Standing at her post at the front desk, Glenda repeatedly blew her bangs up in frustration. She really needed a haircut, because they were periodically getting tangled up in her eyebrows. She could either cut the bangs or shave the eyebrows, and these seemed like equally viable options at this point. She should call home, she thought, because despite what Dale said, she imagined the lull at the front desk wouldn't last for much longer. She'd check in with Darryl, make sure the boys had gotten to bed at a reasonable hour, and then she could finish her shift with a clear conscience.
She looked at the sets of walkie-talkies Velcroed to the edge of the counter in front of her. If their black carapaces hadn't been there with their intruding modernity, she would have been able to look out across the lobby and imagine that she was looking into a space that was fifty years old. Even a hundred, maybe. At times like this, late at night, she could forget that there was a flat screen monitor posted on the overhang directly above her, cycling through the lodge's amenities and the current weather conditions, and fantasize that she was witnessing the opening season of the Deertail Lodge. The wood, of which almost everything in her view was comprised, still gleamed with polish, the upholstery relatively new but still adorned with the original, faux-Native American patterns in cool blues and greens.
She had used to be able to recall when the lodge had been built; hadn't they covered that in orientation? But even that had been years ago. All the little minutiae and theories about how the place was supposed to run had been overturned by the practical knowledge she had since learned on how to keep the desk working smoothly. Still, that half-forgotten knowledge lay over everything like a waxy film, until knowing that the ruts in the floor -- caused by wear from some of the overstuffed lobby chairs, also preventing the rearranging of the furniture for fear of exposing them -- made it less of a historical building and more a wooden arrangement of Stuff She Had To Deal With.
Sometimes if seemed her entire life was similarly constructed out of an elaborate, precarious arrangement of Stuff She Had To Deal With. Her job, Darryl, the boys, they were all parts of this vast network. She wouldn't give up any part of it, of course, but secretly she longed for a day when she could allow herself the luxury of kicking back and becoming part of Stuff Someone Else Had to Deal With. And an even deeper part, a set of dark twins, secretly acknowledged both how she would never allow that to happen, and how much she enjoyed her self-sacrifice, all in the name of making life even a little easier for those she loved.
Dale, of course, might have seen some of Glenda's secret levels if she let him. He overthought everything, and after all their night shifts together, she often wondered what would happen if she suddenly told him everything she thought, everything she dreamed. Would he be able to apply his particular brand of logic and attention to the untangling of her psyche? She kind of wanted to see if he could. Of course, she would never think of letting herself develop feelings for Dale (and true to form, that deepest part of her enjoyed the knowledge that she was actively withholding that from herself), but if there were anyone she knew who would be able to fully understand her, it would be him. He would probably be able to tell her things about herself that even she didn't know yet, but would immediately recognize.
Because she had been thinking about him, she almost jumped when he came through the lobby doors from the main entrance. Both inner and outer sets were closed at night to keep out the worst of the mountainside chill, but there was always a pocket of frigid air that drifted in alongside anyone who entered. Then Dale was scraping the snow off his boots on the wide swaths of carpet (which were replaced/cleaned three times a day, per regulations).
He looked up at her, smiling. She loved that smile. Dale dressed all in official blues when he was running perimeter checks, and seeing his face, wearing a smile that seemed different than the ones he gave anyone else, always made her night. He couldn't have been more different from Darryl, which was probably why she didn't even think to admit to herself that she had more than a passing fancy for the security guard. Tall where Darryl was almost exactly her height, strongly wide where Darryl had been farmer-scrawny his entire life, dark brown where Darryl was one of those pasty fellows who bleaches in sunlight. How could she have been attracted to this capable, confident man who was everything the one she had chosen as life partner was not?
Dale flipped his arm up, clicking his flashlight and zapping her accurately in the eyes with a double-flash, which was the sign for all-clear. Glenda half-heartedly threw up a hand to block the light. "I got it, Dale. No wolves, no storms. You've scared them all away. Good job."
He paused to scrape the snow off his boots a few more times as he crossed diagonally against the rug patterns to reach her at the desk. "No Harmon, either. Did he call in?"
Glenda shook her head. "Nope. I've been here with the walkies all along. Not a squawk."
"So we're guessing he made it down all right?" Dale had been in the lobby when Harmon had come out of the restaurant, a distracted, disturbed look on his face and his ski boots on. The racket of plastic on wood had drawn Dale's attention, because Harmon had happened to pass by in the brief interval when the rugs had been taken up, but the fresh ones hadn't been laid down yet. When it became clear that the old ski pro was intending to grab his coat and head out the front door, Dale had stopped him.
"Hey, Harmon, it's getting late, you know," the security guard had said.
Harmon had nodded without looking at Dale. His gaze was already outside with the snow. "I know, I just... I was thinking I'll go down into town, that's all."
Dale sighed in half-feigned exasperation. "Well, you won't have time to come back up tonight. You want me to call Mrs. Handy at the boarding house and let her know to expect you?" This scenario had played out enough times for Dale to know the folly of offering the elderly man a ride.
