Relax and romance will flourish.
—MY CHINESE FORTUNE COOKIE
The teaching term begins after the Kilimanjaro trip, and I settle into a routine and try to ignore my loneliness. A friend sets me up on a blind date. I sit in my car for 15 minutes before I gather the courage to go into the restaurant. The man never met Jim and is not from the mountaineering community. My body waits like a loaded gun for the moment when I tell him about Jim, my true love. Each word describing my dead husband builds a wall between my heart and the unknown man sitting opposite me. After our evening together, he does not call or e-mail, and I do not expect him to.
I cry at home, alone. I regard myself from a distance and wonder Who is this crippled mess of fear and pity? Enough of mountain guides. I am going to find myself a businessman. I laugh at the absurdity of my quest. But I am tired of being stuck and am ready to commit to change. I date a few more men and decide that if I have not met the right person within a year, I will have a baby on my own. I am 38 years old.
Six months later, I join a group of friends and strangers for a backcountry ski week at a cabin near Nelson, in the interior of British Columbia. We meet at a restaurant before flying in by helicopter. My friend introduces me to Joe, who grasps my hand firmly and nods his head once. He seems a bit stern and short. Joe confides to me later that he thought I might be gay.
Twelve of us settle into the cabin and take turns cooking meals. I set the alarm for six o’clock to make breakfast the next morning for the group, but there is no need. At 5:30 the tap runs and dishes clink. Who the heck would be up at this hour? I stomp downstairs, growling, and there is Joe, sitting at the table. “Would you like some coffee?” He raises his mug and smiles.
“No, thanks, I don’t drink coffee.” Thoughtful guy. Nice. I smile back. But he gets up too early.
For the next few days, we ski fluffy powder under blue skies. Joe drags his out-of-shape body up the slopes and drives his telemark skis down, undeterred by several face plants. Strong. He’s got chutzpah. I like that.
At après-ski, Joe produces copious amounts of alcohol and shares it with the group, laughing easily. Generous. And funny.
On the third day, we ski a deliciously puffy steep slope. I partner up with my girlfriend for safety, and we giggle with each turn as our skis kick powder up into our faces. Joe arrives just behind us at the bottom. He beams and plows through the deep snow toward us.
“Wasn’t that great?”
“Wow.”
“We’re going to go up again. Want to come with us?” Joe looks eager but then sees his sister on a high line heading back to the hut. They wave to one another and Joe turns to us.
“I’d love to but it looks like my sis and her hubby are going back. They’ve been good to me, sticking with me. I’ll head back with them.” And he’s gone. Loyal. I watch him go for a minute and turn to see where he is a few times as we ascend the slope.
That evening, we have a party and dance until late. As I drink more, I gravitate to Joe’s spot on the dance floor and we bump against each other in rhythm to the music. We step outside in sock feet onto the snowy deck to cool off.
“Here, you can step on my feet if you want.” Joe offers. I giggle as I balance on his toes, hands braced on his chest. He catches me around the waist. We look at each other for a second and then laugh and start to tell jokes. After everyone has gone to bed, Joe and I sit on the couch and talk.
“So, where did you grow up?” I tuck one leg under me and turn to face him.
“Minneapolis. Well, just outside of Minneapolis, in a place called Anoka, on the Mississippi River.”
“What’s it like there?”
“They say it’s the closest thing to Canada in the States. Moderate politics, friendly people. The winters can be harsh. Some companies take their employees up in a chartered airplane just to get above the clouds to see the sun. There’s a whole system of covered walkways for people to get from store to store when it’s too cold to be outside. I grew up on the river, fishing, swimming and exploring.”
“What do you do?”
“I started out in law and practised for five years but then went into small business start-ups. What about you? Where are you from and what do you do?”
I wonder for a second what that means, small business start-ups. “I grew up in Vancouver, taught French and German for six years, got my backpacking guide certification and do some guiding, and I teach outdoor education now to high-school students.”
Joe perks up when I mention guiding. “What sort of guiding do you do?”
“I’ve done some ski-tour guiding and heli-ski guiding, and now I do an annual trip to Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.”
“Wow. Ski guiding. Africa. You’re hard core.”
I chuckle and deny it but know he is impressed, so I don’t tell him that my ski guiding was only as an assistant and that I was just a tail guide for heli-skiing.
“What does that mean, ‘small business start-ups’?” I divert the attention back to him. He answers in a lingo I am not familiar with, but I nod my head to keep him talking. He made a lot of money in the dot-com boom, millions, and then lost most of it when the market crashed.
“Are you married?” He doesn’t wear a ring but I ask anyway.
“Divorced. Five years ago now. We married young, when I was 24.”
He is two years older than me, lives in San Diego and has three kids. His ex-wife remarried and moved to Maryland with the kids. Joe stayed in San Diego. When I ask him if he misses his kids, his eyes tear up.
We play one another songs on the guitar. Joe picks the classical “Bourrée” by Bach. I choose a folk song by Ferron. We discover that we both love the book A Winter’s Tale. And the movie A Princess Bride is one of our favourites. That night, I lie awake picturing his handsome, strong-boned face, his bright, steel-blue eyes and his smile.
Over the next few days, we sneak off to the sauna together, hang back in the ski line to kiss and persuade our roommates to give us some privacy. At the end of a week of ski touring together, Joe drives west with me to Vancouver, to my parents’ house, instead of heading south to San Diego. My parents raise their eyebrows slightly when the bed in Joe’s room is not slept in the next morning.
Every other weekend, Joe flies up from San Diego and we snowshoe, ski, hike, rock climb and camp in Whistler. We go out for long dinners, drink lots of wine and spend hours in bed. Each time I pick him up from the airport, my heart does a little flip.
Exactly 60 days after we first met, we canoe on Alta Lake behind my house. Joe has packed a picnic of soft cheeses and wine. I steer in the stern, Habby sits in the middle and Joe powers in the bow. At one end, the lake meanders into a reedy marsh before forming the River of Golden Dreams. Grasses reach way above our heads, and the canoe turtles along through lily pads. Joe relaxes on the floor of the canoe, his legs draped over the seat and his paddle barely dipping into the water. “It’s a good thing you’ve got that mondo rescue knife on your life jacket. The River of Golden Dreams could be pretty dangerous.” He smirks and raises one eyebrow. He’s so cute.
“I imagine for a strong Minnesota River Man such as yourself, this river will be nothing.”
We nudge to a standstill against the grassy banks. The slight jolt jars Joe upright, and he stops laughing. He looks around at the snaking quiet water. We are alone. He swivels onto his knees, slides a hand into his pocket, leans over Habby and reaches out a little open box with something very sparkly inside. Habby licks Joe’s face just before he says, “Will you marry me, Sue?”
I take a deep breath, look Joe in the eye and say, “Yes.”
The next day at school, I tell my class of students about Joe’s proposal. The girls echo a soft, “Oh.”
There is a silence and then one of the boys says, “That would have been a really uncomfortable paddle back if you’d said no.”