Brilliant

by Lark O'Neal

  The moments leading up to the hair cut are much worse than the actual process. The woman doing it gathers the bulk of it into a ponytail, tightly held at both ends, and uses a scissors to cut right above it.

  It takes less than a minute to cut off a yard of hair that I’ve been growing for years. She holds it up in her fist. “There you go. Liberation.”

  All at once, I feel the lack of weight on my neck. I move my head and there’s not a drag of several feet of hair. Mercedes stands behind me, eyes glittering. She raises one eyebrow. “Well?”’

  I hold up my phone again and stare into it, bringing consternation into my expression. There’s nothing to the style yet, but I like the swish of hair against my shoulders. Step Two, I post.

  And then I realize something odd. There are more than a hundred likes on my first picture. I frown. I don’t even have a hundred followers. It must be Mercedes’ post to her account. “How many followers do you have on Instagram?”

  Her head is bent over her phone again, and she’s tapping away. “Hmm? I don’t know. Maybe 200.”

  “No way. You have more than that. I just got a hundred likes in five seconds.”

  She raises those startling eyes. “Two hundred thousand,” she says.

  “Oh. Wow.”

  “You’re going to have way more than that before long,” she says, and goes back to texting. “You’ll see.”

  I go to my account and there’s her picture of the two of us, mugging for the camera. And out of curiosity, I check the numbers of my followers.

  9389. Since I left home three days ago.

  I check Kaleb’s and his last photo is one of the airport, of me, actually, looking out toward the rainy day. It puts a lump in my throat. I can’t remember how many likes he had before, but it’s now up to nearly 30,000.

  As I’m looking, a heart icon meaning a like pops up from Tyler, and a second later my phone buzzes with a text. You’re in the US! I saw your picture. I can text you! Where are you? What’s up?

  I lift my phone and snap a selfie with my eyes open wide in nervousness and surprise. Eeek! I write.

  OMG today is the day? Send me a pic when you’re done. Is that the writer with you?

  Yes. She came with me. Gorge, right?

  Not my type. I like skinny blondes.

  I smile halfway.

  He texts: So…news. They moved the whole next set of the Grand Prix to Breckenridge. Not enough snow in Tahoe this year. So we’ll be neighbors.

  Hahahaha I text. It’s a long, bad drive through the mountains from Breckenridge to Aspen, about four hours. If you’re a crow.

  Closer than we’ve been for awhile. I’m going home for a few days, then I’ll head up to Breck. Call you when I get there?

  I might have to work a lot.

  Me, too. I’ll call you.

  “Let’s get this shaped up, okay?” the stylist says.

  “Sure.” To Tyler, I text, Gotta go finish the hair! Xo

  * * *

  Mercedes has another appointment when we’re finished, and runs out, texting as she walks, while I head upstairs to check on Kaleb. He doesn’t answer his door, so I pull out my phone and text him:

  Answer the door, it’s me.

  Nothing. I bang on the door again and call his name, but nothing. After a minute, I wonder if he might have started feeling better and gone somewhere, so I start to go to my own room, thinking I’ll stare at my new hair for a minute or a couple of years or so. It’s straight and layered to swing exactly right around my neck and face.

  The door behind me opens and Kaleb is standing there, sweating in his boxers, his skin an unholy color of gray. “Hey,” he croaks.

  “Oh, dang.” I swing around. “Go back and lie down. I’ll call Bob.”

  “No, I’ll be okay in a little while.” He goes green, however, and has to run from the door, and I’m heading for the kitchen to see if Bob left the same sheet of paper there that he left for me. “Hey, Bob,” I say when he answers. “I’m pretty sure Kaleb has altitude sickness, and it’s getting worse not better. What do we do?”

  “Ah, poor guy. I’ll send the doc up to look at him, then get your driver and he can take you two into Denver for a couple of days.” He pauses. “I assume you want to go with him?”

  “Yes.” Even I can hear the way the e of that word has been shortened by New Zealand. “But—I’m from Colorado Springs and have family there. What if we go there instead?”

