Happy Messy Scary Love

by Leah Konen

  Scheduling-wise, I have to admit it’s kind of perfect. Elm works from eleven to six most days, and since I never exactly disabused him of the notion that I’m at the NYU program, I’ve been careful not to be too quick to reply to his chats when I’m supposed to be in class, or workshopping, or doing one of the other amazing things I might have been doing this summer.

  We get up the mountain roads easily, even taking the back way. My dad goes on the whole time about how wonderful it is to have all-wheel drive (I swear to god, if he could choose between a Porsche and our Subaru, he’d choose the latter). Eventually, we reach Hunter’s Main Street, speckled with ski shops and pizza joints. We turn, climbing up the road until we reach a large building that must be the lodge, with huge windows and an undulating roof that mirrors the curve of the mountains behind it.

  My mom points ahead. “Marianne said to go to that building just next to the lodge.”

  “Who do I ask for? Is Marianne there today?”

  “Not sure,” my mom says with a shrug. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out though.”

  “Have a great first day!” my dad says as I grab my backpack and step out of the car. “We’ll be back at six to pick you up.”

  I approach the door of the building my mom pointed to, but she has to be wrong—it looks like a ski shop closed down for the winter. Discount jackets and knit beanies. I turn back, scanning the parking lot, but the Subaru is already gone.

  I pull out my phone. It’s 2:01. Shit.

  I walk to the left, toward the lodge, but the buildings are similarly empty.

  2:03. Double shit. Here I am, already late for my first shift of a job my mom got me as a favor. I quickly return to the sad abandoned ski shop, dark and foreboding, the tense stillness of a setting right before all hell breaks loose. I pull on the handle. It’s locked.

  “What are you doing?”

  I jump. Turning, I spot a girl about my age, maybe a little older. Her red hair has been looped into French braids that hug her scalp and land on her shoulders; she’s got a nose ring and rows of studs crawling up her left earlobe; her hazel eyes are rimmed in dark kohl liner; and freckles cover almost every inch of her face and arms. She looks like a punk-rock Pippi Longstocking. She’s wearing a Zipline Experience T-shirt, no less than four carabiners hang off the belt loops of her jean shorts, and a walkie-talkie beeps from her hip.

  “Sorry, I—”

  She crosses her arms. “Trying to break into the ski shop, load up on nylon gloves?”

  “No—”

  The girl bursts into cackling laughter, tossing her head back like some kind of cartoon villain. She stops, abruptly. “Sorry, I’m an ass. Are you Olivia?”

  “Yeah, how did you . . .”

  “Come on,” she says, walking past me. I follow, and it’s easy to keep up. She walks much slower than I do, than anyone in Brooklyn does. “You’re looking for the check-in office, right?”

  “I think so.”

  “It’s right around here.” She grins. “We’ve been looking forward to your arrival.”

  Looking forward to your arrival? I half want to tell her that she sounds like the bad guy in a movie. I mean, come on. That’s the kind of line I’d find way too cheesy to ever put in a script, given that it’s basically dripping with impending peril, the kind of line that would have popped into my head anyway and paralyzed me with writer’s block.

  “Er, you have?” I ask as we round the corner, approach a door with a sign above. ZIP-LINE CHECK-IN HERE.

  “Of course we have,” the girl continues. “Apart from one new guy, it’s the same exact crew as last summer, and we’re desperate for fresh meat.”

  Fresh meat. There she goes again. It would be fun to set a horror movie at a zip-line course, come to think of it. So many options. Some Sasquatch-style monster living up in the mountains, or a maniacal killer sabotaging the safety equipment. Or, everyone trapped in the abandoned ski lodge, doors locked, wondering who the killer could be. That’s what Elm would do, if he were going to write it. There’d be some accident on the course, they’d be gathered in the lodge, the power would go out and the doors would lock from the inside, and only then would they realize that the accident hadn’t been an accident at all, that the killer lurked among them, wearing the same Zipline Experience T-shirt and carabiners as everyone else . . .

  The girl pauses outside the door. “I’m Steinway, by the way,” she says.

