“I do development,” the man says. “For a children’s hospital.”
She nods politely, too politely, and the man unloads about the latest capital campaign, how they’re trying to raise $5.2 million, and how he’s close to getting it — so, so close. Fingers crossed he’s lined up a very famous actor to help raise the last few million. She asks him what actor, and he says he shouldn’t reveal that yet, but then nuzzles close and whispers, Skeet Ulrich. “I’m sorry,” she says, “who?” He gives her a wounded look.
When the plane lands, they stand up too early, together, and have to hunch beneath the bins. “Well, it was nice to meet you,” she says when they start to move, but then there’s another delay, and he says, “We’re never going to get out of here, are we?”
“There must be some kind of way out of—” she says but doesn’t finish the lyric because the line is moving again.
They part ways in the terminal, but she sees him again at baggage claim. Before wheeling away his roller suitcase, he tips an imaginary top hat to her. When her bag shows up, Beth takes a bus to the rental car office. Amy, her friend since grade school, is already there with the keys. The drive to the resort is almost two hours. They talk about the end of school and the drugs they’ve never tried but might still and all their friends who are already engaged and how statistically at least three of those friends will be divorced within five years. They eat gross fast food on the way into town, and by the time they check in to their condo, it’s after ten but feels more like one A.M.
The next morning, amazingly, she spots Randolph at the bottom of a slope. She taps him on the shoulder and says, “Good morning, seatmate.”
“What are the chances?” he says. “I’m surprised you recognized me in this getup.”
His sunglasses are up high on his forehead. He wants to catch the next lift with her: then, he says, they can be liftmates too. The joke seems to embarrass him. Beth doesn’t know where Amy is, but they don’t have plans to meet up, until later at the lodge for lunch. “Sure,” she says, “why not? I can do another run.”
They ride the lift together to the top of the mountain, the metal parts creaking, their legs dangling over the white. “See you at the bottom,” he says at the top and shoves off with his poles. He skis very fast. He might be showing off for her. She has trouble keeping up with him on the snowboard, cutting back and forth through the powdery snow, but she tries her best. She’s moving faster than she ever has before. I’m a gazelle, she thinks. I’m a gazelle gazelle gazelle… She’s moving so fast she can hardly hold on to that one simple thought. She almost collides with another snowboarder but she doesn’t fall on the slope.
Her fall comes later in the evening as she and Randolph — still together — are descending a short wooden staircase outside one of his favorite restaurants in town. The steps are icy. She comes down on her right knee and right side. Her jeans are wet and grimy now. Possibly her foot is broken. As Randolph helps her stand, his arm under her arm, she sees a kid across the street in a lime green parka, his cell phone’s camera eye aimed directly at her.
“Try walking on it,” Randolph says. “Just walk a little.”
She hobbles around in a circle. It’s not as bad as she thought it was. It might just be a sprain. She has her arm draped over his shoulder now. They go inside together. He’s made a reservation for two. After sharing a dessert, both of them a little tipsy from the wine, he confesses that Randolph is actually his middle name, and if she’d rather, she can call him Arnie.
“Hello, Arnie,” she says, and giggles again. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m laughing. I’m not usually like this. I’m not. I think it’s possible that I’ve been overserved. Is that possible? I’ve lost track.”
Funniest Thing You Ever Seen — Drunk Guy in Convenience Store
Lots of people fall down drunk.
Marshall, the cellist, is in the 7-Eleven next door to the stationery shop that he manages. It’s a little after midnight. The bump on his forehead healed a few days ago, but his wife, Susan, hasn’t been home in all that time. She won’t even return his calls about the missing money. He roams the aisles in search of snacks and cheap wine, dragging his feet, in a daze. He slips in front of the fridges.
“You all right?” the cashier asks, worried he might have left a puddle with the mop, worried about a lawsuit.
The cellist grabs the fridge door and pulls himself off the sticky floor.
“Where’s the Big League Chew?” he asks.
The cashier points to the next aisle. Marshall hasn’t chewed any Big League chewing gum since he was in grade school. He buys two pouches of it and takes it home. He sits at the kitchen table alone, tucking grape strands between his gums and bottom lip. He puts on a record.
The gum doesn’t taste at all like he remembers it, and Susan is never coming back home. He drags all her clothes out of their closet, wire hangers bouncing across the carpet, and dumps them on the bed with the intention of bagging them for donation. Near midnight he wakes up, sprawled across a mountain of her dresses and sweaters, his lower back throbbing. He swallows a few chalky white ibuprofens in front of the bathroom mirror and calls Susan’s sister again.
“Stop leaving messages here,” she says. “I refuse to be a part of this. I refuse to be the go-between.”
“Just put her on the phone,” he says. “Please.”
“I’m not going in there. No way.”
“Going in where? Is she with someone?”
She takes a deep breath. “Marshall, let’s not do this. Besides, it was more hers than yours anyway, wasn’t it?”
“What was more hers?” he asks — the money or the marriage? But she’s hung up. Marshall, groggy, digs for his pants under all Susan’s clothes. He grabs his fat wallet off the dresser. He’s halfway down the block when he realizes he’s forgotten his keys and locked himself out.
Funny Blooper TV News
A reporter for CNA29 News stands in front of the camera with her microphone, preparing for a live stand-up. Her bangs are like cartoon puffs of blond smoke, and she’s wearing a teal jacket with brass buttons and monstrous shoulder pads. Behind her, across the street, is a blue two-story house. All around it a maze of yellow police tape wraps through the lean pine trees.
A man was murdered in the house last night. Jealous-lover situation, one officer said earlier. At this point there is very little to report about the murder but because it occurred in a nice part of town the reporter’s producer thought they should probably cover the story anyway. Why she needs to introduce her story live in front of the house, the reporter isn’t quite sure. It feels indecent somehow.
She never used to flub her lines but lately she’s been having issues — skipping words, mixing up clauses. Once upon a time her producer called her One-Take Tammy, but she’s been so distracted recently. She shouldn’t even be here, she realizes, but at the hospital with her mother. “I’ll haunt you forever if I die in this hospital alone,” her mother said yesterday. Why would any mother say such a thing to her daughter?
When she was growing up, her mother was always bringing around different boyfriends. When Tammy was sixteen, one of the boyfriends lumbered into her room around midnight. He climbed into her bed and grabbed hold of her, and when Tammy squirmed loose and flipped on the lights, the boyfriend pretended to have been confused about which door was which. If Tammy’s mother dies, so much will have gone unsaid between them. Tammy should be the one haunting her.