Hope & a Canoe

by Michele M. Reynolds

  Tember looked around the room. From the room’s brightness, Tember surmised it had to be after seven. She’d become skilled at guessing the time based on the amount of sunlight. It was easy when she spent so much time sleeping outdoors. Tember looked around the room at the pictures adorning Gracie’s walls. A University of Washington hat and sweatshirt sat on a nearby chair, which reminded her Gracie would be gone to the West Coast in the fall.

  Gone would be the feeling she felt last night. Gone would be the comfort of waking with Gracie in her arms. Gracie had a plan for her life.

  “Munchkin!” Jeremy called from the other side of the door as he knocked.

  Gracie seemed to instinctively roll away from Tember and answer, “Too early. I’m a vampire. Go away.”

  “Coming in,” Jeremy said as he opened the door. Tember decided to pretend that she was asleep. “Oh, oops sorry.” Jeremy stepped out and closed the door.

  “Dad, chill. She just crashed. Nothing happened,” Gracie called out, still face down on the bed.

  “Too bad,” Jeremy said. “Okay, I’m going to start breakfast. You two lovebirds come out if you want some. I’m making sausage and egg in the hole!” Jeremy’s voice faded, sounding as though he stepped out of the RV.

  Before Tember could open her eyes, Gracie found her way on top of her again.

  “Wow, what is with you and being on top of me?” Tember asked.

  “Complaining?”

  Tember smiled and answered, “My body seems to agree with this arrangement.”

  “Good, mine too,” Gracie said. “Was last night okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry I was not ready to...you know.”

  Gracie said, “That’s okay. I don’t think I was ready anyway.”

  “Yeah right. I’d be naked and covered in hickies if it was up to you.”

  Gracie rolled off Tember. “Not true.”

  “No?” Tember asked.

  Gracie crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the ceiling. “No, I’m not like that.”

  “Really?” Tember rolled to position herself on top of Gracie. “How about now? If I was to maybe try to take off your shirt?” Tember slowly pulled up Gracie’s shirt.

  “Well...I,” Gracie said. As Tember’s hand caressed her stomach, Gracie moaned.

  Tember wondered what Gracie’s breasts felt like. She wondered if she could stop her hands from traveling up and finding out.

  “Uh huh,” Tember said. “See?”

  “No.” Gracie pushed Tember’s hand off of her stomach. “You know I’m new to this too.”

  “What?” Tember asked.

  Gracie covered her face and then answered, “I’ve never had sex. I haven’t done more than kiss a girl.”

  “Really?” Tember asked in a high-pitched voice. “I thought you were kidding last night. Really?”

  “Really, seriously. This is all new to me. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  Tember laughed. “Wow, here I was thinking I was with an experienced woman. I guess we’ll have to experiment and figure it out together.”

  “I guess,” Grace said.

  “Get up sleepy heads!” Jeremy yelled from outside.

  “Just when I am on top of something important,” Tember said.

  “Cool your jets,” Gracie said. “Food’s important for energy.”

  Gracie pulled herself up and took Tember’s lips in her own, ending the kiss with a small bite.

  “Go out and see your dad while I go to the bathroom, and then I’ll be out,” Tember said.

  In the bathroom, Tember discovered the wetness that had resulted from last night’s and this morning’s activities. She ran the last twenty-four hours through her mind. It was the first time she had let her heart lead. She left the bathroom and walked back into Gracie’s bedroom to find her shoes. Her eyes fell on Gracie’s future college’s sweatshirt and hat.

  Tember exited the RV and saw Jeremy and Gracie enjoying breakfast.

  “Hey, kid, grab a seat. There’s plenty!” Jeremy called.

  “Umm, I got to go,” Tember said.

  “Sure?” Jeremy stood.

  Behind Jeremy, Gracie mouthed, “You okay?”

  “Yes, yes,” Tember said as she looked down at her feet and then back at Jeremy. “I’ll see you later.”

  Tember walked away from the site and down the path toward her campground. She heard running footsteps and knew it was Gracie.

  “Tember,” Gracie called. “Tember, wait!”

