The Cursed Canoe

by Frankie Bow

  “Oh.” I had no idea what else to say. Your kid’s kind of a jerk, Donnie. Everyone seems to see it except you.

  “The competition isn’t sitting still, either, Molly. Merrie Musubis just added a new Mexican food line.”

  “I don’t think that’ll last. Once the novelty wears off, I’m sure your customers will be back.”

  I didn’t tell him I’d actually tried Merrie Musubis’ new Carlos Spamtana Burrito. It was awful. Whoever came up with the recipe was apparently unfamiliar with the idea of spices. You can’t throw together pasty unseasoned refried beans and Spam chunks and call it a day.

  “Davison doesn’t care how hard it was to get him a ticket, how long it’s been since I’ve seen him,” Donnie went on. “He gets distracted by a shiny object, and off he goes.”

  “Mm,” I nodded.

  “He’s as bad as Sherry,” Donnie said.

  “Oh, tell me about it. Wait, what?”

  “He hasn’t even had a chance to spend the night in his new room.”

  “Did you say he’s as bad as Sherry?” I asked.

  Emma shot me a quizzical look.

  “Yes, I did,” he said. “Sherry.”

  The long silence made me wonder if the call had been dropped. Finally, Donnie said,

  “She left on Davison’s eighth birthday.”

  “Oh.”

  “Did I tell you about this already?”

  “No.”

  All I knew was that Donnie was a divorced single father. He had never told me anything about his ex. I’d been dying to find out more, but I was never able to figure out a tactful way to ask.

  “What happened?” I prodded.

  Donnie went quiet again, and for a moment I feared I had pushed too hard. But then he said,

  “I never saw it coming, Molly. The day started out perfectly normal. We’d had a disagreement about Davison’s birthday cake. I thought at the time she was overreacting. Now I realize she was looking for an excuse.”

  Maybe it was easier for him to open up on the telephone, rather than face to face. Awkward as it was, I could understand it.

  “She walked out at eleven-oh-two,” he said. “Just walked out and closed the door.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Donnie exhaled

  “I let Davison open his birthday presents, and we waited for her to come back. She didn’t. I left Davison with a neighbor and drove around town trying to find her.”

  “Her name was Sherry?” I asked, stupidly.

  “Yes. It was short for Sherrine. Unusual name.”

  “Sherrine?”

  I realized I was starting to sound like some not-very-intelligent artificial intelligence program. Maybe it would be better if I stopped talking.

  “I always suspected she had a—had someone else. I was working long hours at the restaurant and we didn’t get to spend much time with one another. But suspecting is one thing. I never thought she was going to act on it. I was wrong. And I...she wouldn’t change her mind.”

  I tried to picture a desperate Donnie pursuing Sherry all over town and begging her to come back. It didn’t square at all with the Donnie I knew. I couldn’t imagine Donnie being that infatuated with me. Our relationship, I realized, felt a little like Donnie was sizing me up as a potential business partner. Not falling for me. More like assessing me. On the bright side, so far I seemed to be meeting the benchmarks.

  “I stopped by the ice cream shop on the way back home,” he said. “I bought Davison the biggest cake they had. It had little orange basketballs on it, made out of frosting. Davison and I ate ice cream cake and watched Davison’s favorite cartoons over and over.”

  “Donnie, I’m so sorry. How did you explain all this to Davison?”

  “I told him, Mama had to go away.”

  I wondered if I should say something to Donnie about Davison’s new paramour. But what would I tell him? It would all be speculation anyway. No, the best course of action was to keep my mouth shut. It was probably an unfortunate coincidence about the name.

  “Do you think Davison still remembers any of it?” I asked. How much had Sherry changed over the years, I wondered? Davison had obviously been drawn to her.

  “I don’t know. He never talks about it. Sorry, Molly. I don’t know how we got onto this. Hey. Are you reading anything good?”

