A way forward that didn’t include her family. Dylan cringed. Her family wasn’t perfect, but if today proved anything, it was that they were there for her, in their own weird way. Any other family in the country would have been ashamed of a child defacing a flower bed to get away from an angry ex. Her parents were delighted by it. They were proud of anything she did that went against the social grain. And while Dylan couldn’t say that she understood the pride that came with watching your child deface public beautification efforts, she was grateful for it just the same.
But Nicolas had good traits. He was circumstantially funny, and he always organized their bathroom without her ever having to mention it. He made dinner reservations so they didn’t waste time waiting in unnecessary lines. It wasn’t like she had spent the last few years with a monster. At least she didn’t think she had.
“He’s on the board of the local youth center, for goodness’ sake! It isn’t like he’s evil,” Dylan said to the dog, who again shifted a little more to the left, causing her to pause midrant.
Nicolas might not be evil, but he wasn’t forgiving. The same guy who happily wrote checks to get new basketball nets every year was still holding a grudge against the neighbor who’d scratched his car, even after she’d left a note and paid for a new paint job. Dylan took a sip of her coffee, feeling her heart deflate. The market incident was the kind of thing he would never let go of. He might forgive her or only bring it up once in a blue moon. But forgive her family? Not a chance.
A few months ago, she’d have understood—probably even walked away from her family without much hesitation. She might have missed the occasional Sunday phone call from her dad or the weird memes Neale sent her, but she would adjust to it eventually. Now, it seemed like a lot to give up. Maybe it was just being back in Seattle, but she couldn’t reconcile Nicolas’s growing list of dislikes and his snide comments. The order he brought to her life wasn’t worth the catalog of petty grudges she needed to hold to be with him. Dylan had developed enough of her own stability. She could be left alone, and she wouldn’t implode.
Strange as it seemed, after years of running from her family, she was less afraid of turning into them than of becoming so rigid that she was careless or, worse, cruel. Her family was okay. And it wasn’t like Dylan had any intention of moving in with them or starting to dress like her father, but when push came to shove, they did love her unconditionally. Even if that love was quirky and loud and got on her last good nerve. She couldn’t say that about Nicolas. His love was based on a prescription, a narrow list of behaviors and traits he could tolerate, and she just didn’t have it in her to be those things anymore.
Milo snorted in agreement, bringing her back to the room and the rapidly cooling cup of coffee in her hands.
“You’re right; I’m a smart girl. I’ll be okay,” Dylan said. The large dog groaned and stretched himself off the bed in an oddly feline way, then flopped down on the floor to signal his disinterest in the continued assessment of her downward spiral.
“I just need to make a few phone calls, research storage units, then moving companies,” Dylan mumbled, looking for a pen and notepad to start her list.
Catching sight of her work computer, she remembered another less-than-happy surprise. Turning to her canine therapist, she added, “I forgot about that stupid retreat. I need to make a packing list too.”
The overwhelming smell of pine trees hit Dylan as she swung herself out of the driver’s side door. Feeling the cold settle into her cheeks, she was glad she’d raided Bernice’s extensive collection of Nano Puff jackets. Her mother might be the only person every shade of pea green, sky blue, and fuchsia looked good on. But the jacket did pack into tiny spaces, so at least Dylan was traveling light while looking like a paint sample from the eighties.
Squinting across the parking lot, she could see Deep lugging an enormous orange suitcase toward a rustic-looking great hall, whose heyday had probably been sometime before Nixon was president.
“Need help?”
“No. I need civilization,” Deep said, twisting the suitcase over the gravel and looking up. “What are you wearing?”
“I’m warm, and that is what counts,” Dylan said, dodging a particularly large puddle. “Are you running away from home or something?”
“Ha. Ha. I’m allergic to nature. My mother is the Queen of the Outdoors. I spent every summer until I was eighteen backpacking and memorizing plants and shit,” Deep said, shaking the hair out of her eyes. “I’ve made a full recovery. Thanks for asking.”
