Balancing Acts

by Emily Franklin

  Jemma sighs and looks at Melissa. “Getting out with you is better than being trapped here,” Jemma says. “I’ll even help you think of ideas for that party.”

  “What party?” Melissa asks.

  “I overheard Matron talking about it—aren’t you supposed to come up with a food-based party or something?”

  “I guess,” Melissa says. “Just add that to my list of stresses. Now, are you coming or what?” Melissa accepts the pouty girl’s shrug as a yes, clears a stack of dishes, and runs off to change.

  Dove reappears in the dining room after everyone is gone. Her body feels loose and free without anyone around, and she lets her hair down as she wipes the long table free of crumbs. She figures since she’s the one vacuuming later, it’s okay to swipe everything onto the floor. “Floor,” she says aloud, first in her regular, English accent and then again in the American one she used for the guests. Not bad, she thinks. Then again, she and William practiced it all the time. He’d imitate her voice, studying her soft vowels, and she’d say start with the American r. Start. Art. Heart. He had hers. She checks her watch as if it has the countdown until she sees him again. A day or two after New Year’s Eve and they’d be together, making all this—the scrubbing, the scent of bleach, and continually being left out of the chalet happenings—worth it. Despite the cold, and the new snow drifting down, coating the balcony and one of the hot tubs, Dove can conjure up the warmth of Will’s presence; his deep, contagious laugh, his slim surfer-boy physique, the tattoo that made her swoon and her parents cringe. With her hand on the damp sponge and her mind drifting to palm trees, beaches, and aquamarine blue water, Dove smiles thinking about reuniting with Will. I just have to clean enough, well enough, cater enough to the guests’ wishes that they have no choice but to tip big. Her heart pounds as she considers the reality: If she doesn’t get the money to buy the ticket, she’ll miss Will completely.

  “Am I too late for brunch?”

  Dove hears the question with her hair covering her face as she looks down at the table, wiping the last of the crumbs. “The food’s been put away, I’m afraid,” she says, hearing her English accent the way Will does, thick and proper.

  “You’re English.”

  Shit, Dove thinks. She expects to find one of the fifteen-year-old boys, Diggs or Luke, there for more food, and quickly comes up with an excuse for the accent switch. I’ll just say I’m studying drama, she thinks. And that I need to practice for various roles. She flings her hair back and opens her mouth to say this, but stops when she sees the person in front of her.

  “Lily.” He doesn’t ask her; he just says her name. “Lily de Rothschild.”

  Dove stares at him. “So they did bring the whole family,” she says.

  “Of course—did you think I’d stay home?” His eyes travel the length of her from black shoes to white shirt, to her hair, her mouth, and her now blushing cheeks. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”

  Unfriendly staff—the biggest offense in the chalet book. The tips Dove needs to buy her ticket suddenly seem like they could evaporate, so she forces a smile where there is none and stands up, clutching the sponge so hard it drips onto her shoe. “Hello, Maxwell.” Her face doesn’t betray the building pulse inside her chest. I won’t give in, she thinks. But her eyes can’t lie. They lock on to his.

  “So we’re formal now?”

  “Fine, hello, Max.”

  “Hello, Lily,” he says and stares at her with the same gaze he’d had at school last year. She remembers sneaking looks at him over her papers in class—way before the maid job, before Will, before graduating and then taking her year off. Before all of this. Once, he’d caught her looking at him and locked on to her, challenging her to see who would break the look first. The class bell had sounded, calling it a tie.

  Dove stares at him—tall Max with his green eyes, brown mop of hair, and quiet intense presence. He looks much the same—better, if that were possible. Still with that cool detachment that simultaneously pulled her in and pushed her back. I won’t get sucked in again, Dove thinks. He means nothing to me—not now. She remembers his eighteenth birthday—a huge fete with white tents, dinner jackets, and the girls vying for his attention in their brightly colored dresses. Not again, she thinks.

