by Abby Sher
“Sam. Is it okay if I call you Sam?” she asked.
“Yeah. That’s what everyone else calls me,” I said flatly.
“Where does that come from?”
“It’s short for Samantha.” Were we really having this conversation?
“Yeah, I know. I just thought maybe there was some other …” her voice trailed off into the darkening sky. Then it was her turn to let out a sigh. “Oh well,” she whispered, and turned away. I headed toward the car. Sorry, Kath. Couldn’t she tell that we were not buddies? And we were not going to be, either.
I walked around to the far side of the car and slumped down so she couldn’t see me. I couldn’t believe I had a whole week of this ahead of me. Then I heard the door to the barn open behind me and Dad’s voice, low and soft.
“Hey, what’re you doing out here, sweetie?”
“Just listening to the sky,” she murmured.
“Mmmm, it’s something, huh?” he said.
And then she said something too soft for me to get. I decided I was too cold to wait out here anyway. But as I was stepping into the car, there it was. Another “smmmwwk!” popping in the air. Dad laughed gently.
“C’mon, you try!” she cooed
“Smmmwwk!”
“Smmmwwk!”
They drifted, peppering the air with tiny smacking sounds, Kathy giggling the whole time.
Ugh. I was already sick of snowflakes, and we hadn’t even unpacked.
Bishop Inn was a large Tudor house tucked into a copse of fir trees at the bottom of a windy hill. There was a long driveway that led us around to the back, where there were four other SUVs, each with its share of pillows and ski poles visible through the back windows. One of the cars was covered with bumper stickers — SAVE OUR PLANET, KEEP AMERICA GREEN, and my favorite, MY HYBRID CAN BEAT UP YOUR HUMMER. Dad turned around to face me and Jeremy.
“Okay, where are we, kids?”
It was what he always used to say whenever we got somewhere special. I don’t know how or when it started, but our job was to say, “Here!”
And then he’d say, “And when do we start having fun?”
And we said, “Now!”
This time, I just sat there. Jeremy was still asleep.
“Kids?” Dad tried again, this time shaking Jeremy’s knee. “You wanna show Kathy how we do it?”
“That’s okay, Judd,” said Kathy, putting a hand on Dad’s wrist. Her fingernails were perfect pearly half-moons. “We’re already having fun.”
The inside of the inn was warm and smelled like cedar wood. The first thing I saw when we walked through the door was a crackling fire in the fireplace and two big maroon armchairs in front of it. The ceiling was at least twenty feet high and there was a staircase twisting up onto a balcony. The walls were cherry-stained wood and over the fireplace there was a string of small white Christmas lights and a sketch of a group of men hunting with dogs, and somewhere there was a clock ticking quietly. It was really soothing and homey. Well, if I really couldn’t ski, and I didn’t find the boy of my dreams, at least I had a cozy place to snuggle up and read, right?
“You must be Mr. Levy,” said a tall man with little wisps of gray hair sprouting out of his head and a long, thin nose. He smiled and his light blue eyes got lost in his soft wrinkles.
“That’s me,” said Dad, sticking out his hand.
“Phil Bishop. Nice to meet you.”
“Thank you. We’re very excited to be here. This is my daughter, Samantha, and my son, Jeremy, and my wife, Kathy.”
Wife, Kathy. Deep breaths, Levy, deep breaths.
“Great. Well, let me get you settled in and you can put your things down,” said Phil. He led us past the fireplace to a small study lined with books. Outside the picture window was a huge mass of mountains, piled on top of one another, spilling down the countryside.
“Wow,” breathed Kathy. And for the first time, I had to agree (even though I didn’t tell her that). It was pretty spectacular. I mean, we have trees and some hills in Westchester, but this was different.
Phil was used to the view, I guess. He didn’t even look up, just went to his desk in the corner. It was covered with folders, loose scraps of paper, and pink receipts. On top of one of the piles was a glass plate with a half of a ham sandwich and some crumbs.
“Excuse the mess. There is a method to this madness,” he said, sitting down, pushing the piles into different places on the desk. “Levy … Levy … Levy. Aha! There we are! The Honeymoon Nest!” He looked up at Dad and gave another big smile. Then he looked at me and Jeremy. “And you’ll be going to rooms four and five on the other end of the hall.”
