The Body in the Snowdrift (7 page)

“I wouldn't dream of it,” she said, just as if she hadn't heard him rehearse all afternoon.

“First of all, I'm tickled pink to be here with all of you on Saint Valentine's Day. We made it!”

He waited for the clapping and whistles to die down.

“On the occasion of my seventieth birthday, allow me to propose a toast to the family, to the Fairchilds and the three wonderful spouses who have not merely joined us but also enriched us with their presence.”

“Hear, hear,” cried Craig, loudly kissing his wife.

“And to you four grandchildren—Scott, Andy, Ben, and Amy—you make us proud every day of our lives.”

Amy buried her head in her mother's lap. She had never been toasted before. Ben picked up his champagne glass, which was filled with sparkling apple juice, and said, “And we're proud to be your grandchildren, Grandpa!”

Either I've a future Rotarian or a member of the diplomatic corps on my hands, maybe both, Faith thought. She clinked glasses with him.

“Thank you, Ben. Now, I know you're hungry, boys, but indulge me a little longer. One of my friends at home, Ed Martinson—you all know Ed—told me years ago about the way they toast in Norway, the old country to him. Whenever we're at his house, this is how they do it, and I'm going to do it tonight. You look straight at the person you want to toast and maybe give a little nod; then you both take a drink. I've got two glasses filled and I want to toast each of you. So here goes. Skoal!”

This time, there was no applause or catcalling. In silence, Dick looked deeply into the eyes of each person there, reaching down into each heart and soul before moving on to the next. It was a wonderful moment. When he came to her, Faith felt a lump in her throat. “Happy Birthday,” she whispered, adding another toast softly to herself: “May you enter heaven late.”

The prime rib and accoutrements, cheesy potatoes prominent, arrived, and Dick sat down. When he'd heard Scott and Andy ask for the beef, Ben had ordered
it, too—rare, just like theirs. The huge chunk of meat was threatening to spill off the plate, and Ben eyed it with something akin to dismay. Faith was about to lean over and tell him not to worry about finishing it, when Robert whispered something in his nephew's ear, causing him to break out in a smile. He'd make such a great father, Faith thought, not by any means for the first time, and took a moment to run through her mental Rolodex of singles, despite the fact that Robert had politely but insistently refused all her matchmaking efforts.

“Just in time!” Dick cried as Fred and Naomi walked into the room. “Scotty, run out and tell them to bring the shrimp cocktails. You can eat fast and catch up,” he said, beckoning the couple to their seats.

Scott stood up and headed for the door, almost colliding with the third member of the Stafford party. It was Ophelia. Faith didn't need an introduction, even though she'd never seen the girl before. The figure trailing morosely behind had sixteen-year-old female angst writ large all over it. There were visible piercings just about everywhere something could be punctured, and Faith imagined the baggy black jeans and cropped T-shirt proclaiming
SHIT HAPPENS
hid more. One wrist was tattooed with a barbed-wire bracelet, and again Faith suspected further decoration beneath her clothes. She wore boots with heels so high and soles so thick, they looked orthopedic. Ophelia's dark hair was short, a kind of devil-may-care nail-clipper look. She had one long magenta-streaked lock that hung down across her face, trailing to her chin.

And she was beautiful. Very, very beautiful, despite her every attempt to disguise the fact. Faith knew from the boys that she was “an awesome boarder.” She was trying to shuffle into the room, but her innate grace and energy wouldn't allow it, and she almost sprang into the chair next to Andy's.

“I'm so glad you could make it, Joanie. No, no, I know that's not it. It's Miranda now, right?” Dick Fairchild was training his magnetic smile on the girl, and for a moment she was pulled in, a glimmer of one appearing in return on her lips. Then she caught herself.

“Ophelia, it's Ophelia,” she said sullenly.

“Knew it was one of those Shakespeare gals. Welcome to my party, Ophelia, Fred, and Naomi. Now all the Staffords are here.”

