Page 302 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
I laughed. “Bet you don’t,” I said. Then, spurred by an impulse I didn’t understand, I added, “But I bet if you asked your dad, the three of us could probably go skiing together sometime. Maybe after New Year’s when it gets less busy.”
“Uh huh,” Ethan said, bobbing his head at me.
“Does your mom ski?” I couldn’t resist asking. Really, where was the harm? If she wasn’t in the picture, then Ethan would tell me that. If she skied, if she was in Adam’s life at all, I wanted to know that.
I just didn’t want to examine the reasons why I felt like I had to know about her, whoever she was.
But Ethan shook his head, delivering heartbreaking news: “My mom’s dead,” he said, just as matter-of-factly as ever. He shrugged philosophically. “I bet she’s skiing the best mountains in heaven. I asked Gramps and he said there’s lots of snow up there.”
My heart broke for the poor kid, losing his mother at such a young age. Granted, he didn’t seem too upset about it. It made me wonder how long ago it had happened, not that I could really ask.
But more than that, I felt my heart break for Adam. It was silly because I didn’t even know what his relationship to Ethan’s mom had been. For all I knew, they had just had some one-night fling and gone their separate ways until nine months later, Ethan was born. But somehow, I doubted that.
First of all, Adam didn’t seem like the kind of guy to have one-night stands like that. Not that I knew what he was like in relationships; I had no experience with that at all. Even though the other night had felt like it might maybe be a date, he had been quick to tell me that it was just a dinner between friends and coworkers.
But he just seemed like he cared a lot more than that. And besides, wouldn’t that explain everything? His coldness, his aloofness, that change that I had noticed between who he used to be and who he was now. His wariness. His unwillingness to answer the question of why he was still single.
It all suddenly made so much sense. He hadn’t been single, at one point in his life. His girlfriend, or his wife, whatever they had been to one another, had died. My heart went out to him.
I wanted nothing more than to give Ethan a big hug, but I could tell that he didn’t need that. He was already chatting about other great skiers, and other people in his ski club. Like his mother had never been brought up at all.
Ethan finished his hot chocolate and pulled his little knapsack towards him. “I’m going to draw a picture,” he announced.
“Sure,” I said easily. “What are you going to draw?”
Ethan cocked his head to the side. “Daddy fixing the ski lift,” he said. He grinned wickedly. “’Cause then I get to draw all the people stuck on the lift.”
I groaned. “Don’t remind me about them,” I said, hoping beyond hope that Adam had somehow already got the lift running again and that there were no more problems up there. I had talked to the marketing guys and the head of mountain ops, trying to figure out how to even handle the situation. Did we give everyone a free pass to ski another day here? How many of them would return, if we did so? And what did we do for the people who were here from out of town, who wouldn’t have the chance to return?
I didn’t really want to refund them all their money from the day. First of all, that could get complicated: how could we keep track of which people had legitimate claims to make and which ones hadn’t even been over in that area when the lift had problems? Not only that, but this was the busiest day that we had ever had. I didn’t want to cut into our profits from the day by refunding everyone’s money.
Especially since that would only complicate things further in the future. How long did the lifts have to stop before people were owed some sort of refund? When we checked into the local laws, the guests hadn’t been stranded for long enough (yet) that we were required to call the fire department to have everyone evacuated. So surely that meant that we didn’t owe them anything, despite the inconvenience of being stuck out there?
I just didn’t know what to do, and suddenly, it had seemed like I had been crazy in buying this place. I never should have tried my hand at owning a ski resort, not with my limited knowledge on the subject.
But then, I came up with an idea; everyone on the lift would be offered meal vouchers, plus vouchers for one lesson either for them or for someone they knew, as well as the opportunity to demo skis for free. These vouchers could be printed off now, before the lift started running again, and we could hand them out to people as they got off the lift once it was running. The guests would be happy because they’d get multiple freebies, but we’d still earn money on their return visits if they chose to come back since they would still need lift tickets and might buy drinks or other things outside of what the meal vouchers gave them.
I was sure it wouldn’t make everyone happy. There would still be people clamoring for a full refund on the day, probably. And I might have to give out some of those as well; we’d see. But it seemed like the best solution for now.
I was kind of proud of myself for coming up with that idea. In fact, I found myself looking forward to telling Adam all about it.
For now, though, I watched as Ethan colored his picture. I couldn’t help smiling at the young boy as I drew him back into a conversation. “You’re pretty good at drawing,” I said. “Is that your favorite class at school?”
“We don’t have a drawing class,” Ethan said distractedly. “I mean, we have art, but usually in art class we get to paint or build things with clay or stuff.”
“That must be fun too,” I said.
“Yeah, but it’s not my favorite,” Ethan said, shaking his head. “My favorite is ski club.”
“Is that a class?” I asked in surprise. “You get graded on that?”
Ethan cocked his head to the side. “Well, not really,” he admitted. “But the teacher tells you when you do things good and stuff.”
I laughed. “That’s fair,” I said. “Skiing would probably be my favorite class too. But I wasn’t lucky enough to have a ski class when I was a kid. I’m from Las Vegas, and it’s pretty warm and dry down there.”
Ethan hummed in acknowledgment of what I had said. He opened his mouth with another question, but before he could ask it, Adam came over and dropped down at our table, rubbing his chapped hands together. “It is chilly out there!” he said. “But Dasher’s up and running again. Found the problem and got it all fixed, so it shouldn’t happen again, but we’ll stick around for a little while if that’s what you want. And if Ethan’s still feeling okay.”
“I’m fine, Dad,” Ethan said, and I could tell from his exasperation that this probably wasn’t the first time that Adam had asked him, and also that Adam was probably a pretty protective dad. It was cute, really. I couldn’t help smiling at both of them.
