by Lydia Sharp
“At least we know where we are now.” Which pales as a bright side to the situation.
I hop down out of the Outback and we walk to the entrance of the same place we left two hours ago. The Grinning Bear. We were so turned around, we did a complete circle, probably more than once. And it’s too dangerous to head back out, even if we did have the GPS. Visibility is nil.
Blustering flurries rage on with a vengeance, swirling miniature tornadoes, and when we enter the building, our hair is more white than black. My eyelashes tickle as flakes melt on them. We stomp snow off our boots, marching in place.
“Well, hi there!” a girl with a familiar twang says.
Hunter snaps his head up and stops brushing his arms. “Vicki. Hey. You’re still here. That’s … that’s great. This whole day is just great.”
Her cheeky grin drips innocence. “What’s the matter, did y’all forget something?”
Vicki swings open the room door and hands me a brass key hooked to a ring with a dead rabbit’s foot. The number 211 has been shaved into it. “Stay as long you need to. This room ain’t accounted for.”
“Thanks, but we don’t plan on staying.” I drop the rabbit’s foot key on the nightstand and plug my cell phone into the charger she’s letting me borrow. “This shouldn’t take more than an hour to recharge.” An hour of us going nowhere while Kai moves farther and farther away. A lot of good having a car did us.
Hunter kicks off his boots, sheds his coat, and turns on the TV. The news has taken over regular programming to report on the blizzard. It’s already a whiteout outside, but according to the radar, the worst is coming overnight. “Look,” Hunter says, pointing between blobs of blue on the screen. “There’s a break here. If we leave as soon as it lightens up, we might be able to catch up to him before the next wave hits—the bigger one—and bring him back here for the night.”
“Not if the roads aren’t plowed,” Vicki says. “With how fast it’s coming down, they won’t be able to keep up. Y’all might as well just stay until morning when it’s been cleared.”
“We can’t. Kai’s alone out there.” I sit on the queen-sized bed. There’s an openmouthed bear’s head on the wall above it—hello, nightmares. “What if he gets stuck somewhere, exposed, or gets lost like we did? We can’t just leave him to freeze to death overnight.”
“Vicki has a point, though,” Hunter says. “Driving’s out, and walking won’t make us any faster than he is.” Headshake. “We need a snowmachine.”
“Snowmachine? Doesn’t that make snow?”
“Not from around here, are you?” Vicki says through a grin, using my earlier words to her against me.
So I mimic her earlier response. “No, I’m a California transplant.”
Vicki’s eyes light up, but before she can riddle me with questions, Hunter explains. “A snowmachine is like a car for the snow, with skis on the bottom, so you can ride on top of the snow instead of trying to muscle through it.”
“They call them snowmobiles in West Virginia,” Vicki chimes in. She fluffs a pillow, a bit too obviously trying to find reasons to stay here and chat. “Some people around here call them snowmachines. I never heard that term before we moved to Alaska, either.”
She’s still talking when I step to the window and pull back a curtain. Everything is covered. Rooftops, roads, vehicles, trees. Like God took a paintbrush and whitewashed the world. Someone heavily bundled up treks across the road to the general store on the other side, marring the landscape’s purity—and somehow not sinking too far with each step. Snowshoes?
If that person is prepared enough to have snowshoes on hand, then maybe—
“Vicki,” I say, turning, at the same time that Hunter asks her, “Don’t you have to get back to work?”
“Naw, I’m off the rest of the day.” She goes to the bathroom but leaves the door open. I think she’s checking supplies. Shower curtain rings rattle against a metal rod.
“Vicki, I—”
“Then shouldn’t you be getting home?” Hunter raises his voice so she’ll hear him. “Or are you stuck here, too?”
“Not stuck here,” she says, entering the main room. Seeing nothing else to address, she flops down on the bed. “I live here, in an apartment with my mama. She and Daddy used to run this place together, before they split.” Vicki looks down for a moment and her mouth twists. I want to tell her I get it, and that it’s a relief to meet someone who gets it, but we don’t have time for my issues right now.
