Merriton

“I’m here to rescue you from your house.” Samson stood on the porch, trying his best not to say anything too stupid. Kit Kat just smiled at him and opened the door further. “Hurry and come in. It’s cold out there.” He barely noticed the low temperatures anymore. After days on the mountain, it always felt like everyone’s home was a little too warm.

“I’d rather not. Your house makes me crazy.” He struggled to think of a way to make the visit last longer than a few sentences through the threshold of her doorway. “How about you take a walk with me to Mount Zen Cafe?” He watched her look at the laptop sitting on the chair in the parlor. The chair faced the window and he imagined her looking out the window when she couldn’t think of what to write.

He could tell that she wanted to get back to work. He had felt that feeling many times when he was coding. When the ideas came so freely, it was tempting to just stay at the keyboard with a box of Oreo cookies and work all through the night. He was surprised at how much he missed that feeling. He hadn’t worked on anything more than a few tweaks on the Tso Speed Tech for years. He tried to think of something fun he could cook up when he got home.

“I know you’re working, but I saw this movie once where Jack Nicholson spent all his time writing in a snowbound hotel and ended up hacking everybody up with an axe.” He smiled, hoping his joke would go over well. Kit Kat laughed and he immediately relaxed. She replied, “Oh, you’re mixing this place up with the Overlook Hotel. This house isn’t THAT haunted. Just a little bit.”

She held the door open for him to come inside, but he hesitated. She finally said, “If you want me to take a walk to Mount Zen Cafe, I’m going to have to get dressed.” He looked at her clothing and she was wearing sweat pants and a t-shirt for a 5K in New York. His eyes paused on her unbridled breasts and he finally stepped into the house. “I guess I can wait inside until you get some warmer clothes on.”

She ran toward the back of the house and a shiver went down his spine. She’s sleeping in the master bedroom. Oh, this was not good. He called out to her, “You know, some guy blew his brains out in that room.” He heard her voice call from the closed door. “Yeah, but that lady who lived here before me cut out and replaced the bloody dry wall and ground all the blood out of the hardwood floor with a power sander.” She opened the door and finished, “Didn’t you know that power sanders are better exorcists than priests?”

He laughed uncomfortably at her and she continued, “Yeah, it’s a proven fact. The Pope keeps a whole warehouse of Black and Deckers on hand just for exorcisms.” She had thrown on a thick and wooly sweater and a pair of jeans. Her boots looked substantial and warm, but suddenly, a cold chill passed over him. They were the same boots that Sierra had bought her first winter here. “Where’d you find those boots?” Kit Kat glanced at them and replied, “At the grocery store. None of my shoes were warm enough for a Merriton winter, even one as mild as this.”

As they stepped out of the house, Samson panicked. Was this a date? Should he pay for her meal at the cafe? Was he treading on John’s toes? He hadn’t actually expected her to accept his invitation and now that he had her beside him, traipsing to the only restaurant in town, he found he had nothing to say.

The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them. “So, I went to the Thunder Brothers Ranch for Christmas.” She was quiet and his verbal diarrhea took over. “I kinda expected to see you there, but you weren’t there.” She lifted her legs high to get through the snow. She looked unsteady on her feet and Samson remembered those first few winters here. It took him a while to learn to walk through deep snow without difficulty.

“I was at the Lancaster’s. I wasn’t going to do anything, but Christmas Eve, Vesta came to my door and insisted.” She looked focused on the walk in front of her. “John didn’t even ask what I did that night.” Samson was shamed into silence. Every bit of his being wanted to tell her that he had been looking for her that night, but it seemed the wrong thing to say at the moment.

“Was John’s ex-wife there?” The question surprised Samson and he answered quickly, “No. A.S. just lets John take the kids on the holidays. She wasn’t there. It was just me, James, John and Bree. Oh, and the kids. We played Rook. I hadn’t ever played that game before.” Kit Kat nodded. “Yeah, it’s popular here because it has its own cards. You know, because playing cards are evil.”

Samson was confused. He assumed this must be some Mormon thing that he had never experienced before. “Playing cards are evil?” Kit Kat laughed and he noticed that her laugh was so different than Mira’s laugh. Mira had always had this bell of a laugh that sounded like a fairy burping. Kit Kat’s laugh had a more cartoonish quality, deep and full. “Yeah, back in the Eighties, the LDS church officials warned that face cards are evil and that their double face nature have pagan origins.”

“I never heard that. Rook cards are okay, though?” Kit Kat laughed heartily and answered, “I think the official party line is that playing cards leads to gambling, but to be honest, you can gamble with Rook cards just as easily as a Bicycle deck.” Samson nodded. The more he heard about this local religion, the stranger it seemed. He made a mental note to talk to Roscoe about it.

“Oh, this was a good idea! Thanks for dragging me out of the house, Samson.” Kit Kat’s cheeks were red and she looked rosy and healthy all bundled up. He felt so warm in his ranger’s jacket and tried to look away. The smell of the pine trees surrounded him and he felt at home on the mountain. He was so glad that Random had forced him to come here after he got canned at Zerbitz.

“I have to warn you that all I’m going to have at the cafe is some coffee. I can’t eat right now because I’m going on a date with John this weekend and I don’t want my stomach to act up.” Samson felt a sudden chill and tried not to worry about her eating habits.