Jules and I would ski with Mom and Dad for a while; then they’d send us off to ski North Peak where all the kids hung out. We made ski jumps near the edge of the slope, carrying snow out of the woods and packing it hard, then shoveling out the bottom with our hands to give a cliff-like effect. I lived for the moment I would be airborne, sailing up toward the sky. Then, boom, there was the thrill of starting down, hoping like crazy that both skis would touch the ground at the same time, tips apart. If they didn’t, if I fell—Jules would collect me, wipe the snow out of my face, and send me back up the chair lift to try again.
Remembering this, my heart hurts, I’m so lonely.
Jules and Will have fallen asleep in the next room, or maybe they’re just lying warm and happy in each other’s arms. I’m glad for her, I really am. So just suck it up, I tell myself. From now on, it’s going to be Mom and Dad, Jules and Will. And me.
Well, that week, me and Gramps. We ride up the chair lift together; we’re pool partners, card partners, bowling partners. When we go to restaurants, Gramps introduces me as his date. Okay, I can see why everyone thinks it’s so amusing. But sometimes I get tired of the way everything in my family is up for grabs in the comedy department. Doesn’t it occur to any of them that, when you’re eighteen, the idea of being paired up with your seventy-year-old grandfather might be just a little bit depressing—especially on New Year’s Eve?
We go to the Yuma Bar that night, a little country bar out in the middle of nowhere. Inside, it smells like beer and cigarette smoke, snowmobile exhaust, motor oil, and sweat. There’s a long bar, where the regulars lounge; a jukebox, heavy on Bob Seger; a half-dozen pinball machines. The tables are covered with faded yellow oilcloth, dotted with cigarette burns. At the Yuma, the Christmas decorations stay up year-round. Twinkling lights are strung around the bandstand and across the mirror at the bar. Ratty silver garlands wind round the rafters.
We haven’t been here twenty minutes when a woman at the next table starts flirting with Gramps. She’s maybe sixty, perky in an awful Christmas sweater with real bells sewn onto it. He’s loyal, though. “Nah,” he says when she asks him to dance. “I got a date here.” He nods in my direction.
“Go,” I say. “Dance.”
He raises an eyebrow, like—are you sure?
“You dance,” I say. “I don’t want to, anyway.”
I really, truly don’t. I want to sit here, nursing my Dr. Pepper, feeling sorry for myself. But Mom and Dad get up to dance, too. Then Jules and Will. “Dance with us, dance with us,” they beg. Gramps and his new girlfriend boogie over.
“Come on, hon.” She leans toward me, jingling. “Have some fun, why don’t you?”
“No, thank you,” I say, not very politely.
I get up and go over to the pool table, where a couple of guys are playing. They’re maybe thirty, wearing jeans and down vests and work boots, and smell of the forest. One of them, Dean his friend calls him, has a shaggy blond ponytail and a nice smile.
“So what do you think?” he says to me, tipping back on one heel, surveying the table.
I’m not the greatest pool player in the world, but I know the game pretty well from years of watching Dad and Gramps. “I’d bank it,” I say. “Go for the twelve. Right corner pocket.”
He steps back and looks at me. “You play?”
“Some.”
“Any good?”
I shrug.
He takes a quarter from his jeans pocket and puts it on the edge of the table. “That’s yours,” he says. “When I take this guy, you’re next.”
His friend laughs.
“Well, shit,” they both say, when I give him a decent game.
This cheers me considerably. We play for an hour or so, alternating partners, not talking much at all, just concentrating on the game. I hold my own. And I don’t feel self-conscious, either. Maybe because I know I’m just a kid to them. But then Bob Seger launches into “Feel Like a Number” on the jukebox and Dean says, “Hey, you want to dance?”