“Looks like you ski quite a bit,” said Dad, walking over to one of the bookcases.
There were framed pictures on practically all of his shelves. Some of them were of the mountains, but most of them were of what looked like a younger Phil and a beautiful woman with long dark hair and wide, almond-shaped eyes. Most of the time they were in ski outfits, the sun bouncing off their goggles. Then there was one of the woman with a squirming baby in her arms, pink and puckered. Then the three of them — their son, I guessed. He was a cute little kid with the same almond eyes and thin nose. They were posed in front of a Christmas tree, on a sled, and, of course, on skis.
“Yeah, it’s hard not to,” said Phil. Then he took out a map from under his coffee mug and unfolded it for Dad.
“So here we are. This is the range you’re looking at here. Now, you said most of you were new skiers, is that right?”
More like non-skiers, I wanted to say.
“First time for all of us except for Jeremy. We can’t wait,” said Dad, squeezing Kathy’s hand.
“Well, this guide will tell you all about the different mountains. I have to say, Sugar Peak’s probably your best bet if you’re only here for a week. It’s about ten minutes away and it’s got a lot of different trails — downhill, cross-country, snowboarding. And feel free to ask me or my son, Eric, about anything. We usually try to head out to the slopes sometime in the afternoon for a run. And if you don’t see us around, you can always just knock.”
He pointed to a door with a brass knocker on it, which was behind his desk. I guessed that was where he lived. Then he opened and closed about five desk drawers and fished out three keys, handing one to Dad and the other two to Jeremy.
“Now, as far as here at the inn, tonight we’re having board games and a slide show about local artists. I’m afraid that might not be that exciting for you younger folk. We have an older crowd right now. But maybe tomorrow you’ll stick around for our Karaoke Night. And happy hour starts in just 45 minutes or so in front of the fire in the front room.”
Dad turned to me and Jeremy.
“Sounds like a plan, huh? We’ll meet you down here in maybe an hour? Have some cocktails, get some dinner?” He put his arm around Kathy’s waist. She put her head on Dad’s shoulder. It fit there so perfectly, like they were two picture puzzle pieces, sliding into place.
“Actually, I don’t need that long, do you?” I said. What, were we all putting on ball gowns and mascara? I had promised Phoebe I’d wear lip gloss, but that wasn’t going to take an hour. Besides, I was starving — I hadn’t eaten since breakfast back in Florida, and I had slept through the salty cereal and sticks trail mix they gave us on the flight.
Dad’s face fell. “Well, we kinda thought we could take an hour to … freshen up,” he said. Kathy was looking at the ground, but I could see she was blushing.
Oh, great. Now I got it. They had other plans. Ew! I mean, I know it happens, but did they have to announce it? Should we make sure Phil knew, too? Maybe put out a flyer along with Karaoke Night? I felt my teeth grinding together.
“That sounds great, Dad,” said Jeremy, grabbing my arm and our two bags and pulling me down the hall. “We’ll see you downstairs in about an hour.”
We found our rooms upstairs, and Jeremy pushed me into one of them and slammed the door.
“Wh
at is your problem, Sam?” he spat. His eyebrows came together in a sharp point.
“I don’t have a problem. What is your problem?” I shot back.
“I don’t have a problem. You’re the one with the problem.”
“Well, maybe my problem is you.”
“Maybe my problem is you.”
I know, real mature, right?
Usually Jeremy and I get along fine. We used to play together a lot when we were little. Then we went through this couple of years when all he would do was wrestle me until I cried, and I would pull on his ears and try to make them longer. About a year after his Bar Mitzvah he started getting these weird patches of hair on his cheeks and he smelled like sweaty armpits all the time and he sort of stopped talking. I mean he said things like, “Hey, what’s up?” and “Get out of the bathroom or I’m gonna pee on your bed.” But that’s about it.
