“What in thename of Cameron Diaz’s gorgeous smile is this road sign even saying?”
I pulled up slowly to a cockeyed sign on a crooked post, rolled down the window of my Beemer, and stared through the sideways snow at the hand-painted plank. Snow blew into my car and face, the intensity of the supposed snow showers now making it nearly impossible to even see five feet away. I was going to kill Leander, my father’s personal assistant, if I ever made it back to Pittsburgh. “The weather app says they’re only calling for snow showers along the Pennsylvania and New York border. It’ll be fine!” The liar. Leander was a liar. A skinny twink fibber who seriously needed a new fucking weather app. When I saw Leander next, I would punch him right on the chin. Then strangle him with the stupid Ravenclaw scarf he’d given me for the Secret Santa party yesterday. Ravenclaw. Please. It was obvious I was a Hufflepuff. I’d done a test on YouTube to find out. Leander was a prick.
My cell service had cut out several miles back, leaving me to creep along unpaved roads with no damn street signs trying to find the Happy Laurel Farm. I couldn’t imagine the mountain laurel was happy right now. It was probably buried under several feet of snow and wondering why it hadn’t been born a palm tree. I also was wondering the same thing as I sat in my car, cheeks coated with snow and ice, trying to decipher if the road on the right was actually named Mule Kick Run. Had I driven out of the real world and into an episode of The Andy Griffith Show? Was Barney Fife going to appear out of the snowy woods to run me in for some trumped-up charge like loitering on a county road with malicious intent? City slickers were always malicious in the eyes of the rural folk. Just ask Aunt Bea.
“Where the hell am I?!” I shouted into the whirling, white void.
Nothing but the howling wind replied. As the window rose with a soft hum, I eased off the brake and took the left onto Mule Kick Run Road. Somewhere in the frazzled recesses of my memory, I recalled something about a mule. Whether it was the name of a road or one of the animals on the home page of the Happy Laurel Farm website, I wasn’t sure. I’d given the webpage a quick scan before leaving Pittsburgh early this morning. The site was one of those freebie ones that this Acosta Melios had obviously set up by himself. Shots of the rambling hilly farm in all four seasons, interspersed with pictures of farm animals, greeted any visitors. Which were few and far between if the little ticker on the bottom of his webpage was accurate.
Snow blew into the windshield now instead of across it. Christ alive. This looked to be way more than a few snow squalls. The snow was steady now, not just a burst of white for five or ten minutes. It was piling up on the serpentine road quickly, making each mile more and more dangerous. The further I went up Mule Kick Run Road, the deeper the woodlands became. The trees were thick with snow, pine branches lying low to the ground, many on the road itself. I maneuvered around several low-hanging pine branches at about five miles per hour, my ears now straining to pick up the local radio station. It was country. That was all I could find up here in the boonies. Let’s just say I was not a fan of the worn jeans, pickup truck, cold beer, hot gal in Daisy Duke shorts world. I was more of a top-selling menswear designer, BMW sedan, Grey Goose on ice, sexy man in a power suit aficionado. Also, I really didn’t do animals.
I had nothing against them. They were just…messy. Mom never allowed animals into her home, and Dad was pretty much down with that. As a boy, I did have an interest in bugs and would collect insects in little plastic bug jars. I’d hide them in the closet because my older brother, Frank Jr., would smoosh them if he saw them. I never had my bug friends for long because the nanny would stumble across them and freak out, tell my mother, and I’d get in trouble for bringing insects into the mansion. It wasn’t as if Mom cleaned the house. What did she care if a few ladybugs were flitting around the solarium? Also, since I was having a mental rant, why the fuck wasn’t Frank Jr. out here doing this? He was the heir apparent. The one being groomed to take the reins of Fitzgerald & Sons Well Services when Dad stepped down in ten years. Shouldn’t he be the person out on road calls and interfacing with the public? Sure, I was nicer and more congenial, and far better looking…
I slid around a corner in the road to find that the road was blocked by downed lines. The brakes slowed me. Finally. I took a moment to let my heart settle. Now that had been scary.
Okay, Deck, it’s snowing out. You need to drive for conditions, buddy. And next time buy a car with fucking all-wheel drive. It does snow in Pittsburgh. Dork. No wonder Mom looks at you like you’re a bird that just flew into the window.
“Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?!” I shouted at the thick black cables lying on the snow-coated country lane. That was being generous. Country lane was something that you strolled down on a warm summer day, maybe with your best guy or gal—whatever floated your boat—at your side. A country lane was charming. This damn wintry roadway was a deathtrap waiting to happen. If you got stranded out here, the bears would eat you within a day. Probably coyotes too. The bears would open the car door—I’d seen them do that on YouTube videos—and feast on your innards while the coyotes had to make do with your fingers and toes.
Bears were bigger and got the good stuff. That was how nature worked. Might makes right. Kind of like my relationship with my older brother. Frank Jr. had been bigger and stronger for the first sixteen years of my life, so he got the best pickings while I got the leftovers. He got all the love from Mom and Dad as well as the CEO seat of the company. What did Decker get? Decker got sent out to sign up hillbillies while Frank Jr. got to vacation in France with the woman of the month. What was her name? Julia? Janet? Jewel? Something with a J. It didn’t pay to get to know them too well. He’d dump her within thirty days. But hey, that was okay by Dad. After all, Frank Jr. was at least being a user with women. Not like me, the queer child. I mean, really fuck all of that homophobic shit. I was just as good a boy as Frank Jr. maybe even better. Man. I meant man, not boy. As good a man. And a much better employee. It was my ass out here doing the dirty work.
Yeah, fuck you, Frank. And fuck your stupid mustache. You look like an ’80s porn star.
Sitting in the middle of the road, I checked my rearview. No one, it seemed, was as dumb as me. Guess the country folk had more sense than to be driving around aimlessly when it was snowing like hell. They’d probably shot enough deer during hunting season to feed them and their large brood of farm kids for the winter. That was really clever. Relying on grocery stores was stupid. When I got home—if the bears and coyotes didn’t make a meal out of me within the next few hours—I was going to take up hunting. Not sure what kind of big game animals one found prowling around PPG Arena, but I’d be willing to give it a go.
You’d need a gun to go hunting. You’re scared of guns. Remember? Dad and Frank Jr. took you to Kenya when you were ten for a big game hunt and you couldn’t bring yourself to shoot anything. You couldn’t even chuck rocks at the Guinea birds at the watering hole like Frank Jr. did when he got bored. Remember how Frank Jr. called you a pussy and your dad was so disappointed in you? Remember that?
“Yes, I remember. The water buffalo Frank Jr. shot still hangs in Dad’s home office,” I said with a sigh as I slipped the car into reverse. “Why does this country not bury its lines underground like Germany does?” I knew I should have stayed in Berlin with Franco after I graduated from Harvard Business School. Dad and Mom hated Franco. He was too much the anarchist for their conservative morals. I’d rather fancied his liberal views and bohemian lifestyle. But he’d grown weary of my waffling around on important issues about our relationship and finally gave me the boot.
Das Boot. That is a great film. We should watch that again if we don’t get mauled by bears.
I gave the surrounding woods a quick look. Sadly, the quick look was long enough to pull my attention from backing up. Snow was covering my backup camera, so that meant I had to do it the old-fashioned way. Since my backing up skills were not great, I kind of overcompensated. The rear tires left the road and my car slammed downward into a ditch. The nose was poking straight up into the air, the front tires spinning aimlessly.
“Oh fuck!” I yelped at the thud. My pulse skyrocketed. I gave her some gas, but nothing happened. I tried rocking back and forth. Nope. The car didn’t budge. I pushed the driver’s door opened, looked down, and saw that the ditch was at least three feet deep. Why? Why on God’s earth did a ditch need to be so fucking deep? Did a river run through it in the summer? Did the locals use the rushing snow melt in spring to power their milking parlors via waterwheels? Was that even possible? Oh fuck. I was spiraling. Knowing a panic attack was on the horizon, I fumbled with the radio. I cranked past several renditions of Randy Travis singing about pretty paper and Dolly Parton going on about hard candy on Christmas. I finally found a news channel or an hourly news break. It was four p.m. on the nose. Shit. It would be dark in less than an hour. Why did I live in a state that had night?!
“…Governor Mike Milligan has just declared a state of emergency across Pennsylvania because of the snowstorm now settling over the commonwealth. Snow accumulations of up to thirty inches are expected today and into tomorrow. Wet, heavy snow may impact power lines.” I gazed at the snapped cable down the road and mumbled, “No shit,” to myself as my stress levels rose. “All non-essential and non-emergency vehicles are warned to stay off the roads until the storm has passed. Stay tuned to 98.1, Kickin’ Country, for weather updates. Time to get back to the hits with ‘White Christmas’ from The Oak Ridge Boys.” A pig snort ended the news update. A. Pig. Snort. Then a yee-haw followed. Maybe death now wouldn’t be so bad after all.
