Balancing Acts

by Emily Franklin

  “That’s a refreshing perspective. Most people around here pretend they know everything. You know, ‘fake it till you make it’ sort of thing.”

  “I don’t think I could do that,” Melissa says.

  “Too honest?” JMB asks.

  Melissa shrugs. “Either that or just not a very good faker.”

  “Well, don’t be surprised if you find you’re in the minority here.” JMB steadies her carts and helps her wheel them to the cash register where she hands over almost the entire wad of bills from the petty cash allotment. Melissa wonders if maybe he’s warning her about specific people, or if maybe even he’s guilty of faking something. Certainly not his appeal, Melissa thinks, that’s too real. She knows if she stays around him too much longer, she’ll like him, and that would be risky—she can’t have a repeat of last year.

  By the doorway, Melissa zips her coat and stands with her huge amounts of boxed groceries, wondering how the hell she’ll get back to Les Trois now that Celia Sinclair has made out with Paul, and off with the van. What she does know is that the carts take up space, causing JMB to have to stand either too far away to converse with her or in between the carts, a bit too close to her to be unremarkable. I have to get away from him, she thinks. Or it will be too late and I’ll officially have a crush on him. And that can’t happen.

  “Thanks for helping me with my clumsiness,” Melissa says. She crosses her arms over her chest and feels bulky. So maybe the down jacket doesn’t downplay my semirounded physique, but it’s warm, she thinks.

  JMB reaches into his pocket and pulls out keys. He’s near enough that Melissa can feel his breath as he speaks. She looks again at the scar and in her fantasy she’s cool enough, brazen enough that she reaches out to touch it—then he kisses her. But no such luck in reality. “So you’re all set then?” he asks.

  Oh my god, please leave before I like you, love you, jump you, or make an ass out of myself like last year with my former crush. Melissa slides some Chapstick on her lips to keep her hands busy and nods. “Yup, I’m good to go.” Where? Nowhere, since I’m stranded, but never mind.

  “All right—see you around then.” JMB waits there as if she’s supposed to say something. “Mesilla, right?”

  Melissa is caught between cracking up and feeling dumb, and he’s so close to her, so kissably near, that she just shrugs and nods. He looks at her a second longer and gives a guy-nod, pigeon style out and back, and steps away from the store and out into the town where the sun is rising higher.

  Why didn’t I say something? Melissa questions her brain power. Not only am I stranded here with no ride and twenty minutes until I’m due back, but I’m also forever going to be Mesilla to him. Fantastic. At least I didn’t get sucked into some unrequited crush situation. She calls the chalet house phone, hoping Harley will pick up and come get her in town. Hosts can sign out vans without prior approval, but no one under the host can, so Dove wouldn’t be any help. After six rings, Melissa shakes her head, wondering why no one is picking up. She thinks about using some of her money for a taxi, but it would leave no room for buying any provisions during the week—and what if they run out of milk or one of the kids hates pasta? Melissa sighs, hating that she feels both stranded and paralyzed—why can’t she just make a decision?

  Out the glass doorway she sees JMB and decides that getting back to The Tops is more important than potentially entering so far into the crush zone that she can’t get out.

  “JMB! Hey!” Melissa opens the door and shouts to him. When he turns, she waves at him and when he returns the gesture, her heart pounds. So much for trying to remain uninterested.

  “You need a ride?” He strides to her. “Why didn’t you just sign out a van?”

  “I didn’t think I was allowed to,” she says and feels instantly like she’s thirteen and unlicensed.

  JMB frowns and shakes his head. “No—cooks can drive the vans as long as it’s business-related.” He eyes the stacks of boxed-up foods. “Which this trip clearly is.” It seems to Melissa that in one motion he offers her a ride and helps her wheel the carts out onto the street to his car where they pack everything into the trunk and backseat. “I’ll be right back,” he says and leaves her buckling herself into the passenger seat, warming her hands on the heater. Melissa wishes she were one of those cool girls who looked stunning all windswept and out of breath from the panic of almost being late and stranded, but she’s not. She knows she probably looks the way she feels—discombobulated by the bumpy ride with bitchy Celia Sinclair, frayed by the shopping and planning, and still nervous from the upcoming cooking, guests, and trying not to dwell on her hot ride home.

