Authors: Delphine Dryden
She thought—no, she
knew
—it was a bad idea to sleep with Karl, and she would have hoped Andrew would think better of her than that, would have at least started by crediting her with the sense not to do something that foolish. “How did you find out where I was, anyway?”
“I cal ed your parents’ house looking for you. Your cel kept saying it wasn’t available yesterday, and I was getting a little worried.”
She felt like an idiot, or at least like a girl who was completely incompetent at subterfuge. Shouldn’t she have told her parents what to say if Andrew cal ed? Probably not, she reconsidered. Her mother in particular might have flatly refused to lie for her, just on general principle. The truly annoying thing was that her mother would have been right.
As usual.
“That was very thoughtful of you.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“So why cal me here, once you found out? Just to scold me? Wanted to see if the phone reception had improved?”
“Maybe you need a scolding. I thought maybe I was entitled to an explanation.”
“Maybe. Maybe you are. I don’t know. I’m sorry I didn’t tel you in the first place, Andrew. I just didn’t want to have to explain the whole stupid situation. It’s al just a lot of baggage, it’s al complicated, it’s sort of embarrassing. I don’t real y know why, but it is. And you and I just started seeing each other. I didn’t want to bring
this
into
that
. Not yet, anyway. Can you understand, even a little?”
He was silent for a long moment before final y answering, with a sigh, “A little, maybe. I mean, I won’t even try to pretend I’m not hurt. But I’ve never had to get divorced, you’re right about that. I know they’re stil like family to you. Although I stil have trouble understanding how you could have married into a family that has spent generations specializing in raping the environment.”
I wasn’t marrying them, I was marrying Karl
, Elyce thought. “That’s al just an issue for another day. When we’re not trying to have this conversation by cel phone when I’m in a crowded ski slope cafeteria with iffy reception, okay?”
“Okay,” he agreed, stil sounding too guarded for Elyce’s comfort.
She snapped the phone shut after they’d spoken a few more words and traded the obligatory “Merry Christmas”, and looked across the room to the large round table where the Nashes sat eating and talking merrily. Emily’s daughter Nash had shed some of her twelve-year-old preteen angst, and was leaning over her mother to puff a straw wrapper at her Uncle Karl. He took the shot with good grace, and began using another straw and wrapper and a few drops of his water to demonstrate the “magic expanding caterpil ar”
trick, much to Emily’s dismay.
“They don’t need to learn any more of these things,” she was berating Karl, as Elyce returned to the table.
“But it’s part of my duty as an uncle to teach them things like this,” Karl explained, taking a droplet of water into the end of the straw and dripping it onto the scrunched-up wrapper, which grew as they watched to a chorus of approval from the girls and Charles. The children al immediately ran to gather more straws and practice their newly learned trick, while Karl smirked at his little sister—
a nd Elyce had to choke back a sob of longing for this family, for the family she was leaving.
Karl met her eyes across the wide table and his smile faded into something more speculative, brooding but purposeful. Elyce had planned to avoid his gaze but found herself caught, pinned there like a butterfly, open to his scrutiny in a way she found too intimate for their very public surroundings.
She was not surprised at al when he suggested to the group that they might split up for the afternoon, ski in pairs rather than trying to stay in such a large pack. And from the knowing looks Emily and Kel y gave each other and Elyce, she thought her sensation of playing out their relationship in public was actual y somewhat justified.
Scott was taking pictures. First one grouping then another obediently arranged themselves in front of the fire, some seated on the broad stone bench that ran the length of the hearth and along the wal s under the windows, some on the floor below.
“This is just like a wedding,” Kel y complained, and Elyce had to agree with the comparison. The grandparents were photographed with just their own children, then their grandchildren, with and without great-grandchildren, and final y on their own—which was thoughtful of Scott, Elyce thought, since it was
their house after al . Then each set of parents and children, then other combinations, until people began to protest and wander off in search of other entertainment.
“But I want to try the printer too,” Scott protested.
