Chapter 20
Bode
The resort opened on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
On the first day of lifts spinning, that smell of cold and snowcat exhaust and the unmistakable tourist chaos that meant the season was back.
The mountain was alive again, and not the sleepy slow pace of summer tourism.
This was Elkhead Butte in its full glory, and the early season snow meant a big opening day.
“You have your weight on your heels again,” I called as Wade slid past on his brand new board. I wasn’t riding, I was standing by the side of the run that passed by our back door, making Wade hike up the hill a few hundred feet and practice coming back down.
He shifted, but the overcorrection made his toeside edge dig in, and he went down, arms windmilling.
“Good recovery,” I said.
“Thank you! I thought so too.” He stood back up, brushing off the snow, grinning big. “Am I ready for the lift yet?”
The lift meant I’d have to go up with him.
Or Lucky. I could see her in the distance, dropping down through the main run with an ease that had made Wade’s mouth fall open and me recalibrate everything about her relationship with the mountain.
She rode with a pure joy that reminded me of childhood, of times before all of the training and conditioning and spin-to-win halfpipe runs.
“She’s incredible,” Wade said, beside me.
“She is.”
“And to think, this whole time she’s been pretending to be a normal human engineer.”
“She is a normal human engineer. She’s also that.
” I nodded at Lucky, who was hitting a small terrain feature with a clean, casual pop.
Watching her show off made me want to show off, just a little.
Maybe not enough to get on a chairlift yet, but it was there.
And it made me think about that number in the phone, the one I’d almost dialed again last night.
Could a therapist really help with what I was going through, though?
Wade made a strangled noise, snapping me out of my thoughts. “I want to marry her.”
“You’re already living with her and fucking her.”
“I said what I said.” He looked at me sideways, considering. “Don’t look so sad, I wouldn’t marry her without you.”
“I’m not sad,” I said flatly.
“Your whole face gives you away. You kind of droop. Anyway, I want to go up the chairlift.”
“You’ve been on the board for forty minutes.”
“I’m ready.”
“You fell six times in the last fifty feet.”
“Seven. That feels like a sufficient sample size.” He peered at the chairlift with the bright, fearless interest of a man who had never in his adult life internalized the concept of limits. “How hard can it be? Can’t be worse than walking up the damn hill again. That’s exhausting.”
“Fine. But the beginner run only. The bunny hill.” I pointed to the tiny lift which went from the base area to just a few hundred feet above our house.
He lit up like I’d handed him a prize. “Let’s go.”
“Should we wait for Lucky?”
“She said something about the gondola, earlier. I don’t think she’s going to come by again soon, she's way up at the top somewhere.”
Of course, the moment Wade wanted to ride a chairlift, Lucky was nowhere to be found, which was convenient. It was almost as if they’d planned it that way. I narrowed my eyes at Wade, who gave me a very innocent, very cute look.
And Wade, being Wade, couldn’t possibly wait another minute.
He squealed and jumped up and down when I huffed out a breath.
I went inside and got my snowboard. The chairlift was down a short incline from our house, which was on a wide, swooping green run that went around the outer edge of the base area.
It was barely downhill and should have taken about sixty seconds.
Wade managed it in fifteen minutes and eight spectacular wipeouts.
I led him over to the chairlift, reminding him how to unbuckle his back foot and skate.
He scooted through the lift line, wobbling a little as we scanned our season passes. My mom had appeared two days ago with mine, claiming it was part of Moriko’s deal with the mountain. I knew better, but I hadn’t been able to prove it.
Wade didn’t seem as concerned as most beginners would about the chairlift, but that was Wade for you.
His sheer optimism was a physical force.
He sat down on the chair without falling, remembered to tip his board up when I said to, and spent the ride up craning his neck to watch everything: the mountain, the other riders, Lucky zipping down the run beneath us, the view opening up behind us, the town getting small below.
“This is insane,” he said. “Everything is insane. Look at the size of this mountain. This is only the tiniest lift, but it feels so high!”
“It’s the bunny hill, Wade.”
“It’s enormous, Bode. Look how small our house got!”
I blinked at him, then at our house. “Our house is like 200 feet away.”
He laughed, big and goofy, into the cold air. I watched him out of the corner of my eye and tried to figure out what was happening in my chest.
“You might fall getting off,” I said. “But don’t worry about it. It’s a normal part of learning.”
“I’m going to stick it.”
“You might not. Most people fall their first time off of the lift. I’m going to get out of the way, so you’ll have lots of room to just stand and glide out.
Keep your eyes ahead and try to get your foot onto the board, but when you wipe out, don’t panic.
They’re used to it on the beginner lift, just scoot out of the way. ”
“Watch my flawless dismount.”
“This isn’t gymnastics, Wade. There’s no dismount, we’re just standing and skating away." I put a hand on his shoulder as he shifted eagerly forward. "Not yet! Wait until the red line, then stand.”
Wade did not wait until the red line. He got off three feet too early, sliding down the back of the hill, under the chairlift somehow. The whole thing ground the chairlift to a halt while the liftie helped him climb out from under the ropes that blocked off that area.