“Vicki,” I repeat instead, taking advantage of her silence. “Do you have a snowmobile we can borrow? I can pay you for it.”
“I’m sure you can,” she says. “But we need them here. And besides, you would need two, not just one. They each only hold two people. Once you pick up Kai, you’ll have three people.”
“Well …” Crap. “Is there somewhere we can rent them?”
“Yeah, across town.” Vicki’s expression dims. “How bad were the roads when you came in?”
“We barely made it back here; we’re not going out again until it lightens up,” Hunter says. “But even if we could get there, Gabi, you don’t know how to drive a snowmachine, and we need two. So we need two drivers until we get to Kai.” He turns his face toward Vicki, pleading with his eyes. And his mouth. “If we got back here by tonight, could we … ? Could you … come with us?”
“I—I don’t know,” she says. “I want to help y’all, but I’ll have to ask Mama. Taking two would leave her with nothing. On a day like this …” She worries her lip. “I don’t know.”
I hate to pull the “I’m filthy rich” card, but: “All I can offer her in return is money. My credit card info is already in your system. Tell her she can charge whatever she wants, whatever she thinks is fair.”
Vicki nods. “Okay, I’ll ask her as soon as she’s done with housekeeping. Shouldn’t be more than a half hour or so, and you can’t go anywhere before then anyway.”
“Thank you.” I squeeze her into a hug. “You’re the best.” I can’t help but gloat a little over this small victory, silently taunting what’s on the other side of the window. Alaska tried to scare me off with a storm, and lost.
“I’m going to be in debt to you forever,” Hunter says, shoulders slumping.
“This is nothing compared to the debt you’re going to rack up in college.”
“Thanks for the reality check.”
“Anytime.” I settle onto the bed and cocoon myself inside the plaid comforter. “What do you want to do now?” I’d rather not just sit here and watch the weather, waiting for it to get better before it gets worse, wondering if Kai is okay when there’s nothing I can do about it. “Vicki, do you have any games we could play? Cards? Anything?”
“No,” she says, “but I have movies! Just got a new one the other day that I haven’t watched yet. Man of Mercury.”
Something catches in my throat, and I let out a small, choked sound, but neither of them seems to notice.
Vicki goes on, “At first I thought it was a sci-fi movie, but it’s actually a chick flick. Do you mind chick flicks, Hunter? You don’t seem like the kind of guy who would mind romantic stuff.”
He ignores the question. “Is that the one with Tom Morgan and … What’s her name? Mary something?”
“Marietta Cruz,” Vicki fills in for him. “That woman is one hot mama, let me tell you. If my rack looks half as good as hers by the time I’m her age, I’ll count myself lucky.”
Hunter refuses to reply to her comment or make eye contact, going as far as looking around at every rack in the room—every set of antlers, real or fake, even the coatrack—except Vicki’s.
I throw the blanket off me, suddenly hot. “I didn’t realize that movie was out on DVD already.”
“New release this month,” Vicki says. “I heard it was good. Have you seen it?”
“Yeah, I …” Was in it, a bit part in one scene. And so was my mom, as the lead, aka the hot mama with an amazing rack. There’s a sex scene in
it, too, with the guy she left my dad for—the guy she chose over our family. The reason she sent us as far away as possible without leaving the country or crossing the ocean. I’d sooner jump in a frozen lake naked than watch this movie, and I’ve recently concluded that is never happening. “I saw it at the theater.” At its LA premiere, to be exact. “It’s cliché, and boring, and the acting is painful to watch. Marietta’s worst role yet. I used to be a fan, but now I’m just kind of embarrassed for her.”
None of those is a lie. The movie was her worst yet, and I am kind of embarrassed for her subpar performance in it, but that might have had something to do with her personal life being utter chaos while she was filming. What should have been one of the best times of my life—my first speaking role in a major motion picture, even if it was just as a waitress taking the heroine’s order and refilling her mug—turned into an experience I just want to forget. Seeing Mom and the guy who she was cheating with on Dad giving each other lovey-dovey eyes over coffee made me regret ever auditioning for the role in the first place.
