The Jeweler

by Anderson, Beck

  “Okay.”

  So he found himself on the chair again with Ginger. He sat quietly while she reminded him about the wedge and the pressure on the ski and all the other skiing crap. But it wasn’t bad to just listen to her talk, really. He nodded a lot and then got off the lift when she told him to.

  They began the slow, exaggerated turning again. Things seemed to be going fine. They passed through a stand of trees. The slope was mild, but the trail was skinnier than the last one. Ginger stayed in front of him, modeling the big turns. They neared a bend in the track.

  “I forgot to mention one thing about this trail.”

  “What?” And things had been going so well.

  “It’s no big deal. It’s just that up ahead there’re gonna be some big cutout animals.” Ginger had turned around on her skis like they were ballet slippers and now skied backward, facing him. He was astonished by her grace.

  “Cutouts?”

  “You know, like the ones you stick your head through for pictures at the fair. These don’t have holes to put your head through, but they’re like that.”

  “Why?”

  “We take a lot of little kids down this trail. It gives them something to turn around. We make up games and races and stuff using them. It’s no big deal. I just wanted you to know about them. We’ll just make our big turns around them like we’ve been doing.”

  They rounded the turn, and he saw them. As promised, there were three human-sized animals in the middle of the trail. There was a badly painted bunny Fender assumed was supposed to be the March Hare; a turtle who’d been left out in the weather too long, with peeling lime green paint punctuated by splotches of bare plywood; and a gigantic mouse wearing a yellow vest just like the one Wylie had worn.

  “Look, an R.O.U.S.,” Fender said out loud.

  “What?”

  “A Rodent of Unusual Size. It’s from The Princess Bride. A movie. Never mind.”

  Ginger had pulled far out ahead of him. She was talking, but he couldn’t hear very well. I shouldn’t be this far behind. He skipped a turn to try to catch up.

  Then they appeared. Little kids in lessons, the Mogul Mice. The kids in Justin’s ski class. They’d skied onto the cat track from an adjoining trail. They were between Ginger and Fender.

  He looked past the Mice, and he realized he’d stopped turning and was picking up speed. A lot of speed for such a mild trail. He was coming up behind the bunch of kids.

  “Excuse me. Coming through, on your left. Watch it.” He zoomed past two of the little ones and the instructor, Justin. He needed to catch up to Ginger.

  Ahead, instead of a clear trail to his instructor, Fender saw terrible, terrible calamity.

  Actually, he saw this: three plywood animals looming large and one kid. The kid sat in the middle of the trail, eating snow. It was Wylie the dog-kisser.

  Fender did the only thing he could. He wedged for all the money he was worth and managed to avoid Wylie, but it was at the expense of the March Hare. There was a loud splitting of wood and pain. Then a moment of eerie silence.

  Then, pleasantly enough, shrieks of small children pierced the air.

  “You killed Mr. Bunny! You killed Mr. Bunny!” Wylie led the charge down the trail, and then small, mittened fists pummeled him.

  Justin picked children off of him, but they were like little hornets. Fender saw Ginger approaching, skating back up the trail from where she’d stood, waiting for him to catch up. She broke up the swarm.

  “Everybody calm down. Mr. Bunny is fixable. Look at poor Mr. Barnes—you guys are being so mean to him.” She helped Fender to his feet and picked up his skis, which had come off in the tangle with the rabbit.

  Justin picked the plywood up off the ground and tried to right it. It stood for a moment and toppled again. The Mogul Mice let out a painful collective gasp. Justin, the young ski instructor, looked at Fender.

  “Dude. You took out the bunny. Cool.”

  Ginger smiled at Fender and declared the lesson done for the day.

  That night, Ginger stared at the ceiling for a long time.

  There was a really interesting grayish spot on the far left corner, just short of the molding. She wondered for a long time if it was a leak from the roof, darkening the drywall from above.

  Insomnia: Never a problem for her before Brad died, now a familiar companion.

  Zoë snored. The hairy stinker had no problem sleeping whatsoever.

