(A Cautionary Tale)
By Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan
He was a Boulder boy, that’s for sure. One of those guys who own 12 different kinds of technical shoes and don’t eat meat. They climb Estes Park ice in the winter and guide California rivers come summer—but mountaineering is their true passion, or so they tell you. They’re always tan. Their abs ripple, and their blond hair stays curly even when wet.
I was a naive midwestern girl, just in from Illinois for a job in the outdoor industry. I’d never skied, never mastered the Eskimo roll, never rappelled down a sheer rock face. I didn’t yet know about these mountain guys and how they want only one thing.
Is it any wonder what happened next?
We met on a trail outside of town and got together a few times after that, very friendly stuff. I couldn’t tell if I liked him or not—though, to a girl used to Chicago’s blazers and business suits, he made puffy vests look damn good.
We didn’t see each other all that often, but that was okay. Work was keeping me busy. A few weeks into the gig, I went along on a gear-testing trip in the mountains with the top brass, stuffing 55 pounds into a pack that wasn’t even on the market yet so we could try out 850-fill down sleeping bags and ultralight tents.
I saw him again the Thursday after we got back; he was hosting a party to present a slideshow of his summit climb up Rainier. In between bites of homemade hummus, I told him about my trip. He seemed awfully interested; looking back, the lust on his face was obvious. Still, I wouldn’t have minded him undressing me with his eyes if only he hadn’t imagined me in lingerie of 40-denier ripstop nylon. Before I left he pulled me aside, wondering what I was doing on Saturday night.
The next morning I got an e-mail from him, asking again. Oh, he was charming, even more so when he suggested our evening activity: let’s drive up Flagstaff Canyon and sit in the back of my truck and look at the city lights. So drive up we did, slipping into a bottle of pinot noir and tracking shooting stars like you never see in Chicago. He sat close to me and asked thoughtful questions about my favorite music and my first kiss.
Here in the mountains, it’s a whole new game: carbon fiber and Gore-Tex trump even the most enticing feminine charms.
I guess that’s about the time my knees got a little weak.
The next morning another e-mail was waiting for me: Thanks for a really nice evening last night. Haven’t done something like that in a long time. So, I’m wondering if you have an official pro deal? If you do have such a deal, I’ll go pretty far with favors to get a tent.
Oh, really?
I’ll entertain almost anything, and I aim to please.
He threw out a few ideas, safe yet somehow suggestive: He would make calzones for me. He would detail my car. He would take me climbing up the Flatirons.
Even over e-mail his voice was buttery, his lips inches from my ear. I could almost feel his hand on my thigh.
Flattered by the attention, I discovered I could indeed get him a killer deal on the high-end mountaineering tent he so desired. I told him so and threw him a line of my own: Help me change the burned-out turn signal on my car. Prove those cooking skills. Take me somewhere I can wear a hot dress. Teach me how to self-arrest.
Just a few hours later: Take you to dinner somewhere you can wear a hot dress . . . Who’s doing who the favor?
Cheeks flushed, I nevertheless put an end to our tit-for-tent banter. He didn’t owe me any return favors, I told him. But if any of that stuff sounded like fun anyway, well, that was a different story.
How can I turn down an evening with you in a hot dress?
And one more thing: Oh, and you can have the honor of being the first person to share space with me in this new stellar winter shelter.
I must say, he was good, this mountain guy. I spent the next days in a walking swoon, helpless against his expert seduction. I gave it up. That’s right, I ordered his tent at 40 percent off. That very day I got a message from him. Turns out he’d had another iron in the fire the whole time, someone else with a pro deal. That iron had played the coquette for so long this mountain man had given up. But in the end, the other one gave in and got him the tent. By a stretch of incredible luck, I got in touch with the gear rep just before she placed the nonrefundable $300 order.
I saw him just one more time after that. He was nice, but the caress was gone from his voice. He’d gotten what he wanted, after all. He had the tent. Still, I believed him when we made plans for the upcoming weekend. I’ll call you, he said.
I waited. Days passed. The weekend passed. The dress never left the closet.
I was annoyed, then angry. Then the weeks stretched on, and I was just embarrassed. This hadn’t been about my kind heart or my sparkling conversation at all. Not even about how I looked in tight jeans. He wanted me for my pro deal. Anywhere else, a girl just has to worry about getting used the old-fashioned way. But here in the mountains, it’s a whole new game; carbon fiber and Gore-Tex trump even the most enticing feminine charms. From now on it’ll take more than an ice ax and a compliment to turn my head. And I’ve got a new rule: never give him a pro deal before the third date.
