by Trudi Trueit
I exhale.
“No, but—”
“Then you’re going to have to buy them at the counter around the corner, and then you’re going to have to stand in line like everyone else. Got it?”
“Yes, but—”
“Don’t make me call security. Miss?” She beckons to me, and I quickly go through the turnstile. Caden, Langley, and I rush for the platform. The next car is ours.
“This is going to be fun,” Caden says for the benefit of the guy who is helping everyone get on.
“I bet the view is great,” says Langley, her face pale.
Our gondola car makes a slow 180-degree turn. The doors are open. Caden hops in. He helps Langley get on. It’s my turn. Caden holds out his hand for me.
I hesitate.
“Kestrel?”
I look down at the hand that is reaching for mine. I see five fingers and five fingernails. His fingers are long and thin. That must help when he plays the guitar. I see three freckles on his hand, all very close together like good friends. I glance up. I am in the gondola! It worked! Thanks, Breck.
The car sways a little. This isn’t too bad.
Inside the ice cube of death, there’s one padded bench in front that faces the back and one in the back that faces front. There’s enough room for three people on each bench—four if everyone scrunches. My knees are a bit noodly, so it’s a relief to fall on the back bench next to my best friend. I look out the big pane of glass next to me, wondering how many more people will cram in with us. We are still moving, but no one else is getting on. It’s a miracle! They are letting us go by ourselves!
A second before the doors close we hear a girl scream, “Caden, I love yoooooou!”
The car glides through the roundhouse. Once we leave the station, Caden collapses against the seat. “We made it!”
“That was close,” says Langley.
I can’t believe it. I’m here. I’m ON the gondola! As our ice cube glides upward, it makes no sound. I expected something—a creaking cable or the groan of metal—but there is only a slight whistle as air slips in through the vents above us. From the hundreds of fir trees in the distance, I pick out one. Just one. I keep my eyes on that tree. Once we pass it, I look for another tree. I do not look behind me at the valley or down at the ground or up at the sky. I look only at my tree. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see a support pole coming up to meet us. The car swings slightly as the cable rolls over the wheels connected to the top of the pole.
My breath catches. My heart skips one beat. Then two. I dig my fingernails into the cushion. This was a bad idea. What was I thinking? I can’t do this. I am not ready for this. I am going to freak out in front of my best friend and the most popular teen rock star in the world! I feel funny. Light-headed. Tingly. Dizzy. I close my eyes. Oh, no! I am losing control. Something bad is about to happen. I know it. I know it! I wait for my throat to close off. I wait for my brain to shut down. I wait for my heart to explode out of my chest. I wait to die.
It sure is a long wait. I am still waiting when I hear a grunt. Wyatt’s grunt.
Are you saying fear can’t kill you? It just makes you think it can?
Bingo!
My breath is ragged, but I am still breathing. My throat isn’t closing off. My thoughts are jumbled, but I am still thinking. My brain isn’t shutting down. My heart is still in my chest and beating, if erratically. It isn’t speeding up, though. It’s slowing down. As panic eases its grip on me, I release my seat cushion. I inhale to the count of five. Then I exhale to the count of five, turning slightly to let the sun warm my face and shoulders. Slow breath in. Slow breath out. Soon, feeling begins to return to my extremities. I wait a few minutes more before opening my eyes. We are still moving up the slope toward a rocky crest. Even though it’s scary not knowing what is on the other side of the ridge, I know I’ll be all right. I’m not going to die.
Langley and Caden are watching me, worried.
“You all right?” asks Caden.
“I think so.”
“I don’t blame you for being jittery,” he says. “We are pretty far off the ground.” He glances around. “And this car is so . . . small.”
It makes me feel better to know someone else isn’t so comfortable either.
“Lang?” I tap her arm. “How did you find out I was scared of heights?”
