Slippery Slopes (14 page)

Dove shakes her head, adding flour and a pinch of cinnamon to the mixing bowl. “I never said that.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Anyway, enough about me. What are you going to do about—” Dove’s question is cut off by the abrupt appearance of Charlie in the doorway.

“What’s she going to do about what?” Charlie’s hands perch on her hips, and she eyes Dove and Melissa with suspicion.

Dove goes back to cooking. “Hi, Charlie. I was just asking …”

“She wanted to know if I’d sorted out the next big activity,” Melissa says, covering for Dove, who was clearly about to address the Charlie-James conundrum.

“And have you?” Charlie cocks her head to one side, her body elegant in black leggings and an oversized cashmere sweater.

Only she would wear cashmere to clean toilets. Melissa fights the urge to ask Charlie what she did during the storm, knowing that if the question were turned back, there’d be no way of avoiding the kiss with James. Just thinking about his lips on hers makes Melissa stammer. “Um, yeah. Actually, um, everything’s fine.” She checks her watch more as a gesture than because she really needs to know the time. “An hour and I’ll be directing the ice painting out on the pond.”

“Painting?” Charlie’s voice patronizes her almost as much as the look she gives. “Isn’t that a bit childish?”

Now it’s Dove’s turn to spring into defensive mode. “Ice painting is a Trois tradition. For over one hundred years skiers and guests have gathered on the pond with paints….”

“In this case, ecologically sound food coloring,” Melissa adds. “It’s fun. Really.”

Charlie sighs. “Suit yourself.”

Dove and Melissa exchange a look. Melissa takes a deep breath and voices what they’re both thinking. “Charlie?” Charlie responds with only a look of boredom. “When did you become so …” Melissa stops herself.

Dove fills in. “Such a bitch?”

Charlie hardly reacts. “Oh, you mean because I was so nice last week?” She licks her lips and remains placid. “Personalities are just things to change as you need to.”

“So you’re a chameleon of niceness to nastiness?” Dove asks, her face disbelieving.

Charlie shrugs. “Works back home. It’s every person for themselves—and if there’s fallout along the way, so be it.”

“That’s a pretty grim way of looking at it,” Melissa says.

Charlie looks exasperated. “You can both keep up the pretense of closeness, but underneath, everyone’s just in it for themselves.”

Fed up with her roommate’s attitude, Dove shakes her head. “Don’t you have some bathrooms to mop or beds to make?” Dove manages to ask this in a way that isn’t obviously insulting, but cutting nonetheless.

“What I do and don’t do is my concern. Isn’t it?” She walks over to the mixing bowl, sticks a finger into Dove’s batter and tries it. “Not bad. Could use a bit more sugar, though.”

I could say the same thing about you,
both Melissa and Dove think at the same time. Dove flinches—it’s her biggest pet peeve to have people sample things before they’re ready.
Maybe I’m like that, too,
she thinks.
I can’t act until I’m well and truly ready. Like with Max. Or school.
Or …
William.
She imagines the plane ticket to the West Indies waiting for her downstairs. Just a couple of days and the flight will board.

“I have to get back to my reading,” Charlie says, and in a last flashy attempt to show who’s boss, unfurls the newspaper from under her arm to reveal yet another snapshot of her with James.

“Isn’t that yesterday’s paper?” Melissa asks, her heart beating hard.

Charlie gives her a stare worthy of its own storm warnings. “No. This is today’s.” Charlie smiles, showing her camera-worthy teeth. “And P.S., just so you know, I have some big news to tell.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “But not yet.” She studies the paper. Front and center is a different photo of James kissing Charlie’s cheek. It’s this image that Charlie leaves Melissa with before clomping down the stairs.

“Don’t worry about it—I’m sure it means nothing,” Dove says, and begins searching for the vanilla extract.

“I don’t know what to think anymore. All I know is that I have to be on the ice and ready to go in forty minutes.”

A
LL ACROSS THE EXPANSE
of frozen water, myriad colors make the pond look like an outdoor work of art.

Melissa listens to comments from onlookers.

“This is amazing!”

“How unusual!”

