Boxer Next Door

by Summer Cooper

  I don’t know if she would have fallen for it or not, but Lee appeared at that moment. He clasped a hand around the young man’s shoulders. “Why if it isn’t Lucy Strom’s boy! What are you doing out this time of night? Does your mother know you’re here?”

  “You know him?” Asked Briana.

  “Sure I do. His mom works at the Senior Center apartments as a care provider. She wouldn’t approve of her boy being in this crowd. He’s only seventeen, you know.”

  “Oh, you naughty boy!” Gasped Briana. “And you even asked me for a beer. Sweetie, don’t come back to see me for another five years.”

  “I think we should call the police,” said Lee. “He was soliciting alcohol.”

  “My mom put me up to it!” Blurted the young man. “She said this was a den of vipers that was corrupting the neighborhood. I was trying to do what was best for everyone.”

  “I’m sure you were. Go home and tell your mom that her attempts at salvation didn’t work.”

  He stopped at the door, looking pretty sad, and not just because he had been discovered. “I wasn’t going to say anything about you, Briana. You’re really nice.”

  “But you were willing to hurt my family.”

  “I just wanted to hurt Dr. Andrews because he’s a traitor to the Senior Center.”

  “There’s no reason we couldn’t all work together, you know,” said Lee.

  “No, we can’t because thanks to these girls, Dr. Hastings is listed in the top forty Med Skanks on the West Coast.”

  Dr. Andrews shifted his gaze to me and I shifted mine to Briana, who opened her eyes wide and pretended to know nothing about it. “Maybe I can arrange a cease fire,” the doctor finally suggested.

  The boy nodded and muttered to himself as he was leaving, “Not that I don’t blame him. Well, I do. These are… um…women…” His voice faded into the distance.

  “Oh, Dr. Andrews,” squealed Briana, once the boy had disappeared. “You saved us!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  He backed off a step and drew her wrists down to her sides. “Tell me about Med Skanks of the West Coast.”

  “Oh, it’s just a place on the Internet where they talk about skanky medical people, and well… Dr. Hastings’ San Diego affair kind of went viral.”

  “I wonder how that happened.”

  “What I’m wondering about is why she hasn’t been fired for the things she’s done,” said Melanie. “It’s all right there on the Internet.”

  “Gossip on a social media site isn’t exactly proof of misbehavior.”

  “Hmm,” she sniffed. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. All I know is that I have to take Ralph in, to Dr. Hastings for physical therapy, and he hates her. The last time we went to the clinic, I had to chase his motorized wheelchair up and down the hall. When we finally got him cornered, he bit Dr. Hastings.”

  “We’ll assign him to a different therapist, but isn’t there a way we can end this war?”

  Men never have a clue to these things. This time when I glanced at Briana, she glanced at Linda and Linda glanced at Melanie. We all shook our heads. “Probably not.”

  Briana finally did agree to stop fanning the flames at her social media site and the Senior Center cautiously with-held any more attempt to invade our territory. Clear lines had been drawn; those who relished the orderly life of the Senior Center, and those who rejected adult supervision.

  Private time with the doctor was still practically impossible, however. If Lee Andrews went jogging, Briana put on her jogging clothes and did an inspired clip around the block. If Lee was mowing the lawn, Briana was in the garden, pulling weeds. If he came over for a cup of coffee, Briana needed a coffee break as well.

  It really didn’t do much good to say something to her. Briana drew the line when it came to sleeping with married men or couples that were living together, but figured until the commitment was made, all men were fair game. Lee and I hadn’t made a commitment. We barely knew anything about each other, and apparently, Briana was out to make sure this wasn’t going to change.

  That was, until she discovered she made a very fine counselor, at least as far as our community was concerned. It began when a very small, sixtyish looking woman named Lynn Korbin, asked for advice.

