Perfect Storm, part 1

EVELYN

Evelyn’s planning had been impeccable. 

She’d checked her itinerary over and over again before even stepping foot in her car. She’d changed the oil, rotated her tires, and had a full tank of gas before she left. She’d checked and double checked the contents of her luggage, triple checked her hotel reservation, and quadruple checked the route she was taking to get there. Everything had been perfect.

For a little while, anyway. Then it started to rain. Like, really rain.

A freak storm, they’d called it. Her phone had buzzed the whole way up with flash flood warnings. She hadn’t accounted for a storm. At best it would slow down her trip considerably. At worst…

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” she cursed up a storm of her own, pulling her Honda onto the shoulder as the rain pelts her windshield. Her car rolled under a nearby overpass, and finally, she could see worth a damn. She couldn’t drive in this weather. It was coming down like never before. This ruined everything. Her perfect itinerary, right out the window. There was no way she’d make it to her hotel before midnight in this weather, and driving that far would be dangerous, besides.

She whipped open her binder and started sifting through information. Something, anything, that could salvage her trip. At 24, Evelyn was finally out of school and on her own. But being on her own meant always needing to do everything herself. It was exhausting always needing to quell her anxiety, always needing to have ten answers to every question, to have everything planned out perfectly.

Thankfully, she was in luck. Before she’d settled on her current hotel reservation, she had planned a different route, one that would take her to an airbnb in Wisconsin—not far from where she was now. She looked up the information online and saw that it was still available.

It wasn’t ideal. Maybe she could get a refund on her first night at the hotel in Chicago where she was supposed to stay, but either way she’d have to leave pretty early in the morning if she wanted to make it to her friend’s wedding rehearsal on time. Evelyn hated when plans changed. She’d worked it all out perfectly. Now it was chaos.

“I don’t have much choice, do I?” She said to herself, booking the airbnb. Despite everything, she was thankful; the house was close by, and she’d done enough planning ahead of time to know that she’d have just enough time to drive the rest of the way in the morning. All she had to do was make it the rest of the way to the Wisconsin Dells in the pouring rain. She turned off her hazard lights and squared her shoulders, getting ready to drive in the tumultuous storm once more. Hands at ten and two, no music to distract her. 

It was a grueling drive. She found herself trailing behind a truck just to use its tail lights for guidance, since she could barely see the lines on the road through all the rain. It was slow going and monotonous. Eventually—finally—she started seeing signs for the Wis Dells, and lights on her left. An enormous water park and adjoining hotel dominated the north side of the highway, a sign that she was almost there. This area was littered with airbnbs thanks to all the nearby resorts. It wasn’t her kind of getaway, but she was happy to take advantage of it.

She exited the highway and followed her meticulous directions to the airbnb she’d just booked. Again, she thanked her lucky stars that it had still been available—if she were forced to stay at one of these huge resort hotels, it would have been three times the price. As soon as she left the highway, Wisconsin went back to being mostly woods peppered with the occasional cabin. This one was particularly isolated, separated from the main road by a dirt trail that led deep into rainy darkness.

Evelyn thought highway driving in this weather was bad, but this was particularly harrowing. Honda Accords were not well equipped for muddy trails. She suddenly wished she’d picked up an SUV or something. A decision like that had taken weeks of budgeting, price comparisons, feature optimization, the works. She was pretty sure she knew more about all the cars she’d looked at than most of the people at the dealership. That was how things always were with Evelyn. Even a simple decision like what to eat for lunch often took thirty minutes of comparison and deliberation.

Finally, the mud trail widened into a makeshift driveway for the cabin. At first, she could only barely make out its shape in the darkness, but then the trees parted and she spotted…lights. The first floor lights were on, and another car sat in the driveway, pelted by rain; a black, blocky Jeep absolutely lousy with rainbow stickers: “BE GAY, DO CRIME”; “LIVE, LAUGH, EAT THE RICH”; “LOVE IS GREATER THAN HATE”; “I’M SO GAY I CAN’T EVEN DRIVE STRAIGHT”; “MY BROTHER IN CHRIST, I AM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU TO LET ME MERGE”; “PROTECT TRANS KIDS”; and “HONK IF YOU’RE GAY”; as if that all wasn’t enough of a picture.

