The lift bumps toward the exit. We push the bar up and ski off to the right. Fiddling with his goggles, he adds, “But I don’t want you to think it was an easy choice. Or an obvious one. It wasn’t. It took time. For years, I got up early, slogged through my commute, sat with all those other suits at lunch, eyed the clock all the time. After a while, I just thought, What am I doing here? This isn’t where I’m meant to be. Then again, some guys I worked with — they loved it, the game, the competition, the grind. Someone is always going to have more, someone is always going to have less. Eventually, you have to choose what’s enough for you and not what’s right for other people.”
I stare down at my skis. “I don’t care what other people think of me.”
“You sure about that?”
Even though he said it gently, it feels like having snow dumped down the back of my jacket. Stupid Jedi Mountain Master. He doesn’t know why I’m here; I don’t even know why I’m here.
“Are we going to actually ski sometime today?” I ask glibly, fiddling with the straps of my poles, noticing the snow starting to fall, the bits of ice collecting on my goggles.
He belly-laughs loud enough to attract attention from passing skiers. “Yes, we are. Let’s get a run in before this storm hits.”
I wake shivering in the muted Tuesday morning to no power and a steady snowfall adding to the pile outside. My fire died out during the night, so I wrap myself in my quilt and pad into the living room, where Trick has a camping lantern glowing as he stokes the woodstove out here. “I’m out of wood,” I say.
“I’ll get yours going in a sec. Power’s out at the store, too. All over the valley.” He wipes his hands on his jeans and grabs an armful of wood for my stove. “After this, I’m going to snowshoe over to the store and help the Nevers deal with a few things. These fires should hold you until I get back.” He motions toward the woodstove, where a metal coffeepot percolates. “There’s coffee if you want it, but take that pot off soon or it’ll burn.” He’s wearing the Santa Cruz sweatshirt he wears often, the one he had on that first day I saw him in Neverland.
“Thanks,” I say sleepily. Watching him disappear into my room, something shifts in me, squeezing my heart. I hear him in there, fiddling with the stove, crumpling paper, closing the little iron door, and I start to cry.
He emerges and catches sight of my tear-streaked face. Looking alarmed, he asks, “Oh, no — what?”
I shake my head, trying to blink away the gluey wave of emotion threatening to surface again. “Nothing, nothing. I just need coffee. This is my I need coffee face.”
Shooting me an odd look, he grabs the pot and pours me a cup. He adds milk and hands it to me, which, ridiculously, brings on another hiccupy sob. Uncertain, he takes a step back. “Oh, well — are you sick or something?”
“No.” I bury my face in the hot, sharp smell of coffee. How can I explain about the Santa Cruz sweatshirt and watching him build a fire? How can I tell him that him knowing I take milk in my coffee makes me miss all the years he didn’t know what kind of breakfast I liked?
“You sure?”
When I nod, he heads for the door, casting me another funny, quiet look, before heading out into the falling snow.
An hour later, someone knocks on the door. I open it to find Isabel and Logan frosted with snow. “Put these on,” Isabel says, holding up a pair of snowshoes. “You’re coming with us.” She notices what I’m wearing. “And you’re very welcome to wear your pajamas, but you might want to throw on your ski pants over those so you don’t get soaked.”
I point at the books piled on the coffee table. “Oh, I should probably work —”
Isabel cuts me off with the raise of her gloved hand. “You should probably go put on your ski pants.”
“And come with us,” Logan adds, brushing some snow from his beanie. “It’s a snow day.”
Ten minutes later, I follow them awkwardly on snowshoes through the storm, the snow eddying around me. It’s incredible how small the world becomes in a snowstorm, how quiet and still, like all peripheral vision has been erased. As we crunch along, it dawns on me that it feels nice to put life on hold for a day.
After what seems like an hour but is probably twenty minutes, we arrive at a house. We stomp up some stairs and onto a wide deck. Logan opens the front door, letting us into a fully enclosed glass-and-wood entryway with pale stone floors and hooks on the walls for our gear. We leave the snowshoes on the ground by a bench that looks like someone built it out of polished tree branches and hang up our pants and jackets. When we’re ready, Logan pushes open another glass door and leads us into a great room, its lamps glowing warmly.
