Early Fall
“Montana? You must be joking.”
“It’s beautiful there.”
“So?”
“And you’ll be paid eight thousand dollars a month,” Matty’s mother replied. “Where else are you going to find that kind of money? To skate at the Olympic level again, you’ll need to hire coaches, trainers, and pay for costumes. You’ll have to consider the cost of a choreographer, not to mention rink time. You know this.”
“Yeah, but do I look like a rugged, plaid-shirt wearing, Brokeback Mountain kinda gay? No, I do not.” Matty rubbed his lower back. The injury still ached, but it wasn’t breathtaking anymore. At least he could skate again and wasn’t stuck in bed, sweating in pain every time he moved.
“For eight thousand a month, Matty, you can’t afford not to be.”
Matty sat down on his bed and looked around the room. Pictures and posters still decorated the walls in a juvenile profusion of color. Gifts from his fans cluttered the vanity and desk, and filled the big trunks lining one wall. Everything from handmade dolls of himself to cross-stitched Christmas stockings featuring him as a skating Santa were in those trunks.
Matty’s mother wouldn’t let him throw any of it away, and so the gifts collected in the most attractive antique trunks he could find. He loved all of it, of course, but if his dreams of returning to form came true, his mother might need to start renting a storage unit for all of the memorabilia.
At this point, there wasn’t much Matty wouldn’t do for money. Okay, peddle his ass—that he wouldn’t do. Theft, drugs, or gambling—no. He wouldn’t even know where to begin a profitable life of crime, and seeing the inside of a jail cell was a sure way to never skate again. Many had thought his back injury was career ending, and the last thing he needed was to finish his career by being a moron.
He’d looked into getting a job—like, a real one—but nothing paid enough to get him back on the ice, and he was under-qualified by several degrees for anything that would. But… Montana?
“Margaret is doing you a giant favor. You’ll have to apply for the job, though,” his mother said as she paced around his room. Her blouse and slacks hung on her whip-thin form, and she ran her hands through her brown-and-gray bob. “She’s on board—she wants to see you skate again. That’s the entire reason she contacted me about this. Well, one of the reasons. The other is that they really do want someone to look after the ranch while they’re in Europe. Her grandsons used to do it when Margaret and her husband travel, but they’re away at college now.”
“How do you even know this woman again, Donna?”
“Don’t call me by my first name and don’t be difficult, Matty. You know she’s been a fan of yours for years. She’s followed your career and she’s come to your competitions and shows. You’ve met her quite a number of times.”
Matty shrugged.
Donna sighed and rolled her eyes. “We email and keep in touch. She’s a bit eccentric in the way of old, wealthy people, but she’s a good woman, and she’s willing to change your life for the price of a few months light work in Montana. Think of it as patronage.”
“It’s not patronage if she wants more out of me than just my artistry.”
“Fine, think of it as a grossly over-paid job and suck it up.”
“You realize she just wants me to be her pet, don’t you? This could all be some sick tactic to get me alone in the wilderness with her. It could end up like that Stephen King novel. She’s going to kidnap me and make me into her own private skater! She’ll force me to perform for her pleasure! If I don’t, she’ll cut off my foot.”
“Matty, that’s not going to happen.”
“You don’t know that. It totally could.”
Donna puffed out her cheeks and rolled her eyes again. “Do you want to skate again, or don’t you?”
Across from his bed, in the place of honor on the wall opposite, was the tattered Ice Castles poster, old when he’d gotten it off eBay at the age of ten. It was the movie that had inspired him to skate. He’d wanted to be Lexie so badly, and he’d experienced the first deep stirrings of lust when he imagined being in Nick’s arms. He stared at him now, feeling the old thrum of longing.
His eyes skimmed over the photographs of skaters pinned all around the poster. They were a mixture of those he’d admired and some he’d loathed, but all competitors he’d been determined to bury. And he had. Until he hadn’t.
He’d spent too much time depressed after his injury. Stuck in his bed with no exercise, and, worse, he’d eaten more food than anyone could justify. He’d never weighed so much or been so out of shape since he’d started skating at the elite level when he was eleven. He was still slim by most standards, but skating had its own rules.
There was so much work to do to get back into fighting form, and sometimes the thought of it exhausted him. Still, if he never made a comeback from his injury, he’d never prove himself. Never make up for his failures. He glanced around at his mementos and sighed.
