Pax reached for a second helping of pancit, a steaming bowl of noodles with stir-fried chicken and veggies. Mom smiled. She prided herself on overfeeding anyone who walked into the Castillo household, and she wouldn’t be denied. Many had entered our home, none had left hungry.
“I could eat my weight in this,” Pax said, a few thin rice noodles hanging out of his mouth. Where he put all that food was a mystery to me. His fourteen-year-old frame remained lean and tall.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” By the tone of Mom’s voice, anyone else would think she was scolding Pax. I knew better. She took Pax stuffing his face with her cooking as a compliment.
I wrinkled my nose at Pax before turning to Dad. “I had trouble landing a few five-forty spins today.”
“It looked like you landed everything I saw,” Pax said. He popped a peapod into his mouth.
“Well, that’s because you can’t count rotations. It ended up being three-sixty,” I said. Sometimes I wished my brother would stay out of my conversations with Dad. He didn’t take snowboarding seriously like we did.
“You know, Jessa, you’re only sixteen. You have plenty of time to go pro—” Pax said between mouthfuls.
“Pax, your mother told you not to talk with your mouth full,” Dad cut in.
“It takes hours of practice. Way more hours than I put in. I need to get in as much as I can before the competition.” I looked to Dad to agree—he knew what it took to be the best of the best.
“School comes first, Jessa,” Mom reminded me.
Of course it did. That was another one of Mom’s rules since we were kids. Thank goodness it was winter break so there was no homework to get in the way right now.
“I have some thoughts on why I’m not getting enough rotation in the air,” I said to Dad. “I’m going to get up early tomorrow and get in a few more runs before the weekend crowd hits the slopes. You know how it can get—”
Dad wiped his mouth with his napkin. “No.”
I paused before I spoke. Maybe I heard him wrong. “No, you don’t want to hear my thoughts? Or no, you don’t know how packed the lifts get in the afternoon?”
“No, you’re not going tomorrow.”
“What? Why?”
“Jess, I admire your dedication. You have the Castillo spirit, I see it, but there’s a storm coming in.”
Again with this stupid storm. I stood up and crossed to the window. Whatever Mom and Pax were saying came to a halt. “Dad, that is the clearest night sky I’ve seen in forever.” I pointed at the front window, the night sky speckled with diamond-like stars. “This blizzard that you think is coming won’t be here until tomorrow afternoon. By then I’ll be back home,” I said, hoping I wasn’t coming off as disrespectful. I wasn’t one to talk back to my parents, but this wasn’t like Dad to not get it. I’d been waiting months to get on this new board, and no one was stopping me, especially not Mother Nature. “If this storm even comes at all,” I muttered.
“Watch your tone,” Dad said, his voice more calm and even than I expected. “I’ve lived around these mountains long enough to know the weather can change faster than you think.”
“I don’t get why you’re making a big deal about the weather. I can handle the wind, and you know what it’s like to ride on fresh snow.” I gestured out the window to the slopes. “We live for the powder. It’s not a superpipe, Dad. It’s a silly storm—”
“Enough!” Dad stood, his jaw set hard. His uneven stance reminded me of the fall he took that put him through several surgeries followed by months of physical therapy. It took one superpipe injury to end his career. “You aren’t going, and that’s the end of it,” he said with finality.
Suddenly winning this competition seemed even further out of my reach than I’d thought.