April 1993 Colorado
As the bus rumbled on, coming ever closer to the tiny town of Snowy Mountain, Juliana sighed and stared out of the window. It was six years since she’d left. Six years since the fight with her mother that had sent her life on a careening course, bouncing from California to New York, to Alaska, and now back home to Colorado.
She could still hear her mother screaming at her and she closed her blue eyes against the images flooding back. To say she hadn’t thought about the fight would be inaccurate. Juliana had thought about it a lot, although never in the immediate expectation of seeing her mother in a few hours. It was making her jittery.
The Shining, by Stephen King, lay open on her lap, facedown so the picture of a psychotic Jack Nicholson stared at the world with mad inked eyes. She sighed. Perhaps she should have chosen a happy story to while away the hours on the bus. Then she might be in a good mood when she saw her mother and things might not explode. Again. Would she still be angry, even though it had been so long ago? Probably. Emily Bailey wasn’t one to back away from a fight; heaven knew, she was a stubborn old bird. She had had to be.
The bus turned left at an intersection that looked new and continued, heading to the smudge on the horizon that was no doubt a late storm, still stuck in the mountains from winter. It happened all the time. The rest of the country would be well into spring, with blossoms on all the trees, and Snowy Mountain would still be under a foot of snow. Of course, after a winter in Alaska in a ski resort, Juliana felt the View’s weather probably didn’t hold a candle to the freeze she had just left. Still, as white clouds tinged with gray scudded by overhead, she knew they weren’t just passing through.
Her suspicions were confirmed when half-an-hour later, they pulled into a gas station in Craig to the gentle patter of rain on the windows.
Almost everyone flooded out of the bus. This was the end of the line for many folks, since Snowy Mountain wasn’t popular at this time of the year. The town made its money mostly in the hot, clammy summer months, when the sun baked the valley and the wind off the peaks brought an evening chill to the air. And just like magic, tourists popped up along with the daisies. They came to climb the cliffs, hike in the high passes, and artists a plenty crawled into town, each trying to capture the view and make it their own.
Juliana wondered how many people still came. How popular was old-world charm in a time when new was the flavor of the day?
A shadow fell across her and she looked up into hazel eyes peeking through a fringe of dark brown hair.
“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”
Shaking her head, Juliana said, “No.”
The man was young, not much older than she was, and he looked oddly familiar. Of course, anyone going to Snowy Mountain was likely to be someone she knew. Unless the town had boomed in the years she’d been away, it was likely the board would still say “Welcome to Snowy Mountain, population 5326” or something like that.
The man pulled his sheepskin jacket off and, holding it on his lap, sat down. He smelled like aftershave and fresh air. Not the fresh air meaning nothing, but actual farm-bred fresh air, as though he’d been in the wind and grass a while and it had left its mark on him.
“Kyle Nichols,” he said, offering her a hand.
“Kyle? Your family owned the store on Main Street. Nichols’ General Store, right?” Juliana said, smiling.
“Yeah, we still do, only I run it now,” Kyle said, smiling a little uncertainly. “You look familiar, but …”
“Oh, come on. You must remember me!” Juliana said, turning in her seat so he could see her face properly.
Kyle shook his head. “You’re going to have to help me here.”
“I’m disappointed. We played Spin the Bottle at your tenth birthday and I had to kiss your cheek,” Juliana said and reached up, pulling her beanie off her head, letting her copper locks tumble around her shoulders.
Kyle’s eyes grew wide in surprise. “Juliana Bailey! No way!”
She shrugged and smiled. “Guilty.”
He laughed as dimples dented his cheeks. Juliana didn’t remember Kyle being this handsome. He’d always been there, of course. He was three years older, though, since his parents owned the only store where you could buy anything and everything in Snowy Mountain, he was well known, yet never a popular kid.
“You back for your dad? I was sorry to hear about his health,” Kyle said, his face dropping. “He’s a good guy.”
“Yeah,” Juliana said, her heart dropping. She had been avoiding that topic all week and now, as the driver closed the doors and the bus lurched into motion, she knew she couldn’t avoid it any longer. “Margaret says he’s doing okay … or at least he was last week. I haven’t heard from her since, which has been a blessing.” She left it hanging. This was not easy. Even with someone she barely knew, like Kyle.
They rode in silence.
“So, why are you on the bus?” Juliana asked. “Did you lose that old truck your family had? What was that thing?”
