The One Who Got Away: A Novel

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The One Who Got Away: A Novel Page 10

by Bethany Bloom

“Okay.” Olivine lay back in the snow and stared straight ahead, at the tops of the lodge pole pines, which were swaying gently, scraping the sky. She took a deep breath and allowed the pitches to roll out of her. She closed her eyes and let the sound of her own vocal cords overtake her. Her sound, the sound of her voice riding up and out, on its own. It was as though a wind, a force, something larger than her, had taken hold. When she stopped, the air around her felt round. Leftover vowels hung in the air like plump fruits.

  “Wow,” he said, after a few beats.

  “I see what you mean. It’s kind of cathartic.”

  Henry scooted closer to her, still propped up on his side. And when he spoke again, his voice was lower, softer. “That was one impressive yodel, my dear.” And she looked at him, bracing his head on his elbow, and she, lying flat on her back beside him. His face was so much the same. His smile. Only now, the lines around his mouth ran deeper, and there were three crinkly lines at the corner of each eye. She was holding her breath. “I never know what is going to come out of you,” he whispered.

  “Nor I you.” Her tone was soft, intimate. There was a rising in her stomach. A warm, velvety feeling in her legs.

  Silence hung in the air between them, as though it were an entity—a sheet that neither dared to pull aside. And she imagined him leaning over and pressing down on her, pressing his body against hers and kissing her with a gentleness and a familiarity and an urgency. But neither of them moved, and still the silence hung there.

  She let a few moments pass and she focused on the leaping in her belly. The energy that was rippling through her now. Finally he spoke. “Okay. Let’s see what we’re looking at here.” He sat up and removed the ice pack. “Do you think you can stand up?”

  He jumped out of the snow in a single hopping movement and slung one arm behind her. She leaned into him as she stood on her left leg, applying gentle pressure on the right. “You know, I think it’s fine. It just feels kind of wobbly. Kind of…like it’s not connected on all sides.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “I know.”

  “Good thing your fiancé is an orthopedic surgeon,” he said, his eyes steady on hers.

  “Yeah,” she said, looking down now into the snow. Their footprints had created tiny caverns of blueness on the trail. “Good thing.”

  And he bent toward her, and in a matter of seconds, she found herself on his back. Her chest was flat against him, and her legs straddled his hips. His back was solid, firm, warm. She leaned forward and felt her body melt into his. “Hold on, okay?” He bent forward at the waist to pick up her skis and poles from the ground and he held them in one hand, then clicked back into this gear, all while balancing her on his back.

  “Are you serious?” she asked. “You’re skiing down, with me on your back?”

  “Well, we haven’t got a sled.”

  “This is a serious descent.”

  “Oh, I’m not going that way. Not the way you came. I’ll take you back to the cabin so we can assess your situation.”

  “But my car is that way.” She pointed in the direction she had come.

  “I can get you back to your car. I’ll drive you back. In my bus.”

  “Seriously?”

  “You don’t have a whole lot of choice here, Olivine. I promise I’ll be good.”

  She paused. He’ll be good? What an odd thing for him to say, she thought, and she wasn’t sure how to respond, so she said, “Aren’t I heavy?”

  “Not one bit. I can do this, Olivine. I have skills you may not even know about.”

  “You do, huh?”

  “I do. Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.” She surprised herself by the speed of her response. “Yes, I do.”

  “Well then.” And he started along the traverse, in the direction he had come. And she bobbed along, harnessed to him like a papoose, feeling weightless. Giggles erupted from her, bubbled out of her throat without her consent. She had been just under six feet tall since the age of fourteen, and she couldn’t remember anyone actually picking her up. Well, except for Paul’s proposal. Paul lifting her onto the hood of his car. But now. Now she was flying down the mountain on a man’s back. A man whom she had dreamed of every day since she was twenty-two. But never like this. She pressed her nose against the back of his head, into his wool hat. He smelled like the earth itself. Rich and clean.

  “How are you doing this?” she asked after he had maneuvered a tight turn in the trail.

