The Gifted School

by Bruce Holsinger

  * * *

  —

  For the remaining weeks of the class the four of them clustered with their babies in the back of the pool, where Samantha fed them Rec Center gossip, where they could cast superior looks at all the moms taking H2OhBABY! maybe a liiiiiittle too seriously. Lauren Frye and Azra Chaudhury, it turned out, were casual acquaintances recently brought together by their husbands, Julian and Beck, both avid rock climbers. After the last session they all gathered in the lobby of the gym. Rose wondered anxiously what, if anything, came next.

  “Lunch?” Samantha suggested.

  They went next door for tacos at Guisados. Strollers and diaper bags colonizing the crowded patio, back-patting baby swaps so they all could eat. There was another lunch the following week, and then Samantha invited them over to her beautiful house on Maple Hill for coffee and cake. Lauren’s daughter, Tessa, came along, charming the other mothers and delighting the babies with her sweet attentiveness. Next came a child-free happy hour; another; a first tentative gathering with the husbands a few months in; and by the time the H2OhBabies turned one, the families had settled into habits that would endure for years.

  A sustaining friendship that rooted them in the sandy loam of this unremittingly gorgeous place: Crystal Valley, majestic bowl of earth, stone, sky, the Redirons like gods looking down, orange spikes of suspended sandstone, behind them the jagged ranks of fourteeners marching along the Divide. On a clear day—and nearly every day was clear: Crystal clear, inhabitants liked to say—Rose could still inhale the Colorado evergreens and imagine herself nowhere else on earth but here, in this valley, because sometimes it was like a cult.

  In Crystal, everyone said or thought, we are happy, we are fit, we are woke, and even our streets are named for gems.

  * * *

  —

  Julian had fallen ill when Xander was three, Tessa seven. Osteosarcoma, briefly in remission before it awakened to ravage his bones. Lauren, left alone, had let the others caretake for a while, half-adopt her children, and before long all six kids had the free run of four families. The death had knotted them, Rose saw looking back, establishing new ties of dependence and need among four women with little in common aside from children the same age.

  Smaller calamities would follow: Azra’s divorce from Beck, leaving the twins to float between homes; Lauren’s own bout with cancer, caught early, fended off; and, for Rose, the slow decline of her marriage, which would have been unendurable without the women she had found in the water more than ten years ago.

  The changes had only strengthened their friendship, Rose thought as Azra wended her way back through the tables and the chairs, wearing her usual placid expression. These crises and catastrophes had braided the four of them together, like vines around a trunk. Easy to believe those bonds hid no malice in their grip; easy to believe they could hold forever.

  A Touch of Tessa:

  One Girl's Survival Guide to Junior Year

  A Video Blog

  Episode #129: Pandora’s Box—or Pandora’s Bust?

  . . . 11 views . . .

  [Tessa in Gareth’s basement office, dangling a small key.]

  TESSA: Okay, something slightly different tonight, you guys. A treat for all of you. This evening we’re going to have our own episode of Egypt’s Lost Tombs from, like, the History Channel. But instead of a pharaoh’s million-year-old crypt we’re going to open the bottom drawer of this filing cabinet behind me. It’s locked but I found the key out in the garage. Okay okay, that doesn’t sound too exciting. But seriously, who knows what we’ll find? I mean I can’t even believe this is happening here, live, right now. So the question of the day is: Pandora’s Box—or Pandora’s Bust? Are you ready? Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .

  [Reverse to filing cabinet. Hand inserts key, turns, pulls out drawer.]

  And here we go! Okay, looks like we’ve got a long row of about thirty files, and they all have little labels on them. First one: MORTGAGE: 2340 OPAL LANE. Let’s pull this out . . . pretty boring. Just a bunch of documents.

