Haven Springs is nestled in a close embrace of the Rocky Mountains and a glittering blue lake. We take a winding road through the mountains, and the eagle-eye view of town from above is straight off a gift-shop postcard. My jaw hangs open, and I very nearly forget to watch the road as we make our way into town.
“Steph! Pay attention!” Izzie smacks my arm lightly and groans, sinking deeper into the passenger seat.
“Sorry! Sorry!” I grapple the steering wheel and train my eyes forward just in time to narrowly miss hitting a deer, casually strolling across the highway.
After a couple hours of the windy climb over the Rockies, Izzie’s stomach revolted and she finally let me drive.
“We’re almost there,” I say, glancing at her ashen complexion. She looks worse now than when we stopped to switch seats. There’s visible sweat on her brow, and her lips are pursed like she’s just eaten sour candy.
Izzie reaches for her water bottle and empties the rest into her mouth. “We’re getting ginger ale as soon as we stop.”
“Absolutely. And some fresh air.” I speed up just a little, narrowing my focus to the road.
When I pull up outside the Black Lantern, I hop from the van and rush around the other side to help Izzie. She plants her feet on the pavement and breaths heavily with her hands on her knees.
“You okay?” I ask, placing my hand at the center of Izzie’s back. “Need a barf bag?”
Izzie shakes her head, then winces at the motion. “Nah, just need to lie down or something.”
“Hey there!” A jolly voice greets us, and I look up into the smiling, bearded face of a guy about my age.
“Uh, hi,” I say. “Sorry, my girlfriend’s just a little sick. We can move our van in a sec.”
“Huh?” He looks at me quizzically. “No—no you don’t have to. This is fine. Sorry. I’m Gabe. Gabe Chen. We’ve been talking on Reddit.” He points his thumb back at his chest. “You’re Steph, right?”
“Gabe! Oh good, I was like… worried we parked in a tow zone or something.”
“I mean, you definitely did.” He looks over my shoulder at the street behind us. “I don’t know how you even managed to get down here. You’re not supposed to drive on Main Street. But it’s totally fine. We’ll get your instruments unloaded and then find you a real parking spot.”
“Hey—violently ill person here. Can I sit down?” Izzie looks paler than before, if possible. “Feel like I’m gonna faint or something.”
“Altitude sickness got you, huh?” Gabe winces. “It happened to me when I first got here, too. Come on, my place is upstairs. You can lie down there for a bit.”
I tighten my grip around her waist and let her lean into me as we follow Gabe inside.
“What no, paparazzi?” A gruff voice greets us as a bell chimes overhead at our entrance. Behind the bar stands a tall man sporting an impressive mustache and wearing green flannel. “These are the rock stars, right?”
“Not exactly that kind of rock star,” I say, but then tack on, “Yet.”
“Hah! That’s the spirit.” The man wipes his hands on a rag and circles around the bar. “The name’s Jed.”
“This is Steph and Izzie,” Gabe says, pointing to each of us in turn. “Jed owns this place—plus he’s a local hero.”
Jed waves a hand in dismissal. “Oh, please. No need to bring that up. Ancient history.”
“Well, you’re my personal hero, too.” Gabe just shrugs, like it’s not a total cheeseball line. He turns toward me and says, “Jed gave me a job here when I first came to Haven and a room upstairs. It’s not every boss who’d be that generous. This guy—he’s a good one. Haven wouldn’t be the same without him.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere with me, son. Now go on, I’ve got work to do so you can have your big rock concert.” He shoos us toward the stairs.
Gabe takes the lead and Izzie follows, but I just turn slowly on the spot, taking the place in.
The Black Lantern is empty except for the four of us, but I’ve never been in a room that feels so full. The walls are decorated with plaques and photographs. There’s an enormous red chandelier above the bar and neon signs everywhere, lighting up the otherwise dark space. My eyes bounce around the room, from a jukebox in the corner to old-looking maps on the walls to a huge taxidermy bear by the pool table. I’ve never been anywhere like it, and yet it feels so familiar, so homey, so… lived in.
“Kind of small,” Izzie mutters as she eases herself up the staircase.
