Leading Lines

by Chantel Guertin

  “I was thinking you’d probably want to go with Juan.”

  “Juan who?”

  “Really?” Typically when Dace breaks up with a guy, he tries for months to win back her affections.

  Dace shrugs it off. “He’s still being an idiot. I have no time for that. Anyway, you’re my best friend. Besties before the resties. So: dresses. I made a Pinterest board, obvs,” she says, pulling out her phone. “Want to see?”

  “Yes,” I say, laughing and leaning back in my seat.

  The hour to the hill passes by in a flash, and then we’re out in the winter wonderland. Everyone in ski club gets a lesson included in their lift ticket. Dace is in an intermediate class, but she shows me to my group first before going to hers. She wishes me good luck, tells me not to break anything and reminds me everyone meets inside the lodge at 6 to eat before skiing together for the remainder of the evening until the bus leaves to go home at 10:30.

  Skiing isn’t exactly like riding a bike but I do remember a bit from winter break, and no one laughs at me, and I don’t fall that many times. And when the lesson is over, I still want to keep skiing, so I feel like it’s a success.

  I’m looking around for a clock, when someone comes up beside me. He releases his foot from his snowboard, puts his goggles on top of his white helmet and grins. “Wanna do one more run before we go in? We have about 20 minutes,” Ben says. “Come on, I’ll take you on a real hill.”

  “I’m not ready for a real hill,” I say.

  “Of course you are. Trust me, it’s even easier than the bunny hill.”

  He starts off toward the next chairlift, and I dig my poles in to keep up.

  I slide into line for the chairlift with him and try not to freak out.

  Ben sort of takes up a lot of space and we end up alone on the chairlift, which is fine with me, because the worst part of skiing is sitting four to a lift and trying to not knock everyone down when you get off at the top.

  Ben lowers the bar on the chair and leaves his arm on the back of the seat, behind me. As we ride up the lift, Ben asks me if I have any plans for spring break, which I don’t, and then says he’s going to Park City to snowboard with his brothers and stepdad. “Although I have a funny feeling we’ll be spending a lot of time in the hotel arcade. You know, it’s fine. It’ll be fun with them. Besides, they’ve been brushing up on their jokes for the trip. They’re practicing on each other, to surprise Ted. I can hardly wait.”

  “Do they tell funny jokes?”

  “You be the judge. Knock knock.”

  I laugh. “Who’s there?”

  “Knock knock.”

  “Who’s there?” I say again.

  “Knock. Knock.” Ben waves his hands in the air, a c’mon moment.

  “Who’s there?” I laugh.

  “I keep telling you, my name is Knock Knock! So why don’t you answer the door?”

  I laugh.

  “Stop it, it’s not even funny.”

  “It’s a little funny.”

  “I give them a rating out of 10 every time they tell me a joke.”

  “What did this one get?”

  “Two.”

  “Wow, that’s harsh.”

  “All knock-knock jokes automatically lose five points for being knock-knock jokes.”

  The top of the chairlift—where we have to get off—is five poles away. “Ready?” he asks, bringing his arm down to the bar in front of us.

  “Define ready. I’m totally nervous.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s nerves that make you fall. Just take a deep breath, go straight. Lean forward. And give me one of your poles.” Then he lifts the bar. “Let’s do it.” He stands and pulls on my pole, steadying me and I follow his instructions. And stay standing.

  “I did it!” I cheer, and then realize that getting off the chairlift is just something people do and even though I totally rocked it, I could be a bit cooler about it.

  Ben laughs, hobbles over to an area out of the way, sits down in the snow and straps his boot back in, then gets up. “Ready? I’m going to make nice wide turns across the hill. Just follow my tracks the best you can. Nice and slow.”

  I’m skeptical as he takes off. For one, he’s on a snowboard. I’ve seen snowboarders go down the mountain—how they go down the mountain, snow flying, basically going straight down. And he’s a billion times better than me, I’m sure, but he does exactly what he says and starts off really slow, making these wide turns like I’ve never seen any snowboarder—ever—perform. I focus on the track he’s making in the snow—at this point in the day there’s a million tracks all over the hill, but I can see where he’s made a fresh one. I veer off at one point, unable to make the turn because of a looming patch of ice, but I do eventually turn and Ben calls out words of encouragement and tells me to catch the track again.