  Lynn wasn’t somebody you’d notice right away or someone who left a vacancy when she wasn’t around. As well as being tiny, she was quiet, dressed rather unremarkablE in plaids and jeans, and withdrew from any of the bawdier activities. Yet she was often at the morning breakfast table, dawdling over pastries and drinking coffee when the gang came in. This particular day, she sidled up to Briana, fiddled a bit in her seat, then finally spoke out. “I’ve been wondering how you do it.”

  “Do what?” Asked Briana, appearing a little surprised that Lynn was actually speaking to her.

  “The way you have with men. They like you. Oh! They like all you girls but it’s not quite the same, if you know what I mean.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well,” she said, lowering her voice confidentially. “You make guys get it up. I need to learn how to do it.”

  “You want to learn…” Briana turned her lower arm so it was pointing up.

  “Yes. It’s Eric. He retired six months ago and hasn’t gotten it up since.”

  “I see.” Briana placed an arm around her and led her up the stairs to her bedroom. “It’s like this. You’ve got to make him feel like he’s the sexiest guy in the world, and you do this by…”

  Her voice died away as she mounted the steps and closed her bedroom door.

  “The Senior Center is really going to love us now,” I told the doctor. “Briana has turned sex therapist.”

  “I don’t see that her advice will do a great deal of harm,” he said. He looked down at his hands, poised in front of his lap top. “We haven’t had a chance to talk much.”

  “We have our work schedules.”

  “There’s that. I have tomorrow off. I’ve been wanting to invite you out; for a drive through the countryside maybe, or a visit to the city. However you wanted it.”

  “Where would you normally take a girl on her first date?”

  “Oh, to some terribly boring place. Probably to the opera to see Madame Butterfly for the fifteenth time, or to an overpriced, skyline restaurant. It’s all about the look.”

  “Where would you normally take a girl if you weren’t trying to impress her? If you just wanted to share something of who you are?”

  “I like the water. I like the Puget Sound. I like our rivers.”

  “You like to go boating?”

  “I used to do a lot of white water rafting. Not so much anymore. I can handle boats; outboard motors, canoes, and kayaks. I just like water.”

  “I’m not much of a water person. I don’t even swim very well. We hit the beach maybe once a year or so and mainly paddled around in the local swimming hole. But… I don’t know. Maybe I could like it.”

  “Let’s take a ferry to Vashon. It’s only a twenty-minute trip. You’ll love it. You’ll get a taste of the real Northwest.”

  “Do we need to pack pistols?”

  “It’s not at all like that.”

  The more I thought about it, the more appealing the date sounded. I really didn’t know what to expect from Coastal Washington. The only coast I had observed so far had been from the open market gathered around a lead colored port.

  “Let’s do it,” I agreed before Briana had returned. We settled on an early hour for beginning our adventure, then Lee gave me a hasty peck on the cheek before leaving for work.

  Briana spent half the day with her new client, returning only after I’d catered the lunch hour crowd. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said as I put away the left overs. “The poor woman has so much to learn. Did Burke drive for you?”

  “Yes, he did, and you can make it up to me tomorrow. I’m taking the day off.”

  “No shit? Where are you going?

  “One of the islands.�
��

  “Wow. I’d keep you company but I’ve made a commitment. Lynn really needs my help.”

  “Just as long as you take care of the kitchen.”

  “Yeah. No problem. Linda’s not too busy.”

  All the things I had imagined Lee Andrews to be slipped out the window on the day of our first date. As luck would have it, there were enough breaks in the clouds to keep the feeling sunny without the shock of full sunlight exposure. This also meant I could wear the bright, floral print silk blouse and cute, cuffed Capri pants I had been dying to try out on the town. I carried along a sweater just in case it turned cool, but optimism was in high order.

  He didn’t really say much on the drive to the ferry point. He drove with one hand, the other arm propped on the open window. The car was a Bentley; quite a step up from the Bronco; but it was old enough to appear a little humble. The leather upholstery had worn a little shiny in some spots and the dash looked somewhat outdated. But it purred gently and the air that circled from the window felt wonderful and free.

