“Exhausted,” he replied, kissing my neck and unfastening the snaps of my snow gear. “I couldn’t concentrate [[all day]].”\n\nAnd suddenly, even after hundreds of miles of driving on gray icy roads, I was wide awake.
“Thank you,” I replied, stunned, not even bothering to deepen my voice. \n\n“I have [[an unusual favor]] to ask. It's a chance to [[make some money]]."\n
So the security guard kept coming around. He kept on harassing Niko. “I know what you two have done. You can't hide anymore. Confess.” Like he was a real cop working the case. \n\nMaybe he was seeking some kind of glory, trying to put all the pieces together and save the day because the North Dakota police and U.S. federal agencies certainly were doing a piss-poor job of figuring things out. He loitered in the parking lot, at the lobby of the oil company’s downtown office, even one time when he was going to the grocery store.\n\n“So one day," Niko said. "I had [[finally had enough]]."
<em> Tell us about the day you first met.</em>\n\nThe dressing room was a mess, Knesia began. Sequins, make-up, takeout bags from McDonald's. Pigs, these American women. One of them had taken her eyeliner. One of the bouncers knocked at the door. He gestured that she follow him into the hall.\n\n“Hey Kesha-”\n\nIdiot. She'd given up correcting him. \n\n“You talk to her. I've had no luck.”\n\nHe shoved a pretty, dark-haired girl in front of her. She was tiny, a girl more than a woman, black hair over her face.\n\n“Just showed up a few days ago. Friend of one of the owners. I think she's from Russia or somewhere around your stomping grounds.”\n\nI do not stomp, she wanted to tell him. As for the girl, she hoped she straightened herself up when she danced or else she’d be earning no tips at all. \n\n“I'm Ksenia,” she greeted her in Russian. “Nice to meet you.”\n\nShe nodded but still said nothing. The bouncer threw up his hands in exasperation. I'll [[show her the ropes]], she assured him.\n\nKsenia told her to stick with me in Azeri, which she eplained is close to Russian. She told her she'd be fine.”\n\nAnd Marje was, in the beginning at least.
“No, no. It’s functioning perfectly well. We had just left the room and unfortunately the flames were higher than they should have been.” \n\nThe guard turned his attention to me. “Going somewhere?”\n\nI realized that I was standing in the middle of a house [[wearing snowpants and a parka]]. “No, um, yes, um, I don't know,” I stammered.\n\n\n\n\n
<em>I don't really think that boy in Jaden's class has Asperger’s. \n\nMumble, mumble.\n\nI think he just needs to learn how to use his indoor voice and [[sack up]] a little.</em>\n
He paused, smiled. \n\n“The [[satisfaction]] of winning, of course.”\n
To my surprise, the instructor smiled. "We don’t, but your friend might want to check out [[Eternal Spa]]."
\nThe cause of death was unknown.\n\nSo was her identity, to all but me. \n\n[[Marje.]]\n\n
A stack of towels waited on the chair in the corner for the morning. \n\nBut what exactly was I supposed to sleep in? I wondered. \n\nFull clothing probably was the classy choice this [[early]] on, I figured.
\n"You need to get a couple days off next week."\n\n"Why?" \n\nWas this good news? Was it bad? \n\n"Mom and Dad are up from Florida. But they're not at the farm. They're having a [[mini-reunion]] with the cousins, at the house down in Sleepy Eye."\n
He had originally come to the United States as an engineer for Nokia, working in Colorado. When that hadn't gone so well from - well, do you know anyone with a Nokia phone anymore? - he went back to school and branched his engineering skills into oil and gas exploration. \n\n"As you can imagine, that went over very well with my hippie friends in Boulder. But being able to make a living is also nice." \n\nAmen, I agreed.\n\nFrom there, he quickly got a job with a big oil company and moved to Wyoming. There he found himself a little house and an acre of land and a girlfriend. "It was quiet and peaceful. I liked it there." \n\nGoddamn it. But why then was he spending his nights at a shady repurposed Pamida turned spa? "Are you still-"\n\n"It was several years ago. She didn't want to move to North Dakota." \n\nFancy that. “Do you [[like it]] here?” I asked.\n
"I have been here a bit longer than Marje,” Knesia said, sipping from her massive mug of coffee and chomping her sharp, tiny teeth into a biscotti. “She is from Azerbaijan, so she is not yet used to the cold. Or other things here. \n\n"So I [[show her the ropes]]. My manager told me, you can make good money in the United States. There's a town with lots of money, not much competition. So I wonder: where is he sending me? It can't be New York or Las Vegas, because there is a lot of competition there. Maybe somewhere in Florida or Arizona, where the property developers live. And then I [[end up here]]."
“How long am I staying in Minnesota?”\n\n“[[Indefinitely.]]”\n
Two boxes - one with freshly cooked dinner, the other with pre-packaged goods - were the most I could carry back to the front seat of the van. My stomach growled. Chili. Even cold, I know it would be good. \n\nI started to pull the tin foil back. \n\nHouston, we have a problem. No silverware. \n\nTime to crack into the non-perishables then. \n\nI had only seen these boxes taped up and ready to go, never loaded up. I didn’t know exactly what I would find – chips, peanuts, jerky. But I hoped it would be [[user-friendly]].\n\nBecause I was fucking starving.\n
What if he was [[just one of those guys]] who liked having people over to dinner? \n\n...and then kill them?
\nAccording to Bernie, the night the owner of the company showed up, arrested, on the Williston news, his friend gave him a call, freaking out as much as an engineer from Northern Europe can. \n\nAnd that night, Bernie's friend freaked out even more when the rent a cop whipped a photo out of his wallet. It was a print-out from security camera footage, looked like the reception area of an office - a bland room, really sterile, lots of linoleum. A person, fairly short and thin - although it was hard to tell with all the winter gear - was signing a clip board.\n\n"Do you recognize that person?" \n\n"Can't say I do," Bernie's friend lied.\n\nRent a Cop was feeling his power at this point. That person in the photo looks a lot like that girl who was here when I visited a few months ago.’\n\nTo his credit, our North Dakota friend stayed calm. "How can you tell anything about the person in the photo? With the hat and the scarf and the baggy clothes, you can't even tell if it's a male or a female." \n\nBut he knew it was his girlfriend. And, in the weeks ahead, he knew both of them were in trouble, big trouble, when the security guard turned up everywhere he went - outside his office, outside his home, following his car to the grocery store.\n\n"We know she's out there. Don't think you've seen the last of me,' he warned."\n\nI shuddered, my problems - losing a job, having a 23-year-old boss I wanted to impale - shrinking in comparison. That security guard [[is a nasty guy]], I thought.\n
I was proud of myself. \n\nI kept it together until I heard the garage door close and his car disappear down the street. \n\nI didn’t feel right throwing and breaking things in someone else’s house. So I just collapsed on the couch and pounded my fists against my legs. \n\nFuck you, Brandon. Fuck you, Clayton. Fuck you, Raymond Fournier. And fuck my life.\n\n[[May]] day.\n\n\n\n\n<em>[[Begin the journey]]: Descent into redneck-istan\n\n[[December]]: Bring it on, North Dakota\n\n[[January]]: Making friends\n\n[[February]]: The month that changed everything\n\n[[March]]: Settling in\n\n[[April]]: A sudden storm\n\n[[May]]: Like Jennifer Lawrence in "Winter's Bone"\n\n[[September]]: I did what I had been told</em>
"They look like those girls from the Pussy Riot." \n\nThat was Shelly's take. \n\nBrandon simply [[snorted]].
“What does this guy know about your job?”\n\nWhy did it matter?\n\n“That I drive a van. That it’s for Dickinson Catering. That’s about it. We talk more about my new business.”\n\n“What does he know?” \n\n“He’s been really supportive.”\n\n“Does he know how you got the money to start it?”\n\nOh shit. But I could not lie. “Yeah, I showed him my online checking account. [[Only once.]]”\n
What did he mean? I wondered. \n\nDid he [[know]]? \n\nDid he know I knew? \n\nWas he planning on hiring men to follow me and kill me?
The wind will be insane out here, was my first thought. My second: It is dark as hell. I will lose my eyesight, I feared, and then my eyeballs will just fall from my head from disuse, like one of those deep-water fishes at the zoo. \n\nUnder the narrow beam of my flashlight, I washed up and headed to the big house for dinner. \n\nLarry and Becca’s home was a two-story rambler, ramshackle on the surface but strong beneath. It had weathered half a century of prairie conditions and showed every blizzard and hailstorm. \n\nIt was a familiar sight. When you run a farm like Larry and [[Becca]], or like my own family, you spend your money on equipment and help, not paint and shutters.\n
\nTheir gray workout clothing seemed more like the type of thing that dancers would wear and didn't shout any immediately recognizable brand. \n\nThey didn’t laugh at our teacher's chirpy jokes. \n\nAnd they were always with me at the end of the line to return our mats and exercise balls after class. There I heard one of them, the one with a fine auburn ponytail and sharp, fox-like features, [[sing under her breath]] in a froggy, deeply accented voice.
“You can always move out here with me and your [[sister in law]] and help out with the farm,” Brandon offered with a smirk, grabbing a smoke and a beer on the back porch as the late [[afternoon]] sun began to set.
\n<em>Describe the farmhouse as you first remember it.</em>\n\nAmina paused and thought for a moment. Multiple bedrooms, she recalled. Two baths, plus a little toilet near the kitchen. And a shower that's just a stall and a hose in the basement. Perfect for washing your boots and overalls after a day out in the fields or garden. \n\nPerfect for a [[well-bred Minnesota girl]].
The class wasn't so bad, for an inexperienced teacher in the middle of nowhere. So you can’t expect as much. But there were things that would have never been accepted in Russia. Like standing on the head. And picking partners to use straps for downward dog. That was an [[American thing]].
By 6 p.m., traffic had dwindled to nothing. \n\nBy 8 p.m., so had the food remaining in my stomach, and my patience. \n\nTo kill the time, I visualized hockey mask designs, happy clients, praise for the success of my new business. \n\nI replayed favorite movie scenes in my head. Racy ones from tropical climates. \n\n“This is getting old. I think I’m going to [[try to drive back]],” I texted Niko.\n
Who was I kidding - NPR out in the middle of oil territory? Guns, God and country occupied the FM dial. I listened [[all day]] to one station just for entertainment, but the sound of a radio host who scorns evolution was just too depressing, even for a non-scientist like me.
My unemployed state became the topic du jour – Brandon had apparently filled Clayton in beforehand, and our neighbor took [[avid interest]]. \n\n\n\n
"Jesus, Melissa!" \n\nNiko shot me a bemused look of “did you really just say that to your brother?” as I painfully raised myself from where I had [[landed on the floor]]. Thank God for carpet.
"It's not about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit," Brandon reminded me as my energy faded and my confidence flagged.\n\n"Watch [[Ryan Miller]]. Does he get freaked out if the puck bounces in the wrong direction?"\n \n"Does [[Lundqvist]] let it bug him if he's in a slump? Even if the Bruins fans are mercilessly taunting him?"\n \nOh dear Christ. Brandon would go through the entire 30-whatever-team line-up if I didn’t buck up and at least pretend to be interested.\n\n“No,” I sighed. “He does not. Jonathan Quick would never give up. Tim Thomas would never give up, even though he is with the Panthers now.”\n\n“It’s because he snubbed [[Obama]] after the Cup.” \n\nI changed the subject.
But this was not the neighborhood. This was North Dakota.\n\nHere, Danny had something to say, and nobody was taking him seriously. \n\n"Why were you [[removed from the force]]?" \n\nIt wasn't removed, he clarified. It was administrative leave without pay. \n\nAnd why did it matter? He had seen things. He had a lead in the biggest case Williston had seen in months.\n\n
But he'd find a way to get the community to know him. Get to appreciate him. When he saw the security camera photo on the front page of the paper, months later, he realized this was his chance:\n\nHe remembered that coat. He remembered that hat.\n\nUnknown suspect my ass. \n\nMaybe an enigma to the highest levels of frontier law enforcement, but to Danny the identity was clear. \n\nHe knew who that mysterious person in the photo was. He could identify the individual beyond a reasonable doubt. \n\nJust [[a girl in North Dakota]] at the center of it all. \n
“[[All this]] and you’re living in a camper?”
"Make sure the old bearded guy is Santa before you sit on his lap."\n\nIt was from [[Tristan]].\n\nThen I opened up DVD collection and laptop to select my [[Christmas movie]].
Back in Minneapolis, Tristan's hours had been reduced to part time. Lucky for him, he had never signed a non-compete. He would be able to freelance while his workload dwindled, and I agreed to be his [[first client]].
Of course, not two weeks later, Becca stuck a note on my camper door. \n\n"We're having a [[little issue]] with the hot water." \n\nAnd after that, I found the back door to the basement locked. [[Goodbye]] dependable hygiene, I thought. And as a result, goodbye yoga classes as well. Which sucked because the classes were affordable, convenient and right after I got off work. And because the classes had led me to my first friends in oil country.\n\n
My [[silent]] little drinking buddy from North Dakota. \n\nMy [[friend]].\n\n\n
Then Brandon texted. It's as if he read my mind. \n\n“Don't call him. Unless you want him to [[go to prison]], too.”\n
“You never went to the police after she left?” I asked Niko, several years later.\n\n"I never did, Tristan. At first, I thought she might have run off with another man. With women, you never know. I would call her cell phone and it would go straight to voice mail every time. I would rush home after work and wait for her. Every time, nothing. \n\n"So I could picture it, the SWAT team comes out and they find Melissa in Fargo or Mankato or back in Minneapolis. And me, humiliated. Then, after Raymond was arrested, I still decided not to call the police. If she had willingly been in on the operations, I didn’t want to get her in trouble.”\n\nThis surprised me. “So, if she had knowingly been dealing drugs, that wouldn't have been [[a deal-breaker]] for you?”\n
I went through roughly the same ritual on New Year’s Eve, this time with “Office Space” to celebrate the soulless cubicles, meaningless reports and bureaucratic bullshit I had left behind, now free in my glamorous frontier life. \n\nBy the time [[January]] rolled around, I realized I was turning into a hermit. Or the Unibomber. \n\nI was talking to myself, neglecting my hygiene and diet, developing odd habits. A few more months of this and I would officially lose my shit. \n\nI realized it was time to get out, explore the town and meet some people.\n\n\n\n\n<em>[[Begin the journey]]: Descent into redneck-istan\n\n[[December]]: Bring it on, North Dakota\n\n[[January]]: Making friends\n\n[[February]]: The month that changed everything\n\n[[March]]: Settling in\n\n[[April]]: A sudden storm\n\n[[May]]: Like Jennifer Lawrence in "Winter's Bone"\n\n[[September]]: I did what I had been told</em>
Ksenia used her napkin to wipe a bit of marshmallow from Marje’s lip. This seemed [[a little weird]]. Let the girl clean her own mouth if she chooses. But maybe my take on it was an [[American thing]]. \n\nMarje was drinking hot chocolate. I couldn't tell how much she could actually follow our conversation.
“I [[found drugs]] in the packages I've been delivering for Raymond Fournier. Serious drugs.”
Here's how it would work:\n\nI would start with a consultation. In person or online. \n\nThen I’d develop a design comp for client approval. Would I need special software for this? Did my current laptop come loaded with CAD/CAM capabilities? Probably not. \n\nThen I'd need painting supplies. \n\nThen I'd have to think about delivery. I’d need boxes, an account with FedEx. \n\n[[Special insurance]]?
I pulled the slip of paper from my purse. \n\nAll of the numbers had smeared into an [[illegible blur]].
You [[just]] had to put your clothes back on.
Panicked but not defeated, I whipped out my laptop for a [[white pages search]].
"Things happen," Niko assured me. "More so here than in other places. Don't take it personally.” \n\nHe tossed me a croissant and gestured for me to bundle up and [[join him]] on the patio to gawk at the moon.
“[[Just one]]. My older brother Brandon.”\n\n
With no time to shower, I did a quick improvisation with baby wipes and a cold washcloth waved through the tap- yeah, that'll wake you up - followed by some lotion. \n\nRaymond Fournier will have to take me as I am, I declared. And you can’t get too rank when it’s too cold to sweat. \n\nI tightened my ponytail, grabbed a tube of lip balm and a package of Pop Tarts - breakfast of champions - and [[started up]] the frozen car.
His eyes [[widened]].
I unlocked the door to the camper and ushered them both inside. Long time no see. With the sun shining and the birds chirping, the setting felt like someone else's home. \n\n"It is very cute," Ksenia gushed as she walked in and Marje wordlessly followed her. "Very cozy."\n\nThe [[bed]] was strewn with clothing and blankets. But the sink was clean, I was pleased to note. As was the bathroom.\n\nI pointed out the camper's [[features]] - the fold up table, the fold out spare bed, the hot plate and dual heaters that hadn't yet set the place on fire.
\nBecca and Larry's farmhouse had been dark for hours by the time I pulled up onto the property. Stiff from disuse, the camper door creaked as I opened it. It no longer felt like home. \n\nBefore crawling into bed for a whopping three hours of sleep, I shoved into my backpack a good seven days’ worth of clothing. No lingerie - thank you very much, Shelly and your paranoid warnings - but I did find an old-school satin pair of pajamas like something Hef would wear poolside with a stiff g and t at the Playboy Mansion. \n\nWhy had I brought these to North Dakota? They had been an impulse buy at a little uptown boutique, intended for weekend lounge-around days and telework. Slinky. Yeah, the epitome of oil field chic. \n\nIt was either that or borrow tassles and a feather boa from Ksenia and Marje. I tossed the pajamas in.\n\nMy phone buzzed. [[A text]]. Was I back at the camper? Everything okay? \n\n"All I have is Cabela's couture," I typed back. "Trust me, you will be disappointed."\n\n"I doubt that."\n\n\n\n
Not for a [[Christmas movie]]. I set the Lars von Trier collection away for another day.
And then an ear-splitting beep cut the air. \n\nSmoke hit my nostrils. I opened my eyes to a [[fog of smoke]].
I guess you could put it that way. That second dinner brought more of the same, and this was a very good thing indeed.\n\nOver dinner Niko and I picked the conversation back up with current events, his work (engineering stuff I pretended to understand), my work (the crazy shit one sees while driving), life and this singular locale where we both now found ourselves. \n\nHe agreed with me: Williston was a truly fucked-up place. The crowded roads. The quirky new businesses that popped up on a daily basis. The 10 men for every woman. ("Although I'm surprised to hear you object to that," he commented.) And the astonishing fact that North Dakota had actually become a desirable place to live for many people. \n\nI leaned across the table in a way I couldn't blame entirely on the ultra-hoppy, eight-percent IPA.\n\nAfter dinner, we [[retreated to the couch]].
Standing at the foot of the porch, awkward silence as she emptied out still more flower pots, I asked her about the laundry facilities in this joint.\n\nDid Becca [[invite me inside]] to take advantage of the industrial-sized farm washer and dryer I know every farm house to possess? \n
\nInnocents.\n\nHe thought about Margie. His beautiful girlfriend. He remembered how it all had went down, the reason he had hunted down this truth and was sharing this story in the first place, and his shoulders heaved forward in a sob.\n\n"[[Everything okay?]]" the investigator asked.\n\n
“I certainly will not,” [[I promised]].
Ksenia was busy holding an iPod earbud up to Marje's ear. "This is Beyonce. You should use it for your dance.” \n\nNot a word or nod in response.\n\n"You need to [[get ready]], Marje."\n\nShe finally noticed the laptop. “What is this?"
Yeah, right. \n\nI [[have to say]], what I should do and what I end up doing often turn out to be two entirely different things. \n\n\n\n
This was nice, I thought, the hour too [[early]] for more creative words. I kept my eyes shut longer than necessary.
So I told my family about my new friends... \n\nShelly was happy to hear I was getting out of the camper more – or, really, at all. She was always one to encourage being social.\n\nBrandon, unsurprisingly, [[hit the roof]].
Inside, the first Korean woman I’d seen in North Dakota assigned me a locker for my shoes. She directed me to the women's changing room where the second Korean woman of North Dakota assigned me another locker for my clothes. \n\nRight there in the middle of [[the common room]], a waterfall greeted me. Yes, right there in the middle of the prairie wasteland. And I greeted it, placing myself squarelly beneath it and throwing my head back like a vixen in a made-for-cable remake of “The Blue Lagoon.” \n
“Well, what exactly do you recommend?”\n\nDownstairs, the conversation shifted in tone. “You take care, Dad. I’ll let you know what happens.” \n\nShit. I shoved the phone under my pillow and waited for the sound of footsteps on the stairs. \n\nThe phone rang again. “Hey Bernie.” \n\nNiko’s friend from Wyoming, the professor from the bar and the only other liberal in the state. "Yes, quite a snowstorm for April." \n\nI remembered to breathe and retrieved my phone from its hiding place.\n\nA text was waiting for me. “You still there, Melissa?”\n\n“Yeah. [[Slight interruption]].”\n
“Jesus, watch your language. They're our parents, the people who made your existence possible and raised you for 18 years - well, probably even more in your case. So I just need you to crawl out from under that Swedish boyfriend of yours for a few days-"\n\n"He's from Finland. There's a difference," I corrected. "And I'm not always under, by the way."\n\nBrandon cringed, as I knew he would. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that last part. And you need to talk to Raymond about getting three days off. He should owe you by this point."\n\n"He won't be pissed?" I inquired. "My major mission in life isn't to make Raymond money and make him happy?"\n\n"Enough with the sarcasm. You've made a fair amount of money from this venture as well. For driving a goddamn van. Mom and Dad are expecting you, so [[make it happen]]."\n
As March came to a close, I dove into my new business idea - custom-painted goalie masks. \n\nAnd I took one last run at yoga class. Knesia and Marje as usual didn't show, leaving just me and a few aggressively fit, aggressively cheerful Williston housewives to strike the warrior's pose and stand on our heads. \n\nI found myself ducking out for water and departing for good when it came time to pair up for the tandem downward dogs. Class was boring without them.\n\nThen the text arrived: a shirtless Putin on horseback with some caption in Cyrillic that probably would have gotten her jailed on her native soil. \n\nWe planned a [[much-anticipated outing]] to Walmart to restock on ear bands, belly rings, bangles and bling. It was mostly for those two, mostly for professional reasons, but I figured, why not? I might just find a little something for myself. ("I could see you with a belly chain," Niko remarked.)
\nI wondered if he'd change his mind and knock on the door, throw back the comforter like in a made-for-cable movie. "I just couldn't stay away."\n\nThen my mind started to steer into "Law and Order" territory. He’ll rape me in my sleep, then kill me - or perhaps the other way around, if he’s a truly sick man. \n\nI thought all of this too tired to care, luxuriating in the vast smoothness of comforter and sheets, stretching in [[satisfaction]].
That night, I remained awake, staring out the window. I stared at the delicate tattoo around Niko's upper arm that he explained away as “a long time ago, I was young.” Yeah, a girl or a gang initiation ritual on the mean streets of Helsinki, I joked. \n\n"It was after my mother passed away," he explained.\n\nPoint one for sensitivity, Melissa.\n\nI contemplated the past 24 hours. My eyes became accustomed to the dark. I felt like a goddamn owl. \n\nHow could life have [[taken such a turn]]?
<em>Tell us about the farm, Amina.</em>\n\n\nThe drive up to it is nothing special, she replied, just a straight road flanked by the occasional tree. Unless, of course, you're taking it in the early morning or at twilight. Then the light makes it very atmospheric indeed.\n\nThe house is the kind you see in movies - the older movies with Jessica Lange or Sally Field, not the movies of today where the settings are unrealistically elaborate and created with CGI. \n\nThis is not an oligarch’s farm with ostriches and giraffes and women in bikinis fanning themselves on chaise lounges on a too-green front lawn. It's a farm in real life, with a back porch that has been the site of many afternoon conversations over lemonade, or, more likely with this family, beer. Scuffs from boots and hockey equipment.\n\n[[More about Brandon.]]
<em>What do you know about her family?</em>\n\nMelissa had showed Tristan a photo album during one of their drunken, multi-course, log-cabin dinners where conversations ran off track and secrets were spilled.\n\nCute little white toddlers, then children, running around outdoors, doing what farm kids do. There were photos from state fairs, snowshoeing, four-wheeling, hockey matches. it was all [[about kids]]. \n\nAs the pages turned, the parents turned into grandparents, tough but friendly farm folk from the look of things. Melissa and her brother appeared to be close. Back then, at least.