“The prizes this year are better than ever….” Various languages blend with the cold air, as the colors spread across the pond. Bottles of different-hued food coloring are available on tables by the ice edge: blue, magenta, yellow, green, and a bunch of metallics—the food coloring to which Melissa added an organic biodegradable silver, gold, or copper. Guests help themselves to squeeze bottles and then set to work making pictures or designs. Off to one side, kids have a field day, squirting themselves as much as the ice. On the other side, the more professional-looking artists work in careful drips and dots, creating recognizable monuments, familiar faces, or flowers.

Melissa walks carefully on the ice, promising herself she won’t fall. Not again.
The last thing I need for Gabe’s party and the ball is to be laid up in a cast or limping.
Yeah, that’d be a sexy costume. Not that James likes those clichéd costumes. And not that I’m going to dress for him, but still …

“Hello? Miss Forsythe?”

“What? Sorry.” Melissa snaps to attention as Matron gives her a disapproving look.

“Ten minutes and then we’ll do the judging.” Matron looks at the smiles, the general pleasure among the crowds of people painting and watching, and has to give a nod to Melissa. “Even though you seem as though you’re off on another planet, I must commend you on a job well done.” She watches a woman squirt a bottle of blue food coloring up into the air so that when it hits the ice it freezes in a display similar to fireworks.

“Thanks. I don’t feel like I did all that much. I mean it’s just some paint and …”

Matron puts her hand on Melissa’s shoulder. “Will you wake up and smell reality? We’ve had tons of hosts here. Hundreds. Boys with backgrounds that suited them toward military school or brilliant banking. Girls whose beauty kept them going through anything or who did a fine enough job but who didn’t come by any of the organizing naturally.”

“And I do?” Melissa smiles, her eyes almost afraid of looking right at Matron.

“You might be slightly dreamy …” Matron watches Melissa notice Charlie across the pond. “Or slightly socially inclined. But … you are very organized and very enthusiastic and personable.”

Melissa shrugs, trying to be humble. “I just set up all the bottles on Changeover Day. I mean, with the schedule planned out, and using food coloring, not paint, I just made a box of each shade and labeled them and …”

Matron puts her finger to her lips. “The best hosts never ruin the magic.” Matron takes a bottle of red and squeezes it into a dribbly heart. “Make it look easy, and know in your heart it’s not.”

Melissa takes in the praise and the works of ice art while trying to avoid Charlie, who seems eager to find her. As Charlie heads for the refreshment stand, Melissa slinks along the edge of the ice, eyeing the enormous rendering of the Eiffel Tower, a full waterway with gondola in Venice, and a bouquet of sunflowers as a homage to van Gogh. Then, right when she’s about to alert Matron to the ice painting worthy of the biggest prize (in this case, use of the resort’s private jet to anywhere in the world for two), Melissa stops in her tracks.

“Oh my god.”

There, on the ice, among the smiley faces drawn in yellow, the pretty but not spectacular flowers and abstract artwork, is—

“Holy crap.” Dove bounds onto the ice, looking like a fairy complete with white-dusted hair and eyelashes. Only her dusting is with flour, not sparkles.

“I know, right?” Melissa stands agog at the site in front of her. In one-dimensional form is a perfect replica of the world-famous Mona Lisa painting. “It’s so real.”

“I know.” Dove nods. “I’ve been to the Louvre countless times and this is almost better than the original…. At least this one’s big enough to get a good look at.”

Melissa kneels down to touch the frozen paint, forgetting it came from a squeeze bottle, forgetting it’s food coloring she herself had dumped into the plastic containers, forgetting everything except the picture. “It’s not my imagination, though, right? I mean it’s—”

“Oh, it’s completely not your imagination. Everyone—anyone could tell that this isn’t just the
Mona Lisa.
It’s a portrait of you.”

“Look—there’s no signature, though.” Melissa traces her own facial features with a gloved hand, wondering who might have taken the time to do this and why. “All the other ones have unmistakable names underneath.”

“Well, no one wants to miss out on the prizes, I guess.”

Melissa swivels on her knees to check out the scene. Matron makes her rounds, jotting notes about the finalists for the prizes. The guests begin to head for the refreshment stand, warming themselves on oversized mugs of hot chocolate or spiked eggnog. “What should I do? I can’t very well nominate this for a prize. Not unless I want to win the Most Conceited award.”

“No. You can’t nominate this for top place,” Dove says.