“Come on, it took me like an hour to get this thing working again. Karl, you and Elyce stay. You helped me fix the damn thing, don’t you want to test it?”
“You’ve already taken dozens, Scott,” Elyce pointed out. Emily, standing at Scott’s shoulder, just shook her head in resignation.
“Give it up, Elyce. Might as wel take a seat. You know how he is when he has a new toy.”
“I’l give you guys a print of this tomorrow. I’l use it as my test run. Karl, that’s good but just put your foot up there, cock your knee, and Elyce, sit there. Yeah, right there. Hey, that’s pretty good. Hold it like that…”
While Scott was snapping away happily, giving them suggestions and praising the wonders of his digital SLR
camera, Karl leaned in and spoke in Elyce’s ear again, too low for Scott or Emily to hear.
“I forgot to ask earlier. You never did tel me who cal ed you at lunch. Are you going to tel me, or do I have to start scrol ing through your cel phone directory and looking for the received cal s?”
“You wouldn’t dare
,”
Elyce said back through a forced smile.
“These days, you probably shouldn’t be thinking that. I
would
dare, Elyce, I real y would.”
Unable to stare at him in disbelief, she kept her eyes forward, locked on the camera, until Scott told her to loosen up a little.
“I’m
already
loose,” Elyce snapped, rol ing her
shoulders. Her neck and spine popped audibly, contradicting her claim.
Scott raised an eyebrow and final y relented, letting them end the photography session so he could shift his attention to uploading the best of the pictures and then cropping, retouching and resizing them to his satisfaction prior to printing. He disappeared into the study, while Emily escorted the girls upstairs to get ready for bed. Karl followed Elyce, however, sticking to her too purposeful y to al ow her a graceful escape. She would have had to make a scene in front of the group, which he knew she wouldn’t do. She also wouldn’t voluntarily go to the bedroom with him right behind her, which he also knew.
“You haven’t done anything you don’t want to do,” he insisted when she hissed at him to leave her alone. “At least stop lying to yourself, Elyce. I haven’t made you do anything.”
“Bul shit. You got me up here under circumstances you knew I couldn’t refuse, because you and your mother just couldn’t bear to break the news. And once you had me up here, you’ve taken advantage of the situation at every turn to try to—”
“To what? Act like we’re stil married? We
are
stil married.”
She sloshed another few fingers of chardonnay into her glass then leaned in defeat against the counter in the kitchen where they’d wound up, Elyce walking somewhat at random and Karl fol owing.
“What are you two having such a heated whisper about?” It was Karl’s grandmother Joan, sitting at one of the barstools that usual y stood near the end of the island, where it was at counter height. She’d pul ed the stool over to look out the window at the moonlit winter landscape, and Elyce and Karl hadn’t noticed her in the dim light provided by the under-cabinet fixtures.
“Nothing serious, Jo-jo,” Karl said, joining her at the wide bay that looked out from the side of the house onto the adjacent clearing and forest beyond. The stark black-on-blue of trees against nighttime snow was as striking as ever. Elyce ventured a little closer and Karl reached out to tug at her hand, pul ing her to stand in front of him so he could look at the scenery over her shoulder, his arms wrapped firmly around her.
“It hasn’t changed since we built this place,” Joan said, looking with reverent pride at the land she and her husband had put a cabin on back in the early sixties, when skiing as a tourist attraction had first come to the little town of Breckenridge. The land itself had been owned by her husband’s family since gold rush days, but until Charles and Joan, they had always thought it made little sense to build on such a high, remote mountainside. “Of course, it was the McDonald place then. I’m not sure just when it became the Nash place. Karl, sometimes I think your father just took us al by storm.”
She was being slightly dishonest, of course. She knew exactly when the cabin became “the Nash place”, because the cabin had been presented as a gift to the young Nashes when Alice had Karl, the baby they al hoped would one day inherit the kingdom.
