A Sister's Secret

The silver Volkswagen Jetta snaked up the mountain road, maneuvering the switchbacks with ease. Despite Henry’s confidence behind the wheel, Ada still held tight to the door handle. He glanced over and gave her a dimpled smirk as they rounded the final corner leading to the resort.

“I still can’t believe you’ve never skied,” Henry said as he pulled into a cramped, snowy space between two trucks that was far too small to be within lines, but traditional parking lot rules appeared not to apply.

“I grew up in the rain,” Ada replied curtly, grimacing at the large flakes already covering the hood of his car. “Not the snow.”

“You grew up in Washington,” Henry corrected, carefully opening his door. Ada scowled as she wiggled out the barely open passenger door into the bitter, windy cold. “The snow is never far.”

“Spoken like a true Eastern Washingtonian,” she grumbled, trudging through a waist-high snowbank behind him in the direction of the resort.

“You know,” He called over his shoulder, grinning at Ada with his mega-watt smile and wiggling his bushy, dark eyebrows. “If you let yourself…you might actually have fun with me.”

Ada’s inhale caught in her throat. He had distinctly said have fun with me, not have fun skiing. The diction of the words was similar enough that the blowing snow sailing in front of her face could have caused her to mishear. That had to be the logical answer because there was no possible way Henry Harrison, her only sister’s ex-fiancé, could be implying that he hoped Ada had a good time with him, specifically.

“Are you coming?” He shouted, having already reached the outdoor line to procure their lift tickets. Ada hesitated, wondering how many hours it would take her to walk back down the mountain road, avoid being hit by all vehicles, and reach the little town at the bottom of the mountain where she had been able to get one bar of service when they stopped for gas.

“Adaaaaa.” Henry was now wildly waving his arms, his fluorescent lime green mittens drawing significant attention from all the parties approaching the ticketing booth around her. “Woohoo! Ada Anna Montrose!” Ada closed her eyes and swore in defeat because if there was one thing she could not handle, even more than spending the day learning to ski with her sister’s ex-fiancé, it was public embarrassment.

“I’m coming,” She hissed, marching up to Henry with hot, red cheeks that matched her auburn hair.

“Just checking,” He replied cheekily.

As they waited through the lines to obtain first, lift tickets, and then, rentals, Ada considered how she had landed herself in this situation at all. It had all seemed like a great idea when she agreed to Henry’s bet, four drinks in, at the arcade bar in Tacoma among their mutual friends. Henry had been a surprise addition to the night out, but that was the funny thing about long-term relationships that ended in a sudden, amicable breakup. There were no clear-cut rules on who got the friends. Although, admittedly, there was a clear rule on who got their own sister.

Ada was obviously on Evie’s side when her sister and Henry called the engagement off. Evie was just eighteen months older and Ada’s only sibling, and although their childhood had been filled with screaming matches, as adults they were the best of friends. Just one year apart in school, Ada and Evie’s friend groups had bled into each other over the years. Henry Harrison had come to know both girl's sets of friends quite well, ever since Evie had excitedly brought Henry home during her sophomore year of college at the University of Washington.

Which was why, when the group chat agreed to drinks at the arcade bar on Pac Ave on a Friday night at nine, and Evie bowed out due to a nasty cold she had caught from work, someone had decided to invite Henry Harrison.

“How do those feel?”

Ada snapped out of her thoughts and took an awkward step forward in the ski boots. “Are they supposed to be so tight?” She frowned, shuffling uncomfortably across the carpeted floor of the rental room.

“They should feel secure,” The rental associate with tattoos covering her hands and a black Burton beanie said with a pop of her gum.

“Like your ankles won’t roll around and snap on the hill,” Henry added.

Ada blinked. “Comforting.”

“Those will work,” Henry said to the associate. Ada glared at Henry and he winked back at her. The associate looked between them, popped her gum in her mouth again, and gave a thumbs up.

“Dope.” She raised an eyebrow at Ada. “Do you need to add lessons?”

“I’m teaching her,” Henry interjected.

“Right,” She said with a third snap of her gum, and a smirk. “Good luck. I’ll ring you up around here.”

After having to be practically carried up two sets of stairs in ski boots – why a rental shop catering mostly to amateurs would be in a basement, Ada could not fathom – she stood at the base of the bunny hill with skis in hand, a rented helmet and goggles atop her head, and a pair of borrowed snow pants a size too small covering her legs. Ada stared in horror at the mechanical rope with staggered handles carting tiny children a third of her age to the top of the far-too-steep hill.

“I’ve changed my mind. I’m not doing this,” She declared, turning to leave.

Henry caught her by the arm, and she was forced to meet his honey-colored eyes pleading for her to stay. “Will you trust me?” He asked calmly. He looked annoyingly professional in his personal set of skis and matching grey snow pants and jacket, and Ada’s body betrayed her with a nod of her head.

