I was going to live after all.
FORTY-ONE
It’s pretty amazing how one can be at the banks of the River Styx one minute and in the lobby of a five-star hotel not long afterwards. The trail had taken me down to a small roadside café where I bought a couple of liters of water and two ham and gruyere sandwiches. I hitched a ride from a restaurant worker on his way into town. Evidently people must use the trail often because he made no inquiries as to how I had gotten there, just threw my skis in the back of his truck. His English was limited, so we didn’t have much conversation, though he did look at me oddly when I asked him to take me to Badrutt’s.
My adventure had left me pretty exhausted, not to mention banged up, and I practically crawled into my fancy digs. Le Grand Hall was abuzz with the same sort of chic people as two days prior, absorbed in themselves and their furs, totally oblivious to my near-death experience. As I dragged my battered body toward the elevators, I’m sure I looked like the ski version of a street person. Just shy of the elevators, in one of the many alcove seating areas along the lobby, I noticed a bald-headed man with a half-melted face sitting alone on an upholstered sofa. It was Chris Calloway, the pilot of the G5. His jeans and a pullover black sweater made him look almost as out of place in that lobby as I did in my dirty ski suit and gnarled hair. He happened to look up just then and saw me staring at him. He leaned forward in his chair and smiled. Though his smile was disfigured it was genuine, and I couldn’t help but notice how perfectly his white teeth were aligned in his mottled face.
‘Join me for a drink?’
I thought about it. I was tired, but I was safe and warm and there didn’t seem to be any clothes police in the area. ‘Why not?’ I said.
My bottom had barely touched the chair when a waiter appeared. ‘What would madam’s pleasure be?’ I hadn’t been called madam since … well, I actually don’t recall ever being called madam, and I wasn’t quite sure if I was comfortable with it. The thing I was comfortable with was having a drink, so I ordered a beer. The beer came promptly and I took a long bracing sip. The alcohol hit my system right away, bringing on a much-appreciated sense of wellbeing, my close encounter with death distancing itself with every sip.
‘Good day?’ he asked.
‘Huh?’ I replied, not giving any thought to the point that he was totally uninformed about my misadventures.
‘Did you have a good day?’
‘Which one?’ He looked at me quizzically, and I smiled, deciding to forego the tale of my odyssey. Half because I didn’t have the energy to tell it and half because it was over. Like, why beat a dead horse? ‘Long story, but I think I almost ended up in another country. Next time I’ll remember to bring my passport. What about you?’ I asked, intentionally shifting the conversation off me. ‘Did you ski today?’
‘I don’t ski,’ he said. My opinion of him immediately plummeted, but rebounded when he added, ‘I board.’
‘Good to hear. I don’t usually speak to people who don’t engage in winter sports, and I was thinking I’m way too tired to change tables.’
He laughed, a musical laugh that invited a listener to sit up and listen to see what could possibly be so amusing. ‘Then I guess it’s a good thing I took up the sport. I only started after I began flying for the Alvarezes. I got tired of sitting around in places like this and Aspen with nothing to do.’
‘So do you know them well?’
‘I suppose about as well as you can know a billionaire who signs your paycheck. Pablo’s a pretty good guy, pretends to understand the proletariat, but he doesn’t. Maria is a sweetheart, not too demanding. I hear his first wife was a real bitch. Treated all the employees like they were indentured servants. You can see her imprint on Carlos. As for Richie, he’s a little bit of a poor rich kid. His dad presses him to do things he can’t.’
‘Don’t you feel subservient working for them?’ I wondered aloud.
‘Well, there is a bit of ass-kissing in the job, but in the end it’s well worth it. Make a great buck and get to fly the heavy iron. What about you? I’ve been trying to figure out where you fit in.’
‘They didn’t tell you?’
He shook his head.
It seemed odd to me that neither Pablo nor Maria had shared the story of Richie’s rescue with their pilot. Then again, why would they? He was, after all, just an employee. As it seemed to be turning out, so was I. When I told him about that day skiing the bowl and spotting Richie’s blue parka in the tree well, he let out a low whistle.
