Even better, Melvin didn’t seem to require any response from me. I let him talk, mostly about Aspen politics and recent local scandals, while we shoveled snow. Apparently, the garage closest to the main road, if you could call a one-lane mountain road a “main road,” housed a small snow plow and he liked keeping the area in front of it clear.
“It’s for emergencies,” he said. “It’s good to be ready, just in case we need to use it. And this path between the funicular house and the snow plow gets shoveled too.”
“Why don’t you just use the plow now? Clear this area?”
“Well, I wouldn’t use the plow at night.” He lifted the rim of his ski cap to scratch his head. “Yeah, I got those lights up there.” Melvin gestured to the high intensity work lamps on each of the garages, illuminating the clearing where we stood and the area around the three garages. “They’re bright, but I might not see a big branch or something like it. Plus, it uses diesel, which I don’t have an unlimited supply of, and I like the exercise.” His eyelashes were frosty, but he was grinning as he said this, his gloved hands resting on the pole of the shovel. “You ever want to come down and help shovel, just let me know. Think about it.”
I didn’t need to think about it, any excuse to leave over the next few days would come in handy. “I will. You come down here every day?”
“Yes. Sometimes twice, sometimes three times. Snow is easier to shovel if you move it within six hours of falling.”
I nodded, knowing this already. Michigan winters were why I never wanted to live someplace where daily snow shoveling in the winter was a requirement for leaving the house.
My dad would wake me up before school with a shovel in hand, saying, “God gave you those shoulders for a reason, son. And today that reason is shoveling snow.”
“Hey, we’ll clear this here together, and then you got this area?” Melvin gestured to the last few feet before the ski lift. “I’ll go get the bags and we can ride up together.”
“Bags?” I blinked as freezing flakes fell on my face near my eyes.
“Mona’s. And her friend, Alan, or All-lean, or Al-lena, or something like that. These names, I can’t pronounce them without practicing.”
Glancing away, the white cloud of my exhales following me, I studied the pile of snow near my boots. “Sure. I got it.”
“Thanks. You know, if it were just Mona, like last time, she could have taken it all up in one trip.” Melvin began shoveling again. “Never met a person who packs as light as our Mona.”
I said nothing, but that hot pulse of energy radiated outward again, pushing back, my stomach dropping, a tight band around my throat.
“She’s something else.” Melvin paired this statement with a chuckle and a headshake. “You know, she never lets Lila cook for her. Says she doesn’t want to inconvenience anyone. And she’d be out here shoveling if I’d let her. One time, she got up before me, at the butt crack of dawn. Snow was coming down like a waterfall and she shoveled half the path before I arrived. Reamed her a new one for being so reckless.”
I lifted an eyebrow at that. “You reamed Mona ‘a new one’?”
“Yep. Gave it to her, good and hard.”
I swallowed, internally stiffening and growing hot at the word choice.
But he wasn’t finished. “She said she liked the exertion or some such nonsense. Something about never being worn out, since she sits at a desk all day.” Melvin rolled his eyes heavenward. “That Mona, she needs a firm hand, doesn’t like to take no for an answer. I’ve had to lay the law down with her a few times.”