First Tracks

by Catherine O'Connell

  One of the more senior members of patrol, Stu Reininger came to Aspen straight out of high school in northern California in his only worldly possession: his van. Thirty years later he was still living in a van, his second I presume – parked in the Highlands parking lot in the winter and up the pass in the summer. Reininger didn’t have much to his name besides the van and his ski gear, which had been enough for him at eighteen, but at forty-eight he’d started grousing about rich people and trust funders having it all, which told me he was re-examining his situation. He was a good-looking guy when he brushed his hair, which was thick and dark brown and grew out of his head like it was trying to defy gravity. Strong and lean with dark skin etched from years of sun at high elevation, he was also extremely bow-legged, making it easy to spot him anywhere on the hill.

  ‘Mind a hitchhiker?’ Reininger asked.

  I wanted to shout ‘yes’. Not only did Reininger talk nonstop, he told some of the worst jokes in the world. And I kind of wanted to ride with Singh alone so I could let off some steam about my near disaster.

  ‘Sure, c’mon,’ I said, not meaning it.

  ‘No jokes,’ Singh warned, meaning it.

  This chair we were riding on was nicknamed ‘the couch’, with good reason. It was so slow we probably could have climbed up faster. Aside from the utter and sheer horror of screwing up so royally my first day back, I was further bothered that the slow ride meant fifteen minutes of Reininger. Not that he was a bad guy. He just made me crazy sometimes. To point: he launched straight into one of his infantile jokes.

  ‘If you’re American when you go into the john, and you’re American when you come out, what are you in between?’

  ‘Please don’t, Stu,’ I said, dreading the punchline. Singh sat in silence.

  ‘European.’

  ‘I said no jokes,’ Singh begged.

  ‘That wasn’t a joke. That was a riddle.’

  The ride continued along those lines so that by the time we got up top, I was ready to catapult from the chair, from the dual effects of a cold headwind and Reininger blowing hot air. The moment we unloaded, I made excuses to the guys and headed to the hut for a cup of coffee.

  I racked my skis and went inside. Thankfully Neverman was nowhere to be seen. The hut was basically empty except for Lucy in dispatch. I poured myself some java and sat down, cupping it in my hands. I didn’t usually get so cold. I mean in my business, if you’re sensitive to the cold, you’d better find some other occupation. But the shivers I was suffering were coming from some other place, from somewhere deep inside me where insecurity lives.

  Some of the other patrollers came in and took seats across the room. In no mood to talk to anybody, I picked up a copy of Ski Patrol magazine, the chosen reading material for people working in the trade. Flipping through the pages, I randomly turned to an article on seeking therapy after experiencing a death. It detailed the story of a patrol called to an on-mountain cardiac arrest in a double-black-diamond run in Sun Valley. The patroller did everything in his power to save the guy, employed every EMT skill at his command. But he lost the battle and the skier died. Five seconds later a second patroller arrived with the paddles that would have made the difference. The deceased was a forty-five-year-old father of two, ten years younger than the patroller. The first on the scene rebuked himself for showing up without paddles in the first place and found himself in therapy for months afterwards. The gist of the article was, how much is enough? How much is the skier’s own risk?

  I recalled a few similar incidents in my career where decisions called the difference between life and death. A couple of heart attacks. A guy going into shock with a broken femur. A severed artery that I had to stand on to keep a guy from bleeding out. Bad as those situations were, the victims all survived.

  Not so with a young woman who smacked a tree and died almost instantly of internal injuries. I’ll never forget trying to break the news to her shattered boyfriend. He was standing at the base of the mountain with his snowboard in his hands trying to digest what I’d said while three other patrollers loaded what was left of his longtime girlfriend into the ambulance. Every fiber of me had wanted to lie to him about her already being dead, to keep his hope alive and foist delivery of the world’s worst news on the people in the emergency room. But not wanting to give him an iota of hope to be later extinguished, I buckled down and told him the truth. I’d never seen a face drain like that. And I’m not talking about color. I’m talking about life. His face emptied of life completely. It was like someone had pulled the plug on an inner tube and let out the air though it still held its form.

