Bridge To Happiness

by Jill Barnett

  And those times when they were having fun—so often now—he would think, why screw it up? Other times, in his head, he couldn’t find the exact right words he could say aloud. Funny that he could find the words for justification; he could find the words for his excuses.

  To hide one passion while another consumed him was not an easy existence, like straddling life between two worlds. His life was great with her in it. So great he wanted to stand on a mountain and shout. Amazing! Righteous!

  But the truth was that March was fast becoming the best part of him. Yet she didn’t know one of the biggest parts of who he was; she didn’t know his dream. Some wounds just ran deeper than love and trust, and got all mixed up in his head when he tried to believe in all of it at once. What he did believe was families could so simply and unknowingly cut the deepest wounds on one another.

  Don Cantrell, his father, was an executive with Spreckles, the sugar company, a success, a man of few words and many expectations. Mike and his older brother Brad had grown up at a dinner table with only their mother on most nights. Except Sundays. The one night when his dad would sit at the head of the table set with fine china and dominated by a standing rib roast, smoked ham or leg of lamb, knife in hand as he tried and failed to carve some kind of relationship with his sons during an awkward, too-formal meal, being a father was the single thing at which Don Cantrell failed.

  His father’s success was a matter of pride, driven by some hungry, innate gene that battled with the few cells his dad inherited that were gentle and understanding. He was self-made, the son of a farmer, grandson of a Swiss immigrant who relocated to America near the turn of the century to save his sons from being conscripted.

  Last year Brad had torn up his draft card, stuck the pieces to the refrigerator along with his draft notice, and was now somewhere in Canada, a subject handled in whispers by the family and friends and anyone who knew the truth about his older brother. That their ancestors had come here to escape the draft was almost as ironic to Mike as the idea that his father worked for a company that produced sugar.

  Since the day Brad left, everything Don Cantrell had expected from both of his sons fell on Mike’s shoulders. In a moment of foolish idealism, Mike had made the mistake of telling his dad about his grand idea, and what he wanted to do with it and his future.

  His father laughed, until he realized Mike was perfectly serious. Don told him he was a fool who needed to grow up and stop thinking life was only about fun and games and things that weren’t important. What Mike needed was to think straight and find something he could do to make an honest living for himself or for a family, if he ever chose to become responsible enough to think of someone other than himself.

  Because the most important man in Mike’s life called him a failure, Mike thought everyone else might believe that, too. He went to college since that was what the world expected, and he didn’t want to find his ass in Dah Nang anymore than the next guy.

  But one of his buddies once joked if there had been six feet of snow in the jungle, Mike would have signed the enlistment papers and taken the oath. The joke was too close to the truth. Mike would crawl through jungle, though desert, to get to the perfect hill, to find the perfect conditions, to experience perfect packed snow.

  For almost a week straight it had been snowing in the Sierras, a sign it was time to test March, or himself, or what they were together, so with some measure of hope and false courage he walked into her place at five thirty on a Saturday morning, fell on her bed, swatted her on the nicest ass he’d ever seen and said, “Pack some warm clothes. I’m taking you to the mountains.”

  They had to chain up on Interstate 80, but came into the Tahoe Basin as the snow stopped and patches of blue grew into a huge bowl of a Sierra sky, the lake shimmering as silver as the ore mined by all those barons from the last century. Mike left the main road circling the lake and soon pulled his old car into the parking lot at a small North Shore ski area.

  March turned in the seat. “What’s this? You told me not to bring my skis. Ugh. I hate to rent.”

  “We’re not going skiing.”

  “I hate surprises more than renting equipment.”

  “No, you don’t. What you hate is not knowing the surprise.”

  “I must be doing something wrong in this relationship because you understand me. I’m supposed to be the mystery woman, capable of shocking. To be an enigma. To keep you constantly on your toes. A true paradox. I want you to look at me and see fine wine, hundred year old scotch. Smooth and unexpected. “She frowned at him. “Instead I’ve become boring. Like milk.”

