Mr. Wonderful (2 page)

“What are you doing here?” I blurted out. The clumsy way he moved his feet told me the answer. He couldn’t ski either. I covered my mouth with my mittened hand to hide my smile.

“I never said I could ski,” he panted. We were close to the top when he stepped on one of my short skis with his.

“Sorry.” He tried to steady himself by putting his hand on my shoulder. When Hans noticed us teetering back and forth, he took a few expert strokes over to help us. But before he got there, I jerked my skis out from under Brandon’s and the momentum sent me downward. I gasped. This was not the way to learn to ski.  It was like throwing someone who couldn’t swim in the pool and hoping they’d swim to the surface.

Fortunately, I remembered to keep my skis pointing inward, and crouching very low, I snowplowed unsteadily down the slope. Brandon wasn’t so lucky. He shot past me with his skis parallel, completely out of control.

“Alison!” he shouted and then he was gone, narrowly missing crashing into another class at the bottom. He sailed along and finally coasted to a stop at the snow machine. When I reached him he gave me a proud smile.  He should have been proud. He hadn’t crashed, he hadn’t hurt anyone and he was still in one piece.

After we rejoined the class, Brandon didn’t seem to be able to concentrate anymore. He kept looking at me instead of Hans. Distracted, I moved closer to Hans so I wouldn’t miss the instructions. I was determined to learn to ski. It wouldn’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.  Or that’s what the say anyway. The morning flew by.

“What did you think?” Brandon asked as we were taking off our skis and boots at the lodge door.

“About what?” I looked up at him with a boot still in one hand.

“About the class,” he said. “You seemed very interested in Hans. I don’t think you could have gotten much closer to him.”

I wished I could see his eyes behind the goggles. I decided he couldn’t be serious. “I have a weakness for that Nordic type,” I kidded. “It’s the tan and the electric blue eyes. Actually, I’m a great skier. I just come up here to take classes because of the instructors. I always ask for Hans.”

Brandon pulled his goggles off and laughed. “You’d better be kidding,” he said. “I was coming down that hill to rescue you.”

“Sure you were.” I looked up at him and my heavy boot slid out of my hand and fell on his stockinged foot. He doubled up in pain.

“I’m so sorry,” I said retrieving my boot.

 Leaning on my shoulder, he hobbled up to the deck. “I’m fine,” he assured me. As we waited for lunch, I massaged his foot and his ego, complimenting him on his form as he tore down the mountain.

Then I told him about life in the slow lane at the college where I teach remedial English and I study beginning French.

Big bowls of hearty chili arrived at our table smelling delicious.

“Now it’s your turn to talk,” I said, digging into my food.

“Thanks a lot,” he said, grinning. “I’m hungry too. But I get equal time after lunch. You’d better eat fast. I can feel all my muscles tightening up on me again.”

“I’m just curious,” I said between bites, “how many other women have you wound around your finger and conned into giving you a foot massage?”

“You’re the only one,” he said innocently.

“How come?” I asked.

“The others broke my heart, you’ve only broken my foot.”

I shook my head and let him have the last word. We ate in comfortable silence. Afterwards we pushed our chairs back from the table, propped our feet up and took off our jackets to let the sun warm our aching bodies.

Touching lightly, we shared an arm rest. His hand covered mine. I closed my eyes and felt sublimely happy, sore muscles and all.

“It’s your turn,” I reminded him, “to tell me the story of your life.”

“Not now.” His voice seemed to come from far away. “I can’t even remember where I was born.”

“It’s probably the altitude. I’ve felt a little strange myself,” I confessed.

“Weak in the knees and out of breath?” he asked.

“You too?” I asked.

He nodded. “Especially when I’m coming down a slope at fifty miles an hour.”

I laughed. Suddenly, he let go of my hand. I sat up quickly and saw Phyllis and Roger coming toward us, giving each other I-told-you-so looks.

“So here you are.” There was a note of triumph in my sister’s voice.

“Just waiting for you,” Brandon said smoothly. “We thought you’d never get here.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. Phyllis’s face fell. I was proud of Brandon for playing the game so well.

“Roger,” I said, jumping up, “you should have seen me, I’m really learning to ski. At last. Finally.”

