‘What do you want to do tomorrow?’ she asks.
‘We could do anything,’ I reply. ‘Go for a drive out to Moke Lake. Head over to Arrowtown and go gold-panning like we did as kids. Or we could be total tourists and do the Shotover jet-boat ride.’
Louise’s voice floats over to us. ‘They’ve had over fifty centimetres of snow on the mountain.’
‘They’re going to have legendary powder up there,’ I say to Issy.
‘I know, right?’ she replies.
We both go quiet.
‘Hey . . .’ Is says slowly. ‘Do you want to go with them?’
I’m sure she can see it on my face. I wasn’t expecting to feel the old urge kick in today as the snow kept falling outside. The itch inside my body – where all you can think about is the mountain – getting up there and being amongst it.
I want to go tomorrow. And then I don’t at the same time.
I don’t because I’m worried that when I tighten the bindings on my board and I start a run, and once again it’s not like I remember – then I’ll tumble right back into frustration and anger.
But then, there’s this other part of me that keeps thinking about freshies and the way my board used to feel gliding over them, the ‘sussssshhh’ sound it would make. The rush of cold mountain air on my face, tingling my nose. The high of carving my way down a run. I keep thinking, Maybe if everyone else is going tomorrow, then getting out on the slopes could just be about having some fun, instead of me trying to pick up where I left off as a competitive boarder.
The pasta is twisting in my stomach as I try to sift through my feelings.
‘No . . . you’re only here another week,’ I say to Issy finally. ‘I want to hang out together. I can go another time.’
She’s looking at me. I know she can see the thoughts battling each other like gladiators inside my brain.
‘Well . . . what if I went too?’ she says.
‘But you don’t ski any more – you gave it up. And you have your audition in a few weeks—’
‘Tay,’ she interrupts. ‘Believe me, I haven’t forgotten about that.’
‘You’re not worried about getting injured?’ I stare at her like she’s crazy. I’m so confused. This audition is everything to her.
‘Listen . . .’ Isolde glances over at her parents before she turns her head back to me and lowers her voice. ‘When I get home . . . I think I’m going to quit.’
Isolde
Sunday 9 June
He thinks I’m joking at first. When he realises I’m not, he pulls me outside onto the deck, shutting the sliding door behind us.
‘Issy, this is crazy. You can’t quit. I know I’m not a ballet teacher, so this doesn’t mean much coming from me, but you know you have something special.’
‘Tay . . . just listen to me for a sec, will you?’ I turn my back on the house and look out at the view, trying to put my messy thoughts into something he’ll understand. ‘I don’t . . . want to do this any more. Missing out on stuff. Missing out on everything. And for what?’
‘Because you want to be a dancer,’ Taylor says, sounding upset. ‘I know you do. I remember, Issy, what it feels like to make sacrifices, but those sacrifices are worth it in the end.’
‘That’s just it,’ I say. For a second, I can’t say anything else because I’m worried I’m going to cry. I force myself to look out at the horizon, steadying myself to get the rest of the explanation out. ‘I don’t think they are any more. The last year – the last few years – I’ve barely had a spare moment to spend with my own family, and now that’s falling to pieces in front of me, and I don’t . . . I don’t get that time back, Tay.’
I don’t feel like crying any more, all of sudden. Instead I’m angry.
‘When we go home, I don’t know what’s going to happen. So I just want to enjoy myself this week. Feel like I’m living while I’m here.’
Taylor’s quiet. I can see half-a-dozen questions crossing his face, but he doesn’t open his mouth and ask them. He eventually nods his head. ‘I get it.’
‘So, can we go up the mountain tomorrow, then?’
‘’Course we can.’
Isolde
Monday 10 June
‘Did your mum’s and dad’s jaws drop?’ Taylor asks me the next morning as I climb into the back seat of his parents’ car.
‘To the floor,’ I say, putting on my seatbelt.
