by Lori Wilde
Christine waved them in.
The French doors opened and Marva and Terri popped inside. Terri carried brightly colored, lunch-sized paper bags with handles and a clear plastic case stuffed with art supplies—green and red glitter, bottles of Elmer’s glue, pipe cleaners, construction paper. The wind scooted in with them, blowing autumn leaves, now crunchy and brown, over the threshold.
“Get back,” Terri said, and kicked the leaves back onto the patio. “You’re not invited.”
“What’s with the art supplies?” Patsy asked Terri.
“Vivian asked me if I’d decorate bags for the party favors for the PJ party tomorrow night at the Book Nook. Gerald is so excited. He can’t wait to wear his new Spider-Man pajamas in public.”
“Who’s Gerald?” Sarah asked Christine.
“Terri’s four-year-old son. He’s cute as a button, but be forewarned, he’s hell on wheels,” Christine whispered. “You’ll see for yourself tomorrow at the pajama party.”
“And you brought these paper bags to our party why?” Raylene eyed the art supplies with disdain.
Terri smiled brightly. “I figured if we got bored—“
“Honey, I’m gonna be drinkin', you don’t want me anywhere near scissors,” Raylene said. “Speaking of which, hook me up with some eggnog, Christine.”
Everyone laughed and dived into the drinks and food.
On the island counter in the center of the kitchen, Christine had busily arranged the cookie selection. Eight different types, eight dozen apiece— Raylene’s spice cookies and Christine’s pecan sandies and Sarah’s peppermint cookies and Dotty Mae’s fudge cookies and Patsy’s thumbprint cookies and Belinda’s cream cheese and apricot cookies and Terri’s molasses cookies and Marva’s lemon squares. It was a kaleidoscope of smells and colors and textures. An embarrassment of riches.
Food porn, Sarah thought, and then she noticed what was missing. No kismet cookies. No one had made her grandmother’s recipe. Out of respect? Or because they thought Sarah was going to make them? She’d thought about it, but she hadn’t had the heart.
Once they were all seated around the room Christine picked up a little silver bell and shook it to produce a melodious tinkling sound. “Okay,” she said. “Who wants to go first?”
“Go first?” Sarah raised an eyebrow.
“It’s a tradition at the First Love Cookie Club for the members to tell stories about their first loves— both with cookies and with romance,” Belinda explained. “So at every cookie swap each December, we all tell a story about our first loves. And it’s got to be something we’ve never told before.”
Sarah shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t want to talk about her first love. Not to a roomful of people she barely knew. Especially a roomful of small-town people who liked to swap stories.
“Since I’ve never had a first love,” Christine said, “I’ll go first just to get us started and talk about the first time I realized the healing power of cookies.”
“Do tell.” Terri crunched a celery stalk loaded down with red pepper hummus.
“It was just after the accident.” She waved at her leg. “And the doctors had told my parents I would probably never walk again, much less run track. My dreams of Olympics glory were over. And Marva here …”—she paused to smile at Marva— “who was my math teacher at the time, came to see me in the hospital. She baked me a batch of cookies to cheer me up. I was sobbing my heart out because the only thing I’d ever wanted to be was an Olympic sprinter. Marva told me to stop feeling sorry for myself, that there were plenty of people much worse off than I was and if I couldn’t run anymore, I needed to find something else I loved just as much to take the place of running.”
Everyone swung her gaze to Marva.
Marva looked humble. “It wasn’t me. It was all you, Christine. I just pried your eyes open a bit.”
“That wasn’t all. After you left, I bit into one of those cookies and it tasted like heaven in my mouth. Butterscotch pecan, I remember it so clearly. Those cookies made me feel better. You put your love and concern for me into those cookies and it transformed me. Knowing that I could bake cookies like that and put all my love and devotion into them and now look where I am …” Christine swung her arms expansively, a beatific glow on her face. “Owning my own bakery, serving the community every day with my personal expression of love. I’ve forgotten all about running, but I damn sure walked again.”