  He wasn’t very talkative when we first boarded the ferry, either, but as it lazily churned the water, chugging its way to the islands, he became more animated. “What you see here is just the beginning of island after island, inter-tangled, moving north up the coastline. Sometimes, I think about pushing and pushing farther north. I’ve been to Vancouver, Canada. Beautiful place. So wild and green, you can scarcely believe it.”

  “What stopped you?”

  “Time. Time stopped me. There are hundreds of islands here and they just keep getting deeper, greener and more mysterious. I could lose myself easily if I kept going and so I don’t. Time keeps me here, but maybe it’s enough.”

  I looked at the island already looming into close sight. Green and docile, it floated in a pool of white-foamed ocean spray. Beyond it were the conifer covered swells of other hiccupping mountain tops that had cleared their heads from the ocean bottom. It was hypnotic. The gray waters of the port were clearing into sparkling blue and seemed to wave and dance in the far distance.

  Some of the buildings came into sight. They were crisp and trim, painted white with brightly colored roofs. Behind them, hilltops bumped into each other and groomed themselves into ripening fields. In front of them, boats circled in the harbor as though herding the flocks of water fowl that watched bright eyed for scraps to eat.

  “Sometimes you can see seals or river otters here, but you catch them better if you go farther north,” explained Lee. “In the open water, you can even see whales.”

  “Is that why you like the water?”

  “Oh, it’s all of it. The marine life. The feel and the smell of it. The beaches. The waterfalls. We originated in water. We can’t live without it. It’s very primal, I suppose, like people who are drawn to fire, but it’s beautiful, isn’t it? This steady ribbon of green floating out to the sea, and knowing it gets wilder, greater and more magnificent with each island turn.”

  We docked and I looked around appreciatively. Time hadn’t just stopped Lee. It had stopped a whole town. It was difficult to believe just minutes away from the ultra-sleek, ultra-modern town of Seattle, there slumbered a peaceful water-front town that was a veritable hamlet by the sea.

  The shops and restaurants all had the feel of small, private enterprise. We had breakfast in a mom and pop deli, lingering while we watched the waves lap at the pebbly shore and seagulls screech overhead. We visited an art gallery, the lighthouse, and the farmer’s market, putting together a small basket of food to carry as we strolled down the beach.

  Time just seemed to hang out in limbo, forgetting there was a world where traffic blared and buildings soared and people scrambled to make a buck. Our walk carried us away from the tiny town and onto a strip of black sand beach, littered with twisted pieces of driftwood. In front of us, the mountains in the island chain reared up, snarling for dominance, while behind us, some cattle flicked their tails and grazed peacefully within the wire confines. After at least two miles of walking, I was quite ready to take a rest.

  We sipped Hansen sodas and nibbled crackers with cheese and avocados. Lee’s eyes were once more filled with the island pathway leading into the mysterious, northern ocean. “My first dream in life was to become a marine biologist,” he said. A deliciously cool breeze balanced the intensity of the sunlight that rhythmically shone out from the clouds. The collar of his short sleeved shirt ruffled with it. “We used to come here a lot for weekend trips. We’d go south for longer ones, like to the Oregon Coast or San Francisco. We even went to Disneyland once.”

  “You did? Did you like it?”

  “It was okay. Sort of a supernova theme park. I ate too much junk food, spun around on a few too many rides and got sick. That’s what kids do, right?”

  “Yeah, they do. We used to go to Myrtle Beach for our weekends. Not only did I eat and play myself sick, I stayed in the fryer too long. I burned, blistered and peeled. I was twenty before I surrendered myself to the fact that I was never going to get a suntan.”

  “I think I like freckles better. They suit a northern climate. I didn’t really care that much for the trips south. Once you hit San Francisco, the population becomes really dense. It’s just one city after another, and where there aren’t cities, there are huge agricultural fields.

