Dizzying Heights: The Aspen Novel

Dizzying Heights: The Aspen Novel

A satirical look at Aspen and the colorful characters who call it home. "...cover shows a lovely chocolate cake--an apt illustration, because this book is completely delicious...readers will devour it." -- Westword, May 29, 2008 "...works well...in all of the satire and comedy...staying lighthearted, with just enough plot twists to keep things interesting." -- PopMatters, May 15, 2008 Bruce Ducker was raised in New York City and has spent most of his working life practicing corporate law. He has been writing novels since 1975, and his eighth and ninth books will be published in 2008. He won the Colorado Book Award for Lead Us Not into Penn Station. Dizzying Heights The Aspen Novel By Bruce Ducker Fulcrum Publishing Copyright © 2008 Bruce Ducker All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-55591-658-9 Contents I. The Summer, II. The Winter, III. The Spring, About the Author, CHAPTER 1 Waddy Brush steered his car onto the cement curl to Rain-water Software and knew from the slight rush of G-force as he rounded the bend that he was atrack the perfect life. Beyond his windshield the Olympic Mountains shone under a recently washed sky, the pavement traced a measured and satisfying six-degree arc, and light from a rare April sun glinted off the window by his very workstation. Corridor F, Third Floor East. A yellow beam that spotlit his arrival, exactly as Jiminy Cricket highlighted the transubstantiation of Pinocchio from wood to flesh. Waddy unpacked himself from the VW, pulled up the canvas top, and entered the sleek glass building owned by his employer. More than an employer. Rainwater Software was, he'd regularly been told, a family. The head of HR had a way of looking at you; the man could stare unflinchingly into your eyes and fix you with his sincerity. Rainwater folk often spoke of family. At the summer picnic, when presenting the Christmas etching — employees were given a landscape rather than a check, last year it was a gnarled cypress on a hill — and again at the annual review. Every member of the family is treated the same, they told Waddy. Not in pay, of course, but in esteem. For two annual reviews, Waddy was Looked-on-Favorably, for the next three he was Thought-of-Highly, and last year (Waddy felt the most expansive, though there was no official grading of these terms), he had been elevated from participle phrase to dependent clause. A Young Man We're Watching. With each year's good words, Waddy got a dollop of stock options, which, he was told, would make him rich if he continued to achieve harmony within the family. And of course if the options vested. Harmony was easy. There were no discordant notes. Rainwater was a leading producer of retail software. Several of Waddy's projects had blossomed into video games, made it to the shelves, and he'd been promoted to the Virtual Reality Task Force. Rainwater was a great employer: full health, dental, and surgical, even pregnancy (which made Waddy, without an immediate application, nonetheless feel confident and adult). Vast athletic facilities, grander than those at Skakit Point High or Puget Community College. Waddy used them all, the fully equipped weight and cardio room, the indoor volleyball court, the jogging path that meandered through blooming tea roses and jonquil. The environment was ideal, the opportunities unlimit-ed, and the colleagues were, well, collegial. To a man and to a woman, intelligent, creative, accommodating. Indeed one (Waddy looked for her red Honda Civic as he exited the parking lot), one was perhaps too accommodating. Ah, Lisa Laroux. The plink of closed-cycle streams filled the three-story atrium. But this day a dark presence skulked amid the white noise. A wall of summer-weight wool gathered around the reception desk where the pretty greeter was handing out ID badges. Two dozen young men and women who might be Latter Day Saints on their mission. If that's what they were, they outdressed the sinners. Waddy bounced up the helical stairwell that wound about the waterfall and thought no more of them. Turned to Third Floor East, Corridor F, strolled down the hallway to his team. The magenta-walled cubicles of the Virtual Reality Task Force were personalized with photos of towheaded children in striped jerseys, ski and sail snapshots, and crayoned pictures. On Waddy's was tacked an eight-by-ten glossy of Satchmo and the Hot Five. He booted up the computer and it responded with a familiar buzz. Business as usual. But when he looked up to click on his pearlescent screen, he saw the pygmy reflection of a visitor. "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Brush?" Waddy swung his ergonomic stool around to face the man. A suit from the lobby. White, buttoned-down shirt, a tie in tiny blue paisley, business card at the ready. He was, he explained, from Rainwater's auditors. "We're being dispatched today to inform the Rainwater employees of the transaction, to carry the message simulta-neously and personally." "Who's we?" "U