Cabin Fever (11 page)

She was more nervous than she liked when she met him outside the bar, where he was waiting as she walked up. “Hi,” she said in what sounded to her like a little-girl voice. She had come determined to project the aura of a confident career woman, a successful entrepreneur in control of her own fate who definitely did not feel intimidated because some muscle-bound jock asked her out for a drink. She maintained that confidence until the moment she saw Brad, at which point all self-assurance left her body with the violence of oxygen escaping from a damaged spacecraft.

“Hi,” he said, and reached out a hand to take hers and give it a little squeeze. Still holding her hand, he walked to the door, opened it, and held it for her as she walked inside. Sarah found herself thinking a lot about his hand, and how his fingers felt when they were entwined with hers.

They sat in the same place they’d sat before. Jimmy’s was busier now, the stalls and stools filled with what looked to be a steady cast of regulars, all of whom knew each other and spoke with familiarity to the woman behind the bar. Brad left to walk to the bar, and a few minutes later returned with two beers – the same that they had ordered before, Sarah noted. Well, if nothing else he was certainly attentive.

“So,” she said.

“So,” he answered, and gave her a half smile. “Thanks for coming. I needed the company.”

“You and your Dad are having problems?”

“No, not problems. Just the usual stuff. Since my Mom died he’s gotten used to living alone, and I’ve lived alone for most of my life. Put the two of us under the same roof, in a cabin that’s barely big enough for one person and it won’t be long before we’re getting on each other’s nerves.”

“Sounds like my family. I love my father and my sister dearly, but whenever we’re staying together I’m ready to kill them after a few days.”

He laughed. “What is that? Why is that true for everyone, everywhere?”

Sarah took a sip from her beer. “I think it’s that they have the power to make you feel like you’re ten years old again. And, of course, they have decades of practice at pushing your buttons, and they’re so good at it that they can’t resist the temptation sometimes. My sister is my best friend, but if she was homeless tomorrow I’d put her up at a hotel – hell, I’d buy her a house before I invited her to move in with me. It’s just better for everyone when we have our own place to go back to.”

“Tell me about her.”

“My sister? Well, her name is Ellie, and everyone loves her. I mean everyone – I am not exaggerating in any way. She has a way with people, especially men, where they are completely devoted to her within ten minutes of meeting her. Which is amazing to watch, but also pretty terrible sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was the older sister of that fascinating creature, and sometimes I would catch my boyfriends paying more attention to her than they did to me. I felt like they were dating me just to get closer to her.”

He gave her a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure that wasn’t the case.”

“And how can you be so sure?” she asked suspiciously. If this was the point where he was going to turn on the bullshit charm, she was planning to finish off her beer and call it an evening.

“I’ve never met Ellie,” he began, “and I’m sure she’s amazing, just as you say. But you had the same mother and father and you’re pretty amazing, too. You’re smart, and you’re funny, and you’re pretty as all hell. If some horny teenage boys thought that it was OK to go out with you and check out your sister at the same time, well then they were assholes and you’re better off without them. But me, I’m just happy to be sitting here with you.”

Sarah stared at Brad open-mouthed for a full 30 seconds before she realized what she was doing and closed her mouth with an audible click. Her previous resolution was gone now. If that was Brad’s version of BS, then she wanted to hear more of it. A lot more.

The silence was getting uncomfortably long, and the way he looked at her was uncomfortably intense, so Sarah tried for a joke to lighten the mood. “Just wait until you meet Ellie,” she offered, and then immediately regretted it. “Not that I’m inviting you to meet my family or anything,” she stammered, regretting the addition even more.
 

He laughed and lifted his beer for a swallow, his eyes holding hers over the rim of the glass. “Actually I’d like to meet her, and your father. If they’re half as interesting as you, that would be a dinner table I’d enjoy sitting at.”

