Too Much of a Good Thing

by J. J. Murray

  “We’re really flying,” I say. “But I thought you said—”

  He kisses me. “I wanted to surprise you. You know how hard it is to surprise you with six kids snooping around? We’ll fly to Pittsburgh, switch planes, land in Toronto, and drive up the rest of the way in a rental car.”

  Joe has been busy. “But ... but what about our bags?”

  “They’re in the trunk.”

  I relax a little. “All of them?”

  He kisses me more passionately this time.

  I push him back. “All of them?”

  “Uh, no. Just, uh, just what I thought we’d need.”

  I look at my dress. “I have to change, Joe. We have to change.”

  “No time,” he says.

  When we get to the airport, Joe takes one carry-on bag out of the trunk, hustling me to the ticket counter, my dress flowing all around me.

  “There can’t be enough in that bag for both of us!” I shout, but Joe isn’t hearing me, checking us in and rushing us up the stairs to the main terminal.

  “Our plane is boarding,” he says, and we run.

  And as we run, I see smiles and smiles and more smiles from everyone we fly by. If I weren’t so upset about the bag, I might enjoy all these smiles. Joe hands our boarding passes to the attendant, and we dash down the little tunnel and enter the plane. I am sweating from the top of my new hair down to my shoes. We find our seats and sit.

  And the folks on the plane start clapping for us, saying, “Congratulations!”

  Joe hands me the bag. “Look inside.”

  I unzip the main compartment, see some silky somethings, and zip it back up. “Who packed this?”

  “Crystal,” he says.

  I unzip it a tiny bit and peek again. “There isn’t much in here, Joe.”

  “I know. Are you mad?”

  How can I be mad at a time like this? I’m flying, not driving eight hundred miles in a van. I’m excited about the night to come. I’m still getting congratulations from people who don’t even know me, a few even taking our pictures.

  “The only thing I’m mad about,” I whisper, “is that I’m still in this dress. You said I would only be wearing it for a few hours.”

  “You might as well get some use out of it, Mrs. Murphy, because this is the last time you’ll ever need to wear it.”

  Flying, even with another mad dash in Pittsburgh to another plane, is wonderful. I get to hold Joe’s hand, I get to whisper sweet nothings to him without a child overhearing, and I get to be beautiful for a little bit longer.

  Customs in Toronto is fairly smooth, our rental car is ready, and we’re speeding to the lake up some nice, flat roads, stars twinkling overhead. Despite my excitement (and some unholy anticipation—sorry, Lord), I fall asleep on the ride.

  Joe wakes me gently, and instead of being at the Landing, we’ve parked right behind Murphy’s Unlimited, the shed and the outhouse barely visible in the darkness.

  “It’s so quiet,” I say.

  All we hear are the waves lapping on the shore and our footsteps as we search out a place to sleep. We have our pick of any room in the house, but Joe guides me upstairs to the bed I slept in so well before, my dress rustling on the wooden steps and floor.

  We stand at the foot of the bed, the carry-on dropped to the floor.

  More silence, though my heart is making lots of noise.

  “It’s been eight years for me, Joe,” I say.

  “Three for me,” he says.

  I didn’t know that. Cheryl must have been sick a long time. “We don’t have to tonight ... if you don’t want to.”

  He hugs me. “I was about to say the same thing to you. I’m so nervous.”

  “Me, too.”

  For the past eight months, I have lusted after this man, and now I don’t know what to do!

  “Have you ever slept with a man in a tux?” he asks.

  “Am I wearing the tux or is he?”

  “I meant ...”

  I swat him on the butt. I can do that now since I’m his wife. “I know what you meant. No. Have you ever slept with a wedding dress–wearing woman?”

  “No.”

  “So why don’t we ...”

  And that’s what we do on our first night together. We lie together in that bed wearing our wedding finest, watching the sun come up over a crystal-clear lake, snuggling and snoozing. So many colors ... so many beautiful colors ...

  But later, I wake up alone and smell smoke.

  “Joe?”

  I hear Joe on the stairs. “Good morning.”