  Ten minutes later, I let myself go straight at the base to where he’s standing. He whoops. “That was impressive!”

  I smile, proud of myself. “I was wrong: you should’ve run off to be a ski instructor—you’re awesome at this positive reinforcement thing.”

  He smiles back at me. “Let’s go in for dinner. I’m starving.” He bends over and in one quick snap, he unhinges his feet from his board and swings the board over his shoulder. “Here,” he says, grabbing one of my poles and quickly stabbing behind me. A second later, my boots are free too. “You take your skis and I’ll take your poles,” he says, and I follow him over to the chalet. We stash our stuff at one of the metal racks and he clips a lock onto the bar at the top. “Just remind me we’re locked up together,” he says as we head inside.

  Hot air blows in our faces as we pull open the doors. Dace is waving at us and we make our way over to the long wood table and benches where everyone from Spalding is converging. Goggles, helmets, neck warmers, gloves—they all get dumped into a massive pile on the table. Then we join the lineup for food. After that we’re all planning the rest of the night and scarfing dinner.

  We’ve got all our stuff on again when I remember Ben has his lock on my skis. “Hey Ben,” I say, as he’s wiping the inside of his goggles with a cloth.

  “Right. You want to ski together a bit?”

  “Actually,” I say, waving a hand toward Dace, Gemma and Emma, who are all getting their stuff on a few rows over, “I made a plan with the girls. Kind of perfect for the quad chair, you know?”

  “Awesome, have fun. See you at the bus—10:30.”

  “What’s going on with Ben?” Emma asks once the four of us are on the chairlift. I try to look over at her, which is hard because we’re all geared up and she’s right beside me. “Seems like he’s maybe into someone again.” Emma looks from Gemma to me.

  I can feel myself blushing, and I’m grateful for the cold air.

  “He was never not into Pippa,” Gemma says. “Why do you think we only dated for, like, five minutes? But whatever—I’ve moved on. No hard feelings, Pip.” She pulls her phone out and tries to angle it so we’re all in the frame. “Chelfie?”

  I look confused. Dace translates: “Selfie on a chairlift, ski club newb.”

  “Want one for your account?” Gemma asks me.

  “I gave up Instagram for Lent.”

  “Lent doesn’t start for another two weeks or something. Besides, since when are you religious?”

  “I’m not. But I believe in the power of not looking at your ex-boyfriend’s Instagram. So cold turkey was the only way to do it.”

  CHAPTER 19: SIX DAYS UNTIL I’M OVER HIM

  The albums arrive by FedEx on Saturday afternoon. I intend to take them up to my room before Mom can ask who was at the door, to save the yearbook and give it to Mom on Valentine’s Day, but I can’t wait to see how they look, so I rip open the package right at the front door. When I see how beautiful the hardcover book turned out, there’s no way I can wait. The
cover has a picture of Mom, Dad and me, taken on a picnic we had on Easter weekend. We’d rode our bikes along the waterfront trail, and then stopped at this grassy field filled with dandelions. Sure, they’re weeds, but the effect was absolutely beautiful.

  “Who was that?” Mom says, coming up the stairs from the basement. I turn and hand her the book. She takes it gingerly in both hands. “What’s this?” She runs a hand over the smooth cover.

  “An early Valentine’s Day gift.”

