Unearthly

by Cynthia Hand

  I look toward the ski hill, the same direction Tucker went, rethinking the whole skiing thing entirely.

  But Christian’s a skier, I remind myself. So a-skiing I will go.

  “That Tucker seems like a nice young man,” says Mom as we walk back to the car. “How come you’ve never told me about him before?”

  Fifteen minutes later I’m standing in the area where students are supposed to meet their instructors, which is teeming with little, screaming kids wearing helmets and goggles. I feel completely out of my element, like an astronaut about to take his first steps on an alien planet. I’m wearing rented skis, rented ski boots that feel weird and tight and make me walk funny, plus every other kind of snow gear my mom was able to convince me to put on. I drew the line at goggles, and I stuck the unflattering wool hat into my jacket pocket, but from the neck down every inch of me is covered and padded. I don’t know if I can move, let alone ski. My instructor, who’s supposed to meet me at nine a.m. sharp, is already five minutes late. I just watched my pain-in-the-butt brother jump on the ski lift like it’s no big deal and carve his way down a few minutes later like he was born on a snowboard, a blond girl by his side. Life sucks. That and my feet are cold.

  “Sorry I’m late,” says a rumbly voice from behind me. “I had to drag some Californians out of a snowbank.”

  It can’t be true. Fate is not so cruel. I pivot to meet Tucker’s blue eyes.

  “Lucky for them,” I say.

  His lips twitch like he’s trying not to laugh. He seems like he’s in a good mood.

  “So you go around pulling idiots out of the snow and teaching them how to ski,” I say.

  He shrugs. “It pays for the season pass.”

  “Are you any good at it?”

  “Pulling idiots out of the snow? I’m the best.”

  “Ha-ha. You’re hilarious. No—teaching them to ski.”

  “I guess you’ll find out.”

  He starts right into a lesson on how to balance, position my skis, and turn and stop. He treats me like I’m any other student, which is great. I even relax a little. It all seems fairly simple when you break it down.

  But then he tells me to get on the rope tow.

  “It’s easy. Just hold on to it and let it tug you up the hill. When you get to the top, let go.”

  He apparently thinks I’m a moron. I make my way awkwardly over to the line, then struggle up to the edge, where the greasy black cable drags through the snow. I reach down and grab it. It jerks at my arms, and I lurch forward and almost fall, but somehow I manage to get my skis in line and straighten up and let it tug me up the hill. I dart a quick look over my shoulder to see if Tucker is laughing. He’s not. He looks like some Olympic judge getting ready to mark a scorecard. Or some guy about to witness a horrific accident.

  At the top of the hill I drop the cable and struggle to get away before the next kid plows into me. Then I stand for a moment looking down. Tucker waits at the bottom. It’s not a steep slope, and there are no trees to crash into, which is comforting. But behind Tucker the slope keeps dropping, past the ski lift, the lodge, the small shops lined up in a path to the parking lot. I have a sudden picture of myself lying halfway underneath a car.

  “Come on!” Tucker shouts. “The snow won’t bite.”

  He thinks I’m scared. Okay, I am scared, but the idea of Tucker thinking I’m chicken makes my jaw tighten in determination. I position my skis in a careful V, the way he showed me. Then I push off.

  The cold air rushes my face, catches my hair and flutters it behind me like a banner. I put a bit of pressure on one foot and glide slowly to the left. I try again, this time arcing to the right. Back and forth, I make my way down the hill. I go straight for a while, picking up some speed, then try again. Easy. When I get closer to Tucker, I put my weight evenly on both feet and push the V wider, the way he taught me. I stop. Piece of cake.

  “Maybe I could try it the other way,” I say. “With my skis straight.”

  He stares at me, frowning, good mood apparently gone.

  “I guess you want me to believe that this is your first time skiing,” he says.

  I look into his frowning face, startled. Surely he didn’t expect me to crash on that little hill? I glance back at the other beginners. They resemble a flock of confused ducklings, just trying not to bump into each other. They don’t crash so much as flop over.