  [Shoves papers back in file. Shuffles through next ten file folders, pulling papers out and returning them as she speaks:]

  Next file: CAR LOAN. Um, yawn? Next: HOMEOWNER’S INSURANCE. Next: AUTO INSURANCE. Riveting. Next: BOOK CONTRACT. Ooh, what did Gareth get for that shitty novel? Let’s see let’s see . . . okay, not as much as my mom said but not bad. Next: EMMA Q: TUITION SAVINGS. This might be interesting. Let’s see . . . wow, look at that number. Just over twenty thousand dollars! Impressive, should pay for about a month by the time she goes to college, but it’s probably more than my mom’s saved for me and Q’s only eleven. Okay, next is LIFE INSURANCE. And then PASSPORTS. Ooh, fun. Let’s just pull these out . . . bad pictures, and Rose’s is the only one that’s not expired. Back you go. Now what’s next?

  [Fingers walking through files, holding some papers up briefly before stuffing them back.]

  These ones aren’t even labeled, just a dozen empty—oh, wait, here’s some stuff. Let’s see . . . awww, look at that, some of Q’s drawings from when she was tiny. I think I remember this one, you guys. So cute. And next folder, what’s this? Baby pictures, then looks like more drawings, yah yah, a whole other folder of fingerpaintings, shit like that, some old pictures of Q and Z—

  [Hand freezes with fingers parting a file folder.]

  TESSA: No. Way. Okay, straight up? This may be even better than a mummy.

  [Pulls out a short stack of photographs: brief flashes of skin, pictures held mostly out of camera range.]

  TESSA: Umm, content warning: disgusting. Because—Oh. My. God. [Squeals.] I just can’t even. No, I can’t show them to you. Okay, so [clears throat loudly] what I’m looking at here, you guys, is a bunch of actual porno of Gareth and Rose from when they were, like, maybe in college. God they are so young, but you can totally tell it’s them. And they’re actually doing it in these pictures too, like he’s actually inside—God, no wonder he keeps this thing locked, you know? Anyway, hold on a minute.

  [Stuffs photos back into folder, shuts and locks drawer. Reverse to Tessa.]

  TESSA: I guess some people aren’t as boring as they look, am I right? Bye, you guys.

  FIFTEEN

  BECK

  The twins should have been down by now.

  We’re ready we’re ready.

  High Anxiety, only their second black diamond. Not the hardest slope on the mountain but definitely a challenge.

  We’re ready we’re ready.

  They’re not, Sonja had mouthed, but Beck had given them the okay anyway.

  They’d started with Risky Business, the easiest black diamond at Breckenridge. Charlie in the lead, Aidan next, Beck’s wife scooping along behind. Sonja skied like she was born on a mogul while Beck always brought up the rear, but he would have anyway: he loved to corral his herd down the mountain, watch their agile ease in the snow.

  Once they’d finished Risky Business, he let the boys do High Anxiety by themselves. Why not? But that was forty-five minutes ago.

  He looked at his watch again. Forty-seven. Beck imagined their lanky bodies hurled through thin air, those loose joints and young green bones.

  “Come on,” he called back to Sonja, pushing off toward the bottom of the lower bowl. “They’ll be down in a minute. One more run, then we’ll go back to the lodge.”

  She stayed put, planted on her skis. “Roy has been alone with Tessa since two.” Her eyes flickered up toward the mountain.

  He saw the worry in them. “Why don’t you get a head start back to the condo, babe, so you can feed him. I’ll wait here for the boys.”

  “You will be right behind me?”

  “Ten minutes. Fifteen max.”

  She pouted, then skied away. Beck scraped himself over to the edge of
the out-run. A few minutes passed, the blood vessels in his neck throbbing away the seconds. He dug in a pocket for his phone and turned it on. A dozen texts from Azra popped up. Before he could read them, the phone rang in his hand.

  The hospital? Ski patrol?

  No: Azra.

  “Hey babe,” he said, working to maintain the calm in his voice.

  “Goddamnit, Beck!” Azra ranted into the phone, not like her at all. “I’ve been calling you all day. You were supposed to drop them off here this morning. What the hell?”

  “It’s my weekend.”

  “They had the CogPro, idiot. I texted you about it, I emailed you.” Her voice caught. “Where are you?”

  “Breckenridge. We came up last night.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “You said there were two testing sessions. The other one’s next week.”

