Schuss, p.3
Schuss, page 3
“Thanks, Stace. The more I have, the more I can work with. I’m trying something different with this one, making it kinda unscripted, just seeing how I’m feeling the footage and stuff, and how it wants to come together.” She passed me the mayo knife to lick clean.
“You know,” I said around licks, “you could just give up your dream of making documentaries for Nat Geo and make ski movies instead. Come with me on the racing circuit and I’ll give you my best side every day. Promise.”
Gem’s laugh was short, but she packed a whole lot of mirthful disbelief into it. “Surrrre. I’ll just follow you around forever and film everything you’re doing, like a 24/7 Stacey Evans reality show.”
“Sounds awesome.” I stole a slice of tomato from her, blowing her a kiss when she mock-scowled. “Are we doing a formal interview, or…?”
“Nah. Unless you want to?”
I shrugged. “It’s your thing, Gemmy Gem. I’ll do whatever you want.”
She paused for a moment, her mouth twisted into its thinking expression. “Okay. Let’s just do question-answer to lead you into giving me some soundbites. You’ve done enough media stuff since Beijing.”
Enough media stuff since Beijing was an understatement. Winning a bronze medal was amazing, but it came with a whole lot of media commitments. I loved talking to people, but answering the same questions over and over was super draining.
Gemma continued, “And if I don’t get what I need from just us talking then we can record you doing some cool lines like ‘I have no fear’ or ‘I am Stacey Evans, Olympic bronze medalist and winner of World Cup races, and I am the greatest speed skier in the world!’ or ‘I love skiing!’ or…something.” She’d adopted a deeper voice to put forth her ideas about what I could say for her video project. “And then we’ll have Aspen saying ‘Stacey Evans is the best skier I’ve ever coached, except for my daughter, Gemma, who will never be a ski racer so she doesn’t really count.’”
I snort-laughed. “Yeah, you really need to work on those lines. And I’m definitely not the greatest speed skier in the world.”
“Ye-etttt,” she singsonged.
“Ever if Aspen and Brick have their way.” It was a really unfair thing to say about the people who had my back at every turn, and I regretted it instantly. “You know what I mean,” I mumbled.
She bumped me with her shoulder. “They’re just looking out for you. That’s what coaches and trainers and managers are supposed to do, right?”
“Right.” I sliced my sandwiches into rectangles, and Gem’s into triangles.
She grabbed her plate and sat opposite me at the breakfast bar. “And I know you’re mad, but I kinda agree with them. You’ve kicked ass this season and I don’t want you getting hurt because you’re exhausted.”
“You’re too sweet,” I said.
“No, I mean it. If you get hurt, then this film project will go to shit.” She smiled around her mouthful of sandwich to show me she was kidding. Mostly. “You went to the freakin’ Olympics, Stace, and you won a medal there. At your first Olympics. You’ve stood on the podium for all of your World Cup races this season. You’ve got nothing more to prove to anyone right now. Not ever.”
“Yeah, I know, it’s just…I want people to be proud of me. I just wanted a little more this season, and I know I could have gotten more from myself.”
Her smile started slowly, but quickly turned bright, brilliant. “Of course you could have. And we are proud of you. I’m proud of you and I love you just as you are.”
I forced myself to smile goofily when all I wanted to do was climb over the breakfast bar and hug her. “Do you love me enough to brave furniture shopping with me? I’ve got a journalist coming round Friday to do an interview.”
“It’s because I love you that I’ll go, because if I don’t, you’ll end up buying the ugliest stuff and it’ll be all over television for the whole country to see.”
Chapter Two
Gemma
I wandered through the house to find Aspen. Again. When I’d come home from school, after a quick hug and “How was your day?” she’d suggested that maybe my best friend needed someone to talk to. So I’d done an about-face and gone straight out again. Now Aspen was in the laundry, shooing away our ridgeback, Taylor, who had her nose in the laundry basket. Taylor abandoned her sniffing to come say hi, and Aspen glanced up from where she was bent over stuffing clothes into the washer, her swampy not-green-not-hazel eyes lighting up. “Just in time to help out with the dirty laundry.”
