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He didn’t know whether the “on steroids” qualifier was a good thing, but it must be, given her palpable excitement. “All right, then.” He looked around the table. “Someone will have to stay back.” He explained to Ms. Delaney, “We only have four pairs of snowshoes.”
“Oh, I’m not going,” his mother said. “I have a shift at the library.”
“Me neither,” said Armend, who, as that rare type of human who didn’t particularly like immersing himself in hot water, usually had to be dragged along on the family’s excursions to the baths.
As he turned his attention to his sister, he saw a look pass between her and their mother. “I can’t go, either,” she said cheerily. He waited to see what excuse she would come up with, but she smiled at him without producing one.
He knew what they were doing. They were completely misunderstanding the situation. But there was no way to tell them asmuch without making things extremely awkward. So . . . “Ms. Delaney, it appears it will just be the two of us.”
“Why do you call her Ms. Delaney?” Martina asked. “You’re so weird, Matteo.”
“Oh, I call him Mr. Benz, so it’s not just him,” Ms. Delaney said quickly.
While Matteo appreciated that Ms. Delaney was defending him, she didn’t need to entangle herself in whatever matchmaking mischief was afoot here. He frowned at Martina and switched to German to say, “It’s called manners, Martina. You should try it sometime.”
“I’m going to assume that if you’ve never been skiing or skating, you’ve also never been snowshoeing?” Mr. Benz asked as he rummaged through a storage locker in the basement of the building. He extracted two pairs of snowshoes that looked very high-tech and not at all like Cara’s image of snowshoes. She’d thought they would be made of wood and have a crisscrossed base. But then, her image of snowshoes was straight out of a picture book her mother used to read her about a family of bears who accidentally awakened from their hibernation and decided to try out winter activities.
“I have not. I get bad marks across the board when it comes to winter sports.” She paused, thinking of the nonswimming trip to Barbados. “And summer sports.”
Chuckling, he led them outside and pointed to a bench that, because it was under the building’s awning, was free of snow.
“What are these made of?” she asked as she sat. “Fiberglass?”
“Aluminum, I believe.”
“But coated with something. Powdered plastic, probably.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Where do they make them?” She wondered if they were mass-produced in the usual places, or made in a snowy place.
“You really do have a passion for manufacturing, don’t you? I don’t know where these were made.”
She chuckled. “I just never thought of snowshoes as being mass-produced, which is, of course, stupid. I had this image of them made out of wood, and I don’t know, rawhide or something?”
“Collectors prize those kinds of traditional snowshoes, but for actually getting around, I think newfangled is better.”
“Excuse me. Do I hear you saying that the modern version is better than the traditional one?”
He smirked. “There are exceptions to every rule.”
Mr. Benz helped her into her shoes, gave her a quick orientation, and they were off. Tromping down the deserted main street of the village was fun. The shops were closed, and the world was silent, blanketed with snow. They passed a few other snowshoers and cross-country skiers with whom they exchanged brief words of greeting. But other than that, it felt like they were alone in a world blanketed by snow.
At the end of the main street was a park, and he led them through it. “There’s a walking path that connects to Biel. It’s a straight shot from here, but there are some hills along the way, one in particular that’s rather strenuous. The plus side is that since Biel is higher in elevation, the trip home is downhill.”
She could do with a little exercise. She’d been working overtime to try to get to the bottom of this Noar Graf business even as she kept doing her actual job. “Lead the way.”
He did, showing her at the first hill how to keep her weight at the front of her foot as they ascended and how to kick her foot when she landed to create a place to step. She got the hang of it, but it was hard work.
“You’re a quick learner,” Mr. Benz observed after they’d made it up the first hill.
“I’ve never been an athlete, but one thing I can do is walk. When I’m in New York, I walk fifteen blocks from a subway stop to my office.”
“I hope you...” Mr. Benz trailed off and cleared his throat before starting again. “Wear sensible shoes.”
He was so weird sometimes. “Do you play any sports?” He didn’t seem to be finding their trek strenuous, whereas she had worked up quite the sweat under her winter coat.
“I did when I was young. Polo and football—or what you would call soccer. I also competed in dressage.”
