“Want me to run interference?” I offered. “I can make feedback noises in the background or pretend that there’s a conference call coming through or something.”
She winked at me, heading for a quiet corner. “Nah, I think he knows something like this is coming.”
“So, uh, what do you do, at your office?” Luke asked.
“Keep everything organized and running on an even keel. Put out fires, figurative and literal, sometimes. On good days, I keep Josh and Sadie from killing each other. On bad days, I have to keep them from making out in the conference room when they think no one is looking.”
“So, smart and brave.”
“No, just interested in not being emotionally traumatized when I walk into the conference room unannounced,” I said, making him give a barking laugh. “What about the kitchen? Is the stove gas or electric?”
Luke grimaced. “We switched over to high-efficiency electric appliances last year. Part of the governor’s environmentally friendly efforts. But the good news is that there wasn’t enough room in the budget to replace the big old gas water heaters yet, so we still have hot water.”
“And I suppose a backup generator would be too much to ask for?”
“We couldn’t afford to install one big enough to run the building. It’s not like we’re a hospital or anything. If we lose power, we send the guests home.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Unless, of course, those guests invade without paying attention to your carefully prepared warnings.”
“Well, that happens,” he said carefully.
“No, it doesn’t.”
He shook his head and grinned at me. “No, it doesn’t. But it’s been entertaining as hell so far. Wanna go forage?”
“After you.”
With a courtly bow and a sweep of his hand, Luke led me to the manager’s office. What the lodge lacked in backup generators it made up for in emergency supplies. The office closet offered up an emergency kit the size of a mini-fridge, plus lanterns, bulk-size packages of batteries, freeze-dried food, candles, and blankets. We dragged as much as we dared to the dining room, where Sadie was in full commander mode, directing the others in arranging rows of mattresses in front of the fireplace. Bonnie moved the food coolers to the second-floor balcony. Gina and Theresa were grudgingly folding blankets at the foot of each pallet.
Despite the ice-reflected light coming in through the windows, the forest-green walls made the room feel even darker and smaller, like a prime-rib-scented cave. The shiny maple tables had been shoved aside to make a semicircular clearing. Tom and Jacob had chosen to make their pallets in the long, cushioned booth seats on the far wall, though I wasn’t sure whether that decision was the result of some floor avoidance strategy or an unwillingness to carry additional mattresses.
Gina sidled up to Charlie, practically cooing at him. “Charlie, do you think you could help me gather extra blankets? I’m a little afraid of going to all of those rooms by myself. I’d feel better if you were with me.”
Charlie gave me a pitiful “Help me!” look, but he still let Gina lead him away like a sacrificial lamb to the skanky slaughter. I rolled my eyes, and unfortunately I did it in the direction of Josh, who had walked into the dining room with an armload of wood. “Geez, Kelsey, I can only carry so much in one trip. It’s these city boy arms of mine. I’m built for show, not hard labor.”
“No!” I exclaimed. “I wasn’t rolling my eyes at you.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“What about Operation Gollum?” I asked. “Is that still a go?”
Blanching a little, Josh patted his coat pocket, where I’m sure the One Ring was stashed. “I wish you wouldn’t call it that.”
“My best friend is getting engaged,” I said, even as he shushed me, searching around for signs of an eavesdropping Sadie. “I have the right to be a little irreverent.”
“I think you have a right to insist on a decent bridesmaid’s dress. Everything else is optional. And yes, it’s a go. I still want to marry the crazy woman. I don’t see why a lack of electricity should change that. And besides, it will be a heck of a story to tell our kids, way more interesting than your standard ‘candlelit dinner and ring in a soufflé’ engagement. I just have to find the right moment, something special.”
“Well, if you need help, let me know.”
“Thanks, but I’m familiar with your brand of ‘help.’ I have no interest in proposing while locked in a supply closet,” he muttered.
“That was one time!” I exclaimed, slapping at his coat sleeve.
“Being locked in a closet, even once, is memorable.”