  Tember turned and Gracie stopped a few feet from her. “What? What’s going on?”

  Tember looked at Gracie’s blue eyes and then at her lips. A sight that a few minutes ago made her feel more alive, almost making her pain seem non-existent, now brought her sadness. Pain surged through her chest.

  “I just…” Tember said.

  “What?”

  “I just can’t. I have to go.”

  “But,” Gracie said. “I thought–”

  “Whatever you thought, it’s wrong. I’m not what or who you thought I am. I’m nothing. This...” Tember pointed to the two of them, “is not anything. It’s nothing. Get that. I need to leave.”

  “Liar,” Gracie whispered as tears escaped her eyes. “You lie!” Gracie stepped toward Tember and pushed hard.

  Tember stood firm and looked at Gracie with coldness in her eyes. Gracie’s gaze softened in contrast to Tember’s, and she pushed her lips onto Tember’s. Tember forced herself to feel nothing. Her lips remained limp. She lightly pushed Gracie away.

  “Can I go now?” Tember asked as she took one step back, turned, and walked away.

  “But Tember...” Gracie whispered, and Tember swore she heard her own heart break.

  14

  Tember ran most of the way back to her site. She wasn’t sure why she was running. An empty site, a stinky RV, and a boring life greeted her. She walked into the RV, and the door shut loudly behind her. She paced back and forth in the kitchen, and her breath quickened. She laced her fingers and put her hands above her head and panted.

  Her breath reminded her of a wolf’s panting before an attack. She sat down on the couch and then stood again. She returned to pacing, faster this time. She felt as if she couldn’t tolerate being in her own skin. She walked into the bathroom and stared into the mirror. Her eyes narrowed on the person she hated.

  “Stupid,” she whispered. “Stupid!”

  She punched the mirror. It shattered, and shards fell into the sink. She opened the medicine cabinet and pushed its contents onto the floor. She walked out of the bathroom and headed for the DVDs. She opened the cabinet and pushed a shelf of DVDs to the floor. She grabbed them one by one and threw them like Frisbees across the RV. One knocked the lampshade crooked. One hit a glass ornament—her grandmother’s favorite—sending it off the table and crashing to the floor.

  She laughed out loud. The sound of her laughter scared her. As if in a dream, she walked out of the living room toward the kitchen. She stopped in the kitchen, leaned against the counter, and slid down until she was seated on the floor.

  “Ahhh!” Tember screamed. “What the hell! I’m an idiot!”

  Tears streamed from her eyes, and her breathing shallowed. She sobbed uncontrollably and pulled herself into the fetal position. The cold, dirty floor pressed against her cheek. She sobbed harder, and her tears flowed onto the cheap, linoleum floor.

  How stupid was she to let her heart even hope? She would never be loved. She needed to stick with her plan, get away from her grandparents, and be on her own. That was the plan all along. She took a deep breath and stopped crying.

  Tember sat up and used the counter to pull herself off the dirty floor. She looked around the RV and saw stacks of unscratched lottery tickets. Her grandparents had used her inheritance to buy this RV, to buy their DVDs, to support their habits, and to buy towers of damn scratch-off tickets that her grandmother had never scratched. Her grandmother said something like “her luck had to ripen.”

  Tember gra
bbed a couple of scratch-off tickets, a quarter, and got to work. The first ticket won a dollar. On the second, she won nothing, and the third won nothing. On the fourth, she won five dollars, and she grabbed a handful of more tickets. It was not until Tember’s hand began to cramp that she looked up from the ticket she was currently scratching. Piles of tickets covered the floor and a neat stack of winning tickets sat on the counter.

  Splatters of red liquid covered the counter and her lap. Her knuckles were bleeding and realized she must have cut them when she punched the mirror. She shuffled through the stack of tickets in front of her and tallied her winnings: $2,433.

  15

  Gracie watched as Tember walked away from her and then saw her break into a jog when she reached the bend in the road. Tears formed in her eyes, and she walked back up the path to her campsite.

  “What is it?” her dad asked.