  I should lie to Tucker now, tell him I’ve done this before. That’d be the low-profile thing to do. But I don’t want to lie to another Avery this week.

  “Should I try it again?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “I think you should try it again.”

  This time he rides up behind me, and when I ski down, he’s right beside me. He makes me so nervous that I almost fall a couple of times, but I keep thinking about how humiliating it would be to crash and burn in front of Tucker, and manage to stay upright. When we get to the bottom he demands that we go again, this time skiing parallel style, which I like much better. It’s more graceful. It’s fun.

  “I’ve been teaching this class for two years,” he says when we get to the bottom around the fifth time, “and this is the first time anyone has ever made it through the whole hour without falling down once.”

  “I have good balance,” I explain. “I used to dance. Back in California. Ballet.”

  He stares at me with narrowed eyes, like he can’t figure out why I’d want to lie about something like that, unless I’m trying to show off. Or maybe he’s stumped at the idea that some California yuppie could be good at something other than shopping.

  “Well, that’s it,” he says abruptly. “End of lesson.”

  He turns toward the lodge.

  “What should I do now?” I call after him.

  “Try a chairlift,” he says, and then he skis away.

  For a while I stand outside the line for the beginner’s chairlift and watch people get on. They make it seem easy enough. It’s all about timing. I wish that Tucker hadn’t been such a jerk. It would be nice to get some instruction for this part.

  I decide to go for it. I get in line. When I near the front, an employee punches a hole in my ticket.

  “You alone?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Single!” he shouts toward the back of the line. “We have a single here!”

  So embarrassing. I suddenly wish I had goggles.

  “Okay,” says the ski lift guy, waving somebody forward. When the guy gestures at me I shuffle up to the line they’ve drawn in the snow, position my skis, look over my shoulder, and nervously watch the chair swing toward me. It hits the back of my legs hard. I sit, and the chair lifts me into the air. Then I’m rising quickly up the mountainside, swaying gently. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “That bad, huh?”

  I turn to see who I’m sitting with. All my breath leaves me in a rush.

  I’m riding the chairlift with Christian Prescott.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hey, Clara,” he replies.

  He remembers my name. It was just a dream. Just a stupid, stupid dream.

  “Nice day for the slopes, huh?” he says.

  “Yeah.” My heart’s drumming a crazy rhythm in my ears. He seems perfectly at home on the chairlift. With his forest green ski jacket and black ski pants, a black hat with goggles pushed up onto his head, and some kind of fuzzy neck warmer, he looks like the poster boy for skiing. His eyes are gorgeous against the jacket, a deep emerald green. He’s so close I can feel the heat coming off him.

  “Didn’t I see you at Pizza Hut the other day?” he asks.

  He had to bring that up. Heat rushes to my face. He could be looking at my hair right now thinking Bozo, Bozo the clown. Why oh why didn’t I wear a stupid hat over my stupid hair?

  “Yeah, maybe,” I stammer. “I mean, I was there, I—maybe you saw me. I guess you saw me, right? I mean, I saw you.”

  “You should have come over and said hello.”

  “I guess I
should have.” I glance down at the ground rushing by beneath us, hoping for a topic of conversation. He’s wearing fancy black skis with a kind of curve to them, which seem a lot different than mine.

  “You don’t snowboard?” I ask.

  “I can board,” he says. “But I ski more. I’m on the race team. You want a Jolly Rancher?”

  “What?”

  He sticks his poles under his thigh and takes off his gloves. Then he unzips his jacket pocket, reaches in, and takes out a handful of hard candies.

  “I always keep these in my pockets for skiing,” he says.

  My mouth is suddenly incredibly dry. “Sure, I’ll have one.”

  “Red hot or cherry?”

  “Red hot,” I say.

  He unwraps a candy and pops it in his mouth. Then he holds another out to me. I can’t even pick it up with my heavy glove.

  “I’ll get it.” He unwraps the candy and leans toward me. I try to swipe my hair out of my face.

  “Open up,” he says, holding up the candy.

  I open my mouth. Very carefully, he lays the candy on my tongue. Our eyes meet for a moment. When I close my mouth, he leans back against the chair.

