A Little Too Late (Madigan Mountain)

REED

What a surprise—room twenty-five is a dank little cave, and it smells like weed.

But I’m so overwhelmed that I sleep for ten hours, anyway, waking up at eight a.m. underneath the Star Wars comforter I’d removed from the upstairs linen closet of my childhood home. The cheap bedsprings squeak as I swing my legs over the side and sit up.

And to think I’m staying at a luxury resort which is somehow worth eighty-two million dollars.

Eighty. Two. That’s a ridiculous valuation. I sat through dinner with Dad and Melody last night, trying to simultaneously rationalize that price and pay attention to the conversation.

And then I came up here and fell asleep thinking about it.

Something doesn’t add up. The hotel just isn’t big enough to support that price. And we only own the land under the hotels. The mountain itself—and the ski trails—are on a ninety-nine-year lease from the State of Colorado.

Today I’ll have to get to the bottom of this. But first, a shower.

I get up and cross the freezing-cold floor to the world’s grossest little eighty-two-million-dollar bathroom.

My brother Weston is silent for a long beat after I tell him what I’ve learned. He isn’t a fan of mine, but I’d insisted that I needed to speak with him.

And now either I’ve lost the connection or I’ve stunned him.

“Could you repeat that?” he says over a crackling phone line. “Because I swear you just said eighty million dollars.”

“I did say that. In fact, I said eighty-two.”

He curses. “And you’re actually there? In Colorado?”

“Yeah, man. I’m looking at the peak right now. The ski patrol is doing a training clinic.”

“They better be the best ski patrol on Earth for that kind of scratch.”

“Exactly.” I stand there, phone to my ear, hiking boots in the snow, wondering where Weston is right now. He’s a warrant officer in the army, and his whereabouts are sometimes a state secret. I’ve learned not to ask.

Of course, all the Madigan boys are champions of not asking each other’s secrets. After my mother’s death, we all closed in on ourselves, manned up, and dealt in the best ways we knew how. For me, that meant all A’s at school and then throwing myself head first into the high-stakes world of venture capital.

To Weston, that meant learning to fly dangerous machines and shoot stuff.

To our little brother Crew, that meant flinging his body off every cornice and terrain park in the known world. He’s a superstar of adrenaline sports. At least according to the latest TV coverage.

“I’ve got to go,” Weston says. “Is that all?”

“Basically. You’ve made it clear that you don’t care about this place,” I say. “But I thought you needed to know what’s happening.”

“Yeah that’s…wow.”

“Come join me here if you want to see this place again before it’s sold. Dad’s new wife makes excellent cookies.”

“You know I’m not doing that.”

“You could, though.” I kick at the snow with my toe. “The deal can’t go through for a few weeks. And I’m going to be here a few days longer than I planned.”

“Not my problem,” he grunts. “Not yours either. Go home if you want. Let him sell. What’s the difference?”

I gaze at the mountain peak against the blue sky, and I take in the scent of pine and wood smoke. “This deal doesn’t make sense to me. There’s something I’m missing. The property valuation, plus the franchise value… Maybe you’d get to twenty or thirty million dollars. So where are they getting eighty-two? Unless the lodge is on top of a diamond mine.”

Weston snorts. “So what? Let them have it. Makes no difference to me.”

I still need to understand. That’s just how I’m built. I hate the idea of someone taking advantage of us just because I can’t be bothered to show up.

Even though I often can’t be bothered to show up.

“It’s your funeral,” Weston adds.

“So you’ve said.” I turn around to take in the resort, the smattering of condos on the hill behind it, and the ski lifts. “The place looks great, though. There’s a new quad chair—the kind with heated seats.”

“Oh, we’re catering to wimps now?”

“Apparently. There’s a new spa, too. The kind where they rub scented oils into your body and massage your feet.”

“But no new condos, right? Or rental units? That would explain the fat price,” my brother points out.

