“Take a look around," Shelley said, rummaging in her purse for her paperwork. "I'll get us checked in.”
Jane strolled along the porch, testing a couple of the rocking chairs. "I could sit here for hours just drinking this air," she said out loud, startling a woodpecker who'd been tapping furiously on the building. This struck her as appropriately rustic, even though a woodpecker at her own house had once driven her nearly to frenzy.
Shelley was back in a minute. "Nobody at the desk," she said, "but I found this on the bulletin board." She'd removed two keys and a map from an envelope. "Hop in the van."
“We're not staying here?"
“No, there are cabins down the road. We're looking for Happy Memories."
“Sure we are. Isn't everybody?"
“Jane, don't be a smart aleck. That's the name of the cabin."
“The name of the cabin? Happy Memories? That's so horribly cute I don't think I can stand it!"
“It's on the right, but not for a bit," Shelley said, putting the van in gear and heading down a narrow, pine-shaded drive that ran at right angles to the road they'd come in on. Little rustic signposts identified the driveways to cabins, some of which weren't even visible from the road. SUMMER'S END, HOME AGAIN, DEER RUN VIEW, and finally HAPPY MEMORIES.
“Oh, Shelley!" Jane sighed at the sight of the cabin. It was a tiny version of the main lodge building — neatly fitted logs with rough bark, a beautifully mossy wood-shake roof hugged by overhanging branches, spots of bright fall wildflowers in the surrounding woods.
They pulled in and hopped out of the van. The surprisingly modern lock on the door worked easily. The interior was extremely "cabinish" with knotty pine walls and a wood floor scattered with braided rugs in soothing, muted colors. The furniture — two single beds, a couple of tables, and a pair of deeply cushioned chairs with afghans tossed over the backs — was primitive. So was the stone hearth around the fireplace. But to Jane's surprise, the entire far wall was all glass, floor-to-ceiling windows, with French doors leading to a back porch the width of the cabin. Three more rocking chairs like the one at the main building sat glowing in the late afternoon sun. There was fireplace wood stacked at the end of the porch, just waiting to become a cozy fire.
Jane went out on the porch, which hung out over a steep incline. Below, a small creek burbled past, and above her, birds warbled. A squirrel leaped from one tree to another, swinging wildly on the branch. "Shelley, this is really heaven— Shelley?”
Jane went inside, just as Shelley came in the other door laden with her belongings. "Which bed do you want?" she asked.
“The one nearest the porch, if that's okay. What is all that stuff?"
“The necessities of life," Shelley said, unloading a hair dryer, lighted makeup mirror, hot rollers, and coffeemaker.
“Uh-huh," Jane said. "There might be a small problem, Shelley." She pointed at the small kerosene lamp sitting on the table between the beds, and the other one on the table on the far wall. "There don't seem to be any electrical outlets.”
Shelley stared at Jane blankly, then stared at the kerosene lamps, looked at the ceiling, hoping in vain to see an overhead light. Then she sat down on the bed, among her appliances. "Oh, Jane. I'll die without electricity! What have I done to us?”
TWO
Shelley ran outside, looked around, and came back in, saying accusingly, "There are wires coming into the cabin, so there must be electricity."
“Probably just phone lines," Jane said, pointing to a telephone sitting on a tiny table. Shelley was so seldom rattled about anything that it was a pleasure to see her scrambling around looking for electricity. But Jane was a little concerned, too. She'd planned on using her laptop to keep in touch with the kids and with her "significant other" (a phrase she hated, but her teenage daughter was mortified by the concept of her mother having a "boyfriend," and Jane had reluctantly adopted Katie's preferred modern terminology), Mel VanDyne, via modem. But while the laptop had a battery, it probably didn't have enough juice to last for several days. Still, there would certainly be power in the main lodge where she could recharge it, while Shelley would look pretty silly using the lodge to dry and curl her hair and put on her makeup.
While Shelley got progressively more frantic in her search, Jane explored the rest of the cabin. It was rectangular with a large section taken out on the north wall. The first door into this section revealed a tiny storage room with extra blankets and pillows and a lot of fishing gear. Minnow buckets, life preservers, a selection of elderly fishing poles, and a tackle box. She closed that door and tried the other, which was the bathroom.
And what a bathroom! "Shelley!" Jane exclaimed. "Get a look at this!”
There was a large, deep tub with water-jet hardware, a double sink, and a separate area that had a very modern toilet and glass-enclosed shower. Jane stared for a moment before realizing she had reflexively flipped on the light switch when she entered the room.
“Lights! Electricity!" Shelley exclaimed. Then she started laughing. "Talk about selective renovations! What an absolutely fabulous bathroom!”
