A Little Learning

by Margot Early

  As they went on their way, Lauren asked, “Is your grandfather alive, too?”

  “No. He died before I was born. She’s been widowed thirty-five years, and as long as I can remember, she’s always said that she’ll never marry again.”

  “Like my dad.”

  Rory glanced over in interest.

  Lauren said, “He has girlfriends, of course. In fact, don’t be surprised if he tries to make you the next one. But he never marries them.”

  Rory couldn’t read the teenager’s tone—not with accuracy. “Do you wish he would?”

  “I don’t really care,” Lauren said. “It’s not like he has that much to do with us, anyhow.”

  The reply shocked Rory, and bothered her. She knew what it was to have a father who didn’t “have that much to do” with her. She’d never held it against her father, believing he was devastated by her mother’s death—and by her betrayal. But in Seamus Lee, who had four children, one of them just four years old, noninvolvement seemed criminal.

  “I thought he had the kind of job…” Rory stopped abruptly.

  “Oh, he could spend time with us. And he used to, before my mom died. But not anymore.”

  “How did your mother die?” Reflecting that she and the Lee children shared motherless status, Rory pulled up outside the Lees’ temporary home. Lights were on inside, illuminating the Greek Revival house against the gray afternoon, making it warm and welcoming.

  “A handgun accident. The forensic people figured she was loading it and didn’t know it was already loaded or something like that. I don’t really know how handguns work.”

  Neither did Rory. She wondered why Seamus Lee’s wife had been loading a handgun in the first place.

  “She didn’t put up with anything from anyone,” Lauren said.

  Assertiveness through firearms? thought Rory. No fear, handguns… There was something amiss with this family, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  And it’s none of your business, anyhow.

  Rory longed to ask why—about the handgun—but it seemed a delicate question to put to this girl. Instead, she said, “I want to get you into an avalanche class as soon as possible. But, in the meantime, how would you feel about teaching snowboarding to kids at the ski area?”

  “To little kids?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right.” Lauren seemed to be thinking it over. “I could do that.”

  “I think you could, too,” Rory agreed.

  “What about fire-dancing?” she asked Rory. “Can you teach me?”

  “Without fire. Possibly so. Let me look into it.”

  Leaving Lauren at the house, Rory drove out to San Juan Ski and Snowboard to check on Beau and see how he was getting along in his new part-time job. She found him happily learning to use a jigsaw and not at all keen to return to Empire Street. Nonetheless, he was in an afternoon telemark class.

  Telemark, an old form of free-heel skiing, allowed the skier freedom from the necessity of chairlifts and greater access to the backcountry. The style of skiing emphasized controlled turns, the proper execution of which was an art form.

  Gigi Parks, the ski designer, pulled a pair of telemark skis off the wall and pushed them in Beau’s direction. “Give these a try and tell me what you think.”

  Her assistant, Rory’s friend Woody, called goodbye to Beau as he and Rory left.

  Rory was still preoccupied by the fact that the children’s mother had died in a handgun accident. She wanted to know the facts, and there was only one family member she could ask. The two of them had time booked for an hour of telemarking that afternoon, after he finished avalanche school.

  Beau broke into her thoughts. “I like that place. I feel like I’m learning to do something useful.”

  Rory considered this remark. “I’m glad you like it. I thought that might be a good fit for you.”

  “Is it a group telemark class?”

  “I think there are two other students.” She braked at a stop sign, then glanced over at him. “Is that okay?”

  “I hate group lessons.”

  Rory didn’t ask why. When people said that, there was usually one reason: fear of ridicule.

  “Try it today,” she said, “and I’ll check with you tonight and see how it went. If it’s no good for you, we might be able to manage a solo lesson or two.”

  The look he shot her was one of naked gratitude.

  What a group these children were.

  On Empire Street, Rory found Caleb outside on a snowskate. The seven-year-old was clearly a skateboarder. The snowskate consisted of a skateboard deck balanced on a short, wide ski, creating something that was a cross between snowboard and skateboard and perfect for transportation on Sultan’s icy streets.

