8 / mrs. parker
It's surprising to her that they seem to meet everything on the proprietor's list of requirements. Beyond the background check that takes a day but mysteriously goes through without a hitch, she's certain Kai's smile is the thing that gets him what he wants. It just won them shelter. Bonnie knows she isn't much help. Her reticence lately overpowers her usual charm, and the proprietor's wife, Charmaine, seems positively taken with her formerly sociopathic "husband."
The proprietor, Buck, leads them in his truck for almost an hour to the site, an isolated number of acres laden with late winter snow and deeply wooded with maple trees. They've learned the couple normally spends their spring days here working while their other family members run the general store they own, but a storm of circumstances has led to their needing outside help. Charmaine just had knee surgery, Buck needs to care for her, and their grown children just moved out of state. This is the first time they're recruiting strangers to take part in the family business. Though it's only for the spring, Kai notes in the car while it's just the two of them that Buck seems hesitant to trust them.
"Buncha paranoid lumberjacks," he gripes.
"Well let's not give him a reason to regret trusting us," Bonnie says, more to remind Kai than anything else.
"You have your ring on?" he asks, craning his neck to get a look at her left hand on the steering wheel. She flashes him the ugly plastic diamond, greener than the Hulk. The way he seems to relish the look of it on her is sickening and creates this rising feeling in her chest. She isn't sure whether it's her gag reflex or some odd kind of gushing related less to him than to the idea of wearing a real wedding ring someday. She misses feeling loved but pushes away thoughts of Jeremy. That love is over now. She's open to the reality that another will come.
"I think this is it," she says as Buck's truck up ahead slows down.
They park between two tiny structures. One is slightly larger, an A-frame cabin with some frosted windows. She studies its simplicity, not quite as quaint as she imagined. As they climb out of the car to meet Buck in the driveway, a recognizable smell makes her smile, despite herself. It smells like camping, she realizes. She can smell the fires of neighbors miles away, and the crisp cold. It may snow overnight.
"Beautiful drive," Kai says, filling in an awkward gap of silence. Some of her social training kicking in.
"It's a ways out for sure," Buck says. "Hope that's alright."
"I like the distance," Bonnie confirms, hearing the absence of traffic, of hotel neighbors shouting at each other just beyond the wall, the unpredictable bangs and knocks that come with living in a world full of people. She catches Kai's eye briefly and knows that he knows what she is thinking.
Their footsteps crunch on dirt and snow and scattered sticks.
"That there's the residential," says Buck, pointing at the cabin. "It has a kind of kitchenette and everything you need in there to cook and what not, full bath, no bedrooms per se but there's a loft and bunkbeds up there, and a, uh, wood-burning stove. Should keep the place warm. But you'll need to chop your own firewood."
Buck walks toward the smaller structure and, perhaps suddenly feeling their mutual cluelessness, Bonnie and Kai exchange a glance before they follow.
"Did he say no bedrooms?" she whispers, but Kai doesn't justify her princess attitude with even a smirk. Nervously she curls her hand into a fist and thumbs the sharp gem on her ring. It's too big. Maybe she'll manage to lose it in the snow sometime soon.
"This one's the sugar shack," Buck says with much pride.
He introduces them to the machinery, using some lingo they'll have to pick up on before he catches on to their utter inexperience. Still, he has a way of overexplaining the process that makes her wonder if he already suspects it. While he goes on, she measures Kai's comfort in being an absolute imposter. He's either confident that they can do this job or he's very good at pretending. But this she already knows about him.
"So you think you can handle all this just the two of you?" Buck asks as they return to the driveway, fingering a set of keys before he hands them over.
"I think it's doable," Kai says with the self-assured grin a jackass. "Right, Wife?"
Bonnie's grin in return is fake and painful. "I think so, babe."
"It's a small operation, all things considered, but it'll keep you busy."
"Well, you know what they say about idle hands," Kai says, waggling his fingers at Bonnie, his attempt at humor, but the history it recalls does not elicit any laughs. Luckily, it flies far under Buck's radar.
The old man says he'll be back at dawn to help them tap the trees, get to know the machinery Kai claims is "different from what we've used in the past," and fully grasp the process of making their particular brand of maple syrup.
"You certainly seem like an ambitious couple," he says as he hands Kai the keys.
And just like that, they have a place to stay. They'll have to work for it, but the cabin is otherwise rent-free, and Buck has said that he intends on paying them a fair wage for their time. He only cares that his customers get the product they expect every year.
As Buck drives away and Kai lets them into their new temporary lodging, she takes her chance at last to chastise him.
"If you want our fake marriage to be believable, you can't just call me 'wife.'"
"And your preferred pet name?"
"Ugh. Just call me by my name."
"Fine! Anything you ask, Mrs. Parker."
Scenes from her nightmares pass processional, waving, across the snowscape of her mind. Then he turns the lights on, and she takes in the humble cabin they're meant to sleep in for all of spring.
"It's...truly rustic," she says, hoping her optimism will manifest two bedrooms and at least a decorative tapestry or something. "Oh, god. The loft has no stairs to it."
"There's a ladder."
"I can't breathe."
"Are you afraid of ladders, Mrs. Parker? You didn't tell me this before we got married."
"Screw you, stop calling me that."
"Want me to toss you up?"
"Shut up."
He drops his stuff on the floor and meanders to the plaid couch.
"Come on, Bon. This is cozy coze-balls."
"Keep your balls to yourself."
He kicks his feet up on the couch arm and mutters, "With pleasure."
She can't decide whether to feel lied to, affronted, or relieved.
Gripping her duffel bag in one hand, she uses the other to support herself on the ladder as she climbs up to the loft. Ironically, she thinks these living arrangements might kill her. When she gets to the top and edges herself safely onto the loft, she can't seem to catch her breath, or look down, or move at all. She can see, true to Buck's word, that there really is a bunk bed. Somehow she's sure Buck and Charmaine have never actually slept here. These are day beds. Napping spots for grandchildren stuck out here for a day while their grandparents work. Didn't one of them mention grandchildren? Are these bunks even adult size? Maybe there was a time when they slept here and have just refurnished for guests. Maybe they rent it out in the summertime. Is it warmer then? The thoughts swarm.
"Stop freaking out up there!" Kai calls, and she hears the sounds of him moving around and exploring. "I can feel your energy all like, foamy and oozy."
But she can't. She isn't freaking out so much as weathering a reality check. She's left school, her friends, and everything she knows to be here in this freezing little shack. With him.
"Hey, there's popcorn down here!"
She hears a microwave beeping. At least he's happy. And popcorn doesn't sound bad.
"Bon, there's movies! Let's watch something!"
Bonnie sighs and sits up. She'll unpack later. She'll shower later. Confront and rationalize and psychoanalyze her choices later. Vegetating on the couch in the relief of just having shelter, and soon an income, sounds like proper self-care. And even though he is who he is, and he's done the things he's done, Kai Parker is the only person in the world right now who knows even a little bit about what it feels like to be Bonnie Bennett. For that, it turns out, she wants him close. At least until she figures out what to do with him.
"Oh my god, Bon" he moans.
"What?" she calls down the ladder, concerned that he's discovered something terrible and this all really is too good to be true. When she meets him in the kitchen, he's standing in front of the open fridge, staring at two shelves packed front to back with cans.
"There's beer."