While his room at his parents’ house in Norfolk was comfortable, he still regretted moving out of his much more tastefully decorated apartment in New Jersey. After he got out of the hospital, there’d been no choice but to move back home to Virginia.
Things had been tight for the family since Matty’s injury. He’d been out of competition for a whole season, missing out on prize money and also his usual income from ice shows in Japan, Russia, and South Korea. Since he wouldn’t be able to compete this season either, he’d lost his funding from the Federation and would have to prove himself all over again.
His father hadn’t been able to work since he’d nearly lost his right leg in a car wreck when Matty was nine. The money he’d received from the resulting lawsuit had all gone into Matty’s skating career years ago.
Without Matty’s income, his mother had taken on a second job. He knew how miserable she was making phone solicitations five nights a week just to make ends meet. Worse, his brother, Joseph, had dipped into his college savings a few times to help with the bills.
If Matty wanted to get life back on track for all of them, he needed the cash this job provided. He gazed thoughtfully at the Ice Castles poster again. If Lexie could skate again after losing her sight, then he could come back from this. And he would. Or he wasn’t Matty Marcus.
“So, what do I have to do?” he asked his mother, who waited patiently.
She sat beside him on the bed. “Not much. Margaret wants to give you this opportunity. Consider it an extravagant and wonderful gift. But her husband needs a little convincing.”
“What does that mean?”
“Basically, he just wants to make sure you’re responsible and there won’t be any parties, or unwelcome visitors. That kind of thing.”
“Unwelcome visitors? You’re talking about Elliot.”
“I’m talking about Elliot, Joanna—”
“She’s my agent!”
“She’s not invited to Montana.”
“Strict.”
“Not just Elliot or Joanna, though. I’m also talking about Heidi, or Zarah, or Franklin, or anyone else. Matty, these people are willing to pay you a lot of money and it’s only six months. I think you can do without seeing your friends.”
“What about my training? After all I’ve been through, six more months off the ice could be the end of my career. It’s already been more than a year, Mom. I’m twenty-one. This is probably my last shot at medaling at the Olympics. It’s only two and a half years away.”
“There’s a rink twenty minutes from the ranch. You could start training again right away. Margaret said she’d ensure you had rink time, and she’d even pay for it in advance if you let her know how many hours a week. This is huge, Matty. This is so much more than eight thousand a month.”
“Assuming I get the job,” Matty said. “I still have to convince her husband.”
“Show up, look your best, demonstrate that you can take care of the horses, be polite, and say ‘sir.’ I think you’ll get the job.”
“I have to apply in person?” Matty asked.
“I bought your plane ticket this morning. You leave tomorrow.” Donna patted his leg and stood up. “Don’t pout. It’s only Montana, not Moldova.”
“If it were Moldova, I’d be able to practice speaking Russian, and, if I was really lucky, I could become a victim of human trafficking and get sold into sexual slavery. That could be really hot.”
Donna groaned. “Hello, honey? Mouth-brain filter? Engage.”
Matty sat up straighter. “Wait. Mama, how did you pay for the ticket?”
Donna patted the door frame. Matty saw her bare ring finger and tears came to his eyes.
“You should start packing for Montana, Matty. If our luck turns around, this time next year you’ll be preparing for Cup of Russia.”
Matty stared after her, a lump in his throat.
She’d sold her wedding ring—and who knew how much of her other jewelry. Her never-ending faith sometimes made him made him feel deeply ashamed. His parents had already eaten through their retirement accounts, their savings, and given everything they had to his skating. In his estimation, he hadn’t paid them back at all. He’d been distracted and irresponsible, and squandered his opportunities.
After his disappointing performance at the last Olympics, and his injury, he was humbled that his mother still believed in him so completely.
Montana it was.
***
Matty called his best friend as soon as humanly possible, which, given the short notice afforded by his travel plans, was the moment the plane touched down in Missoula. Elliot was not pleased.
“You’re in Montana? What the fuck, bitch?”
Matty told him about the job. “It’s in some place called Whitefish.”
“Where’s that?” Elliot asked.
“God only knows. Probably just this side of hell.” He remembered the sight of the snow-dusted mountains as he’d flown in. “A beautiful hell, but hell all the same.” Matty paused by an airport kiosk to pull a mirror out of his bag. He checked his carefully tousled brown hair and smoothed out his eyebrows. His brown eyes shone clear in the mid-morning light from the windows, and his full lips were rosy as he touched up his lip gloss. “Just think of what you know about the kind of people who go fly fishing and drive cattle and then put me in the middle of that vision. I’m probably going to experience a hate crime here.”
