nana. (inshallah) wrote in thecaldera, @ 2018-02-17 12:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! log, everett walker, nana qaradaghi |
WHO: Nana Qaradaghi and Everett Walker
WHERE: Beginner’s Luck Trail, Yellowstone Club, MT (map here)
WHEN: Afternoon of Saturday, 17 February 2018
WHAT: Someone put skis on Nana’s feet. It’s not going well, but boy howdy is Everett chuffed about it anyway.
WARNINGS: Grumpy swearing and some occasional need for insulin, I would wager.
At Bighorn, Nana thought with a certain amount of injury, the names of the beginner’s trails were made with a certain amount of charity in mind. “Chalet Road,” for instance, or “Sawmill Gulch” -- places, in other words, that held no judgement towards her skill level whatsoever. The Yellowstone Club, however, was another bushel of eggs entirely. Most of the green circle trails were, frankly, insulting: “Namaste,” for instance, or “Backtrack.” But the one that salted Nana’s proverbial wounds the most was the one she was on, weak Bambi legs and all: Beginner’s Luck. This occurred to her, of course, as she helplessly whizzed down the trail towards her fourth snowbank of the afternoon, attempting to command whatever coordination you needed to snowplow to a stop instead of the graceless fall that she knew was incoming in roughly thirty seconds. Beginner’s Luck her ass; for all of the meager lessons she’d managed to cram in the few weeks coming up to this trip, they were doing her no favors here. When she finally deposited into the fresh snow head first, her feet a tangle of rental skis the only thing visible, it almost felt a relief. Nana Qaradaghi was not used to being bad at things, of course, which explained her misery. She was, she maintained, a hot yoga person, a Pure Barre person, not -- this, all flushed face and sweaty underneath relatively unflattering ski kit, using a set of pointy sticks to shove herself out of something she should not even be in. As she sat up, a young child barely over the age of three sped past, a light mist of snow spraying in her face. She winced, blinking back tears for not the first time that day. She would not break. It was just skiing. Stupid, strange, slippery skiing. Instead, she gracelessly stumbled to upright as the man of the proverbial hour skidded to a far more graceful stop. She looked up to Everett, frowning. “Sorry. This is probably a bit boring for you.” Never in Everett’s many years of knowing Nana would he have ever expected her to accompany him skiing. Of course, it had always been more likely to be skiing than ice climbing or god-forbid snowshoeing, but none of the options had ever held any promise of actually happening. Yet here he was watching Nana bravely snowplow directly down the hill rather than moving laterally back and forth as was instructed, as though she actually craved this kind of adrenaline. To be clear: Everett knew better. He knew that she was miserable and he knew that she was furious, but he also knew that she was doing this purely in an attempt to make him happy- and so she had- and so that happiness would last until the next day when she would be lying in bed in muscle-burning agony and he was to blame. Until then, though, he would enjoy the day. He laughed at her comment as he placed his ski boot in front of her tip and reached down to pull her upright, her ski clattering against his binding in a foiled attempt to escape down the hill with Nana before she was ready. “How could I be bored watching speed demon Qaradaghi shredding straight down the mountain? I got footage of your spray when you hit that powder on my gopro. It looked sick,” he assured her, tapping the camera mounted to his chest. “Don’t patronize me, Walker,” she hissed, her disgusted glare at said GoPro hidden by her ski goggles. “If that footage sees the light of day, I’m encrypting a worm into it that takes a photo from the file holder’s laptop every time they sneeze.” An idle threat, of course; the only one who ever looked at that shit in their house was Everett, for reasons beyond Nana’s comprehension. He’d probably just pull it up in July while at work bored and giggle over it for five minutes before going back to a Halliburton contract. Still, Nana’s mortification did not stop at that simple fact. The idea that Everett was taping her humiliation was horrifying. Whatever! Anything for the birthday boy, even if that meant looking like an actual tool bag on flat blades. She looked down the hill (the gentle gradient, really), her scowl turning into a soft frown of legitimate apprehension. Based off of the curve in the path, she could tell that she’s skied more of this stupid path than not, but she wasn’t totally confident in her legs at this juncture. If the trail had been straight down to the lodge, it would be one thing. But the curve was a variable that twisted her off of the gentle back and forth rhythm that