…start act two.”
I screamed. My best friend, Jenna, started laughing so hard she dropped her phone.
“Oh my God,” she gasped. “Your face. I’m so sorry. Happy birthday!”
I didn’t understand anything. My heart was going about two hundred beats a minute. Jenna grabbed my hands and made me sit down on the kitchen floor.
The cabin wasn’t a normal rental. It was an immersive mystery experience called “The Mountain House,” run by a former theater director named Paul. Jenna had booked it for my fiftieth birthday as a surprise, because I’d spent the last three years telling everyone I wanted to “do something crazy” before I got old. She’d signed the waivers, sent Paul our photos and planned every detail.
The two women on the screen were actresses in wigs and pajamas, sitting in a spare bedroom with a fake camera feed. The refrigerator had a hidden motor. Paul’s panicked phone call was part of the script. So was the note.
“There’s no camera in our real bedroom,” Jenna said quickly. “I checked. I made him promise.”
Then the kitchen door opened, and Paul walked in wearing a flashlight helmet and holding a clipboard. “Act two,” he said cheerfully. “You have three hours to find out who the doubles are before sunrise.”
I had two choices. I could go home and be furious. Or I could do something crazy.
We played until five in the morning. We found clues hidden in the fireplace, a locked diary under the stairs and a map in a jar of pickles. At dawn, we solved the mystery: the “doubles” were twin sisters trying to get back a cabin their grandmother had lost in a card game. Paul gave us a medal.
The actresses joined us for breakfast. They were sisters in real life, too. One of them told me I’d had the best scream of the whole season.
I still haven’t fully forgiven Jenna. But for her birthday next spring, I’ve already booked something. I’m not telling her what it is. I’ve just left her one rule: “Do not answer the door after midnight.”
