Girl Overboard (4 page)

“I didn’t think you wanted to get back together with Natalia?” I ask, watching another explosion scatter gold dust in the sky.

Age pushes off the railing and faces me. “She accused me of cheating.”

“What? You don’t even cheat in Scrabble. So how could she think you cheated on her?”

“Not on her. On you. With her.”

“Oh.” I take a step away from Age. If I tell myself the truth, it had felt like he was cheating on the two of us when he was going out with Natalia. And maybe that’s why I don’t feel like I can tell him about Jared.

“So,” he says, staring, staring, staring at me. “ ‘Life is daring adventure, or nothing.’ Helen Keller said that.”

“She did?”

“She did.”

I study first my feet and then the fireworks, everywhere but his toffee-brown eyes. But there it is, the are-we-or-aren’t-we pause, the one I swore I’d never experience again. The last time I was in this determine-the-relationship conversation, Jared was standing opposite me, claiming that I had misread everything, that he had never planned to break up with his tall, skinny, redheaded waif of a girlfriend for short, dumpy, frumpy me.

Even if this is Age in front of me, I don’t want to go to that messy space again. So what if I have to bunker forever in the crawl space between scarred and scared? I laugh like Age has told me a great joke.

“God,” I say, “that’s so stupid since we’re just friends.”

Age’s expression flickers like he’s been memorizing
The Ethan Cheng Way,
and has prepared for my dodging him. “Syrah—”

Why chance turning Age into a here-today-gone-tomorrow boyfriend who makes you cry when all you want to do is laugh like you were still perfect for each other? I become my mother, superconversationalist to the rescue, able to block unwanted intimacy with a single comment, smooth over social awkwardness with a turn of phrase.

“You guys are great together, Age,” I chirp my lie to him. “She’s really perfect for you.”

He’s silent for a moment, and then finally, gruffly, says, “We should get you back.”

Even though Age is walking at my side, intent on delivering me safe and sound to the reception hall for the rest of Baba’s party, I can sense the void growing between us. Here’s the thing. Falling in love is a lot like landing blind: carefree and fun while you’re gaining momentum, uncertain and risky when you’re supposed to commit to that backward rotation, unable to see where your feet are supposed to land. Or if there’s land at all. Been there, done that, not doing it again.

Still, standing at the back door of the tang, I can’t take this tension accumulating between us. I shrug out of his jacket and hold it out to him, an olive branch of Gore-Tex. “How about we ride Sunday?” I ask the way “just friends” would. “My parents are leaving tomorrow.”

There’s a long pause before his answer: an easy shrug as if spending time with me is no big deal. “I’ll call you,” he says. As Age walks away, all the secrets I’ve tamped inside myself make me feel like I’ve gorged on food that’s much too rich.

A
few minutes before
six thirty on Sunday morning, late according to Cheng standard time, I’m lounging in bed. There was no early-morning check-in phone call from Age yesterday. He didn’t even return my calls at his work, the way he usually does when business is slow. My palms grow slick as I watch the clock. But minutes tick past six thirty, and the phone remains silent; there’s no “hey, it’s me” this morning either and no confirmation of our snowboarding plans.

Instead, all I hear loud and clear is my last conversation with Age—
show them your video… Natalia asked me out… life is a daring adventure.
With all these competing thoughts banging around my head, I can’t ignore them for another second the way I did all day yesterday, and now, I have to shake them into my manga-slash-journal.

Authentic manga is read from the back of the book to the front, Japanese style, which is how I’ve sketched my journal. The panels start on the top right-hand corner of the page, sliding over to the left and then down. Across the top of the right page, I write:
Life is a daring adventure
… The only daring adventure I’ve wanted, at least since the moment snowboarding became as natural as walking for me, was to become a professional rider. A snowboard girl who’s paid to ride the mountain, money I earn on my own so I’m not beholden to anybody. So meet Shiraz, my manga–alter ego, a character I created after I couldn’t snowboard post-Accident. My warrior girl catches such big air off the dais that she sails on her snowboard over a bewildered Grace and Wayne. I smile to myself, tapping out the dots of water that spray off Mochi as he yanks his wet face out of a fishbowl.

