Chapter 11 Maggie
MAGGIE
By the time they got back to the lodge, Maggie was exhausted, feeling the drain of the cold and the pull of muscles unaccustomed to heavier use.
But there was no time to rest. “I’m already late for kitchen duty, sorry,” she called, flinging herself off the back of the machine.
Then she ran back to peel off the helmet and the outerwear she had borrowed.
“It’s fine, I’ll put things away and check in with Mauro,” Sam told her. “Go get ready.”
Hester flagged her down on her way through the lobby. “I’m sorry!” Maggie called. “We got a little turned around on the trails. I just need to change.”
“We can definitely use you, but that’s not what I wanted to see you about,” Hester returned. “We found a room for you.”
Maggie skidded to a halt. “What?”
“One of our housekeeping staff had a family emergency, so she left this afternoon, and her room is free. It’s in employee housing behind the lodge, so it’s dorm style, but at least you’ll no longer be sharing with Sam and his daughter.”
“No longer sharing,” Maggie echoed. “Yeah. That’s ... wonderful.”
Hester frowned. “I thought you’d be happy.”
“I am happy,” Maggie lied. She tried to put on a more convincing smile. “That’s great. After my shift, I’ll pack my things.”
She was in a hurry, distracted, and assumed Charlie was out somewhere. The idea that the girl might still be in the room didn’t even occur to her until she had already inserted her key and opened the door.
Charlie was sitting on the bed with her head in her hands. As soon as the door opened, she jerked up and sprang to her feet.
“Are you okay?” Maggie asked. She was no expert in teenagers, or in Charlie, but it looked very much as if Charlie had been crying.
“I’m good.” Charlie dashed at her eyes.
Maggie hesitated. She needed to change and get to her kitchen shift. But if something was truly wrong, she didn’t feel right about walking away.
“Do you need me to get your dad?”
“No!” Charlie said with sudden, emphatic urgency. She tucked her hands under her arms. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
It must be rough for a teenage girl sometimes to grow up with just a dad, Maggie thought. She wondered if there were always things Charlie didn’t feel like she could talk to him about.
“Is it something I can help with?”
“No,” Charlie said, but more softly. She wiped her eyes again.
Maggie retrieved a box of tissues from the bathroom and offered it. Charlie grabbed a handful and sniffled a little. “Thanks,” she muttered.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I would be happy to listen, if this might be something you could use a friendly ear about.”
“Well—I—” Charlie wadded up the tissues into a ball. “It’s just—I think about Mom a lot around the holidays. That’s all. It’s not like I can talk to Dad about it.”
“Why not?” Maggie asked. Resigned to already being late, so it wasn’t like it mattered to be a few minutes later, she sat on the bed. After a moment, Charlie hesitantly sat next to her. “Your dad loves you a lot. I’m sure he’d understand.”
“Oh, he’d understand too well; that’s the problem. He’d get all sad, and then I’d get even sadder, and—no thanks. Anyway, I ...” Charlie hesitated, as if on the verge of saying something else, then shook her head. Her eyes welled up again, and she wiped at them with the ball of tissues.
“You lost your mom a long time ago, right?” Maggie didn’t think now was the time to admit that she and Sam had just had a conversation about it.
“Yeah. When I was little.” Charlie frowned. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t miss her. In a way it’s worse, because I don’t actually remember her. Except just flashes, now and then. And I don’t know if those are real memories or me making things up because I want to remember her so bad.”
“I think they’re probably real,” Maggie said softly. “People we love imprint themselves on us. In our heart and soul, they’re with us forever.”
This produced a fresh round of tears, and Maggie hesitantly patted the girl’s shoulder. When that didn’t seem to go badly, she put an arm around her.
Charlie clasped her hands around the ball of tissues and stared down at it in her lap. “Are you going to be dating my dad?”
Oops, I’m due in the kitchen for my shift!—was her immediate urge, and would be exactly the wrong thing to say. It was a serious question that deserved a serious answer.
“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “Your dad and I haven’t talked about it yet. Whatever we do, we’ll take you into account. You’re the most important thing in the world to him.”
Charlie made a small sound that could have meant anything, but sounded vaguely skeptical.
“Whatever happens from here, Charlie, you’re going to be part of it. I promise.”
“Mmmm.”
Maggie gave her a little squeeze and let go.
“I’d be happy to talk more if you want, but I really need to finish getting dressed and get down to the kitchen.
You should probably find your dad and have dinner.
” Her stomach growled, reminding her that it was going to be a while before she had a chance to eat.
She should probably grab a granola bar or something.
“He’s going to have lots to tell you about our adventures today. ”
“I guess so.” Charlie raised her hand to touch her neck on top of the collar of her sweater, an odd, involuntary-seeming gesture. “I, um. I guess I’m going to go now.”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you.” Maggie paused on her way to the bathroom. “They found me a room, so you’ll get your dad back in your room tonight. No more roommates.”
Charlie brightened up immediately. “Oh, that’s great! Uh, nothing personal.”
“No problem,” Maggie said, trying very hard not to take it personally.
Charlie grabbed her phone and bounced out of the room, looking a lot happier. Maggie sighed and started putting up her hair for the hairnet.
The cold war between them might have started to exhibit cautious forays into international diplomacy, but there was still a long way to go.
She was late to the kitchen, as expected, but they were too busy to waste time complaining about it. Hester saw her and immediately put her to work loading the industrial-sized dishwasher.