Niko had brought the knife to North Dakota. And the next time the security guard stopped by, he invited him in. “You're right,” he told the guy. “We should probably talk. Here, have a seat in the living room. What's your name again? Danny? Okay, have a seat in the living room, Danny. I'll bring you a beer. Would you prefer a stout or an IPA?”\n\nAnd then Niko up and fucking stabbed the guy? I wondered. Holy shit, I had no idea the guy had it in him. \n\nWell, no, [[not exactly]].\n
I did, animals galore, monsters and zombies, too, even a few creatures from Transformers and Harry Potter. \n\nThe kids were so very happy. \n\nAnd the check Dark-Haired Army Wife wrote me at the end of the afternoon was so very [[unexpectedly, stunningly]] large.\n\nIt beefed up my bank account even more. I marveled at my new balance on [[the computer]].
Didn’t I know it? My daily drive gave me ample exposure to the mattress warehouses, overstock liquidators and vendors of bulky faux-leather things that looked like they fell off of the back of the truck. \n\nSo, what was this guy all about? \n\nI scanned the premises. Niko’s furnishings were nice if sparse. The dining room table and chairs, a computer work desk and a big leather couch dominated the first floor. Snow had been cleared from a deck in the back.\n\n“And the bedrooms and bathroom are up there,” he gestured to a steep staircase. “For reference for [[later tonight]].”\n
“Thank you for not buying those for me,” I told Niko.\n\n“How do you know I didn’t?” he retorted.\n\nI knew because the stock had run out in [[mere days]] after the beginning of February. You drive a van, you learn these things.
“And as he was sitting there, warming up, getting comfortable, I crept up behind the couch and placed the knife under his chin. Right at his throat. \n\n'Don't ever come back here or bother me again. And don't ever bother Melissa. If I ever hear that you have, [[rest assured]], I will kill you.'
I remembered the trick I had learned from my dad: Run the engine for 10 minutes with the heat on full blast. Then turn the car off and savor this heat for the next 50.\n\nI wrapped myself in the emergency blanket, poised to move quickly if a skidding vehicle came my way [[out on that road]].\n\n
To emphasize this, he followed up - as only a 23-year-old multimedia [[intern]] can do - with a photo of a grumpy, obese Persian cat, captioned in an unholy, flashing font: \n\n“Sooooo getting laid!”\n\nWhich I ignored. “Of course he’s cooking. There are no decent restaurants around here.”\n
\nAs January turned into February, I found myself hunkering down again and forsaking the yoga classes and the happy hours. Because why show up? Ksenia and Marje were growing [[less regular]] in their appearances, so who would I hang out with? \n\nIn light of [[their unreliability]], I took advantage of the spa's warmth and comfort, its flavorful, somewhat healthy food, its unquestioning availability as a place to hang out, albeit with shall we say limited entertainment options. \n\nA little color TV in the restaurant area aired exactly one channel and one [[show]].
I shut it off. Our meal had melded itself to the bottom of the pan, whatever it once had been. \n\nThe alarm eventually stopped its bleating.\n\n“Shit. [[Thank you]].” Niko now stood behind me, thoroughly mortified and thoroughly relieved. \n
In [[Korean bathhouses]], she explained, the space is divided into one area for men and one for women. And bathing suits are not allowed. \n\nEven though it is very natural and cleansing and not erotic at all, many American women are not comfortable with exposing themselves in this way. "But you shouldn't worry. Unlike most American women, you have a good figure.”
It took a while, searching on a phone instead of a computer. But I found my answers.\n\nThe sandy powder was meth (and not very high quality meth at that). \n\nAnd those stenciled pouches? Heroin.\n\nI [[texted Brandon]].
I wanted to listen. I wanted to care. But I just couldn’t deal with it all at that moment.\n\n“Nothing I can do about that,” I replied, hung up and [[returned to the bedroom]].\n
Brandon, Shelly and I followed him out to the barn. \n\nIt was a bad day to [[come out]]. Like any walk in post-Thanksgiving Minnesota, this was not a temperate one. Within minutes, my cheeks prickled and my pants were sheets of ice against my legs. I gave up minding the runners of snot and tears slowly coursing down my face. \n\nSuch cold was an affront against nature, an insult to humanity. And I was going to be working in the very heart of it.\n\nThis money had better be damn good, I decided.\n
Raymond, though jovial, kept a social distance from his employees, [[blinking Christmas lights]] in his office be damned. He declined any invitations to football parties or happy hours and certainly didn't extend any of his own. Which was our loss. I remembered Clayton telling us that Raymond lived in an epic mansion in one of the fanciest neighborhoods in town.
\nbody[data-tags~=Amina] { background-color: saddlebrown; }\nbody[data-tags~=Amina] a { color: white; }\nbody[data-tags~=Richmond] { background-color: darkgreen; }\nbody[data-tags~=Richmond] a { color: white; }\nbody[data-tags~=Danny] { background-color: midnightblue; }\nbody[data-tags~=Danny] a { color: white; }\nbody[data-tags~=Ksenia] { background-color: slateblue; }\nbody[data-tags~=Ksenia] a { color: white; }\nbody[data-tags~=Tristan] { background-color: olive; }\nbody[data-tags~=Tristan] a { color: white; }\n\nbody[data-tags~=Brianna] { background-color: gray; }\nbody[data-tags~=Brianna] a { color: white; }\n\n\n\n\n
“Binoculars?” I asked. Never mind kosher, was that even legal?\n\n“Part of being a cop.”\n\n[[“Of course.”]]\n
<em>What do you remember about your aunt's departure, Brianna?</em>\n\nShe drove off with our neighbor Clayton’s camper in tow, right before Christmas. [[Bring it on]], she said. \n\nShe was pissed.
And, as a good libertarian, Brandon [[insisted]].
“In mysterious Paraguay, you never know what you might find around the corner.”\n\n“Like a Nazi war criminal,” Niko replied, clinking his beer bottle against mine. \n\nAs the itinerant Colorado mountain guide toured and rejected three bargain-priced walk-up apartments, we started kissing. And we didn’t [[stop]] until the next episode segued into scenic Akron.\n\nI wanted to stay.
Copyright 2015 J. Hartshorne\n\nThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. \n\nAny resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.\n\nI'm good. I'm not going to sue or plagiarize. [[Begin the journey]].\n\n[[Meet the characters]].
"No," I lied.\n\n"Good. And now for the last of my [[questions]]."
I refrained from sharing the news with [[Brandon and Shelly]]. \n\nI didn’t feel like I knew [[Ksenia and Marje]] well enough yet to confide in them. \n\nThe only person I ended up telling turned out to be my old [[intern]] Tristan.
I was hardly strong enough to lay pipe. (But you go to the gym all the time, Brandon pointed out.) I didn’t [[know anything about petroleum]].
So Fracking Guy's girlfriend arrives at his place after work - he's cooking up dinner, modern man that he is - and because it's really cold outside, she goes upstairs to warm herself up with a hot shower. A few minutes in, she calls him upstairs. Where's the soap? Or the loofah, or whatever. \n\nShe’s standing there in his rope, fresh from the shower, and next thing you know, they're in the bedroom.\n\nAnd then, right as things were really getting interesting, the fire alarm goes off. She shrieks, grabs the robe and runs downstairs to figure out what's going on. He smacks his head against the pillow in disbelief and soon follows. The dinner had burned to a crisp in the stove. Lots of smoke, but no harm done.\n\nAnd then this guy's shitty luck continues.\n\nThe alarm sets off an alert at the central office. Bernie's friend lives in a planned community, a fancy place with all of that. Fifteen minutes later, as they're cleaning things up and fixing themselves sandwiches, there's a knock at the door.\n\nIt's a rent a cop from the complex – a young skinny white guy all puffed up with authority and white privilege. "Everything okay here?"\n\nBernie's friend says yes, just a cooking experiment gone wrong. Meanwhile, the girlfriend has tossed on some snow pants and a sweatshirt and a knit cap over her wet hair. She's standing in the background [[nodding as well]].\n
<em>And when you first met Brandon?</em>\n\nAmina started with the drive in from the city. Roughly 60 miles. The scenery took her breath away. \n\nWhen she knocked on the weather-beaten screen door at the side of the house, the owner himself answered. Although he was wearing a flannel shirt and work boots, he didn’t seem to be toiling very hard. In her humble opinion, at least. Over his shoulder, she saw a sports game on a big-screen TV, a swiftly assembling and reassembling mass of figures. Ice hockey, unofficial religion of the northern plains. \n\nHe looked surprised. People in this area usually were when they saw her.\n\n"[[Shelly]]!" he shouted over his shoulder to someone in the back. "There's this woman at the door."\n\n\n
Raymond cut me off just as I was building up steam. But kindly. "I don’t even pretend to understand your line of work, Melissa. But you seem like a hard worker, and you come highly recommended. You’ve [[got the job]]. Why don't you [[come out]] as soon as you can. We need you."
“No shit. I’m tempted to just hop into my car right now.”\n\n“No no no. [[No one can suspect.]]”\n
\nThe Admiral's Feast went over surprisingly well, particularly given that crab, lobster and scallops were not exactly indigenous to North Dakota. \n\n[[The movies]] I'd stashed in my bag, some of my favorites from the Sundance and Tribeca film festivals, not so much. \n\nAt the end of the day, I'd redeemed myself. I was sleeping in a warm, luxurious home, enjoying TV, good food and beer with a normal guy. A more than normal guy. Fucking [[sweet]].\n\nPinch myself. Finally, the crap luck of fall 2013 was turning.\n
Go West\n\n"Life gives people one chance - if they're lucky. This is yours. Don't screw it up."\n\nGo West: [[Begin the journey]].\n\nSee the [[table of contents]].\n\n[[Meet the characters]].\n\n[[Legal language and disclaimers]].
"Although my imported bath products and alcoholic beverages, that’s another story.”\n\n[[“Hah.”]] I hoisted myself up in order to clearly see his expression.\n
And so the weeks passed. What were the teachable moments, as my sister-in-law would say? What did I learn from this experience?\n\nI learned that the days that fly too fast in the working world - fighting traffic and juggling five different irrational deadlines at 5 p.m. - [[slow to a crawl]] when all you have to fill them with are hitting refresh on your dormant email inbox, killing time on Huffington Post (sideboob sightings and human trafficking!) and shooting out resumes to some sketchy server farm in Estonia.\n\n
“Teen’s body found in ditch. Foul play suspected.” \n\nAn autopsy linked her to an underage dancer who had worked at one of the local strip clubs, thought to have entered the country illegally. No one would speak on the record about her. \n\nAlthough releasing her name was illegal, given her age, a photo accompanied the story, a [[head shot]] that looked like a passport photo.
Go West by month:\n\n[[Begin the journey]]: Descent into redneck-istan\n\n[[December]]: Bring it on, North Dakota\n\n[[January]]: Making friends\n\n[[February]]: The month that changed everything\n\n[[March]]: Settling in\n\n[[April]]: A sudden storm\n\n[[May]]: Like Jennifer Lawrence in "Winter's Bone"\n\n[[September]]: I did what I had been told\n
Shelly moderated, as Shelly always does. \n\n“I don’t think there actually are a lot of women in North Dakota to befriend, Brandon. So let's not give Melissa grief on this one. They could be nice. They could be working their way through school. Why don’t you send over some pictures – clothed of course – so we can become more familiar.”\n\nSo I took a few quick [[selfies]] the next time we met at Red Lobster. \n
No self-respecting oil worker would sit around waiting an hour or longer for their van to get restocked either. \n\nBy March, I realized a creeping and undeniable truth. Something weird was going on at Dickinson Catering. For starters, it was taking Gretta and her minions longer and [[longer]] to load the new boxes.
“No one.”\n\n“Are you sure about that?”\n\n“Really.”\n\nYeah, like I was going around all single and ready to mingle looking like a Sasquatch and smelling like a yeti. Cue the [[lecture]].
“I don’t remember,” he mumbled, [[fumbling]] through the cabinets in the bathroom and the hall closet as I kept getting in the way.
“[[Really?]]” \n\nShe rattled off something in Marje’s ear, then we [[grabbed our coats]].
My invitation received an enthusiastic response, although the directions to Niko's place less so. \n\n"What is this Fleur De Lis Pointe? Is it in Williston or is it its own town?"\n\nShit, this was hard to explain even to a native English speaker. I nearly gave up after the fifth explanation of the roundabout after the feed lot.\n\nAnd I nearly gave up fighting the crowds of burly men at the liquor store and burly women at Walmart. Vodka and Bloody Mary mix and pop-in-the-oven croissants. With no Whole Foods in a 500-mile radius, I was forced to work with the tools I'd been given.\n\n[[How did it go?]] \n
Blank walls painted a tasteful grey, the walls of any college-educated guy over thirty. \n\nA closet door, behind which lurked what? A bookshelf with the collected works of Herman Wouk? Bondage gear mail-ordered from Germany in discreet brown paper bags? Both unfortunate discoveries from my years of Twin Cities dating. \n\nNiko's closet probably held nothing more threatening than wool sweaters and nicely tailored European shirts. Maybe some hockey gear and old stereo equipment. But you never knew. Men were mysteries. Just [[unpeel the layers]].
"I am so sorry," Knesia texted four days later. \n\nNo sad Sochi Bear this time, no cheesy Eurovision gif. Just words. \n\n"Marje had some troubles. I must [[watch out for her]]." \n\n
"Oh my God I am so sorry!" \n\nThe blonder of the moms, early thirties by my best guess - Jesus Christ, <em>my</em> age - ran after her charge.\n\nI mimed what I hoped to be a sympathetic apology. I'd gotten into the habit of not speaking up in public places where my voice would reveal my gender - at least outside of classier environs like the yoga studio and Red Lobster and the spa, where layers were impossible. \n\n"Are you sure?" Her face knit up in concern. I nodded again. Absolutely.\n\nFlailing bundle in tow, she returned back to her table in the corner. Her darker-haired companion - a sister by the looks of it - picked up [[the conversation]] where they had left off.\n
Tristan used to be my intern. He was either Canadian First Nation or pan-Asian in background. I wasn't quite sure and didn't quite know how to ask. \n\nHe made up for his hideous hipster glasses and inexplicable boy skinny jeans with his unusually strong – hell, let’s just say unusually present, for a millennial – work ethic. Also his unique retorts, like "PedoBear is my spirit animal" when people asked him about his culture or religious practice. \n\nTristan had been the [[only one]] from my former work place who never had [[judged]] my new adventure or shifted the conversation when the subject came up. Working out in the oil fields? Living in a camper? Cool. Have fun. Make some money.\n\nTristan was a good kid.
"Good to meet you, Melissa. Clayton's told me a lot about you."\n\n[["Don’t believe a word of it."]] \n\n“I have only three [[questions]] for you, Melissa."\n\n
I didn't want anyone to go to prison. \n\nAnd so I took myself and my Cricket phone and Clayton’s white trash camper and drove myself [[back to Minnesota]].
<em>Unusual.</em> On the true crime TV shows I used to watch with my mom while canning vegetables at the farm, that word had been code for swingers, key parties and more recently web cam porn.\n\nCall me a sheltered farm girl, but my barometer for such skeeviness was [[really good]].
Fucking hell. Back to [[work]]. I had a job.
"What, would you rather that he roofie you?" was Tristan's remark when I complained. Yes, Mr. So Gonna Get Laid. "You just met the guy."\n\nTristan had a point. It hadn't even been a week. I tried to keep this in mind each night as Niko and I headed off [[to bed]].
Their employer comped their food for dinner, Ksenia explained, but it was all hamburgers and chicken wings. "And the onion that Americans dip in grease. So it blooms." Okay for the clientele but the dancers soon would have no business at all if they ate like that all the time.\n\nMarje silently gnawed away at her crab legs. Filled one up without bloating the stomach, Ksenia elaborated. Her Bloody Mary was for maintaining red cell count and iron levels. I made a point of ordering one the [[next time]] we met.
"Whatever you do, don't say you hate the cold!" [[Shelly]] cautioned as we did a dry run after dinner. \n\nBut I do hate the cold, I thought. I hate it with every fiber of my being.\n\nHowever, I hated being broke and unemployed and feeling like an utter fuck-up even more. What did I have cooking besides this option? Not a whole hell of a lot. Just tossing more and more fruitless resumes out into the big, heartless libertarian pit of the Internet. Patching together two minimum wage jobs at Chili’s and Big Lots. Collecting welfare. Where do you even go for this? Or do they just mail you a check?\n\n\n
Twelve hours later, “Cherry cream cheese dessert” arrived in my inbox. \n\n"Just got back from Clayton's. So I know a few things now."\n\n"How much did Clayton know when he got me this goddamned job?" \n\n"Don’t bag on Clayton. He thought you'd be part of the legit business."\n\nJesus Christ. "Are they questioning anyone in Williston?" \n\nNo answer.\n\n"I have to give back the money,” I typed [[frantically]]. “There will be tax records." \n
And then it was just an obnoxious couple with a stew on the stovetop and an unattended gas burner set on high. \n\nThey'd been off in the bedroom pursuing other activities. You could tell by the blush on the guy's face and the girl's hastily assembled outfit. A fucking snowsuit indoors, buttons and snaps not even properly lined up. And a hat to cover up her bed head.\n\nNo thanks for pointing out the danger or warning them to be safe in the future. \n\nBut that's how it was in a boomtown in the wild, wild west. Everyone out for themselves. \n\nLike when he first moved to town. No one to [[make him feel welcome]] like in the old neighborhood.\n\n \n
Two a.m. and five microbrews later, I was in no shape to get behind the wheel of a car. \n\nNiko declared it, and I agreed. \n\nHe showed me to his bedroom, then gently closed the door behind him as he took a blanket downstairs to the couch for his own sleeping arrangements. \n\nI was disappointed at first but then realized with [[satisfaction]] that I had a whole room and bed to myself.
Light-Haired Army Wife one seemed to be the nicer one of the two, the more Christian if you will. Because you know there’s a lot of that in North Dakota. \n\nGod must have overlooked her prayers, however. Because the woman had absolutely no control of her kids. To cope, she was always sucking down a big serving of some kind of fruit-flavored soda and nothing else, as if a liquid lunch was [[the most she could handle]].\n
"She only this week [[turned 16]], you know."
"Get a house. Stop throwing your goddamn rent money down the toilet. You're 32 - old enough. And get married one of these days, for Christ’s sake. But not to that film student. He was an idiot."\n\nYeah, in retrospect, that film student had been a bit of a douche. Point one to you, Brandon, I [[have to say]].
Shaking, I returned the box to its spot in the back of the van. Was that the right place? I thought so. But could I be sure. \n\nShaking even more, I drove back to Dickinson Catering. \n\n“Take the rest of the day off, Melissa,” Raymond told me as I handed in my keys. “You’ve had [[quite a night]].”\n\n“Thank you, Mr. Fournier. Will do.”\n
“I am so sorry,” I said.\n\n“No, I am. I should have remembered about the burner.”\n\nAs Niko opened the windows to clear out the air and I poured cold water over the steaming mess, someone knocked at the door.\n\nWho the hell [[could that be]]? \n
[[Nothing.]]
We soon abandoned yoga for happy hour, due to laziness and, secretly, my sudden turn of events in the hot shower department. Drinking was an activity that didn't necessarily require a fresh scent. Knesia suggested the Red Lobster down the street: a family-friendly place, never too crowded with drunks. It became our [[secret hideout]] \n\nWhat had [[brought them]] to the U.S. and this line of work? I wondered.
“Hey, Tristan, can I look at the comp designs next week?” \n\n“Hi Dad, yes I did hear about that reality show. No, I'm not planning to audition.”\n\n"Yes, yes - the XL Pipeline protest. It's going to be a hot [[mess]]."
In my short stay as guest, I had used up all of the fragrant, expensive soap. Imported soap, too, I guessed based on the fact that I wasn't able to read the label.\n\nI quickly toweled off and grabbed Niko's robe from the back of the door. \n\n“Hey! I think we have [[a bit of an emergency]] up here!”\n
“Here’s your day’s shipment.” \n\nStill behind my balaclava, I presented my clipboard for the crew camp managers to sign, same as before. \n\nBut I saw them in a new light now. \n\nI wondered how much they knew. \n\nWere they mere flunkies, innocents like myself, or were they [[in on the game]]?
What if this was [[just a meal]] after all, an opportunity to become friends and break bread? \n\n
My day-to-day [[problems]] were a bit different than his. \n\nDid the product manager want the logo bigger - yet again? Did the intern actually do her job or just sit around on Instagram all day? This of course was not frowned upon at my workplace because it's social media engagement after all. \n\nDid my replacement contact lenses arrive before my corneas crusted over? Did I get through the day without eating gluten? "I didn't know you were intolerant," Shelly, Brandon’s wife, of course, snarks. Did the DVR finally, finally figure out how to record the [[Independent Film Channel]] correctly, so I wouldn't end up with 10 hours of Caillou or some shit like that? \n\nThe struggle is real, I tell you.\n\n\n[[More about Brandon.]]\n\n[[I should have seen the layoffs coming]].
Niko crawled in next to me. “How are you doing?”\n\nMmmrph, I replied. \n\nTo uncurl me from fetal position, he started [[kissing my hair]] and stroking my back.
I was thrilled by his reaction. For the first time in recorded human history, a graphic designer had been called rich. \n\nAnd that graphic designer was me. \n\nI savored the moment until [[Niko continued]]. \n
He said this very matter-of-factly, like he was talking about the sky being blue or the grass green. \n\nOf course, he continued, he thought those kind of favors would get cashed in later in life - like after 20 years when one of them got cancer – the type that ultimately goes into remission but nevertheless requires lots of short-term care and compassion – or in 10 years if one of them got a job that required moving to some crazy part of the world. Not a favor that gets called up [[mere weeks]] into the relationship.
“Are you fucking kidding me? All of the women in North Dakota to befriend, you find strippers. And gold-digging foreign strippers, too. Goddamnit Melissa, you have a knack for finding trouble.”\n\n“They seem [[really nice]],” I offered. "Really down to earth. And smart."\n\n
I thought of Ksenia and Marje. The teenager. Not much older than my niece. It had been over a month since I had last heard from them.\n\n“Turn over,” I ordered, eager to change the subject. “You have muscles on the front side of your body, too.” \n\n“That sounds suggestive.”\n\n“I was talking about your arms and chest. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”\n\nThen from the nightstand, my cell phone rang. As I flailed to answer it, I lost my balance and [[landed on the floor]].\n
“Change of plan,” he barked. “Raymond knows our parents aren’t sick.”\n\n“How?”\n\n“He has people in Florida who saw them down there. And his people in Minnesota told Clayton, who told me.”\n\n“So, do I drive back?” \n\nPlease say yes, I thought. [[Please say yes]]. I wanted to unhitch that wretched camper and drive full speed back to the townhouse.\n
<em>This night I'll go out. This night I'll explore the town.</em>\n\nBut I never did. I retreated to that chilly depressing white trash camper instead to escape into old movies and stupid YouTube videos.\n\nI let emails sit unanswered and phone calls go straight to voice mail.\n\nAfter a concerned text from Brandon, I called to [[reassure him]] I’d neither fallen into a well or been sold off into a global human trafficking enterprise.
One afternoon, dark-haired Army Wife grabbed her sister’s arm and looked straight at my table. \n\n"I win the bet. I win the bet.”\n\n[[What?]]\n
The friends from Wayzata and Edina sent generic singing ecards. ("When you care enough to click your mouse.")\n\nA Greenpeace ecard arrived from St. Louis Park. “May your holidays be warm and bright.” The picture was a baby seal. Of course it was.\n\nMost had been sent well in advance, during office hours. \n\nOf these greetings, [[only one]] arrived on Christmas itself.\n
"Where should I put these?" Shelly was lugging a big box of Communication Arts across the snowy yard. \n\nSomewhere within was the May 2010 issue with my name on page 63, bottom left corner.\n\nI directed her to a yet-unoccupied nook in the camper. Good for ballast. Or kindling.\n\nAfter she left, I sensed someone standing behind me. It was my brother. He motioned for me to be quiet and pulled out a [[small box]] wrapped in a Minnesota Wild scarf.\n\n
"Later on in the winter, these two were sitting out on the back patio.”\n\n“In March?” I wondered.\n\n“This guy comes from one of those European countries where they get off on sitting around in the cold. I’m surprised he didn’t make her jump into a freezing lake with him or something. People do crazy shit in North Dakota. \n\n"They had a big blanket wrapped around them, drinking hot chocolate or something like that. Well, because there was no wind that night, I could hear what [[they were saying]].”\n\n
She waited for me to [[recognize it]].
