Crazy Blood

Chapter Thirty-Five

In the afterglow, they lay splayed and panting. Wylie lolled his head for an unforgettable view of April’s moonlit buns protruding from a sheet. He pictured skiing down one. What a fall line that was. Looking out a high window, he watched breeze-scrubbed stars flickering in the sky. His Saber Fives stood propped against the wall, gleaming slightly, and Wylie thought he had everything in life he wanted. He crawled over and lay alongside April. She told him their lovemaking had allowed her to successfully image a back-side double-cork 1080 she was thinking about trying for the first time at the Mammoth Cup. It had never been landed before in a USSA competition, though there was an Austrian girl, nineteen, who had done one late last season in a FIS-sanctioned event. It would all come down to amplitude and good conditions. She had landed it in her mind just now.

Wylie fished his pants off the floor, opened his wallet, and handed April a neatly folded piece of white printer paper. “I wrote this for you.”

She dropped her jaw histrionically and widened her eyes. “A poem?”

“A haiku.”

“I love Japanese food!” She scrambled back against the headrest and pulled up the comforter. Unfolding the paper, she flattened it against her raised thigh and glanced once at Wylie. Then she read the lines out loud in the dry whisper of voice that he had come to love:

She read it again to herself. “It’s beautiful. The rhythm keeps its weight forward, like a boarder down a slope. It’s about courage in dark times and me nailing that back-side ten-eighty! And winning gold medals!”

“Precisely.”

Wylie’s phone rang. He swept it from the nightstand, sat up, and saw a restricted number.

“Yeah?”

“The south parking lot holds a reason for you to take me seriously.”

“Damn you, Sky.”

Wylie looked to the curtained south window and saw a faint glow beyond the fabric, something small and round, like an orange wrapped in gauze or a distant campfire. He ran to the window, threw open the curtains, and saw the MPP roiling in flames in the parking lot below.

He told April to call 911, jamming into his jeans and a hoodie and a pair of shearling boots. He took the stairs down to the living room three at a time and ran to the front door. By the time he got to the MPP, the flames were high and bright, the smoke was black, and the smell of burning gasoline and resin was noxious. He threw open the propane hatch at the fore of the trailer and knelt to unscrew the fitting. He could feel the heat thrashing around him and smell his hair burning. When the fitting came free, he wrestled out the tank and flung it far into the lot. On his knees, he unhitched the trailer from the truck, then stood and backed away from the coiling heat to dig the truck keys from his pocket. It seemed to take much more than enough time for the truck gas tank to blow. Luck held. From the driver’s seat, he could see the flames leaping in the rearview as he jammed down on the gas pedal and the truck screeched free, swerving on the slushy asphalt.

He got the fire extinguisher from the crew cab and charged back. Rounding the trailer to the windward side, he crouched and blasted away. It was a blessed standoff, flames versus retardant, and he saw there was true hope, but then the extinguisher huffed and spit and dribbled out, while the fire redoubled and took back lost ground.

April ran with a swaying bucket toward the MPP until the heat stopped her. She stepped back, braced, and heaved. By then, neighbors were spilling toward the MPP, some with buckets, some with extinguishers, one man dragging a garden hose in one hand and clutching a goblet of wine in the other. The hose stretched only partway, so the man stopped, arched the stream high, turned his head away from the fire, and drank some wine. Wylie saw the breeze-blown water droplets angling down ineffectually into the inferno.

An older woman shoved a small red fire extinguisher at him and he took it, wading in as close as he could get, then pulling the pin and blasting a load of retardant against the glass of a porthole. But he saw that the porthole glass was broken and the fire was raging inside the MPP. In the brief moment of chaos before the flames jumped back at him, Wylie saw the beautiful interior birch walls curling in the heat, the maple cabinets and table engulfed. Lying on a bench and still folded was the blanket that Jolene had given him, now ash black at its center, with its edges limned in orange-red, like a huge marshmallow left too long in the campfire. Wylie dropped the canister and backed away into the stink of his own burned hair, pawing at the pain on his neck. A wave of cold water crashed against the back of his head, and Wylie turned, to find April holding an empty white bucket.

“Outta the fire, Wylie!”

“Sky did this.”

“Out!”

“It was Sky.”

“I believe it. I believe it.”

April pulled him away from the trailer, the fire now burning with a proud, percussive roar. Wylie wrenched free of her and stripped off his sweatshirt, running back into the conflagration, flapping at it uselessly as the fire unfurled at him and the flames licked his skin. Hands pulled at him and forced him back. He lost his footing and was borne away from the heat and into the wails of sirens and the rhythmic flashing of lights.

