CHAPTER 4

“Great. See you around, Drew. Welcome.”

Selma hurried off without waiting for a response and ended up in the kitchen, where she saw the trays of cookies she’d come downstairs to wrap in their individual branded wrappers and then take to the front desk to refill Olivia’s stash since they had a big group coming in later that night and she wanted to be prepared for them.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked herself, placing both hands on the stainless-steel counter.

“You okay?”

Selma turned her head to see David standing there.

“Yes, thank you. Olivia paged you, right?”

“Yeah. I was on break. I’m on my way to the front desk now.”

“Please be careful with her stuff.”

“Whose stuff?” he asked.

“The guest’s, David. Room three-thirty-three.”

“Oh, right. Is there something breakable in there?”

“I’m sure there is. Knowing my luck, we’ll end up breaking it, and it’ll be extremely sentimental and something I can’t replace, so I’ll just have to move very, very far away.”

“Sorry?”

“Nothing.” Selma sighed. “You can go take care of her. Make sure everything is put in her room for her, though. And ask her if she needs anything else, like a ride into the city, dinner on us, or, hell, another cookie if she wants one. She can have this whole tray.”

“You want me to bring her that tray of cookies?”

“Never mind. Just carry her stuff up. Be extra careful with her board. Thanks.”

“Okay.”

David was a good kid, but he was seventeen and only worked here part-time because he got discounts on lift tickets and loved skiing. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in likely any shed, but he took care of the customers, and she hadn’t gotten any complaints since he’d started working there a few months ago.

Selma grabbed the stack of brown wrappers that had the name of the resort on them along with their logo, which was clip art her grandma Ruth had found online in the nineties of a pair of skis in the snow and a snowboard that they’d added in later. It needed to be updated big time, but she’d been so busy with everything else going on that she hadn’t had time to look into either hiring someone or doing it herself if she could. Her life had always been busy, but recently, things had gotten even more hectic. Responsibilities seemed to be popping up everywhere, and she was supposed to be focused on her actual career in snowboarding and not working here fifty hours a week.

Her grandfather had passed away years ago, and her grandmother was on her own with the resort now. Things had been fine for a while, but they’d gotten busy, and her grandma couldn’t handle it all on her own with the very small staff she’d had, so Selma had started working here part-time whenever she wasn’t off for a competition. She liked the job. She’d never minded hard work; and being at the lodge, which was what she preferred to call it, meant that she was on the mountain and had quick access to the lift and the runs she liked doing whenever she wasn’t training for another boardercross competition. When her grandma had gotten sick a few months ago, though, the woman had had to go down to working only a few hours a week, and she did some of that from bed while Selma had stepped up and helped run things. Selma was proud to say that under her leadership, they’d already increased occupancy and reduced some costs.

The cookies were a thing her grandma had started years ago, but they’d been cheap and from one of those tubes that she’d buy at the grocery store, bake in ten minutes, let them cool, and put them in plastic sandwich bags for the guests with little labels stuck to them. Buying the cookies from the store increased their cost, and putting them in plastic bags and printing the labels did, too. On top of that, the cookies were plain chocolate chip and rather small, so people usually asked for a second or third on their first day and wanted at least another one per day of their stay. Selma had started making their cookies from scratch and bought the ingredients from the restaurant supplier, which lowered how much they spent per cookie. Even though there were more ingredients in them, and they were bigger, those ingredients were cheaper from that supplier than the tubes from the store. The cookies were richer and more filling as well, so people rarely asked for another one at check-in and maybe got only one more during their stay, splitting it in half and finishing it later. She’d taught the kitchen staff the recipe, and they could make them on their own now and did so as part of their dessert prep. Whenever Selma had time to bake them herself, though, she tried to make an extra batch or two. In just a few short months, she’d already saved hundreds of dollars because of a few changes to the cookies.

