On the Mountain (Follow your Bliss #5) (5 page)

It was evening when she found the
keys to the BMW her parents kept tucked in the garage beneath the building,
mainly relying on drivers and sleek black limos to take them around.

Baskia started the engine not
giving much thought to how irritated her mother would be when she discovered
Baskia had left. But Anne was going to Boston with Mellie, her surrogate
daughter, to get her settled in. Must be nice for her.

She stepped on the gas.

Even though she’d taken driver’s
education, she’d only driven a few times in the US and once, illegally, along
the sleeping streets of Monte Carlo. But that had been a dare, fueled by a
gaggle of models, hangers-on, hot French guys, and lots of bubbly. This time,
she was doing something on her own, for herself. She was willing to travel as far
as necessary to figure out where she wanted to be and whom. Unfortunately, she
only had two days.

As the late summer sun set over
the glittering buildings of Manhattan, she set the GPS to match the address on
the plumbing bill she had in her purse, maneuvered into traffic, and began the
long drive north, to the mountains.

Chapter Five

Shortly out of the City, tall
buildings and signs of industry gave way to a tree-lined highway. Given the
late hour, there weren’t many cars on the road. Before she realized it, she had
passed through Connecticut and crossed the state line into Massachusetts. Eager
to get to the house, she sped on, the rush of the wind muting the song on the
radio.

Suddenly, flashing blue lights in
her review mirror urged her to the shoulder of the road. She cursed herself and
the ticket her parents were sure to receive.

“Good evening, young lady,” the
State Trooper greeted her.

A memory of a road trip to Long
Island, when the police pulled over a car full of models, cruised into her
mind. London had instructed the driver, Gigi, to show cleavage and be sugary
sweet. Baskia wasn’t in the mood. She’d shown enough of her chest in the last
twenty-four hours, including to most of the room when Pierce pulled off her
blouse.

“Mind telling me the hurry?” the
officer asked.

“Sorry. I’m tired. I wasn’t
paying attention.” That was the truth, as pathetic as it sounded. She’d been
alternatingly replaying the previous night in her head and asking herself what
she hoped to get out of retreating to the sticks. A case of poison Ivy? Being
chased by a bear? No cell service? She landed on the answer: quiet and
stillness.

The whirling lights, in the
rearview mirror, scolded her while she waited for the officer to check her
license and registration.

The next leg of the trip passed
painstakingly slow. When she crossed the state border into Vermont, she dropped
the pedal again. After another hour, the GPS guided her off the highway. The
cool night air sobered Baskia.

Few lights were on in the
smattering of houses and businesses she passed along the lonely road.
Everything looked dark and closed, almost eerie, compared to the vibrant lights
of the City that now laid hundreds of miles behind her. 

Baskia pulled onto a side road
that she tried to convince herself she remembered. The trees nearly brushed the
car as she drove through the dark. The headlights hardly guided the way. After
driving up, up, up, and winding around tight turns, she finally pulled into the
driveway of twelve Lakeside Drive. The gravel crunched under the car’s tires.
She killed the engine and hesitantly opened the door to the BMW, unsure what
lurked in the dark shadows outside the beam of the headlights.

She knew there was a key hidden
somewhere, so she began to scour the front porch of the cabin, peeling up the
welcome mat and checking under flowerpots. Leaves scratched along the wooden
floor of the porch, startling her. An owl hooted. Baskia took a deep breath.
She imagined hairy spider legs as she ran her fingers along the upper doorframe,
in the dark. She wondered when her parents were there last. Through a haze of
cocktails tossed back while in Buenos Aires, she recalled her mother mentioning
they were going to Vermont. But the memory was dull from drink and time.
Anyway, that would have been well over a month ago. 

“Ah ha.” She found the key and
let herself in, flicking on the lights in the spacious cabin, which wasn’t a
very accurate description. Compared to most of the residences in the rural
town, it was lux. The cabin boasted at least five times more square footage
than most of the apartments in most of Manhattan.

She hurried back out to the car
and gathered necessities for the night. The trees shivered in the wind. Spooked
by the nighttime noises, that ushered a peculiar kind of stillness, she gazed
up at the sequined sky before scurrying back toward the cabin.

Exhausted, she fell into the king
sized bed in the master bedroom on the main floor.

