First Tracks

by Catherine O'Connell

  In our early years, Toby and I shared a bed and a bedroom and a series of babysitters. As we moved into adolescence, I think my mother decided it probably wasn’t such a good idea for Toby and me to be sleeping together and somehow she scraped up the money for the down payment on a house. It was a small three-bedroom ranch in a solidly middle-class neighborhood. We all shared one bath, but it was luxury compared to the cramped apartment. We each had a room of our own and, better yet, there was a fenced backyard where we could build snowmen in the winter and spray each other with the hose on those hot Midwest summer days that hung on your skin like a wet shirt.

  Then as we neared our teenage years, hugs became briefer, kisses were perfunctory, conversations limited. And our mother started drinking. It was almost like some internal signal went off, telling her that we were capable of taking care of ourselves so she could indulge in behaviors that would never have been acceptable were we still toddlers.

  There was a series of men. Lots of them. They went through our house like there was a revolving door. Sometimes I felt like she was making up for the absence of them when we were small. Even though she’d had periodic boyfriends then, it was nothing like this. She was born somewhere in the north of Sweden, and I knew the Swedes had open attitudes about sex, but all in all it was embarrassing to have a revolving door of men in our quiet neighborhood. When I would ask her about her childhood in Sweden, she would never say more than it was her home and the winters were long and exhaustingly dark. Every once in a while she would make a reference to her parents and maybe a cousin or two, but from what I figured, her childhood had held some trauma she didn’t want to share.

  As a kid, I used to fantasize about a father somewhere, that maybe one of the stragglers she brought home was really my dad. There were so many though, that after a while they all started to blur together. But there are two that stick out in my memory. The first was named Bart and he was big and round with a round laugh as well and was probably one of the nicest men you could meet. He owned a plumbing company that he worked himself and sometimes when he came to see my mom he’d drive over in the truck. He’d bring candy and flowers for my mom and little gifts for Toby and me. Like CDs or six packs of Coke or huge bags of potato chips. He even took us all to a Brewers game. Though he clearly adored our mother, it was almost as if his kindness was a turnoff to her and she treated him horribly. It seemed the nicer he was to her, the less she wanted to do with him until one morning he got into his truck and drove off – never to be seen again.

  The other man was memorable for an entirely different reason and not a good one. His name was Terry and he was tall and super good looking. He was something supposedly important in the financial world, and replaced the plumber’s truck with a late-model BMW. I could tell my mom liked him a lot, and I thought, well, maybe this is the one.

  He’d been seeing my mom for about a month when one night I heard them come in about midnight. I could tell they were drunk by the volume of their conversation. There was loud laughter as they went into the bedroom, a routine I had grown accustomed to for most of my adolescent life.

  I had just turned twelve and was dealing with having one of my first periods, the cramps curling me up in a ball on my bed. When it grew quiet in my mother’s bedroom, I was grateful so I could try to go back to sleep.

  I had just dozed off again when I heard my bedroom door open. At first I thought it was my mom checking on me, because I had told her earlier how painful my cramps were. But then I quickly realized that would be highly unusual as my mom was hardly the type to come in and kiss me goodnight. I heard the door shut and before I could assess the situation, there was a male figure atop me. I was lying on my stomach and his hand had circled round my face to cover my mouth. I was fighting him, but he was so much stronger, there was little I could do. He lifted my nightgown and put his filthy hand on my growing nubs of breasts. Then he was pulling down my panties. Not only was I terrified, but there was misplaced embarrassment because I was wearing a Kotex. I tried fighting harder, but he was so much bigger. Unable to scream, I lashed out a hand and knocked over my bedside lamp. It crashed to the ground, but that didn’t stop him. I could feel what I realized was a male erection pressing at me from behind.

  And then in an instant, the overhead light came on and he was off me, picked up from behind by my brother and flung to the floor. Toby wasn’t big at the time – at twelve his growth spurt would come later – but his strength was fury fueled. And then I saw he was holding a butcher’s knife. He brandished the knife in Terry’s face and said, ‘You get your fucking ass out of here now. And if you ever set foot in this house again, I’ll cut your balls off while you’re sleeping.’