  Donnie knows I’m usually reading something, and I sympathized with his wanting to change the subject. But of all of the hundreds of books I’d read in my life, the only title I could recall at the moment was Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “WELL?” EMMA DEMANDED the instant I hung up. I glanced at the back seat to make sure Yoshi was still asleep and summarized my conversation with Donnie.

  “His mother? Are you serious?”

  “I don’t know. It sounds terrible. But the details all fit.”

  “I wonder if they went to the novelty store to buy Oedipal underwear.” She burst out laughing at her own joke.

  “Yes, very clever, Emma. Well, what do you think?”

  “Come on, Molly. Just because they’re both named Sherry?”

  “Sherrine. It’s an unusual name. I hope I’m wrong.”

  “I’ll ask Sherry about it when I see her tonight,” Emma said.

  “No! Don’t do that. Sherry and Davison met in my office. If this blows up everyone will end up blaming me.”

  “No, they won’t. It’s not your fault.”

  “And what’s worse, Sherry is my student. I do not want her to know I’m dating her ex-husband. Assuming Donnie is her ex-husband.”

  “Oh, right. That would make things awkward in your classroom, wouldn’t it? Alright. I won’t say anything to her. You know, whether she’s Donnie’s ex or not, she sure got herself in a situation. Did you know Glenn came back from his trip early?”

  “Glenn’s already back? That was quick.”

  “Yeah, I guess she was expecting him to be gone a lot longer. She seemed pretty stressed out about it. I hope he didn’t come home and find Davison hiding under the bed. So where are you meeting Donnie?”

  “Shoot. I totally forgot to ask him. He hasn’t even left Mahina yet.”

  “Good. We have time to stop at the paddling store.”

  I don’t remember the rest of the drive across the island. I drifted off under the spell of Emma’s soothing music selection and dozed through the rest of the drive. When I woke up we had already reached the little seaside town where we would be staying. Emma was driving around the narrow, congested streets in search of her paddling store, whose name she couldn’t quite remember.

  She finally located SunSport Paddling Supply in a nondescript, sun-bleached strip mall. I followed Emma and Yoshi into SunSport and glanced around at the racks of swim shorts and rash guards and the long, impossibly narrow one-man canoes mounted along the walls. Quickly bored with that, I excused myself and went outside to look at the other shops. These were a Chinese takeout, a hot tub store, and a wine shop. I perused hot tubs and wine bottles for a while and looked into the paddling store to make sure Emma and Yoshi were still in there. They were. I stepped outside to check my messages and hurried back into SunSport.

  “Emma, Donnie called again.”

  “Did he leave a message?”

  “There’s no reception here,” I said, “so I can’t call in for my voicemail. But I see two transcripts. I hope he’s not calling to say he can’t make it.”

  “Does that work for you?” Emma asked. “I tried one of those transcription services, but I canceled it. Most of the time it gave me garble.”

  “Let’s see.” I read the transcribed message from my phone screen. “No, it looks like he’s already arrived and checked in. Here’s his room number. Wow, he had time to drive all the way over and check in? We’ve been shopping for a while, Emma. Are you going to buy anything?”

  “Not me. But Yoshi’s still trying on rash guards.”

  “And here’s the next message. It says Hi,
this is Donnie. After that, it’s a little harder to parse.”

  “What’s he say?”

  “According to the transcript, I seem like I will also call the bathroom Birth 5. And possible when. Please, substantially. I’m gonna be a broom. Three-ten.”

  “He’s gonna be a broom? Maybe he’s getting ready to sweep you off your feet.”

  Emma guffawed at her own clever remark. “Oh, I am literally on fire today!”

  “Emma, you are not literally on fire. Okay, I have to call Donnie back to see what the second message was about. Let’s go outside. I’ll try again.”

  We walked out to the small parking lot shared by the stores. I placed my phone at different angles but was still unable to get a signal. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Emma do a double-take at the wine shop.

  “Actually,” Emma waved her hand to get my attention, “don’t call back. Let him wait. You don’t want to look too eager. You know he’s there and you have his room number, right? I have a plan.”

