They skied the next day, under sunny skies and over groomed trails. Jeff took a lesson with Chloe, who didn’t need one but stuck around so he wouldn’t be alone, a rapprochement, he thought. Francis and Alison skied a half-day, made their way to a lodge for lunch, and then window-shopped in the afternoon. Francis may have been the one who brought them all to Val d’Isère, but Alison was setting the agenda.
Several times Jeff caught Chloe enjoying herself, and then, as if remembering why they were there, she would draw down her lips, narrow her eyes. He could tell that she was thinking things over and not communicating any of it to him. This was one of her qualities, akin to her mother’s ability to conceal what she was feeling at any given moment. Chloe could choose when she wanted to react to things. Jeff was the opposite. He expressed what he felt in the moment. He didn’t understand how she could put everything on hold, and he’d always struggled to accept the phrase “We’ll talk about this later.”
Over dinner that night—they stayed in, the chef made loup de mer—after they’d gotten into the second bottle of wine, she said that she wanted to tell her father something. She said this to Alison, not Francis. She refused to address him directly, asked Alison to tell him as if he weren’t sitting across the table from her.
In the midst of all of this, she said, she couldn’t believe that her father would stoop so low as to recruit her boyfriend as a double agent, using his job as leverage, to report on her. This, to her, didn’t represent an act of caring—as Francis was saying, trying to defend himself—but an additional breach of trust that showed he would rather attempt to control her than show her—or Alison—any real, true respect.
Francis said his daughter’s name. She said, to Alison, that he shouldn’t get to speak, but because she couldn’t prevent him, she could assure him that she wasn’t about to engage him in conversation. Not now, not ever. Francis, looking at Jeff, managed a “But I thought—” before Chloe interrupted him, saying to Alison that he had been misinformed, that her anger toward him had not abated, that she wasn’t getting any closer to speaking to him again, and that, in fact, since this business with Jeff had come to light, she wasn’t likely to get there anytime soon.
From Francis: “I only—”
But Chloe wasn’t finished. “His little spy,” she said, “all but forcibly recruited by him, was in fact, unwittingly, from his desire to please, to please all of us, a triple agent.”
Francis looked at Jeff quizzically.
“There was no progress,” Chloe continued. “He made it up. There might have been progress, here, on this trip”—her voice broke—“but now how the fuck am I supposed to trust anyone anymore?”
Jeff tried to take her hand, but she shook it off.
“I just want to go home,” she said.
“Nobody’s going home,” Francis said.
That night, Jeff looked for all kinds of ways to reassure himself that things would be okay with Chloe, but now that she’d said her part, it seemed that she couldn’t go back to pretending that she wasn’t mad at him. There was no unscrambling the egg.
He told her that he understood she didn’t have a timeline for how long she would be mad at her father, but that his own transgression had been comparatively minor, and he hadn’t been given a choice, really, and he was deeply sorry for having misrepresented her, but he remained one hundred percent in her corner, and did she have any idea how long she was going to be giving him the cold shoulder, because he didn’t think he could take it much longer.
She turned her back to him and shut off the light.
At least she hadn’t kicked him out of the bed.
He tossed and turned that night, his dreams a mélange of attachments and detachments, feuds and reconciliations, and, most of all, a pervading sense that in trying to please everyone, he had pleased no one.
57
They awoke to a world blanketed in fresh snow, still falling thickly, white flakes in a gray sky, the top of the mountain completely invisible. Jeff kissed Chloe on the forehead, but she didn’t stir. He suspected that she was awake and pretending, but he didn’t want to push things. He had demonstrated his love. She would come to see that everything he did, everything he had done, had stemmed from that love, which was pure.
In the kitchen he found Francis, up and drinking French-press coffee, staring out the window at the falling snow. He displayed no residual uneasiness from the night before, even offering to pour Jeff a cup.
“Today we ski,” he said.
Jeff nodded.
“You and I,” he said.
Jeff hadn’t seen Francis ski, but he could tell from the way he moved, the way he carried his equipment, that he knew what he was doing.
“I’m slow,” Jeff said.
“You’ve had a brush-up lesson, haven’t you? I bet you’re ready. Besides, we could use a bit of fun after yesterday’s drama. We’ll give Alison and Chloe their space.”
Jeff felt awkward about leaving Chloe, especially since he had committed to her one hundred percent, but he knew also that Francis was right, that she and Alison could use a little time to themselves.
Chloe rolled out of bed soon after. She poured herself the remains of the coffee without a word to either of them.
“Today is another day,” Francis said.
She poured cream and sugar into her mug.
“We were thinking,” Jeff said, “that we could give you and your mom some space today.”
She sipped her coffee once, then went back to the bedroom.
Jeff followed.
“Make up your mind,” she said. “Are you giving me space or not?”
“I’m going to, yes.”
He said that he thought it was a good idea, that she and her mom hadn’t had time to talk, that he could keep Francis occupied, that his loyalties lay with her, one hundred percent, and that he was unwavering on that point.
“Why can’t he go off on his own?” she asked.
“Where would I go?”
“You could go off on your own too.”
Taking her hand in his, he reminded her that Francis was his boss, and not just any boss, a generous boss, one who had taken a genuine interest in him.
“Go ahead,” she said, pulling back her hand. “Do what you want. Run away with him.”
“Come on, that’s unfair.”
The look she gave him made it clear that there was no point in pursuing the argument.
58
Jeff had never seen so much snow. Trudging through it in stiff ski boots required serious effort. He struggled to keep up with Francis, who talked to him over his shoulder as they walked, saying nothing about the day before, about the reason for the trip, even about Chloe.
Today, Francis declared, would be a vacation day. Petty human squabbles weren’t going to prevent them from relishing nature’s bounty. To that end, he wanted to introduce Jeff to a special part of the mountain, his favorite.
By the time they made it to the gondola, Jeff was breathing hard. Snow fell continuously. There was no line. The little pod came around the bend, and its doors popped open automatically. They boarded it, sitting across from each other, knees almost touching, holding their skis upright next to them like lances.
Suspended on a wire, the car rose above a white carpet of bumps. Jeff’s mouth went dry. Soon they could see only the area immediately around them, a sphere of visibility that extended just to the gondola ahead and down to the run below. Val d’Isère disappeared completely. A post appeared out of nowhere and the gondola rumbled over a series of wheels before hanging again from the wire. Condensation steamed the windows even as the clouds thickened outside. They hovered in a featureless gray void.
Francis, eyelid drooping, goggles on his forehead, surveyed Jeff. He seemed to relish having the young man close at hand, his for the viewing, as if he were a sculpture or painting. The trace of a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.