Girls In White Dresses (15 page)

“Time for bed, little lady,” he said, and picked her up over his shoulder. He smacked her behind, and the last thing she remembered was Harrison dropping her on the couch because they were laughing too hard.

The next morning, Isabella woke up with a headache and waited for Harrison to climb down the bunk bed ladder, but he kept sleeping. The other couple in the room got up and got dressed, and Isabella faced the wall and pretended to sleep until they were gone. She lay in her bunk and listened to the sounds of everyone else in the house as they started their day. She heard pots being clanked around, smelled coffee. She heard the television being switched on and cheers for some game.

“Harrison, are you awake?” she whispered to the top bunk.

Isabella could hear half snores coming from above. This wasn’t like Harrison to sleep so late. She slid out of her bunk and peered up at him. He was sleeping on his side with his mouth wide open. He looked like a little boy.

“Harrison,” she said, and poked him on the shoulder. He made a gurgling sound and opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, but didn’t wake up.

What was she doing here? She had been wondering it all weekend, but now she just wanted to cry. She thought of all the places she could be, with people she knew. Instead she was in a house of strangers. Pieces of the night before came back to her and with each flash, Isabella was more and more mortified. She couldn’t face these people. Harrison probably didn’t even like her anymore.

She climbed up the ladder and sat in the bunk at the edge of Harrison’s feet. She willed him to wake up for seven minutes. Then she lay next to him so that she was closer to the wall. She put her head on his pillow and stared at him. When he finally opened his eyes a few minutes later, he let out a startled scream.

“Isabella, what the hell?” He half sat up and looked around, trying to figure out where he was. When he had calmed himself, he lay back down and crossed his arm over his eyes.

“My head,” he said, “hurts like a motherfucker.”

Isabella laughed. She’d never heard him talk like that. He uncovered his face and smiled at her. “Oh, you like that? You think that’s funny? You can’t be feeling too great yourself, Little Miss Tequila.”

“Don’t say that word,” Isabella warned. The only thing worse than being in a house full of strangers was throwing up in a house full of strangers.

Harrison smiled and closed his eyes again. “I don’t think I can go skiing today,” he said.

“Oh, thank God,” Isabella said. She was so sore from yesterday that it hurt to talk. “Maybe we can go get lunch in town?”

“Isabella, I don’t think I can move right now.”

Harrison never called her Iz or Izzy. It was always Isabella. It was always formal. It made her think of Ben and the way that he would sing to her in the mornings, “Izzy, Isabella,” kissing her stomach until she woke up. Thinking of Ben made her lonely, which wasn’t what she’d expected. She hated Ben. But she knew him, at least. She wouldn’t have to be polite with him if he were here right now. She could tell him to get up and go downstairs with her. Instead, she was stuck here with Harrison, who called her by her full name and was never mean. It was basically like being with Miss Manners.

Isabella lay next to him while he slept. Once she got up to go to the bathroom and ate a granola bar she had in her bag. She sat in the bottom bunk for a little while and read her book, but she couldn’t concentrate so she climbed back up the ladder and lay down next to Harrison again. Maybe she didn’t really know him, but compared to the people downstairs, he was her closest friend, her ally. She wasn’t leaving his side.

Sometime after the sun went down and it was night again, Harrison woke up. Isabella was staring at the ceiling. “What are you doing?” he asked her.

“Thinking,” she said.

“You look like a crazy person,” he said and laughed a little bit. “Have you been here all day?”

She nodded. “I didn’t want to go downstairs,” she said. Her eyes started to fill with tears. “I didn’t know anyone, so I just stayed here.”

Harrison turned toward her and smoothed back her hair. All she wanted was not to cry. She couldn’t cry; they hadn’t been dating long enough. He would think she was crazy, a nut.

“Sorry,” he whispered right next to her ear.

“That’s okay,” she said. “You know, they probably think we’re making out up here. No one’s come up all day.”

Harrison smiled. “Then maybe we should prove them right,” he said and slid himself on top of her carefully.

“I’ve never had sex in a bunk bed,” she said.