‘Those two played it cool,’ Tay whispers, nodding his head at his parents. ‘They keep glancing back at me via their side windows like they think I’m going to yell “gotcha” at any moment.’ Taylor’s grinning now.
It’s early, and the sun is only just rising as we head along the Shotover. Hawks are out, soaring above fields of woolly sheep. We turn off at the Crown Range Road and start climbing upwards. At the top of the pass, the temperature drops down to minus two, and it starts snowing again. The fragments of ice hitting the top of the car sound like tiny pieces of gravel raining down on us.
When we reach the entrance to the Cardrona ski field, there’s a dancing snowman holding a sign that says Chains on all vehicles, including four-wheel drives. Tobi pulls the car over, and he and Tay put the metal chains on the wheels. They get back in the car, and Tobi puts on Jimi Hendrix. We make our way up the mountain to wailing electric guitar, the chains gripping the road underneath us, stopping our car from sliding out on ice or bare rock.
‘I always forget there’re almost no guardrails,’ I say, grimacing. I’m on the left-hand side of the car, and there’s a sheer drop outside the window that’s dizzying to look at.
Maia smiles at me over her shoulder. ‘There’s no point putting them in – the edge of the road erodes every season, and they’d go right with it.’
Taylor’s gone quiet in the seat next to me. I can see the tension in his jaw as he looks outside. We’re passing by the Valley View Quad, and early-morning boarders are carving their way down a black run.
I know he doesn’t want to talk, so I put my hand over the top of his and squeeze.
Taylor
Monday 10 June
Honestly, when Dad drove by Valley View Quad, I wanted to open my door, jump out and hitch a ride back down the mountain with the snowplough.
At that point, I was stressing about a whole bunch of things. Someone recognising me. Stacking it off the chairlift. Falling flat on my face on a green run – or I guess just falling full stop – because not only was I scared of hurting myself, I also didn’t want to look like an idiot.
But weirdly enough . . . today ends up being nothing like I expected.
We reach Cardrona by 9am and head to the hire shop for Issy’s gear. Finn and Ana are already in there – Finn’s dad dropped them off this morning.
I’m still spinning out that we have two talented ballerinas literally risking their limbs today. Admittedly, Ana’s said she’s sticking to the beginner’s run only, which here at Cardrona is barely a few degrees off horizontal, but still, it’s a worry.
The first thing that throws me is that everyone’s decided to snowboard.
‘Finn says it’s easier than skiing,’ Ana says as the guy in the hire shop takes her foot measurement.
‘Easier to progress, you mean, not to learn,’ I say, giving Finn a look because he’s obviously got an ulterior motive, which is to spend the day teaching Ana his ‘skills’ – aka his bad habits. ‘You guys didn’t want to try skiing instead?’
But Finn’s got Ana hyped up to board, and Issy doesn’t want to be the sole skier of the group, so it’s official – we’re all boarding today.
‘They need helmets,’ I tell the hire guy. I nod at Finn. ‘Him especially – he’s a serious liability.’
I have my own gear. Jacket, pants, helmet, board, boots, gloves – they’ve all come out of the back of my cupboard.
‘Well, this is awkward,’ Isolde says, coming to sit next to me on the bench. She nods her head at Finn and Ana, who are making out near a rack of snow jackets.
/> ‘I think we’re going to see a lot of this today.’ I make a kissy face like a fish, and we both laugh.
‘You going to put on your boots?’ Issy asks.
I’d been hoping to ask Finn to take the girls over to meet Mum so I could do this in private. Or as private as it could be in the corner of the hire shop, or on one of the seats in the café. I didn’t want to sit outside in the cold, even if there were fewer people there, because my fingers would numb up and things would take twice as long.
I look at Finn again. His lips are superglued to Ana’s face.
Far out.
‘Yeah, sure,’ I say to Issy. I slowly take off the shoes I’m wearing and stare down at my socks.
‘You remembered ski socks, right?’ Issy looks confused, obviously wondering why I’m sitting here, fixated on my feet.
There’s no getting out of this, dude.