  Ginger sighed. At least tomorrow was her day off. She’d tried all sorts of remedies and tricks to get to sleep. Molly had lent her a white noise machine, she’d bought a little fountain for her bedroom, she exercised in the morning instead of at night, she listened to guided meditation, she took melatonin. None of it had worked so far.

  She did finally drift off. She felt herself falling into sleep and wondered how late it was, how long it would last.

  Then she woke up. The nape of her neck and her stomach were wet with sweat, and she’d kicked the covers to the floor at some point. She was sitting up in bed. Her heart raced. She grabbed the pillow from Brad’s side of the bed and held it tight.

  Fingers of pink streaked the sky. I might as well get up. She looked at the clock and figured she’d had about four hours of sleep.

  And it was her day off. The irony of complete wakefulness when she could sleep in was just sad at this point.

  She got up, took a hot shower, and got dressed in her ski clothes. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. I’ll get first tracks at least. She drove the road up to the ski resort as the morning lightened. If she parked at the upper lodge, she could get her first run in just before the lifts opened. Then she could ride the chair to the back side and ski hard.

  In the parking lot, she poured a cup of coffee from her thermos and sat in the car for a minute before booting up. Brad never would’ve gone along with this kind of impromptu ski day. He’d liked things planned. Ginger shook her head. Who am I kidding? He liked things planned when he was the one doing the planning. He liked things planned his way. Spur of the moment is my thing.

  She got to the top of the run from the parking lot, slipped in her earbuds, and turned the music on loud. She pushed off down the run and felt the crunch of the snow under her skis.

  It felt good. She kept her turns tight, then lengthened them out, feeling the edges of her skis curve and cut into the newly groomed run. Not another soul in sight.

  At the bottom of the run, the lift operator stood, watching the chairs slowly gather speed and head up the mountain. The lift had just been fired up. The liftie looked for glitches, anything off balance or hung up.

  As she glided up to the load board, she heard someone behind her.

  “Ginger!”

  Bode. He slid in next to her and smiled.

  She was trapped. The next chair was there, and she would be riding it all the way up to the top of the mountain with Bode. Why, why? What am I going to say to him?

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Bode tucked his poles under his leg, pulled his goggles up so he could look her in the eye.

  “Do you?” God, I hope not.

  “You’re wondering if I’m still mad about the coat.”

  “I wasn’t, but I hope you aren’t.” She counted lift towers till the top of the mountain. Too many. And she was too high off the ground to pull a Rocket and jump. Though it was starting to sound like a tempting option.

  “Naw. How are you?” He smiled at her.

  “Fine, I guess.”

  “You’re not working today?”

  “Nope. Couldn’t sleep last night, so I figured I’d try skiing till I dropped.”

  “I’ve got some time. We could get in a couple runs on the backside. I’m supposed to check out the upper left side of War Eagle. Snow’s gettin’ a little thin. One of the patrollers thought there might be a hazard I need to mark if they used the winch cat last night—there’s that one big slab of rock they might’ve exposed.”

  “Race you to it.” Brilliant,
Ginger. I’m proud of you. There’s no chit chat in racing somewhere.

  Bode took the challenge. “Loser buys beers in the lodge.”

  “You’re on.”

  They crested the top of the mountain, and a fierce wind greeted them, kicking up a fine mist of blown snow, thrown high into the bright morning sky.

  Ginger pushed off the chair and made a sharp turn, cutting across a sketchy patch of ungroomed snow to hit the top of War Eagle.

  “Cheater!” Bode yelled after her. He’d taken the gentler slope off the front of the ramp, the way skiers were supposed to exit the chair.

  She couldn’t hear anything else from behind her after that.

  She looked down the run and picked her line. War Eagle hadn’t been groomed the night before, so the hazard Bode was supposed to look for was still hidden under the snow. She didn’t see a sign of it anywhere. No rocks scraped bare by a winch cat here—just ungroomed chop and moguls.

