Green Tea Won't Help You Now! (20 page)

I had a hard time equipping myself though. I was torn between guilt purchases of Hard Pack goggles, helmets, gloves and boots (none of them were diamond encrusted, snake skin covered, or fur lined), or a total denial of their existence.
 

At the ski rental the man tried to force a pair of Hard Pack skis on me, telling me they were the best on the market and they were developed, "
beim Alex!
"
 

He proudly pointed at an autographed poster showing a twenty-year-old Alex, who flashed his best smile for the camera.
 

"I'll take the Atomics, please."

"
Na, wie's meinen
- as you think best," he grumbled.

I had made up my mind to stay in Kitzbühel until shortly before the racing week began. I would not be
that
daring and remain there during a ski race. There were limits to my new neutrality towards snow sports.

I was enjoying Tyrol and it rewarded me beautifully. The fresh, cold air, the breathtaking vistas, and above all the hearty food and the hot sweet pies, like Germknödel, (a fluffy yeast dough dumpling with a mix of poppy seeds and sugar, filled with spicy plum jam and melted butter on top), or Kaiserschmarrn, (a light, caramelised pancake made from a sweet batter using flour, eggs, sugar, salt, and milk, baked in butter, served with raisins or apple pie. — I had to look them up on Wikipedia to know the ingredients.)

Most of the time while I was sliding down the slopes or walking along the forest paths I was occupied with soul searching. Where did I want to go? Could I return to Venice? I had spent the best three years of my life there, should I allow a two-month-long affair to destroy everything I had worked for? Or would my haven be ruined? I missed my anarchical garden and my little boat. I had called Drake upon arriving in Kitzbühel and had to promise to bring him a real Tyrollean hat. I missed my students and my apartment above the studio. I missed the Pacific Ocean. Should I go to San Diego or to San Francisco and try it there? Take another name, open another yoga studio? Or should I do something completely different? Go to school, be a veterinary? Should I buy another horse and try to hit it big again in eventing? I only knew I did not want to be Laetitia Corvera-Fabergé, but it was the only thing I could not alter. I was inseparable from my past. I had to come to terms with it. I could not run away and be somebody else, as my experience with Alex had surely proven.
 

On a superbly clear and sunny day, Clothilda and Giordana informed me they would be coming along with me to the cable car station to improve their tan on the Sonnenalm terrace. I wondered in secret if it was at all possible. They enlightened me soon enough. They had an ongoing competition: who would go to the grave the most sun-tanned. I suppose there is not much to aspire to when most parts of your body are a hundred years old.

We were joined by another friend of theirs, the filly of the group, the ninety-two-year old Henriette Sacher from Vienna (not related to the cake) and the ladies' toy boy cavalier, the eighty-five year old Heinrich Hadermayr from Munich.

When we were finally perched on the bubble's heated seats, I calculated a minimum of two hundred foxes, chinchillas and minks had to be in it with us, deprived of flesh, bones and organs and worked into coats, hats, gloves and boots. It made me sick to the core, but I had given them too many lectures on animal welfare already.
 

I drew my eyes away from them and looked out at the Wilder Kaiser (wild emperor), the area's most significant landmark. It is a large, steep and rugged mountain formation, much in the style of a gothic cathedral.

"You know," Henriette said in flawless English, tinged with a hint of Viennese, "when I was in Kuala Lumpur with my late husband, we went to the Gentang skyway, but I thought it was exaggerated. If you are used to this view..."

"Oh, yes," the Canadian Giordana agreed. "Remember, Claude, when we went to Singapore on the Queen Elizabeth? We took the Sentosa cable car, but we could not see what all the fuss was about."

"No, we couldn't. Sure, you're starting out from a skyscraper, but they're the same all over the world."

"Is the Queen Elizabeth much like the Queen Mary?" Heinrich inquired. "I thought there were way too many people on board."

"Yes, it's the smaller ship," Clothilda admitted, "but it's still very crowded. I shall always prefer my own boat to a cruise ship, no matter how good the facilities are."

