by Jess Bentley
So I know it’s not her fault, but I still want to stomp her foot super hard. But I might shatter it and mess up her skiing. And with all the extra tension I have still built up from yesterday and Tucker’s fiasco, I know it would be a lot smarter of me to just not say anything.
With Herculean effort, I force myself to smile over my dry teeth and breathe deeply through my nose. What she’s saying makes a lot of sense. Chad. As a single woman with bills, losing my job is not an option, not in this market. Freaking out is not an option either.
“You know I’m right,” she says softly, as though she could read my mind.
Finally, I manage to nod. “All right, Nance,” I growl. “Let’s fucking go skiing.”
Chapter 4
Lola
"Finally! What the hell took you guys so long?”
Nance strides forward with her arms swinging, barely even registering Roger’s obnoxious tone of voice. Instead of the editor he is, he kind of reminds me of a baby cow, mooing at some obstacle in his path.
I stand there awkwardly with my skis in the driveway, watching Nance effortlessly negotiate her equipment toward the Hummer. Before he even knows it, Roger is taking her skis and poles from her and doing all the heavy lifting.
“Can I get these for you?” comes a soft voice at my ear, sending a chill down the side of my neck. I flinch away automatically, but relax a little when I find I’m staring up into two sky-blue eyes, crinkled behind a friendly smile.
Awkwardly, I hold out my skis. “Yeah, thanks,” I mumble as Chad easily takes them up, clipping them into the ski rack on the side of the Hummer.
Nance shoots me an encouraging look as she sweeps into the passenger seat and closes the door. Chad opens a rear door for me and I climb in, remembering to smile politely at him, with as much flirtation as I can muster. If Nance is right, a little relationship-building with Chad is my only hope of saving this vacation and coming back to Sacramento still employed.
He closes my door for me and Nance twists around in her seat, raising her eyebrows at me.
“You see?” she says in a low, urgent voice. “He likes you. I can tell. Now, focus!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Roger fusses as he gets into the driver’s seat.
Nance pats his thigh dismissively. She lets her fingers linger there, though I know she has absolutely no intention of giving Roger the time of day.
“So where are you taking us?” she chirps brightly.
Chad swings into the seat next to me, closing the door with a thud.
“There is an amazing trail on the north side of the lake,” he grins, his weathered cheeks crinkling handsomely. “Only the locals know about it. It’s just one of those things they don’t tell the tourists.”
“Oh, a local treasure!” Nance continues, somewhat unbelievably in my opinion. “And how did you find out about it?”
“Let’s just say I have my secrets,” Chad says in a voice that only I can hear, winking. Despite myself, I feel my cheeks warming as I smile back. He’s not so bad. He’s got that thick jaw, the wide neck that I like. He fills out his sweater pretty impressively. As a matter of fact, he’s filling out everything pretty well. I imagine he spends a good amount of time here, since it’s only a few hours from Sacramento. He probably knows what he’s talking about.
“Yeah, well, let’s just hope we get there before the weather hits,” Roger grumbles. “Everybody ready? Good.”
Without waiting for anybody to answer, he throws the truck into gear and rolls us into traffic. Here at lake level, it is still sixty degrees. Families are still trying to get motorboats onto the lake for one last pass before the season is over. We drive down the main road, passing groups of cyclists and power walkers. It is still very much a light jacket part of the year.
But as we begin to drive around the bottom of the lake, and the road climbs farther into the mountains, the temperature drops immediately. Soon we’re driving among snowdrifts, brilliantly white sheets of snow along the mountain paths, so sparkling and intense they are impossible to look at.
“It’s gorgeous,” I breathe as we round a corner, with a sheer drop-off on one side and the icy lake below us. All around us are mountains covered in alpine timber and sheets of completely undisturbed snow. Above us, eagles circle against the bright blue sky.
Chad reaches out and snags my fingers, squeezing gently. His skin is warm and dry, very nice to touch.