“Wait, you guys have power?” I ask, taking in the high ceilings, the living room with cozy couches and an enormous fireplace, and beyond that, a kitchen separated from the living space by a kitchen island with dark granite countertops.
“We have a generator.” Logan heads toward the kitchen as Isabel settles onto one of the suede sofas, clearly at home here, and starts sorting through a pile of board games on the coffee table in front of her.
“Cool house.” I join Isabel on the sofa.
Logan puts a pan of milk on the stove and opens a jar of cocoa powder, spilling some on the counter. “Thanks, we like it.” He moves around the kitchen. Finally, he sets down three steaming mugs and a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table, grimacing when he notices that Isabel has set up a game called Chat Room. “Can’t we just play Monopoly?”
Isabel flips up the first card. “This is a good starter game.” She pauses shuffling cards to look out at the dense snow that has only grown thicker in the last half hour. “I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere for a while.”
Logan fetches a beanbag from near the fire and flops into it on the other side of the coffee table. “Fine, but let’s just play the talking way. I don’t feel like writing anything down.”
Isabel puts the little pads of paper away. “Well, we wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
I sit cross-legged on the couch next to Isabel, glad I stayed in my pajama bottoms, and pull a fuzzy ivory blanket over my lap. With the fire glowing and the smell of hot cocoa and popcorn permeating the air, I could fall asleep. “How do you play?”
Logan grabs a handful of popcorn. “The way it works is, Isabel uses this game as an excuse to pry into your personal life.”
“You’re onto me,” Isabel says, flipping up the first card. “Okay, here’s the first question: If you could invent anything, what would it be?”
“A homework machine!” I blurt out. Then, blushing, I add, “I probably should’ve said something that cures cancer, right?”
Logan considers this. “How about a cancer-curing homework machine?”
“Yes, that! I would invent that,” I say gratefully. We play through several questions, the game feeling a lot like a dinner with Mom.
What would you do with a million dollars?
What would you name a constellation?
Would you rather live in a house made of candy or gold?
“Well, that’s obvious.” I frown. “Gold. Candy would be so sticky and gross. Especially if it rained.”
Isabel draws another card. “If you were a household appliance, what would you be?”
Logan immediately answers, “An oven.”
“An oven?” I ask, the cup of cocoa warming my still-cold hands.
He shrugs. “I like to cook and I have a warm personality.” He smiles in that way I feel down to my toes. He adds, “Isabel is an espresso machine.”
“I get to answer for myself! But, yes, that seems right.” This small affectionate exchange stabs at me, erasing the nice toe-warming feeling.
“My turn,” I announce. I sift through possible appliances I could be. Refrigerator, hair dryer, washing machine. I decide: “Blender.”
“Why?” They both ask at the same time.
“Because my life is a big mixed-up mess right now.”
Isabel nibbles some popco
rn, watching me closely. “Is that why you tore up all those tests?”
Ugh. Everyone knows.
Logan frowns at Isabel. “Pick another card, nosy. No follow-up questions.”
“It’s fine.” I stare into my hot chocolate. “Okay, yeah.” A log crackles and shifts in the fireplace, and I sit up straighter and put the mug on the coffee table. “I mean, I didn’t plan it. I didn’t wake up thinking, Today I’m going to make a huge scene in calculus! But I just got so overwhelmed and freaked out.” My shoulders sag. “Kind of insane, I know.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Isabel passes me the bowl of popcorn. “I’ve always been a fan of a dramatic exit.”
“But the thing is, I’m not,” I tell her, helping myself to a handful of popcorn. “I’ve always just been the girl who gets the work done.” Studying the snow falling outside, I fill them in on what happened at Ranfield. “I just needed a break — from all the competitive, comparative intensity there.”
Logan and Isabel exchange an uneasy glance. Great. I said too much. But then Isabel asks, “So you came to Tahoe?”
