I looked around at this group, some old friends, some new. Everyone was laughing and talking, bundling up for the hike. I watched as Archie showed Leo and Oscar on the big map where Skytop was, and what hike we’d be taking tonight. Chad and Roxie had their heads together, while Logan helped Natalie re-lace her inappropriate boots. All the while the fire crackled merrily, enclosing us all in a cozy little vignette.
I stood off to the side, taking it all in. This was what it was like. Friends. Family. Together.
I felt a strange pull in my stomach, like my very center of gravity was being tugged and rearranged. I shook my head to clear it, just as one of the guys from recreation came in to introduce our evening’s guide to a Night of Stars.
“You ready?” Archie asked, coming over and tugging lightly on the end of my furry cap.
I pulled it down tightly. “Mm-hmm. Let’s get out of here.”
“So have you ever given any thought to lecturing about what you’ve done with Maxwell Farms?” Archie asked Leo as we hiked up to Skytop.
“I do it all the time, actually,” Leo answered. “Not as much during the summer when we’re at our busiest, but during the winter I go around New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, talking about what we do. Sometimes I go to high schools, but a lot of time a learning annex or community college, garden clubs, pretty much anyone who’s interested in how to grow and eat sustainably.”
“I’d love to have you maybe do a series here, we’ve got a great lecture space up on the second floor. Would you be interested in that? I’m sure our guests would be.”
“Of course, sure! That’d be great,” Leo agreed, clapping Archie on the back.
“Maybe Roxie could teach a Zombie class sometime, pickling or canning?” I offered, winking at my friend.
“Oh my gosh, yes! I’d love to!” she squealed. “There was a super-popular class when I lived in Los Angeles on exactly that, you’d be surprised how many people would love to know more about how to do things like that.”
“Well, why stop there,” Archie said, rubbing his chin as he thought. “What if we made a kind of learning annex up here at the resort, not just for guests but for people in town and all over the Hudson Valley? We could include things like home gardening, I’m sure our landscaping team would love the chance to get out of their greenhouses a bit. And Oscar, what do you think, feel like teaching a cheese-making class?”
Oscar looked at Archie with a raised eyebrow. “I’m not so great in front of a classroom.”
“Of course, sure, whatever,” Archie acquiesced.
“Of course he will,” Natalie replied from her perch on Oscar’s back, her boots giving out ten minutes into the hike. “I can be the gorgeous mouthpiece in the front of the classroom, you just grunt and point and I’ll interpret.”
“You know who you should get,” Chad interjected, piping up from the back of our group. “Remember Hazel, who runs the flower shop on Elm?”
“I’ve known Hazel since I was three.” Archie laughed. “She used to always pin a carnation on my lapel when I was in town.”
“Me too! She’d be great, I bet she’d love to teach a floral arrangement class. Oh man, one Sunday at church she pinned a chrysanthemum that was so heavy on my jacket I almost fell over.”
“That’s Hazel.” Archie laughed again, and so did everyone else.
I didn’t know Hazel. In fact, I’d never heard of Hazel. I listened to the group laugh and tell stories about this woman who half of them had grown up with, and the other half now knew from living in town, and I began to feel that pang again, that hollowness just under my breastbone.
There’d be a learning annex at Bryant Mountain House. A freaking genius idea. Spearheaded by Archie, taught by Roxie and Leo and Oscar and Natalie, attended and contributed to by Chad and Logan. This is a plan that’d come together over countless lunches and dinners, cocktails and porch swings, and would premiere to the town and the resort with a great chance for success and would likely continue on as one of the centerpieces of the new Bryant Mountain House.
After I left Bryant Mountain House.
After I left this group of friends, this group whose lives would go on without me, undoubtedly missing me in the case of Roxie and Natalie, and maybe Archie, but still, I was the one piece that could be dropped in and pulled back out without disturbing the group as a whole, as a thing, as a unit.
There was an entire ecosystem of Bailey Falls that had existed before I arrived and would remain long after I left. I’d be off on another job, another project, another hotel room with empty suitcases in the corner and a rental car in the parking lot and room service eaten at a coffee table while I scratched out another master plan on a stack of legal pads while an infomercial for Time Life’s Classic Soft Rock filled my ears with the sounds of Jim Croce and Linda Ronstadt and made sure that while that TV was on and giving my brain the static it needed to function, I wouldn’t be thinking about this group, this thing, this unit, this family in Bailey Falls.
I rubbed my chest. A few paces ahead I heard the astronomer talking about the meteor shower and where to look to make sure we didn’t miss it. I surged ahead, leaving my group and joining him to listen. I needed the static.
“You tired?”
“A little, you?” I asked, leaning against the main banister in the lobby. We’d packed up the crazy people and sent them back into town. It had been a fun night, and the great news was everyone was ready to book their resident weekend. And come back for Easter.
Archie’d invited everyone so easily, like they were his friends. Which I suppose they were. But tonight, everyone had blended together nicely. It all seemed very natural, like we’d been friends for years. All happy, all coupled up. Except that wasn’t the case. Not with Archie and me. Right?
“Not too tired?”
“Why?”
He smiled. “Come with me, I want to show you something.”
“Do I still need my mittens?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Definitely,” he replied, and started going up the staircase.
“We’re not going back outside?” I asked, confused.
“Stop asking questions,” he said over his shoulder, and I had no choice but to follow him. Up six flights of stairs. And down three hallways. Around several corners. All the way to the end of the line, the very edge of the east wing.
Past a broom closet and almost hidden behind an armoire, a heavy six-paneled door stood with a thick-looking lock.
“Is this where you keep the guests who couldn’t pay?” I whispered, peeking under his shoulder.
“They check in, but they never check out,” he replied, in his best Vincent Price voice.
“For the record, that’s creepy as fuck.”
“So is this,” he said, twisting the old metal key so the door swung open.
Darkness beckoned, and through the gloom I could just make out a narrow, steep staircase. “I mean, come on.”
“Scared?”
“I’m not stupid. Staircases like that are never meant to be climbed unless there’s a guy running behind you with an ax.”
“I can see if Walter from maintenance is available.”