Cabin Fever Read online

  “I don’t know where to start,” Sarah grumbled before they were mercifully interrupted by Ben the barista. As far as Sarah could tell, no one got table service at this coffee shop except for Ellie. Ben made no secret of the fact that he had a crush on her little sister, and Ellie had no problem with sweetly taking full advantage of that situation. “Hi, Ben,” she said in a lilting voice, and gave him a smile that Sarah knew he would be drafting off of for days to come. “Could you get me a tall Americano? That would be just the thing.”

  “Of course,” Ben said, jotting down the order, and stood with the hope of talking a little further with her. He was not a bad-looking man, tall and with strong biceps that bulged out of his short-sleeved shirt, but Sarah knew that he had no shot with Ellie. First, because he worked in a coffee shop, and second, because in some sort of hipster attempt at ironic fashion he wore dress shoes with a brown tee shirt. Ellie didn’t always have the highest standards with the men in her life, but she had very strong opinions about shoes, and running afoul of those rules was the sort of thing that she had trouble forgiving. The number of men who were always clamoring for her attention gave her little incentive to forgive.

  After an awkward pause by which Ellie communicated, in effect, “The coffee order is all you’re getting from me today,” Ben drifted away, leaving the two of them to get back to their conversation. By then Sarah had collected her thoughts. “Dennis – do you remember Dennis? Short, paunchy, hair thinning on top? Dennis cheated me. I thought he was filing for patents on behalf of the business, but instead he was filing them on behalf of himself, and today I got thrown out of my own company.”

  Ellie stared at her. “What? That’s not possible. How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know, but that’s what happened. I woke up, brushed my teeth, came into work, and got thrown out of the business that I founded. That was my day. How was yours?”

  “That bastard!” Ellie spat. “I never liked him. He was creepy. He was like some sort of nasty little insect in a bad suit. I could never even tell if he was gay or straight.”

  Sarah shrugged. “I always thought of him as mostly sexless. He never spoke of a girlfriend or boyfriend – or friends of any sort. It seemed like work was his entire life. He was always there in the morning when I came in, and he would still be there when I left.” She shook her head in chagrin. “And now I guess I know what he was doing when no one else was in the office. He was always so helpful. Whenever there was something I didn’t want to do – because it was tedious or because I was busy with something else – I could always count on Dennis to do it. I thought it was great that he made everything so much easier. That was a huge mistake – it’s not supposed to be easy! I can’t believe I could be so foolish.”

  “Oh, Sarah,” Ellie said. Her sister, who always knew what to say, seemed to be at a loss for words. “What are you going to do? What did Vijay say?”

  “Vijay’s first responsibility is to the investors that he brought into the company. He has to protect the money they invested, and his judgment is that the best way to do that is to give Dennis everything he wants. As much as I hate to say it, I think he’s right. He has no choice. Dennis played this game perfectly, the bastard, and he won. I lost.” Putting it that way, in such final terms, made the situation feel real, solid, and final to Sarah for the first time. She could feel a shroud of depression beginning to descend on her. It’s over. It’s really, truly over. Oh my God.

  “Sue him! Sue the bastard! He lied to you, and he cheated you, and now he should rot in hell – but first, sue him for every penny he’s worth.”

  Sarah smiled sadly. “Sue him with what? I have some money salted away, but not enough to pay for lawyer’s fees during what would certainly be a long, drawn-out court battle. And, in the end, I’d probably lose. Possession is 90% of the law, and Dennis possesses the paperwork that says the patents are his, not mine. I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.”

  “Do you have enough money to pay for a hit man?” Ellie asked. For a moment it sounded like a serious question, but then they both laughed. If only it was that easy.

  “Nah, I’ll save the money and do it myself. More fun that way, anyway.”

  Ellie reached over the table and took both of her hands in hers. “What are you going to do?” she asked, looking Sarah deep in the eyes and pitching her voice low as if to say, “We’re all alone here. You can talk to me. You can tell me the truth.”

