Jack liked particular kinds of sex in very particular kinds of ways, Greta said on the phone. She guessed Faith knew all about that by now. But “best not make long-range plans” was somehow the message. Other calls were placed, messages left on her voice mail, prints arrived by FedEx.
When asked, Jack conceded there was a problem. But he would solve it, tout de suite (though she needed to understand he was preoccupied with his father’s approaching death). Jack was a tall, smooth-faced, handsome man with a shock of lustrous, mahogany-colored hair. Like a clothing model. He smiled and everyone felt better. He’d gone to public high school, Harvard, played squash, rowed, debated, looked good in a brown suit and oldish shoes. He was trustworthy. It still seemed workable.
But Greta called more times. She sent pictures of herself and Jack together. Recent pictures, since Faith had come on board. It was harder than he’d imagined to get untangled, Jack admitted. Faith would need to be patient. Greta was, after all, someone he’d once “cared about very much.” Might’ve even married. Didn’t wish to hurt. She had problems, yes. But he wouldn’t just throw her over. He wasn’t that kind of man, something she, Faith, would be glad about in the long run. Meanwhile, there was the sick patriarch. And his mother. And the sisters. That had been plenty.
Snow Mountain Highlands is a smaller ski resort, but nice. Family, not flash. Faith’s mother found it as a “Holiday Getaway” in the Erie Weekly. The package includes a condo, weekend lift tickets, and coupons for three days of Swedish smorgasbord in the Bavarian-style lodge. The deal, however, is for two people only. The rest have to pay. Faith will sleep with her mother in the “Master Suite.” Roger can share the twin with the girls.
Two years ago, when sister Daisy began to take an interest in Vince, the biker, Roger simply “receded.” Her and Roger’s sex life had long ago lost its effervescence, Daisy confided. They had started off well enough as a model couple in a suburb of Sandusky, but eventually — after some years and two kids — happiness ended and Daisy had been won over by Vince, who liked amphetamines and more importantly sold them. Vince’s arrival was when sex had gotten really good, Daisy said. Faith believes Daisy envied her movie connections and movie lifestyle and the Jaguar convertible, and basically threw her own life away (at least until rehab) as a way of simulating Faith’s, only with a biker. Eventually Daisy left home and gained forty-five pounds on a body that was already voluptuous, if short. Last summer, at the beach at Middle Bass, Daisy in a rage actually punched Faith in the chest when she suggested that Daisy might lose some weight, ditch Vince and consider coming home to her family. Not a diplomatic suggestion, she later decided. “I’m not like you,” Daisy screamed, right out on the sandy beach. “I fuck for pleasure. Not for business.” Then she waddled into the tepid surf of Lake Erie, wearing a pink one-piece that boasted a frilly skirtlet. By then, Roger had the girls, courtesy of a court order.
In the condo now, Esther has been watching her soaps, but has stopped to play double solitaire and have a glass of wine by the big picture window that looks down toward the crowded ski slope and the ice rink. Roger is actually there on the bunny slope with Jane and Marjorie, though it’s impossible to distinguish them. Red suits. Yellow suits. Lots of dads with kids. All of it soundless.
Faith has had a sauna and is now thinking about phoning Jack, wherever Jack is. Nantucket. New York. London. She has no particular message to leave. Later she plans to do the Nordic Trail under moonlight. Just to be a full participant, to set a good example. For this she has brought LA purchases: loden knickers, a green-and-brown-and-red sweater knitted in the Himalayas, socks from Norway. No way does she plan to get cold.
Esther plays cards at high speed with two decks, her short fat fingers flipping cards and snapping them down as if she hates the game and wants it to be over. Her eyes are intent. She has put on a cream-colored neck brace because the tension of driving has aggravated an old work-related injury. And she is now wearing a big Hawaii-print orange muumuu. How long, Faith wonders, has she been wearing these tents? Twenty years, at least. Since Faith’s own father — Esther’s husband — kicked the bucket.
“Maybe I’ll go to Europe,” Esther says, flicking cards ferociously. “That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”
Faith is at the window, observing the expert slope. Smooth, wide pastures of snow, framed by copses of beautiful spruces. Several skiers are zigzagging their way down, doing their best to appear stylish. Years ago, she came here with her high-school boyfriend, Eddie, a.k.a. “Fast Eddie,” which in some respects he was. Neither of them liked to ski, nor did they get out of bed to try. Now, skiing reminds her of golf — a golf course made of snow.
“Maybe I’ll take the girls out of school and treat us all to Venice,” Esther goes on. “I’m sure Roger would be relieved.”
Faith has spotted Roger and the girls on the bunny slope. Blue, green and yellow suits, respectively. He is pointing, giving detailed instructions to his daughters about ski etiquette. Just like any dad. She thinks she sees him laughing. It is hard to think of Roger as an average parent.
“They’re too young for Venice,” Faith says, putting her small, good-looking nose near the surprisingly warm windowpane. From outside, she hears the rasp of a snow shovel and muffled voices.
“Maybe I’ll take you to Europe, then,” Esther says. “Maybe when Daisy clears rehab we can all three take in Europe. I always planned for that.”
Faith likes her mother. Her mother is no fool, yet still seeks ways to be generous. But Faith cannot complete a picture that includes herself, her enlarged mother and Daisy on the Champs-Elysées or the Grand Canal. “That’s a nice idea,” she says. She is standing beside her mother’s chair, looking down at the top of her head, hearing her breathe. Her mother’s head is small. Its hair is dark gray and short and sparse, and not especially clean. She has affected a very wide part straight down the middle. Her mother looks like the fat lady in the circus, but wearing a neck brace.
“I was reading what it takes to live to a hundred,” Esther says, neatening the cards on the glass table top in front of her belly. Faith has begun thinking of Jack and what a peculiar species of creep he is. Jack Matthews still wears the Lobb cap-toe shoes he had made for him in college. Ugly, pretentious English shoes. “You have to be physically active,” her mother continues. “And you have to be an optimist, which I am. You have to stay interested in things, which I more or less do. And you have to handle loss well.”
With all her concentration Faith tries not to wonder how she ranks on this scale. “Do you want to be a hundred?”
“Oh, yes,” her mother says. “You just can’t imagine it, that’s all. You’re too young. And beautiful. And talented.” No irony. Irony is not her mother’s specialty.
Outside, one of the men shoveling snow can be heard to say, “Hi, we’re the Weather Channel.” He’s speaking to someone watching them through another window from yet another condo.
“Colder’n a well-digger’s dick, you bet,” a second man’s voice says. “That’s today’s forecast.”
“Dicks, dicks, and more dicks,” her mother says pleasantly. “That’s it, isn’t it? The male appliance. The whole mystery.”
“So I’m told,” Faith says, and thinks about Fast Eddie.
“They were all women, though,” her mother says.
“Who?”
“All the people who lived to be a hundred. You could do all the other things right. But you still needed to be a woman to survive.”