"Oh, do you?" Henriette tried to raise her brows but the Botox would not let her. "I can not stand the waves anymore, the shaking, you understand? A big ship does not shake as much as a yacht. Ours is always chartered out, but, oh dear, the people leave it such a state."

Giordana nodded. "You're absolutely right, I find the swell just as annoying as you do. We always have the boats brought to our destinations by carrier and travel close to land. Where it's shallow."

"When we were in the Maldives last year," Heinrich said, "I was surprised at how shallow the water was. It gets too warm for my taste. Huh, Claude, we prefer the good old Schwarzsee, don't we?"

"Yes. Maldives... when we stayed there we got so bored. What is there but palm trees and sand? Just like the Seychelles. Bor-ing."

Giordana giggled. "There's also a reason why a certain island is called Bora Bora."

"Oh, don't even start!" exclaimed Henriette. "The worst things are the long flights!"

"Terrible."

"I hate it."

"The air conditioning on our Cessna is broken. I always get a sore throat."

"I don't know what it is with hotels anymore, but the beds make me sneeze."

"Tsk, we never sleep in hotels. The beds would have killed us long ago. I don't go anywhere without my mattress."

With a rattle, the bubble entered the Fleckalmbahn top station.
 

"What is wrong now, Laetitia?" Clothilda asked. "You look as if you bit into a lemon."

The door opened and I climbed out as nimbly as my ski boots allowed. "Seriously? May I ask a question? Of all of you?"

"Sure!"

"Why do you even leave the house?"

I carried my skis out of the station and watched the oldies dodder in the vague direction of the orange Sonnenalm sun beds. I frowned and sighed and held my face into the sun. "It is always permitted to smile," I softly told it and it worked right away.

Exemplarily goggled and helmeted I made my way to the gentle blue slope straight ahead, which would lead me to the more challenging slopes. I could ski quite expertly, I had been told by various informed people, my turns were decidedly elegant. Well, I had always been good at sports and I had excellent coenaesthesia (great word, right? I learnt it during my training to become a yoga instructor). Also, I had started quite young. Skiing, like riding and hockey and netball, is simply something a lady must master, if you believe the Lady Frederica Richmond Corvera-Fabergé.

I also prided myself on going rather fast and hardly ever falling. I have never been fearful when it came to dangerous activities, how would I have been able to compete in eventing otherwise? Just now, I smugly overtook a group of intermediates and made an effort to swing even more elegantly than before, just to shame them a little. Normally, it is I who feels ashamed for her silly hauteur a minute later.

I took the red, went up with the chairlift to the Ehrenbachhöhe, glided across the slope to the Sonnenalm to check if my geriatric pals were still among the living and continued down the blue one again.

Atop the world cup slope I halted. It was still open to the average skier, but it would be closed a week later to prepare it for the race.

I pursed my lips. It is said to be the most difficult downhill slope on the circus. But why should I not go down there? It would be a nice challenge. I could work up a sweat and I would show the bloody Silverston Flanke what I would do to it.

I went down the first four hundred yards, then stopped and looked proudly up. I felt I had mastered the slope most elegantly. From my vantage point I had a great view across the valley below. I smiled and continued. Not long afterwards I was confronted with the Silverston Flanke, a long, steep and very icy section with the additional difficulty of being tilted sharply to one side.

I rammed my poles into the snow and pushed off into it.

"LAETITIA!" A roar thundered from the sky and echoed from the mountains.

"Whaa!" I shrieked and crunched the skis into the icy ground. I stood still and looked up in the firm belief the God of Downhill had called me out for setting skis onto this holy ground. It was him. The God of Downhill. He was in the chairlift on the other side of the slope, I could see his blond head steadily moving uphill.

"LAETITIA!" He roared again.

"No..." I whimpered and I suddenly felt like a four year old on their first day of skiing. "Pull yourself together, Tish," I hissed at myself. "The lift he's in will take him far away, if you start now you will escape his wrath."

"LAETITIA!" It thundered again from the mountains.

"Aaaah!" I started into the Silverston Flanke. After a few turns I glanced over my shoulders and what I saw made my blood freeze. Alex had reached a section where the chairlift crossed an unprepared hill face full of rocks, deep powder snow, and an occasional tree. At first I did not get what he was doing. He lifted the retention bar and... JUMPED OUT!

