I wonder if I should wake Luke, Dove thinks, seeing his form still stretched out cookie cutter–style in the snow. I’ll give him five minutes.
She hangs the last rug over the railing, then proceeds to bang the dirt out. With each whack, she gets out her feelings. Here’s to William, who didn’t call. Here’s to cleaning up other people’s crap—literally. Here’s to going out last night, and coming home alone. Here’s to not being able to predict the future nor control the past. Just once, I wish I could live for the moment, in the moment—the exact right now.
When the rug is free of lint and dirt, Dove backs away. Hot from the exertion, she takes off her ski hat and fluffs out her hair, enjoying the feel of the sun and wind on her neck and head. Behind her, footsteps. More slinking around, she thinks.
“Hey.” Max stands in front of her with no jacket, just an untucked rumpled blue button-down shirt, jeans, and thick wool socks on the paved path.
“Hey.” Dove puts the broom down and looks at him. “Aren’t you freezing?” She wonders if he’s been out all night, at Fauxcean, or with some girl—one of Celia’s friends, maybe, or some hot titled Euro—and forgotten his shoes.
“I woke up a while ago,” he says and points to his room. “You can see pretty much everything from my balcony.”
She looks at his sock-clad feet again. “So you didn’t do the walk of shame?” Max shakes his head, a smile playing at but not formally slipping onto his mouth. For some reason, this makes her happy. While everyone else at Les Trois was off making the most of the dark hours, Max was tucked in his bed. “So what did you do, exactly?”
Max sighs, licks his lower lip, and checks out the sun at it rises more in the sky. “Honestly?” Dove nods. He looks at her. “Waited for you to come back.”
Dove feels a current of emotions go through her. “You did?”
Max doesn’t repeat himself and Dove finds herself tied completely to the precise spot where they’re standing—to the cold ground, the chilled air, the rising sun, to Max, taking the risk of standing before her. Not thinking of the past and not worrying about the future, Dove steps forward, puts herself into Max’s arms, and pulls his face down so she can kiss him. They stay like that, wrapped in one another, for what feels like a long time. With only the sun’s rays—and Luke, who has woken up—catching sight of them.
19
Sharing is important.
IN THE CAVERNOUS FRONT room at the Main House, Matron, in her starched white shirt and gray flannel trousers, makes an announcement to the crowds of staff gathered by her command. Everyone itches with their own plans for the day off—a blissful twenty-four hours to do whatever they like—snowshoe, sleep, ski, shop, snog, or all of the above. Seated on the leather couches and chairs, leaning with their backs to the walls and heaped onto the floor, the staff and ski teams await her words so they can depart.
“We have a problem,” Matron begins. Each face in the room registers this with the fear that Matron will call attention to that person’s flaws or party mishaps.
What if she’s going to fire me because I interacted with a guest? Dove thinks, replacing “interacted” with “made out passionately” in her mind.
What if Matron docks my ski privileges because Coach is pissed that I was late to morning warm-ups? James considers, hunkered down with the other skiers at the back of the room. Not to mention getting into one of the chalet beds rather than my own at the Mountain Inn. He looks around the room. Granted, I wasn’t in her bed long enough for it to matter.
Gabe tightens the laces on his hiking boots and side-glances at James. What if I’m busted for wanting to pick Les Trois as our practice location for the season when I really chose it based on illegally hacking into the computer system and finding out where Melissa was signed up to work.
Oh dear Lord, what if Matron makes me a cleaner because the guests are complaining about my meals—if I’m in trouble for missing last night’s dinner and dessert, even though being stranded in a snowstorm in my mind qualifies as a legitimate reason for missing? Melissa sighs, tugging at her hair and looking at Harley, who is so busy looking across the room at the skiers that she doesn’t notice.
Screw Matron, Harley thinks. What about James? What did last night mean? The swimming, the way he held me in the water, but then, too, the way he disappeared with Charlie the Nookie Nanny?