“As long as you stay on the bunny slopes.” Brandon’s voice came from behind me.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to see your boss ski,” I said loudly to Roger. “But maybe you heard him yelling ‘yahoo’ as he came crashing down the slopes.” When I turned around Brandon raised his hand to me in a touché gesture. Phyllis started biting her lip and hustled us into the car. At least the smug smile was gone from her face. I did feel a little guilty knowing how much she wanted to pull off this arranged match between Roger and me. I was sure in was in for a little sister talking-to when she got me by myself. But who knew how it would turn out? A nice weekend and that’s all, probably, with my luck. 

When we got back, my sister prepared her beef bourguignon, and I made the salad dressing. While we were in the kitchen, she threw me a few penetrating looks, but she refrained from asking any questions. We talked about the food, that was all. We were all ravenous.

After we’d mopped up the last of the sauce with our rolls, emptied the bottle of red wine and sat back, I said, “I’ll do the dishes. Any volunteers?” The silence was deafening: Phyllis looked at Roger, but he shook his head slightly. Brandon looked up at me inquiringly, and I stared back, silently willing him to offer. I didn’t care what they thought anymore.

He got up slowly. “I’m even better at dishes than skiing,” he said, carrying a stack of plates into the kitchen.

Brandon washed and I dried. There was no rack, so he handed me each plate after he’d washed it. With the third plate he didn’t let go. I looked up, and while soapsuds dripped on the floor, he bent over and kissed me. His arms went around me, or I might have slid to the floor and dissolved with the soap bubbles.

“Alison,” he whispered, “the plate.”

So that’s what was dripping behind my back. After he set the plate on the drain-board, Brandon put his arms around me again. He kissed me swiftly as if I might dissolve into suds too, then he put his arms on my face and looked into my eyes. I felt his heart pounding through his sweater.

“I feel fibrillations,” I murmured. “Is that your altitude sickness again?”

Brandon’s hand found the small of my back, with his other hand he traced his finger around my mouth. “It might be something more permanent. I’ll have to see how I feel back at sea level.”

“You maybe completely over it by Monday morning,” I suggested, trying to prepare myself for his ultimate departure out of my life forever.

“I was fine until I met you.” He took off his glasses and put them next to the dry dishes. “You’re responsible.” His warm lips on mine sent shivers up my spine and he held me tighter.

“What about you?” he asked finally in a low voice. “How do you feel?”

“Kind of strange,” I confessed. “It started last night, right after you got here.”

“Hmm, I think you’d better get to bed early tonight,” he prescribed.

“What about you?” I asked.

“I’ve had an exhausting day. I’m going to finish the dishes and I’ll be up.” He gestured toward the living room. “They’ll understand, won’t they?”

“Only too well, I’m afraid,” I said with a helpless shrug. I could picture my sister gloating over her success in matchmaking when really there was nothing to gloat about.  Not yet.

Brandon put his glasses back on, and his eyes were round and innocent. Then he said loudly, “Good night, Alison. See you tomorrow.”

He didn’t know my sister, if he thought she’d buy that! I tiptoed into the living room. Phyllis was hunched over the checkerboard, and Roger was poking at the smoldering fire. Neither one looked up when I mumbled, “Good night.”

I staggered up the stairs to my room, feeling strangely dizzy. I was standing in the dark at the window watching the fir trees wave back and forth in the swirling snow when I heard Brandon thump up the stairs. This time he didn’t knock. He found me in the dark and put his arms around me.

“This has never happened to me before,” he whispered.

“What? Coming to the wrong room twice in one weekend?” I asked innocently.

He chuckled against my hair. “Alison, they told me all the wrong things about you. Nobody told me you’d make me laugh or lose my balance. I never know what you’ll do next.” He took a deep breath. “Of course it was a big disappointment to find out that you couldn’t ski very well.”

I smiled in the dark. “But I’m a fast learner. Doesn’t that count for something?”

A large thump on the roof shook the house. We looked out the window.

“The wind must have blown a limb down,” Brandon said.

“What should we do, get under the bed?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

“You’re thinking of an earthquake,” he said. “The safest place in a snowstorm is actually
in
the bed.” He stroked the back of my neck.