Soon the paramedics were there, but Wylie stood them down, wouldn’t get into the van, batted away their well-intentioned blue-gloved hands. Shivering, he struggled back into the hoodie and zipped it clear to his chin. “Christ, guys, I’m okay. Let me be.”

He watched the firemen swarm in with backpack extinguishers, waving clouds of retardant at the fire. As the flames shrank and sputtered, the MPP seemed to deflate, so that when the fire was out, it just sat there, nothing more than a small black shell from which rose random heat waves and thin coils of smoke.

“Excuse me just a moment,” Wylie said to no one in particular. He squeezed April’s hand. “Should move my truck out of the way, don’t you think?”

He trot-skated across the lot, shivering and lifting the hood over his head. He could feel the burn on the back of his neck and hands, but the rest of him was soaked in icy sweat and water. His knuckles jumped with pain as he dug out his truck keys. He started it up and guided it cautiously over the slick asphalt, saluting April through the window. When he came to the road, he turned left and goosed the gas a little, bound for Sky Carson’s condo.

Nobody answered Wylie’s knocks, so he stepped back, gathered his will, and crashed through the door. Inside, he hit the lights, barreled into an empty bedroom, threw the covers back to make sure Sky wasn’t buried down in them. The idea came that he could burn the place down, tit for tat, but there were neighbors and it would be much worse than foolish.

He barged into Slocum’s and checked the bar and the back dining room, where Sky liked to hunker, but there was no Sky. Sliding on the snow and ice, Wylie sped over to Cynthia’s place, but Sky’s Outback was nowhere in sight. Cynthia’s pale face appeared in a window, backlit and ghostlike. Wylie stood on her porch, teeth chattering but dripping sweat, patches of his skin brightly hot, hair stinking, feeling as if his brains might scramble permanently.

“Sky burned my trailer to the ground.”

“A simple apology is all he asked for.”

“You Carsons can all go to hell.”

“In due time.”

“It’s not going to work like this anymore.”

“He’s trying to be true to his word.”

“You’re all fucking crazy.”

“So don’t push our buttons.”

Wylie slid his truck out of the lot, just about lost it when he hit Minaret, but mustered the self-control to downshift and plow his way safely up to Mountain High. A first-big-snow party was in progress, the street crowded with cars, the circular drive full. Wylie parked behind another truck and Croft met him at the door.

“Wylie. You look, like, burnt up.”

“Sky here?”

“No. And neither are your sisters.”

“I’m going to come in and look.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“Don’t press me on this one, Croft.”

“Don’t you make me look bad.”

The great room was packed with people and smoke. Music and voices wrestled. Wylie shouldered his way through the crowd to the kitchen, then to the downstairs theater, where Chasing Mavericks was playing. He was given a wide berth. On floor two, he went from room to room where the stoners were clustered, saw the bongs and little canisters of coke going around, the glazed eyes and idiot smiles, two people giggling under a bedspread with a flashlight, and a couple making out in a bathroom whose door was only half-closed.

Wylie hustled up the stairs, to find Helixon himself waiting atop the third-floor landing. The window on his glasses reflected the light in a compound, insectile way as he looked at Wylie. “Sorry. This is the forbidden floor.”

“Give me Sky or I’ll throw you down the stairs.”

“He’s not here. Don’t know why not. But I swear to God he’s not here.”

Looking past Helixon, Wylie saw a long hallway and closed doors. “What do you do up here?”

“Pursue happiness. If Sky was here, I’d give him up. Go.”

At April’s, Wylie showered and washed his burns lightly with soap and water. The backs of his hands and fingers were the most painful — the skin pink and the hair burned mostly off — but no blisters. He finished with a cold-water rinse that sent shivers to his bones. After the shower, he and April sat in front of the fire, Wylie facing the flames, stripped down to his jeans so April could swab his burns with aloe vera. She brought him a large iced bourbon. She cut back his scorched hair so it was off his neck, then brushed more aloe gel onto his nape, blowing gently to help it dry. The gel went on cool and cut the pain. Wylie felt ambushed and fooled and primed for violence. He felt her cheek on his bare back and her hands on each shoulder. Her voice was soft and light. “Sergeant Bulla said you can come in tomorrow and answer some questions.”

“Okay.”

“He asked if I had any idea who did it. I said no.”

“Good. Right.”

“Are you going to tell them Sky called and what he said?”

“I don’t know yet.”

She rubbed his unburned shoulders for a good long while, hands small and strong. The fire lilted and popped. Her fingers brushed his chest and flanks, and the edges of his abs and the waistband of his jeans. He closed his eyes. “Should I just forgive him, you think, April?”

