'You don't think somebody ought to be worried about Bill disappearing?' Shelley asked as they sat down on a bench next to the little equipment shop.
'Tenny doesn't seem too worried. More irritated than concerned, I'd say. And she certainly knows him best. I can't imagine anybody simply taking off like that in the midst of trying to sell this place, but he's clearly a pretty strange individual. Say, I've been wondering about something that's probably none of my business…'
'Don't let that stop you from asking,' Shelley said, smiling.
'Well, if Paul and his group of investors buy this place, will that put Tenny out of work?'
'Good Lord, no! Paul says it looks like the place is run wonderfully. It really comes down to purely financial considerations: taxes, interest rates on various financing options, consolidation of some old improvement loans. Boring stuff like that. Dreadful Pete wouldn't even be out of a job.'
'Okay, Bunnies, are you ready?'
The handsome young man was back.
'Let's get you fitted out and ready to turn into Olympic material!'
'Does he have to be so damned perky?' Shelley said under her breath.
'Shelley, we need all the help we can get, and if Perky Power will do any good, I'm all for it.'
The instructor, who claimed his name was Gavin ('A likely story!' Shelley huffed), asked them their height, weight, and experience. They gave their height, lied about their weight, and admitted to no experience whatsoever. 'In skiing, that is,' Jane added. 'I'm a world-class roller skater.'
He stared at her.
'It was a joke,' she said. 'I don't think humor is his strong suit,' she whispered to Shelley.
'Nor yours,' Shelley whispered back.
Pseudo-Gavin got them fitted with ski boots and skis as well as poles the sizes of which were based on their height and fictional weight. Then he half dragged, half shoved them into line with four other beginners, two men and two women, all of whom looked faintly familiar. Jane suspected they were escapees from the genealogy convention.
'Listen up, Bunnies,' Gavin said. 'I want to explain your equipment to you. First, your poles. Put your wrist through the thong. That way, if you let go by accident, the pole won't go flying off and hit somebody else or get lost in the snow. Second, don't hook your thumb through the thong. Very important.'
Jane shuddered, remembering the other instructor yesterday talking about broken thumbs.
'Since you're all beginners, I've set the latches on your boots to release the skis very easily. As you get better, we'll tighten that up. If you need to unlatch them, press your pole onto this latch at the back of your heel.' He demonstrated.
'Now, to skiing, Bunnies!' he continued. 'The first thing you need to learn is how to fall down.'
One of the men said, 'That's the one thing I'm afraid I know how to do! Har, har!'
Gavin's expression was the strained smile of a man who had heard this hilarious line too many times to count. 'With respect, sir, you probably don't.'
Then, to the whole group: 'Until you learn a bit about skiing, you'll probably go out of control a couple times and at first you won't be able to regain control, so you need to know how to stop. The first way to stop, if you're not going very fast and are just a little wobbly, is to toe-in.' He demonstrated. 'This looks like it will just run your skis across each other, so you also want to ankle-in so you're digging into the surface. Remember that: toe-in, ankle- in.'
They all nodded and tried to ankle-in wearing boots that felt like they were made from discarded iron frying pans.
'Now, I'm going to go up the hill just a little ways and demonstrate. And while I'm doing that, I'm going to show you the two ways of going uphill. You're in position for the first way.' They were all standing in a line with their skis parallel to the slope. 'You just step sideways. Try a step or two.'
Gingerly, Jane took a tiny step up the hill with her right foot, then followed with her left. Ah, not so hard, she was thinking. She was ready to try another step when the man at the front of their little line started to lose his balance. He leaned forward. Pitched backward. Forward again. And backward as if he'd been pushed. He crashed into Shelley, who crashed into Jane, who crashed into the woman behind her. Amid shrieks and startled yelps, they all went down like a row of dominoes. Skis and poles flew everywhere.
'We look like a bus accident in the Alps,' Jane said, laughing and spitting out a mouthful of snow. The rest of the accident victims thought it was very jolly, too.
Gavin, on the other hand, stood looking to heaven as if pleading with God to take them all now and put him out of his misery.
'Anybody hurt?' he finally asked grimly. He sounded as if he sincerely hoped so.
Giggling like children and making inane jokes about snow being soft, they managed to get back on their feet. After some delay, all the poles and skis were sorted out and put back on. Gavin, his professionally perky demeanor restored, went back to his lecture. 'Maybe I should have told you first about the other way of falling down. It would have saved us this mess. If you're completely out of control or fear you're going to be, just sit down. Don't lean forward. Don't try to get your balance back. Don't reach for anything or try to use your poles. Just SIT DOWN!'
'What do you suppose Gavin is in the summer?' Jane asked under her breath.
'A Trappist monk, if he's smart,' Shelley hissed back. 'After working with dummies like us for three quarters of the year, he probably needs the quiet.'
'This from a woman who's head of the Room Mother Committee three-quarters of the year.'
'I'm thinking about applying what I'm learning here to that job. The 'when in doubt, just sit down' part might play, but I wouldn't dare give them pointed poles.'
Jane laughed so hard she nearly lost her balance again and had to practice the fast-sit technique.
Gavin finally demonstrated stairstepping up the slope and then coming to a gentle stop on the way down by toeing-in ankling-in. Then he went back up, showing them how to walk in a sort of herringbone pattern with their toes pointing out.
'Can you hear that sound?' Shelley asked, watching him.
'What sound?'
'That screaming noise. It's my thighs, just thinking about trying to do that!'
'Never mind. We'll just stairstep it.'
Gavin then made a spectacular show of pretending to lose his balance and sitting down in place. It all looked graceful, fun, and easy when he did it. He got up and glided effortlessly to a spot about ten feet uphill from them. 'Okay, Bunnies, come up where I am and we'll take our first downhill run.'
They obediently stairstepped their way up to him, and he picked Shelley to go first. He got next to her, whispered a bit of encouragement, showed her how to get her skis turned around and pointing the right way without her tripping, and she was off. She was moving so slowly it was almost imperceptible, but she picked up a little speed as she went along. She was going at a slow-walk pace by the time she got to the flat area below. Gavin, right next to her the whole way, said, 'Toe-in, ankle-in now!'
Shelley did so, came to a stop, and grinned at Jane over her shoulder. 'I'm a skier now!' she yelled. 'Can I quit?'
'No way! We're doing this whole hill before you get to quit,' Jane shouted back.
Jane was next and did a decent job, though it couldn't have looked as steady and well balanced as Shelley's performance. When she got stopped, she realized she'd been holding her breath the whole time. 'Wow! It's sort of like riding down an escalator that's going too fast!' she said.
The next person to try it was a rather heavy woman in a daffodil-colored ski outfit. Having watched Shelley's and Jane's sedate descents, she decided to put a little oomph into it. She actually shoved off with her poles instead of letting gravity seduce her along. This was a nasty surprise to Gavin, and he was yelling at her to toe-in, ankle-in before she got three feet forward. She either couldn't manage or didn't want to, and shot between Jane and Shelley, across the flat area, past the equipment hut, and well out in the parking lot, her skis scraping horribly on exposed bits of asphalt, before she remembered the sitting-down technique.
The other three managed well enough and Gavin took them all back up the hill again. A little farther this time. After their second mini-runs, Gavin proclaimed Jane, Shelley, and a wiry older man sufficiently skilled to go off and practice on their own.
