CHAPTER 10

“Can I have chicken fingers?”

“You had those for dinner last night,” Selma replied, running her hand over the back of her daughter’s head.

“So?”

“She raises a valid point,” Drew said and took a drink of her iced water.

“Do you want a real drink? You can have one. You don’t have to have water because you’re eating with us.”

“No, I’m good with just water. I don’t drink often in season, and I definitely don’t drink how I did the other night all that often. People kept buying me drinks, so…”

“You didn’t want to be rude?” Selma teased.

“Exactly.”

“Can I have a Coke, Mom?”

“You can have milk, juice, or water.”

“Gross,” Gia said.

“You know what I do sometimes to make water taste better?” Drew asked Gia.

“No. What?”

Drew leaned over the table conspiratorially. Gia leaned over, too. Selma shook her head and smiled at them.

“I add fruit to it.”

“You what?”

“Lemons or strawberries. Or, sometimes, even both.”

“You add fruit to your water?”

“Yes,” Drew said with a strong nod. “Or mint.”

“Or chocolate?” Gia asked.

“No, chocolate is for my milk.”

“Mom, can I have chocolate milk?”

“No, honey. What if I get you and Drew whatever fruit we have in the kitchen, and you two go crazy with it, though?”

“Really? Cool.”

Selma looked at Drew while pointing at Gia.

“I’ve got her,” Drew said.

Selma got up from the table and headed into the kitchen, still wondering how she’d managed to suggest she buy Drew dinner and that she and Gia would join her at the table. She hadn’t planned on it, but watching Drew with Gia earlier and seeing how good Drew was with her only made Selma want to do something nice in return for Drew, and she didn’t exactly have a lot to offer her. She literally lived at her job and had a hard time even getting away for an afternoon on the mountain for her daughter, so a night out in town wasn’t much of an option. She also needed to watch her money, so eating at the lodge allowed her to do that and do something nice for both Drew and Gia, who seemed to really be intrigued by Drew.

Gia was incredibly smart; that much had been obvious about her practically since she’d been born. But she was also only nine years old, so she was still very much in the phase where every new person was bright and shiny to her, and as a result, she wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. Selma worried about what would happen when Drew left and Gia missed her, but only a little because she knew Gia would meet someone else and find them bright and shiny next, likely forgetting all about Drew Oakes, which was a good thing because it was possible that this was Drew’s last season on a board and Selma wasn’t sure she wanted to take Gia out on the road with her until she was a bit older, so it would be the last time Gia would see Drew.

“Okay. I’ve got strawberries, raspberries, lemons, limes, and blueberries,” she said, placing a bowl of sliced fruit between them on the table. “Take whatever you want.”

“What do I do?” Gia asked.

“Pick what you want, put it in your water, and stir,” Drew instructed.

Then, Drew herself took a slice of lemon and a few strawberries from the bowl to show Gia what she meant. Gia decided to take one of everything in the bowl and stirred them all into her water glass.

“That cannot taste good,” Selma said on a laugh.

“It does,” Gia replied before taking a big gulp without using her straw.

“Okay. I don’t want you to choke. Use the straw.” She laughed again at her precocious child.

“Are you going to try?” Drew asked.

“Fruit in my water? I’ve done that before. Not exactly a big secret.”

“It was to her,” Drew replied, nodding toward Gia, who seemed to be having second thoughts about how good her water actually was, if her facial expression was any indication. “Do you want mine?” Drew asked and slid her water over to Gia.

“Thank you,” Gia said.

“I’ll get you another water. What do you want to eat?”

“Doesn’t someone usually do all this for us? Like a waiter?”

“I can put it in the system. They’ll just bring it to us when it’s ready.”

“Okay. Um… I’ll have the pot roast, then. And yes, another water, please.”

“This one is way better,” Gia said of Drew’s water.

“I’m glad,” Selma said. “Chicken fingers and fries?”

“Yes, please,” Gia replied.

Selma looked at Drew again.

“You don’t have to keep asking. I’ve got her,” Drew told her.

