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"That will be thirty-two fifty," the cashier said.
Sara was so blown away by the cost of two small bowls of chili and two coffees, she didn't notice Charlie pulling out his credit card.
"Oh, wait, let me," she started to say, but the transaction was done. Sara followed Charlie to the condiment station and joined him in adding sugar and creamer to her coffee.
"Spoon?" Charlie asked her and when Sara nodded he stuck a spoon in the bowl of chili on her tray.
"Thank you, and thank you for lunch. You didn't have to do that," she told him.
"No big deal, where do you want to sit?"
"Over there?" Sara said, pointing to the window. "Or by the fire?"
"I vote for the fire," Charlie said, leading the way. "I'm freezing."
Sara laughed and followed him. It was freezing, the high of the day was predicted to be five degrees. The night before, Siobhan had taken one look at the weather forecast and declared it to be a day for movies, bowling and the arcade. Josh and Siobhan had taken all the boys, as well as Charlie's daughter Molly and son Simon in Sara's minivan, the only vehicle that could hold eight people. They had insisted Sara ski since, "She was the only one nuts enough to want to go." Charlie had piped up that he was equally up for facing the cold, given the fabulous snow conditions and it was settled before Sara could think twice about it.
They had skied all morning, enjoying the great snow and the fact that there was practically no one on the mountain, and no lines. Finally at one o'clock, Sara had confessed her feet felt like blocks of ice in her boots and they had headed into the lodge. Now she sat down and loosened her ski boot buckles and pulled the tongues out of the boots. She cautiously wiggled her toes and decided to finish her chili before trying again. She pulled her glove liners out of her mittens and put all of her stuff on the hearth. Charlie did the same with his ski gloves. After they finished the chili, Sara pulled some leftover Halloween candy out of her coat pocket and offered it to Charlie.
"Oh, boy, it's frozen solid," Sara said. "Sorry."
"Don't worry about it," Charlie said, reaching into his own pocket and pulling out his phone. "I really should check in with the office. Do you mind?"
"No, go ahead," Sara said while Charlie poked at his phone, scowling.
"No bars here. I'm going to try over by the window."
"Okay. I'll be here," Sara said.
Charlie left her and Sara piled all the trash on one tray and slid her tray on top of Charlie's. Then she picked up her warm glove liners and slid them on. She wrapped her hands around her coffee and tried wiggling her toes again. This time they burned when she did it, which meant they were warming up. A cafeteria worker reached down in front of her and slid the trays to the side.
"Oh, thank you," Sara said, absentmindedly. She had her hands wrapped around her coffee and was enjoying the extra heat seeping through the glove liners.
"He doesn't appreciate you," said the cafeteria worker.
"What?" Sara said, startled. She looked up just as the guy pulled out the chair next to her and sat down.
"Your husband," he said, gesturing over to Charlie. Sara looked and saw Charlie leaning up against the window listening intently. "He doesn't appreciate you."
Sara was too confused to reply right away. The lunch trays were still there, shoved further down the table. Sara looked at the man, er kid. She noticed he didn't have a name tag, like every other worker in the building. Now that she looked at him, he looked like a skier, but she still didn't understand what he was talking about.
"You're really beautiful, you know," the kid said.
"Um, thanks," Sara said, raising her guard up a notch.
She wasn't too modest to admit she could still look pretty good, on a good day, providing she had had enough sleep and the time to put some effort into it, but she seriously doubted she looked anywhere close to beautiful right at that moment. Her hair was in braids and matted down from being whipped with blowing snow and wind all morning. She hadn't bothered with any makeup and she had enough experience skiing in sub-freezing temperatures to know her face was probably a blotchy red mess.
"Look, we don't have much time," the kid said, looking over at Charlie again. Sara followed his gaze and saw that Charlie was looking out the window with his back to the room gesturing emphatically with his free hand. Sara felt something—Fondness maybe? —but before she could figure out what it was the kid was passing her a business card. Sara picked it up without thinking about it. It had his name (Andrew) and his phone number, as well as an address.
"I go to UNH," the kid told her.