“The Ford? Oh, yeah, it died. It was terrible, smoked and gurgled something awful,” Kyle said. “My father was not kind to that truck. Actually, I’m down here because of car trouble. My new truck has decided to blow a gasket and I came to Craig to get a new one.”
“Did you get one?” Juliana asked.
“They ordered it for me,” Kyle said. “And before you ask, yeah, the phones are down. We had a storm about four days ago; downed lines all over the place.”
“Good old Snowy Mountain weather.”
Pausing, Juliana looked out of the rain-streaked window at the sopping town. People trudged along the roads, their heads down, umbrellas and hoods up. A wind was blowing, no doubt making it uncomfortable out there. She was glad she was on the bus, though, if she was honest— and she wasn’t making any promises on that front—she wished the bus was taking her anywhere but home.
“Where did you go?” Kyle asked, breaking her train of thought. “You left so suddenly, we all thought you’d been abducted by aliens.” He brushed his hair out of his eyes and Juliana’s heart skipped a beat.
“Alien abduction? Really?” she asked.
“Sure, like in the Twilight Zone.”
Juliana laughed. “Sorry to disappoint you; no aliens were involved.” And she added in a softer tone, “Unless my mother’s one.”
Kyle clicked his fingers in a gesture of mock displeasure. “Darn! I was hoping to get a first-hand account and sell the movie rights … you know, make it big in Hollywood.”
Juliana shook her head, “Hollywood’s cool, except …”
“You’ve been there?”
“Sure. Only for two weeks. I couldn’t find work so I left. Wasn’t the best time of my life.”
“Still, must have been nice to get out of here for a while,” Kyle said.
“If you want the truth … it was scary. I had no plan, no money, and it was sheer luck I found cool people along the way who were willing to help me out,” she said.
“That sounds nice,” he said.
“I guess so. I picked oranges on a farm in California. That was fun. Then I hooked up with this girl, Tanya. She was heading to New York to study to be a chef, so I tagged along, got in, and paid my way through school waiting tables. Since then I’ve been touring, working in kitchens all across the country. The last place was a ski resort in Alaska. It was really cold, but really awesome.”
“People go there voluntarily?”
She hit his shoulder playfully. “Yeah, people go there to ski and snowboard and stuff.”
They smiled at each other as Juliana’s brain raced to find something else to say.
“So, are you married? Got any rug-rats running around?” she asked, and felt the blush coming. She ducked under her hair to hide it. Why was she blushing, in any case? It was a normal question.
Kyle didn’t seem to notice her discomfort. He nodded. “Oh, sure, several.”
“Really?” Juliana asked, surprised.
“No, I’m just messing with you,” Kyle said, smiling in that way that had always turned her head.
She wondered why they’d never dated. Probably because as soon as she turned nineteen, she had left, and before that she’d been too busy getting herself into trouble with her parents to notice how cute the shop boy was.
She was certainly noticing now.
The last leg of the journey turned out to be the best by far. Kyle was entertaining, cracking jokes and making her laugh with a sense of abandon Juliana hadn’t known since she was a child. It felt good to have her spirits lifted. They had been as near to rock bottom as they could get after Margie’s phone call a week ago. “Come home,” she’d said. “It’s Dad. He’s dying.”
Juliana had known he was sick. They’d spoken every week since she’d left. It was just that her father had never said it was this serious. He’d always made it sound like he was doing okay, and so had her sister. Now she was faced with the truth that, unless there was a miracle waiting to happen, she was losing her father and it scared her half to death.
Before she knew it, the bus pulled into Jackson’s gas station and everyone piled out. Juliana waited by the side for her luggage to be offloaded and turned to Kyle.
“It was great chatting to you. You made this journey less horrible,” she said.
It was dripping here, too, and the lights were coming on all over as darkness crept into the town. Late snow lay in piles next to the roads, brown and white in the gloom, and the air was icy. She pulled her jacket closed and zipped it up, tugging her beanie back onto her head.
Kyle smiled, donning his sheepskin jacket again. “It’s my pleasure.” His hair was beginning to slick to his head and yet, he stayed with her until she had her luggage. Then he rolled her heavy bag on wheels all the way to the gas station shop, where they could wait for a ride under cover.
“So, are you staying this time?” he asked. “Or are you dashing out again?”
Juliana shrugged and bit her lip. “That all depends on my mother.”
As she spoke, a car pulled into the station and she recognized it as her parents’ car. This was it. With her heart beating hard enough to hurt, Juliana walked towards the idling car, her bag on wheels crunching the gravel behind her.