<em>Stay loose.</em> \n\nThat's what my brother counseled me, shoveling food into his mouth over dinner at [[our family’s farm]].\n\nMy brother was always full of [[advice]]. \n\nNot like I listened to him. I turned my attention instead toward:\n\n[[My job search and career development]]\n\n[[Keeping up appearances]] \n\n
“One time, those two scared the shit out of me. I was standing on the path that goes behind all the houses, waiting for the two heads on the couch to stop looking at the stupid TV and start doing something entertaining. And then they jumped up and ran to the back window. The guy pointed at something, right in my direction. Fuck, I thought. I’ve been caught.”\n\n“Were you?” I asked.\n\n“No, thank fucking God. That guy’s pointing saved my life. There was a big-ass deer standing less than five feet away from me. Like I was supposed to be expecting Mutual of Omaha's [[Wild Kingdom]] out there in a fancy housing development." \n\n \n
Hmmm, I thought. I wasn’t exactly having luck with opportunities that required a brain.\n\nShould I [[stay]] or should I go?
What the hell? We didn't even like those cousins.\n\n"Thanks for the advance notice," I told my brother. "Do you know how long of a trip that is for me?" \n\n"Well, they still think you're living in Minneapolis working at your old job, so you pretty much have [[no excuse]] not to show up."\n
“Hi Gretta! Hi Raymond! How’s it going?” \n\nKeep it cheery, but [[not too much]].
The first to go were my friends at the ad agencies, of which Minneapolis actually has quite a few. In creative class trends, our backwater state actually keeps up with the times. Most recently, it discovered that members of the general public will design cat memes for free. So who needs a 20-designer creative department anymore? \n\nThen the smaller, boutique firms slimmed down, then shut their doors. The Twin Cities saw a big uptick in solo practitioners that fall. Caribou Coffee overflowed with Mac Airs, Moleskine notebooks and their skinny-jeaned owners.\n\nWhen my compatriots at Lockheed were hit, I thought it was just a government thing – the shrinking of the budgets, the pruning of the staff. When 3M was hit, I assumed a dip in the Post-It note market.\n\n[[I should have seen the layoffs coming]].\n
For all of our foreplay bravado on the couch, up in the bedroom, suddenly confronted with furniture actually designed with sex in mind, both of us turned shy and awkward.\n\n"Are you sure you're okay with this?" Niko asked, turning down the comforter for both of us. He then disappeared into the bathroom to change, leaving me free to snoop around. "My collection of severed heads is in the other closet," he remarked when he caught me.\n\n"I can't believe your brother has you sleeping in a camper," he then remarked as we were turning in. "People die of frostbite out here. Or the propane heater blows up while they're sleeping."\n\nSo his hospitality was a public service, one made even more self-sacrificing by my silky vintage pajamas. How did Niko like them? “I’m sleeping with someone from Masterpiece Theater.” \n\nI informed him that these were really in fashion right now. <em>Vogue</em> said so. \n\nHe didn't agree, not that night and not the night after. “All you need is a snifter of brandy and a pipe,” he snorted as he gave the pajamas a once-over, and of course remained [[too gentlemanly]] to take the course of action – removing them – that would rectify the situation. \n\n"It's late. Get some sleep," he said, planting a kiss on my forehead.\n\nI rested my head on his chest, the cotton of his t-shirt soft against my cheek. Carefully I raised my head. He wasn't sleeping either. So I shifted my gaze out the window. \n\n[[Tonight]], so different from the nights in the camper, freezing my ass off - how quickly and suddenly life can transform itself into something totally different than before, I thought as I drifted off.\n
“[[Life is good]],” I texted Brandon and Shelly.\n\nIndeed, the days had settled into a nice rhythm - driving the van by day, spending my evenings, well, I didn't share with them what I did at night, and watching my bank account balance climb and climb. \n\n\n
Any one of them could have thrown me into a back room and killed me, I thought, especially with the crew camps empty in the middle of the work day. \n\nHow long would it take for anyone to find me? For anyone [[to inquire]]?
“That happens."\n\n"We should take a few days off. Go to Florida sometime. You need to meet them, and we need the sun. I think everybody would get along."\n\n"I'll get the time off. Just tell me when," he texted [[back]].
I'd treat for dinner this time, I insisted. It was the least I could do after that psychotic display.\n\nI [[stopped by Red Lobster]] after work. \n\nI also threw in a few movie DVDs.\n\n[[Tonight]], we're watching something a little different.
“Yep, all good,” I texted back. “Just taking a moonlight walk."\n\n"What about yoga?"\n\n"That's so last month. Now I'm appreciating nature.”\n\n“Great. I hear it’s really pretty out there on Becca and Larry's farm.”\n\n“My sister in law,” I explained to Niko as I slipped the phone back in my pocket. “They worry about me.”\n\n“[[How many siblings]] do you have?” he asked.
Later that night, I couldn't sleep. I [[continued to plan]] for my new business. \n\nAnd the following afternoon, a [[call from Brandon]] interrupted those plans.
In the big pool, I aimed pressure jets at my aching back, my pinched shoulders and the calloused feet that would disgust even the most seasoned pedicurist. \n\nI sampled them all until [[my muscles felt as liquid as the water]]. \n\nA sign on the wall limited the maximum soak time to 15 minutes. \n\nBut no one paid attention, I noticed, not here in a state where rules are just a technicality. \n\n\n\n\n
I [[got the hell out]] as soon as I could.
I think he needs to call the police. That was Donetta's suggestion.\n\nBernie had mentioned this as well. But his friend had been reluctant. "I don't want to get her into trouble," he said. \n\nWhat do you mean? Bernie asked. \n\nWe wondered this, too. All descriptions of the girl up until this point had been fairly wholesome - Minnesota farm family, independent film aficionado, graphic designer. But recently she had been working out in North Dakota, driving a van for a food service company after her big-corporation employer laid her off.\n\n"They always come for the creative class first," I observed. \n\nIt wa all very model citizen and upstanding except for one detail: Nearly a hundred thousand dollars in her checking account.\n\nDamn. Yeah, maybe calling the police wasn't such a great idea after all.\n\nSo the guy finally gets a day off work.\n\n"What's his job?" Donetta asked. Because she worries about these details.\n\nSomething in [[fracking]], Bernie had said.
"You safe? Raymond pleased with your work so far?"\n\nIt’s pretty hard to fuck up driving a van, I told him. I couldn't [[even think about]] other ways to get into trouble.\n
So you got to know the little stripper during your tender lap dances. You got to know her in the Biblical sense off in the shadows when no one was watching. Enough about the girl, [[my friend Danny]]. What can you tell us about the suspect in the snowsuit? \n\n\n
\n<em>On the spectrum my ass. Back when we were growing up, they [[just]] called it weird.</em>\n\nI was beginning to like these siblings.\n
Eleven hours, 11 minutes. That was the time it took to reach a place we visited every 5 years or so and seldom thought of in the time in between, family branches united solely by bloodlines and ancient Jello mold recipes. Unlike Niko's family. He was always on the phone with his father or their cousins. They must have gone broke before the Internet and Skype.\n\nI left at 5 a.m. \n\nI chugged Red Bull and blared the music to keep myself awake. \n\nI rehearsed all the things I would need to say to keep my story straight. These family members may be distant, but they sure were nosy if I recalled correctly.\n\nSpring was in the air, patches of green and brown just breaking through the snow.\n \nI rolled in just in time for dinner. \n\n[[Here goes.]]
"No. Graphics. Logos. Ads. Multimedia content."\n\n"Still good. You are [[an artist]]," she declared.\n
The robe kept [[slipping]] off my shoulders.
No, no, no - Clayton hurriedly [[assured me]] that this would not be the case.
I hoped that my Lululemon gear from more prosperous times would [[dispel]] any notion that I was a homeless vagrant. Or a girl who lived in a camper.
The sash kept [[loosening]].
“Not bad,” Shelly remarked. \n\nBrandon went on and on about how Niko looked like some assistant goalie coach for an OHL team over in Saginaw. \n\n"Oh yeah, that guy, I know him well," I replied sarcastically. \n\n"He's a good coach. They think he might be brought up into the NHL at some point, maybe in Detroit, maybe in St. Louis."\n\n"What does that have to do with my life?"\n\nWith work and my newfound social circle, I had little time to concern myself with my brother and the hockey world.\n\n"Why don't we invite your friends Ksenia and Marje over some time," Niko said one night as he was downloading new music for my iPod. "Have a foreigners' night over here or something."\n\n[[Of course]] you'd like that, I retorted. \n
Shelly sounded relieved, but told me to be careful anyway.\n\nBrandon was [[all business]].\n\nThey asked me to describe my [[coworkers]] at Dickinson Catering.\n\n
A poster ad at the airport would be a must, get me out in front of all those wealthy executives and investors who flew in each week. \n\nThen I’d [[branch out]] to Grand Forks, Bismarck, all those hockey towns and schools in the state. \n\n
We handled it quite well, if I do say so myself, with a return to our fancy dinners. A bouquet of flowers – not red - on the table, a bottle of nice wine in place of our customary beer. \n\nAs for sappy cards, fate gave us a pass on that one. It wasn’t as if oil country had a Papyrus store or even a Hallmark. Only gas stations selling [[red lace panties]] bunched up like roses on pipe cleaner stems.\n\nLater that week, Niko asked to see some examples of "[[what you really do for a living]]." \n
And so the weeks passed. What were the teachable moments, as my sister-in-law would say? What did I learn from this experience?\n\nI learned that the days that fly too fast in the working world - fighting traffic and juggling five different irrational deadlines at 5 p.m. - slow to a crawl when all you have to fill them with are hitting refresh on your dormant email inbox, killing time on Huffington Post (sideboob sightings and human trafficking!) and shooting out resumes to some sketchy server farm in Estonia.\n\nI learned that a checking account drains really fast with nothing to replenish it. Same with a savings account.\n\nI also discovered the not-so-subtle nuances of how people treat you when they see you as competition or insignificant. \n\nAnd I learned that you really, really start looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner with your [[brother]] and [[sister in law]] when you’re unemployed. Especially when the latter is an amazing cook. Brandon had it made when it came to domestic life, that was for sure.\n
“They have security camera footage of a person in a snowsuit. Delivering drugs to a crew camp. And someone identified that person as you.” \n\n"Who?"\n\n"Why are you asking me? It's somebody <em>you</em> got to know out there, obviously. Maybe one of the ladies you designed hockey masks for. Maybe one of your buddies from yoga class or that spa. I told you that place was sketchy. Or maybe one of your stripper friends or that Scandanavian boy toy turned you in."\n\n"They're going to find me. I need to testify."\n\n"No you don't," Brandon replied. "Just [[sit tight]].”\n
The next morning, my full work week kicked off. Fuck my schedule, fuck my life. Five days to figure out all the details, all the while [[acting as if everything was normal]].
Like a good liberal, I [[hesitated]].
I’ll ditch the camper. I’ll [[drive back]]. I'll explain everything.
I [[fielded emails]] from the outside world. \n\nOne text I did answer, in between stops, was [[Brandon’s]].
“On my shifts as security guard, I’d walk the grounds. The complex has these trails that go throughout the buildings, and even though they’re all lit up and the development is in the fancy area of town, they had to be walked anyway. [[Fucking rich people]]."
Yep, Mom and Dad were up from Florida. On the far side of the living room, they held court. \n\nHad they always looked this [[old and frail]]?
I put on a sad face. “My parents. It’s a [[long story]].”
\nWhat about her apartment?\n\nHe had never been there. Besides, it wasn’t really an apartment. It was a camper, parked on someone’s farm about an hour and a half away.\n\nOkay, that was just fucking weird. \n\nHousing prices are high in oil country, Darius explained. It's like Washington, or New York. Or here.\n\nCouldn’t he have just called up her friends or family? I wondered. \n\nHe had never met them, and he didn’t have their contact information. They had [[only known each other]] a couple of months.\n\nHe knew her last name. He knew her brother and sister-in-law's first names. Couldn't he go to whitepages.com or Professor Google and figure this out?\n\nThe brother might be part of the problem, Bernie's friend suspected. Whatever this problem may be.\n\n\n
Don’t go to bars, it's not safe. If you really need a beer, get a case at Walmart. But go during the daytime.\n\n"Yes, father," I rolled my eyes. I was already packing heat, living like a hermit and cloaking myself in a fleece burka. How much more careful could I be?\n\nYet afterward, I found that the conversation energized me. I had had enough of it, that [[cold and filth]]. Enough of this bullshit. It was time for a change. \n
I shrugged. What would I do with free time anyway? Not like I knew anyone out there and not like I'd be fucking a swath across the state. One phrase haunted me from every blog I read: “The odds are good, but the [[goods]] are odd.”
After I handed in my van keys for the night, I wandered by Raymond’s office.\n\n“Mr. Fournier?” \n\nSmall man was sitting at his desk, nearly lost behind piles of paperwork.\n\n“Melissa!" he popped up. "Good to see you. What can I help you with?”\n\n“I need a few days off next week.” \n\nHe [[raised his eyebrows]]. People just don't take off work in the middle of a gold rush.
"So he'll just call," I asked, smoothing down my hair. Like it mattered. I’d be driving a van. \n\nBut maybe it would. Raymond was [[a guy]] and I was a fair to pretty girl. Cute by Clayton standards, which I assumed to be equivalent to North Dakota standards. \n\n
Of course Danny didn’t have plans. And he didn’t really care for the sherry we offered him, you could tell. \n\nBut he wanted to tell us his story. [[Of course]].\n\n“It’s a place called Paradise on the Prairie, but everyone just called it Paradise."
Ryan Miller always struck me as pretty jumpy, I reminded him, hoping to move him onto a less annoying subject. But oh no, that [[hockey as metaphor for life]] lecture was just beginning.
My phone buzzed. Niko. “You okay?”\n\n“Yep all good,” I quickly texted back as I investigated [[the other contents]] of the box. \n
"She doesn't let you use her laundry or kitchen? And she makes you stay all the way out [[here]]? What a bitch," Ksenia remarked as we rattled across the field.
I am a designer not a writer, I elaborated to the sea of polite smiles, my friends who would not be living in a camper for the next six months. \n\nAnd no, that didn’t mean that a graphic novel was in the works, either. \n\nI also corrected them on my motivations. This North Dakota junket was not an art experiment, a graduate studies research project, a Morgan Spurlock documentary or a curious foray into [[how the other half lives]].
\n\nI took the call in the unfurnished spare room. “What’s up with Mom and Dad?” I asked, just in case my voice traveled.\n\n“Raymond Fournier is tied in with the Sinaloa cartel.” \n\n“So?”\n\n“This is big stuff, Melissa. [[Really big stuff.]]”\n
"Look who's back." Her head bobbed and her brow furrowed in concentration. "Zhady's back."\n\nI needed to [[make this girl’s acquaintance]].
I loved their stout little legs and rosy little cheeks and unapologetically unfiltered little personalities. \n\nThey laughed. They cried. They sprawled on their butts, and every so often one would hurl a plastic ball out at a parent or fellow player, just to cackle with glee and see what would happen next at this crowded sub-arctic [[McDonald’s]]. \n\nSometimes - no, often, and more and more since being laid off - I found these kids more tolerable than adults.
I [[raised an eyebrow]].\n\n\n
\nI did what I had been told. I hid out until it was safe. I kept my head down and my mouth shut. And, when the time was right, I went back to the farm, then Minneapolis, and got back to life as usual.\n\nStudio space had been surprisingly easy to find. I rented a place in south Minneapolis with a small apartment above, happy to have a place of my own again away from my brother. Things between us had [[become strained]], to say the least. \n\nAlso astonishingly smooth: the official launch of my firm and my reintroduction back into my old social circles. \n\nWith cash and a cool new company, I returned to my old life. In some ways things [[had never changed]]. \n
It takes a few minutes to convince Mr. Rent a Cop to move along. But eventually he does, and life resumes to normal.\n\n"I don't mean to interrupt," Donetta interjected. "But did they ever consummate things after nearly burning their house down?" \n\n"Oh, they did,"Darius replied. "Many times over, is the impression Bernie got."\n\n"Well, that's [[not very gentlemanly]] for you all to be talking about it," she remarked, "especially with the girl missing and all." \n
Independent film. Otherwise known as “Melissa’s weird fucking movies."\n\nWe're quite different in temperment and taste, my brother and I. Just ask him. \n\n"What's your sister like?" \n\n"Artsy. Lives in the Cities." \n\nLike that's all you need to know [[about me.]] \n\n
I buried my $400 iPhone under a mountain of discarded CDs and broken jewel boxes, and I took the SIM card out of my pocket to meet its death in a can of Mountain Dew. \n\nBut clever me, I had a secret. Before I had dismantled everything, I had copied Niko’s phone number onto a scrap of paper, which was now tucked away in a corner of my purse. Lacking a pen, and with my drawing materials locked away in storage, I had improvised with an eyeliner pencil. [[Clever me]].
Shelly offered to track some down for me. She had [[discovered]] a flea market on her latest trip to the city.
After dinner, that real estate show was back in the Caribbean, with a buyer who had 20 million to spend on an island. A freaking island. \n\n“[[That’s crazy]],” said Niko. “What does one person do with his own island?” \n
"It is very efficient," Ksenia noted approvingly. "Yet pretty. You can tell that you are an artist." \n\nAlready, she was rifling through the scarves to select an [[appropriate one]] for Marje.
We stopped in front of a camper out back. Clayton handed me the keys. It was mine for as long as I needed it.\n\nI graciously declined. “My car’s in good shape. But thank you."\n\nNo, I misunderstood, said Clayton. The camper was for me to [[live in]].\n
Niko raised an eyebrow. Perhaps Brandon had a point about the deterioration of my language.\n\nMy sailor’s mouth must not have been too much of a deterrent, however. The very next evening he was there, same spot. And he waved and motioned me over to his table. \n\nAfter green teas and bowls of soup, plus a foray into the Wichita loft district, he told me about [[his life]].
“Life gives people one chance – if they’re lucky. This is yours. Don’t screw it up."\n\n\nGo West: [[Begin the journey]].\n\nSee the [[table of contents]].\n\n[[Meet the characters]].\n\n[[Legal language and disclaimers]]\n
As soon as the garage door opened, I bolted through the garage and past Niko cooking dinner in the kitchen.\n\n“Fucking freezing, so goddamn cold. Be down in about half an hour!” I shouted. \n\nI know, not even an offer to help, incredibly rude. But I was chilled to the bone, and single-minded in my [[pursuit of warmth]]. \n
Niko helped me weatherize my car for the drive. Then we grilled steaks, out on the deck this time. We talked about Tristan’s plans for the website, including a Snapchat app for customers to send photos in of their hockey inspirations.\n\nNiko was skeptical. “Isn’t that what kids use to send naked pictures to each other?”\n\n“In our case, they’ll be sending in photos of NHL legends. Fully clothed, I assume. Speaking of clothing optional, I haven’t [[heard from Ksenia]] for ages.”\n
I’d start with the Army Wives and their friends for building my clientele. \n\nI'd approach the schools, pitch the local paper to write a story. “Profiles in entrepreneurship” or [[something like that]]. \n\n
"No, you can [[keep it]]."
A fellow diner. A [[good-looking youngish guy]], as far as I could tell in the shitty light. \n\nI'd noticed his shadow before, always reading a book or magazine so I figured he wanted to be left alone. \n\nMaybe he was an investor. His silhouette had that look about it. Most likely he worked a weird shift, like everyone in the area.
\nOf course the body had been discovered. Of course the snow had melted. \n\nLeft alone, Ksenia remembered.\n\nThe drive to Winnipeg. The pills along the way, just in case. Then the blood. \n\n<em>I promised I'd protect you. I failed you.</em>\n\nHer only satisfaction: that bastard Danny would never get to be with his sweetheart or his child.\n\nNow the scarf. She picked it up from the coroner's table, noted the tag with Melissa's name. One of the few kind gifts they'd received.\n\nProbably obstruction of justice or tampering with evidence but whatever. She tucked it in her large vinyl bag nevertheless. And just in time, too. In returned the investigating officer.\n\nYes, she finally declared. That's [[Marje.]]
No. Actually very few things would have been, he replied. \n\nWhen he had fallen in love with Melissa, it had been very quickly, he said. “And you know her - you can see why. She's very funny, intelligent, strong.” Because we were sitting there drinking beer in the wholesome setting of a children's tree house, he left out the part about how they screwed each other senseless at every opportunity.\n\n“And soon after we became involved, I knew I would [[do anything]] for her.”
Maybe it was even how my [[sultry]] Lululemon yoga gear clung to my frozen pizza-honed muscles. \n\n
Pairing up with straps was just unnatural and awkward. It [[ruined enough]] otherwise decent classes.
The roads to Williston already were crowded - semis, pickup trucks, the odd trailer or piece of farm equipment. My workplace was a big metal warehouse. It had the look of a repurposed farm supply store, with a small parking lot and a McDonald’s next door. \n\nI took a deep breath and headed to [[the lobby]], snowsuited legs swooshing against each other as I walked.\n\n"Melissa!" \n\nRaymond Fournier's Skype image, short legs and all, motored toward me for a crushing handshake. Wow, he was not very tall at all. Reeked of Camel Lights. "We've been waiting for you."\n\nTwo hours later, following a brief, decidedly non-OSHA-approved orientation and a few steps to set me up on the direct deposit system, Raymond left me to [[his minions]], who [[sent me on my way]] with a map and a grunt.
I added new work to my online portfolio, kerning and rekerning the captions as my brain reeled, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened with the perfect life I had sorely underappreciated until now.\n\nBut kerning was the [[practical]] thing to do, so I did it.
“Martin Brodeur would never give up."\n\n"That's Mar-TANN, Melissa.”\n\nAt that point, the axis of my world permenantly shifted. I entered an [[alternative universe]].
"She's looking for room to start a family. He wants to shorten his commute. Can this couple find the best of both worlds in sunny Austin?"\n\nNiko, visibly relieved, headed for the refrigerator.\n\n"We can actually do our drinking game with beer instead of green tea now. One sip for every mention of granite or a backsplash. Two for Jack and Jill sinks. And three for man cave, which I sincerely apologize for this house’s resemblance to."\n\nI grabbed a cold beer bottle from his hand, slipped off my shoes and [[curled up on the couch]]. A real couch! In someone’s house! And here he was apologizing for it. \n
After two hours on the highway, daylight was pink in the sky. I pulled into the rest stop. Two missed calls from Niko, which stung even though I was expecting them. Six missed calls from Brandon, plus a text marked “urgent.”\n\nOh shit.\n\nBrandon [[picked up]] in the middle of the first ring.\n
"It's unlocked!" \n\nSo I just walked on in. I'd caught him just putting two massive steaks into the oven. Hell, yeah, this was a step above Applebee’s. I set the six-pack of beer I had brought onto the counter. “7-11’s finest.”\n\nHe nodded approvingly and took my coat. “It was already chilled,” I said, then cringed. Everything in North Dakota in the month of February is pretty much chilled by default. \n\n“So we can start right in. Resourceful. Please forgive the furnishings. There's not a great selection of [[good design]] out here."\n
Maybe he had [[tired]] of Eternal Spa’s limited menu. \n\n
And it worked. \n\nBefore long, visions of meth bags and pirate-stenciled pouches were the last things on my mind, and we were observing the snow day as such occasions were [[meant to be observed]].
“You just need to disappear for a while, then reappear in Minnesota when it’s safe. You already have a camper to live in. What about that Cricket pre-paid phone I told you to get?”\n\nI still had it. I never used it. I felt like a senior citizen or Person of Walmart carrying that thing around, but yes I still had it.\n\n“That is how we’re going to communicate from now on. Plus emails with subject lines that have nothing to do with anything related to Williston. So no one will suspect anything and read them.”\n\n“What, did you see that trick on a cop show or something? And who'd be reading my email?”\n\n“Don’t be a smart ass. This is serious. Use cash for everything from now on. And [[destroy this phone]] as soon as we’re done talking. But don’t just throw it away. Take the SIM card out and dip it into a can of soda. That erases the memory." \n
And then you had my situation, a relationship marked by [[mere days]].
