CHAPTER 8

“Mom, that was the Drew today, wasn’t it?” Gia asked as they drove back to the lodge.

“That was Drew, yes.” Selma left off the word her daughter had used before Drew’s name because there was more than one Drew in the world.

“She’s the one we watch all the time.”

“Not all the time,” she replied and pulled into the employee lot. “She’s staying at the hotel for a little while. Then, she’ll be gone.”

“But she was trying to teach me today,” Gia noted.

“No, baby. She was trying to correct me; there’s a difference. Come on. Get your stuff, and let’s get inside. I’ll run you a bath before I have to get back to work. Can you eat dinner in your room for me tonight? I’ll have them bring you chicken fingers.”

“Can’t I eat downstairs with everyone?”

“That’s mostly grown-ups, Gia,” she said and opened her door. “Maybe when we get one of those big family groups in, and they have kids your age, you can have dinner downstairs. It’s also hard for me to watch you down there when I’m working.”

“Fine,” Gia replied, clearly unhappy with Selma’s answer.

Gia got out of the car, and Selma gave her a few things to carry. She carried the rest and prepared for her daughter to be pouting for the rest of the night.

“Gia, I know things are hard right now.” She nodded for Gia to join her on one of the benches outside the back of the lodge, and when Gia sat down, Selma sat next to her. “I know Grandma getting sick meant that I had to give up some of our time together and that when I’m in season, we don’t have a lot of time together as it is. But Grandma is going to be better soon. I’ll have more time with you before I have to go again.”

“Can I come with you?”

“Not this time. But maybe next time.”

“Mom, you say that every time.”

“I know.” She shook her head. “I mean it this time, okay? We’ll figure out a schedule that makes sense with your school. I can’t take you out of school for days in a row, Gia.”

“Yes, you can. I don’t need to go. I’m going to be a snowboarder, like you and Drew.”

Selma gave her a tight smile, loving that her daughter wanted to be like her. Liking it less that she wanted to be like Drew, though, she pulled down on Gia’s beanie to make sure it covered her ears more.

“Gia, you still have to go to school. You know I’m not going to be able to snowboard forever. School teaches you what you need to know to get a job when you’re too old to continue to snowboard,” she replied.

“I don’t like school.”

“I know. But it’s still important.”

“I need time to practice now, Mom. You’re letting me learn, so I need a coach, and I need to learn how to do everything. I want to compete.”

“Okay. Slow down. How about we go inside, and you take a bath because you’re all sweaty? I’ll have them bring you up some dinner, and you can do your homework, which I will be checking later to make sure you did it. If I can get some time tomorrow, we’ll go back up to the mountain. But if not, I’ll take a break and teach you a few things here. All we really need is snow, right?”

“Right,” Gia said. “You promise?”

Selma wished she could. She’d learned over the past few months of having to take care of the lodge, her grandmother, her daughter, and her career, all at the same time, that she had already broken a lot of promises to Gia. As a result, now, Gia always asked her to promise because she was a very smart kid and had noticed that, too. Selma hated that. She didn’t want Gia to worry that she wouldn’t be there for her or that she didn’t want to spend time with her. If Selma had her way, she’d spend most, if not all, of her time with her daughter. But life didn’t work that way, and that was especially true right now, when all of these responsibilities were weighing on her shoulders simultaneously, and she was having a hard time keeping track of the promises she’d made her daughter that she’d already broken.

“I promise to look at the schedule to see who can cover the front desk tomorrow for me. How’s that?”

“Okay,” her daughter replied with no enthusiasm.

Gia used to be an easy-to-please kid, comfortable on her own, picking up new hobbies here and there, and loving the time she got with her great-grandma whenever Selma had to go to a competition. Since Selma’s grandmother had gotten sick, though, because it had been contagious in the beginning, Gia hadn’t seen her great-grandma, who the little girl just called Grandma, very much, and Selma knew that was also weighing on her small, nine-year-old shoulders.

“Let’s go inside, okay?”

