It’s not her looks, Dove thinks. It’s her attitude. Dove eyes Harley, thinking that her street-cool clothing can’t hide what’s underneath. Then Dove tries to switch tacks, worried that if Harley’s icy exterior is semitransparent, her own veiled attempt at anonymity might be, too.
“Wrong.” Harley unzips her leather jacket and points to her chest. “Not a maid.”
“You’re a guide? How long have you been skiing?” Dove asks. Even with her scrub brush she looks dignified. She even looks like she knows what she’s doing, although this is the first time in her life she’s ever cleaned anything, let alone a toilet. And she still has no idea how to clean the windows without leaving streaks.
Harley stands statuelike in front of Melissa and Dove. “Welcome to The Tops; I’m your host.” She likes the way that sounds, host. “And by the way, I’ve been skiing since I could walk.” She looks again for a cubby. “So if you could please tell me where I can stash my stuff …” Harley scowls.
“I guess you haven’t read your guide, have you?” Dove puts her cleaning supplies down and points down the long corridor. “Your area—the host’s place—is with the guests. Not with us. You keep your jacket and boots and things upstairs, near the front door. The one we’re not allowed to use.” Dove groups Melissa with her, standing closer so when they look at Harley it’s clear there’s a dividing line. “Don’t you get it? You’re one of them.”
“We can’t use the front door?” Melissa asks.
Dove turns to her. “No.” She recites in a monotone British voice as though reading from the Chalet information packet. “‘Aside from Host, all staff must enter and exit via alternative doors.
“What’d you do, memorize the rules?” Harley shakes her head.
Dove nods. “Basically, yes. I can’t afford to get in trouble….” She stops short of saying why or what it would mean.
“Well, I’m taking off,” Harley says. “Gotta check out the slopes.”
Melissa holds out her hands in protest. “Don’t you want to unpack? And we have our meeting….” But Harley’s in her boots and out the back door before the sentence is completed.
“She’s doomed,” Melissa says. Then she remembers she hasn’t even seen her room, not to mention the gourmet kitchen she’ll be creating fabulous meals in. “Can I have a tour?”
“I’m the cleaner, not a guide,” Dove says, suddenly feeling sorry for herself. Harley’s off exploring the town, where Dove ought to be. And Melissa doesn’t smell like bleach. “I have to get back to work. When Matron comes, she inspects everything—and I mean everything. Feel free to look around—it’s your place as much as it is mine. More actually, if you go by the pecking order, which everyone does.”
“You know a lot about this place,” Melissa says, wrinkling her brow. “Have you worked here before?”
Dove blushes and coughs. “Um, no. No. I just …” She looks at the ground, thinking about what to say, how to explain. “Haven’t you ever heard that the maids always know the most?”
Melissa nods. “Yeah—I guess….” She can’t take the waiting any longer—patience is not one of her strengths—and feels a big need to see the interior of the place she’ll call home for a while. “I can’t take the suspense—I’m not very good at waiting. I’m going to check this place out.”
Dove shrugs as though she’s seen it all before—which she has in a way, but not from this perspective. She sighs. “Obviously, I’ve had the privilege of seeing this place top to toes, but I’ll come with you—I have to mop the kitchen anyway.”
At the front door, Melissa pulls her bags inside and starts the tour. “So this is what it looks like from the guests’ point of view. Wow!”
“And the host’s …,” Dove says, wondering how a girl like Harley, with no manners, no sense of rules, a full-time scowl, landed the cushy job of Host.
The front door leads to a paneled boot room made of wood with heated slate floors. “So their feet don’t get cold after skiing all day,” Dove explains. “And of course here’s the immediate relief stock.” She shows Melissa the shelves with bottles of water, rolled up towels, individual disposable hand-warmers, and a silver bowl of fruit.
“So you just come in off the slopes and help yourself?” Melissa asks. “Nice life.” She looks at an empty space on the shelves. “What goes there?”
“The Melissa special,” she says. “Or whatever you’d like to call it. Each chalet has its own treat—apricot rolls, spiced apple muffins, cookies—and you need to bake them fresh every morning so the guests can take them on their way out the door.”
