Somewhere between the "FUCK YOU" and the "YOUR MOM'S N'OLD HAG" and the "LAST TIME YOUR IDIOT BROTHER CRASHES IN OUR PLACE", Steven noticed that the rain sure had become more and more cerebral. It was like the skies and his wife were singing on the same tune. In a split second of quietness he was able to slip in a humorous thought of how maybe there should be a job opening for wife-whether-man. We're expecting sunny skies in the morning and a bad case of bitchiness as night grows near, he'd say. Not a good day to be taking your wife out for a vacation that's for sure. Steven was amused by the idea as a soft breath of a chuckle grazed his upper lip. But then another thunderous boom blasted in the darkly heavens and another fiery stare from his wife Helen and that weak grin collapsed back to a full-on scowl. Boy, what a miserable day those two were having.
The plan was simple and mapped out two months in advance. After sixteen months from their last vacation, which was so happen to be their honeymoon, Steven and Helen Cruise decided it was time for a much needed break. Since Steven started working as an accountant for a young internet-based company on Broadway and Helen got a job as an assistant for Martha Basil, a hotshot New-York wedding planner, the lives of this fairly young, childless couple, have become a complete and utter dull.
They decided on taking a weakened off- no work, no punching numbers in a calculator till your fingers goes raw, no calls in the late evening by a crazy bride-to-be who suddenly decides her favorite color is yellow and a call from an even crazier Martha who will tell you to call this person or that person so everything is changed because the bride changed her mind. No nothing.
Just serenity.
They will have a nice peaceful drive, they will eat good food in a fancy restaurant, they will get a nice soothing massage (Make sure you book us to a place with a spa, Helen told him with scintillating eyes, I'm dying to get a massage and be all pampered), at night they will make love and at day they will make some more.
And so our loving husband found a great little bed and breakfast in the serene town of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania- Tubman's Inn. Spa, tennis court, satellite TV, swimming pool, humble staff, Serenity. You name it.
But sometimes- shit hit the fan, as Steven would so eloquently say.
The drive started so nice, they were like two sixteen years old driving to the cinema, knowing that they're going to make-out for the first time, half way into the movie. They were chitchatting and laughing along the drive on how they were the oldest youngest-couple they know, and instead of flying to Hawaii or Vegas they prefer a nice quiet bed & breakfast in Pennsylvania. And as the car's fuel dial gradually dropped, so were little drops of rain who were accompanying them like an unwanted hitchhiker.
Little by little the skies drew cold and so was the conversation in the car.
It's hard to tell how it started, like all marital disputes. But this wasn't like all marital disputes, this was like a marital dispute riding a red Lamborghini and taking the highway instead of the Exit.
They began to talk about money and how Steven was too tight or was it Helen who was too loose and maybe it was about how screwed up Helen's family was or maybe it was that Steven liked his two shots of scotch before getting to bed or was it Helen who was the heavy drinker?
Whatever the case may be, a lot of closed doors with things-you-don't-say and a lot of locked closets with things you don't-ever-ever-say were opened and unleashed during this now hellish drive. And by the time they got to the Inn, it was looking less like a loving young couple looking for a new place to do the old bump and hump in the sack, and more like two escaped convicts who were locked in the same cell for a year , each for whacking off the other guy's family.
"Do you have a vacant room by any chance?" Helen said with a cold calmness to the elderly black receptionist at Tubman's Inn.
"You got to be kidding me. You want a separate room, what are you fucking mad?" Steven said with wrath, his voice fainting a bit when he cursed as to not to upset the old receptionist.
Helen turned her head halfway, eyes looking at the corner of the room. Her long black hair, a bit soggy from the rain when they ran from the car to the lobby, squashed against her face.
"You better fucking know it I'm getting a different room."
Steven could see waves of heat coming from his wife's temple, trying to somewhat deforest the icy exterior she was wearing.
He stared at her wondering if that was the woman he so loved and married and what did he see in her in the first place. Then he turned his head and she now was giving him a dead stare. In a moment of sudden sadness, Steven wondered if she was thinking the same thing about him. She Was.
"Well, you are in some luck tonight. We have 17 rooms in this place and only 5 rooms are taken for this weekend." The old receptionist said with soft words. "How about I give you a room for just tonight and tomorrow you will see how you wanna go about your day". She said reconciling.
Oh boy, Steven thought, another room another dollar. Maybe if I tell her I'll sleep on the floor in our room or a sofa than she'll change her mind, or maybe I'll pull out the old "I'm sorry babe" and things cool off till morning or maybe
"I'll take it!" Helen snapped.
Steven wiped his wet hair from his brow and gave a sad look towards the old receptionist, looking like a hound dog caught in a net, and she gave him a kind look in return.
Yep, sometimes shit hit the fan.
-----------
Helen dropped her luggage immediately as she entered her lonesome room.
She swung both her hands up in the air and then plummeted on the soft king sized bed, back first. It was like she played the role of a crooked banker in a really cheesy western and the sheriff finally gunned her down to end the show. The bullet hit her right between her shapely breasts and now she must fall back in an overly dramatic way on a stack of hay, or the bed in this matter.
She glanced silently at the room and instantly noticed it was hot as hell in it. She was still cold in her face and in her hands from the sudden thunderstorm they encountered along the way. Her hair and clothes still a bit moist.
A small headache started to build from the sides of her head like it always does when she get short-tempered.
Outside it was booming thunders and shooting rain, like a platoon of soldiers was shooting at an enemy inside of an old World War II tank.
She studied her room, still lying on the bed, looking at things upside down or from impossible angles. The room, much like the all place, was cabin-like. The floors were hard wood and the walls were washed yellowish stones. The big empty oak closet had a cool antique look to it, Helen thought, as well as both the nightstands. The entire room was mixture of brown and orange mixing up together as they flow on the heavy heat from the air-conditioner painting the room with an old-times-in-the-country type feel.
She now began to feel sweat trickle down from her hairline.
My god this room is boiling, she thought for a second. The owners must have set the rooms to 100 degrees or something!
