Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Audrey Raine

I wanted to share with you one of the stories from my upcoming book, "A Red Dress Night".
The following short story is called "Audrey Raine". I wrote it after watching a documentary on climbing Siula Grande, a mountain in the Peruvian Andes. I hope you like it.


Audrey Raine

“Where do you want to go?” I whisper, “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would we go?”
Her eyes flutter like a butterfly with broken wings. For a moment, her sea-blue irises are visible. I love her eyes. I have since I first saw her face...
Her face is shattered. It is terrible. The sound of her face hitting the jagged rocks will echo in my memory forever. Another sound. What was it?
“Anywhere, baby. Anywhere you want to go.” I tell her. The frigid air turns my words into a white vapor speckled with dancing ice crystals. I inhale deeply warming my breath before blowing gently upon her cheeks. She doesn’t move. Audrey’s face is broken. So is her back. I think. The way her body is twisted...it must be bad.
My legs are broken; I can’t feel them.

The first time I saw her climb she was the student; I the teacher. How things have changed. I knew she would be a great climber. Audrey moved with the grace and beauty of Kirov’s Nikiya in La Bayadere dancing into the arms of Solor. But Audrey Raine dances thousands of feet above the world’s terrestrial stage.
She was the best in her class. Always the first to try something new. The first to arrive, the last to leave. She listened to every word and asked more questions than a five-year-old discovering the world. At the end of every course I ask my students where they would go, what rock face would they conquer, where would their names be carved in history. Will they stand with Norgay, Messner or Sir Edmund Hillary? Which summit is calling your name?
“Where will you go next?” I asked them.
Audrey smiled, tilting her head to one side letting her red hair fall carelessly down her shoulders, “Higher,” she told me, “always higher.”
My heart fluttered and my cheeks flushed, “Be careful,” I warned her, “you don’t want to fall, Audrey Raine.”
“Raine never falls.” She smiled.
I fell in love with Audrey Raine.
Then she was gone.

The following year I saw her in Denver. Jamie Cullum was playing at a little jazz bar I frequent whenever I find myself in The Mile-High City. Audrey was standing by the bar talking with a bartender who looked like Tom Cruise and knew it. Cullum was just starting his second set; the bar was crowded with rhythmic jazz fans and winter tourists too old to ski. Audrey spotted my reflection in the mirror behind the Cruise wanna-be and gave me that hey, I know you smile. Ten minutes later, we were sharing a booth and drinking alcoholic beverages named after jazz greats; Charlie Paloma Parker, Bloody Mary Williams, and my favorite, Benny Old Fashion Goodman. They were cheesy, but we had a good laugh reading the menu and making up jazzy drink names.
Audrey spoke about the climbs she had made since graduating. Fourteen climbs. She was addicted. She was rich, and she was beautiful. Three months later we were living sinfully together in my one-bedroom flat in Sonoma. She didn’t complain about the cramped quarters, 540 square feet, or that she had to jiggle the handle on the toilet to make it stop running. She could have bought a place ten times the size of mine and put it on a credit card, hired servants to jiggle toilet handles and still have room for dinner at a five-star restaurant. My refrigerator, on the other hand, was perpetually empty. But she was happy, always smiling. Sometimes, I think her smile was bigger on the way out of the door than when she came into our place, but that might have been my imagination.
She advised me on business decisions. She was a business genius; inherited the skill from her father. For the first time I was making a profit. A year later, I had enough money saved to open a second school. I had always wanted to try my luck in Colorado and the pieces were quickly falling into place. I asked Audrey if she wanted to become an instructor, but she declined. She told me it was my business and, she was ready to climb again. She was going to Portugal on a business trip with her father. She had always dreamed of climbing Serra da Estrela and this was the perfect opportunity. She would be gone for six weeks. My heart sank a little.

The night before she left for Portugal, Audrey came home late. I was already in bed, exhausted from a long day of climbing with my students. She came in bouncing into our bed and kissing me on the ear—
“I got a tattoo,” she whispers to me.
“Let me see,” I say, sitting up.
She turns her back to me and pulls her long red hair away revealing her first ink. Just below her neck, red letters outlined in charcoal gray, one word—HIGHER.
“I love it!” I tell her, kissing her shoulders.
Audrey turns to me kissing me hard. “I love you.”
It was the first time she told me she loved me.

I pull myself across the rocks trying to get closer to Audrey. My legs scream, protesting the few inches I require of them. We had climbed almost 16,000 feet and now a meager distance measured in inches was cause for agony. I had to wait before moving again; this time using just my arms. Minutes later, although it felt much longer, I lay beside the love of my life. Placing my fingers on her lips, I feel for breath. A few feet from where we lay there is a patch of white snow too stubborn to melt. What word is used to describe whiter than white? Beneath Audrey’s head, the ground has turned scarlet with her blood. The contrast is unsettling.

