by Lisa Aldin
Ben’s an interesting-looking guy. It’s like someone pinched his body from head to toe. Everything from his nose to his arms to his ears appears narrow and smashed. He walks with an unpracticed swagger, and his shaggy brown hair falls over his eyes in kinky waves.
I brace myself for another act of Shauna’s performance, but the front door swings open. Mrs. Hamilton and a woman I presume to be Mrs. Mayhew enter the living room. They kick bags along the way. Loch hurries to help with their luggage.
“The roads were fine on the way up,” Mrs. Mayhew says, breathing heavy. “But there’s supposed to be a huge snow storm tonight.”
“I hope not,” Mrs. Hamilton replies. “But I came prepared if we get stuck here for a few days.”
“Special cider?” Mrs. Mayhew giggles. Mrs. Hamilton nods and laughs.
Stuck here? For a few days? Please no. Mrs. Mayhew shakes my hand and introduces herself. She looks nothing like her son. Yellow hair, huge teeth, robust-nature. When the polite chatter dies down, Mrs. Mayhew looks at me and asks, “Will you be attending Yale with Shauna next year, Toni?”
The question catches me off-guard. I came prepared to talk about Shauna and her imaginary golden life at Winston, but not myself. I scratch the back of my neck, nervous. Lie, Toni. Just lie. This is what you do now. LIE.
“Of course she is,” Shauna interjects. She bundles her red curls into a messy bun. “We plan to be roommates.”
“Thank goodness,” Mrs. Mayhew exclaims. “It will be so nice knowing your roommate. My freshmen year was a disaster because of mine. I swear she never bathed.”
I don’t want to attend Yale with Shauna, not even in an imaginary world. Loch senses my annoyance and nudges my elbow. I keep my mouth shut.
After everyone gets settled, Mr. Hamilton announces that it’s time to hit the slopes. Shauna and Loch load up the ski gear while I check my phone for messages. Emma’s latest nugget of encouragement: KA-CHING! The reminder makes me feel a little better, but I’m still counting the minutes until this weekend trip is over.
On the ride to the slopes, Shauna sits smashed between Loch and I in the backseat of the Hamiltons’ SUV. I notice that her knee touches his knee. The whole way. Is that touching necessary? Ben’s in the front passenger’s seat so he can’t see back here. So there’s no need for the knee-on-knee contact. I grind my teeth and stare out the window at the mountains.
At the cozy ski lodge, the group splits into advanced and beginner. I slide myself into the beginner category to keep an eye on Shauna and Loch. I can’t remember the last time I went skiing anyway. My dad used to take me when I was younger, but I was never any good. Shauna is advanced, but she makes a point of saying over and over, “I don’t want to leave my boyfriend.” And Ben doesn’t want to leave Shauna.
So we’re stuck as a foursome.
We grab a late lunch from the lodge cafeteria and find a table among the red-cheeked snowboarders. I sit beside a sullen Ben as he picks at the cheese on his pizza. I eat two slices before Shauna scoots closer to Loch and kisses his cheek. Well. I’m full.
“Micah’s a genius,” Shauna says, resting her head on Loch’s shoulder as she speaks to Ben. “He’s going to be a doctor.”
Ben sniffs and stuffs a string of cheese into his mouth. I lean forward and play with the silver tab on my Mountain Dew can. “Oh, yes. Micah is intelligent,” I say. “And ambitious. He’s going to be a world-famous proctologist someday. Isn’t that right, Micah?”
Loch nearly spits out his Coke.
“What’s that?” Ben asks, rasping out the longest sentence I’ve heard him speak thus far. His voice is low, rough. A smoker’s voice.
“It’s a doctor who basically stares at—” I begin to explain, but Shauna cuts me short.
“I’m exhausted,” she says with a yawn. “Micah and I were up late last night.”
Shauna proceeds to nibble on Loch’s left earlobe. I pop the tab from the Mountain Dew can so hard that the empty can tips over. A string of cheese dangles from Ben’s chin as he looks away. I feel sorry for him. He’s in love, a condition I imagine isn’t easy. He can’t help the way he feels. He can’t help who he is. Shauna’s laying it on pretty thick. Too thick.
