“Maybe a little,” he says. “You did great for a first timer, though. If I hadn’t gotten in your way you totally would have made it.”
“Right. So you’re the problem.”
“Totally.” He glances up at the guy sitting in the little hut, who’s talking into a phone, probably calling the ski police to come drag me off the mountain.
“She’s okay, Jim,” Christian calls to the man. Then he locates my skis and poles, which luckily haven’t gone very far.
“Were you wearing a hat?” he asks, finding his own and tugging it back onto his head. He readjusts his goggles on top of it. I shake my head, then reach up and gingerly touch my hair, which has once again rejected the ponytail elastic and hangs down in long strands around my shoulders, clumped with snow.
“No,” I answer. “I, no, I didn’t have a hat.”
“They say ninety percent of your body heat escapes through your head,” he says.
“I’ll try to remember that.”
He lines up my skis in front of me and kneels to help me step into them. I hold on to his shoulder for balance.
“Thanks,” I murmur, looking down at him.
Once again, my hero. And here I’m supposed to be the one saving him.
“No problem,” he says, looking up. His eyes narrow, like he’s studying my face. A snowflake lands on his cheek and melts. His expression changes, as if he suddenly remembered something. He gets up and snaps into his own skis quickly.
“Over that direction there’s a beginner’s run, something not too steep,” he says, pointing behind me. “It’s called Pooh Bear.”
“Oh, great.” My sign is a green circle.
“I’d stay to help but I’m already late for running the race course farther up the mountain,” he says. “Do you think you’ll be okay getting down?”
“Sure,” I say quickly. “I was doing fine on the bunny hill. I didn’t fall once today. Until now, that is. How do you go farther up the mountain?”
“There’s another chair, down there.” He gestures to where, sure enough, another bigger chairlift is humming away, taking people up the side of an impossibly steep-looking rise. “And another one, after that.”
“Crazy,” I say. “We could go all the way to the top.”
“I could. But it’s not for beginners.”
The moment is definitely over.
“Right. Well, thanks again,” I say awkwardly. “For everything.”
“Don’t mention it.” He’s already moving away, skiing his way toward the other chairlift. “See you around, Clara,” he calls over his shoulder.
I watch him ski down to the other chairlift and recline into the seat when it comes.
The chair sways back and forth as it rises through the snowy air up the side of the mountain. I watch until his green jacket disappears.
“Yes, you will,” I whisper.
It’s a big step, our first real conversation. At the thought my chest swells with an emotion so powerful I feel tears prick my eyes. It’s embarrassing.
It’s something like hope.
Chapter 7
Flock Together
Monday around seven thirtyish, I drive to the Pink Garter to meet Angela Zerbino.
The theater is completely dark. I knock but no one comes to the door. I get out my cell and then realize that I never got Angela’s phone number. I knock again, harder.
The door opens so fast that I jump. A short, wiry-thin woman with long, black hair peers up at me. She looks irritated.
“We’re closed,” she says.
“I’m here to see Angela.”
Her eyebrows shoot up.
“You’re a friend of Angela’s?”
“Uh—”
“Come in,” says the woman, holding the door open.
It’s uncomfortably quiet inside, and it smells like popcorn and sawdust. I look around.
An ancient-looking cash register sits on top of a glass snack counter with rows of candy lined up inside. The walls are decorated with framed posters of the theater’s past productions, which are mostly cowboy themed.
“Nice place,” I say, and then I bump into a pole with a velvet rope and nearly send the whole line of them crashing to the floor. I manage to right the pole before it starts a chain reaction. I cringe and look at the woman, who’s watching me with a strange, unreadable expression. She looks like Angela except for the eyes, which are