A month after her tattoo adventure I asked Audrey to marry me. She said yes, “after we make three climbs together.” Our schedules rarely allow us to make a climb together. Managing two businesses consumed most of my time. Audrey had helped open the Denver office, getting it up and running, finding and hiring the best climbing instructors, marketing and anything else I needed. She told me being stuck inside a classroom or making climbs designed for amateurs was not what she wanted to do. She had placed her dreams of going higher on hold to help me; I wouldn’t stand in the way of her greatest desires.

She was been planning the three climbs since before the Denver school project. Siula Chico, Siula Grande, and K2, in that order.  Siula is in the Peruvian Andes. Audrey had been there once before but had become too ill to make the climb. She came home with a few hundred pictures of the west face of Siula Grande. The pictures were taken from the base, more than twenty thousand feet from where she wanted to be. K2, of the Karakoram mountain range is a dream ascent of all avid climbers. Audrey was acquainted with a team leader planning an expedition in four years. He knew of Audrey’s reputation and didn’t hesitate to agree to let her join the team. Four years waiting for the K2 climb would mean an engagement longer than I had hoped for.
“We can get married at the base of K2, after the climb. It will be so beautiful.” Her smile told me the genesis of her fairy-tale wedding likely predated me. I agreed to accompany her on the Siula climbs but gaining access to the team expedition wasn’t likely to happen. “I will wait for you at the base,” I told her, “someone has to make sure the caterers arrive on time and the guests know where to sit.” It was her dream. I was along for the ride. Love makes us do...well, it just makes us.

Our climb on Siula Chico ended before we reached the peak. We were at about 14,000 feet when Audrey’s dream of going higher was interrupted by two misfortunes. The weather turned against us. Storms came down the mountain carrying frigid rains and swirling winds. We could have waited it out if I had not cut my hand when trimming wood for a fire. The cut wasn’t too deep but would require stitches. I watched the disappointment on Audrey’s face as she skillfully wrapped my hand in a manner that would allow me to use it on our descent. I knew our bad luck wouldn’t stop her from wanting to return to the Andes and try again. The wedding would have to wait.
When the weather cleared, we began our descent; Audrey taking the lead. She hadn’t spoken all morning. I knew she was mad at me. A careless mistake with a knife had sliced away her dreams. I wish I could dream as she does. Audrey doesn’t just dream; she creates truths yet to happen. Her dreams are never cloaked with impossibilities. The dreams of Audrey Raine are moments awaiting her arrival.

I turn my eyes away from the pooling blood. It is growing; turning away won’t stop it, but I pray it does. I stare up at the sky. The clouds have been disposed of by the great sun gods, replaced by a blue that has no name. I want to get lost in its embrace. I can’t watch her die.
Irradiant. The word for whiter than white. Irradiant. I close my eyes. I cannot gaze any longer into the sky. It came from there, that is where it fell from. Tumbling out of the sky. Turning over and over. Crashing into Audrey. Tumbling. Turning. Crashing. Irradiant. Blinding...

We were a hundred feet above an outcropping when my hand began to bleed again. I called down to her, “We will need to stop.” I waved my hand with the bloody bandage so she would understand. She looked down at the landing before signaling a thumbs up to me. And then she smiled. The beautiful smile I fell in love with was telling me all was okay again. Her dreams were not gone, just delayed. We would stop and she would wrap my hand again, sealing the wound with her kisses. We could rest. Sitting on the edge with our legs dangling over the side, hand in hand we would look out upon a world rising above the turmoil, chaos, and pain, and we will talk about going higher and higher. We will talk about our wedding. Our future. And then we would climb.
But that’s not how it happened.

I heard it falling. The sound filling my ears and the sky turning dark brown. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Moments before, Audrey had been looking up at me, smiling. Her hair falling back, brilliant red hair touched by the morning sun. And then her face was gone. She was falling and falling. Knocked off the face of Siula Chico like a bothersome fly swatted off a piece of berry pie.
Where is she! I can’t see her. I am tumbling over and over, around and around. The wind tears against my face. I am falling. A flash of red. Audrey! The sound of the collision explodes loudly. The noise is terrifying. It sounds like the skin of a bass drum being drawn too tightly before being smashed by the musician’s mallet. The wind screams, flooding my ears. My screams? Audrey’s? Another sound. Her head smashing onto the rocks. The last sound I hear before losing consciousness is the air escaping my lungs as I crash into the ground.

