New Girl
Love, in the purely mechanical sense
By BLAKE MAXWELL

I told myself I'd seen everything this little town has to offer. For someone like me, who's traveled the world and tried it all, there wasn't enough excitement or danger here. I was still after the hot item, and this place was just too old, too tepid. It's true, I hadn't been here that long, but I felt I knew how to judge a place quickly and accurately. Though the winter was yet young, I'd already decided to ride out the season and move on, like all the other times.

That was before I met her.

Romantics often say it happens when you least expect it, and our meeting was far from perfectly planned. It was a bleak, cloudy, crowded day between Christmas and New Year's, when even the singles line at the gondola was overrun with armies of tourists dangerously and naively waving their skis and poles around like toy swords.

I considered bagging it, just going home. Instead I waited 20 minutes with the other lemmings and rode up with my eyes cast out the window. I spoke to no one, and no one spoke to me. I will admit that I sulked a little.

On the first run I kept near the trees, picking unceremoniously at week-old remnants of the latest storm that passed while I was stuck working day shifts. My second run was worse. Trying to ditch the crowds I chose a broken path through the glades on the Ridge, finally enjoying a few turns on the erratic fall line. Moving at a good clip, I didn't see his blue parka until he blindly emerged from the cluster of pine trees right beneath me. I hip-checked just in time to avoid a complete and messy collision. Instead I nicked his binding and skied right over his tails.

That was it. Fearful of the patrol posse that was now surely forming to find me, the reckless, headhunting heathen, I ducked into an old and virtually empty run studded by a double chair. Since I'd never ridden the thing before, I thought it a pretty good place to lie low.

It was there that we met.

In describing her I must first stress that she is of a quiet sort. She does not broadcast herself for all to see. Hers are not the qualities to which most men respond, at least not immediately. Fast, worldly, and dramatic she is not. She is who she is, and this comfort with herself makes her all the more attractive.

Truth be told, she's no stunner. I would not compare her to contemporary models; I would not trade her for such, either. And though she lacks the qualities that magazines and televisions tell me I should desire, I find her more enticing than any woman I have ever met.

I was immediately smitten. I felt the telltale first signs of love tingling all through my being. It was like a whole new day. In spite of the wind tearing across the open reaches of the mountain, I felt more protected and warm than I'd ever been while skiing.

It was just the two of us. One run led to two, and two to three. The girl had verve, and dimension. In her own mysterious and silent ways she was utterly challenging. I chased her through glades and bumps, chutes and gullies. She revealed to me stashes of powder where I thought there were none.

I tried to show her my best side, my best moves. Impressing her would not be easy. She revealed a surprising toughness and I pushed myself to match. Though entirely unspoken, her expectations were high. She was the first girl that I'd wanted to live up to. And yet, she remained elusive.

By our fourth run together I was in love, ready to proclaim it to the world. I was a changed man. The romantics are right, it can happen that fast. I had found her, the ideal I was created to find.

And yet, I am troubled. What will my family say, when they don't even understand my reasons for moving west in the first place? She's not what they expect; I'll surely catch hell for this.

Perhaps this letter is my practice run. A nameless man in a nameless town announcing his strange love to strangers.

It is true, nonetheless. She's a double chairlift. She's called the Bar UE, my sweet.


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