  “No problem, I’m sure. It’s a little higher, but I’m told the problems start around 8000 feet for most people.”

  “Ok. I’ll get him ready.”

  “I’ll set up some rooms in town for you—unless you want to stay with your family.”

  “No, a hotel is good.”

  “All right, get him downstairs as soon as you can. I’ll have the driver waiting.”

  Kaleb staggers out of the bathroom, hair in crazy curls, and falls on the bed. “Fuck me,” he says rhetorically, an arm coming over his eyes.

  I text Mercedes: We have to take Kaleb down to a lower altitude. See u when we get back.

  “You need to get dressed,” I say, picking up the shirt he discarded, and then the jeans.

  “I can’t even move without an ice pick going through my head. This is the worst headache I’ve ever had in my life.” His voice is hushed.

  “I know. I’ve heard that. You have altitude sickness and our driver is going to take us down to Colorado Springs for a couple of days.”

  He doesn’t move.

  Earlier, I thought he was just being a guy, acting like it was worse that it was, but now my heart squeezes hard. I tap his bare shoulder. “Come on, Kaleb. You have to get dressed. You won’t feel better until we go lower.”

  “This is embarrassing.”

  “Mercedes said she got really sick when she got here, too.”

  He stands up and pulls on his pants, then sways and sits down again. “Whatever. This is all going so different than I expected.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He raises his head, starts to speak, then shakes his head. “Nothing. Can you get my stuff out of the bathroom?”

  “What else do you want?” I brought out the duffle he’s been carrying, and open drawers, choosing underwear and socks and some t-shirts. A single pair of jeans should do it.

  Within an hour, the doctor has confirmed it’s altitude sickness, and we’re about to leave when Mercedes strolls into the lobby. She looks entirely relaxed and hip, big sunglasses hiding most of her face. “Do you mind if I come?”

  “I don’t mind at all. You can see my home town. Kaleb?”

  “I don’t care if Godzilla comes.”

  “Sure?” She looks at both of us, phone in hand as always. “I don’t want to be a party crasher.”

  “No, it’ll be fun. You can meet Electra.”

  She gets on the phone to Bob and tells him to book a suite. “What’s a good hotel in the city?” she asks me.

  “I don’t know. I never stayed in a hotel there.”

  The driver says, “The Antler’s is good, right downtown.”

  “Thanks, Stephen,” she says and repeats the info to Bob.

  “A suite?” I echo as she clicks off.

  She uses her finger to draw a circle. “So we can all be together, and you don’t have to worry about Kaleb.” She frowns. “Is that okay? I call back and get us all separate rooms, but this way—”

  In a flash, I see that she’s all bravado, that she’s created a persona to deal with the wild turn her life has taken, and underneath it, she’s just like me, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks trying to get by in a world that is way, way different. I touch her arm. “We’re good. I’m just not used to—” I gesture to the car, the hotel, “all of this.”

  She smiles. “You’ll adjust.”

  * * *

  Mercedes sits up front with the driver, texting on her phone for the first stretch, then she pulls out a pair of headphones and an iPad and starts typing. I wo
nder if she’s writing, and it gives me a little thrill to imagine another story pouring out, in little dancing images, from her brain to the page.

  Kaleb slumps against the side of the car, covered by a blanket. He’s as miserable as I’ve ever seen anyone. Not even the meds the doc gave him seem to have killed the headache.

  I’ve brought books and a backpack and my Kindle, but the views are spectacular driving down the mountains, and I keep pausing to stare out for long minutes at the craggy peaks covered with snow, and long open valleys, empty and lonely and remote. It’s amazing. How did I not know how amazing my own state is? Well, mainly because I’ve never seen much of it, only sometimes driving with Henry when he went fishing, and not that often because he usually went to some reservoir and there was nothing to do but sit around and wait for fish.

  At one point, Kaleb groans ever so slightly and I glance over at him. He’s uncomfortably lodged against the door, arms crossed over his chest, and I shake my head. Taking his hand, I tug a little, pat my lap. “No strings attached.”

