The fir trees around Silver Lake have been decorated with Christmas balls and colored lights, causing the laughing faces of the many people to glow in the most varied colors. I catch a glimpse of Polina beneath a snow-draped pine, her hands around a pewter cup and a fox-colored fur hat on her head. I really hope it’s fake. She’s talking with Gwen’s father. Seeing me, she nods, and I nod back. Polina and I like each other, and we show that through nodding, because we both live in the same ghost town, and that’s what you do. You nod.
Gwen tugs at the pom-pom on her hat. The glow of the colored lights makes the golden thread in the fabric shimmer. “There’s Mom. Let’s grab something to eat before Harper stabs us with her eyes. I can’t stand that on an empty stomach.”
Harper is sitting on a bare log, tying her skates. Her Bordeaux-colored cashmere coat reaches all the way to her knees. Underneath she seems to be wearing her program outfit because she’s already pulling her boot covers over her skates and adjusting her legwarmers. Her hair falls in red waves to both sides of her face, and I see her situp, shake it out, and tie it up into a bun, all the while her glance is wandering over to a group of people beyond the pines, at the foot of Buttermilk Mountain. I have no idea why they’re all standing there until a guy on a snowboard does a double twist over their heads and a collective “oooh” and “ahhh” escapes the women.
Knox. Of course.
“If you keep on staring at him like that, Gwen will lie awake all night.” Aaron doesn’t look at me as he speaks, but his amused expression speaks volumes. “She won’t let poor Bing Crosby sleep with all the plans she’ll be making while waiting for him to give his two cents.”
“He’s a rabbit.”
“Yeah. Rabbits have ideas. That’s why he’s always hanging out in his house.”
“He’s hanging out in his house because his owner is a freak.”
Gwen whirls around. “Who’s a freak?”
“You.” Aaron smirks. “But we love you anyway.”
“You’d better. Or else I’ll get Mom to take more money from you.” She narrows her eyes and points to Kate, who is running around behind her stand and handing out sandwiches. Actually, it’s not a stand, but folding tables decorated with tinsel and white felt to represent snow. Michael Bublé’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” drifts over the square. I don’t think I’ve ever seen nicer folding tables.
“We worship you, Gwendolyn,” Levi says, taking her face in his hands and covering her cold-flushed cheeks with kisses. She fends him off with a laugh and slips under his arms.
Kate pours a ladle of hot punch into a tin mug and hands it to me. “Your first Christmas party in Aspen, Paisley. Don’t let the reindeer frighten you.”
I take a gulp, burn my throat, cough, for a moment think I’m going to die, then everything’s okay again. “Reindeer?”
“Not real ones,” Gwen says after taking a bite of her sandwich and delighting me with a view of it in her mouth. She points to oneof the brightly flashing plastic animals missing half its face. A few feet past it, there is one with its stomach missing. I can see the cables that are lighting it up. The deer are horrible.
“They’re William’s. He got them from his father, who got them from his father, who got them fromhisthird cousin’s great-grandmother.”
“They look like Halloween decorations.”
Levi nods. “Beautiful, right?”
“Very.”
Aaron points at Silver Lake with his sandwich. “Harper’s warming up. She’s up next. Do we want to watch her flutz?”
“Oh, do we ever.” Gwen grabs hold of me and Aaron, who quickly shoves the last bite of sandwich into his mouth in order to take Levi’s hand with his other and leads us toward the ice.
I watch Harper. She seems concentrated, her jaw tight as she puts one step in front of the other and glides gracefully over the ice. In one smooth movement, she turns around and continues skating backward. Her concentration wavers as her eyes dart over the crowd.
She’s looking for someone, I think. It doesn’t take long for the colored lights to reveal the disappointed shimmer in her eyes that makes it clear it’s in vain.
Maybe her parents. Maybe Knox. I don’t know, but I feel sorry for her. But when her program begins and she not only fails to land her Lutz but the Rittberger, too, I feel really bad for her. Harper can be terrible. But I don’t think that’s everything. I think she’s more than that. She makes an immense effort to keep everyone at bay, from looking inside her walls.
Maybe she’ll begin to pull them down someday. I have no interest in walls. I can’t climb.
The moment her music ends, and she slumps down like a dying swan, I can’t see anything. Everything is bright, everything is blinding. Harper looks like she’s burning up’ and all I can think is,what is happening?
“Too bright, William!” It’s Ruth’s voice, definitely Ruth’s voice. “Turn down the damn spotlights!”
Then it stops and I can see the real Harper-swan on the ice, not the burning one.
Life is beautiful.
But Gwen is continuing to squeal so unmercifully in my ear.