  She walks over to the living room and sits on the couch. “Come sit with me,” she says, and I follow her over to the couch. She turns the pages slowly, taking in every picture. Eventually we get to the end, the final picture. It’s Mom and me, on Christmas Eve. It’s not the traditional photo Dad would take of the three of us every year—Dad and Mom holding me up as I put the star on top of the tree. We’ve been doing that same photo every year since I was born. But this year was so hard—our first Christmas without Dad, and me being mad at her for the David secret; things were different, to say the least. Thankfully Mom invited Aunt Emmy to spend the holidays with us, which was good for so many reasons. It helped Mom a lot, I think, to get through things, but she also acted as a buffer between Mom and me while we were in the middle of our awkward silent-fight. Anyway, to get the star on top of the tree, Aunt Emmy and Mom tried to hoist me but I kept toppling over before I could reach the top. At one point the tree toppled over on us, which is actually how we ended up getting the star on top, and then the three of us pushed the tree back upright. Without Aunt Emmy there, Mom and I might’ve got in a fight or gotten frustrated and given up, but Aunt Emmy lightened the moment—making it fun.

  I was so caught up in the whole ordeal I forgot to set up my camera, but later, Mom made hot cocoa—the old-school way, from scratch, on the stove—with large, fancy homemade marshmallows Emmy brought from New York, and Emmy took a picture of Mom and me, on the couch together. That night, for one night only, we let everything else go, and you can tell that in the photo. When I was making the album, it seemed like a fitting end to the year, and the photo book.

  Mom closes the album and looks at me. “It’s better than the green gorilla,” she says. Her eyes are filled with tears.

  “Green gorilla?”

  “I never told you about the green gorilla your father gave me on our first Valentine’s Day together?” She sort of laugh-cries. “Oh Pippa,” she says, pulling me into her. She smells like dryer sheets, and I rest my head on her shoulder.

  We get up; Mom goes into the kitchen but picks up the FedEx box from the floor along the way. “Oh, there’s something still in here.” She reaches into the box.

  “Oh,” I say, embarrassed. “It’s for David. I think Dad was making it for him. Did you know?”

  Surprise is written all over her face. “May I look at it?”

  I tell her she can, but I don’t want to. I’m not ready. I go up to my room and sit at my computer, then grab my phone and text Jeffrey to find out the theme for photo club this week.

  He texts back a second later: crowds. I look through my computer to see if I have any photos that will work for the theme.

  Mom knocks on the door.

  “This is a really special thing that you did, sweetie,” Mom says, coming in. She places the album on my desk and puts a hand on my back. “You’re going to mail it to him?”

  “Yeah, unless … do you think that’s a bad idea?”

  “I think it’s a great idea. I do have another suggestion. And it’s just that.”

  “OK,” I say slowly.

  “The reunion. What if you invited David to come? I’m sure he’d love to see where you go to school, and see the alumni mural. We could invite him here for dinner. He could see our house, get a sense of your life here. It might be good, for both of you. And then you could give the album to him in person.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  CHAPTER 20: FOUR DAYS UNTIL I’M OVER HIM

  “Pippa, slow down.”

  “Mom. I’m going, like, 10 miles an hour.” I pull into the school parking lot on Monday evening and shut off the ignition. “Anyway, it’s almost 7 and you can’t be late—you only get 15 minutes with each of my teachers.”

  She pulls the visor down, opens her lipstick and runs it along her upper lip, lower lip, then presses her lips together. “OK.” We get out of the car and walk across the parking lot.

  Once we’re inside, it’s like the first day of school in the front hallway—only instead of students, it’s adults crisscrossing and merging like ants, staring intently at schedules and at the top of the doorways to check the room numbers.

  “Hello Pippa,” Ms. Su says, but there’s a warning tone in her voice. She lowers her glasses on her nose. I know what she’s implying. The school has a strict no-students-at-parent-teacher-interview-night policy.

  “I got permission from Principal Forsythe to come tonight, to take pictures for the alumni dance mural.”

  “All right,” she says and then flips through her box of A–G last names to find my interview schedule. She hands it to Mom. “Looks like Mr. Alderman is first.”

  “Portable 3,” I say as we walk down the main hall to the back doors. “Do you want me to show you which one?”

  “Sure,” she says, putting the schedule in her purse.

  Mr. Alderman is sitting at his desk, shuffling papers. He looks up as we enter and runs a hand through his mass of curly brown hair. “Oh good,” he says, standing. “I was just trying to look busy. Long time no see, Pippa. And this must be …” His face flashes recognition as he comes around the side of his desk.