‘That’s one lucky kid,’ he said. ‘And so this trip is your reward?’
‘Guess so.’
‘Bet you would have appreciated a check more than a family vacation.’
‘A little spare cash wouldn’t have hurt,’ I admitted, my grey matter filling with visions of an Everest climb. I’m sure it was dehydration, but the beer was going straight to my head and I felt a sudden need to lie down. I sensed the waiter hovering someplace unseen and grabbed my ski jacket from the back of the chair before he could make another appearance. ‘I’m beat. I need to take a nap.’ I said.
‘You have plans tonight?’
‘I don’t know. I imagine I should check in with my hosts. In fact, they are probably wondering why I haven’t checked in.’ For over twenty-four hours.
‘I doubt it. They probably will be glad to have you off their hands tonight, if they even remember you’re here. I know a great locals’ place with a fantastic Wiener schnitzel. You want to join me?’
At the moment, my biggest priority was a nap. And raiding the minibar for food. But the thought of seeing more of St Moritz other than Badrutt’s Palace did hold some appeal. After all I was still alive, and besides, Chris Calloway was turning out to be pleasant company.
‘Why not?’ I said.
There was a message from the Alvarezes waiting for me back in the suite, apologizing that they had plans for the evening, but that I should feel free to dine in any of the hotel’s restaurants and charge it to the room. They made no mention of my absence the night before. Just as Chris had implied, they didn’t even notice I was missing. They probably assumed I’d gone out to eat on my own. I spoiled myself with a bath in the deep tub, luxuriating in hot water up to my neck. There was a huge bruise on my thigh from where I’d hit the rock, but all things considered I’d come out ahead of the game. I had all ten toes, was breathing, and was going out to dinner in St Moritz.
The bath made me even sleepier and after getting out and toweling off, I lay down on my gold bed and within minutes my eyes were sealed shut. When I next opened them, the last vestiges of daylight had gone from the sky and my view was a black canvas speckled with the lights of the town below. I looked at the bedside clock. It read 20:00. Chris and I had agreed to meet at eight thirty, so I shook myself awake, ran a brush through my unruly hair and put on my dress jeans and the black turtleneck. Hoping I wouldn’t send anyone in the lobby into shock, I grabbed my mundane fur-free parka and headed out the door.
He was waiting at the entrance still wearing the same jeans and black turtleneck. ‘I see you got the memo on the dress for tonight,’ he laughed when he saw we were dressed the same.
‘Maybe they’ll think we’re the entertainment,’ I lobbed back.
Walking out the main entrance, we passed on the shuttle and took the winding street into the center of town on foot. It was snowing lightly and the streets had a fairytale feel to them, the lit windows of the elegant shops and the fur-clad people staring into them all part of the set. The air was winter crisp, a phenomenon that usually invigorates me, but this night it set me to shivering, probably prompted by memories of my night in the woods. So I was super pleased when Chris stopped in front of an old-fashioned wood-fronted restaurant at the edge of the village with the word ‘Welcome’ in several languages in the window. Aside from that, there was no name on the building.
‘Here we are,’ he said, holding the door open.
The room was jammed, filled with people
as polar opposite from the Badrutt’s crowd as you could get. For one, most of them were young. There were plenty of tattoos and nary a fur to be seen. Elevated voices floated different languages – German, English, Italian, Dutch, but no Russian as far as I could tell.
There were no tables available, so we grabbed a couple of seats at the bar. The wall behind the bar was plastered with photographs taken locally over time, scenes of ice skating on the frozen lake, celebrities disembarking from airplanes, skiers with long skis rising far above their heads as used to be the custom. The bartender leaned in and asked us what we wanted to drink. We ordered a couple of beers and he moved down the bar to the tap. In his absence I had a good view of the photos on the wall across from me. As my eyes swept them with no particular interest, I froze on one. It was a color shot of a couple standing in front of the restaurant. It couldn’t have been too old, because the couple’s skis came just past their chins, the current accepted length. The man was tall, the woman diminutive in comparison. She was in profile with a large fur hat encircling her head, cutting out most of the face. Something about the woman’s face was disturbing to me.
