FOR LARRY CARTER, the weeks his boss went on vacation were never a vacation for Larry. The boss wasn’t the type to really unplug while away from his desk. In fact, the number of times Larry was dinged for not answering an email from his boss between midnight and six in the morning made his blood boil. Sure, Larry was salaried, but did that mean being on call twenty-four/seven? Not in Larry’s opinion. But what did he know? He wasn’t the great-grandson of the founder—like his boss. And that said it all.
So, even though his boss was supposedly on some uncharted island somewhere, he might as well have still been looking out from the office down the hall.
The last straw for Larry was when a colleague slipped a pink phone message slip under Larry’s stall door in the men’s room. The message was from . . . yes . . . his boss, wondering why Larry wasn’t at his desk!
* * *
On his commute home that evening—squished between pastrami breath on his left and body odor on his right—Larry glanced up at a poster on an overhead panel. It featured a beautiful scene of a guy in waders fly-fishing, surrounded by gurgling water and pine trees, with majestic peaks rising in the distance. As Larry nodded off to the rumble of the wheels, he began to picture himself in that scene. He felt the pull of the current, the mountain breeze, an occasional mosquito circling his fishing cap.
It didn’t take long to convince himself. By the time he reached his stop, his mind was made up: he would book a trip to the mountains for a fishing trip.
Yeah, Larry hadn’t been fishing since he was a kid with his dad, but he knew he had to get away, no matter the cost—or he was going to go stark . . . raving . . . mad.
* * *
Checking various travel websites during his at-desk lunch hours, it took Larry about a week to decide on the perfect spot for his trek into the wilderness. He couldn’t afford—either the money or time—to go too far, such as into the north woods of Canada or the rain forests of South America. He thought of the Rockies but didn’t want to hang in the air for a flight that long. Flying wasn’t really his thing anyway—airsickness.
He finally settled on the Great Smoky Mountains. They were just far enough from upstate New York and just rustic enough to have the effect he thought he needed . . . to escape his world, at least for two weeks.
* * *
“By yourself?” Julia gasped. “What about me? My job’s no picnic either. When do I get a break?”
Larry’s wife’s fiery red hair seemed a bit more fiery than usual. He knew he was treading in dangerous territory with his request.
Since their wedding sixteen years ago, Julia had worked her way up through the ranks at Albany Community Health Center. She was now second in command in the burn unit. In other words, she had everything to do but got none of the credit.
Julia had worked in med/surg and ortho and then completed a six-month certification in burn nursing. She had even worked in a military hospital burn center in Kuwait. Here at Albany Community, she earned her certifications in advanced burn life support and advanced cardiac life support. Few could imagine what she had seen of serious burns and catastrophic injuries.
The worst cases were the children. And yet her superiors—especially one of them in particular—either didn’t know or didn’t care about her experience. Julia might as well still be a candy striper pushing a magazine-and-flower cart up and down the unit.
“Well . . . uh . . . you . . . uh, you could go out with your girlfriends next weekend!” Larry continued. “There’s that new bistro in town that just opened. You can see if it’s getting good ratings online . . . ” he trailed off.
“Great, yeah, that’s a real trade-off,” she said in that tone Larry had always dreaded.
Larry and Julia’s relationship had not been on solid footing lately, and she felt tempted to just yell, Sure, go off into the woods and get eaten by a bear for all I care! But—this time—she didn’t. Between her workload and duties at home, and now her parents demanding more care, both ends of her candle were just about burned out.
She gave up.
“How much is it gonna cost?” she finally said.
Larry perked up inside but kept his face emotionless. “I haven’t quite finished my calculations yet. It’s just, after these last three or four weeks with my jerk boss, I need to get away, or I’m gonna go nuts!”
Saying nothing, she walked off toward the kitchen and started opening and closing cabinets and drawers a little louder than usual.
Gee, that went well, he thought.
Julia hadn’t said yes exactly, but she didn’t say no either. Larry chalked up one for the win column.
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