Shooting for the Stars (11 page)

“I don’t know what’s the deal with you two. But maybe you should figure out how to get past it, preferably while I’m still young.” She batted her eyelashes at him in an exaggerated, comical way.

Again, Bear had no answer. He’d love to know how Anya knew he was uncomfortable. And what Stella had ever said about their unfortunate encounter at Lake Tahoe. Though he didn’t really deserve to know unless he could somehow find a way to discuss it with Stella himself.

Then again, they were never having that conversation unless she stopped sprinting out of rooms when he walked into them.

“Where’s this camera you want to move?” he asked.

“It’s time to take a hike,” Anya said, leaving her desk.

“That’s what all the girls tell me,” he said, and Anya laughed.

Three hours later, Bear descended the Blue Spruce ski trail for the second time, while the sun beat down on his back. He dropped his tool box outside the office door, then went inside to find Anya.

“How did it go?” she asked, hanging up her phone.

“Fine, I think. But now we have to check the video feed to see if I’m right.”

“Pull up a chair, hottie.”

Ignoring her cheeky compliment, Bear dragged an office chair over from an empty cubicle. Anya passed him the keyboard. He logged into the video website, where camera number two was now showing video of an empty grassy slope.

“Hey!” She clapped her hands. “It looks good, right? Viewers will be able to see skiers as they jump that cornice.”

“Yeah. The camera angle looks good. But if it slips or something, just give me a call.”

“This is great! I’m glad we moved it. In the old spot, we just saw a bunch of people getting off the chairlift on Upper Hazardous. That’s not nearly as interesting, except when they fall off. It was like the blooper cam.”

Bear chuckled. “That could be fun, though. You know, when you’re training lifties, you should show them some of that footage. There are plenty of ways to fall off a chair lift. You could show them all of ‘em in a ten-minute period.”

Anya sat back in her chair. “Holy crap. That’s a good idea.”

Bear shrugged. “Only if you still have the footage.”

But Anya was already punching buttons on her phone. “Hey, Toby! Yeah, I know it’s Saturday. You know Bear, right?”

They knew each other. The older man was the head of the ski patrol, and Bear had worked for him a couple of seasons when he was a teenager.

“In the staff meeting last week, you asked if we could make you a training video. Bear is going to help you with that, okay? And he has some great ideas. Yeah! I’ll check. Bye!” She hung up the phone and beamed a smile at him. “You do know how to edit video, right?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Um, lots of people? But I guess the better question is whether you’re okay with taking on an extra job for the mountain. Do you have the free hours?”

Free hours were just about the only things that Bear had plenty of. “I think I can fit it in,” he said, giving Anya a wave goodbye.

A training video
. Bear’s head was full of ideas before he even reached the parking lot. He’d been shooting footage on the snow for years, but it had never occurred to him to charge for his services. It had always been a hobby.

But video was probably something the mountain needed more of, right? In fact… Bear turned around and went back inside. “Hey, Anya?” he called, striding toward her desk.

“Back already?”

“Just one last thing. Those marketing clips on your website are pretty old, right? Has there been any talk of replacing them?”

“Sure.” She shrugged. “But we were going to talk about it after we get the whole website redesigned next month.”

“All right.” Bear cleared his throat. “I’d like a chance to pitch you guys on any new footage before you hire someone else.”

“Okay,” she said, grabbing a pen. “I’ll add it to the agenda of our next staff meeting.”

“You’re the best.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “I know.”

Bear went home feeling happier than he had in weeks. In the alcove which his father referred to as his “office,” he entered his hours at the mountain onto a time sheet. Working part time for his father was currently his only income. His condo in Utah had been on the market for more than half a year, but there hadn’t been any nibbles. If it didn’t sell soon, he’d have to lower the price, wiping out the nest egg he thought he’d accumulated there. Another tricky decision to add to his list.

It was a pretty long list. And numero uno was a doozy: find something else to do with your life.
 

Today, he might be one step closer.

When dinnertime arrived, Bear looked into the refrigerator, pulling out some deli meat and a jar of mustard. He was a twenty-nine year-old guy living with his father like a loser. But it was the only way to keep expenses down.