I nod. “It’s just so much more relaxed here.” Isabel cocks her head to one side, making a “huh” noise. Something in the sound of it makes me wary. “What?”
Isabel pulls herself into a cross-legged position on the couch. “I’m not sure it actually is. Don’t let all the crunchy-hippie-mountain vibes fool you. People in Tahoe can be just as hypercompetitive as anywhere else.” I must look skeptical, because she says, “Not about the same things, maybe, but they are. Here, it’s all about how hardcore you can be as a skier or kayaker or anything in the outdoors, really. Or it’s how hardcore you can be about yoga or organic food or your carbon footprint. You want to see some self-righteous intensity? Try talking to a vegan about why you eat cheeseburgers. Or, if you’re a vegetarian, to some meat eater about why you don’t eat cow. Free-range, grass-fed cow, of course.”
I smile; San Diego has plenty of that. I think that’s just California. “Well, it seems more relaxed to me.”
She leans forward, lowering her voice. “It’s an illusion. What’s annoying is, everyone here wants you to think they’re so chill, so mellow — so inclusive. But it’s the same competitive crap as you’ve got everywhere. It’s still the United States of Do It My Way. I don’t care how much they talk about their chakras. At least at your school, it sounds like they’re up front about it.”
Nodding, I think about what she’s saying. Did I assume life would be so much easier in Tahoe because Mom always talked about Trick being such a slacker? Because he’s not, really. A slacker. He works hard at the shop, shovels snow, chops wood. He just keeps things simple. I know I’d been hoping to find simplicity in Tahoe — original Now List #6! But nothing seems simple. Not really. I’m still confused. What I know for sure, though, is something wasn’t working at Ranfield. “I just got so tired of playing the whole game. I thought a change of scenery would help.”
“I get that.” Isabel nods over the rim of her cocoa mug.
“Speaking of games,” Logan says, clearing his throat. “We don’t have to keep playing this one.” He moves to pack up the cards.
“No, it’s fine,” I hurry to tell him. “It helps to talk about it.”
And for the first time, it’s true.
We play Chat Room for another half hour, almost quitting when Isabel and Logan get into a heated argument over the question of favorite superhero because, according to Isabel, Iron Man doesn’t count. “He has no actual powers! And everything he does is for his own gain. Veto!”
“You can’t veto my answer!” Logan’s face flushes. “Batman doesn’t have any actual powers and that doesn’t stop him from being a superhero.”
Isabel shakes her head, dead serious. “That’s different. Batman’s a superhero subcategory — vigilante. Everything he does is to make Gotham a better place. Unlike Tony Stark, who just tries to make Tony Stark’s life better.”
Logan leans back in the beanbag, crossing his arms. “I’m allowed to pick Iron Man. It’s my answer. The suit he built made the world a better place.”
Isabel shoots back, “He built his suit to save his own butt. Veto.”
Logan bursts out laughing. “No veto — you don’t get a ruling when your favorite superhero is Batman, the manic-depressive of Gotham City.”
She chucks a playing card at Logan, who ducks, and it ends up in the fire, instantly engulfed in flames. She giggles. “Oops.”
I crack up. “You two are so funny. Seriously, you’re the cutest couple ever — it’s revolting, actually.”
Isabel sits up, coughing. “Wait … what did you just say?” She and Logan exchange a confused look. “You think we’re together? Ewww!”
“Aww, thanks, that’s nice, Iz. Feeling the love.” Logan stands, gathering our empty cups and carrying them to the kitchen sink.
“Wait.” My heart thrums in my ears. “You aren’t together?”
Isabel shakes her head violently. “Oh, gross — he’s like my brother. No offense, Logan. You’re a total catch but …” She looks back at me, her body shuddering. “Ewwww, gross.”
“I’m wondering if you could mention again how gross that would be,” Logan says drily from behind the kitchen counter. “In case she didn’t quite catch it.”
“Sorry! But it is,” she mumbles, putting the rest of Chat Room away and pulling another box from the stack. “Now, who wants to get their Monopoly on?”
