Chapter 7
Idon't sleep in on Sunday.
I'm awake before the alarm, which I set for seven even though the ski demonstration isn't until eleven, which means I gave myself four hours of being a person who is waiting for evening and trying not to show it. I have to find a way to make this time go faster and not think about the conversation he wants to have. A conversation about things he doesn’t want to wait on.
I've been turning that phrase over since last night like a stone with something good written on the underside. I can feel the shape of it but I'm not quite looking directly at it yet, because looking directly at it would require acknowledging how much I want it to say what I think it says.
I'm getting ahead of myself.
I've been ahead of myself since we collided on the mountain road.
I make coffee on the in-room machine and open my laptop and write for two hours in the focused way that only happens when I'm feeling something strongly enough that the words have somewhere to actually go.
I'm working on writing the resort piece, the real one, the full one, not the snippets I’ve been giving my followers all week, and it's the best travel writing I've done in years.
Holly texts at eight-thirty.
HOLLY: How did you sleep?
MAYA: Adequately.
HOLLY: That's a lie but okay.
HOLLY: He's already been here this morning. Checked on the reindeer. Asked Justin if the evening event was still on.
MAYA: He asked if the evening event was still on?
HOLLY: He wanted to confirm you'd be there I think.
HOLLY: Justin said he was very casual about it.
HOLLY: Justin also said and I quote 'he's never asked about the schedule before.’
MAYA: Holly.
HOLLY: I'm just providing context.
MAYA: I know. Thank you for the context.
HOLLY: How are you feeling about tonight?
MAYA: Like I know what's coming and I want it and I've wanted it for longer than this week.
HOLLY: Yeah.
HOLLY: I know.
MAYA: Is that okay?
HOLLY: Maya. You've been reading these books for years and watching all of us find our Daddies. It’s your turn. Yes, it's okay. It's more than okay.
MAYA: What if I do it wrong?
HOLLY: You don't do it wrong. You just talk. He's good at this. I can tell.
HOLLY: And if it helps, Justin vouches for him completely. Has since the day I met him.
MAYA: That does help.
HOLLY: I know. Now go write something brilliant and I'll see you in a bit.
The ski demonstration is genuinely spectacular.
The resort's instructors run an exhibition on the main slope, carving runs and a few aerial moves that make the preview crowd gasp, and I photograph all of it from the viewing deck with the mountains enormous behind them and the snow catching the noon light.
It's the kind of content that does numbers regardless of the words that I’ll pick as a caption.
I'm aware of doing my job well and I'm also aware of the specific low hum of anticipation that has been running under everything all day.
Anthony isn't at the ski demonstration. He's at the ranch in the mornings. I know his schedule now, he is very predictable.
He texts at one.
Anthony: Fawn is eating on her own.
I stare at the message for a moment. He sent me a ranch update. He thought of me in the middle of his work day and sent me a message that he knew would matter to me.
Me: That's the best thing I've heard today.
Anthony: I thought you'd want to know.
I put my phone in my pocket and spend the next hour trying to write captions and mostly not thinking about Anthony.
The evening event begins at five.
Holly has outdone herself, which is saying something given what I've already seen this week.
The resort grounds are transformed with even more lighting than the night walk, strung in great arching canopies between the trees.
There are stands selling handmade ornaments and specialty hot drinks and small beautiful things.
A string quartet has set up near the central courtyard where the tree lighting will happen again, but for the full group this time.
The last time was a practice run, after all.
And there is a sleigh. An actual sleigh, with actual white horses, stamping in the cold air with the patient dignity of animals who know they're the most impressive thing present.
They have to know how magnificent they are.
I stop myself from running over and petting them.
It takes all the self-control I possess as I want nothing more than to go stroke their beautiful noses.
I find Anthony at the reindeer enclosure at five-fifteen, doing a last check before the animals go on display for the event. He looks up when I reach him and there it is immediately, his full attention, landing on me like something physical.
"I’m so happy the fawn's eating," I say.
"I told you she'd make it." He fastens the enclosure latch and turns to face me fully. He's in a dark coat tonight, not the canvas work jacket, and he looks like exactly what he is: a man who belongs here, in these mountains, in this cold, in this specific life. "You look —"
He stops.