“Ben, you wanna hit the slopes?” I ask.
He brightens and nods, jumping up. As we toss away our trash, I glance over to see Loch watching me. He looks stricken, a victim left behind with the lioness. I feel bad abandoning him, but this is part of the job. I sure don’t want to sit there and watch Shauna nibble on his ear like it’s candy. She should back off once Ben is out the door.
Eager for the cold air, I hurry outside. Ben leans against the ski rack and sighs. “Man, that sucked,” he says, pinching his thin nose.
“Yeah.” I peek through the window. Shauna is sitting alone at the table now, scrolling through her phone. Frowning. Good. I don’t see Loch anywhere. I feel better now that they’re away from each other.
Ben leans toward me. I can smell the cigarette smoke on his jacket. “We have to break them up.”
“Excuse me?” I pull on a pair of gloves.
“Oh, come on,” Ben says, smiling. “You want him. I want her. We have to break them up.”
“First of all, I do not want him,” I say with confidence. “He’s Shauna’s boyfriend.” I pause. I feel like throwing up, just saying that. “Second of all, that sounds like the plot to an awful romantic comedy.”
Ben shuffles his feet. “You stare at him like you want him.”
I force a smile. “Do you want to ski down the big hill or what?”
“I don’t know.” He turns around and looks up at the mountains. “I’m a beginner.”
I slap his back. “You shouldn’t let labels deter you from doing exciting things, Ben.”
He turns to look at me. Shrugs. “What the hell,” he says. “If I die, at least I don’t have to watch Shauna chew on some other guy’s ear again.”
Amen to that.
As I gaze down the slope of track-stamped snow, it dawns on me that I have no clue what I’m doing. I can handle a ball or a pool stick or a video controller. I have general faith in my athletic abilities, but my confidence wavers when Ben gives a thumbs-up, snaps on his goggles, and takes off down the hill, letting out a howl of excitement. His skis cut through the snow with ease. Within seconds, his silver puffy jacket is a blur.
Beginner? Either Ben’s very modest or he lowered my expectations on purpose to impress me. Or he’s a liar. Like the rest of us.
My stomach flips more times than the snowboarders spinning through the air. I think about Ollie and how much he would love this. People whiz by me one by one like it’s no big deal to dive down a mountain. How does Ollie do this? WHY does Ollie do this?
I’m frozen. I imagine living up here forever. I could attend Purdue by mail. I could send my assignments down with snowboarders. I could be the girl living on the impossible mountain with an unknown path ahead of her.
“Just relax.” A hand lands on my shoulder. I meet Loch’s kind eyes. “Don’t think about it so much, Toni.”
“How did…?” I clear my throat, which is very dry. “How did you get up here so fast?”
“You’ve been standing up here for thirty minutes. Ben said you looked ready to hurl. His word, not mine. Hurl.”
I lie, embarrassed. “I think I ate a bad slice of pizza.”
Pink splotches Loch’s cheeks. He scratches the black whiskers along his chin with his glove. “If you think about it too much, fear will take over and you won’t do anything,” he says. “That’s my general life theory.”
“Is it too late to do the bunny hill?” I joke.
Loch jabs me in the shoulder. “We’ll go together, Toni. I won’t leave your side.”
I don’t really want to be the girl who lives on the scary mountain forever so I nod, prepared to take the plunge. With him by my side, I’ll be okay. This won’t be so bad. Together we count to three, push forward, and begin the descent.
All begi
ns well. My legs keep steady. My shoulders straight. The cold wind blasts my cheeks. I relax and realize that I’m actually having fun. So this is why Ollie does this. This is why he wants to travel across country this summer. The rush. I fly. I soar. Look at me! A confident business woman mastering her fears!
When I turn to look at Loch, everything goes horribly awry. The look on Loch’s face is one of pure fear. Lips pulled back in a silent scream. Jaw twisted. Eyes wild. He’s seconds away from landing on his face. His large limbs twist about in every direction, grasping for something, anything to stop the inevitable crash. By some small miracle he remains on his feet, which isn’t a good thing because the longer he manages to stay up, the faster he zooms down the slope.
The harder he will fall.
