How I Came to Sparkle Again (14 page)

“It hurts a lot more this year,” she said.

“Yeah,” Mike agreed. “I know.”

Where people had shoveled the sidewalk in front of their shops, the sled scraped. A few businesses were open late, and a few tourists were out shopping, but since the locals were at the school for the Christmas program, the streets were relatively empty. Mike and Cassie walked a couple blocks and then turned up one block to their street.

Cassie took Mike’s hand again and he shut his eyes tightly for a second.

“We should probably make cookies, too,” Cassie said.

“Yes, let’s do that,” Mike said, grateful that they seemed to be figuring out the whole holiday thing together.

*   *   *

Lisa and Tom walked past the bellboys and in through the colossal doors of the historic Sparkle Lodge. A massive chandelier hung in the lobby and a bouquet of flowers that almost rivaled it sat on a table below it. Everything about the lodge was elegant—red carpet, dark wood, red-and-gold floral wallpaper.

Straight ahead was Carlucci’s Italian Bistro, the fine Italian restaurant where Lisa’s father had been the head chef and manager for decades. It still bore his name.

“Every time I pass that place, there’s this split second when I forget my dad is no longer there, and I forget how old I am now. For that moment, I have this strong impulse to run back to the kitchen and see him like I did when I was a little girl,” Lisa said.

Tom put his arm around her and gave her shoulder a little squeeze.

They walked past the front desk down the hall toward the spa. They paused in the hallway to pretend to gawk at the pictures of famous people who had stayed there, like the guests always did, and then when another couple was making appointments with the spa receptionist, they slipped by, pretending that they were just going out the door to look at the pool.

Outside, they quickly ducked around a corner and shed their clothes all the way down to their swimming suits.

Tom shuddered one last time before he submerged himself completely in the hot pool and imagined all the bugs floating away. He ran his fingers through his hair vigorously underwater before coming up. Then he inspected the surface of the water to make sure they weren’t floating there, alive, waiting to hop back on him. Satisfied that he saw nothing, he sat back against the wall just as Lisa stepped in next to him.

Across the pool sat a couple with Long Island accents loudly debating politics, and next to them was an older gentleman by himself who wore a thick gold chain that rested in his bushy chest hair. Closer still sat two couples with Texas accents reminiscing about a trip to Mexico.

Lisa rolled her eyes and said, “I so understand why the rest of the world hates American tourists.”

“Do they stress you out, darling?” Tom asked. “Let me help you with that.” He reached up to massage her shoulders.

“Oh, your charms aren’t going to work on me, Thomas. Eric told me how you two and Jason checked out all the massage videos from the library and practiced on each other to hone your seduction techniques—that is until you all got so good that you had to stop before you seduced each other. I’m on to you.”

“Once again, Eric is telling stories.”

“He said Jason says the massage videos are the whole reason he is married today,” she said.

“Eric is a masterful storyteller,” Tom said.

“Is that so?”

“Oh, Lisa, relax. You’re my friend. Come here,” Tom said.

Lisa gave him a suspicious look before she turned and let him massage her shoulders.

Tom admired her graceful neck, the way her shoulders were both delicate and strong. He felt her loosening up until she could hardly sit up straight anymore. That’s when he pulled her back against him so that her head rested on his chest. The rest of her sort of floated above his lap.

“What are you doing, Thomas?” Lisa mumbled.

“Chill, Lisa. You’re my dear friend. Sex ruins friendships. I’m never going to try anything with you.” The red of her bikini top kept catching his eye. He looked at her luscious breasts floating in front of her and ached to touch them.

“No, it doesn’t,” she said. “We’ve both had fuck buddies before.”

“They were our fuck buddies because we knew it could never work with them,” he said simply. “You and I could never be fuck buddies. I know that. So, no worries. I’m not putting the moves on you. This is just nice.”

“Wait. You’re saying you would never have sex with me because you think it could actually work with us?”

“Uh-huh,” he said.

“Yeah, that makes total sense,” she said sarcastically.

