DISCLAIMER: SSX belongs to Electronic Arts. All associated characters and likenesses belong to EA. This story is written and published without permission or consent of EA. It is a fictional story made for purely entertainment purposes. Any relation to events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Fireside Chat
(c) 2003, 2005 Mayumi.H
Elise Riggs stepped into the ski lodge lobby just in time to see a slew of vacationers move en masse toward the main doors. There were both competitors and spectators in the crowd, she noticed; she could hear the annoying squeal of fans and the haughty laughter of her fellow racers. Probably, they were going out to celebrate one of today's little victories.
She ducked her head a little, shading her face with one hand, and lingered near the elevator doors. She just didn't want to deal with the masses today. She had done well in the race of the day, but not well enough for first place, and she didn't feel like getting her nose rubbed in it.
As soon as the throngs had vacated the premises, she strode over to the front desk. With the tempo of her fast-paced career, she had taken to letting reception handle all of her calls and messages. She just couldn't be bothered with it all.
Mallory, the evening attendant, greeted her with a cordial smile. "Miss Riggs, you have some messages."
Elise returned the smile, trying to make it look genuine, with little success. As it was, her lips curled into a sardonic smirk. "Figures." She was tired, and the less she had to deal with anyone else today, the better.
Mallory didn't seem to notice Elise's weariness. She handed over a wad of tiny papers with that same mechanical happiness that seemed to infect all hotel people she'd ever met.
Elise scanned the pages as she flipped through them, one after the other. Two were from the modeling agency, three from her agent with "urgent business," and one from a number in Canada that took her a moment to place.
It was her father's number.
"Ah, hell," Elise muttered aloud to herself. Leave it to dear old Dad to ruin a perfectly fine week.
Her father did not approve of her lifestyle - jet-setting across the globe for modeling assignments in between snowboarding circuit tours and exhibition meets. He wanted her to settle down, go back to school, get what he called a "real job." Elise scoffed at it all. Why, when she had been blessed with her God-given talents, and her God-given physique – she hadn't gotten the nickname "Bombshell" for nothing - should she be a bookworm?
She crumpled the piece of paper with her father's number on it into the palm of one hand. With an exasperated sigh, she turned around, looking for a wastebasket. She stopped when she noticed that one of her fellow riders was standing a few feet away, tapping his hands anxiously on the mahogany facade of the front desk. It was Nate Logan, that smug American cowboy who had claimed the second peak of the mountain as his own personal domain.
Elise snickered. "Well, Mr. Logan. What brings you out into the world?"
For most of the tournament, Nate had spent much of his free time away from pretty much everyone else, for which Elise was usually only too glad. If he wasn't on the slopes mouthing off about how good he was, he was hogging the equipment in the competitors' spa. In the past two weeks, he had not made a good impression on her. But then, not many people did.
Nate gave her a half-smile, half-snarl. "Don't you have somebody to knock over, Riggs?" He had been holding a not-quite-unspoken grudge against her ever since their first race, when she had clocked him one in the first twenty seconds, costing him a placing rank to the semifinals.
Elise grinned; the chance to grate on Nate's nerves made even getting the message from her father worth the trip downstairs. She shoved her messages into the front pocket of her vest and strode over to him. She gave him a playful punch in the arm. "Oh, what's the matter? You can't handle a little competition?"
He raised his hand in dismissal. "Whatever."
Elise was about to say something suitably crude when Mallory came up to them and pushed a small box Nate's way."Here you are, Mr. Logan," the attendant said. "Sorry about the mix-up."
Nate smiled at the girl as he took the package. "Not a problem. Thanks." He turned away from the desk and headed toward the fireplace lounge at the other end of the lobby.
Elise followed him, mostly because she was bored but also a little curious. She stepped down into the sunken area, practically on his heels, and sat down next to him on the cushiony sofa.
Nate glared at her. "Do you mind?"
She shook her head, grinning evilly. "Not at all." This was going to be fun.
He rolled his eyes and tried to ignore her as he opened the box, but she made it pretty difficult. She ooh-ed in a mocking, girlish tone when she saw a cellophane-wrapped pouch of what looked like candy. "Looks yummy," she murmured suggestively.
Nate couldn't stop himself from chuckling. "Would you like one?" he asked with only a bit of sarcasm, proffering her the bag.