My eyes grew teary. Great. Just great. This was it. I was going to die here along the road in some backwoods county with the Oak Ridge Boys being the last song I ever heard and only the bears would mourn me. In a fit of terror and rage, I beat on the horn like a madman, pounding the shit out of my wheel as I vented to the heavens. After I calmed down a bit, I came up with a plan. I would simply call for a tow truck.
Plan A failed due to a lack of cell service. This country really needed to get on the infrastructure stat. I’d have to send off a text to Bernie Sanders in Vermont. He’d get on it. Bernie was good that way. Pity I wasn’t in Vermont. I bet Bernie would ride out on a moose to save me. He seemed the sort.
Plan B involved calling the state police. That plan also went up in smoke as there was no cell tower or Wi-Fi anywhere nearby. Unless the bears that were now picking up my panicked scent had a Wi-Fi hotspot in their cave…
Plan C was to cry uncontrollably. Aha! This one succeeded.
Once the tears stopped, I took a small sip of my double chocolate latte that I’d grabbed just outside of The Burgh an eternity ago. When I was lying in the belly of a bear, my soul was going to go back to the city of bridges and haunt fucking Leander for the rest of his glitter boy life.
Plan D came to me after my drink was gone. Must have been the caffeine jolt. I would simply walk down the road, around the fallen lines, and find a farm. Farm folk were nice. Not all of them were mean to men with pretty mouths. They’d let me use their landline to call for help. Then, because they were kind and forgiving sorts, they’d give me fresh milk from a cow and a few cookies that the wifey had baked. All ten kids would stare at me in awe, and I’d tell them all about life in the big city. Yeah. That would work.
I flung the vehicle door open with renewed energy. Again, the caffeine rush, I was sure.
I sat there staring down at the ditch for several minutes, long enough for the snow to coat my head, shoulders, and the side pocket on the driver’s side door. It was cold out there. Like, bitter cold. And the snow had a bit of ice in it. With a slam, I closed the door, cried a little more, and then began tooting my horn after I did a food search. I found four Milky Way wrappers in the glove box, a container of tropical flavored breath mints, and half a chicken salad sandwich that I’d bought at a famous sandwich shop before I’d left the city.
I’d be fine for a few days. If I rationed the sandwich and Tic Tacs, I could probably survive for several days. Water would be no issue. I could eat snow. And if I left my car running on and off, I’d be warm enough. Maybe the Hufflepuff scarf in the back seat would come in handy. Fucking Leander. Had he known I’d be this close to death? Maybe so. He did like to claim that he spoke to the spirit of his dead great aunt at office parties. Although he was generally high when someone broke out the Ouija board, so who really knows if he spoke to his aunt or was just royally toked up? Thinking of ghosts made me jittery, so I turned on the radio and cranked an old Johnny Paycheck song up as loud as it could go, which was pretty damn loud. I’d paid extra for the best stereo system. I had to have music in my cars as I drove all over this stupid snowy state for my job. And my father.
I blew the horn again, just to ward off any bears that may be creeping in, and snuggled into my thick wool coat. After a few minutes, I reached back for the yellow and black scarf, then wrapped it around my neck. Hands under my arms, I tried not to freak out, but it was hard. I tooted the horn, whimpered, tooted, whimpered, tooted, began making out my will in my mind, tooted, and then whimpered a little bit more.
Yep. I was going to die here. Alone in the woods of Pennsylvania. Or was I now in New York state? God only knows. I could have driven over the border and not known it. There was no way of knowing. Snowy woods looked the same no matter where you were. I tooted, then scoured the forest. Ever vigilant. If I was going to be devoured by a bruin, I was going to see that bastard coming. Nothing was going to sneak up on Decker Allen Fitzgerald!
Someone—or something—rapped on my driver’s side window. I screamed, flailed, hit the horn, and nearly shat my pants, which would have been the absolute worst thing ever. They were brand new slacks and had cost a pretty penny. And they were worth every one of those pretty pennies because they made my ass look incredible.
It was then that I heard the sound of something running. Something like a large machine. I turned down the radio and peeked through the frosty glass to see a lean, handsome face staring in at me. The man was bundled up, a hood over a knitted cap, and a scarf around his neck. He tapped again. Then he smiled. Oh, oh my, he was really pretty. Snow clung to his long lashes that framed slate-gray eyes. It was adorable. And I was officially cheesy as a Hallmark holiday movie trailer.