  “Thanks,” I say around the candy. I cough. The candy is surprisingly hot. I wish I’d asked for cherry.

  “You’re welcome.” He puts his gloves back on.

  “So do you have to practice skiing every weekend if you’re on the race team?” I ask.

  “I come up here on the weekends to ski for fun, mostly, and races, when they hold them here. During the week, I practice nights up at Snow King.”

  “Wow, you can ski at night?”

  He laughs.

  “Sure. They have lights set up along the runs. I love it at night, actually. It’s not so crowded. It’s quiet. You can see the lights from town. It’s beautiful.”

  “Sounds beautiful.”

  Neither of us says anything for a while. He knocks his skis together gently, sending a shower of snow down onto the hill below us. It’s surreal, dangling in midair with him on the side of a mountain, seeing him up close, hearing his voice.

  “Snow King’s that ski area right inside Jackson Hole?” I ask.

  “Yeah. It has only five runs, but it’s a good hill to practice on. And when we race for the State Championships the kids from school can watch us from the parking lot.”

  I’m about to say something about wanting to see him race, but that’s when I notice that the chair is approaching a little hut on the side of the mountain, and the skiers are getting off.

  “Oh crap.”

  “What?” asks Christian.

  “I don’t know how to get off this thing.”

  “You don’t—”

  “This is my first day skiing,” I say, panic rising in my throat. The little hut is getting closer and closer. “What do I do?”

  “Keep the tips of your skis up,” he says quickly. “We’ll come up onto the mound. When it flattens out, stand up and get over to the side. You have to do it pretty fast, to get out of the way of the people coming behind you.”

  “Oh man. I don’t know if this was such a great idea.”

  “Relax,” he says. “I’ll help you.”

  The chair is seconds away from the little hut. Every muscle in my body feels tense.

  “Put your poles on,” he instructs.

  You can do this, I tell myself, sticking my fingers through the slots in the ski poles and gripping them tightly. You’re an angel-blood. Stronger, faster, smarter. Use it, for once.

  “Tips up,” says Christian.

  I lift my skis. We skim up a short embankment and then, just like he said, we slide onto level ground.

  “Stand up!” orders Christian.

  I struggle to my feet. The chair hits me in the calves, nudging me forward.

  “Now push yourself over to the side,” he says, already skiing away to the left. I try to follow him, planting my poles in the snow and pushing with all my strength. Too late I realize that he meant for me to go to the right while he went left. He turns to check how I’m doing just as I shoot toward him, already off balance. My skis slip on top of his. I flail, and one of my arms catches his shoulder.

  “Whoa!” he yells, trying to steady himself, but there’s no way. We slide for a ways and then go down in a heap.

  “I am so sorry,” I say. I’m facedown on top of him. My red-hot Jolly Rancher is lying next to his head in the snow. His hat and goggles are missing. My skis have come off and my poles are gone. I struggle to get off him, but I can’t seem to get my feet under me.

  “Hold still,” he says firmly.

  I stop moving. He puts his arms around me and rolls us gently to one side. Then he reaches down, pops off the ski that’s still under my leg, and rolls away from me. I lie on my back in the snow, wanting to dig myself a hole and crawl into it for the rest of the school year. Possibly forever. I close my eyes.

  “You okay?” he says.

  I open my eyes. He’s leaning over me, his face close to mine. I can smell the cherry candy on his breath. Behind him a cloud shifts from in front of the sun, the sky brightening in that way it has of opening up. I suddenly feel aware of everything: my heart pumping blood through my veins, the snow slowly beginning to melt under my body, the needles on the trees shifting in the breeze, the mixed smell of pine and Christian’s cologne and something that could be ski wax, the rattling of the chairs as they pass over the poles of the ski lift.

  And Christian, with hat hair, laughing at me with his eyes, a breath away.

  I don’t think of the fire then, or that he’s my purpose. I don’t think about saving him. I think, What would it be like to kiss him?

  “I’m fine.”