  “I like milk, and you‘ll never be boring. Let’s go.”

  He pulled gear from the back of the wagon, slung the large bag over his shoulder and carried the rest. She took one canvas duffel bag from him, then locked her cold fingers through his and trudged along side.

  In the complete silence of freshly fallen snow, the slick fabric of their winter wear rubbed together and made a scratching sound. The air was cold and tasted pure. Mike was quiet, a million things running through his head and all of them centered on the fact that now it was too late to go back.

  After a few minutes she said, “This better be good.”

  “Are you warm enough?”

  “Depends on what for. I won’t know until I see where you’re taking me.”

  “It’s a surprise,” was all her single-minded questioning would get out of him. He took her to the maintenance building—a trio of oversized metal garages where the snow had already been packed down. From behind came the sound of a snow plow engine and a big yellow Cat chugged and coughed around the corner, stopping in front of them.

  The engine died and Rob Cantrell jumped down into the soft powder. He pulled off his ice-crusted ski mask, sending his black frizzy hair in every direction, and walked toward them, ski vest open over a flannel shirt, a leather bota bag with a red plastic cap hanging from his waist. “Mike! Hey, cousin. You made it. Great.”

  “Rob. This is March.”

  Rob stared at March for longer than a couple of deep breaths and said, “I think I’m in love.”

  She laughed and Mike punched him in the arm. “Back off. I saw her first.”

  “You always were a lucky stiff. Although I’ll tell you something, March. He’s the blackest sheep in the family.”

  “Really?” March threaded her arm through his in a way that said everything Mike didn’t have to. “The family’s black sheep? I’m glad to hear it. I would hate to think I ruined one of the good ones.”

  One thing about March, she wasn’t easy to fluster. She seldom lost a word battle, seldom missed a beat.

  “I like her,” Rob said, recovering well for a first meeting with March Randolph. “And, I guess I was wrong. Your brother Big Brad earned the blackest sheep distinction. Any word from the family draft dodger?”

  “Last I heard he was hitchhiking through British Columbia. But that was a few months back.”

  “And Uncle Don?”

  “Still an asshole.”

  “That’s my father’s brother,” Rob said. “Same gene pool. Same personality pool. The war hero in my dad still can’t forgive me for being 4-F. Look. Put your gear in the cab and climb on board. I’ll help March up.”

  “Just keep your hands where I can see them,” Mike said.

  Minutes passed as they rode the Cat around the base of the mountain, and Rob told March every stupid when-Mike-and-I-were-kids story he could muster up: the time they stole penny candy from the neighborhood market and were picked up by a squad car and brought home with sirens blaring; a Sunday when they put Milk of Magnesia in their grandmother’s famous butter cake; how loud Mike had screamed the day their grandfather chopped the head off a chicken and the headless bird came right at him; and the day they were fishing for snapping turtles and were cornered by their grandfather’s prized bull, an animal Rob swore was the size of Godzilla.

  Mike tossed out some terrible Rob-tormenting-his-younger-sister stor
ies until, shaking her head, March said, “You both have no idea how glad I am I never had any brothers.”

  The Cat took a sharp turn and easily rumbled down through the trees and into a clearing where there was a short steep run with a rope tow, chained off with a “Closed” sign. His cousin killed the engine and hopped down. “Here, pretty baby. Jump into my arms and run off with me. Leave this weird geek. I swear I’ll be sweet to you.”

  “Sweet like you were, when you locked your poor sister in that trunk.” March jumped down on her own and gave Rob a quick pat on the shoulder. “Thanks, but I don’t think so.”

  “Don’t think I’m terrible. She only cried for an hour. Hell, I couldn’t sit down for days.” He raised his hand to Mike. “Give me a minute. I’ll unlock that chain and start the rope tow. Then the run’s all yours.”

