The Big Sugarbush

by Ana Good

  Dylan flipped a swatch of hair out of her eyes. “I thought love conquered all,” she quipped as she fished in her jacket pocket. Finding the baggie, she pulled it out and dangled it in the anemic winter sunlight, savoring its color: celadon with flecks of forest green.

  Poppy sat up in the snowbank. “Don’t tell me that’s dope!”

  “Okay, I won’t tell you,” said Dylan with a wry smile as she peeled off her mittens and cast them into the snow. Her hands naked, she reached into the baggie and tweezed out enough dope to slide onto a rolling paper. Artfully, using one hand, she rolled a perfect joint.

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to smoke that.”

  “Okay,” grunted Dylan as she flicked a match to life and held it to the joint. “I won’t tell you.” She tried to light the joint, but a gust of wind blew out the match.

  “Don’t you dare light that thing!” screamed Poppy.

  “Why not?” Dylan tried again to light the joint, but again a little wind kicked up. “Fuck!” she muttered at the wind.

  “Come on, Dylan!” coaxed Poppy. “You don’t need that stuff. Throw it away. Race me back to the farmhouse. That ought to juice you up.”

  “I’d rather get stoned,” Dylan remarked dourly. Unfortunately, once again the wind blew out the match before Dylan could light the joint. Dylan stared at the joint in disbelief. Then at Poppy. “Fuck,” she exhaled at last. “I’ve come this fucking far. Might as well stay fucking clean another fucking day.”

  Jumping up on her snowshoes, Dylan tossed the baggie over the ridge. It landed in the snowy ravine, disappearing immediately.

  Slipping her mittens back on, Dylan propelled herself upright on her poles and shot down the slope after Poppy, who had a lead of several yards. Dylan was surprised at how fast she propelled past the rock star. The power of her own body gave her an unexpected thrill.

  Glinda soared on the hillside, high above Dylan, her lips puckered as ferociously as they’d been when she’d repeatedly blown out that joint. Glinda blew at Dylan’s backside, helping her speed ahead.

  “You go, sweet girl!” urged Glinda, the guardian angel, who had flapped her wings on a cloud above the women each time Dylan had lit a match. Glinda blew one last kiss at Dylan’s cute little ass before vaporizing back into the clouds to take a heavenly nap.

  Part IV: Survivors of the Bush

  Interlude

  As every addict knows, the test of rehab begins the day they boot you out the front door. You stand up, bush your ass off, then immediately see Temptation lurking and smirking around every corner.

  The world becomes a scary place.

  Poppy was probably the least scared of all the women. She might have been more frightened about facing a world stripped of drugs and alcohol had not Storm’s safety weighed so heavily on her mind.

  Still no word from CNN.

  Poppy was glad she’d accepted Nan’s offer to join her and Wee Gee at Nan’s cottage in Maine to ring in the new year on a sober note. Having company would probably help keep her mind off the thing she feared the most.

  Wee Gee was relieved when it came time to back her bags. She felt back on track. Spiritually, that is. Creatively, she was still staring at solid blank paper. She hoped leaving rehab might shock her subconscious into a creative fervor. Maybe staring at the ocean off the coast of Maine would give her some romantic ideas. Nan had expressed an interest in learning how to write a novel. Maybe mentoring Nan would open some creative floodgates.

  The last few days of treatment, Babe kept barking at everyone that no one was ever cured of an addiction. “One day at a time, ladies. Take it one day at a time.”

  What that phrase meant was finally beginning to soak in with Dylan. “What if we go out there and fuck up?” she asked, mindful of how close she’d recently come.

  “Some of you will,” Babe assured them. “Remember: progress, not perfection!”

  Dylan squinted through her hair. “What the eff does that mean?” She was beginning to think rehab was some sort of weird religious cult. All these secret sayings. “Progress not perfection,” snarked Dylan, mimicking Babe. “Progress, not perfection, ladies!”

  Babe took Dylan aside the last day after group. “Don’t worry. We’ll always have a room for you.”

  “I” — Dylan screwed a finger into her chest — “am never coming back to this hellhole. No way. No how. Got that?”

  “We’ll see,” said Babe. “We’ll see.”

