Cabin Fever

by Elle Casey

  He sits down and licks his mouth.

  “Okay, have it your way.”

  I close the door and move around to my side, settling into the driver’s seat. Driving away, I’m struck by a pang of guilt for leaving him behind in the cold, but tell myself I have to be realistic. This dog hates me. He only accepted my offering because he’s starving. Otherwise, he would have happily bit my hand off.

  His furry body gets smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror, and by the time I get home, I’m crying. I hate myself and my cold, cold heart. Why didn’t I give him more food for later? Why didn’t I ask the girl in the store to watch out for him? Why didn’t I make him like me? This dog has taken the place of all the men who I haven’t connected with over the years. My life: it’s a sad state of affairs for sure.

  Unloading the groceries takes me the better part of a half hour, giving me time to get control of my emotions and come up with the game plan of going back for Jaws with more food in hand. It feels good to have a plan.

  Just as I’m about to head back into town, a giant pickup truck comes barreling up the driveway, its back end swerving a little to the left before straightening out again. The driver rolls down his window as he draws near.

  “You the lady who needs wood?”

  “Yes, that’s me!” The first happy thing that’s come along all day! Finally! I have heat! “The house is up there.”

  He rolls his window up, revs his engine, and leaves me there. His truck plows right through the snowdrift nearby and he makes a new driveway around my car.

  “Oh. Well, that’s handy, I guess.” I trudge through his tire tracks to get back up to the cabin. By the time I reach his truck, he’s already throwing wood out onto the snow.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, breathless as I try to run the last few yards.

  “What’s it look like I’m doing?” He pauses with his hands hanging at his sides. With the red and black flannel jacket, a greasy looking baseball hat, and a few days’ growth of beard, he looks like a lost lumberjack. He’s pretty much exactly how I pictured him, only younger and better-looking, in spite of that disgusting hat. “I’m delivering your wood, like you asked me to.”

  “But you need to put it on the porch.” I look desperately from the pile of wood he’s already tossed out, to the place where I imagined it would be stored. I point for emphasis. There’re a lot of footsteps between there and here.

  “I don’t get paid to stack. I just get paid to deliver.” He starts throwing wood out again.

  “But there’s a storm coming!” I’m whining, but I don’t care. Desperate women are allowed to whine a little.

  “Don’t I know it. I’ve got three more deliveries to get done today and I haven’t even had lunch yet.”

  The bitter woman in me replaces the word lunch with first beer. I suppose I should consider myself lucky that he came at all. I dated an alcoholic once; I couldn’t depend on him for anything.

  I turn around to head back to my car.

  “Where’re you going?” he shouts at my back.

  “To get my groceries! Not that I’d ask you to help me!”

  The jerk actually has the nerve to laugh, like I was making a joke.

  By the time I struggle back up the so-called driveway with my armloads of bags, he’s done throwing my wood out into the snow and is standing on my porch waiting for payment.

  “You got any beers inside?” he asks as I mount the steps.

  “No.” He’s lucky I don’t drop my groceries on his feet. Instead, I let them fall by the front door. Like I’d give a guy a beer who threw my wood in the snow. Get a life. “My purse is in the car. If you want to get paid, you’ll have to follow me down.”

  “You want a ride?” he asks.

  I look up at him to see if he’s kidding. He sounds like he’s about to laugh.

  “From you? No thanks.”

  His voice softens. “Hey, don’t be sore at me. I’d love to help you out, but I really do have a bunch of deliveries to make, and I still have to go split some more wood before I can finish. With the storm coming I’ll be lucky to get home before it hits.” He smiles and reveals a deep dimple in both cheeks.

  I want to stay mad at him, but it’s impossible; he’s too cute with those stupid dimples. And he’s right … I wouldn’t want anyone to be stuck in a storm without enough wood.

  “I’ll meet you down there,” I say, stepping off the porch. The last thing I need is to hook up with a party animal out in the middle of nowhere. He could be dangerous for all I know.