After that she was run off her feet, working too hard to do more than take a five-minute break to snatch half a sandwich. She saw Sam and Charlie across the dining room, but she was unable to get anywhere near them as she ran back and forth, busing dishes to the kitchen.
The kitchen closed down at nine, but she stayed to help clean up and finally collapsed on a stool as the rest of the remaining staff trickled out.
Hester, looking just as bedraggled as Maggie felt, sank down beside her. Maggie was still amazed at how much Hester did in the course of a day. It was clear that the lodge owner liked to have a personal hand in running the place. “Do you ever take vacations?” Maggie asked her.
Hester gave her a tired smile. “We’ll shut down at New Year’s for a couple of months. This is our first year running at full capacity all year round, and it’s been a lot. I’m looking forward to having it just be me and Mauro for a while, like it was when I first got here.”
This made Maggie’s thoughts turn immediately to Sam. Firmly, she pushed that thought away, and decided to try a little honesty for a change.
“I admire everything you do,” Maggie said, and Hester looked a little surprised. “I’m completely exhausted from doing this all day. In fact, I’d better go soak my feet, and get my things out of Sam and Charlie’s room.”
“Wait, before you go,” Hester said as she got up. “Do you like saunas?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been in one.”
“Really? Well, you’re welcome to try ours. It’s brand new, and we’re limiting it to just a handful of people right now until we work out the bugs. But Mauro had it fired up earlier this evening, and it should still be hot. You’d be welcome to have a nice steam bath before bed.”
“I don’t have anything to put on,” Maggie demurred. “I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”
“Good news, then. It’s 18-plus, and you’re welcome to steam bathe in the nude if you like. Just cover up on the way there, bring a towel, and knock before you go in.”
Ordinarily a naked steam bath would have held little interest for Maggie; she’d rather have a spa day and a mud mask. But right now, with her feet hurting and her whole body sore from the unaccustomed exercise of snowmobiling, she couldn’t think of anything nicer.
“Oh, and be careful with the door,” Hester added. “I heard that it’s been sticking. Mauro thinks the wood’s warping a bit. So close it carefully.”
“I will. Thank you.”
She spotted Charlie in the lobby, hanging out on the couches in front of the fireplace with some other teenagers.
So their shared room ought to be empty, unless Sam was there—which, as it turned out, slightly to her disappointment, he wasn’t.
Quickly Maggie collected her things for the move down to the employee dorm.
Then she grabbed a towel from the bathroom. It was all the same towels, after all.
Some part of her hoped that Sam might come in while she was packing, but he didn’t. She hesitated, and then left a quick note on hotel stationery: All moved out! Thanks for being great roommates.
Okay, that sounded ridiculous. Maggie crumpled it up. She would certainly see them around the hotel anyway.
The employees lived in a small dorm-type structure attached to the main hotel.
The rooms were shared, and it looked like she would be doubling up with the cook, a pleasant older woman with whom she had gotten along well.
Maggie left her bag there, let her new roommate know that she might be back a bit late, and slipped off to find the sauna.
She had seen it earlier; she just hadn’t realized what it was, but it was very evident now by the steam surrounding it in the cold night air.
It was a freestanding wooden structure on a little path behind the lodge.
Wearing only her towel, boots, and a coat over the top to keep from freezing entirely, Maggie picked her way along the slushy, half-frozen path toward it.
Just as she got there, the door opened and two of the other hotel employees came out on a cloud of steam, wearing towels and laughing.
“Hi there!” one of them said, recognizing Maggie. She was the night manager and bookkeeper, a pleasant woman about Maggie’s age named Orla. “Nice and hot, and you’ve got it all to yourself. Be careful with the door, though. It jams at the top.”
“Hester warned me,” Maggie said. “Is that safe?”
“We didn’t have too much trouble. There’s a trick to it.
” She demonstrated. “You pull on the handle and push with your foot on the bottom—like this—when you close it. Then it’s fine.
If you have any trouble, just do that in reverse, basically, and it’ll pop open.
And if anything does go wrong, Mauro is going to come around before midnight to shut everything down. ”
She showed Maggie how to use the sauna. It was more primitive than Maggie had expected.
There was a small area for coats and boots, divided from the rest by a wall that also blocked view of the inside when the door was open.
The rest consisted of a single small room with wooden benches and a bricked-in heater that had a layer of hot rocks on top.
A large basin of water and a ladle were provided for pouring water on the rocks, which burst up in an explosion of steam as Orla demonstrated.
“Finnish style!” Orla said. “See, still nice and hot. Have fun. There are vents above the benches if you get too hot.”
They left, and Maggie was all alone in the sauna.
It really was nice. She poured on some more water, and clouds of steam rose to fill the place with hot, moist air. Maggie left her towel on for her own comfort, even though there was no real reason not to take it off and bathe naked.
After a little while, she started to feel fidgety about the door. Maybe it would be reassuring to try opening it, just to make sure she could. Also, with the steamy heat, she wouldn’t mind a draft of cold air.
She tiptoed barefoot over to the door and tested it.
It opened easily. Very easily, enough so that she nearly took a step out, naked, into the frigid air.
And if she had done that, she would have bumped directly into Sam’s bare chest.
He was right on the other side of the door, reaching out to open it, and he was only wearing a towel and boots, with a coat slung loosely over his shoulders. His chest was bare, lightly thatched in the same salt and pepper she had glimpsed earlier. He had a smooth stomach and muscular thighs.
She could couldn’t take her eyes off any of it.