Cabin Fever (5 page)

Sarah moved to the counter. She wasn’t accustomed to people opening up to her so quickly – that never happened in San Francisco, at least not to her – but she was getting the feeling that things worked a little differently here. “Do they make you happy?” she asked.

This was a woman who smiled with her entire face – her mouth, her eyes, and the little network of wrinkles around her eyes. “Yes, they do. My parents were hippies, and I grew up surrounded by growing things – flowers, dogs and cats, the vegetable garden out back. We even had chickens and a cow for a bit! But mostly I remember the flowers. My Mom loved colorful things. And so, when I’m here in the store, it reminds me of home. I know it’s silly, but the flowers do feel like my children.”

Sarah shook her head. “It’s not silly. I think it’s beautiful. And your shop is wonderful.”

“Well, aren’t you sweet to say so,” the woman said. “My name is Diane, and you are?”

“Sarah,” she replied, and reached out for a handshake. “Diane, could you help me find flowers for my father’s cabin? No one has been there in a long time, and it smells like dust. I want something that will be both beautiful to look at and to smell.” Together they considered Sarah’s options and picked out a bunch of little white flowers that looked so sweet that Sarah got a little choked up just looking at them.
 

She was right at the point of leaving the shop when she thought to ask one more question. “Diane, where can I buy some clothes?”

Diane looked her up and down, taking in the outfit that Sarah had thrown together that morning: tights, a light cotton jacket over a white tee shirt and running shoes – essentially the same thing that she always wore on those few occasions that she made it into the gym. “What are you looking for?” she finally asked, clearly at a loss when it came to assessing Sarah’s sense of style.

Sarah felt a little embarrassed, but she forged on. “Every-day clothes. Jeans. Light tops. More comfortable than stylish, but I don’t want it to be hideous, either. Does that help?”

Diane nodded slowly, getting an idea of what Sarah was looking for. “Are you going to be doing much hiking or camping?”

Sarah shrugged. “No camping, but maybe some easy hikes. I don’t really have plans, but I’d like to get out and see things.”

Diane reached a decision. “Two blocks down, then one block right. Get yourself some Levi’s, a couple cotton sweatshirts in fun colors, and then some tee shirts for underneath. You don’t need to worry about the cold this time of year, though it can get a little nippy when the sun goes down. If you were planning on camping I’d tell you to get boots and a jacket, but if you’re going to stick to the nature trails you can do without.”

Sarah thanked her and followed her instructions to the letter. It was just what she needed: clothes that she didn’t need to worry about. She had enough on her mind without worrying whether Tall Pines had a decent dry cleaner. She was never much of a shopper in the best of times, and this time she was a woman on a mission: in fifteen minutes flat she was exiting the store with a bag containing two pairs of Levi’s, three sweatshirts, and five tee shirts.

Her final stop was a corner grocer, which to her surprise turned out to have a pretty decent produce section. Sarah wandered through the bins of fruits and vegetables and tried to decide what to bring home with her. There was a refrigerator in the kitchen, of course, but she hadn’t thought to check to see whether it was working or not. Who knows how long it had been since anyone stored food in there? She decided to play it safe and stick to greens for now.

Sarah grabbed a basket and started filling it with produce. She got a bunch of romaine lettuce, a little packet of mushrooms, a cucumber, and a few radishes for spice. She nabbed a bottle of salad dressing from the shelves and headed to the register.

A man in glasses with graying hair waited for her there. He had the sort of open face and warm smile that Sarah was coming to expect from the residents of Tall Pines. His eyes widened a little when he first looked at her. “Did you find everything you need?” His hands moved nervously across the checkout counter, moving a pen over beside a pad of paper, then straightening the pad, then reaching up to smooth his hair before stopping halfway, as if he had suddenly realized what he was doing.

“Yep. Making a salad,” Sarah answered, feeling a bit like Captain Obvious. Then a thought struck her. “Is there a good place to buy a bottle of wine around here?”

“You’re in it,” the man answered. “Back corner, over there to the left. Next to the crackers.”