Gia stood up, and they carried their stuff inside. They made their way up the elevator together and into their suite, which Selma had moved into years ago now. Here, Gia was able to have her own space, and it had been easier for her, being a single parent, to have this two-bedroom suite, with a small eat-in kitchen, a living room, and two bathrooms, than trying to find a house she could afford, which would’ve been farther from the mountain where she did her training. Selma knew that her grandmother would’ve made a lot of money otherwise, renting out this suite to guests, but the woman loved having both Selma and Gia so close, and it made things easier when Selma went away: Gia could sleep in her own room, and Grandma would stay in Selma’s.

As her grandma got older, though, Selma would have to figure something else out because taking care of the hotel and Gia wasn’t going to get easier for her aging grandparent. Even though Gia could do a lot of things on her own now, and she’d be able to do even more as she got older herself, she’d still need someone to keep an eye on her for the next several years. Selma would only be competing for maybe another five years if she was lucky and didn’t pick up a big injury. She couldn’t see herself going far beyond that because she didn’t want to miss her daughter’s entire childhood, and as it was, she’d already missed a lot of it. Snowboarding put food on the table, though, and Selma felt lucky that she’d found a career that was her dream and she’d made it work for her and her little family of two.

“You good?” she asked Gia after kissing the top of her head.

“I’m good. Will Olivia come up later?”

“Olivia’s not here tonight. But Kelly is,” she replied as she remembered who was on the desk that night.

“Really?”

“And I bet she’s bringing Kirsten with her.”

“Can Kirsten come up and play with me?”

“I’ll ask Kelly, okay? Kirsten might say no, though, babe.”

“I know.”

Selma kissed the top of her daughter’s head again and walked toward the door.

“Homework. I’ll check on you later and have Grandma FaceTime you, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Love you, baby.”

“Love you, too.”

She left Gia doing her math homework and took the elevator back downstairs, where she saw Kelly behind the desk.

“Hey,” Kelly greeted.

Kelly had worked at the lodge for well over ten years and now only worked during the busy season.

“Hey. Is Kirsten here?”

“She’s doing her homework at a table. Gia?”

“Wants to play, yeah.” She smiled.

“Kirsten?” Kelly yelled to her thirteen-year-old daughter, whom Selma had known since she was around three years old. “Want to go hang out with Gia?”

“I’m doing my homework,” Kirsten half-yelled back.

“So is she,” Selma said. “She asked for you, but don’t feel like you have to go up, Kirsten.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s quieter up there.” Kirsten packed up her things.

“I should pay her for babysitting,” Selma said to Kelly this time.

“Nah. She likes Gia. She just pretends to be too cool to spend time with anyone whose age doesn’t have ‘teen’ at the end of it now.”

Selma laughed and asked, “Everything okay down here?”

“Just checked in the last room of the night, so I’m going to work on the welcome bags for the VIP customers that’ll be here tomorrow.”

“Sounds good. I’ll check the kitchen. Are we good on cookies?” Selma opened the warmer door. “I’ll bring some more or make sure we’ve got some in the oven.”

“You know I’m good down here, right? You can take the night off.”

“I took half the day off, Kelly.”

“Yes, but you’ve also barely taken time off at all since Ruth got sick. You deserve time with your daughter, Selma. And I know you haven’t been training consistently, either, and that’s important, too.”

“I know. I’ve got some stuff coming up, so I’ll be off for that. I’ll just do a quick walk-around and make sure everything’s good for tonight and tomorrow morning. Then, I’ll get out of here, okay?”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Kelly replied.

Selma shook her head and laughed as she walked from the desk to the kitchen to check on the cookies and see if the staff needed anything. The dinner rush was about to start, with everyone coming back from the mountain, so she just wanted to make sure they had everything prepped and ready. They did, so she went to check on the bar. Their bartender didn’t technically work for the hotel and was employed by a bartending company the lodge partnered with, so they didn’t have to keep him on payroll but could still boast about having a bar available. When he told her that he was fine, Selma turned around, thinking she might go back upstairs to spend some time with Gia and relieve Kirsten of having to hang out with a nine-year-old, but she saw Drew standing there, looking at her.