  “Steinway?”

  “It’s my last name. Like the piano, which I also play.” She tosses her head back in laughter again. “Oh boy, you already think I’m way too much.”

  I shake my head. “No, not at all.”

  She smiles and opens the door. “Follow me.”

  Inside, the place is nothing like the ski shop. The room echoes with voices, with groups of kids and adults, people on vacation or at least on vacation for the day.

  Steinway walks through rows of T-shirts and gear for sale to a wrap-around check-in desk in the back. She hinges up the corner of the desk and lets herself in. I follow.

  There’s a guy at the counter, typing into a computer caked with dust.

  “You can put your bag and stuff here,” she says, opening one of the cabinets.

  I toss in my things and she hands me a clipboard. “Oh, and sign this. Just your basic waiver. Now, let me find you a T-shirt.” She kneels down, opening and shutting cabinet doors.

  Clipboard in hand, I gaze at the line of people, then back at the counter guy. “Does he need help?”

  Steinway shakes her head. “They’re all going on the two-thirty tour. Tennyson will check them in. There’s time, my friend, plenty of time.”

  “Okay,” I say. I scribble my signature on the waiver, not reading it too closely, but sure that if I massively fall to my death out there, it will not be Zipline Experience’s fault at all. Then I shove my hands into my pockets, not quite sure what to do. Tennyson is tall and skinny, has to be at least six-foot-five, with hair that looks like it hasn’t been washed in a while and a bandana tied around his neck. If I’m not mistaken, he smells the teensiest bit like weed. Not that I ever smoke, but I’ve come to recognize the scent from walking around Brooklyn.

  “Aha!” Steinway says. “Medium okay? It might be a little roomy, but it’s all I have.”

  She hands it to me, and I pull it over my tank top. It is roomy, but now at least I don’t stick out like a sore thumb.

  “Tennyson, this is Olivia,” she says, even though he looks way too busy to bother with me.

  Still, he turns around. “Olivia! Our new recruit. Come to spice up the boredom of always having the same old gang. And a lady, no less, to balance out our demographics. We need more ladies up in here, am I right?”

  Steinway rolls her eyes. “That’s sexist.”

  “It’s sexist to want more women? How?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t have the time to educate you right now. But you sound like an idiot.”

  Tennyson sticks out his hand anyway. “Tennyson, here, like the lord. Lord Alfred. The poet.”

  “We get it,” Steinway says.

  “Anyway, most people call me Ten. Have since I was a kid. Can’t mess with perfection, I guess.”

  Half of me feels like I need to switch up my name just to have something to say when I introduce myself. Olivia, but you can call me Liv, Livvie, Via? No, Olivia, but you can call me Carrie, like my favorite people do.

  Tennyson (Ten?) goes on: “And don’t listen to Steinway. She’s happy to have more ladies as well—right, Steinway?”

  The girl, for the first time, turns red, her freckles almost disappearing, but she quickly recovers. “You’re an idiot,” she says. “Come on, Olivia. Let’s get away from this bureaucratic check-in bullshit and on to the real stuff. The main course is amazing. Hope you’re not afraid of heights!”

  I swallow, my throat suddenly tight, and follow behind her.

  Whatever my mom once thought, she certainly can’t accuse me of wasting away now.
>
  Elm Street Nightmare

  We walk down a wide hallway and toward a door that reads EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY.

  I can’t help it, I imagine the camera shot. The open, empty corridor, a fluorescent light flickering, making an awful sound you can’t tune out, like David Lynch is always doing in Twin Peaks and the like.

  Then a girl or a guy, or maybe both, running down the hallway. You don’t know who’s behind them, but you know someone is.

  Hell, maybe that’s the way I open the screenplay. Not with them arriving at a cabin, not with my bullshit line about monsters and Shadow Lake, but with them running down a cavernous hallway, the viewer dying to know how in the world they got there. And me, knowing. Me, discovering along the way. All “in medias res,” like my English teacher was always going on about.

