Chapter 32
You Hold Me Without Holding Me
Paisley
The X Games are taking place in the ski area on Buttermilk Mountain.
There are still two weeks to go, but preparations are already going full steam ahead.
I’ve never really been interested in snowboarding, but I’m familiar with the X Games.
Everyone is. They’re on ESPN and ABC and are something like the Super Bowl of winter sports.
It’s a little like a huge festival in the snowy mountains, with a big stage, live music, and various competition areas.
“The pipes for the big air and slopestyle course are already there,” Gwen says as we make our way past the barriers of the music area with its huge X Games banners.
“The superpipe is still going to take a bit,” Levi says. He runs a hand across his dark stubble, here and there coloring them white with snow. He’s right. By the superpipe there are two big excavators, digging into the snow with their buckets.
“Where is everyone?” I look around but it’s empty and dark. I thought everyone would be celebrating preparations already.
“At the Inn in Aspen,” Aaron says. He points into the distance, and I really do make out a few warm lights. Little glowworms hovering over the snow. That’s what it looks like. Floating glowworms. “That’s where the party’s going on. Right next to the freestyle pipe.”
We cross the parking lot. The closer we get to the Inn at Aspen, the more the quiet disappears. Music drifts over along with the sound of conversations of drunk, laughing people. I take out my phone and text Knox.
Where are you?
He responds almost immediately: Athlete Lounge with Cameron and the others.
Cameron?
My trainer.
Ah, right.
And you?
I look up. We’re standing in front of the Inn. There’s a kind of fountain surrounding a large fire. The glow of the flames is reflected in the building’s warm glass walls. It looks decadent and cozy at the same time. Luxurious in that subtle, Aspen-like way.
At the Inn.
I’ll be over there soon. He adds two heart emojis, and I smile at my display.
Is Jason Hawk there too? I ask.
Yeah. A spooky GIF of the Cheshire Cat appears right after. I laugh out loud. Gwen, Levi, and Aaron look at me questioningly. I wave them off but follow behind them while continuing to stare at my phone. How so?
I want to meet him, I write. I’m such a huuuge fan.
Knox replies: .
I answer: You just sent me a period.
I came across the button while pushing him down the pipe.
I bite my lower lip. But, but, I write. ?
He’s lying on the ground, Paisley. He’s not moving.
But, but.
It is what it is.
He sends me a GIF of a dancing pig in a gold sequin dress.
While I’m looking for a suitable GIF to answer with, Gwen grabs my phone out of my hand.
“Enough,” she says. “We’re at the party of the year, and you are not going to spend it with your head bent over your phone.”
We’re almost at the door, which is flanked by two men in dark suits. I wink.
“You said that this was real informal, Gwen.”
“I did not.” She digs about in her handbag and pulls out a pair of heels. They are so high—I swear, in just two minutes I’d have two broken bones.
“You said there’d be good beer. That implies something informal.”
“Otherwise you wouldn’t have come,” Aaron says while pushing me to the side in order to make room for a group of women moving toward the entrance.
“And now I’m coming with you?”
“Yeah,” Gwen says.
“No.”
Levi sighs. “You can’t say no. You’re already in front of the door.”
I purse my lips and have a quick look at myself. Winter boots flecked with white because they’re old and I never had enough money to get them winter-proofed, black skinny jeans, and my down jacket, beneath which I’m wearing my baggy wool sweater.
“They’ll never let me in. Oh my God, Gwen, what is that?”
Gwen starts and stumbles in her heels. “What?”
She’s opened her coat to reveal a black minidress, which exposes most of her cleavage. I give it a tug. “This!”
“Umm. A dress?”
My glance wanders to Levi and Aaron, who are also taking off their coats to reveal elegant suits. “And you all! My God! You look like royalty or something, and here I am like a stable girl!”
“I’ve got a dress for you,” Gwen says. “We’ll fix you up in the bathroom.”
“Why didn’t you all just warn me beforehand?”
“Because you wouldn’t have come,” Levi repeats.
“Come on, Paisley. They’re playing really awesome songs already, and we’re missing all of them.” Aaron grabs me by my coat and attempts to pull me along, but I stay put. Next to the fire.
“They’ll never let me in,” I repeat.
Gwen snaps her hand mirror shut, tosses her lip gloss into her handbag, and puts both her hands on my shoulders.
She smells of raspberries. I like raspberries.
“Listen. We’re on the guest list. Everyone from iSkate is on the guest list. They have to let you in.