“It’s all you can do. He’s troubled. There but for the grace of God, and all that.”

“I’ve forgiven him before. A thousand times. But finally, you are what you do. You are what you do. And you are responsible for it.”

“We’re not given equal things.”

“Isn’t that a bottomless excuse?”

“To be met with bottomless forgiveness. You can afford it, Wylie. You’re more fortunate than he is.”

“But it’s my trailer that my got burned to nothing.”

“You’ll get another one.”

“There was only one MPP,” he said, taken aback by his own pouting lameness. Wylie felt her fingers tracing S’s down his back, one fingertip on his left side and two fingertips in close parallel down his right, miming their run down Solitary, that second run they’d made, when they knew the mountain enough to relax and move together, then apart, then together again, as the run demanded. “I had this out-of-nowhere idea that you were the one who bid the twelve grand on eBay. For the MPP.”

“Oh, really?”

A beat of silence while her fingers rode down his back again. He felt his goose bumps rising, tiny moguls on the course. The fire was hot on his face and chest and the aloe was still cool.

“It was going to be your Christmas present, Wyles.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

“Why not? Tell me why I can’t help your family have a roof and give you back something you loved?”

“It seems wrong. I know I’m being a stupid prick, but I can’t help it.” Wylie had never in his life felt this divided but pigheaded at the same time.

“I have something to say.” She spread her hands across his thighs and dug in her thumbs, kneading the muscle. He felt her face and breath warm on his back. “We can stay in this house through the Mammoth Cup. We’ll train all day, then lock the doors and draw the blinds and be together. We’ll eat good food and get lots of rest. We’ll read and watch movies and you can write as good as Rexroth. After the cup, I’m off to Aspen, then Europe for the FIS circuit. You will podium here in Mammoth and do well at the X Games, and make the World Cup tour, too. Adam so wants to sponsor you, to make it real for you. Now listen, it gets better. We can see each other on the FIS circuits, Wylie. There’s some overlap at the venues. And a little time between contests. And when we’re competing, we’ll kick butt from one end of the tour to the other. We might fall sometimes, but we’ll help each other even if we’re apart, and we’ll get up again and win medals and fight our way into the Olympics. We can do this. We can have each other and the world, Wylie. I believe it. I can taste it.”

It was abruptly illuminating for Wylie to hear his Olympic goal analyzed in this clear, direct, can-do way. To have it sound possible. To consider a future tied to hers. To this April Holly. And it was wonderful to be nudged through the forest of his own doubtful pessimism, as if her hand were on his elbow. “Well. It...”

“Well it what?”

“Sounds impossibly good.”

“Impossible? Banish that word from your vocabulary! It is your enemy. You win from within, correct? So we must live from within, too. I’ve seen you ski. I know what you’re up against and what you can do. You have the tools. You have a gift. So you’re right about this plan being good. Our success will give Beatrice and Belle a chance at something bigger. And when we’re done with the competition, we’ll open a ski and boarding school right here in Mammoth. I know Adam will help. He adores you. With our Olympic medals, we’ll draw students from all over the world. They will flock to Mammoth Lakes. They’ll buy their coffee and pastries at Let It Bean. I’ll teach the boarders and you the skiers and we’ll have babies and teach them, too. And we will gradually become plump and wrinkled by the mountain sun and we’ll start repeating ourselves in conversation, but we’ll be happy and together and nobody will ever, ever, ever be able to take it away.”

A long moment passed. “I’m speechless, April.”

“Step up to it, Wylie!”

“I think we... could do it.”

“What does your heart say?”

“It says we can.”

“I know we can. You have to believe in it. Everything follows from belief. Nothing exists without belief being there first.”

“I...”

He felt her warm cheek on his back, her fingers walking his waist around to the front. His belt tightened, then went slack. He heard the dull pop of pant studs and felt cool air coming in. Brain and body on scramble.

April sighed. “Oh — just FYI and by the way, I made an offer on this place this morning. Cash, short escrow, low end of asking. Realtor says it’ll probably go. I love it here. It will be our home on this mountain.”

“You scare me.”

“I scare me, too. Such a wonderful thing to do. I’d never dreamed of scaring myself until I met you, Wylie. It’s like you got sent here by God. To undo my straitjacket.”

“I make you crazy?”

“You just let me bean.”

“Hmmm...”

“But serious, too. We’re good for each other in different ways. You let me be free and I help you believe. You keep everything in and I let everything out. We’re a good, good fit.”

“I think I like it.”

“He thinks he likes it. Thinks. Well, at least you’re cute, Wyles.”

“Never been accused of that.”

“Want to, like, celebrate? Maybe on that fake bearskin rug?”