  My thoughts looped back around to Warren. Not that he had been far from my mind in recent days. I felt like the deflated inner-tube snowboarder at the thought of his body crushed beneath tons of snow. How much of his death was my fault and how much of it was his?

  I replayed my performance earlier in the day, complete with violating the taboo of losing a sled. The patrol was rife with stories of rescues gone wrong. Of victims in runaway toboggans flipping face down. Of compound fractures in chairlift evacuations gone bad when someone lets the rope go too soon. Of inbound slides with the same deadly results as my out of bounds one. The legends abounded and each time a new one had been added to the repertoire, I’d crossed my fingers and tossed imaginary salt over my shoulder saying ‘not I’. I was meticulous and careful and thought I was immune until the avalanche. That was bad beyond bad. But losing the toboggan days later? That was a game changer.

  As a woman, I knew there were situations when I had to depend upon another patroller for help, such as when the victim was too heavy to turn over or haul back up a hill. I accepted my limitations strength-wise and did my best to compensate by working that much harder, by paying that much more attention. But today’s failing had nothing to do with strength. It was an utter and complete mistake and luckily the injured skier hadn’t paid the ultimate price, so it could be laughed off. The way most mistakes can be laughed off – until they count.

  I thought about bad luck coming in threes. An avalanche. A bird’s nest. A lost sled. Hopefully my run was through.

  TWELVE

  I took it easy for the rest of the day, staking poles as necessary and doing some general policing like admonishing straightliners who seemed to have confused the way to the base with America’s downhill. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a racing fool nearly take out an intermediate skier in his path, in other words endangering the very people who pay my salary. The intermediates deserve to enjoy themselves without being terrified and we need them. I mean, they really pay all the bills on Aspen Mountain where there are no beginners’ runs. When I ride the gondola or chair with a visiting intermediate skier, they are usually intrigued that I’m ski patrol and full of questions over how I can do my job as a woman. I can’t even begin to say how many times I’ve been asked how much weight I can pull in a toboggan. I never answer them, but I’ll answer you. Lots.

  Normalcy had lulled me back into a better state of being, and I was feeling pretty good as I checked in at the shack to see about sweep. While everything patrol does is important, sweep is one of the most important daily responsibilities. Working from the top, we basically ski every inch of the terrain after the last lift has closed to make certain no luckless skier is lost in the woods or face down in thigh-deep powder or has piled into a tree.

  Neverman was barking out orders on the radio, and I was glad when I heard my name called out alongside Meghan’s to sweep the backside of Bell. I really liked and respected Meghan, and appreciated that our skiing styles were different. While I loved to finesse the hill, Meghan just bombed it on legs made of steel. And while I’m basically an introvert by design, Meghan’s never met a person she doesn’t want to chat up, which makes riding the chair with her problematic as she’s practically exchanging names and phone numbers with visitors by the time we get off. Have I added she’s not opposed to a free meal here and there and accepts every date she’s offered?r />
  Me, I’m more to myself, always have been. I don’t like accepting things from people, like to pay for myself on a date, and have little interest in achieving the kind of wealth that surrounds me, though I must plead guilty to enjoying the perks it provides. Like living in a safe town that offers some of the best outdoor sports in the country. Access to a free museum and excellent community college and programs at the Aspen Institute such as Shakespeare and Great Books. A classical music festival and jazz festival. That’s all on top of having some of the most important leaders on the planet stop in town on a regular basis and being treated the same as any other person. I must confess to having no complaint about having to rub shoulders with the wealthy in that regard.

  The clouds parted as Meghan and I left the hut, sending sunlight rolling across the upper slopes like a blanket flicked across a field of cotton. The untouched layers of snow from the storm promised a joyous ride down for the two of us.