  However, Caleb was not wearing a helmet, and this wouldn’t fly with her. “Where’s your dad?” she asked as she got out of the car.

  “He’s not back from avalanche school yet. Lauren’s watching us.”

  “Well, you need to have a helmet on, Caleb.”

  He made a face that promised lack of cooperation. “I don’t have to,” he said. “I don’t fall.”

  “Congratulations on not falling, but while you’re here in Sultan, you’re learning safety from the Sultan Mountain School. That means wearing a helmet.”

  “It’s my snowskate.”

  “And no one makes you wear a helmet at home?”

  He’d clearly been caught out. He glared at Rory and stalked inside. Caleb might turn out to be the rebel of this lot, she thought. He wore his hair below his shoulders, and even at seven he had the confidence of someone who knew himself to be a capable athlete.

  Rory followed Beau inside the house and found Lauren rubbing the German shepherd puppy’s nose in a puddle on the floor. Lauren started to drag the dog back to his crate, and Rory said, “Actually, what you want to do now is take him outside to wherever you want him to pee. Then, you’ve got to clean up with carpet stuff that will neutralize the pheromones. There’s some in the cupboard beside the sink.”

  Lauren cast her a look that seemed to weigh all these instructions. She said, “Beau, take Seuss outside. You have your boots on already.”

  Beau grabbed the leash and said, “What am I supposed to do?”

  Teaching children how to train their puppy was beyond the call of duty, and Rory had hoped to grab a snack before telemarking with Seamus Lee. Instead, she gave the two siblings better ideas for corrections than “rub his nose in it,” made sure Caleb was wearing his snowboarding helmet and instructed Lauren and Beau that this was strict school policy.

  *

  THIS TIME, THEY took his car and drove to the head of a trail and out onto a long, gentle slope where they could practice turns.

  Rory remembered how determined she was to know more about the handgun, but there were too many other things to attend to in the meantime. First—Caleb and the helmet.

  “He knows he’s to wear a helmet,” Seamus said. “The woman who works for me always makes him wear one. She’s an older lady who, well, runs my household, if you will. She’s something of a renaissance woman. If my kids have any good values, it’s because of her.”

  “Good values, such as…?”

  “Well, she has many interests. She loves ballet and poetry. She gets them reading classics and has actually gotten them listening to opera, at times. And, of course, she encourages them to spend time outdoors. Climbing trees, skiing. Enjoying nature. And she’s gotten Beau to do some writing. She’s kayaking in Baja right now.”

  “It sounds as though you’re fortunate to have her working for you,” Rory said carefully.

  “Yes.” Seamus fell silent, frowning as he considered the road ahead.

  Lauren tells me your wife died in an accident with a handgun. As Rory played this over in her mind, she knew she could not put it to him that way. Feigning ignorance? Yes, that was best. “Are you divorced?”

  “No, my wife passed away when Belle was one.”

 
; “I’m sorry. How did she die?” Rory hated the fact that her need to know the why of the handgun was stronger than any wish to save this man the pain of discussing his wife’s death.

  “She was checking her handgun and it fired, and she was hit by a ricocheting bullet. At least, that’s what the forensic experts thought.”

  “Was this in Telluride?”

  “Yes, believe it or not. Janine represented battered women, and she’d been threatened by some of her clients’ spouses. So, she took to carrying a gun. It wasn’t…” He stopped.

  Rory glanced at him, her eyes lingering on his cleft chin. He was a mystery, and she felt her interest piqued by what she could not reach within him.

  He didn’t continue, so she finished the thought for him. “It wasn’t what you would have done?”

  “No. It wasn’t.”

  Rory didn’t know how to convey what she needed to get across. Maybe you don’t need to say it, Rory. Saying too much is what gets you in trouble. But there was nothing bad about what she wanted to say. “Lauren seems utterly fearless.”

  “Nobody’s utterly fearless.”

  The man was remote, Rory decided. Why? Possibly, Seamus Lee was simply unfriendly and uninterested in his children. But hadn’t Lauren said that he used to be different before his wife had died?