When he finally glided up to me, he was covered in powder and still grinning.
“Stuck it.” He stood up and brushed snow off his jacket.
“That’s not what that word means.”
“I’m still upright.”
“You fell.”
“Temporarily. I recovered.” He sat down, started to strap in his back foot, and finally noticed the run, which was broad and full of kids doing the snow plow in neat lines behind their ski instructors.
“Okay,” he said, blowing out a shaky breath. “Okay.”
“Now you panic?”
“Look at those kids. Why are they going so fast? Should they be allowed on such a steep hill?”
“The four-year-olds? They aren't going fast.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yep.” I stood and slid around so I was in front of him, digging in my toeside edge. “Come on, big guy. Where’s the endless optimism?”
He sighed, reaching for my hands, wobbling a little as he found his balance, facing me. I looked up at my reflection in his goggles, imagining his warm eyes beneath, and I tried for a gentle smile. Not my strong suit.
“You can do this. Trust me?”
“I should. You’re Bode Hayashi.”
“That’s right. Bode fucking Hayashi says you can snowboard, so you can snowboard. Just bend your knees, use your feet like Lucky taught you, and trust the board.”
He beamed at me, shifting his weight as he slowly started to slide down the run.
I mirrored him, giving him tips, laughing as he finally started to gain a little confidence.
He was objectively terrible, his arms out for balance, his turns wide and tentative, his edges catching all over the place.
He fell more times than I could count, but he got up, adjusted what he was doing, and kept going.
And somewhere in the middle of the run I stopped watching his technique and started watching the way his face looked when he was doing it. The open, uncomplicated joy of a man learning a physical thing for the first time, before they had enough experience to be afraid of it.
A current ran through my chest, electric and wild. It almost felt like snowboarding used to feel for me.
Lucky caught up with us at the bottom. She’d gone up one of the higher lifts, and was snow-dusted and bright-eyed, her cheeks flushed from cold and speed.
“How was it?” She studied Wade, who was breathing hard and smiling with his whole face. “You got Bode on the lift!”
“I love it,” he said. “I love it so much. I need to go again.”
She looked at me, and her eyes had a question in them.
I realized I was smiling.
Not the small, involuntary twitches I’d been producing for months, the courtesy expressions. An actual smile, the kind that involved most of my face.
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go again. All three of us.”
Wade looked concerned. “Three people on the lift? I’m not that good with the dismount.”
Lucky grinned. “It’s a quad lift, Wade. Meant for four people. Three should be fine.”
Wade proved that it would not be fine by taking Lucky out with him as he got off the lift. And while we were all recovering, my mom’s assistant, Emily slid up to us, dressed in more pink than I knew was possible for a snowboarder above the age of five.
“LUCKY! Holy shit, I saw you earlier. I didn’t know you were so good,” she cheered. "I couldn't catch up, because I'm only a casual recreational snowboarder."
"A casual recreational snowboarder? Is that a thing?" I asked.
Emily beamed. “Of course. I can handle myself, but I don't care about progression. Love a green run. Casual recreation, like taking a walk, or swimming in the pool. Don't have to be good at it to have fun, and don't have to care if you're good at it, either."
"I like this concept," Wade said.
"It's horrifying," Lucky muttered, and I didn't disagree. Was snowboarding even fun without the rush? I studied Emily, completely confused.
"You look so good out there, Lucky!” She turned to Wade. “Not you, though. You look like a baby deer whose legs don’t work yet.”
“That’s fair,” Wade said cheerfully. “I’m working on the legs.”
“He’s getting better,” I said.
Emily looked at me. Her eyes went wide, which was nearly identical to her normal expression except twenty percent more. She opened her mouth.
“Don’t. He doesn't want attention.”
Emily closed her mouth. Her face did the thing it always did when she was containing herself, which was extremely unsuccessful. “You guys!” She made a sort of squee sound. “Sachi will be so happy.”
“Don’t tell my mom, either. She'll make it a thing,” I said.
“Fine. Party pooper. Want to do a recreational paced run with me, Lucky?” Emily hopped her board forward with a smoothness that told me her stance on recreational hobby snowboarding wasn't about lack of skill, then started down the hill in wide, sweeping arcs.
She had great edge control, a fantastic stance, and the bare minimum of speed.
"That is just bizarre," Lucky muttered. "She can clearly go faster."
"Recreational hobby snowboarding doesn't require speed," I said, smirking at her.
Lucky laughed and turned her board downhill and was gone. My girl didn't have any kind of issues with going fast. I crossed my arms over my chest and watched Lucky and Emily disappear over a ridge, smiling.
The mountain was open. The sky was that sharp blue that existed above eight thousand feet. The air tasted like pine and cold and the faint trace of woodsmoke from somewhere in the valley.
“You okay?” Wade asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Or almost okay, maybe.”
Wade laughed. “I know what’ll make you feel better. Watching me stick the landing on the chairlift.” With that, he scooted his snowboard forward, and started his wobbly descent.
“Still not what it’s called,” I yelled after him, hopping into motion.