The Mountain

The problem with Tim wasn’t Tim. It was the noticing.

Emily saw him before he saw her. He was in the school car park, at the back of the minibus, loading bags in the grey morning light. His jacket was off — left on the bumper, apparently, because it was warmer work than expected — and he was lifting bags in a dark t-shirt, his arms tanned in the way of someone who spent time outdoors. She noticed this the way she’d been noticing things about him for a year: quickly, carefully, and with the practiced discipline of someone who had learned to file and move on before anyone caught her filing.

She sat in Chelsea’s car and didn’t get out immediately.

‘You right?’ Chelsea said.

‘Fine,’ Emily said. ‘Just finishing my coffee.’

She wasn’t finishing her coffee. She was watching him hoist a particularly large bag into the hold with the ease of someone who did physical things without thinking about them. She was aware that she was watching. She was aware that Chelsea was aware she was watching.

She got out of the car.

She walked toward the minibus with her bag over one shoulder and her coffee in hand and her eyes on the ground, the particular studied nonchalance of someone trying very hard to look like they weren’t thinking about anything specific. She said morning to Tony, who had just pulled up. She said morning to the minibus in general. She put her bag down near the pile and started looking for the luggage hold release, which she didn’t need to find because Tim was right there doing it, and she took a very deliberate step back.

‘Morning,’ Tim said, without looking at her.

‘Morning,’ she said, to the side of the minibus.

Tim heard the car door before he saw who it was. He looked up.

Emily. Bag over one shoulder, coffee in hand, eyes on the ground with the careful focus of someone navigating a space they wanted to seem unconcerned about. He looked back at the bus and kept loading.

They’d been colleagues for a year. She was twenty-three, quick to laugh, the kind of person who paid attention to people in a way that made them feel seen. He’d noticed this about her the first week she arrived. He’d made a deliberate effort not to notice it further.

He was good at being careful.

He did not look at her again while he finished loading. He was aware of her moving around the car park the way you were aware of things you’d decided not to pay attention to — peripherally, consistently, in spite of yourself.

Tony pulled up and got out with the ease of a man who had done this many times. He was Tim’s oldest friend, thirty years of teaching together, thirty years of knowing each other’s silences.

He looked at Tim. He looked at Emily, who was talking to Chelsea near the car. He looked back at Tim.

‘How’s Deborah?’ he said.

‘Good,’ Tim said. ‘Busy with work.’

‘Marie says hi. You two should come over for dinner sometime.’

‘Sure.’

Tony nodded and threw his bag in and said nothing else, which was the particular skill of someone who had known you for thirty years.

Dan arrived next, pulling in with the confidence of someone for whom the world generally arranged itself around him. Geography teacher, early thirties, good-looking in an uncomplicated way. He’d been at the school for five years and had a way of making instant friends with everyone.

‘Morning, gents,’ he said, throwing his bag in. ‘Can’t believe we’re doing this again.’

‘Someone has to keep the kids alive,’ Tony said.

Susan came hurrying over, always slightly flustered, always in motion. Fifty-one, had been teaching longer than almost anyone. She taught English, was genuinely good at her job, and had a particular way of positioning herself near Tim that everyone except Susan seemed to notice.

‘Tim! I was hoping I’d catch you,’ she said. ‘Do you know if we’re supposed to bring our own equipment or —’

‘Greg’s sorted it all,’ Tim said.

Greg appeared with his clipboard, declared them almost ready, and began his first headcount of what would be many.

The students arrived in waves, loud and energised, the particular chaos of teenagers about to leave school for a week. Bags went in. Names got ticked off. Greg did a final sweep of the car park and declared them ready.

Emily sat with Chelsea toward the back of the bus. Tim sat near the front with Tony and Greg. Dan ended up with Susan, who seemed delighted by this. The school disappeared behind them and the city thinned and the mountains started to appear on the horizon, grey and distant.

Chelsea leaned over. ‘So,’ she said. ‘A week in the snow.’

‘A week in the snow,’ Emily agreed.

‘With various colleagues.’

‘Yes.’

‘Including —’

‘Chelsea.’

‘I’m just establishing the facts,’ Chelsea said, and looked out the window with an expression of pure innocence.

Emily looked out the window too. Then, because she couldn’t quite help it, she looked toward the front of the bus. She could see the back of his head, the set of his shoulders, the way he was leaning slightly toward Tony in conversation. She looked for approximately two seconds. Then she looked back out the window at the mountains.

She thought about her new school waiting on the other side of this week. When July came she’d be teaching somewhere else entirely, different corridors, different everything. This trip was the last week she’d have any reason to be in the same building as him. Any reason at all.

Five days, she told herself. She could be careful for five more days.

They arrived at the lodge mid-afternoon, the bus pulling up in a spray of gravel. Greg did another headcount. Someone had forgotten their boots. Students ran around, staff tried to organise, a week away from school stretching out ahead.

Tim was helping unload bags. He looked competent, professional. Emily was with Chelsea, trying to find their luggage in the pile, aware of him in the peripheral way she’d been aware of him all year. The careful noticing without looking.

Greg handed out keys from a list. ‘Emily, Tim, Chelsea, you’re in 312. Double and a single annexe. Should be comfortable enough.’

Tim looked at the key in his hand.

Emily felt something shift in her chest.

Chelsea came up beside her and leaned in close. ‘Em,’ she said quietly. ‘Did you hear that?’

‘I heard,’ Emily said.

‘The three of us. One room.’ Chelsea glanced toward where Tim was stacking bags. ‘Should be interesting.’

‘Chelsea —’

‘I’m not saying anything,’ Chelsea said. ‘I’m just making sure you’re aware of the situation.’

She moved away before Emily could respond.

Emily stood in the gravel car park holding her key and looked at the mountain above the lodge and thought about a week in the same room as a man she’d spent a year being careful about, and what that was going to require of her.

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