“And that was the end of the synchronized spanking, I take it?”
“Yep.”
“You ever talk about it after?”
“Every now and then it’s hinted at. Like if one of us prefaces something with, ‘This is kind of hard to talk about,’ the other gives a look like, ‘Dude. Please.’”
“Your uncle ever come out?”
“Not to me. I snooped some more and found other tapes. Magazines and books in his bedside table drawers. When he died, I felt really protective about his privacy. That night, I went in his room and gathered all that stuff in a trash bag and I took it to Beatriz. I said, ‘I don’t want anyone to find this.’ She looked inside, nodded and got her car keys. We drove over to Hudson Bluffs, found a dumpster and threw the bag in. That was the end of it.”
The silence slumped between them, tired but satisfied, as if it had finished a tough workout.
“Did you ever have male clients?” Alex asked.
“No.”
A beat. “Why’d you give me your card?”
“The first time? Because you asked for it.”
“What about the second time?”
Out the corner of his eye, he saw Jav’s head turn to him. The flash of his white teeth as he smiled. “I don’t know, you seemed like a cool guy. I’d have killed someone for you.”
“So it wasn’t an attempt to get my business?”
Jav laughed. “Not on my resume, man. No pay-to-gay. No couples.”
“No couples?”
“No. Did it once and had a bad feeling about it. Did it again to be sure and got a worse feeling. Left the money behind and crossed it off my CV. Three in a bed is too complicated. And paid or not, fucking another man’s wife in front of him is just asking for trouble.”
“I’m hungry,” Ari said. “Can we stop and eat?”
“Where’s Mom?” Deane asked.
Roger, ensconced in an easy chair by the fire, flipped a thumb toward the window. “Out there being happy.”
“Are you happy?”
Roger laced hands behind his head and gave a big grin. He had a beautiful compass rose tattooed along his forearm. It helped cover up a scar from when he’d broken his arm building the tree fort at Lark House. Only the letter N was inked, at the topmost point.
Deane peered through the frosty window panes. Val was building a snowman by the driveway. She always wore her hair in two braids during a ski trip. They hung from beneath her striped stocking hat with its big pom-pom at the end. She looked cute. Young. Pink-cheeked and busy in the snow. Deane started braiding her own hair as she watched, then pulled on her own snow pants and boots.
Val gave a big wave when Deane came out, yelling with her Slavic accent, “You for to come to play with me?”
“Jes, I for to come to help you,” Deane called back.
They built a long receiving line of snow people. They were sticking branches into the spheres for arms when headlights turned into the driveway, slicing beams into the falling snow. Alex’s SUV slowly rolled up. The front door of the house flung open with another shaft of warm gold light. Roger stepped onto the porch, big and bearded in snow pants and a fisherman’s sweater, arms flung wide.
Alex was out the passenger side before the truck was in park, running toward the house and yelling as Rog came down the steps yelling. Then they were down in the snow, rolling and punching and laughing.
“My bromance,” Val sang softly. “Doesn’t have to have a moon in the sky…”
“They just saw each other at Thanksgiving,” Deane said.
“Doesn’t matter,” Val said. “Hey, handsome.” She laughed as Jav lifted her up in a big hug. Then Jav scooped up Deane and twirled her. He smelled like his delicious self, with a touch of fast food perfume in his hair.
Ari emerged then from the back of the SUV. Deane’s heart rolled over and died. She stood still with sticks in her hands and a wobbly smile on her face, shy about embracing him in front of the adults. They opted for a quick side hug, Ari’s hand trailing down her back as their arms dropped.
“Hey, Schnozz,” Rog said. “Good to see you.” No such shyness for him, he wrapped Ari in a bone-crunching, fist-pounding hug, one hand ruffling his hair. “Grab your stuff and come in.”
The ski house had three bedrooms upstairs: one with a king-sized bed and en suite bathroom. The other two had a jack-and-jill bath between. Downstairs was the bedroom with two sets of bunk beds, pushed head-to-head along one long wall. The Lark siblings and Alex had slept here when they were younger. Deane was set up in one of the bunks. With Ari’s arrival, the adults concerned themselves with sleeping arrangements.