“It certainly is,” he answers softly, and I feel my cheeks heat up as I blush.
Maybe Nance was right. Chad is not so bad, and he’s clearly into me. If Roger was a slightly better driver, I could see myself snuggling up to Chad here in the back seat. But Roger keeps gunning it around these mountain curves, causing my heart to stop in my chest.
The road winds through some more trees, climbing even higher. Roger leans forward and flips the heater on, scowling over his right shoulder.
“Why don’t you just keep your eyes on the road, okay, Roger?” Nance suggests nervously. “I’m sure you know these roads like the back your hand, but I don’t. And you’re scaring the hell out of me!”
“I’m just trying to get us there,” he mutters. “It’s pretty late in the season.”
Chad smiles at me as though he didn’t hear anything. His eyes really are quite blue.
“What does that mean? It’s really late in the season?” I ask, smiling back up at him.
“Oh, Roger is just a worrywart. He would rather ski with the tourists at Heavenly. He’s just grousing.”
“I’m not grousing!” Roger sneers. “You see all those fluffy white clouds behind us? Go ahead. Look.”
I twist around my seat, squinting out the back windshield. The whole sky is blue except for these picturesque piles of cottony white clouds.
“Roger, stop,” Chad drawls.
“Those don’t look like anything to me,” I add, clearly not knowing what I’m talking about. But as we are rolling on these high roads, I don’t want to twist around again. It feels like doing a dance on the top of a roller coaster.
“Of course they don’t look like anything to you,” he insists. “And maybe they’re not anything. But maybe they’re the first squall of the season.”
“Tony would have said something if there was weather coming,” Chad growls, kicking the back of Roger’s seat meaningfully. Then he looks down at me as if to reassure me again. “Tony’s a local legend. He knows his stuff.”
“I know my stuff too,” Roger continues. “And maybe those clouds are nothing. Or maybe those clouds are going to dump nine feet of snow on us before we get to the bottom of the hill.”
“Wait, are you serious?” Nance asks nervously. “I mean, can we turn back? We don’t have to do this.”
“That’s never gonna happen!” Chad insists. He squeezes my hand tightly, so tightly I can’t pull my fingers out. “Just look at those hills, man. They’re begging for us to get up there! We’ve got plenty of time… Just get us to the trailhead and if it looks bad, we can turn right around.”
“Yeah, well, like you’re the expert,” Roger grumbles under his breath.
Nance catches my eye and raises her brows. She presses her lips together and shrugs subtly as if to ask me my opinion. But what do I know?
“Is it really safe?” I ask Chad, looking up at him.
He slips his arm around my shoulder, pulling me tighter toward him. “You think I would let anything happen to you?” he mutters into my hair. From under his arm, I shoot Nance a look. She takes a moment to assess my features, then turns around.
“Fine. I guess if we’re going to drive off to our doom, it might as well be a beautiful doom.”
Roger doesn’t say anything.
As we continue, Chad keeps snuggling me closer and closer, and I have to admit that being in his arms while the Hummer sneaks through twisting mountain paths is sort of exhilarating. I feel safe and unsafe at the very same time. My heart is racing, yet there’s a sparkle of warmth deep inside my c
hest. I know it’s just pretending, but it feels like good pretending. I really miss having someone to pretend with.
Still, I’m glad when the Hummer finally stops and I hear the grinding sound of the emergency brake. It’s a relief to not be on the road anymore.
“Ready?” Chad grins. I can hear the excitement in his voice. “Let’s do this!"
Nance and I hang back, letting the guys get the equipment all set up for us. Yeah, it’s not our most feminist move, but he-men like to be he-men. I find it’s just better to let them.
When we’re all set up, we gather behind Roger, who honestly seems to know the most about what’s going on. We’re standing at the top of a beautiful, undisturbed hill of smooth white snow. It seems to go down forever, with a wide, obvious path between trees on either side. There are some small hills here and there, but for the most part it looks like the perfect, pristine hill for us to ski down with few surprises.
