Adventures with Max and Louise (39 page)

He takes a pull on his latte. “Which one?”

I stop walking; the gate attendant turns around to face me. “The one on the plane!” I scream, watching him glide farther away into the shadows of an area under construction. “And I cannot wait until tomorrow!”

Like a high school athlete, the gate attendant vaults effortlessly with one arm over the concourse guardrail. “Geez,” he says as he joins me, not bothering to stop. Walking briskly, he tugs my sleeve. “Wouldn’t it be a bummer if he didn’t feel the same way?”

Chapter Thirty-Five

T
HE PLANE BEGINS
its descent over Anchorage at five o’clock in the morning after a two-and-half-hour flight. Most of the other passengers slept during the flight. I stared out the window, thankful for the extra empty seat beside me, and thought about Max, Louise, and my mother. Since Mom died, I’ve lived in a guilt-induced coma, sleepwalking through life, connecting with the world first through cooking, then my column. I sat alone in tables all across Seattle, rarely bothering to bring friends as I collected stories, meals, and conversation to bring back to my readers. The only man that kept me company was at home, my father. And all the while I thought I was taking care of him.

All through the night we follow the jagged coastline of British Columbia northward. I imagine myself dropping stones along the way until I am light as a feather.

We approach Anchorage from the north as the first flicker of dawn licks the horizon. The towering mountains ringing the city make the Cascades look like molehills with good press. I can just make out a cluster of tall buildings below. Anchorage is bigger than I thought. How on earth am I going to find Wolf?

As we taxi down the runway, four boozy fishermen brag to the flight attendant about how wealthy they are going to be after the halibut opener. Her weary “good luck” sounds like she heard this a million times. We reach the gate, and the man in front of me jumps up, lifting a pair of scale-encrusted brown rubber boots from the overhead bin. Clumps of silvery scales float down on my white suit. After last night, Trina’s suit is so filthy I look like a Prada-clad dumpster diver.

“Whoops,” he says, picking a stinky scale off my shoulder. “Didn’t have time to bag ’em; season opener and all.”

By the time I reach the central terminal, my endorphins have kicked in. Moving like a commando, I find a bank of phones, look up the phone number for hotels, and pick the only name I recognize, the Anchorage Hilton. The only room available is an insanely pricey suite, but at this point, sleep deprived, anxious, and wondering how I’m going to find Wolf, it doesn’t matter. Thank God MasterCard has no idea what I’m up to. Making my way outside, I locate a taxi stand.

In the very clean but decidedly smoked meat−smelling taxi, I begin to worry that I’ll do something stupid like charter a plane and parachute myself down onto the mountain where Wolf is climbing. Then I relax, reassured that I’ve already encountered crazy about a month ago. Been there, done that. Besides, I’ve been awake for almost thirty hours. I’m just tired. I lean my head back on the seat and close my eyes. A brown fog descends, and I’m so drowsy I’m wondering if perhaps that wetness on my chin is drool.

“Hey, Miss! Ever seen a moose?” the cabbie asks.

I jerk my head and wipe the drool, and there, on the median, calmly eating grass in the early morning sun, is the biggest mammal I’ve ever seen outside of a zoo. His horns span his majestic head like brown rubber wings.

I twist around in my seat as we pass him. “Is that normal in the city?”

“Yep,” he says proudly. “Sometimes they gotta sedate them with tranqs and haul ’em back up in trucks, but only if they charge the cars. So, what brings you to Anchorage?”

I am quiet for a long time as we funnel into the city.
What am I doing?
“Wolf hunting.”

The cabbie cocks his head and gives me another look. “Ain’t that against the law? Most of ’em are endangered species nowadays, you know. You gotta prove to the folks at Fish and Game that you got real specific livestock threats. You don’t look like someone with livestock. No offense or nothing.”

“No offense taken. I’m not going to kill him. Just bring him home.”

The cabbie shakes his head again. I’m sure his next fare will hear all about the city slicker in suit and heels going wolf hunting. “Alrighty then, you said the Hilton, right?”

Safely in my room, I kick off the high heels, order the left-hand side of the room service breakfast menu, and devour most of it in less than a half hour. Since my last meal was Chas’s fiery nuts, it’s well worth $278, although I do briefly consider asking Martin to let me do a column on room service menus so I can expense part of the trip. Trina’s suit now looks like a kitchen rag, but there’s nothing else to change into but the Hilton bathrobe. I take a long shower, practicing what I am going to say to Wolf in a series of ridiculous scenarios that I can’t resist.

