2 Dancing With Death (3 page)

    
And besides, the best way to get over fear was to face it. No, she had to do this. She had to steel herself against her nerves, and get back to driving. She just couldn’t let herself get distracted again. No scenic views, no attempts to focus on anything other than driving and the road around her. It was only a few dozen more miles to the resort. She could do this. She could.

 
   
Clarise’s color had returned. Wes had his arm around her and was murmuring in her ear. Bill still had his eyes steadily trained on Betty, waiting for her decision.

    
“I’m fine,” she said.

    
“Are you sure hun?” Clarise asked.
   

    
Betty tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “Absolutely,” she said. “Nothing like a little near-death experience to make you a better driver!” she joked. “I’ll just have to avoid being distracted.”

    
“Alright!” Wes exclaimed. “Then let’s get back on the road! It looks like the storm is picking up.”

    
He was right. Since they’d stopped, the windshield had been dotted with melting flakes. Some were starting to stay frozen for a few seconds before they melted.

    
Not good. If they were starting to stick on the windshield, they’d be starting to stick on the road.

    
Betty had grown up in a part of North Carolina away from the mountains. Her college had been in L.A.. Her snow driving experience was rather pitiful.

    
Betty sighed. No time like the present to jump head in and hope for the best. She started the car, and they were off again.

    
After a few moments of silence, Clarise blurted out, “Oh, this is ridiculous. We’re on a road trip people! Lighten up!” She grinned. “I have just the thing.” She rifled through her purse, coming out with a CD case that she handed to Bill.

    
“If you would, Monsieur Police Chief? We need some levity in this car.”

    
Betty refused to look at what the CD was. Her eyes were now fixed firmly on the road, and she would not remove them for any reason. But looking didn’t have to stop her from singing, and as the first notes resounded through the car Betty couldn’t help but grin.

    
She knew every word to every song on this CD. For that matter, so did Clarise.

    
The poor, poor boys had no idea what they were in for. Betty started to relax. The snow was coming down harder, but it hadn’t started sticking to the pavement long enough to accumulate yet. She was on a road trip with her friends. She should enjoy herself.

    
Two CDs later, Bill finally refused to take another CD from Clarise’s hands. “No!” he said. “I like musicals as much as the next person, but I refuse to put another one in the player. Please!” he begged, turning back to look at Clarise with widened eyes. “Don’t you have anything else in your bag of tricks? Rock, pop, rap, country…
anything
?” Wes started to laugh. “And you!” Bill said. “You traitor! You sang with them!”

    
Wes shrugged. “I’m a drama geek.”

    
Clarise laughed. “And I’m a drama director. What did you expect? There’s always the radio if you want a change.”

    
“Betty?” Bill asked, pleading in his voice.

    
Betty looked over at him quickly, just long enough to take in his puppy dog expression. She grinned. “Aaaaw, poor Bill. You can put on the radio if you want. Just don’t ask me to fiddle with any of the buttons. You DJ.”

    
“Thank you!” Bill exclaimed.

    
As he fiddled with the radio, the car started down a decline. With a tiny bit of snow coating the ground, the wheels felt as though they were slipping. Betty tried to slow down and felt the car skid ever so slightly.

    
No one else seemed to have noticed, but it was enough to rattle Betty’s nerves again. The day was growing later. The light was dimming, there were no street lights, and the snow was starting to get heavier. It was getting hard to see, even without her distance issues.

    
Betty took a deep breath and slowed down further. There was no one else on the road to be annoyed by her slow speed, and even if there was she wouldn’t want to go any faster. She didn’t have a death wish.

    
By the time Bill found a radio station, Betty felt as though she had the car under better control. She wasn’t slipping on the snow any more.

    
When she got home, Betty promised herself that she’d buy snow tires.

    
“I think the exit is coming up,” Bill said.

    
Betty saw it up ahead: an off-ramp sloping down. She squinted, trying to decipher the difference between the snow-covered road and the snow-covered grass.

    
She couldn’t tell.

    
Betty felt a fluttering of panic. There was no way she was taking a exit when she couldn’t see the ramp. She tried to focus, but it felt as though the road was swimming before her eyes.

    
That was it. The final straw. She couldn’t do this anymore. It was one thing to drive when she could see blurs. It was another to take an off ramp down the side of a mountain unable to tell where the road was. Self-sufficiency had become self-endangerment, and she wasn’t going to kid herself any longer.

    
After checking to make sure that there wasn’t anyone else on their side of the road, Betty pulled over to the side and stopped a few dozen yards before the exit. She unbuckled.

    
“Bill,” she said. “I need you to drive.”

    
Bill looked at her, confused. “Are you okay?” he asked.

    
“I’m fine,” Betty said irritably. “I’m just tired.”