Melissa’s face shows her sudden nerves. “And just when am I meant to know how to make these? Where are the recipes?”
Dove looks truly surprised. “Recipes?” She studies Melissa and her dark curls, her friendly, smiling exterior, and realizes the girl has no clue. “Have you been a cook before?” Melissa shrugs and wrinkles her nose. “So you don’t know anything?” The jobs were assigned seemingly at random, causing some mixed reactions.
“I know what other people our age know,” Melissa says. “Eggs, toasted cheese sandwiches, chili, a couple of basics …”
“Oh, dear …,” Dove says and leads Melissa to the next room, the tri-level living room. “I guess you have a lot to learn.”
“Oh my god!” Melissa can’t contain herself in the cavernous room. “This is unreal!” The living room’s thirty foot ceilings are highlighted by the wall of windows at the front. “That’s why they call it The Tops, I guess.” She goes to the window-wall and looks out. “You can see everything from here!”
“Didn’t you say you worked a season before?”
Melissa immediately blushes, wishing for a rewind button that would work on her life. “I did … but I was a nanny, not a cook.”
“And?” Dove waits for more details.
“And that’s all—nothing big. Just a job. Now I’m here—or there….” She points in the direction of the kitchen that she’s yet to see.
“Well, we do have an awesome view from here.” Dove looks out the window to the far-off mountains. The three peaks form a jagged cursive m, with the first one slightly smaller than the second two. Then Dove looks at the L-shaped chaise with the pillows she’s plumped, the polished furniture that gleams because she dusted it with a chamois. “And don’t forget there’s a view from there.” Dove points to the interior balconies. “Each of the guest rooms has an outdoor viewing deck and an inside one.”
Melissa shakes her head, the curls swaying back and forth. “What’s the point of having a balcony overlooking the living room?”
Dove raises her eyebrows. “Think about it … fireplace, rugs, wine…. There’s a lot to see here.” She smiles and then it fades as she adds, “You never know when you’re being watched here. You can get caught at any time.”
Melissa wants to ask Dove if she’s speaking from personal experience, but Dove takes this moment to continue the tour. “So you’ve got your living room, and wraparound hot tub out there. Which, by the way, I have the luxury of cleaning,” Dove says, sweeping her arm out toward the feather-plump couches, the ten-foot-high fireplace, the curved bar. “You have your bar … which I need to clean.” She checks her watch. “Think you can manage on your own?” She rechecks her watch. “I actually have to go make a phone call.”
Melissa nods, “Sure—I’ll be fine,” and watches Dove leave. Standing alone in the high-ceilinged room she feels small. Upstairs she checks out the crisp beige guest rooms and suites since she won’t see them after the guests arrive—only Dove will when she cleans them—and then the dining room with its long rectangular table. Made of light wood, the table has space for fourteen guests and Harley. Fifteen dinners I have to make, Melissa mumbles, and sets off to find the amazing kitchen she read so much about.
When she sees the cooking space, she’s so shocked she has to talk aloud. “Holy crap!”
Rather than the stainless-steel restaurant-quality room she was expecting, the kitch
en is maybe ten feet wide, with a small fridge, an oven from decades past, one double-section sink, and no dishwasher. Melissa stands over the sink, looking out the kitchen’s one window, and thinks she might cry.
“Don’t worry—part of my job is to help with the dishes,” Dove says, smiling from the doorway.
“Done with your phone call?” Melissa asks, wondering if maybe Dove was calling home to check in with her parents.
Dove smiles just enough to show she’s hiding something. “Yup—just a quick one.” She watches Melissa wander around the small room, touching the ancient ladles, the crusty pie pans. “Not quite what you were imagining, huh?” She watches Melissa’s shoulders slump as she examines the contents of each cabinet.
“Cookie sheets, Pyrex pans, double boilers … what’s this for?” She holds up a blue pot by its wooden handle.
“Fondue,” Dove says. “Easy dinner. Just chop up some veggies, cubes of bread, and mix some cheese with kirsch—and you’re golden.”