  “That’s a makeup test, in case you had unavoidable conflicts with today. Fresh powder doesn’t count. Fuck, Beck.”

  He scanned the top of the bowl and saw movement at the tree line, flashes of color—and there they were, Charlie in the lead, Aidan’s red hat swishing against the snow behind him. The sight of his spawn broke the lump in his chest. The boys flew down the last length of the slope, enjoying the hell out of the black.

  “This pisses me off, Beck. It’s important.”

  “Got it,” he said, looking away from his guys, listening now. “So, what, you want me to take them to the makeup test?”

  “You’ll have to. I’ll be in Denver for a show. Glen and I have had these tickets for weeks.”

  Glen and I.

  “Email me the details, then. It won’t happen again.”

  “Of course it will.” She disconnected before he could reply.

  Beck stared at his phone as the twins glided down the out-run, then started sliding off for the condo. He shook himself out of a stupor.

  “Wait, you guys don’t want to hit it one more time?” he called after his sons.

  “We’re cold.” Aidan clapped his hands, poles clattering.

  “And pretty hungry,” Charlie added.

  “Come on, we can do this. It’s the last day of the season—nay, my sons, the last hour. How many weekends do we get free of soccer?” Beck pushed himself backward, toward the lift. After that unpleasant exchange with his ex he needed more headspace before returning to the condo. Sure, Sonja would be miffed that they stayed out, but a final run on a gorgeous black diamond with his sons? Worth a little fight. Plus she had Tessa there to help. At fifteen an hour. “Think how good that fire’ll feel after one more run.”

  “I don’t want to.” Aidan shivered and bent his knees. “I’m really cold, Dad. Let’s go to the lodge.”

  Charlie looked over at his brother and mouthed something.

  “Am not.”

  “Are too, douchecanoe,” Charlie said.

  “Guys, stop it.”

  Charlie looked at his dad. “Let’s do this thing.”

  “Excellent,” said Beck, loving Charlie’s spirit. “You coming, Aidan?”

  Aidan drew a sleeve across the wet end of his nose and scowled at his brother. “Sure, fine.”

  * * *

  —

  It happened halfway down To Your Left, a steep off-piste mogul run with lots of narrow slots and blind rollovers. They’d reached the midpoint in the slope, the edgy part. Beck watched his sons zip into a wooded finger on the left side. He took a more central line, staying behind them to their right. “Slow down, guys!” he called ahead. “Big fall line coming up.”

  Charlie adjusted his speed before shooting into the steepest part of the black diamond, a mogul-free narrow between two rows of trees. Aidan didn’t slow down. He took the fall line at full throttle and screamed in delight at the prospect of passing his brother.

  Beck lost sight of them. He bent forward, counting seconds.

  “Hey!” he heard Aidan shout. “HEY!”

  Charlie barreled out first, taking a line in front of Beck and swinging between moguls. When Aidan shot out of the funnel, he was off balance, tottering.

  Beck watched it happen, his world slowing down.

  First Aidan hit a big mogul at top speed. His arms flew apart. His poles circled in midair. His legs went akimbo and his body tilted, falling.

  By the time Beck had come around to the left, Aidan was tumbling, taking snow full in the face. His body windmilled at high speed, skis clattering through the powder down toward a wooded outcropping. His loose body slid and rolled, then plowed into a drift.

  Charlie, oblivious, had already disappeared around a bend thirty yards down.

  Aidan lay still, half-buried in the snow.

  “He’s okay he’s okay he’s okay,” Beck panic-whispered as he skidded to a stop three feet from his unmoving son.

  “He all right?” a man shouted from the far side of the funnel.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll call for patrol.”

  Beck popped off his skis, dropped to all fours, and started brushing the snow from his son’s goggles.

  “Owwww,” Aidan moaned.

  Beck’s heart lifted.

  Not dead.

  “You okay, buddy?”

  “My leg,” Aidan whimpered, trying to sit up. “Charlie broke my leg.”

  “Wait, Aidan, just wait.” Beck helped his son straighten his back.

