Extreme

by Lark O'Neal

  “What?” Olivia raises a hand and I high-five her with a grin. “That is so awesome. That’s why you have such a great tight bod but eat like a Marine.”

  I laugh. “Yeah.”

  “Tyler was a snowboarder, too, right, a big deal until he got hurt or something?” Madeline frowns. “I can’t remember the details.”

  He did some time but it’s not necessary to repeat that right now. “Yeah he was really good. He’s pretty beat up now, though, which is why he started painting.”

  “He’s a painter?”

  “Yeah.” I pick up my phone and ignore the texts, going to my photos. When I scroll through to the shots of Tyler’s first exhibit in New York, I hand it over. “If you scroll through, you can see them.”

  Olivia takes the phone and Madeline leans in over her shoulder. “Hey, that’s the actress, right? Jess Donovan?”

  “Yes.”

  “She really is beautiful.”

  I blister of jealousy—remembered or current, it’s all the same in my gut, a blast of acid—burns in my gut. Sometimes, it’s hard to even be nice about her, but I keep making the effort. It’s not her fault Tyler went crazy over her, not over me. “I just read a couple of days ago that she’s been cast in a big new movie.”

  “She’s a really good actor,” Olivia says. “I know some people are saying that she’s just pretty, but there’s a lot of depth to the stuff she’s doing.”

  “To be honest, I haven’t seen the movie.”

  “Jealous?”

  I twist my mouth into a wry smile of admission. “I was for awhile. I’m over it.”

  “Over him?”

  “There was never anything there.”

  “But you’re here to find him anyway.”

  I take a breath. “I know. He’s pretty lost. I’m irritated with him for running away from his life again, but he needs somebody in his corner who actually knows him, knows his story.”

  Olivia rests her bright gaze on my face, my phone still in her hand. “You’re his friend.”

  “Yeah.”

  My phone makes a noise, and Olivia says, “Your mom,” as she hands it over to me.

  “I’m not talking to her right now,” I say, but then my phone rings in my hand, and it’s her, and we have an agreement that I will always pick up the phone if she actually calls. I roll my eyes. “I have to get this.”

  Sliding out of the booth, I walk away from the main serving area into a quiet corner by the restrooms and answer. “What’s up?” I say, as casually as I can.

  “Did you read any of my texts?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe you should, Kaitlin. There’s some important information there.”

  With a frown, I pull the phone away from my ear and punch the messages button.

  It is rude to hang up on me, the first one says. It is a sign of your immaturity that you act angrily, rather than talk.

  The next one says: You must come to terms with our expectations for you as a member of this family, and a citizen of the world.

  “Seriously?” I mutter.

  After two hours, another text was written: You leave me no choice, Kaitlin. I’ve been trying to be patient and reasonable. We’ve given you everything you needed to reach your goal with the understanding that you would then take up work with some meaning. You need to go to college and to find real work, and if you are not willing to do that, we have no choice but to withdraw our support.

  My stomach drops. I read the next text with a pounding heart.

  As of today, your credit cards are cancelled and you will no longer receive an allowance.

  For a long moment, I stare at that text, then I put the phone to my ear. “I can’t believe you’re doing this, Mom. It’s—” I’m so angry I can’t think of the word.

  “If you want to make your own decisions, you can make them with your own money.”

  Tears of fury sting my eyes. “You know, other families would be so proud of my accomplishments.”

  “We are proud of you.”

  “Not proud enough.” If I stay on the phone, she’ll hear me cry and that’s not going to happen. “Fine. You think I can’t do it, but I’ll show you that I can.”

  I hang up on her and stand for a second with the phone in my hand, heart racing, tears welling but not falling. When I’m sort of under control, I head back to the table.

  “Wow, that wasn’t a happy conversation,” Olivia says. “You okay?”

  It’s impossible to keep the tears from falling, and it pisses me off. I wipe them away with my thumb. “My mom doesn’t really think snowboarding is the best career choice, so she’s cut me off.”

  “But you won a gold!” Madeline says.

  “Yeah, she thinks that I should be happy with that and retire.” Part of me is really crushed, too, that the accomplishment isn’t something they value more. “Do something important with my life.”

  “Dude, that sucks,” Olivia chimes in. She touches my hand. “Don’t give in.”

  “I just don’t know how I’ll make it work without their help, frankly.” I fling myself against the back of the booth. “I have some money coming in, endorsements and things, but not very much and this gig is expensive.”

  “How do other people do it?” Madeline asks, reasonably.

  I look at her. “I don’t actually know. I never had to.”

  She smiles. “I guess you’re going to learn.”

  It makes me feel better. “I guess I am.” I laugh, wiping my nose with a paper napkin. “Do I sound like a total spoiled brat?”

  “Kinda,” Olivia says, “but we can’t help where we’re born.”

  We all laugh.

  “Come on, we need to get back,” Madeline says. “I have a battle with Hunter at three.”

  “A battle?”

  “It’s this online game they’re both obsessed with,” Olivia explains. “This medieval RPG.”

  “The Faire,” Madeline adds.

  “I’ve heard of it. Never played it.”