I dream about Audrey. She’s standing on top of a building made of glass. She is looking up at the sky. I am twenty, thirty, maybe a hundred floors below her. People are walking past me carrying briefcases, shopping bags, and babies. A man in a gray suit wearing green sandals walks by with a yellow umbrella. I think that’s strange; it’s not raining inside. The floors above me are all made of glass. I can see Audrey. Arms outstretched, she slowly turns in a circle, looking up at the sky. The sky is the color of a sapphire. A white flash. No, not white. What word is used to describe whiter than white? The white was coming towards her. The sky was falling! She doesn’t see it!
“Audrey!” I scream.
 She can’t hear me. She keeps spinning and spinning like a ballerina with her head tilted back, her long red hair flowing in the wind.
I look around at all the people walking this way and that. “Help me,” I cry. They don’t stop. They can’t hear me. That sound from above is loud. A young woman wearing a white wedding gown runs past me. She’s crying. “Don’t cry,” I tell her. Her white dress turns black before turning to ashes, falling like dirty snow away from her body. She turns in circles, naked among all the people. I try to look away. She stops and stares at me then looks up at the sky. Up towards the sound. I follow her eyes. The white shape is falling faster and faster. “Don’t hit her,” the naked girl tells me, “Audrey Raine will fall.” A horse gallops past me, it changes colors like the one from Oz. Purple, yellow, green, and then the horse is gone. The girl pulls on my sleeve, “Audrey. Don’t hit Audrey!” What? I would never...then I remember. The whiteness, the glass floors. I look up. Audrey has stopped turning. She stands with her hands on her hips. I have seen that stance a thousand times, always just before she tells me about her next climb.
“Where are you going, Audrey Raine?”
“Higher, always higher.”
I turn to the girl. She looks like Dorothy from Kansas. But that can’t be right. Dorothy’s dead...
I wake up on the ground next to Audrey. I thought she was dead. I try to stand, but I can’t. Struggling against the pain, I sit up. I look at my legs, a jagged edge of my fibula has punctured through the skin on my right leg. My left leg is canted at an awkward angle. What happened?
It takes long minutes for me to close the small gap separating me from Audrey. I see her breathing just before I pass out again. I don’t know how long I was out, but I don’t think it was very long. When I wake, I see the blood covering her face and her twisted back.
I lean to her, “Where do you want to go?” I whisper to her. “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would we go?”

That was hours ago.

The horizon is painted with brushed strokes of orange and pink and powder blue. It is beautiful.
The sun will go down soon. If someone doesn’t find us before nightfall, we will die on Siula Chico. I thought I heard someone earlier, but I may have been dreaming again. I managed a tourniquet on my leg, I don’t remember doing it, but the bleeding has stopped. I don’t think Audrey’s head is bleeding anymore. Maybe it’s too cold. Or maybe...
No! She’s not dead. Every time I think she is dead she gives me a sign—her eyes flutter or her lips make a popping sound when she breathes. But she has lost a lot of blood. I hope an animal doesn’t smell it.
I place my ear against her chest. I must tell her.
The falling white. It was me.
“Audrey,” I manage a whisper, “my hand had started bleeding again. The white bandage was bright red. Looking down, I saw the outcropping. I called down to you, “We will need to stop.” I waved my bloody hand to show you. Drops of blood fall like burgundy rain. I wait as you adjust your position to be over the outcropping. My hand was throbbing. The bandage was soaked and had come loose. Holding on to the crag with my good hand I tore the bloody cloth away with my teeth. I heard you call up to me, “Okay, let’s go, teacher.” I remember smiling at you, but you were looking at something off in the distance. What did you see, baby?  Siula Grande? Were you thinking about going higher?”
I talk to her still body, “I began my descent. Without thinking, I grabbed the hold with my bloody hand. It slipped off and I lost my balance. I turned too quickly, trying to catch myself. My leg slams against the rocks, I hear the bone shatter. I was going to scream to you, to warn you. Then I was falling...”
Her heartbeat is far away.
“I was falling. Falling from the sky. Upside down; I couldn’t see you. My leg, the other one, collides with something hard, jerking me around. Then I saw you. You had begun your descent, looking down for the next foothold. I knew I was going to hit you Audrey, and I couldn’t stop. Dear God, I couldn’t stop falling. You looked up and saw me. One hundred sixty pounds dressed in the white Northern hoodie and bib you bought for me before our trip to the Andes. You always spent too much money on me. I didn’t need anything but you, Audrey. I was falling from the sky and I knew I would knock you off the mountain. I’m so sorry. You tried to move but it was too late. I slammed into you. It sounded like a drum, a big marching band drum. I was tangled in the ropes, my body twisted and hanging upside down. A flash of silver explodes past you. It was your camalot pulling out of the ice. And then you were gone.”
I think she is dying...
“Audrey, you were falling back, looking at me. I wanted to reach out and stop you. I tried to grab the rope. Baby, you must believe me. I tried, but everything was happening too fast. I watched as my Audrey Raine fell to the earth. You hit the ground first. The trailing ropes pulled around my legs yanking me off the face. The last thing I remember seeing was your face crashing into the rocks. And then...oh God.”
“Audrey, I landed on you. I broke you...”
My tears are warm against my cheeks, “You saved my life...Audrey Raine”
Night has come. I am freezing. I think Audrey is dead. I saw a condor flying overhead before night stole the day. The giant bird circles slowly, climbing higher and then swooping down. She came close enough for me to see her eyes. Black and determined. Her collar is white. No, whiter than white. Irradiant.
I wait. Closing my eyes, I dream of her.
“Where do you want to go, Audrey Raine?”
“Higher.”



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