How I Came to Sparkle Again (28 page)

He put his hand on her hand and melted a little. “Let’s go,” he said. He stood and wove his way through the crowd. She walked out behind him. Out on the street, she put her arm through his. She rested her head against his shoulder for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay,” he replied. “We’re both going to make mistakes. We’re going to make a lot of mistakes. That just has to be okay.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know. I just hate making them. I’d never mean to hurt you.”

They walked in silence down Main Street. So many businesses, it struck Lisa, were about image—boutiques, galleries, home décor. They all had immaculate storefronts. Then there was the old hardware store that had been there forever. It was a fine store, but not pretentious. Of all the businesses downtown, it was her favorite. It was real. It was functional. It reminded her of Tom. Across the street, the Pioneer Saloon was packed with tourists and rich new arrivals. The Gold Pan was too much of a dive for them, which was why all the locals went there.

Weary of the downtown scene, she guided Tom up across the street into the residential area, past the homes of old friends and neighbors. She loved the charm of all the small historic homes. On one side of them Sparkle Mountain towered, and on the other, Big Daddy. Sometimes she felt a little squished between the two mountains, but not tonight. Tonight, she felt nestled by them.

She realized she felt more at home in her home. The town seemed warmer walking through it with her arm in Tom’s. And as they approached her house, she understood what he meant when he said that being with her felt like coming home.

Finally she spoke. “Let’s take a green bubble bath. You can have the good spot. We could drink green beer in the green bubble bath.”

He pulled her into him with one arm and kissed the top of her head as they walked up her sidewalk.

chapter twenty-three

SNOW REPORT FOR MARCH 28

Current temperature: 23F, high of 36F at 3
P.M.
, low of 18F at 4
A.M.

Clear skies, winds out of the southwest at 10 mph.

109" mid-mountain, 119" at the summit. 0" new in the last 24 hours. 13" new in the last 48.

Jill stood next to Cassie and Mike in eager anticipation for the big moment. Cassie’s dummy was the third to be launched. Ten dummies in all waited at the top, four of which belonged to Jill’s housemates, who stood on the other side of her. Jill knew the Kennel guys had spent years mastering their craft and that Cassie’s first attempt was likely no match, but she wanted so badly for Cassie to have some victory.

Tom’s dummy was turned loose first. It was made of old mufflers welded together in human form. He had painted it red with a white cross and strapped a broken radio to it. Behind it, it pulled a doll strapped into a cheap plastic toboggan. Jill wasn’t sure how to judge how well it did, since it was the first, but to her left Tom looked disappointed while Hans and Eric knuckle bunched, so Jill assumed it hadn’t done well.

Hans turned to her and whispered, “Eric and Tom are going to look so pretty.” The Kennel guys had a bet: The winner of the Dummy Downhill got to pick out dresses for the other guys to wear to the Dirtbag Ball, and Hans had already chosen secondhand wedding dresses for them, confident that his dummy would win again.

The next dummy looked like a flying nun. It went substantially farther than Tom’s.

Jill looked to her right and exchanged a hopeful glance with Mike. His expression changed to something more serious and contemplative, and Jill didn’t know how to read it. Then he smiled just a little and looked back up the hill.

The fabric on the hang glider fluttered as the dummy slid down the slope. There was more drag than Jill anticipated. It launched and looked great with the doll sailing behind. Mike cheered. Then a gust of wind picked it up higher and blew it sideways. It still went an impressive distance, much farther than Tom’s and a little beyond the flying nun, but Jill didn’t know if it would be good enough to win in the end.

“Well, not too bad,” Cassie said.

Jill patted her shoulder and said, “Well, I thought it did great. It looked great. We may need to revisit our design and refine it for next year. Hans puts six pounds of buckshot in the boots of his and then fills them with cement for more weight and momentum. It will be interesting to see how his does.”

“I’m thinking that if we used Plexiglas for the kite instead of fabric, it would have had less drag. At the very least, we could stretch spandex on the frame instead of nylon.” Cassie sounded so mature and serious for her age.

Jill turned to Mike. “She’s going to be an engineer,” she said proudly.