  He opens his eyes just the slightest bit, and it makes me think of a dragon waking slightly. A very cranky dragon. I smile and tug again. He caves, sliding sideways to drop his heavy, big head in my lap. I pull the blanket over his shoulder, and can’t help smoothing his hair away from his forehead. His skin is clammy with hot spots at the temple, and I gently rub a circle there.

  He makes a sound and I halt.

  “Don’t stop,” he growls. “That helps.”

  So I rub his temples and forehead, then his scalp, just trying to imagine how I’d want my head rubbed if I had a monster headache. His curls loop and slip through my fingers, black and shiny. Combing backward, my fingers reveal the tiny whorls along his hairline, and I touch one with the very tip of my index finger, and he doesn’t notice. He’s falling asleep, his weight releasing a little at a time, his breath easing.

  I keep combing gently through his hair, and look at his eyebrow that was sliced diagonally in the earthquake, at his chin which is getting a few prickles of beard, and his blunt nose. I want to brush my fingertips along the edges of those long lashes, and trace the shape of his mouth.

  How do I choose between two men who are each so extraordinary? I’ve been over their virtues and flaws so many times that nothing even makes any sense. I stare out the window, stroking Kaleb’s hair, and I’m glad I’m going to see Electra very soon. She always has good insights.

  I’m also glad to have Kaleb’s head in my lap. It feels like stolen time. While he’s asleep, I touch his cheekbone and jaw, and something in me brightens, and something yearns toward him with a kind of ache. I want to bend and kiss him the way I did when we were in the van on the way to Milford Sound. But even then I was conflicted.

  Maybe there really is something wrong with me. Maybe my crazy childhood has broken something inside of me and I’ll never be happy.

  TYLER

  We have a few days break in the schedule, and Alice sends me home to rest and regroup. “Do some painting or something,” she says. “No partying, but you could get out with some of your other friends, get your mind off all this.”

  It’s good advice. The last push is coming up and it’s a good idea to back off on the training, eat plenty, and restore the balance in my body. But when I open the door to my little house in Manitou, the only thing that greets me is a dusty cold gust of air. Before I can even turn the heat on, I have to check the furnace, and then it’s a solid hour before it’s warm enough to take off my hat and jacket.

  Even in my studio, it feels lonely. Haunted by visions of Jess, all from early last summer, I realize. Months ago—and even then, how long were we together? A couple of weeks?

  It’s ridiculous that I keep hanging on. She loved me and I fucked it up and that’s something I have to live with. Something else.

  Before the knot of regret and self-loathing can devour me, I make myself some supper out of the eggs and bread I bought on the way home, and when it’s warm enough I turn on the stereo, go to my studio, and let go of everything else. The only thing I’m not allowed to draw is Jess, but the face that shows up both surprises and settles me.

  Maybe it’s time.

  Chapter THIRTEEN

  “Holy shit,” Mercedes exclaims as she pulls the curtains in the living room of our suite. The windows face Pikes Peak and the Front Range, and the sun is just starting to set through a glaze of clouds. Long fingers of gold and pink light dance along the ridges, splash into the normally hidden valleys.

  The sight of the burly mountain and the extraordinary beauty stabs something awake inside of me, and it’s like taking a bite of something both sweet and bitter—I can’t decide which part I like best. For a long moment, I don’t say anything.

  Beside me, Kaleb asks, “How high?”

  I smile, because it’s a callback to when we were filming commercials and he teased me about not knowing the metric system. “14,110 feet.”

  “In meters?”

  “Ha!” I cry out. “I looked it up. 4302.”

  His smile is small and wan, but it counts. “It’s beautiful, Jess.” He points to the south. “That kind of reminds me of Kaikoura.”

  “No whales.” I’m thinking of kissing him under the bones along the water.

  “Or dolphins,” he says quietly, and glances at me quickly, frowns. “Jess! Your hair!”

  I turn my head back and forth and my hair swings in swishy movements, slapping my mouth and chin. “I was wondering when you’d notice.”

