The Jeweler (5 page)

But then Fender saw something. Somebody. The girl. The sad girl at the cemetery. The girl under the drooping sycamore in the deepening dusk. It was her. It had to be her. And she was circling around the end of a line of people, following a pair of old ladies. Heading to a chair lift. Getting away.

He popped Sam on the arm. “Hey, that’s her—over there—that’s the girl!”

Sam swiveled on his skis. “Who, her?” He pointed at her with a gloved hand lengthened by a very long ski pole.

“Stop it! She’s going to see you pointing at her. That’s her, and she’s going to that thing, the lift.” Fender realized he sounded frantic.

“Okay. Stay calm. I’m going to follow her. She’s going up Chair Two. Chances are she’ll come down a trail that leads her back to here. You, go to the ticket office. Get a ticket. And ask for a garbage bag.”

“Garbage bag?”

“Don’t ask me now; she’s getting away! She’s getting away, remember? I must pursue your mystery girl! Farewell, I follow her!” He turned with a flourish and skated off to the lift, Olympic-figure-skater style. He looked like an elephant in a tutu.

Fender obeyed Sam’s command and dragged himself and the two skis to a ticket office window.

“I need a ticket to ride that lift and a garbage bag.” He stared into the glass in front of him. The girl behind the glass arched an eyebrow at his request. She set her paperback down and stared at him.

“You can’t buy a ticket to ride just one lift. It’ll be forty-two dollars.”

“Excuse me?” Fender dug into his wallet and mumbled several inappropriate expletives. He slid the money under the glass partition and out came a ticket on backing, a wire mini-coat hanger, and a big, black, glossy garbage bag.

He scraped the tails of the skis along the brick patio and found a bench. Plunking down, he looked around for Sam.

As he waited, he peeled the ticket off and stuck it to his sweater. He had no idea what the little wire thing was for, so he tossed that on the ground. He put the skis on the ground in front of him and realized he was actually thinking of skiing. How stupid. But if he could get close to the girl, talk to her…
About what?
He didn’t have the ring with him, so Sam’s idea of dumping the ring and escaping was useless. Plus, how was he going to “scoot off” if he had a pair of giant Popsicle sticks on his feet?

“Fender.”

He turned around. “Yeah?” It was Sam. He was wheezing, and his face glowed with sweat.

“Oh, what did you do with the ticket? That’s not how you wear it. You look like you’re marked down for quick sale.” Sam leaned over Fender and peeled the ticket off his sweater. Picking the lint off the back of the ticket, he took the wire on the ground and slid it through a belt loop on Fender’s jeans. Then he folded the ticket over the ends of the wire. “This is a wicket. You put the ticket on it like this. Gimme the garbage bag.” Fender complied. Sam punched a hole at the top and two on the sides.

“Come here, Fender. Stick out your arms.”

“Oh, no, no, nonono! Sam, I’ll look like a black vinyl Teletubbie. God, this was an incredibly stupid idea!”

“Fender, come here and stop complaining. The garbage bag’ll keep you from getting so wet. Now, the girl’s apparently a ski instructor. She took one run and caught up with the two old ladies. She was talking with them about halfway down Lulu. You can ski as good as two antiques, trust me. We’ll go to the top of the lift, ski down the run, and catch up with them.”

“Sam, the last time we went skiing, all I had to do was ski sideways and sit in the trees for four hours. I don’t even remember how to stop. I’ll just wait here for her to come back down.”

“They might not be back down this way. You can get to two other lifts from where they are. Step into your skis. Hold onto my arms and step into them, toe first. Push down with your heel till they click.”

Fender did as he was told. The big plastic boots slid over the tops of the skis. He felt as if he had huge weights on his ankles.

“Just hold your feet steady over the bindings and push, Fender. Here, hold onto my elbows.” Sam stood in front of him. The boots clicked, and now he was attached.
This must be how a condemned man feels
.

“I want you to shuffle your feet, Fender. Don’t try to go anywhere, just scoot your feet back and forth in place. Feel that? Okay, now I want you to act like you’re wearing skates, like when we were in hockey. Push like you’re skating.”

The shuffle thing felt fine. The hockey skating thing did not. “Sam, I sucked at hockey. This isn’t going to work!”

