An Alaskan Proposal

by Beth Carpenter

  “We’re just starting out camping, and we need all the basics. My brother gave us his old tent. What else do we need?”

  A cold flash of panic shot through Sabrina’s chest. This woman and her kids were going out into the wilderness and they were depending on Sabrina to make sure they were properly equipped. One day of simulated camping was not enough preparation. She looked around, hoping to hand her over to one of the other employees in camping, but they were all occupied with other customers.

  Sabrina smiled at her. “Okay, let’s get started. You’ll need to cook, so let’s take a look at the camp stoves.” Sabrina managed to bluff her way through stove selection, mostly by reading the boxes. She had no idea which stove was best suited for the woman but steered her toward the one that looked the most like Leith’s. They picked out folding pans, dinnerware, metal mugs and cute little salt-and-pepper holders that screwed together.

  “Oh, and a matchbox,” Sabrina said, remembering the one Leith had given her. “It will keep your matches dry.”

  “What about sleeping bags?” the woman asked.

  “Right.” Since they didn’t spend the night, Sabrina’s only experience with sleeping bags during her lesson with Leith involved stuffing one into a sack. “Right over here.”

  “So, do we want down, or are these bags with synthetic insulation easier to wash?”

  “Eww, orange. Can we get the blue one, Mom?” the girl asked.

  “I like the orange one,” her brother said.

  “How warm are these bags? Is it better to go heavier than you think you’ll need?”

  “I’m, uh, not sure.” Sabrina noticed that the department supervisor was just finishing with his customer. “Tim, could you come over here, please? This family has some questions about sleeping bags.”

  Tim took over. “These are our most popular midweight bags. We have summer-weight, but in Alaska they’re more for cabin or RV camping rather than tents. You’ll want sleeping pads as well to insulate you from the ground.”

  They seemed to be in good hands, so Sabrina excused herself and looked for the next customer who needed help. Instead, she saw Walter standing at the edge of the department, his arms crossed. His mustache drooped over his mouth, but he clearly wasn’t smiling. Sabrina gave a little wave and hurried over to a guy browsing the freeze-dried foods.

  Great. Between the vest and her ignorance on sleeping bags, she’d created a bad impression with the one person who stood between her and a secure job. She clearly needed more hands-on experience in camping...the sooner the better. It sounded like Leith’s invitation couldn’t have come at a better time.

  * * *

  THAT EVENING, Sabrina trudged down the stairs to her apartment, debating the relative merits of going for a run versus eating a quart of peanut-butter-and-chocolate ice cream for dinner. In addition to Walter watching her flounder in the camping department, a carton of hiking pants had arrived with water damage, and one of her employees called in sick at the last minute, so Sabrina had to cover both the sales floor and the paperwork over the damaged order. Not that there was a lot of traffic in her department—yet another depressing thought.

  Her mood took a U-turn when she opened the door to find the little dog wagging his tail at her as though she was the most wonderful person on the planet. He danced on his back legs until she reached down and gave his ears a rub. As soon as she straightened up, he ran to the leash hanging beside the door and stood there, looking expectant.

  “Okay, we’ll go. Just let me change into some running clothes.” The dog followed as she moved from the bathroom to the bedroom to the kitchen for a drink of water, never letting more than a foot separate them. She was snapping the leash onto his collar when her phone rang.

  The area code looked vaguely familiar, but she didn’t recognize the number. Probably someone wanting to sell her a time-share or offering to refinance her nonexistent home loan. She let it go to voice mail.

  Forty minutes later, she and the dog returned, both feeling pleasantly tired and more than a little hungry. She gave the dog his kibble and decided to be virtuous and dine on a green salad with boiled eggs. And then maybe a few spoonfuls of ice cream because she’d earned it.

  As she set her phone on the counter, she noticed someone had left a voice mail. Maybe not a spam caller, then. She listened to the message.

  “Hi. Um, Sabrina, this is Misty, and I, like, need to talk with you. It’s about Dad. Your dad, I mean. Anyway, please call me back.”

