John D. MacDonald
Moonlit Sport
Zissman’s voice on the long-distance wire was deceptively mild. “Yes, Georgie,” he said, “it is warm here, and as a defensive conversational gambit, weather-talk is maybe a little feeble. Instead, we will discuss Christina Wiel, please.”
“Lovely girl. Lovely,” George Barker said.
“Should I be sending you out there all expenses paid to sign up something that rides on a broomstick? May I remind you of the budget? May I remind you that I am growing more anxious every minute to get our skiing epic into production? With Miss Wiel the picture will be what, Georgie?”
“A thrilling yet tender film of the snow-clad mountains, featuring that—”
“Georgie, she will do for skis what you-know-who did for ice skates. Be factual, Georgie.”
George Barker scratched the sole of one stocking-clad foot with the toes of the other. He swallowed hard. “Mr. Zissman, maybe it looks easy when you’re in the palm-tree belt, but this Christina Wiel came over here from Switzerland to compete in the national skiing events as an amateur. She thinks the movies are silly. She thinks everybody that doesn’t spend their time going a hundred and eleven miles an hour down the side of a mountain is silly. She thinks I’m silly.”
Zissman sighed heavily and audibly. “Georgie, that amateur movie we got shows me a new queen of the films. She photographs like a dream a sailor has after maybe twenty days in an open boat. There is nothing outstandingly silly about a thousand a week with options. You disappoint me, Mr. Barker. I am sending out Joey Bellish to help you. And when Joey gets out there to New Hampshire, Georgie, I want him to find you going up and down those mountains at a hundred and eleven miles an hour hand in hand with Imposing Pictures’ new star, Christina Wiel.”
“But I can’t ski!”
“We are paying you four hundred a week and expenses, Georgie. From now on you can ski.”
“Argus Studios has a guy out here trying to sign her. He can ski and he is getting no place — at least, as far as signing her up, Mr. Zissman.”
“You can ski, Georgie,” Mr. Zissman said sadly.
George heard the gentle sound as Mr. Zissman hung up the phone.
George sat on his bed in the warm, paneled room at the Crestrun Inn. Snow was piled on the outside window sill. He glared at the snow and shivered. He was one of those rare creatures, a native Californian. He had teethed on an abalone shell and walked his first steps on the sand within spitting distance of the Pacific. That rain, better known as a heavy dew, should turn into white stuff and coat the landscape seemed a phenomenon both unnatural and fearful. He padded to the window and stared up at the white, sun-glittering slope. Little dots made S curves down the incredible slope, throwing up arcs of powdered white. They converged at the foot of the slope, fastened onto a cable, and went trundling back up again.
“I won’t do it,” he muttered. “Damn if I’ll do it.” Then he gave a defeated sigh as he remembered Mary Alice. She was, he hoped, waiting patiently for his return to California. And she was a project requiring the major portion of that four hundred a week...
The bronzed salesman in the Pro Shop yanked the strap tightly across his instep and said, “Those boots are what I’d call a good fit, Mr. Barker.”
George grunted and managed to lift his foot. “And I can always use them for deep-sea diving.”
“Heh, heh!” the salesman said. “Let me see, now. We’ve fixed you up with everything except goggles and skis. Goggles are necessary. That cold wind makes your eyes water and spoils your vision. You could slam into a boulder that way. Here’s a good tinted number for seven and a half.”
“Unbreakable glass?” George asked in a husky whisper.
“Heh, heh!” said the salesman. “Of course. Now for the skis. Come on over here. Like these? Seven and a half foot, steel-edged. The skis, harnesses with heel springs, and an all-purpose wax kit will come to — let me see — thirty-five eighty. Oh, I did forget the ski poles. Here they are. They have a nylon web and a manganese steel point. Eleven dollars the pair.”
Five minutes later George trudged toward the door. He stopped suddenly and turned back. The ends of the skis brushed a pile of wax kits from the counter. The salesman, wearing a pained smile, picked them up and stacked them again.
“I just wanted to know,” George said. He thumbed the needle point of one ski pole and stared at the glittering steel edges of the skis. “Going down a hill with all this hardware, this sharp stuff. Did anybody ever fall in such a way that the — the point here or — maybe one of these edges... uh—?”
“Why, no! Of course not, Mr. Barker! Once an exceptionally clumsy person managed to... hm-m-m... well, it couldn’t happen to you, of course!”
George turned back toward the door. Behind him he heard the wax kits cascade to the floor.
Thirty minutes, and three hot, buttered rums later, George Barker, in all his finery, stood with the massive boots clamped inexorably onto the skis. The thongs of the poles were looped around his wrists. The tinted goggles cut the sun glare.
The wax, he had found, came in little gismos like shaving sticks. He had selected a number 3X at random. The poles were planted firmly on either side of him. He pushed one foot ahead. The ski glided along nicely. Smiling confidently, he advanced the other foot. As he advanced it, the first ski slid back to its original position. He stopped and studied the problem. He took two more steps and still remained in the same position.
A round little lady with gray hair came bounding out of the inn. She yanked her skis out of the snow, slapped them down, leaped onto them, clicked the harnesses tight, jammed in the poles, and shoved off, turning around to grin in a comradely way at George.
When she had dwindled in the distance George bent his knees, shoved the poles into the snow, and pushed. Five minutes later he was a good hundred feet from the inn. He pried himself to his feet again and looked back at the series of round indentations between the wavering tracks of the skis. The last few indentations were more widely spaced. A chart of progress.
A man with an impassive, mahogany-colored face slid to a stop beside George and looked back over the telltale trail. “You want lessons?” he asked.
“What do you think?”
“I think yes. I am Hans Schtroigen, teaching individual ten dollars an hour, or five dollars hour in class.”
“In my back pocket is my wallet. Take it out and take ten dollars and then teach me how to get over there to the bottom of that thing.” George pointed with his ski pole at the lift house. He wavered dangerously, and got the pole jammed in again just in time.
Schtroigen removed the ten and said, “No. I show you how to get over to the beginners’ slope.”
“Uh, uh. Not there. I gotta go up the big hill.”
“You are not ready.”
“How soon would I be ready?”
Schtroigen shrugged. “You work every day, maybe next year you are ready.”
“Give me back my ten and go away. I’ll crawl over there.”
Schtroigen sighed. “Hokay. Now, putting the right foot along and the left pole, like this. Bringing the left foot and right pole up and pushing with the pole each time.”
By the time George had covered the hundred and fifty yards to the bottom of the tow he could go in a straight line and, by moving the toes of the skis a few inches at a time, he could even alter his direction. He was panting.
Schtroigen said heavily, “Forgiff me. This I do not care to watch any more. Good-by.”
George stood with assumed nonchalance and watched the people glide up to the moving cable, transfer ski poles to the left hand, grasp the cable with the right, and move steadily up the slope. He waited until traffic was light and edged cautiously over to the cable. He grasped it. It was like standing next to a moving merry-go-round and grabbing a horse. It yanked him into the air convulsively and projected him, head down, into the snow.