  Sarah looked back at her for a long time, feeling for the second time that day as if she was on the point of tears. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Do I start looking for a job? Do I take some time off? I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what do with myself, now that I don’t have a business to go to in the morning. I don’t even know who I am without that. Before, people would ask me what I did, and I’d say, ‘I’m an entrepreneur.’ I liked that. It was simple, it was succinct, and it summed up my whole life in a neat little package. I can’t answer that question anymore. What do I do, now that I no longer do what I used to do, which was the thing that I thought I’d be doing for the rest of my life? I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  Ellie gave her hands a squeeze and then brightened. “You should take a vacation! A nice, long vacation in some place that you’ve always wanted to visit but never had the time. Jamaica, maybe, or some other place with a beach. Just lie out on the sand in a sexy little bikini and let the men roll in! After a few weeks of that you’ll have trouble remembering that you ever knew some dumpy little shit called Dennis.”

  Sarah had to laugh at the image, but she shook her head. “I don’t think I even own a bikini.”

  “So buy one! I know you can afford that. Or you can borrow one of mine.”

  “As if I’d fit into your swimsuit. You’re tiny, and I’m …”

  “You’re beautiful, which I’ve been telling you ever since you were fifteen years old, but you never listen. You’ve got amazing eyes, a beautiful face, and I love what the highlights do for your hair! Besides, sometimes it’s better when you don’t quite fit into a bikini, if you catch my drift.”

  That made Sarah laugh again, and suddenly it was like old times – just the two of them together and laughing and talking about boys. Ellie always made her feel better. Finally, her sister grew serious.

  “Maybe this is a good thing. Actually no, forget I said that. Of course it’s not a good thing, but maybe some good can come out of it anyway. If you really don’t know what you want to do with your life, now you have all the time you’ll need to figure that out. So take the time and find what will make you happy. Maybe it’s a man – and God knows, you definitely can up your game in that department. Maybe it’s another job. Maybe it’s sailing around the world or climbing Mt. Everest. Find it, and whatever it is, do that thing.”

  Sarah knew it was good advice, but she was very tired of talking about herself. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye and face the rest of the day alone with her thoughts, but she had to change the subject. “So enough about me. How about you? How are your classes?”

  Ellie wrinkled her nose in disgust. “My classes are boring. Actually, no – the classes are fine, it’s the students who are boring. Arrogant little twits, all so convinced that they have life figured out at the ripe age of eighteen. I can’t stand how self-satisfied they are.”

  “Sounds like a perfect description of you at that age.”

  “Well, at least I was charming about it.”

  Sarah laughed at that. It felt good to laugh. “Yes, your teenaged arrogance was very charming. How’s Jackson?” she asked over the rim of her coffee cup. Jackson was the man in Ellie’s life, a fellow professor at the university. Sarah had spent some time with Jackson, and she thought that he might be quite good looking if he didn’t always look like such a mess. Frankly she was surprised that Ellie put up with his personal and sartorial disorder; she could only assume that Jackson had certain other talents that only Ellie could attest to.

  “Jackson i
s Jackson,” her sister replied mysteriously. “As he shall always be, I imagine.”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “Both, of course,” Ellie said, and then turned to the counter to wave for Ben the barista.

  3

  Go on an adventure, Ellie had said. Find what makes you happy and do it. It was good advice, and Sarah was still thinking about her words hours later as she drifted aimlessly through her apartment, a glass of red wine in her hand. What did she want? What would make her happy? She really didn’t know, and she wasn’t even sure that happiness was truly possible in this world. No one she knew was happy. Oh sure, some were content, and many of them were successful, but were they happy? They had challenging, complicated lives in which they could find satisfaction, but Sarah knew that few if any would describe themselves as happy. Happiness was a word that she applied to children or puppies, but it sounded naïve when applied to career women like herself.