“Are you serious? We should form some sort of support group. Children of REI Addicts. This jacket is from my mother’s exceptional collection of quilted, waterproof paraphernalia.”
Deep stopped to heave the suitcase up the first step to the hall entrance. “Well, that explains a lot.”
“You understand how the jacket happened to me?”
“God, no. I understand you. The jacket is unforgivable. I’d rather freeze to death than be seen in a Gene Simmons reject.”
“Geometric is making a comeback,” Dylan chuckled, grabbing the handle of the suitcase to help her heft the thing.
“Even if it does, that sad shade of mauve will never—” Deep paused as they reached the glass door. “Oh my God.”
“No.”
“It’s so—” Deep said, choking on her words, a massive grin creeping across her face.
“How did no one vet this?”
“I don’t think anyone needed to—wait for it—”
“You better not make that pun.” Dylan recoiled from the door.
“Wait for it.”
“You are the worst.”
“Vet anything. Get it? ’Cause they are all dead!” Deep cackled, her breath fogging up the glass in front of them. “Don’t worry. I’m sure someone prayed for their souls.” She doubled over, forcing Dylan to take a second look at the hall. She could almost feel her email exploding with complaints as she faced the window.
As expected, there were animal heads mounted on the walls. What was not expected was that those heads would still be attached to stuffed bodies, taxidermized and mounted on shelves, teeth gnashing and claws bared.
What Dylan never could have dreamed of was that they would be carefully arranged around the most massive crucifix she had ever seen.
“I don’t understand the theme of the decor. How are these two things even related?” Dylan asked, once Deep had straightened up.
“Are you setting me up for jokes?”
“You’re right. Don’t answer me,” Dylan said. She sucked in a big gulp of air before reaching for the handle. “After you.”
“Jesus walks ahead of—”
“Don’t make it worse,” Dylan hissed, grabbing the suitcase and pushing it through the door after her friend.
In contrast to the smell of pines outside, the hall smelled like fluorescent chlorine and the kind of powdered eggs that came in a box.
“So luxurious,” Deep said as they stopped to take stock of the room.
To Dylan’s relief, Tim had not situated himself under the giant cross. Rather, he was posted uncomfortably at a makeshift check-in table, arguing with what looked like the campground director. Whatever they were discussing, Tim was not winning the argument.
“I should go check in with the boss.”
“I’ll pray for you,” Deep said, wheeling her massive suitcase over the lumpy linoleum toward what looked like a school lunchroom counter.
Weaving her way through the crowded room, Dylan watched Tim yank at his hair with one hand before dropping it to his side with force. The camp director took a step back to put space between himself and an agitated Tim. This was a bit of an overreaction on the camp director’s part, since Tim couldn’t have been more than 155 pounds soaking wet, but Dylan picked up the pace anyway. The last thing she needed was a headline about Tim Gunderson beating up a Christian-camp director.
“Good morning. Dylan Delacroix. Nice to meet you,” she said, extending h
er hand to the camp director.
The man paused a moment, taking in her jacket, before reaching out. “Joe Woychowski.”
“Pleasure to meet you. How’s it going?” Dylan tried to sound casual as she strategically positioned herself between Tim and Joe. Joe was a stout individual, but Dylan had nearly a foot on him and a good four inches on Tim. She decided her size might be a mitigating factor if either one of them got out of hand.
“This ignoramus will not let us switch campsites.” Tim wasted no time restoring the frost Dylan had worked to thaw.
“And as I explained in my email this morning, we understand he made a mistake, but we are unable to correct his error because another company has already booked the luxury site.”
“So . . . what? I’m stuck with a pack of wild animals on the walls, bunk beds, and no Wi-Fi?” Tim threw his hands in the air at “no Wi-Fi.”
“Let me understand. Tim, you meant to book a different campsite?”