they’d advised her, adding another variable that contorted her understanding of her body in space. In short: Nana knew that curve gonna fuck her up. She stabbed her poles into the ground, shoulders squared as her expression sobered. Everett most likely knew this expression best from Intermediate Calculus: your days of taunting my incompetence are numbered. “Right. Let’s take this from the top.” In reality, Everett would probably review the footage in July to revisit how nice it had been to be out on the slopes with Nana for the first (and possibly… probably last time), but he didn’t protest her assessment that he was patronizing her. There was no point to it, and really it was unlikely she actually believed that he was. She was just expressing frustration at not being good at one thing… yet. Still, her apprehension didn’t escape him and he pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, leaving a line pressed into his skin where they had been sitting. “You want to do this one together?” he asked, with no explanation of the mechanics of that. He’d given a million lessons to kids by holding them up as they skied. There was no reason he couldn’t do the same with Nana other than the fact that she had considerably longer limbs. Nana mirrored Everett as she pushed up her own goggles, her skepticism now in full view. “Beg pardon, habibi, but what now? How do you ski side by side when you’re supposed to go…” and here, Nana began to mime the zig-zagging that she knew was supposed to be good technique. “I mean, I gather that this is something you are probably able to do with skill, but I’m lacking so I’ll probably plow into you.” She paused, staring back down the hill. “I mean, it’ll probably end in me bouncing off of you and you being fine, but still. I’m not sure how that works.” Everett shook his head. “No, you’re between my skis,” he said by way of very poor explanation then shook his head again and while being sure to continue holding her upright managed worked his way behind her in a gait that could only be referred to as a waddle to one of his skis on each side of hers. He propped a hand under each of her elbows. “Like this. I teach…” Little kids. Kids. “..beginners like this all time time so they can think more about where your legs are without worrying about staying up.” “This seems…” Nana looked down at their skis in tandem, back up as best she could towards the general direction of where Everett was behind her, and then back down at the skis. A high whine of ehhhhhh betraying her faith in this method slid out of the back of Nana’s throat as she stared at the expanse below. “... unwise at best, habibi. This feels like a recipe for two people dumping into a drift instead of one, hm? But.” But. She tilted her head, staring at the path ahead. To her periphery, she saw others – without a grown-ass man holding them aloft, just their own legs and sensible volition – drift on past. “Can’t be any worse than what I’m doing now and you netted ABRAXAS killer insurance, so what the hell.” “Wouldn’t be the first time I took a digger, Nana,” he said cheerfully. “Not even the first time this week,” he added before adjusting to do a demonstration. “I’ll tell you which direction we’re going to turn and how to do it before we get there. All you’ve got to worry about is what your legs are doing. When we are going to go left, you angle your right hip forward to cut the edge of your ski a little into the snow, to go right you use your left hip.” He reached forward and playfully pulled her goggles back down onto her face before doing the same with his own. “You ready?” Nana’s nose wrinkled as Everett snapped her goggles back into position, but nothing smart came out of her mouth. The gears were turning too quick to be snarky, and the gentle, almost miniscule movements of left to right – to test the concept in her head before application – was proof. “Yallah, Everett. Down the hill we go, hm?” And down the hill they went and at Everett’s cue they began to cut a smooth and graceful arc to the right, then again to the left, powder spraying dramatically to the sides of them when they cut a turn regardless of the fact that they were going slowly and steadily down the gentle grade, arcing back and forth toward the bottom of the hill and the upcoming curve that Everett had timed to coincide with their last turn to the left. Nana didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until about the third swoop down the hill, when it came out in a stuttering puff that tried to curl into her goggles and fog them all up. By then, it almost felt as if she could understand what pushed Everett to call off work and squirrel off into the mountains, why he’d begged her for a solid year and change to join him until he finally shrugged it off with the bleary resignation of a man defeated, why one of the first stories out of his mouth all those decades