Ophelia seemed about to say something more, but instead, she started whispering to Scott, who had returned, closely followed by a waiter with the Staffords' appetizer. Faith watched Ophelia eat the lettuce, avoiding the shrimp. Then she handed the almost full plate to Andy Parker. She shook her head when the waiter came around with the main course. She was beautiful, but she was too thin. Whippet-thin and, like the dogs, her rib cage was clearly visible. It pressed against the spandex shirt, an X ray. Ben was mesmerized by her and was leaning so far over in his chair in an attempt to be part of the older kids' conversation that it threatened to tip over.

Joan, or Joanie, didn't suit the girl. This was no poodle-skirted teen from a fifties-type sitcom. But Ophelia—an unsettling substitute, surely? Hamlet's
doomed lady? It was not the sort of literary character Faith would want a daughter of hers to choose to emulate, if that was what this was. Naomi herself hadn't exactly lucked out in the name department—biblical, not Shakespearean. Faith had a vague recollection that the biblical Naomi was somebody's friend. Ruth's maybe? Anyway, adopting the name of someone who kills herself is generally a flag for the parent of an adolescent, and Faith hoped the younger Staffords were taking it seriously. Where was Ophelia's father? Not behind an arras at the moment. The walls in the private dining room were paneled with knotty pine. Was Naomi a widow or a divorcée when Fred married her? she wondered.

Plates were cleared. The noise level had increased. The room was becoming almost unpleasantly warm. Amy the dormouse was heavy-eyed amid the commotion and the heat.

“Come out on the balcony with me and let's get some fresh air, sweetie,” Faith said, pushing out her chair. Amy followed her, and they went across the room and slid open the door leading to the balcony. It was a clear night.

“Look at the stars, Mommy. They're all bending down near us.”

They were. Revived by the cool air, Faith kept one eye on the party so they wouldn't miss the cake's arrival. It was like watching a play, the door frame the proscenium arch. Craig tapped his glass and stood up to make a toast. He'd had a lot of wine and his words were slightly slurred, but not his emotion.

“Raise your glasses to the memory of one of the best, Boyd Harrison. Hey, guy”—he held his flute aloft—“I don't know what we're going to do without you.” He sat down heavily, and Faith was surprised to see him pull out a handkerchief and dab his eyes. She hadn't known they were that close—or maybe it was the champagne. The cake was coming, and she scooped Amy up and rushed back to the table. After they sang to him, Dick gathered his grandchildren and Ophelia around him.

“You're going to have to help this old geezer blow all these candles out. Did you ever see such a cake!” he glanced appreciatively at Faith. “Okay now, one, two—”

“Wait, Grandpa.” Amy tugged at his sleeve. “You have to make a wish!”

“Darling girl, my wish has already come true. You four can have my wish for me. Now blow!”

They did a thorough job, and after Dick made a ceremonial cut, the cake was taken back to the kitchen to be sliced and served with “plenty of ice cream,” as per instructions.

To fill the time, Betsey stood up to make a toast. Her hair, normally pulled back in a tight knot, was loose. The sparkling wine had given a sparkle to her eyes, and her cheeks were rosy from the day's skiing. She looked very pretty, and much younger than her carefully guarded over forty age.

“To you, Daddy, the best father a girl could ever want, and also a big thank-you to the Staffords for all our years of friendship and the chance to be at this very
special place. Here's to you, Harold, Mary, Fred, Naomi, and Ophelia!”

Even over the clapping and Craig's “Way to go, Bets,” it was impossible to miss Ophelia's voice—or the slamming of the door that punctuated it.

“I'm not a fuckin' Stafford and never will be!”

“Simon says this; Simon says that. Get lost—oops, you can't, because Simon didn't say so!”

Faith could hear the angry words, but without revealing her presence, she couldn't see the speaker. She was stretched out on a chaise by the side of the pool, watching Amy swim. The voice was coming from the adjoining game room.