  Not paralyzed.

  “Does it hurt or—”

  “My ankle. My right ankle. Owwww.”

  Beck clawed at the buckle and slipped off the rigid boot. With the socked leg cradled on his lap he palpated the soft flesh of Aidan’s upper foot and ankle, searching for the injury. Aidan flinched and moaned, and the first image that came to Beck’s mind was the sight of his son trawling the soccer pitch. A stepover, an elegant flick of the ball, then a strike, arcing into the net.

  These gifted, beautiful feet.

  Aidan’s lips tightened with new pain, and Beck blinked the ugly thought away. There are more important things than soccer! his insides screamed.

  Your son’s life, for example. Your son’s spine.

  Your son’s brain: a ragged tree stump jutted up not two feet from where Aidan’s skull had pressed a neat bowl into the snow.

  * * *

  —

  Over there!” someone shouted.

  Beck looked up. A red-jacketed patrolman was shooting the left finger. He skidded to a halt and lifted his goggles. College kid, mop of brown hair and a hipster beard, rescue sled harnessed to his back. He knelt down next to Aidan and asked his name while checking out his ankle. Beck watched his son’s face.

  “My brother clipped me,” Aidan said. “He clipped my skis.”

  “But he was in front of you,” Beck pointed out.

  The patrolman waved him off. “Okay, buddy, now, slowly, can you wriggle it around for me?”

  Aidan rotated his foot in a slow semicircle.

  “Now the other way,” the patrolman said.

  The ankle was already puffing up. No bones jutting out, but the skin looked discolored and streaked. As the patrolman helped him to his feet, Aidan put a foot down gingerly, then pulled up with a wince. The guy helped Aidan hop-crawl to the rescue sled and flop down. Beck grabbed his son’s boot, sock, skis, and poles as the patrolman fashioned a plastic-and-Velcro splint around Aidan’s foot and ankle.

  “So is it broken?” Beck asked.

  The guy shrugged over his work. “Definitely get him an X-ray. Ice it, keep him off his feet for a while. Probably just a sprain, but you never know.” The patrolman glanced over at the spot between the trees where Aidan had landed. “Lucky kid. Maybe go back to the blues for a while?”

  Beck’s jaw stiffened into a defensive clench. “I don’t need a lecture,” he said, then regretted it. “
Sorry, man.”

  “No worries,” the guy said, and Beck could tell he meant it. Not a care in the world, a trim young dude probably already thinking about ski patrol happy hour.

  * * *

  —

  The condo was a first-floor ski-up at the edge of a center slope. Beck had purchased the place outright with some principal, back in his flusher days. The patrolman hauled Aidan all the way to the door. Charlie slapped the guy a high five before he skied off.

  “Come on, buddy.” Beck motioned for Aidan to come inside, but instead he spun away and flopped back against the entryway wall, weight on his good foot. Glaring at his brother.

  “Charlie made me wipe out.”

  “Did not,” Charlie said.

  “He snowplowed in front of me and slowed down and—”

  “That’s a lie.”

  Beck showed Charlie a palm. “Aidan, come on, Charlie wouldn’t—”

  “He would too, and besides I didn’t want to go again.” His face crumpled. “ROMO tryouts are coming up, didn’t you know that, didn’t you remember?” Wailing now, fists pounding the wall.

  Beck did remember, and it had been eating at him since the wipeout. “Inside,” he snapped at Charlie.

  Charlie scowled and wheeled for the door. When it closed, Beck reached for Aidan’s shoulders, but his son shrugged him away. “Look, sweetie. Your—”

  “I’m not a girl.”

  “Aidan, listen. Your ankle will be okay, and I’m sure ROMO has late tryouts. We can get a doctor’s note.”

  “That won’t work.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Yes, we do, and now everything is ruined and it’s Charlie’s fault.”

  Aidan stomped his splinted foot, forgetting his injury in his fury. His shriek echoed among the condos. Beck reached for him, and this time his miserable son collapsed into him, slender body shaking beneath the bulk of his ski jacket.