Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Inever thought of myself as the jealous type—until that moment.
Watching the rest of the skiers divvy up into twos and threes, gravitating to their friends, egging each other on, I couldn’t help but wish I had someone with me. Anyone. It didn’t have to be Tara. In fact, if I had to choose between Tara and solo, I’d take solo.
Yes, I was glad she suggested I leave town.
Yes, I was glad I was there on that trail, although it wasn’t quite far enough from Vermont that no one would have ever heard of The Last Chair.
Maybe, when Tara called me at the airport, an hour before the flight, I should have changed my ticket to Spain, or Italy, or any place I wouldn’t have run into ski bums who happen to be fans of Sugarbush Onion Pie!
The flight to Spain or anywhere else wouldn’t have been any easier, though. I still would have been a blubbering idiot and made my seatmates horribly uncomfortable. And any other flight attendant would have taken pity on them and moved them into first class to make up for me snotting all over them.
No. A different destination wouldn’t have changed much.
I was starting to suspect Fate was watching me with a magnifying glass.
The second I recovered from the shock of Nick secretly planning to divorce me, he revealed his plan to buy me out of TLC.
And not just the restaurant, but our precious house too!
He was paying me off and inviting me to abandon my life completely.
But he hadn’t stopped there.
Nick’s next plan hit me like an uppercut with a massive steel sheet pan.
I can still hear the ringing in my ears and feel the vibration that shook my bones when one of our waiters, whom we called Mother, let me know that all our friends and regulars were not my friends after all.
Nearly all of them had pitched in—before I knew about the divorce papers—to help Nick raise enough funds for the big buyout.
When I’d finally been able to breathe again, I’d called Tara, my life-long best friend who would never pick Nick over me.
“Kick him in the balls and walk away,” she’d said, without missing a beat.
“Leave him hanging. Let him wonder what you’re going to do.
Make him wait. Make him worry. Hey! Why don’t we jump on a plane and go somewhere fun?
Let’s go to the Scottish Highlands for a week!
Cross country with some brawny lads who don’t bother covering their knees in a storm.
How about it? It will give you time to figure out what you want to do. ”
I hadn’t had the energy to kick anyone in the balls—at the time.
But the rest sounded good. I was slowly accepting the idea that Nick and I weren’t on the same side anymore, and that we would never be again.
But a good week without smelling his cologne in the bathroom would help me clear my head and maybe think strategically.
So, she’d booked the trip.
I wasn’t an idiot. The minute I was served the papers I’d moved every penny and froze half of the funds in the restaurant’s cash flow account.
He could pay wages. He could pay suppliers, but little else.
I didn’t want the restaurant to suffer, especially if I might decide to fight for my share of it.
It was a big place. I could run a long strip of tape down the center, and we could stay to our separate sides—until one of us wanted out…or changed our mind…
I was surprised Nick hadn’t frozen our accounts before having me served.
He always said I was the nice one. He must have assumed I was too nice to pull that move, or he didn’t think I was smart enough.
He often joked with our friends that I was the creative, and he was the logical one.
He must not have thought me capable of being both.
Even after I’d secured every extra dime I thought we had, he’d offered to buy me out.
I didn’t know his calm came from the fact that he had a pile of cash he’d gotten from the “Pick sides/Go Fund Me campaign” he’d waged behind my back.
He had to have been saving for years to offer what he had.
Our friends and regulars couldn’t have come up with all of it.
Which meant he’d been planning to get rid of me for a long time.
Come to think of it, I was lucky I hadn’t ended up on an episode of Dateline!
Naturally, the court would force me to split all the assets I’d snatched up. And still, on top of that, he had three hundred thousand to make me go away.
And silly me, I’d packed a bag and headed to the airport! If I hadn’t hidden that money, who knew what he could have been doing while I was away.
Tara called me after I’d already checked my bags.
She sniffled and groveled, said she was sorry she’d waited so long to confess—Nick’s impressive pile of cash?
She’d pitched in too. She was sure her conscience wouldn’t have survived the week in Scotland, and her confession would have ruined the trip.