Making money and sending it back - the usual immigrant story. [[Marje’s]] [[family]] has eight brothers and sisters, too. According to Ksenia in any case. Not like the younger woman said a peep.
Brandon would love this, I thought, my brother always one to comment - and not in an appreciative fashion, either - if the gas station attendant or supermarket clerk greeted us with [[an accent]].\n\nI made a mental note to bring up this latest encounter in our next call. "At a Korean bathhouse, too! After I got off work from my Canadian employer and hung out with my Russian stripper friends!" Just to piss him off.
"I am so sorry we did not come over today. Marje was sick. But she is feeling better now. I hope you are not [[too mad]]."
I did, and I saw Raymond Fournier being led away in cuffs by North Dakota's finest. "Local businessman implicated in drug trafficking ring. Kilos of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine found." \n\nThis was not the kind of entrepreneurship spotlighted in the newspaper’s "Faces of the Boom" series. And, from the SWAT and DEA personnel I saw in the background, I knew this was serious.\n\nI spent the next days frozen in fear, too scared to sleep, eat or even watch my trove of DVDs.\n\nIn an email with the subject line "Seven layer baked bean dip," Brandon sent me [[another message]], not even trusting the Cricket phone for this one.\n
His face was serious. But not pissed. “Melissa, you can [[stay here]] as long as you want.”
“Go back to work this week as usual. \n\nThen, on your next day off, [[drive back to Minnesota]]. \n
"Private, too. Do you bring your guy back [[here]]? The house we rent is big but we share the bedroom with two other women. No privacy. And sometimes the bitches steal your outfits and makeup."
“I’m so sorry to put you to all this trouble." \n\nAnd I did genuinely feel bad. I scrambled around as he searched. Shit, why couldn't he just wear Axe like other guys? Why did he have to order in the expensive stuff? No, yuck, that would be disgusting. \n\nI tried to be helpful. "If I knew where the extras were, I could have found them myself. [[Where do you keep them?]]”
Before I could read much more, my customer arrived, blond, rosy-cheeked and bounding with energy. \n\nThe same age as the dead girl. \n\n“Hi, I’m here! Are you [[Melissa?]]”\n\n\n[[The story continues]]...
“So do I.” Should I have volunteered that? [[Becca]] gave me a look but didn’t pursue the matter.
God bless the Internet - it [[knows]] and finds all, even the things a person should not be legally searching for.
"Be the [[beast]]."
In any case, the evening ended with Cara and Dan bickering over some shabby walk-up by the canals and Niko inviting [[me]] to his place for dinner the following night.
The alarm had gone off on a cold February night. Fire alarm. In a region with highly flammable petroleum extracted from the earth and shipped by the liquid ton, such an emergency could swiftly evolve into a catastrophe.\n\nDanny been on the job less than a month at the fancy housing development. He was starting to get bored. He was resenting the evening hours away from his sweetheart. \n\nBut he was a man of the law. He knew the drill. \n\nHe was ready to leap [[into the flames]] if need be. Save the complex. Redeem himself. \n
“You’re not over at that guy’s place, are you?”\n\n“Where else would I be?”\n\n“You cannot tell him.”\n\n“Why not? I have nothing to hide.”\n\n“You’ll be saying that when he turns you in to the cops.”\n\n“He’s not like that.”\n\n“You’ve known this guy, what, two months?”\n\n“[[What am I supposed to do]], Brandon?”\n
Just as a day of sitting and a diet of Chex Mix was likely to give me middle-manager spread.\n\nThat I had [[discovered]].
\n\n[[Begin the journey]]: Descent into redneck-istan\n\n[[December]]: Bring it on, North Dakota\n\n[[January]]: Making friends\n\n[[February]]: The month that changed everything\n\n[[March]]: Settling in\n\n[[April]]: A sudden storm\n\n[[May]]: Like Jennifer Lawrence in "Winter's Bone"\n\n[[September]]: I did what I had been told\n\n\n
\n"Is this how you set up this thing?" Brandon messed around first with the back of the computer, then the angle of the screen.\n\n"It says here that when a call is received, a telephone icon will appear and the screen will change to the caller's face," Shelly read from the printout of the instructions. “We should use this when we talk with [[your folks]], Brandon.”\n\n[[Oh hell no]], was my brother’s answer to that. This was his [[skepticism of technology]] talking. Still listened to CDs. Only recently bought a phone with Internet and games. That was my old-school brother.
I did.\n\n"That's [[really good]].”\n
\n\nHe had gotten over it by now, so why couldn't everybody else? A change of scenery had helped.\n\nNothing like taking a metallic blue Camaro for a cross-country drive to a new job and a new life. Music blaring. Limp Bizkit, [[Linkin Park.]]\n\nFreedom.\n\nAnd nothing like finding the girl of your dreams when you got there. \n
“I'm sure they're just too busy with the holidays to call you back,” Shelly clucked sympathetically as she spooned my [[brother]] a second helping of mashed potatoes. \n\nIn my shoes, she would have landed a new job right away, probably by the very next [[afternoon]] and probably something useful and well-paying like a welder or plumber. Shelly was capable like that.
Becca and Larry told me about their farm, the town and the other campers who had made their fields home: a few sketchy types from the north, a family - nice folks! - who recently closed on a place in Dickinson, most recently a soldier fresh from Afghanistan.\n\n"That didn't end well," Larry said, without elaborating. \n\n"I think he suffered from the PSTD or whatever it is," Becca remarked. "It's nice to have a girl for once. You won’t play Metallica all night or bring [[strange men]] back, will you?”\n
I still stopped for lunch at McDonald's while Gretta and the crew reloaded my van. \n\nThe two sisters –one light-haired, one dark-haired – were back. I now referred to them as the Army Wives after seeing a man in a camo jacket dart to drop off a diaper bag.\n\nAs I picked at my lunchtime salad, I found myself scrolling through Facebook on my phone less and less and [[watching their melee]] more and more.\n
“Go [[back to work]] this week as usual. \n\n
I spent a disproporationately large chunk of my remaining savings on that gear and bottles of wine. Not just for me, for my going-away dinners. Needless to say, my plans to work in the oil fields of North Dakota caused quite a stir around the tables of Edina, Wayzata and St. Louis Park.\n\n"You're going to North Dakota? That’s so …interesting."\n\n"Are you going there to write a book?"\n\n“Is this for [[a blog]]?” (How early 2000s.)\n\n\n
“I knew [[that one]] wasn't a guy!" she proclaimed, pointing.
I had become rusty at the whole socialization thing. So it didn't help that Ksenia [[paused]] for an incredulous moment.
"Not all businesswomen in the Netherlands look like that," Niko commented.\n\n"I think she is totally checking out Dan the friend."\n\n"I think Dan the friend wants to be more than friends with young Cara. Watch how he looks at her."\n\nHe did have a gleam in his eye when the realtor pointed out the expansive walk-in shower, I pointed out.\n\n"And when they toured the bedroom," Niko added.\n\n"There's where the magic happens."\n\n"I think they're going to try out the mattress after the realtor drives away."\n\nI [[raised it up a notch]], perhaps too much of a notch, but what the hell.
“How are your parents?” Niko asked.\n\n“[[Everything’s fine]],” I assured him. “Now, let's work on your fear of being molested.”\n
"Hi, I'm Melissa."\n\nShe looked up in surprise, then removed her earbuds. \n\n“Ksenia.” Strong grip. I must have looked confused because she repeated herself. “Ksenia. With a k and an s. And this is Marje.” \n\nThe tiny dark-haired girl at her side smiled but did not speak.\n\nSo I did the talking. "I'm going to get coffee next door. [[Want to join me?]]"\n
Work [[camps]]? This sounded a little bit too Soviet reeducation program for my tastes.\n
The day of [[my departure]], a picaresque snow covered the farm. \n\nAs I sat in the driveway, postponing the turn of the key in the ignition, I checked my email. The St. Louis Park friend had finally written. About time, I thought. \n\n"Fracking,” said the subject line. “I know you need the money. But couldn’t you work in something that doesn’t ruin the earth for our children?"\n\nFuck you. And off I went, winter air blasting through my open window [[as I drove]]. I don't have children and I don't have the luxury of being a liberal anymore. \n\nWhen I reached a rest stop, I included a video of Sarah Palin in my reply. Not because I particularly like Sarah Palin – to the contrary – but because my awaiting life on the frontier was freshly motivating me to piss people off. \n\nEnter [[North Dakota in winter]].
\n\n“Hello stranger,” Ksenia welcomed me in her froggy voice.\n\n“I can’t stay.” Not 10 minutes in, I gulped down a quick and inferior sauvignon blanc. I glanced back at the kitchen to check on the status of my takeout. “I have a date.”\n\n“People still go on these? Who is this lucky boy?”\n\n“I’ll tell you more later. Meanwhile, tonight. [[Tonight]]." I stammered because I was texting at the same time. Rude, I knew, and Ksenia cast me a well-deserved glare. "I have to slip into something sexy but warm. This shirt, sexy if I leave the top two buttons unbuttoned?”\n\nTop three, Ksenia insisted. Maybe even four. It was flannel after all.\n
"Shelly's [[old handgun]]. I put the bullets in the cupboard by the batteries and emergency flares."
Maybe it was the Russian in them or maybe it was the stripper. But sometimes I wouldn't see them [[for days]].
The cops were notoriously understaffed in Monte, Brandon informed me. His mode of communication: an email that started with the subject line “Grandma’s refrigerator dessert.” \n\nHow did he know these things? I wondered. I had time to think about all of this, now that I had headed [[back to Minnesota]] with absolutely nothing waiting for me.
“What did you see?” I asked.\n\n“Well, if you look at only the windows downstairs, most people live really boring lives. But upstairs, where the bedrooms are at, people strip down. Woo hoo! I thought. Yeah, right – a lot of hairy old oil guys with big hairy beer guts. But a few of them had wives. Let’s just say I started bringing along my [[binoculars]].”\n
“Go back to work this week as usual. \n\nThen on your next day off, drive back to Minnesota. \n\nAfter you get to Minnesota, not before, call Raymond and tell him that your parents had an emergency and you had to drive back to take care of them. \n\nYou have to stay in Minnesota and you don't know when you’ll be able to return. \n\nThen tell your guy the same thing [[if it makes you feel better]].”
"More wine?"\n\n\n\nThen it was [[December]].\n\n\n\n\n\n<em>[[Begin the journey]]: Descent into redneck-istan\n\n[[December]]: Bring it on, North Dakota\n\n[[January]]: Making friends\n\n[[February]]: The month that changed everything\n\n[[March]]: Settling in\n\n[[April]]: A sudden storm\n\n[[May]]: Like Jennifer Lawrence in "Winter's Bone"\n\n[[September]]: I did what I had been told</em>
“I think this one actually is," Darius replied. Then he digressed. \n\nHe took us back to the first week or so when our star-crossed lovers had started spending time together. According to Bernie, this was important. \n\nIt was at that awkward stage after the first kiss when you're wondering if and when you're going to sleep together and every moment and mundane activity presents that question: Will it happen? When will it happen? [[How will it be?]]\n\nWe all stopped what we were doing and leaned in. Sex talk. \n
These expenses were adding up.\n\nHow equipped was I to handle this overhead? I hopped online and logged into my bank account. \n\n“Here’s [[what I have for seed money]],” I showed Niko. \n\nI wasn’t usually one for sharing such personal financial information. But this was business.
\n\nAre you Brandon? she asked.\n\nHe nodded and leaned against the doorway, would not [[come out]] onto the porch. He was in his forties, she guessed. Tall with solid shoulders. A wind-reddened face. He had been handsome as a younger man.\n\n“I would like to buy your farm.”\n\nWith that, his indifferent stare hardened into defiance.\n\n“Oh hell no.” \n\nAnd then the door, slammed in her face.
He left a manifesto. Of course he left a manifesto. Those types always did. A spurned cause. A lost sweetheart. No one would listen to him. Whine on, angry white male, whine on.\n\nWilliston, North Dakota seemed to be the tie that bound him to the victim. Disgruntled worker case as usual. Sulky employee fired for skulking and slacking. Wily entrepreneur who pissed off the wrong guy - after dodging drug charges, too. \n\nMust have been some kind of rage. This guy had motored his car all the way across the United States, then turned left at the Canadian border to continue on to Quebec City. Found the farm. Fired the shots.\n\nNo need to develop [[a profile]]. Case was already closed. \n
I could catch pieces of the conversation. It bounced between languages. “Dad, you would not believe this snowstorm. I know, I [[know]].” This would take a while.
Not a lot of North Dakotans were availing themselves of these creature comforts, I had to say.\n\nPuritanical fools.\n\nIf I had to pick between freezing my ass off and [[submerging myself]] naked in a pool of strangers - and now I actually had that choice - I know what option I'd select.\n\nTheir loss.
He stopped me. Too dangerous. "Listen to some music. Or draw something. Distract yourself.”\n\nOn the subject of distrations, which I didn't share with him, my bladder had ached [[for the last three hours]]. \n
I might just even call Niko tonight, I plotted, squinting through the swipes of the windshield wipers on the cold, rainy drive to the Minnesota border. \n\nDrug ring be damned, I was going to stop at a [[real hotel]]. I was going to enjoy a few [[creature comforts]] before Clayton's camper yet again became my temporary home.
<em>What then?</em>\n\nThe porch was expansive, she continued, covered in white paint that had faded into a comfortable ecru. It sagged in the middle, telling her that its owners actually saw it as a place for furniture, activity and human gatherings, instead of mere decoration. \n\nWax candles hung from the eaves to keep away mosquitos, even though anything from the insect world had either perished in a cold frost or migrated south by now. \n\nThe porch furniture was of a sturdy plastic material and color scheme that hasn't been seen in years, even in Minnesota. Wooden crates cradled firewood and potatoes. A wooden broom propped up against the wall held a summer’s worth of cobwebs, seed pods, leaves and pollen in its bristles.\n\nIdyllic, you'd [[have to say]].\n\n
I did not know this country. I was a stranger in this land. How did I get here? When would I be free to leave? \n\nMy brother, a man who had barely mastered English and who had never once set foot outside the 48 contiguous states, had just schooled <em>me</em> on my French pronunciation.\n\nI was the artist of the family, well read, a traveler. Okay, I went to Europe only once. But I was a fucking expert on films with angst, subtitles, pensive smokers and Vincent Cassel. I was a well-read connoisseur of foreign things and people.\n\nMy [[descent]] into redneck-istan, my journey to white trashville would be long and painful.
The next morning, we barely made it to our respective workplaces in a timely fashion. And that evening, back at the townhouse, we barely made it up the stairs. \n\nSleeping with each other in the truest sense of the word - finally! - changed the tenor of our evenings dramatically. We replaced steaks and fancy takeout with hastily scavenged sacks of fast food - "Arby's? Cool" - thrown onto the kitchen counter for late-night sustenance. ("It's 2 a.m. already? Jesus, how did that happen?") \n\nAs for the TV, that screen remained dark. We even misplaced the remote for a few days, found it later wedged between two couch cushions.\n\nAfter a few days of this, I was truly at the point of sleepless hallucination. I nodded off at the wheel. I nodded off at McDonalds. \n\n“The frickin’ longest day on the road,” I'd stretch and yawn as I stumbled inside the front door. “You must be [[worn out]] as well.”
He led me through the concept and wireframes.\n\nThey started with a dark screen. The hockey mask was very small in the middle of it. It spins as it grows larger. Of course the spinning feature works on phones and tablets, too.\n\nDamn, who knew my former intern had possessed such talent?\n\nTristan went on about the product catalog, the links to YouTube videos of hockey's best fights, an interactive feature that would morph a child's head onto the body of an NHL all star. "But not in a creepy way," he assured me. \n\nAnd then the grand finale, [[the tagline]]:\n
“It is harmless fun. Unless you are a woman who breaks the rules and takes a customer out back or into the restroom. Yes, Marje, I am looking at you. But even for us good girls, [[Valentine’s Day]] will bring us one month’s worth of earnings in one night."
By morning, the sky was blue and blinding and the roads clear. \n\nThat cardboard box with the non-perishable items still sat [[next to me]], taped back up in a way that I seriously, seriously prayed revealed no tampering.
\nThe premise was simple: plop into a random city [[a single or a couple]]. We're talking gay, straight, bi, trans, any age or color. The love for granite countertops transcends boundaries. \n\nTake them on a tour of three properties. See what "ticked the boxes" and accompany them through the highs and lows of the selection process. \n\nSome of the destinations I had been to, like Paris, San Diego, Chicago. Many I wanted to see, someday, when my bank account and life circumstances could support it. Others – like Abilene, Jakarta, Waco – not so much. \n\nBut I watched anyway, these 30-minute tales of the customer, the realtor, the three abodes and the big [[decision]] – an apparently timeless theme with as many permutations as the world had cities.
Motel Six. Bingo. Cheap enough to pay for with cash and relatively safe, at least out here in the country. \n\n[[Clever me]].
“I met her after work. My work, not hers. My shifts ran 4 p.m. through midnight, so it was too early to go to bed. So what does a guy do after work? I wondered. So I looked at the newspapers and the ads to find out where the women were at.”\n\nOut of the corner of my eye, I noticed Charles wander in from the study. I gestured for him to keep quiet.\n\n“There are so many strip clubs out there. So many. It’s where all the guys go. Because there are no women out there, you know. What are chicks going to do, work in the oil field and lay pipe? And the ones you do see at the gas stations and convenience stores?” He rolled his eyes and [[puffed out his cheeks]]. “One too many trips to Country Buffet.”\n\n"What was [[her name,]] Danny?”
After I conquered that disgust, fear, guilt and regret - not to mention isolation ("Do Mom and Dad even know where I'm at?" I demanded of Brandon. "Got that covered," he retorted) - boredom was my biggest enemy in the Monte campground. \n\nSketching and anything related to my shuttered hockey mask business just made me angry. Any kind of romance movie just made me sad. And so I watched and rewatched my indie flicks, steering towards the grimmest and most depressing. War crimes in Bosnia. A botched abortion in Romania. See, [[things could be worse]]? Right?\n
How the fuck do these people qualify for a mortgage? I wondered the first time I watched the [[show]]. And the second. And the third.
“Melissa, we know. You lost your job last fall, and you’ve been living in North Dakota ever since,” [[Mom said]].\n\n“And making good money, from what I understand,” Dad piped in, his voice not exactly robust either.\n\n[[“Why didn’t you tell us?”]]\n
“What are you learning so far?” Shelly asked me in the tone she used with the kids when they were younger and walking through the garden experiencing teachable moments.\n\nThat the van's sliding door was likely to give me [[amazingly ripped arms]]. But for now, those triceps just hurt like a bitch. \n\nThat I would sell my soul for those [[seat cover beads]] that the Somali cab drivers used in the Twin Cities. \n\nThat the crew camp managers who accepted my deliveries were way too busy with their own jobs to [[even think about]] raping me. \n\n
The shower couldn’t steam up fast enough. My shivering body absorbed the heat like a thirsty castaway sucks down water.\n\nAfter I had lathered and rinsed my hair, I [[tipped]] the other bottle upside down.
For me, the urban legend of hypodermic needles and vision of shared snot was never far from my mind. \n\nBut I got a kick out of [[watching the kids play]]. \n\nUntil a [[little urchin]] in a snowsuit hurdled headlong into my legs, moist fists coating my snow pants in Cheetos dust. \n\n
I knew that I didn't want to leave. We spent evenings on the patio after work, wrapped up in blankets, drinking from a flask.\n\n“Summer is very nice out here,” he whispered so we wouldn't spook the deer away. “There’s a lake close by, so you’ll need to trade in those snow pants for a swimsuit. Which I am personally looking forward to seeing. Music festivals. Picnics, barbeques. There's one my coworkers throw every Fourth of July that's become quite a tradition. If we get some time off, we can drive to Montana. Go hiking. Go camping.”\n\nNo thank you on the camping, I told him. But yes on everything else. \n\nMaybe it would all work out, [[some way]].\n
“I was embarrassed," I confessed. \n\n"Why?"\n\n"I didn’t want you to worry." \n\n"I'd be more worried about the oil worker who'd want to mess with you."\n\n"Have you been [[back to the farm]] yet, Mom?" I asked to change the subject.\n\n"No. We know your brother has it in good shape."\n\nMy brother. Of course. The one who hadn't lost his job and had to resort to driving a delivery van for sustenance.\n\n“We want to hear all about the oil fields,” Dad piped in. “I hear they bring in prostitutes in from all over the world to entertain the workers. [[Is that true?]]” \n
We skipped cooking and the gas-fired range altogether and returned upstairs to pick up where we’d [[left off]].\n\n
From there, I fell into the crowd and the melee, unexpectely pleasant after so many months of comparative solitude. I enjoyed myself, even crammed into the attic with four other cousins for sleeping quarters.\n\n“The parents found out,” I texted Niko from beneath the covers of old Army cot.\n\n“Did Brandon tell?”\n\n“Don't know. Probably. They're getting old. Like, I know they're not young, of course, but they really looked it this time. [[WTF]]?”\n
Her eyes widened [[in disbelief]].
“I think so."\n\n“Does he think that she’s okay?" \n\nEven though I don't know these people, I'm worried. It sounds like he is a nasty guy, this security guard. And the drug ring. \n\nI shuddered, happy to live far away from that mess in North Dakota.
We were going to die. \n\nGrabbing the robe, I bolted downstairs. \n\nThe dinner. Still on the stovetop. The [[burner still lit]].
Two lanky youths from the kitchen loaded my van with steaming, surprisingly aromatic pallets of food. I [[started up]] my engine.
<em>"Set it up quickly. Look for your chances. Don’t give up any penalties. And when it’s time, crash the net."\n\n"If you’re the one in net, you've got to stay bendy."</em>\n\nBendy? What was I, a porn star? What the hell?\n\nHockey was my brother Brandon's philosophy for life, his fall-back metaphor when any bump in the road comes along. \n\nI understood where he was coming from. I had watched many of the games with him, sitting on the couch, chugging beer, cheering and yelling about this slash and that boarding and every bad call by the refs that sent our players into the box. \n\nBut I didn't quite see how Brandon's advice applied to my situation in Minneapolis in the fall and winter of 2013. \n\n[[More about Brandon.]]\n\nNo, let's talk [[about me.]]
Why yes, nothing quite says birth of Christ and [[Christmas movie]] like a giant rabbit.
“Because there’s no bathroom on the ground floor. It’s a big design flaw by the builders." \n\nAnd then he realized the bit about the bedrooms. Blushing, he messed around with the TV remote until a [[familiar jingle]] changed the subject.
Hell to the no. I was not going to a godforsaken prairie town in the oil fields to [[work as a stripper]].\n
Professional massages made him nervous, he said. Just his luck he'd drift off and wake up to someone groping him under the sheet. Then demanding money for it. "You hear rumors about these places.”\n\n“The Korean grandmas at Eternal Spa? You can’t be serious.”\n\n“A lot of vice goes on in Williston."\n\nDidn't have to tell me that twice.\n\n"Even the place where your friends worked, Paradise on the Prairie,"he continued. \n"[[Drugs and prostitution]], from what I hear.”\n
Business, though hard-won – you try selling youth hockey masks in the middle of summer – was starting to happen. I had meetings lined up all month: next week with hockey clubs in St. Cloud and the week after with more in Duluth. \n\nTristan, whose own freelance business was booming, updated the site so I could blog and send out email campaigns. \n\nAnd my little neighborhood newsletter had already written [[a profile]] on my company. “Faces of the boom,” they called it.
Pay cash for everything, I reminded myself. \n\nFortunately, once I got [[back to Minnesota]], I discovered that a fugitive living off the grid had few shopping needs. Beer. Toilet paper. Nasty canned foods that could be prepared in a camper.