  I gather the covers around me. “It’s cold.”

  He’s still wearing his tux. “The temperature’s dropped, so I made us a fire.”

  I throw off the covers and walk on my knees across that bed. “Is it going to be hot down there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I won’t need this.” I take off the dress, leaving me only with my Victoria’s Secret bra, some matching panties, and the other garter. “We may need a quilt or something.”

  Joe removes his jacket and starts working on his shirt buttons. “I’ll keep you warm.”

  I help him with those buttons.

  “Won’t we need a quilt because of the windows?” I don’t want people walking by to see us, since I have a feeling we’re going to attack each other.

  He kisses me, running his hands down my back. “They’re boarded up for the winter.”

  “So there’s no view?”

  He picks me up, one arm securely under my thighs. “I can take one or two down later ...”

  Eight years I have waited for this moment, even when I didn’t know I was waiting for this precise moment, this bliss. A roaring fire, a passionate man, my body still remembering what to do and how to move, his body performing so well, our eyes sharing tears, our mouths sighs, our skin glowing, and me eventually wearing nothing but that garter.

  I cannot possibly give that garter back to Rose now. The things it has seen!

  But our lovemaking is holy. It is the way it should be. I am Eve, and he is Adam, and we are alone in The Garden of Eden North ... and it is good. And not just the lovemaking. It is all good. The timing. The place. The man. The season. Maybe Ecclesiastes 3:1 isn’t so morbid after all. There is a time, and a place, and a season for everything.

  And if we keep this up, all the clothes in that carry-on are going back to Roanoke clean.

  69

  Joe

  “You think we made us a baby?” I ask.

  “I hope so,” she says.

  God, she is so beautiful. We haven’t left this spot beside the fire in at least five hours.

  “Boy or girl?” she asks.

  “Triplets will give us a baseball team,” I say.

  She grabs my butt. “And triplets will give me a hernia. Boy or girl?”

  “Girl.”

  Shawna pouts. “I wanted a boy.”

  “Twins, then. One of each.”

  “Oh, all right.” She slides on top of me, resting her elbows on my chest. “We have to name them. The girl first.”

  “How about ... Joshawna Elle.”

  She blinks. “Joshawna?”

  “Joshawna.”

  She squints, looks up at the ceiling, wiggles her lips ... “Not bad. Joshawna is okay.”

  “What’s our boy’s name?” I ask.

  “Shawn Joseph,” she says immediately.

  “I like it.”

  She crawls even higher, putting her head on my shoulder. “Maybe we can name her or him Shawnjo Kazuby.”

  I laugh. “Really? It sounds African and Polish.”

  “It’s a nice blend of cultures, right?”

  I nod. “I like the way we, um, blend.”

  She sighs. “Me, too. I was so nervous that I’d forget what to do.”

  “Just like riding a bicycle.”

  She plucks my ear with a finger. “No, it isn’t.”

  “No, not exactly. Generally speaking, when you ride a bicycle, y
ou put on the brakes a lot. We, um, we haven’t put on any brakes.”

  She kisses my ear. “Sorry for plucking you.”

  “I’m, um, I’m ready to go on another little trip if you are.”

  She rolls off me and lies on her back. “Embe mbivu yaliwa kwa uvumilivu.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” I move over top of her. “What did you just say?”

  “‘A ripe mango has to be eaten slowly.’”

  Whoa. “Are you, um, ripe?”

  She nods and pulls me closer. “Ripe and ready. Let’s make us a baby for real... .”

  70

  Shawna

  We had to have made a baby.

  It is peak time for me, just before my period. It is definitely a peak time for Joe fishing inside me, and I’m not leaving this fireside until I’ve had my limit. My body’s saying, “Pull up anchor and get back to sleep!” But my mind just can’t get enough of this man.

  That’s when I hear chainsaws buzzing outside.

  Close to the house.

  As in out on the deck on the other side of the boarded windows.

  And banging metal.

  And hoots and shouts.

  Not a good thing to happen when you’re wearing nothing but a garter.

  “Joe, what’s going on?”

