Six
SIX
TAYLOR
D id you know Lake Tahoe has its own version of the Loch Ness Monster called Tahoe Tessie? Taylor types to his sibling group chat as he lies in his queen bed in the Snow White cottage. His book is splayed open on the quilt beside him, untouched for the last thirty minutes.
It’s hard to focus when Amy’s gone silent and Ethan’s gone cold.
His boss and his boss’s ex taking up space in his brain is a mind-bender.
Amy’s silence is to be expected. As per the itinerary, she’s in the air somewhere over central California right now on her way to the campground they’ve retrofitted into a resort. A perfect location with its own storybook-style lore! He screenshots a photo of what Tahoe Tessie might look like and sends it along in the group chat.
Faith, his sister who’s currently pregnant with her first kid at twenty-four, chimes in first: Ew! I don’t like the way it’s looking at me through the screen.
Todd, who is closest to his age, adds to the thread: Read the news articles I send you all for a change @Faith. There’s scarier stuff in that sea you’re always letting your kids swim in. Todd is a bit of an alarmist and a conspiracy theorist and Taylor has him muted on all social media to preserve their sibling relationship as best as possible.
Faith married rich—a tech wunderkind—and they have this gorgeous house in San Francisco that Taylor’s only seen in pictures. Getting away from work is nearly impossible these days. That’s why he should probably be enjoying these bits of rest and relaxation by doing one of the many leisure activities available to him on this expenses-paid work trip, but putting on clothes and getting up feels like too much effort, especially after he tried to go out on one of the hiking trails and found this East Coast humidity and the stirring, buzzing bugs to be deeply unpleasant.
Scientifically impossible but she looks cool! That’s Finn, Taylor’s youngest brother who is in college studying marine biology.
A text notification in a different thread opens. It’s from Sasha, the second youngest of the Frost family and the sibling Taylor’s closest with. She’s in her fourth year of an intensive program to become a physical therapist, which is really testing the limits of her ADHD diagnosis. She’s constantly itching for change.
Tell me you’re not bored already that you’re sending fun facts in the family group chat, she writes.
Staring up at the timbered ceiling, he fishes around in his brain for a good excuse. The only one biting at the baited hook is that he doesn’t want to run into Ethan again. Last night, over a lesson and a glass of wine, he thought they’d fashioned a nice rapport. Then, after a mildly awkward conversation on the sun porch, Ethan went all resort-manager-stern. Had he said something? Done something to upset Ethan? If he did, he can’t recall.
Puh-puh-puh. Rain rapping against the window and a distant roll of thunder provide him exactly the convenient excuse he needs.
It’s raining so I’m stuck inside, he says. Plus! it’s late! I’m three hours ahead, remember?
As the minutes pass before Sasha responds, the rain grows harder. A sudden gust of wind makes the cottage creak. He’s thrust back to stormy nights in childhood when Todd would suggest a living room sleepover. Taylor had graciously given Todd the attic that Owen, their oldest sibling, had converted into a tiny bedroom when he turned fifteen and then vacated promptly after turning eighteen.
Even though Todd was thirteen and probably too old to be scared of a little lightning, Taylor always obliged. He’d grab their camp sleeping bags from the basement and corral his younger siblings into the living room where he’d read stories from their collected Grimm’s Fairy Tales book and supervise microwave s’mores.
He’s lost in the sound of the wood groaning and the rain mounting when his phone pings. It’s Saturday night! Go out and get some!
The only some I plan to get is sleep! he writes, even as his mind and muscles protest. He’s been lying in this position for too long and even though the mattress is comfortable, it sags a bit in the middle, making his lower back hurt.
In the kitchenette, under the window, he grabs the electric kettle fashioned to look like a vintage teapot. From a basket in a cubby, he grabs a bag of green tea, waiting for the bubbling of the boiling water to join the night symphony surrounding him. A newfound isolation sweeps through the room, even though he’s only maybe ten feet from the next cottage.
Could you be more boring? I’d love to be anywhere but at the library studying for my anatomy exam . The next text comes in whip fast. Is there at least a bar at the resort? I’m sure it’s crawling with hot dads.