  “You can call me Dove now,” she says, feeling powerful. It feels good not to be in school where you’re trapped with the same people, she thinks. He’s here for a week and it means nothing, anyway. Dove stares at his hands, thinking how weird it is to see someone out of context—this guy for whom she’d longed for two years at school, is now out of the classroom and surrounded by mountains. It had been so hard to shake off her feelings the first time. How do you just move past liking someone so much you can feel them in every cell of your body? But I did it, she thinks, and clamps her heart shut.

  Max shoves his hands in his pockets, making Dove remember, too, the way his hands had felt on her back, on her neck, and just how quickly they—and the rest of him—had disappeared that night of his birthday.

  Max breathes in deeply. “I can call you Dove or Lily, whatever name you like,” he says before sauntering out.

  “Good. Then call me Dove. It’s what people called me at school, anyway.” She watches him go down the hallway toward the front door.

  “But you’re not at school anymore, are you? Looks like you’ve chosen a different sort of path.” He stops and looks over his shoulder at her before going outside. “No matter what you call something, it doesn’t change what it is.” He opens the door, letting in a wash of cold air that finds Dove’s arms and gives her chills. “Anyway, it’s good to see you again, Dove.” She stands there, chills and all, as he leaves her alone with a house to clean and more than enough to think about.

  8

  Days are long, nights are longer.

  GABE SCHROEDER’S BLOND TOUSLED curls, dark blond at the base and white at the ends, announce his presence even in a crowded room. Nameless, the bar is designed to feel like a mountaintop at night. Track lights in various shades of blue illuminate the room only partway, and scattered pinpoint lights resemble constellations. It’s very romantic in here, Melissa thinks, if you take away the hot, sweaty, scantily clad girls and the ski bum guys wedged in so tightly it’s tough to move. Harley is so intent on not losing her space—and her view of Gabe Schroeder—that she has to pull Melissa through a swarm of people to keep pace with him.

  “Remind me again what we’re doing in a packed bar when we have to get up early tomorrow,” Melissa says to Harley, elbow-to-arm tight in the full bar.

  “It’s called experiencing what resort life has to offer,” Harley says. She keeps looking past Melissa, over at someone.

  “What are you looking at?” Melissa asks, trying to see.

  “No one. Nothing.” Harley scans the room again. Gabe Schroeder—live and in the flesh, she thinks. And better than I thought he’d be. Harley gives Melissa a look that conveys don’t ask me again, play it cool, and Melissa nods, massaging her fingers and palms. Her hands are sore from chopping carrots and kneading bread, and her brain aches from the thrashing Matron handed out postmeal when she did an impromptu drop by to check up and she learned that Melissa’s first dinner consisted of beef and vegetable stew and rolls. “What’s so wrong with it? I mean, it’s hearty and yummy,” Melissa questioned aloud after Matron had stomped off, leaving an official warning notation in her notebook. Too many notes like that and she’d be dismissed. “You should have called it braised beef with root vegetables and honey loaf,” Dove said. She mopped the floor while Melissa laid thin sheets of buttery pastry down for morning croissants. She thought about Max, whom she’d successfully avoided since their initial run-in, and how he’d probably disagree with this philosophy on spinning words—he’d said that names meant nothing. Then she thought about William and how he’d been so taken in by her birdlike name. Which was better? Dove thought about this, then revised her words to Melissa. “You know what it is? Words can’t alter what’s r
eally there, but they can change people’s perspectives.”

  “Like?” Melissa placed the tray of dough in the fridge and wiped her hands on a checkered kitchen cloth.

  “Like … if you call food by simple names, it sounds as though you didn’t make something nice enough. Beef stew with carrots and potatoes, regular. Braised beef with root vegetables in a demi-glace, fancy.” And which boy is better? thinks Dove suddenly. One who’s here or one who is far away? One you’ve lilted for years and then tried to forget, or one who grabbed your attention and then took off for the seas?

  “But I don’t know what a demi-glace is,” Melissa said, then realized she was being too hard on herself. “Okay—I know what it is, but not how to make it. I’m from Australia, from the beach, okay? I surfed before I could run and my meals all through school were basically cereal eaten on the go and tuna sandwiches. Hardly gourmet.”

  “Open-faced tuna salad with watercress and endive,” Dove said, holding out her hand with an invisible meal for Melissa. “Get my point?”