When the bartender returned with our beers I pointed at the photo and asked, ‘Who is that?’
He turned to look at the picture I was referring to and his smile turned somber. ‘That was Werner Mayer, one of our greatest local skiers.’
‘Was?’ He didn’t look very old and the photograph appeared to be taken within somewhat recent history.
‘Yes. Werner is dead. Far too young. Unfortunately an avalanche took him three years ago.’ The look on his face changed from somber to fond remembrance. ‘He was probably the most liked man in town. The entire town went into mourning when he died.’
‘Who is the woman?’
The look of fond remembrance morphed into unconcealed disdain. ‘That was his wife, Inga Lena. No one liked her. No one could understand why he married her.’ He turned back to give the picture another look. ‘Well, she was very good looking. But she was – what do you call it in America – a gold-digger. She was angry when Werner left the racing circuit to work on the mountain. She thought he was going to go far as a great racer, get the big money and all the endorsements. She used to fight with him about amounting to nothing. But that was Werner. He was a great guy, but he wasn’t ambitious. He just lived to ski.’
‘Was she from St Moritz too?’
‘No. She was Swedish.’
‘What happened to her after he died?’
His eyes coasted skyward and then dropped to the floor. ‘Who knows – up or down? She was in the avalanche too.’
Another customer was vying for his attention, and he disappeared to care for the patron farther down the bar. Chris was staring at me curiously, wondering what was fueling all the interest in some dead Swiss skiers. The bartender came back and we ordered two more beers and two Wiener schnitzels. I initiated the conversation we both wanted and dreaded.
‘Tell me about my brother in Afghanistan,’ I said. ‘But please don’t frighten me.’
‘Toby Westerlind?’ he said, stopping to compose his voice. ‘I literally only saw him twice. The time he dragged me out of the aircraft and one time afterward when he came to visit me in the burn unit.’ We were so alike in that regard, I thought. I always had to check on the wellbeing of people I’d brought down the mountain.
Chris smiled a confident smile, the smile of a person who has grown up good looking and knows it. ‘I told him his timing couldn’t have been better. He got me out before anything below my waist got burned.’
Thankfully, before that conversation could grow legs, our food arrived.
FORTY-TWO
My dinner with Captain Calloway was more enjoyable than I ever would have thought possible. He was funny and witty and, as off-putting as his appearance was at first, after a while his deformity ceased to exist in my eyes. He told me about growing up in Iowa and how ‘little he knew about how little he knew’ until his first visit to New York at age twenty where he saw not only gay men holding hands, but actually making out. ‘And we thought we had it tough back home with animal jokes,’ he said.
And while he kept his distance during dinner, I could tell there was attraction simmering below the surface toward me. Which I must admit was a little bit mutual, but I pushed back. After all, what kind of person could I be to switch affections not once, but twice within a couple of weeks? A mixed-up one, that’s for sure. Not to mention the question of Duane Larsen still burning near the surface.
After dinner we walked back up to the hotel. It was still snowing and the streets were magical. With my belly filled and a few potent local beers down the hatch, I was pretty relaxed. Chris regaled me with his early days of flying as a crop duster while my mind kept looping back to the photo of the woman in the fur hat behind the bar. That distraction was replaced when Chris took my gloved hand in his. I slid mine out as delicately as I could. He gave me a ‘well I tried’ sort of look.
‘Hey Chris, don’t get me wrong,’ I explained. ‘You’re an attractive, sexy guy. But I’ve recently been through some complex relationship issues and I’m a little raw right now. OK?’
‘Gotcha,’ he said, loosening that easy smile. We were nearing the hotel and he slipped an arm inside mine in a less personal manner. ‘Can a guy still escort a pretty girl inside?’