  She had almost talked herself out of the idea of even aiming for happiness when the phone rang. She answered, to find her father’s voice on the other end.

  “Hey, kiddo, I heard what happened.” Of course he had. Sarah imagined that Ellie had called him approximately 30 seconds after they said goodbye at the Starbucks. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’ve been better, Dad, but I’ll be OK. I just need some time to catch my breath and figure out what happened.”

  “Are you sure? Do you want to talk it out? ‘Cause I’m there for you, if you need to talk.”

  Sarah had to smile. Her father tried hard, he really did, but nurturing wasn’t his strong suit. Her father had always tried to be a rock, an impenetrable wall that protected his daughters from the rest of the world, and for the most part he had succeeded. Sarah couldn’t remember a single time in her childhood when she didn’t feel safe, because she had always known that her father was there to protect her. Conversation – real conversation, about feelings and other difficult things – was not his strong suit, but now he was trying his best to give her what she needed. Of course, that just made her love him all the more.

  “Thanks, Dad. Right now, though, I think what I need most of all is some time to myself. I should just get away and clear my thoughts. Separate out what’s really important from what feels important just because it’s been in my face for so long. Does that make sense?”

  “It does, and that’s part of the reason why I called. I have a suggestion. Why don’t you use the cabin?”

  The cabin. Sarah had forgotten about the cabin. It was so many years since she’d been up there, it had receded into a part of her mind that no longer connected with her active memory. “Oh,” she said. “That’s an idea.” It was an idea, and not necessarily a bad one, but still she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

  “It will be perfect,” her father continued. “It’s quiet, and there’s no one up there to bother you. It’s the complete opposite of that place you live now.” He had never liked San Francisco – too fast, too crowded, and far too cold in the summer. Her father was better suited to the dry heat of Arizona, where he had moved as soon as he was able. “Usually I’d be up there myself this time of year, but with the trip I won’t be able to make it up. Actually you’d be doing me a favor to check in on the place and make sure there aren’t raccoons living in the stove.”

  Slowly Sarah began coming around to the idea. She hadn’t been up to the cabin since she was what, sixteen years old? Seventeen? In any case it had certainly been more than ten years ago, but she used to love the place. And her father was right, there was nowhere else on earth that Sarah could think of that would present such an opportunity for quiet contemplation. The only person who might disturb her there was her father himself, and he was a few days away from taking off on a seniors’ tour through Europe that would last several weeks.

  “You’re right. The cabin will be perfect. But the keys…”

  “I’ve already overnighted them to you. You’ll get them tomorrow morning. Take all the time you need. And baby, know that I love you, and I’m proud of you. This is just a bump in the road.”

  Then the tears, which she had been holding back so long, finally started in earnest. “Thank you, Daddy. I love you too,” she said, managing to choke out a goodbye before she hung up and collapsed into tears of anger and hurt.

  She had a good cry, then, which left her feeling drained and exhausted, and so it wasn’t until late at night that she began to wonder what to bring with her to the cabin. She remembered the town as small and rustic, with mountains to one side and a river to the other. Certainly not a place for nine-tenths of the clothes she had hanging in her closet, and with the exception of the Nikes, her shoes would be a disaster. Well, the stores were all closed, so there was nothing to do but pack the few casual clothes that she owned and buy the rest when she got there.

  What else? She looked around her apartment. It was spotless, as usual. Sarah did not have a gift for cleanliness, but she was self-aware enough to know when she needed help, and so she had arranged for a cleaning lady to come by once a week. (Which reminded here: she’d have to call Clara and tell her not to come by for a while.) She spent most of her time in the office, and so the apartment remained spotlessly clean – and, for the most part, empty.