When the morning sunlight
streamed in through the arched windows abutting the vaulted ceiling, Baskia
rubbed her eyes. She stretched and yawned. With a jolt, she remembered where
she was and why. It was nine a.m., early for her, but the birds chirped
cheerfully outside, the sky shone deep blue, and something unfamiliar, like
enthusiasm, pulled her out of bed and to her feet.

She stretched her arms wide,
looking around at the cabin in the light of day. Her mother must have had a lot
of updating done since she was last there as a child. The space tastefully
combined natural textures such as maple hardwood flooring and river stones
surrounding the chimney hearth. Faint memories of rainy days spent reading or
lazing in the hammock out on the deck, under the sun, charmed Baskia until the
pull of a coffee craving brought her to the custom designed kitchen.

She scrounged up a can of coffee,
but was discouraged when she realized she had to drink it black. She didn’t
remember passing a café on her way in and wondered where the nearest Starbucks
was. Instead, she choked the bitter coffee down, eager to get the day started.
The pantry and cupboards were bare except for a box of saltines stored in a
plastic tub and an unopened jar of homemade jam, no doubt a gift from a
neighbor.

Baskia took her coffee and
breakfast to the front porch and deeply inhaled the fresh mountain air. When
she looked around, she realized there were no neighbors, just a view of a lake
in one direction and a scenic mountain vista in the other. The crackers were
stale and the coffee, never having made it herself, tasted like dirt.

After unloading the car, she took
a long shower, letting the city grime wash down the drain of the tiled walk-in.
Not that she was actually dirty, but the crystalline water cascading from the
oversized shower head and the streams coming out in all directions made her
feel cleaner and fresher than she had in ages.

Dressed in a pair of designer
jeans, simple black stilettos, and a white V-neck t-shirt, she lowered her dark
sunglasses and navigated down the mountain to the closest town, nearly twenty
minutes away.

“Where am I?” she muttered as she
pulled onto the dusty main street. On one side of the road was a diner with a
broken sign that just said, “Din,” and on the other, a small market.

Baskia took a booth by the window
of the diner, the thick grease in the air quickly filming her skin. The vinyl
seats and gold-flecked tabletop echoed the past, but so, unfortunately, did the
milk for the coffee. She pushed the small metal pitcher away.

Baskia picked over the menu,
sticky from countless jelly-coated fingers. That morning her stomach was on
edge, hash, sausage, and an assortment of fried foods did the opposite of
appeal to her. She opted to stick with just the coffee.

“Anything else for you?” the
server asked, a matronly woman wearing a filthy apron.

Baskia nearly spit out her
coffee. It was worse than the pot she’d brewed earlier.

“No, just the check,” she
answered, deciding to take her chances at the market across the street. She
wondered who could possibly live in a place like that; it was the twenty-first
century after all. Apparently, decent coffee, food that resembled something
edible and facial creams that corrected the horrendous wrinkles lining the
customer’s faces hadn’t made it that far north. A couple townies sat at the
counter, griping about taxes as Baskia hurriedly paid and exited to the fresh
air.

When
she crossed the street to the market, an “Open” flag blew gently in the wind, a
couple lonely rocking chairs sat vacant on the front porch, and a corkboard
advertised events like rummage sales.

With no food in the house, she
needed some staples and trolled the few aisles. She looked and felt out of
place pushing a shopping cart, something she’d never done in her life, except
the time in northern California when the lighting guys on the shoot stole a
couple rickety carts, filled them with cases of beer—which they quickly
guzzled—and played chicken in the parking lot between takes.

When she arrived at the register,
through the window opposite, she spotted a tall guy with brow hair, in need of
a shave, and the hottest body she’d seen that side of the Long Island Sound. She’d
only spied a grand total of six people, three of whom looked like they’d been
carved out of the surrounding mountains, but still.

“Miss?” the cashier said.

“Oh, sorry. Distracted,” Baskia
said, brushing it off. She placed her sundries on the counter.

“You’re not from around here, are
you?” the woman asked, eying her. The gaps in the middle-aged woman’s half
smile and shifty eyes told her she’d only ever made it as far as the county
border.

“That I’m not. Just visiting.”

“Have family in these parts?”

Baskia wasn’t used to the nosy
questioning and looked away as the woman took a painstakingly long time bagging
the items.