God, he was corny. Guess that goes with being brought up an Iowa farm boy.
The lobby was busy as ever, though the evening had a different flavor from the après-ski crowd. There were plenty of tuxedos and floor-length gowns, and chic-looking men and women heading to King’s Club at the far end of the lobby. The pulse of music threaded with loud conversation came from the nightclub in bursts each time the door opened.
Chris wanted to have a nightcap, but I decided to pass. I was far too exhausted for another drink. We said our goodnights and I headed towards the elevators as he went into the bar. That’s how tired I was. I didn’t even have the energy to walk four flights, a strength-building discipline I usually opted for whenever there were steps.
I summoned the elevator and was set back on my heels when the doors opened and young Carlos stepped out. He was accompanied by a brunette who not only appeared to be significantly older than he, but had a face suggesting the heavy make-up she wore could well be a business expense. He was well dressed in wool slacks and what was probably a very expensive blue blazer. His eyes settled on me with a dismissive look that lasted longer than was polite.
‘Good to see you too, Carlos,’ I said, stepping past him into the elevator.
An hour later, I was lying on top of the bedclothes wearing my Rockies T-shirt that doubled as pajamas, along with a pair of wool socks, revisiting the day. Ovid was open on my lap, but try as I might the ancient words weren’t gelling. When there was a knock at the door, I found myself instantly irritated. I’d made it perfectly clear to Chris Calloway that while there could have been possibilities between us, now wasn’t the time. I pulled on the plush Bedrutt’s bathrobe hanging in the bathroom and opened the door a notch.
It wasn’t Chris after all. It was Carlos. He was standing in the empty hall alone, although swaying would have been the better description. His handsome face was marred by a stupid drunken look I should have recognized as trouble. But before I was able to process his presence, he pushed the door open and came into my room, his foot slamming the door shut behind him like an accomplished soccer player.
‘You know you’re a pretty good-looking babe. I just want to know what you were thinking of, saving my pathetic brother’s life.’
‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded, crossing my arms and staring up at him. Before I could utter another word his hands were upon me, grabbing me by my shoulders and pushing me backwards into the room.
‘Stop it,’ I demanded, putting menace into my voice this time. Evidently, he felt unthreatened because his response was to attach his wet drooling mouth to mine as his unyielding hands kept driving us closer to th
e bed.
It didn’t take a genius to know what he wanted. I was fighting him, but he was the larger of us and had the strength and speed of a testosterone-filled youth. I was losing the fight. ‘Stop it,’ I demanded again, managing to free my mouth from his. Still, he continued driving me backwards until the bed was pressing the back of my thighs. In a heartbeat, he had flipped me down on to the bed and was laying upon me. Parting the robe with his knee, he pushed my T-shirt up and put one slimy hand on my breast. His other slimy hand tugged at my panties.
Naturally I was frightened, but I was also angry. The memory of my mother’s boyfriend in my bedroom when I was a girl came back with a vengeance. But I was a different person than that young girl my mother’s friend had tried to rape. Had my brother not saved me that night, I would have had to carry a bad memory my entire life. But knowing that Toby wouldn’t always be there, I had long since learned how to defend myself. Carlos was grappling with his pants, trying to free himself to finish the intended act, when he moved his head back just far enough for me to make my move.
My right hand came up, and I hit him full on in the Adam’s apple. The action set him howling and he jumped up, clutching his neck. That’s when I hit him in the solar plexus with my foot. He fell to the floor like a rock. He sat there gasping for air with one hand on his torso, the other holding his neck. I calmly tied my robe and went to the door.
‘You little shit,’ I said, standing in the hallway in case he made a recovery. ‘Get the hell out of here before I scream for security.’
He got to his feet and walked past me into the empty hall, choking the entire way. Just outside the door he managed to find his voice. ‘Don’t even think about telling anyone about this,’ he rasped. ‘My father does the same thing to all the help.’
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