by Abby Knox
Chapter 7
Penny
I wake up the next morning and realize several things. I did not plug in my laptop or set down my mom’s box of ashes carefully on the floor last night. The extra blanket did not come from this room.
My half-asleep state in the middle of the night didn’t register these findings. All I knew was I had to pee. My clearer head this morning tells me what I already know. Joshua did all of those things for me.
As if that’s not enough, fresh hot coffee awaits me in the kitchen, along with an eyeful of Josh. Fiddling with the contents of his tackle box, he says, “Good morning, sunshine.”
“Back at you. Thank you for putting up my laptop and stuff, and thanks for the blanket. You didn’t have to do all that.”
He picks up a garish neon green lure with about seven tiny hooks on it, examining it. For what, I couldn’t say. “I run hot. I didn’t need the blanket. And you shouldn’t fall asleep with your laptop in bed. Those things run hot too.”
I sip my coffee and look him over, deciding he’s not meaning to be critical. There’s a sense of protectiveness in his voice that I find charming. The warmth mingles with the coffee as it goes down to my belly.
He still hasn’t looked me in the eye this morning. “Planning on catching Jaws with that thing?” I ask.
He laughs. “What this? No, this is for walleye and northern pike.”
“Those are fish, I presume.”
I expect him to laugh or ask me how I could not know anything about fishing, but he doesn’t. “Wanna come with? I’m heading out in a few minutes.”
Honestly, fishing to me sounds like a lot of work once you catch something. And a lot of boring stuff before that, and potential for sunburn without the perks of swimming.
I politely decline, explaining that today I’m planning on swimming and then unwinding with a bath and a good book on the dock. “And I’ll be sightseeing when I’m not on the dock. You might not see a lot of me for the rest of our stay.”
He nods his head. “Yeah, good idea. There’s lots to see around here. Lock Day is coming up.”
The phrase conjures up romantic images of couples memorializing their love by placing locks on that bridge in Paris, and I can’t imagine what he’s getting at. If he’s suggesting we go and do something like that here, I might have to pump the brakes. We haven’t even been on a proper date yet. “What’s Lock Day?”
“Oh,” he replies, his face brightening up even more than when he talks about fishing. “It’s the day that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opens up the locks for people to tour them.”
Oh, thank God. Not a forward romantic suggestion. But also, I didn’t come here to look at water go up and down.
“Tour the locks? Why though?”
Joshua looks nonplussed. “To see how they work.”
I glance out the window at the beckoning water of the lake. “So I can walk in and see how water lifts boats? I think I have an idea.”
He laughs. “Good point, but it is pretty cool if you find that kind of stuff interesting. I kind of always wanted to be an engineer, but I didn’t want to saddle myself with a mountain of student debt, so I never bothered. So this kind of stuff excites me; I know it seems dumb.”
I am such a jerk. My mouth falls open. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
He waves off my apology with a congenial smile.
“Nah, it’s fine. If you want, we could drive to the Soo together on Lock Day. I could drop you off downtown, wherever you want to go, while I do the tour. Save on gas.”
I feel like I’ve offended him even though he shows no sign of that. “Maybe. Depends on when I can get tickets for the ferry to Mackinac Island.”
He nods. “Nice. Watch out for the horse poop.”
I smirk. “I kind of love it that they don’t allow cars.”
Josh clicks his tackle box shut and stands, his tall frame stretching in such a way that the hem of his T-shirt lifts, showing a slightly fuzzy tummy. My eyes linger too long on that bare skin. He catches me but says nothing, only grins and rubs a palm over his shirt.
“Mack Island is pretty, I’ll give you that.”
“And I’m going to tour the Grand Hotel. I’ve always wanted to go, ever since I was a kid.”
Josh warns, “Be careful. That joint is a tourist trap. They’ll have you dropping money just to look at a window.”
I touch my breastbone because that is where the pain of losing my mother resides. “It’s the sight of me and my mom’s favorite movie of all time.”
Josh doesn’t know he’s pushing too far. I know he means to be protective of me, a tourist, but he doesn’t get it. “Sorry, but you know they charge money just to walk in front of that building.”
Haughtily, I reply, “As they should. It’s that beautiful.”
He shakes his head. “Nothing is that beautiful.”
I stare down at my half-empty coffee cup, trying to hide my hurt feelings.
“Well, Somewhere in Time was filmed there. I used to watch it with my mom. Whenever I was sick as a child, she would pop that DVD in, and we’d sit together and watch it, and she would cry. One day, she told me how I got the name Penny. It’s from the movie. That box…I wanted to bring her with me, to…” I have to stop talking now. He didn’t mean any harm, and I don’t want him to see me cry.
“The box is…your mom’s ashes?”
I nod silently, keeping my eyes down and squeezing my lips shut.
Josh is agonizingly apologetic. “Oh my God. I am such an ass. Penny, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to crap all over your favorite movie. Or your mom’s memory. It’s fine if you like it. I was a dickbag. I am a dickbag. Please accept my apology.”