  It was icy in patches, and the moguls were uneven. Spring skiing made most of the runs unpredictable. She opened it up. Her thighs burned, and she felt her body warming up as she pushed her skis through the chop.

  The speed felt good. She felt light. She picked her way across the run and chose a line through the mogul field, letting her skis come up and piston down in a satisfying rhythm.

  She never skied this well when she skied with Brad. This was Ginger, pure and untempered. No holding back, no checking for her partner, no worrying about leaving him behind or choosing a run he wouldn’t like.

  Just me. Just me, and it feels good. It feels okay.

  She finished up the run and kicked up a huge puff of snow, hockey-stopping at the bottom. Bode was quickly behind her.

  “You won on a technicality—we were supposed to race to the hazard. I think cheater buys,” he announced.

  “No winch cat, no bare hazards, you obviously race to the bottom.”

  “Whatever. You’re buying tonight, no matter what.” He pulled a glove off and offered a handshake.

  She shook on it. “I may have to rain check that. I’m betting I’ll be too tired to last the whole day.”

  He smiled. “If you ski like that, I agree. You’re a bad ass.”

  No one had ever told her that before. She liked it. “Thanks.”

  “I’ve got to go. Check-in at the top of Chair One in twenty, you know.” Bode had a patrollers’ morning meeting to attend. He skated off to the lift.

  Ginger stood alone and breathed in the air, smelling the fresh pine and clean snow of the mountains. She thought about her lesson yesterday. She thought about the guy in her lesson yesterday, the beat-down he’d gotten from the little Mogul Mice. Fender. It made her smile to think about him.

  Maybe things are going to be okay. I’ve got bluebird days to ski, lessons to teach. Maybe I can do this.

  It sure felt better to focus on those things, and she needed a way to move forward, not dwell in the past. Maybe this was the way.

  For the next two months, she kept telling herself that.

  Chapter Eight

  FENDER COULD HEAR Sam messing around in the office at the back of the shop. He was sitting at the jeweler’s bench, playing with the grinder. Anything he could find nearby, he was grinding down to a nub—pencils, old keys, anything.

  “Fender, what about teeth? Could I grind my teeth down on this? You know, into vampire points?”

  Fender worked out front by one of the display cases. “Feel free to try it, and let me know how it goes.” He pulled one of the velvet trays out from the display case. He reached into his pants pocket and retrieved a ring box. The ring box. It was starting to look a little worn. And no wonder: Fender had toted it around with him for two months now, and the gray velvet had rubbed smooth at the corners. He cracked the box. There it was. The ring had ridden along in Fender’s glove box as he went to his lessons with Ginger. It never made it out of the glove box, but it had logged some mileage.

  Ginger. He thought about her. He stopped thinking about her. Back to the matter at hand: putting the ring back in the store. Time to let sleeping dogs lie. Things were going well with Ginger. He’d had two more lessons with her: one right after the bunny disaster, and then as soon as he could after that, in early February. But then the weather had turned subzero, and even he had limits. And anyway there had never seemed to be an opportunity to tell her the truth.

  He didn’t have the guts to take things beyond the slopes. He was a heel. And she was too good. Telling her about the ring and the proposed proposal by Dead Boyfriend would complicate matters. Fender liked how uncomplicated everything felt right now. And that made him want another ski lesson.

  A loud screeching of metal broke the Zen moment. Sam stood, and Fender could see him through the office window. In an instant, Sam was at the door to the office. “It’s handled! I’m all right. Everything’s under control.” He came up to the counter and stood next to Fender. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Putting something away.” Fender held the ring up to look at it again. It was a platinum band, smooth and free of decoration. A simple prong setting held the diamond. It was pear-shaped and big, a little shy of two carats. It was beautiful. Dead Boyfriend had good taste; I’ll give him that. Actually, Old Lady Harriman was the one with great taste. I just convinced him to take it off my hands, Fender remembered. A ring with no owner. First Harriman, then Ginger’s boyfriend.

  “God, that’s huge. What’s that from?” Sam hadn’t noticed the ring box, which Fender now slipped back into his pocket.

