by Cara Malone
It reminded her of the gentle slopes not far away from her childhood home. They were nothing special, but a Massachusetts winter would see quite a bit of snowfall and the hills were steep enough to build up good speed on a sled. She and Dad went sledding a lot when she was younger, and even though Mom was never the outdoorsy type, she’d always have hot cocoa or tea waiting for them when they came back into the house with their cheeks rosy and their fingers a little on the numb side.
There were no sled riders on the hill outside the ski rental area, though. Even the youngest kids were on skis or shorter versions that Carmen heard a family in front of her refer to as snowblades. And they were all doing a much better job of staying on their feet than Carmen imagined she’d be doing when she got out there.
When it was her turn at the rental counter, a rental area attendant fitted her for a pair of large, heavy boots that turned out to be pretty difficult to walk in. They were made of hard plastic and kept her ankles slightly bent at all times, and it was fortunate for Carmen that the attendant let her cling to his arm while she wobbled her way over to the rack of skis at the end of the line, clutching the snow boots she’d worn over from the cabin.
He let go of her and she put one hand on the counter just to be safe, and then he reached for a pair of scuffed, neon yellow skis that were a little wider at the tips than in the middle.
“Could I have those ones?” Carmen asked, pointing at a pair of shiny red skis at the other end of the rack.
They looked new, and furthermore they were thinner than most of the skis on the rack and looked easier to control. Carmen thought that if her big mouth was going to get her out on the slopes, then she should at least have a pretty pair of skis to accompany her in the picture she promised Bentley.
“You don’t want those,” the attendant said. “They’re cross-country skis, and they’re men’s skis, anyway. They’d be much too long for you. You need a good pair of downhills.”
Carmen thought fleetingly that she could go to the pro shop and buy a nice set of skis, but when would she ever use them after this week was over? She took the garishly bright neon skis that he’d selected for her, along with a set of poles, and it turned out to be quite a task to juggle skis, poles, and her boots as she wobbled away from the counter. She glanced back at the bunny slopes outside the window and thought this was going to be harder than she anticipated.
She sat down on a bench in front of a row of lockers, watching kids less than half her age dominating the bunny slopes, and wondered what on earth had possessed her to tell Brigid – and Bentley – that she was going to the top of the slopes. In these ridiculous boots, she’d be lucky to make it outside, and if she was being honest, she had no business being on even the most gradual of hills without a ski lesson. She didn’t even know the mechanics of skiing, or simple things like how to stop.
Carmen was no great athlete, but she figured that was probably a skill she should learn if she didn’t want to spend Christmas in traction.
She was here now, though, and pure stubbornness to keep her best friend’s attention made Carmen determined to get the picture that she’d promised. So she hatched a plan to fake it – Brigid had never been skiing before, and she wouldn’t be able to tell how Carmen got the shot as long as she found an impressive place on the mountainside to snap a quick selfie. She wouldn’t have to go far – the entire area was a picturesque dream.
She took off the ski boots – not without a fair bit of difficulty – and put them in one of the lockers, then put her own boots back on. Then she left the skis leaning up against a wall, hoping that they’d be in an inconspicuous place until she came back and returned them with the boots. She took the poles – they’d be important to make the photo look authentic, and they’d probably also make the hike she was about to embark on easier.
Carmen went outside, shivering as the cold wind whipped across the open area at the base of the mountain. She zipped her coat, a down-insulated ski jacket that she’d bought in New York just before the trip, and then took a moment to look around.
She realized that the view of the mountain she’d gotten from the car on the way into Emerald Hill, and then from the cabin windows, had not done it any justice at all. She thought she felt small while the limousine was winding its way up into Emerald Mountain, but now Carmen felt her breath being stolen away. The hills rose up from three different directions around the resort, bigger than any skyscraper she’d encountered in New York. There were at least a dozen skiing trails she could see branching off and extending up the mountain, and where she was standing was the point at which all of it converged.
She felt tiny and significant all at once, and no photograph could ever capture that feeling. Carmen took a deep breath, and the air that stung slightly in her lungs smelled faintly of pine. The snow had its own smell, something clean and crisp she couldn’t quite put her finger on, and suddenly she felt invigorated and ready for the hike up the mountainside.
Seven
Joy
The fresh powder on the slopes did Joy just as much good as she was hoping for. She got to the resort fairly early and by the time she made it to the top of her favorite hill, there still weren’t too many people who had ventured beyond the lodge and the bunny slopes.
She took a few runs down the long and winding hill, enjoying the solitude of the mountain. It was at least a ten-minute journey to the bottom of this particular hill, not challenging like the moguls or steep like the black diamonds, and Joy never failed to feel peaceful by the time she got to the bottom. Under the wide-open sky, with few snowboarders and skiers around, it was always a good place to commune with the mountain and find a little inner stillness.
As she took her third run of the day, cutting from side to side on her snowboard, she enjoyed the wind in her hair, the cold air reddening her cheeks and nose. She took the curves of and hills with ease, turning her brain off completely – it was second nature to her by now, with no need to think about anything at all out here. She’d been memorizing every dip and curve of these hills since she was three years old, and some time with a blank mind was exactly what she needed right now.
