Cabin Fever

by Janet Sanders

“OK! I’ll let it go. But please, promise me one thing: if you see Mr. Right, or even Mr. Maybe, try to leave yourself open to possibility. Don’t shut everyone out just so you can keep to some big life plan you’ve made for yourself.”

  “I promise. I do. I promise to give Mr. Right a chance. I’m not sure about Mr. Maybe, though. That can’t possibly be his given name. What is he hiding, I wonder?”

  “Very funny. I gotta go – I’ve got a lecture in fifteen minutes, and I need to pull my notes. Love you!”

  “Love you too. Bye,” Sarah said, and thumbed the phone off. She lay for a while, looking at the ceiling, and briefly she considered taking a nap, but the lure of the rocking chair was too strong. She got up, poured herself a second glass of wine, and walked back out to the porch.

  Just as she got there, the peace and quiet was broken by the loud buzzing of a chain saw from not too far away. “Oh, great,” Sarah muttered, and glared in the direction of the noise that promised to ruin her afternoon.

  6

  Cutting firewood was always a trip down memory lane for Brad. He could remember when it seemed like a great adventure to take the saw in his hands, smell the gasoline from where it had sloshed a little bit as he poured it into the tank, and pull the cord with a single, violent motion to feel it come alive in his hands. Back then the fact that using a chain saw could be dangerous had been part of its appeal. That meant that his father believed that he was capable of taking care of himself. That meant that he could be trusted to use tools by himself. It meant that he was, or at least was close to becoming, a man.

  Now it wasn’t as thrilling and romantic as it used to be, but Brad was still able to take satisfaction in the task. Cutting firewood was hard work, which was why he was happy to take it on for his father, whose back wasn’t getting any better these days, particularly with the gut he’d developed since he moved here after Brad’s mother passed away. With the roar of the saw drowning out all the background noise, Brad could sink into the task and let his thoughts take him. It was funny, he knew, but he always thought that working with the saw was kind of peaceful. It was noisy, sure, but the noise created a bubble in which he could be alone with his thoughts.

  And the truth was, Brad had a lot of thoughts these days, and he didn’t know what to do with most of them. He wasn’t going to be playing any more football, that was for sure. If he ever forgot that fact, the ache of his knees when he got out of bed in the morning served as a dull, throbbing reminder. He had managed to play through three surgeries, two on the left knee and one on the right, but the damage piled up to the point where he couldn’t really run anymore. Unless you’re a kicker or a quarterback, you have to be able to run. A slow NFL player is an ex-NFL player. Brad had been in the league for seven years, which was longer than most, and in that time he’d seen plenty of veterans who wore out their bodies and were forced to clean out their lockers. He had always known that sooner or later it would be his turn, and now, at last, it was.

  He understood why the team didn’t want him back, but still it was hard to accept. He wasn’t even thirty years old, but he was already washed up. Part of him felt like his life was over. He probably had another forty years to go before he’d cash in his chips, and right now that seemed like a lot of living to do without football. Brad considered himself a pretty down-to-earth guy. Even when he was making more money than he could spend, his closet was full of the jeans and flannel shirts that he wore every day. He didn’t need the money, but he had to admit that he missed the glory, the roar of the crowd, and the way people’s eyes would light up when they recognized him on the street or in a restaurant. Playing football in front of a hundred thousand fans was an incredible rush.

  And then there were the women. Oh man, the women!

  He wasn’t ready to give that all up. Not yet, and maybe not ever. It worried him that he might take that feeling, that mixture of longing and regret, with him to his grave. Of course, there might be a way to get back to the show, but Brad wasn’t ready to talk with anyone about that yet. It was still just an idea in the back of his head that he turned over and over as if it were a quarter he found on the street, considering whether the chance of success that it offered was worth the steep cost that he’d have to pay.