After last night's party, everyone had slept in. Ophelia's dramatic exit hadn't produced the effect she had no doubt desired. There had been a moment of shocked silence, true—with steam coming out of Fred's ears and tears moistening Naomi's eyes—but the party didn't end. Dick had clapped Fred on the shoulder, patted Naomi's arm, and called for more champagne. “I wish I had a nickel for every time a door got slammed in our house,” he'd said.

Clearly feeling his friend and mentor's pain, Craig had almost spoiled the moment by pointing out that if any of them had used the
f
word or spoken in that tone of voice to either parent, they'd have been booted off to military school—or in Betsey's case, a convent with ten-foot walls—faster than a speeding bullet. He'd been about to continue in this vein, when Tom had intervened. “Yeah, we were paragons all right. Not like today's kids.” He winked at the four cousins, who had turned to stone the moment after Ophelia opened her mouth. “We owe you a nickel for every slammed door, Pop, and how about a dime for every bike and then car tearing out of the driveway faster than a speeding bullet?” Everybody had laughed, including Craig, and the party went on longer and took on an even warmer tone than it would have without the theatrical interlude. Faith watched the Fairchilds spin a cocoon of comfort around the Staffords, who had lost their closest friend only that morning and were, it was now clear, dealing with the teen from hell, or just your average adolescent, depending on one's point of view.

Harold and Dick had regaled them with a nostalgic look back at ski history, starting with a paean to the Scandinavians. “The earliest-known record of skiing dates back to 2000
B.C.
—petroglyphs etched on a rock wall on an island off the coast of Norway,” Harold told them. “One pictures a person on long narrow skis twice his height. Norway's Telemark region gave its name to the low, deep-kneed turn, skiing's oldest method of turning, and also produced the ‘father of modern skiing'—Sondre Nordheim, who had the brilliant idea of adding a birch heel strap to the leather toe
strap for greater control when descending. Skis were shortened and the lone pole used as a kind of outrigger was replaced by two shorter poles. From a method of transportation across the snowy wilds, skiing emerged as a major sport, a national pastime.

“Of course, it took awhile to catch on here,” Harold had went on. “Scandinavian immigrants brought the sport with them. There was one guy, called ‘Snowshoe Thompson,' who skied to deliver the mail to the mining towns in the Rockies. The mining companies even had racing teams. Imagine those logos! But Vermont is the cradle of U.S. skiing. Don't you ever forget that! Around 1900, a bunch of Norwegians or Swedes—can't remember which—were living near Stowe and started using skis to get around in the winter. It took awhile for people to stop laughing, but it caught on, and the very first ski race was held here at Mount Mansfield in 1934. Then Woodstock's Bunny Bertram invented the first rope tow in the United States—powered by a good old Model T engine—around the same time. It was kind of tiring hiking up all that way. Fred Pabst came up with the J-bar lift in '36. My dad was one of the first to try it out. First ski patrol started then, too, over in Stowe.”

Dick had continued the saga. “It seemed like everywhere you looked, there was someplace to ski in these mountains. Maybe just a rope tow or maybe something more complicated. After the war, there were the ‘snow trains' leaving from New York City and Boston for Vermont. The army veterans of the Tenth Mountain Division were like gods to us. They started areas, taught people how to ski, and ran the ski patrols.”

“It was still pretty primitive,” Harold had said to his mostly wide-eyed audience—Glenda had been half-dozing. “One of my first jobs was at Mad River Glen in 1949, foot packing. Didn't have groomers, so that's what we had to do, go up and down the trails, packing the snow down with our feet. And in the summer, we had to go back all over again and clear away any rocks. You got to know the mountain up close and personal. Course, things have changed a lot.” He'd sighed, but Dick hadn't been about to let the bubbles fizzle out of his party.

He'd raised a glass and made a final toast: “Pine Slopes forever!”

The answering chorus had been everything Harold could have wished for, if the broad smile on his face and mistiness in his eyes were any indication.