Upon reading the words hot dads , Taylor gets a flash of Ethan capably lighting the fire outside his cottage last night. Ethan looked immensely climbable in his distressed jeans and soft-looking flannel shirt. He texts back, I don’t sleep with guys with kids!
Who said anything about sleeping?
Taylor chuckles to himself as the kettle clicks off. He pours the hot water into his off-white mug, watching as the tea steeps in swirls of color. A clap of lightning goes off like a camera flash; a closer roar of thunder rattles the cabin.
Weren’t you the one who said going out there solo was your chance to let your freak flag fly?!
While high on weed gummies and binging Netflix with Sasha last week, he may have said something to that effect, but that was before he arrived here. Before he saw how remote this place is. Before he realized that you can’t have unregistered guests on property. Before he learned the nearest guy on Grindr is two miles away!
I decided not to pack my freak flag because this is a business trip.
Once again, he’s overrun with images of last night. Sitting across the fire from Ethan as they talked and sipped. Nothing about that felt like business. Like work or stress.
Yet this afternoon, at reception, when he handed Ethan his ID, Ethan’s aura changed from mossy green to muddy brown. Last night, he kept thinking. How could someone like Ethan end up with someone like Amy? They’re polar opposites . Then, Ethan said, “Enjoy the rest of your day” with such a tight-lipped resolve that Taylor couldn’t shake the feeling that he was in Amy’s presence. I suppose you can’t be married to someone for as long as he was with Amy without absorbing some of their qualities.
He takes his tea over to the small table that folds down from the wall and scrapes the chair up from beside the roaring gas fireplace. He boots up his laptop and checks in on Amy’s flight to find it running on time. Good. He’d scheduled her trip down to the hour and even the slightest delay could’ve hindered this important session.
His fingers jump to text her and inquire about the in-flight meal he painstakingly special-ordered from the airline. Her list of dietary preferences is long, and even so, Taylor has them memorized. He knows which foods to avoid, which to order, which to substitute, which make her sleepy and which revitalize her. The same goes for drinks.
Funnily enough, this morning (or early afternoon was more like it, by the time he willed himself out of bed), as he stood at the counter at How Do You Brew, he ordered a medium whole milk latte extra hot. Wait, what? He hasn’t drank cow milk in years, and the caffeine from regular coffee gives him the jitters for hours after.
“Sorry,” he’d said. “Please forget that. I’m so used to ordering for my boss. A matcha latte with oat milk if you have it.”
The wind picks up, rattling the window pane over the sink. The rhythmic patter on the roof sounds like a tap dance ensemble doing a show up there. “Guess I really am in for the night,” he says to himself, more than okay with that. He double-checks the windows are secure, locks and latches the cottage door and queues up an action movie.
The grainy quality of the Chris-starring film—Hemsworth? Pine? He doesn’t know the difference—matters little because the explosions and sirens wail in discordance with the storm raging on outside and lull him to sleep. Chaos has always been calming, until—
Crack.
Who knows how much time elapsed? The movie must still be going on.
Smash.
Did he hit the volume controls in his sleep? The room is unmistakably louder.
Whoosh.
A channel of cold air whips at Taylor atop the covers. He sputters awake, sensing dew drops on his face. He’s not usually a drooler. Perhaps his dream made him cry? He wipes at his cheek only to be hit again. His eyes shoot open.
The window beside the bed on the back side of the cottage is missing an entire corner. Shards splay out on the floor. The better part of a hefty tree branch sticks in through the pane like the arm of an intruder. Wind and rain slash through the flaps of the thin curtains.
Taylor slams his laptop shut and moves it away from the incoming pour. Careful not to step on any glass with his bare feet, he races for the other side of the cottage where his suitcase is slapped open. He finds socks, sandals and his bright orange raincoat, which Sasha always says makes him look like a personified traffic cone.
Locating the map Ethan handed him yesterday beside the kitchen sink, he flips to find the emergency maintenance number. It rings and rings but ultimately nobody answers. Crap. He searches frantically for some way to stop the elements from coming in, but has no luck.
Frustrated and out of options, he throws up his hood and treks out into the woods.