Winter isn’t an easy guy to love. He can be downright nasty sometimes, he can make life difficult. The deck where I love to sit with my morning coffee and a notebook is buried in snow. My driveway needs to be shoveled out at least once a week if I want to go anywhere at all. I haven’t seen my mailbox in a month. This very morning, I cancelled hiking in the woods with a friend because, at fourteen degrees with a stiff north wind causing a wind chill that would rival Antarctica’s, walking is not a whole lot of fun.
I used to love winter. I grew up in the Adirondacks, my parents owned a small restaurant at the base of an access road to a mom and pop ski area, one of those tiny areas with a t-bar and a rope tow, the kind that aren’t around much anymore. I learned to ski when I was seven and skiing was a huge part of my life when I was young. I had a poster in my bedroom that said “stomp out summer”. I had a plaque that said “pray for snow. And when the snow came, I would jump up and down with joy, because there is nothing better than carving turns on skis through soft new powder””it is poetry in motion, it is the purest form of joy, it is, in short, awesome.
Somewhere along the line, though, I lost my love of winter. I joined the winter haters and complained bitterly about the cold and the endless snow. I hated having to bundle up just to go to the store. I called for winter to pack up his bags and hit the road and was miffed at Phil the groundhog for proclaiming six more weeks. I longed for carefree summer, a beach chair near the tide line, water licking my bare feet as the warm sun caressed my shoulders.
I’m trying to recall, this year, how I used to feel. And sometimes, when I’m gliding along on my skis and the winter sun is making everything sparkle as though it has lit a thousand candles, sometimes when I’m walking and thick flakes fall, turning the woodland into a snow globe, I remembered why I loved winter so. And I think that I could love him, still.
Dancing in the white room is slang for skiing or boarding in deep powder snow. The dancer is PD Bell, one of the best extreme skiers on the planet. Mallory Prescott, the woman who lives with him and loves him, is used to Bell’s exploits. A patrol woman at Whiteface Mountain near Lake Placid, New York, Mallory is no stranger to risk. But this time Bell is taking on the West Rib of Denali, highest and most dangerous mountain in North America. It’s a descent that has never been done, though it’s been tried. Five years ago, Bell had tried it. The attempt nearly killed him. Five years ago, he promised Mallory he wouldn’t try it again.
Over the six weeks in which he’s gone, Mallory begins to question her relationship with Bell. Does he really love her? Is he in it for the duration? What has loving him cost her? Mallory’s life choices are thrown into stark relief when her daughter Emily takes a terrible fall. Together with her life-long friend Creech Creches, she must work her way through a maze of uncharted territory at a hospital miles from home.
Dancing in the White Room is the story of the love we keep, the price we pay for that love, and the forgiveness it takes to hold on to what is precious.
Excerpt–
The lunch crowd had long since filtered out of the cafeteria, choosing to stand in line for the lifts rather than hamburgers. I spooned up a bowl of chili from what looked like the dregs of the pot. Bell sat at a corner table with some other guys from the team. His blond hair curled around his shoulders, and I thought he was the best-looking guy I had ever laid eyes on.
I sat down a few tables from them. When I glanced up, I saw Bell watching me. I smiled and he smiled back, said something to his friends, picked up his tray and started walking in my direction. I figured he was done with lunch and about to leave. I wanted to check him out, but not stare, so I concentrated on my chili.
I didn’t look up again until he sat down across from me, at which point I was caught up in a kind of gummy, adolescent speechlessness. He had a half-eaten burger on his tray and a mound of fries slathered in ketchup.
“Chili any good?” he asked.
I stared at it as though it might give me an answer to his question. The crackers I’d been crumbling into the bowl were stuck to my palm. “I wouldn’t recommend it.” I brushed the crumbs from my hand.
“I was watching you ski,” he said. “You’re pretty phenomenal.” He smiled down at his burger.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” I answered, thinking the minute after I said it that this was possibly the stupidest thing that had ever dropped out of my mouth.
“You want to grab a beer or something later?”
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