“Everything I do is memorable!”
He laughed, instantly quieting and patting his pocket as Sadie walked into the dining room carrying her giant box of retreat materials. God, that was adorable. One day, I would love to have the power to turn a reasonable, rational man into a quivering pile of twitches.
With the others distracted by the essential elements of survival, I methodically unpacked my camera equipment, something that had helped me survive when other assistants had been laid off or furloughed. I’d become quite the amateur photographer in my time with KCT. We needed photos for our various ads and publications, and having someone on staff who could take reliably decent shots was considerably cheaper than hiring a full-time photographer. (Also, I could be bribed into working weekends with cupcakes from Sweet Eats, which was less likely with those mercenary art school types.) Sadie was savvy enough to secure funding for a digital camera that did all the thinking about lighting, aperture, shutter speed, and so on for me. All I had to do was correctly frame the object, point, and shoot.
I had three fully charged batteries in my bag. They would be enough to get me through several days of shooting. I might as well document our suffering. It would make for an amusing addition to the wall of “family photos” at the office. Or it would serve as evidence of which one of us snapped when the authorities stumbled onto our still-frozen remains in the spring.
“Girls on the right, boys on the left. I don’t want to go down in the papers as the marketing director who encouraged sexual harassment lawsuits through coed sleeping arrangements,” Sadie called as the others claimed their beds.
“Yes, because avoiding unwanted invasions of sleep space should take priority over not freezing to death,” Dorie Ann muttered.
When Sadie leveled her “Really? You have jokes now?” expression at her, Dorie Ann dropped her head and said, “Sorry.”
Slinging my shoulder bag on a folded comforter, I claimed the pallet between Sadie and Bonnie, who was keeping her typical sunny face on, despite the fact that she seemed none too thrilled to be separated from Will.
“Doesn’t this make you think of all those crazy post-doomsday shows on TV?” Theresa asked, tossing pillows onto each pallet. “Like you’re supposed to be reviewing your zombie apocalypse survival plan in your head?”
“I don’t have a zombie apocalypse plan,” I told her, and she gasped in mock horror. “I figure I’m going to fall to the first wave. And I’ll probably die in some really embarrassing way, like getting bitten and turned in the shower and end up wandering the earth for all eternity naked, clutching a loofah.”
She pulled a disgusted face but laughed. “That’s so sick.”
I giggled. It was at times like this that I missed my nerd herd even more. My boys wouldn’t have been thrown in the slightest by this situation. Though they were as hooked on electronics as any other self-respecting geek, the four of them had been raised in Kentucky, after all. They’d been taught to make camp, to hunt and fish, to clean and cook what they caught. They didn’t particularly enjoy the activities, but they kept up their skills and the equipment necessary, because Wally was convinced that one day the “grid” would go out and we would all need to go back to living off the land. Wally’s family had a hunting cabin
near Lake Cumberland that he’d graciously offered us as sanctuary when the unhappy event occurred.
My boys wouldn’t have screamed and worried about perishables. They would have already established a hierarchy based on useful skill sets and improvised a backup generator out of a paper clip and coconut water. So in their honor, I compared this situation to the Donner Party and started a debate over who should be on the menu first.
“I say we eat Gina first,” I said, pointing at her.
“Don’t be silly.” Sadie sniffed. “Gina hardly has any meat on her bones. If anything, we go for Bonnie first. She’s small, but she never exercises, like veal.”
Josh covered his face with his hands. “I cannot believe this conversation is taking place.”
Oddly enough, my liberal use of snark seemed to make the others relax a bit. Whether it was because of my return to my normal office attitude or my admitting and then laughing at the worst-case scenarios, I wasn’t sure. But eventually the grumbling turned to the usual patter we’d hear around the office on days when we weren’t trapped together like victims of Stephen King’s imagination. And the dining room was starting to look like a sultan’s tree house, which was sort of fun.