He didn’t reply. He just kept his arms around her and enjoyed the weight of her resting on his chest. He shut his eyes and moved his face close to her head, his nose an inch above her hair, and he smelled her uniquely Lisa smell. He wanted to hold her tighter but fought his instincts and loosened his hold instead. He leaned back and looked at the stars. As much as he didn’t want to, he found himself thinking that this moment felt something like a gift from God.

Lisa floated away just a little, lifted her chin, and filled her lungs. But each time she started to float away, Tom’s fingertips pulled her back. Eventually, he just kept his hands under her back, not really holding her up but ready to if she needed him.

He tried not to miss the feeling of her weight on his chest, but he did, so he pulled her back so that her head rested on his heart again. He folded his hands around the bottom of her rib cage.

“Sometimes I feel like Jilly’s experience with love has been like food poisoning … and mine has been like quietly dying of thirst,” Lisa said quietly.

Tom didn’t know what to say, so he looked at the stars. But they didn’t give him an answer.

“Do you ever feel like that? Like a part of you is dying?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he finally said.

Lisa put her hands on his. “This is nice,” she said. “I needed this. I didn’t even know how much.”

A little smile spread across his lips. “I knew,” he said.

They stayed that way, dozing off and on, until Orion slipped behind Sparkle Mountain. Tom thought about not saying anything and instead just spending the night there with Lisa, but he knew he should get at least a couple hours of sleep before work the next day. “It’s bedtime,” he finally said, although he didn’t want to.

Lisa took Tom’s shriveled hands in her own and opened his arms. She slid out of them but didn’t let go of his hands right away. She gave them an extra squeeze before she finally released him. They got out of the hot water and made a mad dash for their towels. Keeping their towels wrapped around them, they slipped their bathing suits off underneath and put their fleece layers back on without exposing themselves. They stepped into boots, put on gloves and stocking caps, and together walked back through the hotel lobby and out the front door.

Outside, the world looked different to Tom. He had never noticed how much the little white lights all over the bare trees looked like galaxies. The stars above seemed brighter than ever. He couldn’t help himself. He reached for Lisa’s hand and held it as they walked home.

They reached her sidewalk first. Tom let go of her hand. She gave him a little hug. He put his arms around her carefully, awkwardly, and then let go. She walked up the path to her house and let herself in through her unlocked door, and when she shut it behind her, Tom placed his hand on his heart.

On his way over to the Kennel, he passed Stinky Tree. It had been stuck upright in the snow and covered with Playboy automobile air fresheners with pictures of topless women on them. Big black plastic spiders also hung from several branches. He laughed. Word traveled fast in Sparkle.

chapter ten

SNOW REPORT FOR DECEMBER 24

Current temperature: 15F, high of 19F at 1
P.M.
, low of 9F at 4
A.M.

Clear skies, winds out of the southwest at 20 mph.

50" mid-mountain, 58" at the summit. 0" new in the last 24 hours. 1" of new in the last 48.

Cassie opened her eyes and turned her head to look at the picture of her mother on her bedside table. “Merry Christmas Eve, Mom,” she whispered. She bit her quivering lip. She didn’t want to be one more thing that made her father sad, especially this morning. It was enough that she had screamed and cried in her sleep last night. It had been one of those nights, leaving her feeling heavy and stiff, particularly her eyes, which she struggled to keep open.

This should have been a good day. For years Cassie had looked forward to the day she could finally ski in the Christmas Eve torchlight parade. And now here it was, but it was not going to be as she had imagined it. It was not going to be with her mom. She couldn’t imagine a torchlight parade without her mother in it. Year after year her father had let her sit on his shoulders while they watched the lights come down the hill until they turned into people they recognized, and at last they saw her mother. She always flashed them a winning smile as she skied through the two rows of spectators to the garbage can where the skiers extinguished their flares.