  “I apologize for bringing up a painful subject,” she said at last.

  “It’s better you know,” he replied shortly. “You’re spending time with my kids, after all.”

  They spoke little after that. Rory directed him to a turnout near the trailhead, and they climbed out of his SUV and snugged up their boots and put on their skis. “You’ve telemarked before,” Rory clarified.

  “Not as much as I’d like. My work is time-consuming.”

  “Can you make a tele turn?” she asked.

  “Barely.”

  She grinned. “Just so we know where we’re starting.” It occurred to her that rather than putting Beau in a group telemark class, she could teach him and his father together. That would let Beau spend some time with his dad—and probably relax many of his fears about group classes.

  They put skins on their skis—adhesive cloth trimmed to the dimensions of each ski. Skins allowed the skis to glide forward but kept them from sliding backward, making it possible for the skier to climb slopes.

  Seamus followed Rory as she started up the route she’d chosen, onto a steeply climbing trail. She moved confidently, as he painfully remembered skiing with Janine. As soon as the memory surfaced, the anger came, too. He saw in his mind her pugnacious jaw, heard her voice and her conversation, scattered with surfing and snowboarding slang. Her tough act. He’d been attracted to her in part because of the vulnerability he’d been certain lay beneath that tough exterior. He’d seen a wounded woman with a wounded child trapped inside, and he’d never stopped wanting to reach the vulnerable person beneath.

  And he had reached her. But seldom. And by then, too, he’d known better than to let her know what he’d seen.

  Lauren seems fearless.

  He’d known that what Rory had said was not what she believed. Rory had seen Lauren repeating her mother’s tough act. And she’d seen something amiss, as he did. Did Rory have any idea what to do with a teenager who had chosen self-destructive toughness as her guide in life?

  Because the real Lauren was not that tough. She was the loving older sister who gave up her own room to make sure Belle felt safe at night. After he’d said good night to Lauren and Belle the night before, when he was lying alone in the double bed in the master suite, he’d realized he should have praised Lauren for her kindness to Belle.

  They climbed the trail for a mile, and Seamus began to wonder when Rory would stop and if he’d have to ask her to take a break. But suddenly she slowed, turned her skis slightly and looked at him. “Still breathing?” she asked with a grin.

  It was not Janine’s type of challenging grin, the kind of grin that noted her own athletic superiority. Rory’s grin seemed more like an invitation to have fun; a way of saying, It’s downhill all the way now and you’re going to love it, and so will I.

  “Breathing hard,” he admitted.

  “Let’s put our skins away and have some water,” Rory suggested. “Then, we can make some turns.”

  Seamus studied the slope she’d chosen, leading off the trail and ending in a gentle bowl.

  “Are we agreed,” Rory said, “that it’s better to be safe than speedy?”

  “We’re agreed.”

  “Are you comfortable with this slope?”

  “It looks perfect for my level.”

  She nodded with satisfaction. The sun had come out and they peeled the skins off their skis, stowed them and stood in the afternoon sun, drinking water. Then, Rory suggested, “I’d like you to go first, if you’re comfortable with that.”

  She gave him a few pointers, advising him to let his skis choose the most natural course and to slow himself before he found that he was going too fast.

  Impressed with her guidance, Seamus pushed off, following the instructions, letting his skis pick the fall line and remembering advice he’d received in previous telemark classes. He made two not-very-pretty turns and pulled up on the edge of the slope in the shade of the trees to watch Rory descend.

  She skied gracefully, seeming part of the snow, one with her skis, her motion fitted exactly to the terrain.

  When she stopped, he said, “You’re good. Did your dad teach you?”

  She wore sunglasses, but he felt the intensity of the gaze behind them as she looked at him. “No,” she replied. For a moment, he thought she was going to add something, but instead she spoke to him about keeping his weight forward and also about letting the distribution of weight on his skis make each turn for him.

