“You should. It’s Kristof Honestadt. He spent most of his career in the nineteenth century painting images of Majestic National Park. He’s a legend.”
“I’m sure he’d be honored to know I saw one of his paintings on a souvenir cigarette lighter at Williker’s.” Dee put down her framed prints, resting them against a leg of the dining-room table. “Not this one, though.” She studied the print, at least as much of it as she could see under the decades of grime that had built up on the frame’s protective glass. Her face lit up. “Oh, wow. I just realized something. This is the view of Majestic from behind the Golden. Before it was built, of course. It’s like our very own Honestadt.”
Jeff studied the print. “I wonder where the original painting is. Remind me to research that. I can find a way to work it into our website.”
“Put it on the list of to-dos.” Dee headed to the kitchen area. She pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of a bucket of cleaning supplies and snapped them on. “Right now, it’s Operation Clean Michael Adam Baker’s Cabin.”
The next eight hours were a grueling whirl of scrubbing, scraping, repairing, and hauling. Dee painstakingly replaced broken grout in the bathroom’s mid-century mint-green tiles, while Jeff lugged out the cabin’s old mattress, replacing it with a brand-new one. It was well into nighttime when the exhausted duo agreed they’d made enough progress for one day and would finish in the morning.
They trudged back to Dee’s place and washed up. Dee picked up one of the Honestadt prints. “Why don’t I work on cleaning this for Michael’s room, and you go pick up dinner at Williker’s? Pick up some of Elmira’s pastries too. They’re too god-awful to eat, but she’ll love us for buying them.”
“Maybe they’re really good and we don’t know it because we’re not used to all the fresh ingredients out here in the country.” Jeff pulled his car fob from his back jeans pocket. “My car could use a charge. I’ll plug it into the outdoor socket on the side of the lodge for a few minutes, and then take off.”
Jeff headed out. Dee retrieved a rag that had once been a T-shirt from The Blues Family, an animated series she’d worked on about a musical family that happened to be various shades of blue. She dabbed cleaner on the rag and began rubbing off the dirt on the frame’s glass. As she worked, she flashed on a memory from On the John. Michael, showrunner Mark, and another male writer had gone into the men’s room together. A few minutes later, they came out high-fiving each other, having solved a story problem. On the surface, it was a minor moment, but for Dee, it was a telling one. How do women writers compete with the male bond of a urinal? she’d wondered. She never did come up with an answer.
Forget the past, Dee admonished herself. Eyes on the present. She rubbed at the glass until it gleamed. “Nice job, you,” she told her reflection with a grin. “Let’s put this in a safe place.”
She stood up and was about to lay the print on the table, when the room suddenly went dark. “What the—” She stumbled toward the front door and threw it open. Dark as it was inside her apartment, it was pitch black outside. “Jeff! Jeff? Are you okay? There’s a blackout!”
“I’m fine,” Jeff yelled to her. “It’s the mid-century wiring here. It can’t support a car charge.”
Dee stepped back inside, almost tripping over a snoozing Nugget as she negotiated her way through the apartment. She felt around the dining table until she found her cell phone. She turned on the phone’s flashlight and reversed course, negotiating a path out of the apartment to Jeff.
“My bad, I should have thought of that before I plugged in,” he said, typing quickly on his phone. “I’m doing a search on how to get the electricity up and running again.”
“Okay.” Dee did a slow turn, taking in their surroundings. What was bucolic in daylight now seemed ominous and threatening. “I didn’t know how dark it can get out here in the country. It’s, like, really, really dark.”
“I watched a show online about the Salem witch trials,” Jeff said, still typing. “Historians think a lot of the Puritans’ superstitions can be attributed to their fears of the super-dark nights three hundred years ago. Like this.”
“Thanks for not making me feel better.”
A rhythmic crunching sound came from the woods, like heavy feet tromping over sticks and dead leaves. “Oh, my God,” Dee said, panicked. “It’s Stoney.”
“Who?” Jeff asked, confused.
“The bear.”
Dee held her phone flashlight up to the direction of the sound. The tree branches parted, and a being emerged from the woods. Not a bear—a man. His scraggly gray hair hung below his shoulders. His clothes were worn beyond recognition. He carried a large ax he swung back and forth as he loped toward Dee and Jeff.
“It’s the man with no teeth and an ax!” Dee screamed.
“What are you talking about?” Jeff said, eyes still on his phone. “You’re crazier than a Puritan.”
Dee elbowed him. He looked up and froze. His mouth opened and shut, but no words came out.
The screen door burst open, and Nugget flew out of the apartment. He charged toward the man and jumped on him. The man picked up the dog.
“No!” Dee yelled.
She ran to save Nugget, but stopped short. The dog’s tail wagged with the vigor of windshield wipers during a heavy storm. He alternated happy barks with licking the stranger’s face. The man laughed a hearty laugh, revealing a perfect set of teeth. “Nugs, my old friend. Good to see ya.”
“That Nugget?”
The shorthand question came from a disembodied woman’s voice. There was more crunching of undergrowth, and a woman appeared behind the man. Like him, she had scraggly gray hair and wore shapeless, worn clothes more akin to sacks. In fact, under the bright flashlight, Dee made out markings indicating the garment was constructed from actual feed sacks.
The couple took turns showering Nugget with affection; then the man spoke. “We’re your neighbors. We got a cabin in the woods behind you. We saw the Golden’s lights go out and thought you might need a hand. This is Ma’am.” He gestured fondly to the woman, who was throwing sticks to a euphoric Nugget. “And I’m Mister Ma’am.”
“Hi,” Dee said, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart. “Nice to meet you. I’m Dee, and this is my friend Jeff.” She motioned to the techie, who’d joined her. “We’re the new owners.”
“And thanks for the offer,” Jeff said. He held up his phone. “But I found a couple of training videos, and as long as the battery charge on my phone doesn’t run out, I think at least one of these will help me figure out how to—”
Every light in the Golden suddenly came to life, almost blinding Dee and Jeff. Ma’am sauntered back to them, Nugget at her heels. “Ya overloaded the circuit breaker. I flipped it back on. Breaker’s by room 10. But I wouldn’t be charging your vehicle here. It’ll happen again. There’s a charging station by the Unitarian church in Goldsgone.”
“Good to know,” Jeff said.
Dee managed not to laugh at how mortified he sounded. “Thank you so much. It’s great to know we have such nice neighbors.”
Mister responded with a big smile, once again displaying a set of gleaming white choppers. The sight triggered a memory for Dee, but it flew out of her mind before she could land on it.
“If you need us,” Ma’am said, “just ring the bell. That’s how Jasper got in touch when he needed to.”
The woman pointed to a giant triangular bell, the kind Dee associated with calling ranch hands to dinner on old Western movies and TV shows. The triangle dangled low from a hook at the far end of the lodge and Jeff had banged his head on it at least twice thus far. “Thanks,” Dee said. “We appreciate that.”
The four said their goodbyes and the Ma’ams disappeared back into the woods, lugging the discarded mattress from Michael’s cabin as a thank-you present. Dee stared after them. “It’s so weird. Mister Ma’am really does look familiar to me.”
Jeff scoffed. “That’s the dark night talking.” They turned toward the lodge. “I’ve got enough of a charge on my car to get to Goldsgone. I’ll grab us something to eat there while I top it off there. We should make it an early night. Your frenemy Michael will be here tomorrow afternoon and we need to finish fixing up his cabin.”
“Right,” Dee said by rote. Her mind was elsewhere. Despite Jeff’s scoffing, she was absolutely sure she recognized Mister Ma’am.