  Melissa nodded. Phrasing was everything. She recalled the debacle of last season and cleared her throat. “Do you think you can do the same trick with nonrelated foods?”

  “Such as?” Dove could give her own example—but was edgy knowing she had so much to do before getting some rest: turndown service, arranging the guest rooms with fresh flowers, water for the bedside tables, and her own touch, daily fortunes printed on long slips of cream-colored paper with specialty chocolates. Dove would write the fortunes, somewhere between horoscope and inspirational messages, with a special fountain pen packed in her bag—after all, it was the extras that supposedly brought the big tips.

  “Such as …” Melissa untied the chartreuse apron and looped it on a hook in the cook’s closet, wishing she had longer than nine hours before having to wear it again. Already the pads on her fingers were raw from using Brillo pads, and she knew many nights of aching legs and shoulders lay ahead. “If, say, you’d done something stupid, or—let’s just say been caught doing something.”

  “Hello? Specifics would be nice here,” Dove said. “Not that I’m pressing you for info, but it’s difficult to know what to tell you about putting spin on things if I don’t know what the thing is.

  Melissa exhaled quickly. Harley was waiting for her outside—they would go out on the town together. “Last year, I liked someone, okay? A lot.” She looked at the floor, the pattern of light wood and darker knots. “And I wrote about it, and kept all my thoughts in this book.”

  “A journal?”

  “Something like that. And …” Melissa thought about saying the whole thing, but she couldn’t. Not then. She was tired but wanted to meet Harley, explore the supposedly wild nightlife in the village. It was walking distance, and felt quainter than town where she’d done her shopping. Melissa eyed her uniform and realized she’d need to swap her cooking clothes into a more presentable outfit. “And let’s just say this guy wasn’t shy, he wasn’t a small personality. He dated a … anyway, everyone found out.”

  Dove looked at her, perplexed, and leaned on her mop, her whole body ready for bed. If William were here, he’d rub my shoulders and massage my calves, she thought, wishing he was waiting for her downstairs in the bunkroom. She checked her watch—he’d be just finishing up for the day, tying the boat to the dock, waves lapping the sides, maybe. Her insides clutched when she wondered if there were any bikini-babes nearby threatening to lap, too. “I don’t know, Melissa. It sounds as though you’re uncomfortable telling the entire story. It’s still kind of vague. But if it comes up this season, just say some stock phrase, like ‘the past is in the past,’ and hopefully people will buy it.”

  Melissa took this advice with her and went to change.

  The village is night-coated and cold. In the bar now, with the blue lights overhead, and various languages uttered all around her, Melissa hopes the past stays well hidden, totally out of sight.

  “I’m so glad to be out of the kitchen,” Melissa says when she and Harley are finally at the bar. The bar is made of dulled steel and when Melissa leans into it, she can feel the cool metal on her stomach. “If I had to chop, rinse, or sauté anything else tonight I swear I’d lose it.” She tries in vain to flag down the bartenders—tanned women with hair so blond it’s white, outfitted in stark white tank tops and tight white pants. Completing the look is metallic white lipstick. “I could so never pull off that look.” Melissa points to one of the women who breezes by to serve someone else. “Not that I’d want to.”

  Harley, taller by half a foot with her coltlike legs and boots, looks at Melissa. “Tomorrow’s only a few hours away. I guess you should enjoy right now.” She smiles and bites her lower lip. “Hey!” With a quick raise of her hand, Harley snags a bartender and orders two Fizzy Blues. “Let’s have a toast to the lowered drinking age in Europe. No IDs needed.” Harley grins. Once that’s accomplished, she goes back to searching the crowd. “Wait here—I’m going to see if I can talk to him.”

  “Him who?” asks Melissa. She’s not interested in the drinking age or in being out. More interested in recipes and measuring and, hopefully, sleeping soon. Someone steps on her toe but it’s too crowded to even bend down and rub it. Why’d I even come out’? she thinks, looking at the anonymous but unanimously good-looking crowd of moneyed skiers and their hot friends all looking for a hookup—either one night or one week. I must stick out terribly in the land of Barbie girls and movie-star guys. Harley can fit in fine—glam her up and she’d look like one of these people, anyway. She’s got the outdoorsy tough thing happening, but she’s just as gorgeous as the bartenders or the famous—and I’m … what am I? Melissa doesn’t know how to sum herself up; only that she knows she’s not like the rest of the crowd.