  They skied together, and there was an immense and peaceful quiet in the snow and trees, with the mountains above them. Though he was more tired physically than he could remember being for months, Seamus also felt rested. What was more, he was looking forward to returning to the Empire Street house and seeing his children.

  At the bottom of one run, Rory realized he was gazing at her intently. “What?”

  “I want to put you into Ki-Rin’s world,” he said.

  Rory blinked, remembering his vocation.

  “Each of my children has a character,” he said. “In Ki-Rin’s world.”

  “That’s beautiful,” she exclaimed, trying to downplay the implications of his making a character for her. The thought made her feel warm, set her off-balance. This can’t happen, she thought. The job, Rory. Keep your job.

  *

  WHEN THEY RETURNED to the car, Seamus put their skis on the overhead rack. Rory, he noticed, didn’t object to the courtesy. He turned to find her watching him and she immediately blushed and turned away.

  Seamus felt a small smile forming on his lips. “We’re making pizza tonight. Would you like to join us? If you’ve had enough of the Lee family, I understand, but it would be great to have you.”

  Rory checked her watch without glancing at him again. “I teach a class at six. Belly dance and fire dance. By the way, your daughter has asked to learn fire dance, and I could teach her to spin poi and twirl staffs without anything on fire. You’d have to come with her to the Sultan Recreation Center and sign a release.”

  Seamus pondered Lauren’s sometimes tough act, which reminded him of Janine at her worst. Would the activities Rory was referring to increase his daughter’s need to prove that she was fearless? “Without fire,” he repeated.

  “Yes. I never teach with fire this time of year, anyhow. We don’t have a facility in town that is insured for it. But, in any case, Lauren would need lots of practice before that stage.”

  “She’s not reckless,” he admitted, almost as though arguing a point—though with whom he couldn’t have said. “Sure. I’ll come and sign the waiver, and you can bring her back afterward and join us for pizza. How long does the class last?”

  “Til
l seven-thirty. Half of it is belly dance. The other half is poi spinning and staff twirling.”

  *

  INCLUDING LAUREN, RORY had four students. It seemed a small class, but Sultan was a small, remote town. Though tourism was reviving the local economy, Seamus could tell from its sleepy winter streets that Sultan still struggled. He signed Lauren’s waiver and then headed back home, where Beau was watching Caleb and Belle during his brief absence.

  The Sultan Mountain School provided day care for Belle when Seamus couldn’t be with her and when she wasn’t in ski school. At four years of age, she couldn’t be expected to be outside or in classes all day. Tomorrow, he knew, Rory would supervise Lauren teaching his youngest daughter’s ski class. He saw the pitfalls of this already. Belle would cling to Lauren and make it impossible for her to work with the other children in the class.

  Not my problem. He felt guilty for the thought. If his children caused trouble, it was his problem.

  When he got home, he checked the pizza dough, which Beau had kneaded in his absence. Half an hour before Rory and Lauren were due back, he and Beau put the dough onto two pizza pans and began assembling toppings. Belle was playing on the floor in the other room with Caleb and the puppy.

  From the kitchen, Seamus heard her shriek and then howl.

  He hurried to the living room, Beau right behind him, and found Belle hugging herself and sobbing, “He bit me!” Seuss was cowering under the dining table.

  Seamus saw, with something like horror, that indeed there was a small puncture mark on his daughter’s arm.

  “You were bugging him!” Caleb said.

  Seamus didn’t know what to do about a puppy bite. What if this meant he had a vicious dog on his hands?

  He said, “Let’s put Seuss in his crate.” He walked to the dining room table and scooped the puppy from beneath it.

  Seuss looked as if he didn’t understand at all what it was that he’d done.

  Seamus reached for Belle and picked her up. I’ve hardly held this child, he thought, as he had so many times in the past forty-eight hours, since Fiona had left for Baja. “Now, calm down and tell me what happened. Then, we’ll wash off your arm.”

  Belle’s sobs became hiccups and finally stopped. Seamus examined the bite again. Just one tiny puncture wound. Did he need to take her to the clinic? It was an animal bite, after all. Seuss had received all his shots, but still…