Fear of Frying

bed, among her appliances. “Oh, Jane. I’ll die without electricity! What have I done to us?”

Two

    Shelley ran outside, looked around, and came back in, saying accusingly, “There are wires coming into the cabin, so there must be electricity.“
    “Probably just phone lines,“ Jane said, pointing to a telephone sitting on a tiny table. Shelley was so seldom rattled about anything that it was a pleasure to see her scrambling around looking for electricity. But Jane was a little concerned, too. She’d planned on using her laptop to keep in touch with the kids and with her “significant other“ (a phrase she hated, but her teenage daughter was mortified by the concept of her mother having a “boyfriend,“ and Jane had reluctantly adopted Katie’s preferred modern terminology), Mel VanDyne, via modem. But while the laptop had a battery, it probably didn’t have enough juice to last for several days. Still, there would certainly be power in the main lodge where she could recharge it, while Shelley would look pretty silly using the lodge to dry and curl her hair and put on her makeup.
    While Shelley got progressively more frantic in her search, Jane explored the rest of the cabin. It was rectangular with a large section taken out on the north wall. The first door into this section revealed a tiny storage room with extra blankets and pillows and a lot of fishing gear. Minnow buckets, life preservers, a selection of elderly fishing poles, and a tackle box. She closed that door and tried the other, which was the bathroom.
    And what a bathroom! “Shelley!“ Jane exclaimed. “Get a look at this!”
    There was a large, deep tub with water-jet hardware, a double sink, and a separate area that had a very modern toilet and glass-enclosed shower. Jane stared for a moment before realizing she had reflexively flipped on the light switch when she entered the room.
    “Lights! Electricity!“ Shelley exclaimed. Then she started laughing. “Talk about selective renovations! What an absolutely fabulous bathroom!”
    It was a strange juxtaposition—the knotty-pine, rocking-chair, kerosene-lamp, handmade-afghan main room and the luxury-hotel-suite bathroom—a weird combination Jane heartily approved of. In the back of her mind there had been a dark fear that outhouses might figure in this trip.
    They got busy unpacking. This was a brief, casual activity for Jane, but more like a well-planned military maneuver for Shelley. There were outlets enough in the bathroom for all of Shelley’s various appliances and Jane’s laptop, which she plugged in to recharge. Their clothes, however, had to be hung in a tiny alcove of the storeroom, with a burlap curtain in place of a closet door.
    “It smells fishy in here,“ Shelley complained.
    “It’s supposed to,“ Jane said. “If it didn’t, they’d have to buy aerosol fish smell. It’s a cabin in the woods. Back to nature and all that.“ She laughed. “Shelley, I have this vision of it being somebody’s job to go around with plastic deer hooves on the end of a pole, making tracks outside the cabins when people are sleeping.”
    Shelley grinned. “On stilts!”
    Once they’d made themselves at home, Jane said, “It’s getting dark and I’m starving. Where do we eat?”
    Shelley consulted the contents of the envelope she’d picked up at the main lodge. “Dinner tonight-uh-ho—in about fifteen minutes. We better get moving.“ She stepped out on the deck overlooking the woods. “It’s getting cold, too. Bundle up and let’s walk.“
    “Okay, but how will we find our way back? By Braille?“
    “I’ve got flashlights,“ Shelley said complacently.
    Jane rolled her eyes. “Of course you do.“ Even after years and years of being neighbors and best friends, Jane was still surprised frequently at Shelley’s organizational skills. She was always prepared for almost anything. She probably had a first aid kit concealed somewhere on her person.
    And a ham radio.
    They put on their heavy coats and headed for the lodge. Jane was surprised at how brisk it was. The day had been unusually warm for fall, but as soon as the sun started going down, the thick forest seemed to extinguish the heat. And the sun went down very quickly indeed. In the five minutes it took them to reach the main lodge, it became almost entirely dark. As they approached the building, a creature scuttled across the road in front of them. “Oh, look! A raccoon!“ Jane exclaimed, turning to