The Cabin

by Wilder Jasinda

  “Those are my favorite flower,” she said, in a by the way sort of comment.

  I tucked that tidbit away—Gerbera daisy. Got it.

  There was music playing low in the background, a playlist that seemed to waffle between accordion-heavy French-inspired instrumental melodies and old standby Frank Sinatra tunes. She flipped the menu over several times, and then set it down decisively. She ordered chicken parmesan, and when it came, let it slip that if a restaurant had chicken parmesan, that’s what she got. She’d tried a million times to make it at home, but could never get it to come out right. The breading was never crispy and golden brown enough, and the cheese never went stringy the same way, and the sauce never had the right balance between smooth and chunky. So, chicken parmesan remained a delicacy she could never get anywhere but a restaurant.

  Another tidbit.

  She hated Frank Sinatra—I learned that, too, on that date. She thought he sounded smarmy, like yeah, I know I’m hot stuff and would you just listen to this voice of mine? I’m crooning, baby. Doesn’t it make you swoon?

  So many things to know. It’s hard work getting to know a whole person from scratch. We’re such complicated creatures; we humans, and women are, to me at least, a six-dimensional puzzle with no frame of reference to work from. We’re so much more than the sum of our parts, more than middle names and favorite elementary school teacher and first kiss and which best friend betrayed you in high school and go-to sex position and which foods you hate and love and which musicians you love to hate and which ones make you cry because there are just so many fucking memories attached to that ONE particular song, which always seems to be playing when heavy shit goes down. For me, it’s “Satellite” by DMB. It was playing when I lost my virginity, and was playing when we broke up, and it was playing on the radio when we got in the wreck and my wife died. So now I can’t listen to it. I hear it, and I still love that goddamn song because it’s just so good, but each note sends a hail of emotional javelins slicing into me, a montage of awkward sex and tearful yelling and the moment I knew she was dead when that thick red blood of hers dripped onto the seat belt buckle and her eyes went glassy and empty like the eyes in a stuffed deer head.

  Now I have to do it all over again, with her—the NEW her. Because the other her is still there, right? Inside, in the fibers of my muscles and the dark veins of memory. And now they have to coexist. The previous her loved Ol’ Blue Eyes, found his music unbearably romantic. Disliked Italian food because it was too heavy, too rich. Gotta keep it straight.

  Fuck.

  Damn you, Adrian Bell. Damn you. You were the one dying; so how the HELL did you get it so exactly right?

  The bit about the song, that one song? “Found Out About You,” Gin Blossoms. Lisa and I danced to it on our first date in a dive bar, and after that it was ubiquitous throughout our life together, playing on a Bluetooth speaker on the balcony rail that one hot night when the A/C went out and we had slow sticky sex on a blanket in the backyard, and in the car on the way to the O/B where we found she’d miscarried, and yes, on the radio in the bathroom of the restaurant literally moments before my phone rang with the news of her death.

  So fuck that song.

  Because it’s still a good song.

  I close the book and check the time: 5:58.

  Gerbera daisies and chicken parmesan and not Frank Sinatra. How much is actually her, though? Nadia. She loves red wine the way his book said. And, actually, every detail about Nadia in the book is true of Nadia.

  I check my reflection one last time, as if it’s going to change. I’ve trimmed my beard so it’s not as bushy, combed my hair so it’s not as shaggy. My best jeans, cleanest Caterpillar boots, and the green-and-blue checked flannel with the pearl snap buttons, which Lisa always went nuts for.

  It’s just a shirt. And I look good in it. It’s not a betrayal of Lisa to wear that shirt for a different woman.

  It’s not.

  Am I asking myself, or telling myself? I’m not sure.

  Instead of cologne, I use the trick Lisa invented for me: I shave little curls off of a piece of fresh cedar, and tuck those shavings into the breast pockets of the shirt, which I then button closed. Boom—fresh cedar scent, without the oils.

  Clean hands, clean fingernails. Fresh breath.

  It’s been forever since I’ve done this, and my hands are a little trembly, and I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, if I’m missing something.