The years with the film student had left me in good stead, film-wise at least. \nRomance, comedy, documentary, drama. Which to choose?\n\n[[Donnie Darko]]? \n\nHow about [[a bitter Dane]]? \n\nThe [[Red, White and Blue]] trilogy? \n\n[[Wes Anderson]]? \n\nFinally, [[the “Clerks” series]]. \n
Rather than agree, he grabbed my arm and led me to the back patio. \n\n“We need to be quiet,” he whispered as he slid the door open.\n\n“It’s freezing out here!” I hissed. \n\nHe put his arm around me and pointed to the forest out back. As my eyes adjusted, other pairs of eyes, luminous ones, popped out of darkness to meet my gaze – nearly half a dozen in total. \n\n“The deer come out here from the woods after sunset.”\n\nThen the phone in my pocket buzzed with a text. “[[Everything good?]] Haven’t heard from you in a while.”\n\nIt was Shelly.\n
The room was never packed. North Dakota was a man’s world after all. It was the same mix of women you see in yoga studios across America, peppy or silently determined twentysomethings, executive wives keeping themselves up, moms determined to bounce back into shape. \n\nNone of them seemed very outgoing or open to friendship. \n\nUntil I noticed [[two younger women]] who didn't really fit in either.
It was a way to [[pay my bills]].
Meanwhile, Dark-Haired Army Wife watched on, biting into her chicken wraps with decisive chomps of authority.\n\n"Are you going to wipe your princess' nose, or are you going to let it drip all over the toys and the other kids?"\n\n"From the smell of things, I think bathroom time is too little, too late for that one."\n\n"I really don't think Cayden needs another Chicken McNugget. He's [[round as a house]] as it is.”\n
"It’s right by the highway behind the truck stop. We missed you in class last week, by the way. Are you familiar with [[Korean bathhouses]]?"
“The job’s yours if you want it," Clayton explained, his cheek now inflamed with a chunk of Skoal. \n\nWhen would I start?\n\n"They need someone right away. Raymond just wants to meet you on Skype to put a face to the name. And make sure you’re hardy and trustworthy.” \n\nThe next day, we prepared for my Skype [[interview]] with Raymond Fournier, the owner of Dickinson Catering.
\n“I can’t stay,” I blurted out, [[suddenly panicked]], receiving an understandably puzzled look in return.\n\nMy head was reeling. God, I wanted to stay but I had forgotten my backpack. My goddamn backpack, back in the camper. Where I lived, when not squatting at a squalid pseudo day spa or taking advantage of the hospitality of strangers.\n\nI needed time to collect my thoughts.
I typed in the last name, checking the spelling twice because it was a little tricky.\n\nNo luck. Niko's phone number [[wasn’t publically listed]].
I’d googled the name after my conversation with Brandon. [[May]] the answer be better than I feared. May this all be an urban legend or exaggeration. \n\nYeah. Not so much.
Jesus, consider yourself [[celebrated]].
“And the way the game turned out, it’s probably better they stayed home."\n\n\n\nAnd then it was [[March]].\n\n\n\n\n\n<em>[[Begin the journey]]: Descent into redneck-istan\n\n[[December]]: Bring it on, North Dakota\n\n[[January]]: Making friends\n\n[[February]]: The month that changed everything\n\n[[March]]: Settling in\n\n[[April]]: A sudden storm\n\n[[May]]: Like Jennifer Lawrence in "Winter's Bone"\n\n[[September]]: I did what I had been told</em>
<em>How well do you know her friend [[Tristan]]?</em>\n\nThe pause - a big one - was duly noted. As was the official response. He was an artist. Aunt Melissa talked about him a lot. He spent Christmas with her family instead of his own. Because he was an orphan. \n\nWhy did she use the word "orphan" to describe a grown adult? Brianna had asked at the time. Now this phrase no longer confused her. She understood.
“[[Becca’s a bitch]],” I told Shelly and Brandon later that night.\n\nBefore Shelly could sympathize, Brandon jumped in to scold. From our warm farmhouse with three working, hot showers. Yeah, that was my [[favorite part]].\n\n“You be nice to her. I don’t care if she has all the hot water in the world, if you just don’t like her tone or if you go the next six months without anything more than a south of the border bath. She’s renting you her land, and you need to be nice to her.”\n
In a note taped to the camper door, Becca and Larry directed me to a nearby church for services and a potluck. \n\nThe good Midwestern girl in me almost considered it. \n\nThen my common sense prevailed. I was no stranger to that rodeo. The setting would be cramped, the sermon dull and the food inexplicably laden with Jello and marshmallows. Those factors alone would negate any bliss zoning out in a heated room under pretty [[blinking Christmas lights]].
“Go back to work this week as usual. \n\nThen, on your next day off, drive back to Minnesota. \n\nAfter you get to Minnesota, not before, call Raymond and tell him that your parents had an emergency and [[you had to drive back]] to take care of them. \n\n
Her speech was slower than I remembered. And shaky. And it was [[not even]] near the end of the day, so tiredness was no excuse.\n\nHad she always spoken this way?
I pulled over to call the switchboard of Dickinson Catering. One of the kitchen guys answered the phone. \n\n"Just stay put," he advised. "Use the emergency blanket in the back if you need it."\n\nNiko advised the same thing. He was stranded at his company’s offices in town. \n\n"Conserve your gas. Conserve your cell phone power. And stay calm. You’ll be fine. Send me a text every hour or so to let me [[know you're okay]]."\n
The site of a former pawn shop, Bella's Coffee House was one of those enterprises the Williston Chamber of Commerce touted as "a symbol of revitalization and entrepreneurship.” \n\nSeeing it in person, empty but for the young barista who [[grabbed our coats]], I wondered how Bella was doing on the rent.
Eastern Europe, right? Right by Russia? Or Ukraine? Famous for?\n\nI had nothing. I was just a redneck farm girl who lived in a camper.\n\nOkay, back to the TV. And good thing we returned, too. Coltish American Cara and "her friend Dan from home" were meeting with their real estate agent, a woman straight out of central casting for [[Dutch bombshell]] or porn star.
Yep, [[not even]] five minutes in. She was good.
“No. You just keep on going. But don’t call anyone – not Dickinson Catering and not that guy.”\n\n“Niko. He has a name, you know.”\n\n“Of all the men in North Dakota, you couldn’t at least have hooked up with an American? Jesus, Melissa. In any case, you can’t contact him again, not until after all this shit goes down and [[possibly not ever]].”\n
“Go back to work this week as usual. \n\nThen, on your next day off, drive back to Minnesota. \n\nAfter you get to Minnesota, not before, call Raymond and tell him that your parents had an emergency and you had to drive back to take care of them. \n\nYou have to stay in Minnesota and [[you don’t know when]] you’ll be able to return. \n\n
<em>When Melissa first told you about this grand scheme to work in oil country, what was your first thought?</em>\n\nJealous - that had been Tristan's first thought - and his second, and his third. \n\nThere she was, cruising in her delivery van across the open road, stereo cranking, no supervisors or clients riding her ass and there he was, sitting bored in his cubicle, staring at the same four gray corkboard walls, struggling in vain to "think outside the box" about some inane watered down concept. Waiting for the email that would tell him he was no longer of value there. \n\nListening to Melissa’s stories about the boom in that once-barren state – traffic jams on two-lane roads, wells with with flames shooting everywhere, strippers, redneck coworkers - was a hell of a lot more interesting than the busywork they kept his team occupied with before they showed them all to the door, from the oldest creative director to the newest [[intern]].\n
A bit impressed, I hoped as he [[asked]].
My first night in the camper, alone in the field, both heaters worked, but I hardly slept. Every gust of wind. Every crackle of snow. I clutched the box with my gun in my arms, my freezing body huddled around it in fetal position.\n\nI must have dozed off at some point, however, because before I knew it, I was up with Becca and Larry’s chickens. Sore and [[awakened by cocks]], you could say, but not in a good way. \n\nAnd the sky was still dark. Fuck you, winter solstice.
As Becca cleared the dinner plates away, her manner shifted abruptly from hospitality to business.\n\n“If you need anything, leave a note in the mailbox or on the porch. We have to be out on the farm a lot, so you’re pretty much [[on your own]].”\n
By 10 p.m., I could wait no longer.\n\nHere goes. I exited the van. I took a quick glance. Then I squatted over the snow as ice pelted my face. \n\nSince I was out of the van anyway, I followed this with a side trip to the van’s back door. Chili. Non-perishables. Why hadn't I thought of this before?\n\nRaymond couldn’t legally sell day-old food. Besides, this was an emergency. If he complained of any shortages, he was a douche. What kind of employer starves his staff? \n\nI’d saved up my fuck you money. I’d just walk out and leave if he gave me grief. \n\nIndeed, why hadn't I [[thought of this]] before?\n
Fortunately, music wasn't the top subject on her mind.\n\nLike many of Williston's 200 or so women, she and Marje were excited about Valentine's Day. But not for [[the usual reasons]].
First, you have the work hours and scenery to contend with. [[Traffic jams]] and filthy snow by day, red-glowing skies at night as I drove back home to my camper. \n\nWork like a beast, die once your body and spirit are thoroughly broken. It was the [[American way]].
<em>When you tracked down this Becca, what did she tell you?"</em>\n\nI asked her about my aunt, Brianna explained. Did you know her? \n\nOf course this Becca lady had known her. Aunt Melissa had parked the camper on her farmland for months. Brianna had the map to prove it.\n\nBut Brianna wanted to know why - and if there was a connection.\n\n"She didn't stay long. We had a [[little issue]] with the shower and the hot water.” \n\nThen silence.\n\n“What was she like? Pretty girl. City girl. A bit of a snot. Why do you want to know?”
They would freak out and tell [[me]] to pack my gun in my garter belt like a moll from a high school musical.\n\nBecause this was obviously a serial killer.
It was a [[done deal]]. Now came the journey. I found myself back out at [[Clayton’s farm]].\n\n"Let me [[show you]] something."
"Yes. But not a CDL." \n\nThe commercial driver’s license. Immediately my spirits sank. Such things took weeks to obtain, I’d heard. Hello Big Lots.\n\nThat’s okay, Raymond reassured me. I wouldn’t need it for the vehicle they'd have me driving. \n\n"Now for the second of my [[questions]]..." \n\n
My phone immediately buzzed with an actual call. \n\nDue to decibel level, I had to hold the receiver [[far from my ear]].
“Keep out of trouble and don’t talk shop.”\n\nI ignored him and focused at the tasks at hand, doing my job and figuring out how I could find a [[facility with a hot shower]], one that was free, safe, well equipped with space heaters. Clean was optional at this point.\n
closer to my ear than necessary in the [[early]] morning quiet
The neighborhood back home knew Danny as Nora’s kid, the one who mowed the lawns and shoveled the snow. Out of the kindness of his heart. Then joined the police force. \n\nThey all knew when he was [[in town]].\n\n
First course of action: the hygiene situation. \n\nBecause attempting a shower in that camper was just a fucking joke. It never warmed up above the vaguest definition of lukewarm. And even with the heater, the camper’s interior air temperature rarely got above 55 degrees. \n\nI tried to soap up in advance. \n\nI warmed my towels over the heater. I tried all varieties of angles and contortions to limit my time under the water and even stopped washing my hair for a while. \n\nI stormed up to the porch - no flower pots this time, it was early January after all - and [[asked Becca]] if I could use the fieldhand shower in her basement every day or so. Yes, bitch, I know it's there. I'd be discreet. I'd be clean. Just a few minutes and a few gallons of water a day.
"There was [[a profile]] about him in the Williston paper just last week. Because it was the anniversary of the shooting, of course. But I never heard from him again."\n\nNiko took a swig of his beer and continued. "To Melissa and my father, I explained that I had ended the harassment with a restraining order. But the truth, as you see, is a little different.”\n\n
"Where do the women who work in the oil fields stay?" \n\nAt first I waited in the kitchen with Gretta as my [[coworkers]] restocked my van.\n\n"They find apartments.” \n\n“They don’t stay in the crew camps?”\n\n“Women aren’t allowed in the crew camps. Unless they’re prostitutes." \n\n“Do you live in town?”\n\n“I’ve lived here all my life.”\n\n\n
He shrugged. “[[The work]] is interesting. And, of course, [[the money]] is good.”
"My son - that little brat over there - is having his birthday party on Saturday. I bought a bunch of plain plastic goalie masks, and I was thinking it might be fun to have somebody paint them up. Like the pros do in the NHL. And you look like you might have a talent for such a thing.”\n\nI didn’t know much [[about kids]]. But art I knew. And hockey. \n\nI double-checked my schedule with Dickinson Catering. Miraculously one of my few days off coincided with the day of the party. The next day at McDonald's, I gave the Dark-Haired Army Wife the thumbs-up.\n\nAnd then I scrambled to [[get ready]]. \n
“The job wasn’t all boring. There was this red-haired guy with an accent, about my age. He almost burned his house down. \n\n"When I responded to the alarm, he and his girlfriend were just standing there all embarrassed. She wearing her snowsuit and a hat, like what the hell? That was the first piece of clothing you could find when I came to the door? They were all ‘ooo, I don’t know why the oven started smoking and the alarm went off.’ Well I do, dumbasses. It’s because you were [[upstairs fucking]] rather than paying attention to it.”
These included a few ads for nude artist modeling. Though curious, I fled the premises before dropping trou. It was nearly winter in Minnesota after all.\n\nAnd people think I'm not [[practical]].
Long dormant, my LinkedIn profile had turned into an overgrown garden of spam. \n\nI – like everyone else I knew - considered the network the cheesy domain of Rotary Club members, people who spell the words “sales” and “success” with dollar signs and strangers from India blasting you with typo-filled articles about tipping points and the sharing economy. \n\nNow, jobless and desperate, it was a capitalist tool I was forced to embrace.\n\nWhen I updated my profile to add a long-forgotten podunk local award - you never know, these things can help - a dozen strangers congratulated me on my new opportunity.\n\n“Really? This shit is supposed to work?” \n\nBut this was the [[practical]] thing to do, so I did it.\n
We’ll see about that, I thought, but had [[the sense]] not to say.
I didn’t have to, Clayton explained. The job wouldn't involve direct work in the oilfield. It would involve a van. I would be transporting food back and forth between a big industrial kitchen and the [[work camps]].\n
"There's actually a market for that?" Lydia was incredulous.\n\n"It's the north. There's a market for all sorts of weird shit up there. So our friend says yes, he was looking for a gift for his cousin in Finland, here's some water, why are you here?\n\n“Cousin in Finland,” Donetta clucked. “Some people get way too carried away when they’re making things up.”\n
I avoided McDonald's as Gretta loaded me up, scavenging lunch from gas stations at my colon’s peril. \n\nI didn’t want to face the scrutiny of Dark-Haired Army Wife or be forced to to decline orders from her friends. \n\nLucrative orders now I wouldn’t be able to fill.\n\nJesus fucking Christ, Brandon, there goes my business. I wailed, alone in the van, the one place where I could safely express my thoughts. \n\nThis adventure in North Dakota had been too good to be true. \n\nHow had I gotten myself into such a [[mess]]? \n
\n\nAfter I was soundly mocked for my use of archaic DVDs ("so much for Netflix and chill"), we would attempt to watch the movies. Niko tried to be polite. “I don’t mean to offend you, Melissa, but I can’t watch another minute of this. It makes no sense. And it’s boring.”\n\n“It’s a [[meditation on life]],” I protested. “Terrence Malick is a genius.”\n\nInevitably we'd end up making out like a pair of redneck teenagers. Then, as the closing credits rolled across the screen - grips, gaffers, regional economic development authorities - we'd click off the entertainment center and wander up [[to bed]]. \n\n\n\n\n
“What’s it [[like]]?”
Gretta wasn’t the friendliest of ladies, so I soon spent the re-stocking periods next door at McDonald’s. \n\nI kept my parka, hat and balaclava on throughout, ashamed of my limited hygiene and still afraid to reveal myself as a woman in this wild, wild west. \n\n[[I also kept to myself]]...
He pulled up a chair. "I'm Niko."\n\nHere in the most redneck, remote [[part]] of the United States, I was surrounded by a veritable United Nations. \n\nYou can tell when someone gets that “not from around here, are you?” look a lot. Because they feel compelled to explain themselves. "I'm originally from Finland," he said.\n\n"I’m originally from Minneapolis. That’s where my accent [[comes from]]," I replied.\n\nHow does one go about this witty banter thing again? I seriously wondered. Because I was sorely out of practice.\n
Back in Minnesota, my brother’s thumbs flew. The messages appeared on my screen in [[quick succession]].
Then a cold snap hit North Dakota. It was just the same time the heater conked out in Dickinson Catering's high-quality van. Awesome, simply awesome. \n\nWhat a day. Of course any repairs had to wait until the deliveries were completed. Workers to feed, money to make. The petro-economy didn't slow down just because a delicate flower of a delivery girl was a little cold.\n\nBut I was cold. Freezing in fact. I could see my goddamn breath. I would have given my life savings for a space heater or electric blanket. \n\nWhen I arrived at Niko’s place, the only thing I could think of was [[a long, hot shower]]. The thawing power of steaming water. Eternal Spa had spoiled me.
I ran my hand across the tape. \n\nDid it look compromised? I squinted. Not really. Not from a distance.\n\nBut would “not really” be [[good enough]]? \n
Niko [[stared]] at the screen.
\n\nYou could move one to a secluded corner and [[sleep soundly]] in the steam-filled room. \n\nAfter two months curled up like a shivering fetus in a white-trash camper, it was an experience I found as luxurious as [[submerging myself]] in the deliciously hot water.
The steaks were delicious. The beer was refreshing and the conversation good.\n\nAnd I ended up [[staying]] over. \n\n[[Slut]] that I was. \n\nI stared at [[the walls]].
“We’re really not used to women [[extending invitations]] to us,” Knesia explained. \n\nI [[paused]]. What exactly did she mean by that?
"Melissa!" \n\nDark-Haired Army Wife in hostess mode. Who was this chipper, grinning imposter? And who were these 20 young men tearing up the kitchen? For Army brats, these boys seriously lacked discipline, careening around in circles on the new parquet floors and shooting Nerf balls at each other like they were Seal Team Six on the hunt for Bin Laden. \n\nAny nascent mothering instinct I'd ever had was immediately extinguished.\n\nMy artistic instincts, however, awakened. Once I set up my station in the living room, I drowned out the shouting and painted the masks, thinking back about the ones that had caught my eye through years of NHL Network viewing with my brother. \n\n“[[Draw]] a zebra!” one little boy requested. “A lion!” shouted another. \n
"Really. [[Please, keep it.]]"
<em>So you tracked down one of Melissa's first clients.</em>\n\n\nI thought she might know something, Brianna replied. And this woman had been more forthcoming than most. \n\nShe had first met Aunt Melissa at the McDonald's. Took her for a boy at first, all bundled up in her snowsuit, scarf and hat. Her kids would run over and bug her, like they did all the diners, so she’d draw hockey masks on paper plates to keep them distracted. [[Draw]] this, draw that. \n\n"Really talented girl." \n\nThat's how she ended up hiring her to paint plastic masks for her son’s birthday party. \n\n"That part went well at least."
<em>What did Marje think about Melissa?</em>\n\nKsenia blinked in surprise, as if quiet Marje having an opinion about anything was a concept beyond one's wildest imagination. \n\nMarje didn't say much good or bad about anybody, she finally replied. But anyone could tell she felt left out when Ksenia and Melissa yammered and laughed and joked in English at their happy hours. \n\nSo Knesia got stern. She reminded her that Melissa was their friend - one of their only friends in that wasteland, too. Then, for incentive, "Maybe if you work harder on your English, you can talk along wiht us.” \n\nMaybe that would force her to study harder, Knesia had hoped. Spend more time with her language books, less time thinking about that guy. Marje had been doing that [[for days]]. \n\nDanny, she would later learn. The security guard. That asshole.\n
"I guess that leaves Casa de las Lilas." The spendthrift woman on the screen sounded hesitant, yet excited, a feeling I could relate to. \n\n"I guess so," the husband grinned, and they hugged in a stage-directed outburst of passion.\n\nNiko hit mute on "La Paz, three months later" and tossed me my phone. \n\n"Those hockey masks," he said. “I have an idea.”\n\nI sat up, ready to talk more. “So do I.”\n\nWe booted up [[the computer]].
Hell to the no. I was not going to a [[godforsaken prairie town in the oil fields]] to work as a stripper.\n\n“Do you have any better offers?” Brandon reminded me.
Maybe she sensed an investigation and fines from the poor labor conditions. Wait - I was under the table and she wasn't my employer. Scratch that. Maybe she feared the unfortunate public scandal if my icicle of a dead body was to be found on her land. It certainly wasn't out of the kindness of her heart. But she actually caved. \n\nFor a brief and wonderful time, shower time was the [[favorite part]] of my day. I actually welcomed mornings before dawn. I could reintroduce myself to society, I realized. I could drop into that yoga class I'd spotted from the side of the road. I could live like a human again.
\n\nClayton telling this man "a lot" probably involved a fantasy with a hay bale, me spread-eagle on top and Skynyrd blasting in the background. \n\nBut [[Raymond]] Fournier was an old-school kind of guy, I could tell. He was more the type to torment his staff with Ole and Lena jokes at the Christmas potluck than lascivious harrassment. He probably saw me as a daughter or granddaughter, not a sex slave. \n
"Sit down," I ordered. \n\nI grabbed a paper plate from the counter. I punched out two sloppy eye holes. And I started drawing. \n\nA fierce tiger appeared on the plate. Not bad. I added a few flames shooting from the side of his head. Then I took two ribbons - Midewestern women are crafty, we can never pass up a textile or two - from my bag and affixed them to the sides. \n\n"There," I said, placing the paper plate over the child’s stunned face and tying the back. "You're a goalie. Now go mind your net and leave me alone for 60 minutes."\n\n“Yeah, I’ve been keeping up with my design work,” I texted Brandon. \n\nBecause his stance on my stripper friends was well known at this point, I didn't relate my [[creative consulting]] for Ksenia and Marje. Fashion this time.
Ksenia grabbed the laptop and started typing.\n\n"What are you doing?"\n\n"But if you want really good designs, you need to look at the KHL. Although maybe," she paused, "[[the parents]] won't want their kids to have something Russian."\n\nHockey transcends politics, I assured her. Anyway, why should Putin ruin a [[good goalie mask design]]?\n\n"Why should he?" Ksenia agreed with a tragic Russian sigh. "He's [[ruined enough]] for my country already."\n
The next day at McDonald's, I sensed Dark-Haired Army Wife's gaze over my shoulder during my lunch break. More specifically, the condensation from her refilled soda dripping onto my parka. \n\nNo self-respecting oil worker spends their lunch hour drawing stylized art deco flowers. I shielded my sketchpad from her view. Like that did a lot of good. Because she just continued to stand there, watching.\n\n"[[Move your hand]]," she ordered.\n
I stood dumbfounded before the faucet apparatus and hesitated before digging into the expensive-looking shampoo and soap. \n\nMy thermal long underwear from Cabela’s looked shabby and inappropriate balled up on the new tile floor. \n\nBut with the first jet of hot water, [[all was forgotten]].\n
<em>Driving food around all day, in the cold, surrounded by oil field trucks and heavy traffic. That sounds like [[no easy task]].</em> \n\nBrianna said that it could have been worse - at least according to her dad. But she agreed that it was indeed very different from the usual activities by which she knew her aunt - streaming movies on their computers, tracking down the best in independent and obscure music, taking her out for tapas and artisinal tea.
All I saw was Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will be Blood,” maniacally kicking at another man on the ground – a priest or his son or both – as hellfires and blasts of scalding crude seared the sky. And hard-luck ladies of the evening, oozing with sores and [[pale with frostbite]].
"I knew he'd be stopping by my house again - he was predictable - and this time I'd be ready. You know that I lived in Wyoming before moving to North Dakota, right?” \n\nWyoming? I vaguely remembered Melissa mentioning something about that. It was just for a few years, he explained. \n\nWhile he was out there, he had visited an antiques show and purchased a knife. It was from the 1800s, beautiful mother of pearl handle, [[viciously sharp]]. Like nothing he had ever seen or owned before.
