A change of Scenery 2 of 2

Part 2

Somewhere in the Pennsylvania Appalachians

It was just a little over a week after their conversation outside City Hall and Cindy had followed the GPS directions to the address of the cabin that James had inherited from his uncle. The cabin, as it turned out, wasn't so far away from civilization as she had led herself to believe, just far enough away to be secluded from all of the 24 hour chaos that the city brings. There was a substantial town not far from the cabin too, and they didn't seem to be technically stuck in the 20th century, so that was good.

While she wasn't expecting the place to be some shabby shack, she wasn't expecting it to be as elaborate looking as it seemed to be.

The cabin was actually two stories with what looked like a kitchen and living room on the first floor, with a very large enclosed porch in the back that was just over half the size of the main cabin, which in and of itself seemed to be more spacious than her $1,000 a month apartment back in Philly.

The first thing she noticed after the cabin was the large creek that stretched out as far as the eye can see, and that he was not totally alone on it, although it seemed that his closest neighbor was a little over ¼ mile away on another part of the creek.

She was taken in awe of the beauty of the sunset that had painted the sky in brilliant hews of orange and blue, and was taken by surprise by the two dogs that scampered their away across the creek to greet her, one with a good sized stick in his mouth that he dropped at her feet.

“Wanna play?” Cindy grabbed the stick and tossed it as far as she could. “James, you here?”

“On the back porch,” James, who was setting up the computer which he had just gotten earlier that day, so he had Cindy come over to help him set up the programming needed.

“OK,” Cindy followed the sound of James' voice, to where he had a portable laptop, she pulled out a flash drive and plugged it into the computer. “Once this program is installed, you'll have everything you'll need to do the data entry, which as you know is pretty cut and dry, and copy verbatim whatever the client has on the paperwork.”

“Which I will start doing....”

“Monday, you'll get your first load of work on Monday, today we just set up the computer, which should take about an hour.”

“Do you have to go back to Philly right away?”

“It's Friday after 3,” Cindy smiled, “I don't need to get back to the office until 8:00 Monday.”

“You're welcome to stay the weekend,”

“Aahh,” Cindy let out a wince.

“Sorry too...uh, you're my supervisor.”

“Don't worry about that bit.”

“Your boyfriend will have something to say about it?”

“No.”

“Your girlfriend will have something to say about it?”

“Your pet will have something to say about it?”

“Actually,” Cindy winced, “yes. I have a dog that I need to get home to feed.”

“Do you have someone who can feed them for you?”

“I do have a roommate.”

“Problem solved, let them know you won't be home for the weekend, and have them feed the dog for you.”

“OK,” Cindy looked at the office clothes she was wearing, then the big creek with a nice canoe tied to the tree, Suddenly she desired to explore the creek and the woods, much like she liked to do when she was a kid in West Virginia. All of a sudden, the playful little girl she had long ago subverted wanted to come out and play. “I would love to stay, but I also didn't bring a change of clothes.”

“Another easy fix, we have a town that has shops where you can get whatever you need to make yourself comfortable for the weekend. Next.”

“There is no next,” Cindy said, “there's nothing preventing me from staying until Monday morning. Besides, I'm a little curious as to what is around that little bend in the creek.”

“So am I, Cindy. So am I.”