I don’t, at all. But it would be rude to say no, so I take his outstretched hand and let him lead me to the dance floor—much to the approval of my family, who beam at the sight of me. Like, finally a guy’s paying attention to me. Maybe I’ll get out of my funk and join the party. For a woodsy guy, Dean is a surprisingly good dancer, perfectly comfortable on the dance floor. I, however, feel as if somebody just poured me full of lead. I shuffle, trip over my own feet, all the time keeping an eye on Gramps, praying he won’t dance over here and start bragging about Dad winning LOTTO CASH.
Smile, I tell myself. At least act like you’re having a good time.
Which I guess Dean interprets as encouragement, because he grins back at me, grabs both my hands, and attempts some tricky maneuver designed to end in a spin. But I can’t do it. When he tightens his grip to give it another go, the calluses on his palms feel scratchy and hard and I think of the little crescent-moons of dirt under his nails that I saw when he spread his fingers on the table to hold the cue. Up close, he smells like smoke and sweat and cigarettes.
When the song ends, I mumble an excuse and flee to the restroom. I close myself into a stall and just sit there, ashamed for having ditched Dean the way I did, obsessing over whether or not he’ll think I was embarrassed to be with him. Was I? God. I feel like the stupid, rich, college kid I am. I stay in the stall for what seems like forever, listening to the women come in and out, gossiping, talking about the men they’re with, or men they wish they were with instead.
Which unfortunately makes me think of Josh and wonder what he’s doing tonight, if he’s with that Heather-looking girl. And Gabe Parker. He’s probably got a girlfriend at home that Tiffany doesn’t even know about. I torture myself with that until I hear Jules’ voice. “Emma, are you in here? It’s almost midnight.”
“They’re giving out the hats!” Mom says. She hands me one when I emerge from the stall, a cardboard beanie with a red propeller on it.
I put it on, look in the mirror. “Oh, perfect,” I say.
“Who’s that guy you were dancing with?” Jules whispers. “He was cute.”
“Nobody,” I say. “I mean, I don’t know him.”
Back in the bar, the countdown toward midnight has begun. Dean’s standing at the pool table, cue in hand, shouting out, “Ten, nine, eight … ” along with a girl who has bleached blond hair and is wearing a lot of makeup. Mom, Jules and I hurry toward our table, where Dad and Will and Gramps are waiting. When the crowd shouts “Happy New Year” and the band breaks into “Auld Lang Syne,” we crush together in a big, amorphous hug.
“To us,” Mom says, when the waitress brings around the plastic glasses of champagne.
“And doing whatever we damn well please!” Dad adds.
We drink. Except for Jules and Will, who are kissing and can’t seem to stop.
The next morning, I leave for the ski area before anyone else wakes up, and ski myself into oblivion. Up and down, up and down. It’s not crowded: just me and a bunch of little kids as crazy as I used to be.
It’s snowing hard, and cold. Riding the chair lift, the snowflakes feel like needles scraping my face. My feet feel like blocks of ice—when they feel at all. My ears hurt. But I don’t go in. I like being so cold that it hurts. I like the way the tears freeze on my face when I start crying. And the ugly ripping sound my skis make going over the icy patches.
I feel like such a loser. I don’t know what I want to do with my life; I don’t have a clue about what to do with the million dollars my parents gave me. So far, all it’s done is confuse me.
If I could just stay here forever, I think. I close my eyes and try to imagine myself living here, but what I see is a kid on a ski hill, smiling.
Myself, no older than eight.
Twelve
Dad wants to leave fo
r Colorado the day after we get back from Michigan, even though Mom thinks they should wait until I go back to school.
“I’m fine,” I tell her. “Really! I’ll be fine. It’s just a week before school starts. I’m eighteen, you know. I can take care of myself. Jesus, it’s not like you haven’t ditched me to go on vacations before.”
“We’re not ditching you,” she says. “And this is not exactly a vacation. We’ll be in Steamboat Springs probably into March.”
“Whatever,” I say. “Mom. Please. Just give me a list of things you want me to do when I close up the house to go back to Bloomington. I’ll be fine.” God forbid I forget to turn down the thermostat and you have to pay a big heating bill, I think. Not to mention the fact that I’ll probably be home every weekend, turning it back up again.