“Gee, thanks.” I leaned against her, relaxing immediately when she straightened up and pulled me into a hug.
Aspen was tall, over six feet, and her hugs were amazing—almost as good as Stacey’s. Maybe good hugs were a tall-person thing? Stace was a few inches shorter, but way more muscular than Aspen, in that hot “I’m an elite athlete who treats my body well” sort of way. My best friend was also an enthusiastic hugger, which suited me just fine.
With a final squeeze, Aspen kissed the top of my head and released me. She shoved her short, wavy brown hair back, trying unsuccessfully to tame it. Her hair declined the invitation to behave and immediately flopped back across her forehead. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
Aspen frowned, which always looked weird because she was usually super calm and cheerful. “I guess she told you?”
“She did. You know, you could have just told me,” I said.
“I thought she’d want to tell you herself.” Aspen leaned against the washer. “I know she’s pissed off, but it’s for the best. Did she talk to you about it at all? Had the steam stopped coming out of her ears by the time you got there?”
I laughed at her description. I’d never really seen Stacey get mad. Fired up, passionate, maybe a little belligerent when she was told to chill, but never mad. “Yeah. I think she’s okay. I’m kinda glad. I hate it when you guys are away.” Since Aspen had started coaching Stacey four and a half-ish years ago, Mom and I had taken a few trips to join them at ski races. We’d watch Stacey ski and stand on a podium to get her prize, see the scenery, and do some skiing of our own. But it wasn’t the same as having Aspen at home and Stacey just a few blocks away. “Plus,” I added. “You’re right. She needs to rest.”
Aspen laughed dryly. “I hope you told her that.”
“I tried. I think I was maybe…eighty percent successful in getting my message across?”
“Better than zero percent.”
“Yeah. We’re going furniture shopping tomorrow, and skiing Sunday and probably Monday and Tuesday as well, so whatever you said to her seems to have sunk in. I think she’s accepted that she’s home for a while now so she’d better sort her house out and finish unpacking.”
Aspen’s shoulders dropped. “Oh good. Thanks, Gem. She’s lucky to have such a good friend in you.”
“Think I’m the lucky one too.”
She grinned. “I think you’re right.”
It was a weird twisty thing that someone as confident and extroverted as Stacey, and someone as shy and borderline-introverted as me clicked so well. But we just…worked, and had from the beginning. Of course, there was the teensy-tiny problem of my raging crush on her, which thankfully she didn’t seem to notice. I was pretty sure anyone who was attracted to women would have a crush on her, because personality aside, Stacey was Hot with a capital H—tall and athletic and ripped, a sexy-as-hell full-sleeve tattoo, the cutest batch of freckles over her nose and cheeks, and the most incredible light brown eyes framed by thick, dark lashes, which I’d always found a little weird given she was a natural blonde. She had an interesting face, for real. She was gorgeous, not movie-star gorgeous, but her face was bold, yet soft at the same time. Yeah, I spent a lot of time thinking about her face. And her other body parts.
Being in love with your best friend was both great and shitty, and I’d been managing my crush since pretty much the moment I’d first seen Stace. Maybe when I went away for college in the fall it’d be easier. Sure, it was going to suck, but not being close to her all the time might help me cool my feelings.
I picked up the empty laundry basket and put it up out of reach of Taylor’s teeth. “Oh, hey. I need to get some more footage of Stacey training. She told me to tell you, but she’s okayed it. I’ll stay out of your way again.”
“Sure,” Aspen said easily.
“When would be the best time?”
“Just pick a nice sunny day and we’ll go with that. Everyone else will be fine with having professional media around us again.” She winked. “Do you want us to go easy on her while you’re filming?”
“Nah, Stace would hate people not seeing her putting everything into training.” I bit my lower lip. “Do you think someone would be able to follow her down the course with the GoPro again? Just so I know I’ve got every possible shot I can get. I just…can’t ski that.” There was no way I’d ever be able to match Stacey’s speed on a racecourse, even during training and even on a run that I wasn’t petrified of doing, like the Birds of Prey Downhill course at Beaver Creek.