  62. Old Lady Ass Bandit

  The last day of treatment, Thumper was the first to sign herself out. Dirk was right behind her. “See ya later, you freaky old chicks,” said Thumper to both Babe and Lily.

  Babe and Lily just laughed.

  Mary Lou was waiting outside the farmhouse for Thumper, her short-bed Ford purring like an alley cat. Thumper jumped into the cab of the truck and received an immediate smooch on her lips.

  Dirk, who was clutching a snowboard, started to climb into the truck also, but found someone had her by the back loop of her jeans. She spun around to face Candice.

  Candice squared her shoulders. She had a private car service, a Mercedes limo, waiting to take her to the airport. “Come with me?” she asked Dirk quietly.

  Dirk eyed the Mercedes. Then Candice. Then her sister.

  Not wishing to be turned down, Candice explained herself further. “If you come to L.A. with me, I can hook you up with the world’s best team of surgeons for your operation. Colleagues. Real artists. The guys who make Hollywood buzz.”

  Dirk sniffled. “You’d do that for me?”

  “Of course I would.”

  Dirk shifted her snowboard from one hand to the other. “Only got ten thousand saved.”

  “Don’t be silly. You don’t need money. These people owe me. It’s time I called in some favors. I can do some of the work. I’ll do your top surgery, your chest. Your face, too,” she murmured as she ran a hand lovingly over Dirk’s cheekbone.

  Mary Lou shouted from the truck. “Go with her! You need her help! Thumper doesn’t need you. I’ll get her to the World Cup trials at Lake Placid next week. I’ll keep an eye on her for you.”

  Cradling her snowboard, Dirk stepped away from the truck and trudged after Candice through the slush to her waiting limo. They were barely in the back seat with the door closed when Dirk draped both her arms around the doctor. “Make out now?” she whined in earnest.

  “Soon,” Candice muttered as she leaned over and lovingly kissed Dirk on the lips. To appease her she offered just a little tongue. “I’m not really a back-seat girl. Mind if we wait until we’re at my place?”

  “Sure. I can go with that,” muttered Dirk, who nested herself close to Candice as the limo slid down the mountain.

  Nan, too, had called a car service. A uniformed female driver in a white stretch limo loaded the luggage for Nan, Poppy, and Wee Gee. When the driver reached for Wee Gee’s overnight bag, the two women’s hands ended up cupped atop each other. “Excuse me, ma’am,” said the driver as she let go of Wee Gee’s hand.

  “No worries, baby girl,” assured Wee Gee, who found herself watching with new interest as the chauffer picked up the remaining luggage and tucked it neatly into the trunk of the limo.

  The driver was a petite woman, her black uniform cut tight to her body, which clearly had done a good bit of time at the gym. Her strawberry-blonde hair was so short that only a few spits of it curled from under her cap. Her eyes were gray with flecks of green. She was somewhere close to sixty: just the age Wee Gee preferred these days.

  Poppy nudged Wee Gee. “Stop ogling that poor woman! Get a grip!”

  “What the hell are you talking about!” protested Wee Gee.

  “She’s talking about,” said Nan, as the three women slid into the back of the limo, “the way your eyes were eating holes in that woman’s delicious little ass.”

  Wee Gee denied such action.

  “Get real!” cried Poppy. “Admit to us you’d like some of that.”

&nbs
p; “I can’t believe you’re talking to me like that. I’m old enough to be your mum.”

  “My mum,” countered Poppy, “isn’t some sort of old lady ass bandit.”

  63. Bad Hair Day in Baghdad

  Storm opened her eyes to find herself in a compromised position. (And that is an understatement.) She lay on an iron cot, her right leg shackled to the frame. The tiny room where she lay was dark. A weak light, daybreak, spilled halfheartedly through a window high up on a far concrete wall.

  Storm licked her lips, which were dry and cracked like paper. Her head ached. Her right arm, also. When she tried to fist her right hand, lightning pain shot up her wrist through her elbow.

  She was struggling to focus her eyes when a bare bulb flared on above her cot and the door to her room swung open. Three men stormed in, one dressed in a khaki uniform with an array of medals swinging from his chest.