She looked at him with no small amount of skepticism. “You and my Dad would get along great. He’s a big sports fan, he can probably tell you things about your career that even you’ve forgotten. Ellie knows nothing about football, but she has this way of talking about anything with anybody. You and she would be best friends inside of ten minutes.”

“They sound nice.”

“They can be. I mean, we’ve had our share of fights, especially around holidays after everyone’s been under the same roof for a little too long and tempers start to fray. But Ellie is my best friend, and I know I can count on my Dad for anything. They’ve been there for me, and I try to be there for them.”

He nodded, looking at her with his disconcertingly blue eyes until Sarah felt the need to turn the attention back on him.

“What about you? Do you have any siblings?”

“Siblings,” he said, as if trying out the word to see how it felt on his tongue. “I haven’t heard that one in a while. Brothers and sisters, you mean? No sisters. One brother – Duke. He’s a couple years older. He lives out in Utah, trying to be a mountain man.”

“Seriously? Up in the mountains and everything?”

He grinned. “No, no actual mountains. And I’m making fun of him, which isn’t very nice since he’s actually a really great guy. He’s just not much for people. When I was a kid everyone thought he was going to be the one who played pro ball, he was the god of high school football. But at graduation, when all the big programs in the country were begging him to accept their scholarships, he fooled us all by going into the Marines instead. When he got out, he took his new wilderness skills and went off by himself. I see him every now and then, but I know he’d rather be alone and I try to respect that.”

“Why is that? Did he see anything in the Marines? Is it trauma, do you think?”

“Nah. To hear him tell it, he spent most of his time in-country in the motor pool, fixing up vehicles when they broke down. I just think it’s how he’s made. My Dad, when we were growing up he taught us to be men in the old ways: strong and silent. Duke just took the ‘silent’ part more to heart.”

“You’re not much for silence, are you Brad?” Sarah teased.

He laughed. “Not around you, Sarah. You just pull the words right out of me.”

It was nice, the two of them talking in that darkened bar. In time Sarah began to feel very comfortable with him, and they both leaned back in their chairs and chatted about this or that, sometimes lapsing into a gentle silence that didn’t feel uncomfortable in any way. Sarah was aware that she barely knew Brad, but somehow he already felt like an old friend.

14

The night felt pleasantly cool and almost damp against Sarah’s face after the more stale air of the bar. Lit for the night, the shops along Main Street had the look of an old town as envisioned by Disneyland, like something outside of time that was far too idealized and perfect in its way to be real. She walked for a time in silence with Brad beside her, and she tried to identify that quality that she was seeing but couldn’t quite put a name to. Finally it came to her: authenticity. Tall Pines was exactly what it was and nothing else. The people who lived here were not trying to impress anyone; they weren’t putting on an act or dreaming of the day when they would finally be able to be themselves. They were who they were, and it had never occurred to them to be anyone else. It was refreshing. For the first time during her stay here, she realized how wonderful that could be.

Beside her she could feel Brad struggling for conversation in a silence that was beginning to grow too long. She decided to help him out. “If this were San Francisco, things would just get started right now. You and I might be on our way to dinner now, with maybe a club after.”

“That sounds pretty good right there.”

“Do you wish you were there?”

“Only if you were there, too.”

The flattery made her smile. It had been a while since an attractive man had shown interest in her. Though if she was being fair, she had to admit that it had been nearly as long since she had given men a chance to show interest in her. “Are you always this big of a flirt?” she teased.

“Not at all. Quite the reverse, actually. I guess you inspire me, Sarah.”

She took his arm and enjoyed the feeling of his solid bulk beside her. It felt nice, very nice. She used the connection with him to steer him into a right turn at the next corner, heading home. It was time to bring this evening to a close before it got put of hand.

“I think about going back sometimes,” she said. “I don’t feel ready yet, but I know the day is getting closer when I’ll have to. One way or the other.”

“That will be nice, right?” he asked. “Get back to see your friends? Take care of that other thing you’re not telling me about?”