“Okay. Thanks. I’ll be right back.”

Selma got up again and walked over to the computer, where she put in the order for Drew’s food and Gia’s. Then, she got another water for Drew and set it down on the table.

“What are you having?” Drew asked. “I should’ve asked you first so I know what you think is best today. I haven’t had the pot roast since I was here last time. Is it still good?”

“Shit.”

“Mom said, ‘Shit,’” Gia noted and laughed.

“No, she didn’t.” Selma stood up once more. “I forgot to put my own dinner in. I’ll be right back.”

She didn’t know where her head was at tonight. Maybe it was stuck on the fact that Drew looked really good in a flannel shirt with a leather jacket over it, and those boots she was wearing to match didn’t hurt, either. Her hair was tousled and looked freshly washed, and it also didn’t have any product in it to keep it in place, so Selma could just run her hand through it, and it would be so soft.

“Get it together,” she whispered to herself as she put her own food order in, sent it to the kitchen, and walked back over to the table.

“Mom, you said, ‘Shit.’” Gia laughed again.

Selma looked over at Drew, who was smirking.

“It was an accident,” Selma supplied. “So, what are your plans for tomorrow, Drew? Mountain?”

“So far, that’s all I’ve got, yeah. I’ve been testing my knee this trip.”

“How do you test your knee?” Gia asked.

“Well, I hurt myself a while back. So, I went through physical therapy. Do you know what that is?”

“Yeah, Mom told me.”

“Okay. So, I did that, and it’s better, but I have to take it slow right now so I don’t make it worse.”

“Because you and Mom have a race coming up, right?”

Drew looked at Selma.

“You too?”

“Selection is coming up,” Selma replied. “Are you worried?”

“Yes,” Drew admitted. “I don’t know if I’ve done enough this season. Then, I got injured. And we’ve got some great people on Team USA.”

“Canada, too.”

“But you’ve been great this year,” Drew noted.

“Maybe. But I also lost in the prelim in the last Olympics, so I might not get picked because they think I can’t handle the pressure.”

“I doubt that. It was three years ago. And you’ve improved a lot since then.”

“Thank you,” Selma said, probably sounding surprised at the compliment.

“Mom, can I color until the food gets here?”

“Sure. Grab your stuff. It’s under the desk where it usually is.”

Gia got up and practically jogged over to the front desk.

“She likes to color?” Drew asked.

“She gets bored really easily, not just in school. Even talking to us here – which, I’m sure, is fun for her – isn’t stimulating enough. I’ve got a lot of activities stationed around here for her. Her art supplies are under the front desk. There’s this math workbook for college kids that challenges her tucked behind the bar. I’ve got sudoku and crosswords under that computer over there.” Selma pointed to where she had just put their food order in. “In the office, there’s even more. If she’s bored, I pull something out for her, or she knows where it all is and grabs it herself. She must be in an art mood right now.”

“You have an amazing kid,” Drew said. “When I was her age, all I could think about was boarding or skiing. I wanted nothing to do with learning.”

“I think the reason Kirsten likes to hang out with Gia is that Gia helps her with her homework.” Selma chuckled. “Kirsten is one of the employee’s daughters. She’s thirteen.”

“Will Gia bring her art stuff over here? I like coloring, too.”

She rolled her eyes at Drew and said, “Probably not. She likes the table in the office behind the desk. It’s her favorite spot down here. I’ll go get her then, when the food comes, because if I don’t, she’ll zone in on whatever she’s doing and forget to eat.”

“How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

Drew added a slice of lemon and a few strawberries to her new water glass and gave it a stir.

“Raise an exceptional kid, professionally snowboard, work here, take care of your grandma, and probably ten other things I don’t know about that you do. I can barely snowboard right now.”

“Why is that? The injury?”

“No, my knee’s fine. I don’t know if I should bring it up. Things were going so well for us today.” Drew laughed a little.

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve had a decent day, I think.”

“I’d agree, yeah.”

“Well, my shitty performances started after…” Drew gave her a look that told Selma she should know what she meant.