Coffee and sunrise greeted me downstairs in a now magically clean kitchen. Two bowls of cereal and plates of fruit already were set at the table. Under the unforgiving light of morning, my host greeted me, a little bleary-eyed, a little rumpled. \n\nNeither of us were morning people, I realized. It wasn't until our second cups of coffee that words came to the surface. But when they did, they were good ones.\n\n"We still have steaks left over. And beer. If you don't already have plans this evening."\n \nOf course I accepted. And I smiled with satisfaction as I walked out to my car, a brash metallic hulk catching the sun in a sea of beige homes. Yes, [[this will work]]. \n\n
Rabbit in the Moon, Tiesto, Air. \n\n"What, no Bjork from the home country?" I asked, and he just rolled his eyes. \n\n“Someone needs to acquaint you with a map of Northern Europe.”\n\nYes, it was hard to sit around [[all day]] as an ignorant American. But we have a saying in my country, I reminded him. The condescending man is the man who sleeps alone.\n\nAnd that was the end of our geography lessons.
It wasn't even seven, and already the day's business had [[started up]]. A girl who was still a teenager, pimples and all, signed me in and directed me to a folding chair.
Brandon was the older one. The first born. The big deal of the family. He’d run [[the farm]] without our parents’ help for some time, raised two kids – now teenagers, polite and reasonably non-delinquent as far as I could tell in the few hours a month I spent with them. \n\nHis wife had popped those kids out right after college. Because that's what people do here in redneck rural Minnesota.\n\nBut enough about Brandon. Let's talk [[about me.]]\n\n[[I should have seen the layoffs coming]].
What I didn’t tell him: By “some of it,” I meant “less than two thousand.” \n\nRaymond must not be taking out taxes, I thought. Had I ever even seen a pay stub? Or a W-2? This was going to be a pain in the ass to report, I realized.\n\nI [[closed my laptop]] and changed the subject.
“Yeah, I agree. it’s pretty great.” \n\nSpeak for yourself, I thought. I could tell Niko's conversation was wrapping up, so I tossed the phone across the room in the direction of my backpack. \n\nTouchdown! It landed softly and slipped into the narrow opening beneath the strap. \n\nThen I hugged my knees to my chest and [[feigned sleep]].
Inevitably, the day arrived. My day off. \n\nI [[prepared]] for a nighttime departure, sneaking off under the cover of darkness, the roads empty and clear.
Trying to just go about daily life as best he can. Besides, the security guard has no credibility. Word about town is that he’s a pretty weird duck. Obsessed with a stripper a while back, bouncers had to kick him out. \n\nSo stalking’s sort of a thing with him.\n\n"Does he [[still think]] she's innocent?" I asked Darius.\n
And I looked forward to my return to Williston. \n\nNiko was waiting for me in the driveway, wearing a t-shirt and shorts and hosing down his car with the snowbanks melting behind him. A 40-degree heat wave. \n \nWe uncorked one of North Dakota’s best bottles of wine. We toasted to [[our good fortune]] and the temperate weather.
Too soulful. Too sad. Besides, I had always wanted to be Juliette Binoche, and Juliette Binoche would never find herself [[alone in a camper]] in the middle of North Dakota, scrounging with grubby fingernails through her DVDs for a [[Christmas movie]], the highlight of her pathetic day.
"I'd like to stick with under a million."\n\n"He is obviously doing something illegal," this guy Niko observed.\n\nI agreed. "I'll bet you a round of beers we'll see him on America's Most Wanted in a few months for insider trading."\n\n"America's Most Wanted was discontinued two years ago, and Eternal Spa doesn't have a liquor license."\n\n"How do you know?" I wondered.\n\nHe started explaining about how he used to live in Wyoming, how the TV viewing selections had been limited.\n\n"No, about the liquor license."\n\n"I asked the owner. A beer with this soup would be nice." \n\nAfter our white collar criminal Jon selected the larger of the two villas, the one with the infinity pool and full-time butler, Niko [[asked]] me about my story.
“Are Mom and Dad really sick?”\n\n“Doesn’t matter.”\n\n“But they just flew back to Florida.”\n\n“Doesn’t matter.”\n\n“Why can’t I tell people now?”\n\n“Because you have to [[put a few hundred miles]] between yourself and Williston first.”\n
Whatever Niko's motivations, the directions he gave to his home were impeccable, and thank God for that. \n\nThe subdivision, "Fleur de Lis Pointe," was obviously French for "sea of beige and tangle of roads." When I arrived at the two-story townhouse, the porch light was on and the main door propped open. Through the storm door, I glimpsed activity back in the kitchen. \n\nI felt a little weird. It had been a while since I had been invited into anyone's home, let alone [[a guy’s home]].\n\n\n
“By the way,” he continued in a casual tone I knew not to be casual in intent. \n\n“I talked to the locksmith yesterday. He told me that your key should be done soon. So before you know it,” he leaned in for [[a quick goodbye kiss]], one that I prolonged for a good minute more, “you can say goodbye to that camper.”
Twenty stops. Four hundred and twenty miles to Dickinson and back with many, many side roads in between waiting to be [[discovered]]. \n\n
Just then, the computer screen flickered and Raymond from Dickinson Catering's face appeared. It was like a web conference call for work, only with a 50-something Quebecois in a shearling coat on the screen, looking like a fur trapper from some 1970s TV remake of "Sacajawea."\n\nBrandon started to say something about Montreal’s prospects for the Cup – which, for him, passes as witty banter - but [[Raymond]] piped in before he got the opportunity.\n
This is especially important to do when the people in your social circles consider an overbooked spinning class or a late dinner reservation a personal tragedy. \n\nI desperately yearned to talk to my parents. They understood bad luck and hardship, being farm owners [[born and bred]]. \n\nBut I didn't want to worry them. And I was ashamed. So I kept my plight secret. This was easy to do, with them now retired in Florida and never really sure of what I did for a living anyway.\n\nOf course, Brandon had more [[hockey as metaphor for life]] advice to give.\n
Brandon kept me apprised of Williston news. \n\nOf course Raymond had noted my absence. One day could be a hangover. This was oil country after all. Two days could be a cold or flu. But by the third day, Clayton's phone - and Brandon's, by proxy - was ringing off the hook. \n\nWhere the fuck was Melissa? Stacks and stacks of chili to deliver and no one there to deliver it. \n\n[[Had you heard from her?]]
[[North Dakota.]] That was the answer.
"May I continue?" Darius insisted. "Because this next part is good." \n\nSo summer comes along and Bernie's friend is at his wit's end. He sleeps on the couch in the living room because the bedroom, well, too many memories up there. He's certain he will see her again, so he leaves the door unlocked, in case she stops by, and when he falls asleep, he imagines all kinds of scenarios of her arriving: her snapping on the lights and saying hello, as if nothing had happened; her running in, disheveled and bruised, for his protection; her crawling up to snuggle against him on the couch.\n\nOne night he wakes up to find someone sitting there in the chair across from him.\n\nThe girlfriend? I hoped.\n\nNo. That [[very same]] rent a cop from the other night.\n\n
The next night, we stayed inside. Niko was complaining about sore muscles. Climbing around on something earlier that day, a flare stack maybe - hell if I knew. I still hadn't picked up all that oil field lingo. No need to now.\n\nEager to have someone else's problems to focus on for a change, I ordered him to submit himself to my powers as a masseuse. \n\n“Did you ever [[spring for one of these]] at Eternal Spa?” I asked. “I always thought they were crazy expensive.”\n
"Maybe she's taking a vacation. Maybe she's visiting her family in Moscow."\n\n“But she never said anything. That isn’t like her." But maybe it was. How well did I really know her anyway?\n\nNiko assured me she'd turn up soon. "People just don't disappear.”\n\nSpeaking of secrets, how was I going to keep all of this North Dakota stuff from my parents? Over two days?\n\nI'd [[find a way]]. "Why not just tell them the truth?" he suggested. "Why is Brandon against them knowing?"\n\nI had no good answer to that.\n
Every day, I logged on to read about that place I never thought I'd miss, the place I was forbidden to contact: [[Williston]]. The oil company Niko worked for opened some new sites and exploration projects. Eternal Spa, I read, closed its doors in August, North Dakotans generally not being ones for getting naked en masse, no matter how warm the water and cold the weather.\n\nI thought about what [[Niko]] was doing. Those summer festivals and camping trips. Had he found another girl to take with him? Probably. He was a good-looking guy after all. \n\nI [[logged in]] to kill time while waiting for my next private appointment. A girl goalie. The kids all were generally pretty cool, but I was particularly excited about this one. Good for her.
And so the weeks passed. What were the teachable moments, as my sister-in-law would say? What did I [[learn]] from this experience?\n\n
[[Gretta]] worked in the back, stirring the big pots and overseeing the whole operation. \n\nTwo wiry Guatemalans shuttled the big foil tins back and forth. \n\nThe tattooed sous chef cut, diced and assembled as a big hulk of a man - Raymond's brother? - started the whole assembly line moving with burlap bags of potatoes, gnarly bunches of carrots and turnips, massive slabs of frozen beef and pork. Off to the side: a bunch of brown cardboard boxes already taped up. \n\nNon-perishable goods, the hulking brother explained.\n\n[[What I didn't tell]] Shelly...
I had all varieties of colors and patterns, all shapes, sizes and fabrics. I'd used most of them to keep out drafts and hide the worn paneling, tacking them up to the camper's walls. It was too much to tear down and bring in my bag, so I invited the two out to see them for themselves.\n\n"This is pretty scenery," Ksenia observed, picking Red Lobster crab out of her teeth as we drove down the rutted country roads to Becca and Larry's farm."Peaceful. You don't hear drunken idiots fighting out here. Only chickens."\n\nBecca waved at me from the porch. Hello stranger. She gawked openly at my passengers. Guests? A lesbian threesome? I could only [[imagine]] what was going through her mind.\n
A few doors down was the [[coffeehouse]], right past the Great Clips and the beauty supply outlet. Everything for the little ladies of Williston, all in one place. \n\nHow much English did they even know? Would we have anything in common besides yoga?\n\nI didn’t need to worry. Ksenia had [[months of conversation]] bottled up in her, in English thank God, and little hesitation in letting it out. \n\n
\nThat night, he went to the strip club.\n\n"To distract himself from his troubles?" Natalie asked.\n\nNo, for more research. His girlfriend had befriended two dancers from Eastern Europe. \n\nYeah, Eastern European strippers in an oil field. Can't get more stereotypical than that. \n\nThey had met at the yoga class, which made sense when you thought about it. Strippers needed to stay in shape, and a girl from the city would probably be a bit more fitness conscious than your average North Dakotan. \n\n"I'm surprised you and Lydia don't have a few friends who are ballerinas of the pole,” Darius commented to me. \n\n“Why do you say that?”\n\n“Sex positive feminist role models and all."\n\n"We'll get right on that," I assured him.\n\nBut the strippers didn't work there anymore. And no one had a forwarding address.\n\nIn every waking moment outside of work and sleep, he scoured the newspaper reports, the police records, anything he could for [[the news]].\n\n\n\n\n
\n\n<em>Haven’t heard from you in a while. Everything okay?</em>\n\nJust then a text from Brandon came in. I read it as I reloaded the GPS instructions for my return trip. \n\n“All’s well,” I pecked back, annoyed at the interruption. [[“Same old, same old.”]]
As I drove, I planned my business. \n\nCustom goalie masks for little kids. That was it. Kids loved the concept and their parents had the money to spend, especially back in Minneapolis. \n\nAnd once I dominated the market there, I had Boston, Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit. Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg. (No way in hell was I driving or flying all the way up to Edmonton or Calgary.) But going international brought tax, customs and exchange rate issues. Would Canada be worth it?\n\n[[After work]], the planning continued.
I hadn't talked about work much with him until now. Because here I was driving a van for a living, so obviously I wasn't that great of a designer.\n\nNiko disagreed. "These are really good. I can't believe your company let you go." \n\n"Maybe they had a point. I tried for other jobs out there and got nothing."\n\n"How long did you try?"\n\n"Two months."\n\nHe laughed at me. Nevertheless, it was my first positive portfolio review since September.\n\nOn Brandon and Shelly's request, I sent them a [[quick snap]] of us. We were sitting on the back porch, framed by an idyllic landscape of snow and woods and even a few of the more brazen deer in the background. \n
The dining room, right down to the furniture, felt like home. Hummel figurines on the hutch. Furniture from at least three decades past, including a table with a removable leaf for the holidays. And tonight the centerpiece was a tater tot casserole with cream of mushroom soup and fried crunchy things on top. A veritable fest of gluten and encroaching obesity. \n\nMy ass will be the size of Canada, I thought and [[dove in]] anyway.
“Please don’t be offended, Melissa, but is that balance correct? That amount is more than what I made my entire first year in Denver. A year's salary. As an engineer.”\n\n“It’s not all Dickinson Catering money,” I stammered. “[[Some of it]] is my savings from Minneapolis.”\n
"This isn't summer camp or spring break at Padre or wherever the hell you all went that year. Or Europe. It's a different world out there."\n\nWith that gun and that statement, my vision of the crew camps evolved. Now I pictured a Bosch scene of hellfires and debauchery, or an episode from “The Wire.”\n\nOkay, I guess that's how life's going to be for a while. Better get used to it.\n\n[[Bring it on]].
She was [[a girlfriend]], Danny insisted. Messed up in drugs. Messed up in vice. And he was avenging her honor by showing up today and telling them what he knew.\n
Since I now lived and worked away from other people, I found myself muttering out loud both mundane observations and big questions. \n\nHow much money was I making? How long should I stay here? How and when should I make the [[decision]] to leave?\n\nAnd the big granddaddy of them all: What the hell had happened to my life?\n\n
<em>So, tell us about that fall when your aunt returned.</em>\n\nAunt Melissa rolled up the road to the farm dirty and bedraggled like a homeless person. \n\nAll summer it was "fuck you!" "fuck you!" "fuck you!" between her and Brianna's dad – pretty damn awkward for everyone else. And it stayed awkward right up until Aunt Melissa got herself organized enough to move to her studio in South Minneapolis that [[September]].
Not right now, I told her. Now I drive a truck and deliver food to the crew camps for much better pay than the artist gig.\n\nKsenia smirked in commiseration. “Of course. In Russia, too. They say they like art, but unless you have a patron or are very lucky.” She wrinkled her nose and finished the sentence with an eloquently dismissive flip of her hand. \n\n“Where do you two work?" \n\n[[Ksenia paused.]]\n
I stared at [[Brandon]], slack-jawed. \n\nWas he insane? I would freeze to death.\n\n
Eventually I unfolded Raymond Fournier’s directions. One bumpy gravel road after another, then just tire tracks in the snow, which is good times when you’re towing a camper with a two-door Hyundai in the middle of [[North Dakota in winter]], let me tell you. \n\nI double and triple-checked the landmarks: Abandoned church. Combine at rest. Deer. More deer.
In "Go West," the background color indicates the character of focus at any given time. Click upon bolded text to move from one screen to another.\n\n<strong>Melissa, the sister:</strong> Black \n\n<strong>Amina, the buyer:</strong> Saddle brown. Amina picks up the story in [["The Immigrant."\n|http://ofpeopleandplaces.com/the-farm/]]\n<strong>Tristan, the family friend:</strong> Olive. Tristan picks up the story in [["Dakota."|http://ofpeopleandplaces.com/east-to-west-west-to-east/]]\n\n<strong>Brianna, the next generation:</strong> Gray, the color of [["Retribution."|https://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/c952]]\n\n<strong>Ksenia:</strong> Periwinkle (It speaks to her Russian - or not-so-Russian - soul.) \n\n<strong>The security guard's story:</strong> Navy blue (the color of law and order). \n\n<strong>Shelly, the reliable farmwife </strong> Green (the color of rolling, verdant fields - and money). \n\n\n\n\n\n\nI'm good. [[Begin the journey]].\n\n
My heart pounded as I drove back to Fleur de Lis Pointe. Niko's car was in the driveway. His employer had also let him take the day off after an unexpected overnight at the office. \n\nI buried my face in his shoulder. \n\n"You're still cold." He swiftly tucked me in beneath the big, expensive comforter and stayed with me until [[the phone rang]].\n\nI pretended to sleep, [[unable to speak]]. \n\n
"A designer. A city girl. You've come a long way to make a living," he [[observed]]. \n\n"So have you," I replied. I didn't tell him about how I was living in a camper.\n\nWe rolled into another episode. A young couple in Houston, looking for a starter home with room for their Shih Tzu.\n\n"Fur child," I snorted. \n\nNiko shared my disgust. “The sweater. Why does a dog need a sweater in Houston?\n\n"And I just knew she'd be a [[twat]] about the granite countertops."
Looking back, I realized that these were the [[only two words]] I ever heard Marje say.
“Just make sure the door’s locked behind you when you head out.” \n\nEarlier in the morning, Niko had given me these instructions. He took his last swig of coffee, a careful gulp given his unusual work attire of a suit and tie.\n\nMeetings, he explained. [[Visiting bigwigs]].
I rolled back the masking tape. I pulled back the flaps of cardboard, eager to dig into my treats. \n\nI peered in.\n\nBags of tea? \n\nWell, that was an interesting choice for a bunch of burly oil workers in the middle of the prairie.\n\nBut [[this wasn’t tea]].\n
“He means crew camps,” Brandon corrected, remarkably informed about an idea that had just come up. Because housing was scarce up there, that’s where transient workers without families [[stay]], he explained. Just like a big dorm or Army barracks.\n\n\n\n
Undaunted, my dining companion slid in closer. The show swooped in to somewhere in the Caribbean. \n\n"This show is ridiculous," he observed.\n\n"Jon, a financial consultant, wants to escape the rat race for tropical ease," the announcer introduced in her singsong voice. "But in a tight market, will his dreams of paradise… be lost?"\n\n"A literary episode," he commented dryly. \n\nNice. Maybe I'll let you stay, foreign boy. "That real estate agent has got to be in her seventies," I noted. \n\n“She spends a lot of time in the sun. You can tell.”\n\nWe watched rapt as the human stick of beef jerky led Jon the financial consultant to a cool, air-conditioned office. “What is your [[budget]]?”\n\n\n
And in the morning, one could grab a quick shower [[if one so desired]] and off to work. My daily commute just shrank by hours. Eternal Spa indeed. Fuck the oil fields - this was North Dakota's [[most amazing place]].
And so I ate my lunches at McDonald’s, chowing down and lying low while I waited for Gretta and the crew to reload my van. \n\nAnd when I was loaded, I continued down the road. Slide open the door, help the crew with the boxes, hold out the clipboard for the manager to sign. Me in all my balaclava'ed glory. Surely well worth the massive salary I was swiftly amassing.\n\nAnd when I had turned in my keys for the night, I steered myself more often than not to the spa - a warm soak, nourishment and a toasty place to sleep. You didn’t even have to [[step outside]].\n\nThe atmosphere of the microscopic eatery was not glamorous. The lights, both fluorescent and dim, cast an inadequate glow on a few plastic chairs and fold-out cafeteria tables. \n\nBut the limited menu was amazing: spicy soup with chicken, spicy soup with beef and spicy soup with shrimp. With enough spice to heat up your blood and clear out your sinuses [[for days]].
The security guard was dark-haired and skinny-faced. His expression was a hang-dog one. Because it must suck to be a rent-a-cop in Williston, North Dakota. \n\nHe appeared to be about our age, maybe younger. \n\n(The security guard comes with [[baggage of his own]].)\n\n“Just a cooking emergency," Niko explained, as red as the potholder he for some reason now held in his hand. "But everything’s fine now.” \n\n“Is there [[something wrong]] with the stove?” the guard asked.\n\n\n
Maybe for just a few months. A person can do anything for just a few months - give up meat, go on a diet, refrain from shaving their legs.\n\nShould I [[stay]] or should I go?
Because Williston had no ballet troupes or Riverdance revues to my knowledge, I knew immediately the kind of dancing she was talking about. \n\nAnd I was sort of excited. I had never met real-life strippers before, especially ones from Russia and Azerbaijan. \n\nI [[couldn’t resist]].\n
<em>You said they wanted her to stay a virgin. Who's the "they"?</em>\n\nHer parents, Knesia explained. That's what she had always assumed, in any case. Marje never answered when she asked the question or [[brought them]], her parents, up.\n\nUntil when? she'd ask.\n\n“Until I am married,” was the reply.\n\nSo they sent her to work in a strip club.
<em>What type of person was your aunt Melissa?</em>\n\nThe type who took her to the Art Institute of Art on weekends. There they’d stand in front of a big canvas that the title claimed to be a corn field, her in stylish black clothing and Brianna in her sweatshirt and boots. \n\nThen they'd split up, her aunt to the modern art and Brianna to the landscapes and furniture. Aunt Melissa liked the big ceramic dog, the abstracts. [[Red, White and Blue]]. Brianna preferred dirt and more realistic things.\n\nSelf-centered. Irresponsible. Like a child. That’s what Brianna's dad had said about her - not all her life, but things had gone down over the past few years.
He put on a cap and his most nondescript clothes and staked out places where she might be. \n\nOutside of her workplace, no sign of her car or her.\n\n"Did he go in and ask?" Donetta wondered.\n\nNo, he wanted to be discreet. \n\nHe scoped out the McDonald’s where she ate lunch and met clients for freelance projects. \n\n“Freelance projects. That sounds sketchy,” Lydia commented.\n\nThe clients were rich soccer moms. The projects were custom-painted hockey masks for their kids. White people come up with the weirdest stuff.\n\nThe soccer dads. Maybe one of them kidnapped her. Was she cute?\n\n[[Bernie’s friend]] seemed to think so.\n
"First question: Do you have a [[valid driver's license]]?"\n\nSecond question: Have you ever been arrested or fined for a [[traffic-related offense]]?"\n\n"Finally: Can you work long hours?"\n\nAre you kidding? I thought. I worked in advertising for 10 years, where a 40-hour work week is otherwise known as "part time." Where Red Bull is the fifth food group. \n\nCan I work long hours?\n\nEven as Brandon rolled his eyes and Shelly frantically motioned for me to reel it in, I gave this hapless Quebecois a florid description of our ever-shortening project timelines, our crazy deadlines, our pitiless all-nighters.\n\nDid it [[work]]?
Once I was alone, I grabbed my phone out of my purse and [[launched the browser]].\n\nAny fool knows what pot looks like. But that bag of powder, the color of dirty sand? And those packets with the poorly rendered stencil of the pirate?\n\n
Engineers out here actually moved around, I had observed in my daily drives. They actually climbed on things. Big trucks. Derricks. Wells. Scaffolding. And as this guy walked over to the counter to fetch us a bottle of sriracha, I noted that he was in a hell of a lot better shape than the doughy creatures that haunted Minnesota's electronics stores. \n\nYou elevate your profession, sir and I [[like it]]. \n\nSo when he returned to the table, I sent him back for soy sauce so I could verify my observations. \n\nThe meal tasted like crap, with all those toppings, but I considered it a small sacrifice in support of a higher cause.
<em>"It seemed like a good idea at the time."</em>\n\nThat's how Brandon would have explained it - justified it.\n\nBut back in the fall of 2013, all he wanted to talk about was [[hockey]].\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
No [[silk pajamas]] to make fun of this time.\n\n
“Her name was Margie.”\n\nThen Danny pushed his chair away from the table and stood to leave. “I can't talk about her now.” \n\n\n"This isn't a goddamn restaurant," the investigator reminded him. "This isn't all about[[what the customer wants]] - I'll tell you this and not that, I'll come and go as I please. This is an investigation. And you came to us. \n\n"Now tell us why this girl matters."\n
No, she directed me to the Laundromat in Watford City instead. \n\nHere, on my first day off, I fed two twenties into the faulty quarter machine and jockeyed for bench space with a Mexican family and a couple of skate punks barely old enough to shave. \n\nI peered out the steam-clouded windows onto the street. Pawn shop, pawn shop, head shop. Every so often a pickup truck or SUV would plow through.\n\nAbove the doorway: [[blinking Christmas lights]] for a festive touch.\n
"I'm wearing the same outfit I wore yesterday."\n\nSo? he replied. Like this was New York Fashion Week. \n\n"It's because I live in a camper two hours away in Watford City," I admitted. "To save money on the rent. My brother insisted. Usually I bring my backpack with me and [[change]] at the spa. So I've been wearing the same outfit for two days now and I probably smell like a goat. That's not what you expected when you invited me over for dinner. I'm so sorry.”\n\nThere I was babbling, hyperventilating, likely banished back to my new white-trash existence after this oh so promising beginning. I just didn't know how to be out in normal society anymore. Yeah, fuck my life.\n\n"Calm down," he insisted. "It's fine. Everything's fine." \n\nNiko bid me farewell with one condition: If I was making a 300-mile roundtrip just for fresh clothing, I had better come back the next day. And the outfit had better be good. Something that the seductive Dutch real estate agent would wear at the very least.\n\n"You will not be disappointed," I promised, way too confident given my Cabela's wardrobe.\n\n"Is that entirely safe, staying in a camper with propane heaters?" he inquired as he helped me with my coat.\n\n"Yeah, I guess so, people do it all the time," I replied, wondering that very same thing as I drove off into the night. \n\n
The story continues with: \n\n<strong>Amina's story:</strong> [["The Immigrant."\n|http://ofpeopleandplaces.com/the-farm/]]\n<strong>Tristan's story:</strong> [["Dakota."|http://ofpeopleandplaces.com/east-to-west-west-to-east/]] \n \n[["Retribution."|https://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/c952]] Brianna's story\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Melissa’s Big Adventure, Brianna's mom had called it that [[December]]. \n\nIt put a positive spin on her being laid off, was the explanation.
