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“Small town?” I tilted my head. The assignment was definitely interesting, but I had been born in a big city, and I would die in a big city. “You mean drunks with missing teeth reminiscing about their high school football glory years at the local bar while their wives sit at home with the teenage kids that they had when they dropped out of high school as a pregnant teenage kid themselves?” I was practically out of breath after my small-town stereotypes rant.
“Mike grinned. I knew you would get it.”
The leather in the chair creaked as I leaned back and crossed my ankle over my knee, already thinking about the different angles of the story. Mike wasn’t punishing me, this was the best assignment I’d ever been given. Taking a stab at Christmas and the ridiculous sugar cookie bakery lumberjack stereotypes all at once? “I’m in.”
“I knew you’d be.” Mike tapped something into his computer and then turned his attention to Marc.
“Wait, Mike.” I held up my hand to stop him. “You said small town. Where exactly am I going?”
Chance Rapids.I’d never heard of it and had to zoom in a billion times on the computer screen to find it. Of course it was in the middle of nowhere. I booked my flight, the closest airport was six hours away, and filled out a booking request for a rental car. After closing up my tiny studio apartment and putting the cover on my café racer, I took a cab to the airport, my duffel bag stuffed with every piece of warm weather clothing I could find.
The heater in the rental car blasted louder than the radio, but I still couldn’t get the windshield of the tiny sedan to clear. When the rental car clerk asked me where I was going, he tried to upsell me on a gas guzzling SUV. But, I wasn’t falling for it, or the extra insurance for rock chips in the windshield – I knew that those were all unnecessary upsells.
But, as the city skyline disappeared behind me, and the first pebble on the road was launched directly into the windshield by the tire of a logging truck, I wondered whether I had made a terrible mistake. The mistake was confirmed as the tires spun and the engine whirred faster than a sewing machine, pickup trucks whizzed past me, even though I had the foot pedal stamped to the floor.
My heart pounded and my hands were sweaty as I gripped the steering wheel, my body feeling every little shimmy and shift as the car danced over the snow- and ice-covered roads. Maybe Mike wouldn’t have to fire me at all, maybe this stupid road trip would take care of me for him.
My GPS said the trip would take six hours, but it took ten white knuckled, sweaty armpit hours of driving before I descended the steep hill into Chance Rapids. Just as I arrived, snowflakes started to fall; big, fat, swirling snow globe flakes – the kind that would swirl around the credits in the opening of romcom.
“Of course you’re beautiful,” I reluctantly admitted as I turned onto the main street, named, I rolled my eyes, Main Street. Garlands of greenery were strung between wrought iron lampposts, each adorned with enormous wreaths dripping with red Christmas ornaments. Couples walked hand in hand down Main Street and, as if on cue, the man wrapped his arm around the woman and she giggled and leaned into him.
They stepped under the light of the streetlights and I involuntarily craned my neck to see what their faces looked like beneath their long scarves and colorful hats. When I saw past all the wool, my breath sucked in – their jaws were chiseled and their skin perfect, they looked like they had stepped off a runway in Paris.
I shook my head and chuckled. I hadn’t just stumbled into the perfect mountain town, I must have made a mistake and turned onto the movie set.
My eyes met the woman’s and she yelled something I couldn’t hear. But – she was pointing. I turned my gaze forward one second too late and my body slammed against the steering wheel as I drove over a very big curb. On a motorcycle, when you’re skidding into trouble, the secret is more gas. As I heard the undercarriage of the car make a sickly scraping sound, I stamped my foot on the gas and was momentarily lifted from my seat as the rear wheels drove over the curb and then the trunk of the car slammed heavily to pavement.
“Oh my God. Oh my God.” I glanced in the rear view mirror, hoping that the couple hadn’t seen me jump the curb. They stood frozen, looking stunned and then the man started to walk towards me. Mortified, I turned the wheel down the first side street and fishtailed away, hoping that I wouldn’t run into the couple for the rest of my weekend stay.