She had never planned on working here permanently, but she liked it enough, and there really was no one else. Her parents had their own jobs and had no interest in running a ski lodge. They’d moved away from Vancouver two years ago anyway, so they wouldn’t be able to get here daily without having to move back, and she knew they didn’t want to do that. Selma didn’t have any siblings, and she had one uncle, but he was career military and was overseas now, so he wasn’t an option. His wife and kids were with him, so they were also off the table. It had fallen to her, and she’d understood the assignment.

She tried to balance everything, and her snowboarding career had been going very well, with her making the podium in most of her competitions this past season. She’d had to miss two because of her grandma falling ill, but she was on the mend, so soon, Selma would get back to being able to hit the road again. The year in front of her was an important one, with the Olympics coming around again and her trying to make the national team. Her blunder in the past Games had been haunting her ever since, and she knew that if she made the team this time, the reporters would bring it up in every single interview. She’d need to come up with a positive way of answering that question about her biggest humiliation and regret that didn’t involve her telling them to shut up about it already.

Seeing Drew around at competitions had also been a reminder of the crash she’d caused that had kicked them both out of the Olympics way too soon. She hadn’t tried to talk to Drew again since that day, even to say hello. Drew still walked around with headphones in and was usually looking down. Her head would tilt right, left, up, left again, and so on, and Selma knew she was running through the course in her head. Selma also knew that Drew and Andy Weinman had broken up because the two women had had a massive fight one day when it seemed like everyone in the sport had been present. She’d heard later from someone on her team that it was over between them. That person had been interested in dating Drew and had asked her out about a month later. Drew, apparently, had said no.

Selma wasn’t sure why she still had this crush she’d never been able to fully move on from, but when her teammate had told her that she was going to ask Drew Oakes out, Selma had swallowed hard and had to remind herself that she hardly even knew Drew, that Drew hated her, and that she needed to get over staring at the beautiful woman every time she removed her goggles and helmet.

Still, Selma hadn’t seen Drew recently because she’d been at the lodge. She did know that Drew had gotten injured and that even before that, she’d been inconsistent at best on her board. Drew had won a few big competitions since the Olympics, and she’d gotten on the podium for a few more, but many others, she’d crashed out of or had lost by times that weren’t like her at all; or, at least, hadn’t been like her prior to the last Olympics. Selma still felt that guilt daily, and seeing Drew crash or lose a race she should have won only made her feel worse, so having Drew here right now really wasn’t helping her get over that and move on when she needed to be focused on helping her grandma get better and making sure the woman had the staff here to support her when Selma wouldn’t be here every day like she was now.

“Hey, Selma?” Olivia asked when Selma walked out to the front desk to deliver the cookies.

“Yeah?”

“Um… That guest that just checked in…”

“What about her?”

“She came back downstairs.”

“She’s allowed to leave her room, Olivia,” Selma half-teased as she placed the cookies inside the warmer behind the front desk.

Olivia was another of her hires. Her grandmother used to love working the front desk, and she’d cover it as much as she could, but she’d had so many other tasks to do that it was often left unattended, and the guests had to use a buzzer system to get her attention so that she’d come back down to check them in. She’d also then had to be woken up in the middle of the night when a guest’s flight had been delayed or they’d otherwise been late. Grandma would leave her small house next to the lodge, sometimes in very cold temperatures, and check them in before going back home and trying to get some sleep. So, Selma had hired Olivia to be their front desk person during the day, starting around ten-thirty, which was right before everyone would come downstairs to check out, and she’d stay until after seven. Selma would usually cover everything else, or she’d have one of the part-timers she’d hired as well cover those extra shifts. It had all been a lot of work, hiring everyone and getting the schedules together, but so far, things had been working out well.

“No, I know that, obviously, but she came back over here, and she was asking about you.”

“She was?”

“Yeah. She asked about how long you’ve worked here and things like that.”

“Things like that?”

“She asked if you were the manager. I told her you were. I don’t know that I know your actual title, though. I hope that’s okay, telling her that.”