In one I am walking down the slushy street in a pair of furry boots, a fringe of fur framing my face. I’m on my way to Wolf’s hotel when he hangs out the window calling my name like Stanley in
A Streetcar Named Desire. “Mooooolly!”
I rush to his room, where he greets me, wrapping me in his warm embrace and dragging me to the floor to wrap us in plaid blankets. We make love in front of a crackling fire. In another I drive a team of sled dogs to rescue him in a raging storm, where he is holed up in an ice cave. He’s awake but so cold we both have to strip (I’m wearing a sleek blue parka and high-tech silver pants) and use our body heat to bring his body back to normal. Things get so hot we melt the ice cave.

Stepping out of the shower and back into reality, I formulate my plan to find Wolf. I hang Trina’s suit up in the dry-cleaning bag and leave it outside my door. The fluffy white robe against my clean skin makes me feel sleepy, so I grab the grubby suit and change back into it. I need to see Wolf more than I need to sleep.

Hunkering down on the bed with the phone, I try his cell, but there is no answer. Knowing Wolf, he shut it off for the duration of the trip. I spend the next five and a half hours calling all the local hotels in Anchorage and its suburbs. Exhausted and hoarse, I take a break to finish the last of the room service order and lie down. My eyes flicker shut, ready for sleep, but there are only two more calls to make. I’ve put it off knowing it’s unlikely he’s in either of these hotels. Most likely he’s left or registered under a climbing buddy’s name. Or maybe he’s with an old girlfriend who moved north. There’s a lot I don’t know about Wolf.

I pick up the phone and dial the second-to-last number for the Captain’s Inn. They answer on the second ring.

“Is there a Wolfgang Schubert registered at your hotel?” I slur half-asleep.

“Yes, he is.”

I sit up, wide awake. “Great! Can I have his room, please?”

“One moment.”

The phone rings twenty-five times before I give up. I’ll call back in fifteen minutes. Lying down on the pillows, I rest my eyes with the phone on my chest. I’ll call every fifteen minutes until I reach him. Slipping my hand into my pocket, I take out my cell phone and retrieve the best message I have ever received. Placing the cell phone on the pillow beside me, I listen to Wolf’s tender voice calling Chas an asshole and, more importantly, wishing me happiness.

I can see Wolf’s face as he talks. It’s ingenious, really, his saying he isn’t jealous. Of course he’s jealous. His kiss didn’t get the response he wanted. What he wanted me to do is chase him down the sidewalk, grab him, and kiss him so hard I knock him down, and before you know it we’re in the back of his van, laughing, kissing, groping like mad, peeling off one another’s sweats, oblivious to the two-by-fours and rattling nail buckets.

I don’t know at what point my fantasy became a very good dream, but when I wake up six hours later, a pinkish sun squeezes its first rays into my room, bathing it in a rosy glow. I’ve slept my first day in Anchorage away. I sit up, panicked. What if Wolf’s already left? Picking the phone off my chest, I carry it to the window to watch the cotton candy clouds glow orange, purple, and blue, praying that he’s still somewhere in this city. I dial Wolf’s hotel.

“Captain’s Inn,” a craggy voice says.

“Wolf Schubert’s room, please.”

“One moment.” I’m put on hold. “Ma’am? Mr. Schubert and his party checked out at four o’clock this morning.”

“Four o’clock?” I gasp. “Why so early?”
Because people rash enough to climb mountains aren’t concerned with comfort or sleep.

“They had a chopper to catch. Saw ’em when I was comin’ on shift gettin’ into the van. Stupid time of year to climb Denali, if you ask me, but then again, they never do, do they?”

Stupid time of year to climb Denali?

I picture Wolf piling his gear into a heap and climbing into the van. I don’t even know how many people he’s with or where exactly he’s going. I wonder for a moment if I should call Sasha but then realize he probably doesn’t tell her the details. “Was the van a taxi service?”

The clerk scoffs. “Naw, it weren’t a regular taxi. It were one of them sportsmen outfits, the kind that shuttles ’em around with all their fancy gear and the like. Myself, I can make do with my old Army tent, an ax, and a skillet. Man can live a long time outdoors with that gear.”

“You don’t happen to know what helicopter service they were using, do you?”