I stood with my mouth hanging open, believing him dead, when he shot over the ridge at high speed.

"AAAAAAH!" I screamed and went into schuss.
 

Down and down I went, faster and faster. The trees lining the slope turned into a grey curtain, the wind burnt on my cheeks. There was a leap, but there was no stopping. I took off and landed at least a hundred feet further, (well, maybe not), only to go into the next narrow curve, then down a steep straight slope. My skis went ever faster with unlimited acceleration. My thighs were burning and my breathing was coming hard. Again, a narrow bend, another leap. I was sure I had chosen the wrong sport, I should have been a ski racer, not a rider. no human in history could ever have gone as fast as I had. Down I went and at last into the longest, fastest bit of them all. On the right side of the slope was a large digital velocimeter and I was sure I shot past it at 300kmh/186mph... or not.
 

He eased past me quite leisurely, skiing backwards. Naked fury took hold of me and I lashed at him with my pole, but without much force or success. He made a little sideways turn, went backwards again and was right in front of me, facing me, and caught me. He gently lifted me and my skis off the ground.
 

He slowed and set me down on the side of the slope.

"Are you crazy to go so fast without a helmet!" I yelled.

"Who was going fast?"
 

"What do you want? Can't one ski here in peace? Have you not said all you had to say to me?"

"You. I want you."

"All of a sudden?"

"No, not all of a sudden, all the time. I— could you please take off the goggles and the helmet. I can't prostate myself at your feet while you're wearing a competitor's products and look like a housefly."

"No, I won't. Let me go, Alex, or I'll jump up and knock you out with this competitor product."

"Please, babe, hear me out."

But I was so heated up from my allegedly super fast descent, he had no earthly means of stopping me. Once a Corvera-Fabergé starts talking, there is not much anyone can do. "You can't pluck me out of the sky like this and tell me you want me. The last time I saw you, you told me to get out of your sight. After I had been humiliated by a vile yacht broker and had come three-hundred miles on a high speed boat just to see you and to tell you that I love you and that I will never love anybody
but
you. What has changed since then? I am still the same billionaire ex-addict who snorted coke from the toilet seat, who slept with all the polo players on the field!"

"All of them? I thought one."

"One." Why not prevaricate when the opportunity presents itself? "I'm still the one who ruined your OPI."

"IPO."

"Whatever. You did not give me any chance to explain myself to you. I know it was stupid not to tell you who I was, but I wanted you to want me,
ME
, Alex, this body, this face, this mind, this soul."
Shit, I sound like a telenovela again.
"The Trixie Beaumont you met, that was me! I am a crackpot yogi who gets tickled pink when she wins three-hundred dollars. It took me a long time to dig myself out of the pit I had fallen into but I have already done it, there are no more layers to me, you have seen them all!"

"I know."

"What do you know? You know nothing, Alex Snow."

"Yes, I do. Drake told me everything."

"What did he tell you? When did he tell you and why did he tell you?"

"He caught me sleeping in the boat in your garden three days ago and he thought I was one of the homeless people and he offered to make me tea and buy me food. Then he recognised me and threatened me with the hosepipe."

"What were you doing in my boat?"

"Tri—isha, I missed you so bad! I did not want to forgive you but I missed you. I love you like hell, I can't just turn that off, no matter how badly you've been treating me."

"I haven't treated you bad—I did not mean to treat you badly."

"Then you came to Tartuga with this man on his incredible yacht. You materialised like an epiphany. I was sure he must be the same guy I had heard about, the one you ran around with before. I couldn't understand why I would have to feel more miserable than I already did and then, turns out he was not your guy and I was relieved, but I was still so mad at you, even more so when I saw you in your natural habitat. But there you were and I was still crazy about you so I started to think maybe it's all just not true, maybe people exaggerated and gossiped and when I was prepared to forgive you perhaps a little, this other guy comes along and he looks even better than the first one. Turns out, he
is
the guy and it
is
all true. But that was not what mattered most, what mattered most was that you decided he was more important than me."