Nervously, I glance over my right shoulder at those clouds. Are they getting closer? It’s hard for me to know. The sky certainly isn’t as blue. Now it is lighter and more toward gray. Wind whips my scarf to the side and I tuck the ends into my jacket, zipping it up to secure it.
“Nothing to worry about!” Chad smiles, nudging me with his elbow. “We’re just gonna head to the bottom of the hill and meet Tony, who can ride us back up here to catch the Hummer again. Easy!”
“Easy!” I repeat, looking all around.
It really is wonderful, standing on top of the mountain, feeling like you’re the only person who has seen this sight. Like no one in the world besides us even really knows where we are, or sees the beauty that we see. It takes my breath away.
Nance is nodding, listening to Roger’s instruction. She glances at me to make sure I’m okay and I nod back. Roger scowls at me.
“Who set your skis for you?” he complains, shuffling over and kneeling down. He bangs against the buckles a few times, knocking with his knuckles.
“Yeah, I guess I—”
“He’s got a wife,” Roger says suddenly, close to my ear.
I flinch back and stare at him. He raises his eyebrows at me and then jerks his chin subtly toward Chad.
“Thought you should know,” he adds.
“Yeah… Thanks.”
Over Roger’s shoulder, I just stare. Chad and Nance didn’t hear. They’re still just smiling like everything is A-Okay.
Chad has a wife? Are you fucking kidding me?
My heart begins hammering in my chest, pumping me full of hot, tarry blood. I can’t believe this. Can I be mad at Nance yet? How did she not know this? Or did she know, and just not tell me for some reason?
But Nance and Chad are just smiling at us, oblivious. Determined not to play into their hand, I just smile back and wave, silently flipping them off inside my mitten.
“Well, let’s do this,” Roger grumbles, skiing gracefully away. That guy might be a jerk, but he did just save me a good deal of embarrassment and anger. I suppose I owe him one.
The four of us perch at the top of the hill, ready to go, looping the pull straps over our wrists, then we each lower the visors over our eyes. The orange glass changes the environment, showing me even more detail. I can see how the path is a subtle S-shape all the way down to the bottom, with a couple of other paths snaking off to the side. I’m no great skier, but I’m pretty sure I can handle this trail. And when we’re done, we will meet Tony or whoever the hell he is, and I’ll just ask to go back to the hell hole that is my hotel and what’s left of my life.
“Just follow me if you get worried, okay, kid?” Chad says infuriatingly. Who the hell does this guy think he is?
“Just lead the way, Chad,” I reply in a sickeningly admiring voice.
Slowly at first, we all begin our descents, swinging out to the left then cutting back toward the right in a long, lazy Z-shape that will get us down the hill but not build up too much speed.
Nance is a much better skier than I, and she delights in wiggling her ass around, making Chad chase her. If the two of them aren’t careful, they’re going to end up tumbling downhill in one giant cartoon snowball.
Actually, that sounds fine.
I try to remind myself to breathe in and out, controlling my motions, listening to the whooshing sound of my skis against the perfectly powdery snow. I want this beautiful scene to calm me, even though I am boiling on the inside.
With the wind picking up, I struggle a little to control my path. I remember vaguely that I’m supposed to basically assume a sitting position and let my thighs do the work, but the wind and the light snow keep working against me. How does Nance make this look so easy?
When Roger swoops past me, I tighten up, pushing myself over a couple of moguls by mistake. I am sure that they saw that, and I’m embarrassed, knowing they can tell my lack of control. But by snowplowing just slightly like a kid in a ski lesson, I slow down and let them swoop ahead, sure that they are more interested in themselves than in me anyway.
Suddenly, off to the right, I see one of the alternative trails I saw before. A little solitude sounds like a good idea, and with a small shift of my weight suddenly I’m by myself. Trees whip past me superfast and I dig my heels in, trying to keep my weight back to monitor my speed as I course through this solitary path.