  “Thought you might want this.” JMB slides behind the wheel and hands her a mug of coffee. Not a paper cup, a real pottery mug.

  “Don’t you need to give this back to the coffee shop?” she asks before she sips.

  He shrugs, his jacket crinkling. “I know the people who own the place—they’ll let me bring it back later.”

  Wedged into the car with enough food for a week, with a guy who brought her coffee, helped her with the hassles of shopping, and who makes her whole body feel on the edge of something, Melissa lets the forthcoming stresses go for just a few seconds. Who cares if he thinks my name is Mesilla? Who cares if he’s a ski guide and therefore way above me in the totem pole of jobs and social circles? Who cares if I have to make a welcome brunch for fifteen people and I have to learn as I go—it’s not as if I’m cooking for royalty, right?

  JMB has one hand on the wheel, the other on the manual gear stick, and hums to the song playing on the radio.

  “I can’t believe they still play ABBA here,” Melissa says, listening.

  “That’s the thing about places like this,” he says as the car turns back up the hill toward Les Trois. “It’s timeless. Music, fashion trends, famous people, they all just come and go so easily—it doesn’t matter what decade it is, or anything.”

  Suddenly this makes Melissa feel tiny, unimportant. “So what does matter, then?”

  “Living in it, I guess,” he says. “Hang on—it’s way too early for philosophy.” He moves into third gear to get up the steepest part of the hill around the curve. He continues to hum. “You know this song?”

  Melissa shoots him a look as if to say everyone does. “Voulez-vous …,” she sings quietly enough so he hears her but not enough so it sounds like she’s up for karaoke right now.

  Voulez-vous. She thinks about the translation. Even in sappy disco tunes it’s still worth wondering. “Voulez-vous,” she sings again, looking at JMB’s scar. It’s shaped like a crescent moon and just as silver against his tan skin. “Voulez-vous? Do you want to?” the lyrics ask over and over. JMB doesn’t answer.

  7

  Be yourself—but not too much.

  FIFTEEN MINUTES INTO THE welcome brunch, Dove finally emerges from the depths of The Tops. She’s put off saying hello to the guests as long as she can manage. It’s best just to deal with unpleasant things, anyway, she thinks, wishing she didn’t have to be in the obvious maid uniform all day and night. But then again, what do I care?

  In her black trousers and crisp white shirt, Dove slips quietly into the kitchen, watching Melissa take muffins out of the oven.

  “You do know how to cook,” Dove says.

  “Eggs, yeah. These muffins? I’m not so sure….”

  Dove looks around the kitchen. “Can I teach you a little trick?” She doesn’t want to step on Melissa’s toes. “Not to say you need my help …”

  “But I do.” Melissa waits.

  “Okay, so the muffins look nice … but plain. So—you can do a couple of things. One is you could take some brown sugar and sprinkle it on top.” Dove mimes her words using one muffin as the example. “Then you stick it under the broiler for about twenty seconds—less, even. Then they have a lovely crispy sugary top.” Dove remembers eating them by the fireside while wrapped in a blanket, next to William, and instantly feels a tug in her stomach.
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  “And tip number two?” Melissa watches Dove pluck a warm muffin from the tray and slice off its top. “I need those! There aren’t extras … at least not yet.”

  “Can you trust me?” Dove raises her eyebrows at Melissa. “You cut off the top, spread jam or whipped cream—yogurt if you have nothing else—on it, and then put the top back on.” She spreads thick raspberry jam on to demonstrate. “See? Now it looks all fancy, but it’s nothing. That’s the trick to a lot of cooking.”

  “How do you know so much?” Melissa asks. She starts slicing the tops off all the muffins and alternating peach preserves and raspberry. “I have to bring these out soon.”

  “I always liked cooking,” Dove says. “At home I …”

  Melissa watches Dove’s mouth twist as she cuts the words short, and for a second she looks really sad. “Did you cook a lot at home? Like with your mum or dad?”

