Chapter 4

Jason — Earning a Reputation

As the fall came and the leaves started to turn, Robert began converting the area over from a summer resort for honeymooners and hikers to a ski resort. He spent hours checking rooms for signs they might let cold air in. He also climbed the mountainside to check on the lifts and paths, making sure they were properly prepared for the coming season. The breakfast traffic died down some, but the dinner crowds continued to increase. Robert told me that my cooking was winning good reviews from as far away as Cheyenne and Boulder, so to expect to remain busy.

I could not keep up the quality alone, and as the summer traffic waned, Robert finally asked his sister Patricia to help out in the kitchen while he would man the desk.

Patricia still often had to respond to the little bell by the desk if people arrived unscheduled, but the extra pair of hands helped immensely.

Patricia proved to be a cheerful, five foot three blond, who despite her forty years on this planet, seemed to have the energy of a teenager. She was endlessly patient with children, but could rise to the occasion when a party of twenty decided to descend on our little resort for a party dinner.

During the slow periods when we were preparing for the dinner service, Patricia and I slowly exchanged the stories of our lives. I tried to tell her little, but she soon realized that I had issues regarding sex and decided to break me out of my shell. She started by telling me about her three marriages and the resulting divorces.

"I know every kid thinks that a bad relationship is the end of the world, but trust me," she started. "I've been married three times, and each ended with me filing the paperwork for divorce, so I can assure you that it's not the end."

"My first marriage. That was a huge mistake. Leroy was a big and impressive black man from Tennessee. He met me while I was attending a concert out in Nashville as a graduation present, and I fell head over heels for him without finding out the truth.

He did a great job courting me, and bedding me before I made the mistake of agreeing to wear his wedding ring."

"Leroy had the same problem many black men do. He is quite happy to vocally put down white men, and act superior, but in truth he had a major inferiority complex about them. Once we were married every white man became an enemy in his eyes. If I so much as said hello to one, Leroy was positive that I'd leave him for that man. And since he couldn't fight every man I met, he started using his fists on me. I spent the second half of our one-year marriage mostly in the hospital after he engaged in beating me for some imagined slight. Finally, I had enough and called the cops on him. With the accumulated doctor's evidence, he was swiftly convicted of spousal abuse, and I filed for divorce number one and left town."

"My second husband was Torbin. He was a long-haul trucker from somewhere in North Dakota. I wanted to stay in a big city, so he used some of his savings to get a place in Denver, and I lived there while he was on the road."

"The problem was that when he was on the road, I might only see him one day in passing and he could be gone for a month at a time. I tried to stay with him, but while the axiom is 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' it proved to be much different once I found myself alone so often. The distance was causing my mind to wander, and Jorge realized that. I'd been married to Torbin for seven years, of waiting for him to settle in as a short haul truck driver when Jorge made a play and convinced me to leave my husband.