  He stares at me with his peculiar intensity, and after a minute says, “I like it. A lot. You look a lot different.”

  I laugh. “So different that you didn’t notice for almost a whole day.”

  He looks slightly abashed, a very unusual expression for him. “Well—”

  “Feeling any better?”

  “Not that I can tell. I’m going to lie down some more.”

  “Do you want to eat something soon? It might be helpful.”

  He lifts a shoulder. “Maybe later. You guys do whatever you want.”

  I snort, rolling my eyes. “We aren’t leaving you.”

  Mercedes half-grins. “We’ll order in and watch movies or something.”

  He only nods and wanders into the bedroom.

  She grabs the menu. “Want to get some food in here?”

  “Sure.” I kick off my shoes and turn on the television. “I want to call Electra and Henry, see if we can all get together tomorrow for breakfast.” The hope is that we can get back to Aspen by tomorrow evening so that shooting is only delayed by one day.

  Of course, they’re both ecstatic to know I’m in town. After a couple of phone calls, Henry agrees to come to breakfast over at Electra’s tomorrow, but Electra is not about to be put off that long. “I get off at 7 and I’m right down the street. I’ll be by to give you a hug, like it or not.”

  I smile. “I like. See you then.”

  As I hang up, Mercedes points to the television. “Isn’t that your friend?”

  And there’s Tyler on the news, talking to a reporter. He looks haggard, his face too thin, hair all crazy as if he’s just pulled off his hat. The sound is too low to hear what they’re saying, but the screen switches to a dramatic clip of a rider twisting high, high, grabbing the board and whirling around and around and around. My heart catches, seeing him fly like that. He lands in a smooth, cool move like a knife through butter, but that’s when something goes wrong. It’s impossible to tell what—if his legs gave out unexpectedly or he hit something on the trail or—

  “Turn it up.”

  Mercedes says, “I can do better than that.” She clicks a button and the picture rewinds to an opening sequence of two men at a desk. It’s one of the sports stations, covering the geeky internal workings of the Grand Prix, the series of contests that will decide who goes on to the Olympics. They patter about a name I don’t know, and mention Shaun White, who of course I have heard of.

  One says, “And now on to the
roller coaster bid from Tyler Smith, who came out of nowhere after years out of the spotlight to blaze into the top ten contenders this year. Smith just missed a top three at Cooper. Gary?”

  The camera switches to the guy who was interviewing Tyler. “Yeah, John, in years past, Smith was one of the snowboarders to watch, but a series of set-backs in his personal life, including a freak accident that nearly killed him, knocked him out of the running. When he showed up on the slopes this year, no one gave him any serious consideration at all, but he’s shown he’s still one of the most talented riders out there, and the slopestyle was built for his elegant but daring style. Take a look.”

  The clip shows Tyler at the top of a hill, looking severe and serious in goggles and a knit hat. The gun or whatever goes off, and he launches with a slouchy, relaxed style that doesn’t even look serious. When he hits the rails, my throat is tight with worry, but he’s like a cat, graceful, easy beautiful.

  “Whoa,” Mercedes says with awe.

  He lands cleanly and the camera pans out to show a series of ramps and bumps or something, each larger than the last, and Tyler flies and swoops and dives with what seems like no weight at all. I think of the day I went to apply for work at the Musical Spoon and he came across the room as if he was made of light and grace. On the slopes, he’s a hundred times more graceful.

  The final trick is a big ramp, and he crouches low, his speed gathering and gathering until he lifts off the end and—this is where we came in—grabs the board and spins so many times I can’t even count them, and lands and then that bit where he breaks or slushes or hits something and wipes out.

  “That sucks. I don’t know one thing about this sport, but that was fucking beautiful. Did he break his ankle?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know when this was.”

  Of course, this is exactly the moment when Kaleb wanders out of the bedroom, an empty glass in hand. He looks grouchy and mussed, but when he catches sight of the television, his expression goes thunderous, the heavy brows pulling down hard, his mouth—that soft, gorgeous, kissable mouth—turning to a brittle frown.