  “An estate sale. Somebody died.” Fender ignored the tweak he felt in his gut and tucked the ring into one of the slots on the tray.

  Chapter Nine

  ON THE DAY OF FENDER’S fourth scheduled lesson, it rained. Ginger checked in at the office, expecting a cancellation. But there were no messages for her. He’s really getting into skiing. I’m surprised.

  She smiled. Fender Barnes. This student definitely won the prize for perseverance. Even she would have given up on skiing after his run-in with Wylie and Mr. Bunny, his plywood nemesis. One person could take only so much. But to her surprise, he’d called the next weekend and requested her again. She’d seen him once more in February, and that whole lesson he’d just seemed to smile a lot. Then a couple of rotten weeks of cold, miserable weather had passed, and she’d thought maybe he’d given up on skiing entirely.

  But now, almost two months after his inaugural lesson, he was back. And bless his heart, despite the additional lessons she’d given him since then, he still wasn’t really catching on. After three lessons, he had the wedge turn down, but that was about it. Typically, Ginger had adults on intermediate terrain by three lessons.

  But there wasn’t much about Fender that was typical. He’d graduated to wearing a coat rather than a garbage bag. When she was teaching, though, she had the feeling that sometimes he was just looking at her, that not much of anything was really sinking in. She’d ask if she was making sense, and he’d just grin and nod.

  It wasn’t a lot of skin off her nose if he just liked taking lessons. She’d keep teaching as long as he kept signing up. When it rained, though, even Ginger didn’t have much fun skiing, and she considered herself a diehard.

  Rain wasn’t totally unusual as the season drew to a close. The weather had warmed up and become more unpredictable. She’d skied in March and April in snow, sleet, fog, rain, and lightning. Today was March third, so she was ready for anything.

  It was a slow morning. Most of the instructors sat in the ski school locker room. They played cards or tuned their skis.

  At ten minutes to eleven, Ginger began to get her gear on. A couple of the other instructors patted her on the back in pity. It was pouring rain outside. There was a puddle of water standing on the snow in front of the door to the locker room. It was grim. Ginger resigned herself to getting completely soaked. She thought ahead to a hot bath and warm bed with Zoë curled up at the end of it. I can do this. If Fender can take it, I can take
it.

  She walked out to the private lesson bench in the rain. Why am I doing this? I’m doing this because it’s my job, and because I like Fender. She slowed a little. She liked him. I like Fender, and I like the way he makes me laugh.

  She spotted him as soon as she walked up to the meeting area. Fender sat on the bench, holding an umbrella. She bit her lip to keep from laughing.

  “Hi. I didn’t know if you’d come.” His pants were already soaked through.

  “You buy, I fly, my brave friend. But I have bad news for you, Fender. You can’t ski with an umbrella.”

  “I was trying to save the total soaking for the lesson.”

  Ginger turned and headed for Chair Two. “Follow me.”

  They got on the lift. Ginger liked riding the lift with Fender. She usually looked at him and watched the expressions on his face and the crinkle to his eyes. Today it was raining so dang hard, she just tried to pick out the next tower through the sheets of water. But it still was nice to have him sitting next to her.

  “This is interesting.” Fender shifted his shoulders a little. “I didn’t know it was possible to have small tributaries of water running into your underwear. And they’re icy. How pleasant.” He sat up a little straighter and pointed off into the rain. “What’s that?”

  Ginger followed the path of his finger to Summit Lodge. Or at least in the general direction of it. It was a restaurant at the top of Chair Two. Earlier in the season it was busy, but today it’d be dead.

  “It’s Summit Lodge. What’re you thinking about?”

  “If I’ve paid for the lesson, does it matter what we actually do in the lesson?”

  Ginger smiled. “Usually I’m supposed to teach you how to ski.”

  “But what if I’m a pain in the ass and throw a temper tantrum? Would you have to appease me?”

  “If it was in the name of total quality guest service, I guess I’d have to make you happy, yeah.” Ginger saw the last tower emerging out of the rain.