Slippery Slopes (11 page)

“Maybe someone’s getting married?” Max points to a far-off field. “See that? Over the hill? I think one of my professors lives there. Or—vacations nearby or something.”

“Weird coincidence.” Dove looks at the compact farmhouse set back from the paths and trees, all cozy among the falling snow. “Do you miss it?”

Max turns, his helmet making him look like a futuristic bug. “Miss what?”

“School.”

Max turns back to the path, zooming up a steep hill, past a mound of old snow and veering left to avoid a patch of thick ice. He doesn’t respond.

Dove wants to check her watch but can’t or she’ll lose her grip on Max and fall off. “I have to admit,” she says, trying to wash over the school question, which clearly didn’t sit well, “this is a pretty sweet ride.”

“Better be.”

“Oh yeah? Why?”

Max puts on the brakes, slowing the whole mobile to a stop. He puts his hand on Dove’s knee, then thinks better of it and takes it away. Dove thinks it’s the kind of touch—gentle but firm—that stays with you after it’s over. “No reason—just—it’s my big Christmas gift this year, so …” His voice fades out as he starts up again. Town is in view now, just over one more hill and beyond a big field.

“I swear I hear bells.” Dove nudges Max now with each clang, and her heart rate picks up as the snowflakes do.
Maybe someone’s getting married in town.
Rather than the gentle, almost dreamlike, flow they had a few minutes before, the sky seems to be opening up, spilling the contents of a sack of rice, or a pillow, all over the ground, making the snowmobile work harder.
Good thing we’re in this vehicle, I guess,
Dove thinks.
Although it’s kind of an odd purchase, seeing as Max is only here on vacation. What will he do to get it home? Probably sell it. Or just leave it.
Dove shakes her head at the thought of all that wasted money.

“Watch out!” Dove grabs hold of Max’s waist, maybe a little too tightly, as they nearly hit a snow-covered rock.

Max veers quickly to the right to avoid a boulder, causing Dove to giggle out of nervousness. “Oh my god—this is a little too much for me.”

Max stops the snowmobile and takes off his helmet. Steam rises from his hair into the cold air, flakes dotting his lips and face. “How many bells do you think you heard?”

Dove pauses, suddenly putting the snow together with the sound and realizing the clangs were warning bells, the kind she’d been advised about when she vacationed at Les Trois. “Enough that we shouldn’t be out here …” She checks her watch. Five minutes. “Think I could walk into town?”

Max gives her an annoyed look. “We’re talking major snow event here and you’re still hoping to get into some café to chitchat?”

“Don’t make it sound stupid.” Dove’s voice is defensive.
How dare he make fun of me or belittle my IM with William.
“I mean, thanks for the ride and everything, but …”

Max sighs, thinking, and pulls at his hair. His cheeks are flushed. “Considering the snowfall, we have enough power in this thing to go into town or back, but not both.”

“I thought you said this is the best on the market.”

Max shoots her a look. “It
is.
But it doesn’t change the fact that if you calculate the rate of the snow and factor that into the distance into town and back to Les Trois …

“Okay, Captain Math.”

Max rolls his eyes. “You have a better idea?”

Dove stands up, unstraddling the snowmobile and breaking away from Max’s body. Instantly she’s colder than she was next to him, and aware of wanting to be back with him, but she’s determined to get into town. “I’m not ready to turn around. I want to walk.”

“Fine—suit yourself” Max crosses his arms over his chest and waits for Dove to move, which she does, finally taking a few steps toward town.

Five minutes later, she’s up to her knees in a combination of old and new snow, her whole body shaking with cold.
Hot chocolate. Sun. William in a bathing suit. William on the beach. William rubbing sunblock everywhere. Nice warm things. Not like here. In this frozen wasteland.
Ahead, the lights in town are flickering as though it’s already pitch-black.

“You realize, of course, that town will be closed. Except for emergency vehicles and the hardware store, it’s done.” Dove hears Max’s voice, the low hum of the snowmobile catching up to her, but refuses to turn around. “Remember that year we were twelve?” Max eggs her on with the memory. “The Easter blizzard? Kept the roads closed for a week.” Max laughs. “We were stranded at the resort. I seem to recall you and I managed to fill the indoor pool with—”

“Rubber ducks. Five thousand of them.” Dove gives a conciliatory look and wrinkles her nose. “You think this storm’ll be that bad?” She calculates, realizing if it is, she’d miss her flight to Nevis altogether.

