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Alice climbed on behind her, and after I got on our snowmobile, Doris climbed on behind me.
“We need to stop at my dome before we leave!” Alice said before she slipped on her helmet.
“For what?”
“I forgot something. Pull up quick, and I’ll be in and out in a second.”
“Roger that,” Marge said, then clamped the visor of her helmet down. Her voice was muffled when she yelled, “Let’s ride!”
We both fired up our snowmobiles, and I was grateful for the short tutorial Olavi had given us. After hooking the auto-shutoff cord to my snowsuit, I pressed the lever on the handle and rode off after Marge. By the time we reached Alice’s dome, I had a pretty good feel of the steering and pressure I needed for speed.
“I’ll be a second!” she called, then hopped off, her snowsuit crinkling with her quick steps. A few moments later, she emerged with a Louie Vuitton garment bag.
“What the hell is that?” Marge asked.
Alice climbed back on and put the suitcase between them. “My best couture dresses are in here. Since we clearly have room between us, I’m not leaving them behind. I won’t. If they get lost in the mail, I’ll just die. They won’t be in the way, so just go. I’m ready.”
If it anyone but Alice had pulled a stunt like that, I’d have been shocked, but instead, I chuckled as I watched her press the bag carefully between them before wrapping her arms around Marge’s waist.
“Roll out!” Marge shouted, and when she sped off, I flew along behind her.
Even with the blinding snow, Olavi hadn’t been lying when he’d said the trail was impossible to miss, even in the dark. Our headlights illuminated the perfect clearing between the trees stretched out before us, and the snowmobiles flew across the deepening snow with ease. Normally, I would have scolded Marge for going so fast, and I’d have picked a much more leisurely pace, but my desperation to get home to Rachel caused me to lean forward and gun my snowmobile even faster.
Our little caravan wound down the trail, up and down the hills as we raced toward the airport. Doris gripped me tightly from behind, and I hoped like hell she wouldn’t fly off with the speeds we were taking the turns. We emerged into a stretch of open snow-covered land, and for a moment I worried we would lose the trail, but Marge veered left, and I saw the large opening back into the woods and the easy-to-spot trail.
I twisted the handle to follow behind her, but just as we slipped back into the woods, we hit some deep snow, and my turn veered wide. My eyes flashed open at the large tree directly in front of us, and I screamed as I cranked the handles the opposite way to avoid it. The sharp trajectory sent Doris and I sailing into the woods, and we plowed into a snowdrift with athump.The fast stop sent me shooting off the snowmobile like a misfired arrow, and when my safety cord pulled tight, the snowmobile engine turned off.
I landed with a thud in a soft pile of snow, laying there stunned for a moment. “Ow,” I whispered as I rolled back to sitting. I looked left and saw Doris clinging to the seat of the snowmobile for dear life.
“I’m not falling off! I swear I won’t fall off!” she shouted, though her helmet muffled the words.
“Are you okay?” I asked, then hurried to help her back up.
She flipped up her visor and looked at me with wide, shocked eyes. “Hey! I stayed on! I did it!”
“You did. This time, I fell off.” I looked at the snowmobile buried deep in the snowdrift. “We need to get this thing pushed out and back on the trail.”
Doris hopped off and started pushing with me, but we grunted and groaned and couldn’t get the big machine to move. A minute passed before we saw Marge’s headlights coming back our way, so I told Doris to run back out on the trail and flag her down.
“Marge! We’re here! Marge!” she screamed as she jumped up and down.
The engine sputtered to a stop, and Alice and Marge leaped off.
“Are you hurt? Are you okay?” Marge asked.
“We’re fine,” I called back. “But I took that turn too fast and spun out. We need help pushing this thing out.”
“I had a heart attack when I looked back and you were gone,” Alice said.
“It happened so fast!” Doris pressed her hands on top of her helmet. “One minute we were on the trail then the next ... poof!”
“Come on, ladies. I didn’t hit anything so the snowmobile should be fine, but it’s really buried here. Help me push. We’re not missing this plane!”
They jumped into action, and the three of us pushed while Alice pressed on the reverse to try to get us unstuck. But after we pushed and pulled and tried to lift it, we collapsed into an exhausted heap.
“It’s stuck,” Marge said, puffing. “Really stuck.”
“Shit!” I cried out. “Now what?”
