Page 92 of Famous for a Living

Any possible thoughts of wimping out and retracting the idea are really out of the question when she looks at you like that. “Now, there’s a real likelihood I’ll end up falling on my face out there.” My fingers start to ache in her vise grip.

“There is no honor in falling. Just failing to take the risk,” Mina says with dead seriousness.

“Right. Terrific.”

I manage to pull my fingers away before Mina crushes them in her eager gratitude for the honor of a job she’s not technically getting paid for and the possibility of keeping the dirty leather saddle over my head another year—my seat from which, for the record, I have looked up and seen the “Made in China” label.

Still.

There is a sort of adrenaline pumping in my veins as Uncle Terry helps me borrow all the gear I’ll need, and twenty minutes later, I’m outfitted and guided into the starting area full of horses and skiers.

“What are you doing?”

The large brown snout of Zaiah’s horse notices me first, followed by Zaiah in the saddle.

“Jax hurt his ankle and I can’t say no to Mina, so apparently I’m saving the park’s honor.” I lift my poles with a hopeless shrug.

Zaiah gives a surprised expression. His gaze shifts momentarily to Uncle Terry, as though wondering if he’s going to stand up and say anything.

“He found me all this,” I say, answering Zaiah’s thoughts and nipping that idea in the bud.

Zaiah scans my ensemble, from the goggles from Big Joe’s Fly-Fishing to the Uncle Buck’s Gas Station and Market bright-red skis and black poles. I’m still wearing my white coat. I opted to keep my small, thin leather gloves since those from Genie’s Book Barn were XXL.

The goggles are much too large, and most unfortunately a little wet (I try not to think about it) from the sweat of Big Joe, who used them in his race fifteen minutes ago.

“Is that . . .”

Zaiah pauses.

I know what he wanted to finish that sentence with: wise.

It wasn’t too long ago we settled into our nonverbal, unofficial agreement, and it’s clear he doesn’t want to break it. He’s not allowed to question my ability to do anything while out here or make disparaging remarks about my use of social media, and I’m not allowed to do anything, well, stupid.

A horse and skier swing by for their second turn around the track. It’s quite a different viewing experience from here, standing so much closer to the track as the skier flashes by.

It’s all quite quick, isn’t it?

Much quicker than it looked on a haystack thirty feet off from the real thing.

But here . . .

I squint, trying to calculate how easy it’d be to get trampled here. Is it actually possible? If a horse is going thirty miles an hour, and a skier fifteen feet behind is catapulted thirty degrees into the air, how high of an incline does said skier need before she is thrown to her death?

It’s like an SAT question created by a morbid mathematician.

And here it is: the first moment in my life where paying attention in geometry could’ve come in handy.

I flinch as a wave of snow sprays my way and the skier flies in the air.

Not just in the air, but in the air at quite the swinging angle whilst trying to grab a second red ring.

“What I don’t understand,” I begin, “is why every social activity in your state has to be something like this.” My voice is rather higher pitched than I’d intended.

I glance over to the several people lined up beside their horses and riders, readying themselves to go. All men.

“Ha!” The rider of the galloping horse prods it on with a squeeze of his legs, and the skier bounces as he lands on the ground with the sudden jerk of the horse’s draw in the opposite direction. His left ski lifts off the ground for one precarious moment, ski facing north, horse and rope drawing him east.

The position looks just like my friend’s five years ago, right before I watched her knee snap at the force of the unforgiving angle. She tore her ACL and had to be airlifted.