It had been 1971, and the family visited the cabin once a year to indulge in the exciting “new” sport of skiing that Breckenridge offered. Alice’s parents thought a winter retreat would do the high-energy young couple some good, get them away from things once in awhile, let them spend some time with their growing family. Two years later, a major expressway brought the world to the little mountain town, the property value soared and two large additions were made as the cabin quickly became the favorite winter destination for McDonalds and Nashes alike. Bil Nash’s mother Ingrid, Norwegian by birth, was particularly fond of the place, as it reminded her of home. Had she and her husband not been spending that Christmas in Norway, they would have been at the cabin for the holidays as wel .
“Look. Is that a fox?”
“Where?” Elyce, like Karl, was speaking in a hushed tone, as if the creature could actual y hear them through the weatherproof glass and across twenty feet of snow or more.
“It may be a raccoon,” Joan said. “We’re seeing more of them these days.”
It did turn out to be a raccoon, as they could see once the animal ventured past the tree line and into the yard, making its way a bit too confidently around the house to where the garage was.
“It’s probably after the garbage,” Karl reasoned, echoing her thoughts.
“Don’t tel your father,” Joan pleaded when Karl seemed likely to leave. “He’s been doing battle with that damned thing al week. I think he plans to shoot it if he sees it again, and I just can’t bear it. I know they’re pests when they get into the trash, but stil .”
“Over my dead body he’l shoot it,” Elyce said firmly.
“Honey.”
“I mean it, Karl.”
He stil had her in his grip, his arms crossed over hers.
For a moment Elyce considered putting up a serious struggle, Joan or no Joan. But Karl’s next words surprised her.
“I wouldn’t let him shoot it. I know a guy in town who gets coons al the time, he has some humane traps. We can get one tomorrow and if we catch it, we’l take it to a wildlife rescue, al right? They can release it somewhere safer.”
She looked for a way to argue with that, and couldn’t.
“My golden boy,” Joan said, patting Karl’s shoulder affectionately. “I’m sure I don’t know where you get that noble streak from. It’s certainly not from your mother, and your father’s the one who wanted to shoot the poor animal in the first place.”
“It’s not nobility, Grandmother.”
“Grandmother? You never cal me that. I’m not sure I like the way it sounds.”
“I’l go distract Dad. Come on, let’s go see who’s left in the living room. People were starting to drift off when we came in here.” He had Elyce by the hand. She thought about saying she’d prefer to stay with Joan, but then realized that her secret would be too difficult to avoid if the conversation went too far. Feeling the weight of inevitability, she let Karl lead her back into the almost-deserted living room.
They were too far from the garage to hear whatever efforts the raccoon might be making to find its way in after the trash. In any case, it turned out Karl’s father had already retired for the evening.
The deepening gloom outside, the ful day of skiing and the three glasses of wine she’d had during and after dinner were conspiring to make Elyce so sleepy she could barely stand. But knowing what would happen once she went to the bedroom, she struggled to stay alert as Karl chatted with his brother and Kel y, the only others left awake.
It was Kel y who final y pointed out that Elyce was nodding off, and Karl wasted no time in making their apologies and ushering her, stil protesting, up the stairs, around the nest of sleeping children and into the bedroom she had been avoiding al evening.
* * * * *
He hadn’t been kidding. Elyce barely made it through the door before Karl was on her, pinning her to the wal with the weight of his body, kissing her roughly and catching her hands with his when she tried to push him away. Despite his earlier warning about his plans, it was stil so unlike him that it threw her off kilter.
Elyce had barely recovered from the shock when Karl shifted his weight in order to slide his hands, surprisingly warm, under her sweater, thermal shirt and tank top, cupping her breasts through the sports bra that final y halted his passage. He found her nipple, peaking sharply despite the heat of al the layers she wore, and as he had done the night before, he rol ed it between his thumb and forefinger with enough pressure to make her whimper even as the need announced itself with a mirrored pang in her other nipple, an answering echo from between her thighs. Any sound she made was swal owed by his lips, harsh and insistent against hers.