by Ty Knoy
Gayle smiled. “Tempting, but that isn’t my suggestion.”
Nick kissed her. “Okay, what is it?”
“I’ll promise you that as long as we know each other, I’ll never drink alcohol again except when I’m with you. You promise me you will never drink alcohol again except when you are with me.”
Nick laughed. “That’ll be easy for me. I don’t drink anyway, except when I’m with you. I agree to it, but it sounds screwy. The only times we get in trouble are when we are drinking with each other. So how is that going to work?”
“We’ll watch out for each other. One or the other of us will always hold back.”
“That’ll usually be me,” Nick said.
“And when we are not together, nothing bad can happen.”
They both looked toward the bartender. Her back was turned, so they quickly kissed.
The lift had stopped running, and no skiers were outside. Soon the bartender said she wished to close.
“Now about this marriage idea of mine. Let’s keep it in mind, and I’ll meet you right back here, on the top of this very lift, in two years, and you can give me your answer then. Okay? I’ll be out of the army and maybe still in one piece.
“But you will see me in the meantime, won’t you?”
“Every chance I get. I may even make it back for La Bohème. Even if you’re in Milan, I’ll come.” They kissed again.
Gayle asked the bartender, who had come over to them, “How do you get all these bottles and rolls and sandwiches up here?”
“A Sno-Cat brings them—and me and my skis and a new bottle of propane first thing in the morning. After the lifts stop, I ski down with the cash box in my backpack.” She was putting on her coat and stocking cap.
“Never been mugged, have you?” Nick asked.
“No,” she laughed. “They’d have to be pretty good to catch me.”
The three of them went out. The bartender stepped into her bindings, a new automatic-locking kind, fastened the safety straps, and said good night. She soon disappeared into the moguls in the dim light among the pines. Gayle and Nick, who both had Head skis with Marker Turntable bindings, were a little longer hitching up. Nick had long thongs and used still another moment or so tugging on them.
He and Gayle didn’t go straight down but went off on a long, gradual trail that wound through trees.
Nick stayed on for three days after Gayle and his family flew back to Michigan. He had to move out of the A-frame—it had been rented—and he took a room in the Big Lodge for his extra days. Then, with a combination of shuttles, trains, and taxis, he got himself to the front gate of Fort Leonard Wood by the sixth of January. Soon letters were flowing back and forth between Gayle and him, and when it was possible, they talked by phone on Sunday nights, when toll rates were low.
Nick didn’t get back for La Bohème. Gayle’s and Nick’s parents went for a Sunday performance, and they and Gayle had dinner afterward.
Nick, in his uniform, saw Gayle two weeks later, on his first leave. The fire between them seemed to have cooled from white-hot to smoldering embers. She was a coed, and he was a GI, no longer with hair. They agreed, in a business-like way, that they still loved each other.
Neither brought up the idea of going to bed.
The following Christmas, Nick was in Saigon. Gayle’s parents invited Gayle, who was in New York by then, to Colorado. But she spent the holidays with her own family.
CHAPTER 9
NICK, STILL ON the bench out on the trees, which Mrs. Gordon had left him, saw a man in a white coat come through the umbrellas on the patio and step on the grass. He walked down the hill with a paper in his hand.
The note read:
Mrs. Margolis is on her way. Probably ten minutes. White convertible. You will probably see her drive in. I’m stuck in here for a few more minutes. If you come in, don’t forget your blazer, and please send my purse in with this young man.
Thanks.
Lille Gordon
Nick had left his cell phone in the car. He thought about getting it and calling his mother to ask if Katherine Anne was the name of the young lady with Victor at the Grand Hotel. He had never wanted to ask his mother, or Molly either, while Gayle was still alive. He knew he was probably going to find out anyway in a few minutes—just by asking Mrs. Kendall herself.
When the white convertible with a brunette at the wheel came into the driveway, Nick stood. The driver didn’t look his way, however. She left the car on the circle and walked into the building.
Nick sat for a moment then stood, buttoned his shirt, took his tie out of the blazer pocket, and put it on. He figured Mrs. Camille Margolis needed to put finishing touches on her mother’s hair and her makeup. He sat again. The tables on the patio were filling. He decided to wait on the lawn.
After several minutes, Mrs. Gordon and the brunette came through the umbrellas and stepped off the patio and onto the slope.
No one was with them.
As they came through the landscaping timbers, Nick could see that the brunette had a long braid and that she wore glasses with round lenses and metal frames. She was slender, and as she came closer, he saw that she had a pretty face, but one that didn’t remind him of the woman he had known as Margot.
Nick thought he should be disappointed, but he found himself relieved. The moment he had been savoring was preserved, and anticipation continued. His fears were to remain unconfirmed. He hadn’t wanted to see three women anyway; he had wanted to see one alone, so she would be free to step into his arms. He hoped Katherine Anne was waiting inside, perhaps in her apartment. She also would want their moment to be private. Yes, she has sent them out by themselves so our new beginning could be ours—ours alone. And what right does this daughter have to be in our moment?