“No, of course not.” Madigan Mountain reached its building capacity in the nineties. My parents ran into several roadblocks—including the road itself—when they considered expanding the hotel and growing the resort. “But everything looks shined up and perfect. Hey, Weston? Do you remember Ava?”

“Huh? Do you mean Ava who answers the phone when I call Dad? Or do you mean your college girlfriend?”

Well, that’s interesting. “What if I told you they’re the same person?”

“Wait, really?”

“Really,” I grunt.

“And you didn’t know?”

“Had no clue. Got the shock of my life yesterday when I walked into Dad’s office. Does she really answer the phone when you call? My calls go to voicemail every time.”

My brother bursts out laughing. “Jesus, Reed. I’ve been saying hello to Ava for years. Nice girl. I had no idea that was your Ava. How did that happen?”

“I don’t know. I was too surprised to ask her.”

“You better find out. That’s some bunny-boiling level weirdness right there.”

He laughs, but I don’t. Ava isn’t a stalker. And Weston has no idea what went down between us. It was a lot for two young people to handle, and I didn’t handle it well.

“Hey, Weston—have you heard from Crew? He didn’t reply to my text. I had a nice chat with his voicemail but I don’t think he even listens to it.” Our youngest brother doesn’t ever call Dad. Or us, unless we make him.

“Nah,” Weston says. “It’s been a while. I’ve got to run.”

Of course he does. It would kill him to stay on the phone with me for more than five minutes.

“Fine. I’ll let you know if I find that diamond mine.”

“Sure thing.”

“See you later,” I say. It’s our standard signoff. But we never actually see each other later.

Damn, I’m broody. Must be time for coffee.

I walk through the back door of the lodge, because it’s closest to the offices. But instead of heading for my father’s office, I turn in the other direction and enter the employee canteen. They serve coffee and pastries every morning. I used to eat breakfast here during ski season, especially if my mother was out on a snowcat somewhere grooming the mountain.

She loved that job. She loved to watch the sun rise from the South Slope with her thermos full of tea and her big, ugly work gloves on.

That’s how my parents met—she’d been working as a groomer for another ski mountain to pay the bills while she focused on her art. But my grandfather poached her to come and work at Madigan. “He got me for just fifty cents an hour more,” she used to say. “Plus his son. I was a cheap date.”

My father had married her within the year, and I was born ten months after their wedding day.

God, I used to hear that story a lot. If you looked up happy couple in the dictionary, you might have seen a photo of my mom and dad.

And then, when I was a senior in high school, my mother was diagnosed with a brain disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob. It’s kind of like the human version of mad cow disease, and it took months for the neurologist to figure out what was wrong with her. Nobody even knows how she got it. “I’ve never seen another case of it in my lifetime,” the doctor had said. “It’s too rare.”

But not too rare to blow up our family. We watched in helpless agony as Mom stopped walking, and she stopped talking. Her deterioration seemed to happen at warp speed, and, at the same time, it seemed to last forever. It’s so hard to watch someone you love suffer. I’ll probably never get over it.

Her smile was the last thing to go. And it took all our smiles with it.

The canteen is quiet. There are five or six ski-patrol team members seated around a table, drinking coffee. There’s only one person ahead of me at the service counter. I take a muffin and slide it onto a paper plate. Then I wait my turn at the coffee urn.

“Excuse me,” a woman says from behind the counter. She’s got a bandanna tied across her hair and a stern expression on her face. “The canteen is only for employees. Can I see your ID?”

“You could, but it’s at least a decade out of date. I’m Reed. It’s been a while since I pulled a shift on the quad lift.”

Her frown only deepens. “Do I have to call security? I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, here.”

“Deborah,” says a soft voice from behind me. “It’s fine.”

“Oh!” she says brightly. “Is he with you, Ava?”

I swing around, and there she is. The moment I see her pretty face, I feel it like a punch to the solar plexus. Hell, that’s nothing new. Every time Ava walked into my room in Vermont, it felt like a brand-new miracle. Together, we had everything.

