Hot Dish

by Brockway, Connie

  “You could still get knocked up.”

  “Not me. I’m too careful.” And too celibate. Not that she was going to tell him that. This little Subaru Confession episode was only going so far. “You could knock someone up,” she suggested.

  “Not me. I’m too careful, too.”

  It was a glib answer and she shot him a quick glance. Could he be celibate, too? Nah. He was Steve Jaax, fer chrissakes. The sperm banks would probably pay him tons for the results of ten minutes with a Maxim magazine.

  Chapter Eighteen

  11:15 a.m.

  County Road 73

  They drove in companionable silence, Steve distracting himself from worrying about his butter head by peering out of the window at the view. He’d considered asking Jenn for a little more reassurance—she had a calm, dispassionate way of stating things that made them seem not only probable but inevitable—but the fact that she’d corrected his unintended, but in no way untrue, comment about the sculpture being “his” made him think this might not be wise.

  He didn’t want to set off any warning bells.

  So, instead, he focused on the scenery. It was great. Who would have guessed white could present so many aspects, so many colors and forms and dimension? Hard, knife sharp, and crystalline, bruised and sullen, pebbled and crunchy, feather soft and ethereal. Salt shakered, cloud whipped, clotted and stretched, thin and dense. And that was just the snow!

  His breath had fogged up the window and he scrubbed it away with his sleeve. He wasn’t going to miss any of it. It gave him ideas. And ideas, as any artist pushing fifty will tell you, are nothing to sneeze at.

  At least, he hoped that was what they’d say.

  A dearth of ideas wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you chatted about over a bottle of beer. It might lead to unpleasant speculation about, say, burnout. And over-the-hillness. And ends of roads.

  He snapped his thoughts back from their current direction and focused on the trip rather than the destination. He was an expert at that.

  The road carved through patches of trees and open ground, following a gentle kiddies-ride roller-coaster path until they turned into some kind of pine forest. Whatever type of pine tree they were Steve wanted one. Or at least to find where they might grow in New York.

  They stood crowded together, dark empresses frozen by the Medusa face of the Northern Lights, their branches entangled, their heads caught close together in whispers overhead, a carpet of darkness at their feet, mauve-skinned with beryl needles. God, that was poetic.

  He should tell Jenn.

  He looked over at her. He thought maybe she was humming. Her head was subtly, but definitely, moving from side to side in time to some inner tune. He wondered what sort of music she listened to. She looked too perfect to like flamenco guitar—his current favorite music. Flamenco lovers were inevitably messy people and there wasn’t a hair out of place on that smoothly groomed head.

  She had on some sort of faux-fur coat, from under which peeked the hems of light brown corduroys and from beneath these the pointy tips of black Italian cowboy boots. Oversized lilac-framed sunglasses covered her eyes and she’d covered her honey-colored hair with a sable-colored silk scarf, à la Audrey Hepburn. Her skin was smooth and ivory like thick vellum. She looked expensive, sexy, and out of place. But she also looked warm. In a bunch of ways. He liked her. And he could tell that she liked him, too.

  But she didn’t want anything from him and she didn’t think he wanted anything from her, either. Which was not his usual experience. Women generally thought he was sort of a lech.

  He wasn’t.

  He liked her hands, too. Because they weren’t encased in leather like the rest of her outfit suggested they ought to be. She wore mittens. Goofy white-and-red mittens knit in some sort of Scandinavian design with hearts and stylized deer. They were unexpected. What else about Ms. Lind here would surprise and delight him? He suspected a lot. She might be a lot like the view: not so much cold as bracing, challenging, something you could experience only if you were willing to risk some discomfort.

  “Could you ever get tired of a view like this?” he said, deciding to draw her out.

  “Yup,” she answered without a glance. “Give it five months.”

  “Ah, come on.” He gestured outside the car. “Just look at it. The snow, the sky, the trees, the—My God! Look! A wolf!”

  He reached across her, pointing out her window at the huge gray wolf standing by the roadside. It was big and brawny-looking, ticked in gray and black, its enormous head lowered between its shoulder blades, its big ears flickering back and forth like bug antennae.