“Um …” Marva said, “I don’t suppose this is the time to tell you those cookies were store-bought?”
“What?” Christine exclaimed.
Marva laughed. “I’m kidding.”
“Oh whew.” Christine pantomimed wiping sweat from her forehead. “And here I was thinking my whole career was based on a lie.”
They all laughed then, the room filling up with the sounds of their pleasure.
“So who’s next?” Christine asked.
“I’ll go,” Terri offered. “Did I ever tell you guys about the first time Ted kissed me?”
Everyone shook her head and Terri was off, talking about how Ted had kissed her underneath the bleachers after her team won the regional soccer tournament.
“Ooh,” Belinda said. “First kisses from our first love. That’ll be this year’s theme.”
The stories continued, and Sarah knew they’d soon get around to her. But she didn’t want to play the game. Didn’t want to admit that she’d been kissed by her first love just last week under the mistletoe at the Horny Toad.
Sarah sat watching it all unfold, the detached observer, not part of them, but feeling the warmth like a fringe dweller sitting on the outskirts of a campfire. In fact, she was sitting closest to the exit, a bit apart from the rest, a visitor to this fine world. That lonely, distant feeling she often felt in a room crowded with people pushed at her. Pushed her back, pushed her away, until it felt as if she was standing in the corner all by herself. Everyone else was laughing and talking and eating.
And as usual, she was on the outside looking in. An ill fit no matter where she went.
Observing the others, she felt herself sinking into the dark spiral that had plagued her since early childhood. A dark spiral she oftentimes found oddly comforting in its bleakness. It crept upon her like a cold, black hole whenever she tried to fit in where she didn’t belong. It was easier, preferable to just separate, detach, disengage.
In that moment her feelings were too big to process. Her need to belong, her fear that she never would. The childish, all-consuming love she’d once felt for Travis; the new feelings for him stirring inside her that she could not face.
The darkness surrounded her on a cellular level, pulling in, bunching up, protecting her from the shiny glow of the outside world. It was too bright— this light they generated with their stories and their friendship and their love—it felt like an assault. Anassault of the cheer and warmth and camaraderie she was not a part of.
She remembered a time when she was small. Maybe three or four, playing alone in the darkness of her bedroom closet, having a tea party with her imaginary friend, Sadie. It was near Christmas, maybe just after Thanksgiving.
Downstairs, her parents were having a party of their own. The air smelled of roasted meat and exotic spices. The sounds of laughter, jokes, and heated debate drifted up the stairs. In her isolation, in the womb of that room, Sarah felt incredibly safe. If she could just stay here, with Sadie, in the dark, in the closet, far away from the noise and activity, she became convinced nothing bad would ever happen to her. But as comfortable as that sweet notion was, she knew if she gave in to that impulse she wouldn’t make it. Her whole life seemed one huge struggle against that urge she’d first recognized at such a tender age. As much as she might want it, she could not afford to surrender to the imaginary world, because being swallowed up completely was worse than the raw, achy vulnerability she was experiencing right now.
Sitting here in this homey room with them, the smell of cookies in the air, the taste of eggnog on her
tongue, the smiling faces all around her, caused tears to well up behind Sarah’s eyes. How could she process all this without losing herself? Her shell was too hard, Rapunzel’s tower too tall.
She fisted her hands, fighting back the feeling that she was going to explode into a thousand pieces and not be able to find her true self among the scattered debris. She felt yanked in two divergent directions. One part of her that pulled away because it was the only way she knew how to survive, and the other part of her, yearning, craving for connection, for wholeness, for a place to belong.
People were up, moving around, getting more food, pouring more wine, telling more stories. In that moment, she lost her battle against her instincts. Quietly, she got to her feet.
No one noticed.
Patsy and Raylene were arguing good-naturedly, everyone else was taking sides, throwing in their comments. Sarah didn’t even know what they were talking about. She’d stopped listening, swept up in her own emotional turmoil. “I’m going outside for some fresh air,” she mumbled.