Nick had never been unfaithful to Gayle, but he should have waited a year before he let loose the thoughts he had quarantined for so long, held imprisoned for forty years. Gayle had always had everything—except the stages of the Met and La Scala. She could have slept her way up onto those stages, but his existence, the possibilities with him, had kept her from doing it. She had never, not once, said her life was a disappointment.
Nick stood.
Mrs. Gordon hung back, and the brunette continued forward. It took a moment, but Nick recognized the adult face of the child he had once seen on the ski slopes.
“Ah, Nick,” Camille said. “Here you are. My first heartthrob. You have finally come. You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Luckily, I do still have all my hair.” He hadn’t taken the heartthrob declaration as anything but banter, but before he knew what was happening, Camille put her arms around his neck and kissed him hard, ran her tongue inside his lips, and in the small of her back, he felt her braid swinging on his hands. His eye went over Camille’s shoulder to Mrs. Gordon, who was smiling, maybe laughing. She winked, or maybe it was a blink.
Camille let go, leaning back before Nick could seriously return the kiss. “But I understand that I am not the one you are seeking,” she said.
Nick stuttered, but then said, “Falling for you back then would have made me a pedophile, like the one Sergeant Gordon beat up.” He held her away, his hands firmly on her waist, and looked her up and down. “I can’t say you haven’t changed,” he said. He saw that Camille’s eyes were red, puffy, which couldn’t be part of the joke. He wondered if she had been crying for him—had been crying for him for forty-five years.
“Forty-five years waiting for this first kiss and now only a heartbreak,” Camille said, staying in his grip. “Win some, lose some, I guess.” She let go and held her palms to the sky. “But we must have some interesting things to tell each other. Come with me. I’ll get you some lunch. I’ve never before had a chance to feed you. And I’m pretty good.”
Her lines seemed rehearsed. “And Katherine Anne?” Nick asked.
Camille turned her head to Lille, turned it back, and looked Nick in the eye, nodding in what seemed to be agreement with what she had said, and let her hands down. “Yes, that will have to wait for a bit.”
“Bye for now,” Lille said. “See you this afternoon, then?”
“Yes. Go ahead with it,” Camille said. She took Nick’s arm and began leading him toward the circle where the car was parked.
“Your upbringing and my late wife’s must have been similar,” Nick said. “Daughter of a doctor. Ranch-style house. Posh neighborhood near the country club. Sparkling new high school.” Instead of leading Nick by his arm, Camille began holding his arm as they came to the slope. He added, “But in your case, no beaches, no ski hills.”
“Actually,” Camille said, “we lived in the city in an old neighborhood of brick houses with ivy on the walls. Near Notre Dame. And I went to South Bend Central, which even then had been around for a while. No ski runs, though—you’re right about that. But they weren’t far away, up in Michigan. Little Switzerland? Caberfae?”
“I’ve been to Caberfae a few times and to Boyne several times,” Nick said. “But my parents kept a condo in Colorado. For most of the time I can remember, all of my Christmases were there.”
“The only time we skied there was that Christmas you took Cindy and me up on the chairlifts.”
CHAPTER 10
ON THE ASPHALT, Nick opened the convertible’s driver’s-side door. Without getting in, Camille reached into the door pocket and brought out compact disks. Out on the boulevard, traffic had become heavy on the lanes toward the stadium. Several cars were on the drive and on the circle under the porte cochère.
Camille said, “I have the opportunity to provide you with”—she set the disks against her breast and flipped through them—“The Grateful Dead?”
“Wrong generation. My sons-in-law are Deadheads,” Nick said.
Camille put that disk on the bottom.
“Do women like the Dead?” Nick asked as Camille continued to sort. “I thought they were for men. Any Roy Orbison? Jerry Lee Lewis?”
“Not my generation. There’s only about half a generation between you and me, you know, but—here’s Pink Floyd. They’re transgenerational.”
“Good. I know people my age aren’t thought of as liking them, but I do.”
Camille put the other disks back into the door pocket, brought her braid around her neck, and slid in with Pink Floyd in one hand as she took the wheel with the other. She looked up to Nick and smiled, as if to say, “Let’s go.”
Nick closed her car door.
As he went around, looking at Camille through the windshield, he saw resemblances in her face to Margot’s, the way Margot had looked through binoculars. The illusion evaporated as Nick got in the car, but it stayed long enough to make him feel he had come to the right place.
Nick noticed Lille out on the sidewalk, cell phone in hand, talking into a car window two cars ahead. She straightened and looked his way. He waved. Camille also saw her and waved. As the engine was starting, Lille came running, heels clicking, and stopped and looked down at them. “You guys aren’t going to get into any trouble, are you?”
“Oh, Lille,” Camille said. “I’ve been in trouble before. Don’t be a sorehead.”
“It’s not fair. Don’t let him get you into his car. You haven’t been to his car, have you?” She glanced at Nick’s car, pointing.
“Not yet,” Camille said.
“And keep the top down on this car.”
Nick joined in. “Are you girls making this up as you go, or is there a script?”