Sam turned his back on him, then stuck a ski pole back. “Just grab hold with both hands and hang on. You’re such a baby.” Fender grabbed hold and was tugged as Sam took off, skating on his skis. As Sam pushed his fat body from side to side, Fender saw the chair lift looming ahead of him. The part in front of him now was like a two-story house with an overhang. From under the blue roof dangled metal chairs, following one after the other, looping the house. As the chairs were about to emerge from under the house’s eaves, people scooted up in front of them and plunked down. Then the chairs would accelerate and whiz up the mountain, disappearing over the first rise. The speed thing worried Fender.

“What if I miss the chair? What if I don’t sit down on it right?”

Sam looked over his shoulder, wheezing from the tugboat job he’d undertaken. “You won’t miss. See, the chair detaches from the main cable and slows down. That’s just for morons such as yourself, so you can take extra time to sit. Anyway, if you miss it, the lift operator is supposed to catch the chair so it won’t clobber you. Although I did see this girl get clocked once. Man, I forgot about that. Boy, it came around the bullwheel—you know, at the back of the terminal—came up, and rang her bell!” Sam yelled over his shoulder now. He’d kind of hit a stride and was pushing with less effort. Fender bobbed along behind him like a rubber duck.

“I didn’t need to hear that.”

“That’s nothing. It’s so funny to watch people get off up on top. This one time, I thought I might bust a gasket, it was so damn funny. This guy was trying to get off, but his coat was caught on the back of the chair. So he slid off, but then he kind of got picked up. The liftie stopped the chair, but this guy was already like ten feet off the ground and almost headed back down the mountain, hanging from the lift by the back of his coat!” Sam hee-hawed, laughing as he tried to catch his breath.

“You’re not helping.”

Now they were in the line, scooting toward the loading area. Fender’s legs were numb, and his hands hurt from white-knuckling the ski pole. People filled in behind him and edged forward as a new chair came, picked up its victims, and then launched up the side of the mountain. Fender had a moment of painful self-awareness. He was a grown man wearing a garbage bag. A very big man held him by the arm and dragged him along each time the line moved at all.
I’ll never be able to look another human being in the face again. I’m officially the biggest girly-man I know. I need a drink. Maybe if I pray hard enough, God will strike this large metal house with lightning, and I’ll die now before things get worse.

“Let’s go.” Sam grabbed him and yanked him forward into the path of the next chair. Fender didn’t know what was happening until the chair bumped him in the back of the knees, and the attendant said, “Sit down. Keep your tips up.” But the voice was quickly behind him. Sam sat next to him, and they dangled over the snow, hurtling up the mountain.

It didn’t seem too terrible. He had a passing thought about the weight of the skis on his feet dragging him off the chair. He looked at the snow, some twenty feet below him, and wondered if it was soft enough to cushion a fall.

“Fender, it’s better to sit back. Don’t tempt the fates, my friend. You’re still in one piece; let’s try to keep it that way.” Sam said this as he reached into his Carhartts and produced a pack of Marlboros. He pulled one of his gloves off with his teeth and lit the cigarette. “Now, let’s talk about getting off.”

Apprehension struck Fender. “Why—what’s so hard about getting off?”

“It’s not that hard; you just have to know something about this particular chair. It’s got a really short turnaround before it makes the bullwheel and heads back down the mountain.”

“So?”

“So, if you don’t get out of the way fast enough, it’ll clock you in the back of the head. For you, the best thing would probably be to just tuck and slide. Pretend you’re going to do the YMCA fishes dive—you know, where you crouch over and tuck your head to your chest. Do that. If you fall, don’t get up. I’ll drag you clear of the chair.”

“Remind me again why I’m doing this.”

“Fender, you’ve suddenly grown some sense of a conscience. I, for one, am heartily surprised. Plus, I just like to see you squirm. Oh, and when you’re getting off, scoot your butt to the edge of the chair. We’re almost at the last tower. Try not to drop a ski pole either, okay?”

Fender didn’t think it was possible to sweat in the middle of winter, but he was downright soaking.
Excellent—pit stains to add to my overall attractiveness. How come I’m still single?

The end of his ride came and went quickly. He felt the ground under his skis, and as Sam stood up, so did he. When his butt and the rest of his body started to slide backward, he grabbed Sam’s arm.

