Cover

About the Author

Trish Harnetiaux is a playwright whose work has been published by Samuel French. She has received fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo and the Millay Colony. This is her first novel. She is originally from Washington State and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, which means she is partial to hard rain, volcanic ash, and artisan flea markets.

Part One

THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE PARTY

As I write this, I sit at the small desk in the living room.

It’s just after 9 a.m., not a cloud in the sky, 74 degrees. I’ve always preferred Aspen in the early summer. A paradise.

I need to tell you something important before I go. Before I die. It’s difficult to write that word. In these last couple weeks since the scan and diagnosis I have tried to accept it. It is impossible. I will miss you too much. I don’t worry for myself. I am not afraid of death. I have lived afraid for too long. I will not die afraid. And I will not waste the time I have left.

It’s important to tell you everything. I should have done it a long time ago. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you will have to carry this with you like I have. But you deserve to know before there’s no one left to tell you the truth.

Claudine

By midnight the snowfall would reach a foot, just shy of breaking Aspen’s one-day record set more than forty years before. No one predicted the storm would be so severe. The sheer speed of it. The first flakes didn’t even start coming down until around two that afternoon.

Claudine couldn’t see them outside the salon’s picture window, her head stuck under a hooded dryer. With a freshly French-manicured hand, she reached into her cream-colored Chanel flap bag and pulled out the guest list: not counting herself, Henry, and their six employees. There hadn’t been much time to put the list together. Zara had let her know she was coming just a few days before. Considering the short notice and how packed Aspen social calendars were during the holiday season, these were good, solid choices:

Captain and Mrs. Tiggleman

Kevin and Jerry

The Alpine Brothers

Old-school residents with character and charm. And, of course, purpose. The Tigglemans could rave about both houses she’d sold them—and show Zara that Aspen, unlike Hollywood, didn’t favor youth but was a place where one could age with class and grace. Henry’s childhood friend Kevin and his husband, Jerry, would demonstrate their long-standing connection to the town—and its inclusive, liberal side. And the Alpine Brothers, Jack and Bobby, with their ability to talk for hours about how to curve wood just right or the best temperature to melt steel, would indicate the firm’s expertise, their insistence on working with only the finest contractors.