Aspen’s face softened. “Of course.” She pulled me against her. “It’s okay to be anxious about doing some runs, Gem.” She’d know. Aspen had retired from her lucrative pro ski racer career partly because of snowballing injuries and partly because of crippling anxiety she said came from the procurement of those injuries. I’d seen enough race crashes—including some of Stacey’s, which made me sick to my stomach—to totally get Aspen’s anxiety. I had no idea how they just rehabilitated themselves and went back at it just as hard, if not harder. Brave weirdos.
“I know.” I leaned against her shoulder. “I don’t mind going slow down those runs with you or Stace where I can stop and get my confidence back, or sideslip some bits. I just don’t want to go zoomies.”
She kissed the top of my head. “And that’s totally okay. Ski your own run, remember?” Aspen set the washer, then slung her arm over my shoulders, guiding me out of the laundry room and to the living room. “Okie dokie, Kathryn Bigelow. Now you’re officially on spring break, what are your plans for the week? Think you could find a day so you, me, and your mom can ski?”
“Of course. I’ll just be hanging out with Stace while she’s having her break, prepping for finals next month, editing Stacey’s film, sleeping in…Oh, and I wanna go out and take some photos of the start of the spring thaw.”
“Sounds great.”
It’d been Aspen who’d bought me my digital SLR for our first Christmas together. At the time, I’d thought it weird because while I enjoyed taking photos, I wasn’t obsessed with it then. I used to think I wanted to be a veterinarian but after a few months playing around with the camera, taking stills and videos, I was hooked. I still loved science, but weirdly and totally unexpectedly considering how focused I’d been on academic stuff my whole school life, I’d discovered I loved film stuff more. And talking to a veterinarian at a job fair thing had also kinda made me realize it wasn’t for me. I just wanted the science and animal part, not anything to do with the people-who-owned-the-animals part. Then I’d talked to a filmmaker at the same fair, who was nerdy and introverted and so passionate about making films that I’d tumbled head over heels and hadn’t looked back.
So I’d decided I wanted to blend my two loves and make science and nature documentaries. (I’m available, Nat Geo!) Of course, Mom and Aspen had diligently asked me if I was sure I wanted to move away from veterinary science to something more arts centric, then they’d had A Discussion, then I’d pointed out that I was only fifteen and still figuring my life out and didn’t people change their minds all the time? When I was four I wanted to be a spoon. Definitely changed my mind about that one.
I’d changed my mind about a lot in the last few years, some things not so important, some things sorta important, like about finding out who my donor was. When I was younger I was sure I’d use the identity release he’d signed, which meant when I was eighteen I could find him. But now I had Aspen and my family felt so perfect that I didn’t want to know the guy who’d contributed half my genes anymore.
We’d met Aspen back when Mom’s and my last name was Tierney, and Mom was lonely and miserable. Who knew that when we’d taken a family-and-friends ski trip to Australia in 2017, I’d end up with a stepmom? I hadn’t really wanted to go, but Mom’s best friends wanted to confirm it really did snow in Australia, and Mom thought a dual family vacation with her good friends and their kids was a great idea.
I didn’t really love skiing, mostly because it scared me. So, I’d agreed to take some lessons in Australia. Turned out my coach was Aspen, a former professional ski racer, who also lived in Colorado when she wasn’t traveling around teaching noobs like me how to ski, which was super cool. Also super cool was the swoony look Mom gave Aspen when she first met her. I’m pretty sure it was love at first sight, but then we went home to Idaho Springs, Colorado and Aspen stayed in Australia to finish their ski season. If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to watch your lonely, sad, scared-to-trust-women Mom fall in love with someone awesome and then break up with that person because of a dumb reason, I can tell you it freaking sucks.
