Chapter 3
SHAY
This night keeps getting worse. Sure, I’m wearing the new red bra I bought after skiing.
Not a replica of the one I saw hanging on the bra tree, but it has a little bow in the center and does good things for my girls, keeping them perky and smooth in all the right places.
I’m also wearing my favorite black skirt, red leather boots, and a new low-cut top purchased for the occasion.
Unfortunately, the handsome ski guys I expected at this swanky restaurant are pathetically absent.
“Our food is taking forever,” Raven says. “And if Daddy Warbucks sends us another round, I’m leaving.” She crosses her arms, displaying her ink in the badass rocker tank she bought on our shopping spree. I can’t imagine what her art students think of her.
Lily slips pink paper from her bottomless purse and methodically rips it into strips. Without taking her eyes off her work, she says, “They’re busy, Rave. Be patient.”
Two kids fly past us, bumping into Raven’s chair for at least the fifth time. She grips the table, and her knuckles whiten. “I swear to God, if they do it again, my head will explode. Who takes kids out at this hour, anyway? To an expensive restaurant?”
I bounce my crossed leg, wishing she hadn’t mentioned the hefty price tag attached to this meal.
I mentally catalogue my bank account, knowing there aren’t enough zeros to pay for too many more nights like this.
We wouldn’t even be in Aspen if it weren’t for Lily’s folks always offering to send her and her friends away, always being generous with their money.
I almost said no. Having finally stepped out from under the Dick’s shadow, I vowed I’d never again be reliant on someone.
Never let them pay my way. It was just another thing that tied me to him, made me feel lesser than him.
But this trip meant spending time with Lily.
And Raven. And it was Aspen. From here on out, though, it’s little old me doing things my way.
First item on that list: getting some action.
When the same kid smacks Raven’s chair for the umpteenth time, she glares at me from below her thick bangs. “Remind me again why we chose this place?”
I offer a weak smile. “Because of the hordes of hot guys at the bar?”
We lock eyes with the bald man on a nearby stool, his cowboy boots, leather pants, and silk shirt doing nothing to make him look any younger. Neither is the bolo tie.
When he winks at us, Lily shudders. “Creepy.” Then she nudges Raven. “Nothing like the two guys we met on the hill. I think the big guy wanted to ask you out.” She returns to her impromptu art project, weaving the torn pink strips into a thick band.
I frown at Raven. “What guys?”
She rolls her knife around. “The last run, before we met you at the bottom, Lil took a spill. A couple guys stopped to help get her poles and make sure she was okay. She didn’t want to keep you waiting, so she dragged me away, but one of them looked like The Rock’s stunt double.
Serious lady-boner material. The exact opposite of the octogenarians here. I mean, look at this place.”
I glance at the older crowd and families filling the mahogany interior. Not the eye candy promised in the obviously out-of-date blog review.
Frustrated, I slouch in my seat, adjusting my weight off my bruised hip, courtesy of the Asshole. Raven’s right. There should be guys like him here—model hair, day-old stubble, athletic build. Minus the attitude, of course. Instead, we have Daddy Warbucks.
As we wait for our food, I fill the girls in on my collision with the Asshole, then I distract myself with my usual game. In my mind, I wipe the walls and furniture away like an Etch A Sketch, redesigning the space. Modernizing it.
I redo the white ceiling with embossed gold tiles and hang a funky black chandelier above the bar.
The mahogany walls get divided with chair rail, the top painted a soft cream, the bottom an eye-popping hot pink.
The barstools become clear plastic, the bar top concrete with crushed glass.
By the time I’m done, I’ve nearly forgotten why I’m annoyed.
When our waiter arrives, Lily puts away the woven pink bracelet she made in five minutes.
“Thanks. It looks amazing,” she says to the server, all sweetness and sugar as he places plates in front of her and Raven.
She adjusts her hairband to catch the flyaway white-blond strands escaping her messy bun.
“You finished it,” I say, nodding to her hair accessory.
Grinning, she touches the slim band on her head. “Just before the trip. It took a while to find the right colored gems to inlay. Ones with softer tones. Not too vibrant.”
“It’s perfect, but I hope you made one for Raven, too.” I’d kill to see something that girly on her.
“Hilarious,” Raven says. “You’re just jealous I could wear something like that. It would take a girdle to hold back those curls of yours.”
Lily shoots her the dirtiest look she can manage. “She’s never allowed to straighten her hair again”—she faces me—“ever. It’s stunning natural.”
With Lily’s indie style, Raven’s in-your-face flair, and my love of trends, we look more motley crew than girlfriends.
Two tables over, four women are chatting, each wearing jeans and knee-high boots, sporting similar slim builds, straight hair, and red lipstick.
Edited versions of one another. If it weren’t for art class, I doubt Lily, Raven, and I would have become friends.
