Daring the Ski Instructor

I was up on the ladder, halfway through a pine branch, when the door to the main hall banged open and somebody whistled at me. Not a catcall whistle, more the low appreciative kind you do at a fireworks show.

"That mural's going to save this lodge's whole reputation, you know," the guy said. "The owner told me an artist was coming but he didn't mention she'd be pretty."

I didn't even turn around. I hear that line about four times a year and it has never once worked on me. "That's sweet. I'm Maddie, I'm 34, and I'm busy, so you can watch from over there."

"I'm Phillip. I'm 36 and I teach people to fall down a mountain for a living, so watching is basically my job."

Okay, that one made me laugh. I looked down and there he was, tall, dark hair, wearing one of those puffy instructor jackets even though it was late October and there wasn't a flake of snow within a hundred miles. He had a face like he knew exactly how he looked, which usually annoys me, but on him it was almost funny.

I came down the ladder for a water break and he wandered over with his hands in his pockets, checking out my sketch on the drop cloth. The mural was a big alpine scene for the lodge's main hall, all peaks and pines and a clear sky, and it was maybe a third done.

"So do you put people in your landscapes?" he asked. "Or is it strictly trees?"

"Only if they're interesting enough," I said. "Most people aren't. They stand wrong. They smile like they're posing for a LinkedIn photo."

"Wow. Harsh. What makes a person interesting enough?"

"Bad posture. Good hands. Somebody who's actually thinking about something instead of performing for the room." I shrugged. "It's rare."

He looked at my mural for a bit. Then he said, super casual, like he was asking about the weather, "Bet you couldn't paint me from memory."

I snorted. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. One week. You look at me whenever you want, no photos, and paint my portrait at the end. I bet you'd chicken out."

"Why would I chicken out? I paint strangers from memory all the time. It's literally my job."

"Then it should be easy." And he grinned at me, this big cocky grin, and I should have walked back up my ladder right then. I know that now. But it was day one of a residency in a town where I knew nobody, and the slopes were empty and the lodge was quiet and he was fun to look at, so instead I said:

"Fine. But we make it interesting. If I paint you from memory and it's good, you owe me a case of that local craft beer, the amber one the brewpub does."

"And if it's bad?"

"If it's bad, I finish the rest of this mural in a bikini top. In front of the whole pre-season staff meeting."

He stuck out his hand so fast I almost laughed again. "Deal."

We shook on it. His hand was warm and rough from ski poles and he held on maybe a half second longer than a handshake needs. Then he got this look, like a guy remembering he left the stove on, and said, "Wait. One more term. If I kiss you before that mural's done, I win the beer either way. No painting required."

I should have said no. Let me be clear about that, I knew exactly the kind of game I was walking into. But I was thirty-four years old, single by choice since a bad ending at twenty-nine, and this was the most fun I'd had since I got to Copperidge. So I said, "Deal. But Phillip? Nobody's kissing anybody they don't want to kiss. Just so we're square."

"Fair," he said, and his grin got wider, and he walked out backward so he could point both fingers at me on his way through the door.

* * *

Day two, I was up on the ladder again at eight in the morning, doing the treeline, when the door opened and he came in carrying two paper cups.

"Don't say I never bring you anything," he said. "Coffee. The lodge machine is garbage, I got it from the diner."

I came down and took the cup and it was good, real cream in it, which meant he'd asked how I take it. That's a small thing. I noticed it anyway.

"So," he said, leaning against the scaffold pole, "did you dream about me?"

"Oh my god, you're one of those."

"I'm asking for research purposes. For the portrait."

"You have not been painted yet, so there's nothing to dream about." I sipped the coffee. "Besides, you haven't even posed. I need to see how you stand. You might stand terribly."

"I stand great. I stand for a living." He shoved off the pole and planted his feet, arms crossed, chin up. "How's this?"

"Awful. You look like a gym ad."

He tried three more poses, each worse, and I was laughing so hard I nearly spilled the coffee. The last one he did was just him, relaxed, weight on one hip, looking out the big front windows at the empty mountain, and he stopped performing for a second while he did it, actually thinking about the snow that wasn't there yet, and I thought, there it is. That's the interesting one.

I didn't tell him that. Instead I pulled out my notebook, the little charcoal one I carry everywhere, and did him quick, maybe four minutes, while he pretended not to watch me out of the corner of his eye.

"Are you cheating?" he said. "Is that cheating? No photos, I said!"

"Charcoal isn't a photo, it's a sketch. Totally different rulebook." I held it up. It was good and I knew it. The relaxed pose, the real face, not the grin. "See? From memory. Already."

He looked at it longer than I expected him to. When he looked up he wasn't grinning anymore, just studying me, like I'd shown him something he hadn't planned on.

"That's not how I look," he said finally.

"It's exactly how you look. That's the problem with you, you think you're the gym ad version."

"And what version is that?"

