The VIP Room

Panic, a Snowstorm and a New Job

The snowstorm hit about an hour from the cabin.

She knew it was coming, and even if there had been no storm the lake effect snow lancing across 61 north of Caronville always made the drive either an adventure or a nightmare.

A piercing, nearly unbearable sound came from the passenger side of Lauren’s car.

It was an obvious side effect of getting sideswiped, parked while she was sleeping Wednesday night, loose fiberglass twisting and creating the world’s most annoying whistle.

She thought about pulling over to see if she could yank it off, but it was too cold, too dangerous.

Lauren fumbled for her earbuds, sitting next to a greasy burger bag on the passenger seat, couldn’t reach, started drifting, a car in the next lane honked and leaned on it.

“Fuck you,” Lauren mumbled, but realized the car horn drowned out the whistling sound.

Her brother usually winterized the family cabin, and her mom had assumed he had, but Chuck had gotten a new girlfriend with a timeshare in Boca Raton and neglected to do so.

Lauren’s mom called Lauren in a panic.

“The pipes are probably frozen and Chuck probably left the door open and there are probably bears eating peanut butter and my favorite swimsuit.

After her mom’s panicked voice left her head, the cochlea grinding sound of the broken car kicked its way in again.

Lauren shifted in her seat, her right ass cheek going numb from all the money she had brought with her, $6700, mostly in twenties. She just couldn’t leave cash in her apartment and didn’t think about it until after the bank closed. She wasn’t about to feed that much into an ATM after dark, so here she was, headed north in zero visibility with a numb ass cheek and a car that wouldn’t stop screeching.

Mickey had done some screeching when she quit dancing.

She looked at the tiny snowflakes hitting the windshield and thought of the spittle that formed on his lips when he tried to talk her out of it.

But she was done.

“Just cocktail,” Mickey told her, but she knew she’d be the first one he begged to go up when a girl called in or left early.

She turned away from his spittly lips and his too-heavy gas station designer cologne knockoffs Starmani! Smells just like Armani!

“If you’re desperate-I mean utterly desperate, I’ll come in on short notice and cocktail or shot. No outfits, no stage, no VIP.”

She regretted even offering that before she left the parking lot that night, regretted it worse when Mickey texted her three times a day since then, and never mentioned cocktailing. Always dancing. The way he phrased the requests it was almost like he personally missed seeing her tits. 

Lauren hadn’t responded even though she knew Mickey knew she saw the texts.

She would respond to her mom’s panic, but not to Mickey’s, or any other guy she could think of.

Daydreaming, she pulled off the gravel lane at the cabin almost too late and slid diagonally, just missing the custom mailbox, a beaver that said “The Lenhardts”.

Her mom loved beavers, hated bears. They had never seen a beaver on their property, and only one bear on a trail camera mounted on the back fence. Lots of deer, tons of raccoons, some foxes.

She parked the car where it stopped skidding, a bit far from the door in cold and snow, but she was thrilled that the whistling had stopped.

Lauren kicked through a snowdrift in front of the door-all the shovels were obviously in the cabin- and unlocked the door. Chuck hadn’t left it open.No bears

She would have to email her mom to tell her because phone service was spotty. You could get it great at the road-the Austen’s farm had some kind of signal booster- but the snow was coming down way too hard to justify it.

She immediately turned on the kitchen sink. Water ran freely. Chuck had left the thermostat at a balmy temp. Cost her mom some money, but saved the pipes.

Lauren looked at her phone.

No signal.

Scary in a horror movie, thrilling that Mickey couldn’t get through to bug her.

She opened the fridge.

Two packs of hotdogs, unexpired, some condiments, some Vernors, an unopened bottle of pharmacy quality pinot grigio.

She looked out the window at her car, still illuminated by the motion sensor light. 

The damage was worse than she thought, or the five-hour trip had made it worse.

She thought of Kenny Fangburn offering to fix it “for barter, if ya know what I mean huh huh huh,” that guttural laugh like someone sinking bricks in pudding.

She turned on the bathroom light.

The shower curtain was pulled into a corner and Lauren was grateful to Chuck or his new girl for that. The thought of someone hiding in the shower was one thing that did freak her out.

There was a full roll of toilet paper on the holder and a backup on the cheap wall-mounted plastic caddy that sat right next to an antique wicker thing full of beaver and squirrel figurines.

Her mom’s reading glasses were on the toilet tank.

Lauren laughed. Her mom’s superpower was losing reading glasses.

Lauren picked them up to take them home to her mom so she would have another backup pair in case of her thrice daily emergency of losing her reading glasses.

She peered through the lenses, picked up a bottle of pain killers off the caddy and read the label.

Lauren shut her eyes and reopened them

The reading glasses helped.

Guess it really was time to retire from dancing, old lady.

Her mom’s rotary phones, maroon, white and blue sat on the top of the bookshelf.

Underneath was a row of her mom’s favorites: Nora Ephron, Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Dunn.

Lauren went into the master bedroom hoping Chuck and Donna?… Donita?... Dawn? had used the loft bed.

The bed in the master bedroom was fully made, a royal blue comforter instead of her mom’s Beatrix Potter thing.

Her mom’s prized antique sewing machines were on the lake side wall.

On a small antique but unrestored table was her mom’s antique typewriter.

Next to it was a very modern and unopened pack of printer paper.

Lauren started to flop into the chair in front of the typewriter and stopped when she saw something on the cushion.

Another pair of her mom’s reading glasses. She would have mangled them.

She placed the glasses next to the typewriter and sat.

Lauren had never typed on anything but a computer.

She ripped open the paper and within seconds figured out how to feed the paper into the matte black antique.

Looking at the paper and not the keys she randomly pecked a letter.

I.

The caps lock was on.

Lauren typed an apostrophe and an m.

I’m.

Then she typed her stage name, hearing it in the flanged voices of the dozens of dj’s who had called her on and off the stage with it.

Luscious

Then she typed a comma, and the word But

Then Only 

Then After

Then Dark.

She hadn’t even taken off her coat.

Lauren sprinted out to the road.

No headlights.

She crossed over to the side of Austen’s farm and got a signal.

Texted her mom.

Made it safe. No bears, no frozen pipes.Love you. Gonna stay here a few weeks.

Lauren ran through the snow, almost blinding now, and back into the cabin.

She grabbed the cheap bottle of pinot and twisted off the top.

She sat down at the typewriter, put on her mom’s glasses and her first thought was that her fingers didn’t need stilettos to dance.

***

Photo Courtesy of Getty Images