  “One of my jobs in high school was as a gas station attendant in the evening. Trust me, there was plenty of time to practice.”

  “Does Emily play, too?”

  “Nope,” Olivia says, pulling open her dryer.

  “It’s a game,” Madeline says with exasperation. “It’s ridiculous to be jealous of a game.”

  Olivia shakes out underwear and a t-shirt. “What she is not saying is that they knew each other in the game world before they met here, and figured it out when they started talking.”

  “That’s random.”

  “It’s nothing,” Madeline says. “A game.”

  Olivia gives me a look. I think of the two of them in the back of Gabe’s truck on the way to the volcano, sharing a pair of earphones, and then think of Emily storming out of the hotel earlier.

  Very slightly, I shrug. What’re you gonna do?

  “What about you and Gabe?” Madeline asks, smiling.

  My nerves move, rustle, rearrange themselves as I think about the episode this morning. “I like him,” I say. “A lot, actually. But practically, it’s just impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m in love with riding, and he’s in love with volcanoes. We’ll probably never be in the same time zone.”

  “Too bad. You make a cute couple.”

  Olivia snorts. “Plenty of time for coupling up.”

  “Babes before boys,” Madeline says, and they fist bump.

  I nod, but a little piece of my heart turns a bright purple, as if it has been pinched off.

  Get real, Bouvier. You’ve known him a couple of days.

  But that stubborn ache in my heart does not respond to this bit of logic. At all.

  Chapter TWELVE

  Back at the hotel, my money situation falls on me like a wall. In my room, I open my bank account and stare at the number there, then start running figures on a piece of hotel stationary.

  It leaves a lump in my gut. I have enough to see me through abou
t five or six months of training, but that’s it. The X games are coming up—if I win there, it will be a nice infusion of cash, but in my current condition, I’ll be lucky to place in the top ten, much less the high money positions. I’m going to have to figure out something else.

  The thing is, I have no marketable skills apart from riding. I haven’t done the jobs some of my friends have—waiting tables, working retail, tending bar, even cleaning hotel rooms. I don’t even know where to start to look for a job, which is probably pathetic, but there it is. Do I just head into a restaurant and ask for an application?

  As Madeline pointed out, other people make it work. I just have to find out how. It’s embarrassing that I don’t already have this information, and I guess I’ve been lucky.

  I just can’t help thinking that most parents would be thrilled that their child won a gold. I mean, seriously?

  But could I have done it without them? That’s a big, ugly question mark in my head. My friend Gigi is just a girl from Park City who learned to ride as a little kid and proved to be really good at it. She could live and shred in the same town, so that helped, but she’s had to finance almost everything on her own. She’s found sponsors in her town and community; I remember vaguely that her church paid the fees for a competition we were in.

  I probably can’t find those kinds of supporters, but there must be something I can do. I’d call my sister right now and brainstorm with her, but she’s wrapped up in the new baby, and it wouldn’t be right.

  Falling back on the bed, I stare up at the ceiling. The hollow feeling in my chest is new and unfamiliar, and I don’t even know what to call it until I rub my sternum trying to ease it.

  Fear. Cold-ass, icy-cold fear.

  Do I have the huevos to do both, the training and the hustling? Do I even want to?

  But the thought of a life void of training, competition, the company of my tribe makes me feel sick.

  No way.

  I can’t give it up.

  I won’t.

  * * *

  I’m combing through the hotel bookshelves for something remotely readable when Gabe arrives. He’s wearing a red hat and a red scarf that make him look oddly French, and his eyes are black and glittering. “Hi,” he says, his voice rumbling out of his chest.

  The sound lights everything in me on fire. “Hi.”

  “You ready?”

  “I just have to run upstairs and get my coat. I have the layers on already.”

  He folds his hand into mine, lacing our fingers together. His are cold, but I don’t care. “I’ll come with you.”

  In the elevator, he turns into me and presses his torso and our hips together by bending his knees a bit. The pressure against my rustling skin is a relief and I close my eyes, breathing him in. When he kisses me, the rustling grows, expands, runs through my blood vessels.

  “You taste like chocolate,” I say.

  “I might have been nibbling the stash in the truck.” His teeth flash, and he turns as the elevator opens.

  I fetch my coat, but the bed is covered with the sheets of numbers. He jokes, “Are you taking up accounting?”

  “Long story,” I say, the knot of worry back in my gut immediately. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

  “Fair enough.”

  On the way down the elevator, he says, “You still didn’t find your friend?”

  “Nope. He hasn’t surfaced. One of the girls is hooking up with him, I think, but—” I shrug. “He never texted me back, so I guess he doesn’t want to be found.”

  “Is he one of the guys?”

  “What?”

  “One of your couple of guys.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “So, yes.”

  I look at him, scowling. “Why do you care? What difference does it make?”

  He measures me, touches my face. “I just want to know where I stand.”

  And for one minute, I have to really consider if I’m being fair. Am I obscuring the truth, even from myself? If I don’t have feelings for Tyler still, why the hell am I here in Iceland, freezing in the dark, when I should be in Austria?

