The movie ended shortly before they arrived at the cabin. Sylvia was still asleep and, finally, her mother let go of Jason's hand, mainly because she was crying at the movie's ending and had to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. After she finished doing that, she told Jason the movie's happy ending always made her cry.
By the time Sylvia's father turned off the highway onto a fairly wide dirt road that led into the woods, Jason's erection had begun to subside a little; a situation he was quite grateful for.
The van rumbled along the dirt road while Jason peered out the big windows, looking for the deer and bears Sylvia told him lived the woods. He didn't see any. They drove through an opened gate and, for the first time, Jason saw cabins. Actually, he wouldn't have called them cabins; they were houses, huge houses. Beyond the ones on the left side of the van, he could see the lake.
Finally, they turned into a driveway and stopped. Jason gazed in amazement out the window at the huge, two-story log cabin they were parked in front of. "Jesus, Sylvia's father must really make good money," he thought, awed by how large the cabin. "Otherwise how could he afford all the stuff they have?"
They got their stuff out of the van and lugged it inside. Jason found that the inside of the "cabin" was even more awe-inspiring than the outside. Just inside the door was a stairway, to the right of that a door led into a room that looked like a library or den. To the left, an archway opened into a kitchen some restaurants would have been proud of. It was filled with every conceivable appliance and had a gleaming copper hood over the range.
"What do you think?" Sylvia asked him.
"It's awesome," Jason said.
Sylvia smiled. "Grab your suitcase and come on," she said, "I'll show you the upstairs."
He followed her up the stairs. "These are my parents' rooms," she said, indicating a pair of doors opposite the top of the stairwell.
Jason was surprised. Both doors were open and each of the rooms held what looked like a queen-sized four-poster bed. "Do-do your folks sleep in separate bedrooms?" he asked. He never knew married couples did that. His parents didn't and his mother always said they never would.
"Yeah," Sylvia replied. "Mom says Dad snores and tosses and turns too much and keeps her awake." She chuckled. "Of course, Dad claims it was his idea because Mom has cold feet and kept rubbing them against him and waking him up." She turned to her left and led him down a short hallway to another doorway. "This is the room you'll be using," she explained. She walked into the room.
Jason followed her in and looked around, his amazement growing even more. The room was not only huge; it had a king-sized four-poster bed in it. "This-this is the guest bedroom?" he asked. The guest bedroom was bigger and fancier than his parents' bedroom at home.
"Yeah, it's neat, isn't it?" Sylvia said off-handedly, as if everybody had a guest bedroom like this one. She turned to him and smiled. "Put your stuff down, I'll show you my room and Brenda's." She smiled. "And where the bathroom is, too."
She led him back down the hallway, past the doors to her parents' bedrooms. Beyond, on the right were two doors. "That bedroom is mine," Sylvia said, indicating the first doorway. "The one down the hall is Brenda's. That door..." She pointed to a door on the left-hand side of the hall. "...is the bathroom. There's a tub, a Jacuzzi, and a sauna in there, along with the usual bathroom stuff."
"Oh, wow!" Jason exclaimed. He'd never expected anything like this. He thought he'd be staying in a little cabin, maybe sleeping in a sleeping bag on a cot.
"Come on," Sylvia said, "I'll show you the downstairs now."
In addition to the kitchen and den, the downstairs featured a huge living room with picture windows that faced out on the lake. Along one wall was a huge fireplace. The entire downstairs had wide pine board floors, covered with braided rugs, and the furnishings looked almost too expensive to sit on. There was a large-screen TV, and what had to be the biggest stereo set Jason had ever seen. Speakers were scattered all around the room. "Is-is that one of those surround sound stereo systems?" he asked.
"Yeah, it's my father's toy," Sylvia replied. She made a sour face. "It really puts out awesome sound, but only when he's not here. He hates rock and roll and won't let me play it when he can hear it."
They walked to the picture windows and looked out. There was a fairly good-sized lawn in front of the cabin, and where it met the lake there was a cement wall. Attached to the wall was a large dock that had seats on it and a railing around it.
Sylvia's mother appeared from the kitchen and smiled at Jason. "Well, Jason, are you all settled in?" she asked.
"Ah...yeah...I-I took my stuff upstairs, anyhow," he replied. "This place is awesome!"
Sylvia's mother smiled at him. "I suppose it is pretty fancy, for a cabin," she said. "We've been coming here so long, I guess we don't really notice any more. It's just 'the cabin' to us."
Sylvia's father walked in from the kitchen. "I called the Inn," he said. "They're really booked tonight. If we want to get something to eat tonight, we better get going."
Everybody turned and started for the door. "You mean you have that fancy kitchen and you eat out?" he asked Sylvia as they walked.
"It's kind of a tradition," she said. "Mom told him she hates to have to cook after riding up here, so the first night we're here, we always go out to the Inn at Loon Lake for dinner. It's a neat place. And the food's good. You'll like it."
They piled into the van and headed for the inn. This time, since there was room for him on the sofa in the rear of the van, Jason sat there with Sylvia. Her mother kept looking back at them, though, and smiling at him. Sylvia didn't say much, and didn't act much like she wanted to snuggle, but then she never did. "This is so weird," he thought with some irony as they rode down the highway, "Sylvia's mother has paid me more attention so far today than Sylvia has on the last couple of dates we've been on."
When they got to the Inn, which appeared to be an old hotel that had been restored, they went inside and were quickly seated. Sylvia's father sat at one end of the table, Sylvia sat at the other, Brenda sat on one side, and Sylvia's mother and Jason sat opposite her.
"Doesn't Sylvia even want to sit next to me? If she doesn't, why the heck did she invite me up here, anyhow?" the young man wondered as he sat there, studying the menu. It looked like the things he hoped might happen while they were here were getting farther and farther from the realm of possibility. He jumped when Sylvia's mother gently laid her hand on his arm.
"What are you going to have, Jason?" she asked.
"Ah...I-I don't know for sure," he replied. "There's a lot of stuff here that sounds good. I'm not sure what I want."
"Well, I'm going to have a martini," Sylvia's father snorted. He signaled the cocktail waitress, who came over and took orders from all of them for drinks. The young people all had sodas and Sylvia's mother ordered a glass of white wine. "If you're going to drink, Milton, I better stay sober so I can drive us home," she said, frowning at her husband.
"Jeez, Karen," Mr. Dooley replied. "I work hard all week, I deserve a break sometimes, don't I?"