  Who knows, maybe I’ll even add a character who plays the piano. Someone friendly and easygoing, but with a little bit of a secret you don’t find out until later . . .

  I feel a tingle in my fingers, the tingle I always get when I have a good idea. Steinway walks toward the door and pushes. Nothing happens, no sound at all, the sign no more than a weak deterrent for visitors trying to use the wrong door; immediately, we’re back into the daylight.

  God, it’s freaking beautiful.

  Out here, you can’t see any buildings, only mountains. But it’s not like the mountains you see from our house, all far away and in the distance, etched into the horizon like a painting. This is different. The mountains are right here, demanding to be noticed, to be appreciated. Ski lifts run lazily, carting people up the mountain. In front of us, some sort of rope-course tower looms, kids playing on it, their laughter spilling down like droplets of water.

  The sun is high, and the sky is oh so blue, and it feels like—it’s crazy, but it feels like that when I wander down to the East River on my own to look at all of Manhattan stretched before me. Like it’s not the middle of nowhere, it’s the middle of everything. I remember this feeling last summer, when we first got the house. Only, I’d been so distracted by the NYU drama this year, it’s like I totally forgot about it.

  “You have to excuse Tennyson,” Steinway says. “I swear to god it’s like he’s never been around a bi girl before.”

  I shake my head. “That’s what he meant? Kind of offensive, no?”

  Steinway adjusts her braids. “He doesn’t mean to be a dick, really, or else I’ve grown numb to it, but yeah, totally inappropriate. You get used to it, I guess. I swear he thinks one of these days I’m going to tell him he’s the tall stoner I’ve always been dreaming of.”

  I laugh, and Steinway presses a button on her walkie. “Steinway to Jake. Come in, Jake.”

  There’s a grumble of static and then a beep. “Go ahead, Steinway.”

  “Hold two thirty for Newbie. Headed skyward for FF. Over.”

  “Roger that. Over.”

  Steinway presses another button. “Over and out.”

  I stare at her as we keep walking, more than a little impressed. She somehow managed to make this whole thing sound like some sort of covert op. “Skyward is that?” I point to the ski lift about fifty yards ahead.

  “Deductive reasoning,” Steinway says. “Good.”

  “FF?”

  “First flight. Well, first flight here, for training, to be more precise. Anyway, you don’t have to use the lingo. It just helps us pass the time. You’ve worked at a zip-line place before, right?”

  I shake my head.

  She walks toward the rope tower, but again her gait is slow and easy, like there’s no rush, no rush at all, even if Jake, whoever he is, is holding the group for us.

  “Or summer camp or anything?”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  She pauses and turns, one hand on her hip. “But you’ve been to summer camp, done the whole zip-line thing, right?”

  I scratch at the back of my neck. The sun, so majestic, suddenly feels too bright, like I can’t keep any secrets, or maybe it’s Steinway, who doesn’t seem like she has much of a tolerance for bullshit, like she could see right through it. “Not exactly. I’m not from around here. I live in Brooklyn.”

  She laughs. “How did you get this job anyway?”

  Now it’s my turn to blush. “Nepotism.”

  Steinway bursts into that cackling laughter once again. “Oh my god, I love you already.”

  I feel that tingle in my fingers again, but this time, it’s not because I’ve had a mini breakthrough on the Screenplay That Will Never Be. It’s the same tingle I got when I first met Katie, when we found ourselves in the cafeteria at Xaverian High, two of the only people new to the whole parochial school thing. We were public school girls, all through middle school—PS 170 and PS 185 respectively—we didn’t come from the same schools everyone else did. Meeting Katie was like finding an ally, someone who gives you that feeling, like they can see you, really see you, for who you are. It’s the feeling I get every time I hang out with Chrissy. And the feeling I get when I talk to Elm.

  Sometimes, all you want in the world is to be seen like that. Sometimes, it feels impossibly hard.

  “My mom knows Marianne, the owner,” I say. “From way back when, I guess. I haven’t even met her.”