It was a strange juxtaposition — the knotty-pine, rocking-chair, kerosene-lamp, handmade-afghan main room and the luxury-hotel-suite bathroom — a weird combination Jane heartily approved of. In the back of her mind there had been a dark fear that outhouses might figure in this trip.
They got busy unpacking. This was a brief, casual activity for Jane, but more like a well-planned military maneuver for Shelley. There were outlets enough in the bathroom for all of Shelley's various appliances and Jane's laptop, which she plugged in to recharge. Their clothes, however, had to be hung in a tiny alcove of the storeroom, with a burlap curtain in place of a closet door."It smells fishy in here," Shelley complained.
“It's supposed to," Jane said. "If it didn't, they'd have to buy aerosol fish smell. It's a cabin in the woods. Back to nature and all that." She laughed. "Shelley, I have this vision of it being somebody's job to go around with plastic deer hooves on the end of a pole, making tracks outside the cabins when people are sleeping.”
Shelley grinned. "On stilts!”
Once they'd made themselves at home, Jane said, "It's getting dark and I'm starving. Where do we eat?”
Shelley consulted the contents of the envelope she'd picked up at the main lodge. "Dinner tonight-uh-ho — in about fifteen minutes. We better get moving." She stepped out on the deck overlooking the woods. "It's getting cold, too. Bundle up and let's walk."
“Okay, but how will we find our way back? By Braille?"
“I've got flashlights," Shelley said complacently.
Jane rolled her eyes. "Of course you do." Even after years and years of being neighbors and best friends, Jane was still surprised frequently at Shelley's organizational skills. She was always prepared for almost anything. She probably had a first aid kit concealed somewhere on her person.
And a ham radio.
They put on their heavy coats and headed for the lodge. Jane was surprised at how brisk it was. The day had been unusually warm for fall, but as soon as the sun started going down, the thick forest seemed to extinguish the heat. And the sun went down very quickly indeed. In the five minutes it took them to reach the main lodge, it became almost entirely dark. As they approached the building, a creature scuttled across the road in front of them. "Oh, look! A raccoon!" Jane exclaimed, turning to Shelley, who had gone as pale as vanilla pudding.
“I don't like wild animals," Shelley said in a very small voice.
“Ah! A chink in the armor," Jane said with a laugh. "Just imagine them as school principals or bank managers or any of the people you regularly terrorize."
“Can't," Shelley said. "They have fur."
“Then imagine them bald," Jane said briskly.
Shelley shuddered. "A bald raccoon? Yuck!”
As they stepped onto the porch, Jane said, "Actually, that grocery store manager who didn't want to let you use expired coupons looked a bit raccoonish, and you didn't have a bit of trouble bullying him.”
Jane pushed open the front door and they were enveloped in warmth, light, and the delicious odors of dinner. A fire crackled in a big central fireplace in the lobby, adding a hint of woodsmoke to the mix.
“Ah! You must be Mrs. Jeffry and Mrs. Nowack," a voice boomed. "I'm sorry we weren't here to greet you.”
The speaker was a tall, lanky man who looked to be in his mid-fifties. He was wearing a red-andblack-checked flannel shirt, jeans, and suspenders with Santa Claus faces. He looked a bit Santaish himself, in spite of being thin. He had long, thick gray hair and a fluffy beard. "I'm Benson Titus. My wife, Allison, and I own the resort."
“Glad to meet you, Benson. I'm Jane and this is Shelley. This is a wonderful place," Jane said. "We were a bit surprised by the bathroom in our cabin.”
He laughed, showing a spectacular mouthful of capped teeth, all of which were a bit too white. "We like our own comforts, Allison and I do, so we figured the guests would, too. Studied up on it and discovered that in most families, the wife picks the place to stay, and women tend to place a high value on good bathrooms. Cost the earth for all that fancy plumbing, but it did wonders for business."
“But isn't it going to be. . well, sort of wasted on a bunch of high-school kids?" Shelley asked, mindful of their purpose in being there.
“Oh, the kids won't stay in those cabins. There are only ten of them and they're too remote to keep a close eye on. The kids will stay in the dorms. The cabins will be for the staff. I'll show you around the whole place in the morning. Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes, right through there," he added, pointing to large double French doors across the lobby. "Look around, make yourselves at home.”
The dining room was enormous, with a high, wood-beamed ceiling and long, sturdy wooden picnic-type tables, laid with crisp blue-and-white-checkered oilcloths. There were wooden benches with low backs rather than chairs. Another big fireplace was on the left wall, and the right and back walls, like the far wall in their cabin, were solid windows, with, they later discovered, a view over the lake and woods.