9. Davis

Focusing on work, especially when it involved a lot of emails, was something that Davis had to strive to accomplish. Which was difficult, because he needed another coffee. Because when his brain got tired and frustrated, it made reading even harder.

Davis left the administrative building and its harsh fluorescent lights, laptop in hand, and decided to work from his cabin office. Mary Anne would be happy, at least. Hopping down from the couch, the dog gave a dutiful lick and followed Davis to his office, where she flopped dramatically down on her newest bed and was snoring in seconds. Laughing, Davis sat down at this desk, placing one booted foot on a drawer he’d left open last time as a makeshift footrest. It was nice being able to choose where he worked, and nicer when there was a snoring dog next to him. After the computer booted up, Davis’s eyes flicked down to his screen, to an alert in the corner that announced even more emails had arrived in the last four minutes. Davis got a million emails a day, mostly from the white noise of the federal government. Bureaucratic red tape meant that everyone had to be informed of everything, which, of course, meant that no one was informed of anything.

Responding to emails at the cabin’s office was easier. He could use his speech-to-text program and make sure that no one heard the awkward way he had to announce punctuation. He could do this. Davis sighed and reminded himself that it was the dumbest thing to be afraid of. It wasn’t a mountain lion or an alligator tortoise; just an email. From her bed, Mary Anne sighed in agreement.

Opening his email, he saw that the newest message was from the tall exhibit designer who had, frustratingly, not left his daydreams since they had gone on the walk together.

Davis,

I have a few design ideas that I think would be best to discuss with you in person…

He quickly typed a response back, skimming it over twice to see if there were any typos.

J -

Any afternoon this week works for me. One perk of life out here is that my schedule is always open because we don’t have that many visitors.

D.

The minute that he pressed send, Davis felt a cold chill rush through his body. Why had he added that line about his schedule? He could have been professional and just provided times. No one— especially not Jeremy Rinci— needed a justification for his schedule. He wished the government would have let him install the program that held the email in the outbox for ten minutes, which had been a lifesaver in West Virginia. It had been hard enough to convince the onboarding HR staff that he needed the text reading program, having to give the staff member a stern reminder that even senators were using programs like this in chambers.

A quick reply.

D-

Thursday? Should I bring hiking boots for another excursion?

J.

Davis chuckled. He had taken Jeremy on a 1.5-mile flat loop that he routinely took second graders on in flip-flops. Excursion would be a generous term for what they had done.

J -

No excursions this time, I promise. I will bring out some specimens and old photographs if you’re interested.

D.

Another moment of internal screaming. Specimens, yes, but the idea that Jeremy would be interested in dusty photographs of boring old forest rangers—

D-

I’d love that.

See you Thursday at 1.

J.

Davis looked around this office and was hit with an overwhelming desire to make it look, well, better. He had a box of ephemera from home, from the tiny corner cubicle he had been able to claim at the office in Charleston. A Smokey Bear sticker, a WVU pennant. A framed advertisement for the CCC that featured strong, striking men that was incredibly homoerotic in the way that most Great Depression marketing was. A poster from his high school best friend’s bluegrass band. All in a box in the corner, collecting dust, and Davis wanted to hang them up. Make it feel lived in.

Davis put everything on the wall, then decided it didn’t feel right and moved all the posters again, grateful for the blue tacky stuff the government provided. Looking at the collection of art, something was off, but he couldn’t figure out what. This was why he hired an exhibit designer. He turned to his desk and attempted to organize it into something that wasn’t just piles. He started with the books that had shaped him— A Sand Country Almanac, The Wilderness Warrior, Losing Eden, Braiding Sweetgrass — stacked in a neat pile on the corner of his desk.

A knock on Davis’s cabin door interrupted his consideration of whether it was weird to have a snow globe on his desk, even if it was from Yosemite. “You stay here,” Davis said to Mary Anne, closing his office door behind him. When Davis opened the front door, Alex was there, accompanied by a large black dog with long hair and one spotted hind leg.

“Hey,” he said. “I, uh, brought my dog over so he could meet Mary Anne. Is that okay?”

“Of course. Come on in.” Alex ambled in, the dog by his side.

“This is Caveman, and he’s the best dog in the world,” Alex said with the same kind of pride a parent had about their newborn.

“Hey, boy,” Davis said, putting his hand down for Caveman to sniff.

“Looks nice in here!” Alex said. “It seems like you’ve decided to stay with us?”

“Yes?” Davis said. Had he been making his coworkers feel like he was leaving? He wanted to make sure that he did everything normally, made them feel comfortable. He didn’t want to give them any reason to look at him twice or question his behavior. His goal was to fade into the background. Not to be invisible, but to be unnoticed.

To be normal, whatever that entailed.

Because if someone noticed you, they could be interested in you.

And interested people asked questions.

So if he was just there, he could blend in.

Normal.

“A few of us are headed to the local bar later for a drink if you want to join,” Alex offered. “Yesenia and I realized that we’ve never invited you.”

Normal. He could grab a Diet Coke or a seltzer, stealthy. It might even be advantageous to pull the bartender aside and ask that he be served tonic and lime when he asks for a drink. It’s what he had done in Charleston, which had worked well. His coworkers never knew, and the bartender checked in on him. It was a nice arrangement and something he should replicate here. But Klarluft was smaller than Charleston, and if Davis knew anything about small towns, it’s that everyone knew everyone else’s business. And if he was going to be staying here for a while, he wanted firm control over what aspects of his personal business were able to be shared.

“I can’t,” Davis said, waving at his computer screen. “I’m working on sorting through the pile of emails I’ve let build up this week. Next time?” He could start talking about his sobriety at some point with them, and then that way it wouldn’t be a shock when he didn’t drink. He had just gotten his first invite to a happy hour. He couldn’t be the wet blanket that reminded everybody he was sober. Davis knew that wasn’t a good way to make friends.

So he distracted Alex with a dog. “Want to meet Mary Anne?”

Alex grinned like a second grader who just came back from a doctor’s appointment with McDonald’s. He let Caveman out to the backyard, and Davis let Mary Anne out. After the ritual exchange of butt sniffs, the dogs engaged in a classic game of whose mouth is bigger, then settled for chasing each other around the small, fenced-in meadow.

It was nice to chat with Alex as something more than a coworker, as someone he could imagine being friends with. Alex, it turned out, shared a love of sports and went on a long rant about how the college football playoffs needed to stop changing all the time. Davis, still a huge WVU fan, wanted them to keep changing so he could see the Mountaineers anywhere near the playoffs. For a moment, it felt like Davis was back in West Virginia, shooting the shit and talking trash on Pitt with his cousin Bruce.

Alex whistled for Caveman and offered another invite out to the bar, to which Davis used emails as an excuse. After he had left, Davis sat back down at his computer, and Mary Anne let out a long sigh. “I know, girl,” he said to the dog. “But we’ll have a lovely night at home, working our way through that new game.” Over the last year, Davis had started playing more video games, as he didn’t have many friends, and was surprised at the way the narratives had increased in complexity. Working away at a story, bit by bit, slowly uncovering how the puzzle piece slotted together. It seemed to Davis how his friend who loved reading talked about getting lost in a book. Tonight, Davis would be an assassin sneaking around Ancient Greece.

Once he got through these damn emails. And found some photographs for Jeremy.

“On second thought,” Davis said to Mary Anne. “I’ll probably spend some time looking through the digital archives instead. That okay with you?”

Mary Anne answered with a snore, and Davis opened up the National Archives website, finding the records for his forest. Maybe he could find other people who felt connected to this same piece of land throughout history…