Cycler (5 page)

Ramie sips from a bottle of Italian soda. “The thing is,” she says, “with this
Guide
business? It’s more of a filtering system than an attainment strategy.”

I take out my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Expand.”

“I mean, it’s fine if you can wait all your life for a guy who’s so obsessed he’ll hunt your snobby ass down and propose marriage, but—”

“It’s not proactive, is it?” I say.

Daria steals a potato chip from me. “Yeah, well, the whole
Guide
philosophy is a lesson in enforced passivity.”

I glare at Ramie, because that was deeply not a Daria thought.

“What?” Ramie says. “You have to admit she has a point. I mean, how’s Tommy supposed to give you what you want if he has no idea what that is? Bit of a problem, no?”

“No,” I say. “The problem is one of focus.”

Ramie and Daria exchange doubtful looks. Obviously, they have been bad-mouthing Project X behind my back, the dirty traitors.

“Think about it,” I say. “I’m broadcasting my high status to everyone. But that’s like putting up a billboard and just hoping the right customer drives by. I should be aiming my high status directly at Tommy Knutson.”

“Like a weapon,” Ramie says.

“Exactly.”

“But how?” Daria says.

Ramie inhales sharply as if a lightbulb has just gone off. “By getting him alone,” she says.

“Without violating
The Guide,
” I clarify.

Daria sucks her teeth. “Deeply challenging.”

“Deeply, deeply,” Ramie says. “But not impossible. Jill, what are your thoughts on skiing?”

“Apathetic to hostile,” I say. “Rames, you know I don’t ski.”

“Reconsider that,” she says.

Thus was born Operation Swoon.

Winterhead is practically in the Arctic. We have our own ski slope. It’s not the Alps or anything, just a smallish hill anchored by a wooden shack that rents skis and serves hot cocoa. We call it the Bump. But did I spend every single wintry day of my childhood going up and down this glorified snowdrift? No. I took cooking classes inside, where it was warm. Damn my lack of foresight.

So guess who loves skiing with a passion that, in Ramie’s snooped lingo, “approaches religion”? You guessed it. Tommy Knutson. And guess where Tommy Knutson spends his weekends?

The Bump.

All day Saturday. All day Sunday. He even teaches beginner skiing to little kids on Wednesday afternoons. How adorable is that?

For a smaller mind, this not-inconsiderable deviation in our respective interests might signal a stumbling block to prom-related coupling. Not for the talented trio of Jill McTeague, Ramie Boulieaux and Daria Benedetti.

Here’s the plan.

Daria will wait in my Nissan in the Bump parking lot, on the lookout for Tommy Knutson’s silver Prius, which, according to Ramie’s sources, always arrives between nine-thirty and eleven-thirty every Saturday and every Sunday. As soon as she spots it, she’ll call my cell phone and Ramie and I will take up first positions. Ramie will be stationed inside the cocoa shack. I’ll be outside by the ski racks. When Tommy comes out to put his skis on, I’ll toss him a big warm smile and wave. I know. I know. Not a
Guide
move at all. Be patient.

Now, Tommy, who has never been on the receiving end of so brash and unfeminine a gesture from me, will be confused.
Is she waving at me?
he’ll wonder.
Wow! What a gorgeous smile.
Etc., etc. Then, being a gentleman, he’ll wave shyly in return.

Here’s where it gets interesting. I’ll sigh exasperatedly and wave an even bigger wave, then crank up the smile into a full-blown laugh. (I’ve practiced this transition with Ramie and her cell phone camera. I’m not Julia Roberts or anything, but so long as I don’t squint, I can achieve something in the vicinity of Julia brilliance.) This is meant to confuse Tommy.
What’s she laughing at?
he’ll wonder.
Is my fly down? Am I emboogered?
Out of politeness, he’ll wave back and laugh nervously along with me.

That’s when we turn the screws on him.

Using my finely manicured right pointer finger, I’ll beckon him toward me while shaking my head as if he were a very naughty boy. (I’ve practiced this look extensively so as to avoid the allure-killing scowl.) Tommy, bewildered now by this totally unprecedented breach of the common laws of aloof femininity, will glance behind him to make sure that I am not, in fact, beckoning someone else. Then, being a gentleman and not incurious as to my intentions, he’ll walk somewhat hesitantly toward me.

When he is halfway there, we’ll unleash the Grand Twist.