  Terry was up and out the door in seconds, grabbing his pants on the way. I was crying and Toby sat down on the bed next to me and rubbed my back. ‘It’s OK,’ he kept repeating.

  When I finally calmed down, the two of us went to my mother’s room to check on her. She was passed out on the bed with her mouth wide open. We decided not to tell her what happened.

  And when she hadn’t heard from him for days and realized he wasn’t coming back, she was the saddest I’d ever seen her. He was her toilet-seat crier.

  It was then I stopped fantasizing about ever having a father.

  Who needed a father figure when you had a brother to protect you?

  SIXTEEN

  Morning came far too quickly, especially in light of sitting up with my brother until after three in the morning. When I cracked open the curtain hanging over the small window in the loft, the sky was turning over from black to gray. Though it was dawning clear for the first time in a week, the sun would not crack Independence for another good hour. I lay under the covers half wanting to go back to sleep, but knowing that if I slept in I’d miss the freshest crisp powder going under clear skies.

  Nothing beats making tracks with the sun delineating every bit of the path. Skiing in snowstorms is great, because it keeps the wimps at home or in the cafeteria. But you need to know how to ski those conditions, which means skiing next to the trees for visibility. Even a seasoned skier knows how disorienting it can be skiing in a wide-open space without anything to anchor your eyes. Sometimes you literally can’t tell up from down. But that wasn’t going to be a problem today. The clear sky this morning told me the visibility would be limitless.

  Then there was that other reason I had to get out of bed: my ski date with Dr Duane Larsen. At eight o’clock in Snowmass. I needed to move my tail in order to get to the Base Village on time.

  Regretting more than ever having made a commitment that meant sharing prime powder time with a stranger, I threw on my only non-patrol outfit, a rust-colored parka with matching ski pants, purchased at the local thrift store before the start of the season a couple of years ago with the original tags still in place. That’s another thing about Aspen. The richest rich think nothing of buying expensive ski clothes they know they’ll never wear, and when this prophesy is self-fulfilled they don’t even bother to take the unused clothes to consignment where they might recoup some of their wasted dollars. They either pass the goods on to the help or take them into the Thrift Shop of Aspen, Aspen’s equivalent of the Salvation Army.

  I happened upon my $2500 ski ensemble (according to the tags) through a system that I’ve worked for years. One of my good friends is the housekeeper at one of the highest perches on Red Mountain, Judy and Gene’s neighborhood, where prices start in the seven figures and go up to the mid eights. Sarah always lobs in a call when she sees the lady of the house packing up the previous season’s clothes to ‘give away to charity’. Her boss and I happen to be the same size, so when she saw the untouched Bogner ensemble going into one of the black garbage bags for delivery to the Thrift Shop she called me right away. I was stationed in the store waiting when the Range Rover pulled up with its bags of unworn winter wear. I walked away with the outfit one hundred dollars later after talking the Thrift Shop volunteer down twenty-five bucks.

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nbsp; Before leaving for Snowmass, I stuck my head into the bedroom to check on my brother. He groaned something and turned his face into the pillow. A minute later he was dead to the world again. I figured he’d rather take care of his own mess than have me wake him for breakfast. As for me, breakfast today would be eaten on route in the form of a power bar and a cup of coffee – half milk – in my to-go cup.

  It took over ten minutes to shovel out the Wagoneer, but after years of having cars that lived outside, I was used to it. There were some tricks that every local worth their ski pass knew. One of them was to never leave the windshield wipers flush on the windshield. Pointing them skyward before turning in for the night saves about five minutes of waiting for them to thaw from the glass.