Both smiled. Neither answered. “Well, buckle up tight, Mr. Rohloffsen. She drives like Earnhardt.”
Camille looked in the side mirror as the turn signal clicked, but her car was blocked in. She turned off the signal and said, “Looks like we’re not going anywhere very soon.” She looked at Nick. “That Christmas in Colorado was the first time I wanted to marry you,” she said. She looked away again.
Nick laughed. “When was the second time?”
Camille looked at him again. “Right now—and all the nights between then and now. But I understand you are in love with my mother.”
Nick took a breath. “I was in love first, last, and always with my wife, and I was always loyal—”
“I saw you with her—at least I think it was her—a few days after you took me up the lift. Do you remember that day when there was a cloud halfway up the mountain? And the lift went up through the cloud, and then we popped out into the sun just before we got to the top? And then we had to ski back down through the cloud?”
“I do remember that. A rare day,” Nick said. “This girl I was with, she could have been one of my students. I remember working that day, but I had time for one run with Gayle. We skied down through that cloud.”
“Mother and I had just gotten off at the top, and while we were still standing there, gathering ourselves, you and the blonde got off together. You paused only for a moment or so while she folded her hair back under her hat. She had long yellow hair, a lot of it, and she was careful about getting it all inside the hat. Then poof you were gone. I watched you all the way down into the cloud.”
“That was Gayle,” Nick said.
“I wasn’t big enough yet to scratch her eyes out. I pointed you and her out to Mother.”
“She hadn’t yet become my wife. That was still up in the air on that day—up in the air all that spring, actually.”
“I was heartbroken. She was such a tall blonde, and I was just a little brunette. I knew I could never be like that.”
“You’re terrific as a brunette,” Nick said. “And sorry. I didn’t know. I might have waited for you.”
“Things haven’t changed. There’s still less difference in our ages—between yours and mine—than between your age and my mother’s age.”
Nick wondered how she had figured that out, but then it occurred to him that the policemen had run his license plate number and could have given his birthdate to Lille, and Lille had given it to Camille.
“Larry and I are getting a divorce,” Camille said. “We’re selling the store, splitting up the money.”
Nick threw his head back against the rest. “I can’t believe any guy would give you up. You are kidding, aren’t you?” Maybe the sergeant was right, he thought. Maybe this town is full of crazy women.
“He wants to move to Boca Raton. I don’t.” She stuck out her lower lip.
“But you aren’t a pianist, are you?”
“No, but I am a pharmacist. I can get you your medicines when you get old and also make sure you take them. By then, meds may be more important to you than pianists.”
“Jesus Christ,” Nick said under his breath, thinking of the wringer Big Bill had warned him of. “What about Lille and Priscilla? Are they getting divorces, too?”
“Lille? Maybe. And Priscilla? Certainly not. She and her husband go to church together every Sunday. Anyway, my mother hasn’t played in years—not in decades, really.”
“I thought probably,” Nick said. “But it was more than piano.”
“A soul mate sort of thing? Not that soul mate stuff, please.”
The cars beside hers moved, but the driver of a car that was slowly creeping up did not let Camille out, even though she was waving her arm and had her turn signal blinking again. The driver apparently didn’t see or didn’t understand, because he go out of his car and went to its trunk. He brought out a wheelchair and unfolded it onto the asphalt. “Sorry,” the man said to Camille as he pushed the chair by. “Ladies’ room emergency.”
“Well.” Camille shrugged, looking into Nick’s eyes. “This is the casualty zone. Hope you’re not terribly hungry.”
“I’m okay,” Nick replied.
The man got a woman out of the car, helped her into the chair, rolled her onto the sidewalk, and then pushed her inside as someone held the doors. “That man doesn’t need anybody to get his meds,” Nick said. “He probably gets hers.”
“Think of my age, though. Odds would be greatly in your favor.”
“Forty years ago, I was head over heels in love and about to get married to the blonde you were just talking about. Even though our wedding plans were in the early stages, I felt Gayle wasn’t going to go through with it, that she would soon call the whole thing off.”
“Then you could have waited for me.”
“We almost became officially engaged that Christmas. A few days after I took you girls up the lift, she flew in from New York. I had a diamond in my pocket—a two-carat emerald cut. A day or so after she arrived, I showed it to her—right there in the high lift station bar where you and Cindy and I had had chocolate a few days earlier. I told her we could ski down to the jeweler’s shop and have it put into a setting.
“She seemed to say yes, seemed wildly enthusiastic at the moment. I had visions of getting the ring onto her finger in the next day or two—however long it took the jeweler to do the work—and then announcing the engagement to my family at dinner. But she expressed second thoughts, even while we were skiing down.”
“Down through the cloud?”
Nick laughed. “No, not that day. The cloud was a day or so later. Right in front of the jewelry shop, as we were undoing our bindings, she said, ‘Let’s wait on the announcement and the ring.’ I was stunned. She said we should go ahead and set the date and asked if August eighth would be okay. She would call the church and reserve the day but asked that we keep it to ourselves for a while, so plans didn’t get overblown.”