  Gracie’s head jerked up and her eyes met her dad’s. She had never heard such softness in his voice. She smiled and shrugged. He opened his arms, and she ran into them.

  “She left,” Gracie whispered.

  Jeremy squeezed Gracie and said, “Yes.”

  “She...I...we.” Gracie struggled to find the words.

  Jeremy said, “I know.”

  “What do you mean ‘you know?’” Gracie asked as she pulled out of her dad’s embrace to look at him.

  He said, “I’m not blind. I know I’m a relationship screw-up, but I know when I see a good thing. You guys had a connection. Right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You guess? I know it when I see it. You girls were cute together.”

  Gracie frowned. “Cute? We’re not puppies or kittens.”

  “So what happened?” he asked.

  Gracie shrugged and fell into Jeremy’s embrace again. “I don’t know. Everything was great last tonight, great just a minute before I came out here, and then she just changed. She totally flipped.”

  “Hmm.”

  Gracie’s brow wrinkled. “Hmm? When you say hmm, it usually means you know something.”

  Jeremy laughed and guided them to sit at the picnic table by their breakfast. “No, I just...”

  “What?”

  “Do you think she was scared?”

  Gracie asked, “Of what?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe of people knowing about you two. Maybe she is scared of being gay? I don’t know. What were you talking about before you came out here?”

  Gracie stared blankly across the campsite into the deep, thick woods, and a smile came across her face. “We were talking about...our sexual experiences.” Gracie nervously laughed.

  “Oh okay...umm…do you think that made her nervous?”

  Gracie laughed. “No, she seemed excited to take the next steps with me.”

  Jeremy rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at the ground, the way he always did when he was uncomfortable. “Oh, okay. Well, think about it, munchkin. I get the feeling that she’s not close to her family. Maybe the intensity scared her.”

  “Ya think?”

  “I don’t know. You should talk to her.”

  Gracie looked up at him. “Really?”

  “Do you like her?” he asked.

  “Absolutely crazy about her.”

  Jeremy smiled. “Then you have to take a chance. Don’t give up on her!” Jeremy threw two eggs, embedded in bread and sausage, onto a napkin. “Eat breakfast on the way and bring her some too. Go, munchkin!”

  Gracie smiled at her dad as he wrapped her sandwich. Since Gracie had grown older, she was more independent. It was nice to lean on her dad for a change.

  He looked up at Gracie, handed her breakfast, and said, “My little girl’s in love.”

  “Dad!” Gracie said.

  Jeremy giggled and said, “What, too much?”

  Armed with breakfast, Gracie walked toward Tember’s campsite. As she neared where the RV was parked, all rational thought escaped her. What should she say to Tember? What if her dad was wrong? What if Tember did not feel the same way Gracie felt about her? Then Gracie remembered that Tember was the one who kissed her first. But what if she thought Gracie was a bad kisser, or what if Tember was not even attracted to her?

  Gracie turned around and walked halfway back to her own campsite. She thought of Tember’s smile, her eyes, and the intensity of their kiss, causing her to turn back toward Tember’s campsite. Tember was worth putting her heart out there.

  She entered Tember’s campsite and peered into her tent. Nobody was in there. She walked up the steps of the RV and knocked. There was no answer. She knocked louder, and still no answer. She pushed on the door and stepped into the RV.

  The kitchen floor was covered with scratched lottery tickets. DVDs carpeted the living room floor and were strewn across the kitchen. Ceramic shards littered a corner.

  “Hello?” Gracie called.

  “Oh crap,” Tember called from the bathroom. “In here.”

  Gracie hurried to the bathroom and found Tember with a towel around her hand.

  “What happened?” Gracie asked as she hurried to Tember’s side. “Let me see.”

  Tember relinquished her hand to Gracie, who took off the towel, causing blood to gush immediately.

  “Wow, I don’t think that I like the sight of blood.” Tember swayed toward Gracie.

  “Sit down.” Gracie pushed Tember to the toilet. “This needs stitches. What happened? Someone stab you? There’s so much blood. I can’t stop it.”