Now the guard was smirking. Beneath my layers, I could feel beads of sweat trickle down my skin. Hurry up with this, I thought. \n\nBefore the guard closed the front door behind him, he addressed us one last time. “You need to be more responsible. You have neighbors on both sides and there are dozens of expensive properties in this development.”\n\n“We’ll be careful,” Niko promised. \n\n[[And we were]].
The guy had kissed the girlfriend goodbye, left for work that morning, and that was the last time he saw her. \n\nShe usually texted or called at least once during the day. But not this time. She usually came over right after work, but in this case no. He called and called but it all went straight to voice mail.\n\nHe stayed up late, slept on the couch and left the door unlocked. But she never showed up.\n\nBy the next evening, it had been over 24 hours. He didn't know what to do, so he gave Bernie a call for advice.\n\n"Had they been fighting?" I asked.\n\nNo, no, Darius said. In fact, he had just asked her to move in with him.\n\n"Well, there's your answer," I replied, and everyone laughed.\n\nI felt dirty turning this guy's plight into entertainment. But with the new management and the layoffs looming, our lives were a mess and we [[needed distraction]]. So we kept on listening.\n
So, Bernie's friend. The rent a cop is now following him around. Everywhere. To the grocery store. At the gas station. In the lobby of his office, asking the receptionist about him every day. The only places where he’s free from harassment are in his house and out in the oil fields.\n\n"Is there ever a conversation? Or does the rent a cop just stand there menacingly?" I asked.\n \nA little of both, was the answer. When he does speak, it's something like "I know the truth. You know I know the truth." So far coworkers and neighbors have taken him as a crackpot, but it's getting embarrassing.\n\nWhat is he [[doing about it]]?
Speaking of bending the rules...\n\nOn my second visit, I discovered the tiny restaurant, and that one could use that 24-hour pass to stay overnight. Sure, the furniture in the rest areas was just a few lawn chairs. But they were always empty. And they almost felt like a bed with a few sweatshirts spread across them.\n\nAnd oh my God, the warm air. \n\nI don’t think the practice was officially condoned or encouraged. But the Korean ladies [[looked the other way]]. \n\n"I've found the [[most amazing place]],” I whispered to Shelly in my next call. She was a woman. She'd understand.
I was soundly sleeping in the previous night’s attire - skinny jeans, that sexy sweater - when I felt [[a hand on my shoulder]]. \n\n“Melissa, it’s six o’clock,” Niko [[whispered]]. \n\nOh fuck. I stumbled to [[the shower]].\n\n
[[It didn’t last.]]
As I wrestled my backpack from the trunk, my purse's strap slipped off my shoulder, and the whole thing landed in a puddle. “Shit!” By now it was pouring. The few yards between my car and the motel soaked me with the power of a fire hose. \n\nAfter a hot shower and a luxurious nap on the suddenly luxurious bed, I prepared to [[make my phone call]].\n\nYou'll never guess where I'm at right now, I'd tell him. You'll never guess what happened. But I'm coming back.\n
So very flat, so very cold, so very gray. Hundreds of miles unfolded in front of me, a landscape like rural Minnesota only bleaker and more foreboding. \n\nBy mid afternoon, oil derrick after oil derrick began to dot the landscape, followed by trailers, mobile homes and long tin structures that looked like aircraft hangers. \n\nAs I passed through Dickinson and headed toward Watford City, the area I would be [[calling home]] for the next several months, monster-sized pickups, semis and trailers clotted the road. \n\nA sneak preview of [[my work day]] and office conditions.\n\nFinally, I reached a stand of trees near the X on my map. I parked my car and camper and ventured up the driveway.\n\nIn the fading daylight, a beefy woman with a dirty-blond mullet was mucking around on the porch, shoving empty flower pots into a garbage bag. Just a sweatshirt, no coat. \n\nShe saw me and waved. "You must be Melissa. I'm [[Becca]]."\n\n
Forget trying to play it cool. \n\nKsenia indulged my curiosity with much the same enthusiasm an accountant uses to describe her work at H&R Block. \n\nThe money was competitive. The sound system was improving, and the dressing rooms added many space heaters. So that was good. And the security guys had finally stopped groping them after work when they were waiting for their taxis.\n\nAt work, life was decent. Outside of work, Ksenia found the men to be perverts and the women to be mean. "Like we are going to fuck their husbands in the street. I have never fucked [[another woman's husband]]."\n\nKsenia looked at her watch and thanked me for the coffee. "We will pay for yours [[next time]]."\n\n
“You need to [[get out]] of Williston.”
Brandon and Shelly wondered what was up, why all the unanswered calls and texts?\n\n"I met a guy," I finally admitted. I related the basics: engineer with one of the oil companies, well educated, nice house. Brandon kindly held his tongue during the whole foreigner part. \n\n"Does he play hockey?" was his response.\n\n"No, Brandon. He works. Like a normal human being."\n\n"It sounds like you know him pretty well for only being acquainted a week or so," Shelly observed. "Be sure to pick up some condoms, and not those cheap flavored ones at the gas stations either."\n\n"Jesus, Shelly!" Brandon and I both cringed and I cranked up the radio to drown her out.\n\nMy in-transit sound system. That was another issue entirely. \n\nI tried first to tune the van’s radio to [[NPR]]. Yeah right. My Wayzata friends seemed to believe I would find [[TED Talks]] inspirational, given my underemployed state. Niko lent me some [[Euro chill music]]. I was afraid to ask [[Ksenia]] for recommendations, fearing the Eminem/Eurovision horror show she’d feel compelled to send my way.
Four months in the area and I'd barely scratched the surface, I realized. This neighborhood of [[the parents]] would be a new frontier.
The boy craned his head to look up, up, up into my face... \n\nand promptly [[started bawling]].
"Every so often [[I’d see Danny,]] lounging around by the girls, skulking around in those track pants and hoody." That's what people said when we asked around about you.\n\nWhy did they give a shit what he was wearing, Danny wondered - and asked the question out loud.\n\nA little guido for these parts. Especially when you're spending all your time at a strip club.\n\nWhere else was I supposed to go? he protested. That's where she worked.\n\nShe, she, she. You're delusional. You're unbalanced. That's what people are saying. Can't say it gives your claim extra credibility.\n
Nothing. \n\n"Do you think she was cheating?" Lydia asked.\n\nThat possibility definitely passed through Bernie's mind. But when he asked, his friend said there was no evidence to support this. Her co-workers weren't sexually appealing in the least. And the last ex-boyfriend she ever mentioned was years in the rear view mirror. In fact, things in the days leading up to her disappearance had been more passionate than ever.\n\nThe only calls she ever received were from her family, her stripper friends and people related to her freelance business, like clients and vendors and her web designer back in the Twin Cities.\n\nBut there was the thing with the security guard.\n\n"What about the web designer?" Donetta interrupted. "Maybe she was fooling around with him."\n\nLydia snorted. "Wrong team."\n\n"That's a stereotype.[[Not all graphic designers]] are gay," Natalie interjected.\n\n\n\n
Never a fan. Steve Zissou couldn't drown in the Life Aquatic fast enough for my tastes. I could do better for my [[Christmas movie]].
I took a deep breath and smoothed down my skirt. Barely zipped. Comfortable living had added a few pounds.\n\nI sent Niko a quick text to let him know I had arrived. \n\nI parked halfway across the one-stoplight town, far enough away that the North Dakota dirt on its exterior would not [[arouse suspicion]].\n
Much of the news was the same old, same old – taxes, tariffs, pipeline leaks, well explosions. \n\nBut [[one story]] that morning stood out.
"So now finally I'm clean, I'm warm, I'm well rested." And making a shit-ton of money, I refrained from adding. The little restaurant had WiFi. I logged in to check my bank balance. The total nearly blew me away.\n\n“[[Resourceful girl!]]" was Shelly's reaction, which of course brought Brandon to the phone.\n
<em>Did Marje like it here in the United States?</em>\n\nAt first, she told them. \n\n[[Really?]] \n\nWhen pushed, Ksenia shrugged and stopped pretending. \n\nShe didn't speak the language. She was afraid. She was there against her will. What the hell do you think?\n
But family bonding wasn't the only thing I planned to accomplish during this trip.\n\nThe next afternoon, when everyone else was napping off the potluck, I took a detour to Willmar. I tracked down the guy on Craigslist with airbrush equipment for my business. \n\nThe gear was in good shape – I had scrupulously researched this beforehand – but the setting was [[seedy as hell]]. \n\nThe establishment's main purpose was custom painting, predominantly flames and busty women on cars and pickups. But then there was the tattoo parlor, a gathering place for skinny rednecks twitching too noticeably for such detailed work. As I settled up my bill and packed up my purchase, I watched a rough woman in camo get inked. Insane Clown Posse. Back of the calf. \n
It's no different than winter camping, Brandon assured me. And rents out in North Dakota were three, four thousand a month. "You want to save that money, make the most of this opportunity."\n\nClayton personally had taken the thing up to International Falls and the boundary waters in January. “Was toasty the whole time, even [[just in my long johns]]."\n\nBrandon and I took inventory of the camper’s comforts: a fold-out bunk, a set-in booth and table, dorm fridge, two-burner stove, claustrophobic but surprisingly clean bathroom. Plus a few well-placed cubbies for storage. Not bad. It resembled like the Barbie camper I played with as a child, which lessened my resistance.\n\n"How's the heater?"\n\n"Heaters plural," Clayton corrected, gesturing to the backup, a little propane device under the sink I would learn how to operate. He noticed me shivering. "You'll want to get some gear at Cabela’s before you [[head out]]."\n\n
Rush hour. In the middle of a wasteland. [[North Dakota in winter]]. This had better be an assload of money indeed.
Tristan had been emailing a lot lately – cat memes and Deadmau5 videos mostly - due to [[a slowdown at work]].\n \n“So it’s a home-cooked dinner. And I’ll take it,” I said. “But I think he’s just being nice.”\n\n“A guy doesn’t cook for a woman just to be nice. You are so [[getting laid]].” \n\nAfter leaving the spa's tiny restaurant, I didn't return to the rest area. I hauled ass back to my camper. I trashed the place with outfits considered and discarded for the next day's date. After weeks in long underwear and a snowsuit, now I suddenly had to look like a human – and a female human at that. \n\nOne dress I tossed aside as too, well, who the hell wears a dress in North Dakota oil country? One sweater was too tight, another not tight enough. \n\n[[What if...]]\n\n
By the time I showed Niko the pictures, I was exhausted but energized. I sprawled on the couch as he fiddled with my phone, staring at the TV, not really watching but plotting instead. \n\n“Now it’s time for the couple to make their decision,” came the announcer’s singsong voice. Yes, we were still watching this.\n\n"I think we can definitely strike Casa de Fiesta off the list," the wife declared. "The kitchen was just too outdated."\n\n"You're in Bolivia," I muttered at the screen. "[[Come down]] a little."\n
I broke into the Bloody Marys before the puck drop.\n\nLater that evening, my phone buzzed with a message. \n\nIt was the sad Sochi bear meme making the rounds, this time accompanying [[a text]] from Ksenia.
"I think they're taking the realtor back for a three-way after the next property tour."\n\n"Now that I would [[like to see]]." \n
Of course, [[they bailed]].\n\n"Okay, I was wrong, maybe those two aren't the most dependable," Niko admitted.\n\nAnd I was too pissed and disappointed to retort "I told you so."
"Thank you," [[Marje said]].
“We are [[dancers]]."
[[“Are you close?”]] He was an only child.\n\n\n
They need to do this show here in the oil fields, I thought one night, not realizing that I was actually voicing my [[thoughts]] aloud. \n\n"Three pimply young dudes seek a crash pad. Budget unlimited. Man cave required. With room for the Ford F50 and a grill out back." \n\n[[“Williston doesn't have three vacant homes available to show.”]]
Every guy I passed by in my van was a meth head now. Every supervisor or shift manager was a dealer. I felt dirty driving by the bars and the strip clubs and the groups of homeless guys lined up for day labor.\n\nIf anyone at work would have asked, which they didn't, I would have explained my red eyes from the dust that emerged with the presence of spring. Shale dust was noxious and terrible, coated everything in its path. Niko said he usually hired a housekeeper for these months, and I knew Brandon and Shelly would snort with contempt if I ever told them. One guy with no kids hiring a housekeeper. Harden the fuck up. \n\nBut [[what did I know]]?\n
"Raymond paid everyone under the table. Nothing withheld. You can start declaring through your business if you feel that strongly about giving back to the government. Those hockey masks will sell, especially with all those rich kids in the city."\n\nMy redneck brother. Legal, financial and business advisor. Who knew?\n\n"But I have to go to the authorities, tell [[my side of the story]]," I insisted.\n
"I'm chugging if they mention man cave," I said. \n\n"Twice if the man also requests an oversized garage for his jacked-up pick up."\n\n"And we can try to guess whether the same-sex roommates are actually a couple."\n\nNiko quashed this suggestion. “But how will we know if our guesses are right? The show never reveals it. Although if you’re trying to keep your sexual preference a secret, why would you go on national TV? We can only try to guess which property they pick."\n\n"What's [[the reward]] for guessing correctly?"\n
“Security, from the homeowners’ association!” \n\nThe voice was on the younger side, with an East Coast twang, like Vinnie from Jersey Shore.\n\n“I’m going with you,” I insisted. “It’s my fault we’re in this mess anyway.”\n\nNiko grabbed my arm. “You can’t answer the door in that robe. Trust me.” \n\nAnd so I threw on the snowpants and parka I’d abandoned in the entryway earlier. Catching the Medusa's mop of my hair in my shadow, I threw on the hat for good measure. And just in time.\n\n“Sorry to interrupt you, sir. [[Everything okay?]]”\n\n\n
“Are you [[shitting me]]?”
"I lived in Minneapolis,” I told her.\n\n“I know of it.”\n\n“I moved here after I lost my job."\n\n"What is your work?"\n\n"I'm a designer."\n\nKnesia's eyes lit up. [["Fashion?"]]\n
Brandon and Shelly called Christmas morning to wish me well. Brandon blabbed ad nauseam about the upcoming Winter Classic, and Shelly brought the kids to the phone to say hello. Tyler missed his sleeping bag. Brianna was fighting with her mom.\n\nThen my own parents called from the sunny climes of Florida. \n\nIt was a trick, cupping my hands over the cell phone speaker so the nature noises of birds and wind, surprisingly loud, wouldn’t sneak through. \n\nI made up some story about dining with friends and volunteering at a homeless shelter. \n\nThen I [[took inventory]] of my emails and ecards.
Had they [[shrunk]]?
Right after Labor Day - the irony - the five of us in the cubes by the skyway suddenly found ourselves walking down that skyway for the last time, boxes in hand, out of work.\n\n[[How wrong I was.]]
Lundqvist is the Cristiano Ronaldo of the rink - like he gives a shit who's taunting him. \n\nI was really not in the mood for [[hockey as metaphor for life]]. Not when one of those flame-painted goalie masks cost more than the rent on the big-windowed, expansive-balconied, parquet-floored apartment I soon would be forced to leave.
Yes, [[yoga class]] in the middle of a testosterone-fueled prairie oil field. \n\nI was surprised as well. It was in a strip mall, poorly marked, and you'd almost miss it if you weren't driving by twice a day like I was. \n\nThere began my reintroduction to [[other people]]. \n\n
Ksenia filled me in later at Red Lobster, specifically about the [[clothing-optional]] concept. \n\nDesperate and undetered, I punched the address into my phone’s GPS. \n\nSure enough, this spa wasn't much to look at from the outside. In fact, I had driven by the building before. I'd passed it by without notice, taking it for a poorly labeled sex shop or porn emporium instead. Cheap land and real estate, I guessed. \n\n[[Admission]] was shockingly cheap, especially compared to the real spas of Minneapolis. Each pass covered the entire bath facilities, saunas and rest areas for a full 24 hours. True to its name – Eternal Spa never closed.
This involved locking up the camper's cupboards, storing away the propane and battening down the hatches. \n\nThe handgun, still wrapped in the Minnesota Wild scarf, I moved to the glove compartment. \n\nI [[filled up]] the car’s gas tank and topped off its fluid levels. I stocked the camper's kitchen with crackers, jerky and other non-perishables bought at Walmart.
Brandon tossed one of Tyler's hunting sleeping bags onto my bunk. "Certified to 20 below." \n\nThe trips to Cabela’s had stocked me with quite a stylish assortment of snow pants, sweatshirts and industrial-strength outdoor hoodies.\n\nShelly nodded approvingly at my look: androgynous sherpa. "The boyish look will serve you well.” \n\nYeah, my brother and sister-in-law schooled me thoroughly on the rape and assault statistics, leaving me with the impression that Williston, the main city if you will, was like the world’s most inland port or prison, filled with few women and thousands of randy men desperate for release. \n\n[[Bring it on]], North Dakota.
Finally, when my business was thriving and I had enough to buy a house, 100 percent cash, I’d return triumphantly to the Twin Cities.\n\nWith a little place in Williston so I could [[stay here]] whenever I wanted. And be the host this time instead of the guest.
I can’t say I was [[excited]] about North Dakota in the [[days before I left]]. That would have been a stretch. But I can say I was steeled for it.
How'd practical work out for me?\n\nI spent hours updating [[my resume]].\n\nI dusted off my [[LinkedIn account]]. \n\nI [[blasted]] my resume to every online listing that included the words “art” and “design.”\n\nAnd during every public moment, I set forward the positive, optimistic face of a [[well-bred Minnesota girl]].\n
"There's more to the Netherlands than marijuana. Like architecture. And art."\n\n“Oh, I like art. We were going to take another trip to St. Petersburg. It was to see the Hermitage, which I was excited about. But then we learned that you needed to get a visa, and our youth group just didn't have its shit together enough for that.”\n\nAs I rambled on and on, [[he nodded]] and smiled. One trip overseas in 32 years. With a youth group. And here was someone who had been living in another country for years on end. Boy was I a hick.\n\n"What's the favorite place you've ever visited? A place no one would expect?" \n\nMine - outside of Paris - had been Winnipeg. Just after college. For reasons outside of its climate and scenery. Wait - yeah, maybe I wouldn't be able to share that one.\n\nEstonia, was his answer.\n\n\n
I stayed over for the full holiday weekend. On Black Friday Brandon and Shelly's kids jumped into random beat-up vehicles with their friends, and we stayed behind [[at the house]], like the old days. \n\nBrandon suggested we visit Clayton at the farm next door. \n\nNext door in this case means a 10-minute walk down a road that’s barely discernable in the snow and sorely rutted out in the spring and summer. \n\nI remembered Clayton [[vaguely from high school]] - a few years older, a fellow farm kid, hunter and fisher. He and Brandon had remained close over the years. [[Compatriots]] in camo. Brothers from another mother.
And that was the last text I ever received from Ksenia, my Russian dancer friend.\n\n\n\n\nThen [[April]] arrived.\n\n\n\n\n\n<em>[[Begin the journey]]: Descent into redneck-istan\n\n[[December]]: Bring it on, North Dakota\n\n[[January]]: Making friends\n\n[[February]]: The month that changed everything\n\n[[March]]: Settling in\n\n[[April]]: A sudden storm\n\n[[May]]: Like Jennifer Lawrence in "Winter's Bone"\n\n[[September]]: I did what I had been told</em>
I packed up my old apartment and carted my possessions to the farm. In my new home, which Clayton had moved over to our driveway, I tried to make things pretty. This involved tacking art and photos onto every bit of useable wall space and draping scarves over the ugly plastic paneling. \n\n"Don’t go short on practical things," Shelly advised. "You don't want to be going to Walmart all of the time."\n\nGod no, I shuddered.\n\n"And you won't have a lot of time off to do so," Brandon added. He informed me that [[weekends weren’t really a concept]] out there in North Dakota, not with lucrative resources in the ground lying in wait.\n
“You’re exhausted, Brandon. That’s why everything’s pissing you off right now.”\n\nAnother conversation on the porch, her mom and dad and their [[friend]] Clayton.\n\n“Hell right I’m exhausted. You’re exhausted. We’re all exhausted. Goddamn Melissa."\n\n“You can’t blame her for everything, Brandon."
“Fuck you, Becca,” I thought, [[submerging myself]].
Houses weren't round. And Cayden [[definitely was]].
“Stop what you're doing. Pull up the Williston [[local TV website]] right now."
Even though she'd only visited once, Shelly knew the drive to their house well. \n\nShe'd tracked it and the neighborhood on Google Street View late at night, after the last call or text from the kids, after Brandon had gone to bed or gone out to the fields to work. Back when they still had the fields, in any case. She never imagined seeing it for herself under these circumstances.\n\nSo that's how it all worked out, she thought, surveying the wealth. That's how you get rewarded in this life.\n\nAs she drove, she remembered another drive, moving out to the farm with Brandon as a young bride. Melissa had greeted her as a shy and awkward young teen. She had grown to be a sister to her. The artistic young girl who'd accompanied her and Brandon's mother in the garden, the annoying but amusing hipster who graced them with her occasional visits and snark. With the North Dakota gig they'd given her a fresh start. A new life. \n\nAnd now she sat face to face with Niko after the worst phone call of her 40-whatever years on this planet.\n\n"The police say they're putting together [[a profile]] but I don't believe them. I believe there's something more to this story.\n\n"What did you two see? What do you know?"\n\n
\nThe classes were relatively cheap. The owner must have missed the Williston memo about price-gouging. \n\nAnd they were good. The poses followed the sequences I remembered from the expensive places in Edina. \n\n[[Goodbye]] encrouching flab and hello fitness, I rejoiced. Because I had sported a rocking body when I drove out to North Dakota. Living on an unemployed person's budget will do that to you. And I intended to keep it, sedentary job, white-trash living and takeout pizzas be damned.
Five days later, winter returned with a vengeance. \n\nBy 10 a.m., you could smell the snow in the air. \n\nBy the time I stopped at McDonald's to grab my salad and reload the van, the wind was whipping. The temperature had plummeted. \n\nBy the time my van reached the open road, snow was flying fast and furious. Trucks and even semis rested [[in the ditch]], some voluntarily, others not so much. \n
For the next three weeks, I called the Montevideo summer camp and RV park home and I lived like a hillbilly, like Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone.” The park was closed until Memorial Day. But no one enforced this. Which made it [[the perfect hiding place]]. \n\nIf I [[kept my head down]] and remained inconspicuous, I told myself, I would be safe. [[I had to believe this.]] I had nothing else to believe in.
My eyes!\n\nI banished this image from my mind - Clayton wantonly reclining on the pullout bed, grubby underthings clinging to every crevice. I turned to [[Brandon]] for a clue as to what to do next.
“You shared your banking information with this guy?" \n\n"Once, only once. He doesn't care. He has money of his own."\n\n"You stupid, stupid bitch. Melissa."\n\n“We’ll have to talk about this later, Brandon,” I stammered. \n\n“What did he say when he saw how much you were making for driving a goddamned van?”\n\n“I’m not supposed to talk on the phone while I drive.” \n\nWith that, I [[hung up]] and threw the phone in my bag.\n\n\n
“I can’t really say,” I answered truthfully. “He got me this job out here. And he watches out for me. But we’re very different.”\n\nBut enough about Brandon. "I'm tired. Let's head [[to bed]]."\n\n\n\n
"It takes a lot to get yourself removed from the police department in Philly."\n\nDanny knew they'd get sidetracked by all that. He knew his history would taint the story he had to tell. \n\n<em>I wonder why he's talking. I [[wonder what he did]].</em>\n\n\n
\nYeah, that went over well.\n\nThe room usually fell silent at that point.\n\nThe conversation had turned a little too [[“Grapes of Wrath”]] for everyone's tastes.