I stiffen a little. She’s not wrong. This place is definitely more pub than concert venue. But it’s far from the first thing I noticed. It’s not like we haven’t played our fair share of bars, though, and it is a small town.
Gabe leads us upstairs to the loft and a warm feeling spreads from my chest out to my limbs. It’s one room, but it feels so much bigger, with a high ceiling and big windows.
“Sweet space!” I eye a The Torchheads poster above a corkboard full of flyers and ticket stubs.
“Welcome to my crib,” Gabe says with a flourish.
Izzie staggers over to the couch and flops face first onto it. “Uhggg,” she says, eloquent as always.
My gaze lingers on her for a moment before my attention does a hop, skip, and a jump across the TV, a record player, and—”Oh my god, foosball? No way!” I dash over to an old foosball table and give one of the handles a good spin.
“You play?” Gabe asks, joining me.
“Not even a little bit, but I bet I could kick your ass.”
“Is that a challenge?”
Izzie lets out another unintelligible sound. “Can I request that any ass-kicking occurs after I stop feeling like an inflated slug?”
“Right, right.” I give Gabe an apologetic look.
To his credit, Gabe doesn’t look put out at all. Instead, he crosses over to the kitchen and fills a glass with water. From a lower cabinet, he grabs a packet of crackers and a straw before setting it all down on the coffee table.
“Altitude sickness can really suck, so take it easy. Hydrate and try to eat something with salt to keep your body functional. If you start to feel better, help yourself to anything in the fridge.” He pats the arm of the sofa and stands up. “We’ll get out of your hair, let you nap. What do you say, Steph? How about a Haven Springs tour from an expert?”
“Ah yes, but where will we find an expert?” I ask, contorting my lips into a goofy grin.
He nudges my shoulder as he passes me and opens the door. “Ha ha, very funny.”
And the thing is… it’s not very funny, but we both still laugh anyway. It’s like something about this place has let me finally exhale a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Even this high up in the mountains, where the oxygen levels are enough to lay Izzie flat, it feels so good to really breathe again.
* * *
It turns out, aside from some residential areas, Haven Springs is just the one block, but somehow this tiny town holds my interest the way almost nothing else has in recent months. And maybe it’s not so much the town as it is Gabe’s love for it. He lights up as he walks me up and down the street, showing me all his favorite spots.
“This place is new—just opened a few weeks ago—but you gotta try the ice cream!” Gabe exclaims, pointing up at a sign with snowy mountain peaks that says Avalanche Ice Cream.
“In February?” It’s not snowing or anything, but I still have my puffy blue coat over my flannel and my hands jammed in my pockets.
“Yes!” Gabe takes me by the shoulders. “It’s the thrill of the chill!”
“Well, when you put it like that… my flavor is Rocky Road.”
“Yeah… your flavor is whatever Sonny decides it is.”
“Sonny?” I ask, peering inside the ice cream parlor to see a middle-aged man with bright eyes and a brighter smile beckoning us to come in.
“You’re gonna love him.” Gabe chuckles. “He’s got a real talent for flavors that really shouldn’t work, but somehow do. My favorite so far is Cereal Milk.”
“Cereal Milk?” I ask as we push open the doors.
“Yeah, you’ll see. It’s a lawless land in there.”
We leave a few minutes later with our ice cream cones—Gabe gets Strawberry Balsamic and I take his recommendation for Cereal Milk, which, lo and behold, tastes like the dregs of a bowl of Cheerios.
Our conversation halts as we lick our ice cream, leaving me time to really absorb the town.
Just like inside the Black Lantern, my eyes can’t decide what to look at first. Tall lamps mark the brick pathway every few feet, spiral-pattern ribbons looped around the base like on a maypole. Little purple crocuses burst from the ground, and colorful murals cover the sides of buildings. It feels like a festival, even on a mostly empty street.
We meander down the street a bit to sit on a bench, and my gaze lands on a majestic statue of a deer in the middle of the street. The sculpture is hauntingly real, muscles sculpted in iron as if in motion.
“What’s with the deer?” I ask.
Gabe shrugs. “Dunno. Guess we just… take deer pretty seriously in this town.”