No one even glanced over at her, confirming Sarah’s suspicion that she was basically invisible. She hitched in a breath, eased toward the door, praying no one noticed, no one said a word to her, even as she wished for that very thing.
To be noticed. To be included. To be one of them.
By the time she grabbed her jacket off the coat-rack and slipped out the door, her heart was pounding as if she’d run a hundred-yard dash. She’d made good her escape, and with it came a rush of euphoria.
But what she was escaping to or from, Sarah had no idea.
The sun hung low on the horizon, but the temperature was a mild fifty-eight degrees. Sarah thought about going back to the Merry Cherub, but the thought of traipsing through the lobby filledwith guests and a cheery Jenny dissuaded her. She was in the mood to be alone. Jamming her hands into the pockets of her jacket, she scurried away, headed for the walking path around the lake.
Passersby smiled and nodded, forcing her to smile and nod back. Missing the anonymity of Manhattan, she ducked her head and quickened her pace. A few minutes later, she was at the marina.
She hadn’t actually intended on taking out a pedal boat—she’d had no intent at all except to get by herself and examine the mix of emotions churning inside her—until she saw them bobbing at the pier. Six of them, painted bright red, with white Merry Cherub lettering that identified them as the B&B’s boats. She remembered that on the day she’d arrived, Jenny had told her the pedal boats were stored at the marina for use by her guests and she’d given her the combination.
“You can’t forget it.” Jenny had laughed. “The combination matches the word LOVE on a telephone keypad. Five to the left, six to the right, eighty-three to the left.”
Armed with that information, Sarah clattered down the wooden-plank decking to where the pedal boats were docked. She unlocked the chain from around one of the boats, secured the padlock back to the chain, and in a spur-of-the-moment jaunt, slid into the seat and started pedaling the boat backward into the slough. Water churned up behind her and once she was free from the dock, she reversed her pedaling and took off.
The wind kicked up, blowing against the back of the boat, propelling her swiftly out onto the lake. Around her, fish jumped up, grabbing for insects, their tails splashing as they broke the surface. Pedaling the boat helped free her mind. The darkness lifted and she felt a rush of exhilaration as the boat bobbled over the waves. The air swirled fresh and crisp and the cooling temperature added to her sudden sense of euphoria. Free. She was free. Alone and moving her body, paddling the boat on the lake, her mind free to roam.
The euphoria lasted until her legs grew tired and she tried to turn the boat back to the docks.
But the pedal boat wouldn’t turn.
She kicked harder.
The water churned noisily, but the boat stayed in one spot. She tried backpedaling, but that didn’t work either. A pedal boat was navigated solely by using the legs. There wasn’t any other way to steer the damn thing. Then she noticed that she wasn’t staying in one place. The gusting wind was sending her out into the middle of the lake as easily as if she was a water bug. No matter how hard she kicked, the current was stronger.
Okay, she was mildly concerned. She was adrift on a lake that encompassed over eight thousand acres with a depth of eighty feet and she wasn’t the best swimmer in the world. She didn’t have a life jacket because Jenny kept them stored at the Merry Cherub, and the sun was about to set. Still, the craft was intact and with the rate the wind was gusting, it would eventually blow her to shore. Hopefully, someone would come along before then.
She glanced around the lake, and that was when she realized she couldn’t see the shore, nor did she recall having seen any boats on the lake. In fact, the only cars she remembered seeing at the marinawere parked in front of the attached bar and grill. Surely, though, someone was out here. A diehard fisherman or two. There had to be.
“Cell phone,” she reminded herself, and fished it from the pocket of her jacket. She flipped it open and turned it on, waiting patiently while it powered up, only to discover she had just a single bar. It might not be a strong enough signal for a phone call, but she could at least send a text message.
The dampness of gathering dusk seeped into her fingers. Her normally nimble thumbs felt stiff. Who should she text? Good thing she’d gotten all their phone numbers.
Travis?
God, she hated looking like a dumbass. The cookie club ladies would no doubt have their feelings hurt that she’d run out on them. Jenny was surely busy. And Travis … well, the last thing she wanted was for him to see how stupid she’d been. That left the police.