It also made me stumble over my lines. Repeatedly. And every screw-up took us “back to one”—the director’s cue for everyone to go back to their first mark and start the scene over.
“Sorry, oh—Crap.”
“Back to one.”
“Chai latte with a dimple—I mean a dollop—”
“Gabriella, focus—”
“Back to one.”
“Oops—”
“Ow!”
“Back to one.”
Back to one … Back to one … Back to one … Until everyone moved in sync and every word came out flawless, every syllable of inflection perfectly intoned. Sometimes I wish I could go “back to one” in my life. The truth is I’m not a very good actress. Performing doesn’t come naturally for me—it isn’t rooted in my heart like it is in Mom’s—but I kept trying to make it work because it was the only connection she and I ever had. Now I wish I had severed that connection a long time ago.
I’m not naïve. I knew what she was doing with Tom even before Dad told me about the divorce. He didn’t tell me why; he knew he didn’t have to. And I didn’t expect Mom to sugarcoat things for me. I just wanted her to talk to me about it, come clean, admit what I already knew. I wanted her to be honest. I wanted her to say to me, just once, “I’m sorry. I messed up. I’m only human.” I understand human imperfection—I don’t understand my mother. She didn’t say any of those things. She didn’t even act like anything had changed.
So, before I got on the plane, I had to let her know how wrong she was, how much she changed everything, and once the flood started, I couldn’t stop it. Dad had to pull me through security while I was still screaming at her. People were staring and shaking their heads. They probably thought I was a bratty teenager throwing a tantrum. If Mom hadn’t been completely incognito that day, though, we would have made headlines, and people would have understood why I was so upset. Her image took a huge hit after the scandal went public. People never side with the cheater.
Vicki looks to Hunter for a dissenting vote, but he only shrugs. Of course he does. “I’m not really in the mood for a movie, but there’s nothing else to do here.”
“If you’re bored,” Vicki says, “you can go downstairs and play darts by the bar. Half-price drinks and appetizers if you score a perfect game!”
“I’m not old enough to drink,” he reminds her.
“But you’re old enough to eat,” she counters.
“This is true.” He tugs on his boots without lacing them. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Hunter, we just had lunch,” I say.
“That was closer to a brunch, and it was two hours ago. Aren’t you hungry?”
“No.”
“You sure you don’t want anything?” The corners of his mouth twitch. “Not even akutaq?”
“Funny.” I level my gaze at him, silently daring him to take another jab.
He releases the laugh he was holding back and then heads out. I guess I need to work on my death stare.
“See ya!” Vicki chirps as he closes the door behind him, leaving us alone.
To do what, I don’t know. Talk?
“He’s kind of an enigma, isn’t he?” Vicki says, then quickly changes topics. “So, what brought you to Alaska?”
Talking it is, then. “My parents.”
“Your daddy a mountain man, too?”
“No.” I stifle a laugh, imagining Dad with a scraggly beard, wearing flannel, or doing anything outdoorsy. “He’s a lawyer. But my parents got divorced and …” I pause, choosing my words carefully so they aren’t lies but also don’t reveal all the details. “He wanted to start a new life. I did, too. So I came with him, left my mom in California, and … Where better to start over than Alaska?”
Vicki swallows. Says nothing.
I have to fill this awkward silence. “Sometimes I think I’m being childish for hating it as much as I do. I mean hating that they split, not hating Alaska. It was obviously the right choice for them. They were so miserable … they fought all the time … for years. Why should I want them to stay together and be miserable?”
That’s the first time I’ve given voice to those feelings, and I’m simultaneously anxious to hear her validate them and scared she’ll judge me. Like the odd mix of fear and excitement you feel going up the first hill of a roller coaster—the kind that sometimes results in puking on your own face.
“I was twelve when my dad left.” Her voice has lost all its bubbly, girlish charm, and she suddenly sounds and looks much older to me. “I can’t believe it’s been six years already. Because it still hurts now like it did then. If anyone is being childish, it’s me, stuck in the past, hung up on feelings that should have faded a long time ago.”