  Looking at the place now, Sarah had to admit that she wasn’t even sure that she liked it all that much, though she had lived there for more than two years. The brown leather couch was an impeccable match for the brown and white pillows, of course, and it fit into the overall décor nicely, what with the brown curtains and the brown, white, and tan carpet on the floor. With the bamboo flooring and the hardwood dining room table, it looked like something out of a Martha Stewart magazine, and Sarah felt that Martha Stewart herself might feel right at home there. Sarah, though, didn’t feel nearly so comfortable there. The couch looked terrific, but it didn’t say, “Come over here and take a load off.” Sarah knew from experience that the tightly packed leather cushions were not very comfortable, and so she rarely sat there. The potted fern by the window was a nice touch, but she couldn’t remember how it had arrived there – had she bought it? Was it a gift? Maybe it had just appeared there out of thin air one day, like some sort of modern-day miracle, and Sarah hadn’t noticed because she was holed up in her office. Was there anything here besides her clothes that she wanted to take with her? Was there anything here that she even really wanted to own?

  Well, there was her iPhone, of course, and her iPad. Those Sarah liked to keep with her at all times, and they would definitely be making the trip. And she should definitely bring her laptop, too, so she could jot down notes on new business ideas and check her email. Though now that she thought about it, the cabin probably didn’t have an Internet connection. Her father wasn’t much of a computer guy, and he was the sort of person to think that the lack of connectivity was actually a good thing. To Sarah, it sounded a little barbaric, as if she was traveling to a land where everyone went around barefoot. So she should bring her mobile hotspot with her, too. She could easily burn through her phone’s data plan in no time if she wasn’t careful about it; she’d have to portion out her online time very strictly, or find a coffee shop in town that offered free wi-fi.

  The more she thought about it, the more Sarah grew concerned that she’d be isolated, bored, and out in the middle of nowhere, so she spent the next couple of hours downloading movies and books and loading them onto her iPad. Maybe they’d just sit there for the duration of the trip, but better safe than sorry. This way, if she decided that she wanted to spend her time fully immersed in trashy novels – and why not, she deserved a bit of an indulgence after everything that had happened – she’d have an ample supply on hand.

  The next morning, the cabin’s keys jingling in the pocket of her jeans, Sarah packed her Volkswagen convertible – the Blue Beetle, she liked to call it though she knew it made her sound like a comic book geek – and set out on the road. The GPS on her phone had already plotted out a cours
e, so she knew that she had hours on the road before she even made it to Oregon, and then hours more before she arrived in Tall Pines. The trip offered plenty of time to think about her situation, which was both good and bad. She had many things to think about, but almost all of them were depressing. Not for the first time, Sarah seriously weighed the idea of turning around, parking her car in the garage, and booking a flight or train ride to Oregon, but she kept driving. The sun was out, the top was down, and with sunglasses to shield her eyes Sarah was enjoying the feel of the wind in her hair. She began to feel free, and she could feel a weight lifting slowly from her chest.

  “I’m free!” she yelled into the wind, but that didn’t sound convincing even to her own ears. What was she free to do, exactly? Was she free to run away with her tail between her legs? Free to be humiliated by a little weasel of a man? Free to drive to Nowhere, Oregon so she could gaze at her navel and try to figure out what she wanted to do with her life? After only a moment her feeling of exhilaration was gone, and Sarah was left feeling depressed and dispirited. She was approaching middle age with no husband, no children, no job, and no plans for the future. She was free, yes, but if you looked at it a certain way, freedom kind of sucked.

  The drive north was a long haul. Sarah thought about stopping over somewhere on the way, but she wanted the trip to be over more than she wanted the rest. With the exception of a few pee breaks in rest shelters and a quick burger for lunch, Sarah logged as many miles as possible in as little time as possible, speeding over those sections of road where she felt secure that the police were not watching. By the time the highway signs announced her arrival on the outskirts of Tall Pines, the sun was nearing the horizon, she had long since put the top down on her car to protect against the cold, and her butt was shouting loudly that it had logged enough miles in a car seat for one day and was ready for a change.