She looked at him quizzically, and he snorted. “It’s obvious that something went wrong in San Fran, and I’m willing to bet it has something to do with that business thing you were telling me about, the mistakes you made or whatever. If you don’t want to tell me about it, that’s fine, but there’s no point in pretending that you don’t have unfinished business there. It’s written all over your face. And it’s a very pretty face, too,” he added in a teasing voice, with the sort of smile that Sarah guessed he usually flashed to the cheerleaders after the game.
 

“Unfinished business is a good name for it. And I will tell you all about it, but not tonight. It’s a long story and I’m getting tired.” They were getting close to her cabin now, and she didn’t want him getting any ideas about her inviting him in. “Why don’t you come over for dinner tomorrow and I can fill you in on all the gory details?” she said before she realized what she was getting herself into. Immediately a feeling of anxiety began building in her chest, but it was too late to take her offer back now.
 

Brad seemed surprised, but at least it was a pleasant surprise. “Yeah, that would be great. I’ll bring … what should I bring? Wine or beer?”

Sarah was so busy mentally kicking herself that she barely heard the question. “Whatever you like. It doesn’t matter,” she mumbled. Mentally she was going over the things she would need to do by dinner time the next day: clean the cabin, decide what she was going to make, go to the store, hopefully find the ingredients she’d need….
 

“I’ll bring wine. You drank beer tonight, but my guess is you’re more of a wine person.”

“Hmmm,” Sarah responded. She’d already decided to keep it simple – pasta with some sort of simple sauce. Buy some fresh bread, throw together a salad. It would be OK. She could do this. She’d keep it simple, and she’d wear … oh God, what would she wear?

“Wine it is, then. I’d ask whether you want red or white but you’re not really paying attention to me anymore, are you Sarah? OK, thanks for the invite, I’m looking forward to it. Goodnight,” he said, and leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek.

Sarah accepted the kiss by leaning slightly into it, but otherwise she was barely aware that Brad was there, or that he had kissed her, or that now he was walking away in the gathering gloom, headed back to his father’s place. Her mind was rummaging through her closet and running through the plates and cups in her father’s kitchen. She was pretty sure that there was enough there for two settings, but did anything match? Tomorrow evening was she going to find herself putting out a novelty glass decorated with the picture of a dancing hula girl? There was no telling. As she fumbled for the key in her pocket, she made a note to check the kitchen before going to bed. There was a long list of things to do, and she knew she’d start to feel better as soon as she got started.

15

The following day was something of a blur for Sarah. The night before she had checked the cupboards and found a motley collection of glasses – three water glasses, two wine glasses, and a depressingly large collection of shot glasses that her father had collected in the course of a life that apparently involved more alcohol than Sarah had ever imagined. As a collection it wasn’t going to do for a large dinner party, but it was enough for two, and that was all Sarah cared about. If at some point she woke up and realized that she had invited several people over for a dinner party, she would simply check herself into the hospital and be done with it.

That left two primary things, which Sarah reflexively was thinking of as “deliverables,” as if they were milestones in a software development project. The first was a clean apartment, which was going to involve a fair amount of dusting and quite a bit of vacuuming. Sarah had been good about picking up after herself since she arrived, and it certainly helped that she had been eating most of her meals at the diner, but she had never gotten around to confronting the dust problem and there was no putting that off anymore. After that, there was the question of dinner. Her first instinct was a good one – stick to something easy, which meant pasta – but she found that part of her also wanted to make a good impression, and she wasn’t going to manage that by cooking the sort of meal that the average college student would find unchallenging. She didn’t have an answer for that question, so Sarah did what she always did: she turned to the Internet.

Her first stop was a recipes website, one that she had used before that included a lot of user rankings for the various recipes. By sorting the recipes by user ranking, you could be pretty confident that what you were making was at least conceptually sound. Brad was something of a man’s man, which meant that the pasta should include meat of some sort, and she also guessed that he was the sort of person who liked powerful flavors in his food.