Writing Exercise #1 - Ann Johnson

She hated that she was late. Not only would everyone know, but her posting would be at the top of the line, the first to pop up on the screen. She wasn’t a slacker, she really wasn’t. That’s what she told herself anyway. The cat curled in her lap, the dog snoring from the corner, she swiveled her chair so her left hand hung next to the vent on the heater. The rest of her body was still cold, but somehow having that one really warm hand made the cabin feel not so bad. Stocking cap still on, scarf wrapped, and bright blue long underwear serving as pants since she had another pair on under them anyway. She could put on 15 lbs over the winter and no one would know, buried under all the layers. The phone buzzed and she stopped typing to pick it up. That was the world she lived in, one where abbreviated words on a screen took the place of actual conversations. But then, she’d had a conversation earlier while walking the dog, holding the phone against her ear and wrapping her scarf around the mouthpiece. It had warmed up to ten below. The phone’s battery would die fast, but not before her mother asked about plans for the future. The message reminded her of a few days earlier, when she’d escaped the cabin, felt forty below somewhere else. Waking up in the middle of the night, she heard doors opening and closing, heavy boots thumping down the hall. She shifted, pushed the covers back, but the room was hot, and that martini before bed made her feel sticky. The cheap mattress squeaked as she sat up. Her side was pressed up against the wall so she scooted down to the foot of the bed and set her feet on the floor. The outside door slammed in the hall and a gust of cold air came under the door to room 9604 and hit her toes. She needed to go to the bathroom, but the room was small and she didn’t want to be heard. Moving around the room, finding long underwear, pants, gloves, he didn’t wake. The other one would have woken, would have noticed when her body left the bed, would have lifted up involuntarily, taking a quick breath in, and asked her what was wrong. Now, tiptoeing, she found wool socks and sat down on the bed to pull them on. She was dying to go to the bathroom, outside. Nothing sounded better than pulling down her pants and feeling crisp cold air hit the backs of her legs. If she unzipped her coat, squatted quickly, and held the longer tail around her knees, a protective cocoon of warmth would keep her from getting painfully cold in the time it took to yellow the snow. Long underwear, pants, the shades were closed but she could see by the light under the door and she’d learned to leave the bits and pieces where she could find them in the dark. Boots beside the door, scarf on the hook, gloves and hat on the table. Turning the doorknob, she remembered the oatmeal stout bread pudding that she hadn’t ordered the night before. That would have soaked up the alcohol. She’d have to go back there and do that. The window of the outside door was rimmed in thick ice and she paused to pull her gloves on before putting her hand against the metal and pushing out. It was a natural reaction now, to blow a short breath out when she first stepped outdoors. A quick intake, straight from warm into cold, would set her to coughing. The long legs of a tripod stuck out from the sidewalk next to the door, and she wondered how someone who didn’t live here would know this was a place you could do that, leave valuables unattended and expect them to remain. The scarf dangled unwrapped no longer than it took her to round the building. She imagined the skin cells in her face freezing and exploding and flattened the fabric across her cheeks and right up under her eyes. Stocking cap pulled down over eyebrows, only her eyelashes were likely to freeze. They’d thaw when she went back inside and she’d have to remember to lick her fingers and run them under her eyes lest the moistened mascara smear and make her look like some prissy woman that she wasn’t. Across the road, a crowd of tourists had gathered, almost all in matching red coats, the hoods pulled up and fur hiding their faces. They were Japanese. That’s what the guy at the main desk had implied anyway, when she called to make reservations. He’d been reluctant to give her the locals’ deal, knowing he could get foreigners to pay full price. Northern Lights were hot with the Japanese. Off to the north, a pale green glow colored the sky above the black of the mountains. It was hardly a fantastic showing, she might not have noticed had there not been a shuffling crowd staring that way at 2:30 am, but definitely something to look at while peeing. Assuming she could find somewhere to do that with all these people milling around. Back at the cabin she had a designated spot. The more lady-like thing would be to use the outhouse but walking those extra 50 feet, snow sprinkling down into her untied boots, wasn’t usually worth it. She’d had to make something up when her visitor asked about the icy yellow crevasses in the snow on the other side of her car. He didn’t know her well enough to recognize the pause before she told a lie, claimed the dogs in the neighborhood were having a peeing contest, some strange battle over territory. She failed in that storytelling. In his dream of Alaska, a big yellow hole would have been created by a moose, pausing next to the cabin to bend his back legs and show how he felt about the newcomers.