  “She’s great,” Steinway says. “Everyone’s great. Even Tennyson, when he’s not being an idiot.” She points up to the rope tower. “All right, so since you’re not an experienced guide or whatever, you’ll most likely be running the check-in desk like Tennyson is today, but you’ll sometimes be in charge of supervising Ropeland, our name for the tower. It’s mainly for kids who aren’t tall enough to do the zip line. There will always be one of us up there actually leading them through it—that guy up there is Joe—he helps out here occasionally. Anyway, mainly you just stand at the bottom and blow the whistle if anyone gets rowdy or tries to go up when it’s not yet their turn. Occasionally, one of the instructors might need your help with something, but for the most part you just chill. Got it?”

  I feel a tickle of relief in my stomach. So I won’t be up on some platform in the middle of a forest, sending people flying into the air. I can handle this. I can definitely handle this.

  I gaze up at the tower, about as tall as a small apartment building. My stomach aches just looking at it, but I tell myself it’s not a big deal. I can totally help out up there if an instructor needs me. Can’t I?

  “It’s not often that anyone needs help, anyway, so don’t worry too much. Come on.”

  We walk past the ropes course and toward the ski lift. There’s a line, but Steinway walks to the front. A girl is standing there, in the same T-shirt as us, chipping red paint off her nails and occasionally looking up at the line in front of her.

  “Cora, this is the new girl, Olivia. Olivia, Cora. I’m going to take her up, show her the course.”

  “Roger,” Cora says, still chipping away at her nail. Then she lifts her head, calling out to the crowd of people: “Hold the line!”

  We walk in front of everyone, and in seconds, a seat swings around, thunking at our thighs, and Steinway is pulling the bar down, the ground no longer beneath us. We’re floating up the mountain.

  I steal a quick glance down, and my stomach does a somersault. I’ve been on ski lifts before but I’ve never liked them. Why aren’t there seat belts, for one thing? Why don’t the bars go all the way across? So many questions.

  “Cora’s cool, but she’s a little low-key right now because she just broke up with her long-term boyfriend,” Steinway says. “She for some reason thought they were going to get married? She’s only twenty-one, but alas.”

  Steinway’s feet dangle back and forth as we continue up and up.

  “Christ, you look kind of green. You don’t get motion sickness, do you?”

  I shake my head.

  “Afraid of heights?”

  “Well . . .”

  “No, you’re not serious. You have to be kidding.”

  “Not totally afraid.”

  Steinway raises
her eyebrows. “Why are you here, again?”

  For a second, I almost think I can tell her, up here on our bench in the sky, where nothing else really matters. That I failed at finding my own plan for the summer and that my mom was left scraping through her contacts to find something for me to do. Then I lose my nerve. “I told you,” I say, deadpan. “Nepotism.”

  Another laugh, more chuckle than cackle this time. “Well, just try not to think about the distance between us and the ground too much, I guess.”

  She pauses, and so does the lift. Our bench keeps swinging, and my stomach churns. The lift starts back up, this time with a jolt. “Today’s going to be a baptism by fire,” Steinway continues.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Marianne likes all the newbies to do a zip-line course. It’s usually considered a perk, because most people like zip-lining. Most people who opt to spend their summer working at a zip-line park, at least.” Another raised eyebrow. “So anyway, you’ll get used to it? I could make up something to tell Marianne, but it will only be delaying the inevitable. She’s going to want you to do it.”

  I shake my head. “It’s okay,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

  Comfort zone, I remind myself. This is about getting out of my stupid comfort zone. I’m sure nothing will happen, no Final Destination moment that sends me flying, my body crushing into a cavern, bones crunching.

  The lift quickly approaches the summit of the mountain. Steinway lifts the bar over our heads.

  “Hop off in three, okay? One, two, three!”

  The seat practically pushes us off, and my feet once again connect with ground. Up here, it’s not so bad. The mountain is big and wide, no different from the ground below. It’s not like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff or anything. Plus, Steinway is incredibly cool, and I already feel like I can be myself here. This is good. One go at the zip line, and I won’t even have to deal with heights again. I’ll just check people in and occasionally supervise the ropes course. I can do this. I know I can do this.