“You’re kidding, right?” She raises an eyebrow. “Kestrel, we’ve been best friends since the fifth grade. You don’t think I notice that every time we go up the stairs you avoid the rail side? Or that you hardly ever want to go up to the second floor at the mall even though your favorite T-shirt shop is there? Or that whenever we go to the fair you make up some lame excuse so you won’t have to go on the high rides?”
“I do?”
“Last year, you said you couldn’t go on the roller coaster because you had a condition where your eardrums explode if the ride goes faster than ten miles per hour. The year before that you were allergic to the faux-leather seats. I’m not sure about the year before that, but I think it had something to do with a nosebleed—”
“Okay, okay. So why didn’t you ever say something?”
She lifts a shoulder. “What was I supposed to say? Besides, I knew you’d work it out.”
I sit back. How about that? All along I thought I was hiding my deepest, darkest Don’t from the world, and Langley knew. She knew the whole time.
We continue our journey, and little by little, I lower my eyes. I see mountain bikers swerving down the dirt trails, leaving clouds of dust behind them. I see a line of hikers crossing the white, flat rocks in a glittering stream. I see a red-tailed hawk preening her mottled feathers on a pine branch. I am seeing the world from a completely different angle, one that is new and extraordinary and incredible.
And then it happens.
The gondola stops.
16
Don’t Stand Up in a Gondola
Caden is staring at me. Langley, too.
I raise my hands. “I didn’t touch anything.”
“It’ll start up in a couple of minutes,” says Langley. “I mean, they can’t leave us hanging here.” Her voice is getting smaller with each word. “Can they?”
It’s too far between cars to clearly see the people in the cubes in front of or behind us, but I can see into one of the cars heading in the opposite direction. We passed them a few seconds before the gondola stopped, so we’re only about thirty feet apart. They are suspended on a separate cable below ours. A little girl about five years old is sitting on her knees on the back bench. She has curly, carrot-red pigtails and is wearing a lavender dress and white tights. Her hands are spread out on the glass. She squints up at me. I grin and wave. She does the same. She doesn’t seem scared.
We hear a crackle. It’s coming from a speaker in the corner above me. “Ladies and gentlemen,” says a male voice, “we apologize for the delay. We’re taking care of a small maintenance issue. We should have it ironed out shortly and have you on your way soon. Thank you for your patience.”
“As if we have a choice,” mumbles Caden.
“There we go,” says Langley. “I knew they wouldn’t forget us.”
“Bugs under glass,” says Caden, wiping his brow. He’s sitting in the sun. “Something’s wrong.”
“I’m sure everything’s fine,” I say. “They probably have to oil something or take a car out of service.”
“Maybe Caden’s right.” Langley’s forehead is against the glass as she looks down at the trail one hundred feet below us.
“Didn’t you hear?” I ask. “He said it was a small maintenance issue—”
“Didn’t you hear?” she shoots back. “He said they’d have it ironed out soon. You don’t iron out a maintenance issue. You iron out a problem.”
“I think we may have a problem of our own.” I tip my head toward Caden, who is clutching his bench cushion so hard his knuckles are white. His head is tipped back against the window. Sweat glistens on his forehea
d.
“Uh-oh,” says my best friend. “Caden, are you okay?”
“You bet. Sure. Great,” he says, even as his eyes glaze over.
I know that look. Quickly, I pull my arms out of my hoodie. Bunching my jacket into a ball, I lean over and tuck it into the corner of his bench. “You’ve got a big concert to do, so why don’t you rest a bit?”
“I don’t know . . . I’m not sure . . . ,” he sputters, but I am already taking him by the shoulders and gently easing him down so his head is on my makeshift pillow. There isn’t enough room for him to completely stretch out. He has to bend his knees, but at least he’s out of direct sunlight. I lift off his cap, which can only be making him hotter in this miniature greenhouse. I take the wig off too, and a wave of light blond hair tumbles out.
He puts a hand to his damp forehead. “Kestrel, I’m fine—”
“Close your eyes,” I say.
He obeys.
