The Other Voice
Wanted a man, found a glacier.
By SANDY MARGULIES

It wasn't like she could get any closer to the car in front of her. She could almost reach out and grab onto its bumper and let it drag her the rest of the way home through the creamy, featherlike snow. It would have been easier that way. So much easier.

The voice tempted her to turn off the headlights, to halt the blinding reflection of the swiftly falling snow. "No way," she said out loud, fearing she'd be forced off what she thought was the road and into the bank by an unseeing plow. She ached to pull over for the evening, to let the white mass bury her; just wait until morning and its rejuvenating sense of rebirth to dig herself out and see where she was. Suddenly the soft roadside barriers weren't looking so bad.

No. She rode the car's tail, hoping it was taking her where she wanted to go. So blind and unknowing. The emptiness she came to frequent all season long was almost too comfortable that night. She was the driver and the passenger, just like when skiing.

She was used to having long, comfortable conversations with the voice, conversations that attracted gawking stares at stop signs and on chairlifts. But she liked hearing it. It filled the empty space. She had become insecure, shy, and afraid of interacting with the world since her father's death a year ago. She hated being alone, and driving through this demon of a blizzard magnified her phobia. Tonight the voice was almost pleading. Find someone. The voice told her that it was the only way to be happy.

Sick of driving and feeling sorry for herself, she folded and vowed that if she made it home that night she'd begin the search for a companion, someone to speak during the awkward silences so she wouldn't have to.


Her family said she was crazy, and maybe, just maybe she thought, as she stood on the Snowbird tram deck that morning, they were right. For the first time she could remember, this familiar setting didn't feel very inviting. She learned that she was slotted to go first, not an envied position. She wanted to run and hide, but the voice told her to board the tram and she did, not knowing what was in store for her very first competition.

Somehow this search for another skier, preferably male, had merged with another surreptitious impulse: to compete in telemark contests. She nervously signed her life away on a registration form. Other competitors told her that going first had many positives, but she saw little encouragement in their faces.

She struggled to be social. She made small talk in the tram as it lifted into the sky—great weather today; nice jacket, where'd you get it?—even to obvious tourists. She preferred conversing with the voice, but with a firm shake she turned away from the easy out and kept trying, hoping that somebody would eventually become interested in her layered life and even want to be a part of it.

The doors opened in a rush of wind and insecurity immediately seeped into her jacket, killing the warmth beneath. She ached to grasp onto someone, someone who could convince her that she wouldn't plummet to her death. The voice spoke reassuringly, but all she saw in the familiar slope were jagged cliffs.

She had cleanly practiced her line many times, but now was having trouble just getting to the starting point. Her head and heart were pounding with blood and adrenaline as she looked over the horizon, her skis teetering on the spine of the cirque and pointing toward a sun that was burning the mountains a painful red.

She heard a countdown and pushed off, and suddenly it was over. No one was waiting at the bottom to prop her up with compliments. She knew she skied poorly, and the judges agreed. Her nerves had won. She slipped away from the finish area unnoticed, the voice oddly silent.


The first tram at Jackson Hole was packed. Traveling seemed like a good way to get out and meet people, so here she was. She stood in awe of the mountains as the metal box pierced the cloud and burst through the other side. The peaks seemed to tell her how little she knew; they grew more massive while she shrank to nothingness.

Athletically good-looking men crawled the mountain like ants, and she figured she'd meet at least one of them. But at bars and on chairlifts, each seemed caught up in his own life, content with being alone, showing little sign of sharing her deep need for companionship. And so she focused on the only things that seemed to make her happy: the snow, her skis, and a lot of speed.

At Whistler she encountered the same thing and wondered aloud if she'd ever find her match. The voice didn't answer. As she stood alone on what felt like the top of the world, she spied a rolling glacier for the first time and it unexpectedly filled her eyes with tears. A place that was untouched and pristine.

The glacier. She cried for herself, something she hadn't done for a long time. A window seemed to open above and inside her and she wanted to explode, to scream to the world that she was done being something that she really wasn't. She felt new again, fresh and giddy to soak up more. She was happier on that peak staring at the rolling glacier than she had ever been.

Something flowed over her body and ran through her soul, peeling back layers of guilt and reluctance. And then the glacier spoke to her, not with words but with its cold, inhuman, majestic presence, drawing her in with its rib-cage crevasses and caressing layer of fresh spring snow. No one would have understood these tears. They were hers and hers alone, and not meant for anyone else. The voice was oddly silent.


By season's end her telemark turns were more fluid than ever, and her comp finishes steadily improved. She eventually found her way home, bringing with her a companion far different than the one she sought out. It wasn't a physical asset she could show people, like a man or an honorable finish in a competition. It was a deep, confident desire to always be on skis. She now had the mountain to talk to, and its spirit was a sublime strength she was just beginning to understand.


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