Luckily, I’d executed my getaway onto Sycamore Street, home of the Sycamore Inn, and my room for the weekend. I glanced in the rear view mirror, luckily, the couple hadn’t followed me. I sunk into the uncomfortable seat, thankful that the car was so crappy the airbags hadn’t deployed into my chest.
My boots crunched in the fresh snow as I jogged to the front door of the Inn. I pressed the lever on the ornate handle, it didn’t budge. I leaned my shoulder into the black door, the bells in the wreath jingling with my body slam. I rubbed my shoulder, there was no question. It wasn’t stuck, the door was locked.
I looked for a doorbell, and when I couldn’t find one, I lifted the brass knocker and rapped three times. And while I waited, I hugged my body and stamped my feet on the welcome mat to keep them warm.
“For fuck’s sake.” I pulled my jacket closer together and shuffled to one of the frosty windows and peered into a dark lobby. My fingers shook as I found the Inn’s phone number and waited for someone to answer. An old answering machine clicked on and an old lady named Mabel asked me to leave a message.
Taking a deep breath helped to hold back the tidal wave of profanity I wanted to unleash on poor Mabel’s answering machine. Through gritted teeth I explained to Mabel that I had booked the Inn through an online service and was due to check in that day. I walked backwards across the street, staring at the picturesque inn, hoping for any sign of life – a light, a curtain pulled back, anything.
“Great.” I muttered.
I dropped heavily into the driver’s seat of the car and drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. After waiting another five minutes for either a return phone call, or someone to miraculously emerge from the sleepy Inn, I decided I needed to find a different place to stay. The car wasn’t an option, the temperature had been steadily dropping and I was a warm climate creature. “I’m not cut out for this shit.” I huffed out a puff of steam as I turned the key to the ignition, my stomach clenching as a grinding shook the car. I relaxed when the little engine purred to life – it wasn’t a healthy purr, more like a tabby cat on its deathbed, but it was something. I had to stomp on the gas pedal to keep the engine running. I must have broken something when I drove over that curb.
Omens weren’t my thing, but something told me that this was an ominous start to my assignment. “Don’t be gentle, it’s a rental,” I muttered one of my mother’s old sayings as I forced the lame car onto snowy Sycamore Street and returned to Main Street.
I made it to the one set of stoplights, luckily it was flashing yellow and the open sign in the window of the gas station was the only sign of life on the main street. I wondered where the couple had gone, they were probably sitting in front of a fire, cozied up on a bear skin rug, clinking champagne glasses together in matching fair isle sweaters.
The bell jingled above my head as I stepped into the diner attached to the convenience store and slid into an orange vinyl booth.
“You look like you could use a coffee,” a woman who looked to be in her sixties sidled up to the table and shook a coffee carafe.
I inhaled and smiled at her. She had the kindest eyes I’d ever seen. “I could use more than a coffee.” I slid the white mug toward the woman, whose name tag read Muriel.
Without skipping a beat, the lady pulled a flask from her apron and added a glug of an amber liquid to my coffee. “Around here we call that a local’s pour.” She winked. “Now dear…” she paused and to my surprise, slid into the booth across from me and set the carafe on the formica table. “You look like you could use a hand.”
My recoil was microscopic, but the stranger sitting across from me seemed to be a psychic. Or, maybe I looked like I’d been run over by a logging truck, one of the many that had passed me on the drive to this god forsaken town. Instead of asking Muriel to leave me alone, maybe it was the local’s coffee, or maybe I just felt inexplicably comfortable with her, I heard my troubles falling out of my mouth. The Inn, the car, nowhere to sleep. It was below freezing and unless the diner was open all night, I was going to have to sleep in my car in her parking lot.
Muriel smiled and grasped my hand. “Oh…” her whole body shook as she chuckled. “I thought that there was something seriously wrong.”