Evelyn pulled up next to the Jeep and eyed it curiously. Must be one of the owners. Her reservation said the place was fully available. But something tore at her insides. Why were the lights all on? Was somebody home? Did she make a mistake coming here?

Only one way to find out, she supposed. It was too late to back out now, and the rain was only getting worse, besides. She grabbed an umbrella from her backseat and made an awkward attempt at exiting her car without getting drenched. Ultimately, it was a lost cause. The torrent of rain was just too much. She rushed to grab her luggage out of the trunk and hoped her sweatshirt would block most of the rain. It instead only served to absorb it all. By the time she reached the front door, she was already a total mess. Her curly blonde hair had become a frizzled nightmare in the humidity, and she was soaked to the bone from top to bottom despite her umbrella. She looked underneath the doormat for the key, where the reservation said it would be, but there was nothing there. Now she found herself suddenly hoping one of the owners was home. Without much of a choice left, she knocked.

She heard stomping and saw a shape moving towards the front door through the blinds. Part of her was thankful that they were home after all; she’d be able to get out of this rain and finally relax. The other part of her was screaming: why was there somebody home? Shouldn’t she have the place to herself? The last thing she wanted was to be turned away because there was a problem with the reservation.

The door swung open and revealed a tall woman, nearly a foot taller than Evelyn’s 5’2”. She wore a black tanktop and no bra, nipples poking through the soft fabric of her shirt in the cold.  Her arms were covered in tattoos of crawling vines, flowers, and clouds, like a vertical panorama of a scenic jungle. A serpent wound its way up one of the two arms as if it were a tree trunk, and damn, now that she was looking, those arms had some well-defined muscles to them, too.

She shook her head to keep from staring and glanced up at the woman’s face. She looked just as confused as Evelyn did. Her dark brown hair was pulled into a high ponytail, bangs covering her forehead and framing her cheeks. Evelyn’s eyes were drawn to a small, dark beauty mark just above the left side of the woman’s lips. 

“Uhh…can I help you?” the woman said, a single eyebrow raised. She had a beautifully husky voice, the kind that made Evelyn’s insides squirm a little. 

Evelyn opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again, not knowing what to say. What the hell are you doing here was the first thing that came to mind. She thought of several friendlier alternatives, but ultimately, she wound up stumbling over her words for an embarrassing amount of time, until finally, she settled on something close to option one. “I, uhh…what are you…are you the owner?”

“No, I’m not. And who the hell might you be?”

Rude. Evelyn furrowed her brow and scowled at the woman. “That’s my question. I’m supposed to have the place to myself.”

The woman shook her head. “No, you’re not.”

A bit of rain dribbled down onto Evelyn’s forehead. “Look, can I come in and we can figure this out inside?”

“Fine, fine, let’s get you inside and out of the rain,” the woman said, ushering Evelyn inside. “God, you’re drenched. Here, let me get you a towel or something.” She ran out of the room and returned several moments later with a towel, hurling it at Evelyn carelessly. Her hands being full, the towel simply draped itself over Evelyn’s head and chest.

“Gee, thanks.” She pulled off the towel, closed her umbrella, and leaned it up against the door. Then she took off her coat and hung it on the nearby coat rack and began to towel herself dry. The other woman sprawled herself on the enormous L-shaped couch that carved the room in half, muting the TV which was set to some youtube channel Evelyn didn’t recognize. “So…if you don’t live here, who are you?”

“Name’s Josie,” she said, staring at Evelyn with a grimace. “And I’m supposed to have this place rented out for the weekend.”

---

JO

A cute girl arriving at her door would normally be cause for a celebration. But this wasn’t actually Jo’s door, and she had a bad feeling that this was going to be more trouble than it was worth. 

“Well, shit,” the girl said. “I’m Evelyn. I just rented the place out. Also. Somehow.”

“You’ve gotta be fuckin kidding me,” Jo replied. This was supposed to be alone time for her. Time for her to get some writing done without the usual hustle and bustle in Madison distracting her. “How were you able to book the place? It’s already booked!”