“It’s fine,” Selma replied. “I’ll talk to her,” she added and took a cookie out of the warmer.

She shouldn’t be eating it. It was packed with calories, and she hadn’t been on a board or skis that day, but she’d also skipped lunch, so she figured that would balance things out. She bit into it, loving how good the cookies were when they were warm. Then, she grabbed another one.

“Do you know her?” Olivia asked.

“Not at all,” she replied honestly.

Selma scanned the dining part of the lobby on the other side of the huge fireplace and saw Drew Oakes sitting at one of the communal-style tables her grandfather had made himself when they’d opened the place. The woman was looking at something on her phone and sipping from one of the mugs the lodge provided, so Selma decided to at least get this part over with.

“Hey,” she said.

Drew didn’t look up.

“Drew,” she said.

Drew looked up then, caught off guard.

“Oh, sorry.” She pulled out her headphones, which Selma hadn’t noticed Drew had been wearing when she’d first approached. “What?”

“I brought you this.”

“I got my cookie when I checked in,” Drew replied.

“Yeah… It’s the worst peace offering ever, but you liked them, so… Here.” She held it out for Drew to take.

“Um… Okay.” Drew took it from her. “You needed to bring me a peace offering?”

“Don’t I?”

“Do you work here?”

“Obviously,” Selma answered and pointed to her nametag.

“But you’re on the tour.”

“I am. I’m doing this, too.”

“Oh, okay. I thought you had some big sponsorship come through. I heard about it somewhere. Commercials and stuff.”

“I did. I’m not doing this to make money.”

“You’re volunteering at a ski resort?”

“No,” she said. “My grandma owns this place. I’m helping her out right now while she’s under the weather.”

“Your grandma… Ruth? Ruth is your grandma?”

“You know her?”

“Yeah, I’ve been here a lot over the years. How did I never see you here?”

“I only helped out a little when I could back then. I’m here more now until she’s better.”

“What’s wrong with her, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“She caught a cold, and it turned into pneumonia, but she’s getting better. Anyway, I just wanted to bring that by. I’ll get out of your hair now.”

“Will you tell her I said hello and that I hope she gets better soon?”

“She’ll know who you are?”

“I hope so. I used to talk to her whenever I was back from a run and she could take a few minutes.”

“She never told me.”

“That I’ve stayed here?”

“She knows we’re in the same sport,” Selma explained. “And that I’m the reason you weren’t a medalist in the last Olympics.”

“Maybe she didn’t put it together. Or, maybe she did, but she didn’t want to bring it up. I haven’t been here since, so maybe it just skipped her mind.”

“You haven’t been here in three years?”

Drew shook her head and said, “No. I think it might be closer to four now. I’ve been meaning to get back, but I haven’t had the chance.”

“Well, welcome back, I guess. I should get back to work. Enjoy the cookie.”

“Okay. Bye, I guess. I feel like you’re trying to avoid me, Selma.”

When Selma had seen Drew’s name on the guest list for that day, she’d prayed silently that it wasn’t that Drew Oakes, but she’d known that that wouldn’t be her luck. She’d hoped that maybe Drew would cancel or not show up or that Selma just wouldn’t run into her at all, but that had all been ridiculous because the lodge wasn’t that big and she lived here now.

“That’s true,” she admitted.

“Well, at least you’re honest,” Drew replied and put her headphones back into her ears. “You can go, if you want. I usually have hot chocolate when I come in, but I’ll be back in my room soon, and I’ll be on the mountain most of the time. So, unless you want me to check out and go somewhere else, I’ll keep to myself, and you won’t have to see me. Although, I do think that of the two of us, I’m the one who shouldn’t want to see you, but whatever.”

“It’s not like that. I–”

“Excuse me. Selma?” David said as he walked over.

“Yes?”

“Olivia needs you at the desk.”

“See you later,” Drew said.

Selma watched her press play on her music and resume scrolling on her phone again.