  Mike dropped the bags. “I brought three boards. You staying?”

  Rob turned around, walking backwards and grinning. “Absolutely.”

  “What boards?” March looked over his shoulder as Mike dug through the gear, grabbed his goggles, and pulled on his ski gloves. She leaned closer. “Are you going to tell me what we’re doing now?”

  “No.” He unzipped a long ski bag and pulled out three of the latest and best skiboards he’d made in his garage during the summer. The skiboards were wide and formed like a skateboard without the skates. They had foot plates and buckled straps to hold regular leather snow boots, and he’d crafted the edges of each board as close as he could to the metal edges on his Rossignol skis.

  “Mike?” March asked, frowning. “What are you doing?”

  He slung a board over his shoulder. “We’ll show you. Watch us.” When she started to argue he added, “Stay here, woman, and watch.”

  She saluted him irreverently, then gave him the finger.

  The rope tow was glacier-slow and seemed to take forever to get to the top of the run. But once there and poised at its crest, a wide chute of white before him, the air like fresh laundry, the sun gleaming almost too white on the powder below, Mike adjusted his goggles and looked over at Rob. “Ten bucks says it takes us twenty passes to the bottom, and you fall first.”

  “You’re on.” Rob pulled down his own goggles and they took off a heartbeat apart.

  The snow was perfect, the new board design much improved, and better than his skis in deep powder, which showered up and over them. It was something to be on the mountain again. He shouted out, unable to keep his excitement inside, and shook his fists, crossing Rob twice and edging ahead down the run.

  The new board turned more easily, cut well, and gave him more control than on these same slopes last spring, when he’d ridden so often his old board felt like he was skiing on a cloud, a natural extension, floating on the snow, almost like flying.

  Years ago, for only a short time there had been a ride at Disneyland called the Flying Saucers. Inside a huge, circular pit in Tomorrowland, the saucers were big, flat, round and rubber. They hovered off the ground just a few inches and could race across the pit when you leaned into the direction you wanted to fly. That is, if you had a clear path. Without one, you bounced off the other saucers like buoyant bumper cars.

  That one summer trip, he and Brad had spent half the day and into the night chasing each other around the pit and crashing into each other and the walls, bouncing away, and really flying. It had been the best ride at Disneyland. A true E-ticket, though the park hadn’t been using old fashioned ticket books much anymore. When the amusement park first opened, they sold ticket booklets for their rides and each ticket class was A, B, C, D ,E, E being the best rides in the park and the fewest tickets in the booklet. That was how he felt on this hill, at that moment, on that board. All he had to do was lean into the direction he wanted to fly. His newest skiboard was an E-ticket.

  He cut across the hill and flip-turned, then flew past his cousin. Rob tried the same maneuver and went down. “Ten bucks!” Mike hollered as he passed him, whipped down to the bottom and skidded to a stop right in front of March. Snow coated his lenses and he could only see part of her smile, so he raised his goggles and kissed her before she could speak, then lifted her off the ground, spinning around. “God . . . It doesn’t get any better than this.”

  “Yes, it does. I need to be on that hill with you. Let’s go.” She picked up the other board and ran toward the tow ahead of him.

  “March, wait!”

  But all too fast she was on the board, hanging onto the rope and heading up the hill. About twenty feet up, he said, “Get off now and we’ll take a short test run first.”

  “No guts, no glory!”

  “Come on. Get off.”

  She looked back at him, probably planning to flip him off again, but she lost her balance and slipped off the rope, swearing. So he stepped off and helped her up. “Let me tell you what to do.”

  “There’s a man for you,” she said. “Always wanting to tell women what to do.” For just a moment she looked irritated.

  “I don’t want to bring you home with a broken leg, Sunshine.”

  “I’ve been skiing since I was three.”

  “This is different than skiing. More like a skateboard. Have you ever ridden one?”