I pushed the button down. “Oh thank God! My savior!” I nearly wept again. The sound of the tractor parked a few feet down the road entered the open window as did the smell of diesel fumes. “I’m stuck here in this gorge and bears are eyeballing me as we speak!”
“Bears are hibernating,” he corrected in a voice thick with an inland Northern Appalachian accent that sounded like the cherubs singing at the moment. “I’ll pull you out of the ditch and get your car back to the farm. ’Fraid you’ll have to ride out the storm with me. Township won’t risk plowing until the storm is done. School buses aren’t running now with the Christmas holiday starting.”
“Okay! Fine, fine, I’d love to ride out the storm with you.” His thin, dark eyebrows rose. Snowflakes were sticking to his eyelashes and brows. Gosh he was pretty. “I mean with someone. I thought I’d die here alongside the road.”
“Right. The bears.” I heard a small amount of amusement in his tone. Was he laughing at me? Probably. Rural folks always chuckled at us city boys when we were blathering.
“Okay then. Let’s get you out of that car.” He straddled the gulley expertly. I unbuckled my seatbelt, gazed into his slate-gray eyes, and sort of tumbled out of the car into his arms. In my defense, it had been a harrowing day. For a lean man, he was quite strong. Not that I weighed a lot, but I did work out and was quite solid and compact. He grunted in surprise, smoky eyes widening as he jostled my weight around. “Careful now, get your feet…no, you need to push yourself upward. Yep, there you go.”
I stood on the road, solid ground beneath me, feeling much better about my chances of surviving this mess. Snow whipped around us as my rescuer heaved himself out of the ditch, then gave me a smile. It was a lovely smile that made his gray eyes glow like finely polished agate. A big, orange tractor set a few feet away, lights blinking, the front carrying a small snowplow.
“The lines are down,” I shouted to be heard over the increasing wind and the noisy muffler on the tractor. Did tractors even have a muffler? Who knew?
“Yep, that happens a lot. Electric company doesn’t maintain the trees as they should.” He ambled past me, his dark brown coveralls grease-stained, and the matching coat sporting patches on both elbows. Long brown hair hung over his collar, the snow wetting the strands exposed to the winter weather. I followed along in his wake simply because I had nothing else to do.
“How will you get my car out? It’s a BMW, so it’s not used to being manhandled. Will you be gentle?” I asked as he dug around behind the torn seat of the tractor for something.
“I’ll treat her as if she were your baby sister,” he tossed over his shoulder, his words blowing down the road on a gust right off an iceberg. Flakes danced and spun, making it hard to see even a few feet. He yanked a long, thick chain free and then gave me a look. “You stay back here out of the way until we have her up out of the ditch. Then you can follow me. I’ll plow a path to the farm. Is that four-wheel drive?”
I shook my head. His mouth flattened a bit. “No, I don’t generally hit the road during such terrible weather. My father insisted I come out to talk to this farmer who’s holding up what will be an incredibly lucrative natural gas well, all over a few pigs and a cross-eyed chicken. I always thought people just ate unwanted farm animals. Who spends good money on a blind horse or a pig with digestive issues? Can’t they just be dog food or bacon?”
The softness left his gaze, his gray eyes turning cold as the wintry sky above. “Tell me you’re from Fitzgerald & Sons Well Services.”
I blinked, the snow now blowing into my face. “I am yes. Decker Fitzgerald, head of contracts and negotiations for Fitzgerald & Sons Well Services, at your service. And you are?”
“Jesus wept,” he grumbled, ignoring my offered hand to stalk past me with his twenty or so feet of chain that could have pulled an elephant through the woods.
My brain was chilled. That had to be the reason that I was so slow on the uptake. Usually, I’m the quickest of the Fitzgerald boys. Frank Jr. was slow as molasses in January when it came to deducing things that didn’t involve women, cigars, booze, and Formula One race cars. And even those things weren’t figured out at lightning speed.
And still, Dad chose him to take over the company. Not the son with a degree in business negotiations and acquisitions. Oh no, not him. He’s a little limp in the wrist, you know.
Bitter as kale, aren’t we, Decker?
“Uhm, are you Mr. Acosta Melios, the owner of Happy Laurel Farm?” I asked at the top of my voice.
He slid the thick hook into the frame of my car, turned, frowned at me, and nodded.
Well poop.
Rheland Richmond
