Chapter Five
Unfortunately, Mo had woken up before dawn this morning.
She had allowed herself to rot in bed, spending what felt like hours disassociating.
Watching as the ceiling fan slowly turned, counting every time the one slightly bent blade turned past her head.
Decent at math, she had estimated the motor on the fan was broken because the rotations per minute were sitting around one hundred and sixteen, give or take a rotation.
Which in her despondent mind seemed slow.
“How many rotations does a ceiling fan normally do in a minute?” Mo wondered out loud to herself, finally finding the strength to kick off the blanket and turn toward the tiny nightstand to grab her phone. “Save me, Google.”
“Would I have, though?”
The indecision of whether to go or not was eating at her. Especially after Aspen’s reaction once she found out about Annie. Her forearm instinctively came up to cover her eyes as she groaned, “God, she was so sweet to me.”
The words felt like they hung in the air, reminding Mo of not only her loneliness but also her general state of being.
It was a terrible feeling, so she flipped over on her stomach, debating whether sleep was possible.
But the thoughts of Aspen wouldn’t yield, compounding with her hungry stomach and achy neck from lying in the bed for so long.
“Ah, fuck it.” Mo finally decided, rolling out of the bed and onto the hardwood floor.
She looked toward the bathroom, not interested in the slightest in expending energy on a shower.
But if she was going to go see Aspen, she should at least smell good.
Once Mo finished, she got dressed and made sure Annie’s treasure was safely deposited in her pocket.
Her eyes trailed across her still-packed bags and strewn clothes, the guilt of leaving them messily piled burning a hole in her stomach.
“I’ll deal with you later,” she tried to convince herself, nodding respectfully at the pile before clambering over it and out the door, locking her cabin behind her.
Just as she got in the driver’s seat of her Subaru, Mo decided she needed more fresh air, so she hopped out and made her way toward town on foot.
If she was going to backpack the creek, then she needed to get her body used to walking again, even if she had no idea how to plan that excursion.
Mo shook that responsibility from her mind, instead focusing on the dark yellow of the fields contrasting with the emerald green of the trees.
It looked a lot like the farmland of the Sierra Nevadas near Lake Tahoe, a place Mo and Annie frequented together on weekend getaways.
Mo turned in a slow three-sixty, taking in the flat, slow fields and how they rolled into more hilly forests, full of redwoods and pines.
It was not only beautiful but also comforting.
Mo’s pace slowed to a stop as her eyes zoned in on a natural opening of the trees where a path wound from the golden fields in between two large pines.
She immediately saw a beaming Annie, hiking poles in hand, her blaze-orange rain jacket slightly blinding Mo’s mind’s eye, just standing inside the opening to the woods.
She could just follow her inside. No supplies, no water, no direction. Just a bunch of tall trees and Annie’s memory. Why plan for a journey that didn’t require survival? Mo’s heart burned at the thought, so she turned her focus away from the trees and headed toward town.
The walk was rather quick, even though her pace was barely more than a stroll.
Once she arrived at the bridge, Mo noticed an ample cloud of fog drifting over the creek in the direction of the ocean.
She slowed to a stop halfway across, moving to lean on the railing and look down at the creek.
The creek was extremely clear, even through the mist. The water flowed quickly over beige and gray stones of all sizes, making slow splashing sounds.
It was the exact kind of sound she would expect in a meditation app or from a therapist’s white noise machine.
Just as Mo was beginning to get restless, she heard a quick double horn and turned to find the baby-blue Honda Fit she had seen the previous night.
The car’s window rolled down with a quick squeak, and Mo leaned over to see Aspen grinning wildly at her. “Hi. I knew you were going to come to breakfast. Hop in!”
“Uh…” Mo hesitated, looking toward the bar like she wasn’t on her way there anyway.
“Periwinkle doesn’t bite,” Aspen declared. “She is a perfectly fine car and very clean, I might add.”
Mo watched as Aspen leaned over to grab a plastic bag from the passenger seat and toss it quickly into the back. Her indecision with this woman was comical at this point, so Mo just got inside the car.
“Hell yeah,” Aspen squealed before checking her mirrors. “The bar is only right there, but I figured you could ride with me.”
The car smelled heavenly, a light mixture of lavender and cedar wood filling Mo’s senses.
She turned to look at Aspen, whose hair was thrown up into a messy bun, bottom lip pulled between her teeth as she turned into the parking lot.