This year, her father would be standing alone and watching Cassie instead of Kate negotiate the steep bumps on the Exterminator. It broke Cassie’s heart to think of her father standing there all alone on Christmas Eve. She wanted to revise her Christmas Eve dream so that she and her dad could stay together, but a plan was a plan, and any deviation from it would only draw attention to all the ways everything was wrong and all the ways she was still not herself.

Look down, baby,
she heard her mother say inside her head. It seemed cruel to hear her mother’s voice when she was not on a bar of river cobbles. It seemed like a cruel memory or a cruel figment of her imagination.

She lifted her head and looked down at her bed. She examined her pillow, the wrinkles in her sheets, and the shadows. Nothing. She let her head fall back onto her pillow, wincing with disappointment.

Look down, look down,
she heard again. She wanted to yell at her own mind to shut up.
Look down,
she heard again.

Cassie inched her way over to the side of her bed and hung over the edge. Half of the little braided rug that lay next to her bed had been flipped up and folded over by her father’s foot last night as he’d rushed to her side. Under where it had been, Cassie saw a heart in the grain of the wood. Her tears hit it and splattered. She reached behind her for a pillow and held it to her chest since she couldn’t hug her mother.

“I don’t know how we’re going to get through today without you,” she whispered.

*   *   *

Only a select few people were invited to ski in the torchlight parade: ski patrol, ski instructors, and ski team members who were ten or older. So Mike stood near the lodge and watched as Cassie stepped into her bindings. Kate used to volunteer to time the races and loved this fringe benefit. Mike wasn’t able to be that involved. His work schedule just didn’t allow for it.

Technically, Cassie wasn’t on ski team this year, but Coach Ernie had a history with her and hoped it would get her back in the game. He knew she had been looking forward to this day since she could walk.

Cassie seemed so alone to Mike as she shuffled toward the lift all by herself. He gave her every opportunity to change her mind. But here they were. Tonight he wouldn’t be watching his wife ski down the steep mogul run with a flare in her hand. Instead, Cassie would finally get to do it, and Kate would miss it. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Mike didn’t presume to know. He hoped she’d see. And he ached as he watched Cassie, still so small and all alone, shuffle away from him.

Just then, Jill skidded to a stop at the bottom of the lift. “Hey, Cassie!” she called out. Cassie turned to see her and looked relieved. Jill skated up the empty ski patrol lift line, meeting Cassie at the front. “Hey, Scooter, can I ditch my poles with you?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said, and took them.

Cassie, knowing what to expect, had left hers behind, so Scooter offered her a hand and pulled her up to the blue line where they met the chair.

“You’re the best, Scooter,” Jill said.

“That’s what all the girls say,” he replied.

Jill laughed.

Mike watched the lift whisk them off together, and something in his heart swelled a little. Gratitude. Gratitude for good timing. Gratitude for the right person coming along when you need them the most. Gratitude for some warmth and mercy in this world.

*   *   *

“I patched up your teacher yesterday,” Jill said to Cassie on the lift. “She’s nice.”

“What was wrong with her?” Cassie asked.

“She had a big wipeout, and somehow her ski hit her in the face and sliced her a little. It wasn’t bad. She’ll be fine. But we were talking about you and talking about your writing.”

“Uh-oh,” Cassie said.

“I proposed something which maybe you’ll like or maybe you won’t, but it’s an idea, and your teacher supports it if you’re into it. She also said you could decide if she got to read it and that if you didn’t want her to, she could just flip through your pages and see that you wrote.”

Cassie was uneasy. “Okay…,” she said apprehensively.

“Consider making yourself a memory book about your mom where you write down your favorite stories and traditions and, you know, just memories. Whatever it is you most want to remember. Maybe little things, maybe big things, I don’t know. Obviously, it would be all up to you. But it would be yours, and it would be writing, and it would be meaningful. It would be something you would always treasure, and if you have kids one day, it might even be something you share with them. You could illustrate it if you wanted, or scan photos and include them. I don’t know. You could put your collection of writings in a binder and decorate it and make it really special.”

Cassie was avoiding eye contact, looking off into the trees instead.