  I hit the road just in time to make my eight o’clock rendezvous. The roads were snow covered and there was little traffic on the thirty-minute drive. Just as in Aspen, I have a secret parking spot in Snowmass, a living bequest from a compound fracture extracted off the Face of Bell years ago. I left my car in the empty driveway of the two-week-a-year resident and pushed back anticipation about having a ski date with a practical stranger. I clicked into my boards and slid on down to the gondola.

  He was standing there waiting for me, sending all my dreams of busting down extreme terrain directly to hell. For one, he didn’t even have powder boards, but some old version of K2s that looked like they dated back to the era of the Maher brothers. Second, he was wearing a one-piece ski suit, probably bought the same era he bought the skis. Now, I’m probably the least fashion-conscious person on the planet, but really, might he have worn something from this century? If I were prone to embarrassment, this would certainly have taken it over the top. His only concession to modern-day skiing was that he was wearing a helmet, but given his profession, it made sense that he would protect his head.

  ‘Hey there,’ he called out upon spotting me, waving a pair of ski poles that most likely predated the skis. ‘My wake-up call sure did come around quick. Ready for a big day?’

  Well, I had been before seeing him. May I repeat, I’m not one to care about appearances, but ability is an entirely different creature. There’s something everyone should know about dedicated skiers. We can never get enough. Ever. Summer is just a season to be endured until the first snowfall. The super addicted of us head to South America or New Zealand in the southern hemisphere when the days grow too long in the north. It’s the same psyche as the surfers who search out endless summer, only the polar opposite – if you can stand the pun. We search out endless snow. And the holy grail to a skier is untracked powder. The deeper the better. It’s the heroin of skiers. Make that nicotine, since I understand nicotine’s even more addictive.

  I’ve seen couples break up and people walk away from primo jobs over being able to make those first tracks. Even parenthood didn’t stop the most committed skiers from skiing with their babies on their backs until the powers that be banned it. And it’s my understanding the Skico took a lot of grief for it. As the saying goes, there are no friends on powder days.

  I gave the body builder in his tired ski suit the once over, wishing he’d opted for the gym, cursing myself out for accepting his invitation to spend the day together. The Cirque was going to be heaven, the Headwall even better, and I wouldn’t be there. If I were a cruel person, I would have taken him to those runs to shake him off, but I don’t have a cruel bone in my body. Besides, taking him down challenging runs like those would most likely entail re-assuming my day job as rescuer. I reminded myself of how good he had been to me in the hospital and decided to offer the day up.

  ‘Howdy,’ I greeted him, a little stuck for words, trying not to feel like a teenager with a geeky friend you didn’t want your other friends to see. ‘Head for the gondola?’ I said, anxious to move away from the base where I was likely to see a few familiar faces. I led him to the gondola that services the beginner and intermediate slopes. The line was short, the less passionate skiers sleeping in until the slopes were groomed. The hardcore skiers had already queued up at the six-pack chair back at the plaza, and headed to the good terrain.

  We shared the gondola car with a family of four who were entirely engaged in planning their route from the top, so Duane and I sat across from each other and made small talk during the sixteen-minute ride. His goggles were raised and he wasn’t wearing his glasses. His mismatched eyes stared at me from under a fringe of curly lashes, the brown one unreadable, the green one inviting with a blue-green ring delineating the iris from the stark white of his eyeball. It was as if the two eyes belonged to two different individuals.

  Without any prompting, he gave me a thumbnail sketch of himself, telling me he was raised in the east and went to Harvard medical school after getting his undergrad at Cornell. That during his residency in Cleveland, he met a nurse who became his wife. How after getting a divorce and wanting a total life change, he’d taken the ER position in Aspen just a few months ago. I almost felt like he was laying out his CV for approval.

  ‘So why aren’t you living in Aspen?’ I probed.

  ‘Are you kidding? I’m still in shock at the price of real estate. The hospital offers some employee housing, but I found a rental in Basalt. In good weather the drive is less than a half-hour, better than what I was dealing with in Cleveland. A lot prettier too. Luckily it’s furnished. I couldn’t begin to think about furnishing a place with all the time I’m spending at the hospital. They’re short-handed, you know?’