“For sure,” Elliot drawled, sounding amazed. “If you get the job I guess you won’t be at my unbirthday party this weekend.”
“Not unless it’s in Montana.”
“Sucks. I bought a great Mad Hatter hat for you.”
“Mad Hatter? I don’t think so Elliot. I was supposed to be Alice.”
“You’re Alice every year. It’s my turn to be Alice, you queen.”
“Whatever. You can be Alice all you want because I’m in Montana. Kill me now.”
“I can’t. Your mom would be mad.”
Matty snorted.
“So, like, are there gonna be horses and shit?”
“And horse’s shit.”
“Oh, girl.”
“Yeah.”
Near the baggage claim, Matty spotted a medium-height, dark-haired woman with liberal gray woven in, wearing a fur coat and big glasses. She held a sign that read Matthew Christopher Marcus. She looked about ten years older than his mother, and she started waving her arms like mad trying to get his attention.
“I need to go. I’ve got to be responsible and charming. Wish me luck.”
“Luck,” Elliot said with a lack of sincerity that made Matty think Elliot had already lost interest in his situation. Elliot had a short attention span that way. Matty couldn’t really blame him. He’d always been distractible since they’d met in third grade and bonded over the box of glitter crayons the art teacher allowed only her favorite and most fabulous students to use.
“Matty, darling,” Margaret Page said as she enveloped him in a massive, Dior J’Adore-drenched hug. She was taller than him by an inch at least, and Matty rose on his toes so that his chin fell against her shoulder. “Look at you! Fit as a fiddle now, aren’t you? How do you feel? Strong? Ready to train?”
She patted him all over as she talked, grabbing his arms and pulling them out from his sides, examining him like she was a long-lost aunt looking him over to see how much he’d grown.
But Margaret was nice enough, and Matty had no trouble keeping up his end of the conversation during the nearly three-hour drive from Missoula to the ranch. As they drove through miles and miles of farm land with the glorious mountains pulling Matty’s attention constantly, she’d interrupt their conversation to wave her hand out the window and say, “This is Kalispell, a good place to look for things you might not find in Whitefish,” or “That’s Flathead Lake, the biggest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi.”
This last she said with great pride in her voice. Matty, overcome by the beauty of the lake, the mountains, and the vast, endless sky, only nodded mutely. It wasn’t like him to be left speechless, but the natural beauty around him took his breath away.
During their drive, Margaret asked him some hilarious questions about who was “dating” who in the skating world. The air quotes were Margaret’s and she clearly wanted to know who was getting it on. He dished a little dirt to make her happy—and he hoped to get the job—but he kept the biggest insider secrets to himself. He did have a tell-all book to pen one day, assuming he could get back in the game at all.
Whitefish, the closest town to the ranch, was about as quaint as one could imagine, tucked as it was beneath the imposing, impossibly beautiful Big Mountain, and surrounded on all sides by the Rockies. It sort of made Matty want to throw up a little in his mouth. Not because he couldn’t appreciate the loveliness of it, but because he was going to end up with a boot in his teeth before this thing was done. He just knew it. Gay boys like him didn’t belong in rugged towns like Whitefish.
Margaret drove out of her way to show Matty the ice rink. “It isn’t much, darling, but the Stumptown Ice Den is what we’ve got, and it should do the trick. Time’s paid up through March. Twenty hours a week—just schedule in advance when you’ll be there, of course. If you need more, you can work that out with management.”
“That’s too much,” Matty said.
“Nonsense, consider it a bonus for doing this for us. Your mom said you could use the money and the time to focus. I want to see you take the gold at Worlds next year, Matty. Make a big comeback. And when you’re in the Kiss and Cry, and the camera is on you, it wouldn’t be amiss for you to mouth, ‘Thank you, Margaret,’ all right? I might just wet my pants if you did that.”
“Mrs. Page, I sincerely hope I don’t deny you that particular dry cleaning bill.”
“I think since you’ll be living in my house, dusting my trinkets, eating on my plates, and taking care of my horses, you can call me Margaret. In fact, I insist on it.”
“Done,” Matty agreed. It certainly sounded like he had the job.
The ranch itself was another twenty minutes outside of Whitefish, and Matty’s back was starting to ache from sitting before they even got there. He’d need to stretch plenty once he got settled to prevent a setback. He dug around in his bag for ibuprofen and a bottle of water, and downed a few pills.