Now I barely see him. We’re in the same high school but we have totally different sets of friends. He spends most of his time in his room or playing poker with his friend Alec. Except when he hogs the television to watch wrestling, or messes up the microwave melting cheese. I don’t even know if he’s planning on going to college when he graduates. He used to talk about running for city councilman. But I think you have to read more than just the sports section to do that. Anyway, sometimes I miss hanging out with Jeremy. Especially since the divorce. Neither home feels really right to me, and he’s the only one who could understand what I’m talking about. I kept wanting to talk with him about the whole Kathy thing, but even at the wedding, the most he had said to me was, “Are you finishing your tamales?” and then he picked off all the cheese on mine. I guess I was hoping on this trip to at least have him to hang out with. To be on my side. But it didn’t look like that was happening.
“Listen, Sam. You’re trying to ruin this for Dad and that is not cool!” Jeremy’s nostrils were flaring now. Even his freckles looked mean.
“I am not trying to ruin this for Dad. I’m hungry!”
“Oh, come on. You’re not letting them have any time to themselves!”
“Well, if they wanted to stay in their room by themselves the whole time, then why did they invite us along?” I crossed my arms for emphasis.
“Dad just wants us to all get to know each other.”
“Sounds to me like they just want to have cuddle time.” I knew I sounded babyish, but I couldn’t help it.
“Oh, grow up, Sam. You’re just mad because you’re not Daddy’s little girl anymore. And by the way, it’s called sex, not cuddle time.”
Leave it to Jeremy to be delicate. He just didn’t get it, did he? Sex was one thing I did not want to talk about with my brother. Ever.
He took the remote off the top of the television set and turned on MTV. There was a video of a girl singer named Faryll Brea who was about fourteen years old. It felt like every week there was some hottie singer who just got out of preschool with a new album. I wondered if she’d lost all of her baby teeth yet. She was singing about how sometimes she felt so alone she thought she was just a shadow. Like she would know what alone was. She was walking in and out of a big pool in the middle of the woods and she wasn’t even pretending to sing all the words. Her sequined dress was making me dizzy. I had to get out of there.
I grabbed my bags off the bed and dumped them in the room next door. Then I dug around for my cell phone and marched down the stairs. Phil was standing in front of the fire now, explaining to an older woman with an explosion of gray frizzy hair about the plumbing systems in older houses like this one.
“As long as you’re going to take care of this,” the woman said with a thick Boston accent. She looked a little like those pictures of Albert Einstein when he had a big idea. I was so busy watching her head bob up and down that I missed the last step and crumpled down on the landing with a thud.
Nice one, Levy. Martha Graham, here I come.
“Everything okay, Samantha?” called Phil.
“Yup, yup!” I said, and picked myself up, gave him a wave, and slipped out the front door.
The air felt good, even though it was freezing. There was a short slate walk and then a front lawn covered in snow, rolling forward into what looked like a line of fir trees. It was too dark now to make out much except for a wide-open sky with a gazillion stars and a hazy scoop of moon.
I opened my phone and pressed Phoebe’s number. I missed her so much. Phoebe always knew what I was thinking, sometimes even before I had time to say it. Like when we hung out in her basement, cutting up magazines, and eating grapes and pretzels. Sometimes we just stayed in her room, lying on the mint carpeting and staring up at the ceiling, not needing to say anything at all. I wished she was here right now.
Phoebe and I had been best friends starting in nursery school. There was a big table in our classroom filled with buckets and toys and salt instead of a sandbox. We were playing with it, and Phoebe dared me to eat a cup of salt. I tried to and threw up all over my blue jumper. Then both of us cried for the rest of the morning. We’ve been inseparable ever since.
Phoebe and I had been through it all together. Getting our periods. First crushes. My parents’ divorce. I spend a lot of time at her house after school. And since she was an only child, there was no one like Jeremy hanging around eating cheese or farting or something. I don’t know what I’d do without Phoebe. We had plans to always be friends, and if we could we would live on the same block so our kids could be friends, too. Lately we had talked about moving to New York City after college and sharing an apartment. We went to this store we liked called Seventh Scents and picked out which candles and incense we wanted to light in our windows. We would get a place in the West Village or Brooklyn and adopt some babies maybe from Romania or China and then we’d take care of them together and open a pottery studio or a wine shop.
“’lo?” Phoebe always started talking before she pressed the TALK button. Usually, it made me laugh, but today it just made me miss her more.
“Pheebs! It’s me!”