“You know, this could lead to any number of horror movie scenarios,” I mused. “Angry ghosts of people who bumped off their families while staying in the hotel. Crazy backwoods serial killer who uses a farm implement to stalk us one by one. One of us develops snow madness and starts killing everyone off while singing spooky nursery rhymes.
Sadie’s head popped up from the nest of blankets she was trying to wrangle. “Kelsey?”
“Yeah?”
“Please stop trying to make us feel better.”
But still, she laughed, as did Bonnie and Dorie Ann and Will, plus a familiar husky voice that I had not heard in quite some time. I looked up to see Charlie standing in the doorway with a pile of forest-green thermal blankets in his arms, shoulders shaking as he joined in with the rest of us. Our eyes connected, and I felt a little bit of the weight on my chest ease. My lips parted, whether to smile or speak I didn’t know. But before I could decide, Luke called my name. “Kelsey? Would you mind coming into the kitchen and helping me check over the pantry?”
The spell was broken.
“Sure,” I said. Charlie gave me a little shrug as I followed Luke through the industrial kitchen to a large closet tucked into the back wall.
“We’re only stocked for the slow season, so it’s not going to be much of a selection,” he said, grunting as he yanked the door out of place.
I eyed the floor-to-ceiling display of canned fruits and veggies, soups, individual packs of crackers, industrial-size jars of peanut butter, and granola. “I think our definitions of ‘not much’ are very different.”
“I meant fresh-food-wise,” he amended. Of course he did. Look at the guy, I told myself, he probably lived on wheat germ and those protein bars that taste like chalk and feet. Definitely out of my league, considering my league involved a diet of takeout Thai food and experimental cupcakes from Sweet Eats.
Most of the refrigerated food was still cold: economy-size tubs of margarine, enormous tubes of sliced American cheese, dozens of eggs, and five gallons of milk, ready to expire within the next week. The frozen foods didn’t fare as well without electricity, and I just about wept while throwing out enormous melted tubs of rocky road and mint chocolate chip ice cream. But buried under a thawing bag of chicken breasts I found a familiar green-and-yellow box.
“Auntie Nina’s!” I exclaimed. “It’s the thinnest, limpest, most rubbery cheese pizza on the market!”
Luke seemed disconcerted by my clutching the partially frozen pizza box to my chest like it was an orphaned kitten. “Yes, we keep them on hand for happy hour clients. Paying sixteen dollars for a cheap frozen pizza doesn’t sound unreasonable when you’ve had a few drinks.”
“I lived on these in college. They taste like cardboard, but they bring back good memories.” I sighed, resting my cheek on top of the box. “And you have bacon cheeseburger, my favorite.”
Luke swallowed thickly. “For some reason, you snuggling a pizza box is one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen.”
“I think you’ve been out in the woods for too long,” I told him, giving the pizza box one last lingering look. “It’s a shame the oven isn’t working. A slice of Auntie Nina’s would have been a comfort.”
Luke gave the box a speculative look. “Put it with the rest of the cold-storage stuff. Let me see what I can work out.”
Just then, a loud CRACK sounded from just outside the windows, followed by the ominous thump of what was probably a tree trunk slamming into the side of the lodge near the front entrance.
“What the hell was that?” I cried.
We all ran into the lobby, expecting to find an Ent kicking down the front door. We could see branches smooshed up against the glass like helpless little tree fingers.
“I should probably go out there and check the damage,” Luke said.
“Can we all go?” Dorie Ann asked quietly. “I’d like to see what it’s like outside.”
“I’m not going out there,” Gina cried. “It’s freezing!”
Ignoring Gina, we geared up as if we were heading out for a polar expedition, with multiple layers of clothes, scarves, hats, and gloves. I put a pot of water on the fire to heat for hot chocolate and coffee when we came back, because we were going to be worse than a bunch of hopped-up, freezing kindergarteners. Gina swept by, slapping me in the face with the sleeve of her coat as she threw it around her shoulders.
“I thought it was too cold for you to go outside,” I said, glaring up at her.
