“Yeah,” Dag said, “you do, actually. I haven’t kept boarder hours for, like, six months now. I work a lot of days here. But it’s not quite as bad as when I had to get up at five all summer to work at the golf course and be in bed by ten every night.”
“Was that you? I thought I heard someone going out just after we came in all the time.” Then a kind of embarrassed look crossed Jared’s face. “Hey, sorry, but I think I’ve been using your shaving cream. Is it a blue can in the upstairs bathroom?”
“You mean the one with my name on it?” Dag said.
“Yeah, that one.”
“Fuck, Jared,” Dag said, “there’s a reason we label all our shit. No wonder I’ve been running out so fast.”
“Well, I thought you moved out and left it behind, so it was up for grabs. Sorry, dude.” He paused. “My coffee still free?”
“You been eating any of my food out of the fridge, too?”
“Uh-uh,” Jared said, shaking his head. “I thought you moved out ages ago—no way was I going to trust food I thought had been around that long.”
“Thank god for that,” Dag said. “Take the damn coffee, dawg.”
When Jared joined the others, they got up to leave. Jeff called over to Dag, “You going to be on the half-pipe tomorrow?”
Maria heard Dag sigh. “I don’t ride any more, Jeff,” he said, still keeping up the friendly tone. “Don’t you remember? You took my goggles when I let all my gear go.”
“Okay, then, see ya around. Thanks for the java.”
The quiet in their wake was deafening. Maria wanted to engage Dag in conversation, especially with Heathen not around. And because she wanted to stick up for him.
“Okay, I followed most of that,” she said as Dag pulled espressos for some new arrivals. “Except for two things. One: were these guys supposed to be your friends? Because it totally sounded like they didn’t even notice you haven’t been hanging with them for two months. And that’s so totally wrong.”
Dag shrugged like he didn’t care. Maria would bet he did, though. “It’s just the snowboarder way of life,” he said. “These guys live in the moment. It’s all about what ride you can get right now, what high you want this minute, what party’s going on tonight. If you’re there this minute, they don’t waste time thinking about whether you’ve been there all along, or whether you’ll be there tomorrow. Whoever turns up to ride, turns up. If somebody doesn’t, no harm, no foul.”
“So once you stopped doing what they were doing and showing up where they showed up, you dropped completely off their radar,” Maria said.
“It’s not exactly like that,” he said. But Maria had seen what she’d seen and heard what she’d heard, and it did sound exactly like that. Dag was starting to look a little tense, though, so she said, “The other thing I didn’t get—‘yard sale’?”
Heathen suddenly arrived from the back, tying her apron on. She jumped in to answer that one without even saying hello. “That’s when you crash so bad that pieces of your clothes and your gear come off, gloves, hat, whatever, all over the snow. It’s like, the most embarrassing kind of wipeout. Who did that?” she asked gleefully. “Anybody I know?”
Maria glanced over at Dag. Without any warning, Dag hurled a coffee cup, which shattered against the wall over the sink.
“I have got to get the fuck out of here,” Dag said. He ripped off his apron and stormed out.
“Jesus!” Heathen was shocked. He was the last person she had expected that kind of behaviour from. Everyone in the place had jumped a foot. Heathen had no idea what to say to the customers. She gave a lame shrug to the room. “Sorry…uh, something slipped.” Pretty weak, and they all knew it.
“Wow,” Maria said, kind of breathless and wide-eyed. She hadn’t moved from where she’d been standing near the sink. “That was something.” For the person closest to the point of impact, she didn’t seem as shaken up as Heathen would have thought.
“Something totally uncalled-for,” Heathen said. “I’m not cleaning that up, and don’t you, either,” she added, as Maria started to pick broken pieces of mug off the counter.
“But if he’s really gone…?” Maria said. There was disappointment in her tone.
“Oh, he’ll be back.” Actually, Heathen wasn’t entirely certain, but it was a good rationale for putting off cleaning up his mess.
Maria brightened up. “You think so?”
Heathen rolled her eyes. “Maria, do not tell me that you’re attracted to him now, just because he’s had a tantrum!”
Maria shrugged but blushed at the same time. “I didn’t know he had an edgy side before.”
Heathen groaned. “No! Maria! You hate snowboarders!”
“Dag’s not a snowboarder any more,” Maria said. “I saw him with those other guys. He’s totally different. He’s not all goofball like them.” Customers were coming in, a couple of pairs, but enough to keep them from any more private conversation for a few minutes. Next lull, Heathen was on it again though, because with all the women Dag got, she didn’t think he needed teenaged Maria mooning after him, too.
“So he dropped the slang,” she said. “Don’t let the absence of a few ‘wacks’ and ‘dudes’ in his conversation fool you. Because A) next to Jeff, anybody looks good, and B) just because he doesn’t get on a board any more doesn’t mean he’s given up their attitudes. And it’s the attitude you hate. Right? That ‘ride hard, play hard’ crap they use as an excuse to throw themselves down the hill or the pipe all day, party and throw alcohol in their bodies all evening, and then throw themselves into bed with anybody who’s around to finish off the night.”
Maria was looking at her with her head cocked to one side. “That sounds like it might be, like, more your issue than mine? Do you know what goes on with high school kids these days?”
Now it was Heathen’s turn to feel her face redden. “Maria Di Filippo, are you saying that you’re into these rainbow parties and Friends With Benefits things?”
Maria shrugged. “I’m just saying I’m not all bitter and resentful about casual sex going on, which, it sounds like you maybe are. You used to go out with that Jeff guy, right?”
Burn! It was like she knew that Heathen and Jeff had broken up over the whole fuckbuddy system in the snowboard scene. Way to come across as a big prude, she thought to herself. “Hey, casual sex is fine,” she said, as casually as she could, “unless you’re supposed to be in a relationship.”
“Well, I don’t see Dag in a relationship,” Maria said, turning that one neatly back on itself to give Heathen the double burn.
Before Heathen could come back with a snappy retort, Dag came back in. Without a word, he went straight to the sink and started picking up broken crockery. Heathen glanced at the clock on the cash register. Exactly fifteen minutes from when he’d stomped out. Some edge. He’d taken his regulation break, not a minute more, and was now cleaning up his mess. She turned to snot something at Maria, only to find Maria back over by the sink, helping herself to a squirt of whipped cream from the dispenser and licking it off her finger as she leaned in to talk to Dag.
“I think I have to go check the bathrooms,” Heathen said. It wasn’t her turn, but it was as good a place as any to be nauseous.
Once inside, she took her time picking up crumpled paper towels off the floor and giving the sink a wipe. She imagined Maria thinking, maybe even asking out loud, “What’s up with her?” And it was a good question, with only one real answer. Though she wouldn’t admit it to anyone but herself,