She passed the post office rather hastily, coming to a rough stop in a spot right in front of the bar.
Aspen turned to her and gave her a huge smile, her shoulders and eyebrows shooting up with it. Mo couldn’t help but grin back.
“Do you like my air freshener?”
Mo looked up, finding a Camp Walden air freshener swaying slowly from her mirror. “You really like The Parent Trap.”
“Guilty.” Aspen threw her hands in the air before turning the car off and unsnapping her seat belt. “Come on, we’ve got breakfast to eat.”
“Okay,” was all Mo could muster, her brain flipping and flopping between being grumpy and enjoying the easy company Aspen was offering. Mo got out and looked around, shutting her door with a thump. “The parking lot is empty. Is this place open for breakfast?”
Aspen slammed her own door, using her key fob to lock the car before trotting up to the door and pulling a set of keys from her pocket. “It is for me. I asked Salvador last night.”
Mo watched as the shorter woman expertly unlocked the door and used her hip to make her way inside. She followed, her eyes adjusting as Aspen flipped on each light from behind a curtain near the door.
“I figured you were staying somewhere around here and didn’t really have the means or ingredients for a hearty breakfast, especially after the way you scarfed down that burger last night.”
“I did not ‘scarf,’” Mo complained, attempting to fight down another grin. “But you are kinda right. I don’t have any groceries.”
“See,” Aspen shot back playfully, walking briskly behind the bar toward the kitchen. She stopped abruptly at the door, pushing it open before turning her head toward Mo. “Come on back. I ain’t making breakfast alone.”
“What do you mean?” Mo asked, following her into a very clean, well-lit industrial kitchen.
“I can’t cook worth a shit,” Aspen explained, pulling open a large commercial refrigeration door and leaning inside. “Do you like eggs and bacon?”
“Yeah, actually,” Mo replied, looking around at the well-kept kitchen. “Though I’ve not had bacon in years.”
Mo walked toward the large griddle, holding her hand out over the top to see if it was on. The cold radiating off told her it wasn’t, but she was happy to see it scraped clean from the previous night.
“Vegetarian?” Aspen asked, appearing back beside Mo with a carton of eggs and pack of bacon. “Wait, you had a burger last night, duh. My brain doesn’t compute sometimes, ya know?”
“I do.” Mo snickered, looking at the multitude of knobs and switches.
“The griddle can be turned on with that black switch near your hand.”
Mo shrugged, flicking the switch on. “Do I need to adjust the temperature?”
“No, kitchen staff has all that locked and loaded. These things take no time to heat up. Are you down for some toast?”
“Sure.”
“White, rye, or burger bun?”
“White,” Mo decided.
“I’ll have a burger bun, I think,” Aspen said, pulling bags of both down from a wire rack. She then knowingly walked to a different area of the kitchen, pulling down a covered dish before coming back over to the prep counter Mo was now leaning against.
“Burger bun?”
“I love bread,” Aspen explained like it should make perfect sense, uncovering the dish of what Mo figured was butter.
She then grabbed an oversized kitchen knife off the magnetic holder and began buttering the bread with it.
Mo was beyond amused, watching as Aspen focused so hard on her task that her tongue was now slightly outside of her mouth, her forehead scrunched in concentration.
Aspen was beyond adorable, and it took everything in Mo not to tell her that.
“Interesting choice of knife.”
“A knife is a knife is a knife,” Aspen said joyfully, her focus turning to look at the griddle. “Is it hot yet?”
“No idea,” Mo responded, leaning forward to hover her hand over it again. There was definitely heat now, but she was unsure if it was fully up to cooking temp. “Is there a way to test it?”
“I don’t know, I’ve not cooked more than a bowl of cereal or a bag of popcorn.”
“Yet you’re cooking me breakfast?”
“No,” Aspen blurted out, turning to give Mo a sly wink. “I was hoping you would know how to cook.”
“What makes you think I know how to cook?” Mo asked incredulously, amused at Aspen’s confidence.
Aspen looked her up and down slowly, which caused a slight knot to form inside of Mo’s stomach. After she was done, Aspen used the knife to grab another pad of butter to spread on a piece of white bread. “You look like a domestic goddess to me.”
Mo couldn’t help but burst out in laughter. “You might need your eyes checked.”
Aspen looked back, meeting her gaze. “No, I think my eyes work fine.”