Matron claps her hands, calling attention to her sturdy frame. “The problem is”—she sweeps her eyes over the room’s crowd—“as you know, Holiday Week begins Monday. Changeover Day is Sunday. Tomorrow is …”
A loud yelp from a group of male hosts brings an anonymous shout of, “Day off! Let me hear you say yeah …”
One lone voice echoes him. “Yeah!”
Matron glares at everyone. “Unfortunately for you—though fortunately for the resort—we are terribly oversubscribed for Holiday Week.” Matron flips over a page on her clipboard.
She’s so organized, so planned, Dove thinks. Not at all spontaneous. She bites her top lip, thinking she’s usually like that, a planner. Someone who schedules everything from dusting to phone calls. But then, sudden kisses work well, too.
“The ramification of this overbooking is that we are behind schedule for such events as the ice follies, the Outdoor Games—when cooks report for beverage or sweets duty, and the traveling dinner party. Not to mention the standard prep.” Groans from the group begin, only to be silenced by Matron’s voice. “Listen! What this means is that for this week, there will be no day off.”
Shouts of protest ripple from the staff, rising into shouts until Matron rings a bell and begins to talk. “For those of you who see this as an injustice, might I remind you that it is also considered an injustice to break the rules of conduct clearly referenced in the resort literature.”
This reminder quiets most of the protestations. Only Harley raises her hand. Matron nods to signal she may speak.
“So we have no break? Not even a half day?” She looks over to the skiers, hoping to convey her wish to spend a half day on the slopes, specifically with James who meets her gaze for a second and then looks away.
Matron marches over to Harley and hands her a piece of paper. “Just for asking, you may have the pleasure of organizing the Top of the Heap.”
“The what?” Harley’s lack of sleep and romantic distraction get the better of her.
“It’s a Holiday Week tradition for guests—at the peak of the middle alp, with mulled wine—which you will not drink—and a gathering of snowmen. Sorry, snowpeople, we say now.”
Harley leans on her boots, arms crossed over her chest, cocky and gorgeous enough to somewhat pull it off. “So, I’m supposed to hike up the mountain and make Frosty?”
Matron smiles demurely. “No. You’re meant to ride the gondola up the mountain—with all the supplies—and stay up there until you’ve created a winter park that will delight the guests’ children. Top of the Heap.” She points to the door. “Get to it.”
“Aren’t you going to share?” Luke asks Diggs, who is busy hoarding chocolate cupcakes for himself.
“Sharing?” Diggs says. “You’re one to talk. Share some info, will you? Who’d you go off with last night?”
“I’ll never say.” Luke shrugs his friend off and gets back to the task at hand.
Melissa organizes her young recruits in the kitchen: Diggs in charge of icing the chocolate cupcakes—and not sharing the extra frosting—Luke in charge of the vanilla tops, and Jemma in charge of careful decorations on top.
“Everything’s all set down there,” Dove says. “Our plan is in action.”
“Awesome,” Melissa says.
With the day off cancelled, Melissa, Harley, and Dove have plotted their own day-into-night-off party. The earl and countess are on a long tour of the neighboring village of St. Anne’s.
“Whoever thought I’d be glad the duke and duchess live so close,” Jemma says. She uses a pastry bag to pipe designs on the cupcakes’ tops. “They’re, like, the mos
t boring couple ever, but they have a castle in St. Anne’s and notoriously long lunches and dinners, so there’s no way Mum and Dad will interrupt the festivities.”
“Good to know,” Melissa says, admiring Jemma’s work. “Too bad you’re leaving tomorrow—I could use a sous chef in here!”
“Well, these are special cupcakes,” Jemma says.
“Oh, yeah?” Luke says. “Got something in them I should know about?”
“No, loser,” Jemma says. “They’re pairing cakes. It’s a Victorian thing I learned about at school.”
“Um, useful,” Diggs says. “Glad they’re teaching you stuff.”
Jemma rolls her eyes. Melissa nudges her to continue. “See? Here are two cupcakes with a snowflake. And another two with the letter a. And others with hearts or mountains or anything, really.”
Melissa smiles. Dove leans in and smirks, remarking, “All in pairs. I get it.”