  “Him!” Harley says as though her thoughts are common knowledge. “Gabe Schroeder.”

  Melissa’s face reddens when she hears his name, and all the feelings rush back to her—heart palpitations, shaky palms, quick breath. “I’m dizzy,” she says.

  Harley looks over. “Probably just the temperature in here.”

  Melissa tries to regain her composure. After all, he hasn’t seen me, he doesn’t know I’m here, and Harley doesn’t know about me and Gabe Schroeder. Not that there’s much of an us to tell—more of a me and my own humiliation. “So he’s the reason you’re here?” Accepting her Fizzy Blue from the bartender, who ignores the thank you, Melissa takes a trembling drink as she looks back to where Gabe is standing. He looks better than Melissa remembers, better than last year. “You came all the way from Colorado to the Alps to chase after Gabe Schroeder?” His name sticks in her mouth.

  “First of all, I’m not chasing anyone,” Harley says, raising her eyebrows to reinforce her message. “I’m following my destiny. Wait—that sounds too new agey. But it’s just …” She glances back to Gabe. “I know what I want, and I’m destined to get it. Haven’t you ever felt certain of something? Like you know inside that things will work out?”

  Melissa frowns. “I don’t know. Maybe I wish I did, but I think I’m more the doubt-everything-until-it-happens type.”

  Harley slugs back the Fizzy Blue as though it’s plain water—which, when Melissa sips it, she realizes is far from it. “Anyway, Gabe Schroeder is not the reason I’m here. But he can lead me to the person who is.” Harley finishes the drink and sets it on the bar, licking a bit of blue ice from her top lip. Now’s the time, she thinks. I’m going to do it—finally. “Will you be okay here by yourself?” Harley surprises herself by asking this—normally she’d just bolt without thinking—but Melissa’s got a gentle spirit, and kind demeanor, and Harley doesn’t want to make enemies. Not here. Not again.

  “I’m pretty much anything but alone here,” Melissa says, pointing to the throngs of people. “Do what you need to do, Harley. If I get bored or too tired, I’ll make my way back to the chalet.”

  “Thanks!” Harley squeezes Melissa’s arm as a good-bye and immerses herself in the
bevy of beauties and buff bodies all clamoring for the dance floor, the bar, or the bathrooms.

  Melissa takes a few more sips of her drink, wincing at the sweetness and accepting the fact that it will leave her with a headache tomorrow morning if she finishes it. She knows from prior experience that she’s not the best match with stiff drinks—in fact, that’s one of the details she left out when speaking with Dove. How could I phrase that? she wonders. I got wasted, confessed my adoration for someone, and puked in public while people read my personal journal into the resort-wide speaker system. Or, Dove’s way—“Let’s just say that I prefer my drinks without alcohol—too much indulgence once led to an unfortunate incident”—much better. Melissa stands on her tiptoes trying to see Harley and Gabe, but then looks away thinking it’s best not to watch, that it’s best to avoid any and all contact with Gabe, even if it means hiding out.

  Up ahead, Harley sees Gabe Schroeder’s blond head and the incredible person attached. He’s just like in the Sports Illustrated photos, she thinks, tugging on a tendril of hair so it falls into her eyes from her messy pony tail. Hopefully this gives me the disheveled and sexy look rather than just slobby. Gabe is surrounded by three model-type women, each with tight-fitting shirt and enhanced cleavage and all vying for his attention. How to get in there? Harley chews on her thumbnail and thinks.

  She walks close enough to Gabe that he sees her, but past him so it looks as though she could care less about his presence. Carefully, Harley elbows past the women but manages to bump one of them just slightly, spilling the woman’s icy drink across Harley’s chest. Harley doesn’t give in to the cold slush, figuring it’ll dry. She’s not one to get fazed by little mishaps. Gabe sees this and smirks—most girls would have made a scene.