Did she call 9–1–1? That seemed a bit drastic.
She paused, fingers poised over the keypad.
A fresh burst of wind slapped against the boat, rocking it hard, catching Sarah unprepared. She fumbled the cell phone. It slipped from her hand and tumbled headlong into the water.
She stared in stunned disbelief and then laughed at how preposterous this whole thing was. Lovely. Well, that solved the problem of whom to call.
One good thing, even though she wasn’t much of a swimmer, she’d never really been afraid of water. And as long as she stayed on the boat, everything would work out. Or so she told herself to keep from freaking.
She pedaled and felt water spatter her face. At first she thought it had started to rain, but a minute later, when a second splash of water hit her cheek, she realized it was coming from below, not above. Looking down, she saw water filling the pedal well. The wind must have blown the water in and now whenever she pedaled it was flying up to douse her.
Fine. She’d just bail it out.
Except there was nothing to bail out the water with and it was getting colder by the minute and the sun was playing peek-a-boo with the gathering clouds. Not the best situation she’d ever been in, but certainly not the worst either. She was smart, resourceful. She could think her way out of this.
The gale—because it truly was a gale now— rushed over the water with startling ferocity. It spun the boat three hundred and sixty degrees. Cold sliced through her, clean as a machete through sugarcane. In a matter of seconds, she was completely disoriented. She had no idea which direction she’d come from.
“This was not one of your most brilliant moves, Sadie Cool,” she muttered, more to hear her own voice than anything else.
The boat was listing to the right, the side she was on. The water in the well of the boat was even deeper now.
Time to start bailing.
Setting her jaw, she leaned over, made a cup of her hand, and began to scoop. Her fingers, already stiff from the cold, tightened as they touched the icy water. She ignored the pain shooting up her nerve endings and scooped for several minutes, butthen realized to her dismay the water level in the well was going up not down.
That’s when she saw it. The tiny, but deadly hairline crack in the hull.
Wind hadn’t knocked
the water in as she’d surmised. It was seeping through a breach in the fiberglass. No amount of bailing was going to stop the boat from sinking.
“Just your luck, Collier, you grabbed the one leaky pedal boat.”
How had this happened? In the span of forty minutes she’d gone from warm and safe and comfortable in a roomful of kind and loving women, to spinning in the wind in the middle of the lake, making like Kate Winslet in Titanic.
As the right side of the flat-bottomed boat dipped lower, water ran over the front. Her pulse pounded a hard, thready rhythm. She could hear it beating against her eardrums. She let loose with a couple of choice swearwords and it made her feel a little better, but didn’t change the situation.
Move. You’ve got to move.
With her feet on the pedals, the water in the well came up to her ankles. Good thing she had boots on or her feet would be soaked.
A crow flew overhead, crying caw, caw, caw as if laughing at her.
“You’re right,” she said, “I deserve to be mocked.”
Stop talking to the crow and move.
She pushed against the pedals with her feet while at the same time scooting her butt to the left side of the boat.
For an instant, the unseaworthy craft seemed toright itself with the shift of her weight, and for one dumb moment she thought maybe water hadn’t come in through the hairline crack in the hull, but had indeed been blown in by the wind. That hope was short-lived as the boat quickly started listing to the right again.
She scooted as far left as she could, maintaining the balance a little longer. Her one hundred and thirty pounds against whatever the water in the well weighed. The sun crouched on the horizon. Soon, very soon, it would be dark. She gulped and stopped pretending she was even remotely in control.
The silence—interrupted only by the rush of wind and lapping of the water—stretched out like doom. The air smelled of impending rain and stinky fish. Great. It was going to rain on her and then she’d sleep with the fishes.
She laughed nervously. The water kept encroaching, slipping farther over the bow, first over the right side, then the left. The pedal boat tipped forward. Sarah sat balled up on the left side, her knees drawn to her chest, her wet boot heels dampening her bottom.