I recover, setting my emotions aside for a moment. “I guess we both learned a lesson today. Don’t shit on things other people like. You never know what it means to them. I’d love to get a lift into town with you. Thank you for offering. And if you want a ride to Saint Ignace when I go to catch the ferry, just let me know.”
He grins. “Saint Ignace? Sure, drop me off at the Mystery Mansion.”
Now I have to laugh. “And you’re warning me about ripping off tourists. We went there as kids, you know it’s all an optical illusion,” I say, referring to the house designed to trick the mind into thinking gravity works differently, with all sorts of weird angles built into the floors, walls, and ceilings.
He nods and lifts one shoulder in acknowledgment. “Yeah, but I broke my crooked souvenir shot glass. Where else am I gonna find that?” The wink he floats my way flutters all the way down my body. I am not prepared, and I know he sees my cheeks turn red.
“I can’t let you live without a crooked shot glass. Consider it a date.”
Chapter 8
Josh
A “date” she called it. I heard it, loud and clear. I’ll have to make sure she meant what I heard her say.
I’m so flustered when I’m packing my cooler and fishing gear into the boat that I can’t seem to get the motor started. Which is weird. I just did this yesterday.
I pull the rope a second, third, fourth time, my frustration growing.
“You’re flooding it, you’re going to have to wait a minute.”
I turn around and see her, Penny, standing there in a rainbow two-piece swimsuit, her hair tied up.
“I what?”
“Flooded the engine. Might as well chill out and swim with me while you wait.”
Stupidly, because I can’t take my eyes off all of her exposed, tanned skin, I reply, “I don’t have a swimsuit.”
She spreads out a beach towel and plops down on the end of the dock, raising a hand to block out the glaring sun. “You go on vacation to the lake without a swimsuit?”
I hop off the pontoon boat and make my way closer to her, using my height to block out the sun.
“Thank you,” she says, lowering her hand.
“And you book a vacation at a fishing resort without planning to fish?”
<
br /> She smiles. “Well, I booked it for the nostalgia.”
I laugh. “This place is old as shit.”
She pats the spot on the wooden dock next to her, where she’s slowly swinging her legs in the water. “Sure is. Same old boat dock, same everything. In fact, right on this spot, one of my most vivid childhood memories took place.”
Curious, I sit down next to her.
“Really?”
Penny nods and says, staring down into the water. “This is where I had my first kiss.”
I’m having trouble identifying the feeling I’m experiencing at this news. Is it jealousy? Envy? Anger? Not exactly.
Confused, I blurt out, “With who?” And then I hear it. The jealousy. Okay, yes, I’m jealous over who might have kissed her.
Penny looks me dead in the face, as sober as can be. “You, Josh. It was you.”
Any sane man would play along as if he remembered. I could save us both embarrassment by simply saying I was too shy to bring it up. But no. My mouth runs away from me again. “I’m sorry. I’m finding myself to be insanely jealous of my younger self because I don’t remember that at all. Also, why would adult me be jealous of the younger me kissing a child? That’s messed up. I’m sorry. I’m just speaking gibberish now. I should go check on the motor.”
Penny’s hand presses my thigh. I didn’t think I could get any hotter out in this blinding morning sun, but here we are. My body is on fire at her touch. “Relax, Josh. It’s okay if you don’t remember. I think you were just trying to make me feel better about the end of vacation.”
“I was?”
Penny launches into a highly detailed story that has my head spinning. She remembers everything leading up to the kiss, her sadness about going back to school. She remembers me giving her a scrap of paper with my address on it. She wrote me a long letter on quality paper and signed her name meticulously; I wrote her back something quick and scrawled on notebook paper. The recollections are coming back to me in drips and drabs. I did have a pen pal for a time, I recall. Only one. My brief chicken scratch missives were not worthy of her heartfelt messages, written like something from another era, even for a ten-year-old.
“I’m sorry I didn’t remember the kiss. And I’m sorry I stopped writing to you. I got busy, and also I was a dumb teenager.”
She smiles indulgently, squeezing my leg once before letting go. I wish she would leave it there, even though I’m starting to sweat like a wild boar. “I know that now. At the time, I was pretty crushed that you didn’t refer to the kiss ever again in any of our letters. And then you stopped writing by Thanksgiving.”
I answer her with, “To be fair, you stopped writing too.”
She nods slowly. “Fair enough. How come you guys never came back to the lake after that year?”
I look out at the water and hear a distant chugging. A freighter is about a mile down the coast. “When I was 14 I started on the JV football team and I had summer practice. So, basically, after that…bye-bye, summer vacations.”
“Football equals the end of childhood,” she replies.
“Something like that.”
“But then you couldn’t study engineering on a football scholarship?”
I try not to visibly wince, but she sees it.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t pry,” she says.
I cover her hand with mine to let her know I’m not offended by her curiosity. It’s been a long time since anyone asked me about my life, my hopes, and my dreams. “It’s fine to ask. Even with the modest scholarship I was offered at state college, I couldn’t afford the remainder of tuition, room and board, plus all the extra fees. Mom and I broke down everything and no matter how we looked at it, I’d still end up in the hole for decades, even if I got a job right away after school. Mom tried to convince me to start with community college and transfer later after I saved some money, but it was all so daunting and stressful. So instead I went back to my summer job as a lifeguard, worked my way up to pool manager, and now I run all the aquatics programs for my county.”
