I couldn’t wait for them all to leave so I could sit here by his bed and look at Robbie and remember. He was three when they threw me in the hole. I lost thirteen years with my children and I know there is no way to get those years back. What a terrible thought, me outliving Robbie. Maybe he will just... continue to live. Quite a few brain-damaged people do just that. My first goal toward his complete rehabilitation is to get him to move one of his eyelids in response to simple questions. One movement for yes, two movements for no. That is where we will begin.
I am more than pleased to have him here right now. He’s not going anywhere and neither am I. Neither are Andrea or Sky. Finally.
Chapter Nine
Adam sat before the enormous fireplace in his great room, looking southeast down Mammoth Mountain. Looking through the wall of glass, he saw snow dropping off the branches in slow diagonals. Past the trees lay the steep flank of mountain and below the mountain sat the town. Smoke rose from chimneys almost too small to see. Gondolas and lifts climbed and descended. Toy skiers and boarders zigzagged down. Adam’s house was perched on recessed caissons sunk into the steep rock, which allowed it to hover out from the mountain like a satellite in space. Some people coming into his home for the first time felt unanchored and afloat. He had actually had guests collapse to their knees with confusion and vertigo upon walking in. The two-track dirt road leading up to it was impassable for six months of the year — sometimes longer — leaving two gleaming silver funicular cars for transportation.
Adam considered the newly expanded Mammoth Racing Committee, seated around the sprawling redwood burl coffee table: Jacobie Bradford III, the regional manager of Gargantua Coffee; Diane Dimeo of Vault Sports; Claude Favier of Chamonix Racing; and Adam’s own grandson-in-law, Brandon Shavers, married to Cynthia’s daughter, Andrea. Brandon coached the Mammoth freeski team.
He stood and began passing out copies of the revised Racing Committee Bylaws. Adam saw that Brandon handled the books with pride. Brandon had made no secret of how much work it had been to make so many last-second changes this quickly, even with the help of a very expensive attorney in Palo Alto. In Adam’s opinion, the text was needlessly long and detailed, and the print almost impossibly small to read even though, for eighty-seven, his eyes weren’t bad. These leather-bound editions had come in just yesterday, each cover embossed with the committee member’s cursive signature in gold.
Adam accepted his edition of the racing bylaws, watching the lovely Teresa returning from the bar with another tray of beverages for his guests. She delivered a third Irish coffee for Brandon, which he took with a dopey grin. Adam could tell he was already jacked on caffeine and half-looped by the whiskey. Adam wondered for the thousandth time how his granddaughter could stand the man. He traded glances with Mike Cook, his closest friend and longtime Mammoth Mountain course setter, though not a Racing Committee member.
“Nice,” said Jacobie Bradford, setting his bylaws on the immense planed and shellacked table. “But back to business, Mr. Carson — we really don’t think that Gargantua banners at the start and finish lines for the Gargantua Mammoth Cup courses, and a smattering of verticals around town, would be unsightly at all.”
“You said forty-six vertical banners, which is every streetlamp in town,” said Adam. “And I didn’t say ‘unsightly’; I said ‘piggish.’”
Jacobie chuckled. “Right. But Mammoth Lakes is spread out over—”
“I know how big my town is.”
“Exactly. So with only forty-six eight-by-three verticals to hang, it’s not like people will feel overwhelmed by them. The banners have full color Mammoth-specific nature scenes — skiing and boarding, cycling and hiking, all that. Not one pig! Each will have our Gargantua logo — of course — tastefully positioned.”
“An ape’s face,” Diane Dimeo noted.
“But you should see what the design team has come up with.” Jacobie said. He was thirtysomething, his head shinily shaven, and he sported a trim Vandyke.
Adam wondered what this generation of men had done with their hair. Traded it for smart phones? He raised his binoculars and watched a snowboarder wipe out way down on Ricochet. One second the boarder was carving downhill and the next he was a tumbleweed of snow.
“Grandpa? Sir?” asked Brandon. “I have to say I think we’re getting a lot of buck from Gargantua. And I want them to get plenty of bang back.”
Adam lowered the field glasses and considered several responses, but the moment passed.
“I think Mr. Carson is right to be skeptical,” said Diane. Adam looked at her. She was slight, dressed all in black, with thin sheets of shiny white hair and dark brown eyes. He considered himself a good guesser of age, but couldn’t get better than thirty to forty-five on Diane.
“Because Vault Sports wants to hang verticals banners, too?” asked Jacobie.
“Yes, we do. And because Vault doesn’t want Mammoth Lakes to look like just another one of your many identical, metastatic coffee shops.”
“Metastatic? As in cancerous? Really, Diane? I’m sorry we succeed so well. And employ twenty-six thousand people nationwide. Offer decent pay, good benefits, and donate millions of dollars a year to charity. God, am I so very sorry.”
Diane set her soft drink on an end table and gave Adam a frank stare. “I still think forty-six vertical banners that advertise one company is overkill. We’re sponsors here, not invaders. Mr. Carson, I ask you to allot the forty-six lamppost displays more equally among the three of us.”
“But our patronage isn’t equal,” said Jacobie. “And it’s not up to Mr. Carson anyway. It’s up to his friends on the town council.”
“They do whatever he tells them to,” said Brandon.
Adam held his grandson-in-law with a look that silenced the room. Brandon smiled in discomfort. “Claude?”
“Of course it is the decision of the city,” said the Frenchman. “We at Chamonix believe in winter sports. They are our life. Chamonix also believes in Mammoth Mountain. We will continue to sponsor young athletes here. We will continue to offer our best products at competitive prices in select Mammoth stores. We always advertise on the Mammoth TV channel. Chamonix is not made of money, but of passion.”
“I suggest twenty-six banners for Gargantua and ten each for Vault and Chamonix,” said Adam.
“That’s completely disproportionate, sir,” said Jacobie. He threw open his arms, raised his shoulders, and scrunched his head down.
“Share the mountain,” said Diane. “Don’t buy it.”
“Gargantua has more than enough streetlamp banners, Jacobie,” said Adam. “And you also have the start and finish signage for the half-pipe, the slopestyle, and X Course.”
Jacobie sighed and shook his head. “What did I do?”
Adam lifted his binoculars and watched a very aggressive skier fly down Dragon’s Back. Adam liked the straightforward power of the woman, the assured turns, the absence of hotdogging. Honest speed. “Brandon? What’s this about Wylie Welborn wanting to join our Mammoth freeski team?”
“He’s got it in his thick head to win the Mammoth Cup. Him and Sky are hating on each other again. It’s become some kind of loyalty thing to Robert. Like whoever wins the cup loves Robert more. But Wylie withdrew his app — snatched the money right off my desk.”
“Wylie Welborn?” asked Claude Favier. “He won the Mammoth Cup ski cross very impressively five years ago. On Chamonix Saber Three skis!”