“We’re all going to take a minute and relax, okay?” I ease myself back down into my seat across from him. I glance at Langley. “Let’s inhale to the count of five. Ready? One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five.”
They both follow my instructions.
“Good. Now exhale as I count backward,” I say, counting back from five down to zero. “Let’s do it again. Slow breath in. Slow breath out. Perfect.”
Caden flutters his eyelids.
“Keep them closed,” I say. “Keep breathing. Let your mind help you gain control over your body. You’re doing fine.” I tap Langley on the knee. “Open the other vent,” I whisper. “Text your mom and tell her we’re stuck for a bit hanging out in the gondola but we’re all okay. Say it like that, all right? I don’t want anybody spreading any gossip about Caden.”
“Okay,” says Langley.
I turn back to my nervous pop star. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got off a roller coaster going two hundred miles per hour.”
“That’s great. That you’re off it, I mean.”
“Sorry,” he says. “I’ve never liked small, confined spaces, especially when those spaces aren’t going anywhere. Sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. Believe me. I know.” I look out the window at the car suspended below us. The little girl in lavender is clutching her mother’s leg. She doesn’t look as happy as she did before. She is looking at me, so I make a silly face—crossing my eyes and sticking out my tongue. Then I pretend I am underwater, puffing out my cheeks and pretending to swim. I fake bumping my head on the glass. Lavender girl is grinning again.
Langley is busy texting. I remember how talking to my mom helped me when we were going over the Port Mann Bridge, so maybe it could help Caden, too. I should say something. I say the first thing that pops into my head. “Hey, uh . . . I could recite my poem for you—the one that won the contest, I mean, if you want to hear it.”
“Uh-huh,” he says.
I clear my throat and begin:
“You’re sure I have things figured out. Know who I am. What I want. Why I’m here.
I don’t.
I’m sure you have things figured out. Know who you are. What you want. Why you’re here.
You don’t.
Maybe you could admit, like me, you’re a little lost.
Crisscrossed. Wind-tossed.
And maybe I could admit, like you, I’m a little scared.
Unprepared. Undeclared.
So let’s not pretend we know anything about who we are, what we want, and why we’re here.
Let’s help each other live.”
Caden opens his eyes. “That was good, Kestrel.”
I dip my head shyly. “Nah.”
“Told ya,” said Langley.
“You look a lot better,” I say to Caden, partly because it’s true and partly to change the subject.
“Thanks. I’m feeling better. Guess I popped your rock-star bubble big-time, huh?”
“No,” I say. “Nobody expects perfection.”
His snort says I am wrong.
“It must be hard being famous,” I say. “I mean, you think it would be cool to have everyone know you, but would it? After watching those wild girls back there, I’m not so sure.”
“Don’t you ever want to go to the store in your sweats and buy some jalapeño chips or something without photographers chasing you?” asks Langley.
“If only they chased me that wouldn’t be so had,” says Caden. “But they do much worse. They make up things. Before you know it, you’re on the cover of a magazine with the headline, ‘Pop Star Out of Control: Is in Rehab for Jalapeño Addiction.’ ”
Langley and I laugh, as he meant for us to, but Caden’s grin is pained.
“People think fame makes you bigger,” he says. “It does the opposite. It shrinks your world. You can’t go anywhere or do anything. You end up hiding out. Even after I leave a place, it’s mobbed. People want to stay in the room I stayed in or steal the towel I touched. At my last hotel, fans broke into my room and searched for hair and fingernail clippings. It’s totally weird.”
“Ew,” I say, but Langley has a What’s wrong with that? expression on her face.
“I try to stick with my old friends, the ones I knew before I became famous, you know, but even then you can’t always trust them.” He turns to me. “Kestrel, are you gonna tell—?”
“No,” I say firmly. “We’re not ever going to say anything to anybody about this lift trip, are we, Langley?”
“Absolutely not. What happens in the gondola stays in the gondola.”
“Thanks,” he says. “Funny how things work out. I sure am glad of that leak now.”