He smiled. “Yeah, she’s pretty smart.”

For a moment, Jill imagined the three of them were a family, and it felt good. Mike looked back over at her, in a way that made her suspect he was thinking the same thing.

Eric’s dummy, which he had constructed out of a Mr. Wonderful doll, soared down the slope, up the ski jump, and sailed. While it was seemingly suspended in midair, a shot was heard and his dummy’s head exploded. Jill jumped and looked at Eric, alarmed.

“Again?” Cassie asked.

Eric explained calmly, “I have an ex on the U.S. Women’s Biathlon Team. She does this every year.”

Jill looked at Scooter and Hans wide-eyed. They just shrugged.

Scooter’s shark was next off the slope. It rolled midair, but there was no rule about a dummy having to land right side up. So far, it had sailed the farthest and was in the lead. Hans looked a little nervous.

Finally, after all the others, Hans’s moment of truth came, and it was everything he’d anticipated it would be. His metal dog shot down the hill, off the jump, and into the air with the force of a cannon. Its velocity helped it defy gravity for much longer than Jill would have guessed. It landed about forty yards beyond Scooter’s shark. He pumped a triumphant fist in the air and shouted, “Yes!” He shook Cassie’s hand and then Scooter’s. Then he whispered something to Scooter and they both turned to Cassie.

“You gave us a good run for our money, kid,” Scooter said to her.

“You can have the season pass,” Hans said. “Obviously, you know, the mountain gives us ours for free.”

“Sweet! Thanks!” Cassie said, elated.

Mike shook their hands, too. “That’s really nice of you.”

“Our pleasure,” Hans said.

Scooter turned to Eric and Tom. “I really have to wear a dress?”

“Welcome to the Kennel,” Tom said.

Eric added, “Wearing a dress can be a real handicap when it comes to picking up girls. It makes us fine-tune our skills.”

“You have to turn it around in your mind and think of it as the ultimate icebreaker,” said Tom.

Scooter rubbed his pierced face and then nodded as he accepted his fate.

Then he said to Cassie, “Come on, kid, let’s go to the platform and get our medals.” Cassie hugged Jill’s waist.

As the three winners worked their way through the crowd, Mike closed in for a sideways hug and then kept his arm there while they watched Cassie bend her head forward a little and receive a bronze medal.

“Are you going?” Jill asked Mike.

“Jill,” Eric interjected, “you promised to be my date.”

“I’m not dogging you, bro,” she replied in her best Kennel lingo.

Mike took his hand off her shoulder and shook his head. “Cassie and I are laying low that night.” He looked back and forth between Jill and Eric. “Well, see ya,” he said coldly, and wandered off to the podium.

“Did you catch that
Wild Kingdom
moment?” Tom asked her quietly.

“What just happened?” Jill asked.

“They both think of you as their platonic wife,” he answered.

chapter twenty-four

SNOW REPORT FOR MARCH 29

Current temperature: 28F, high of 36F at 3
P.M.
, low of 23F at 4
A.M.

Mostly clear skies, winds out of the southwest at 25 mph.

100" mid-mountain, 118" at the summit. 0" new in the last 24 hours. 0" of new in the last 48.

The day before, Cassie had looked up the words in the English-Spanish dictionary but didn’t know how to conjugate verbs, so she just pointed at him and then at herself as she said,
“Por favor, enseñar cocinar.”

“Teach you food?” he had asked back.

Cassie nodded. “Mexican food,” she answered.

“Tomorrow?” he asked.

“Sure,” she answered. Even though she hadn’t asked her father yet, she knew neither of them had plans. They never did.

“Write foods I get at store tonight,” she said.

He looked confused.

She picked up the dictionary. “Um …
Escribe ingredientes,
” she said.

“Ah.” He nodded and made a short list. Mike was a sport and took her shopping that night.

In keeping with her father’s request, the next day Cassie did not bring Mauricio home before Jill got there. They did their homework at the public library first, and when the clock said five, they went to her house. Jill was already inside, just coming back down the stairs.

“Jill, this is Mauricio,” Cassie said. “Mauricio, this is Jill.”

