A Treehouse, a little you-and-me house

             The longest night of the year was also the iciest this December. Taylor and Joe arrived as sleet fell on their big black vehicle. I’d call it a van, but Joe had the body fitted onto a heavy duty 4WD chassis. It’s a monster truck he calls “Vader,” and it’s a good thing he had it on Saturday night.             Joe is a burly guy who generates excitement by thinking outside the box. He’s frugal as well as resourceful and tells us that during college he saved money by sleeping in his car—a sedan—reclining the driver’s seat for comfort. After college he dodged paying rent by buying the van and tricking it out with a double bed, counter and storage space.             Then he met Taylor.             She was paying outrageous rent for an apartment in Burlington, ...

Filmmakers like a lot of drama, and that’s what Java and Tighe got on the stormiest night Fern Forest has seen in a while. “You’d better let them know about the storm before they come,” I told my husband. “I’m sure they’ve checked the weather forecast,” he answered. They had left Brooklyn on Friday, stopping for a night at Lake George. Even if they had cell phone reception, which is always sketchy once one leaves civilization, they may not have thought about the weather. It was Tighe’s birthday weekend, and Java wanted him to have a good time. The two met in film school in New York City. Tighe didn’t travel far from his home in northern Jersey, but Java came all the way from Paris. When I first met her, I thought we’d gotten it wrong about her being French—she didn’t have an accent at all. “I want to speak like an American,” she said, “but I use the French accent to flirt.” It might have been a combination of accent and her dark beauty that attracted Tighe, a movie-...