  He put a boot on the log in front of him and cut deeply into it, the saw chattering in his strong hands. His father’s wood-burning stove had a narrow mouth, so he had to cut the logs into narrow chunks that would fit through it when you were feeding the fire. The saw chewed through wood fiber and sent powerful vibrations up through his hands, up his arms, and into his shoulders and chest as sawdust flew up into the air. All things considered he didn’t notice the woman until she was standing nearly in front of him, her hands on her hips in a universal gesture that meant, “I am really mad at you right now.”

  Brad flipped the saw off and, while the motor wound down, drank in the sight of her. She wasn’t too tall – she came up maybe to his shoulders – but she was slender, and from what he could tell she had lots of nice things under those clothes. Not big in the chest area, sort of petite, but Brad liked that in a woman. She had long hair that at first he took for blonde, but then he realized that she had those highlights done that left streaks of darker hair beneath the lighter. Her face wasn’t quite beautiful, but she was certainly pretty – very pretty – and her eyes were amazing, sort of a hazel color that really caught the light. Brad knew that he was staring, but he didn’t care. Since he’d come to stay with his father he hadn’t met up with very many attractive women, and this one was a sight for his very sore eyes.

  Her arms were crossed now, and she seemed to be waiting for him to say something. “Ummm, hello?” he offered.

  “You didn’t hear me.”

  “Hear you what?”

  “Of course you didn’t hear me, what with the unbelievable racket that thing was making! First I asked if you could turn it down. Then I asked again, louder. Then I shouted it. I was starting to think that I would have to throw a rock at you to get your attention.”

  “I’m sorry, but I honestly didn’t hear any of that. And no, I can’t ‘turn it down.’ It’s a chain saw. That’s what it sounds like.”

  “Well, could you use it some other time? I’m trying to relax.”

  “I’ll be done soon.”

  “And I’ll be insane soon, if I have to keep listening to that saw! Please, could you just cut wood some other time? It was really nice on my porch with the sound of the birds and the wind in the trees, and now I can’t hear anything but you.”

  “I’m not breaking any laws. That’s what people do around here. You’re going to hear a lot of saws, and sometimes it will be when you want to listen to the birds. That’s the way it is.”

  “So you refuse?”

  “No, it’s fine. I’ll finish later. But next time you might think about asking nicer.”

  “Next time? Oh, wonderful. I really look forward to that.” Without another word she spun on her heel and stomped away. Brad watched her go. It was a shame – finally there was a good-looking woman in town, and it turned out she was kind of a bitch.

  Walking away, Sarah felt a mixture of satisfaction and regret. On the one hand, she had stood up for herself and asked for what she wanted, and now she had a chance to reclaim what was left of her quiet afternoon. On the other hand, she had finally come across an attractive man in Tall Pines, and she already knew that she didn’t like him. Oh well, she thought. He looked like a jock. If Sarah had one principle that she applied to the vestigial remnants of her love life, it was that she didn’t date jocks, even jocks with curly brown hair and shockingly blue eyes.

  As she was getting back to her cabin, Sarah realized that she had never thanked him for agreeing to stop using his saw. She felt a twinge of regret at that; Sarah hated rudeness. In any case, it was too late to go back now. If she saw him later, she’d remember to apologize.

  7

  Later that evening Brad sat on the couch next to his father, like he did ev
ery night, pulling on a beer and staring at the fire in the fireplace, like they did every night. He didn’t like how much he was getting used to this. When he first arrived, he made fun of the way his father had fixed the place up. It was like a museum of manliness, what with antlers mounted on the wall, resting on the mantelpiece, and even hanging from a light fixture. The deer’s head on the wall and the fishing rod propped up next to the fireplace only completed the picture. It was painfully obvious that no woman had been in this cabin for far too long. Certainly none since his mother had died.

  When he arrived, that all had seemed funny, but now it was starting to feel like home. Brad didn’t want to feel at home in Tall Pines. Feeling at home here meant that he was never getting back to the bright lights and the roar of the crowd. Feeling at home here meant that he’d spend the majority of his life tucked away in an obscure corner of the world. That was good enough for some people, his father included, and Brad didn’t fault them for it. He could see the appeal, and if they were happy then they were doing the right thing for themselves. He wanted more, though. He wanted a lot more.