She was just approaching a small hill, one that she always gathered speed for because she loved catching some air on it, when she saw something dark against the snow in front of her.
It caught her eye and as she approached, it got bigger. Just as Joy crested the hill, the full figure came into view – raven-black hair, then shoulders, then a girl in a white jacket. Joy pivoted in an attempt to stop, but it was too late and her snowboard lifted off at the top of the hill. All she could do was shout, “Hey!”
It wasn’t much of a warning, but it was all Joy could manage.
The young woman looked up, surprise on her face, and Joy had just enough time to recognize her as the eldest daughter of the Castillo family. Then she was crashing, snowboard first, into her.
It was a violent collision. Joy dug her board into the snow as much as she could to keep from smashing it straight into the girl’s legs, and then she was jerked forward, her body connecting painfully with the girl’s and then tumbling head over heels down the hill. Cold snow was packed down the front of her jacket and inside her gloves when she lifted herself up from her resting place, a few feet away from the girl. Her hands hurt from trying to catch herself, and the binding had snapped off her snowboard and was still affixed to her boot.
“Shit,” Joy said, then looked over at the girl, who was sitting in the snow and clutching her ankle. “You okay? Anything broken?”
“Jury’s out,” the girl said through clenched teeth. “Your snowboard hit my ankle and it hurts like hell.”
Joy stood up, shivering and trying to shake the snow out of her coat as she went over to the girl. She crouched in the snow beside her, her heart starting to beat a little faster at the proximity. She ignored this reaction and gently pulled the girl’s hands away from her ankle. “Let me see.”
She pulled off her gloves, rubbing her hands t
ogether for a second to try to warm them up, and then she felt the girl’s ankle, her heart inching its way up into her throat. Joy was no expert – beyond basic first aid, this was one area of resort operations in which she had no training – but nothing looked abnormally bent or swollen, and it was probably just a sprain.
“Looks like you’re going to live,” Joy said, hazarding a smile. The girl was even more beautiful close up, and suddenly Joy became aware of how close she’d gotten to her. She took her hands off the girl’s ankle and stood up. “I think we both got lucky.”
“Doesn’t feel like luck,” the girl said with a snort.
“Do you think you can make it down the mountain?” Joy asked.
“Yeah,” the girl said. “I’ll be fine.”
Joy extended her hand to help her up, but as soon as the girl put weight on her ankle she sucked air in through her clenched teeth and Joy could tell she was in more pain than she wanted to admit.
“It’s sprained,” Joy said. “We better get you a medic.”
“No,” the girl said adamantly, trying again to put some weight on her injured ankle. She limped a step or two, but it would be days before she made it back to the resort at that pace.
“Don’t be silly,” Joy said. “I’ll call ski patrol and they’ll come pick you up in a snowmobile.”
“That’s so embarrassing,” the girl said, looking away from Joy.
“It’s not a big deal,” Joy said. “I work at the resort, and it happens more often than you’d think.”
“I know,” the girl said, and the way she looked at Joy could have melted all the snow off the hill. Those eyes were so deep, so warm, Joy had to busy herself with digging her phone out of her pocket as the girl said, “I remember you.”
I remember you, too, Joy thought, a little bit of color coming to her cheeks, as she dialed the number for the medics. She went over and retrieved her snowboard, setting it on the ground behind the girl and saying, “Sit down before you hurt your ankle worse.”
Eight
Carmen
Carmen sat down obediently on the snowboard, although her jeans were already pretty wet. She tried not to shiver as she watched Joy complete the final step in her humiliating moment. She’d remembered the girl’s name because when she said it yesterday, it had sounded like such a perfect complement to her surroundings.
As Carmen watched her call down to the lodge, she got an opportunity to really look at Joy for the first time, and she decided that the name suited her, as well as her surroundings. She had sparkling sapphire eyes and her nose was reddened by the cold in an oddly endearing way. She wore a fleece headband to protect her ears from the elements, and it flattened her chin-length blonde hair down to her cheeks. She didn’t seem even the slightest bit inconvenienced by this accident, but then again, she was a resort employee – she got paid to be nice to dummies like Carmen when they hiked their way up slopes they had no business on.
“Hey, it’s Joy,” she said into the phone. “I’m going to need a medic on the Outer Limits slope.”
She explained what happened as Carmen felt her cheeks growing more and more flushed, and at one point Joy covered the phone speaker with her hand and asked, “What’s your name, hon?”
“Carmen,” she said. “Castillo.”
Joy repeated her name to the medic, and then after a few more details, she hung up and turned to Carmen. “I told them you’re probably not dying, so they said it’ll be about five minutes.”
“Thanks,” Carmen said. This was absolutely not how she’d imagined today going, and as she thought about the impossibility of getting that bragging photograph now, she realized that she’d lost her phone in the collision.