Max watches her face, then looks up at the flowing snow. Catching her eye, he knows she needs to hear it will all work out, that she won’t be stranded. “It’ll be fine. One bad night, maybe, and then they’ll get the crews out to clear.”

Dove sighs, relieved. “Good.” She lifts her boot up from the snow and stomps. “So, what does a girl have to do to get a lift somewhere?”

“Nothing. Just ask.” Max pats the snowmobile and makes room for her, smiling at her the way he did when he first asked her to dance.

Trying to ignore her disappointment at missing the IM with William, Dove is aware of the ramifications this might bring.
What if William just thinks I’m blowing him off? What if he takes it as a lack of interest? What if he were the one not to show?
“Whoa. Talk about snow.” Dove has to leave behind her thoughts of the tropics and her boyfriend to deal with the blinding snow that’s covering everything. “What do we do?”

Max latches his helmet and warms up the engine. “The only thing we can. Try and start back and see where we wind up.”

Dove grimaces in her helmet. “That sounds rather undefined. I mean, isn’t there someone to call or shout to?”

Max tilts his helmet so it clanks onto Dove’s. Through their visors they look at each other, his eyes glinting. “Hang on and have faith.”

T
HE STING FROM THE
wind and sleeting snow is nothing compared to the harsh reality of yet another daily newspaper’s account of the budding romance between James and Charlie,
LES DEUX AMANTS
. Melissa reads the headline, squinting through the snow that appears to be piling up every second around her ankles.
The two lovers? Who says
lovers
anymore? What an annoying term.
Melissa makes a face at the words, feeling all over again the now-familiar tug at her heart, the emotional bruising that comes from liking someone who doesn’t like you back.

She bites her lip as she looks at the photo from the race—Charlie’s arm around James—and then she can’t look any longer. Not because it hurts too much, which it does, but because looking at anything for too long is impossible.

“Oh my god!” Melissa blurts out into the snowy air, aware that talking to herself won’t really increase the likelihood that James or anyone else will find her irresistible.
I have to go somewhere, find a place to wait out the worst of this before trying to get back.
Melissa shoves the anxiety about Matron’s dance-floor concerns and her love woes aside and thinks three words:

Gabe was right.

Town has emptied out. The last few people retreat to their apartments in town, or brave the walk to the nearby hotel, but no cars move. Only the bright flashing from the snowplows and the incessant bells from the church give signs of life. Melissa suddenly knows what it’s like to be really, truly alone.

I’m deserted. Or I’ve deserted myself.
She tucks her chin into her jacket, wishing she’d brought more clothing—or taken Gabe’s warnings more seriously and retreated to Les Trois while she still could. Her boots slide on the ice forming along the cobblestones, and her lips and cheeks feel wind burned. Determined, Melissa shoves her hands deep into her pockets and walks, knowing that if she stops for too long she’ll get frostbite or stuck. And since she didn’t tell anyone where she was going, no one knows to look for her away from the resort. No one except Gabe.

I could freeze out here. Or vanish.
Melissa’s heart races when she thinks about becoming her own headline. With her right hand she braces against the brick building; her left hand feels something in her pocket—a receipt? A candy? She pulls it out—a folded business card from the supply store.
That’s it! The factory.
Melissa envisions the large doorways there and figures that at the very least she’ll be able to find shelter in the tunnel that marks the entryway.

She shuffles down the street, leaning into the buildings so she doesn’t fall, so she has something solid backing her up, and starts off.

“You’re crazy!”

“Not as much as you think.” Max laughs, removing his helmet and sticking it under his arm as he reaches to knock on the door in front of him.

“You can’t just go into some random person’s house and demand entry, as in, ‘We’d like to come in—now!’” Dove blocks his knocking by elbowing his side. Reaching for his hands feels too flirty. Too couply. Too everything.

Max raises his eyebrows and gestures to the feet of snow, the whiteout conditions, and stomps his foot on the porch, where his boot leaves a small mound of flakes. “I don’t think this counts as crazy. Maybe survivalist.” He gets a gleam in his eyes. “We’re on an adventure.”

