Judith agreed. Unlike the rest of the lodge, the room was
paneled in knotty pine. Tall, open bookcases reached almost
to the ceiling. With her librarian’s eye, Judith took in the
collection, from some of the classics to the latest best-sellers.
There was also a combination game-and sunroom, which
faced what was probably a terrace when the snow melted.
32 / Mary Daheim
Renie showed Judith the main conference room, though it
lay in darkness and they couldn’t find the lightswitch.
“You get the idea,” Renie said dryly. “Chairs, tables, a
viewing screen, sound system, etc. Seen one big conference
room, seen ’em all.” She started to close the double doors.
Judith put one hand on Renie’s arm and signaled with the
other for her cousin to be silent. A faint rustling noise could
be heard from somewhere deep within the room.
Renie’s face puckered with curiosity as she stared at Judith.
The rustling stopped, only to be replaced by what sounded
like heavy breathing. Transfixed, the cousins waited.
At last, there was silence. Renie slowly and quietly shut
the doors. “What was that?” she whispered. “People? An
animal? A gas jet?”
“They don’t have gas up here,” Judith murmured. “It’s all
electric. Whatever it is, I don’t think it wants to be interrupted.”
“OTIOSE sex?” Renie put a hand over her mouth to stifle
a giggle. “Why in the big conference room? These people
have private bedrooms, for heaven’s sake!”
“How would I know?” Judith retorted. “You’re the one
who has them all figured out.”
“I’m drawing a blank this time,” Renie admitted. Rapidly,
she opened the doors to the three smaller conference rooms,
including the one where she’d made her presentation.
“Shoot,” she said, espying a folder on the podium. “I must
have forgotten to collect all my stuff.” Hurriedly, she marched
down the aisle between the folding chairs. “This isn’t mine,”
she called back to Judith. “I guess I’ll leave it here. Whoa!”
Judith straightened up from where she’d been leaning in
the doorway. “What is it?”
Staring down at the open folder, Renie shook her head.
“I’m not sure. It’s a list, sort of like a racing form.”
Judith’s curiosity got the better of her. “Let’s see.”
Renie hesitated, then picked up the folder and brought it
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 33
to Judith. “Look. It’s a bunch of names, with comments.
‘Heady Amber—light on her feet; Willy-Nilly—slim, trim,
ready to roll; Algonquin Annie—new to the game.’”
Judith grinned. “You’re right, it’s some sort of handicapping. Which one of your OTIOSE pals plays the ponies?”
“It could be any of them.” Renie closed the folder. “I’ll
leave this on that big coffee table in the lobby. I wonder how
it got up on the podium. I was the last to leave.”
Having completed their exploration of the lodge’s main
floor, the cousins went outside. During the half-hour since
Renie had finished her presentation, the clouds had begun
to settle in again but there were still spectacular views. The
tips of evergreens poking out of the snow looked as if they
had been covered with great dollops of spun-sugar frosting.
The elevation was so high and the mountains so close that
the great peaks loomed above the landscape, their sharp
crags pocketed with new snow.
The afternoon sun apparently had warmed to just above
freezing, for there were signs of thaw. Icicles dripped under
the eaves of the lodge and ice chunks flowed freely in a creek
that tumbled among big boulders. The footing was just a
trifle soft, forcing the cousins to walk with care.
They followed the creek, not down toward the parking
area, but up a bit where they could see a small waterfall
caught between two large outcroppings of snow-covered
rock. The sun was setting, and the mountains’ long shadows
reached far across the silent world of white.
“This is when I wish I’d learned to ski,” Renie said, puffing
a little with exertion.
“You did try,” Judith responded. “That’s more than I ever
did.”
“I quit after I skied between some tall guy’s legs,” said
Renie, stopping and leaning precariously against a fallen
evergreen limb. “It was up here, at the pass. Gosh, that must
have been thirty-five years ago.”
Judith gazed upward, taking in the majesty of winter.
34 / Mary Daheim
“Doesn’t it seem weird to talk about things that happened
so far back in the past? I remember hearing our mothers
mention things they’d done when they were young and
thinking how old they’d gotten. That was years ago, when
they were a lot younger than we are now.”
Setting her gloved hands on her hips, Renie glowered at
Judith. “What’s with you? Suddenly you’re obsessed with
getting old. For God’s sake, coz, you’re two years younger
than I am, and it never even occurs to me! Besides, we took
a vow. Remember?”
Judith looked puzzled. “What kind of vow? A suicide pact?
Or is it the promise I asked your daughter Anne to make,
that when I got old and impossible like my mother, she’d
put a pillow over my face, slip a Gone with the Wind video
in the VCR, and wait for me to peg out?”
“Jeez!” Renie threw up her hands. “No! It was a few years
ago, when our kids were teenagers, and they were accusing
us of not acting our age. We told them we never would, because we might get older, but we’d never get old.”
“What did the kids say?”
“Who cares? That’s not the point.” Renie began tramping
around in the snow, leaving a circular pattern of foot-prints
between the fallen branch and the tree. “It was our attitude
that mattered. I remember, we looked at each other as if to
say, This is a solemn promise. Except that being solemn
wasn’t part of it. We would always keep our sense of humor
and our slightly screwy perspective on life and uphold the
old Grover mantra of finding something to laugh about even
when things got really grim.”
Judith knew what Renie meant. Grandma Grover, who
had endured her share of tragedy, had never, ever, lost her
ability to laugh. “Keep your pecker up,” she’d advised. “It’s
always better to laugh than to cry.” Such homely, even trite
counsel had been the family by-word, and it worked because
it was practiced rather than preached.
“I guess it’s this retirement thing,” Judith admitted.
SNOW PLACE TO DIE / 35
“And Mike getting married. Those are big life changes. You
can’t just shrug them off. You have to stop and think what
it all means.”
“You think I never think?” Renie was still trudging awkwardly, if gamely, around in the snow. “I think plenty. I
couldn’t be married to Bill if I didn’t think now and then.
He’d shoot me. Bill thinks all the time. But what I think now
is that you…Ooops!”
Renie slipped in the snow at the edge of the creek and
tumbled into the cold, swift-flowing water. Her shoulder
struck the steep bank on the other side, dislodging a great
chunk of snow. Judith rushed to her cousin’s aid.
“Damn!” Renie wailed. “I’m soaked!”