Sarah left her basket at the register and went to consider her options in the alcohol department. The wine section was small, but it proved to be more than adequately stocked with whites and reds from Oregon, Washington, and some California vintners that she had come across before. Sarah was a poor excuse for a wine snob; she enjoyed a glass with dinner, but she was unlikely to fashion a sentence that contained the phrase “a hint of strawberry,” and deep inside she had to admit that she had never been able to tell the difference between the really expensive wines she’d tried and the cheap ones. After thinking about it for a while, she went with a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir and returned with it to the register.

On her way there she was nearly steamrolled by two children, a boy and a girl, who dashed giggling past her and out of the store. “Trevor! Alexa! I told you, no running!” the grocer yelled after them.

Sarah watched them go and then looked back at the man. “Are they yours?”

He shook his head in chagrin. “I’m afraid so, and every year they listen to me less. I’m sorry if they startled you. Their mother drops them off in the store when she has errands to run, but they get bored just hanging around here with nothing to do.”

“It’s no problem,” Sarah said and placed the bottle of wine on the counter.
 

“Nice choice,” the man said when he saw the label. “I know the guy who grows the grapes for that vintner. Great guy. Are you new to town?” he asked as he started ringing her items up.
 

She laughed. “Why does everyone ask me that?”

“You’re right, it’s none of my business. I’m sorry if I was rude.”

“No, not at all. It’s just that you’re the third person to ask me that question this morning.”

“Well, you are very striking. And new?”

She laughed again. “Yes, new. I arrived last night. I’ll be staying in my father’s cabin for a while. I’m Sarah.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sarah. I’m Sam.” They shook hands; he had a gentle grip, though his fingers felt a little clammy. Sam was a good name for him – it suited him somehow, like an old suit of clothes that had stretched in all the right places to fit his body. When he was done ringing up her groceries, he put the bottle of wine in the bag without scanning it. “On the house. Consider it a housewarming gift.”

Sarah felt a little flustered. She wasn’t used to receiving gifts at the grocery store. When she was a little girl her parents had taught her not to take gifts from strangers, and she wasn’t sure if the rule still held. It was an awfully nice gesture, though, and she saw no graceful way of declining the offer, so she thanked Sam kindly before exiting the store.

With bags in both hands, Sarah meandered back in the direction of the cabin. She was starting to like the feeling of moving slowly. It was a big change from the life she had been leading until just two days before. Previously she would have thought that there was nothing worse than to have no place to go, because surely that must mean that your life has no meaning and no purpose. Now she was discovering that there was a meaning and purpose simply in being someplace beautiful and taking the time to fully appreciate that beauty.
 

And Tall Pines was certainly beautiful. It was ringed by the pine forest that had given the town its name, but there was enough space between the trees to look out to the mountains, white-capped with snow even now in the warm part of the year. And she couldn’t get over how fresh everything smelled, with the sharp tang of pine sounding a bass note beneath everything else. As she walked, fallen pine needles provided a springy cushion beneath her feet. It felt good.

When she was back at the cabin, Sarah dropped her groceries off in the kitchen – it turned out that the refrigerator was working properly, though it had an aroma that made her nose wrinkle. It felt very awkward to have nothing to do. It was getting on to midday on a weekday, and every bone in Sarah’s body called out for useful labor. Over the hard years of getting a business off the ground, Sarah had gradually shaped herself into a textbook workaholic. In the morning, while she made her coffee, she would have her laptop open on the counter so that she could check email and scan the day’s headlines. Then she’d be on the phone even before she made it to the office, taking telephone meetings or working out deals. Her days at work were highly choreographed routines, with each fifteen-minute segment planned and plotted and entered into her task manager so that she always knew where she needed to be and what she needed to be doing. Usually she’d eat lunch and dinner at her desk, and wouldn’t make it home until nine or ten at night. Then she’d be back on the laptop until her eyes started to cross from fatigue, when she’d finally allow herself to crawl into bed and sleep.