“You’re whistling,” his father pointed out when Bear walked into the kitchen. “Got a date?”

“Nope. Got something better.”

“What’s that?”

“An idea.”

“Uh oh.” His father chuckled. “I’d better brace. That’s what you said when you wanted to enter your first snowboarding competition.”

The subtext of that statement was:
and look how that turned out.
But Bear was in too good a mood to let his father’s jab take him down.

“So are you going to tell me what it is?” his father pressed.

“I want to make a film. Several films, actually.” Some of them would be practical things, like the videos for the resort. But there was really no reason to stop there. He’d always enjoyed photography and camera work. “I’d be good at it.”

His father gave a dry chuckle. “You need a
job
, son. That’s a hobby.”

Bear said absolutely nothing. It wouldn’t matter if Martin Scorsese himself asked Bear to work on a film, his father would never see it as legit. It would be a waste of breath to try to convince him. Bear spread mustard on two slices of bread and promised himself that he wouldn’t engage with his father on the topic of the future.

“I requested another application for that accounting course. It came in the mail today.”

Bear kept the flinch off his face. “I still have the last one you got me.”

“Fill it out, kid. The semester starts in January.”

Never in his life had Bear exhibited an interest in accounting. But his father had latched on to this idea a few years ago because the accountant who did his business taxes every year charged a lot of money. “You definitely want some of that,” was how he always put it.

“You can fill out the application and still make your movie,” his dad added. “Movies are expensive, by the way.”

True. But that didn’t mean Bear couldn’t make them. He layered his sandwich together and cut it in half with the mustard knife. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

“I know it’s hard to change gears,” his father said.

Seriously? When have you ever tried?
His father had not left Vermont as long as Bear could remember. The man did not know shit about changing gears.

“But you got to find your feet, kid. Stop relying on the Lazarus family to plan your life. I hope you’re not going to ask Hank for movie money.”

Bear felt his blood pressure escalate even before his father finished his bitter little statement. He knew he shouldn’t react, but it was fucking impossible not to. “I don’t take his money,” he bit out.

“Really? Whose car is that outside?

And there it was. Bear picked up his plate and strode out of the room. He walked through the modest log home his father had built with his own two hands, and out onto the little porch. There weren’t any chairs outside, because when his mother had still been around, there wasn’t money for extra furniture. Eventually Barry Electrical came into its own and paid all the bills. But there still wasn’t anyplace to sit, because a single dad with his own business didn’t have free time to think about deck chairs.

Bear sat down on the wooden planks, his feet dangling off the front, his plate in his lap. But his appetite had left him. It was a shitty thing to accuse him of — trying to depend on Hank. His father had it exactly backwards. The whole reason he stayed in central Vermont, where the job market was crap, was because Hank was not okay. His best friend was in terrible distress, and Bear had spent many hours of each day — and more than a few nights — worrying about him.

He’d started worrying that morning in Tahoe with Stella. And he’d never really stopped.

By the evening of Hank’s accident, he and Stella had reached the hospital. The meager phone calls Stella and her parents had traded between flights had provided no clarity. So Bear had lead-footed it all the way down highway 89 from Burlington.

But at the hospital, there still weren’t answers. The next few weeks had been a gauntlet of small milestones which only brought new questions. Would Hank wake up? Yes, he finally did. But he could not move his legs.

At first, Hank had seemed to take the devastating news with a stiff upper lip. (Later Bear realized that shock had numbed Hank’s early reaction.) When Hank began an aggressive course of physical therapy to try to maximize his muscle control, Bear had sat with him in the rehab hospital while trainers buzzed around, making optimistic noises about “giving it time” and “retraining the nervous system.”

But the more time that passed, the less optimistic everyone became. Especially Hank. As the one-year anniversary of his crash loomed, he could only manage a few hard-won steps at a time, and only on a set of parallel bars, with leg braces that rivaled the The Terminator’s metalwork.

Bear picked up his sandwich and took a bite. It was the same turkey and cheddar on wheat that he ate every night because it was cheap. Bear only spent money on restaurants or bars when he could convince Hank to get out of his house for a beer somewhere. Even after ten months, that wasn’t getting any easier. Bear didn’t know what to do about it, either. It stressed him out. His father’s misplaced disapproval of their friendship only added insult to injury.