A design-obsessed hipster, a badass rule-breaker, and a competitive skier don’t often mingle in high school.
Somehow, though, we work.
The girls dig into their food as a different waiter appears with two more plates. He stops, brow furrowed. “There must have been a mistake. I’ll be right back.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I hold up my hand before the guy can turn away. “Not another step. Those are for me.”
He glances again at the lobster risotto and steak frites and then at the table with one customer missing her food. The second item on that doing-things-my-way list: eating whatever I want when I want. The Dick, his awful juice cleanses, and my slim hips can go to hell.
The waiter sets down my smorgasbord, awkwardly placing both plates so I can dig in without morsels flying. “Enjoy,” he says and smirks, leaving the girls to stare wide-eyed as I shove a massive forkful of risotto into my mouth. I follow with a bite of steak.
Raven shakes her head slowly. “If we feed her after midnight, will she sprout horns and terrorize Aspen?”
Lily giggles and presses her fingers to her lips. “I don’t know, but I’m glad our place has three rooms. She’s going to feel awful later.”
“You know I can hear you, right?” I say around a bite.
But Lily is spot on. There’s no doubt my wallet and stomach will regret this later, but it’s lobster and risotto and steak frites.
Thirty minutes later, Raven gawks as I force another fry into my mouth. “It’s like I’m at the zoo,” she says.
Lily bites her lip. “You don’t have to finish, Shay.”
I lean back and polish off the last of my Shiraz.
“Yeah, I’m done. But I’m taking the leftovers back to the condo.
” That hunk of steak and pile of fries have breakfast written all over them.
Although there is that box of Lucky Charms back at our place.
“I’m thinking we need to work brunch into our meal rotation. You know, as a fourth meal.”
Raven swirls her wineglass. “Shay, babe, you’re not a hobbit.
You’re a twenty-five-year-old woman who’s a tad lost and needs to remember she’s the same girl who won the Whistler Cup.
That girl knew how to get in the zone. That girl skied circles around those bitches.
It’ll just take some time is all, and I’m not sure eating your way through Aspen is the answer. ”
I push fries around my plate.
Hitting the slopes today was liberating. Skiing was the thing that brought me out of my shell as a kid, too, back when I stuttered. The sport gave me confidence. Being part of a team vanquished the lonely, stuttering child I once was.
Temporarily, at least.
I may not struggle with my words these days, but my compliance with Richard echoed an unhappy time in my life. And I was blind to it.
“I was sixteen at the Whistler Cup,” I say. “It was a lifetime ago. That girl rocked, but I don’t even know who she was…who I am.”
“You’re an amazing interior designer who’s going to chase her dreams again when she gets home,” Lily says. “You’re not living your life for Richard anymore.” She reaches over the table and squeezes my hand.
I sigh, the bra-slinging, determined woman from earlier suddenly absent. “But that’s just it. What if I’m screwed? What if I passed up the best job offer I’ll ever get?”
“You mean designing retirement homes isn’t your dream job?” Raven teases.
I pull my hand out from under Lily’s, fist the napkin on my lap, and toss it at Raven.
If I have to go home and face another mothball-smelling gig, I’ll lose the plot.
Following our firm’s strict guidelines leaves me no choice but to offer clients a choice of ugly or uglier, tacky or tackier.
And I have to sell that horror show. No, really, the paisley you chose is perfect with the big. Giant. Floral. Couch.
I can’t unsee that stuff. And it’s all because I didn’t take the golden-ticket job. The cereal-box-prize job. I chose the Dick.
Heat builds behind my eyes, and I face the large windows lining the restaurant. The snow hasn’t stopped since this afternoon, thick flakes still tumbling down. A few kids are grabbing handfuls, packing them into snowballs, and pelting one another.
I look up again at the fluffy flakes, remembering one of my childhood art projects—learning how each crystal was unique, no two alike. Those kids are mashing each rare flake into one massive, uniform sphere, all individuality squashed, and my breathing halts.
I swivel toward the girls. “I’m a fucking snowball.”
Raven blinks at me. “I don’t follow.”
I pound my fist on the table. “A fucking snowball. I mean, look at us.” Lily and Raven exchange glances and shrug.
“How different we are,” I say. “We’re all snowflakes.
All unique. But we still work, right? Richard snowballed me.
That fucker packed me into his world, belittling and molding me until he killed my uniqueness. And I let him.”
My resolve from earlier returns tenfold. I may not like the woman I became while with the Dick, or the insecure child I once was, but I can be whoever I want now. I tossed my bra, gave that ski guy the finger, and I’m wearing hot lingerie. Red-hot lingerie.
Picturing the Asshole who skied into me, sexy booty and all, has me pressing my legs together. It’s back to that list of mine. Item one: getting some action.
“Let’s settle our bill,” I say. “It’s time to hit a bar.”
Item one trumps taking home leftovers.