This morning, after a prolonged breakfast, everyone except Faith and Amy had hit the slopes. Apparently, Glenda's private lessons were proving to be a big success, and she couldn't wait to practice what she'd learned the day before. “Roy says I'm doing amazingly well for a beginner. He couldn't believe I've never been on skis before!” As she left, Faith had noticed Glenda was wearing a different outfit—and more makeup—than the previous day. A cloud of Obsession hung in the air. I wonder what this Roy looks like, Faith had thought, then rebuked herself for cattiness. Glenda and Craig were obviously very happy with each other, and Glenda's enhancement of her already considerable charms was merely routine, a reflex, like the way a teenage boy buffs and polishes his first car.

Faith snapped back to the present. The argument
was continuing in the next room. “You are such a baby, Josh. You just can't stand the idea of having to give up even one inch of your sacred Sports Center. You made it more than clear that you didn't want the Nordic Center here, and precious little room you've given us. What Simon is proposing is only fair—and common sense. We're the fastest-growing part of Pine Slopes, and more of a draw than your pathetic pool tables any day!”

It was a woman's voice, petulant and taunting. Faith wished she could see her. Josh had signed the Fairchilds in. He was a guy who was obviously spending his spare time using the weight-training equipment. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, and the only thing keeping him from Mr. Universe contests was a face pitted by acne scars.

“Now, just you wait a minute. As manager of the Sports Center, it's up to
me
to allocate space. Granted we're getting more of them, but most of your Nordic yahoos only need a place to sign in and pay the trail fee. You know that as well as I do. They bring their own food to eat outdoors and don't buy anything from the Sports Bar. It's crazy to think that taking space away from the lounge for a Nordic shop is going to produce any more sales or rentals than we're already getting by having it with the Ski Shop in the main lodge! The TeleManiacs bring their own equipment, and the guests who buy or rent are more apt to do so if they see the stuff right in front of them up there.”

“For your information, Simon and I have been checking out the way other resorts handle their Nordic centers, equipment sales, and rentals.
All
of them have
expanded their centers and attached separate Nordic shops to them. You are so yesterday. The boomers are trading in their downhill skis for cross-country, skate, and telemarks—not to mention snowshoes—while their kids and grandkids downhill or board. They want the exercise, but they don't want knee surgery or a broken hip. We've doubled our snowshoe rentals this season. Our nightly backcountry headlamp tours are a huge success, and you know it. So, maybe the couch potatoes will have to sit a little closer to watch the crap you run on the big-screen TV. That crowd's mostly teens anyway, and they're not generating much profit!”

“Talking to you is totally pointless,” Josh retorted. “Apart from the exercise room, tennis courts, and the pool, people—adults—come here to relax, have a beer, and watch a movie after skiing all day. Shoot a little pool, play Ping-Pong. You've never even bothered to check it out. Neither has Simon. But fine, move all your ski wax down here—real high profit margin there. But before anyone starts modifying this building, I want to hear about it directly from the Staffords, not ‘Mr. Simon Says' Tanner and his star performer, little Miss Sally Sloane!”

“O! I can't believe you're acting like this! I wasn't happy to move from the Nordic cabin here, but it was way too small, and then I thought we were doing all right together. Simon said you'd get petty about turf, but I told him he was wrong about—”

“Simon says…” Josh jeered, breaking in.

“Shut up! Just shut up about the whole thing! I'm sorry you're taking it this way, but the decision has been made, so like it or lump it!”

“I'm not the one who's going to be sorry—and I'd watch out if I were you, or—”

A door slammed, cutting off whatever Josh had intended to say. Slammed doors. There seems to be a lot of that going around these days, Faith thought. But there was nothing like a turf battle to awaken the sleeping beast in every man, woman, and child. Whether it was over my side of the room as opposed to yours, a fence dividing two yards, a border in the Balkans—or the footprint of the Pine Slopes Sports Center—these wars had a way of escalating. She didn't envy the Staffords their job, or Simon Tanner, the manager, either. She wondered what would happen next. It seemed unlikely that the Staffords didn't know about what Simon and Sally were planning. Josh
would
have to like it or lump it. Amy had recognized him from last year and greeted him joyfully. He'd remembered her, too—or put up a pretty good show of doing so. Faith thought this could well be the job he'd stepped into out of school, and it certainly was his bailiwick.