Melissa sighs. “Remind me to serve that sometime. Actually, remind me the first night…. I have no idea what I’m doing. Everything always sounds easier in the description, doesn’t it?” Melissa says this thinking about her guidebooks and pamphlets.
Dove hears this and thinks it could be applied to the rest of life. Books like What Color Is Your Parachute? made choosing a life direction sound gentle and easy, as if struggle never entered the picture. And when parents said things like, “I can’t make this decision for you,” it gave the impression that they’d be there no matter what and that whatever choice you made was okay. Long-distance romance sounded simple and filled with passionate longing. No, Dove thinks, not easy at all.
“Well, of course it’s true that reading about something and doing it aren’t quite the same thing. But we can’t complain too much, right? We did choose to be here.” Dove bites her top lip, considering where she’d be if she hadn’t chosen the chalet life, and displays her small hands for Melissa to see. “See? Calloused already. My hair reeks of bathroom cleanser, my skin will be itchy and red by the time I’m done wiping the windows, my eyes sting, and my back is aching like you wouldn’t believe. But you know what?”
“What?” Melissa looks out the window again, only this time she sees someone in an orange and black striped jacket. Could it be that cute guy, JMB, the one who talked to her by the Main House? She scolds herself for being here such a short time and already finding a crushable guy. She could get distracted, but instead turns back to the task at hand—familiarizing herself with the small kitchen.
“But it’s worth it if you get what you want out of the experience. Look—I’m totally out of my element, okay?” Dove says. “I can’t explain it now, but let’s just say that I never expected to be learning the intricacies of dusting and mildew.”
“And I totally exaggerated on my application,” Melissa says. She takes a ladle from the utensil pot and uses it like a magic wand. “I have to prepare gourmet meals with no recipes…. It’s not like I can serve pancakes for dinner.” She frowns.
“Unless you spin it …,” Dove says. She goes to a drawer by the fridge and finds a notebook and pen. “Here—you seem like the kind who takes notes.”
“Is it that obvious?” Melissa takes the pen and paper. “I just like to know how things are, or what to do—which as I said, I don’t right now.”
“We’re all just doing the best we can. People come here for a holiday they’ll remember. They want to feel they’ve gotten their money’s worth, right? So …” She takes the ladle from Melissa and returns it to its nest with the other spoons and spatulas. “You were correct; you can’t serve the guests pancakes for dinner. But … if you call them Evening Flatbread with Sweet Berry Sauce, you can. It’s all in how you say it. If I say, ‘This place is a shit hole,’ it sounds bad. But if I sweetly say, ‘Ça fait un peu boui-boui, mais il y a de la jolie moisissure …’”
“Meaning?”
“Definition—‘It’s kind of a dive but it has some nice mould …’,” Dove laughs. “It sounds better in French. It’s all how you spin it here.” Then she covers her mouth as though she’s given too much away. “At least, that’s what I hear….”
Melissa laughs. First, just a small laugh, then with a belly laugh that lets out the relief she feels. “So maybe life here won’t suck?”
Dove shrugs. “Who knows how anything will turn out? All I know is that no matter what, do this.”
Melissa watches her. “Do what?”
Dove’s grin spreads wide across her face. “Smile. Big. If things turn to hell, it might be the only thing to save you.”
4
Get rest when you can.
“WHAT THE HELL IS wrong with you?” Melissa asks the question into the dark as Harley comes in. “It’s two in the morning.”
“And your point is?” Harley slides out of her jeans, boots, and sweater and slips into the top bunk. The mattress is thin and lumpy; she winces, not because of the discomfort but because the feeling reminds her of home. I might be the only person out tonight who came home alone, she thinks, glad she’s finally in bed. “The point of going out is to stay out, right? You should have seen the scene—talk about hookups—more like scoopups.”
“The point is, we were sleeping—after working hard all night,” Dove says, her English accent muffled by her pillow. She lies on the bed, amazed at how uncomfortable the bed is—but afraid to say anything about the bumpy mattress, the damp linens, lest she sound snobby.