  Misty? She didn’t know anyone by that name. And why would anyone be calling about her father? He’d walked out of her life eighteen years ago, and now, according to her mother, he was dead.

  Dead. Sabrina had avoided thinking about her father’s death, just as she’d always avoided thinking about the way he’d abandoned her and her mom. Nothing positive came from dwelling on loss. It was more important to move forward.

  She closed her eyes for a moment and remembered the day when her daddy had carried her on his shoulders across a parking lot so the pavement wouldn’t burn her feet through the thin soles of her shoes. And when they went out for ice cream, he’d given her the cherry from his sundae, too. Now that man was gone, forever. And she’d never have an opportunity to ask him why he’d stopped loving her.

  She blew out a long, slow breath. It didn’t matter anyway. The call was probably a scam. Hello, you’ve inherited a million dollars. Just give me your account number and the password, and I’ll transfer it right over. Like she’d fall for that, especially in a message from someone who didn’t even leave a last name or business title.

  Sabrina put the eggs on to boil and started grating a carrot for her salad. There was something odd about the call, though. The caller had seemed nervous, not like someone who’d read the same script over a hundred times. And how would they have gotten her cell-phone number?

  She thought about it while she finished preparing and ate her salad. It was no use—her curiosity wouldn’t allow her to enjoy her ice cream until she’d cleared up this mystery. She found the number and dialed.

  “Sabrina?”

  “Yes, this is Sabrina. Am I speaking to Misty?”

  “Yes.” Sabrina waited for the spiel, but Misty didn’t say anything else.

  “The Misty who left a message on my phone about an hour ago?”

  “Yes, right. I, um... That is, I’m your sister.”

  Sabrina paused. “My sister?” She didn’t have a sister. Or maybe she did. Maybe her father had a whole brood of kids after he deserted her.

  “Well, half sister. I found a picture of you, after Dad died. You knew he died, right?”

  “Yes, I heard,” Sabrina admitted slowly.

  “It was so weird. He was sitting on the couch and watching TV and I was, like, listening to my tunes when he stood up and left. I thought he was going to the bathroom or something. Later I got up to go to my room and there he was in the hall, where he’d, like, collapsed. I called 911, but when they got there they said he was already dead. His aorta burst.”

  “Wow. I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah. I felt bad because I didn’t hear him fall, because of the earbuds, but they told me it probably wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. It’s weird, not having him here, you know?”

  Sabrina did know, or at least she knew how weird it had been for her. And it had only gotten weirder when the bank foreclosed on the house. But that wasn’t Misty’s problem. “I’m sorry,” Sabrina repeated.

  Misty took a deep breath. “Well, anyway, when I was helping Mom go through some of his stuff after the funeral, I found this picture of you and Dad, and I made her tell me who you were. I kind of knew Dad had been married before he married my mom, but I never knew he had a daughter.”

  “You didn’t?” Sabrina assumed she didn’t know about Misty because she wasn’t in touch with her dad. It hadn’t occurred to her th
at her father wouldn’t have told Misty about her.

  “No, they never told me. At first, when I found the picture, Mom said you were just a neighbor kid who lived near them when they lived in Arizona before they moved to Tacoma, but on the back of the picture it said, ‘Daddy and Sabrina, age nine,’ so I knew she was lying.”

  “Does she lie a lot?”

  “Oh, yeah, all the time.” Misty’s answer was matter-of-fact. “Not usually about big things like this, but you know, if she forgets to pay a bill she says it must have been lost in the mail, or she’d tell Dad she got something on sale for fifty bucks when it was really two hundred. Stuff like that.”

  “I see.” This was the woman Sabrina’s father had deserted them for? A habitual liar?

  “I found out Dad had been married before because my grandma said something once about Mom being his second wife, but my mom shushed her. She told me Grandma was getting senile or something, but I knew she wasn’t. Anyway, I found the picture and I know about you now, so Mom can’t lie to me anymore. I’ve always wanted a sister.”

