“Ah, you don’t have to see that one.”
“What?” I said, tugging at his sleeve.
“Nothing,” he said, pulling back more pages. I tugged again.
“Come on.”
He stopped, took a breath.
“Okay, but just … yeah, whatever.” I saw little splotches of color in his cheeks, right next to his ears. Why was he blushing?
He opened the pad again. The page was full of all different shades of light and dark. It was hard to adjust my eyes at first, but then I saw the lines come together, the faces find their space, the shadows take shape, inhabiting the page. And when I did, I saw …
“That’s … that’s …” He had drawn all of us singing that night at karaoke. When he was sitting in the back, watching. There was Liz in the front, Heidi and Dina behind her, and me in the back. It was so detailed, so intricate. The light was exactly like it had felt up there in front of the microphone. I could see Liz’s hips swaying, her blond locks shaking, her cheeks full and bright. There was the fire blazing and the two lamps and the moose head over the mantel. Heidi and Dina had their mouths open and their hands on their hips. He had even drawn the windows to the left, and the dark of the night beyond. Everything was there. I felt like I could hear the music thumping, feel the beat pulsing, touch the energy of the room. He had completely captured the moment.
And there was me — my face tipped up to the ceiling, my eyes closed, my lips in a circle as if I was singing “ooooh.” I stared at the picture.
“The perspective’s a little off,” he said quietly. “It was dark.”
And now I felt myself flushing, too. “Did I really look like that?” I whispered. It looked like there was light bouncing off my skin. My hair shimmered down my shoulders and through the cracks of my eyes there was the faintest glimmer. I looked … beautiful.
“Yeah,” he said. “You did to me.”
“Wow,” I said. “I mean, thanks.” And then we sat there, looking at that night. It was only a few days ago, but things were so different now. I had thought he was such a weirdo and a creep sitting back there with the flickering candle in the dark. And he must’ve thought — Wow. What had he thought? I wanted to ask him. Actually, I wanted to ask him what he was thinking right now, too.
“Sam?” he whispered.
“Yeah?” I croaked.
“I just wondered if you still thought I was kind of a nosy jerk,” he said, facing the fire.
I almost laughed. It was so much the opposite of what I was thinking. But I didn’t want him to think that I was laughing at him.
“Not at all,” I said. “And do you still think I’m a rude girl who doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut?”
I stayed looking at the fire too, but I could see Eric smile out of the corner of my eye.
“I never did,” he said.
A blast of cold air came through the front door.
“Whew! What a day!”
“Oh, there’s still a fire, good!”
“Please, someone give me something — anything — to eat besides a French fry!”
The guests started spilling into the lobby, shedding their coats and standing in front of the fire. They seemed to be totally oblivious to the fact that we were sitting there. I saw Fozzie look up wearily and then trot off to find some other, more secluded spot for sleeping.
“Hey, kiddo! Thought we’d never see you again. How’s my girl?” Dad pulled me up and took my face in his hands.
“Good. Great.”
“You feeling better?” asked Kathy.
“Yeah, much.” This time, I really didn’t mean to be rude, but I wanted to see if Eric was still in the chair next to me, getting gobbled up by everybody crowding in and talking about the storm. He must’ve gone into the kitchen to help Martha and Luis with dinner, though.
“Soup’s on!” I heard Martha holler, and everyone started shuffling toward the dining room.
I didn’t see Eric again for the rest of the night. Well okay, except for when I lay in bed later and closed my eyes. I saw those long, stained fingers and that crooked nose and him saying softly, “I never did.”
And then I giggled a little as I whispered out into the night, “What did that mean?”
“What do you say, kid? Last day to hit the slopes. You coming?” asked Dad, putting down his coffee cup.
Our last day! I couldn’t believe it. Dad looked at me expectantly. What I really felt like doing was hanging out here with Eric and Fozzie. But I couldn’t say that. And where was Eric, anyway? My window looked out on the back and I had happened to see him early that morning taking off in his truck. He still hadn’t come back, as far as I knew. It’s not like we had planned to see each other today, anyway. But I felt excited and nervous, but mostly excited to see him again. Okay, and nervous. And confused.
“What do you think? Should we try Seneca Mountain today?”
“I’m in!” said Jeremy. I think he was really sore from his snowboarding expedition, but I knew he would never admit it.
“Me too!” said Kathy.
Dad turned to me. What could I say? That I might sorta maybe run into a guy that I had thought was the biggest jerk on earth and now I was too scared to even say his name?
“Yeah, okay.”
Seneca Mountain was actually a series of slopes, folding on top of one another, each peak reaching higher into the sky. We decided we would all try cross-country for the morning. Dad said it would be easy for me and Jeremy to learn, which was fine with me. Just looking at the downhill trails made me a little uneasy, and I noticed Jeremy was walking kind of funny, like there were balloons stuck between his legs or something, but I resisted the urge to make fun of him.
We got our skis and then made our way out to the bottom of the main slope to wait for the chairlift. This place was definitely off the beaten track — it wasn’t nearly as crowded as Sugar Peak. Just open sky and mountains cascading down on every side. It was glorious. I really wanted to be sharing it with Dad, but somehow he wound up talking to Jeremy in the back of the line and before I knew it, Kathy and I were sliding into a chair and being whisked up and away.
“Ah. Sure is magnificent up here,” she said, shielding her eyes with her gloved hand.
“Yeah,” I said. I wasn’t sure how long the lift was, but I wondered if we could talk about the scenery the whole time. It hit me then that the two of us had barely spoken the whole week.
She was tapping her fingers quickly on her legs. I guess we were both at a loss for words. “Have you had fun up here?” she asked finally.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I am just so impressed with how fast you and Jeremy picked this stuff up. I mean, I’m still terrified of downhill.”
“Oh, you know.” I honestly didn’t mean to be incommunicative. I was just thinking about a million other things right then.
“Did you used to —” Kathy began. And then, halfway through her sentence, the car lurched forward and stopped.
“What was that?” I gasped.
“I’m not sure,” she said. She put a smile on her face but I could see there was panic in her eyes. We were somewhere past the tops of the trees, dangling about a gazillion feet over the ground. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but we were a long way up.
“Attention skiers! Attention skiers!” There was someone on a megaphone at the bottom of the slope. “We are experiencing some difficulty with the chairlift. Please remain in your seats with your hands on the bar and we will fix this as soon as possible!”
“What does that mean? Difficulty?” I stammered.
“I’m not quite sure,” said Kathy slowly.