Wylie had to tell himself that he’d heard the words, not dreamed them. Or conjured them in a bourbon haze. He felt April’s hand squeeze his leg. He was aware of Adam and Teresa watching, their eyes four distant orange windows. And he thought, This is what it is to be in love, and to have a living father who is well pleased by you. “Honored, Grandpa.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked.
“I’m sure.”
“Why, again?”
“To show you the real me.”
“I hope they’re sharp.”
“I keep them that way.”
In the dimmed lantern light inside the MPP, Wylie leaned forward toward the mirror. He raised the utility shears and went to work on his beard. It took several minutes of cutting, the fat clumps of whiskers landing audibly on the open sheet of newspaper he had pressed into the small sink. Behind him, reflected in the mirror, April watched him in attentive silence. Two inches dwindled to one inch, then an uneven scape of angled tufts and divots. The face beneath was pale and smooth. He used one of her pink disposable razors to take the whiskers down to the skin — three slow passes through thick shampoo lather to accomplish this. He rinsed and dried, pulled the rubber band from his ponytail, and turned to her.
April ran a hand down one cheek, frowning. “I liked it better before.”
He smiled.
“I’m kidding. You look so young. You’re a beautiful man. Sorry, but I’m not going to be able to keep these hands off you.” She pulled him back into the bed and they brought the sleeping bag over them. “I gotta tell you, Wylie. When Adam said he’d sponsor you on the World Cup tour, I got goose bumps up and down my back. Because you’re good enough. You’re good enough to do that.”
“You really think so?”
“I’ve been watching you up there on Madman, boy. I’ve seen a lot of skiers, and you got it. I can see that you’ve got it.”
Two days later, Wylie steered the truck up Minaret toward Starwood. He felt fully triumphant but tried not to show it. April had her hand on his knee and he felt her grip tighten when she saw the uplink news vans parked outside the gate, the Mammoth Lakes police cruiser, and a smattering of vans and SUVs with radio or TV logos emblazoned on their flanks. There were a few loitering locals and some kids on bikes.
“Mom ratted me out,” she said.
“She’ll be happy to have you back.”
“She’ll be furious. If you don’t want to get into all this, you can drop me here and just keep going.”
“I’m all in.”
“Brace yourself. Please don’t do anything like to Jacobie or Sky. Just...”
“I understand.”
She pulled off her beanie, leaned out the window, and looked at herself in the side-view mirror as she shook out her hair. “What they want from me is Little April Sunshine. And they’re going to get her.”
He pulled past the gathered vehicles and bystanders and up to the gate. April told him what numbers to punch as a posse of photographers and videographers hustled around to April’s side of the truck, firing away. She shook her curls again. Wylie could hear the clatter of the motor drives and he watched as one of the women barged in and pointed a large mike toward April. “Monika Silver from ESPN — are you okay, April?”
“Hi, Monika. Just terrific! I’ve been camping in the mountains with some friends. I can’t tell you how great it was to get away. I boarded down a beautiful run and washed my hair in a creek. Salonne shampoo works beautifully in Sierra creek water, I can tell you that.”
“April! Newell Yost with City Cable — why didn’t you tell anyone where you were going? Your mother filed a missing-person report.”
“You know, I just forgot! And the phones don’t work up there. And... I’m so embarrassed to have caused all this trouble. Can you let us through?”
Wylie saw that the gate had rolled open. A Mammoth Lakes cop rapped on his window and Wylie rolled it down. “Welborn?”
“Sir.”
“Everything all right?”
Some of the reporters had come to Wylie’s side of the truck now, squeezing around the cop to shoot. “Yes. Just camping, sir, and she forgot to tell her mom.”
“Helene was worried. She’ll be happy to see April alive and well. You? Not so sure.”
“I’m prepared.”
“For what?”
“To behave myself.”
“Wylie, we can go now.”
They wound through the pretty neighborhood to April’s rented house and parked in the drive. April took a deep breath but said nothing. They got out and Wylie saw the worry on April’s face as Helene and Logan came through the front door. Helene was in the lead, arms swinging wide as she advanced on Wylie. “Get off my property, you bastard. Now.”
“I’m going to help April unload first, ma’am.”
“She does mean now,” said Logan.
Wylie said nothing, but Helene got so tight to his face that he could smell the coffee on her breath. “I forbid you to see her again.”
“You can’t, Mom. I’m twenty-one. I like him.”
“We were just camping with friends,” said Wylie, stepping back as Logan came closer.
“Get back in the truck,” Logan said softly.
Helene whirled on the big man. “Can’t you do more than that? Can’t you do anything but cook and cash your paycheck?”
Logan dropped into a wrestler’s crouch, arms outstretched, fingers prodding the air slowly, tarantulalike. Even with Logan crouching, Wylie had to look up at him. Logan ambled forward Weirdly. Wylie heard April scream “No!” and somehow the sound of her voice became a breath-robbing clinch and takedown that left his arms splayed helplessly, his shoulders crushed to the concrete, his body twisted and writhing, and his neck feeling like it could snap anytime now.
“Don’t kill him,” said Helene. “Just make sure he doesn’t come back.”
“Let him go! Stop!”
Wylie couldn’t draw breath and he knew to tap out. He sent the signal to his hands and it seemed to take a full second for them to respond. But he found nothing solid to tap out on, so his palms just waved aimlessly in the air...
He woke to the sight of his hiking boots. There they were, one canted to the right and the other to the left, way, way down at the ends of his legs. The edge of his vision was dark, like binoculars poorly adjusted. He could feel his back and shoulders and head propped against something rough and hard. Through the dark perimeter of his eyesight, a face came at him, distorted as through a peephole or upon a Christmas tree bulb. A pretty woman. Behind her hovered two more figures, these unfocused also. Their voices came to him more clearly than their faces.
“Logan, call the paramedics. Now. I don’t want a lawsuit on my hands.”
“Yes, Mrs. Holly.”
“Wylie? Wylie? Can you see me?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The first snow of the season fell overnight in early November, lowering a thin white blanket over the town. That morning, Wylie sat in his truck outside Cynthia Carson’s home, looking up at the mountain and watching the snowflakes still wafting down from above. His truck engine was running and he had the heater cranked up. Yesterday’s text from Cynthia Carson was more an order than an invitation: “Be at my home at 8:00 A.M. Wednesday — C. Carson.”
He looked again at Cynthia’s front door. He had rarely felt such dread. He had never actually spoken to her before. Never really looked her in the eye. Soon, he would have to do both. Sipping the last of his coffee, Wylie remembered first hearing the whispered gossip about Sky Carson’s mom shooting his dad before Sky was born. She was in prison. One of the other kindergarteners had a folded newspaper picture of her walking into court. Sky was suddenly different to him, but how? Was this the reason why Sky was either funny or sad? No kid talked about any of it when he was around, that was for sure. As a kindergartener, Wylie had thought a lot about all this. Wished it hadn’t happened. Wished they could all wake up from it, like from a bad dream. He’d lost his own father to a bad illness, so he understood growing up without a true dad around.