I pull my sock off my left foot, and then I take a deep breath and slip off my right sock.
Issy’s never seen my prosthetic foot.
It’s the same skin tone as my left, or at least within a fraction, because the prosthetist did an amazing job matching it. The foot has toes and it’s pretty realistic, but it’s not flesh and bone, obviously.
I look up at Issy as I pull the ski socks out of my pocket. She’s completely unfazed.
That was the easy part, I think, slipping on my socks. I know what’s coming next.
All the times I’ve imagined taking my leg off in front of a girl for the first time – aka step fourteen – that moment had been centred around this one scenario when I was older and had a girlfriend, and we were planning on sleeping in the same bed.
I’d never thought it would happen in a ski shop, surrounded by little kids screaming and crying about their sore feet and the cold.
‘This might seem odd, but it’s the easiest way to get the foot in the boot,’ I say to Is, like some kind of amputee disclaimer.
I don’t want to give disclaimers. I don’t want to feel like I have to. I want to be able to take off my leg and not give a crap what anyone else thinks. Think, Stuff you if you can’t handle it. Part of me feels like that, the tough part that’s started to see the prosthesis as what it is – the thing I put on every morning and head out into the world wearing. Not something that makes me ‘less than’ everyone else.
But wound tightly around the toughness is fear too.
Sitting here, on this bench, looking down at my legs, all I can think about is the last time a girl saw me without my prosthesis on. That moment with Natalia. It’s never really faded in my mind. Being looked at that way.
So even now, two years on, when I’ve reached a point of enough confidence to start thinking that next summer I might wear shorts out in public – screw the stares – showing my stump to another girl, a girl that I have way deeper feelings for than I ever had for Natalia, is panic-inducing.
Get it over with, my brain screams.
My fingers trembling, I pull up my ski pant and push the release pin on the side of my prosthesis. I hold it down while I pull my right limb out of the prosthesis.
My prosthetic leg is on the floor, and my stump is in front of me and Is.
It’s not naked – I’m wearing the liner with the pin at the bottom that inserts into the lock on the prosthesis. But I feel laid bare anyway, and vulnerable as hell, because there’s no hiding from this moment.
It’s me and her, and my body as it is now.
I look at Issy. She looks at my leg. Not a brief glance, or a sneaky glimpse out of the side of her eyeline. A proper look. And then her eyes travel to mine.
There’s no disgust on her face. No embarrassment either. She’s looking me dead in the eye.
‘What do you do next?’ she asks, her voice interested.
I let out a laugh, even though what she’s said isn’t funny. The laughter is uncapped relief.
‘Then we try to get this thing,’ I point at the foot of the prosthesis, ‘into the boot. Warning – it’s not as simple as it sounds.’
I start wrestling with the foot and the boot. It’s always a struggle. Unlike my left foot, the right doesn’t bend, or flex, or do any of the things that make putting on a shoe a simple process. Basically, you have to be a bit forceful and pretty strategic to get the shoe on the foot properly. Issy gets involved – she asks first, which I appreciate – and soon we’re both laughing.
‘Success!’ I say finally.
We slap palms, and I slide my leg back into the prosthesis and feel the click of the pin fitting into the socket. I stand up.
‘Right,’ I call over to Finn and Ana. ‘Break it up, you two – let’s get out there.’
Isolde
Monday 10 June
I’ll never forget the way Taylor looked at me back in the hire shop, when he slipped off his prosthesis. The expression in his eyes was what made the lump appear in my throat. His gaze was fierce – almost burning – and his jaw was set, like he’d steadied himself for a negative reaction.
Worse: that he’d resigned himself to the fact that I was going to look at him – at his leg – in horror or disgust.
I can feel myself burning too. I want to ask him, Who’s looked at you that way? but I know the answer.
For a second, I can feel myself raging at the thought of her, at the thought of anyone else who’s ever treated him as less than.
His leg is different to the leg we both knew. I’m not going to pretend like nothing’s happened. What he’s lost came out of surviving something – an accident that almost cost him his life.