"Yes, please," she said primly. She took one candy and unwrapped it, then popped it into her mouth. It was sweet, almost shockingly so, with a hint of almond mixed with the chocolatey, gooey taste. She bit into it, and it resisted, sticking to her molars. She had to cover her mouth to say, "Thank you."
He grinned, showing perfect white teeth. "I think that's the first time you've ever been polite to me."
Elise laughed and shook her head. "No, that's the first time you've ever been polite to ME."
Nate laughed, too, then offered her his hand. "Truce?"
She looked at his hand, making him wait a few long moments, just to have him suffer. Then she took his hand and pumped it, firmly. "Okay. Truce."
"All right," he said, then went back to the rest of the contents of the box.
Elise helped herself to another candy. "These are pretty good," she told him as she unwrapped her second one. "What are they?"
"Almond toffee," he told her as he sifted through the cramped packing material. "I ask my folks to send me some whenever I'm on the road." He glanced up at her. "A little bit of home, you know?"
She nodded. "Yeah," she answered in a soft voice, even though she didn't quite understand the sentiment. She had wanted to get away from her parents' vigilance ever since she was fifteen.
She peered over his arm as he removed a plain envelope from the box. There was a folded piece of paper with writing on it - she figured it was from one of his parents. Feeling as though he deserved his privacy, she looked away into the fire. As he continued to read what she assumed to be a letter, his hand holding the envelope drifted down into his lap, and she caught a glimpse of some photos inside.
The topmost photo was of a quaint, two-story house set against the backdrop of a gorgeous spread of white-and-green mountains.
"That's beautiful," Elise commented.
Nate looked at her with surprise, as if woken from a dream. He followed her gaze to the photos and nodded. "Oh, yeah. That's my parents' ranch, in Colorado."
She reached for the slim stack of pictures. "May I?"
"Uh, sure." He re-folded the letter and tucked it into his back pocket. He leaned in toward her, describing each of the photos to her as she went from one to the next. There were a few more pictures of the mountains (Nate pointed out one particularly dazzling one of the Never Summer range, where he'd picked up his first board at sixteen); two or three of the Logan family ranch (he laughingly told her an anecdote of how he broke his nose in a fall from his favorite horse, Stinger); and one of the family dogs, Bonnie and Clyde.
At the bottom of the pile, there was a different-sized picture, as if taken from a different camera. It was of a little girl with two long, brown braids and a gap-toothed smile. She was standing in a dusting of snow, next to a crude and rather pathetic-looking snowman.
"What a cutie!" Elise exclaimed, as if infected by the child's happiness.
Nate scratched the side of his face absently, his fingertips making an audible rustle against the two-day-old stubble on his cheeks. "That's Katie."
"Your sister?"
He looked at her blankly, then laughed. "No, she's my daughter."
Elise didn't know how to respond to that, so she said simply: "I didn't know you were married."
He shook his head. "I'm not."
She sat back from him a little, as the meaning of his words sank in. "Oh." While she had seen her fair share of different family relationships, especially among her fellow competitors, she had never considered that one of her rivals might actually have a family of his or her own. Snowboarding had consumed most of her life, so she just didn't consider the possibility of "settling down." She especially didn't consider it given how often her father nagged her about it.
Nate reached over and took the picture from her, cocking his head. "She's pretty, huh?"
Elise felt a sudden stab of pity for him. "Yeah," she murmured. He seemed sad, almost lost. She didn't like thinking about it. "She must take after her mother," she said jokingly.
He laughed again, as if unaware of her scrutiny. "Yeah, good thing, huh?"
"How old is she?"
Nate thought for a moment. "Uh, six." He blew a long breath, as if surprised by this. "Holy shit, she is six," he muttered to himself.
Elise chuckled. "I guess you don't spend much time around her, if you had to think about it."
He leaned back into the sofa and stared at his boots. "She lives with her mom. In..." He had to stop to think again. "Seattle? No, Portland." He nodded. "Portland."
Thoughts of her own father – and their estranged relationship - quieted her. "So… You don't really see her." It wasn't a question.
He sucked in a long, low breath, complying with her prodding. "I haven't seen her since she was a baby. Kris - her mom - sends me pictures every once in a while. You know, birthdays." He waved a hand over the mantelpiece, where the lodge staff had hung garland and a wreath for the season. "Christmas-time."