  Jenn glanced casually out the window, did a double-take, and slammed on the brakes. “Geez!”

  She must have a camera somewhere, thought Steve, as she half dove over the backseat and began rummaging around. He hoped so. Verie would not believe this.

  Only a few feet away, the wolf’s head dipped even lower. Its lips curled back. The huge plumed tail began a slow, measured wag, as if to say, “Okay, baby. Bring it on.”

  “Crap,” she muttered.

  “Forget it,” Steve said, besotted by the beast. “But can we stay until—”

  Jenn kicked open her door and tramped toward the wolf.

  “Christ!” Steve yelped, eyeing Jenn’s open door. “Get back here!”

  In answer, she grabbed the wolf by the scruff of the neck with one hand, opened the back passenger door with the other, and shoved it into the backseat of the car.

  “Shit!” Steve scrambled off his seat and twisted around, knees on the floor, back jammed against the dashboard. He groped for his door handle, eyes on the big canine face peering back at him from between the front bucket seats.

  “Stay!” Jenn commanded.

  “Forget it!”

  “Not you. The dog. Stay, you big baby!” She slammed the back door shut.

  Dog? Steve stared at the great fur face. The huge jaws opened and a pink party-favor tongue rolled out, lolling happily. Tentatively, Steve slid back onto his seat, half turning to keep an eye on the thing. If it was a dog, it was the biggest damn dog he’d ever seen.

  The driver door opened, Jenn got in, and the creature went ape shit, jumping up and down on the backseat, wiggling and whimpering and nipping at the back of Jenn’s head in an ecstasy of delight. Jenn’s reaction to this excess of canine affection was to snatch off her mittens and start whacking at the wolf—dog’s—head with them, alternately cursing and giggling.

  “What’s it doing?”

  “Not it. He. He’s an idiot. You saw him out there. He was trying to act butch because he was afraid. But now that he’s realized he knows me, he’s lost it. The fool!” She swatted the monster dog again. Not that he seemed to take offense. He suddenly turned his face and gave Steve’s a happy swipe with its—his—tongue.

  “He knows you? You know him?”

  “I wouldn’t grab a malamute I didn’t know, Steve,” she said reproachfully. “That would be stupid. This is one of Heidi Olmsted’s sled dogs, Bruno,” she said, shifting the car into gear. “Heidi is one of the most successful dog sledders in the country.”

  The dog abruptly stopped dancing, curled up, and dropped down atop Steve’s duffel bag. “Are we going to bring him back to her?”

  “Nope,” she answered. “Heidi probably isn’t even there. I’ll leave a message on her answering machine and she can come and get him later. Besides, we’re almost there.”

  “Home?”

  “No. The Lodge.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  11:30 a.m.

  The Lodge, bed-and-breakfast inn

  True to Jenn’s word, as soon as they’d churned through the snow up a steep hill, they came into view of one of the oddest constructions Steve had ever seen. Jenn got out of the car and opened the back door. Bruno hopped out and looked around. Steve followed suit. A little wind nickered down the collar of his jacket and the snow beneath his feet squeaked. Verie had been right: a leather coat was
not going to be adequate for a Minnesota winter. Steve noted these things absently, his gaze riveted on the building in front of him.

  The description of the Lodge on the outdated B and Bs of Northern Minnesota Web site had said it was “an authentic rustic hunting lodge made of hand-hewn logs.” The words had conjured images of Bing Crosby in Vermont singing “White Christmas” in front of a square, cozy cabin made of cinnamon-colored logs, its fieldstone chimney puffing little commas of smoke into the sky behind him as he crooned.

  It was not cozy. It was not square. There were logs.

  The Lodge rose two stories high in some places and dipped down to a single level in others. It had angles and cantilevers and none of the materials matched. A dozen windows, of as many varieties and sizes, pockmarked the log surface at random intervals and heights while overhead, at the highest and most central part of the structure, it looked like someone had tacked on a twelve-by-twelve box. A one-person balcony jutted out from it like a ship’s prow. Only the twin front doors sported what appeared to be newer paint, a green the color of Astroturf. Fifty yards behind the main structure stood a small, weathered, but completely normal-looking barn.

