There was one year when he drove Amy to work on Saturday mornings, and then sometimes on Sundays, when they needed her. His wife and Jenny would come along, and they would ski together when Amy got off work. They would shout things up and down the mountain. His wife is very slow. She favors one-piece suits, makes perfect turns. The custom is to line up at the bottom of a run and comment as she comes down. And then Amy had her license, and she drove herself alone early in the mornings, and he knew that sometimes she was skiing at seven before the slopes were open, and that she had friends who also worked. He and his wife got another car for Amy to drive, because soon she was driving Jen, too, and the girls had friends who were locals, and they went to parties. Eloise was a local. He did not know whether she was Amy’s friend or if she was Jen’s friend. She was probably a little younger than Amy, but she was definitely not as young as Jenny. She was around their house often, and she called often, and when she called, she would ask for Amy, and when she was over, he always saw her talking to Jen. But she was part of a group of kids who came to his house and were attractive and polite and sometimes ate a meal with them. He never met her parents, but once she told a story about how they had let her brother name her when she was a baby, which he remembered, so he knew that they existed. The other thing that he can think of is that one time he saw Eloise kissing a boy on their deck under the light. The boy was leaving early; she had gone out with him to say goodbye. It had been a surprise to see that kids did that, the way she was formal with him, and he saw her mouth, “Good night,” after.

He turned into the huge muddy lot, past the pond that never froze, dug for skating, and the green cross-country trails. A small blue car with white racing stripes and rust hooding one of its taillights, a gray van, and a black truck were lined up at the fence at the end of the lot. This is really part-time, thought Richard, and he pulled in next to the blue car. There was an empty box of Ritz crackers torn open in the back and a white T-shirt pulled over the passenger-side front seat of the blue car. He turned off his engine but kept looking inside the blue car. Eloise wasn’t waiting for him. Richard got out into the mud, locked the Jeep, and walked toward the lifts through one of the ticket booths.