“A few more weeks until summer’s
over, then before you know it, winter’s coming. We won’t be seeing the likes of
you city-folk once the weather dips below sixty-five.” She cackled.

Baskia shivered at the mention of
winter, but knew she’d only be there for a couple more days. She told herself
that was all she’d need to get back on track. “Right,” Baskia said eager to get
out of the shop.

After loading into the car, a
loud bang, like someone hitting the back of the BMW with a fist, and a male
voice hollering, stopped her from backing out any farther.

She whipped around to see the hot
guy from before shaking his head as he walked away.

“Geez, sorry, I didn’t see you,”
she muttered. “Hot or not, you don’t have to be rude.” She watched him get in a
pickup truck and pull away. Without meaning to, she followed him several miles
out of town and then onto the winding route that took her back up the mountain
to the cabin. She started to get nervous, maybe he was luring her out of town,
ready to exact revenge for almost hitting him, but then he pulled off onto a dirt
road. She sped by. As she rounded a corner, blue flashing lights commanded her
to pull over.

“Shit.”

“License and registration, Miss,”
a local policeman said when he reached her window. After what felt like a half
hour, he returned with a ticket.

As she pulled away, the pickup
with the hot guy she almost plowed into rolled by. He waved and nodded at the
Officer.

“My second time on the road in as
many years and I get pulled over, twice. Nice Baskia, nice.” When she realized
she was talking to herself, she squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, wondering
just what kind of backwoods wackiness she’d gotten herself into.

Once at the cabin, she unloaded
the groceries, poured a glass of lemonade, and turned to the porch, ready to
relax. She swatted at a fly, buzzing irritatingly around her head. The sun,
blazing overhead all morning, dipped behind a cloud, as others, like a herd of
giant elephants, rushed across the sky.

After five minutes, she shifted anxiously
in the Adirondack chair. She tumbled over the last days, then weeks, and months
in her mind.

Ten minutes. An airplane went by,
out of sight in the cloud cover, most likely destined for somewhere more exotic
and exciting than the cabin by the lake.

Fifteen minutes. Baskia paced
along the wooden planks of the porch, having finished her lemonade. “This is
boring,” she said aloud.

Instead of going in the house,
she walked down to the lake, recalling her, Will, and their cousins, in the
water and playing Marco polo until the sun set over the hills.

She sighed and sat on the end of
the wooden dock, letting her bare feet dangle over the edge. Her toes skimmed
the water. A clap of thunder sounded in the distance. In the silence that
followed, her thoughts settled. She wasn’t ready to commit to school because she
didn’t know what she wanted to study, but that wasn’t the only problem; she
could just take required classes until she figured that out. She loved the
city. It wasn’t that. As for modeling, she couldn’t imagine giving it up, but
wasn’t eager to make it her entire life either. No, Baskia knew there was a
dream somewhere inside her, but wasn’t yet sure what exactly it was. Until she
did, she wouldn’t be happy on any of the paths laid before her. 

As another long roll of thunder
rumbled in the sky plump drops of rain fell, dotting the lake, she saw that
each possible choice foisted upon her would puddle into resentment; the kind of
bitterness a person could drown in. It was longing she saw in her mother’s face
whenever art history came up in conversation. It was the fraction of hesitancy
whenever Anne committed to yet another item on her social calendar. It was in
the tears, Baskia had only heard during the lonely nights her mother spent
without her husband, which pointed toward dissatisfaction and regret. Anne
would never admit to any of those things. It was also true that although her
mother tolerated that life, it didn’t fit her as well as the tailored suits she
wore.

Maybe being on her own and
traveling the world opened up a window of possibilities. Whatever it was had
made Baskia not only unwilling, but also unable, to settle for a life living
someone else’s dreams and expectations.

Baskia let the pouring rain
saturate her, cool her skin, and drench her shirt. She got to her feet and
whooped at the sky. “Show me watcha got, I’m ready,” she called, her voice
echoing across the valley below. She didn’t care if she had to stay there
forever, perched on that hilltop, living off saltines and black coffee, she
would figure out what she wanted. She’d open her eyes wide, drink the fresh
air, and soak in the sun. She promised herself, as right as rain, she’d figure
out her dream, and only then would she leave that remote place in the woods.