Page 25 of The Mountain
“He was happy for me to have full custody of our daughter, though. Not that I’d want anything different,” she adds hurriedly, pursing her lips. “It’s just, I would have hoped he’d be more involved with her, instead of making her feel abandoned. I mean, he wants to leave me, fine, whatever, but he doesn’t get to do that to his kid.”
I swallow, thinking about my own parents. About the silent text thread linking me to them, full of my unanswered messages. The last one I sent was the day I woke up from the party, still groggy and eyes swollen, a hungry ache of homesickness behind my ribs.I love you guys,I’d said.
They hadn’t answered.
“That’s terrible,” I say when I can finally find my voice. The ski lift lurches, the cable grinding above us as it starts up again, hauling us forward. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
Jackie gives me a wry smile, the ends of her perfectly coifed hair fluttering in the breeze, becoming slightly disheveled. “Don’t be. It’s been the wake-up call I needed.”
She squares her shoulders, and for the first time since our lesson started, she’s not trembling. “I’m not going to live my life for my work, or some dick of a husband. And as much as I love my kid, I’m not living my life for her either, because let’s face it, what twelve-year-old girl wants her mother to do that?”
I bite my lip, not sure of how to answer, painfully aware of how unqualified I am to give this successful, forty-something-year-old woman any life advice. I haven’t even figured out what I’m going to do when the winter season ends. I’ve got five boyfriends, about zero dollars in my account, and an unfinished university degree looming ahead of me like a cliff-edged finish line. Thankfully, the top of the lift approaches, the snowy ramp rushing up to greet us, and I turn my attention to coaching Jackie off the lift.
“I did it!” she practically squeals with glee as she glides to a stop away from the lift, legs shaking.
I give her a wide smile, clapping her on the shoulder. “Yeah, you did!” I tilt my chin further along, urging her to move away from the ramp, so that we don’t become human bowling pins for whatever novice skier or snowboarder that comes up behind us.
“Sorry, I just offloaded everything back there,” Jackie says with a grimace, shuffling away from the lift. “I meant to tell you why I was taking two weeks off, and ended up giving you my whole life story.” She gives a nervous, self-deprecating laugh.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, and I mean it. “I don’t mind. Honestly.”
And not just because I’m hoping to get a good tip from her at the end of the day. I think talking helped calm her down, distracted her from her fear.
She gives me disbelieving look, the type that says she’s used to people telling her what they want to hear, but doesn’t argue. “What I meant to say is that I’ve always wanted to learn to snowboard. We never went on a ski trip because Austin—that’s my ex—he hated cold weather. Just wanted to go on cruises or to tropical resorts.” She shudders, as if the thought of being on some white-sand beach is completely abhorrent.
“And I’ve never taken more than a week off, because apparently the whole law firm will implode if I’m not there.” She gives a derisive huff, then plops down in the snow, sitting inelegantly as she bends to strap her back foot onto her board, her mittened hands fumbling with the bindings. “So this vacation—this is my big ‘fuck you’ to all of them.” She pauses, eyes flicking up to mine as she grimaces. “Sorry. I shouldn’t swear.”
I laugh at that, a full belly laugh that has a few of the other instructors glancing my way. “I can cope,” I tell her dryly. “I live with five guys, and most of them think fuck is an all-purpose word they can use to replace any noun, verb, or adjective.”
She grins, small lines forming along the otherwise smooth skin at the corners of her eyes. “Five guys, huh?” She shakes her head. “That must be… something.”
I feel my cheeks flame, heated skin prickling against the cold, even when I know she’s just talking about having them as roommates, nothing more.
“Anyway,” she continues, thankfully oblivious to my embarrassment as she stares down the nearly flat slope. “This was probably a terrible idea. I’m too old to learn snowboarding…”
“Hey,” I say, my voice sharper than I intend. “Stop right there.” I pivot on my board, swinging around effortlessly until I’m downhill of her, then drop to my knees, bringing my face level with hers. “You’re not too old.”
Jackie lifts her eyebrows in disbelief, and I power on.
“First of all, I taught a seventy-year-old man how to snowboard last week.” He’d been in a group with five other retirees. Not the easiest class I’d ever taught, but I had them making turns by the end of it. “If he can do it, you can. Second,” I say, lifting one gloved finger, “you’ve been snowboarding for an entire two hours. Less, if you count the time we spent on the flat. And already you’ve made it down this run and got off the lift without falling.”
She gives me a recalcitrant smile, like she doesn’t quite believe my praise. And maybe she’s right to doubt it, because her fear is holding her down, heavy as the granite boulders buried under the snow, hampering her. I swallow, then decide to tell her the truth, even if it means she won’t hire me to teach her after this. Even if it ends up costing me my tip at the end of the day. Because after everything she told me, she deserves for someone to be honest with her.
“Look,” I say, and the smile falls from my face, like snowmelt slipping from the boughs of pines. “You want to know the biggest thing holding you back right now?”
She nods. A couple of skiers pass beside us, the sound of snow scraping momentarily drowning out the sound of my racing heart.
“You don’t trust yourself,” I tell her. “You’re fighting each movement, and it’s wearing you out.”
“Well, I don’t want to fall,” Jackie cuts in, voice sharp with defensiveness. “I don’t want to get hurt.”
I grimace, mentally imagining my tip fluttering away on the icy breeze. “You’re going to fall.” I give her a sympathetic smile. “Eventually, you’ll fall. You might get a little hurt. Or you’ll get back up and do it all over again.” I shrug, thinking about my last injury, about my split lip and bruised face, and how my whole body ached for days. “But today, you’ve got me. And I’m going to do everything in my power to help you get down this mountain without falling.”
She blinks up at me, lips tugging into a slight frown, faint creases forming at the corners. She’s silent for a long moment. Long enough for a couple more skiers to pass, for the sound of their skis scraping snow to fade.
“Okay,” she says, lifting her chin, shoulders squaring. She gives me a hard smile—the sort I’d imagine her giving an opponent in the courtroom, or a judge she’s about to argue with. My stomach dips, and for a brief moment, I imagine all that animosity turned on me. But then she says: “I trust you.”
“I’m taking you to lunch,”Jackie announces, groaning as she bends to unbuckle her board. “My treat.” She kicks her board free, rising to stand, a broad grin stretching across her sweat-glistened face, cheeks red, her hair tangled and windblown. “And we’re getting dessert. After this morning, I think we deserve it, don’t you?”