"Goofy. Freckled. Somebody who actually likes it here." I closed the notebook before he could look closer, because the sketch was a little too honest, maybe, and put it in my paint box.

He was quiet a second, which was new for him. Then: "You know, nobody's ever drawn me before. Not even my mom, and she kept everything."

"Well. Don't get sentimental on me, Talbot. It's day two."

"Wouldn't dream of it." But he stayed while I climbed back up and worked on the treeline, and he didn't talk much, just handed me things when I asked and drank his coffee and looked out the window. Every so often I'd catch him watching me instead of the mural, and when I caught him he'd point at the wall and say something like "lovely branch" like that's what he'd been doing.

Around noon he checked his phone and swore. "Staff meeting. Slope safety video, again, like I haven't seen it nine seasons."

"Go. I've got a mountain to finish."

He got to the door and turned around. "Hey, Maddie? That bet. You're not going to throw the kiss thing, right? On purpose?"

"Phillip. I have three years of mural work behind me and a reputation. If you want that beer case, you're going to have to earn it."

"Good," he said, and did the finger-point thing again, and left.

I sat on the top of the ladder and looked at my mural and thought about how I'd had more fun in two days with this guy than in the last two months of my actual life. Which was fine. It was a bet. Bets end.

Then I opened the notebook back up and added freckles.

Day three I took a lunch break for once, because the light on the far wall was flat anyway and my neck was killing me. I made a sandwich, saw Phillip's jacket hanging by the boot room, and heard thumping out on the deck. I looked through the glass and there he was on a yoga mat, stretching like his life depended on it.

I took the water bottles out with me. "You know there's no snow for a hundred miles, right? You're stretching for a mountain that doesn't exist yet."

"Skiing is a lifestyle, Harlow." He was in some kind of lunge, forearms flat on the deck, and he was sweating. "Muscles don't know it's October. Muscles know nothing. That's the whole point of training them."

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard a fit man say."

"Thank you." He came up out of the lunge and took the bottle I handed him and drank half of it in one go. "What, are you watching me stretch? Is that for the portrait?"

"It's reconnaissance. I need to know how your shoulders work."

"My shoulders work great. Want a demonstration?"

"Sit down before you hurt yourself." I pointed at the steps and we sat, me on the top one and him one below, which put his head about level with my knee. The mountain was all brown and gray and gold, no white anywhere, and the wind had that cold smell coming, the one that says snow eventually, just not today.

"So," he said, "day three. You've got four days left and I haven't seen a single canvas of me."

"I work in order. Background, middle, hero at the end. It's a mural, not a snapshot."

"Uh huh. Or you're stalling because you can't draw me."

"Or that." I bit my sandwich. "Honestly it could be that. You've got a weird face."

"I have a great face."

"You've got a face I've already drawn, so." I said it casual, but he went still for a second, and I thought, smooth, Maddie, real smooth. Then he let it go, which told me something about him right there.

We ate and watched a couple of ravens mess around over the lift towers. Then he said, "Can I ask you something? How long since your last real thing? Relationship thing."

"You first."

"Me? Nobody. Not really. I had a thing with a guest three seasons ago, she was here for a week, it was fun, it ended. That's my highlight reel." He turned the water bottle around in his hands. "Thirty-six years old and my longest relationship is with a chairlift. Nine seasons. It's a committed relationship. It carries me up a mountain every morning and never asks where it's going."

I laughed so hard I had to put my sandwich down. "Okay, fine. Five years for me. I was twenty-nine, his name was Daniel, it ended badly, and since then I've been single on purpose."

"Badly how?"

"Badly like he told my friends before he told me." I shrugged. "He met somebody else and instead of saying so, he just went quiet and let me figure it out at a dinner party. So I figured it out at a dinner party. In front of my friends. Wearing a dress I'd bought for the occasion."

"Ouch."

"Yeah, ouch." I brushed crumbs off my jeans. "So now I do murals and I move every couple months and I don't do the dinner party thing. It's worked out fine. Mostly fine. Some months."

He didn't say the thing guys say, the oh you just haven't met the right guy thing, and I could have hugged him for that. Instead he said, "Some months is honest," and drank his water, and we sat there in the cold sun like two people who'd known each other longer than three days.

Then he stood up and pointed at my paint-stained canvas bag. "What else is in the notebook? Can I see? You said no photos but I want to see what you do when you're not doing me."

"Oh, you want to see what you do when you're not doing you? That came out wrong."

"That came out so wrong." He was laughing. "You know what I mean. Your stuff."

I thought about it maybe two seconds, which was one second too many, and then I said yes anyway. "Fine. But you don't get commentary rights."

"Deal."

* * *

My studio is the little back room off the kitchen, the one they give the residency artists, and it's a mess because that's how I work. Drop cloths, jars of brushes, a space heater that sounds like a dying lawnmower. He came in and stopped and just looked around at the canvases leaned against every wall.

"These are all yours? You did all these?"

"Those are mine. Some are junk. Some are junk I