  It’s 6:02, and I head outside.

  I wish I had time to run into town and buy some daisies to give to her. And then I wonder if that would be too forward, too much too soon, giving her flowers.

  I spin my truck keys around my middle finger, waiting for her.

  She comes out a few minutes later. My breath catches. A deep blue shirt-dress down to her thighs, with a wide brown leather belt around her waist, her long tan legs bare between the hem and knee-high boots a similar shade of brown as her belt. The shirt-dress has several buttons plunging down her chest, and she’s left most of them unbuttoned. Is she wearing makeup? I can’t tell. Which means if she is, it’s skillfully enough applied that I’m not supposed to know. Her eyes look bright green, more emerald than jade today. Her lips are plump and red.

  “You look…” I hunt for an appropriate but accurate word, and settle for lame but true. “Beautiful.”

  She grins, teasing. “You had to think about that one, Nathan.”

  “Only because there’s a lot of words I could use.” I smile at her. “Gorgeous. Breathtaking. Stunning.”

  She blushes, ducks her head. “Thanks.” Her head lifts, and her eyes flick over my shoulders, my hair. “You look great, too. I really like that shirt.”

  “Thanks.” I slap my hand awkwardly on my thigh. “Well, shall we?”

  “Sure. I’ll follow you.”

  I hesitate. “You sure you don’t want to change your mind about driving separate? I’m fine either way.”

  She makes a face. “Yeah, I’d just be more comfortable this way.”

  “Okay. Well, it’s not far, and not hard to find. We’re just heading out right on the highway at the end of the drive, and then left at the next intersection, maybe five miles south, and the restaurant is on the right another few miles from there.”

  She frowns but laughs. “I’ll follow you. Just don’t lose me.”

  I eye her sporty little red convertible. “I don’t think we need to worry about that, with you driving that.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I’m no speed demon. Adrian hated riding with me because I always drive obsessively at exactly the speed limit.”

  “Lisa hated riding with me for the opposite reason—I’m a five over at minimum kind of guy.”

  A moment of silence as we each realize we’ve just referenced our dead spouses moments before leaving on a date…

  But it’s not a date, because we’re driving separately, and I anticipate her fighting me on the bill.

  She sighs. “Okay well that was a conversation killer.”

  “It’s fine. How about we have a rule that we will not feel bad, embarrassed, or awkward if we happen to make a comment like that. It’s part of our lives, part of who we are, and there’s no point dancing around it.”

  She nods, tries a small smile. “I think that’s good. And actually, that’s one of the first times that I’ve mentioned him that hasn’t left me feeling like I’m going to break down in hysterics. So there’s that.”

  “‘Baby steps to the elevator, Bob.’”

  She snickers. “I want, I want, I need, I need.”

  We laugh at the shared reference, and then I pull open my truck door. “Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be,” she says, and without giving me time to process what that might means, heads for her car.

  I don’t have to wonder too hard what she means, though, because I get it. You’re never ready. You can’t be.

  It’s a bit farther than I thought it would be, getting to the restaurant—closer to th
irty minutes than fifteen. When we get there, the parking lot is speckled with vehicles, mostly luxury vehicles that were cream of the crop a few years ago and are now aging a bit, but still very nice. A few trucks like mine, and couple dusty little sensible sedans. Not full, not waitlist busy, but a decent crowd for…whatever day of the week this is.

  It’s bigger than I expected, too, a long, low building spreading out around the curving end bank of a long, thin lake glittering in the red-gold sunset. Waist-high wood posts connected by thick nautical ropes line a wood plank leading to the front door. The building is white with blue shutters and a slate-gray roof, lots of tall, narrow windows running around back. I open the door for her, and she pauses as she passes me.

  “You smell good,” she murmurs.

  I’m tempted to reveal my secret, but she moves the rest of the way in, and then the hostess is greeting us, asking if we have a reservation.

  “Yeah. Two, for Fischer, at six forty-five.”

  Nadia glances up at me. “You made reservations?”