There are so many things I want to say. But a crowded, noisy hire shop isn’t the place. All I can do is look at him the way I’ve always looked at him. Like he’s Taylor – my best friend, the best person I know – and what he’s shared with me is something I want to be a part of.
Because I do. I want to know how his new leg works. I want to know anything and everything he’s willing to share with me.
Taylor
Monday 10 June
After leaving the hire shop, Finn, Issy, Ana and I head straight for the beginner’s slope. Once we’re standing on the snow up the top, we clip up our bindings. I don’t have time to analyse my boarding. I’m too busy trying to guide Issy, holding her hands as I face her, and we travel down the slight incline together.
‘Stick your bum out a bit more,’ I say to Issy. ‘It’ll help you balance.’
‘Don’t look at my bum!’ she splutters.
‘Don’t look at me, look down the hill,’ I say, laughing at her expression. ‘And I’m not perving at your bum, I’m trying to help you with your form.’
‘Righhhttttt, mate.’ Finn winks, coming alongside us.
I take one hand from Isolde and push him.
‘Hey!’ he shouts as he goes tumbling over.
‘Watch yourself!’ I shout back.
A split second later, Issy loses her balance and we both go down. Finn slides right into us, and Ana crashes out trying to avoid the pile-up. We’re all laughing so hard we can’t get back up.
And that’s when I realise I’m having fun.
Isolde
Monday 10 June
The morning disappears as we repeat the same beginner’s run, falling on our bums more times than I can count.
At 1pm, the four of us have lunch in the café. Just as I finish the last sip of my hot chocolate, Finn stands up.
‘We better head off, An,’ he says with a sigh.
Ana has to be back at the airport by 3pm to catch her flight back to Melbourne.
‘I don’t want you to go,’ I say as I hug Ana.
‘Message me everything,’ Ana whispers. ‘Especially when he finally kisses you – I want full deets.’
‘Shh!’ My eyes dart over to Taylor, worried he’s overheard. He and Finn are mid-joke and have thankfully missed it.
Finn and Ana head out the café door, waving back at us.
‘That went too quickly,’ I say, feeling bummed because I know the s
ame thing is going to happen to me this week.
I don’t want to think about going home. About what’s going to happen when Mum and Dad don’t have to play pretend any more.
‘So, what do you reckon about taking the lift up and giving the Skyline trail a shot?’ Taylor asks, reaching forward to clip up my helmet.
‘I’m game if you are,’ I say, and we head for the chairlift.
Once we’re up the hill, the slope looks incredibly steep. I know that’s my own mind playing tricks on me because this is a green trail, one I skied a million times as a kid, but I still have the jitters standing on the top bank. The thoughts I’d been able to laugh away down on the beginner’s slope – What if I tear my Achilles? What if I break a knee? – are now red exclamation marks in my vision.
I look over at Taylor, trying to distract myself, and I realise he has an odd expression on his face.
‘You okay?’ I ask, looking closely at him.
‘Yeah, of course. Why?’ he says, frowning.
‘You look . . .’
My voice trails off. I realise I can’t say what I’m thinking.
‘I look . . .?’
‘You don’t want me to say it, trust me.’ I shake my head. I’m pressing my lips together, suppressing a giggle.
‘Spill it, Goldie.’ Taylor looks bemused now.
‘You look, kind of intense – like, maybe a bit . . . constipated?’ The last word comes out high-pitched as I throw him an I’m sorry look.
He stares at me for a second, and I wonder if I’ve insulted him. Then he throws back his head and he’s laughing so hard he’s holding his stomach like he has a stitch.
‘You remember what that looks like, hey? Back when I used to use the potty in front of you?’
‘Stop it!’ I splutter, clutching my own stomach. ‘I don’t want that image in my head.’
‘Far out, I’ve got no hope of being cool to you, do I?’ Taylor says, wiping tears from his eyes.
The Long Distance Playlist Page 22