Chapter Eight
Eight
Wicksteed’s Aspen resort is a fever dream of the American West. Set right at the base of the ski hill, wide runs fuzzed over with grass, dark shocks of pine trees licking up the peaks.
The hotel is all pitched roofs and timber beams. From the front drive I can make out steam rising from a pool around the side, where a line of aspen trees dances in the breeze.
Everything’s just on the edge of changing color, the trees’ green leaves tinged through with gold. Somewhere between the dreary terminal at O’Hare and Aspen’s pine-scented, autumn-crisp air, I’ve left my life and landed in another tax bracket.
“You’re kidding,” Dexter says when our driver eases up to the front doors. A bellhop waits for us, smiling serenely. “We’re in a Hallmark Christmas movie.”
“No snow,” Iris says from the row ahead of us. She’s next to Nolan; Soraya and Campbell took the van’s front seats. “We’re three months too early.”
“These places are always better in the offseason,” Nolan says. He’s peering through the window toward the mountain, which rises behind the hotel’s A-frame rooflines. “Fewer tourists.”
It’s a literal hotel, but okay. I bite my tongue. All six of us pile out of the van onto the stone drive just as Lucia Perez comes floating through the double front doors.
“Welcome!” she calls, lifting both arms like a queen addressing the masses. She’s wearing cowboy boots and a corded cream sweater. “We’re so thrilled to have you in Aspen.”
Lucia reaches for Iris’s hand first, then Nolan’s. When she gets to Campbell, she gasps and says, “Love the suit. Wicksteed red.”
I feel my face pucker as it hits me: their logo. The damn Wicksteed Resorts logo, a red map marker the same shade as Campbell’s outfit. He finds my eyes over Lucia’s shoulder and winks so theatrically I really could throttle him right here in front of everyone.
“Oh,” Dexter mutters beside me, but then Lucia’s reaching for my hand and I swiftly reconfigure my scowl into a smile.
“Matilda French,” I tell her. “Copywriting.”
“Of course,” she says. Her perfume is sudden and strong, her handshake firm. This is the kind of woman who sets the temperature of every room she enters. “I remember your incredible campaign write-up from Chicago.”
She moves on to Soraya, and I look at Campbell. When I mouth, Incredible, he casts a harried look straight up to the sky. At the edge of the driveway, he’s framed by a thicket of yellowing aspens, making an aggressively autumnal palette in his red suit.
“We’ve got you booked on the top floor, the fourth. The views up there really are the best.” Lucia waves for us to follow her into the building. “Mountain-facing, of course, and in your two weeks here you’ll really see the fall colors start to show off.”
Dexter and I are the last to step into the lobby.
Lucia keeps talking, but my brain’s doing something close to a short circuit: this place is unbelievable.
The walls are all exposed logs wider than my body, stacked and glistening with polish.
There’s a stone fireplace crackling by the front desk, the wood so fragrant I can smell it from here, and low couches set onto woven rugs.
The sprawling space is lit by floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the mountain.
Through glass doors at the far end of the room, a stone patio shimmers in the sun.
Outside, people are reading in Adirondack chairs, and sipping drinks from tall glasses, and lacing up hiking boots.
I don’t realize my mouth is hanging open until Campbell catches my eyes and mimics me, lifting one hand to his chin and using it to hinge his own jaw shut. I snap my lips together and look away from him immediately, trying to tune back in to Lucia.
This is probably normal for Campbell, with his hometown on the beach and his perfect family. Phi Beta Kappa at Vanderbilt. He was probably the exact kind of prep school kid whose parents whisked him to places like this for spring break.
“…so we’ll meet back here in thirty minutes,” Lucia says. Conclusively, like I’ve already missed all the important bits of this plan. “There’s water and snacks waiting in your rooms.”
“Wait,” I say under my breath, pawing at Dexter’s arm. “What are we doing in thirty minutes?”
“Horseback riding,” he says. Bitterly, I might add. “Welcome to Aspen.”
What? Ava replies to my text immediately. Of course I’ve never ridden a horse when would I have done that?? Are YOU doing that?
I texted her in a panic about what to wear on the back of a thousand-pound animal, but this isn’t helpful.
I have leggings (unprofessional) and I have jeans (too tight?
Too chafing for animal fur?). I have a dress that will surely ride up and show off my underwear (nonstarter). I have ten minutes to figure it out.
Apparently, I send back. I don’t know what to wear. Jeans?
Ava replies with a picture of a cowboy on horseback. Jeans, leather boots, belt buckle the size of my face. Pretty sure, she says.
