“Stout,” he said.
“It has speed greed,” said Claude. “Yet you feel ee-pox-ied to the snow.”
“Same length as my old ones. Narrower in the waist. Nice.”
“You are holding nearly eight decades of history in your hand. We will launch them to market in December.”
Wylie slowly turned it to catch the pale autumn sunlight. “How much will Chamonix be asking?”
“Eleven hundred twenty-five.”
“I’ll stick with the threes.”
“Of course you must. But try these fives.”
“I’ll just ding them up and not be able to pay you for them.”
Claude waved his free hand, as if shooing a mosquito. “Wylie. I know you cannot afford them. But take these skis. Chamonix is proud that you win on our equipment. All we ask is that when you are posing for photographs, you turn the ski so the Chamonix name is highly visible. If you don’t like them, use the old Saber Threes. But still keep Chamonix highly visible!”
Wylie looked at the Frenchman’s weathered, sharply chiseled face and delighted light blue eyes. “I’m suspicious of gifts.”
“Then this is a flaw in your character. If you are worried about the USOC, this we consider to be a testing pair for you. As such, no retail value. Not a gift and not a sponsorship. Most legal. Although I ask you not to tell Brandon Shavers about this gift — I have not similarly equipped the Mammoth team.”
Claude held out the other ski and Wylie accepted it. “Thank you, Claude.”
“Thank Chamonix. Chamonix is passion.”
“That’s a good slogan.”
“Yes. Passion opens wallets.”
Claude smiled again and brought a cigarette from a silver case and offered it to Wylie, who declined. The silver case was also a lighter. Claude slid it back into his jacket pocket while the smoke slowly mingled with the heavy air.
Wylie carried the skis to the MPP, knelt, unlatched the equipment drawer, and let it roll out. He slid the beautiful new Sabers into the carpet-lined compartment, smiled slightly at them, then pushed the drawer closed. When he came back around the trailer, Claude was leaning against his SUV. “You are at an interesting place in your life,” he said.
“It’s interesting all right.”
“Are you ready to race?”
“I could have used Chile or New Zealand this summer. But I’m ready.”
“You have lost weight.”
“Same as five years ago. Well, three more pounds, actually.”
“The Saber Fives will use your weight well. Tell me of your plans, Wylie. If you are to be winning the Mammoth Cup on my skis, I want to know where you will be going. I want to share in your plan. I want to help.”
Wylie told Claude that he was putting his all into the Mammoth Cup, and if he did well enough, he’d go to the Winter X Games later in January, and if he did well there, he’d do the FIS ski-cross circuit in North America and Europe.
“You have the backing of Adam for this travel, yes?”
Wylie nodded.
“And then?”
“I want the Olympics, Claude. I need them. I can build a life on them.”
Claude looked at Wylie through the loitering smoke. “Yes, as we all can. And for you, what is this life you would like to build?”
Wylie told him about buying a place for Let It Bean, and maybe sending his sisters to college, giving them a chance for more than a small-town bakery. He crossed his arms and looked down at the asphalt and saw rows of stolen boards and bikes, cabinets filled with skis, Jacobie Bradford’s shining head and combative face.
“They are doing well in life, your sisters?”
Wylie looked up at him. “They’re young is all.”
“Yes, when youth is wasted.”
“I never believed that.”
“Not quite.”
“Can I speak to you as a friend?” Claude looked at the end of his cigarette and tapped the ash to the ground. “Wylie, of course you know this, but I should remind you that you have no chance of placing in the Olympics. The Europeans are several years ahead of you and every other American ski crosser. Why? Because their mountains are better. Their courses are better. Their programs are better because skiing is much more important there than here. So, because of this, there is always money for training. But more than the money — in my native France, for example — ski racers are heroes. They are athletic gods. Here in America, your ski racers only exist every four years for the televised Olympics. One or two stars are made and quickly forgotten. They are not gods, but only celebrities. The rest of you compete when you can, and work in bakeries and bike shops and restaurants. How are you to compete at the highest level?”
Wylie nodded, pondering this. “Well, fuck, Claude, I guess I’ll have to prove you wrong.”
“Please, Wylie, do not take offense. I am trying to help you, as a much older man, by being practical and realistic. Yes, you may win here in Mammoth if you can beat Sky Carson. And even yes, perhaps you can do well in Aspen. But on the World Cup circuit, you will be up against the very finest in the world, and these men are younger than you and trained professionally, and have single-mindedness bred into them. Look what the French did in Sochi ski cross. Gold, silver, and bronze!”
Wylie shrugged, felt his usual useless anger begin to boil. “Then why did you give me the skis? Pity?”
“I want you to win the Mammoth Cup on Chamonix skis! That is all.”
“That is not all. I’m going to win more than that on them. I have to.”
Claude drew on the cigarette and looked at the ember philosophically. He studied Wylie for a long time. “You want to win for your family? And perhaps as a sentimental gesture to Rob—”
“Yes, Claude — I just said all that.”
“But is there more? Is there another motivation for you that is larger even than those? I sense there is. I want to see if you will confess it.”
Wylie nodded. He felt pried open. “Me. I want good fortune for me.”
“Of course you do! All champions want this. I had no idea your dreams were so big, and so serious.”
“Now you know.”
Claude gave him another long, squinting assessment, then a subtle nod. “But you must still be realistic. So, let me suggest a simultaneous plan, in case your FIS and Olympic goals do not fall into place. You yourself mentioned a table for two. My advice is: Do your best to make April Holly a happy woman.”
“Leave her out, Claude.”
“Leave her out? Why be childish? Be as honest with me as I am being with you. You should tie your life to her if she will allow it. Tie it tightly. Let her be the one to go to Korea. She is nearly a certainty. Let her become an even bigger celebrity. Let Salonne shampoo and the many more lucrative endorsements to come be your security, too. She has more than enough for two. She has the singular talent, the gift. You do not. Sky Carson does not. What happens on this mountain is small compared to April Holly. And someday, all of this heated competition and striving to be champions will pass. You and April will both be too old for racing and aerial trickery. And she will want children and you will give them to her and care for them. She will want a ranch near Aspen and an apartment in Lillehammer and a chalet in New Zealand or Chile. She will want her sisters-in-law to have every opportunity in life, not just a bakery. I think this is a beautiful future for you, and any man in the world would accept it happily. You could be most eagerly replaced.”
“I’ve thought of all that, Claude.”
“So?”
“It feels wrong.”
“Do you love her?”
“Yes, I do.”
“If you love her, then what is wrong with wrong? You really are suspicious of gifts, aren’t you?”
“Good should feel good.”
“So to feel good, a man can take no gift? He must do it all himself? Alone and on a white horse?”