The ski lodge below grows larger, larger, larger. Oh, God. We’re going to crash into people. We’re going to hurt someone. We’re going to die. Oh, God. I’m going to die a virgin. Loch isn’t. Loch has lived! Why am I thinking about this right now?!
There’s the ski lodge ahead. A crowd of people. Bones will be broken.
I grab Loch’s hand and look him in the eye. Seconds later, he’s falling forward, and I brace myself for the crash. Loch releases my hand and tumbles. A shower of snow rises to the sky as his body slides. I find my balance until I turn around to see if Loch’s okay. That’s when my feet fly out from underneath me and everything goes white.
twenty-one
I HOLD MY CELL AWAY FROM MY ear as my mother’s frantic cries bleed through the receiver. Flames dance in the stone fireplace, brightening the dead animals hanging from the cabin walls. My legs stretched along the couch, I stare at my phone and wait for a break in Mom’s panic. Finally, she takes a breath. I seize the opportunity to reassure her again.
“Mom, this isn’t the first time I’ve broken my arm,” I say. “I’m fine. I didn’t even cry.”
There were various swear words flying about on the ride to the hospital, but no tears. This break isn’t nearly as bad as when I broke my arm in the sixth grade jumping off the tool shed in Cowboy’s backyard. Because Ollie dared me to. This incident is also less humiliating.
“You need to come home,” Mom replies between sobs. “I want my only baby home now.”
I’d much rather be curled up beside Mom with a large bowl of popcorn right now, watching a seasonally inappropriate movie like Christmas Vacation or Home Alone, but alas, that heavenly scenario is not in the cards tonight.
“There’s a winter storm.” I glance out the cabin window. Thick snowflakes plummet to the ground in a cluster of rage. “It’s too dangerous to come home tonight. This is your responsible teenage daughter speaking. Tell Brian I said that.”
Mom sighs into the phone. “I shouldn’t have let you go in the first place.”
Twenty minutes later, she calms down after I promise a thousand times to call the minute we leave tomorrow morning. She tells me that she loves me and I tell her that I love her and I hang up with a huge guilt pit in my stomach.
“I shouldn’t have told her,” I tell Loch. He sits across from me in a moose-themed arm chair. He lowers the Vermont Monsters book he’s reading.
“You did the right thing.” He raises the hood of his gray sweatshirt over his ears. “I bet you twenty bucks she’ll have pumpkin pie waiting for you when you get home.”
“I’ll take that bet.” I scribble on my white cast with a black marker. I draw a stick-figure skiing down a steep hill. The skier has wings, one of which is broken.
Shauna’s parents felt awful about the accident. Both were in freak-out mode the whole time. At the hospital, Mr. Hamilton kept telling me that a lawsuit wouldn’t be a good idea, as if I were considering such an option as my arm twisted in an unnatural way. I assured him I didn’t plan on suing anyone until I was at least thirty, but he didn’t find that funny.
The adult gang went to bed an hour ago, but I can’t sleep. I like watching the snow drop onto the ground like a thousand tiny white bullets. I like Loch near me. I like the quiet, which is now interrupted by the sound of Shauna’s pink slippers scraping across the floor. She enters the living room dressed in a red silk bathrobe. Where do you even buy something like that? She balances three large mugs of steaming something and sets them on the coffee table.
“A nice treat after a hard day’s work,” she whispers.
Shauna plops down in the deer-themed chair next to Loch, sighs, and takes a drink from her mug. She looks at me like she wants to say something. I’m really not in the mood for confrontation. Ben’s been in the shower for thirty minutes. I’m actually starting to worry he may have passed out from the pain of his unrequited love. I’ll give him another ten minutes before I send Shauna in to check on him.
I take a large gulp from the mug. “Yum. What is this?” I ask, bringing the cup to my lips for seconds.
“It’s my mom’s special cider,” Shauna replies, adjusting her robe.
Loch drinks and coughs. “Rum. That’s rum. And maybe a teaspoon of cider.”
I set the mug on the coffee table and push it away. “I probably shouldn’t mix that with the pain medication.”
“Toni Valentine. Always so responsible,” Shauna says with a smile. “Who would guess that you run the business that you do.”