“Yes. Dylan. Explain to this man that we are a tech company. No Wi-Fi equals no work. Plus, all the stuffed animals are creeping me out. Their eyes follow you; did you notice?”
Dylan suppressed a shudder and avoided eye contact with the bobcat above Joe’s head. “Can we make this site work? You mentioned bunk beds?”
“Yes. This site is primarily a children’s church campsite.”
“Must have been why it was a good deal,” Tim said under his breath, eyeing an elk across the room.
“We have enough beds for everyone. Each bunkhouse sleeps twenty-two people,” Joe said.
“Right. So we can make this space work. Thank you, Joe. Would you mind getting us a few site maps so we can start getting people settled in?”
“Not a problem,” Joe said, glaring at Tim as he turned to go.
“We can’t stay here. What the hell are we gonna do? Tell campfire stories? Then this guy is telling me they have one, just one, desktop computer we can access in the reading lounge, which, by the way, only has Baby-Sitters Club books.”
“Good book series.”
“Really? I was more of a Baby-Sitters Little Sister fan.” Tim stopped his rant to give her a sideways look, then shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. We’re screwed.”
“Hardly. I don’t know what else you have planned for the next couple days, but we can make this work.” Dylan forced herself to believe what she was saying. Pulling her eyes off the walls, she looked around the room. The novelty of posting the decor on social media was already wearing off, and people were getting antsy.
“Were you going to expound on how we are not screwed? Or just say something hopeful and wait for someone else to strike gold?” Tim said, waving his hand in front of her face.
“No need to be mean. I’m not the one who booked a kids’ campsite without consulting the consultant,” Dylan said, looking down at him and serving up the extra sass that had been hanging around since she and Nicolas had broken up.
“I’m sorry.” Tim put his hands up in submission. “Can you help?”
“Well, I’m trying. But don’t think we won’t dissect this once we get back to a place with Wi-Fi,” Dylan said. “I think we act like this mix-up is a team-building exercise.” She paused to let him finish rolling his eyes before she continued. “Take an activity out of Team Building 101 to assign cabins. Make everyone get in groups of eleven by favorite ice cream or animal or something.”
“Then what?”
“Let them get settled in. After that, you run a modified version of your plan with pens and paper. I’ll make a run to the store for poster board, and I’m sure they have markers lying around here somewhere.”
Tim looked around the room, apprehensive. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice. We can’t send people home after they got all the way up here.”
Dylan thought more than a few people would probably like to go home, especially after catching sight of the walls, but she nodded anyway.
“No time like the present,” he added.
“Actually, we should wait until Joe gets back with—” Dylan said, but Tim was already on the move, pulling his shoulders back and striding toward the giant hearth under the cross. Dylan’s eyes roved around the expansive room, eventually finding Joe holding a megaphone and cradling a stack of paper. She waved him over as Tim hopped onto the hearthstone, shouting to little effect. The people nearest him turned around and took three steps back to get out of spit range, but the hall was so big that the sizable crowd stationed by the coffee stand hadn’t even noticed he was talking. Shrugging, Tim lifted his hand to his mouth and pulled off a wolf whistle that would be the envy of gym teachers across the continental United States.
“Welcome!” Tim stretched up, cupping his hands around his mouth in an attempt to amplify the sound. “I hope you all had a pleasant ride up to this majestic site. Mounted animals notwithstanding.”
A few people in the front snickered before a woman yelled, “We can’t hear you.”
Taking an exaggerated deep breath, Tim shouted, “This better?” Without waiting for the answer, he plowed on. “Like I was saying, welcome! We are going to start by getting sorted into our cabins.”
“Got your maps,” Joe whispered, finally appearing at Dylan’s side.
“Still can’t hear!” the woman called again.
“I said, we are going to get into cabins,” Tim screeched, causing the people near the front to jump back another foot.
“Great. And if I could just borrow this,” Dylan said, reaching for the bullhorn in Joe’s other hand.