  “How did you get my number?”

  “It wasn’t easy.” Misty sounded proud of herself. “My friend Junie’s mom is into all that genealogy stuff, so Junie helped me find the marriage record with your mom’s name on it, and we saw that she had another marriage license not that long ago, so we knew her new name, and her husband’s name. He had a landline listed, so I called her and she gave me your number. I asked her not to tell you because I wanted to surprise you.”

  Well, that worked. Sabrina couldn’t believe her mother didn’t tell her to expect a call from a sister she never knew existed.

  “I wanted to call you right away, but my mom made me help her clean out Dad’s whole closet and stuff, and then I had to go to this college-orientation thing.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m eighteen. I start college at Seattle Pacific this fall.”

  Eighteen. It was a little over eighteen years ago that Sabrina’s dad left them. So his second wife must have already been pregnant when he decided to bail on his first wife. Sabrina couldn’t decide if that made it better or worse.

  Misty rattled on. “See, I was thinking Junie and I could tell our moms that we’re taking a road trip to Vegas. They won’t like it, but since we’re both eighteen we can talk them into letting us go. Really, though, we’ll drive to Phoenix and I’ll get to meet you. Won’t that be great?”

  Sabrina wasn’t sure how great it would be. Not that it was Misty’s fault, but Dad had abandoned Sabrina and her mother in favor of Misty and hers. And apparently, he’d stuck this marriage out. Why would Sabrina want to meet the daughter who had replaced her?

  “Actually, I’m not in Phoenix anymore. I’m working in Anchorage,” Sabrina reported, happy to have the built-in excuse.

  “Anchorage, Alaska? That’s so cool! I want to see Alaska. How long does it take to drive to Alaska from Seattle?”

  “Oh, weeks.” It was a slight exaggeration, but it was a long way. “And you’d have to drive through Canada. You’d need a passport.” Please don’t let her have a passport.

  “Oh.” Misty sounded so deflated, Sabrina felt like she had to throw her a bone.

  “But flights from Alaska usually stop through Seattle. Maybe, sometime, we can get together there.”

  “Yes! Call me anytime and I’ll come meet you at the airport or whatever, ’cause I really do want to meet you. Send me your picture, okay? And I’ll send mine.”

  “Sure, I’ll do that. Thanks for calling, Misty.”

  After letting Misty gush a little more, Sabrina was able to end the call. She set the phone on the table and stared blankly at the wall. She had a sister. A sister with whom she shared a father, but Sabrina had only had him for the first twelve years of her life, whereas he’d been there for Misty until he died.

  And yes, it was sad that he’d died, and especially that Misty found him, but a tiny part of Sabrina couldn’t help but feel that karma had finally caught up with the man who had abandoned his family. Did that make her a bad person?

  Her phone chimed, and a photo of Misty appeared on her screen. Her hair was the same reddish-brown shade as their father’s. Misty must have gotten the blue eyes from her mother, but they were exactly the same shape as Sabrina’s. And they had the same arch to their eyebrows and the same chin. They did look like sisters.

  It occurred to Sabrina that if everything went as planned and she ended up with the Orson Outfitters management job, she would be living in the same city as her half sister. Maybe, once she’d gotten used to the idea, Sabrina would want to spend time with her.

  It might be fun to have a sibling. Maybe they could window-shop together, or eat junk food and watch sad movies, or whatever bonding thing sisters did. Maybe Misty would be proud to tell her friends she had a sister who worked for Orson Outfitters at their headquarters downtown. Or maybe not. But if Sabrina didn’t find a way to impress Walter and get that job, it would be a moot point.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BY WEDNESDAY MORNING, Sabrina was ready for a break. She’d stayed late at the store yesterday, adding women’s clothes and accessories to the displays in the camping and fishing departments, after getting permission from their department managers. She had to increase sales in her assigned department if she was going to convince Walter she was management material, since she sure wasn’t impressing him with her outdoor savvy.

  Today, however, was the camping trip, a chance to learn more about the outdoor lifestyle and get away from the stress of the store at the same time.

