Snow Falling on Bluegrass (11 page)

“I don't think that's a proper use of state resources,” I mumbled. “And for the record, we can't actually dissect Darrell.”

I heard Sadie mutter something that sounded like “We have the technology.”

I blinked awake, snuggling into my nest of blankets. The snorting and snuffling sounds of my friends sleeping were muted under a constant hum of white noise. At first I thought it was the crackling of the fire, but the rippling sound was too constant. It was more of a pitter-patter, like raindrops against the windows.

Rain.

My head popped up from the blankets and I jumped out of bed, hoping that this was a sign of thaw, that warmer rains would wash away some of the snow and make it a bit easier for the road crews to free up the highways. Luke was already at the dining room windows, coffee in hand, staring through the glass.

“Kelsey,” he began as I practically pressed my face to the cold glass.

I gasped. The blanket of snow, which had just started to melt ever so slightly, was now covered in a slick sheet of ice. Great dripping icicles were forming from tree limbs in the distance. Trees that were already weakened had snapped and were lying broken on the ground.

Rather than improving, our situation had just gotten exponentially more screwed up. Oh, and so had Josh's plan to propose to Sadie outside by pinning glittery cardboard cutout letters to trees on a trail through the woods. That was not going to improve Sadie's state of mind.

“Oh come
on
!”
I exclaimed, startling those who were still sleeping.

Freezing rain on top of snow, on top of freezing rain: it was a parfait of bad-road-condition weather. “So, I'm guessing this is going to complicate the rescue efforts of that chainsaw crew we heard yesterday,” I said.

“Yep,” Luke said, handing me a cup of coffee, which I hoped would mask the as-yet-unbrushed state of my teeth. “This has added a whole new layer of complications. The houses that just had their power restored? They're out again. The lines that were just repaired got dropped by the most recent round of falling limbs. And the roads are even worse than after the first storm. We're here for at least a few more days, and that's if the temperature warms up.”

“Did we piss off some sort of weather deity?” I asked. “Did we miss a scheduled sacrifice or something?”

“We're looking at one of those ‘storm of the century' experiences,” Luke said. “It's—”

“If you say ‘unprecedented' one more time, I will poke you in the eye,” I told him.

He smirked at me and very deliberately pronounced the word. “Anomalous.”

“Curse you and your thesaurus,” I hissed in mock fury.

“I am brilliant in a way most people would not expect. So how are we going to explain this new, even crappier set of circumstances to the group?” Luke asked.

“Impose a matriarchal dictatorship in which I make all decisions and install a justice system determined by gladiatorial combat?” I suggested.

“Nah.” He shook his head. “It would take too long to build a gladiator ring.”

“Yeah, because that's the problem with a Kelseyocracy,” Sadie muttered, joining us at the window.

Luke shot me a helpless look and I patted her shoulder. “Sadie—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard,” she said. “We're much more screwed this morning than we were when we went to bed.”

“That sounds wrong, even in my head,” I told her.

Luke handed her yet another mug of coffee. “Even though you're basically right.”

The team did not respond well to our new circumstances, particularly the part about the extended stay in said circumstances. Sadie tried to rally our spirits by narrowing down the campaign ideas on the board while Luke and Will surveyed the (additional) damage around the lodge. Both efforts failed miserably. My coworkers didn't produce so much as a brainbreeze, much less a brainstorm, with Gina actually suggesting that we just put new covers and graphics on promotional materials we published ten years ago. I was surprised Sadie didn't send her outside into the snow for a time-out.

“What is this blah-ness?” Sadie demanded of the mostly silent table. “I know we're cold and we're tired, but come on, people, we still have work to do. Give me some energy, some enthusiasm. Give me something.”

“Look, Sadie, maybe this isn't the best time for a meeting,” Jacob said in his best diplomatic tone. “I don't think anyone is feeling particularly creative right now.”

“We've got to get this done sometime, Jacob,” Sadie shot back. “Do you have any idea the crap-storm of e-mails and voice mails and every other kind of mail I'm going to have waiting for me when we eventually get back to civilization? It's going to take me weeks to catch up. If we don't have a comprehensive plan ready to go when we get back, we'll be running behind until summer starts. And honestly, I don't feel like missing printing deadlines and distribution dates because you don't feel particularly creative right now.”

“Sadie,” Josh said, softly nudging her arm. I watched the mood around the table shift as brows furrowed and mouths pressed into unhappy lines.

“Hey, it's not just you,” Gina countered. “You have no idea what my desk is going to look like when I get back. I run Commissioner Bidwell's whole life. His phone calls, his calendar, his correspondence. This isn't all about you, you know. Some of us have
real
responsibilities.”

Sadie's eyes narrowed and I could practically see her response forming in her head. Our brave commissioner rarely came into the office, electing to “work from home.” (Translation: leave the staff to operate the Commission on Tourism while he ran his family farm, coming to Frankfort only for high-profile events and meetings with the governor). I knew exactly what Sadie thought of Ted Bidwell and his management of his “responsibilities.” But for Sadie to actually speak those thoughts in front of Bidwell's personal flying monkey, even under duress, would be career suicide.

Charlie made his “Do something quick!” face.

So I took drastic action.

“Commissioner Bidwell—yowch!” Sadie yelped as I kicked her under the table. She turned on me, rubbing her now-sore ankle. I gave a sharp shake of the head. Sadie's face froze in horror, as if she was finally processing the job-ending vitriol that was on the verge of escaping her mouth.

“Yes?” Gina asked in a saccharine-sweet voice. Given the sly look on her face, I had this weird feeling she had a hidden recording device somewhere on her person.

