A smile tilts her lips. “That’s pitiful, Jonathan.”
“So close,” I say with a fake sigh.
“The biscuits will be done in a few minutes. Go ahead and make your coffee. I notice that’s the one thing you actually take your time on.”
I nod sagely. Unlike Evan, I may be able to function without coffee, but like him, it’s still essential to my wellbeing.
We move through the kitchen in a silence that has come to feel companionable, although I’m not sure when it happened. We really haven’t talked all that much the last week, besides the last few evenings when I get home from a shift, and even then, it’s mostly been us asking if the other is using the washer or coordinating shower schedules. We haven’t eaten dinner together on the couch again or watched sitcoms in the dark. Still, there’s something easy about existing with her. Easier than sharing a room with Evan, who is a bit of a slob, or any of my college roommates, who were all friendly enough, but never became close enough to live with for a second year.
When the biscuits have turned golden brown and the entire kitchen smells yeasty and buttery, we scarf down breakfast, somehow managing to finish every last bit, and head out the door. The morning is brisk as we load into Stevie’s truck and drive down the mountain, windows cracked to let in the thick smell of pine in the air.
“So tell me about this Airstream,” I say. “Was it a van-life type thing?”
Her eyes skate to mine before returning to the road, wind whipping the hair from her freshly redone braid. She seems to weigh her words. “No, I guess I just like minimalism.”
“Fair enough. So you’ve never taken it anywhere?”
“No, I haven’t.”
The words feel loaded in a way I’m not sure how to interpret, so I drop the conversation and instead focus my attention out the window. The cabin is up a winding mountain road but when you get down it, you’re basically in the middle of town. Fontana Ridge has already started decorating for the fall, with bales of hay stacked in front of storefronts and pumpkins stuffed into every street corner. When I stopped at the coffee shop, Smokey the Beans, before work yesterday, the handwritten fall menu proudly announced pumpkin spice lattes and hot apple cider. The storms last week scattered the first of the leaves from the trees and left the ground littered with them. It’s that time of year when everyone has to wear jackets in the morning and shrug them off by the afternoon, only to pull them back on when the sun sets. And right now, everyone we pass is dressed in flannel or denim, wind tugging at their hair.
It’s the best kind of day.
“How are you liking Fontana Ridge?” Stevie asks, pulling me from my observations.
“I love it,” I tell her truthfully. I’ve been all over the country for work the last ten years, and only a few places have left a lasting impression on me, but I can tell Fontana Ridge will be one of them. It’s the kind of town in movies, the ones that never seem real.
When I tear my eyes from a man stooping to pet a golden retriever on the sidewalk, I catch Stevie’s expression as we stop at a red light. It’s unreadable. “Do you like it?”
She’s quiet for a long moment, and the light turns green. We’re moving forward again by the time she says, “Yeah, I do. It’s home, you know?”
I murmur in agreement, but I don’t really know what she’s talking about. I’ve been avoiding my home for over a decade.
Stevie turns on the radio, and eighties rock softly fills the cab, ending our conversation, but I don't mind. Silence is my default, and I’m grateful it seems to be hers too.
The downtown starts to fade from storefronts to homes settled behind white picket fences to longer and longer stretches of trees until we finally take a turn onto a dirt road that is still a little muddy from all the rain last week. Trees crop up all around us, standing tall and dense against the bright blue of the sky. The road is a wilder version of the one to the cabin, spiraling up and up, although no other houses litter the way, until we finally come to the end of it, stopping in a cleared cropping.
In the middle of it is a shining silver Airstream, mirroring all the nature around it. Outside is a picnic table, with Edison bulb lights strung from the Airstream to poles on either side of it. It’s painted cherry red, and the seats look like they are wrapped in a matching gingham plastic fabric. Behind it are miles of pines, rolling with the hills. A bird calls in the distance. Leaves tumble from the trees. It’s scenic. Serene. And I’m starting to realize why Stevie never took it anywhere else.
“Wow,” I breathe.
Stevie glances over at me, unbuckling her seat belt. “What?”
“It’s just…” my voice trails off, lost for words. “Beautiful.”
She assesses me for a long moment, then returns her attention to her home, and I wonder if she’s trying to see it through my eyes. “Thank you.”
She sounds genuine, but there’s something beneath her voice I can’t quite put my finger on.
“So where’s the hole?”
“On the back side. C’mon, I’ll show you.”
We hop out of the truck and I follow Stevie around the back of the Airstream, finally noticing what I hadn’t before—the snapped tree branches and the Edison bulbs that must haveshattered in the storm. The ground squelches with mud, more wet in places where the foliage above is thicker, blocking the sun.
When we arrive at the backside of the Airstream, Stevie motions to a spot near the top covered in tarp, the area around it dented and scratched. Beside the Airstream on the ground, is a large, heavy-looking gnarled tree branch. I stare at it for a long moment, my mind cataloging all the ways the incident could have been much worse, and relief punches through me.
“That’s the culprit,” Stevie says, interrupting my thought. She lightly kicks at the branch, heaving out a sigh. “The shitty part is, I thought about cutting that tree down a year ago. It’s dying, and I knew it was probably too close to the Airstream.”
