My dad was a great man and the awards and certificates on his office wall in here are just the beginning of how special he was. He was my biggest champion. He made me stronger. He kept up with me in every respect. He pushed me to be better, learn more, try harder. And he never did it in a mean way like some fathers. His reprimands were always calm, his urges to do better always came with just the right level of excitement and assurance.
One of the characteristics of Asperger’s is uncoordinated motor skills, so my dad compensated by enrolling me in every sport available. I did baseball, basketball, track, football, skiing, boarding, hockey… not all at the same time of course, he was just looking for my sweet spot. The sport I might excel in.
And like the language skills that I shouldn’t have, I had physical skills as well. I excelled in skiing, baseball, and track. But it was the skiing that captivated me. If you’re a skier and you live in Vail, that’s like heaven. I was the reason we came here every weekend in the winter. And everything I did, my dad did with me. He pitched to me, he threw the football, he put on all the smelly hockey gear and got up at five AM to get rink time. He ran with me. Every day. In Denver we ran in City Park and then later we did the steps at Coors Field. But when I spent my summers here in Vail, we did the bike trail just down the hill from our house. It runs from Vail to Frisco. Twelve miles down, twelve miles back up. We did that whole run at least once a month in the summers.
He skied insane runs with me. We did more than our share of double black diamond runs all over the world.
He never said no. He always had time. No matter how crazy my plan.
I grab the bottle from the bottom drawer and I’m shuffling through the back of it, searching for the rocks glass I know is in here, when I hear the knock.
I look up and Ashleigh is standing in the doorway. “Sorry, I guess I drifted off.”
I look at the bottle, then her. She’s all disheveled, just like the bedroom. Her hair is tousled and a little bit sweaty from being asleep and her cheeks are pink against her pale skin. I picture her topless like she was up in my bed and it renders me silent for a moment.
“I’ll drink it with you, if you want,” she says to break the awkward moment. “One drink won’t hurt. Besides, I already fed her, so she’s good for a while.”
I nod and grab two glasses from the drawer. When I look back up she’s got the bottle. “Not in here, though. Let’s sit out there.”
I just stare at her, trying to figure out what that means.
“I think this room…” She looks around at the pictures of my dad and me. “Depresses you.” I can’t even move, that’s how much these words affect me. “Maybe depress is the wrong word.” She offers me a small smile. “Maybe it just… makes you think too much.”
“Yeah,” I grumble out, then clear my throat and try again. “Yeah, it does. My dad died a couple years ago.” I look up at the closest picture and the memories flood in. “We did everything together.”
“I can tell. Lots of good times on these walls. Let’s drink out there.”
She doesn’t wait for me, just turns and walks over to the couch, sits down and sets the bottle on the coffee table. I walk over and sit down next to her, but not close enough to touch. I pour us each a drink and she clinks her glass to mine. “To dads.”
“To dads,” I repeat. “Drink it slow,” I say softly. “It’s very special. It should be enjoyed, not consumed in a rush the way I did it last night.” She nods and takes a small sip, makes a face, and takes another one. She holds in a cough and that makes me happy for some reason. It satisfies me in a way I can’t explain.
“I’m not a whiskey girl,” she says after taking one more sip and setting the glass down. “But it does seem special.” I smile big at that. She catches it and scowls. “You’re a weird guy, Ford.”
I take a bigger sip this time. “Tell me something new, Ashleigh.”
“New, as in you want to know something about me? Or new as in you already know you’re weird?”
“Both,” I say, leaning back and slumping down a little, my drink perched on my thigh, my bare feet kicked up on the coffee table. I pick at the strings from a hole in my jeans and she leans back too, but then the largeness of the couch clashes with the smallness of her body and she has to tuck her feet underneath her to get comfortable. I take another drink of my Scotch as she begins to talk.
“Hmmm. Something new about me… I’m in Colorado with a very attractive jerk. I’ve thought about him almost constantly since he appeared at my car window, and I’m not sure why he’s doing all this, so I’ve spent the entire day imagining him as a serial killer trying to lower my keen defenses so I’ll fall for his unorthodox charm and then beg him to kill me during kinky sex.”
I spit out my f**king whiskey, that’s how funny that is. “Oh, shit.” I just shake my head. “You’re the strange one, Ashleigh, not me.”
“Sorry,” she says as she takes another sip, grimacing as she forces it down. “Sometimes I say things I should bury deep inside.”
“So, you think I’m a hot serial killer? And you’re still here because… it’s OK to be a serial killer as long as I’m eye-candy?”
She smiles, but looks down like she’s embarrassed.
“Or you know I’m not a serial killer and you trust me?”