, as if he already knows the answer. Perhaps because he’s assessed the designer outfit and the carefully highlighted blonde hair and decided that I’m not the sort of person who willingly takes on extra adversity but rather the sort who pays people to handle the adversity for her. This is fair. I am exactly that sort of person.
“Not yet,” I reply with a half-hearted grin. “Ask me again in a week.”
He gives me another beneficent smile, the sort that says he’s not optimistic about what he’ll discover in a week either, and I have to crush yet another moment of self-doubt. Sure, on Reddit, there are a million posts from people who trained for a year first, people who then said nothing can prepare you for it. But Mount Kilimanjaro isn’t fucking Everest. There’s no three weeks at base camp, no need to ice climb or cross glaciers by rope or fear avalanches. It’s a walk. A long uphillwalk. And I just ran the New York City marathon three months ago—it’s not like I’m a couch potato.
There are probably worse gigs, I tell myself, as Joseph opens the door of a black Mercedes Sprinter Van.Not everyone gets to take a trip like this, all expenses paid, and...
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” says Miller West as I step inside.
Miller West. Here onmybus, full of people planning to climb Kilimanjaro with the mountain’s best tour group.
Okay, maybe therearen’tworse gigs.
My head jerks from him back toward the door, hoping I’ve stepped on the wrong bus. I must have. Because there’s no way this suit-wearing asshole is actually planning to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, unless he can somehow fuck it for a summer, then text to say it’s not working out.
“What are you doing here?” he demands. For once, the snide smile is gone.
I glance toward the excited people already on the bus, laughing and comparing hiking boots, and slip into the seat across from his. “What areyoudoing here? In asuit.”
“I’m in a suit, since you’re so desperate to know, because I came here straight from a meeting in Germany. I’m not planning to climb in it.”
There’s so much here to respond to. First of all, I wasnotdesperate to know. Second of all, I want him to die in a fire.