It’s delightful to be alone, at least for the moment. I keep my weight over my heels, sure that I know at least enough about skiing to keep myself on the path.
The trees loom dark and quick, cutting me off toward a narrower trail. Driving my weight toward my left leg, I turn sharply, then turn back the other way. Swearing silently, I try to focus and drive myself back toward the main trail, but quickly realize there’s no way through without dashing my brains against a tree trunk. People die like that.
Panicking, I force myself to turn right and jump over a messy pile of brush. Suddenly the land beneath me is gone, simply gone. I hear wind in my ears and an unbelievable silence before crashing back among the trees, vaguely aware that I’ve only got one ski. With my arms and other leg out, I try not to fall off a cliff or land in a tree.
My remaining ski twists along with my ankle as I land painfully on my side and begin to roll, bouncing down an incline, hearing my breath come out in guttural coughs. Then I’m swimming, drowning in white, sinking down, maybe breathing, maybe not.
Then nothing.
Later, I’m not sure how much later, I open my eyes. There’s snow everywhere, and a howling. After a few seconds, I twist around, trying to figure out which way is up. I guess I’m lying half on my side, half curled up over what feels like an enormous boulder. But I’m covered in snow.
Carefully, inch by inch, I release whatever part of my body is free at the moment. My right leg can stretch out, but my left leg is pinned. After shifting my shoulders, I feel like I can release my top half. But something hurts, sharp, right to the middle of me. Did I break a rib?
But as my head begins to clear, I realize it’s snowing. It’s not just snowing, it’s a storm. The wind moans through the trees which release deluges of shuddering snow that swirl down to the ground. I can tell I’m on a rock, but I have no idea how far everything is beneath me.
I need to find help.
Carefully, I force myself to slide off the rock and find something like land below me. My left ankle howls in protest every time I try to put weight on it, but I need to stand to see.
Shielding my eyes with my hands, I try to stare through the wind and the swirling snowflakes. It’s just as remote as it seemed from the top of the trail. There’s nothing. It’s just me. I don’t even know which direction I fell in because the falling snow has obliterated every trace of my fall.
Suddenly the wind picks up again, nearly pushing me off my feet, driving me to my knees as my left ankle gives out beneath me. I fall onto my elbows and get a mouth full of snow, rudely taunting myself with the idea that this is the last drink I’m ever gonna have.
There must be something, I tell myself. Don’t
panic, Lola. There has to be something!
But does there? Here I am in ski clothes, just a pale pink smudge in a snowstorm. There’s nobody for miles and miles. My friends are who knows where.
Frantically I look around, figuring that I could crawl maybe a quarter-mile? Not even sure how I’m estimating that, but I’m determined to give it a try. So which direction do I pick?
But squinting through the snow, I feel like there’s a glow, maybe just a little smidgen of gold off in this direction. Could that be a light? Or perhaps the glimmering pelt of a mountain lion or something?
I should go that way. I should. I try crawling in that direction, soon finding that my arms are useless against the two feet of snow they’re buried in.
I should try to walk. I probably just sprained my ankle. Sprained ankles are for sissies. I can walk, right? I can shuffle or something. I’m not going to die this way.
Heaving my thighs forward, I force myself to ignore the lancing pain in my ankle and the burning in my thighs and lurch myself forward, again and again. My breath is ragged and shuddering as I make myself repeat the motion, but the light just keeps disappearing. I probably imagined it. It’s probably nothing.
Pretty soon I realize that sound I’m hearing is me. It’s not just the snow. It’s me too, yelling out, adding my voice to the voice of the wind in the trees. Totally stupid, completely pointless. My tiny voice in the wilderness, echoing until it fades into nothing.
Finally, it’s too cold to breathe. It’s too cold to bother. I take one last breath and put my hands over my head, hoping to create a little warmth between my chin and my chest. It’s not so bad.
It’s really not so bad.