“Sam? Are you okay?”
“No!” I moaned.
“What’s going on?” I could just picture her, twirling a piece of hair around her pinky, the curl bouncing back into place.
“Everything!” That was the other great thing about Phoebe. She was a great listener. She didn’t try to solve anything or convince me that everything would be okay. She just waited for me to get it all out. I had already called her from the bathroom in the Mexican restaurant, Dad and Kathy’s, and the closet back at the baggage claim at the airport.
“My dad is inside with Kathy having sex, and Jeremy is picking his nose in front of the TV, and there are no kids here my age! It’s all old people!”
I wasn’t sure that was exactly true, but I tend to be dramatic.
“What happened to hitting the slopes and finding love in the mountains?”
“It was too late by the time we got here today. And I’m thinking I’m not even gonna go skiing tomorrow. I’m just gonna fall and make a —”
“Hey, Phoebe! Are you coming back in? We’re about to play Murder!” I could hear voices in the background, like someone had just opened a door.
“Be there in a sec!” called Phoebe.
“Where are you?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. She was over at Dave Murphy’s house. A bunch of us went over there on the weekends all the time. He had a really cool basement with a Ping-Pong table and a flat-screen TV, and his parents kinda pretended they didn’t know when we had wine coolers or beer. We all lived really close to each other so we could walk over or carpool. And we weren’t big drinkers, anyway. We mostly watched movies or sometimes we would play games. Murder was this game where everyone sat in a circle, and then one person had to guess who the murderer was. I know it sounds kind of childish, but it’s actually pretty smart because you get a chance to defend yourself and then people can challenge you. Like I said, we’re not the coolest crowd, but it’s fun.
I could hear Sara and Rac
hel, Dave and Ben. It sounded pretty crowded, actually. Maybe Dave’s older brother, Mark, had brought friends home from college. Lucky Phoebe. But the one voice I was listening for was, of course, Leo’s.
Leo. Leo Strumm. I knew it was just a play, but that kiss was really important to me. A little too important, I guess. Leo hung out at Dave Murphy’s sometimes, too. Leo was tall — 6'1¾"! (I asked) — and had deep, dark eyes, almost black. He played drums in a band called Lame Duck, and he chewed on his lip whenever he was lost in thought. And he always carried around a copy of Brave New World in his back pocket. Okay, yeah, I know that’s a little geeky, but to a nerd like me, that’s also kinda sexy. The only thing was, Leo barely talked. At least not to me. And I had tried, believe me. But every time I did, he looked overwhelmed. Once he even said, “Sam, aren’t you tired?” after I told him about my views on gun control. I told you I have an opinion on just about everything. Plus, my mom has always made sure Jeremy and I read the newspaper at least three times a week.
“Is it okay if you play next round, Phoebe?” I heard someone asking now.
“Yeah, sure!” said Phoebe.
“I’ll save you a seat!”
That voice was easy to recognize. It was Madalena, Rachel’s foreign exchange friend from Venice. She gave a whole new meaning to the word “sexy.” She was gorgeous, with long, wavy brown hair and these eyes that were every color of green mixed together. She wore European jeans and turtleneck sweaters that clung to her every curve. And she was curvy. There must be something in Italian water or something because sixteen is way different over there. Madalena was really sweet, too. Which sucked, because I couldn’t hate her. Even that one night …
It was at the cast party after Grapes. We were all at Dave’s, of course. And I was hoping to talk to Leo alone maybe. I didn’t know what I was going to say, but we had just shared saliva, so I had to make my move, right? Phoebe and I had rehearsed a couple of options, my favorite one being, “Hey, I think I left my dentures in your mouth. You mind if I look for them?” But I never had a chance to even get through “Hey.” As soon as we got to Dave’s, I watched Leo slink into a corner with Madalena where they stayed all night sipping wine coolers and talking into each other’s necks. I guess he did know how to string a sentence together after all. I was crushed. She wasn’t even in the play! How could he be so shallow as to fall for some smart, sophisticated, disturbingly beautiful young woman? Especially when I was offering him a lifetime of awkward conversations and inexperienced lips. And if he was nice to me, a game of Boggle. (Everybody’s got to be good at something.)