  Joe sits up, and he smiles! How can he be smiling at a time like this?

  “Oh, my goodness,” he says. He wraps himself up with a blanket and goes to the window, looking through a thin sliver of light between the boards. He turns to me, laughing. “We’re having a shivery.”

  “A what?”

  “We need to get dressed. You need to put on a pot of hot water and get some teacups ready.”

  “What for?”

  The racket outside gets louder.

  “It’s a shivery. It’s a tradition up here. The men are going to take me away from you while the ladies console you and sip some tea.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’ve only seen it done once, so I’m sure there’s more to it. I know I won’t be gone long.”

  “A shivering?”

  “A shivery.”

  I’m already feeling cold, and I’m sure that racket out there is waking up the entire lake.

  “I better tell them we’re getting ready,” he says.

  I throw off the blanket. “Joe, I look a mess!”

  “No, you don’t.” And then he stares hard at my body, making me kind of shy all of a sudden. I wrap myself in a quilt that will one day wrap our grandchildren and great-grandchildren and follow him into the kitchen.

  “Mom knew this was going to happen,” he says. “Look.”

  Elle certainly has it all ready for me. On the counter rests a large silver tea set complete with a bowl of sugar and packages of Sweet’n Low. All I have to do is boil water and add some Red Rose tea. Joe unhooks the window over the kitchen sink, pulling it up and latching it in place. He knocks on the boards covering the window, and the chainsaw stops.

  “I’ll be out in a few minutes!” he yells. He kisses me, and I almost drop the quilt. “Can you do without me for a few hours?”

  “Hours?”

  “Honestly, Shawna, I don’t know how long this thing lasts.”

  That’s comforting. “Do I at least have time to take a shower?”

  The chainsaw roars to life again.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” I say. These Canadian women and their need for tea!

  I rush around to put on deodorant, perfume, layers of clothes—anything to mask our lovemaking. I spray air freshener around the fireplace and the kitchen.

  Joe goes out the door we came in, and I see a group of ... old men and women, ancient old men and women, older than Kaz and Elle, even. They help him take off the boards from the picture windows, the screened porch, and the door to the deck while I boil some water and ready the Red Rose. Joe gives me a kiss, I open the door to the deck from the inside, and the ladies troop in to the screened porch, all of them smiling ear to ear.

  Oh, joy. They know exactly what we’ve been doing. Are we supposed to talk about it or what?

  The men push and prod Joe down the deck stairs to the dock and a barge of a boat. They all get in and motor off, leaving me with six ladies pushing ninety. I carry the platter to the table and pass out the teacups.

  “So this is a shivery,” I say.

  Six nods, smiles so broad their wrinkles are disappearing. Ah, I get it. This is to make these women feel younger for all the memories of their honeymoons.

  After they introduce themselves to me, I have to know. “Were you, um, outside very long?”

  “No,” Opal says.

  “Not too long,” Helen says.

  “Maybe ten minutes,” Bet, short for Betsy, says.

  I am so embarrassed!

  Mary Anne smiles. “You look absolutely radiant.”

  It’s the sweat from our lovemaking mixed with the anxiety this shivery is causing. “Thank you,” I say.

  And then ... these ancient ladies get ancient with me, telling me stories about the lake from way back in the day.

  “Remember Gordon?” Joan asks Joyce.

  “Do I ever!” Joyce says. “He was once a beau of mine.”

  Helen leans forward. “Back when the train was still coming to Aylen on the Opeongo Line.”

  “But,” Bet says, “didn’t Gordon fall in love with that Indian girl?”

  “Oh,” Joyce says, “he wasn’t in love with her. Just smitten. That brother of hers wouldn’t let their romance blossom, remember?”

  Eventually, through their many voices, I hear the story of Gordon Frazier and the Indian girl at the Lodge, where lumbermen would live and eat while working the forests around Aylen Lake. It isn’t a very long story, since both Gordon and the girl disappeared a long time ago.