I tip my head. “Leak?”
“I was supposed to stay at the Fairmont, but someone let it slip, so we ended up diverting to your lodge,” he says. “You guys were the only ones with enough rooms for all of us on such short notice. Plus, you’re off the beaten track, so—”
“That’s it!” I leap up, sending the car swaying. “Sorry, sorry!” I plunk my butt back down. “I thought of something we could do to help business at the lodge.”
Langley eyes are wide. “What?”
“Caden says people flock to any place he stays, right? We’ll leak it to the media that he stayed at our lodge—”
“And the reservations will come pouring in,” finishes Langley. “It’s brilliant!”
I turn to Caden. “We won’t tell anyone until after you’ve checked out, I swear.”
“If it’ll help business, I’d be happy to mention I stayed there,” he says. “I can tell a few friends about it too.”
“That would be amazing.” With Caden’s help we could fill the lodge twice as fast!
We feel a sudden lurch.
“We’re moving!” cries Caden.
Langley and I cheer! As we sail upward, I glance down to the gondola going the opposite way. The little girl in lavender is wiggling her fingers. I wave back.
Caden’s concert is . . .
Beyond stellar. It is phenomenal. It is incredible. It is every positive adjective that exists or will ever exist in the entire universe. Langley and I dance in the aisles. We take dozens of videos and photos. We sing along to every song, and I almost spontaneously combust when Caden brings us up onstage—yes, up onstage—to sing “Hangin’ by a Thread.”
“Still hanging by a thread from your heart.” Langley sings the first line with him.
I take the second line. “You kept me on a string from the start.”
We sing the last lines together. “If only you would untie the knot, we could both be free. We could both be free.”
Caden does a two-hour concert inside the theater for the three hundred or so guests at the party. While onstage, I spot Veranda and Rose in the second row on the opposite side of the auditorium. Her arms folded in front of her, Veranda seems to be pouting. I bet she wanted to go up onstage too. Caden is singing his final notes of the encore song. I put my arm around my best friend. “I’m so glad I got
on the gondola with you,” I shout.
“What?”
“I said I’m so glad I came up the mountain.”
“What?”
“Are your ears still ringing? We’re close to the amps.”
“My ears are ringing. We’re too close to the amps.”
It’s over. Everyone claps and yells until our hands are sore and our throats are raw. Langley and I file out of the theater with the rest of the guests. I turn at the steps, leading us up to the observation deck and through the outdoor café.
“Before we go back down, let’s take a picture by the Inukshuk,” I say as we wind our way through the tables.
“The what-shack?”
“The Inukshuk.” I point to tall sculpture in the shape of a human made from five stacked stones. “I read about it in one of the brochures at the lodge. They were created by ancient Inuits to mark navigational routes. This one was built for the 2010 Olympics.”
We pick our way down a steep slope to reach the sculpture at the edge of a rocky cliff. It’s more than double my height and stands on a cement platform, facing the valley. It’s a long way down to the village below—1,850 meters, which sets the hair on my arms at attention. I’m wary, but not worried.
Standing shoulder to shoulder, Langley and I look at the view. From this height, Whistler village looks like a toy model, even the big hotels seem tiny. The blue-and-white mountains stretch forever. Here and there, the tallest rocky peaks pierce bloated silver clouds. The tree-lined hills rising up from the valley floor remind of how Langley’s cat, Mouse, looks when he’s hiding under a blanket.
“You can see the whole valley from here,” says Langley. “Look, there’s the Fairmont.”
My eye lands on the large rectangle building that’s bent at both ends then moves right to the swatches of green carved into the base of the hillside. “There’s the golf course,” I say.
“And Lost Lake,” says Langley, and our eyes pan down to the sapphire bunny-shaped lake below the golf course.
I scan the trees. “Where’s the lodge?”
“There!”
“Where?” I see the bigger condos, the Four Seasons, and the Alpenglow, but no Blackcomb Creek Lodge.