The Possibilities: A Novel Read Free

works.
    “Are you okay?” I ask. I relate to the way emotions can manifest themselves physically.
    I put my hand on her leg, briefly. “You’re really good at this,” I say. “You always come through.”
    “It would be easier if he just answered some questions,” she says. “This is so last-minute. Don’t you know him or something?”
    “Yes, I know him,” I say, disappointed she didn’t appreciate my appreciation. “I know that he won’t do it if he says he won’t.”
    Our interviewee, Dickie Fowler, is the head of Breckenridge Resorts and he’s also a friend. Suzanne is his wife. They are in the process of getting a divorce. His call. I notice in divorces, when doling out the friends, the women get paired with the women—that’s just how it goes, though I honestly get along wonderfully with Dickie. We laugh and joke a lot, and we can be quiet together. He was supposed to be here to explain the increase in the price of lift tickets but decided the segment would be better without him. He’s smart. He knows that sometimes the way he comes across and the way he looks—his expression is coy and smug, like the rehabilitated men in erectile dysfunction ads—can make him unsympathetic. People are more respected when they say less, I’ve noticed, and he doesn’t say a whole lot in public.
    “You don’t want to just try and call him?” Katie asks.
    Her jacket is so white, her teeth too. The sun is bouncing right off the bright snow, making her clothes and veneers even whiter. I think to myself, It hurts me to look at you.
    “We’ll wing it,” I say. “I don’t really think people are looking to our show for a major analysis.” I tag on a laugh to soften things, but the laugh was a bit sharp.
    Lisa, Mike’s assistant (who has a passion for makeup), walks up to Katie, powder brush in hand, along with her black change purse full of beauty tackle.
    “Seven dollars,” Katie says with her eyes closed, rehearsing. Lisa moves the brush in upward circles over Katie’s face. “Ninety-eight to one-hundred and five—”
    “Jesus, that’s a lot,” I say. “And there’s no snow.”
    “No kidding,” Lisa says.
    “It’s not that big a difference considering the value,” Katie continues to recite. “For example . . .”
    We are half salespeople, half cruise directors. We need to “squeeze a chuckle” out of the disenchanted, to “heat things up” if they’re not sold on the cold. We need to sell the idea of freedom—exclusive, outdoor, extreme freedom. Get Outside! Be Extremely Free! It makes my job and my dad’s old one quite similar.
    My dad, Lyle, was VP of operations. After Breckenridge was bought by Vail in ’97 he helped the resort lengthen its grip—into gas stations, real estate, restaurants, hotels, retail, this show—so that all the profit went upstream, through the fingers, and back into the palm. I think of my seventy-three-year-old dad at my house now, most likely working on things that no longer involve him. The horse put out to pasture who has no interest in munching on grass.
    “The benefits,” Katie says again, now to me and not herself. “We’ll show them that a greater expense results in a better experience, and even a better life.”
    “That’s quite an equation,” I say.
    I can tell she isn’t sure if I’m being sarcastic or sincere, which must be hard for her. At work, I have typically been the happy sort, but this week during preinterviews a caustic side is crossing over, infiltrating my professional life. I’ve become stormy and difficult, mean and sad. If I was confronted with someone like myself I’d feel so sorry for them. Then I’d get bored by them, and then I’d hate them for their sad, sad story. Each day I start out wanting to do better, to be kinder. Each day I fail.
    Lisa, done with Katie, approaches like I’m a horse, letting me see her powder brush, a warning she’s going to touch me. I love when she fixes my makeup. I like being touched