She started looking around, not mobile enough to get off the snowboard and really hunt for it, and Joy asked, “What are you looking for?”
“I lost my phone in the crash,” Carmen explained. “It must be around here somewhere.”
Joy helped her look, walking slowly around the point of collision. She walked around the area in a slow circle, widening her perimeter as she looked down at the powdery snow. It looked so light and fluffy that Carmen figured the odds of finding the phone were probably pretty slim. Joy confirmed it when she said, “It’s pretty wet out here today. The phone is probably ruined.”
Then she paused and furrowed her brows, looking at Carmen with a curious expression.
“What?”
“Umm, where are your skis?” Joy asked. “The poles are right there, sticking out of the snow, and my snowboard didn’t go far, but I don’t see your skis anywhere.”
Carmen looked sheepishly down at her ankle. It was throbbing and she was feeling increasingly thankful for Joy’s insistence on calling the medic. She looked back at Joy and figured she’d be losing her last shred of dignity as she said, “At the lodge.”
“What?” Joy asked with a laugh. “What does that mean?”
“I hiked up here,” Carmen admitted, trying to sound as confident as possible just in case she could convince Joy that hiking up the side of ski slopes was a thing that people did. It was going to be a tough sell, but she thought she might die of embarrassment if she didn’t at least try.
“You did?” Joy asked.
“Do I look like I belong on a hill like this?” Carmen asked, getting a little bit frustrated at the amusement Joy seemed to be getting out of this revelation. She was the type of person who cried easily when she was frustrated, and that was the last thing she wanted to do right now, so she forced herself to laugh instead.
“No, you really don’t,” Joy said, and then she nodded at the snowboard. She said, “Scoot over, will you?”
Carmen slid over to one end of the board and Joy sat down next to her. She pulled the broken binding off her boot and tossed it in the snow a few feet away. Then she checked the time and told Carmen that the medic should be there any minute, and to Carmen’s surprise, she pinched the wet fabric of her jeans on the side of her knee. The gesture felt a little familiar, or maybe it was just their proximity on the snowboard. It ignited something in Carmen, and she became a little more aware of Joy’s body so near to hers as Joy said, “Blue jeans, snow boots, no skis… what on earth were you doing out here?”
“Would you believe I hiked all the way up here to take a selfie for my best friend?” Carmen asked.
“No,” Joy said with a laugh.
“Good,” Carmen said. “Because it definitely wasn’t that.”
Joy got up off the snowboard abruptly, and Carmen wondered if she’d said something wrong. It was a pretty silly thing to do, and she’d damaged Joy’s snowboard because of it. She thought that Joy might be mad, but instead she pulled her phone out of her pocket and crouched down in front of Carmen.
“What are you doing?”
“We’re not going to all this trouble and winding up with broken boards and sprained ankles for nothing,” she said. “I’ll take your picture.”
“No,” Carmen tried to object, wishing that the snowmobile would just get here already and save her from the most embarrassing moment of her life. But Joy was insistent, and Carmen ended up giving in. Joy crouched low in front of Carmen, framing the mountain in the back of the shot to make it look as large and impressive as possible and when she showed Carmen the photo, she’d done a pretty good job of hiding the fact that Carmen was sitting on her ass in wet jeans instead of skiing down a mountainside. “That’s actually really good. Thanks.”
“No problem,” Joy said, her eyes lingering on Carmen for just a beat too long – or so she thought – before she asked, “What’s your number? I’ll text it to you and then you’ll have it when you get a new phone.”
Carmen gave it to her, pulse racing a little faster than it ought to as she wondered if there was any chance that Joy might use that number for anything other than simply sending her a staged selfie. She looked up through her lashes as she asked, “Does Emerald Hill have a phone store?”
Nine
Joy
Snow patrol arrived not long after Joy took Carmen’s trophy photograph for her. Instead of a snowmobile it turned out to be two medics on skis, pulling a stretcher shaped like a toboggan behind them through the snow. Carmen groaned the moment she saw it and turned to Joy.
“This is so mortifying,” she said. “Are you really going to make me ride down the mountain on a stretcher?”
“I won’t,” Joy said with a sympathetic look. “But they might.”
She knew the resort’s policies, and since she’d needed to call the medics there was no way Carmen would be getting off the mountain without a ride in the stretcher. One of the medics took a look at Carmen’s ankle and confirmed that it really was just a sprain, and the other asked Joy, “Are you hurt, too?”
“No,” she said. “But my board’s broken.”
“We could give you a lift, but we’d have to make a second trip for you,” he said, and she shook her head.
“Nah, don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll figure it out.”
She watched as the medics got Carmen tucked into the stretcher, amid her protests that she wasn’t nearly injured enough to need to be immobilized.
“They have to,” Joy explained to her. “Resort policy, it’s not safe for you to ride on the stretcher unless they strap you down.”
“Great,” Carmen said with a little laugh. “Just what I need to make the humiliation complete.”
“On the contrary,” Joy said. “You look like a badass, like Hannibal Lecter in that scene where they’re transporting him from the prison, only lying down.”