“I’ve done my share of traveling,” Margaret said. “And I’m getting ready to travel again, but let me tell you, Matty, this land is some of the most beautiful in the world, if I do say so myself.”
Matty had done his share of traveling, too, and he had to agree with her.
“George and I moved here after his heart attack. He was only forty-two at the time and I somehow just knew that living here, in the fresh mountain air, he’d heal up just fine. That was twenty years ago now. He’s strong as an ox, Matty. That’s what Montana does for a person.” She patted his knee and smiled at the road ahead of them. “I hope it works its healing magic on you too.”
When they pulled up alongside two long driveways that seemed to stretch back into forever, Margaret got out and opened the blue mailbox. Before getting back behind the wheel, she knocked the snow off the red one next to it.
“Rob’s box,” she said, as though that explained a lot.
Matty just nodded.
As she drove up the pine-lined drive toward the house, she muttered, “Bills, bills, I swear that’s all we get. I’ve got giant, pre-addressed and metered envelopes in a file in the desk in the library. I’ll show you when we get inside. Just dump the bills in there every week and send them to our accountant. There’s another file with envelopes for the other mail—except for junk mail, which I trust you to sort out—and you can just send that along to my sister every week. She’ll handle it from there.”
“I’m inspired by your organizational skills,” he said, feeling warm and fuzzy toward her. “I’m kind of a freak about that kind of thing myself.”
Margaret looked pleased. “Listen, you’ve got the job, okay, hon? So long as you don’t offend George, and I’m sure you won’t. But, just… well, be yourself.”
Matty smiled. “I can’t be anything else.”
George Page met them in the driveway in front of the two-story, log and stone ranch house, wearing a cowboy hat, a white button-up shirt, and carrying a rifle. He was not smiling, and he eyed Matty like he was John Wayne about to challenge him to a gun fight.
“So, you’re the skater.”
“I am, Mr. Page. Sir,” Matty said, shivering in the cold air. He pulled his coat around him a little tighter and smiled, willing the man to love him like every good and righteous human being in the world ought. “I also love horses.”
The man’s eyes became less narrow. He rested the butt of the shotgun on his foot as he said, “Horses?”
“Yes, sir. In fact, I had a horse as a kid. I adored him. His name was Butterscotch Brier.” Matty smiled fondly. He’d had a soft yellow-ish mane and a smooth caramel-colored coat. Matty had loved standing on a stool to brush him down. The methodical work had soothed him. He’d also loved how the wind had rushed over his skin as he rode, digging his heels into Butterscotch to go faster. The sensation of flying through air was something he loved about skating too.
“What happened to him?”
“Well, I had to sell him once I started my figure skating career. He wasn’t getting enough attention.”
“Hmmph.” George looked unimpressed.
“But I grew up in the country. Before my dad hurt his leg, we had a small farm in Virginia,” Matty went on, forcing likeability into every molecule of his body. “I’m excited to get some time away from the city. I’ve missed the countryside. Though this,” he motioned toward the mountains and the piney brush that fell away into beautiful strips of land, “is so different from where I’m from. It’s stunning.”
George’s face registered something that appeared to be interest, so Matty forged ahead. “Oh, and I love mucking out stalls. It’s satisfying to get them fresh again. Makes me feel like I’ve really accomplished something.”
George said, “You got the job when you said you were familiar with horses. Don’t go lying about liking to muck out stalls. Blowing smoke up my ass isn’t gonna win you any points.”
Matty could see why this guy was rich. He didn’t tolerate any nonsense. Still, Matty hadn’t been lying. He’d never been exactly normal in his fetish for cleanliness, but his horse had always appreciated it.
“I’m a clean freak,” Matty said. “I really do like cleaning horse stalls.”
George was speculative, but he finally said, “Okay, then. Margaret wants it to be you, and I don’t have time to deal with this, so I’ll let her have you as her little pet project. Let me tell you the rules, son. No parties. No friends from wherever to keep you company. I’m taking a risk on you, not your boyfriend or your best girlfriend, got it? If you need help with the horses, Rob Lovely’s ranch is next door, and he’s trustworthy. Bought this land offa him after his daddy died. You can rely on him if you have any problems. You agree to that and you’ve got eight thousand dollars a month in your bank account, a car to drive for the next six months, and a place to live. Do we have a deal?”
“Yes, sir,” Matty said, sticking out his hand to shake on it. “We most certainly do.”