Roger yielded the king room to Val and Alex and sidled up to Jav, saying, “Leave your side unlocked for me tonight?”
Jav replied by wrestling Rog face-down onto the kitchen counter and pretending to dry hump him.
“Easy, man,” Roger cried. “It’s my first time.”
“You’d never know,” Jav said.
“Where’s Ari going to sleep,” Val said, stirring something at the stove.
“Can we trust two teens alone in the bunk room?” Jav said.
“Yes,” Roger said, at the same time Val said, “No.”
“Mother,” Deane said.
“I know, I’m such a bourgeois twit.”
“You are.” Deane said.
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” Ari said.
“Sleep with me,” Jav said, grabbing him from behind and pummeling him.
Ari barked a laugh. “No, thanks.”
“I’ll feel bad if you have to sleep on the couch,” Val said.
“No you won’t,” Deane said.
“For Christ’s sake, Val,” Rog said, “you and Alex shared the bunk room for years.”
“We were twelve,” Val said.
“Ha, you weren’t twelve when you snuck off with him to the master bedroom.” Rog glanced at Deane. “You know you were conceived in this house, right? On second thought, Schnozz better sleep upstairs.”
Loud laughter. Ari turned bright red and Deane wished she could die.
Val hung back the next morning to food shop and get something going in the crockpot. The rest of them headed to Smugglers’ Notch. Ari took a group lesson on the beginner hill while Deane headed up Madonna with Alex, Jav and Roger.
It was her first time on the slopes since her accident and she was more anxious than she wanted to admit. So was Alex. She could tell he was trying not to hover, but every time she stopped to negotiate the trail or enjoy the view, he was on her. Are you all right? Are you tired? Are you cold? Does your back hurt? Are your legs all right? Do you want to stop? Should we rest?
Even Roger, usually so chill, clucked over her, until Deane wanted to skewer both of them with a ski pole.
“Do me a favor and wipe out,” Jav said to her privately. “Have a yard sale, get it over with and we’ll all relax.”
“No shit,” she said.
She gravitated toward Jav. He was a solid, simple skier. No tricks, no risks, no thrill-seeking. He wanted to enjoy getting down the mountain and live to do it again. Deane followed his tracks, copying his wide, elegant turns, dialing back into fundamentals. She felt good, although the trail merges spooked her and she moved to the far middle of the slope to avoid them.
Alex turned his skis across the mountain and waited for her to catch up. She plowed in beside him with neat, precise spray of snow across his legs.
“You look good,” he said, busying himself with his bindings.
“Thank you.”
Jav sliced to a stop, followed by Roger on his telemark skis.
“Feel all right, Deanie?” Rog said. “Tired?”
“The only thing tired is my brain,” she said. “I’m thinking so much.”
They met Val at the lodge for lunch. Ari was signed up for a private lesson afterward. Val and Alex wanted to ski together. Rog called it a day, saying he had phone calls to make and packing to do.
“I’ll go up with Jav,” Deane said
.
The first lift ride after lunch was always the worst: all the blood in your stomach and your feet not happy to be buckled back into boots. Jav closed his eyes, snow collecting on his lashes.
“After lunch is such a great time for a nap,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “Later we’ll all crash.”
“Did you just say crash?”
“Oh yeah, I said it. Crash,” she called out as they rose above the tree tops.
“Rhymes with cash,” Jav yelled.
The mountain vista unfolded on either side of them. Deane pointed around, naming the peaks. Over at Stowe Resort, the “Front Four” cut wide, white arteries down the mountain face: Goat, Starr, National and Nosedive.
They passed over trees filled with Mardi Gras beads and assorted brassieres.
“There go your parents,” Jav said, pointing.
Coming down the slope below them, Val and Alex skied in sync, their tracks making perfect figure eights. Jav and Deane whistled, applauded and yelled out scores.
“Dad’s always so happy up here,” Deane said.