ago had been Bighorn, Bighorn, Bighorn! over someone’s pilfered beers. It was almost there, understanding this big why of a person that figured so hugely into Nana’s existence, as they sliced down the path. There was a certain amount of gentleness to downhill skiing, apparently, when you’re not actively fighting to find where the core of your balance needed to sit. Not in speed, of course, which began to mount as Nana’s small flame of confidence grew. The gentleness sat in the gesture, in the lean from one leg to another, in how the economy of movement made these confounding bits of wood and fiberglass helpful vessels somehow. The further they loped, the straighter Nana’s posture grew from the hunched, defensive anticipation of failure that had characterized most of her experience on the trail thus far. Maybe this wasn’t so bad. Maybe she was getting a hang of this, after all; maybe there was something to be said about these lessons she was taking, and Everett’s little bit of guidance was just the last little bit she needed–– And then Nana’s hubris met the flattening of the grade as the chalet came into view, and everything – Nana, Everett, and the fleeting grasp of Getting The Appeal of Skiing – clattered apart as Nana’s balance was wildly demolished despite every attempt to keep her upright. A fall could have been predicted, but Everett had predicted it would happen sooner in their ride down the slope, so he’d become complacent by the time he felt the clack of her ski against the side of his binding. Shit. He tightened his grip on her and attempted to pick her weight up off of her skis but it was too late and the the quick-release on her binding snapped the ski off, sending it careening into a snow berm and sending them what could only be described as ass-over-teakettle into one just a few yards down the mountain in a tangle of limbs and with skis and poles littering the snow around them. Everett was already laughing when they hit the snow and continued, spitting snow between chuckles and taking off his glove to wipe at the lower part of his face that had been unprotected by his goggles. “That went pretty well!” One of his skis slid past, looking surprisingly resolute on its solo journey down the slope. In turn, one of Nana’s skis followed suit, their former wearer wiggling helplessly from her position in the drift as Everett continued to quake with laughter. But her wiggling was half-hearted; for a few minutes, she even stopped entirely as Nana breathed – well, not in the drift so much as around it, her face mostly (mercifully) tucked outside that cold, wet dune. There was the soreness of her body itself as she hit her limit, of course, but nothing stung to Nana more than being on that precipice of almost understanding something and having it cruelly – and, frankly, embarrassingly – snatched away. It was a good thing she had goggles on, because crying over spilt sport was incredibly stupid. Eventually, she wiggled into something resembling a fetal position on her side; the one ski she still had on made her leg flop helplessly enough that Nana finally erred on the side of fumbling to free herself from the binding rather than fuck with it altogether. It slid towards its mate as Nana went limp again, gauging if she could talk yet without betraying how frustrated she was right now. So she tried, to varying degrees of success: “I think that… I’m done for the day.” With one final wiggle out of the Gordian knot that was their crash, Nana began to tend to her poles. Those, at the least, was something that she could handle. Everett had squirmed loose of the pile of snow and after ejecting his own second ski, begun collecting the various paraphernalia that had scattered across the snow. Upon succeeding, he reached down and helped Nana to her feet and put his arm around her before starting the awkward waddle that only ski boots could induce toward where their skis had come to rest. “It’s starting to get cold anyway,” he said agreeably. The fire in the members’ lodge roared in its enormous stone hearth, hot and luxurious. Ordinarily, Everett spent most of his post-shred time in the public lodge with the rest of his skill class drinking local beer and reliving the sickest wipe-outs of the day, but Everett was at least intuitive enough to know that after Nana had gone out on a limb for him to even be there, that she likely wouldn’t appreciate the bro rundown. He had shed his ski boots and a layer and gone to gather drinks while Nana had done the same, so by the time she settled by the fire he was already walking toward her with a double hot toddy for Nana and an ice cold Hopzone for himself. He placed the warm drink in her hands and plopped down on the hearth next to her. “So what did you think?” he asked, probably knowing the answer, but hiding the glimmer of hope in his eyes behind his pint glass. She took the hot toddy