  We were standing in our skis waiting for the gondola to load its last downhill passengers before starting the sweep, when Meghan burst into ribald laughter. It was her typical laugh, the kind so contagious you join in even when you don’t know what the other person is laughing about. Fighting against joining in the hysteria without knowing why, I focused on the fact that it is impossible to tickle yourself. Truth? You bet. Meghan tried to stifle her laughter, but even a gloved hand over her mouth did little to stop it. She pointed a gloved hand toward two women entering the gondola terminal. A pair of ski-toting ski instructors tailed behind.

  ‘Those are the two who ended up face down under the Ajax Express this morning,’ she managed to spit out between convulsions. ‘One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. You had to be there.’

  As my eyes followed her outstretched hand, the smile prepping to crack my face went south upon realizing that one of the women was Zuzana McGovern and the instructor carrying her skis was Reese Chambers. Warren had hand-selected Reese to teach his wife to ski, a mission that he had failed miserably. A big guy with a big handlebar moustache and a gut to match, he’d been around since forever and was legendary for being the most patient person on the mountain.

  I hadn’t recognized Zuzana right off, despite the mane of blond hair blowing in the wind behind her. And then I realized why. From the day Warren introduced me to her, I had never seen her in any ski outfit that wasn’t white. Fur-trimmed or garnished with medallions, down-filled or spandex stretch, she must have had two dozen white ski outfits. White was her signature.

  Today she was wearing black, a shiny jacket with a quilted pattern and a wide belt at the waist barely covering a pair of snugly fit black ski pants. The ensemble was beautiful and stylish, but it was black. Her companion was dressed in something equally expensive I’m sure, but it was pink and orange and I made little note of it as I had no interest in what she was wearing.

  Meghan was still laughing, bent over at the waist and propped up on the grips of her poles. I jabbed her with my elbow, and her laughter dried up when she looked at me and saw the severe look on my face.

  ‘Stop it,’ I said in a tone beyond questioning. ‘Did you know one of those women is Zuzana McGovern?’

  Her face went serious behind her goggles and she refocused to confirm what I had just said. There was a moment of silence followed by, ‘You mean Warren’s wife? I’m sorry. I’ve never seen her in anything but white. I wonder why she’s wearing black.’

  And then the two of us shared an awkward silence as the answer occurred to both of us at the same time. The rich have their own way of doing things. It was her way of showing she was in mourning.

  THIRTEEN

  Saturday was my night at the Bugaboo as coat-check girl, a job I’d held on Saturdays for over fifteen years. I was smart enough not to let go of the job Judy had got for me when I first arrived in Aspen. It was lucrative beyond rational. From seven in the evening until one thirty in the morning, I would smilingly accept various incarnations of deceased animals or jackets constructed of ultra-expensive man-made fibers and reciprocate with a numbered tag. Over the course of the evening hundreds of coats would pass back and forth over my counter, all redeemed for a voluntary gratuity, always at least a dollar, usually a five, and more than a fair share of tens and twenties. There was always at least one Benjamin. On a good night there could be three.

  Single or hundred, I always give my best smile and most appreciative thanks as I stuff the bill into the tip jar that gets emptied several times during the evening, so my investment banker and trust-fund clients don’t catch on that on Saturday nights the lowly coat-check girl is probably making more an hour than they do. But as I’ve alluded to before, my Bugaboo money is earmarked for a special purpose. I wish I could say it was going towards world peace or solving hunger or protecting the environment. Those are all important causes to me and throwing support their way can come later in my life. This is for the more immediate cause. My Bugaboo money goes directly into the Everest fund.

  But the tab for that trip is steep – around $35,000 before airfare. And if I’m going that far, I need to throw in a few extra K for additional trekking and travel. I mean, once I’m over on that side of the world, I might as well see what it’s all about. In a perfect world, my kitty would already be full and I would have booked my flight to Tibet in May. But so far my goal has eluded me.