Jemma goes on. “You split all the pairs up, okay, on two trays? And then everyone picks one and you see whom you’re matched with.”
“And then what?” Luke asks, suddenly interested.
“And then you … whatever,” Jemma says. “We didn’t get that far.”
“Fine,” Melissa says. “We’ll say that pairs may talk in the bunkroom or excuse themselves to another locale.”
Dove looks at the crumbs already littering the counter. “I’m going to have my work cut out for me.”
Harley ducks in. “Damn it smells good in here.” She reaches for a cupcake but Melissa swats her away. “I’m off to make snowmen—feeling like an ass.”
“Oh, it’s fun,” Melissa says, wishing she could go.
“Maybe,” Harley says. “I’ll be back soon—in time for the party.” She leaves and then comes tromping back. “Oh—and hey, Dove?”
Dove swivels, feeling again light and free from her princess hair, farther from her past, even if the future isn’t as planned out. “Yes?”
“Your phone’s been ringing for like an hour.”
Dove’s face changes and though part of her feels like bolting immediately from the kitchen, and rushing to her phone, she instead remains calm and looks at Melissa, Jemma, Diggs, and Luke. “Excuse me. I have to go check on something.”
The peak least skied is only accessed by one long lift, the gondola. Shaped like a space pod, with yellow bottoms, silver sides, and black windows to dull the bright sunlight, there can be entire ski groups in them or just one or two people, depending on the time of day and the crowds.
Harley lugs a bag of long carrots, pieces of coal that started to blacken her fingers, oversized buttons collected from Matron’s storage closet, and a variety of colored scarves, which Harley figures she can wrap around the snowpeople to make the group of them appear festive. Begrudgingly she leaves behind the beginnings of the cupcake festivities and walks past the Main House, past the ice pond with its hot-chocolate stand, past shops and other chalets, in front of the Mountain Inn, and up the winding path to the gondola loading area.
The fact that I’m in charge of making merry little snowmen is so ironic, Harley thinks, her scowl returning to her mouth. After last night with James, she thought for sure things were settled, but now he’s been noticeably absent—and wouldn’t even return her gaze in the Main House meeting. Screw him, Harley thinks. No guy is worth the torture of feeling like this. She’s about to repeat this phrase in her head when she sees him—James—in his black and orange jacket—dashing from the front of the Mountain Inn, and straight to her. I take that back, Harley thinks. It’s worth feeling like this if the guy then makes up for his lameness by chasing after me.
“Harley! Wait up!” James waves to her but Harley, convinced if she plays it cool, he’ll warm up, keeps walking. He catches up to her, still lagging by a few paces as she gets closer to the gondolas. The lift is running, picking up the few skiers and carrying them high up into the air and to the top of the peak.
“Are you going to talk to me or what?” James puts his hand on her shoulder.
Harley shrugs it off, even though she so wants it to be on her that she’d use Super Glue (which she brought to glue buttons on the scarves) to keep it there. She looks at James, hides her blush by turning around, and hefts the sack of snowman stuff over to the end of the line.
“So this is what you do? You play all cool so that a guy is forced to ask again and again for kindness or an actual conversation?” James shakes his head and pulls his gloves out of his pocket. He remembers losing one of the gloves, at the unnamed bar that night, waking up next to Mesilla, and how nothing happened physically, but how close he felt to her. “Look, Harley.” James’s voice is firm and serious. “We need to talk—”
“I don’t need to …,” Harley says, the flirt rising in her voice just a little. She moves forward in line. It’s funny, she thinks, to be in line without skis. Normally that was just a summer routine. For a great hike you could wait in line in shorts with a picnic, get taken to the top, and walk down. Now she’d have to ride up like this, then either deal with a very long walk back or convince the gondola controller at the top to pause the ride and let her snag a spot on the way down.
James steps in front of her as she tries to board the open gondola. “I need to talk, Harley. Me—the other person who was in your bed last night.”