  “Here.” He brushes a strand of my hair out of my face, his bare hand skimming my cheek. “That was fun,” he says. “Haven’t done that in a while.”

  At first I think he means the thing with my hair, but then I realize he means falling.

  “I guess I’m going to have to practice the chairlift thing,” I say.

  He helps me sit up.

  “Maybe a little,” he says. “You did great for a first timer, though. If I hadn’t gotten in your way you totally would have made it.”

  “Right. So you’re the problem.”

  “Totally.” He glances up at the guy sitting in the little hut, who’s talking into a phone, probably calling the ski police to come drag me off the mountain.

  “She’s okay, Jim,” Christian calls to the man. Then he locates my skis and poles, which luckily haven’t gone very far.

  “Were you wearing a hat?” he asks, finding his own and tugging it back onto his head. He readjusts his goggles on top of it. I shake my head, then reach up and gingerly touch my hair, which has once again rejected the ponytail elastic and hangs down in long strands around my shoulders, clumped with snow.

  “No,” I answer. “I, no, I didn’t have a hat.”

  “They say ninety percent of your body heat escapes through your head,” he says.

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  He lines up my skis in front of me and kneels to help me step into them. I hold on to his shoulder for balance.

  “Thanks,” I murmur, looking down at him.

  Once again, my hero. And here I’m supposed to be the one saving him.

  “No problem,” he says, looking up. His eyes narrow, like he’s studying my face. A snowflake lands on his cheek and melts. His expression changes, as if he suddenly remembered something. He gets up and snaps into his own skis quickly.

  “Over that direction there’s a beginner’s run, something not too steep,” he says, pointing behind me. “It’s called Pooh Bear.”

  “Oh, great.” My sign is a green circle.

  “I’d stay to help but I’m already late for running the race course farther up the mountain,” he says. “Do you think you’ll be okay getting down?”

  “Sure,” I say quickly. “I was doing fine on the bunny hill. I didn’t fa
ll once today. Until now, that is. How do you go farther up the mountain?”

  “There’s another chair, down there.” He gestures to where, sure enough, another bigger chairlift is humming away, taking people up the side of an impossibly steep-looking rise. “And another one, after that.”

  “Crazy,” I say. “We could go all the way to the top.”

  “I could. But it’s not for beginners.”

  The moment is definitely over.

  “Right. Well, thanks again,” I say awkwardly. “For everything.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He’s already moving away, skiing his way toward the other chairlift. “See you around, Clara,” he calls over his shoulder.

  I watch him ski down to the other chairlift and recline gracefully into the seat when it comes. The chair sways back and forth as it rises through the snowy air up the side of the mountain. I watch until his green jacket disappears.

  “Yes, you will,” I whisper.

  It’s a big step, our first real conversation. At the thought my chest swells with an emotion so powerful I feel tears prick my eyes. It’s embarrassing.

  It’s something like hope.

  Chapter 7

  Flock Together

  Monday around seven thirtyish, I drive to the Pink Garter to meet Angela Zerbino. The theater is completely dark. I knock but no one comes to the door. I get out my cell and then realize that I never got Angela’s phone number. I knock again, harder. The door opens so fast that I jump. A short, wiry-thin woman with long, black hair peers up at me. She looks irritated.

  “We’re closed,” she says.

  “I’m here to see Angela.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up.

  “You’re a friend of Angela’s?”

  “Uh—”

  “Come in,” says the woman, holding the door open.

  It’s uncomfortably quiet inside, and it smells like popcorn and sawdust. I look around. An ancient-looking cash register sits on top of a glass snack counter with rows of candy lined up inside. The walls are decorated with framed posters of the theater’s past productions, which are mostly cowboy themed.

  “Nice place,” I say, and then I bump into a pole with a velvet rope and nearly send the whole line of them crashing to the floor. I manage to right the pole before it starts a chain reaction. I cringe and look at the woman, who’s watching me with a strange, unreadable expression. She looks like Angela except for the eyes, which are dark brown instead of Angela’s amber color, and she has deep wrinkles around her mouth that make her look older than her body suggests. She reminds me of a Gypsy in one of those old movies.