The rest of the flight was awkward, to say the least. He relaxed a little once we were up in the air, but the same anxiety resurfaced when we landed with him praying out loud and then gripping the armrests with his eyes squeezed shut. It was an embarrassment.
The house we were staying in was situated in the mountains and allowed you to ski in and ski out of Yellowstone Club—a private ski resort that required no lift tickets. When we arrived at the house, the property manager greeted us and let us know that a woman named Martha would be there shortly to prepare our dinner, then showed us to the master suite downstairs. The kitchen was on the main floor, so I immediately went back upstairs to pour myself a drink. When I returned downstairs, my London lover who was scared to fly… was meditating.
Martha arrived and was singing as she prepared our food upstairs. She sounded overweight, so I went up to check out her body. I was right; she was overweight, but not in the way that made me feel felt I wanted to tackle her. When I came back downstairs, Benjamin was still meditating, so I called Lesbian Shelly in LA and asked her to let me FaceTime with Chunk.
“I guess that means things aren’t going so well.”
“Well, he’s scared to fly.”
“What do you mean, he’s scared to fly?”
“He’s scared to take off and land,” I whispered. “Like fists-closed-praying scared to fly.”
“Oh, my god.”
“And now guess what he’s doing?
“Crying?”
“Meditating.”
“Oh, no.” Shelly was laughing for what became an irritating amount of time. “Can I please talk to Chunk?” I asked her.
As I was midway through talking to Chunk in the annoying baby-talk voice I use with him, Ben walked in the room with a bottle of wine and sat down. Chunk was licking the screen on Shelly’s iPad, and I was kissing my phone. I said good-bye to Chunk and explained to Benjamin that after I saw him meditating, I decided to call my dog.
“Would you like a glass of wine?” he asked me.
Wine is completely wasted on me. It makes me sleepy and gives me a headache, but at that point either option was more palatable than what was happening.
“I think it’s rather cute that you were on the phone with your dog.”
I wanted to tell him that I thought it was rather cute that he meditated, but I would have been lying.
I was trying my hardest to get the negative thoughts out of my mind while he penetrated me, but it just wasn’t the same as when we were in London. I could deal with the meditation, but I knew we wouldn’t be able to get past the flying issue. I was very concerned about what kind of skier he would be, and I knew I would be turned off even further if he wasn’t better than me. I took a Xanax and went to bed.
The next morning he tried to wake me up at seven.
“I can’t get up now,” I told him. “I need to sleep more. You go ahead, and I’ll call you when I’m up and we can meet on the mountain.”
I don’t like to be woken in general, and I certainly don’t like to be woken up at 7 a.m. This is why I will never have a baby or borrow anyone else’s. Sleep is my friend and is the only place in this world where I don’t get into fights with other people.
I woke up around ten and grabbed an energy drink out of the fridge upstairs. Then I came back downstairs and put all my ski gear on. I felt quite independent getting my ski socks, long underwear, ski pants, and boots on all by myself. Usually I require some help in this department. I called Ben, who gave me instructions to take a hard right out of the house until I came to a run called Rocky Mountain Fever, then take that to the base of the mountain. Once there I would take the main chairlift up, and he’d meet me at the top of Rocky Mountain Fever.
“Do I just grab a lift ticket at the bottom?” I asked him.
“No, this is a private club. There are no lift tickets.”
“Right. Okay, I’ll see you in a little bit.”
I looked outside to see where the path was to get down from the house to the mountain and didn’t see any. No worries, I thought. I tossed my skis down the side of the hill, positioned my poles so that they were parallel to the snow, and slid my ass down the hill. Once at the bottom, I put on the knee brace that was required after my knee surgery, clicked on my skis, and I was off.
I’m pretty amazing, I told myself as I sashayed down the mountain. It was very unlike me to be this independent. Not only was I unafraid of skiing without a partner, I had no anxiety about being able to navigate my way around the mountain in order to meet up with Ben. I had my phone, my fearlessness, and two single Fritos I had stashed in my jacket pocket in case of an emergency.
As I passed others who were skiing together, I felt sorry for them for being so dependent on each other.
Once I was able to eye the base of the mountain and the main chairlift, I felt elated. I skied right down and made a sharp left to cut into the singles line. Single, sexy, skiing, and headed south, I thought. I saw the run at the bottom. Here we go. I’m doing it and living it. You go, girl.
When I had advanced far enough in line to actually board the lift, I shimmied up to a couple and asked if I could share their chair.
“Lift ticket?” the ski lift operator asked me when we got to the front of the line.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Lift ticket!” he yelled over the noise of the machinery.
“I don’t have a lift ticket. I’ve been skiing here for two days, and no one has asked me for a lift ticket.” That was a lie.
“I’m staying at.…” I had no idea whose house I was staying at. “His house is up there.” I motioned uphill. “He’s a member, and I’m his guest.” The couple I was hoping to tag along with had already moved onto the chairlift and and left me behind. People behind me in line were shuffling past me, realizing long before I did that my argument was futile, and without a lift ticket I was not getting up the mountain. In an effort to use my fame as a form of expression, I took off my safety helmet.
At this juncture, it dawned on me that I was humiliating myself. I dejectedly shuffled my skis in the opposite direction of the lift, through the skiers who were all in line to get on the lift (who all had lift tickets). This involved what is essentially referred to as cross-country skiing, something I loathe. Once I got to the back of the line, it was a pretty clear shot to the main lodge in sight. Someone there would surely be able to help someone like me.
Trying to maintain the day’s spirit of self-confidence and self-reliance, I reminded myself that I was a grown woman who could handle this.
I took my skis off and lumbered through the front door. “Hi,” I said to the woman at the front desk. “What’s the deal?”
“Hi there,” she responded cheerfully. “How can I help you?”
“Well, I’m staying at a house in Yellowstone Club and I was told we didn’t need any lift tickets here to ski. Is that correct?”
“I don’t really know. You’re in Big Sky.”
“What is that?”
“Big Sky, Montana.”
“Is that in Montana?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed, excited we were finally agreeing on something.
“And where is Yellowstone Club?”
“That’s a private ski club that is next door to Big Sky. I’m pretty sure it’s that way,” she said and pointed to her left.
I followed her hand and looked out the window, seeing nothing but skiers and snow. “Do you have any idea if I can ski over there?”
“Yes, I’m sure you can.”
“Do you know how I can do that?” I asked her very slowly.
The very nice lady found another very nice lady who gave me instructions on how to get back to Yellowstone Club.
“You can purchase an all-day pass or a one-lift pass. All you really need is a lift pass because at the top of this lift, you will need to bear left on Rocky Mountain Fever. It will take you through the woods and there will be several runs to your left, but don’t take them.”