“Okay,” she says reluctantly. “But do you have a plan?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Read, watch TV, eat pizza. It’s Christmas break, Mom. What kind of a plan do I need?”
I swear to God, she’s driving me crazy. I wish they would just go. Though I have to say I’m not sure spending the winter in Colorado is the best idea they’ve ever had. Mom hates the mountains. You can see too far, she says. You can’t find a place to settle your eyes. Just a single week of skiing in Colorado has been known to get her seriously out of whack in the past. She’s going because spending a winter skiing in Colorado has been Dad’s fantasy ever since we went to Steamboat Springs the first time, when I was six.
But I can’t worry about that. I’m going to try not to worry about myself, just hole up and enjoy a week of not having to think about who I might see and what dumb thing I might say or do in their presence. When Mom and Dad finally hit the road the next day, I put my iPod into its neat new portable stereo dock, dial up “Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away,” turn it up full-blast, and dance through the whole house, singing at the top of my lungs … because I can.
The fact that a blizzard sets in that afternoon only makes things better. I couldn’t even go out if I wanted to. I’ll have a film-fest, I decide. Start the new year by casting out any remaining bad high school juju through viewing my collection of the all-time best high school revenge movies. Carrie, of course. Pump Up the Volume. Sixteen Candles, for a little comic relief. It’s almost midnight when I microwave the third bag of popcorn and am about to settle in to watch Heathers, the absolute pinnacle of high school revenge in my view. Then, hitting play, I glance out the window to check out how the blizzard is coming along and see the dark outline of a person standing beneath the street light in the swirling snow. I swear, it seems like he’s looking right at me.
It scares the shit out of me. I yank the curtains closed, my heart hammering, and suddenly my mind starts replaying all the people I didn’t even know who hit me up for money when they found out I was a millionaire. They weren’t bad people. Some asked for really good causes, others were just envious and maybe a little greedy. But there are dangerous people who know about how much money we have, too. Thieves and drug addicts who might look upon a blizzard as an … opportunity. The person out there might have found out somehow that Mom and Dad were leaving. He might be casing the place, considering whether to risk a break-in.
Be rational, I tell myself firmly. Lights are on all over the house. It’s obvious there’s someone here. Even if the person standing there came with the idea of breaking in, surely he’ll change his mind and come back another time, when the house is empty.
Unless he’s desperate.
I hear myself let out a little moan. God. Aren’t there always terrible, tragic stories about people so desperate they’ll do anything to get what they need?
I squeeze my eyes tight, to disappear him. But when I open them, he’s still there.
Always call 911 if you think anything’s amiss. Mom and Dad drummed this into us when Jules got old enough for the two of us to stay at home alone. But nothing ever went wrong.
I’ve led a charmed life, I think—which makes the person out there seem all the more ominous. Like it’s my turn.
My cell phone is on the coffee table, and I pick it up and dial.
“I don’t know if this is actually an emergency,” I say when the operator comes on. “But there’s a guy standing outside my house. I don’t know how long he’s been there. I’m home alone.”
She takes my address, reassures me that a patrol car will come by and check him out.
“Call if anything changes before they get there,” she says.
Which makes me feel cold inside, like my blood has turned to ice. My teeth start chattering, too—not from the cold, though. I’ve never been so scared in my life.
I peek through the closed curtains. He still hasn’t moved.
Maybe ten minutes pass before I see the squad car approaching slowly, its headlights cutting through the snow. The guy doesn’t move then, either. He doesn’t even seem to see the cop get out and come over to him.
A few seconds pass and I see the cop visibly relax. He gestures towards our house, the guy nods—and the two of them start across the yard. For an instant, they disappear from view, then I hear footsteps on the porch. The doorbell.
I open the door just enough to see the policeman’s face.
“This guy says he knows you,” he says. “Is that right?”
I open the door wider.
“Emma?” a voice says: Josh Morgan’s.
He takes a tentative step forward, but the policeman grabs his arm to restrain him.