  “Very carefully,” he said.

  He wore her headlamp to illuminate the path of his skis, and the final descent to the cabin was fairly gradual. When they could see the house up ahead and the lights from inside his bus twinkling in the distance, she said, “Okay, you can put me down now.”

  “But you’re light as a feather,” he said, continuing to ski along.

  “No I’m not. I bet I weigh nearly as much as you.”

  “Not a chance. You’re not even the slightest bit as heavy as the pieces I was lifting in your grandfather’s wood pile today. His pile of treasures.”

  “But you didn’t ski with them on your back.”

  They were against the bus now. He leaned against it as he bent down, lowering her slowly and gently back to the earth.

  “How’s the knee?”

  “It’s fine. It really is. Could you hand me my poles?”

  He held them out to her, and she balanced her weight on both legs. Her breath caught.

  “Do I need to take you to the emergency room?” he asked.

  “I hope not,” she answered, looking down at her knee. “Paul’s on call until eleven, which usually means he’s in the emergency room.”

  “Oh. Well. Shall I drive you home, then?”

  “You can drive me to my car.”

  “Sure. Okay. But can you drive? With your knee like that?”

  “Of course, unless you want to carry me on your back. All over the county.”

  “I would, you know.” He looked her full in the face.

  She opened her mouth to say something. Closed it again.

  Henry motioned her toward the bus, and then he opened its double doors by reaching a hand inside and yanking on one of the sides. Both doors rattled open, and then he slid his head beneath her arm to give her support as they walked up the two short steps into the bus.

  He was married. Henry Cooper was married. She repeated it to herself as he reached over with one arm and unfolded a canvas camping chair and helped her to settle into it. “I can attach this to the aluminum rack if you think you’ll feel unsafe as we drive.”

  She looked around now at the interior of the bus, and memories flooded her. His messy Volkswagen. His complete lack of pretension. She shook her head. “No, this will be fine. Thank you.” And his little dog, Lola, hopped in her lap, turned once and sat down, facing the windshield. Olivine scratched at her neck and behind her soft, floppy ears.

  The bus contained no seats except for the driver’s. On either side of the interior, plastic bins filled with books were secured by bungee cords to an aluminum rack system. The titles she could see were those of epic poetry: The Iliad, The Odyssey, Beowulf. Thrown on top of the books was an old tube from a bike tire. Another bin held wax for skis and a waxing iron, all in a jumbled heap.

  He turned to load her skis and poles through the double doors. As he carried his own skis in, she said. “That’s a pretty nice setup you have there.”

  “The bus? Or the skis?”

  “Your skis. They’re nice.”

  “Yeah, I ski every day that I can.” He sat on the driver’s seat and flipped a silver switch. A series of whitish lights blinked on throughout the bus. He swung his legs into the aisle so he was facing her. “I do a few endurance trips every year. And I do some adventure racing, too. I just missed one, actually, being out here. My last race of the season.”

  “What kind of race?”

  “It’s cool. I bet you would like it.”

  “Why would you say that?”


  “Because you were skiing in the darkness. By yourself.”

  “Oh.”

  “Really. All of the racers start at midnight and then we travel fifty miles. Up over three mountain ranges.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. It’s a trip.”

  “Why midnight?”

  “It keeps the avalanche danger lower. You don’t want to reach some of those mountain passes after about noon.”

  “Sounds kind of scary.”

  “Not really. Not with all the gear they require. We have to wear beacons and GPS trackers, so it really isn’t as dangerous as it has been, in years past. And they have search and rescue teams at the ready, too…choppers, snowmobiles, the whole bit. There’s a nurse’s station every ten miles or so. It’s fine. If you’ve trained, you’re fine.”

  “What does your wife think of that?”

  The air turned cold and still. After a moment, he said, “Well, she is actually glad I started going with her.”

  “Oh.” An image of a woman, super fit, passed thorough Olivine’s mind, as clear as though she were standing right there before her. Tight ski pants. Smiling face. Toned triceps. Lean. Rich. Successful. Someone who knew what she was doing with her life. Someone who knew where she was going. Olivine sucked in her stomach. “She got you started doing it?”