Logan pulls lunch stuff from the fridge, making us another round of hot cocoa. At one point, he glances up, catches me watching him, and gives me a strange half smile. Surprise, it seems to say.
For lunch, we eat turkey sandwiches and share a bag of Doritos. The snow seems to be letting up a bit, but all the nearby houses remain dark, either unoccupied or the power not yet back on. When I’m done with my sandwich, I push myself off the couch. “Can you point me toward the bathroom?” Isabel motions toward the long hallway past the kitchen.
On my way back to the living room, I stop to look at the dozens of framed photos lining the hallway. Most of them feature snow in some way: Logan and his older sister in racing uniforms; Logan’s family snowshoeing; the family in front of the Squaw Valley Neverland, its windows trimmed for the holidays. There are other pictures, too: his parents standing in front of an old building that might be in Europe somewhere, a shot of the family on the bow of a boat with Tahoe’s blue waters behind them, a picture of Logan and his sister dressed as Harry and Hermione from Harry Potter. This one makes me grin because Logan is the one dressed as Hermione.
My gaze falls on a group shot, with everyone dressed for summer — board shorts, T-shirts, sundresses. The kids sit on top of a picnic table, Lake Tahoe in the background, and the adults stand behind them, some in profile, clutching water bottles or beers. The shot seems half-candid, half-staged. The kids look straight at the camera, but many of the adults seem caught in conversation with one another. I can see Isabel right away, all that wild red hair and big smile. A woman who must be her mom stands behind her, her hand on Isabel’s shoulder. Next to Isabel, a child-size Beck stares down the camera, looking annoyed, the same look he had staring after those tourists at High Camp the other day. Two or three other kids sit there, too, smiling while the adults chat behind them.
“We were ten in that picture. Fifth grade, I think.” Isabel comes up beside me, studying it. “It’s funny how many times I walk by this and never look at it. Look how cute we were. Look at Joy’s hair!” She points out the girl from Elevation that first day, her oil-black hair in two high ponytails shooting out from her head like antlers.
I point at Beck. “Why so grumpy?”
Isabel squints at it. “That’s just Beck’s face. He’s always looked like that.”
I hear Logan rattling around the kitchen, the whirr of the espresso machine. Still studying the picture, I say, “You’ve known Beck a long time.”
Isabel nods, moving down the line of pictures, examining each closely. �
��Since we were babies. Technically, you’ve known him a long time, too. And us.” She points at a picture I haven’t yet seen. “See? Us.”
I move to see the photo, my body tingling. It’s a group of small children in ski suits, each with a bright yellow vest reading SQUAW KIDS SKI SCHOOL. We hold our tiny helmets, our hair mussed, our cheeks pink. I see Isabel, Beck, Logan, and Joy, and off to the side, I see almost three-year-old me with dark blond pigtails, holding a pink helmet in my starfish hands. Next to me, Trick stares at the camera, the word COACH embroidered on his jacket, his goggles pushed into his hair.
I swallow, unsettled, a whole world that might have been suddenly unspooling behind me. “I don’t remember any of this. Any of you. Not you or Logan. Or Beck.”
“Sorry.” Isabel drops her gaze, her face creased with sympathy. “It must be really weird. This whole world that just went on without you after you left.”
“It is.” I lean in to look at three-year-old Beck grinning from under his too-big helmet. “Look, he’s smiling in this one.”
“Oh, he smiles,” Isabel concedes, running a finger across the glass as if she could reach back in and touch our little-kid faces. “It just never lasts.”
“What do you mean?”
She takes a step back. “Nope, no way. You made it pretty clear you don’t want my thoughts about Beck Davis. So I’m going to stay out of it. You can kiss whoever you want at High Camp.”
My stomach drops. “How do you know about that?”
“You kissed Beck?” I hadn’t noticed Logan appear behind us in the hallway, holding a dish towel, but there he is, looking at me with too-wide eyes.
“Not really,” I hurry to say. “Okay, yes. Accidentally. It’s this stupid list I have —”
He interrupts. “Accidentally?”
The Possibility of Now Page 13