“Do you know him, miss?” he asks. “If not, I’ll take him in.”
“No,” I say. “I mean, yes. I know him. Don’t take him in.”
He lets go of Josh’s arm, and Josh stumbles.
“He’s loaded,” the cop says, his voice disgusted. “He’s damn lucky he didn’t fall down and freeze to death somewhere. You sure you want to be responsible for him? Like I said, I can take him in for public intoxication.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Thanks. I’ll take care of him.”
He takes Josh’s arm again, guides him into the foyer. Then shakes his head at the sight of the two of us: Josh soaking wet, pale as snow, shivering; me in flannel pajamas covered in little yellow ducks, my hair caught up with chopsticks on the top of my head.
He doesn’t make a report, which I know is an act of kindness on his part.
“Oh, fuck,” Josh moans, as soon as he’s gone, and slides like Gumby down the wall into a puddle of melting snow.
“Take those wet clothes off,” I say. “You’ll catch pneumonia.”
“You sound like my fucking mother.” He laughs, bitterly. “Like my mother used to sound. Before she time-traveled back to her adolescence.”
“Take off your wet clothes,” I repeat. “I’ll get you something of my dad’s to wear.”
Jesus. I meant take them off in the bathroom. I go in there, start a hot shower for him. Then I get a clean towel, a pair of Dad’s sweat pants and a sweatshirt, thinking I’ll hand them through the door. But when I get back he’s not in there.
He’s passed out, stark naked, in the hallway.
Was he always so … white? That’s my first useless thought.
Then: be careful what you ask for. God. Hadn’t I longed for this—well, sort of: Josh, completely vulnerable, under my power? I stare at him, at his body. His long, muscular arms and legs, his knobby knees. His tight abs, the patch of blond hair on his chest. His … other hair, blond, too. And his penis, flopping over onto his thigh. Pathetic.
I wanted him tanned and glistening in the summer sun. Awake and vulnerable. Laughing at some joke I’d made. I guess I forgot to tell the cosmos that part.
Meanwhile, what am I supposed to do with him?
I kneel down and, tentatively, dab at him with the towel. He shudders, pulls himself into the fetal position. He’s covered in goose bumps.
“Josh,” I say. Then louder. “Josh!”
His eyes flutter open. “Emma?” he says.
“You’re freezing,” I say. “Come on. Get up. You can sleep in my bed.”
He lets me pull him up from the floor and help him down the hallway to my room. I can’t trust him to stand alone long enough to pull down the covers, so I just push him onto the bed and go get some quilts from the linen closet. It’s a relief to me to lay them over his nakedness.
I throw Josh’s wet clothes in the dryer, turn off Heathers, then go lie down beside him on the bed. Not touching him. Just beside him. He’s so drunk that if he got sick he could choke on his own vomit, I tell myself. Or wake up, disoriented.
Duh. Of course he’s going to wake up disoriented. That’s the least of it.
The truth is, I just want to be near him.
I can’t sleep, though. How could I sleep?
I don’t even obsess too much about what’s going to happen when he wakes up and realizes where he is, or what he was doing, drunk, outside my house in a blizzard in the first place. I definitely do not allow any fantasies about what any of this might mean.
I just lie there beside him, dozing and waking to the shock of it all.
It’s not till morning that I get scared, thinking about the time Josh was trapped in the car, vulnerable, me telling him how I felt—the humiliation and heartache that caused. What if he’s mad at me for taking him in, seeing him this way? What if it grosses him out to think of me lying all night with him?
The latter, at least, I can avoid. If I get up now, he’ll never know I was there.
Carefully, I roll to the edge of the bed, then sit up. I wait, perfectly still, for a long moment before standing. Then wait again, to make sure he doesn’t stir, before tiptoeing out of the room into the hallway. I consider a shower, consider washing my hair. But then I’d have to think about what to wear. Whether I’d look good in it, whether I care about looking good because Josh is sleeping off a bad drunk in my bedroom.
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