“There’s a first time for everything,” he said. “Just don’t fall off.”

Harrison stayed by her side that night, and she was grateful. They went to a local bar, for which she was also grateful. She stayed even closer to Harrison than she had the night before. Part of her was touching him at all times.

“So, you want to go skiing tomorrow?” he asked. “It’s our last chance. Plus, I think we can go on some diamonds.”

Isabella said, “Absolutely.”

The second day of skiing started off better. It had snowed the night before, so when Isabella fell, she fell on soft snow instead of the ice. It was also a little warmer, and Isabella even started to have some fun.

Harrison was conscious of her at all times. He was faster than she was, but he always waited at certain points to let her catch up. This was a big mountain, and there were different forks and turns you could take. Harrison always pointed out the path they were going to take on the map before they went.

For the last run of the day, Harrison wanted to try something different. Isabella felt bad that she had been holding him back on the easier mountains and so she agreed. They had to take two chair lifts up and would ski down a blue, then a black, then finish on a blue. “It’s easy, see?” Harrison said, running his finger along the map. “Just keep staying to the right and you’ll get to the next run. I’ll wait for you at the top of each.”

Isabella nodded. She was cold again and ready for this day to be over. Just one more run and the whole day would end on a good note.

The second chairlift was higher than any of the other ones they had been on. It stopped halfway up the mountain and Isabella started seeing black.

“Scared?” Harrison asked.

Isabella nodded and Harrison just laughed. He thought it was really funny. She felt like she was dying. The metal creaked and kicked and the lift started moving again. Isabella waited for the whole chair to plummet to the ground, and was surprised when they skied off at the top.

“Okay, so you remember the way?” Harrison asked. He put his sunglasses down and smiled at her. She nodded. Almost over. It was almost over.

They started down the mountain and it was going okay. Isabella had gotten used to the blues and her snowplow wasn’t such an embarrassing giant wedge anymore. She even let herself go a little fast sometimes. She finished the run and skied up to Harrison.

“Awesome,” he said. “Ready for the next one?”

He was already moving before he finished talking. There were moguls at the top of the run and Isabella hesitated. She saw Harrison flying down the mountain, and then the next second she was on the ground, rolling down the steep hill. One ski came off and all she could see was black when she hit the ground. She knocked over another skier and the two of them tangled up together and slowed down to a stop.

“You okay?” the guy asked her. She nodded.

“Well, then watch it next time. You shouldn’t be on this slope if you can’t handle it,” he said and stood up and skied off.

Isabella sat in the snow. She only had one ski and couldn’t even see where the other one had gone. That guy had been such an asshole, she thought as she climbed back up the hill. What a jerk. They could have been killed. It wasn’t her fault, totally, was it? No, he had gotten in her way.

The whole time she climbed back up the hill and struggled to put the runaway ski back on, Isabella thanked God that Harrison hadn’t been there to see it. That would have been mortifying. She crawled up and snapped her boot back into the ski. She sat for a moment to get her bearings, and then she stood up. She had to ski down. There was no other way off the mountain. She was a little turned around, but stayed to the right. That was what Harrison had said to do.

She skied down the rest of the mountain and didn’t see Harrison once. Maybe she’d taken too long after her fall. She skied right up to the lodge and took her skis off. She was done.

Isabella clomped into the lodge in her boots and took out her cell phone to call Harrison. “Where are you?” he asked when he answered. “I was getting worried.”

“I’m at the lodge,” she said. “I fell.”

“I’m at the lodge too,” he said. “Where are you?”

“I’m right by the food counter.”

“I don’t see you.”

Isabella looked around for Harrison and then realized that this lodge looked very different. “Um, Harrison, I think I’m somewhere else. The sign says the Blackbear Lodge. Do you know where that is?”

Harrison was quiet for a moment. “That’s on the other side of the mountain. How did you get there?”

Isabella could tell he was laughing. Her eyes started to fill with tears again.

“I don’t know! Where am I?”

“Stay there, okay? I’ll come to you,” Harrison said and hung up.