“Oh no. I need that to help people find their cabins.” Joe moved the bullhorn away from her as if she were a toddler reaching for something with a Mr. Yuk sticker on it. Tim’s voice cracked as he continued to scream at the room.
“Joe, you’re gonna have to do me a solid,” Dylan said, taking her best big-sister tone and grabbing onto the bullhorn. Giving the horn a hard yank, she managed to wrench it free from Joe’s death grip, eliciting a gasp from the man. Stumbling backward at the sudden release of the hotly contested item, she smoothed her jacket and her tone—“You’ll get it back, promise”—then marched over to Tim and thrust the thing at him as another round of “whats” went around the room.
“Is this better!” Tim shouted into the shrieking bullhorn. A volley of squeals sent hands over ears as the people in the front gave up and walked back toward the coffee stand, leaving Tim a good ten feet of room.
Dylan made a mental note to have Brandt pick up a PA system at some point and silently thanked her lucky stars that Tim hadn’t decided to have this professionally filmed “for posterity.”
“You may have noticed we are at a children’s campground and not a luxury retreat. There was a mix-up in scheduling, but it is in keeping with the theme of the weekend, which is”—Tim paused for dramatic effect—“invention!” Clearly, he had expected applause here and stopped talking to wait for it. The awkward moment stretched into a half minute of silence. Finally he explained, “It’s invention because we want you to explore new ideas . . . like a curious child.” Tim spoke more slowly and moved his free hand in a come-along-with-me-here-people gesture. When the clapping still didn’t start, Tim shrugged. “Whatever. Anyway, we have a few hours before dinner, so what we want to do is divide everyone into cabins.”
Tim instructed everyone to get in groups of eleven people based on their birth month. He continued through the room like a motivational speaker, asking what month each group was and pairing them with another group from the same month, then yelling, “Fantastic! Head over there to that gentleman with the stack of papers, and he will get you situated,” before moving on to the next group.
“We’ll gather for dinner and a keynote session at five thirty,” Dylan said to the first group when they approached for cabin assignments. Observing the blank stare most of the group members gave her, she made another mental note to get copies of the schedule to hand out at dinner. Just one of about fifty mental notes to take care of before everyone reconvened
in the dwelling of the dead animals.
“Hey, Dylan?” Brandt’s voice came from behind her.
“What’s up?”
Brandt curled his lanky frame inward before speaking. “The bunk beds don’t have sheets.”
“Shit,” she said, not caring if the giant cross and every dead animal in the room heard. It was going to be a very long two hours.
“I can’t believe I maxed out my credit card at REI,” Dylan mumbled, passing more sleeping bags to Deep.
“Better or worse than maxing it out at the hunting-goods store?” Deep asked, grabbing a bag full of neatly arranged pillows from the back of Dylan’s packed car before closing the hatch.
The two had spent the better part of the last two hours cleaning out every sleeping bag provider in the region, while Brandt had stayed in the great hall cramming pillows into cases that Tim had managed to track down from a home-goods store. Judging from the pink princess pillowcases, Dylan suspected he’d had to clean out the place too.
“I think the woman behind the counter was wearing a newer model of my jacket,” Dylan said as the pair began inching toward another cabin about a hundred yards down a muddy gravel road.
“I’m just saying I’ve never seen so many crossbows in one location. I spent so much money I’m pretty sure I landed myself on a government watch list,” Deep said as they jumped out of the car again.
“At least it will make for a funny story when you have to explain it to the NSA.”
“Too bad Tim didn’t get a Model X. The thing would have been useful right now.”
“Don’t say that. He is probably looking for a reason to buy a new Tesla,” Dylan quipped, rearranging a few more of the puffy monstrosities that blocked her rearview mirror. “Thank you for doing this. I know Tim isn’t easy to work with, and I’m a relative stranger, so you have zero obligation to help. But I appreciate it.”
The Checklist Page 18