  “Suit yourself.” He fires up his truck and follows me down, careful to leave a lot of space between us, which I’m grateful for, since I could totally picture myself leaping into a snow bank to avoid being run over.

  I hand him his money up through his open window. His tires are so big, I have to stretch up on my tiptoes to reach him.

  “Thanks a lot,” he says, grabbing the bill of his hat and tipping it at me.

  “Hey,” I say, inspiration striking as one of my full garbage bags catches my eye through the back window of my car, “do you know where there’s a dumpster in town?”

  “Sure do. Behind the diner’s one. Behind the police station is another…”

  “If I pay you an extra ten bucks, will you take these bags of garbage from my car and dump them for me?”

  “What’s in the bags? Better not be body parts.”

  My face blanches. “Oh my god, are you kidding?”

  He shrugs. “Stranger things have happened around here.”

  A chill moves up my spine. “I hope you’re kidding. You’d better be.”

  “Sure, I’ll do it for ten bucks.”

  I should probably be worried that he ignored my question, but I’m too relieved to know that I won’t be hauling garbage around with me everywhere I go to press him on it. Besides, if this town were a serial killer’s hangout, I’d have heard about it, right? I make a mental note to get the Internet up and running as soon as possible so I can do a Google search for unsolved murders in the area.

  He gets out of the truck as I open my doors and haul the bags out as fast as I can. I don’t want him changing his mind. The bottles clink together making a big racket.

  “I thought you said you didn’t have any beer in your place,” he says, throwing the first bag up into the bed of his truck. The telltale smell of old booze and the banging of bottles reveals my lie.

  “I don’t. Whoever was partying in the cabin last did, though.”

  He laughs, throwing two more bags in, one with each hand. “Musta been some party.”

  “I have five more bags on the porch, actually.”

  “You want me to take those too?”

  “I’d love it if you’d take those too. Do I have to pay you more?”

  “No, that’s all right. I’m feeling generous today.” He grins at me again as he throws the last two bags in. Dimples, dimples, everywhere.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  After climbing up into his truck, he makes quick work of reversing up the drive and grabbing the rest of my garbage. I’m just reaching the top of the driveway when he’s leaving.

  “See you around!” he shouts out his window.

  I turn around to watch him go. It’s a huge relief to see the trash leaving with him. Now I have a fresh slate to start with.

  As I imagine that blank slate, I’m suddenly inspired to paint something. It’s a sensation I haven’t had in a long time, so I turn around and rush up the front steps. I need to get a canvas framed up so I can start right away.

  A loud, long honking truck horn and then the sounds of shouting make me stop and turn around. I can barely make out Ben’s voice from the porch.

  “Son of a bitch! Watch where you’re going! You almost made me wreck my truck, asshole!”

  Asshole? Who’s on my driveway now?

  I stand on my tiptoes, trying to see who my visitor might be.

  Chapter Ten

  AT FIRST I SEE NOT
HING, but then a very small brown speck appears in the snow. I go down the few steps to the ground and stare at my visitor. He carefully picks his way over the globs of mushy snow and jumps when the drifts are too high for walking.

  “Jaws, what are you doing out here?” My heart feels so light it’s as though it’s going to float away. He followed me home! Now I don’t have to worry about him freezing to death. Hallelujah. A glance up at the sky brings another wave of relief. Now I won’t have to be alone during the storm, too.

  He stops twenty feet away and sits.

  “What are you stopping for? Come on, Jaws, come inside.” I take a step towards him.

  He growls.

  A sigh of exasperation flies from my lips. “Wha… Jaws? What the heck are you doing? You can’t follow me home and then growl at me.”

  He growls again.

  “Fine. You want to stay out here and growl? Stay out here and growl. I have firewood to move.” Forget painting. The muse has abandoned me once again, and I need to have a fire going before the cabin turns into a deep-freezer.

  I start with the pieces nearest the stairs, getting two at a time into my arms. A path of slushy muck soon forms between the pile and the stairs.