  Definitely not Americans.

  The men began shouting at her in Arabic. Two of them poked her ribs with a bayonet, one on each side of the cot. Finally convinced she was securely held captive, the man with the medals pulled a chair next to the cot and began to shout at her in English. When he held up his hand, the other two men stopped chattering. They leaned against the wall and lit cigarettes, their rifles no longer held toward Storm in threatening positions.

  “Thanks for calling off Larry and Moe,” said Storm weakly. Her lips hurt when she spoke.

  “You want water?” asked the uniformed man. “Here!” He raised a hand to one of the soldiers. “Bring her water!”

  Storm sipped at the water. It hurt to swallow. More so to sit up. She was relieved when the cup was empty and she could collapse back onto the squeaky cot.

  “Why are you here?” demanded the man with the medals, his nose almost touching Storm’s. His breath was fragrant with onions and an assortment of unidentified spices. He needed a shave (and a facial, she thought).

  “I got an invitation,” said Storm.

  The man laughed. “That is funny. This is war. There are no invitations. A war. Understand?”

  “I’m with the press.” Storm slid a hand into the front pocket of her fatigues searching for her credentials.

  “You want these, maybe?” asked the uniformed man. He plucked her passport and press pass from his own jacket pocket. He flipped open the passport and studied it at arm’s length. He squinted at the press pass. “This is you? Not a very good picture.”

  “Bad hair day,” complained Storm.

  The man roared in laughter. “This American lady is funny. You are very funny. I like that.”

  Storm tried to think of a comeback but her mind could not focus. She felt like she might throw up. What the hell had happened to her? Apparently her chute had opened. She’d survived the jump. But who were these men?

  “Who are you?” she asked as she opened her eyes.

  “You, the American press, might call us assassins.”

  “Is that what you call yourself?”

  “No, we call ourselves soldiers. Warriors.”

  “ISIS?” asked Storm.

  “Yes.”

  She collapsed back on the cot and swallowed hard. “I was afraid of that.”

  64. Cottage, Castle: Why Quibble?

  In Maine, later that night, the white limo bearing Nan and her friends slid to a stop at a high iron gate. A six-foot-tall bluestone wall blocked the view from prying eyes. The driver lowered the glass between her section and the back seat. “Ma’am,” she addressed Nan, her voice husky. “Need a code. For your security gate.”

  Nan uttered a string of numbers and the driver raised the partition window back up.

  Wee Gee stared out the window as the limo crunched across the snow, up a snaky drive lined with white pines. The massive trees dripped snow. Floodlights illuminated the long driveway. Wee Gee could see where previous tires had worn through the snow to reveal a yellow bed of pine needles. A four-story shingle-style stone mansion popped into view as the limo rolled over the last incline and into a tight circle drive.

  Wee Gee turned to face Nan. “Girl, you said you owned a cottage.”

  “I do. This is it. Stone Ledge. My summer cottage.”

  “Really?” said Wee Gee. “Just for the record, how big is this here cottage?”

  Nan shrugged. “Fifteen thousand feet, give or take?”

  Poppy sprang open the back door and ran into the snow. “It’s a freakin’ castle!” she called as she jumped around the limo trying to get a better view of Nan’s floodlit home. “A freakin’ castle.”

  Nan stepped back and studied the stone mansion. “I guess, but to me it’s a cottage. Where I’ve always come to get away from the world.”

  Wee Gee squeezed Nan’s arm. “Don’t worry. We’ll help you with Birge.”

  “Help me?” questioned Nan.

  “Help you decide what to say to her. You know, what to say to win her back.”

  Nan was about to protest that maybe she didn’t want Birge back when the double front doors to the mansion opened and a troop of uniformed servants swarmed the limo.

  The driver came around to the trunk and lifted the women’s bags onto a handcart the doorman had ushered onto the driveway. Each of the servants greeted Nan.

  “Servants?” squealed Popp as the staff moved out of earshot with their luggage. “You have bloody servants?”

  “They came with the castle.”

  “’Course they did!” said Wee Gee with a roll of her eyes.