  “This morning, after we said we’d go. I just didn’t want to get all the way here and have to wait an hour for a table.”

  “Oh. Probably smart.” She looks like she’s feeling as unsure about this as I am.

  The place is swanky. I’d expected a cute little place, nice but not super upscale. This is…more than that.

  Low ceilings, heavy wood beams. Lots of pillars, high-back booths with a handful of tea lights and a single flower in the middle. All exactly as in the book. Which, in the description, sounded cozy. The overall effect, now that I’m here, is far more intimate and romantic.

  The hostess leads us to a table at the back of the restaurant, overlooking the lake and the docks. The walls along the back slide open and accordion against the far corners so the whole rear of the building is open to the warm early fall evening. Our table is small, the walls at our backs tall. The only light except for the sunset is from the tea lights, which are scattered in an artfully haphazard way around the small vase of bubbled blue glass, which contains a single lavender Gerbera daisy. White linen napkins rolled around the silverware. The table is rough old wood—actually old, not fake-old; as a carpenter, I can tell the difference. French-inspired, semi-nautical music plays low in the background.

  She’s looking around, taking it all in. And looking, to my perhaps unpracticed eye, a little green around the gills, so to speak. As if this is more than she expected, more than she was ready for.

  The waitress is young, effervescent, and efficient. Some instinctual part of me takes over when she asks if we’d like to start with some wine, and I don’t even need to look over the rest of the wine menu when I see Joseph Carr, and I order us a bottle—she likes J-name red wines, I think. She eyes me as I order for us, apprehensive and reticent. The wine comes, and we’ve exchanged a half dozen words. I order us a charcuterie appetizer, and her eyes light up. She loves cheese. She dips the crumbly white goat cheese in the fresh honey which comes complete with bits of honeycomb, and there’s fancy little white almonds dusted with salt and parmesan and oil, and pitted olives, candied walnuts, thin slices of pastrami and other fancy meats with names I can’t pronounce, all piled in artsy coils.

  The wine loosens our tongues, and the charcuterie helps. It’s the kind of conversation that flows naturally, easily, but if you’d asked me five minutes later what we were talking about, I wouldn’t have known. Just…talking.

  Then our server returns for our dinner order, and Nadia is still perusing the menu, but somehow I know what she wants. Maybe it’s the wine, maybe it’s nerves. Lisa used to love it when I ordered for us—took the pressure off, she said. I think she just liked being surprised, liked knowing I knew her well enough to get her what she would want.

  “I’ll have the flank steak, medium, with truffle fries and the veggies of the day,” I hear myself say. “She’ll have the chicken parmesan, with a house salad, ranch dressing.”

  Her mouth flaps, open, closed, open. “Um. Can I have a side of the truffle fries with the chicken parm?” I think she added it just to go against me ordering for her.

  When the server is gone, notepad tucked into her black half-apron, Nadia leans forward. “Why did you order for me? How did you know I like chicken parm?”

  “I—” I swallow. I have no clue how to answer.

  “Is that coincidence too?” She scratches at the table with a fingernail, following the deep, aged grooves of the grain. “Sometimes it seems like you just know things about me, Nathan. It’s weird.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I overstepped.”

  “It’s just…I love chicken parmesan.” She laughs, a light tinkle. “Like, weirdly love. You don’t even know how many times I’ve tried to make it for myself, and it’s never quite right. If I get one thing right, another is off.”

  Almost verbatim from the book.

  “A good guess,” I say, but my voice is weak, low, rough.

  “How do you guess that someone likes chicken parm?”

  “You like cheese, and it’s the cheesiest thing on the menu.” True.

  She fingers the petals of the lavender daisy. “This flower, too. My favorite kind of flower. They’re always such different, beautiful colors. I’ve wanted for years to uproot the beds in front of my house and replant it with all different colors of Gerberas, but I’ve never gotten around to it.”

  “I had nothing to do with the flower,” I say, trying to make it sound like a joke. “That is a coincidence.”

  She sits back, sighing. “You’ve never been here before?”