Thankfully they sorted out their stuff, because no exaggeration—Aspen was the best stepmom in the world. Not that I had much of a gauge, but I knew the woman who’d been with Mom when I was conceived, right up until I was about eleven, wasn’t a nice person or a nice mother. But Aspen was both a great person and a great mom. She’d never treated me like I was a silly kid, was always there if I needed to talk to her about anything from personal stuff to school stuff to weird stuff, and would probably jump into a burning building to save all of us, Taylor included. But she was also the biggest kid at heart and was the first person to suggest we should build a combustion engine, or that we should take an afternoon off school as a mental health break to go for a hike or to the museum or a movie.
Aspen ran a hand over my head and down the back of my neck to gently massage. “You okay? You look totally zoned out.”
“Mhmm, totally. Just thinking.” Everything felt so perfect right now, and I was scared of it all changing at the end of next month when I’d graduate.
“Don’t think too hard. Why don’t we go surprise your mom and meet her after work? I’m craving Italian. We could go to Figaro’s for dinner?”
I gave her arm a few rapid-fire pokes. “You mean you don’t feel like cooking?”
She snuck in with threats of tickling. She’d tickled me once, learned how much I hated it and had never done it again. But she always pretended she was going to. “Do you feel like cooking?”
“Hell no.” I never felt like cooking, but it was part of my allowance chores so I diligently did my part in our rotation and even produced completely edible meals.
“Exactly. Let’s use me being tired from wrangling Stacey as an excuse. And your mom’s been at work all week so it’s not fair for her to cook. Plus, you’re technically on vacation so why would you want to cook?” She glanced at her watch. “We’ll leave in…thirty minutes? Then we can be back early for a movie or whatever.”
A movie sounded amazing. But… “I have some English reading to do.” Though senior finals were a month away, and my college applications were done, it felt weird to not keep up with schoolwork.
“What are you reading?”
“The Things We Cannot Say.”
“Ah.” Aspen’s face went blank. “Never read it. But I bet it’s better than 1984, A Tale of Two Cities, and The Grapes of Wrath which is what I remember reading in the twelfth grade. Boring.”
I wrinkled my nose as I reminded her, “I read those last year.” Just because I was interested. They weren’t as interesting as I’d hoped.
Smiling, Aspen wrinkled her nose right back at me. “I know. Why do they always assign really profound and hard-to-wade-through books in school?”
I leaned against the doorframe. “Yeah. Just once it’d be nice to read a girl-meets-girl romance.”
“Well we know why that’s not being assigned…” she grumbled. Then she perked up. “Y’know, I always thought someone should write a story about how your mom and I met. It’s got everything you need—romance and drama and a dramatic romantic gesture, action and suspense and an amazing kid. And! It’s got lots of skiing!”
“It’d be a bestseller,” I deadpanned.
“Brat,” Aspen laughed.
I flashed her an angelic smile, and turned to leave.
“Hey, Gem?”
I spun around, catching myself on the doorframe to swing myself back into the room. “Yeah?”
“Thanks for talking with Stacey. She’s really lucky to have such a good friend as you.”
“Makes your job easier, right?”
She grinned widely. “Right. But I know you didn’t do it for me. You did it for Stacey.”
Yep. I’d do anything for Stacey.
We took Aspen’s Land Rover into town to meet Mom, and when Aspen spotted her locking up the front door of her PT practice, she jumped out of the car and rushed over to help. I stayed where I was because standing around while your parents got reacquainted was boring and a little embarrassing. As soon as Mom realized Aspen was there, she reached up to pull Aspen’s face down, kissing her before hugging her tightly. They talked quietly. Mom laughed.
The change in both of them was immediate, like they’d both been holding their breaths for a week and had finally inhaled. Love was great. But they also seemed to actually like and respect each other. I’d never seen them fight. I mean, they had little arguments but always resolved them quickly. I really was that person who never complained about their parents because there was absolutely nothing to complain about—we were basically a television-commercial family. Mom and Aspen had the kind of marriage I wanted one day, with someone great. But I had nobody in mind, of course. Ahem.