Looking back on it now, Sarah knew that she had been pushing herself too hard. That was the startup culture, though; everyone you talked to and everything you read carried the same message: there will be time enough to rest and enjoy life later, at some point in the future when the job is done and your options are vested, but now you need to work! The ideology of long hours and no family life completely permeated the digital startup culture, and Sarah had bought into it 100%. It was only now, with a little space to look back on the experience, that Sarah was beginning to wonder whether it had all been worth it.

She poured herself a glass of wine and took it, along with her iPad, to the porch. There she found a rocking chair, and Sarah leaned back in the chair and listened for a while to the chirping of the birds. The wine was good, and the warmth of it relaxed her further, until she thought that she might even fall asleep. Thumbing on her iPad, she began flipping through the pages of an e-book, feeling a little proud of herself that she didn’t first check to see if someone had emailed her.

It was a long and slow afternoon, accompanied by the buzz of crickets and the insistent calls of some bird that was looking for a mate, protecting its territory, or both. Sarah did some reading, but she spent far more time rocking in the chair, sometimes looking out through the trees, other time closing her eyes and simply resting. She wondered why she had never done this before. The cabin had been sitting here, mostly unoccupied, for Sarah’s entire adult life, and yet she had never thought to spend time here. She knew the reason why, of course. In all those years Sarah had never once taken a vacation, aside from a few days spent with family around Christmas and Thanksgiving. Her life had no room for days or weeks relaxing in the sun. Well, she thought, that was going to change. If there was one good thing to come of this experience, Sarah vowed that it would be a new, less-driven version of herself who would take time for moments like this. She raised her glass in a toast to her future self, then drained the last of it to seal the promise.

5

As if on cue, she could hear her phone ringing inside, on the kitchen counter where she had left it. Her first urge was to let it ring and check her voice mail later, but Sarah’s new relaxation muscles were not yet strong enough for her not to answer a phone that was ringing. Reluctantly she got out of her new favorite chair and moved inside to take the call.

“Hola, sister! I see you made it in one piece.” Ellie’s voice was loud and cheerful on the other end of the line. Sarah took the phone with her to the living room and lay down on the couch.

“Yes, I made it, and I’m pretty much settled in now. I even bought some groceries.”

“Wow. You’re not planning to cook something, are you? Because you should check the fire extinguisher first, make sure you know where it is and that it will be ready to douse any sudden blazes that result.”

“Very funny. I know how to cook!”

“Hardly. Toast, maybe, and even then you should have adult supervision and a well-ventilated workspace. How many times did you use that kitchen in your fancy apartment of yours, total?”

“I don’t remember,” Sarah said vaguely, hoping to change the subject, but then her mind seized on a piece of counter-evidence. “I cooked you dinner for your birthday! That was nice, wasn’t it?”

“It was very nice, but it was also five years ago. Case closed. But really, I think it’s awesome that you’re buying groceries and getting all domestic. How does the place look?”

“Tacky. Lots of reds and greens. It’s like Dad decorated it based on a photo of Santa’s Christmas Village. And currently I am lying on a couch that, I am pretty sure, doesn’t contain a single natural fiber anywhere within its construction.”

“I am so not surprised. The three core principles of Dad’s life are football, beer, and polyester.”

“I’m not done. There is a coffee table made out of glass—“

“Of course there is.”

“—of course it’s made out of glass, and on top there are two things: the TV remote, and some weird little statuette of a scarecrow, made out of actual straw.”

“A scarecrow?”

“A scarecrow. And a more kitschy scarecrow you are not likely to see.”

“How did that get in there? I wouldn’t figure Dad for a kitschy scarecrow kind of guy.”

“Me neither.” A sudden, somewhat disturbing thought entered her head. “Do you think Dad has a girlfriend?”

“You mean up there? A woman in every port sort of thing?”

“Maybe. Ewww. She could be anyone. I could be talking to her, and I’d have no idea. That’s … I don’t want to think about that.”

“Neither do I. Besides, it sounds like he’ll be coming back from his trip with a harem trailing behind him.”

“You’ve heard from him?”

“He called yesterday. He spent most of the call complaining about the food – because, of course, everyone knows that the food in Europe sucks – but he also let slip that almost all of the seniors on the tour are women. Widows and divorcees on the prowl.”