On their ascent, Ada fell off the tow rope twice much to the delight of the giggly children around her, but Henry patiently skied off the tow rope trail both times, helping her upright and instructing her on how to get back on. When they finally reached the top of the bull hill, he skied around to face her with his back to the bottom of the hill.

“You’re going to ski down a hill backwards,” Ada deadpanned.

“I am,” He confirmed with a smile.

“You are actually the worst.”

“I know.” Ada held back a laugh as Henry pointed to her skis. “Now, the first thing you need to know is how to slow yourself down and stop.”

“Sounds important.”

“You’ll position your skis in the shape of a slice of a pizza.”

“A slice of pizza.”

“Ada.”

She sighed, adjusting her skis to look like a triangular slice of pizza. He then gently pulled her over the crest of the hill to begin her descent. Ada held her breath as her triangular shaped skis bumpily skirted down the hill.

“To increase your speed, start to straighten them,” Henry explained.

“I don’t want to increase my speed.”

Henry threw back his head and laughed, while skiing backwards, which Ada found both insanely impressive, and irritating. “Alright, let’s start turning,” He encouraged, and Ada sputtered with fear as she began to pull her skis into the shape of a much more acute triangle in a wide right turn.

“There you go!” He cried. She skied over the slope gently and Henry encouraged another turn, and then another. “Big, wide turns help you maintain your speed. Never go straight down.”

“They go straight down at the Olympics.”

“Are you an Olympic athlete?” He asked, with that stupid dimpled smile again.

Ada did not have an opportunity to reply, because her glance up to Henry’s dimple and away from her skis proved to be a fatal mistake as the two pieces of wood strapped to her feet crossed over one another. Henry lunged to keep Ada upright, but four skis were quickly entangled in one another, and with a shriek from Ada and a “Shit!” from Henry, they were both on their backs.

“So, I am not, in fact,” Ada wheezed, wiping frigid snow from half her face, and looking over to Henry who was wincing as he attempted to sit upright. “an Olympic athlete.” Henry chortled as he sat up, his skis perpendicular to the sloping hill. Ada, fearing a broken ankle, remained on her back.

“You do this for fun?” She exclaimed, looking up at him.

“It’s my favorite hobby,” Henry admitted, smiling. “It’s the closest feeling I believe you can ever get to flying.”

“You could, you know, just book a flight.” Henry swatted at her shoulder and they both smiled.

“That was really good for your first time on skis,” He added.

“Liar.”

“I mean it,” He insisted, extending a hand to help her sit up. Ada eyed it warily, suddenly panicking over whether her hand should be in his. In the six years of knowing him, she could not remember after taking Henry’s hand. And why would she? He was her sister’s fiancé. Ex-fiancé, her brain reminded her. 

Ada ignored his hand and scrambled up to sitting on her own, her legs flailing briefly and her hip protesting at the angle she chose, but upright, nonetheless.

“Why did you invite me?” She blurted out, pushing the wavy auburn locks that had escaped her helmet back inside.

“Well, I didn’t invite you, per say,” He replied. “You lost a bet.”

“But why did you bet me?” Ada pressed, suddenly feeling quite warm despite sitting in a bunch of a snow on a cold hilltop. Henry bit his lip, and Ada noticed how his normally pale cheeks were rosy and with his goggles back on his helmet, those honey brown eyes practically sparkled in the sun. Ada’s heart thundered in her chest.

“Do you really want me to say it?” Henry asked, his voice lower and huskier sounding than normal.

“No,” Ada said instantly, shaking her head, picturing Evie cooped up in her Seattle apartment with a cold and takeout, clueless about her ex-fiancé and sister’s whereabouts. “Never mind.”

“Do you remember that dinner at Lowell’s in the market?” He asked softly, and despite Ada looking away, observing the elementary school aged child blubbering to his dad about hating skiing, she did indeed remember. “It was that unusually warm day in April.”

“I remember,” She whispered.

“Evie cancelled because of a last-minute client dinner, so it ended up being just the two of us.”

“Henry.”

“I knew, then. When we stayed for hours, talking and laughing.” Ada closed her eyes, remembering his tousled chestnut hair that day and the forest green button up he had worn. “I never laughed like that with her-“

“I can’t,” Ada said sharply, opening her eyes and finding his face inches from hers. She felt shaky and lightheaded. Evie was fading from her mind as his lips moved towards hers. He hesitated, his eyes asking the question his mouth would not. The smell of his cedar shampoo filled Ada’s senses, and she was taken back to that dinner in the market where they watched the sun set from their table and a soft breeze had blew that same cedar smell her way.

Ada pressed her lips against his, butterflies erupting in her stomach. She shifted her body toward him, moving off her hip and digging the edge of her skis into the hill, melting into his kiss when they both heard an abrupt snap.

They broke apart to discover one of Ada’s skis had released from her boot and was rolling happily down the remainder of the hill. She frowned, swiveling her head slowly from the runaway ski to Henry, who was fighting back laughter, his hand cupped over his mouth.

“I don’t think skiing is for me.”