  Steve took one long look and let out a low whistle of appreciation.

  “What is it?” he breathed.

  “The Lodge,” Jenn said, hands on hips and head tipped back, peering through the lenses of her dark glasses as if she were inspecting it for structural damage, which she might well have been doing. Because the next thing she said was “If I were you, I wouldn’t let them stick me in the tower room. Probably not too safe. Nice view, though.”

  “I want it.”

  “No, you don’t,” she replied. “Even if the floor holds and you don’t crash through, there are bats up there.”

  Bats? He shared a studio with rats. “I want it. I don’t care.”

  She smiled at him. Bruno padded up behind him and gave his dangling hand a nudge with his massive snout. Without thinking, Steve reached down and scratched, eliciting a moan of pleasure from the dog.

  “Hey, Miss Hallesby.” A skinny man in his early thirties wearing a quilted jacket and earmuffs plodded toward them from the direction of the barn. “I emptied out a place in the barn for you to park your car.”

  “Thanks, Eric,” Jenn said. “This is Eric Erickson, Steve. He keeps the place glued together. This is Steve Jaax.”

  The man nodded, ignored the hand Steve stuck out, and said, “Sure thing. So, then … bye,” before quickly walking off.

  “Sometimes people react with shyness,” Steve explained to Jenn and then went back to studying the edifice before him. “Where did it come from? Who built it? Why did they build it?”

  Jenn had returned to looking the place over, too. “It was my great-grandfather’s hideaway, boys’ club, hunting camp. My mom inherited it,” she said laconically. “After the Fall, this is all they had left. So here we came and there they stay.”

  She caught his sideways glance. “They’ve been trying to find a way out of here ever since. And do not look at me like that. I have offered, begged, and tried everything I could think of to get them to let me help them. The only thing those two have in greater abundance than bad business sense is pride.”

  “I didn’t look at you any way.”

  “Humph. Anyway, they’ve tried raising free-range chickens, which all turned into pets, fancy herb gardening, my mom even had a little cottage industry in food miracles—not to be confused with miracle food. Food with religious images imprinted on them? She had this great French toast Madonna….” She trailed off a little wistfully. “Until the folks on eBay realized that the same miracle was appearing on other auction sites. The latest brainstorm is a golf course.”

  “That sounds feasible.” He had no idea whether it did or not but it seemed a likely thing to say. Apparently, it wasn’t feasible because Jenn gave him a sardonic look.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “what you’re seeing here is yet another scuttled plan. About ten years ago my mom decided to register it as a B and B. Until they actually experienced guests. They keep reregistering it, though, mostly for tax purposes.

  “I don’t think anyone’s actually stayed here for … I can’t think when. I wonder if my dad knows you’ve reserved a room. I bet not. Man, he’s going to be mad. He hates company.”

  She waved him forward. “Come on. I’ll give you the two-buck tour.”

  “Please.”

  He fell into step behind her as she led the way to the front door. The knob turned but the door stuck. She gave him a “told ya so” smile.

  “I bet Eric painted the door shut. When I said he kept things glued together, I meant it literally. We always use the side entrance but …” She didn’t finish, instead ramming her shoulder into it. The door popped inward and Bruno darted in, followed by Jenn and Steve.

  They entered into a two-story great room, the exposed rafters overhead hung with pairs of antique skis and ancient snowshoes. A set of stairs on their right led to a second floor, disappearing through an archway at the top. On the left-hand side, another archway led to some sun-filled interior he couldn’t quite make out. Years of light streaming in from the mismatched banks of windows had faded the pegged yellow pine floor and chinked log walls to a honey-colored patina.

  Someone had hung the walls with literally hundreds of antlers, not in pairs, but single examples, ones each mounted in the center of little ornately carved plaques.

  Jenn, catching the direction of his gaze, smiled. “My dad doesn’t hunt but he likes the idea of big antlers displayed on the wall, so he collects the ones the bucks drop each winter and does that. It’s either a hobby or a joke. I’m still not sure which.”