We’ll get you ready in the bathroom, you’ll turn Knox’s head, maybe tonight he’ll give you the washing-machine number I told you about, I’ll meet some hot athlete or other, Levi and Aaron can do their weird samba-thing out on the dance floor, and everyone’s happy. Right? Right. Come on.”
I pull off my cap in order to look halfway presentable but when we make it to the two guys in black, I see my reflection in the glass and get a brief oh-my-Lord-am-I-ugly attack. I look like I’ve put my fingers into a socket.
“We’re on the guest list,” Gwen says and gives them our names. One of the men checks us off the list while the other watches me going in.
“My cap causes static electricity,” I say and shrug my shoulders apologetically.
“You’re good,” the other one says, making room. I shoot the staring dude one of my most winning smiles, with my white-flecked boots, with my rat’s nest of hair, and feel big, bigger than him. He’s at least six-five. Doesn’t matter. I’m bigger.
The music is good. They’re playing Kygo.
The Weeknd. Drake. It’s hot, people are heating one another up at the same time, the windows are for the most part fogged.
It smells of damp armpits, alcohol, and expensive perfume.
The bass is making the floor vibrate and cuts waves through the dancing mass and laughing faces.
“Bathroom!” Gwen shouts into my ear. I nod, we give Levi and Aaron a sign, and disappear past the bar and down the hall to the bathroom doors. Gwen turns around, pushes the door open with her back, and points at me with her index finger. “It’ll all be good. I’m telling you, it’ll all be good.”
I see my boots against marble. It’s far too chic to be a bathroom.
My shoes seem dirty. They’re me. The floor is Aspen.
But then I think that maybe there’s a reason for the marble.
At parties, bathrooms are the places that make history.
This is where secrets are whispered. The place where plans to kiss someone out on the dance floor and, who knows, maybe seal your fate are hatched, then a trip to the Himalayas, a wedding, bike tours with kid trailers.
Smudged lipstick mouths telling the truth while the booze makes your nerves tingle.
Of course the floor is made of marble. Of course it is.
“Well now.” Gwen pulls a breeze of fabric out of her big bag and holds it up.
It’s got a rose-colored top with elbow-length sleeves and an airy skirt that just about reaches the knees.
“It’s a gift. Mom bought it for me for some Christmas party at iSkate, but I hate pink. The color makes me all moon-faced.”
“You’re always giving me clothes,” I say while pulling my sweater over my head. “Say it.”
Gwen hands me a pair of nylon tights. “What can I say?”
“Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.”
“Not today, Cinderella. I’ve got to conserve energy. For emergencies.”
I slip out of my boots, thick socks, and jeans, stuff everything into Gwen’s bag and pull out a pair of ballet flats. “What kind of emergency?”
“We’ll see when we get there. Turn around.”
Gwen takes off my hair tie and shakes out my hair. She twists the strands, puts the top hair into a loose bun, and leaves the others loose. Then she takes mascara and nude lipstick out of her bag and turns to my face.
“God,” she says. “I’d kill to have your lips.”
“Thanks.”
“Shhh. You’ll smear everything.”
“Sorry.”
“Paisley! Okay, good, good, I’m done.”
I look into the mirror and see someone else.
The girl across from me has pink cheeks.
Cheeks full of life. Big, shining eyes that look like they’d never seen anything but joy.
Lips that speak of love. Without a sound.
I don’t see myself, but I see what I could be if I stopped being Paisley with all those shadows in her eyes.
Man, oh, man, how lovely I’d be. How beautiful.
Gwen’s standing next to me. Her mirror-self is smiling. Her real self is, too.
“Do you think that things between Knox and me can work?”
Gwen turns around, leans her hips against the sink, and pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. Her pendant earrings clink softly. “Do you remember when we were at the diner, and he came in with Wyatt?”
“When I spilled my coffee on his pants?”
“Exactly.”
I nod.
“That was the day I knew Knox had found what had been missing.”
“What do you mean?”
Gwen smiles. “He came in trying so hard not to look at you, as if you were his sun, and, in so doing, revealed that, for him, you’d been precisely that the whole time, whether he was looking at you or not.”
My heart grows faint. So light, it wants to fly away. “I didn’t notice that at all.”
“Of course not. You don’t notice a thing when Knox is close by, my dear.”
I bite my lower lip.
“Stop doing that. You’re smearing your lipstick. Now, let’s go.”