From Here to Paternity (11 page)

"Don't worry. I saw the thing she's crocheting. And she seemed to take real pride in your taste."

"Excuse me, but we got sidetracked," Mel said. The waiter was back with his breakfast, a substantial order that Jane looked over longingly. "You want the muffin?" Mel asked.

She nearly snatched it. "Yes, thanks."

"You said you asked your uncle what he thought of Mrs. Schmidtheiser's claims," Mel said to Tenny. "What was his response?"

"Pretty much that she might be right and he didn't care. He said Gregory sometimes mentioned the Old Country in a vague way. He'd say the winters here weren't any worse than in the Old Country, that sort of remark."

"Could that mean Russia?" Jane asked.

"Sure. Or it could mean a mountainous area of Germany or Switzerland, or any part of Finland, for that matter," Tenny said.

"So he didn't care about the truth of it?"

"I don't think it was so much that he didn't care as it was that he understood and respected his father's privacy. If the old man didn't want anybody to know his background, then nobody—not even Bill himself—had any business snooping into it. He wasn't so fanatic about it that he really minded Doris and her pals, but he wasn't about to help them. It's a shame Doris couldn't have lived a few more years—"

She glanced around at their confused expressions. "I forget that you haven't been subjected to as much genealogy as we have. I meant the census. The government grants you privacy when you answer the census questions. For your lifetime. And it considers the average lifetime to be seventy years. So right now the most recent census that's available to the public is the one of 1920. Gregory could have been anywhere then. Maybe already up in the mountains someplace where no census taker could find him. Or maybe in transit from wherever he came from. But by 1930, he was right here, so in the year 2000 the genealogists can go to the National Archives and see his answers to the questions."

"What sort of questions?" Jane asked.

"I don't know what they asked in 1930, but in the previous ones they asked things like where and when you were born, where each of your parents was born, when you came to this country if you weren't born here, whether and when you took your citizenship. Things like that."

"So in 2000 they can find out more about him."

Jane mused. "But would he have answered the questions the census people asked him? Or told the truth if he did?"

"Good point," Tenny said.

"The class I took yesterday talked about the census a little bit," Shelley put in. "The teacher said it wasn't always very reliable. Apparently they hired somebody—practically anybody who was available—to go around and ask the questions. If the census taker got sick of it, or drunk, or was a little hard of hearing, the answers might be pretty erroneous, even if they were given truthfully. And a lot of people always got missed. If they weren't home to answer that day, the census taker would often just ask the next-door neighbor."

"Oh, my God," Tenny said, glancing at her watch. "I've got a ton of things to do. Sorry for horning in on your breakfast. If you see Uncle Bill before I do, would you tell him I'm looking for him?"

Mel watched her leave. "I don't like it," he said softly.

"What don't you like?" Jane asked.

"Anybody who goes missing right after hearing about a mysterious death."

"So you've never skied before, either," Jane said.

They were bundled up and on their way to the bunny slope to take a ski lesson.

Shelley shook her head. "No, and I don't know why I let you talk me into it this time. A couple of grown women getting ready to tie sticks to their feet and slide down a hill! We've gone mad."

"Come on, Shelley. We're nineties-type women. We can do anything."

"That's what you said about that step-aerobics class, and you didn't last through one session."

"Well, it was stupid and boring."

"And hard! And remember the 'Drawing on the Right Side of Your Brain' class you talked me into going to with you?"

"That teacher should have been fired. Imagine telling us we didn't
have
right sides to our brains," Jane said with a grin. "We must. Otherwise our heads would be lopsided."

"I think this is going to be worse," Shelley predicted. "I can see this going right off the top of the humiliation scale."

"But, Shelley, everybody skis. Celebrities ski. We might run into Cher or some Kennedys or Bob Denver—"

"I think you mean John Denver. And I don't imagine you'll be brushing elbows with any of them on the bunny slope of this resort. Why isn't Mel coming along to help us?"

"He's still crippled from yesterday. Besides, he's asking around about Bill. It's really galling him being an outsider with no authority, especially since the sheriff is such a casual good ol' boy. I keep telling him to look at it as a valuable learning experience, and he just growls."

"You ladies here for a little practice?" a handsome young man asked.

"No, lessons. We've never skied before," Jane replied.

"Then you've come to exactly the right place," he said. "I'm an instructor and I'm just putting a little class together. Sit down right here while I fit some other folks with their boots and skis, and I'll be back to you in a minute."

"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.

"Okay, here's the deal," Shelley pronounced. "We're going clear to the top of the hill. Then we're coming back down by whatever method works out best and no matter how many times we fall along the way. Then we're retiring. Just think, for the rest of our lives we can say We Have Skied. And nobody will ever be able to say, "But you must try it once." So we'll never have to do it again."

"Sounds like a good plan to me. Is there food at the end of this scenario? You didn't mention food."

"There's a huge lunch, Jane."

"Okay."

They started laboriously stairstepping their way up the hill. After about ten minutes, during which she had to look at her feet to make sure they were doing the right thing, Jane stopped. "Jeez! We should be clear to the top by now. And we're still at the bottom."