“I like hearing about it.”
“I like hearing about you, too, Ford.” She peeks up at me from under her hair.
“Well, then I have a confession to make.” She waits for a moment to see what I’ll say and I enjoy her attention. Her eyes sparkle a little and I look for that now. I crave it. It means she’s happy and I like seeing her happy. I’m looking for ways, words, things that will make that sparkle appear in her eyes. “I didn’t tell you the whole truth back in Vail. About why I never went to the funeral.”
“Are you going to tell me now?”
“Do you still want to know? It’s not a big deal. I’m not even sure why I left it out, other than I would’ve had to admit that my dad died in the avalanche and I didn’t want to do that with you right then.”
She nods enthusiastically. “I still want to know. I really do.”
“OK.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, Minturn is the town where he was laid to rest, you already know that because we went there. But there’s this out-of-bounds run on the backside of Vail Mountain, it leads to Minturn and it’s called the Minturn Mile. It’s three miles long, so don’t let the name fool you. It’s no Corbet’s Couloir, it’s a baby trail compared to that shit, but you know, it’s got its own set of challenges.”
I picture the ride up on the lift and the sign that says you’re leaving the in-bounds run and if you need a rescue, you better have a lot of money because there will be a bill. That memory is a little funny, but knowing that part of my life is over, that’s not fun at all. I suddenly know how Ashleigh just felt admitting that having her baby alone in a foreign country hurts. It’s hard. It’s hard to admit this stuff hurts.
“My dad and I did the Minturn Mile at least once a year. We’d take the lift up, hike over to the trail, and ski down to Minturn, then take our skis off and walk into town and have lunch at the local tavern. My mom always picked us up later. It’s kind of a Vail thing, right? A tradition. Something we do as locals, something people come and do when they want to pretend they’re local. So when the lawyers gave us his final wishes it said he wanted to be cremated and then buried in Minturn and he wanted to go down the trail one last time. It was a pretty big deal to set it all up, and like Mrs. Pearson said, everyone turned out for it. Everyone but me. The whole town was disappointed I didn’t come.”
I stop because I’m suddenly overwhelmed with shame that I missed it. My dad made his final request something special for me. Something we could share together, something that might give me a bit of pleasure. Something that might ease my pain.
And I missed it.
I ran.
“But you couldn’t bring yourself to do it, could you?” Ashleigh asks quietly.
My throat feels like it’s closing up on me and I have to clear it several times to make that tight constricting feeling go away before I answer. “I never skied again. I never went back to Vail. I just… left. I left my mom to clean it all up and took a job producing a game show in Japan.”
“When were you in Japan?” she asks, her eyes squinting down a little.
“On and off for the past few years. I started out there after graduation and they liked me. My weirdness never rubbed them the wrong way. I almost fit in there, if you can believe it.”
“So you and I were living in the same foreign country at the same time. And yet we met on a freeway in Colorado. Do you think that’s weird?”
That conversation I had with Rook at Coors Field comes barreling back to me. She got off the bus in Denver on a whim, so she could go to CU Boulder and study film like the guys who made South Park. The same school I went to.
I said fate and she said weird.
But I’m done with fate. “Yeah, it’s weird all right.”
We’re silent for a few moments. And then Ash kicks me under the table. “You know what’s really weird? The game shows in Japan! I can’t believe some of the strange stuff they do on TV there. What was your show called?”
I go from sad and ashamed to embarrassed as f**k in two seconds flat. “I can’t tell you,” I say, laughing.
She knows why because she’s laughing too. “Let me guess, it was Kiss Ass Roulette? And saying ass isn’t a spankable offense, because it’s a real show!”
“Oh, I know. Believe me, I know all the game shows in Japan. But no, that wasn’t it.” I have to lower my eyes and shake my head a little, that’s how funny this moment is. “I can’t even think about Japan without remembering those shows. When people look at my resume they think I’m making this shit up. But when they realize they’re real productions, they give me the job out of pity, I think. When I got the call for the HBO show in LA I almost couldn’t believe it. I really thought my career would end up being one long string of Japanese game shows or Shrike f**king Bikes reality TV.”
She laughs with me and then the food arrives and we sit back and wait for the plates to be served.
“Ford—” she says after the waitress leaves.
“Yes, Ashleigh.”
“You are a nice guy.”
Any other moment and I’d probably brush her off, but today I feel like a nice guy, so I just accept the compliment. “Thanks. I don’t try to be nice all that often, but it’s good to know I can put in an effort and it makes a difference.”
“You’ve made a difference to me, Ford. And even if we never see each other again after we get to LA, I’ll never forget you.”