“Tuck, Fender! Remember the fishes. Dive like the fishes!” Sam was ahead of him, and he dragged Fender along behind. The rubber ducky image came to Fender again.

They slid to a stop, and Fender realized the altitude they’d gained. It was even kind of pretty up here.

“Fender, stop gawking. Let’s get out of the way and go find that girl.”

The hill receded in front of them gently. It narrowed into a thin trail.

Sam flicked his cigarette into the brush by the side of the trail. “Well, amigo, let’s see if you remember your death wedge.”

“Death wedge?” Fender was just trying to stay upright. Now he had to move? It was so unfair.

“Please tell me you at least remember making a wedge. Point the tips of your skis together and push the tails out. God, we didn’t smoke that much pot the time we were up here in high school.”

“Speak for yourself, Mr. Clean.”

Sam wiped his nose on the sleeve of his Carhartts and chuckled. “Oh, the piercing wit returns. You must be feeling less terrified. Don’t forget, my scrawny friend, that I’m your one hope of getting off this mountain alive.”

“Okay.” Fender tried the pizza move. “And what is this wedge going to help me do?”

“Stop. The advanced stage is to push harder with one leg than the other. Then you can turn. But let’s take one thing at a time. Stopping’s a good thing.”

“Just aim me where she went. We need to get this over with.” Fender stood a little taller, straightening the garbage bag and smoothing it over him.
Dignity. There must’ve been a time when I had some dignity.
Right now, he couldn’t recall when that was.

Then they were moving down the trail. He slid slowly forward. Whenever he felt himself gaining any kind of speed, Fender leaned back and pushed his skis out as hard as he could. Sam began to get out ahead of him.

“Fender, you’re doing fine. Don’t stand too wide; you’ll tear yourself in half doing the splits.” Sam looked at Fender for a minute and then turned to face the downhill again. His shoulders were kind of shaking.

“Sam? Are you laughing at me?”

He wouldn’t turn back around. “I can’t help it, man. You look so funny.” Sam was now stopped ahead of him, bent over, hee-hawing so loudly soft snow fell from the pines above.

Fender caught up to Sam, now standing tall again, wiping tears of laughter away from his eyes. Suddenly he focused down the ever-broadening trail.

He looks kind of like a German shorthair going on point
. “What?”

“I can’t believe it. They’re still right down here! What’s she doing?” Sam moved forward. “Oh, it looks like the old broad’s buckle broke on her boot. This is perfect. Maybe this is your destiny, Fender—God must want you to redeem your poor corrupt life, ’cause she’s still here.”

“What’re you going to do?” Fender wedged behind, trying to use Sam’s large body for cover.

“Well, I can go up and offer to help out with the old biddy’s buckle. Then you come up and tell the instructor girl your story. Give her the ring, and we’ll ski off.”

“I didn’t bring it.” Fender felt sheepish.

“What? What the hell are we doing, then? For the love of Mike. Where is it?”

“I forgot it at home. I meant to bring it, really.” Fender followed so close on the trail behind Sam, he brushed into him.

“Okay. Geez, Fender! Is it your intention to crawl up my ass? Back up. You’re going to take me out at the knees. Okay. All’s not lost. Same plan. Just tell her you’ll drop the ring off in her mailbox or something. Let’s go, they’re right there.”

You can’t leave a ring like that in a mailbox! I’d have ditched it months ago if it were that simple.
Fender had no time to tell Sam this, though. Sam had pushed ahead a little and was now gliding toward the three women stopped by a stand of trees. They were about a hundred feet down the trail now, on a wide strip of open snow. Instead of traversing along the slope of the hill, the trail turned straight down it. Fender wondered if his braking could withstand this much gravity.

He got his answer. Following Sam, Fender tentatively edged down the slope. He started to pick up speed. He leaned back into his wedge, but it seemed to do little good. He felt the air moving past him more quickly, and his skis made a crunchy noise.
I’m going to crash into her. Her, and Sam, and two old ladies. Then trees. Trees.
He felt a life-and-death panic rising in his bowels.
Trees are not good.

Sam’s voice was in his head again. What was it he’d said?
Lean harder on one ski and you’ll turn.
He wanted to turn left.
I want to turn left. I need to turn left. Please, Lord, help me in this turning left. Trees are bad. Turn! Turn! Turn!