"What are you majoring in?" Sara asked him, then felt ridiculous. She didn't know what to do with the card.
"Psychology, but I think I'm going to switch to Communications next semester. Look, that doesn't matter. The important thing is that I have plenty of time free during the day. So, you know..."
"What?" Sara asked. She turned the card over, but there wasn't anything on the back.
"You should put that away," Andrew said. "Where he won't find it, then you can figure out your schedule and call me and come down to UNH and we can, you know. Have some fun. Together. I promise I'll appreciate you. Not like him."
Oh. Dear. God.
"So," Sara said slowly. "I take your card. I call you, then I come down to UNH and um, have sex with you?” (I can't believe I'm saying this) “When your roommate is in class or something? Is that what you’re proposing?"
Cause that really can't be it, can it? Please don't let that be it.
"Oh no," Andrew said. "I rent a house with my friends. I have my own room. No roommate. Very convenient."
"Shouldn't you be in class right now?" Sara said abruptly, realizing that the college spring break wasn't until March.
Andrew shrugged. "I'm not that into class, like I said, I'm going to switch majors. Oh shit, your husband's done. Hide the card. Call me. Or text, or e-mail. I promise you won't regret it. I mean, look at him," Andrew said. "I think he's making another call. This is your vacation, right? I wouldn't do that to you."
"No, because you don't have a job and probably never will if you spend all your time in college trying to hook up with women way too old for you," Sara thought. But to Andrew she just said, "It's his job."
"I know," Andrew said pushing back the chair and getting up. "But you should still be his highest priority. Always."
Damn the kid had an answer for everything. "Call me, soon, okay beautiful," he whispered in her ear and Sara shivered, which she instantly regretted because Andrew probably thought he was turning her on (Ew!) not creeping her out.
Sara stared at her coffee while she waited for Charlie to come back. She was pondering whether she was going to have to talk to Rob before he went to college about how deliberately targeting older married women was a bad idea, no matter how badly he wanted to get laid (she groaned out loud just thinking about that) when Charlie came back.
"You okay?" he said.
"Oh, yeah," Sara replied. "Just feeling my age."
"Oh, me too," Charlie replied. "My knees and my back. They ain't too happy with me. You want to ski more or are you done?"
"No, I want to ski more," Sara said, relieved he misunderstood. "If you do, that is?"
"Yeah, let's do it," Charlie said, grabbing his gloves from the hearth.
They bundled up and went outside. Once their skis were on they skated right onto the chair. A minute later Sara realized Charlie was talking to her and she hadn't heard a word.
"I'm sorry, what?" she said.
"You okay over there? Frostbite reach your brain?" he replied, but she could tell from his tone he was teasing.
"When you were on the phone," Sara said, and then told Charlie the whole story only leaving out the fact that she thought Andrew was preying on what the kid perceived were Sara's insecurities and why did he think Sara was so insecure as to fall for such a ludicrous proposal, which was having the rather ironic effect of making Sara feel pretty damn insecure.
Charlie found the whole thing hysterical and was roaring with laughter.
"What did you do with the card?" he finally choked out.
"I still have it," Sara admitted, laughing.
"Oh, so you are going to call him then?"
"No, I'm not going to call him!"
"Oh right, e-mail him then?"
"No!" Sara yelled, swatting at him with her free hand.
"Hey," he said. "We're on the lift. That's not safe," he said with mock seriousness.
They were almost to the top and they raised the bar and skied off. They stopped to adjust their poles and boots and took a second to decide what trail to go down.
"Keep the card," Charlie said, when they were just about ready to go.
"Why?" Sara said.
"We could have some fun with it. Set the kid up with, um, a transvestite hooker."
"Oh, do you have one in mind?" Sara said. The minute it was out of her mouth she wondered how Charlie would take it, but he just laughed.
"No, but how hard can it be to find one?"
"A little hard, I would hope. I know we could send him a...paternity notification. I have his address."
"Oh brilliant," Charlie said. "I could have one of the corporate lawyers write it up. That would freak him out."
"You can do that?"
"Of course. Teach that punk to proposition my wife."
Now it was Sara's turn to laugh.