“But I can.” Matron stands with a smug grin, looking down at Melissa. “There aren’t any rules governing what art is acceptable, nor which subjects.” She shakes her head, remembering. “Considering the filth we got a few years back, just be glad the artist chose
Mona Lisa
and not a centerfold of some kind …”

Melissa laughs hearing Matron say the word
centerfold.

Dove wipes some flour from her cheeks. “I have to run if I’m going to finish dusting these pies.”

Matron turns to her. “I trust you’re ready for the tea?”

Dove nods. “Just about. Everything’s cooling in the kitchen. I’ll transport it to the Oak Library shortly.”

“Are you coming to the prize ceremony?” Matron asks Melissa.

Still on the ice, Melissa touches the picture one more time, feeling that whoever painted it somehow captured an element of her she hardly knew she had, but one that immediately announced itself as hers. It’s like she—the girl in this painting—knows something. About life. About love. And she’s so sure of it—that’s why she’s smiling. She’s got something to look forward to that’s different. Off the path and into life.

Melissa stands up, a smile twin to the one on the Faux Lisa gracing her mouth. “Don’t I have to be there to hand out the prizes?”

Matron shakes her head. “No. I’ll be there and can certainly manage. Perhaps you have tidying up to do before …”

Melissa is a mere mouthful away from spewing
the party
to Matron when she realizes her supervisor means the ball. “Right. Tomorrow. The big event.”

“So many years of wonderful galas. Let’s hope the Winter Wonderland lives up to the expectations. That it surpasses them.”

Melissa nods, the stress of all the planning coming back to her. She leaves the skating pond and all the colors, the tribute to herself, and the anonymity of the artist, so she can rush back to the chalet.

S
ET BACK FROM THE
main resort area toward the heavily wooded land where the original resort stood, Dove feels a bit of anxiety mingling with the cozy atmosphere of the Oak Library.
Hard to believe this building was once the main building of the whole resort, with just tiny cabins scattered into the mountainside. I wish it were like that still. No ritz, no glamour, no outpouring of wealth and class. Just nature and string. And maybe love.
Dove readies the last tray of mince pies, dusting their tops with sugar in the shape of a holly leaf.

Amid the quiet chatter about ski conditions and the upcoming New Year, Dove spots Professor Randolph Hartman taking not one but two of her mince pies. When he realizes he’s been caught, he offers a loud guffaw.

“Wasn’t it Wittgenstein who favored excess of pastries?” he asks, and joins Dove by her station. She ladles eggnog and hot buttered rum into clear glass mugs, topping each one with a dollop of freshly made whipped cream.

She shoots him a doubtful glance. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“But you are sure about some things, aren’t you?” He bites into a pie and makes noises of delight. “These are wonderful. I have you to thank for them, do I?”

Dove nods. “My nanny’s old recipe.” She blushes, wondering if that sounds silly.

“Looks as though you’re in no need of a nanny these days.” Randolph finishes the first pie and sips from his mug.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Dove busies herself with folding cocktail napkins and handing a drink to a tweed-clothed invitee. “Sometimes I think I could still use someone to tell me where to go and what to do….” She laughs, trying to make light of what she said.

“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea.” Professor Hartman looks at her over the rims of his glasses, causing his eyes to look small and kind. He puts down his pie and rests his drink on the table, searching his pockets for something. “Here.”

“What’s this?” Dove takes the card he hands her and looks at the number on it.

“It’s my office number.” He resumes eating the pie and then speaks with his mouth full. “Last night …”

Dove makes a face. “Ugh. Last night …”
It seems like ages ago. Talking about books. Lying there with Max. Wanting him to
…

“Maxwell spent the better part of his first term at Oxford in tutorials with me. Granted, I assign on average one thousand pages of reading a week and a minimum of thirty written pages to be read aloud in the sanctuary that I call my office.”

Dove listens, wondering why he’s telling her this, but nods. “Max is a good student.”

“He is. Quite good. From what he says—from what he’s said all term—and from discussing things with you last night … well, it seems as though you’re a better student. Or a more critical thinker.”

“Oh, I’m critical all right.” Dove instantly recalls arguments with her parents about staying at Les Trois, about being cut off from the family finances, how her mother and father accused her of being too critical of the place that she came from.