“What business?” Ben appears like a freaking ghost, drying his hair with a towel. He’s wearing gray sweatpants and a white tank top. Shauna realizes her slip-up and stumbles for an explanation, but she comes up with nothing more than a few strange gurgling sounds.
“Toni teaches a pole-dancing class,” Loch chimes in. I glare at him. Seriously? A subtle smile forms on his lips.
“No kidding?” Ben asks, stepping further into the room. “Let’s see some moves, Toni.”
I continue to draw on my cast. “Can’t.”
“She’s shy.” Loch sighs and sets his book on the coffee table. He’s so teasing me.
“I’m not shy,” I reply. “If you want to see my moves, you’ve got to pay. Like everybody else.”
Ben leans against the wall and folds his arms across his chest. “Can we get a free sample? Every good business gives a free sample.”
I continue to scribble on my cast, tired, a little cranky. I’m earning every penny for this job, that’s for sure. “I don’t think so.”
“Spoken like a true chicken,” Loch says. I stop drawing and look up. Loch’s eyes glimmer with mischief. With that indirect dare, I’m on my feet. I yank at the bottom of my Mario Brothers T-shirt and move to the center of the room. Ben claps, Shauna appears horrified, and Loch’s expression is hidden behind his mug of special cider. He doesn’t think I’ll actually do this. Well, watch me.
“I need a pole,” I say. I run a hand through my hair, unsure how to proceed.
“Is this really going to happen?” Shauna sounds disgusted.
“I was kidding, Toni. You don’t have to do this,” Loch says. He gives me a warning look. Like maybe I should sit down. Take it easy.
I spot a walking stick among the wall decor. I lift it from the wall and return to my place in the center of the room. The jagged stick comes up to my waist. I set it in front of me, lean on it with my good hand, and stick my butt out. The pain medication wipes away any self-consciousness.
“Holy crap. This is going to be good.” Ben sinks into the couch and kicks up his feet.
“I need music,” I announce.
Ben whips out his phone, presses a few buttons, and the living room fills with the sounds of a sexy-slow rendition of The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby.”
I give him a look. “Really? This is what you listen to?”
“Let me guess,” Ben says, rolling his eyes. “You thought I liked rap or something? Well, consider yourself corrected.”
I feel Loch watching me. As my body bursts with heat, I realize it’s now or never. I can be sexy. I can totally do this.
“This is a little move I like to call Getting in Touch With Your Womanhood.” I slide down the walking stick, slow a
nd seductive, as the soft melody rises.
Ben’s eyes grow wide. Shauna snorts and drinks her cider. My hips move to the music. I dance around the stick, leaning into it, using it for balance and a focal point. Soon I lose myself in the soft sound of guitar strings. My hair falls over my face, cloaking me from the watching eyes. Everything fades into the background. I am alone with heartache.
When the song ends, I expect laughter and jokes—the works. Maybe even a new nickname. But I lift my head, brush the hair from my eyes, and greet a stunned audience.
Shauna’s jaw hangs open. “I am totally taking your class.”
“Can I have your number?” Ben asks, dead-serious.
“See.” I straighten up. Catch my breath. “I’m not a chicken.”
I place the walking stick back on the wall and return to my seat. Loch leans forward, rubbing his forehead as if he has a bad headache. He finishes off the mug of special cider and moves on to my cup, drinking quickly.
We chat for a while, mostly about my accident, until Shauna announces she’s ready to go to sleep. Ben retires soon after, leaving Loch and I alone with the crackling fire. He hasn’t spoken since the pole-dancing demonstration. My eyelids feel heavy. I continue doodling on my cast.
“Why did you start the business, Toni?” Loch asks. His voice is almost a whisper. “You don’t need the money that bad.”
I flip the black marker around in my palm. It’s a reasonable question, but I hesitate in revealing the truth. “I don’t know,” I say. “Boredom?”
He adjusts his socks—one black, one white again—and leans against the armrest. “I thought your cure for boredom was mooning principals.”
“Look where that landed me.” I sigh, sinking further into the couch. “I don’t know. I wish I could say I wanted to help people. The truth is I wanted a way to tie my old life to my new one. I felt like my life was floating away or something.”
Loch moves to the couch and rolls a large furry blanket over both of us. “I told you before,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”