Elise hummed, nodding. Personally, she couldn't fathom life without her father. As a child, she had had such a strong rapport with him. She supposed a lot of her original tomboyish-ness came from him. It wasn't until she got older that they had begun to clash, when she had discovered the allure of male attention, and then the siren song of the spotlight.
Nate grunted, continuing: "She's better off with her mom. Kris and I weren't exactly made for each other, anyway. We were just...going different ways. Two ships passing in the night, and all that."
Despite her better judgment, Elise asked: "Did you love her?"
"I was nineteen years old," Nate scoffed. "Jesus, what the hell does anyone know at nineteen?"
She propped her chin on one fist. "You didn't answer my question."
His eyes went a little glassy, and he muttered, "When I think about what could have been…" He paused, then spared a glimpse her way. Seeing her curious look, he shook his head. "Forget it."
She narrowed her eyes at him, her voice dropping to a low whisper. "No, what were you going to say?"
"We get so caught up in this stuff. Prizes, money, all that junk." He glanced around the lodge lobby, and she followed his gaze to the trophy case on the far side of the room.
She'd looked at those medals countless times while walking through the lodge, pining after them like a child in want of candy. Even when she managed to stand on the winners' platform, how many times had she glanced to the person next to her, wishing for that better medal? Most times, she forgot about everything else – even people.
He chortled briefly. "Hell, I'm as guilty as anybody." He paused. When he started to speak again, his words came slowly, as if weighted. He wasn't even looking at her anymore, just staring at the picture of the little girl in his hands. "But, you know, when it comes right down to it, none of that really matters."
Elise leaned forward, just slightly, and reached her hand out to his. "Nate…" she began to say.
There was a sharp, electronic trill – like the ring of a phone - from somewhere between them. She glanced down to her M-Comm, the corporate sponsor-supplied PDA, at her waist, and he did the same. Hers was silent, while his beeped again.
Nate flipped open the tiny instant-messenger screen and smiled as he read the communique. "Looks like my partner's got the munchies." He closed the M-Comm and stood up, tucking it and the pictures away into his coat. "You want to come? It's just me and Griff; I'm sure he won't mind."
Elise looked up into his friendly face and hesitated. "Uh… Um, no, thanks." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder and smiled. "I've got, um, stuff to do."
He shrugged. "Okay." He started to turn, then looked back, pointing at her. "See you at time trials tomorrow, right?"
"You bet." She grinned, once more back in her element of banter. "And don't think I'm going to take it easy on you just because of that little girl."
He returned her grin. "I hope not." He rotated his broad shoulders, setting his jacket back to rights, and he strode for the door, looking like nothing so much as a lonesome cowboy.
Elise started to stand up, too, when the crinkle of cellophane startled her. She glanced down at the bag of candy still in her lap. "Hey, Nate!" she called after him. When he looked back over his shoulder, she waved the bag at him. "You forgot these!"
"Keep 'em," he told her. He smiled again, and tipped his Stetson to her. "Merry Christmas, Riggs." Then he was out the doors, and gone into the cold and snow.
Elise snickered to herself. She pocketed the bag of candy into her vest. She felt something resist, pushing back on the parcel. Then she remembered the stack of messages that she'd shoved into her pocket.
She pulled out the handful of papers and regarded them thoughtfully. She got up from the sofa, then walked slowly up the steps, across the lobby, and toward the elevators. She flattened the crumpled paper against the palm of her hand as she waited for the elevator to arrive, her eyes roving over the slightly smudged number again and again.
She didn't notice when the doors ping-ed and opened; she didn't notice the car stopping at her floor; she didn't notice walking to her room and opening her door. The first thing that she did notice was the phone receiver in her left hand and the half-crumpled paper in her right, and the buzz-buzz ringing in her ear.
She was about to hang up the phone, cursing how scatterbrained she was, when there was a click on the line, and someone said:
"Hello?"
Elise bit her lip. The voice on the other end repeated the greeting, adding, "Is anyone there?" The voice sounded tired, more tired than she remembered it.
She tried to speak, but the right words wouldn't come. Finally, there was a sigh on the other end, as if the speaker was about to hang up.
"Dad?" she croaked, at the very last moment. "It's Leesie…"
End