Page 24 of The Mountain
“You won’t fall,” I tell her. “I’m not going to let you fall.” At least, I sure hope I don’t. I squeeze her hands again. “See, I’ve got you. We’re going to move together, okay? This is the falling leaf move I told you about. You’re going to stay on your heel-side edge, and we’re going to move right and left all the way down the mountain.”
And by mountain, I mean the tiny, nearly flat expanse of perfectly groomed snow on the learner’s slope. But right now, for her, it’s a mountain. It might as well be Everest.
The sound of my voice seems to relax her—or maybe it’s just hearing about what we’re going to do. Positive visualization and all that. I tighten my grip on her mittens as I keep speaking.
“When I squeeze your right hand, you’re going to push slightly with your right toe,” I tell her. “That will cause your right heel to lift just enough so that the edge of your board disengages from the snow. This will make you slip to the right—not fast, don’t worry—but you will move. When you want to stop, you’ll just lift your right toe. That will push the heel edge of your board into the snow, and make you stop.”
Her grip on my hands softens, some of the shaking vibrating through her hold on me becoming fainter. Her breathing evens out, the rhythmic, controlled breath of a runner pacing themselves, forcing their heart rate down. I smile inwardly, warm pride building in my chest.
“We’re going to try and make it all the way to the edge of the run,” I say, tilting my chin to the sparse line of aspens that mark the edge of the beginner’s slope, about fifty feet away. “Thenwe’ll go the other direction. I’ll tell you what to do the whole time, and I won’t let go of your hands, okay?”
She nods rapidly, lips pressed into a thin, determined line.
“We’re going to start on three, alright?” I shift on my board, feeling the snow squeaking beneath me, my own legs aching from standing still for so long in the cold. “One…” I tighten my grip on her hands. “Two…” I force my body to relax over my board, imagining my legs are well-worn springs as I get ready to follow her movements. “Three.” I squeeze her right hand with my left, then let my board slip toward the tree line, to her right and my left.
This time, she moves with me, a stuttering skid across the snow as she fights against gravity, against physics. “That’s it,” I say, my voice full of bright praise. “You’ve got it, Jackie!”
She whimpers in reply, her cheeks paling as we start to move at slightly faster than a snail’s pace.
“Okay, now right toe up,” I tell her. “And you’ll slow to a stop.”
She does as I say, and we both pull to a stop several feet away from the tree line. I beam at her, then tilt my chin to her left. “Now let’s go the other way,” I say, because we’ve got momentum now. Maybe not actual momentum, since we’re standing as still as the ice-coated trees nearby, but psychological momentum. “Ready?”
She nods, and this time I don’t give her a countdown. I just squeeze her left mitten, and slide with her to the opposite side of the slope. When we pull to a stop, she lets out a shuddering breath, her shoulders relaxing beneath her ski coat.
“And again,” I tell her, not giving her time to stop. “You’ve got this.”
By the time we make it to the base of the learner’s slope, Jackie’s legs are shaking. “That’s… that’s really hard work,” she pants, bending to unclip her back foot so we can shuffle-skate to the lift. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do this all day…”
I glance at the clock on the ski lift. Ten o’clock in the morning. Two hours down, five hours to go. I bite the inside of my cheek and cast a surreptitious glance at Jackie. To where she’s panting beside me, awkwardly shuffling toward the lift.
The truth is, she’s right. She won’t be able to ride all day, not the way she’s going. Not when she’s expending every ounce of energy and strength on fighting gravity, on shaking with fear, on trying to keep her body stationary in a sport that demands constant movement.
At this rate, we’ll be lucky to make it to lunchtime.
Icy dread snakes up my spine, and I remember Stephanie Jealouse’s expression when she saw me and Tessa at the private lesson area this morning. The silent chin tilt, the secret smug smile, the knowing camaraderie. For a brief moment, I’d felt like I was part of a team. Like I was a real snowboard instructor—not quite an equal to women like Stephanie or Tessa or Vivian, but at least in the same team as these women I admire.
I can’t help but feel like I’m letting them all down.
The chairlift swoops to pick us up, and Jackie gives a muffled squeak as the ground falls away beneath us. “We can take a break anytime you want,” I tell her lightly. “If you start to get sore, or too tired, let me know. You’re here for a week, right?”
She shoots me a nervous smile. “Two weeks, actually.”
I raise my eyebrows.Two weeks. Price aside, a two-week ski holiday seems incredibly ambitious for someone who’s never been on the snow before.
She gives me a sheepish smile, a one-shoulder shrug. “I know, I know, it’s crazy, right?” Her voice quavers, mittens gripping the safety bar of the chairlift. “I… I just wanted to do something for me for once, you know?” The lift lurches to a halt, our chair bobbing lazily on the cable. Above us, wisps of cloud dance across a blue sky, mingling with snowdrifts on high peaks.
Jackie looks ahead, her gaze going distant, seemingly oblivious that we’ve stopped. “I mean, for the past twenty-five years, I did what I was supposed to do. I did my undergrad, went to law school, got married.” A light, bitter scoff.
“I worked overtime, took on the hard cases, and fought tooth and nail for every promotion, every scrap of approval. I kept telling myself that next year, it would be easier. That when I made partner, I wouldn’t have to keep bending over backward to prove that I deserved it.”
She shakes her head, breath clouding in front of her face as she gives an irritated huff, then turns to look at me. “You know, when my daughter was born—twelve years ago now—I took three weeks off. Three measly weeks. Three weeks bleeding and desperately trying to breastfeed and waking up every two hours with a newborn.”
Her lips thin into pale line. “When I came back to work, you would have thought I’d gone on a cruise to the Bahamas or something, the way the team was talking. People asked me if I had a nice time off. And when it came time for us to get ourbonuses at the end of the year, mine was cut short. Because of all the time I’d taken off work, they told me.”
I gape at her, my eyes wide behind my goggles. An icy breeze brushes against my parted lips, making my mouth go dry and my teeth ache.
“And then six months ago, I found out my husband was cheating on me. He said it was because I worked too much.” She wrinkles her nose, gaze still fixed ahead. “He hadn’t complained about it when he was spending my money. And he’s certainly not complaining about it now that he’s getting his monthly alimony payment.” She gives a short, mirthless laugh.