  Another place we used to visit on weekends was Coeur d’Alene. It’s not far from Spokane, where I was raised. That’s how I developed my love for water. Weekends in Coeur d’Alene or here in Vashon. Coeur d’Alene Lake is beautiful. The water is so clear, it reflects back at you like a mirror. It’s a big lake, dotted with tiny islands. It’s a great place for picnicking, swimming and boating. It’s in a mountainous area though, so good luck with the sunbathing.”

  “Is all of Washington mountainous?”

  “No. Central Washington and central Oregon are both relatively flat and hot. It’s where most of our Washington fruits grow. It’s only in the north where the mountains keep getting bigger and more rugged. My brother fell in love with the mountains, which is why he eventually joined the forestry service. But me…” He folded his arms around his knees and looked off somewhere that was so distant, it was invisible to me.

  “I was thirteen and didn’t have any major ambitions beyond how fast I could navigate a speed boat when our two-week vacation came up and we decided to go north instead of south. We spent the whole two weeks on the San Juan Islands. It was magnificent. If Disneyland is the supernova among theme parks, San Juan is the supernova for life.

  The giant fish, the whales, the sea lions and river otters; you could find them all if you were quiet. I would go out early in a kayak and stay out all day, just collecting shells and stones, examining tide pools and watching the shorebirds. There are a lot of them. Herons and trumpeter swans. Canadian snow geese and eagles. That was the year I wanted to become a marine biologist. I stuck with the plan right up to my third year of college.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “I wanted to impress the sorority girls.”

  I giggled and gave him a playful punch. “Don’t laugh,” he objected. “You have no idea of what a man will do to catch the attention of a woman.”

  “I don’t?”

  “Oh, I guess you do. Actually, I didn’t dare dream very big as a kid. I figured I’d be lucky to get into a four-year degree program. But…” He raised his brows and shrugged. “I’m good at the sciences. I aced the biology courses, aced anatomy, chemistry, microcellular biology. As I approached my third year, I thought to myself, ‘why stop here?’ I decided to become a doctor of medicine. It felt right. It’s all connected. It’s just that instead of studying the health of the ocean, I was now studying the health of our bodies.”

  “Is that when you met Julia?”

  “Yeah. I was in awe of her. I wanted to become everything she was looking for in a man. I remade myself in her image.”

  “Why did you go into geriatrics?”

  “At first it was the money. The baby bo
omers were approaching old age so there was a high demand for geriatrics medicine. But then I began thinking about aging itself. Aside from accidental death, murder and disease, we’re destined to die of old age, but what is the true natural age for death? Can the natural age be extended? Julia was wrong, you know.”

  “I can agree without even asking about what.”

  “I know you don’t like her, but she is a scientist. She asked the same questions but she treated the seniors like control subjects. She wanted to forcefully change their habits for good longevity statistics. Force them to live longer. You can’t treat them like children because they’re not children, at least not until dementia or Alzheimer’s takes over. I sometimes think she tried to push them to the point of mental incompetency so she could take over.”

  “Do you think?” I asked. I picked up a piece of driftwood and waved it aimlessly around.

  “She was wrong. I was wrong. I drifted so far from who I was that I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  “A man who really likes the Puget Sound,” I suggested.

  “That’s a good beginning. Come with me sometime. We’ll explore the Sound together.”

  “And Vancouver?”

  “We’ll go to Vancouver.”

  He scooted over until he was sitting close beside me, and put an arm around my shoulders. “I like you, Jenna, but I want to do it right. I want us to take the time to get to know each other. Really know each other. You’re the first girl I’ve ever brought here on a date.”

  I turned my head to look at him. “I see you now. I think I can even see the boy playing on the beach, turning over rocks to see what was underneath.”

  He kissed me softly, one hand under my chin. “I want to know a little more about you now. Tell me, if you were on a show featuring the best chefs in America, what would you say to your audience?”

  “I would tell them that becoming a great cook isn’t so much about perfecting a technique as the amount of love you pour into your cooking. It adds a special flavor to even the simplest home cooked meal and is what makes people return over and over to eat.”