  Dove shakes her head, her corn husk hair swaying in front of her eyes. “No. It’s a long story … but anyway.” She shrugs and hopes Melissa doesn’t press her for answers.

  “Ahh,” Melissa groans as she finishes rearranging the muffins. “What if they hate my food and I get fired? Or worse, demoted.” Then she catches herself. “Sorry—foot into mouth yet again.”

  Dove laughs and licks jam from her finger. “Look, I’m totally okay with my job, so don’t worry about that. I … I chose it, actually.”

  Melissa makes an exaggerated face, wrinkling her nose. “Why? What could make you want to scrub loos and change soiled linens?”

  “New experiences?” Dove’s smile spreads light all over her face. “Believe it or not, I like a challenge. Anyone can have fun being the top dog—but it takes … I don’t know, strength of character to enjoy and excel at something like this.”

  “That’s really cool,” Melissa says. “Admirable.” She wipes the crumbs from the counter with a sponge. “It’s just weird that … it’s like I saw Harley polishing her boots, and it’s clear that she’s done it before. Did you see her bed this morning? Hospital corners and everything. The girl knows how to clean, even if she’s kind of … scruffy.”

  Laughter erupts from the other room, startling Dove, who dreads having to see the earl and his family again—or at least certain members of his family. She makes sure her shirt is tucked in and follows along with what Melissa’s saying. “I know what you mean, Melissa,” Dove whispers, suddenly realizing maybe they can hear her from the other room. “I know how to cook, and Harley’s hardly the most welcoming of hosts.” Dove turns to Melissa. “You’d be a really great host. You’re warm, and friendly, and conversational.”

  “She didn’t even say ‘welcome,’” Melissa says. The words are just out of her mouth when Harley’s frame fills the kitchen doorway.

  “We need more food out there,” Harley says.

  Dove nudges Melissa. “Make mimosas. Champagne and orange juice—trust me, the more they drink, the friendlier they’ll be about your food.”

  “Thanks, Dove.” Melissa swoops up the basket of muffins and grabs a glass carafe of juice to which she can add ginger ale or champagne in the dining room. She hopes Harley didn’t hear the criticism about the lack of welcome.

  Standing back, half-hidden by the thick double-silk curtain that masks the dining room door, Dove surveys the scene. Typical, she thinks, narrating in her head. Refined glamour from the countess, with her cream-colored cashmere top and off-white thin wool trousers. The earl, in jeans and loafers, stands by the window, looking out at the slopes, probably keen to get out on the slopes to ski and check out the other titled beauties in their tight black ski outfits.

  “Here are some baked goods,” Melissa says, thinking that sounds more upscale than muffins. “And some mimosas.”

  At the offering of an alcoholic beverage, the earl turns around and smiles. “Perfect.” His accent is understated and elegant. He sounds just the same, Dove thinks. Then a group of people bluster by her, knocking her to the side.

  “So glad you can join us!” the countess says to the group that’s come in. Then to Melissa and Harley she adds, “Mention champagne and they come running.” She smiles demurely and stays seated with her coffee and eggs. “These are our children.” She describes them without pointing, and they each look up or smile as they’re introduced. “Jemma is my daughter—she’s thirteen and a wonderful skier. Luke is fifteen—and Diggs is just a year ahead of him at school.”

  Harley checks out the kids—so much for them being toddlers and needing nannies. Jemma looks bored with the breakfast, and reaches for a glass of champagne until the earl stops her with just a look and she sulks in the corner. The boys, Luke and Diggs, laugh about something with each other and sit at the table with plates of food. Leave it to the aristocrats to give their kids normal names, Harley thinks. Diggs? Fine, so it’s one of many names he has (Charles Wainwright Digby Mathers) and Luke is Lucas Mattias Ridgefield, and so on, but Diggs and Luke sound like they could be friends from home. But when she looks at their refined crisp clothing, their easy manners, their relaxed grace, she knows they are far, far from that world.

  Thank God, Dove thinks, they didn’t bring the whole family—what a relief. She emerges from behind the curtain to introduce herself. The cleaners were supposed to say hello, so Dove takes this opportunity to get it over with but Harley, oblivious to Dove’s intentions, interrupts.