  I shake my head. “Nope. First time. Heard about it in town.” Also true—several people in town recommended it as a point of local pride.

  “It’s lovely. Very…intimate.” She’s not sure if she meant that as a positive.

  There’s a Sinatra song playing. “My Funny Valentine.”

  Her nose wrinkles. “I know his voice is super amazing, and I always want to like him, but for some reason Frank Sinatra always sounds smarmy to me.”

  You really knew her, didn’t you, Adrian?

  “Smarmy, huh?”

  “Yeah, like he’s just absolutely sure he can charm the pants off you by singing a couple lines.”

  “I can see what you mean. Never thought about it that way, but now you say it, I can hear it.”

  The song ends, and there’s a silence in the restaurant, the kind of unusual hush when it’s just the ambient noise of quiet conversation and silverware clinking and clattering, when the music has stopped unexpectedly. I didn’t even notice it, but there’s a big black grand piano in the front corner, opposite the entrance to the kitchen, and there’s tall silver candlesticks with white candles on the closed lid, yellow flames flickering. A middle-aged man sits down on the bench, wearing a trim gray pinstripe suit, no tie, collar unbuttoned. There’s no sheet music. He just sits there a moment, head cocked to one side, as if listening to the piano, or to music in the air only he can hear. And then a gentle tinkle rises, his right hand tickling the ivory keys. It’s a light, merry little tune, almost an accidental ditty. He’s just playing around. Teasing the music to life, within himself, within the piano. Gradually, his other hand joins, and the melody becomes more complex, an improvisational masterwork that ranges from light and joyous to deep and thoughtful.

  “He’s really good,” Nadia says. “My friend from college, Kyle, is a pianist. He was offered a scholarship to some fancy East Coast conservatory, but he turned it down to study sociology at UNC, mainly so he could be with Tanner. There was an old upright in the lounge of my dorm, and we’d hang out there and do homework, and he’d always be at that out-of-tune piano, playing these wildly difficult jazz pieces, just half-assing them while talking to us, this improvisational stuff only a small handful of people in the world can play.”

  “He didn’t do anything with it?” I ask.

  “What, with piano?” She shrugs. “I don’t think so. He graduated with a degree in sociology and he and
Tanner moved to LA. I think he just loved playing. He probably found a little jazz bar to play in, something like that.” Her eyes flick over me. “I have a question. You don’t have to answer it.”

  I nod. “Okay.”

  “It sounds like you had a complicated relationship with your dad. Like, you lived out in the wilderness and didn’t go to school. Basically, you didn’t have a childhood. And I can see how you might end up feeling a little bitter about that. But yet, you said you learned to play the guitar to connect with him.”

  I sit back, sigh. “Yeah, you had it right—it’s complicated. I don’t know if bitter is the right word. He was a combat veteran. He rarely talked about it, but he’d have these awful nightmares. He’d wake up screaming, thrashing, yelling names. Again, I don’t know for sure, but I think he was a POW, too. It would explain why he couldn’t be indoors for more than a few hours at a time. I think I understood this about him from a very young age, that he had…demons, I guess, that he was wrestling with. Not something for a kid to have to know about his dad, but…” I shrug. “So, no, I didn’t have a normal childhood. I spent more time learning how to track a rabbit or a deer than doing algebra or chemistry, more time learning how to build a shelter with nothing but a hatchet than reading, like, Nathaniel Hawthorne.”

  “Wait, when you say track a rabbit…”

  I laugh. “I mean, like, track it. Find its footprints and figure out where it went, where it is, and how to kill it.”

  “You can’t track a rabbit. They barely even leave footprints.”

  “But they’re predictable. You snare them, more than you’d actually hunt them.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Figure out where it’s likely to routinely go, and set a trap. They walk through it, trigger the snare, and it catches them. The most effective ones break their necks pretty much instantly.”

  “Poor little rabbit.”

  “Yeah, but poor you when you haven’t eaten meat in a week because the deer are hiding and a rabbit is all you can get.”

  “And that was your childhood.”