  “A plan? Why does there have to be a plan? What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t want to grow old alone, do you? Here’s what you do. You know what kind of wine Donnie likes?”

  “I think so.”

  “Go in there and pick something out you know he loves. We’ll get checked in, you go shower and clean up, and bring the bottle of wine to his room. Let nature take its course.”

  Emma took my arm and moved me toward the door of the wine shop.

  “I don’t know, Emma—”

  “It’ll be perfect. It’s exactly like the story of Ruth and Boaz.”

  “I don’t think Ruth stopped by Boaz’s hotel room with a bottle of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.”

  “No, but she waited until he was asleep, and climbed under the covers with him.”

  “What?” I protested. “No, she didn’t! I mean, not the way you’re making it sound.”

  “Oh yes she did, Molly. She let him know she was interested. She didn’t leave any doubt. She got cleaned up, put on some nice perfume, and snuck into where Boaz was sleeping. And her mother in law was the one who put her up to it.”

  A woman inside the wine shop stepped out from behind the counter and beckoned us inside. We smiled at her and entered the narrow space. It was stacked floor to ceiling with bottles.

  “What do you know about Ruth and Boaz?” I whispered to Emma. “You’re Buddhist!”

  I scanned the shelves for something reasonably priced that I could buy for myself. They didn’t offer much in my preferred price range, and certainly nothing that came in a box.

  “So?” she whispered back. “Aren’t you the one who said an educated person should know about the world’s different belief systems?”

  “When did I say that?”

  “At our last General Education Committee meeting.”

  “Oh. Maybe you’re right. I guess it sounds like something I might say.”

  “You did say it. In fact, Molly, what do you know about Buddhism?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re an educated person. Tell me something you know about Buddhism.”

  “Buddhism? Uh, well, there’s Nirvana, and you have a...”

  I knew there was some kind of wheel. Wheel of fortune? That couldn’t be right.

  “Oh, this is childish, Emma. It’s not a competition. Come on, help me pick out the wine.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THE ELEVATOR’S CLOSE, wood-grained walls reeked of decades-old cigarette smoke and fresh suntan lotion.

  “I’m not sure about this, Emma.”

  “It’s only to the third floor,” Emma said.

  “No, I'm not talking about the claustrophobia. Although if there were anyone else in here with us, it would be pretty tight.” Fortunately, Yoshi was down in the gift shop buying snacks.

  “So what's your problem?”

  “This is not my style, just barging up to Donnie’s room.”

  “What is your style then?” Emma demanded. “Putting off dealing with major issues as long as you can?”

  “Sounds about right. I’m an Avoider, you know.”

  I drew a deep breath and wondered when the elevator's ventilation system had been checked last.

  “You can’t weasel out of it now, Molly. You already bought the wine.”

  “No. This is a real thing. In business communication, there’s this test I have my students take, so they can find out whether they’re Collaborators, Competers, Compromisers, Accommodators or Avoiders. I took the test myself. I’m a hundred percent, gold-plated, dyed-in-the-wool Avoider. I guess that’s why I’m so safe and boring. That’s probably what Donnie sees in me. After what happened with Sherry, I’ll bet he decided to forswear all passion and excitement.”

  “He doesn’t like you because you’re safe and boring,” Emma said. “He likes you in spite of you being so safe and boring.”

  “What if something goes wrong?”

  “Pfft,” Emma reassured me.

  “I think you’d come out as a Competer, by the way. Those are the ones who always have to be right.”

  “Nothing’s gonna go wrong, Molly. Listen. I don’t want to hear from you until tomorrow. Unless there’s some real juicy disaster. Then you have to call me right away. Anyway, here we are on two. That’s my floor. Talk to you after the race tomorrow, ah?”

  “Wait,” I said. “What do you mean, some kind of juicy disaster?”

  But the elevator doors were already closing.

  I found my room and let myself in. Maybe Emma was right. I needed to take the initiative and kick things into gear with Donnie before this relationship died of boredom. Right after I finished unpacking.