  “I’d like to give you a big welcome,” Harley says, her voice steady and smooth. She shoots a look at Melissa, acknowledging both that yes, the greeting had gone unsaid before, and also that Harley would learn as she went along. I may not be the smoothest host in the world—or the most natural—but I’m a fast learner. Just about anything Harley sets her mind to do, she makes happen. I mean, I’m here, aren’t I? She looks smug as she goes to pour herself a drink. Melissa intercepts the carafe and pours drinks for the countess first. Damn, Harley thinks. I should’ve thought of that—always serve the guests first. Next time.

  Dove decides now’s the time for a quick hello. “I’m Dove, your cleaner.” Dove speaks calmly and in an American accent that surprises Harley and Melissa. “If there’s anything you need during your stay, just let me know.”

  When the earl and countess and their kids nod at her, Dove knows she’s pulled off her fake-out. They never even looked twice, she thinks as she heads to the kitchen to start the dishes. Then again, they only met me a couple of times. With her hair pulled back and partly covered with a wide black headband, her uniform, and her American accent, she hardly resembles the girl they’d met.

  Next time no scrambled eggs, Melissa thinks, watching as the guests bypass the eggs and head for the muffins. Dove was right—good drinks and muffins and they’re happy. Next time I’ll make something more unusual and memorable.

  “We plan on spending the day on the mountain,” the countess says to Harley. Harley has a mouthful of food, crumbs on her lips, and Melissa wishes just for an instant that Harley was the one who’d have to vacuum the crumbs.

  “Sounds good to me—if we get out there early, like in the next half hour, we’ll beat the new arrival rush.” Harley looks past the countess to the wall of windows, eyeing the three mountains. Somewhere out there, she thinks, is the reason I’m here. The earl feels Harley’s gaze and smiles at her. Oh, crap. Harley bites her lips. He thought I was staring at him.

  The earl raises one eyebrow at her, looking like he wishes she were older or he were younger. “I’m off to get changed. I’ll be in my bedroom should anyone require me.”

  Um, that’d be a no, thinks Harley as she drains her coffee.

  “I’ll join you,” the countess says. “Boys …” Diggs and Luke are halfway out the door. “Be back for dinner.”

  Diggs turns around, hoping to catch Harley’s attention. “Where can a guy prove his worth on the slopes here?”

  “Which run, you mean?” Harley asks, her mind searching for something, anything to say back so she doesn’t come up blank. I wish I’d studied the trails lik
e the guidebook suggested, or read the chalet literature. “Well, there are so many….” She smiles, trying to distract him.

  “Well, maybe you’ll show us then.” Luke grins and Diggs waits.

  Harley nods, pleased that her ploy has worked.

  “I’m already changed,” Jemma says to her mother and partially to Harley. “Can’t I just go?” Her voice is whiny, urgent.

  “You’re too young to be out there alone,” the countess says. Then to Harley she adds, “But too old for a nanny. Caught in between.”

  Harley nods, not interested in chatting, even though it’s part of her job. She wants to change, too, so she can search the slopes. It’ll feel so good to be on the hill, she thinks, to feel the wind rush at my face. She can almost feel the thigh-ache she’ll have after a day of downhill. And if she has to let Diggs and Luke tag along, then so be it. She can ditch them on a difficult run if need be. The countess waits for Harley to say something more, but she doesn’t. “See you out there!” she says and leaves.

  “Well …,” the countess says. Jemma huffs with her arms crossed over her chest. Melissa can’t take it anymore and tries to problem solve. “If you’d like … I could show you around. I’m finished with brunch now.” She checks her watch. “I just have to be back by two to make some afternoon treats.”

  The deadline for creating The Tops’ signature baked good looms over Melissa’s head. She knows she has to bake something so delectable and irresistible that people long for it. Matron mentioned that there’s an unspoken competition between chalets—and at the end of the week, on Changeover Day, an afternoon feast of all the leftover foods when nannies, hosts, cooks, cleaners, and ski guides alike gather at the Main House for a taste test of treats. I wonder what the winner gets, Melissa thinks, a prize? Or is the prize just knowing your pastry or cookie is the best?