Until the day we didn’t.

“He’s definitely not with me,” Ava says, her eyes flashing.

Oh, honey. I am sorry. I’m sorry all over again.

There’s a very awkward silence, until a woman behind her in line says, “Wow, Ava. Burn.”

Ava ignores her. She addresses the canteen worker instead. “His last name is Madigan, so he could fire us all over that cup of coffee.”

Deborah scowls.

“I won’t, though.” I smile at the ornery woman. “Promise.”

“As long as you promise,” Ava hisses.

Fuck. Everyone in the room is watching this little drama play out. And Ava has cast me in the role of the owner’s asshole son.

Which I am.

“If you don’t have an employee ID, I have to charge you,” Deborah says. “Five dollars.”

I’m fishing my wallet out of my pocket when my father comes galloping into the room. That’s not an exaggeration. He moves like a husky dog on the first day it snows. “Ava! You’re never going to believe this.” He skids to a stop in front of my ex. “The Sharpes are going to be forty-eight hours early for their meeting.”

“What?” Her pink lips part in shock. “They’re coming tonight?”

“That’s right. Just got off the phone.”

“Holy crap. What time are they showing up?”

“About six o’clock. Dinnertime.”

She blows out a breath. “Okay. We’ll do a welcome dinner in the Evergreen Room. And I’ll ask accounting and legal to reschedule for earlier in the week.”

My father beams.

“Oh good,” I say. “I can meet the buyer tonight and sit in on those meetings.”

They both turn to me, and the look on Ava’s face suggests she would rather have oral surgery than see me at that dinner.

My father doesn’t seem to take notice. “Morning, Reed. You’re welcome to come to the dinner.” Then he puts a hand on Ava’s arm. “We’ll huddle up in the Evergreen Room in twenty? I’ve got to tell Melody about the change of plans.”

“Sure,” Ava says, straightening her spine. “I’ll be ready.”

“I know you will.” My father gives her arm a pat and bounds out of the room.

“Damn it all,” Ava says. “I need caffeine.” She grabs a cup and fills it with coffee.

“Yes, you do,” the woman who came in with her agrees. “How about I run and find the chef for you? I’ll tell her that she needs to drop everything and plan the meal.”

“Oh, Halley, thank you. Send her to the Evergreen Room. That’s where I’ll be having my breakdown.”

Her friend laughs. “Two days early? Who does that?”

“They want to catch you off guard,” I offer. “See what the place is like when you don’t have time to prepare.”

She gives me a withering look, turns around, and leaves the room. I hastily fit a lid onto my coffee and then hurry after her. “Hey, Ava? Can I talk to you?”

“Now?” she shoots over her shoulder. “I don’t exactly have the time.”

“I know, but…” I follow her out into the hotel lobby where sunlight is pouring in through the tall windows facing the mountain. “We should talk.”

“Can’t think of why,” she says as I finally catch up to her long strides. Ava used to compete in cross-country ski races. Maybe she still does. “It’s been years, and I can’t think of what I’d even say. I’m over it, okay?” She pulls up short in front of a glass door marked Evergreen Room.

“Ava,” I whisper, putting my hand on the door to stop her from charging away from me. We’re standing closer together than we’ve been in a decade. So close that I can smell the apple scent of her shampoo.

It’s so familiar I feel as though I’ve just chugged a cocktail of sadness and longing. Memories are damn potent.

But Ava looks like she’s ready to spit fire at me. I deserve that.

The least I can do is say so. “Ava, I’m sorry,” I say gently. “I’m sorry for every dumbass thing I did when I was twenty-two.”

Her eyes widen dramatically, and I don’t miss the pain that slashes through them.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, I can’t make you. But you’re stuck with me for a few days. I’m sorry about that, too.”

Her pretty mouth opens and closes, as if she has no idea what to do with this bit of pure honesty.

So I reach past her, open the door, and walk into the room.