  Sabrina was putting her hair into a ponytail when the doorbell rang. The dog barked once and ran back and forth between her and the door as though she could possibly have missed hearing the doorbell in this little apartment. She grabbed her backpack and opened the door to Leith. “Come on in while I get my stuff.”

  He stepped inside and crouched down to run his hand over the dog’s head. “I see he’s still here.”

  “Yeah,” Sabrina admitted. “Every time I tried to take him to the shelter, he’d give me that look.” The dog tilted his head and gazed up at her, tail wagging. “Yes, that’s the look. I finally gave in and sent a pet deposit to my landlord. We went to the vet yesterday for shots and a dog license.”

  The dog shook his head and jingled the tags on his collar as though showing them off. Leith laughed and straightened, glancing around the apartment. “You’ve finished painting. It looks good. And you have a new chair.”

  Sabrina looked over at the wicker chair she’d painted the same deep red as the other chair. “I found it at a garage sale. Turns out there’s not enough room in my lap for a computer and a dog, so I needed a bigger chair. Once I sew a new cushion for it, I think it will look nice.”

  “It already does.”

  Leith picked up Sabrina’s backpack. “I’ve got all the equipment. What else do you need?”

  “Just the dog’s stuff. It’s okay if I bring him, isn’t it?”

  “Sure. Everybody will bring their dogs.”

  She scooped up a tote with dog food, water and bowls inside and tucked the dog bed under her arm. “Can you grab that leash on the hook behind you, please?”

  Leith snapped it to the dog’s collar and chuckled. “She’s bringing a cushion on a camping trip. You are one lucky dog.”

  “Does poor Tal have to sleep in the dirt?”

  “Well, no. She sleeps in the tent with me. But she doesn’t get a mattress.” He picked up the dog and followed Sabrina outside, waiting while she locked up. “So now that he’s yours, what did you decide to name him?”

  “The vet asked, too, but I haven’t found the perfect name yet. I was considering Terrance.”

  “Terrance?”

  “After Alexander Terrance. He designs a lot of those gowns you see celebrities wearing on the red carpet.”
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  “I don’t know.” Leith studied the little dog with tufts of hair sticking out at random angles. “He doesn’t look like a red-carpet kind of dog to me.”

  “Yeah, maybe not. Do you have any suggestions?”

  “Hmm.” He set the dog on the ground and allowed Terrance to trot toward the car, tugging on the leash to try to hurry Leith along. “I’d call you...Eagle Bait.”

  Sabrina slapped Leith’s shoulder with the pillow. “Hey, that’s my dog you’re talking about.”

  “Well, he’s not much bigger than a rabbit, just the right size for an eagle snack.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Mostly?” She stopped walking.

  He shrugged. “There was a famous incident many years ago, where an eagle snatched a Chihuahua at a gas station in Valdez.” She must have looked horrified, because he hurried to reassure her. “It’s one of those struck-by-lightning things. The odds of an eagle getting your dog must be at least a million to one. Not to say you should let him wander unaccompanied in the wilderness, but he’ll be fine.”

  “You’re sure? Because I’m not taking him if he’s in any danger.”

  “I’m sure. Come on. Let’s introduce him to Tal.”

  “Oh, I forgot he’d need to ride with Tal. Will they be okay together?”

  “Let’s find out. I’ll put her on a leash and we’ll let them sniff each other.”

  Tal hopped out of the car and wagged a greeting. Sabrina’s dog, in typical terrier fashion, approached her stiff-legged, all bluster and ego. Tal dropped her chest to the ground in a play bow. When the little dog sniffed her, she wagged madly. Apparently her scent reassured him because he dropped some of his attitude and allowed Tal to lick his head.

  Leith smiled. “Yeah, they’ll be fine.”

  Sabrina laughed as the little dog closed his eyes and squirmed like a kid getting his face washed. “He thinks he’s such a tough guy, but he has a soft heart. Kind of like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. What do you think of Humphrey for a name?”