Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A M A G A Z I N E • F A L L 2 0 2 0 56 hot tub with their unbrushed hair and left the propane on in his ceremonial yurt. Tickets affixed, they skate to the edge, where they have to navi- gate a steeper stretch before reaching the mellow slope below. "Yikes," says Kate. Her skis feel strange on her feet. She thinks of quiet mornings without chatter. She worries her mind will be the one chattering, without Frankie's voice filling up the space, talking endlessly of her rewired pleasure pathways, of how she feels drunk now when she smells a sunflower. Frankie drops in and makes for a rocky section. Kate goes the easiest way. At the bottom, they wait in line forever. The patroller was right. Some people can't do the Poma lift. They're too slow, failing to secure the disc between their legs before the pull gets too strong for them to hold on. When Kate laughs at particularly stupid attempts, Frankie cuts her off. "When you get older, you won't feel the need to judge everybody all the time," Frankie says. "We're the same age," Kate says. All morning they ski together. Frankie sticks to the bottom lift, which is the easier hill, and Kate doesn't feel brave enough to try the steep section. "Skiing in July!" Frankie keeps saying. "Can you believe it?" Kate wants Frankie to wipe out. Not just wipe out, but dou- ble-eject, slam end over end into the snow, bust a binding, even, so they can go home. "You think the meat's staying frozen?" Frankie says, around three. The lifts will run for another hour, and they're sweating. A river of snowmelt trickles down the hill. "Who cares?" says Kate. "She's not here." "You're hooking up with him, aren't you," says Frankie. She looks Kate up and down. "I can tell." "So?" "Okay," says Frankie. "Fine. But I'm not stupid." "Okay," says Kate. "What are you crying for?" "I don't know," Frankie says. "I cry when I'm pissed." "Are you into him?" "Of course not," says Frankie. "He's—I just want you to be careful." Kate decides not to tell Frankie about Steve wanting her to move out. Let Steve tell her about them. It's his house, after all. She follows Frankie under the cornices, over to the scary section where the snow turns to rock. She imagines herself plummeting down this narrow chute, walls of rock on either side. Her body still as her skis veer and slice beneath her. For once, she wishes she could be more like Frankie: bolder and louder. Kate remembers how, every time she was about to get wasted, her stomach would jangle, out of fear and excitement. This feels the same way. "I've seen you ski," Frankie says. "You can do this. Quit worrying all the time." "Gross," says Kate. Kate thinks of her gratitude journal, of how many times she's written Steve. Never once has she written Frankie. She takes a deep breath and points her tips down the fall line, surrendering to gravity as she flies down the chute, going faster and faster. There's no room to turn until it's too late. "Oh, shit!" Frankie yells from about twenty feet away. Kate's on the ground. Frankie is clicking off her skis, picking her way through the rocks toward her. Kate can't move. But nothing feels immediate- ly wrong, either. Soon, the patroller from before, but she can't seem to focus on him. She becomes aware of what feels like a large wet sticker covering the entirety of the underside of her chest, the part on the inside of her breasts, facing toward her heart. Positive energy pulses in Kate's knee, moves along her spine and up to her cranium and sticks there. The sun is a white emblem above her. A tiny pink spot of an insect, legs like hairs—an insect up here, in the snow?—climbed up and over individual hairs on her calf, a delicious prickling. She doesn't think about Steve. The taste of a DQ Oreo Blizzard comes to her, the last thing her grandma bought her. She loves her mother and her sister, even if she rarely sees them. She had loved her father, too, even though she hasn't seen him since she was five. She holds onto this love as the thunder takes her away. vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv Above, rhythmic thunder of helicopter blades, the sound of air whipped to a froth.

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