“Mucho gusto, Mauricio,”
Jill said, and shook his hand.

“Mucho gusto,”
he replied. Then he turned to Cassie. “Mama?” he asked.

“No,” Cassie replied.

“Tu papa,”
Mauricio said, placed his hands over his heart, and then pointed at Jill with a questioning look.

“No!” Cassie said with too much force. “Papa,” she said, then put her hands over her heart and said, “Mama.” She shook her head. “Jill. No. Mama.”

Mauricio nodded that he understood.

Neither noticed the look on Jill’s face. “So you’re going to make something delicious?” Jill asked, clearly changing the subject.

“Mole,” Mauricio replied.

Mauricio and Cassie went to the kitchen, where he showed her how to grind up chilies for mole and Cassie tried to teach him English words for what he was doing. He had a habit of talking to himself in Spanish. To Cassie’s ears, his language was soft like feathers and lullabies. He mimed for her to be careful not to touch her eyes after handling chilies, which escalated in an unforgettable performance reminiscent of being pepper-sprayed. She laughed at his dramatic flair.

He pointed to things, and she got them for him, sometimes opening packages or cans. As she handed him the three different kinds of chilies, the tomatillos, and the bar of chocolate, she wondered how such exotic things would blend together.

They had been friends for a few weeks, and in that time he had not asked about her mother and she had not asked about his home. She liked this friendship based solely on kind gestures and companionship. It was simple and uncomplicated. That was the thing about pity. It complicated things.

Jill made a big deal about how delicious the chicken and mole was when Mauricio and Cassie proudly served it. Mauricio beamed, and this made Cassie’s heart swell more.

She knew that one day he would learn English well enough to ask about her mother. But for now she savored the complexity of his mole sauce, with its three different kinds of chilies, the tomatillos, and the dark chocolate—such exquisite complexity. And it made her wonder if a boy who could create such a wonderfully complex dish might also turn out to be a friend who would stick with her.

*   *   *

“So, Magoo,” Pete said as John, Ben, and Mike all sat together for dinner. “How’s it going with the babysitter?” Tonight Pete had some mashed potatoes in his mustache.

“Wait,” John said as he cut his meat. “I thought the plan was not to sleep with her. I thought he said it would be too hard to find a new babysitter.”

“Word on the street is that he is in love with his babysitter,” Pete said matter-of-factly.

“Really?” Mike said incredulously. “Who said that?”

Pete replied, “Barb. She saw you two at the Dummy Downhill and said something about the way you looked at her.”

“Barb imagined that,” Mike said.

“Barb’s pretty astute,” Pete replied.

“She knew I was in love with Becky before I did,” John said. “Good call.”

Mike shook his head and smiled.

“A woman like that isn’t going to stay in the Kennel much longer. She was a nurse, for God’s sake. She’s probably just waiting for her divorce settlement before she moves out and buys something,” Pete said.

“Wait, do we know for sure she’s staying here? Soon the mountain will be closed. After that, what’s keeping her here?” John asked.

“Exactly,” Pete said. “That’s what I was getting at.”

“She hasn’t said anything about leaving. Her uncle is here. So are her friends. I think she’s attached to Cassie,” Mike said.

“Yeah, you’re going to want to secure that deal here pretty soon before she wakes up one day and realizes there’s not enough to keep her here,” Pete said. “I mean, I still think you should go to the bar and sleep around and whatnot because somebody’s got to do it and it can’t be me. But according to Barb, it’s her that you want, so, you know, don’t doddle too long.”

“I just want a good babysitter for Cassie,” Mike said.

“Yeah, whatever,” said Pete.

“I’m going to call bullshit on this one,” Ben said. “You haven’t gotten laid in a year or more and you have no spankavision. You must be going out of your freakin’ gourd by now. Of course you’re thinking about nailing her.”

“I’m not thinking about nailing her,” Mike said.

“We’re sorry,” John said. “Making sweet love to her,” he corrected.

Mike rubbed his brow and shook his head. “Are we done now? Are we done with this ridiculous conversation?”

Pete shrugged. “Ah, for now, maybe.”