He stops. Anthony Rossi, who chooses every word, who doesn't say things unless he means them, who has been precise and measured all week, stops.
"What?" I ask. I look what? Is there something on my face? Do I have a tear or a stain? I look down at my outfit.
"Good. You look beautiful." he says.
"Thank you. You look very nice, too.” I say a bit awkwardly. “The event looks incredible."
"Holly worked on it for three months." He falls into step beside me as we move back toward the main grounds. "What do you want to see first?"
You, I think. Obviously you. I've been wanting to see you since seven this morning.
"The horses," I say.
We move through the evening together and this time neither of us is pretending it's incidental.
He gets my cider, and I notice it’s the alcohol free one, with a look that is mostly amusement and only partly pointed and I take it from him and our fingers overlap for a moment on the warm cup and neither of us hurries it.
We look at the artisan market stalls and he asks questions about the things that catch my eye.
At the ornament station he stops and I raise an eyebrow.
"I want to finish the one from yesterday," he says.
He didn't finish it. He took it home.
And he brought it back tonight.
He pulls the glass ornament from his coat pocket. It’s half-painted in a deep navy with careful precise lines that look like mountains and picks up where he left off. I watch him for a moment before I start another one of my own.
"That's going to be beautiful," I say.
"It's a mountain," he says. He glances at me. "What are you making tonight?"
"I don't know yet." I look at the blank glass in my hand. "I'll know when I start."
He watches me pick up the paint pen with an expression I'm starting to be able to read. He finds something about how I work, the way I jump in without a plan, both baffling and something else. Something warmer than baffled. Endearing perhaps.
“I could never start something without a plan. I’ve always been the type who needs a well written plan with a backup to go along with it. I don’t know how you do it.”
“I don’t either because I don’t think about it too much.” We both laugh.
I paint a small elk calf. I’ve always been creative.
I can write, photograph and draw with the best of them.
I know my strengths and my weaknesses, and art is one of my strengths.
It takes some time and it comes out better than I expected, the proportions are a little loose, but they feel right.
When I hold it up he looks at it for a long moment.
"That's the calf from the road," he says.
"It might be. Do you want it?"
"No, you keep it." His voice is lower. "You should have it to remind you of that moment."
I wrap it in a piece of tissue from the station supplies and put it very carefully in my pocket.
There’s not a thing in this world that is going to make me forget that moment. The moment a baby elk had me slam on my brakes in front of my future Daddy.
The sleigh rides run from six until the tree lighting at eight, and Holly has orchestrated them with her usual precision.
Couples and small groups take a ride on a circuit through the lower grounds and up toward the ridge overlook and back, twenty minutes of bells jingling, cold air biting noses and cheeks and the horses' breath misting in the dark.
She puts Anthony and I together without making a production of it. I suspect she had our names on the same line from the very beginning.
The sleigh is just big enough for two to sit close. The blanket the driver tucks over our laps means our legs are pressed together under the heavy wool and the lights of the resort fade behind us as the horses carry us into the dark.
This is the most romantic thing that has ever happened to me in my professional life and I am not going to think about that right now.
I'm thinking about it.
"I need to tell you something," I say, because the dark and the bells and the cold make everything easier.
"Tell me."
"The resort piece I'm writing about this week, the angle I finally found came from what you said on the night walk about designing the route around what people feel.
I've been writing about this place as a living thing that someone built with love, and the reason I could see that was you.
" I look at him. "I wanted you to know that. You’ve inspired me. "
He's quiet for a moment. The sleigh runner hisses over packed snow. Somewhere in the dark a bell on the horse's harness catches and rings.
"Thank you for telling me," he says. "I’m happy to inspire you in any way I can." He takes my hand under the blanket, fingers lacing through mine.
I don't breathe for a second.
Then I breathe, slowly, and lean into him, and he doesn't move away, and the horses carry us further into the dark. His hand is warm in mine.
Oh.
This is what it feels like. This is what I was looking for.
We ride in silence for a while. The good kind of silence.