"How're you enjoying life out there?"\n\nHow was I enjoying life out there? How was I enjoying life?\n\nOh, he had the fucking gall to ask. I was fucking freezing my ass off, fucking driving around in a truck all day and fucking camping out like a goddamn ice fisherman by night. I hadn't talked to a person my age in days and I hadn't had a true decent shower in weeks. Sure, my bank balance was growing, and I appreciated not being cast out onto the street to beg like a homeless vagrant, but surely there had to be more to life than this fucking existence. \n\n“Jesus Christ Melissa” Brandon responded as though the f-word had neither touched his virgin ears nor emanated on a near-hourly basis from his wife’s mouth. “You’re starting to [[talk like a thug]]. Who are you [[hanging out with]] out there?”
The music and credits started to roll on a new episode.\n\n"Cara came to Amsterdam to pursue a graduate degree. But will the tight rental market teach her about compromise instead?"\n\n"Have you ever been to Amsterdam?" I asked Niko.\n\n"Many times. A great city."\n\n"A bunch of us stopped by in [[high school]]. After we toured Paris for a week. Didn't get to smoke pot, unfortunately.”
For further research, Niko, now my business advisor as well, directed me to the website of a guy in Sweden who designed masks for the NHL. Dragons, zombies, cartoon characters.\n\nI could do that. Of course, I would need the right equipment. And a studio.\n\nWe browsed around to see how child goalies currently protected their faces. Some masks were cheap plastic, others were hundreds of dollars each. \n\nAll were boring.\n\n[[My talents were needed]].\n
This wasn’t the rural Minnesota [[I remembered]] from my youth.
The sad face worked. Take the time you need, he told me. They'd have one of the boys in the kitchen take over. \n\n"Give your parents my best. Clayton’s always spoken very highly of them.” \n\nThen I drove out to the camper to pack for the trip. Only civilian clothing. Only clothing conceivably worn by an associate creative director still living and working in the city. After a winter of long underwear and snow pants, it was shocking how flimsy and insubstantial these garments seemed now. How had I not frozen my ass off in these outfits before? \n\nJust in case, I dropped a note into Becca and Larry’s mailbox explaining why I wouldn't be around for a few days. As if [[the vehicle]] actually spent significant time on their property. \n
“Not at all," Niko replied. "It’s [[obvious]] you’re not using me for my money."
Well, how didn’t it go was more like it.\n\nThe game came and went, the croissants grew cold, and Ksenia and Marje never showed. \n\nEmbarassing.\n\nThanks, ladies.\n\nJust when I thought I was [[making friends]]. \n
To be social, he elaborated. Because that's what people do. "Believe me, if I wanted to see strippers here in the frozen prairies of North Dakota, I would just drive down the street or go online."\n\nHe had a point. Time to start pulling the isolated fragments of my life together. \n\nSoon the stars aligned, and on the first opportunity we all had the same day off, ever so conveniently, the Olympics were airing on TV, including the [[big hockey match]] between Russia and Finland, was scheduled in the morning.\n\nHeh, this should be lively.\n\n"I'll bring my firearm to keep the peace," I suggested.\n\nNiko was less than amused. Kidding, I assured him. I was just kidding.
Don’t get Brandon started about Obama. \n\nI [[changed the subject]].
And so the weeks passed. What were the teachable moments, as my sister-in-law would say? What did I learn from this experience?\n\nI learned that the days that fly too fast in the working world - fighting traffic and juggling five different irrational deadlines at 5 p.m. - slow to a crawl when all you have to fill them with are hitting refresh on your dormant email inbox, killing time on Huffington Post (sideboob sightings and human trafficking!) and shooting out resumes to some sketchy server farm in Estonia.\n\nI learned that a checking account drains really fast with nothing to replenish it. Same with a savings account.\n\nI also discovered the not-so-subtle nuances of [[how people treat you]] when they see you as competition or insignificant. \n\n\n\n\n
Developing a personal life in the middle of the oil fields is [[no easy task]], I discovered.
Althought that statement brought the other mothers to tears, I took issue with [[only one aspect]] of it.
Then the grim reaper lobbed his [[fucking scythe]] at me. \n\nNever mind that:\n\n•\tI worked at one of the largest ecommerce retailers on the planet.\n\n•\tNot only that, our booming bricks and mortar presence was infinitely cleaner and classier than that other store which will remain nameless. You know the place - it's the store where people shoot up in the bathrooms, shag in the parking lots and poop in the aisles (or so urban legend goes).\n\n•\tMy team had won numerous AIGA awards and a flattering mention in Communication Arts, pg. 63, lower right corner.\n\nI was suddenly and unceremoniously out of work.\n\nWhat did my brother Brandon [[have to say]] about that?
"And I think we can eliminate Casa de los Perros," said the man. "It was way over our budget."\n\n"But the pool." The wife gazed up at him with appropriately limpen puppy-dog eyes.\n\n"Always the woman who doesn't care about budget," Niko commented, still flipping through the photos I'd taken.\n\n"I care about budget," I defended myself.\n\n"You’re not on these shows. You’re [[sensible]]."\n
Looking back, I think I actually did see the layoffs coming and was just denying the [[signs]]. \n\nTo be honest, I didn’t think that a reduction in force could apply to me. I was an established designer after all, a mentor with an intern of my own. I was considered fair to pretty, because sadly this is important when you're a chick. \n\nPeople liked me. My schedule was always filled with social engagements. And the UPS man just tossed the boxes of all the great clothes I ordered onto the back patio - fabulous and trendy, of course - because, of course, I was never home to sign for them.\n\n[[How wrong I was.]]
<em>So you got the idea to [[head out]] here from a book.</em>\n\nAmina had. A hoard of locusts devouring the crops. An endless snowstorm that forced the family to twist hay into knots for kindling and scrape the bottom of their flour tin for their last meals. One girl even went blind. “The scarlet fever,” they described it. She wondered what exactly this exotic and somewhat romantic sounding disease was, as it was different from the usual litany of ailments that plagued her home country.\n\n
The guard just gave me a look – silly bitch – and returned his attention to his clipboard. “You were in the living room.”\n\n“No, upstairs,” Niko answered.\n\n“[[Both]] of you?” \n
The reply was swift. Thank God for a brother who carries his phone with him so he can play Angry Birds while doing his chores.\n\n“Shit, Melissa. We need to talk about this later in a conversation. From a pay phone.”\n\n“Where the hell am I going to find one of those? What did you [[get me into]]?”\n
I was eating my lunch sans balaclava for the first time. Spring was approaching after all.\n\n"No [[self-respecting oil worker]] would eat a McDonald’s salad."
I had forgotten. I was still wearing my don't-fuck-with-me [[balaclava]].
“You wouldn’t have to fuck a married man out here,” I interjected [[like]] I knew what I was talking about. “There are fifty guys to every woman here and many of them are single.”\n\n“But they are always drunk, and they smell.” She would know more than I, I figured and said no more.\n\n
\n<em>So you just showed up on their doorstep? Unannounced?</em>\n\nAnima nodded. She had thought of calling first to express her intentions at first. But then she realized: no. She wanted them to see her from the beginning that [[afternoon]] – the color of her skin, the veil, the fact that she was a woman. \n\nAnd then if they rejected her offer, she would know why.\n\n\n
“She’s cute,” I heard him comment once, at the [[afternoon]] reception right after my high school graduation. “Hands off my sister,” had been Brandon’s retort.
Maybe I just hadn’t seen them in a while. I quickly hid my shock and walked over.\n\nShelly winked, then returned to scolding my sulking niece. Through a sea of cousins and strangers - who the hell were half these people? - I spotted Brandon out on the back porch manning the keg. \n\nMom had a plate waiting. “How was the drive?” \n\n“Not bad,” I hedged. She was a tough farm wife after all, a bullshit detector par excellence. And she was my mother. My odds for maintaining this ruse were poor indeed. \n\n“I hear the roads are pretty bad [[out by Fargo]].” \n
“No,” I stammered. \n\nSo he told me about [[a hockey player]].
"You have heard of [[Paradise on the Prairie]]?”
My head spun. \n\nMy breath caught in my throat.\n\nNo wonder Raymond's paychecks had been [[so generous]].
“At first I hated it. It’s fucking cold up there in North Dakota, and night’s the worst. But then I realized that the paths walked right by the back windows of all of the houses and that very few people had put up blinds.\n\n"It’s all trees in back, so people must figure only squirrels can watch their business. [[What they don’t know]],” Danny chortled.\n
They needed [[the business]].
The next morning, I stocked up my backpack with markers, pencils and sketch pads. At Walmart, which was the closest thing to an art supply store out here, but it would have to work for now.\n\nAnd I got back in the groove of my art. Faster than expected, my skills came back to me. I sketched flowers, faces, animals, abstract designs. I scanned in a few to email to my mom and dad, along with some Minneapolis city photos I'd asked Tristan to take to continue the ruse that I still lived there. And I felt my blood pressure return to normal. Gretta's lunchtime delays no longer annoyed me. More time to create.\n\nAnd then Dark-Haired Army Wife’s demon spawn hurled himself at me. Because now playtime involved a child-sized wooden hockey stick, this was no small assault.\n\nThe first time it happened, I tried to be tolerant. By the fifth time, I had [[had enough]].
\n\nAnd so the weeks passed. What were the teachable moments, as my sister-in-law would say? What did I learn from this experience?\n\nI learned that the days that fly too fast in the working world - fighting traffic and juggling five different irrational deadlines at 5 p.m. - slow to a crawl when all you have to fill them with are hitting refresh on your dormant email inbox, killing time on Huffington Post (sideboob sightings and human trafficking!) and shooting out resumes to some sketchy server farm in Estonia.\n\nI learned that a checking account [[drains]] really fast with nothing to replenish it. Same with a savings account.\n\n
He said he was investigating the Dickinson Catering case. Now it didn't immediately strike our North Dakotan friend to ask what a security employee for a housing association would be doing representing a federal investigation. Or sitting in his damn house.\n\n"He was taken off guard," Natalie excused him. "He had just woken up."\n\nMeanwhile, what the hell was the Dickinson Catering case? I wondered.\n\n"The catering company where the girlfriend had worked. It got raided for drugs, lots of them. The girlfriend - she was a meth runner," Darius explained.\n\nAre you serious?\n\nThis was getting [[way too carried away]].\n
Let's go upstairs to the spare room to watch the sunset, I suggested. It had no furniture, but it did possess a sweet skylight.\n\nThe days were getting longer by now, and the prairie skies at dusk were incredible. This North Dakota place was starting to grow on me.\n\n“You [[don’t mind]] me spending so much time over here, do you?” I asked as we sprawled out on the floor under the fading colors, a question I should have first posed back in February.\n
Of course he did. One his daughter had a big crush on. \n\nThey didn't play him consistently. So he got rusty. And then he messed up his foot stepping on a puck. And now he's in Buffalo.\n\nI would not end up in Buffalo, I decided. I would [[resume my drawing]].
Same ornery gleam in his eye. Maybe my parents weren’t getting old [[before their time]].
She and her husband Larry - yes, just like the Cable Guy, you cannot make this shit up sometimes - directed me to a field a surprisingly far distance away from the farmhouse, then a small stand of trees in this field. \n\nShe didn't talk much, but to her credit she did help me unhitch the camper from my car. And she did notice me staring anxiously into the darkening landscape. "It's plenty safe out here. Just a few deer in the morning and the geese. Larry has his [[shotgun]].\n\n"Why don't you [[rest up a bit]] after your drive. I'll have [[supper]] in an hour."\n\n\n
The first time I had seen him [[completely distracted]].
"We are going to make so much money.” \n\nShe ripped a leg off of a hapless crustacean’s body for emphasis. \n \n"So the men come in and they get drunk and they tip all their oil field money. Especially if you wear something pink or white like their wife or girlfriend back home, and if you pick the right music. A lot of guys like Rihanna, which is not my taste, but I am a businesswoman. I go for [[what the customer wants]]."
When Brandon emailed me this news under the subject line “Green Goddess Hot Dish,” [[I felt dirty]]. Irresponsible. Like one of those high school drop outs who was always making Poor Life Choices and not upholding their obligations. \n\nThen I snapped out of it. Who the fuck was I kidding? Raymond was a drug dealer and Dickinson Catering was a front. It's not like I'd be using him as a reference any time soon.
My brother was less amused. A fucking bathhouse. Run by fucking immigrants. Definitely a front for something illegal.\n\n“Jesus, Melissa. You are just looking for trouble. Don’t fuck this up.”\n\nBut I was warm, clean, well-fed and happy. And before I knew it, it was [[February]], the month that changed everything.\n\n\n\n\n<em>[[Begin the journey]]: Descent into redneck-istan\n\n[[December]]: Bring it on, North Dakota\n\n[[January]]: Making friends\n\n[[February]]: The month that changed everything\n\n[[March]]: Settling in\n\n[[April]]: A sudden storm\n\n[[May]]: Like Jennifer Lawrence in "Winter's Bone"\n\n[[September]]: I did what I had been told</em>
Out here, “fuck” wasn’t cussing, I wanted to [[reassure him]]. It was language - noun, verb, adjective, adverb and exclamation. You didn't need to step foot in a bar to hear it. You just needed to sit in traffic for five hours or shiver outside in sub-zero temps for five seconds.
By the time I hit the main road, I was weeping. From fear, from sadness, from relief - who knew?\n\nNo camper left behind in the dust due to my poor hitching skills. No Becca yelling after me from the porch, no headlights closing in on me or speeding cars running me off the road for a [[Sinaloa-style]] execution. \n\nThe main roads were empty. It was that odd sliver of time when everyone had either gone home from the bars or were crashing with their buddies or a floozy. And the early-morning shift was still slapping their snooze buttons for anither five minutes.\n\nI can call Niko when I get to Minnesota, I told myself. I can call him [[when I get to Minnesota]].\n
And we ended up [[in the bedroom]].\n\n\n
But the shrieking kids in the ball pit made concentration impossible. \n\n\n"Take your drawing materials," Brandon suggested. "Start sketching and designing things again. In between hanging out with strippers and banging that guy, have you even [[done any of that]] since you got to North Dakota?”\n\n\n\n
<em>Did Melissa ever talk to you about the farm?</em>\n\nTristan hesitated. Only once, he replied. She had invited him over for dinner and they had been looking through old photos.\n\nHe'd remarked how beautiful the farm was. Do you go out there often?\n\n“No, Tristan, we sold it,” Melissa had replied, not meeting his eyes.\n\n“Time to cash out to Monsanto, huh.”\n\n“Not really. Debts.”\n\n“Yeah, farming can be a rough business,” he had commiserated even though he had no idea what the fuck I was talking about. But he could extrapolate. [[“Why didn’t you tell us?”]] he could imagine somebody thinking if they jumped in imagining a life of John Deere commercials. “Lots of overhead – all that equipment, livestock, labor, taxes.”\n\n“They weren’t exactly farming debts.”\n
I was scared to leave the camper. I was scared to turn on the lights or the TV or the radio. I was scared to move, except for checking and rechecking my email for [[updates from Brandon]].
Instead, I applied my creative thinking to finding the cheapest cocktail, beverage or appetizer on any given night that ended in "y." This not only numbed my pain, it allowed me to keep up my social engagements with no one guessing or pitying my dire straits. \n\nI applied the thrift of my pioneer ancestors to my beauty regime. This involved hand-touching my roots and eyebrows to save on salon costs, something I should have thought of several hundred dollars ago. \n\nI maximized the efficiencies of my remaining gym classes by picking the hardest ones possible, the ones that left me bedridden for days afterward. \n\nBrandon was not impressed. "You need to be [[practical]], Melissa," he told me.
"For the last time, Melissa," I could hear his sigh in the brief pause between messages, “life gives people one chance. One chance if they’re lucky. This is yours. Don’t fuck it up."\n\n\nFast forward to [[September]].\n\n\n\n\n<em>[[Begin the journey]]: Descent into redneck-istan\n\n[[December]]: Bring it on, North Dakota\n\n[[January]]: Making friends\n\n[[February]]: The month that changed everything\n\n[[March]]: Settling in\n\n[[April]]: A sudden storm\n\n[[May]]: Like Jennifer Lawrence in "Winter's Bone"\n\n[[September]]: I did what I had been told</em>
Who does one have to blow to bring a Sweet Greens to this joint? I wondered this as I bit into a forkful of iceberg lettuce. It was coated in dressing the color and taste of Caladryl ointment. \n\nBecause I would get down on my knees and perform that chore on even the hairiest of North Dakota's men if it meant getting a decent salad for once. \n\nAfter lunch at McDonald's every day since December, I suspected I was developing scurvy.\n\nAt least it was entertaining. \n\nThis [[McDonald’s]] was one with a ball pit, which made it popular with the young kids and their moms.
The crazy shit involved a guy, a little older than us, who Bernie had befriended in Wyoming. Lived up in North Dakota now. And not so long ago, this guy’s girlfriend just [[up and disappeared]].\n\nAnd there was more. Much more.\n
We draped her in sunset tones - oranges, golds, rich scarlets. A velveteen shawl didn't work as well as I anticipated. Meanwhile, a silk tie-dye I had always considered tacky brought a glow to her delicate face.\n\nMarje started to [[unwind it]] from around her neck.\n
And I certainly did not tell Brandon and Shelly that I found myself alone on December 25. \n\nWhat about [[Raymond?]], they would have asked.\n\nWhat about [[Becca and Larry?]]\n\nWhat would [[the family]] think?
I went online obsessively to check my bank balance - whew, still there - and distract myself on sites with stupid cat videos and ill-advised Facebook posts. I religiously avoided the news.\n\nEspecially any news about fracking, Keystone XL or North Dakota.\n\nI was midway through watching “Beasts of the Southern Wild” for the fifth time, right at the part where Hushpuppy's daddy tells her that he misses her.\n\nBrandon interrupted me with an email, subject line "Bean Dip Casserole.” \n\n[[Then he called]], and I put Hushpuppy and her daddy on pause. \n
And my problems weren't even White Person Problems. That's another thing to know [[about me.]] I whine. They were Associate Creative Director problems. Which made them even more twee and pathetic.
Of course, with me shouting from the bathroom doorway, he bounded up the stairs. Two at a time. Impressive. \n\nAnd obviously expecting [[more of an emergency]] than an empty soap bottle. \n
Without kitchen facilities in the camps, or enough fast food places to keep up with the population boom, the workers were in a quandary, as were the employers who relied on them to spend 90 hours a week extracting their island retirement funds from the earth. \n\nI could do well there, Clayton assured me, despite the [[brain]]less nature of the labor.\n\n“You can make a shit-ton of [[money]],” he declared.\n\nThe spigot for such largess? [[Dickinson Catering]] - a mom and pop that saw the need and filled it, quite lucratively. \n\n\n
"I can [[design]] a website for you."
“His house was right up against the woods, so later on, I’d walk the trails at night and see him making out with his girlfriend in the living room. And she was pretty cute without the parka and hat, not the beast I thought she’d be when I first saw her all bundled up. Yeah, she just walked on over and sat on his lap. He took her hair out of its ponytail holder and let’s just say the hockey game on the big-screen TV was not the center of his attention anymore. Then they went upstairs, and those windows had blinds.”\n\n“[[How inconsiderate]],” I remarked. \n
“ ‘You know,’ the red-haired guy said, ‘once the weather’s warm and you’re not wearing a hat and baggy clothes all the time, all of those guys in the camps are going to have some serious fantasies about you.’\n\n"‘Hah hah,’ his girlfriend laughed, ‘like I’m going to walk around in a thong going here’s your chili, boys.’\n\n“ ‘Shorts will work. But you’re still going to have to carry pepper spray.’\n\n"‘You probably see the workers more than I do. They’re all out in the fields when I make my deliveries.’\n\n“Later on, it all clicked: the conversation, the security camera picture, the night when the townhouse almost burned down and she was standing there in her snow gear. I knew she was in on it. But no one believed me. I was just this rent a cop in a rich guy's housing complex, so [[what did I know]]?"
"A lady is hiring me on Saturday for her kid's birthday," I [[informed Ksenia]] "To paint goalie masks. Her husband works for Chevron, so the money's really good."\n\nKsenia chewed on the celery stalk from her Bloody Mary. Marje just stared off into her own little world. "Hockey masks. It sounds very cute."\n\nI slid [[the computer]] closer. "Here are some of the designs I'm thinking of for inspiration." \n
I followed Dark-Haired Army Wife’s instructions to a [[yet-unexplored]] section of Williston. \n\nThe subdivision was a lot like Fleur de Lis Pointe, only bigger, bolder and more beige, if such a thing was possible. \n\nThis was some serious coin. Army Husband must have achieved a high rank before leaving Afghanistan for this wasteland.\n\nThe driveway was filled with salt-encrusted mom vans, forcing me to park halfway down the block. \n\nWhen I opened the door - "just come on in!" - [[the noise]] nearly bowled me over.\n
Marje needed a new scarf for her act. I mentioned that I had brought [[several]] with me from Minneapolis.
“Not a word of this to Mom and Dad,” was Brandon's warning about the whole North Dakota scheme. Which should have given me a clue.\n\n“No worries about that," I assured him and [[Shelly]]. "I still haven't told them that I’ve been laid off.”\n
Maybe he was missing that [[long-ago girlfriend]] from Wyoming. \n\n
Do you have a [[changing room]] here with shower facilities? \n\nNo, I hadn't resorted to bathing at a strip club. I popped in to ask the yoga instructor after work one afternoon. Asking for a friend. "She likes to let my muscles warm up before going back out in the cold night air."
I couldn't tell what the hold-up was, and I was afraid to ask, given all the yelling that suddenly was the norm in the kitchen. But it frustrated me. It put me a full hour behind on my routes, and a full hour behind the few hours of my day when I could do what I wanted. \n\nAt first I brought a [[book]] with me to McDonald's to kill the time and quell my irritation.\n\n
'That's a delivery person for Dickinson Catering, dropping off a shipment of what we now know to be heroin and methamphetamine."\n\n"He actually called it methamphetamine and not just meth?" Lydia snorted. \n\n
Not much, I thought, as I questioned the wisdom of this decision. \n\nDid the occasional sighting of a work baby or a friend baby count, swaddled in hypoallergenic cloth and accompanied by discussions of good schools and productive stools?\n\nDid my [[nephew and niece]] count? During their younger years, they had careened into my gut like torpedoes to hug me and now passed through holiday dinners like moody teenage cyphers. \n\nFor teenagers, I also had Shelly's tales of her niece down in New Mexico. Marlen was a smart one but a piece of work sometimes. Moody as shit. Yeah, Shelly's brother Mike had married himself into a clusterfuck.\n\nBut I could learn. If it was an opportunity to [[make some money]], I could learn.\n\n
Not so much. I hurled that crap out the window by lunchtime. What else could I listen to [[all day]]?
My thumbs paused over my keyboard. \n\nSomething about all of this felt [[a little suspicious]].\n
They’d probably be underwhelmed by my excitement - and have no qualms about expressing their scorn to [[me]] - Ksenia at least.
And now he was walking over. He was easy on the eyes, but I was in no mood for being bothered.\n\n"I see you here every night."\n\nHe pulled up a chair and sat down. Of course he did. \n\nThe guy had [[an accent]]. I couldn't place it. \n
That dinner. Frustrated with the long lines at even the most substandard Williston eatery, I purchased that last pizza from beneath the heat lamps of the Kum and Go and gave myself the most explosive diarrhea of my life.\n\nMy connouseurship of Williston’s public facilities. I could write a blog with my growing knowledge and insider recommendations, particularly the ones least likely to be home to pee stains, odd smells and junkies shooting up and most likely to have heat, ample toilet paper and soap.\n\nMy dilemma after two weeks. I was down to my last pair of underwear. Time to [[approach Becca]], the mistress of my campsite.