“Well, maybe the maid should oil the door hinges,” Harley says, leaning down to look at Dove. Harley’s long hair trails down from the top bunk and Dove turns away to avoid her impulse to pull on it. “Anyway, whatever I missed here, I’m sure it was worth it.”
“You missed the meeting with Matron,” Melissa says, drifting toward sleep again. She wants to go back to her dreams of skiing with JMB, her pockets filled with succulent fruit tarts she prepared just by thinking about it. “And PS, if you were thinking she’d be like Julie Andrews … in Mary Poppins … she’s not.” More like a soldier than a nanny, Matron lectured Melissa and Dove about cleanliness and expectations until they could hardly keep their eyelids from snapping shut. Matron gave Harley an official warning.
“She left the guest log for you,” Dove says. “It’s on the dresser. We weren’t allowed to look at it.” She sticks a pale white arm out from under the covers to point.
“Yeah.” Melissa nods into her pillow. “Matron said only the host needs to know the details—all I got were the dietary instructions—no dairy for the dad.”
“And all I qualify for is knowing that the wife doesn’t like lavender-scented things, so I had to redo the bathroom and switch the candles to pine-scented ones.”
“A guest log,” Harley says. “Let’s see.” She swings her legs around on the bed so she can grab the piece of paper. By each of the beds are colored lightsticks. Harley’s is red and she takes it out of the socket in order to see. She squints and reads softly to herself, then puts the paper back on the dresser where she can deal with it in the morning.
The cramped quarters are quiet now, with only the wind audible from outside. The first night in their new quarters and all three roommates are half in bed, half in their own minds.
Despite jamming a towel into the windowsill, Dove couldn’t stop the drafts, and the room is cold. Melissa pulls the blanket up to her chin, wondering how cold it will get when there’s more snow. She remembers last year, during the storm, and the whole debacle that went down. No matter how much time has passed, it still haunts her. Only when she reminds herself that no one here knows about that does she relax. There are other issues to consider, anyway: the food shopping she has to do in town in the early morning and the fact that she has to heft the groceries back up the hill to the back door and prepare a “welcome buffet” before the guests arrive, whoever they are.
Dove lies with her face to the wall so neither of her new roommates can see the tears that threaten to rol
l down her face. She doesn’t give in to the feelings, though. After the phone call tonight, she’s sure she made the right decision—no matter what the cost. If everyone she knew could see her now, with her matted hair, her bleach-puckered skin, the bags under her eyes, no one would believe it. Well, one person might—but he’s not here. With thoughts of him, Dove falls asleep, hoping that she can squeeze in a shower before doing one last tidying up. She wants to place a chocolate on each of the guest beds—she knows this trick—it’s only to get tips, but then again, that’s the reason she’s here.
Harley stretches her long lean legs out in the bed, thinking this is the farthest away from home she’s ever been—and it’s still not far enough. Maybe if she gets out there on the mountain she’ll feel free. Harley closes her eyes, and smiles—she never thought she’d be the kind of person to have a drink with a celebrity, but she did. Tonight, shirking her duties, at the small bar near the snowboarding shop, she sat with Celia Sinclair and her cronies, talking about resort life as if she knew it. Well, Harley thinks, I do know it—too well. Only she knows it from the other end. She won’t go back, and she won’t let her past catch up to her. Besides, she’s on a mission—James. James Marks. She can see his winter Olympic snapshot in her mind, the one of him at the end of the Snowboard Cross when he knew he’d won. He didn’t cheer for himself or make a scene; he just stood there, quietly proud. She imagines she’s at the finish line with him and right as Harley pictures leaning forward to kiss him, she falls asleep.
5
Look everyone in the eye—even if you make a mistake.
CLUTCHING HER ARMREST, MELISSA is sure the van will careen over the steep mountain ledge. She’s got plenty on her mind without having to worry about the precarious position on the Cliffside: shopping, settling in, befriending Dove and Harley, making sure last year doesn’t revisit her, and all while perfecting cooking skills. She has to create a sweet treat that will be The Tops’ signature snack, and by the end of the week, have a themed party, as described in the information binder.
Balancing Acts Page 3