Closing Day

Highlands closes the way it lived, loud and on short notice. The party is announced on a Friday for a Sunday, and the whole valley rearranges its life around a hill that will be closed by dinner. Costumes. Skis last waxed in February. A band on the deck and a line for it that does not move.

Everyone dressed for the mountains. She dressed for the moment, which is the older and harder thing to do, because the mountain forgives a bad outfit and the moment does not. The bowl gets hiked one final time. Somebody cries and blames the altitude.

Then it is over, all at once, the way the gold goes in the fall. The lifts stop. The deck empties. The season is a record now, and the record is the only part that keeps.