Ramie, all flustered, will run out of the cocoa shack, cell phone in hand, and plunk herself right between Tommy and me. “So sorry, darling,” she’ll say. Air kiss. Air kiss. “I wasn’t ignoring you. I was on the phone with the fashion editor from Paris
Vogue.
” (Ramie insisted on that part.)

Now picture the tableau: Ramie and I united at last and Tommy Knutson feeling utterly foolish for thinking that I was so brazen a girl as to beckon him to me. But lest you think the plan ends here, there is one final turn of the screw.

Ramie and I will walk away, leaving an embarrassed Tommy Knutson behind. Then Ramie, klutz that she is, will drop a ski glove and turn to retrieve it. What do I do? Oh, only unleash the alluring over-the-shoulder glance. Head downward, gaze upward to enlarge the eyes and evoke a sense of innocent vulnerability, I’ll look not
at
Tommy Knutson, but just past him. Poor Tommy, overcome now with a love he can barely comprehend for this being like no other, will simply collapse in the snow.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is Operation Swoon.

It takes the passive approach of Mom’s
Guide
book and sharpens it into a deadly weapon, all the while preserving the underlying principle of hunter and prey that makes femininity so powerful and mysterious a force.

So Saturday morning rolls around. It’s ten-fifteen and Ramie and I have downed three cups of cocoa in the insufficiently heated cocoa shack while Daria waits in my Nissan for Tommy Knutson to make his promised arrival. I’m swanked out in Ramie’s pale pink ski suit with green figure-flattering stripes. My hair is blown perfectly straight and my makeup is light and natural. I’ve got lip gloss, blush and eyeliner stashed in the pockets of my coat for touch-ups. Ramie, sporting last year’s blue ski suit, stares longingly through the steamy little window at the dozen or so skiers going up the rope tow and down the slope.

At 10:47, she turns from the window and says, “I just timed Sarah Mecklenburg. I swear, we can get up and down in under three minutes. That’s plenty of time to get into first positions.”

From the hard wooden bench where I’ve sat anxiously for going on two hours, I remind Ramie that I do not ski.

“It’s barely an incline, Jill,” she says. “Little kids make the run on their very first lesson.” She reaches into her tight back pocket and pulls out a wad of twenties.

“What are you doing?” I say.

She walks over to Norm, the ski rental and day pass guy, who sits in a little closet in front of an army of upright skis. “Two day passes, please,” she says.

Norm glances up from his car magazine and looks at me questioningly.

“I’m not skiing,” I tell him.

“She’s just nervous,” Ramie says. “Two day passes, please.”

Norm palms the twenty. “It’s your money,” he says. Then he hands Ramie two day passes.

Ramie peels her day pass from its backing and sticks it to her jacket. “I can’t believe you’ve never even tried it, Jill. You should deeply come to Sugarloaf with us.”

She tries to hand me the day pass, but I pivot away and face the smelly popcorn machine. “Why would I want to go to Sugarloaf, Ramie? Why would I want to spend
more
time outside?”

“Because winter is so much more fun if you ski.”

“Winter is for suckers.” I cross my arms over my chest.

Undaunted, Ramie peels my day pass from its backing and slaps it over my left boob.

“Ouch.”

“There,” she says. “Now you have to ski.”

“Gee, Rames, I guess you got me there. It’s not like I can just sit here and ignore the sticker.”

“Exactly.” She grabs my arm and tries to drag me off the bench.

I hold firm with my other hand. “Get off me, you psycho.”

Ramie lets go and stamps her foot on the wooden floor. “I can’t believe you want to just sit here and wait for—”

I leap up and slap my hand over Ramie’s big fat mouth. “Ramie, we promised ‘Melissa’ we’d be waiting in the cocoa shack when she got here. Remember?”

She tears my hand from her face and squeezes it hard. “I’m sure ‘Melissa’ will understand if we take one eensy weensy run on the Bump. After all, we must look like a couple of idiots sitting here waiting for ‘Melissa’ when we could be skiing.” She flicks her eyes to Norm.

Norm is staring at us, mouth opened, but only vaguely intrigued.

As much as I hate to admit it, Ramie’s right. Norm must know Tommy. It’ll be suspicious indeed if we sit around in the cocoa shack until Tommy arrives.

“Fine,” I say. “One time.”

Ramie bounces in glee, then goes to Norm and rents me a pair of skis.

Let the record show that it was under the influence of too much cocoa that I made what will undoubtedly stand as one of my top five worst decisions.