  At first I have this idea that I’m going to stack everything perfectly, a pyramid of wood just a few paces away from the front door. But as the sun disappears behind clouds and the snow starts to fall again, I abandon that idea and work on getting the wood under the shelter of the roof overhang any way I can.

  After an hour, I’m only half done, all of it accomplished under the watchful eye of Jaws, the growling, punk dog. I talk to him the entire time.

  “You know, this would go a lot faster if you’d help.”

  His head moves back and forth as I work.

  “I could probably rig up a little cart and a harness. What do you say?”

  At least he doesn’t growl at me now when I look at him. Gee, it only took him forty-five minutes to warm up to me. Little jerk. I fed him a whole can of food; you’d think I’d earned some sort of trust with that. I guess not.

  “I suppose you’re expecting another can of food. I don’t know why, though. You haven’t lifted a paw to help since you got here.”

  I have to stop to wipe my hair out of my face. The snow has turned it into a sopping mess. “What do you think?” I ask my friend Jaws. “Can we save the rest of this for tomorrow maybe?” His expression looks like a yes to me, so I turn around and head for the porch, two logs in my arms.

  “Okay, so back into the house I go. I have to build a fire. Are you coming?” I look at him over my shoulder, but he just stands there.

  “I’m going inside, Jaws. If you don’t come in, you’ll freeze out here. The temperature’s already dropping in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  I drop the logs on the pile that’s spread out over half the porch and open the front door. “Come on in, little guy. I have tons of food in here. You’ll eat like a king, I promise.”

  He stares at me, but doesn’t make a move.

  “Is your butt frozen to the ground or what?” I’m only half kidding. When I can’t decide if it really is a problem for him, I take a step towards him. He moves as if he’s going to leave.

  “Okay, fine. Your butt’s not frozen. I’ll keep the door cracked for you.”

  I’m only inside the house for two minutes before I realize what a horrible idea that is. No way can I leave that door open. I won’t be any good to that dog out there frozen to death in here. Except maybe as food, and that just gives me the willies to think about. I do not want to be eaten by a terrier.

  When I open the door again, I find him closer to the steps but still too far away to indicate he’s committing to this relationship.

  “I’m going to leave this blanket out here for you,” I say, putting the stinky wool blanket from the couch in a pile on the porch. “You can make a nice warm nest in it, and I’ll bring you some food and water in just a minute. Just let me get the fire going first, okay?”

  He looks over his shoulder, like he’s considering leaving.

  “Fine. I’ll leave you to figure it out.” Closing the door, I wait for the sound of paws on the steps, but nothing comes, so I leave for the fireplace.

  I’ve never built a fire before, but I’ve seen it done plenty of times. What I need are some newspapers and some sticks. I look around the cabin and see exactly none of those things.

  “Dammit.”

  Searching through my bags, I find an Architectural Digest magazine that had photographs of some great fabrics in it that I was going to use as inspiration. “Oh well,” I mumble, tearing pages out and crumpling them up. “So much for inspiration.” My life is now all about function over form.

  Half the magazine is in a pile in the fireplace before I stand and go on the hunt for sticks. Out the window I see plenty of them. Problem is, they’re still attached to the trees they’re growing on. Everything else is covered in snow. Then I remember the splinters sticking out of my jacket and scarf, and realize I have a whole pile of sticks attached to the logs out on the porch.

  I nearly trip over the dog on my way out the door.

  He growls so hard it sounds like he’s about to turn himself inside out. But he’s curled up on the blanket, and he doesn’t look like he’s ready to leave it anytime soon.

  “Just relax,” I say, giving him a wide berth. “I’m just getting some sticks. Can’t have a fire without sticks, right?”

  The logs I was given are huge. A few of them look like they were cut into fourths from a giant tree, and on the raw sides, they have some splinters sticking out. But try as I might, I can’t get more than ten of the little slivers with my gloves on, and when I try barehanded, I’m reminded how bad it would be for an artist to get frostbite of the fingers.

