Diane Cook - Man V. Nature - Stories

They sniffed the cake and put crumbs to their tongues, tentative, she assumed, because she had claimed not to like it. She knocked on the window.

“Go ahead. It’s good, it’s fine,” she urged. They began to stuff chunks into their mouths. Their faces gave away that, truly, it wasn’t good at all. She thought they might spit it out and leave, decide that if her first offering was crappy coffee cake, it wasn’t worth the hassle. But they continued to eat it.

The news crews came. She saw her house on television. She saw herself, pretaped, standing at her kitchen window, lit bright against the darkening evening, washing dishes, her hair electric on one side and matted on the other. Onscreen, she was wearing Greg’s college track T-shirt, and she remembered it as the day they’d both called in sick just for fun.

Watching it, she unconsciously smoothed down her hair.

After the news broadcast, people bloomed like mold across her yard, over where she’d planned to put a pool, threading through the forest border of the property. People climbed trees and built houses in them. She watched whole families disappear into the branches in the evening, then climb down each morning to pick through her garbage.

When the lawn and trees filled, people burrowed underground. They fought each other for shelter. When a man came up from his burrow, he cautiously looked around. Occasionally someone was waiting there to bash his head, drag his limp body from the hole, and then scurry in. The victim would eventually come to and crawl away, embarrassed that even here his luck had run out.

Wires fanned out from Jane’s hacked electric and cable up into the trees and down all the holes, like streams off a mountain.

Jane had to bake for hours each morning. She bagged lunches for those who worked, passed out milk money to children lined up for the caravan of rerouted school buses, held babies so their mothers could get a shower in at the portable facilities Jane had rented. The people, like devotees, lined up before her, and Jane caressed each of their cheeks to give them strength for the day ahead. Then she drove to work. She was disappointed when her boss suggested she begin working from home — productivity was down due to everyone wanting to stand around her. She liked her new job. Even more, she liked going to work and leaving her house behind.

“There were twelve birthdays that needed cakes today. And somehow they’ve got me tutoring all the fourth-graders. Can this not take too long?”

“Don’t you think this is fun?” Greg said, smiling with all his teeth. “ I think it’s fun.”

“No, you don’t.” Jane wouldn’t use the word fun . She didn’t think it was anything but exhausting to feel responsible for so many people.

Usually they peeled their clothes off in bed according to which body part they were trying to locate. But now Greg undressed slowly in front of the window. “Come over here. I’d like to make you come over here.” Lately, he’d made a show of really enjoying it.

“No. The bed is a fine place for that.”

They fought over lights on or lights off, and she won, but even in the dark she could tell when he peered out the window and flexed.

“It’s so much better now,” he insisted loudly, rolling her into a different position. “Don’t you agree? I think I’m a better lover now. Don’t you think I’ve become a better lover?”

“You’re the same,” she said. She hadn’t meant to sound unencouraging. He was going through a sensitive time. She tried to apologize by moaning loudly.

He lapped at her closest body part — her elbow — making a face like he was in a foreign country, eating gross food his host family presented him. An I love it behind a false grin. She didn’t like it either.

She situated herself on top of him, tried to pull a blanket over her shoulders, but Greg tore it off. She placed his hands over her breasts so anyone watching couldn’t see them bounce. “Nothing is different,” she whispered. “And that’s good.”

“Oh no,” he said. Then again, “No,” and she thought he disagreed. Then he said, “Yes,” like he’d reconsidered. And then again, “Yes.” Then he came with theatrical force, almost bucking her off him. “Wasn’t that incredible?” he panted. “Wasn’t it incredible for you?” He acted more in love with her than ever, and so it felt like much less.

“It was great.”

“Let’s go again. I’ll do better.”

But Jane climbed off.

Greg’s face drooped. “Please,” he whimpered and gripped her.

Jane sensed the stillness of all the people outside, listening to them. The crickets were silent, as though listening too.

Her mother sent a thin, dog-eared paperback called My Mast Year. It had large print and clearly was self-published. On the cover the author, Penny Smith, contemplated something soft in the distance; her eyes sparkled with spotlight diamonds while a chain of real diamonds squeezed her neck.

Inside were gauzy photos of Penny baking pies, Penny reading to children by her fireplace, Penny cooking a shiny goose for what looked like thousands of people crowding her ornate dining room. In picture after picture, people lounged over her furniture, leafed through her books, slept in her beds. They gazed at her with an aggressive love.

Jane had been generous, but she hadn’t been welcoming or gracious. She should think of this as an extended dinner party where everyone drinks too much and has to stay over. They should feel at home and be glad to be there. And in the sobering daylight, they would feel rested and satiated enough to leave.

She went to her front door, unlocked it, threw it open, and went to bed.

At first, they were skittish; they hid as though they didn’t believe her invitation had been genuine. But she’d catch clues that they’d been there during the night. Dirty mugs in the sink. New shows recorded on the DVR.

When Jane entered a room, a sense of movement lingered in the air. As if a minute before, the room had been filled with people who’d hid at the sound of her. She felt on the verge of a surprise party every time she turned on the lights.

At night, she yawned loudly and said, “I’m going to bed,” into the seemingly empty rooms. The house creaked to life once her light went out.

One morning, she came downstairs to find a few people sitting around her kitchen table, digging into a pie she’d made the day before. At the sight of her, they tensed, but they didn’t run. They lifted their forks to her and said, “Good pie.”

Jane nodded. “Thank you.”

From then on, people occupied every room. Late into the evenings they huddled in earnest conversation along every wall, lounged on furniture, on the floor, slept under and on the dining room table. Their laughter drowned out her music, the radio news she liked to listen to. She believed they must be getting what they needed, and that she had helped them get it. But her house was now very crowded. The dishes were always dirty. There was never a chair to sit on. The shower drains were clogged with hair. She couldn’t do any housecleaning without being jostled. And no one helped. Each morning she had to shoo people out of the laundry room, where the couples falling in love would go to be alone. She restocked toilet paper several times a day. She only found solace in her bedroom. She’d tacked a note on the door asking for privacy, which, thankfully, they respected.

On date night, Greg wrestled everyone out of the kitchen. “Come back later,” he said. “We’re trying to have a romantic dinner because we’re so in love.” The crowd regrouped in the kitchen doorway. Some of them threw pennies at him, which had become an insult in the house. Jane worried that people didn’t like him. It made her self-conscious.