“Like I’m going to let you leave me in the lodge all by myself.” Gina snorted, pulling a stylish knit hat over her hair. Of course, it looked adorable and perfect and made me want to smack her.
I glanced over at Charlie, who was grinning slightly to no one in particular as he tied his boots. It was nice to see that smile again. I snagged my camera bag as Luke carefully popped open the back door to the porch, breaking through a healthy crust of ice.
I was the last out the door by virtue of my camera detour, and I had no choice but to hold on to Gina’s arm. I hissed through my teeth as the frigid wind slapped against my cheeks and seeped through my jeans.
The snow was relatively shallow on the porch, but still fluffy enough that it gave way easily under our boots, providing little traction over the thick layer of ice on the concrete. One by one, we carefully picked our way over the slick impromptu ice rink, holding hands to keep the links in our human chain from skittering around like Bambi. My hand slid down Gina’s arm to wrap around her fingers. She seemed none too pleased to be holding hands with her semi-nemesis.
“See?” Sadie said brightly as we inched our way down the sweeping stone staircase to the rear grounds of the hotel. “Teamwork! If one of us falls, we all fall. We’re only as strong as our clumsiest link. This is like those ropes courses without the annoying gravity issues.”
Unfortunately, just as the words “gravity issues” left Sadie’s lips, I reached the second step. And when I reached the second step, my foot slipped out from under me and practically flew forward in a wide arc. And in that moment, rather than holding on to my hand, Gina chose to let go, meaning I had nothing to keep me balanced and my other foot went flying forward in a classic “banana peel” fall. With my momentum throwing me forward, I fell to the next step with a dull, splatting thump and bumped my way all the way down the staircase. On my ass.
Ow.
For a second, the wind was knocked out of me and all I could do was sit there, trying to draw breath to my lungs as pain radiated through my tailbone. Charlie, Sadie, and Luke were on their knees in front of me, their voices barely seeping through the fog of “What the hell just happened?”
My speech and my hearing seemed to retu
rn at the same time as I grumbled, “Mother . . . fudger!”
“Oh my gosh, Kels, are you all right?” Sadie cried.
“You should stay still,” Charlie said. “Catch your breath.”
“Did you hit your head?” Luke demanded.
“I’m fine,” I insisted, forcing enough air through my lungs so I could speak. “I’m fine. Nothing busted except my pride, I am eighty percent sure.”
I looked up to see Gina holding her phone so she could capture this beautiful moment forever. Bonnie saw what she was doing and none-too-subtly stepped into her sight line to block the shot.
I found two pairs of hands outstretched to help me up—Luke’s forest-green work gloves and the TARDIS-themed fingerless mitts that Dorie Ann made for Charlie last Christmas. I waved them both off, bracing my hands against my knees to push up. My ass felt thoroughly busted, but I didn’t feel any pain radiating up my back or down my legs. “Eighty-two percent sure,” I amended.
I hoped the snow had been fluffy enough to cushion me against a broken coccyx. I didn’t know if I could fashion a donut pillow out of our current supplies. I patted my shoulder, searching for the strap that had been looped around it just moments before.
“Oh, shoot, my camera!” I cried, searching around for my black canvas bag. “Is my camera okay?”
“She flies five feet through the air, but she’s worried about her camera?” Luke asked Sadie as we searched the drifts for the bag.
“You don’t know how she feels about her camera,” Charlie told him, almost airily. “She calls it Clyde.”
Luke laughed. “Clyde?”
“Hey, show him some respect. Clyde and I have spent some quality years together. If he had a vibrate feature, he would be my boyfriend,” I muttered.
Dead silence. I looked up and realized that everyone was staring at me. And Gina, damn her, was still filming.
After locating Clyde, it took me more than a few steps to shake off the feeling that my ass was about to fall off. The group eventually lost interest in my extraordinary inability to control my limbs and/or mouth and took the time to appreciate the wintry wonderland that had dropped on our heads.