“Ah,” Selma said with a nod.

“It’s not your fault. Our sport has contact at times, and I didn’t take it well. Then, other things in my life happened. Andy and I lived together at her place at the time, and we started fighting a lot before we broke up. I had to move back in with my parents. It was only supposed to be temporary because I wasn’t home all that often anyway, but I stayed longer than I should have. Things just have been a little off for me since. I thought I was getting better, but then I got hurt, and that set me back. Now, I’m worried that they’re going to call up the boarders who are all younger than me, not coming off injury, and who haven’t been inconsistent, at best, this season.”

“I’m sure you’re going to get the call, Drew. You’re still the face of American snowboarding. Besides, yours would be a good redemption story. You should’ve made the team once but didn’t. Then, you did and crashed out because of me. Now, you’re back for one more try to win gold. The interviews you’ll have lined up – they’d bring you just for that alone.”

“Gee, thanks,” Drew said with a little sarcasm. “Here I was hoping I’d make it because I’m the best snowboarder.”

“You know what I mean… This stuff isn’t just about sports anymore; at least, not in the sports where you’re picked to be on a team instead of qualifying with points or something. They pick the athletes who can, hopefully, bring home some medals, yeah, but also the ones who will bring notoriety to the sport, get them noticed, and maybe bring in a little money, too. Winter sports are already less popular than summer sports, so it makes sense for them to focus their coverage on a few select athletes with the best chance of showing up, but also the ones who have a story to tell. You have a story. I’m sure your team is already thinking about that. You’re also a great snowboarder. Your record shows that, Drew. Plus, I’m sure you’re a good leader, too. You have all the experience the younger boarders will need to learn from. There are a lot of reasons they’ll call you back up.”

Drew smiled softly and said, “Maybe. We’ll see. You have a much better chance. You’re a lot younger–”

“Not a lot,” Selma said quickly for some reason. “Only about what, nine years? No big deal.”

“You’re a lot younger,” Drew repeated. “In this sport, that matters. Plus, you’ve gotten better, not worse. You had a bad race that day. We all do.”

“Even the great Drew Oakes, who wins races by three or more seconds all the time?”

“Very funny.” Drew laughed a little. “Even Drew Oakes.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re finally acknowledging that you’re not perfect out there.”

“Hey, you were the one trying to tell me that you didn’t take that turn too tight with no space.”

“I thought I had enough space,” she explained.

“I told you that your board was–”

“I have a pot roast, chicken tenders, and the grilled chicken with side salad.”

“Chicken with the salad is all her,” Drew said to Jimmy, their server. “Pot roast for me.”

“It’s the same recipe,” Selma answered Drew’s earlier question when Jimmy set the plate down in front of the woman. “My grandma’s.”

“Oh, thank God. It’s so good. I wanted to have it when I first got in, but they didn’t have it.”

“We only serve it a few nights a week now,” Selma explained. Then, she stood up and added, “Let me go get my daughter.” She paused. “Actually…” She picked up Gia’s plate. “I’m going to just learn from my past mistakes and take this to her. She’ll eat it in there while she colors.”

“You sure she’ll eat it?”

“We make a game out of it. Color one thing – have some fries. Color another thing – have a chicken tender. She gets something if she does it. It’s silly, but it works.”

“What do I get if I finish my mashed potatoes?” Drew asked, pointing her fork down at her plate.

Selma cleared her throat and said, “I’ll grab you a cookie on the way back. How about that?”

Drew smiled up at her.

“You really like them, huh?”

“Uh… Yeah. They’re like my crack. Not that I’ve ever done crack. That’s the one with the pipe, right? Why am I talking about this?”

“Can I get you anything else?” Jimmy asked.

“Crack?” Drew joked.

Selma laughed and said, “She’s kidding. We’re good. Thank you, Jimmy. And you, stop that.” She pointed at Drew, who was still laughing. “I’ll be right back. Behave.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Drew teased.

But there was something about the way she’d said that that had Selma squeezing her thighs together as she walked toward the front desk.