Dove smiles at him, rolling her eyes at his host-of-a-travel-show excitement, but feels it, too. It’s different, fun, daring to be caught in a storm with a friend, a guy who isn’t afraid. Dove imagines telling the story of their adventure.
We were completely snowed in
—
we were stuck
—
we were … too many
wes.
I couldn’t explain it to William. Maybe I’ll just have to relay it to Melissa and skip William altogether. After all, he may not even want to hear anything from me after the IM debacle.

Max knocks loudly on the door before Dove can stop him again. Cracking up, she reaches for his wrist—not the hand, just the safe area of his jacket cuff—and stops him too late.

“You realize, of course, that we could be standing on the porch of a killer hiding out from the police? Or a deranged old woman who poisons the tea she’s about to offer us? Or a creepy old skier who lost a gold medal and takes it out on unsuspecting passersby? Or a vampire?” Dove jokes but feels her chest heavy with worry. “I mean, no one knows where we are.”

Dove turns her face up to Max. He stares at her, mouth locked in a half grin, and nods. Behind the howling wind and thick door, they can hear footsteps. Dove backs up a few feet, wishing she could grab Max’s wide hand as the front door starts to open.

“The word
desolate
is the only one springing to mind,” Melissa mutters as she pounds the door to the factory and wishes for the hundredth time that she were back at the chalet, or on a beach, anywhere warm, and preferably somewhere with another human being.

In an instant, she gets one of her wishes. From the intercom on the side of the gate, a muffled voice: “I’ll buzz you in—take the side stairs.”

Side stairs? Melissa shrugs. She never knew there were side stairs, but like she’s gone through a magical porthole in a children’s book, as soon as she steps in the courtyard she sees on the far left a small archway with steep steps.
This will be fine
—
I can wait out the storm here with the salespeople, and then head back to Les Trois and deal with Matron’s wrath later.
Melissa has visions of entering the main storage room upstairs and finding a cozy floor picnic set up; maybe the workers would have assembled some chocolate bars or cheese and crackers, and made a fire in the previously abandoned marble fireplace. She allows a small smile to creep onto her face, and then winces when she feels the ache from the cold.

As soon as she’s up the stairs the wind quiets and finally Melissa can hear herself think, hear her footsteps as she enters the main room. Just as she remembers, all sorts of strange and beautiful items adorn the walls and floor. Glowing signs from old hotels, a mobile made of sparkling stars, a basketball hoop, a jumble of skis and poles that instantly reminds her of the race today and James, and then—before she can stop herself—that image of Charlie with her arm around him.
That should be me.
Melissa frowns and then looks for the picnicking staff, the blaze of a fire, some company other than her thoughts.

“Welcome, welcome.” The salesman beckons Melissa to the tally room, where his immaculate bookkeeping records are stacked in rows.

“Thanks—it’s freezing and I managed to get myself stuck in town.” Melissa’s jacket is soaked nearly through; her boots drip onto the floor. “Sorry.”

“Not a problem. Back about a decade ago we had fifteen skiers in here overnight—turned into quite the festive scene.” He takes a jacket from the back of his desk chair and slides it on.

“Fifteen? That sounds fun.” She almost looks around to see if that scene will recreate itself, but she hears no noises, no clinking glasses, no laughter. When she sees him put his black hat on, she starts to panic. “Wait—you’re not leaving, are you? I mean, I need to stay, I don’t have anywhere to …”

“Oh, it’s fine. You can stay here until tomorrow or until the snow eases up, whichever comes first. But I …” He starts out of the room and toward the exit. “I have to run—I’m a backup snowplow driver and—” He reaches out to hand her a slip of paper. “It’s my home number. Just in case you have a problem.” He peers behind Melissa to look out the arched window. “I might not be there for a few hours, but …”

“Thanks.” Melissa nods at the snow and pockets the paper.
So much for the company. So much for not feeling completely deserted.
“At least I’ll be warm.”

Once the echoes from his footsteps fade, the silence creeps in as Melissa tries her best not to think about every horror flick she’s ever seen, every movie in which a young woman just like her is somehow left alone in an unfamiliar setting.

Dove’s heart pounds as the front door of the cottage swings open. “We’ll be a headline—
Two Brits Bumble into Bad Situation, Get Beheaded.”
She whispers this to Max.