  The women were wrangled together by the head butler (also a woman) into the downstairs library. The library, which was way bigger than any cottage Wee Gee had ever seen, was lined with framed photos and news stories about Nan and Birge. Covers from Fortune and Forbes. Features from The Wall Street Journal. One of the covers showed Nan about ten years younger wearing a crown some photographer had air-brushed onto her image. “The Queen of Bonds,” proclaimed the cover.

  Poppy made herself dizzy dancing in circles admiring the press mementos. “You really were famous. Bloody famous!”

  “Were being the operative word, little darling,” retorted Nan.

  The butler returned to the library wheeling a tray laden with a bottle of Nolet’s Reserve, an ice bucket, and a mouthwatering assortment of other miniature liquor and mix bottles.

  Wee Gee grabbed the bottle of gin just as Nan’s hand reached for it. “You’ll need to pour this down the drain,” she instructed the butler. “You got a bar in this little cottage?” she asked the shocked domestic.

  “Several, ma’am,” said the woman.

  “Show me where they are. We need to dump the booze. Pronto.”

  The butler eyed Nan, a look of uncertainty on her face. “Ma’am, is that what you wish?”

  Nan sighed as she plopped down in a wingback leather chair and lit a Dunhill. “Do what she says.”

  Halfway out of the library, Wee Gee hot on her tail, the butler turned to ask one final question of her employer. “Excuse, me, but you want it all poured out, ma’am? Ms. Birge’s hundred-year-old Scotch also?”

  “Oh, yes!” Nan’s eyes gleamed. “Definitely the Scotch!”

  65. Bush Baby Goes Down

  Thumper stared straight down the sheer summit of the mountain. Her feet were bound to her board, her knees bent as she readied herself to jump the slope. The wind had kicked up, and she was having a hard time, even with her goggles down, deciphering the racecourse. Sleet cut her cheeks.

  Three women lined the starting gate to Thumper’s right, all of them finalists to represent the American team in the snowboarders’ World Cup. The best of three runs would win a top spot on the team.

  So far, Thumper ranked dead last.

  Mary Lou straddled the railing at the side of the gate, screaming, “Go baby! Go!” She was so loud Thumper couldn’t help but hear her. In high school Mary Lou had been head cheerleader for the football team, the Mt. Mansfield Moose. Thumper had shyly watched Mary Lou perform for the boys’ team from the sidelines. It felt good
to have Mary Lou by her side now, cheering her on.

  “Go bush baby! Go!” cheered Mary Lou as she popped up and down on the rail, eager to aid Thumper.

  Thumper wet her lips and swallowed hard as the digital clock in front of the racers ticked down from ten. She had to get a grip on her ride. This was the last run of the day. Her last chance. Twice she’d failed to get close enough to the other racers to cut them off. She’d allowed them to run her to one side. As a result, she’d repeatedly lost precious split seconds. She was painfully aware that her sister would never have allowed anyone to edge her out. Dirk took every advantage. Dirk had a killer instinct on the racecourse, something Thumper had always lacked.

  Thumper sucked in her breath and shot out of the holding gate as the clock hit zero. To everyone’s surprise, she slid into the lead as she zoomed through the second turn. Sleet was falling like spitballs, blinding her, as she whooshed around the final turn. Shutting her eyes to the sleet, she struggled to imagine every final kink in the championship course. She’d learned this trick from her sister. In foul weather most boarders strained to see the course. Dirk had taught Thumper to shut her eyes, envisioning the course instead. On bad-weather days such a strategy gave Thumper a true competitive edge. She didn’t need to see the course.

  Halfway down the hill, her body swaying to keep a balance against the icy edge of the snow that threatened to dump her at every turn, Thumper was almost a full second ahead of the pack.

  On track for a new world record.

  But then, out of nowhere, as she jumped the last ramp, Thumper felt a body whoosh down at her right side. She looked over to see Jane Josten, from New Hampshire, neck in neck with her as they shot toward the taped finish line.

  Jane was dressed in a red spandex suit with a yellow devil curled around her right thigh. (Very appropriate, as Jane was known on the pro lezzy circuit for her cutthroat moves.) Jane was so close, Thumper could see perspiration frozen in a pencil-thin mustache above her lips.