“Watch me, Mommy!” Amy called. She was at the shallow end of the pool, diving for the brightly colored weighted rings Faith had brought along. On this sunny Sunday morning, they were the only ones at the pool. Everyone else was outdoors. Faith had wanted Amy to have a break, and she liked the idea of one for herself, too. Yesterday had been an emotional free-for-all, starting with her tragic discovery of Boyd Harrison's body and ending with her father-in-law's joyous birthday celebration. Life and death.

She'd swum some laps, sat in the Jacuzzi, then read while Amy stayed in the pool. Her little minnow. Ski
ing was still a new challenge, and Faith didn't want Amy to feel overwhelmed. Ben always roared full steam ahead into every new experience. Amy was more tentative, putting a toe in first, testing the waters. Her two were as different from each other as the Fairchild offspring—and she and her own sister—were from one another. The endless combinations and recombination of the gene pool. If it was true, as people said, that every child in a family has a different father and mother, then surely every parent has a different child. She laughed out loud as she thought this. It was the kind of illogical statement that Pix and Niki would appreciate. She'd have to try and remember it. She missed her friends. Tom was reverting to being one of the boys—in this case, one of the Green Mountain Boys—and she didn't have anyone who shared her sense of humor. Pix and Niki were also unabashed students of human nature, or gossips, to use a cruder term. Faith would have liked to run the Josh/Sally situation by them. Did Josh have a thing for Sally? And now Simon was on the scene instead? There was certainly a great deal of energy being generated in the next room, but without seeing their faces or watching their body language, Faith couldn't say what kind.

She regarded her little girl, a Nereid beneath the David Hockney blue pool water.

“Sweetie, you're turning into a prune. How about we hit the showers and go see what's going on with everybody else? If you feel like skiing this afternoon, I'll take you, or you can go back to the class.”

“Okay, but just one more dive?”

“One more,” Faith said firmly. This was an attribute
common to all species, the old “just one more” trait—one more minute, one more turn, one more page, one more bite. At this very moment up in the backcountry, a young deer was pleading with its mother, “Just one more nibble of bark and I'll go. I promise.”

On their way out, they passed Josh, who was serving steaming bowls of onion soup to a group of Trapp family look-alikes. Mama, Papa, and kinder were all in cross-country ski garb—Tyrolean ribbon trim, and could those knickers be lederhosen?—chattering away about the excellence of the trails. The Sports Bar served wine and beer, but also chili, soups, wrap sandwiches, and Ben & Jerry's ubiquitous, and always tempting, offerings. Josh looked preoccupied, and Faith was sure he wasn't pleased that his customers of the moment were living proof of Sally's argument.

When she opened the front door of their condo, Faith was surprised to hear voices, and even more surprised to find Scott, Andy, and Ophelia sprawled out on the couch, watching some sort of cartoon. She was a surprise to them, too. Ophelia grabbed the remote and turned the TV off, stood up, and seemed about to sprint for the door.

“Hi, everybody. Taking a break?” Faith said. “You don't have to go, Ophelia, and please finish what you were watching. Maybe Amy would like it, too.”

“I don't think so. Anyway, we were just about to head on out,” Ophelia said abruptly, still poised for flight. Her baggy ski clothes, de rigueur for boarders, hung on her skinny frame like a tent on a tent pole before it's pegged. The boys gave their aunt and cousin small smiles and almost imperceptible waves.

This could be my only opportunity, Faith thought suddenly. Betsey had the boys so programmed, even during the vacation week, that finding them alone like this might not happen again.

“I just had an idea. Why don't we go to Gracie's in Stowe and have some of those fabulous burgers Ben and Amy have been telling me about? You'll still have plenty of time to ski. I'll leave a note for your parents and Tom.”