  “Don’t you get all dizzy on me,” Tember said. “You’re my knight in shining armor, remember?”

  “You’re dizzy.” Gracie kissed Tember on the forehead.

  Tember leaned forward and pushed her lips hard against Gracie’s. She kissed her hard and fiercely, causing Gracie to almost lose her balance. Gracie steadied herself with the wall behind her. Then she pulled away from the kiss and pushed Tember back.

  “You are going to drive me crazy and not the good kind of crazy. You just dumped me and now you kiss me like this,” Gracie said. “You need stitches. I’m calling my dad. Hold this towel on here. Apply pressure.”

  Tember closed her eyes and held the towel on her hand. She heard Gracie on the phone with her dad.

  “Hey. Yeah, I found her. Look, Dad, can you come pick us up and drive us to the hospital? Tember cut her hand badly. Bring a towel and a gallon plastic bag,” Gracie said. She returned to the bathroom. “Let’s go outside.”

  Tember opened her eyes, and Gracie helped her walk through the RV and sat her down at the picnic table. Gracie sat next to her.

  “Give me your hand. You have to keep pressure on it. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Is that all your blood in the kitchen? It looks like someone got murdered in there. What happened?” Gracie asked.

  “I have over $2000 is what happened.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, my hand. I punched a mirror,” Tember said.

  “My dad always says, ‘Don’t punch anything that can’t punch back,’” Gracie said.

  “Smart.”

  “Why did you do it?” Gracie asked.

  “I was mad.”

  Gracie turned toward Tember. “What is this about $2000?”

  Before she could answer, Jeremy’s truck came barreling up the road and turned into the campsite. He jumped out of the truck and ran toward the picnic table.

  “What happened?” he asked, his voice filled with concern.

  Gracie said to Tember, “I forgot to tell you how calm and collected my dad is in crisis situations.” She looked at him. “Tember cut her hand and we need her to get stitches. Let’s go.” Gracie tugged Tember to her feet.

  “Let me see. Maybe it doesn’t need stitches,” Jeremy said.

  “Dad, it needs them.”

  “Let me see,” he said as he pulled the towel.

  Tember unwrapped the towel, revealing a bloody hand.

  “Wow! Ouch! Wow! That needs stitches!” Jeremy said as he ran back to the truck. Gracie and T
ember climbed in the backseat. Gracie wrapped a clean towel around Tember’s hand and shoved her hand into the plastic bag.

  “Oh, I can’t pay for this. I don’t have health insurance,” Tember said.

  “That’s okay. We’ll just tell them that you’re Gracie,” Jeremy quickly retorted.

  “Nice, Dad, so easily you put me in jeopardy of going to jail for insurance fraud,” Gracie said.

  “You can find a nice girl in prison, sweetie,” Tember said.

  It wasn’t until they exited the camp property that Jeremy asked, “What happened?”

  “She punched the mirror,” Gracie said.

  Tember reached into her back pocket with her free hand and slid a stack of scratch-off tickets into the console and shut the lid.

  “Oh no, don’t punch anything that can’t punch back,” Jeremy said.

  Gracie and Tember giggled.

  “What? It’s true. Words to live by,” Jeremy said. “Hey, Tember, why did you run off? What’s going on? Is my Gracie here not a good kisser?”

  “What?” Tember asked.

  “I told him. Sorry,” Gracie said.

  “So, let’s have it. You owe me, if not Gracie, an explanation. I’m the one saving your hand,” Jeremy said.

  Tember looked at Gracie. “No, she’s a great kisser.”

  Gracie’s face turned red.

  “Then what?” he asked.

  “I was scared. I’ve never been close to anyone besides my parents, and for years I’ve been on my own. I’m scared because she’s going away to college. I’m afraid that I’ll get close to her and she’ll leave,” Tember said.

  “Oh,” Jeremy said.

  Gracie looked at Tember. “Oh, I wish you’d said something instead of running off and ransacking your RV, busting up your hand in the process.”

  “Me too,” Tember said as she leaned over and gave Gracie a kiss. “Sorry and I’m allergic to penicillin.”