And into this barrel of fun tromped Luke and Will, stomping ice and slush from their boots.

Please Lord
,
I prayed,
unless they're here to announce that the trees have
magically shifted away from the road, allowing us to jet from this hellhole, please, just let them say “Nope” and walk away.

“Well,” Luke started. “Uh . . .”

“I knew it!” Gina cried. “We're never getting out of here! Damn it, Sadie, your stupid retreat is going to get us killed!”

“Oh, calm down and stop trying to start shit, Gina,” spat Dorie Ann, who as far I knew had never actually cursed before. “You're about as subtle as a sack of hammers. We all know why you don't like Sadie, and it has nothing to do with the retreat.”

Gina's face flushed red, though I wasn't sure whether it was Dorie Ann's defection or having her former crush on Josh dragged out in front of everybody.

“Hey, don't yell at her,” Tom shot back. “She's just saying what the rest of us are thinking. Nothing about this trip has gone right. If Sadie had just paid attention to the damn weather reports like a normal person, we wouldn't be in this mess!”

“I am literally standing right here,” Sadie said.

Tom continued as if he hadn't heard Sadie, and given the head of steam he'd built up, it was entirely possible that he hadn't. “We're all just standing here, Sadie, freezing our asses off because you were so all-fired eager to get us up here to ‘bond' or something that you didn't care—”

“Hey!” I cried, shooting to my feet. “Have you all gone nuts? Sadie is your boss. I don't care if you're tired or cold or you've lost respect for her because you've seen what she looks like in third-day jeans—”

“Kelsey, please stop ‘defending' me,” Sadie said.

“You don't get to have a little whiner-baby tantrum because it started to rain. Now everybody put your big-girl panties on and deal with it!” I exclaimed. “Tom and Gina, if you really don't trust Sadie's leadership, you two are welcome to start your own damn tribe on the other side of the lodge!”

Gina hopped up, palms flat on the table as if she was going to spring over it and tackle me. At this point, she could bring it. I was tired of listening to her whine, tired of sleeping on the floor, tired of being cold and uncomfortable. I was pretty sure slapping the ever-present slick of pink lip gloss off Gina's pretty, pert face would release the endorphins needed to make me feel better.

“Well, we've officially arrived at the
Lord of the Flies
portion of the retreat. Who had Thursday in the betting pool?” Charlie asked brightly, as if the near-mutiny of the staff was some sort of therapeutic skit.

No one laughed.

“Look, everybody, just take a break, okay?” Sadie said, pinching the bridge of her nose as if to ward off a headache. “Go read or rest or warm up by the fire. I'm going to talk to Luke and figure out where we are. We'll meet up again for lunch and see where to go from there.”

Gina shoved her chair aside and flounced away to the lobby, glaring all the way. Dorie Ann pointedly ignored her and stalked into the kitchen with Theresa at her heels. Tom seemed to understand that he'd overstepped his bounds and approached Sadie to apologize. Everybody sort of drifted away from the table and found elsewhere to be. While Sadie and Tom retired to the fireplace to work out their differences, I flopped back into my chair.

“Will and I are going to go get some more firewood,” Luke told me. “Try not to start any screaming matches while I'm gone.”

“That was nothing,” Charlie told him, sounding vaguely and inappropriately proud. “You should see her play Trivial Pursuit. The arts and entertainment questions get vicious.”

“She wrestled Bonnie to the ground over the pink pie piece at the office Halloween party,” Will mused. “It was kind of hot.”

I looked to Charlie, expecting some offense or defense or any reaction at all. But he just grinned and said, “No, I remember. It was.”

“I'll bet.” With a wink in my direction, Luke and Will tromped back out into the snow, leaving me and Charlie alone in the dining room. I leaned my forehead against the table and blew out a long breath.

“Well, that was . . . colorful,” Charlie said.

“Thanks for stepping in,” I said. “It probably would have gotten ugly . . . er.”

“It's just stress. It's natural for people who have been stuck together for this long to get on each other's nerves. We all need a break, that's all.”

I grumbled, “I'll give Gina a break.”

“Easy, killer.” Charlie tapped me on the shoulder, prompting me to sit up in my seat. “We need to do something about the others.”

“And by that, I am assuming you don't mean a neighboring tribe on the
Lost
island.”

He snorted. “No, we need to do something for the staff, or this trip is going to be the thing that permanently changes all of the relationships in the office. The little Hatfield-McCoy-style split we had over Josh and Sadie? That will be nothing. We'll go back and resentments and little arguments from this week will build up until the staff just won't want to have anything to do with each other. No more break room chats. No more outings to historical reenactments and festivals. We'll go to staff meetings and actually focus on work.”

“Ugh.” I shuddered.

“So what are we going to do?” he asked, his expression expectant.

“How should I know?”

“Because you always know what to do. That's your thing. You are presented with a problem. You come up with a plan. Your loyal minions use said plan to destroy said problem. You are Kelsey, Destroyer of Problems.”

I hoped that chapped skin could be blamed for my flaming cheeks. “Oh, you have a lot of confidence in me.”

Charlie nudged me with his elbow. “Always have.”

“So, now that I have you alone, could we continue the conversation we were having about you being aloof and—”

“Charlie!” Josh yelled. “Could you come here a minute? Will had an idea involving the minibar in the bridal suite and candles from the gift shop.”

“You've got to be kidding me!” I exclaimed.

Charlie dropped his head. “I would tell him no, but technically he's my boss.”

“Assistant boss,” I reminded him.

“That's not nice, Kelsey,” Josh called.