  “I think I like your dad.”

  Had that been the sum of the experience, Steve would have accounted himself charmed. But it wasn’t. Rather than the Hudson Bay blankets, braided rugs, and early-American chairs that traditionally belonged in a place like this, someone had furnished it with two big, cream-colored sectional couches piled with blue suede pillows, an enormous glass-and-chrome coffee table, and a low-backed Italian chair of Wedgwood blue leather. On the opposite corners of both sofas, Japanese paper lamps stood suspended on the end of gracefully arcing curves of teak. The entire suite sat on a huge white shag carpet. Well, off-white.

  The whole tableau could have been lifted from the pages of Architectural Digest circa 1978.

  He wasn’t charmed; he was besotted.

  He turned to Jenn. She was shrugging out of her coat; her eyes were dancing.

  “Green Acres,” he whispered.

  “That’s just what I’ve always thought!” she exclaimed in surprised delight, unwrapping the scarf from around her head.

  Bruno slipped past them and made directly for the nearest sofa. He took a graceful leap, landing squarely in the middle of a cushion, turned three times, and dropped.

  “Jenn?” An old man in baggy brown pants and a flannel shirt appeared in the archway to their left, sporting a pair of reading glasses atop a head of magnificent silver hair and holding a folded newspaper. Even though he was clearly in his late seventies, his resemblance to Jenn was unmistakable. “What the hell are you doing out here, Jenn, and how’d you get in? I thought Eric had painted that damn door shut last—” He spied Steve. “Who’s that? Who’re you?”

  He had an odd accent, the slow drawl of the South mixed with round Minnesota vowels.

  “This is Steve Jaax, Dad. The artist? Steve, my dad, Casmir Hallesby, aka Cash.”

  “Hi.” Steve stepped forward and shook Casmir’s hand. “I gotta say, I love what you’ve done with the place.”

  Cash shot a questioning glance at Jenn.

  “He’s being funny,” she said.

  “No, I’m not. Your daughter thinks I’m mocking her, but I’m not. This is wonderful.” He smiled. “Can I have the room with the balcony?”

  “Huh? What’re you talking about? What’s this guy talking about, Jenn?”

  “H
e’s staying here. Mom booked him a room.”

  “That’s ridiculous. We don’t take in strangers. We stopped that nonsense years ago.”

  “Not according to your accountant.”

  Her father gave her an irritated look. “That’s just for tax purposes. Everyone knows we don’t really board people out here.”

  “Mom thinks you do. She’s the one who took his reservation.”

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, Jenn?” Cash asked.

  “A little.”

  “Well, the answer is no. Take him back to town and dump him at the Valu-Inn. Fred’ll wet himself with joy to get him.”

  “They’re booked. Full up. For the entire ten days of the celebration,” Jenn explained, employing that fascinating conversational shorthand Steve suspected was common to northern Minnesota. “You have to let him stay. There’s nowhere else for him to go.”

  Steve had remained dutifully mute during this exchange, doing his damnedest to appear to be unproblematic. “Look,” he said now, using his most conciliatory tone, “if it’s a matter of paying a little more …”

  This won a quick but newly interested look from Cash. “Just how famous are you?” he suddenly asked. “And no bullshit.”

  “Real famous.”

  Cash looked at Jenn. She nodded.

  Cash’s eyes narrowed. “Okay. A hundred twenty a night.”

  “That’s—” Jenn started.

  “Deal,” Steve said before she could protest. “Can I have the room with the balcony?”

  “Well, I think it would be okay—”

  “No,” Jenn said firmly. “You want to kill a living legend? Your insurance premiums would skyrocket. Where is Mom?”

  “She’s out with the chickens.” He spotted the lump of fur on the couch. “Is that one of Heidi’s mutts?”

  “Chickens?” Steve asked, interested.

  Jenn spared him a glance. Another quality unique to Jenn. Most people paid attention to Steve even when, by his own admission, he didn’t warrant it. She seemed to have no problem ignoring him. “Yeah. My mom raises fancy fowl—”