On the next blank page, I print the end of the quote in tiny letters:
or nothing.
The only part of Shiraz visible on the leftmost edge is her dark hair streaking above the tail of her snowboard. Even if I don’t draw the guy she’s riding to, I know exactly who’s waiting on the other side of the blank page. My friend for all ages.

At last, the phone rings: 6:45 a.m. I grab for the phone off my nightstand, and there it is, the familiar “Hey, it’s me.”

Relieved, I sink back into my pillow. “Age!”

“So eight today?” His voice is brisk, as though this is a business transaction.

“Sounds great. You doing okay? I was worried about you yesterday.”

There’s a long pause, and then like he can’t wait to get off the phone with me, Age mutters, “I gotta run,” and hangs up.

I hold the phone in my hand, forgetting to hang up, too. How am I supposed to keep Age within the no-heartbreak-zone of my heart when it’s breaking my heart that he’s pulling away?

Come ten thirty, I’m
playing a game of chicken with a mountain. If you believe my father, there’s one and only one way to overturn your fears, and that’s to win. Who am I to say that the million people who bought his best-selling business book are wrong? So on this trail in the backcountry of Alpental, I force myself to gaze down the slope to my right. Big mistake. Blame it on being land-bound for so long, but the open bowl looks so steep, I could almost trace a straight line down to the snow-glazed evergreen trees and dead-end cliffs. All I want to do is throw myself facedown in the thin layer of fresh powder, cling to this ridgeline, and beg the mountain,
Don’t break me again.

My fear billows in front of me in the cold air like I’m Puff the Chinese Dragon. Age must hear me huffing behind him, because he calls over his shoulder as if the last day of no conversation hasn’t happened, “Yo, Syrah, need some help back there, girly-girl?”

Pity or not, I’m just glad we’re talking normally again. Even though I feel like I’m on the verge of hyperventilating, I bat my eyes at Age as if I’m one of those pink-outfitted, fashion-before-function girls. “You going to carry me and my gear, burly-burly man?”

“Nah, you snowboard chicks are more kick-ass than cute.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Like always, Age’s answering grin is one hundred proof wicked, one hundred percent welcome, Natalia or no Natalia. He nails me, not with a snowball or a comeback, but with the one question I’ve been asking myself since we left the high-speed quad: “You sure you’re up for this?”

Age’s battered goggles may mask the concern in his eyes, but I can tell from the dip of his head that he’s looking at the knee I’m unconsciously massaging through layers of Gore-Tex, sweat-wicking long underwear, and neoprene brace.

I straighten quickly. “Pick up the pace, Zorrito.” He doesn’t budge, so I say, “Really. I can do this.”

Liar, liar, snow pants on fire.

For a second, Age studies me like he’s debating whether to call ski patrol to toboggan me down to the base of the mountain. Been there, done that. Time may have healed my knee, but it does little to dull the humiliation of being strapped in and carted down a mountain in front of everyone. Including Jared, the only one who knew why I had taken off by myself that morning.

Even as I trudge faster, three boarders hike wordlessly around me as though I’m nothing but one of the small clumps of powder they’re kicking through. The guy bulldozing ahead in the lead is the wonder kid of Alpental with sponsors up the yin-yang for ripping mountains, half the time high. Following the Pied Pothead wasn’t how I imagined my comeback moment.

My knee twinges in reproach. Or my downfall.

“Hey, that’s Syrah Cheng,” says one of the guys, casting a look at me over his shoulder.

Wonder Kid snickers, pulling ahead, but I can still make out his words: “Maybe we should call ski patrol now.”

Age whips around. “Don’t listen to them.”

I nod, but the damage is done. The snowboarders may be drawing farther ahead of me, but I hear the echo of their disdain:
Call ski patrol now.
Pretty soon, all the guys, Age included, are leaving footprints, pockmarking the feathery snow.

One-two, one-two, I focus on that rhythm while plodding through the glistening snow. It’s a lot more uplifting than the other chant frozen in my head:
mis-take; mis-take.

Another sharp jab needles the back of my knee. Matadors might as well be prodding me with those barbed sticks they use to rile up bulls before their showdowns.

“Come on,” I tell myself, and flip on my music, hoping a strong bass beat will rev me up and drown out my doubts, those guys’ words.

Up ahead, the snowboarders splinter off, lobbing down the run that’ll drop them straight back to the chairlift.