  I started the Everest fund over five years ago, back when Sam was alive, but I’d been fickle, dipping into the funds too many times for other extracurricular trips such as snorkeling the reefs of Australia one off season and skiing in Argentina’s Patagonia the next. While I’m a worker bee in a ski town where locals appear to live Spartan lives, if you ever really examine it, most of the locals here are actually far better travelled than our customers. We share a wanderlust that pushes us to ferret out new experiences as opposed to possessions, whether it’s trailing a sled to the North Pole or camping in the Mojave Desert. And when we want it enough, we usually find a way to make it work. It’s part of our makeup.

  Unfortunately, while that bohemian lifestyle is exciting and fulfilling, it backfires on some of us with far too much frequency. Well, perhaps it backfires on the majority of us with too much frequency. I’m talking about relationships here. People who live a bohemian lifestyle get used to doing things their own way, which can be quite destructive when it comes to relationships.

  Which is pretty much case in point as far as my experience in the love arena since landing in Camelot. Sure I’d been in a number of relationships, but they always ended up as tragic as King Arthur’s. Take Jack, for instance, my first major squeeze in Aspen. We met as ski instructors at Snowmass and were inseparable for the first couple of months. Hit the bars, skied the Cirque, made love practically every time we found ourselves alone – a challenge in a town of shared quarters. He was about as close as I’d ever come to a keeper, but as much as he claimed to love me, he just couldn’t keep himself from behaving like a deer in stud when I wasn’t in earshot. As for the other men I’d passed through since, several had been contenders, but the bottom line was commitment always fell victim to complications like moving to Maui in search of the perfect wave or finding a new lover on that Himalayan backpack expedition.

  As a young girl, I’d wondered why my mother didn’t commit to anyone, and sometimes actually hated her for it. More than resenting not knowing who my father was, I wanted there to be a male presence at the dinner table other than my twin. And a male paycheck on top of it. My mother had plenty of boyfriends and my young self often fantasized that the ones I liked were my father. But it seemed as soon as I grew fond of them, they were gone, so after a while I learned to stop caring for them.

  They all seemed to follow the same program, receiving her affections at first and then pushing off after a period of time. Not one of them ever seemed to matter much to her, and she never seemed to care when they were gone. Except for one time when I caught her sitting on the toilet crying after a guy she seemed to really care about left one
night and never came back.

  As much as I swore I would never be like her, at this point in my life, I found myself more like her than I ever would have thought. Not that I came close to the revolving door of men she had gone through, but my love life was a fling here and a fling there. I’d thought I was in love a couple of times, but after the initial anguish of a break-up, it wasn’t long before I was on an even keel again. So far there had been no toilet-seat criers for me.

  Except for Warren. Given the chance, he would have been my toilet-seat crier.

  The Bugaboo was typical Saturday-night ski season packed; the music loud and mind numbing, the lasers streaming across the dance floor. The concept of time moving slowly took on a new meaning as I stared out from my three-by-six-foot double-hung domain. There was no denying the Bugaboo drew an eclectic crowd. The mix was everything from nineteen-year-olds with fake IDs to octogenarians, their pockets packed with cash and Viagra. The dance floor was undulating with breast-augmented bodies and lean sports types, rich older men and middle-aged women trying to make them. There was an abundance of good-looking young women wearing their sexiest, and trolling for the one, hopefully one with money, and men ranging in age from barely legal to seniors with that I’m not finished yet look in their eyes.

  Then there were the couples. Married or not, straight or gay or mixed. And when I say mixed, I’m not talking interracial, I’m talking age-mixed. At the Bug, a mere ten or twenty years age difference is nothing. We’re talking thirty, thirty-five, forty years and beyond. It’s most often the uncle/niece kind of combo you see in the wrinkle room at the base of Ajax, but every once in a while you see a much older woman with a young stud type at the Bug. Which just tells me she must be exceedingly rich. Money is the equal-opportunity matchmaker.

  Whether it’s ski instructors or volunteer firemen who are members on the locals’ discount, or middle-aged suburban tourists paying through the nose for the weekly membership, or the landed gentry who yawn at paying $500 for a cognac, everyone wants to be part of the scene at the Bug. Money literally hangs in the air here as thick as August humidity in Milwaukee – reassuring if you have it, irritating if you don’t.