“Does it have a name?”
Gabe cocks his head, eyebrows joining at the center of his forehead. “You know, I don’t know. Maybe we should name it.”
“Deirdre,” I suggest.
“I dunno, I think it’s a boy, right? With the antlers?”
“Okay, well, gender is a construct, but I see your point.” I roll my lip between my teeth. “Bucky.”
Gabe chortles and shakes his head. “We’ve got a local named Ducky and I think people would get confused.”
“Okay, well what would you name it?”
“Stagatha Christie.”
“Ohhh, that’s good! But what happened to it being a boy?”
Gabe shrugs. “You’re right. Gender is a construct.”
I take a lick of my ice cream, but I barely taste it. For some reason, I can’t tear my eyes from this statue. “It looks so real… like the way its head is tipped up like it smells something delicious… Maybe it’s the pine trees.”
“Maybe it’s the ice cream.” Gabe raises his cone like he’s making a toast, but clips the side of his face so the ice cream smashes against his nose and lips, leaving a perfect pink circle in the middle of his face.
“Rudolph? Is that you? I’m your biggest fan!” I cackle, but hand him one of the napkins wrapped around my cone.
“Gabe? I thought I heard your voice.” The door to The Silver Dragon, a little dispensary a few doors down from the flower shop, opens and through it steps a black woman with gold jewelry and at least three layers of colorful cardigans. She looks, in a word, cozy, like she probably gives great hugs. “Ah—and you must be Drugstore Makeup!”
“Hey—yeah, I’m Steph. My other half is upstairs.” I jab my thumb over my shoulder at the Black Lantern just up the street.
“This is my girlfriend, Charlotte,” Gabe says. “Hopefully that’s still true now that she’s seen me with ice cream all over my face.”
Charlotte purses her lips, failing to suppress a smile, and laces her fingers with his. “It’ll take more than a little ice cream to send me packing.”
My chest swells a little painfully at the look they give each other—the smile that tugs Gabe’s lips to the left, the certainty in Charlotte’s eyes. It’s a quiet kind of love. The kind that doesn’t have to prove itself.
“You coming to the show?” I ask.
“I wish!” Charlotte’s eyes snap back to me. “I have to drop my son off with his father tonight, otherwise I’d be there. Ethan’s really disappointed, too.”
“Yeah, you’re gonna miss all my sexiest dance moves.”
“Oh yes, the fabled dance moves.” Charlotte kisses Gabe on the cheek. “Maybe it’s better for you if I don’t see those.”
“Your loss. I’m going to tear it up tonight!” Gabe quirks an eyebrow and swings his arms into an impressively bad robot.
Charlotte and I both burst into laughter.
“Oh, I can’t wait to see more,” I say when I catch my breath. “Izzie’s gonna love that.”
“I hope she feels better soon.” Gabe’s smile falters and he glances back at the Black Lantern. “She’s missing out!”
I nod, but I can’t help but think if she were here with us, we wouldn’t be laughing half so much.
I stand straighter, refusing to let the moment crumble. “Come on, what else d’you have to show me, Mr. Haven Springs?”
“Under no circumstances will I be calling you Mr. Haven Springs,” Charlotte deadpans, but she’s smiling as she gives him a squeeze and retreats into the shop.
“You haven’t seen the lake yet, have you?” Gabe points down the street toward a dock at the end, and we meander toward it. “This is my favorite part of town,” he says. “Even when this place is bustling, it’s always quiet down here.”
I step onto the dock and immediately feel a shift. A weight lifts from my shoulders and my feet skim across the wooden boards as light as cappuccino foam. The lake spreads out beneath me, shimmering and still like glass. Mountains rise up from the opposite shore, snowy peaks reaching for the sky. I want to reach with them—so I do. I put my arms in the air and stretch, feeling all the tension in my body unspool.
From the end of the dock, I can see the sprawling expanse of a wooded park. Little fairy lights hang from some of the tree branches, and a spark ignites in me. I want to see this place at night. I want to see this place in spring, in summer, and even in fall. I want to see how it changes with the seasons.
I want to see how I might, too.