But on the bright side, I could enjoy my break without all that drama.
Really?!
She hoped I could forgive her by the time I got back. That she’d done it out of love for the restaurant, my restaurant. That if she hadn’t, she would have had to give up all her friends too. Would have had to find another life too.
Yeah, sure. I wanted to say. It was better that only one of us had to do that.
When I said nothing, she changed tack. She acted like I should have been apologizing to her for expecting her to choose me over her own life.
“You poor thing,” I finally said, and hung up.
It’s surprising how many numbers a person can block in the half hour their flight is delayed…
Out on the snowy Ryovan Trail, the need to vent my still-fresh frustration had me pushing it up to the next rise.
Tears and melted snow were starting to freeze on my glasses, and I pulled my neck gaiter up over my nose.
The wind had picked up unnoticed while I’d been groveling in my memories, and now it swirled around me like a bunch of former friends, laughing and taunting, beside themselves over the big prank they’d been able to pull off.
I flipped them off, shouted a few phrases I’d never spoken aloud in my life, and expected them to run away. But the wind didn’t stop. The snow kept swirling. Visibility ended about fifteen feet out, and I realized I could have been skiing along in my own little cloud for half an hour!
My hand reached for my whistle before I knew for sure that I was alone.
As instructed, I gave a single long blow, paused to catch my breath, and repeated it over and over again while I waited for someone to come looking.
And if no one came back, I knew there were a handful of skiers still behind me. I wouldn’t be alone for long.
After a while, I was out of breath and my ears rang enough to be painful. If someone shouted, I wouldn’t have heard it. It was time to reassess.
My best guess was that we’d been out an hour. If I really believed I was in trouble, I could just turn around and head back. Blizzard or not, I would stumble across the Visitor’s Center or the parking lot, or the little town beyond. Civilization was behind me.
If I pushed forward, picked up my pace, I might stumble on to the rest of the group—or I might not.
If they’d headed for a tree line, I couldn’t see it.
A life’s worth of training told me to stay put.
To bundle up, to fashion shelter from the elements, even if that was the snow itself, stay as warm as possible, and wait to be found.
I didn’t know these people. I didn’t have pride to worry about. If they had to send out a search party for me, so be it. It was part of regular operations in a ski community. If I had to pay some fee for the trouble, I’d pay it.
But there was a freaky little voice whispering in my head, nudging me to go on. Probably just my imagination, or more likely, it was the wind shushing around me, pushing at my back, a little shove now and then. But what if God was trying to tell me to keep moving?
Fine. I’ll go a little farther. Then I’ll whistle again and hunker down.
That nagging wind pushed so hard I was able to coast for half a mile. I finally had to turn my skis and stomp a few times to hold my ground. Thankfully, when I blew my whistle again, that same wind would carry the sound farther than it might have gone.
I needed to stay upright and visible for as long as possible, not disappearing into a snow cave until I was sure no one was chasing down my call for help.
I eyed the fluffy snow to either side of me, waiting to engulf me if I didn’t stay on my skis.
I was the seal on the ice floe, surrounded by white, faceless killer whales, waiting for me to fall off.
I would have laughed at my imagination, but it wasn’t funny.
I blew and I blew on that precious whistle until the heat from my muscles began to cool.
I opened my pack, put my heavier gloves on over the thin ones, and pulled my wool ski cap over my head and neck gaiter.
I strapped on my leg gaiters that would hold the heat in my calves and send some of that warm blood to my feet.
Thankfully, my expensive boots kept my feet dry.
The longer I stood there, the greater the risk of hypothermia. I slapped my face a couple of times to remind myself who I was and where I was from. Matty didn’t panic. Matty was always prepared. And storms didn’t last forever.
I wasn’t tired. I didn’t need shelter. I just needed to move. No one was coming to save me. I had to save myself.
I broke the tab in one of my hand warmers, mashed it, and tucked it down inside my shirt pocket. I had three others, and three warm patches, but I would ration them. I dug out my compass before zipping up my nearly empty backpack and picked the heading I would stick with.
I wasn’t stupid. I was heading back.