Page 91 of Falling Slowly
She let out an audible sigh, lighting her cigarette. “You picked the worst time of year. You won’t find anything. And you look like you’re used to something a bit nicer?” She glanced at my latest model electric Porsche, a gleam in her eyes.
I sensed a glimmer of hope.
“You’re right. If I have to, I’ll sleep in my car. But it’s not that comfortable, so if there’s anything even slightly better, I’ll make it worth your while.”
I might as well have said ‘please rip me off’.
“Let me make a call.” She put out her cigarette, saving the rest of it, and stepped back inside.
I waited. After a couple of minutes, she reappeared with a piece of paper. “Go to this address. It’s my son’s house. He has accommodation at the back of his property. It’s not conventional, or strictly legal, but it works. There’s heating, but no running water. It used to be on Airbnb, but some idiots complained, and they took down his listing.” She coughed for a while as if purging her body of the horrors of Airbnb.
“Perfect!” I feigned excitement. I could already tell this wouldn’t be perfect.
The address was only a two-minute drive away, but down a windy dirt road that seemed to get narrower at every turn. When I reached the mailbox, I paused for a moment. Would sleeping in my car be that bad? It was the sport model, so not that spacious, but if I laid down the back seat, there might be enough room. No, there wasn’t. Unless I wanted to sleep with my feet hanging outthe window. And the nights were freezing. I already knew that much.
I parked in the driveway and stepped out, filling my lungs with that chilly night air. An outdoor light flicked on and a lithe man in his fifties descended the steps of an old villa. “You must be the Porsche man?” He said brusquely, sticking out his hand.
“Charlie Wilde.”
“Hank…” He started, then decided against adding his last name.
This was going well.
“Your mother said you have a… room to rent for a couple of nights?”
“Not a room. More like a… you’ll see.” He pivoted on his wool slippers, motioning for me to follow. “Five hundred a night. Non-negotiable.”
“Sure,” I said, mentally counting how much cash I had in my wallet. Five hundred might have been pushing it. “I can pay for one night in cash, get you more tomorrow.”
“Okay, fine.”
He led us around his house into a backyard that backed into the forest. A floodlight on his back porch illuminated the row of trees. A rope ladder caught my eye. As my gaze followed it up the trunk of a sturdy maple, I saw a small door. “Is that a treehouse?”
“It’s a luxury treehouse. Glamping.”
Oh, dear.
“Go on, see for yourself. It hasn’t been cleaned recently so some dust may have settled, but it’s perfectly livable and romantic, I’ve been told.”
I set my foot on the first rung of the ladder, wondering if the guy was going to shoot me in the neck and use my skin for binding rare books in his basement. The ladder stretched lower and creaked under my weight, but it held. I climbed to the doorand pushed my way in, landing in the low-ceilinged crawling space on all fours. It was exactly as cold inside as it was outside, which didn’t surprise me. I saw the exposed wiring coming up the exterior wall, connecting to a switch. Definitely not legal, I thought, flicking on the light.
There was a bed with sheets on it. It looked unused. Everything else looked well-worn and recycled, from the shelves full of comic books to chipped cups hanging on hooks and a rusty microwave tucked into a corner. I turned around, calling down from the doorway: “Your mom said there’s heating?”
“There’s a space heater on the other side of the bed.”
If I turned it on, I’d risk burning in a fire; If I didn’t, I’d risk hypothermia. I might have been safer on the ground, in my hammock. Was it worth driving back to that ranch to pick it up? It was dark. I was bone tired. Would I even remember the way?
I climbed down the ladder. “Who did the electrical wiring? It doesn’t look kosher.”
“I did,” he said defensively. “Anyway, it’s a small space. Heats quickly and keeps the heat for a while, so you can turn off the heater if you’re too worried.”
“Alright,” I said. “I’ll take it.”
I could always sneak Bess in here to see if she thought it was romantic. I wanted to share this ridiculousness with her. I wanted to share everything with her. But my stupid lies had brought me here, and I was currently enjoying the consequences of my actions. This treehouse would be my punishment. I could only hope the culmination of that punishment was the discomfort of repeatedly hitting my head on the ceiling, not death by fire.
I paid the man and went to my car to get my things, heaving my overnight bag up the ladder. Once I’d made it inside, I investigated the heater. It seemed relatively new—safer than themicrowave—and turned on without an issue. The room, or half-a-room, heated in minutes, and I relaxed my muscles.
I waited until the room was toasty warm before turning off the heater and crawling under the blankets. AS I settled in, my phone pinged.