quietly, gaze measured as she stared into the flames. It was a loaded question, unfortunately; Nana knew, as her eyelashes fluttered down and she dropped her focus towards sipping her drink, that there was a certain amount of hope in Everett’s heart as he pressed his inquiry. Not that she could really understand why, given the circumstances – there was a friend hoping that you shared yet another thing in common, and there was… this. But then again, there were a lot of things Nana was beginning to have trouble parsing nowadays. Everett’s sincere hope that she, of all people, would genuinely enjoy this beyond the lark of doing this for his birthday would be another inexplicable blip to tuck away and possibly forget. Didn’t he already have some snow bunnies to fulfill that deficit, anyway? No matter. The man asked her a question and she’d answer it as best she could. Nana shifted on her sit bones, her knees rising from crossed legged to tucking underneath her chin, eyes still on the fire as she continued to sip her drink. “It was… difficult and foreign. But it helped me understand you a little better.” She paused, before tacking on, almost shyly: “That part, it was nice.” She continued to stare off into the fireplace, hoping it would help as alibi for the splotchy heat over her cheekbones and on the tip of her (mercifully hidden) ears. “Interesting enough to keep on with Marion’s lessons, for now. We’ll see if they stick, hm?” That was enough for Everett, really. It had been clear that Nana had been struggling with the control that came with increased leg strength, but it was also clear from her tone that she wasn’t really enjoying herself. The only part of her answer that had been easy for her to say was that it had helped her understand him, but that was no reason to keep torturing herself was it? “I hope it didn’t bring you to understand that I’m crazier than you thought,” he said cheerfully before attending to more beer and leaning back against his hand to keep the heat from the fire from burning his skin. “It’s okay if you don’t want to do it anymore Nana,” he added gently. “I was surprised that you did at all,” he said before adding “pleasantly!” hastily. Everett’s stammered addition only earned him a gently arched eyebrow; less from surprise and more to keep him on his toes, frankly. But his reassurance moved Nana – literally, in this case, as she shifted in degrees to face him, incrementally allowing herself to accurately reflect her focus. She took her time in responding to him, electing to stare up at him instead, her gaze as languid and careful as it was with the fire as she sipped her toddy at length. For all her salt, she really couldn’t hide her fondness in her eyes. “It contextualizes the crazy I already know you possess,” she said finally, the warmth in her tone unencumbered by its usual sardonic bite, “and helps me understand that this helps you clean proverbial house. It allows you to connect with something that mystifies you on a primal level when most things do not.” Her gaze flickered down; she drank more toddy. “It is harder to find moments when you’re able to access that understanding, the older you get.” A pause, before Nana’s usual sardonic lilt came back to color her words: “Besides, I do whatever the fuck I want, Walker.” Everett’s hands came up in mock defense, shielding himself from her final statement and he laughed. “Far be it from me to try to stop you! I know better than that, but...” he trailed off, considering his next words. “I’m happy that you tried- are trying. Thank you.” He knew that this endeavor had been for him. She knew that this endeavor had been for him. It didn’t really need to be spoken for him to know that he should thank her, but he also didn’t want her to think that he needed her to keep at it in order for him to be perfectly happy and more than grateful enough, stubborn as she may be about continuing. Her eyes crinkled as the smile traveled up and warmed her whole face, and Nana reached out to stroke his cheek a little. “You’re welcome, habibi. Happy birthday.” She lingered there a moment, before dropping her hand to pick up her drink again, a snort punctuating the next sentence from her mouth. “Besides, if you think that I will ever shred a ridge? You are mistaken, hm?” “I’m mistaken a lot of the time,” he said, laughing and raising both shoulders. “But maybe we’ll leave the Ridge shredding to Marion.” His eyes fell to Nana’s dwindling beverage and he slid himself off of the stone hearth, putting his glass on the mantle. He walked around to peer over Nana’s shoulder into the mug to be sure. “I’ll get you another one,” she was going to need it when her muscle fatigue started kicking in. He leaned down and kissed her chastely on the cheek then pushed her hat playfully down over her eyes before heading back toward the bar (scurrying the first few steps to avoid any retribution). |