  “Some say,” Bet says, “that Gordon is at the bottom of the lake still wearing that tool belt of his. They say that he got drunk—he was a heavy drinker—they say he got drunk and stepped off his boat thinking it was his dock and sank to the bottom.”

  This gives me yet another reason not to swim in Aylen Lake.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Opal says. “I’ve always hoped that they ran away with each other and found true happiness somewhere.”

  I hate to interrupt, but ... “Um, when will they bring Joe back to me?”

  “You miss him already?” Helen asks.

  “Yes.”

  Mary Anne nods. “That’s the whole point of a shivery, dear. Just when you and your husband have”—she looks around the table—“consummated your marriage ...”

  “Made whoopee,” Helen says, twitters floating all around.

  “Yes,” Mary Anne says. “But you don’t have to be so blunt, sister.”

  Helen and Mary Anne are sisters? Hmm. There is a slight resemblance. They do have an infinite number of wrinkles.

  “What my old-fashioned sister is trying to say, Shawna,” Helen says, “is that a shivery makes you want your man more. I was at one shivery that lasted four hours.”

  “A very bad sign, very bad,” Opal says.

  More twitters and cackles.

  “I don’t think those two ever had any children,” Helen says.

  Even more twitters and cackles.

  “Well,” I say, “I want my man back now.”

  Opal checks her watch. “Twenty minutes. You will have many children together.”

  I smile. “I already do.”

  Their eyes pop.

  “I mean, I have three children from—”

  “We know all about you, Shawna,” Joan says. “We weren’t born yesterday.”

  “What day was yesterday?” Joyce says with a smile. She pulls out a walkie-talkie. “Gene? Come in, Gene.”

  The walkie-talkie crackles, and I hear Gene’s voice. “Who is this?”

  “Who else would it be, old man?” Joyce says. “Your wife.”

  “Oh,” Gene says.

  “Where are you?” Joy
ce asks.

  “Just past Houghton’s Point,” Gene says.

  “They haven’t gotten very far, Shawna,” Helen says.

  “Well, you can bring him back now,” Joyce says.

  “Will do,” Gene says.

  Joyce puts away her walkie-talkie. “It’ll be twenty minutes at least.”

  I can wait that long. “More tea?”

  Then we sip tea and smile for twenty minutes. When we hear the barge approach, we get up and go down to the dock to greet them, the sun almost completely set, the Northern Lights appearing as a ribbon in the sky. It’s strange, but it’s as if the men are bringing the conquering hero home to his bride. It’s sweet, and in a way, we have just become bonded to all these people—although I doubt I’ll remember any of their names tomorrow. I’m sure they’re related to Joe in some way. It’s another village taking care of its own. Not the way I wanted to spend an hour on my honeymoon, but just seeing Joe again after this little separation makes me want him so much more.

  “Normally,” one old man says, “we’d carry Joe up to you, but ...”

  Joe gets out, helping the ladies onto the barge.

  “God bless your marriage, Joe and Shawna,” Joyce says. Joe puts his arm around me. “Thank you. Thank you all for coming.”

  As the barge backs out and moves away, I turn to Joe. “I want you now.”

  “Here?”

  I look into the water. “Is that rock bass still under the dock?”

  “I doubt it.”

  Oh, Lord, I can’t believe I’m about to do this. It’s dark enough. “Joe, have you ever made love in this lake?”

  “No.”

  I’m shivering already. “Then let’s do this now before I lose my nerve.”

  We strip, Joe diving in immediately, me holding myself and shivering at the end of the dock. “Is it cold?”

  He grits his teeth. “Yes. Hurry.”

  Oh, Lord, oh, Lord! I jump in feet first, and every pore of my body slams shut in a millisecond. Joe swims to me, and I latch on to him.

  “You’ll have to be quick, okay?” I ask, teeth chattering.

  “I’ll try.”

  At first, all I think about is the cold and the icy fingers of water surrounding me. But after a minute ... then another ... then several more, I don’t feel anything but Joe’s love for me ... And after that, I make Joe go get us some towels and soap so I can take my first bath in Aylen Lake. I soap him, he soaps me, we rinse each other off ...