  “Holly?” Surprise fills his voice.

  “Hank.” Mom mimics his surprise and her face lights up.

  Hank? Holly?

  Mom tucks her hair behind her ear. “When Pippa said she had Mr. Alderman … I thought, well, I knew you always wanted to be a teacher.”

  “Or a rockstar.” He folds his gangly arms over his V-neck sweater.

  “Or a rockstar.” Mom chuckles. “That’s right. Do you still play guitar?”

  “Sold-out shows in the basement. My son and I have a band. The Aldermanboy band. I’m the man, he’s the boy. He plays recorder. He’s seven.” He blushes, seeming to realize that he’s rambling. “How about you? Still modeling?” He puts his hands in the pockets of his gray cords.

  “Oh no, I gave that up ages ago.” She looks over at me, as though remembering I’m standing right beside her. I give a little wave. “Pippa, did you know Hank—Mr. Alderman—and I went to Spalding together?”

  “No. I did not know that.”

  “To prom too. Your mother wore a white dress. She was a vision.” Mr. Alderman smiles and pushes his glasses up on his nose.

  “So. You’re here. In Spalding. I thought you were in Ohio, wasn’t it? When did you move back?” Mom’s voice is a half-octave higher than normal.

  “After my divorce.” Mr. Alderman leans back against his desk.

  “I’m sorry.” Mom stiffens.

  “Don’t be. I’m not.” He laughs and shrugs. Mom laughs too.

  I cough loudly. “I’m gonna go.”

  Mom turns. “Right. I’ll just text you when I’m done?”

  “Great.”

  I hurry down the steps, across the courtyard and into the school through the back doors, then take off my mitts, shoving them under my armpit, and pull out my phone.

  Me: U will never believe this. My mom went to prom with Mr. Alderman. I just left them together in homeroom.

  Dace: No way!!

  Me: Think I’m in shock.

  Dace: At least u won’t have to worry about acing English Lit this term.

  It’s 7:15, so I head back toward the main entrance, where Ben and I agreed to meet, but when I turn the corner to the main hallway he’s coming toward me.

  “
Ms. Su grill you? I’ve never seen such strict rules on not having kids in a school.” He grins.

  “Yeah,” I say, still thinking about Mom and Mr. Alderman.

  I pull out the list of shots we still need—compiled mostly from the Facebook page—to distract myself.

  The list is definitely getting shorter. “Janitor Jeb,” I read out the next unchecked item on the list. We find him—a white-haired, Pooh-bellied old guy sitting on a step stool outside his closet, reading His Mistress’s Baby. “You mind if we take your picture?” I ask, and he poses, delighted at the attention. I snap away while Ben holds out the reflector to soften the bad effects of shooting under fluorescent overhead lighting.

  “Did you see how many of those books he had in his closet?” Ben says afterward.

  “So awesome.” I stop in front of a row of green lockers. “Locker 143,” I read from the list.

  “What’s the story here?” Ben asks.

  “Apparently it was the Hawker Locker for years—like a tuck shop but for old exams. The locker got passed down from one senior to the next. You’d made it if you got the lock to that locker. You got all the profits. One guy paid for a trip to Palm Beach for him and his four friends.”

  “Does the person say when the legacy died?”

  “Nope. This guy graduated in ’98.”

  “I would’ve kept that alive if I’d been here since freshman year,” Ben says.

  “Not surprising.” I smirk at him: the jokes about his past bad behavior will never get old for me. The metal number plate takes up most of the frame, with just a hint of green around the edges. “Alright,” I say a minute later, checking the list again. “Next up is a bird’s-eye view of the football field from the top of the flagpole. Hmm, we’re probably not allowed to do that.”

  “I’ll do it quickly—no one will see,” Ben says, and we head out the front doors. He reaches out and I hand him my camera. He slings it around his neck.

  “You should chirp.” Ben calls out while shimmying up the pole, his breath visible in the night air.