  “Yeah, she has been doing these kind of races since she was about eighteen. She used to do them with her father, but when he suffered his first heart attack, he asked me to go in his stead. I was honored and we’ve been doing it together ever since. This is the first one I’ve missed.”

  “How’s she taking that?”

  He shrugged and said softly, “I don’t really want to talk about my wife.”

  Her cheeks burned. Once again, she was saying the wrong thing. Doing the wrong thing. She looked down at Lola and stroked her, from neck to tail. A plume of tiny white hairs puffed into the air.

  He continued: “Things are just…They are just complicated, and there are so many other things I want to say to you, before I talk to you about her.”

  She thought suddenly about Paul. If he hadn’t been called in to work tonight, he was home wondering where she was. Maybe she should call him. No, she should get home. What was she doing out here? In this married man’s bus?

  “So how’s the knee?” he asked. He leaned forward toward her. “You know, I actually have some skills. In that area. Do you mind if I touch it?”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked, laughing, relieved that they were no longer talking about his wife.

  “Well, I do this thing.” He clapped his hands and began rubbing his palms together.

  “You saw that in a movie!”

  “No, no. It’s my signature move. It’s a little Reiki…”

  “Oh, so you don’t have to touch it at all.” She laughed.

  “Well, actually, it’s a little Reiki-ish. It’s also a little massage-ish. Can I just try?”

  “Oh, alright,” she sighed. “Then would you take me back to my car? Please?”

  He nodded, and the corner of his lips turned up. Then he rolled up her pant leg, past her knee. The tips of his fingers were rough, and her spine tingled. Henry rubbed his hands together fast. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply and began to hum. And then he placed his hands on either side of her knee. His hands were warm, nearly hot, and she felt just then a jolt, a current of electricity or magnetism, or something else she had never before experienced. The sensation oscillated from heat to warmth and then she felt the energy dissipate and flow through the rest of her body in concentric waves. When the waves ceased, the pain was gone.

  “Seriously?” Olivine whispered. “How did you just do that?”

  He grinned and nodded. “Told you I had skills. Do you think you can walk around?”

  “Yeah.” She scooped the dog from her lap and stood, putting her full weight on the injured leg.

  “That is amazing. Where did you learn that?” she asked.

  “This guy in Vietnam showed me. It has a lot to do with what I think about as I do it. As I touch you.”

  “So the obvious question is: If you can do that, how come you didn’t do it up on the mountain? How come you carried me down?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Would you have even let me do that up there? Some guy comes along and goes all Miyagi on you?”

  “I’m a bit surprised I let you do it here.”

  “Well, that makes two of us,” he said, and they laughed together and his eyes locked onto hers, and she had a vision of him, once again, grabbing her by the back of her neck and pressing his lips into hers.

  But he had a wife. Henry Cooper had a wife. A wife she could picture, and it made her breathless. Where Olivine was tall and lean, his wife would be petite and buxom. Where she was fair, his wife would be tan, with a sprinkling of freckles along her nose. Where she struggled to know what to say and do, his wife would know, instinctively.

  She felt cold, suddenly. “I really should be getting home,” she said.

  He looked at her for several moments. “Of course,” he said, “If that’s what you want.”

  She nodded. He turned, and he started the van. First a misfire, then a throaty hum. He drove in reverse, expertly, using only his mirrors to navigate the narrow forested driveway.

  “Does your wife ever come in here?” she asked, after a beat. Damn. Once again, she was at a loss for what to say. He already said he didn’t want to talk about his wife.

  But he just laughed. “What? You think it needs a woman’s touch?” he asked.

  “Well.” She used two fingers to pick up a dirty sock, by the edges. “Yes.”

  “No. She makes a point to stay out of my bus.”

  “Ah,” she laughed. “It’s your man cave, then, huh?”