  There is one thing I know for sure, however. “It was always just a crush. He never returned it.”

  The elevator doors open. Relieved, I step through, but Gabe catches my hand. “Kaitlin.”

  I turn, hoping my face is innocent.

  “You can be real with me.”

  A slant of lamplight catches his hair, his mouth. I think of lying with him, feeling him come, the sound of his voice in my ear. “The whole situation with Tyler is complicated,” I say earnestly, holding his hand. “I sort of pined for him from the time I was about eight. I’ve known him my whole life, and he’s really…lost…and I care about what happens to him.” I step closer, letting my body touch Gabe’s, looking up into his amazingly handsome face, wishing I’d told my mom how much like a painting he looks, even if I’m mad at her. “But we are only friends. He never felt that way about me.”

  “Okay.” He kisses me, slaps my butt. “Come on.”

  On the way out of the building, we pass the red-headed Scot, Alec, and he waves cheerily, carrying a grocery bag. “Reinforcements for a new poker game,” he says. “In room 420 if you want to join us.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “We’re headed out to—”

  “To try to find the Northern Lights,” Gabe says.

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Have a good time.” Alec waves.

  At the Rover, Gabe opens the door for me. “We might not find them,” he says, “especially with the ash in the air, but we’re going to give it a shot.”

  “But isn’t the sky covered?”

  “It is right here, but I’m thinking if we drive north, we might drive out of the ash cloud.”

  “Cool.”

  “Have you ever seen them?”

  “No, surprisingly enough.”

  “All the better then.”

  He rounds the truck and I watch him, feeling a sense of pride that I’m going out with him, a sense of pleasure in his long-legged stride, his broad shoulders, and something more—a friendly relaxed attitude that says things work out. Don’t take life too seriously.

  “How’s the volcano today?” I ask as he gets in. “Some people at the cafe said they might open the airport tomorrow.”

  “Maybe.” He gives me a raised eyebrow. “I’m still making sacrifices to the gods to keep it going.”

  I slap his arm. “Don’t even say that! I’m in trouble here.”

  “Trouble for real?”

  “Kind of.” I wasn’t going to talk about this, but it’s what’s on my mind. “My parents cut me off today. I need to get back to my life and figure out how I’m going to make it work without their support.”

  “They’ve been supporting you?”

  “Yes.” I frown at him. “It’s a very expensive pursuit.”

  “I’m sure.” He adjusts the radio. “But it’s probably time you made it on your own, don’t you think? You’re, what? Twenty?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Still, getting close.”

  I scowl. “But it’s really expensive and it’s not like they can’t help. They helped my siblings achieve their goals. Do you know how long you have to go to school to become a doctor?”

  “Quite a few.” He follows a different road this time. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”

  “Not a clue at the moment. I have some money, but it won’t last long.”

  “Would they accept a compromise or something?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Like you work half the year doing the things they want and train the rest of the time.”

  I shake my head. “It’s really a year-round commitment.” I brush invisible lint from my pants, aching that he doesn’t get it either. I wish I could find Tyler, talk about this with him. He would understand. The hot knot in my throat is back and I stare out the window at the apartments g
oing by without really seeing them.

  “When I was about ten,” Gabe says quietly, “I spent like six months building a treehouse. It was in a banyan tree, down in a ravine, and I carried every scrap of wood, every nail, everything down there on my bike. I loved it, man. Had a mattress on the floor and a window to look out at the ocean, like a pirate.”

  I wait.

  “What I failed to take into account was that the ravine was a perfect conduit for water. When the rainy season came, a flash flood completely obliterated it. It broke my heart so bad, I just wanted to lie on the floor and cry.”

  “That makes me want to cry with you.”

  “My dad let me ache over it for awhile, then one morning, he gave me a new hammer and asked me where I was going to build my next treehouse.”

  Smiling, I say, “Sounds like a good dad.”

  “He is. The point of the story is, you have had a flash flood and it wiped out something, but now you have to figure out how to build the new thing.”

  “I hope I can.”

  “You’re a smart woman. You’ll figure it out.”

  For a moment, I let that sink in, deep into my cells where I can keep the sense of possibility. “Thanks,” I say.

  “Anytime.”

  * * *

  In the darkness on the low-traffic road, we talk about things. Candles and popcorn and the best kind of storms. His favorite cold cereal is Cocoa Pebbles, while I prefer Fruit Loops. Still, very close. He hates beets and catfish because they taste like mud, and he knows how to fish with a spear, though he doesn’t love it. “Too violent.”

  I tell him about the beach house in Maine and the history of it, and how much I loved being in the front bedroom and listening to the ocean late at night. “It’s cold water, though. The first time I felt ocean water that was warm, I was completely astonished.”

  “Did you swim in the cold ocean?”

  “We did. You can get used to anything.” I realize he doesn’t know this history, and since he asked, I should be upfront. “That’s how I know Tyler, actually. Their cottage was next to ours in Maine.”

  “Ah. That makes sense.”

  “I was the little kid. My siblings and all of Tyler’s family ran the world, and I just tagged along, hoping somebody would play with me.