The Last September: A Novel

Eli’s usually animated face looked quieted, dismayed. Not that he was jealous—Eli and I were strictly friends. I recognized a kind of protectiveness, but it was already too late to turn back, so I didn’t consider the possible reasons.

“Brett’s one of my best friends,” Eli said to Charlie, the slightest note of warning.

“Cool,” Charlie said. “I’ll take good care of her.”

Dismissed, Eli sidled back into the house as we put on skis. I could tell he was trying to catch my eyes, to communicate something, but I didn’t want to communicate with him just then. I wanted to follow Charlie, so that’s what I did. Once we had stomped through the footsteps leading to Eli’s party, we hit pristine, glistening snow. We didn’t talk, just glided and shuffled through the back streets, heading uphill until we reached Chautauqua. The snow shimmered, untouched, over the rises that led up to the flatirons. I had loved Colorado since I first arrived—the day I stepped off the plane to start college and walked out of the airport to the immense and jagged vista of the Front Range. My hometown in Vermont had close green hills. Endless winter snowfall and clear, starry nights. Here, living closer to the sky made it seem all the more far away—thin, exhilarating air. The ground beneath us felt flat despite the slopes, so much nearer than the closest mountaintop, towering whitely against the night’s clear backdrop.

Charlie leaned on his poles and admired the untouched hilly between us and the Bonnie Blue trailhead. “Perfect,” he said. We broke trail, the snow collapsing through its crust into sifted granules. Charlie glided between the trees first. The scarf itched my neck and I could feel my ears burning red. The fabulous night silence—our labored breath and our skis whooshing through the snow.

Charlie saw the bear first, sitting just above the entrance to the Mesa Trail, only fifteen feet from us. I heard his breath draw in. “Stop,” he whispered. “Bear.” As if my survival instinct were duller than my curiosity, I skied closer so I could see. I let one ski slide to the inside of Charlie’s and linked my arm through his elbow. The material of my sleeve was thin enough that I could feel the lanolin squeak of his fisherman’s sweater, and for the first time that night I felt cold. No grizzlies lived in Colorado, so despite the darkness I knew it was a black bear. He sat chewing on a stick with animal absorption. I couldn’t tell whether he’d seen us.

“Shouldn’t he be hibernating?” Charlie asked. I shrugged. There was the bear, wide awake and in our path, whether he should be hibernating or not.

“I don’t know anything about bears,” I whispered.

“What are we supposed to do?” Charlie asked, as if he hadn’t heard me. Our only light was the glare off the snow, but I saw the bear’s ear twitch.

“I think we’re supposed to wave our arms and make ourselves look taller,” I said, remembering something I’d read on a forest service sign.

“Doesn’t that seem like flagging him down? I don’t think he’s even seen us yet.”

“I just know we’re not supposed to run.” I slid back, untangling my skis from his.

“Shit,” Charlie said. We both slid backward a foot or two. The bear didn’t move.

“I’ll race you,” Charlie whispered. We turned away from each other with fluid synchronicity. I skated a few strokes, then curled myself into a tuck. Freezing snow flew up to plaster my face as I whooshed too fast to wobble. I could hear Charlie panting behind me, but no thundering ursine footsteps.

I kept going—gliding across Baseline Road without looking for traffic, continuing down Ninth Street—until I couldn’t hear Charlie behind me anymore. When I tried to stand, I lost control and smashed into a snow-banked curb—snow packing itself into my sweater, my jeans, my ill-fitting ski boots. Charlie glided to an elegant stop beside me while I lay on the ground, poles flailing.

“I win the speed prize,” I said as he extricated me from the snow, “but you get points for grace.”