  “Dammit.” There is one other solution, but I really don’t want to go there. I need that wood to make my canvases with.

  “We’ll try it this way first,” I say to Jaws, ignoring him when he growls this time.

  I stack my little twiglets up in the fireplace like a teepee, amongst the mass of paper, and pull out my box of matches. The first one flames bright, but it won’t catch the magazine papers on fire.

  “What the hell!” I yell at the fireplace. “Fire meet paper! Paper meet fire! You guys can burn down entire houses together! Come on, man! Work with me!”

  Thirty minutes of trying gets me exactly nowhere with this fire. And now there’s no more sunlight, even though there should be plenty of it according to my watch. The snow’s coming down so heavy my car will be buried in no time.

  “Not like I was going anywhere,” I mumble to myself. Looking around, I chew my lip, trying to figure out what’s next on my agenda, since having a warm cabin isn’t it. My last resort is too terrible to contemplate. I can’t use the wood I brought for my canvases, even though I’m sure it’ll go up in flames within seconds, it’s so dry. I can’t be sure that the bigger town nearby will have what I need, and being here without painting supplies is completely contrary to the meeting of my goals. Damn, I done have goals, plural. I only have one goal: to paint. I have to do what I can to keep that dream alive, even if it means I freeze my buns off in the meantime. There’s always tomorrow for heat, right?

  “What to do, what to do, what to do…,” I say, walking towards the front door. I don’t even have a clear picture in my head about my next steps, but I do know one thing: Jaws is going to be my friend whether he likes it or not. Time to convince him I’m not the enemy. That’ll keep my mind off the fact that I’m stuck in a snowstorm without any heat, or at least I hope it will.

  Chapter Eleven

  HE GROWLS THE ENTIRE WAY, but I drag his blanket and his fuzzy little butt into the house anyway. The sense of triumph I feel as I shut out the cold, with him and me inside the cabin, is probably way out of proportion to what I’ve actually accomplished, but I don’t care. This is cause for celebration.

  Jaws sits just inside the doorway eyeing me
with suspicion as I take the bottle of wine I brought with me out of the fridge and pour myself a glass of it. There are exactly two wine glasses that survived the parties the squatters had in here, and I’m going to use the hell out of one of them.

  My first sip goes down really well. “Nice,” I say, nodding as I look around the room. Things are looking up. I have a somewhat clean-ish cabin, wine, and a temporary pet dog. Now all I need to do is not freeze to death and I’ll be fine.

  The entire time I prepare dinner, I talk to Jaws about what I’m doing, hoping it’ll help him warm up to me. I also continue to drink wine. By the time I’m ready to eat, half the bottle is gone. It’s helping warm the room up, at least.

  “Here you go, Jaws,” I say, putting a plate of dog food down in front of his blankets. He growls, of course. “Bon appetit.”

  I eat my dinner on the couch, wearing half of what I own on my body, gloves on my hands, and a blanket from the bed over my back keeping me warm as I choke down my formerly frozen and now over-cooked hamburger. At least the baked potato turned out okay. Glancing over my shoulder, I’m surprised to find Jaws still in his bed but his food gone. He’s a sly dog, that one. I giggle at my thoughts as I lean over to pour myself some more vino. More wine is gooooood.

  At some point I put my plate down on the table and lie down on the couch, but I don’t exactly recall the details. All I do remember is stretching my legs out in sleep and hearing a horrible noise coming from the far end of the couch.

  I crack an eye open and try to figure out what’s going on. Did I break the couch? Are those rusty springs below the cushions complaining because I’m moving? Geez, maybe I need to go on a diet.

  But no. It’s not the couch, and it’s not my butt; it’s the dog. He’s sleeping on my legs.

  “What the hell?” I push my upper body up to get a better view.

  He looks at me, rests his head on my leg, and lets out a half-burp, half-growl.