Anonymous lips hopelessly tangled, Sandy’s crotch seems mine (or his) that opens. Wet confusion comes at last — thick as blood.
Spectator sports bore me to death.
Rising at the crack of dawn, the Valley instructors had laid out a slalom course on the slope immediately facing Semanee Lodge, flag-marked poles zigzagging down the left-hand side of the hill, the rest of the slope left open for those skiers indifferent to the thrills of outdoor competition. We decided to watch the race only because at breakfast we’d learned the big cats were still up on the north face, packing the trails, and that most of them would not be opened till midmorning. The race was scheduled to begin at ten o’clock. We finished breakfast at about twenty to, by which time a sizable crowd, buzzing and laughing and chanting slogans, had gathered at the base of the slope. The day was mild and cloudless, with hardly any wind. Foderman, excited and flushed, found a place for us close to the finish line, and said he was anticipating the race with great relish (hold the mustard and sauerkraut, please). We took off our parkas, sat on them, and watched one small Snowclad contingent as it draped a hand-lettered “Get Semanee!” banner over the entrance to the chair lift, unfazed by the heckling of Semanee supporters below. Face tilted to the sun, Sandy munched on a Baby Ruth (after having consumed four eggs and six slices of toast at breakfast). The smell of chocolate hovered on the air.
At ten minutes to ten, Hollis ambled over. He was wearing one of those white cloth markers they give racing contestants, looped and tied over the arms and shoulders, the black numeral “7” emblazoned across his chest. Taffy was following along behind him like a puppy who’d been taught a few new tricks.
“Hey, howdy,” Hollis said. “How’s the king of the mountain this morning?”
“Fine, thank you,” Foderman said.
“You guys should’ve come with us last night,” Taffy said. “We had a ball.”
“Sure did,” Hollis said, and smiled down at her. “Anybody see Mary Margaret around?”
“Nope,” Sandy said, and took another bite of her Baby Ruth.
“Are you in the race?” Foderman asked.
“Well, that’s what the number’s for, Seymour,” Hollis said.
“We’ll be rooting for you,” David said drily.
“I sure hope he wins,” Taffy said.
“Mm,” I said.
“I better get up there,” Hollis said. “I’ll see you later.” He took Taffy’s hand, and they both walked briskly toward the chair lift.
“Sweet couple,” David said.
“Love him, loathe her,” Sandy said.
“He’d better be careful,” Foderman said, shaking his head. “She’s just a child.”
It occurred to me that Rhoda had been at least as much a child that summer five years ago. I closed my eyes. The sun hot on my face, the scent of chocolate in my nostrils, the buzz of conversation swarming, hazily I thought of Rhoda. Poor Rhoda. Conscience of the world. I remembered her telling me once that she always had the feeling there was a party in progress to which she had not been invited. I did not know what she meant at the time. “The summer my mother died,” she had said, “should have been the last summer for me. I should have grown up fast and all at once, I should have come face to face with all the loss anyone ever has to experience. But each year, I seem to lose a little more, more and more each summer, until I want to shout ‘Leave me something, at least please leave me something,’ until I want to grab a microphone the way I did at Sandy’s house, and sing out louder than the noise, and thank everyone for listening, and then smile and tell them who I am, me, ‘My name is Rhoda.’ But I know, I know inside it isn’t any use, I’ll have to lose everything sooner or later, and I’ll join the others, yes, I’ll huddle with them in fear, and the party’ll end the minute I get there. That’ll be the last summer, Peter. Mine and maybe everybody’s. And I’m so afraid of winter coming.”
Well, sure. Loss of innocence. I mean, that’s what it was all about, wasn’t it? Hadn’t she been talking about, well, fear of losing her virginity or whatever? I mean, that was it, wasn’t it? I mean, that much seemed perfectly clear. Or had she been trying to say something else, had I missed something? Join the others, huddle with them in fear, what did that mean? What others? What fear? Were David, Sandy, and I the others? And had it been her fear of us that allowed what happened in the forest to happen? But no, you see, because then, you see, I would have to subscribe to Krakauer’s theory that we had raped Rhoda, that we had forced ourselves upon Rhoda, that what had occurred was without Rhoda’s full consent and cooperation. And that would make us, well, bad guys, you see. That would make us villains. That would make us, you see, evil.
I am no expert on evil (the Arabs are expert on that, according to Foderman), but I can swear on my eyes that we intended no harm to that girl. Whatever happened to Rhoda wasn’t the same as deliberately going after somebody with the idea of hurting him, as for example the way Mary Margaret had gone after Foderman last night, with all that Jew stuff, and goading him into taking the hill, and then humiliating him that way. We never did anything like that to Rhoda. We liked Rhoda.
“Hello there, Seymour. I hardly recognized you with your pants on.”
I opened my eyes and looked up. Mary Margaret, wearing her customary green outfit, had joined the group and was even now unzipping her parka preparatory to spreading it on the ground. “Everybody ready for the north face?” she asked.
“Soon as the race is over,” Foderman said, and smiled.
“Maybe you two ought to try it alone,” Sandy said.
“Why?” Mary Margaret asked.
“I don’t want to be responsible for Seymour.”
“Responsible? What do you think’ll happen to him?”
“Who knows?” Sandy said. “His pants seem to keep falling around his ankles. That could be very dangerous.”
“I’m sure Seymour can keep his pants on. Right, Seymour?”
“Why’d you pull them down last night?” Sandy asked flatly.
“I didn’t,” Mary Margaret said. “The boys did.”
“Sure,” Sandy said, and nodded.
“Come on, come on,” Foderman said, “it was a joke.”
“That’s all it was,” Mary Margaret said, and patted his knee.
“I guess I have no sense of humor,” Sandy said.
“Me, neither,” David said.
“Would you have liked it better if those gorillas had thrown him halfway across the valley?”
“You saved Seymour’s life, right?” Sandy asked.
“Give her a medal,” David said.
“You don’t know those three guys as well as I do,” Mary Margaret said. “They can get mean as hell.”
“But not you, babe, huh?” David said.
“There isn’t a mean bone in my body,” Mary Margaret said, and smiled.
“Look, stop making a federal case out of it,” Foderman said. “There was no harm done. Let’s all go skiing together and forget it, okay?”
“Maybe they’re afraid of the north face,” Mary Margaret said.
“Gee, yeah,” Sandy said.
“Terrified,” David said.
“If you’re not afraid...”
“Jesus, you’re too much,” Sandy said.
“Then prove it.”
“I think you’re missing the point, sweetheart,” David said.
“What’s the point?”
“We don’t mind skiing the north face...”
“We just don’t want to ski it with you.”
“Get it?” David said.