I never got to answer because Roger shouted, “Oh, no!” from the living room. I flung the door open to look down the stairs on clouds of thick smoke billowing from the fireplace. Phyllis was opening windows to clear the air. Roger was standing next to the chimney with a poker in his hand, a bewildered expression on his sooty face.

Brandon went down the stairs three at a time, and I wasn’t far behind.

“What happened?” I shouted as Brandon looked into the belching fireplace.
“I don’t know,” Roger confessed.

“The chimney, Alison.” Brandon grabbed my hand and pulled me back up the stairs. By leaning out the window we could see that a limb had fallen on the chimney cap and smashed it down against the chimney, forcing the smoke back into the house.

“Roger, come and help me,” Brandon yelled down the stairs. He opened the window and snow and wind blew through the tiny room. Brandon bravely crawled out and onto the steep roof while I stood by not knowing what to do. Roger arrived in time to hold Brandon’s feet as he lay flat against the roof and inched his way to the chimney. Phyllis stood behind me, breathing hard.

“I can’t look. Tell me what’s happening,” she said.

Finally we heard “Got it!” from Brandon. Roger braced his feet against the window frame and hauled Brandon back in. He landed on the snow-covered floor, and immediately wiped off his fogged-over glasses. I beamed at him, resisting the impulse to throw my arms around him, and we all ran back downstairs to find that the fireplace was drawing normally again.

Roger stoked up the fire and then went to wash up. Brandon went upstairs to change his clothes. After my sister and I had aired out the house, we plopped down on the sagging couch and gazed into the flames.

She leaned over to me and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? For what?” I asked in surprise.

 “For dragging you up here,” she said. “It wasn’t worth it, was it?”

“I’m not sure. What do you mean?” I asked, giving her a puzzled look.

“Well, it’s Brandon,” she confided in a. low tone. “He’s different up here. When I met him in the city and I heard all the women at Roger’s office were crazy about him, he wasn’t so—so out of place.”

“Out of place?” I echoed.

“I just meant that he can’t ski, and with those glasses he looks—” she paused.

 I glared at her. “Go on. “

“Never mind,” she said uncomfortably.

“Were you going to say that he looks like he wouldn’t risk his life on a slippery roof to fix a blocked chimney so you could be warm?” I couldn’t help sounding snippy. She wasn’t even grateful to Brandon and that annoyed me.

If Phyllis thought she could escape my wrath by staring at the fire, she was wrong. “Did you know that even though he can’t ski, he raced down a hill to try to save me today?”

“No!” she exclaimed.

“Yes. He can even wash dishes,” I said. It was no use. I couldn’t pretend to be oblivious to Brandon’s many charms any more.

She turned back to face me, her mouth open in astonishment, and I jumped to my feet. Before I made my dramatic exit up the stairs, I had to tell her one more thing. “You were right. Brandon is Mr. Wonderful.”

P.S. He really is.

THE END

“After just one date - - -

I’m ready to promise him anything!”

SMALL TOWN HERO

My sister’s voice was overflowing with disgust as she said, “When I told you to take a night class, I didn’t mean a cooking class. I meant something like the Science of Climate Change or Basic Car Repair.”

“But Sophie, I love cooking. Besides, this isn’t ordinary cooking, it’s oriental cooking. The teacher is just great,” I said defensively. But I knew what she was getting at.

“How many men are in the class, Kristin?” she asked.

“Several,” I lied. There may have been two. I wasn’t sure. I had been so intent on copying recipes and learning how to chop with a cleaver, I really hadn’t noticed. To my sister, whose life revolved around meeting men, it would have been inconceivable to go to a class just to learn something. She spent her waking hours thinking of activities that would bring her in contact with eligible men. Did she know that men are often great cooks? Probably not. My theory was that men cooked by instinct, without recipes or the benefit of classes.

My sister joined a hiking club. Why? Not to get exercise. Not for the view from the top.  Oh, no. She didn’t go to singles bars anymore,  though. I was glad of that. She said she wanted to meet someone with other interests than picking up women. That seemed kind of funny to me, since her main interest was picking up men.