This comment actually drew Harmon's attention enough to get him to look at Dale. The ski pro was almost a full foot shorter. "Sure," he said, and tried to smile, but it looked thoroughly unconvincing.
Dale engulfed one of Harmon's shoulders with his hand. "Now, Harmon, we're not going to get reports of you trying to ski the backwoods down into town, are we?"
Harmon's brow furrowed, and he shook his head. Only a little less unconvincing, but it had been enough for Dale. It had been enough for Glenda, too, who had been watching the scene from her perpetual perch behind the front desk.
"Good," Dale said. "Enjoy your evening. But here." Dale pressed one of his walkie-talkies, which he always kept with him, into the ski pro's hand. "If you run into any trouble or need a hand, I'm right on the other end. Okay?"
This time Harmon's smile seemed genuine, if not still a little distracted. "All right, Dale. Thank you."
Dale clapped the older man on the shoulder. "No problem. Don't forget to fuck off, now."
Salty talk was guaranteed to get a chuckle out of the old man, Glenda knew, and Harmon didn't disappoint this time, laughing and shrugging as he turned to go out into the elements. Secretly, she loved hearing Dale say things like that, too.
Harmon picked up his coat -- which he must have left in one of the lobby chairs before taking care of whatever business he had in the restaurant -- and shrugged into it as he headed for the door. Neither Dale nor Glenda were really concerned about him; the man had spent the last seven years hanging around, holding his liquor admirably and bringing local character to the place. The owner had even kept a permanent room open for him. It was really just a converted maintenance closet under the massive main staircase, but it was free of charge, and this was the place Harmon seemed to want to be. The arrangement was due to the shared history the two of them had, although no one seemed to know exactly what that was.
Now, almost an hour later, Glenda said to Dale, "Yeah, he must have made it down. I tried to hail, but got nothing. He might have turned it off."
"I'll call Mrs. Handy and see if he checked in," Dale said. "I bet he just didn't want what Carlos and Benny were serving tonight. Decided to maybe have a slice of Mrs. Handy's pie instead."
Glenda couldn't help but giggle and blush, even though she knew no double entendre was intended. Mrs. Handy sold pies as a side business, along with running the town's boarding house. But something about the way Dale said it... She knew he was offering to track the old man down because he thought Glenda was overworked. He often commented about how dedicated and underappreciated she was. It was one of the many things she liked about him. "No, it's fine," she said. "I'll call down. He's probably had dinner and is all wrapped up in her warmest bed by now."
It was a half-hearted lobbing back of the innuendo, implying that Mrs. Handy and Harmon had some kind of geriatric romance going on, but Dale looked like he wanted to pounce on the desk phone, to keep her from dialing. "No, no, I'll... don't worry about..."
They had known each other far too long for her to play like she couldn't tell something was wrong. "Come on, Dale."
The big man licked his lips a bit, as if debating whether he was going to tell her, then gave up when he saw the steely look in her eye. "Okay. He didn't take the car down. I saw some boot tracks, so I followed them back to the equipment shed. He took his skis. Probably about ten minutes ago."
Glenda didn't get it right away. "He... he skied down into town? After he said he wouldn't?"
Dale nodded, leaning heavily against the front desk now that the charade was over. "Looks that way. I don't know why he did that. But then again, he was acting strangely before he left too, wasn't he?"
The thought that anyone, not to mention an elderly man, would start a trek down the mountain, away from the roads, at this late hour sent a chill through her, even if that person were as experienced as Harmon. Her only solace was that it was clear and the moon bright tonight, so it would be a relatively easy journey for a seasoned pro. "What do you think would possess him to do something like that?"
Dale shook his head. "Don't know. But I'm thinking I should hop in the car and start down the driveway, just to see." ("Driveway" was what they called the winding seven-mile long downhill road from the lodge to the tiny town below.)
"Good idea," Glenda said, too concerned about Harmon to consider that would mean she would be deprived of Dale's company during the midnight hours. It was almost eleven-thirty already, wasn't it? She had sort of hoped that it would be one of those quiet nights when they could just hang around the desk chatting for hours.
She turned to glance at the grandfather clock, whose solid presence she always turned to, even when she was constantly working on a computer that had a digital clock right in the bottom corner. In some way, the time never seemed truly defined to her if it wasn't shown on the thick, filigreed hands of the ancient upright timepiece. Now, as she looked at it, she could see that the silently sweeping second hand looked... strange. She narrowed her eyes a little, and Dale followed her confused gaze to the clock facing them from the side of the main staircase.
That second hand... it was if it had widened to double its usual thickness. It wasn't until it overtook the minute hand that she realized what was happening; it was vibrating, being shaken into buzzing back and forth so quickly that it could barely be registered by the eye. And then she heard the chandelier overhead start to rattle. The sound of crystals clattering against each other, and the metal frame of the chandelier itself, almost formed a chord so complex that her stunned ear registered it as beautiful.
She and Dale looked at each other in comprehension for just a moment before the lights went out.
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