ADAM (V.O.)
When a marriage is falling apart, when there’s a child involved, and the separation lies ahead of you, that’s when you have to be better than you’ve ever been. That’s when the story isn’t about you.
EXT. LOGE PEAK QUAD, ASPEN HIGHLANDS. THAT MORNING.
In the lift line, Grace is trying to get away from the married couple who rode with her and Paul on the previous chairlift. Paul is talking to Grace in the lift line. The couple who rode with them are listening, but we hear only Adam’s voice-over.
ADAM (V.O.)
The best of adult intentions notwithstanding, couples who are breaking up behave badly.
Grace is wary of TWO DRINKERS—two young guys, sharing a pint of tequila, in the lift line ahead of her and Paul. Grace doesn’t want to get on the Loge Peak chair with the two drinkers or the married couple.
ADAM (V.O.)
I don’t blame Grace, and my father would blame himself for everything.
The two drinkers look behind them in the lift line as the chairlift approaches; one of the young guys beckons to Paul and Grace to join them on the chair. Paul doesn’t hesitate to move ahead in the lift line. Grace has no choice; she gets on the chair with Paul and the two drinkers.
CLOSER ON: the ascending chairlift. The drinkers are lighting cigarettes in the wind. Now we hear what Paul says.
PAUL GOODE
On this chair, your husband told me he slept with my wife.
Hearing this, one of the smokers burns his eye when the lit end of his cigarette is blown into his face. His buddy burns his fingers on his cigarette, cupping it in his hands.
PAUL GOODE
Clara was repelled by what she did—she hated it; she hated herself for doing it, your husband said. I believe him, but what happened wasn’t your husband’s fault.
The smoker who burned his fingers drops the lit cigarette in his lap, where it’s lost in the folds of his parka. The wind has picked up. The other smoker rubs his sore eye.
PAUL GOODE
It was my fault that Clara did it—she did it because of what I did.
Grace is distressed that the tequila drinkers are hanging on every word. Paul is as insouciant as the noir characters he plays in his films.
PAUL GOODE
Your husband meant well—I know he was trying to make me feel better. “It was my fault, too,” he told me.
(as Grace nods)
No, you don’t understand. What Clara did—sleep with your husband, jump off the chairlift—is all my fault.
As the chairlift climbs, the wind blows harder. As the drinkers pull up their face masks, plumes of smoke rise from the parka of the smoker who dropped a lit cigarette in his lap.
PAUL GOODE
(to the smoker)
Your parka is on fire.
The one on fire unzips his parka and takes it off, as the parka bursts into flames. We see his burning parka fall from the chair. It falls to the ski slope, alarming THE RIDERS in the following chairlift and SOME SKIERS on the piste under the lift.
PAUL GOODE (O.C.)
(to everyone)
Anything that’s burning likes the wind. Fire loves the wind.
Moments later: Paul points off to the right. Grace and the drinkers see the gulch the old chairlift passed over.
PAUL GOODE
(to Grace)
The old chairlift went over that gulch—Clara jumped off the lift, over there.
The drinker is shivering without his parka.
PAUL GOODE
(to Grace)
We were right about here when your husband told me I was his father.
GRACE
He should have told your wife he was your son! Clara wouldn’t have slept with him—not if she knew!
PAUL GOODE
Clara would have slept with someone else. She was going to sleep with someone—with anyone.
(a beat)
Your husband showed me the photo when we got off the lift.
One drinker whispers to the other drinker.
DRINKER
Who took a photo? Of what?
Grace is perturbed how the drinkers have inserted themselves into the conversation, but Paul doesn’t care.
PAUL GOODE
(to the drinkers)
It was a photo of her husband’s mother—at the age she was when she slept with me. She was eighteen, almost nineteen—I was fourteen, almost fifteen.
The lift station at the top of Loge Peak is approaching. Paul, Grace, and the drinkers prepare to unload.
EXT. THE WALL, ASPEN HIGHLANDS. CONTINUOUS.
The Wall is a black double-diamond run that crosses under the Loge Peak quad. TWO SKI PATROLLERS examine the smoldering ashes of the drinker’s parka.
ONE PATROLLER
What the fuck?
THE OTHER PATROLLER
A skier on fire on the chair?
EXT. A BLACK RUN, ASPEN HIGHLANDS. CONTINUOUS.
On a black diamond, or a double diamond, Grace and Paul are skiing hard, matching each other’s turns and cuts. When Paul stops sharply, Grace pulls up and stops beside him.
GRACE
Show me the photo.
Paul takes off his gloves, unzips a pocket in his parka, and shows Grace the photo of Adam’s mom. Paul and Grace are looking at the photo when the drinkers pull up beside them. The drinkers are better skiers than we might expect, but they’re not as good as Grace and Paul; the one without a parka is freezing. To Grace’s dismay, the drinkers stare at the photo.
PAUL GOODE
(to Grace)
I don’t think your husband meant to give me the photo—he just wanted me to see who his mom was. Please give the photo back to him.
CLOSE-UP: the black-and-white photo of Ray in Aspen in 1941.
PAUL GOODE (O.C.)
She gave me her ski hat, and her sweater.
PULL BACK: Grace is zipping the photo into her parka.
PAUL GOODE
Under the circumstances, I was smitten—I loved her sweater, even her hat. I wore them until they didn’t fit me. I never threw them away. During the war, my mom gave them to a girl who worked in the kitchen at the hotel.
GRACE
(she pushes off)
Okay, okay—I get it!
Paul gives her a head start before he goes after her. The drinker without the parka is shivering and shaking; he starts to moan. The drinkers push off—not trying to keep up, just to survive.
ADAM (V.O.)
Grace said my father was reprising his role as the getaway driver in The Wrong Car—Paul Goode was imitating the cocksure confidence of the little driver.
In black and white, from The Wrong Car—in the getaway driver’s apartment. The door opens, the woman with the baby carriage pushes the carriage ahead of her as she comes inside, the door key clenched in her teeth.
On the bed, the moll tries to cover herself, as does the little driver. The woman wheels the baby carriage up to the bed, staring down at them.
GETAWAY DRIVER
You coulda knocked, ya know.
EXT. STILL A BLACK RUN, ASPEN HIGHLANDS. CONTINUOUS.
Paul and Grace are skiing fast in a steep, narrow chute. They have to pull up and stop as they merge with a new trail.
ADAM (V.O.)
Grace understood there would be no sex with Paul Goode—only skiing.
Paul is talking again. We hear only Adam’s voice-over.
ADAM (V.O.)
The drinkers were gone. Paul Goode had stopped acting. His son had slept with his wife, but my father wasn’t going to sleep with Grace. Point taken.
INT. SILVER QUEEN GONDOLA, ASPEN MOUNTAIN. THAT SAME DAY.
In the six-person gondola, Adam and Matthew sit back-to-back, bent over their knees.
ADAM (V.O.)
What good are you, as a father, if you can’t be a good example? Matthew said we were in an egg—we were going to hatch, or be born, when we got to the top.
The FOUR OTHER SKIERS on the gondola are disconcerted by Adam and Matthew in their pretending-to-be-born positions.
ADAM (V.O.)
Matthew was the one who mattered, my father told Grace.
EXT. LOGE PEAK QUAD, ASPEN HIGHLANDS. SAME DAY.
Grace and Paul have the four-seater to themselves. Paul is talking as the chairlift climbs; Grace is nodding as she listens to him. Adam’s voice-over is all we hear.