The relief I hoped for dashes out of reach. “So it doesn’t get any better with time?”
“Maybe it will for you,” she says. “You said your parents were miserable together. Mine weren’t. They were happy, I know they were. Their divorce blindsided me and my brothers. I don’t think they wanted to separate. I think they each thought they were doing the other a favor by letting them go. Daddy had a dream that Mama didn’t share. She let him go so he would be happy, and he left her behind so she would be happy. But they aren’t as happy now, apart, as they were when they were together. And I don’t know why they can’t see that. I don’t know why they can’t …”
“Find a way to make it work?”
“Yeah.” Her voice goes soft and delicate, fragile, and we decide it’s enough talk of things that can’t be fixed. I wish I could say she’s right about my situation, that my knowing they were miserable together is justification enough to realize their divorce was a good thing. But the problem is they’re still miserable. Or at least Dad is. Leaving each other didn’t resolve anything.
I don’t think their getting back together is the answer, though—that wouldn’t help anything now. I think they should have never let it go this far. They were happy once, a long time ago. They shouldn’t have forgotten that. They should have tried harder to stay together in the first place.
Hunter has returned to our room, my phone is charged, and the snow is starting to let up, but the roads are a mess. There’s clearly no way we’re driving a car. It’s a snowmobile or nothing. All we’re waiting for is word from Vicki on whether her mom will agree to our deal. I’m antsy, ready to get moving.
“Maybe you should call your dad,” Hunter says. “You might not get another chance for a while. I was able to get a hold of my mom with the landline to let her know we’re spending the night somewhere so she doesn’t worry.”
“I tried while you were downstairs. Several times. He’s not answering. Since the divorce, it’s been really hard to get through to him, you know? Even when I’m talking to his face.”
Hunter nods. “I felt the same way with my dad. For a long time. Then I stopped trying to get him to pay attention to me—the real me, not the me he wanted to see. And no
w I … wish I hadn’t. If he were still around, I’d keep trying.” Swallow. Grimace. “Keep trying, Gabi. Just keep trying.”
The money worked. Because it usually does.
We leave for the shelter around three p.m., which only gives us about three hours until sunset. Hunter isn’t sure if that will be enough time to find Kai and get back to the lodge—especially since we’re going off-road now, so we have to rely on a trail map Vicki provided that shows the location of the shelters in this area—but there’s a chance it might be enough time, and staying put gives us a 100 percent chance of not finding him. So here I am, taking my first ride on a snowmobile.
I can’t really enjoy it, though. Completely encased in my heavy coat and a pair of snowpants I borrowed from Vicki, somehow I’m both sweating and freezing. Wearing this helmet, my head is a watermelon, heavy and oversized, and I don’t have any peripheral vision. Plus Hunter’s back is blocking everything ahead of me. Turning my head to watch the trees zoom by on either side of us just makes me dizzy, so I rest my clunky head between Hunter’s broad shoulders and close my eyes. Every bump and turn catches me off guard. I thought I had developed excellent balance from surfing, but if I didn’t have a death grip on Hunter I’d have been eating snow a mile ago. The vehicle’s movements are rough and jostling. There’s no fluidity, no easing into a natural rhythm like I do with waves.
But the good thing about not being able to follow the roads anymore is that we don’t have to follow the roads anymore. The trail, marked by small signs, takes us where cars and trucks can’t go. We’ll get to Kai faster this way. No traffic. No stoplights. No speed limit. No rules.
“You doing okay?” Hunter shouts over his shoulder. The words come out muffled from behind his helmet, but his tone makes the meaning clear enough. I stretch my arm forward to give him a thumbs-up and he guns it. I cinch my arms around him tighter. My belly flips with excitement. The landscape has opened up, there aren’t quite as many trees, and the behemoth mountains remain a comfortably safe distance away on the western and eastern horizons. I dare a peek around Hunter’s shoulder, pushing up onto the balls of my feet to get a better view. An unending field of sparkling white lies ahead of us, inviting us to spread our wings and fly. There’s no one around to tell us what to do, what to say or think or feel. The frozen tip of the earth is our playground.