  “That’s exactly what she calls it, actually. She did come in once. Right after I bought it. Our son loves it. He likes to come in here and sleep sometimes,” he laughed, staring at the windshield. “Or to talk on the phone so we can’t hear him.”

  Son? Olivine turned away. Her heart lurched upward. Henry had a child. Henry had a child with someone else. She lost her breath.

  “But other than that,” he continued, “this bus is all mine.”

  He pulled up next to her car in the trailhead. A parking lot in the middle of nowhere at night. It was dark. The moon had not yet risen and bluish clouds shrouded the stars, creating an inkiness that seemed to go on and on. Desolate and yawning.

  As he stopped the bus, he turned to look at her. “We never talked, Olivine.”

  “We’ve been talking for an hour.”

  He took a deep breath. “ I know, I know. All this time we shared, and I never got the nerve to tell you. To tell you what I came here to tell you. “ His brow furrowed; his eyes became glassy. “Have dinner with me. Tomorrow night. Please.”

  Olivine opened her mouth. Closed it again. Instead of leaving one person, Olivine thought, this man had left two. He had left a wife and a son in order to come here. And she remembered the pain she felt when he had left her. The pain he was causing now, for someone else.

  No. She would not be the other woman. How dare he come back here. How could one man be so destructive to her life…occupying her thoughts for nearly a decade, and then coming back to wreck everything, even though he was married. Even though he had a family. Henry Cooper may want her back, but he was too charming—and too dangerous to the life she had so carefully set up for herself in his absence. Olivine leveled her face toward his, then turned to locate her skis and poles along the side wall of the bus.

  “Do me a favor, Henry,” she said.

  “Anything.”

  “Go home. To your family.”

  Without meeting his eyes, she reached for the silver lever at the front of the bus and pulled hard. The double doors clattered open, and she took her skis and her poles in her arms and she willed herself down the two steps of Henry’s bus, and she disappeared into the darkness.

  Chapter Ei
ght

  Olivine sped from the trailhead, just until the lights from Henry’s bus had faded into the distance. And then she wasn’t sure where to go. Not home, certainly. Not yet. She drove to a mining road, old and deserted, and she turned in far enough that she couldn’t be seen from the road. And she sat in silence, staring out the windshield at the mountainside, straight ahead. And she breathed, and while she breathed, she opened her mind and her body and she let thoughts fill her…whatever thoughts came along, and she allowed every kind of emotion—the pain of knowing that Henry had started a family with someone else. The elation, the energy, she felt when she was near him, like a throbbing in the air. And then the knowledge that he was not hers to have. Not hers to take. A life that would never be.

  Her throat constricted, and she felt tears about to come, and then she opened herself still wider, breathed still deeper, and she allowed all of these emotions, without resisting them or examining them or trying to grasp them. She simply allowed them to fill her and to rush through her.

  After a time, her breathing returned to normal and she looked down at her cell phone. Paul had tried to call, four times, but he hadn’t left a message She considered calling him. Just to ease his mind. But then she began to drive, with no particular destination, and she found herself at Yarrow’s house.

  It was late. The kids would be in bed. She knocked softly on the door and when Yarrow creaked it open, wearing a tank top and flannel pants, Olivine asked, softly, “Want to go out for a bite?”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah. I don’t think I’ve eaten all day.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I just need to get a bite. With you.”

  “Well, the kids are asleep and Jon’s home, so I guess I could go out. Do you want to come in while I run it by Jon? And change out of my pajamas?”

  “Nah. I’ll wait in the car.”

  “Okay, give me a sec.”

  Olivine lingered for a moment on the porch, and then turned back to her car. She stood near the driver’s door and stared straight upward. High in the Rockies, looking up at the sky was an experience. The clouds had cleared in patches, revealing pockets of stars. Tiny pinpricks of light, salt-sized sprinkles on the canopy above. As a girl, she would imagine they were passageways…hints to a bright, bright world that lay just beyond this one. Just out of reach. It was cold enough that she could see her breath, as she looked up, her head tilted toward the sky, her breath puffing up, up into the night.

 

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