  And so maybe it was time to talk about his idea. “Dad, I’ve been thinking,” he started tentatively.

  “That’s always been a bad sign,” his father growled.

  Brad ignored him. “I’ve been thinking that maybe I’d like to go into coaching.”

  His father looked over at him, his beer bottle poised halfway to his mouth. Finally he gave a slow nod and took a swig from the bottle. “I could see that. Tough line of work, though.”

  “The toughest,” Brad agreed. “Those guys never get out of the office. I knew one guy, a coach I played for a few years back, he went three months during the season without once going home. He slept on a cot in his office and ate all his meals in the film room. He had a wife and child, I know, but he couldn’t have seen them much. The hours are ridiculous.”

  “Not much pay in it, either.”

  “No, the pay sucks. When I’m first starting out, I may not be paid at all. I know more than a few coaches who started out as volunteers.”

  “No job security, either.”

  “Nope. Those guys get fired all the time. One bad season and you’re out on your ass.”

  “So what’s in it for you?”

  Brad leaned forward. “A chance. If I’m good at it, if I put my heart and soul into it, I have a chance to coach in the NFL. I’ll never play again, but this way I can be part of it. It’s my only chance.”

  His father was silent for a long time. “What about the rest of it?” he finally asked.

  “The rest of what?”

  “The rest of life. A wife. Children. A home. You don’t want any of that?”

  “I want it. I just…”

  “What?”

  “I can’t settle, Dad!” Brad’s voice was louder than he intended it to be, and he took a breath to calm himself down. “I’ve been there. I’ve been on top. I’ve seen what it’s like, and I can’t just shrug and let it go. My knees are a mess, but I still have dreams, Dad. I can’t just let them go, not if I want to be happy, not if I want to make someone else happy.”

  “You think you can find a lady who will put up with you never being home?”

  “Maybe I could, but I’m not going to try. It would be cruel to ask someone who loves me to wait around while I’m busy somewhere else. I’m not that selfish. I won’t do it.”

  “So it’s no to a family, then?”

  “For now. Maybe I’ll bomb out. Maybe I’ll suck as a coach and will have to give that up, too. But as long as I still believe that I have a chance to get back to the pro’s as a coach, I’m going to give it everything I have. And that means no family, not yet. Not until I can do it right.”

  “Anyone looking to hire you?”

  “Not yet. I haven’t talked about this with anyone but you. But I know a few guys to call. I thought I might start with my alma mater. If they don’t have an opening, I might volunteer as an unpaid assistant. I have money left over. I can make it work for a while. Long enough to get a paying job, if I’m good enough.”

  “You’ll be good enough. You know the game inside and out. Some of those guys you played with, they did it all with God-given talent. It was easy for them, but you busted your ass to get there, and you kept busting your ass to stay there. You know what it takes to make it even when you’re not the most talented guy in the world. That’s the sort of thing you can teach to kids. They’ll hire you for that reason alone.”

  Brad sat quietly, staring at the fire and feeling a little stunned. His father was not a man who offered praise frequently. Brad could remember every time his father had ever said he was proud of him, and he could count those moments, too, on the fingers of his right hand. If his father was so sure that he’d make it that he was willing to say so out loud, then there must be something to it.

  He had been reluctant to talk about his dream of coaching because part of him was afraid that it was a fairy tale. Now, though, in the warmth of his father’s matter-of-fact approval, he started to believe for the first time that it might really happen the way he dreamed it would. Brad was feeling a little excited, for the first time in a very long time.