The irony was that Bear
did
have a job offer. A good one.

A coach he’d known for a decade wanted Bear to join his back-country outfit outside of Aspen, Colorado. If Bear took the job, he’d leave after Thanksgiving to lead snowboarding clinics for whoever could fork over ten thousand bucks for an intense week of star-studded coaching. He would teach lessons, and also mix with the paying guests at meals, probably telling stories of his glory days as a pro.

The pay was good, and the food would be spectacular. As opportunities went, it was a pretty good one. He hadn’t told his dad, though. Because he wasn’t sure yet what he was going to do about the offer.
 

On the one hand, it would be easy to board a jet to Denver and forget every tense detail of these past few months. But it wouldn’t feel right to walk away with Hank still looking so miserable. Bear’s work here wasn’t done.

So it smarted that his father had accused him of leeching off of Hank, when the easiest choice would be to turn his back and flee the state.

Bear’s father’s discomfort with the Lazarus family was his own life-long hang-up. Bear knew this. Still, he’d always had trouble shaking off his father’s disapproval. Tonight was a perfect example. It had taken all of five minutes for his father to flatten Bear’s optimism over his film idea.

Don’t let him get to you
, Bear ordered himself.

Besides, the more he thought about filmmaking, the better the idea got. Winter sports were a big business, with big money involved. And if they wouldn’t pay Bear to snowboard anymore, they could pay him to
film
snowboarding.

Who else knew as much as he did about the sport
and
about cameras? He had as many industry contacts as a guy could have.

And so did Hank.

Now, his friend couldn’t take a job coaching, like Bear could. But that didn’t mean he had to sit indoors for the rest of his life. Maybe he could get Hank to think big. If they made a film
together
, Hank could get back into the swing of things.

It wouldn’t be an easy conversation. But maybe Hank would see the possibilities, eventually. He’d have to. Because with every passing minute, the idea grew greater in Bear’s mind.

He left his sandwich plate on the front porch. He got into Hank’s SUV and cranked the engine. Bear drove down the private drive to the main road, carefully ignoring the steep turn-off to the Lazarus estate. Stella still lived up there in the guest house over her parents’ garage. But it had been a good ten years since she’d come sliding down the hill that connected their properties to visit him.

Thirty minutes, and thirty dollars later, Bear was in possession of a fancy bottle of tequila and the absolute certainty that his big idea was a keeper. He steered the Toyota up South Hill toward Hank’s renovated, handicapped-accessible bachelor pad. The engine growled at the effort. And Bear wondered what he’d find at the top of the hill. He just assumed that Alexis’ marriage announcement meant that Hank was having a rough day.

Hank never spoke about his ex, Alexis. Never.

The ugly, early days of Hank’s recovery were a blur to Bear, which meant that they were probably a blur to Hank, too. He hoped so, anyway.

Bear had spent the first week sitting around at the hospital, waiting for news. He’d spent the second one running errands for the Lazarus family and keeping track of the truckloads of notes and gifts that arrived for Hank. There had been balloons and flowers, T-shirts and stuffed animals. Most of them read “Get Well Soon!” Never had an English phrase been more inadequate.

Hank had spent those same weeks recovering from major back surgery, trying to wrap his head around the idea that he could no longer move his legs.

Even from the beginning, Bear had worried more about the dead expression in Hank’s eyes than about his limbs. The Hank he knew had left the building, leaving behind a silent, angry shell. Bear’s only hope had been that Hank would do better once he left the hospital for the rehab place.

On the eve of Hank’s transfer, Bear had paid a visit, hoping to show him a video he’d edited that afternoon. He’d asked all the people Hank knew in Park City to send him a five second greeting. Many had done even better. The guys at Hank’s favorite bar had an on-screen oyster-eating competition in his honor, and threatened to drink all the Guinness if Hank didn’t come back soon. It was juvenile humor, especially after Bear edited it over the theme music to Rocky. He’d have done anything to get Hank to crack a smile, though.