The drive from Stellar to Fairbanks was a beautiful one. It started out with winding roads through sky-grazing trees and, on sunny days like today, the sky was a lovely blue straight overhead. Once out of the wilderness, the road met the highway, which led straight into Fairbanks. It wasn’t too long, but long enough to enjoy a good book on MP3 or a podcast, and the traffic was never bad at all. Compared to some of the commutes New Yorkers had to make, this was a cakewalk.
Fairbanks was what Chris considered a small town, but it was heavily populated compared to the rest of Alaska and it had a very high crime rate. That’s what had appealed to Chris’s higher-ups when he proposed that he start a new office in “the Last Frontier.” Lots of business. They didn’t even know the half of it. Chris was fielding twenty-five calls a day from people looking for representation for themselves or a loved one, and he finally hired an administrative assistant in June when he opened full-time.
Yolanda was a lovely older woman: smart, skilled and a little crazy in the best possible way. A defense attorney’s office could get intense and she handled it all with aplomb and a sense of humor. At the end of the day and the end of the week, she was just as happy as at the beginning. Plus she wore the most amazing outfits. She wouldn’t have been able to dress that way in New York City, and Chris considered that, if and when his bosses came out to see the Fairbanks office, they might not approve of her, but they’d cross that bridge when they got to it.
“Good morning, Yo,” Chris greeted her.
She was already hooked up to her headset, and she raised her perfectly manicured finger with a smile to let him know she was on the line. Chris put a small box on her desk. He liked to bring her a treat once in a while.
When she burst into his office a few minutes later, she was wearing the gift: a silver comb with a vivid peacock feather.
“Mr. Chambers, you know me so well. Thank you! How does it look?”
“Perfect. I saw it at a craft fair over the weekend and it had your name all over it. And please, call me Chris.” He’d asked her one hundred times, but he knew she’d refuse yet again.
“Boundaries, Mr. Chambers! If I don’t show you respect, your criminal clients certainly won’t!” She ran back out to get a call.
“Innocent until proven guilty, Yo!” he called back after her with a laugh.
The smile fell from his face when he looked at the stack of files she’d already placed on his desk. These were cases that needed immediate attention: clients or opposing counsel to call, document to file, agreements to consider. There had to be thirty files, mostly defense cases but some civil litigation and estate planning. He did a quick mental calculation: it was eight in the morning, average of thirty minutes per case—twenty minutes if he rushed—and maybe he could get home by seven o’clock tonight. He went to the kitchen, got a cup of coffee—Yolanda made it double-strength—and then got right to work.
He opened the first file, a University of Alaska student whose parents had too much money and didn’t want their precious baby to suffer for his DUI, but Chris couldn’t focus.
His husband and baby were still at home, getting ready for their day together. Raff would be taking her with him to the rehab center, where she would play in a playpen in his office, chatting incomprehensibly to every smiling face that walked by. Raff would be sitting behind his desk with his feet up, making calls and placing orders, or walking through the facility with Bizzy strapped to his back, taking inventory and greeting the patients. He would be smiling, because Raff was a smiler and everyone would say to each other or themselves, “What a great guy,” because Raff was a great guy.
A great guy who wanted to go on a romantic vacation with Chris, and God knows why but Chris had turned him down last night.
Chris’s career was taking up more and more of his focus, even in Alaska, but the whole point of summering in Alaska was to spend more time together.
The first time they came to Stellar, just to check it out, they rented a condo for the week. The condo itself was clean but hideously decorated, with a polyester bedspread that had to have been made in 1975, cheap beach artwork (in Alaska??), and mismatched silverware. But the view from the eleventh floor unit was breathtaking.
“Who cares about art when you can stare at this all day?” Raff said, as he stood at the window.
Chris was next to him, six months pregnant, rather miserable and sore at the time, but he had to agree. The next morning when they told Holly, the owner of the Stellar Café, that they were already in love with the town and building, she told them that there was a two bedroom unit for sale. One phone call and two eggs-Benedicts later and they were touring the empty unit on the tenth floor.
The view was even better there, as it was an end unit with wrap-around windows, and the condo was much nicer. The previous owner had installed a modest kitchen upgrade and an impressive new master bath, and there were no tacky oil paintings on the wall. Surprisingly, it was well within their budget. It wasn’t fancy—except for the amazing shower—but it was perfect.
The realization that they were buying a summer home made the two men giddy. Chris felt like his hard work was finally paying off, not with material possessions, but with life satisfaction. His determination had allowed him to afford a costly surgery so that he could create a little life with his alpha, and soon they’d have a place where they could decompress and enjoy the simple things together. Living the dream at such a young age.
Before they headed back to Brooklyn, the residents of Stellar Landing threw them a little welcome party in the building’s recreation center. Apparently, during the winter, the building was only half full but, during the summer, there were hundreds of residents, and it seemed like they all turned out for the party. A disco ball hung from the rafters, and the resident DJ—aka Gladys, a young woman with crazy hair who made it her personal mission to plan several parties a month—was playing everyone’s favorite 80s hits. The banquet tables seemed to be straining from the pot luck food, and there were about ten pies at the end. DJ Gladys had also made the pies. She was apparently the resident powerhouse.
“I love this song,” Chris recalled saying to Raff, when they finally found each other in the crowd. It was “Hold Me Now” by the Thompson Twins.
“Hm,” Raff said, pulling his pregnant husband close, “I think this was before my time.” He was always teasing Chris about being two whole years older.
Chris just smirked as they began to sway. Many of the adults started slow dancing as well, but the kids ran between them undeterred.
“I love it here, Raff. I think we’re going to have so much fun. So many memories. Think about it. When we come back this summer, we’ll have our baby with us. In a few years, he or she will be running around at parties just like this.”
Raff didn’t respond with more than a squeeze, but Chris already knew that he was excited. When he was a kid, he didn’t even have one place to call his home. Now he had two.
They brought a two-month-old Elizabeth to Stellar the next summer so that Chris could recuperate and bond with her in peace. Their new neighbors filled their freezer with home-cooked meals and their window sill with lovely plants and vases of flowers.
But this year . . .
Chris shut the DUI file and turned to his computer, pressing the button that woke up the monitor.
“Hey, Yo? Do you know the best place around here to buy a bike?”
She peeked her colorful head into the room. “Like for the baby? I bet I could find a tricycle in the Salvation Army for two bucks. Or do you mean a bicycle for you or Raff?”
“No, a motorcycle. I need to buy a Harley Davidson.”