“Trying to get a drink?” Selma asked.

“Uh… No. I saw you, and I was hoping we could talk for a second.”

“About what this time, Drew? Seems like every time we do that, things get worse.”

“I know. I’m sorry. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually.”

“You’re sorry? For what?”

“Well, a few things, I think.”

Drew nodded to the table next to them before she pulled out a chair and motioned for Selma to sit down in it. Selma didn’t really want to, but she sat down anyway. Drew then pulled out another chair, moved it to face Selma, and sat down as well.

“I’m sorry about the skiing comment I made last night. I shouldn’t have said that you should’ve stuck to that and never picked up a board. Obviously, crashing out at the Olympics happens all the time, and it could just have easily been someone else clipping my board from the back, or I could’ve been the one doing it to someone else. So, even if you’d stayed in skiing, I still might not have made it beyond that prelim.”

“Okay. Apology accepted.”

“And about today – I’m sorry about that, too. I didn’t know it was you. You had goggles on, along with, you know, everything else, and you were kind of far away. I thought I just saw a coach screwing up their client. I still shouldn’t have walked up and started coaching myself because that’s not my place either way, but I didn’t know it was you. And I didn’t know you had a daughter, Selma, so I’m sorry about that, too. Also, I should thank you for the world’s largest breakfast that you sent me. For a second, I thought I’d drunk-dialed your kitchen last night or something until I figured it out, but thank you for that.”

Selma nodded and said, “I was sorry, too. I mean, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said to you last night, either.”

“Okay. Well, there’s that, at least.”

“As for Gia today…” Selma went to continue. “I might have overreacted. She’s just starting to learn, and I think I was trying to take her through things quicker than she was ready for. It’s hard to remember what it’s like when you’re first starting out. So, you were technically right: I shouldn’t have been teaching her that when she can barely stand up on her board right now.”

“She’s nine?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re…”

“Twenty-seven. I’m assuming you’re asking because you’re doing the math right now. I was a teen mom, yeah.”

“Not judging; just curious, I guess.”

“I got pregnant in high school. Back then, I had a serious boyfriend, and we thought we were careful, but we weren’t. I wanted to keep her. He didn’t.”

“Can I ask?”

“He’s not involved in her life, no. He actually moved across the country, went to college in Toronto, and stayed there. I’ve raised her on my own. Well, I have a lot of help. My parents moved away a few years ago, but they were here before and helped a lot. My grandma has been amazing, too, taking care of Gia whenever I needed to go somewhere for boarding. We live here to make things easier.”

“You live here? At the resort?”

“Grandma has the little house right next to here, and I have a suite upstairs with Gia. That makes it easier for her to watch her when I’m gone. Right now, they’re probably video chatting because Grandma has been worried that she’s still contagious, even though the doctor said she’s not. She’s older, so it’s just taking her a while to get over it completely, but she doesn’t want to risk getting Gia sick.”

“You’re a single parent, taking care of this place and your grandma, but you’re also a professional snowboarder? That’s impressive, Selma,” Drew stated and leaned back in her chair.

“It’s not, really,” she replied with a little laugh. “It’s a lot of balancing, and I’m not very good at it. Right now, the thirteen-year-old daughter of an employee is upstairs with my kid because I had to check on the lodge. I should be up there with her.”

“Are you done working now? Or am I keeping you from getting things done so that you can get back to her?”

Selma smiled and said, “I’m done for the night. Kelly is here, and she knows more about this place than I do, I think.”

“Then, go. Don’t let me keep you.” Drew stood up. “Gia seems great, by the way,” she added and smiled softly at Selma. “She looks just like you; even has the same stance.” Drew crossed her arms over her chest to imitate what she’d seen earlier that day and tapped her right foot for good measure.

“Yeah. Yeah.” Selma laughed as she stood up.

“I’m going to grab some dinner, but tell her I said hi, if that’s okay with you.”

“Sure. I’ll tell her. Have a good night, Drew.”

“You too,” Drew replied.