Evelyn let go of her luggage and threw up her hands, frustrated. “I don’t know! It’s not like this is where I wanted to be anyway!”

“So go somewhere else!” Jo yelled. “This place isn’t exactly big enough for two people!”

Evelyn looked around and took the room in. Josie had gotten here a few hours ago and already taken over the living room. Her laptop was open on the table next to the couch, sporting only a few pages of writing. The coffee table in front of the couch was littered with a variety of snacks—chips, popcorn and the like. It was a bad habit, but snacking always got Josie in a writing mood for some reason.

The cabin only had one bedroom, and Jo had claimed it entirely for herself. Hell, she’d already taken a nap or two on the bed earlier, and her clothes were strewn all over the place. Why not? She was supposed to have had the whole place to herself for the entire weekend. She was right about the size of the place, too. It really wasn’t big enough for two people who were complete strangers. Two friends, maybe. Friends who didn’t mind sharing a bed or snuggling up on a couch together.

“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s crazy out there,” Evelyn replied, raising her voice to match Jo’s. “Besides, I technically did just pay for this place. It’s not my fault the owners fucked up and double booked us.”

“I’ve been here for hours,” Jo whined, crossing her arms over her chest.

“This isn’t finders keepers,” Evelyn replied. “Look, I just need the place for the night. I’ll be out of your hair first thing tomorrow morning. Are you really going to make me go back out there in that storm and look for another place? I could get into a serious accident or something. It’s a miracle I made it here in one piece.”

Jo rolled her eyes. This girl was stubborn. Stubborn and cute, with eyes like the sea and pale, freckled skin. The absolute worst kind of stubborn. “Fine, fine!” she relented. “You can stay for the night. I’ll contact the owners and let them know the posting is still up so we don’t get a third or some shit.” She whipped out her phone and did just that, writing the owners an e-mail letting them know the situation while Evelyn moved her luggage over to the side of the couch.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ll take the couch and you can keep the bed.”

“Actually, I sleep just fine on couches,” Jo said, still rattling off a quick e-mail on her phone. She slept in a studio above the theater where she worked, a tiny 450 square foot shithole that barely even had room enough for her couch, let alone a bed. So that’s where she slept most nights—the nights she wasn’t crashing at somebody else’s place, anyway. “I’m used to it.”

Evelyn’s face scrunched up with concern. “Are you sure? Like you said, you got here first—”

“Just take the damn bed,” Jo barked. She was frustrated. This whole event had already killed her flow, and she was supposed to be halfway done with this script already. It wasn’t fair. Why did this have to happen to her?

Jo fired off her e-mail and made believe she was still on her phone while sneaking glances up at the blonde the entire time. Why did Evelyn have to be so goddamn cute? Her hair was all dirty blonde curls that begged to be twirled around her fingers, and she wore a pair of round, thick-rimmed glasses that were still foggy from the rain. Had this been a planned date, Jo would happily throw her entire laptop out the window to spend a night with a girl like Evelyn. But she paid good money for this place, and she really needed to get this script finished by the end of the weekend. “No distractions” had quickly turned into “the perfect distraction.”

“Look, I know this isn’t ideal,” Evelyn said, breaking the awkward silence, “but let’s try to make the best of it, okay? If you need peace and quiet I’ll just sit on the other side of the couch and get some work of my own done while you do whatever.”

There was a long pause. Jo sighed. “Writing,” she said.

“Hmm?” The blonde glanced over at her with a confused expression.

“I’m trying to write a script. For a play.”

“Ah…well I am just killing time until this storm goes away, so like I said, I’ll just—”

All of a sudden, there was a blinding flash of light, and the loudest crack of thunder Jo had ever heard rattled through the building. The cabin shook to its foundations. She swore the whole thing felt like it was about to collapse. That’s when the lights went out. The TV, too. Her laptop immediately switched to emergency power saver mode.

“Ah, fuuuck,” Jo drawled. Looks like she wasn’t going to get that much writing done tonight after all.

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Next Chapter!