  I did what every sensible person does when checking into a hotel: I rolled my suitcase into the tiled bathroom to avoid picking up bedbugs from the carpet, saturated a washcloth with rubbing alcohol and wiped down the doorknobs, TV remote, and telephone. I took extra care scrubbing out the drinking glasses, thanks to a hidden-camera investigation I’d seen that caught a housekeeper washing the glasses with a toilet brush.

  I pulled the bedspread off the bed and piled it in a corner, went back into the bathroom, and washed my hands for twenty seconds with plenty of soap and the hottest water I could stand. Unlike sheets, bedspreads are rarely laundered. You don’t have to take my word for it; shine an ultraviolet light on any hotel bedspread, and watch it light up like a Thomas Kinkade painting.

  Once the room was habitable, I pulled out a red silk blouse and black velvet slacks and hung them in the bathroom so the wrinkles would steam out. I showered, blow-dried the steam off the mirror, and set out my makeup. This was supposed to seem spontaneous, right? I had to be careful not to look too made-up. Dark brown mascara and eyeliner, not black. Pinkish-beige lipstick, the two-coat kind that doesn’t come off. Foundation blended with moisturizer for lighter coverage. A touch of blush. It took me about an hour to get a nice, natural look. I spent a while debating how far up I should button my blouse, and daringly opted for two buttons undone instead of one. Finally, I unpinned my hair and ran my fingers through it to fluff it out.

  I grabbed the wine, made sure I had my key card in my purse, double checked the message for the room number, and made sure my room door was locked.

  I found my way to the stairs, past white stucco walls sprinkled with black mildew and orange fiberglass dulled with a patina of scratches. Here in the echoing stairwell, there was little chance of running into anyone. I felt vaguely embarrassed, all dolled up and walking around with a bottle of wine while it was still light out.

  I was winded by the time I reached my destination, partly because of the two flights of stairs, but mostly because I was nervous. If I paused to catch my breath I’d probably change my mind. I walked right up to the door, checked the room number, and knocked.

  There was no answer. I waited. I checked the room number again. It was the right room. I undid one more button on my blouse. Might as well hang for a sheep as
for a lamb. I knocked again, leaned into the peephole, held the wine bottle up next to my face, and smiled. There, I thought. Is that something a safe, boring person would do?

  I felt stupid and moved away from the peephole. I didn’t see any light under the door, but I thought I heard someone brushing their teeth.

  It got quiet again. At last I heard, “Come in!”

  The tone of his voice was encouraging. And the door was unlocked. So far so good. I slipped into the dark room and let the door click shut behind me.

  The opaque hotel curtains were drawn shut and the lights were off. I stood there in the dark, feeling disoriented, gripping the neck of the wine bottle. I realized I’d forgotten to bring a corkscrew. Maybe Donnie knew that trick where you can get the cork out by banging the bottom of the bottle against your shoe.

  Then again, beverage logistics didn’t seem to be topmost on his mind. As my eyes adjusted I saw him lying flat on the bed, hands behind his head. I certainly hadn’t expected him to cut to the chase so quickly. I was also a little put off by the fact that there seemed to be nothing between him and the bedspread.

  “Hey, doll,” I heard him say.

  Doll? Donnie and I had never used any terms of endearment. I didn’t have any pet names for him. Was I supposed to think one up now? What was wrong with simply using someone’s actual name?

  I took one step closer to the bed and caught a whiff of one of those heavy, cloying fragrances I don’t particularly like. That was strange. Why wasn’t Donnie’s wearing his usual cologne, the one I liked? This whole thing was starting to feel like a mistake. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, my brain worked in slow motion to process what I was seeing.

  When did Donnie get all these tattoos? Swirls of ink wound across his shoulders and down his chest and—good heavens, was that supposed to be a scorpion?

  It was like that time I’d wandered into the wrong bathroom at the airport, and my mind had time to construct the sentence, “Who put all those long sinks in here?” before I figured out my mistake.