    
“Are you sure?”

    
“I’m fine!” she said. The she sighed. She was acting like a jerk. Bill was concerned. It wasn’t his fault that she was helpless in the face of a disease. He didn’t even know she had diabetes! “Please drive?”

    
“Sure thing,” Bill said.

    
After they were on the road again, he looked over at her. “Why don’t you close your eyes and get some sleep. I’ll wake you when we get there.”

    
Betty leaned back into the seat, letting her eyes flutter closed. In the passenger’s seat, she didn’t have to constantly look at the blurry world. Without having to focus on the road, Betty’s mind started to drift. With time to think, she began to kick herself. Hard.

    
How could she have been so stupid? She should never have gotten behind the wheel of the car with her sight like this! She should’ve stopped driving after that first almost-crash. More and more the fact that they’d made it this far without a major accident was starting to feel like luck. Incredible, miraculous, once-in-a-lifetime luck. She was only glad that she’d turned over the wheel.

    
Luck had to run out at some point.

CHAPTER 4

    
It was after dark when they pulled into the Hale Falls Resort. The snow was still falling. It now coated the roads an inch thick, so that when they rolled into the circular drive in front of the main building the snow crunched and popped under the tires. A valet took their car, while another staff member put all their baggage on a cart and wheeled it up a ramp.

    
The main building was surprisingly tall. For a resort in the mountains, Betty had expected something a little more… quaint. She hadn’t been expecting a log cabin with horse drawn carriages and a roaring fireplace, but this five-story hotel with its glaring electric lights seemed somehow out of place.

    
Out of place of not, it was beautiful. The front of the building was practically the definition of classical architecture, with huge white Parthenon-esque columns supporting a third story balcony. The columns formed a large archway over white steps leading up to ornate gilded doors.

    
Upon entering the hotel, Betty was inundated with warmth. Not only did the hotel have blessed heat, but all the furnishings and décor were laid out in the most beautiful warm colors. The floors were a deep, almost dark brown wood, polished to gleaming. The walls were made from lighter, reddish wood, and decorated with gold-framed paintings and long mirrors.

    
After giving their names, Betty and her friends were led to the elevator. Then down a hallway, which turned into another hallway, around a corner, then another, until Betty was completely lost. Thankfully, they didn’t have to cart their luggage all that way. A hotel bellhop pushing a cart with their luggage arrived at the same time they did, and Betty found herself fishing in her pocket for small bills with which to tip the expectant staff members while the other three rushed in to inspect the room.

    
Once she got a look at the room they’d be staying in, Betty’s bemusement changed to glee.

    
It was the room of dreams. The beds were huge, with layers of plush pillows at the heads and deep, soft comforters. Betty could spend the weekend lying on those beds and feel perfectly content. When she looked closely, Betty saw that they even came with a chocolate-covered mint on two of the pillows per bed. Not that she would eat them, but it was the fanciness of the idea that mattered.

    
Just like the décor in the rest of the hotel, the colors scheme in the room was warm. However, instead of the richness she’d observed below, the room sported creams and rich yellows. The dressers were a natural yellow-brown wood, with only the tops polished. The edges of the dressers still had bark. In all, the room had a plush, homey feel.

    
Betty immediately dropped her bag, oblivious to the actions of her friends, and went to the bed furthest from the wall. She flopped backwards, feeling the blankets and mattress swallow her. She sighed and stretched, squirming deeper into bliss.

    
This was the life.

    
The sound of a man clearing his throat pulled Betty from her pleasant reverie. She opened her eyes to see Bill standing above her with his arms crossed.

    
“Yes?” she asked.

    
“Comfortable?” he asked.

    
“Actually,” Betty said, “yes.” She scooted over on the bed, closer to the wall. “Care to join me?”

    
Bill shrugged out of his jacket, tossing it on the foot of the bed. “I don’t mind if I do.”

    
He lay down with much more grace than Betty had managed and stretched out, closing his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “I get it. I’ll just stay here this weekend, if you don’t mind.”

    
“Well, I mind!” said Clarise from the foot of the bed. “Come on you two, we need to get ready.”

    
Betty groaned. “I don’t wanna!”
    
“Elizabeth Crawford,” Clarise snapped, placing her hand on her hip and glaring, “We didn’t drive all this way so you could sleep. Now get up and put on something sexy! There’s dancing!”

    
“You didn’t drive at all,” muttered Betty. Beside her, Bill chuckled. Betty closed her eyes, letting the luxury of the bed soak into her bones. It was so soft… Betty felt the bed shift as Bill moved.

    
“Betty…” Clarise sang in a sweet voice that immediately set Betty on alert. Innocent voices were never truly innocent. “Betty… time to get up!”