Isabella limped over to the counter and ordered hot chocolate. She had started crying a little, which made her nose run even more. The cashier was a high-school boy and he looked frightened of her. He was probably scared she was going to talk to him and tell him her problems.

She took as many napkins as she could and walked with her hot chocolate back to her table. On the way, she spilled hot liquid on her hand. Now the tears started again. She was pathetic. She was a pathetic person.

Isabella was blowing her nose when Harrison walked in.

“Hey there,” he said. “There’s my little Rand McNally.”

Isabella laughed and then started crying again. She couldn’t stop. Now this really would be the end of them. Harrison would see how crazy she was and he would have to break up with her. Then they would have to drive back to the city together. This was a nightmare.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Harrison pulled up a chair and took her hand.

“Nothing,” she said, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Nothing, it’s stupid. I’m just really tired and I got so cold. And I’m embarrassed that I got lost.”

Harrison laughed in a kind way and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “That’s all? You’ll be fine, my little ski bunny. My little lost ski bunny.”

Isabella laughed and then felt stupid for crying. “So how do we get out of here?”

“We have to go back up the lift and then back down the other side of the mountain. It’s a good run, though,” he said quickly.

“I don’t know if I can go back up there,” she said.

“Well, I could go by myself and then ski back down to the main lodge and get the car. But it would take a while.”

Isabella leaned her head back.

“You know,” Harrison started and cleared his throat. “I’m really glad you came this weekend.”

Isabella righted her head and looked straight at him. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I really like you, you know.”

Isabella smiled at him. “Probably just because of my navigational skills,” she said.

“Probably. So whadya say? You want to brave the mountain? I promise not to rock the ski lift,” he said, holding up his right hand.

Isabella was tired and cold and she didn’t really feel like skiing and was still terrified of the actual ride on the ski lift, but it seemed ridiculous to sit here and wait and do nothing while Harrison got the car. How bad could it be?

“Are you up for it?” he asked. He looked hopeful.

“Yeah,” she said. “Okay, let’s do it.”

B
ridget Carlson was the kind of friend you couldn’t get rid of. You could try—you could ignore her e-mails, let her phone calls go to voice mail, move to a different city, let her birthday pass unnoticed, take her number out of your cell phone—but she would find you. She was persistent, if nothing else. She tracked down new addresses, new phone numbers, new e-mails, and she would claw her way back into contact with you, until you had no choice but to acknowledge her.

This was how Cate found herself, against all better judgment, agreeing to have lunch with her. For weeks, Bridget had been leaving messages on her voice mail. “Caitlin, it’s me,” the messages said. “I’m coming to New York and we are meeting up if it’s the last thing we do. It’s been too long.” The messages almost sounded like threats. They could, at the very least, be perceived as mild harassment. Cate’s cell phone had a message almost every day, and then somehow Bridget found Cate’s work number and started calling her there too.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” Isabella asked her. Cate was peering at the caller ID, letting it ring and ring.

“It’s this girl from college,” Cate said. “She won’t leave me alone.”

“Is she a friend?” Isabella asked.

“Not really,” Cate said. “Sort of, I guess. But no, not really. I just need to wait until her trip is over and then I’ll call her back.”

And then one day, the caller ID said “Unavailable” and Cate picked up. “Gotcha,” Bridget said on the other end. “Caitlin Johnson, you are one hard person to get a hold of. You have got to meet me for lunch!” Cate was so surprised that she just said, “Okay.”

“I have to meet someone for lunch,” Cate told Isabella.

“Snowy is going to kill you,” Isabella said.

Cate considered this. Snowy had spent the better part of the morning screaming at Cate. “Three years!” she had yelled. “Three years you’ve worked here and you don’t know how to do anything!” Yes, Snowy would probably kill her.

“I have to,” Cate said. “I already promised.”

“Is this the stalker?” Isabella asked. She squinted as if trying to understand.

“Yeah, but I just need to get it over with.”

“It’s your funeral,” Isabella said. “We have a meeting at three, don’t forget.”

“I won’t,” Cate said. She grabbed her bag and headed toward the door. “I’ll be back in an hour,” she called over her shoulder.