  8

  Sarah sat at the counter in the diner, a fork with a piece of pineapple on it raised halfway to her mouth while she used the other hand to flip through email on her iPad. Her box was full, as usual, but there wasn’t anything that really needed a reply. There were at least 20 messages from former employees, colleagues, and business associates who were shocked – shocked! – at what happened, and were not-so-subtly digging for more details that they could add to the rumor mill. There were two inquiries from headhunters who wanted to know when she would be ready to re-enter the job market. Sarah was glad to know that she was still marketable, but after all those years of being her own boss the idea of working for someone else gave her a headache. And finally, there was one email after another from suppliers, would-be-suppliers, and just plain spammers who all wanted to sell her something but somehow had missed the news that she was no longer in position to buy anything beyond lunch. Apparently they were so busy making the pitch that they couldn’t take the time to think about who they were pitching to.

  She deleted almost all of her messages without replying, except for one from Vijay with the subject “Call me?” that she didn’t yet have the heart to open. Either it was more bad news, in which case it could wait a little longer, or it was good news, and frankly she didn’t want to dive back into the grind quite yet. The slower pace of life in Tall Pines was beginning to grow on her. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life here, necessarily, but she could see the appeal of not always being in a hurry, and she wanted to enjoy to at least a few more days of wandering, strolling, and listening to the wind in the trees.

  She closed the iPad’s cover and got back to the fruit in the bowl. She hadn’t ordered a croissant this morning, though she desperately wanted to. Just the fact that her pastry cravings were already so intense warned her away; she couldn’t afford to get addicted to those things. She still needed to fit into her business suits if she was going to be in job interviews soon.

  A long sigh to her right signaled the arrival of Duane, right on time. For all of his rumpled demeanor, Sarah had learned that he was scrupulously punctual, and that he always ate breakfast in the same seat at the diner. If she wanted to share in his uniquely misanthropic style of conversation, all she had to do was sit down at one of the adjacent stalls and wait for him to arrive.

  “Morning, Duane,” she said.

  “Mmmm,” he grunted in reply. Duane wasn’t much for conversation until his coffee arrived. Right on cue, Bessie arrived with a cup and set it before him with a wink.

  “Morning, Duane” she said with the smile Sarah now knew was reserved just for him.

  “Good morning,” Duane mumbled, then something he saw in Bessie made him squint and tilt his head sideways. “Did you get your hair done?”

  B
essie eyed him warily. “I might have. You like?”

  Duane looked her up and down. “I do. I liked the old hairstyle, too, but I think I like this one more.”

  Beaming, Bessie headed back to the kitchen. “How does the news look this morning?” Sarah asked him, though she knew the answer already. It was the same answer every day.

  “Amateurish. Sensationalistic. Depressing,” he replied, though she could see that he was reading each article carefully. Duane might hate the state of journalism, but it was only because he was so deeply invested in it. He was like the sports fan who yells at the team for losing but would never dream of giving up his season tickets.

  “Are you going to write about any of it for the local paper?” she asked.

  “Mmm. Maybe. It’s always a question of what touches on the people around here. Like this story –another Wall Street fraud. It’s a safe bet that no one in Tall Pines invested in the fund, so do I write about that? Probably not, unless I’m trying to stir up outrage. Which sometimes I do, but it can’t be a daily diet or I’ll drive readers away. So mostly I scan for stories that are important and meaningful that people probably haven’t already heard about from someone else. Which is tough today – with the Internet, seems like everyone knows everything. Or at least they think they do.”

  Sarah smiled. “You don’t think much of technology, do you?”

  Duane waved his hand dismissively. “It’s not my thing. Not my generation’s thing, not really. Oh, I can see the value in it. Wikipedia, we didn’t have anything like that when I was young. You can find most anything with Google – though a lot of it you wish you hadn’t found! And that Facebook, I try to get on there once a week or so. My granddaughter likes it, and I like that I get to hear from her, I get to see pictures of her. That’s all nice. But there’s so much of it, and it seems like it changes every day. I figure something out on Tuesday, and on Wednesday they’ve replaced it with something else and I need to start all over again. Makes my head hurt.”