  “Yes.” But the way she said it told him March and a skateboard weren’t close friends. Her stance was unyielding. “So come on, big man. Tell me what to do. Time’s a-wasting.”

  “I’m waiting for you to tell me what happened on the skateboard.”

  “This snow is a lot softer than concrete.”

  “Break anything?”

  “Nothing important.” She turned away and looked up the hill.

  “I have all day.”

  “Okay, okay. I only wore a cast on my wrist for six weeks. I can do this. Really. I can.” Then she relaxed long enough for him to tell her how to turn and most important: to dig in her heels to stop.

  “You should be good at that,” he said.

  “Funny man.” She patted him on the cheek.

  “I’ll go first. You can follow, but not until after I stop at the bottom. Agreed?”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes . . . come on.”

  “Watch me and don’t go until I tell you. Got it?”

  “Yes, master.”

  Laughing, he took off down the short, flatter section of the run, stopped and turned back toward her.

  “Can I go now, master? Please? Please?”

  “Someday your mouth is going to get you in deep trouble.”

  “It already has,” she called down to him. “Just ask my father. Although he’s not talking to me this week.” She took off.

  To his complete amazement she made three perfect turns—not even a wobble—stopped a few feet from him grinning and cocky. Rob was at the top of the run, whistling loudly. Typically March, she made an exaggerated bow, her hand gesturing from her forehead like a Swami. But she bent too far, lost her balance and fell on her face in the powder.

  It took a minute for her to look up at him, snow hiding her expression, her voice a little muffled, “Now will you let me go all the way to the top?”

  The first thing out of Rob’s mouth when they came off the rope tow to the top of the run was, “Wow. She’s a natural.”

  “Why do you men always talk about us as if we’re not here?”

  “Sorry,” Rob said. “But hell, I skidded down the hill on my face the first time I tried this. Tell her, Mike. My nose was bleeding everywhere. Look. No blood. She went down that hill like she’d been doing this for years.”

  Mike expected a smart comeback, but March wasn’t paying attention. She stood right at the edge of the run looking down. “You know if I had poles,” she said thoughtfully, “I could really shove off. Maybe get a little air.”

  “You can get air. Just jump,” Rob said. “Like this.” He pulled his knees up and was off.

  “No!” Mike reached for her. “Don’t.”

  But it was too late. She was already in the air, board pulled up to her chest so tightly she looked l
ike a big, dark human fist, sailing through the air, the fur-trimmed hood on her parka hanging behind her.

  He stopped breathing until she landed on the steepest part of the hill. The board flew out from under her and she tumbled head over heels for a good ten feet. When he reached her, she was already sitting up, hands resting on her knees. All she said to him after she spit the snow from her mouth was, “I need poles.”

  “No you don’t. It’s called balance,” he said and took off.

  She cupped her hands and called out. “It’s called unfair advantage. Cheater!” She stepped back into the board and came after him full speed, yelling at him. He stopped at the bottom of the run, turned just as she sat down low on the board and came right at him.

  She took him out, both of them tumbling together in the snow, her laughter muffled until they lay still, dusted in powder. She raised her head and said, “Gotcha. Master.”

  “I hate surprises,” he spit snow.

  “No, you don’t. What you hate is not knowing the surprise.”

  “Funny.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “I don’t get it. Have you ever surfed?”

  “No.”

  “Slalom waterskied?”

  “A few times. I wasn’t very good. Why?”

  “How the hell did you come down that mountain so fast without falling?”

  “Talent, my dear. My innate skill. The ability to learn on my feet. With my feet. Ha!” She picked up the board. “Besides, I’m a woman.” Then she began to sing a Maria Muldaur hit about all the things a woman could do.

  She stood above him, dancing, singing, and grinning as if the world were hers. He rested his arms on his knees. “What does being a woman have to do with it?”

  “Old Russian proverb. Women can do everything; men can do the rest.” She held out her hand. “Get up, pokey. Let’s do it again.”