I pull out all the contents of my suitcase and organize everything into rows on the enormous bed: rolled shirts, folded pants, socks tucked into the neat little balls that Mrs. Zimmerman taught me.
Nearly all of it black. I’ll get everything hung up or put into drawers later; I hate living out of a suitcase.
Even if I’m away for one night, everything goes in a drawer.
After changing, I indulge in one, brief bed flop.
Arms out at my sides, tipping straight back onto the mattress until it catches me in a poof of downy bedding.
The bed’s so big that my little trust fall doesn’t even jostle all the clothing I set out.
The ceiling is crisscrossed by exposed beams, their varnished wood lit with sun coming in from the mountain-facing windows.
Stay, the entire room urges. Stay here in this beautiful place forever.
I allow myself a slow-counted sixty-seconds spread-eagle on the perfect cloud of the bed before sitting up.
I take in the room from the edge of the mattress: two cognac leather club chairs in front of a stone fireplace; a long, marble wet bar; a tastefully minimalist painting of a lone horse above the dresser.
It smells like an expensive candle was burning in here until the minute I stepped inside. Something earthy and masculine.
I pull my toiletry bag from my near-empty suitcase and cross the airy space toward the bathroom.
It alone is the size of our entire apartment in Lincoln Park: claw-foot tub, glass-walled shower, double vanity with so much fancy lighting there are six different switches on the wall.
The toilet is in its own separate room with a locking door.
I think of our water heater back in Chicago, how many frigid showers I’ve taken by accident, and take a slow-pan video of the entire room to send to Ava. Maybe they’d give us a discount to come back and stay in JUST this bathroom, I add. Plenty of space for us and Pancake.
I could use a minute with my concealer and a mascara wand, but now I’m cutting it too close, so I just rub on some sunscreen and gather my dark hair into a ponytail.
When I wash my hands with the Wicksteed-branded soap I realize it’s the same scent from the bedroom, something proprietary.
It smells so good I contemplate pumping it into one of my TSA-approved liquid containers to bring home with me.
I catch my own gaze in the mirror and frown.
I don’t have time to prioritize stealing soap right now.
I look pale, framed by the bathroom: my wan skin, incapable of holding a tan, and the indecipherable alloy of my eyes—an uncertain hazel that can never quite decide between green and brown.
The tiny hole at the curve of my left nostril where my nose ring used to be.
I hate that visible marker of a choice I made and changed my mind about.
It occurs to me that a hat would’ve been a good idea. Maybe some sneakers. I look down at my black leather boots—silver buckles, low heel—and groan. Wicksteed should’ve sent a packing list.
Knuckles rap at my door and I jump, flipping off the bathroom light and hurrying across the room. Dexter’s waiting for me in the hallway, wearing a Bears hat and an unbuttoned flannel over a T-shirt.
“When did you get a flannel?” I draw the door shut behind me. “You look so Colorado.”
“And you decidedly do not.” He eyes my black turtleneck. “You know we’re a lot closer to the sun here? It’s going to be warm out there.”
“This is thin,” I insist, pricking at the fabric of my sleeve. “It’s September. And I don’t have any T-shirts.”
“You didn’t bring any T-shirts?”
“Why would I bring T-shirts? This is a work trip.”
“Well, now we’re going to ride farm animals, so it sounds like you played yourself.”
“Do you think Campbell will wear his Wicksteed suit?” I ask, just as a door jolts open ahead of us.
“Probably not,” Campbell says as he steps into the hallway. His room is two units down from mine; we’re separated by Soraya. “Unless you think I should change?”
He gestures to his outfit: white sneakers, jeans, a blue T-shirt with a pocket at the chest. There’s a Vanderbilt Swimming hat rolled up in one of his hands.
“I definitely think you should change,” I mutter, pressing past him.
“Did you swim in college?” Dexter asks, gesturing at Campbell’s hat. “I did, too.”
“No shit?” Campbell says, just as Soraya’s door clicks open. “What stroke?”
I swat at Dexter’s arm. “Stop bonding with him.”
“Backstroke.” Dexter ignores me, lifting a hand at Soraya as she joins us next to the elevators. She’s wearing tall leather boots and a linen button-down, like something out of an English riding magazine. “You?”
“I was a breast guy,” Campbell says, and I make a gagging noise. He grins at me. “And fly.”
“Have we all done this before?” Soraya asks, looking between us.
Dexter shakes his head, and Campbell says, “Once, at summer camp.” Of course.
“Never,” I say, just as the elevator doors ding open. “You?”