“That’s amazing,” she says.
I snort. “It’s mostly answering email and scheduling lifeguards and instructors and putting out fires.”
“Yeah, but that stuff is important too. You gotta keep a cool head.”
I don’t know if she’s being serious. Most people speaking to me like this would come off as pandering. But she’s sincere. She must be, because I have a sixth sense about bullshit, and people’s bullshit makes me clam up. She makes me want to keep talking. “Anyway, what I’d love to do is design pools and outdoor spaces. I’ve tried sharing my ideas with the planning department. They were nice about it but explained they can’t look at anything that isn’t designed by someone on staff with a degree. Of course, they promptly stole my ideas and passed it off as their own.”
For the second time this morning, Penny’s mouth falls open in shock.
Whoa. I’ve never said any of that out loud to anyone.
The low thrum of ship engines and the sound of seagulls are calling to me. I gotta get out of here. I grunt as I stand up on the dock. “Wait, Josh. I’d love to see your ideas.”
“Nah, they’re crap. I’m happier doing what I’m doing than working with a bunch of people like that. Anyway, the fish are calling. See you later!”
I feel her eyes follow me as I scurry back to the safety of the pontoon boat. The motor starts up right away, and I remind myself to ask her how she knows about outboard motors but not fishing.
When I steer away, I wait until I’m past the swimming buoys before I turn, wave, and smile.
Chapter 9
Penny
“What the hell is this?” Joshua’s voice cuts through my binaural beats playlist that I like to listen to when I’m reading. I’m sprawled out on the futon after dinner, belly full of fresh fish that Joshua very generously cooked for me over the fire.
He also offered to show me how to gut and clean the fish, which I politely declined. Not because I’m too girly to gut and clean a fish, it’s that I’m genuinely squeamish. I couldn’t make it through the frog dissection in sophomore biology class without ralphing.
The fish was great, and I’m so stuffed my eyes are starting to droop while I’m trying to stay focused on my reading of this mystery novel. “Penny? Could you please come in here?”
There’s no way it’s important enough for me to stop reading, but I go anyway. In the bathroom, I find Josh prodding a non-bristle end of a toothbrush at a lacy thing hanging over the shower rod.
“It’s a bra. Surely you’ve removed one or three in your lifetime on earth.”
He blushes deeply. “I’d rather not discuss whether I have done that or not. But I do have a mother, so yes, I’ve seen bras before. What I don’t understand is why they’re hanging on the shower rod.”
Seriously, he’s never seen a bra hanging over a shower rod before?
“Oh, because I came here straight from work last night and I’d been wearing it all day. I hand wash those things and I have to let them air dry with the fan on.”
“I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a clothesline outside.” I don’t point out that he’s gesturing in the wrong direction.
“I’m aware of the clothesline. I’m not putting my bras out there.” My shoulders shudder at the thought, because of personal history with clotheslines and not because I’m too good for it.
“Why not? It’s a vacation. Nobody cares what your bras look like.”
So. Is this where his “old-fashioned manners” intersect with chauvinism? Because it’s not cute.
“If you’d ever had your delicates stolen off a clothesline by a neighborhood pervert as a teenager, you would completely understand. Scratch that. If you were a woman, you would understand.”
Something in what I said has shocked him and made him mad. Joshua bows his head slightly and looks up at me in an expression of pure disbelief.
“Hold on…back up. Somebody stole your bras?”
Josh’s voice is low and husky. “That’s disturbing.”
I go on, “My granny panties, my period panties, my lacy ones, my thongs, my favorite pair of Minnie Mouse boyfriend undies I got at Disney World. All gone. Oh, and also…”
Josh interrupts me by holding up his hands in surrender. “I don’t want to hear any more. I need…I’m going to get some ice water.”
“I thought you were going to take a shower.”
“I’m very thirsty all of a sudden.”
“Okay.”
“And I have something to say,” he says, looking very serious and angry.
“All right, what have I done now?”
“Nothing. But you need to know something. The reason I hate that movie is because the ending sucks.”
“Excuse me?” I’m flummoxed. “What movie?”
He doesn’t explain, just launches into his rant until I’m able to catch up. “He finds a fuckin’ penny in his suit and gets sucked back to the present day, and they never see each other again until they’re both dead? It sucks! What a terrible ending to a love story.”
The emotions I’m feeling. Whew. Do I marry him immediately tonight or do we wait until morning? He knows the ending to Somewhere in Time? “I … wait, what? You’ve seen it?”
He scoffs. “Of course. Any northern Michigander worth his salt has seen it. It’s like, part of civics class or something.”
This makes me snort. “No, it’s really not.”
He’s so upset about this, and I think I might be in love. “Fine,” he says. “I watched it because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Lot of people come up here to see that hotel because the OG Superman was there to film that movie. Turns out it wasn’t terrible, but the ending was the biggest let-down ever, and for the life of me I will never understand why women love that movie so much. Don’t you all want a happy ending? Does it make you feel good to feel sad, to sob your eyes out?”