“That’s another thing, getting lifted by a chopper like it were Vietnam. What’s wrong with good old shoe leather?”

“Nothing, I guess, unless it’s too far to walk. Do you know where they were going?”

The clerk takes a slurp of what must be coffee. “You sure ask a lot of questions.”

I sigh, checking last night’s room service plates for anything edible. “You’ve been really helpful. Thanks.” I need a half gallon of coffee.

I’m about ready to hang up when the old duffer volunteers, “ ’Course, if I was you, I’d check with the park rangers. These fellas with the fancy gear from the Lower Forty-eight always pay their fee and get their passes.” He snorts. “Suckers.

Two hours later, I am in a cab on my way to AirPac Aviation, my mind spinning from the conversation I just had with Mark Chigush, a park ranger from Denali National Park. Wolf and his three friends chartered a helicopter because Mark advised them that they were far too close to the park’s November 1 closing for their trip. Although the men had given themselves plenty of time, Mark explained, Wolf had agreed that with a low front moving across the state, there were too many variables to waste time traveling by car. If the climb was going to happen at all, the men had to arrive in Talkeetna, the village at the base of the mountain, this morning and begin their climb before dawn.

“Which they did,” Mark explained. “Your best bet is to hang tight in Anchorage. I can radio them a message if it’s really urgent.”

I thanked Mark for all his help, slipped my blistered feet into my elegant heels, checked out of my hotel, and asked at the front desk where I could outfit myself for a trip to Talkeetna. The day clerk took one look at my rumpled Italian suit and high heels and gave me directions to Nordstrom. After explaining that I didn’t need designer sweats but real gear for Alaskan weather, I was directed to REI on Northern Lights Boulevard. Seeing the store’s familiar dark green logo was comforting until I noticed that the store didn’t open until nine. When I spied a girl in a green apron stocking shelves, I banged on the store’s door with my shoe, shouting, “I need boots! I’ve been wearing these for sixteen hours!” The girl dashed back into a forest of tents like a rabbit. She must not work on commission. I spun around and found myself facing another Seattle icon: Starbucks. I killed the hour sipping a triple tall, wondering if I’d reach Talkeetna and find the locals all clutching cups emblazoned with the split-tailed mermaid logo. Seattle, it seems, had followed me.

As the taxi pulls up in front of AirPac Aviation, I feel a twinge of guilt as I picture Trina’s suit dumped on the REI changing room floor like dirty snow. I’m decked out in thick woolen socks, sturdy hiking boots, and polypropylene long johns beneath thick fleece pants. On top is a matching sky blue expedition parka and overalls. The piping, I was told, is reflective, useful in case I need to be found at night. In my backpack are a hat and gloves plus a dizzying array of groovy REI gadgets and freeze-dried berries, soba noodles, and smoked salmon that the sales assistant insisted would get me through at least day one of what I vaguely referred to as my expedition.

After catching a glance at the dizzying variety of meals REI stuffs into little silver bags, I decided on the cab ride that I will devote at least a week’s worth of columns to gourmet trail meals. There’s a whole back lane of gastronomic experiences that I’ve never explored: freeze-dried eggs, dehydrated chicken Kiev, and rock-hard mini tart shells to be filled with wild berries and topped with instant whipped cream, not to mention writing a cookbook about foraging meals. The possibilities are endless.

The driver turns around, ready to chat, but I thrust the fare toward him, climb out, and lumber toward AirPac’s office, beads of sweat clustering on my forehead. “Hey, lady, you almost forgot this,” the cabbie yells, handing me my purple day pack.

I thank him and head toward the low aluminum AirPac office planted behind a chain-link fence. A helicopter lands in front of a nearby hangar, and I feel a surge of excitement. Thanks to Chas, I am the kind of girl who thinks in terms of chartering a helicopter, although my stomach, with nothing but a triple tall latte sloshing about, disagrees. The windswept airport, with its neat rows of small airplanes beside an old World War II bunker, is picturesque, in a dilapidated sort of way. From what I’ve seen so far, I can understand why Wolf made Alaska his first stop.

A wave of overheated air blasts me as I open the weathered door to AirPac Aviation. Despite its grand-sounding name, the office is one room with peeling linoleum flooring, some folding chairs, a beat-up desk, a fat Labrador farting in the corner, and two gawking men. They stare at me as if the abominable snowman just walked in the door.