“This morning, you mean,” she snaps, pushing him aside to get on. With the way their argument can be heard, no one else wants to be near this gondola, so Harley spreads herself out over a couple of the seats, placing the bag of goods on the floor.
“Fine—this morning. You win the time-telling prize. Well done!” James claps, looking at the gorgeous girl before him.
From the operations cabin, a trooper steps out. “Sir, are you on or off?”
James looks at Harley. “Off.”
The lift then starts to move, grazing the snow with the door partway closed. Harley puts her hands to her mouth in megaphone position. “If you want to talk, climb aboard.”
James gives it a two-second thought, figuring he’ll ride up with her, talk, and circle back down, then head right over for the start of the cupcake party. He smiles for a second, picturing everyone eating frosting—the sweetness of it, maybe getting to share a cupcake with a certain person. The gondola is pulling away, up from the ground, so James books it, grabbing hold of the bottom, hoisting himself into the cavity, and slamming the door shut behind him as the whole thing tilts, starting the ascent up the peak.
“So.” Harley looks out at the view behind her. The chalets seem tiny, people like bits of lint, the mountain swelling beneath them as the gondola rises. “It’s a twenty minute ride—so get talking.”
James, still by the door, holds on to one of the handrails and then turns to her. “How long have you known me?”
This is not the question Harley was expecting. In fact, what she’s expecting is to have a face-to-face rehashing of what did—and didn’t—happen last night at Fauxcean, in the bunkroom, outside in the snow. “Define known,” Harley says, using her pageantry voice, skirting the obvious.
“Did you or did you not know about my boarding—and Olympic history—before we met?”
“I don’t see what you’re getting at,” Harley says, feigning disinterest. “Haven’t you been on magazine covers and been the subject of great media interest?”
James crosses the small center of the gondola and sits across from Harley, resting his elbows on his thighs as he looks at her. “Yeah—that’s true. But what I’m asking—and what you seem to be avoiding—is did you know me? Did you know who I am before you got here?”
Fear runs through Harley and she wishes she could just reach the top, make the damn snowmen, and be done with it—and get back in time for a chocolate cupcake. “Why does it matter?”
“Because it does,” James says. “As you probably are aware, the rumor treadmill is at top speed here.”
“Uh huh.” Harley looks at the blue sky, the white slick of snow far below. Soon they’
ll reach the highest point of the ride and then mellow down. Thinking she has only ten minutes left of having to deal with him, she decides to get it all out in the open. “My question for you is, why all these queries now—why not last night, when you were getting into my pants?”
James looks as though he’s been slapped—a combination of blushing and being caught well off guard. “I didn’t … I …”
“Right.” Harley stands up, steadying herself against the gondola’s sway. “You’re choosing to share all your questions now, when you had ample time last night. What happened, Mr. Olympian; did you leave your note cards behind?”
James stands up, too, close to her, close enough that his breath, which smells of the morning’s orange and pineapple juice, hits her. All she wants to do is drop the conversation and kiss him, or have him kiss her—as if this will lock the deal that they are something.
“Last night I was …”
“Dear god, don’t even tell me you’re going to play the old I was drunk card, are you? I expected so much more from you.”
James licks his lips. “Why? You hardly know me—you haven’t read about me, so you say—and I’m a seventeen-year-old single guy at a ski resort. What about that doesn’t signal hookup and hook out to you?”
Harley looks him in the eyes. Then she touches his face, her palm on his cheek. He takes her hand, squeezing it in such a way that makes it difficult for Harley to know if he’s holding her hand or asking her to back off. Then, without warning, the gondola stops.
“What the—”
James looks out the window. “Probably just something caught in the wire—a pause. One time a bird refused to move and they had to shut down for a full three minutes.”
James and Harley take seats on opposite sides of the gondola to help even out the weight, to stop the swaying. Three minutes go by. Then five. Then ten. “You still think it’s a bird?” Harley asks.
“It was just a thought,” James says. He goes to the control speak and presses the red alarm button. After some scratchy noise, a voice comes through. “This is Dean at the base, how can I help?”
Balancing Acts Page 17