They did a couple intermediate runs on Madonna, then took the lift up Sterling to try a black diamond.
“Feel good?” Jav said, looping his pole straps around his wrists.
“Let’s do this.” Deane pulled her goggles down and pushed off.
She fell only a few turns in. She laughed it off, got up and kept going.
And kept falling.
She couldn’t pull a turn to the right, couldn’t remember the simple mechanics of holding an edge. The trail was too steep. It narrowed and her spooked perception made it even narrower, hemming her in. She had no room. People were flying past her from behind, cutting close to her sides. All her confidence crumbled and the knowledge in her limbs slid away like an avalanche.
“All right?” Jav said as they paused at a bluff.
Her throat was seized up and within her goggles, her vision was watery. “Yeah, you go first,” she said. “I like following you.”
He went on ahead. She followed but made only one wobbly turn and her tips crossed. She tripped herself and wiped out onto her hip. She got up, furious and frustrated. Then lost complete control of her next turn and fell again on the same hip, losing a ski this time. It slid down the mountain like a propeller and Deane watched it go. The wincing impact of the double fall howled along her side and she was done. She lay in the snow, broken.
I’ll never get down, she thought.
Jav panicked when Deane lay limp and still after the last fall. Then she pushed up on an elbow and gave him a weak wave that was half I’m all right, and half Save yourself, just leave me here to die.
He retrieved the lost ski and sidestepped back up to her.
“Yard sale,” he said. “We can relax now.”
“I can’t do this,” she said. “I can’t find my stuff. I can’t stop thinking.”
“It’s okay, honey. Take a minute.”
“It’s like I’m afraid of the mountain,” she said, the tears breaking through.
“I know. It’s all right.” Jav popped out of his skis and speared his poles into the ground. He made Deane pop out, take off her helmet and sit with him along the edge of the trail. She buried her face in his chest and cried, long and hard. He held her tight.
He was a professional holder, after all.
“I don’t think I can get down from here,” she said.
Jav stared down the steep slope between them and the lodge.
You have to get me down from here.
His mouth shaped remembered words. “I’m with you,” he said against her head. “I’ll get you down.”
The wind whistled along the trail, blowing the snow around them. Jav closed his eyes and imagined Flip crouched down with them, a soothing hand on Deane’s back. His smile shining warm on Jav.
“Sorry,” Deane said, lifting her head. She sniffed hard and ran the tips of her gloves under her eyes.
Jav dug in his chest pocket and pulled out some tissues. “We’re going to get down,” he said. “You can ski down, walk down, slide on your butt. However you want to do it, I don’t give a shit. I’ll be with you the whole time.”
“All right,” she said, exhaling.
“What’s it going to be?”
“I’ll ski,” she said, blowing her nose.
“Good girl.”
They clicked back in, and one wobbly turn at a time, along with some sideways sliding, Deane Lark-Penda conquered the mountain.
“You’re the bravest,” Jav said, hugging her when they sliced to a stop at the base lodge.
Rog said his goodbyes. He’d be building and filming in Canada the next six months. He ran the gauntlet, giving squishy hugs to the girls, back-thumping ones for the guys. And a hair ruffle with nose pull for Ari. “Take care, Schnozz. I’ll see you again soon.”
“Man, I like that kid,” he said to Jav as they loaded his things in the trunk. “Even if he is trying to get in my niece’s pants.”
“More like your niece is seducing my nephew.”
Rog laughed, slammed the trunk and gave Jav another hug. “Take care of my brother, all right?”
“Does he need taking care of?”
Rog flipped his keys from hand to hand. “Not so much up here. On the mountain, Alex is at peace. It’s the one place his demons can’t touch him. The place where he doesn’t think about his parents and where he feels he’s been a good son.”
“We all want to be good sons.”
“Ain’t that the truth?”
Jav watched until Roger’s tail lights vanished down the road, then he went back inside.
In the kitchen, Alex was mixing up a round of pisco sours. “South American classic,” he said. “Personally I’d rather drink beer but I like them every now and again.” He handed Jav a glass. “Con mucho abrazos, amor y besos.”
