When she arrived at his cabin on Friday, September 4th, the beginning of Labor Day weekend, a four-day holiday for the working man, her goal was to have his home ready to be her home by the time she went back to Portland on Tuesday morning. The weather was clear and sunny with a gentle wind. Moon was delighted to be back in the forest. And when she stood above the orchard and looked out at the valley, a feeling of serenity came over her.
He put his arm around her. “I want this house to be your house. Do what you need to do to make it yours.”
She thought, of course, he wants this house to be my house. It’s a fucking mess. But she said, “You know I’m a control freak. Cleaning is my thing.”
He rolled his eyes. “Cleaning? What’s that?”
She laughed. He was managing her. She could feel it. “I need you to set some boundaries for me.”
He said, “Okay. Don’t touch my stuff.”
“Very funny.”
“Do what you need to do.” He meant it.
“Tell me what’s off limits.”
“My boat is off limits.”
“Your boat is in the garage.”
“Yes.”
“So, I can do whatever I want in the house?”
“It’s your house.”
He was consistent, dependable, like he wasn’t going to suddenly change his mind. Still, her inner voices argued.
His house stinks.
We aren’t here for the house. We’re here for the land.
I thought we were here for sex.
True. We’re here because he’s here.
He’s here because they let him keep his boat in the garage.
He’s here because it’s beautiful.
And they let him keep his boat in the garage.
He helped her unpack her car and scanned the load. She brought more cleaning supplies, more sheets and towels, and a cooler full of food. He opened the cooler and peered at the menu.
“Chicken!” His voice was happy, like he was welcoming a friend.
They got to work right away clearing the middle room between the living room and the laundry room so it could be her room. His collection of dusty possessions was banished to the garage where it disappeared in a sea of chaos. He emptied a filing cabinet full of fishing lures so she could use it as a “linen closet.” She asked for a step ladder and swept the ceiling and the high corners, wiped down the walls and inside the wardrobe closet. When she inspected his vacuum cleaner, she saw the brown filters caked with dirt and carried the machine out to the driveway, took it apart and cleaned it. Still, the exhaust smelled like a wet dog. With every window open, she vacuumed the whole house, making a mental list of all the things she wanted to change.
It didn’t occur to her until hours later in the shower what a pedestrian chore woman she had been pushing herself from room to room like she was getting paid. Her skin was gritty, her nails were brown, and there was a faint odor gathering in her cracks. According to romance theory, a girl wasn’t supposed to let a man see her like this. Getting dirty wasn’t feminine. She was supposed to appear magically coiffed and sex-ready at all times. And yet, he must have known she would be like this. She had been a farmer. She needed to get dirty as much as she needed to clean.
Anyway, she didn’t plan on suffering for romance. If he couldn’t handle her methodology, she needed to know now. Just in case he had any doubts, she roasted a chicken. When the aroma filled the house he sang Even though we ain’t got money, I’m so in love with you honey and she had the sense that he was manipulating her with song lyrics the way she was manipulating him with gravy.
By Monday, she had what she wanted. Her laptop was set up on his ex-girlfriend’s oak desk facing a window. She booted up and discovered there was no internet service. He did not have wi-fi in his house. Huge. But too late now. Wi-fi had not been on her list. She had never even asked. That’s how far apart their everyday lives were. She lived on a computer. He didn’t have one. It never occurred to her that he would have a house without internet access. But this was her home now. The trees blocked the internet satellite, which she learned was a different satellite than the TV signal. The owners were quite old and hadn’t seen the point of running fiber up the long driveway. Her cellphone hotspot would have to do.
Monday evening she was ready to go back to Portland in the morning and finish packing up her apartment when the Holiday Farm Fire began to burn fifty miles east of the man’s home. They could smell it before they could see it. Summer was fire season, the time of year when months passed without a soaking rain. All around his cabin the forest was crisp. Tall weeds and shrubbery were tinder. Along the roads there were colorful signs calling attention to the current fire risk. That week the color code was red.
By Tuesday morning an acrid cloud of cottony smoke billowed around them. The view was gone. They closed up the house, all the windows and doors shut tight while they breathed the scent of burning wood. The sun glowed orange behind an ash curtain. It was windy and the size of the fire was increasing. Their phones blared warnings about the health hazards of poor air quality.
She had planned to drive back to the city that morning, but there was more than one fire along the hundred-mile valley between Eugene and Portland. Smoke reduced visibility for miles in all directions. A friend in Portland texted her photos of smoke wrapped around apartment buildings in their neighborhood. High winds made the situation unpredictable. The cabin on the hill was not in the path of the fire. Not yet. But fire was an imminent threat. The wind that pushed the smoke could carry embers that could spark a new fire at any moment in the trees or on the roof or in dry grass. First responders put out a warning that they should be prepared to evacuate on a moment’s notice.
Still, the man was leaving home to go to work. People were depending on him. But she didn’t feel safe driving off into the unknown, so she decided to stay. A new kind of anxiety gripped her. Fire. Danger. Run. Her inner authoritarian withered. She wasn’t skilled for firefighting. He was the big dog now.
“If you’re going to stay here, you need to know how to handle things.” He grabbed his truck keys. “I want to walk you around the perimeter and show you the access roads.”
Oh, my god, he’s hot when he’s the boss.
She swooned.
He gulped his last swallow of coffee. “Let’s go.”
hot hot hot in all aspects