The rope tow is out of the question. I am simply not grabbing on to that high-speed rope-burn machine to get dragged uphill at a million miles an hour with a pair of chopsticks bolted to my feet. But so zealous is Ramie to make a skier out of me that she risks her own cred to teach me how to use the much kinder J-bar—basically a hunk of metal shaped, as the name would suggest, into a J and hanging from a very slow-moving rope tow. We have the J-bar to ourselves because, as Ramie explains, “only bed-wetting babies have ever been seen on the J-bar.”

Now, the secret to successful J-bar mastery amounts apparently to one golden rule: Don’t Sit Down.

“Whatever you do,” Ramie says, “just lean against the bar like this.”

Ramie demonstrates by positioning herself between two slow-moving and widely spaced J’s, then lets one tap her just above the tailbone. She then holds on to the upright part of the J and lets it carry her slowly up the hill. After a few seconds, she skis away from it and back toward me.

“Easy as pie,” she says. “Your turn.”

I wait for a J to pass, then slap my big dumb skis into position.

“Keep them straight,” she says.

I straighten my skis into a perfect parallel, then look over my shoulder until I feel the J-bar tap me just above the tailbone. Grabbing the upright bar with my right hand, I cling to the horizontal bar with my left.

“Keep your skis straight!” Ramie shouts.

I straighten them out and slowly, very slowly, the J-bar carries me up the hill. To my right, rope-tow jockeys point and snicker at me. Like it’s some big accomplishment to hold on to a piece of rope.

“I’ll meet you up there!” Ramie shouts.

I don’t turn around or acknowledge her because I’m focused on leaning, not sitting, while keeping my skis perfectly, mathematically parallel. Plus I’m gripping both bars of the J as if my life depended on it. Eventually, Ramie passes me on the rope tow and blows me a kiss.

That’s when tragedy strikes.

I raise my left hand from the horizontal bar to wave at her when, lo and behold, the bar slips past my tailbone. Gripping it firmly, I try to adjust it back into position but it keeps sliding down the backs of my thighs. Before I know it, I’m toppling backward over the J-bar. My head and shoulders land in the snow. The horizontal bar snags behind my knees, and in the struggle to slide my legs off, my skis crisscross and somehow get stuck together.

Slowly, very slowly, the J-bar hauls me up the hill like a side of beef.

I struggle to jerk my legs off the bar but can generate no traction against the slick snow sliding beneath my back and head. Dropping my ski poles, I grab the bar and try to push it forward beyond my knees, but the moving surface beneath me and the natural wobble of the J-bar prevent any progress. My blush slips out of my coat pocket and slides backward down the hill.

Beaten, I lay back and stare at the stubborn X of my conjoined skis against the blinding white sky. At the top of the hill, an assortment of gears grind each J-bar through a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn to send it back down the hill.

My right boob vibrates.

Scrambling out of my ski gloves, I unzip my jacket and dig out my cell phone. My lip gloss tumbles free.

“First positions!” Daria says.

“Oh mal.”

“He’s . . . hold on,” she says. “He’s getting out of the car and heading for the cocoa shack. Are you in positions?”

The whish of snow beneath my head and the clang of my conjoined skis against the upright bar almost drown out Daria’s voice. Using all my strength, I try to yank my skis apart, but they won’t budge. Lifting my butt off the snow in an improvised pelvic thrust, I succeed only in dislodging my eyeliner from the pocket and launching it in a low arc over my head.

“Daria,” I say, “listen to me. We have to abort!”

“What? Why?” she says.

“Get to the cocoa shack now!” I tell her.

At the top of the hill, the J-bar lurches violently but fails to slough me off.

“Look!” someone yells.

My J sweeps through the switching gears with a clamorous grinding of metal, then reverses direction to head downhill.

“Where are you?” Daria’s tinny voice shouts in my ear. I can hear her getting out of my car and crunching through the gravel parking lot.

As the J heads downhill, it begins to rise off the ground.

“Oh, no,” I say.

“What?” Daria says. “What’s happening?”

First my back, then my neck, and finally my head are lifted off the ground.

Through the cell phone, I hear the telltale squeak of the cocoa shack door. “Where are you?” Daria whispers.

Dangling now from the backs of my knees, my skis still married in their infernal X, I try not to look at the snowy ground ten feet below. Clumps of wet snow slide from my neck through my upside-down hair.