“Hey, we can take Snake Dance, too,” Age says.

I nod my head toward our regular run. “No way, let’s go.”

After fifteen more minutes of power-trudging, we finally reach our sweet spot, just past P-Pass, so named because it’s where guys pull over to do their business up here. Let’s face it, guys have superior equipment when it comes to outdoor relief.

“Untouched pow,” I say, pointing down to the pristine white, powdery snow on Alpental, our home mountain known for its steeps and natural terrain.

Age grins at me. “Yeah, no thanks to Little Miss Slowpoke.”

“So do you think snowboarders have the same primeval instinct that makes dogs pee on every telephone pole?” I pound my chest in my best caveman impression, lowering my voice: “Me here first.”

“For some guys, probably,” says Age, seriously. “But it’s all about blank pages, isn’t it?”

I nod because that’s what virgin snow is: a fresh start, a beginning, a brand-new daring adventure.

“I mean, can you believe this?” Age says, getting to his feet, reverential. That’s what I love about Age. This mountain is his winter home, yet the pitches and fallen trees and cliffs are always new to him. Even this season, which started late with barely any snow until recently, Age has managed to get up here at least ten times since early January. “Who needs a half-pipe? I wish Mobey’d get that.”

“He’s been on your case again?” I ask, remembering all the times that Mobey’s badgered Age about making his own video, schmoozing a sponsor, becoming a Someone on Snow.

“He just doesn’t get that, for me, snowboarding needs to be pure. You know what I’m saying?” Age breathes out heavily. “Who cares if you’re a tenth of a second faster than the next guy or get paid to ride?”

“So you say until I beat you.”

Age bumps his shoulder against mine. “You wish, Gidget.”

“You’re good enough to go pro, that’s all.”

“As if I could really travel around the world now. Who’d take care of the ankle biters? My dad?” Age snorts, not that I blame him. Ever since Age’s mother died two years ago, his dad has been a workaholic recluse, outsourcing all his parenting duties to Age.

But Age has a point. Serious snowboarders either go the pro route, getting paid to ride and eventually starring in edgy snowboarding movies that are shot around the world. Or they hop on the Olympics track, the way Jared is doing, and go for gold. Either way, it means making a full-time commitment to snowboarding.

“Besides,” says Age, staring at me, “if it’s all about racing, I’d rather take you on.”

Unless I’m mistaken, there it is again, the define-the-relationship moment that most girls in my class seem to hurtle toward. Just as avalanche patrol can read the conditions of any mountain, I know the slide paths of my heart intimately—the chutes created by my parents’ everlasting absences, the run-off gully carved by Jared.

“Come on,” I say, quickly buckling into my snowboard. “Before anyone else gets here.”

Age holds his hand out to me, helping me to my feet. Standing there, looking down the mountain I once called home, all I want is to feel invincible and whole again.

“Welcome back, Cheng.”

“It’s good to be back.”

“You can say that again.” Under the ratty red beanie I gave him a couple of years ago, Age’s long brown hair spikes out at odd angles. His mahogany eyes sparkle the way they do whenever he’s about to do something crazy on the mountain. For a moment, I let myself linger in his gaze, because that look, more than the big view and the mountain air that smells like Christmas, makes me believe I’m really back after a too-long absence.

I’m back… but am I still bad?

“Okay,” I say. Another deep breath and I drop into the bowl, right foot forward. My board slides easily down the steep slope, picking up speed way too fast. My breathing quickens, and I carve hard into the powder, swerving to slow down. Over the
whoosh
ing of my board on snow, I hear Age: “Yeah, baby!”

Pressing first forward on my toes and then rocking back to my heels, I’m relieved that my muscles remember what to do, even if my courage seems to be stuck in reverse. Age darts into the trees, sliding down a fallen log, crusted with snow. I follow. Not five feet ahead of me is a rock topped in an afro of snow. Perfect to ollie over. The trick to a good ollie is to get as much snap as you can from the snowboard tail. I lean into my left leg and pop it up, lifting both knees high over the rock, and then sink into my landing with my arms out.

“Smooth,” calls Age. He straight-lines down the slope, flying past me to a huge snow-crowned boulder. He jumps over it, twisting his body effortlessly.