  ‘Well, I do know that housing is problematic when it comes to hiring people, that’s for sure.’

  Then, completely off topic, he said, ‘I wasn’t kidding when I said my date last night was the daughter of friends. I told them I’d look out for her while she was visiting Aspen.’

  I shrugged off his explanation, not sure if that was some kind of come-on. ‘No need to explain if she wasn’t. Age presents no limitations here if you haven’t noticed.’ I couldn’t have cared less about his romantic inclinations. My heart slid down the west side of Ajax under tons of snow last Sunday. And likeable as I found the attractive doctor, that attraction had turned entirely sideways upon seeing him in the one-piece. OK, maybe I do care about appearances. I just hadn’t realized it.

  It was difficult not to draw a mental comparison between him and Warren who wore low-profile ski clothes but executed high-profile turns. In my mind, it was Warren sitting across from me, but then again, were Warren with me, I can guarantee we wouldn’t have been on the Elk Camp gondola cutting across the mountain to intermediate turf.

  Had Warren not died in that avalanche, he would have been here at Snowmass with me, and right now he and I would have been riding the Poma lift to the top of the Cirque and the highest lift-served terrain in Colorado. It would be Warren leading the way down the Headwall into the glades, moving gracefully yet powerfully through the trees. Warren was without a doubt one of the best skiers I ever had the pleasure of taking turns with outside the pros.

  After that we would have skied Upper Ladder and acres of untouched terrain, floating through virgin fields of powder, coasting between the trees in the glades. No one would have been there except the two of us, and when we jumped on to the next chair we would high-five each other and rejoice in the wonder of the day, in the wonder of being alive in such a beautiful place, completely grateful to be a part of it.

  When the last lift closed, after having been fueled all day by Snickers and power bars, we would ski down to Base Village on Gumby legs for an après ski. The only thing that would mar the day would be Zuzana waiting in the bar with her ski instructor, drinking a glass of white wine, composed in her perfect beauty, white ski pants and white-fur trimmed jacket, not a hair out of place after doing loops all day on the green terrain. Frankly, I was always surprised that Reese didn’t fall into a coma out of boredom. Then again, he couldn’t afford to.

  Zuzana would smile and he would give her a huge hug and tell her what a great day it had been. And she would say, ‘I’m so happy for you,
sweetheart.’ Keeping a smile on my face then was the hardest part of the day.

  ‘Are you all right?’ The doctor had stopped talking and was scrutinizing me in a manner suggestive of his profession. My eyes had turned teary revisiting the notion that Warren and I would never ski together again. My stomach actually lurched at the thought of spending a day on the slopes with the man seated across from me. His very presence felt so wrong in light of Warren’s death.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Just an eyelash in my eye.’ I lowered my goggles to avoid any further eye contact.

  ‘Covering up those beautiful brown eyes. I think it’s pretty rare to see a blond with brown eyes. You know brown eyes aren’t as light sensitive as lighter eyes?’

  ‘I’ve never really given it a thought.’

  ‘Let’s see, with a last name like Westerlind, you should have blue eyes. I’m assuming your mother must be the dark one. Am I right?’

  ‘No. My mother was Westerlind. Pure Swede. I don’t know anything about my father.’

  That shut him up for the rest of the way and we rode without talking further, while the family of four did their part in keeping the noise level up. As we passed over the gentle groomed slopes below, my eyes focused on the rugged terrain in the distance, a backdrop so vast and overwhelming that it almost felt we were looking at a stage.

  We got out of the gondola at the terminal and took another chair higher up on the mountain, looking out over the jagged peaks of the Elk mountain range. From the chair we could see the expert inbounds cliff-studded terrain to our right. Someone had already ducked the boundary ropes to cut a pair of perfect Ss in the out of bounds terrain before skiing back inbounds to safety. I was grateful I wasn’t ski patrol on duty at Snowmass today. The poachers would be testing the limits of their ski passes.