“Pero no pesos.”
They clinked and drank.
“Not bad,” Jav said. “Not too sour.”
“Peruvians add bitters,” Alex said. “And a big froth of egg white on top. It’s pretty gross.” He hitched up to sit on the countertop.
Jav stared a minute, then chugged the rest of his glass. Crossing his arms tight, he leaned back against the counter, his hip by Alex’s knee. Staring anywhere but next to him.
“Deane said you helped her out of a hairy situation,” Alex said. “Up on Sterling.”
Jav shrugged. “She helped herself. Pulled it out at the end like a champ.”
He kept looking away, hearing Alex down the rest of his pisco sour and set the glass on the granite. He jumped a little when Alex touched the back of his neck.
“Easy,” Alex said, laughing. “I’m not making a pass at you.”
“Bummer.”
“I just want to see your ink. What’s this?” He drew Jav’s collar down and touched Jav’s skin, where Trueblood and his coordinates were tattooed.
“Friend of mine who passed away,” Jav said. “Final resting place.”
“Disculpa.”
Jav thought that would be the end of it but Alex’s finger stayed hooked in his shirt.
“It’s so fucking weird,” he said slowly.
Jav glanced back. “What?” He glanced up. He could easily reach, take hold of Alex’s head and kiss him.
Alex slid down the counter and turned away, pulling up his shirt.
Christ, Jav thought, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he looked at Alex’s back and the coordinates inked dead between his shoulder blades:
9.11.73
33° 27’ 0” S, 70° 40’ 0” W
9.11.01
40° 42’ 45.72” N, 74° 0’ 21.24” W
Jav fisted his hands to keep from touching, as he guessed, “The bottom set must be for New York?”
“Yeah. The top is Santiago. Pinochet’s forces took over on September eleventh. It was twenty-eight years to the date. When the first plane hit, it was almost to the hour when the presidential palace was bom
bed in seventy-three.”
“Holy shit,” Jav said.
“Why have one Nine-Eleven when you can have two?”
“That’s insane.”
Tell him, he thought. Tell him what’s really on your neck. Tell him the story.
“But weird how we both got maps on us,” Alex said, pulling his shirt back down.
For the same date, Jav thought. “From the start it was weird. When I saw the Unisphere on you.”
Alex held out that forearm. “I remember. A giant’s abandoned plaything.”
“Don’t you love me anymore?”
Alex laughed, collecting their glasses and mixing up another round of drinks.
Tell him about Flip.
Jav fisted his hands in his pockets and instead asked, “What happened to your elbow?”
Alex gave a quick glance to the scar above the tattooed globe. “Oh, I cut myself.”
Deane came into the kitchen, her hair wet from the shower. “Look at you all happy, Dad,” she said. “Usually you’re crying in the bathroom after your boyfriend leaves.”
“I’m his boyfriend now,” Jav said.
“Ooh, I’m telling Roger.”
“Quiet, you,” Alex said. He grabbed Deane and wrestled with her.
“My silence is expensive,” she said, laughing through his grip.
“As it should be,” Jav said.
“Can I have a pisco sour?” Deane asked.
“No.”
“Come on. I’m not driving anywhere.”
Alex poured some sour mix in a glass and threw an ice cube in. “There. Go crazy.”
“You’re no fun,” she said, walking out.
“My fun is expensive,” Alex called after her. He shook his head and chuckled as he handed a drink to Jav. “Kids.”
“You want to string some bells across the bunk room door tonight?”
“Good idea.” Alex took a drink, then ran the back of his hand across his mouth. His green gaze squinted at Jav. “Where you been all my life, fucky?”
“You want the exact coordinates?”
Alex’s head fell back as he laughed, showing his throat. Then his chin dropped, his dimples deep around his smile.
Jav smiled back, wanting to kiss him.
“Is that you?” Deane whispered.
“I hope you weren’t expecting someone else.” Ari eased the door shut with barely a click, then moved on silent, socked feet to Deane’s bed.
An Exaltation of Larks Page 32