by Jess Lourey
The threat of this specter was forcing me to consider new dating realms, though so soon after Jeff’s death, I was officially gun-shy about men from now until the end of the time. The male of the species had a lot to offer in theory, but in my experience, they had a tendency to die too soon. Not to mention that my last official date was with a professor from a local college who turned out to be a post-operative transsexual. My “friend” Gina had found him for me online, and in her defense, his online thumbnail had been cute. After our first lunch date, I knew something was a little off, but I thought it was me. Turns out it was him.
My dad was another example of what could go wrong with men. He had been an interesting man, a career alcoholic too smart for his own good. My childhood was a tapestry of forced normalcy punctuated by raucous fights between my parents. By the time I was seven, I knew I couldn’t have friends over because if my dad wasn’t drunk, my mom would be yelling at him for being drunk the day before. I spent a lot of time in my room with my imaginary friends. It wasn’t all bad—my family traveled a lot in the summer in the car, and when dad was in public, he would usually stay sober. And even drunk, he wasn’t mean, just crazy. He believed he could control the wind and speak French. Apparently, both wind-talk and French share a lot of root words with pig Latin.
By my teen years, I’d learned how to shut down my emotions so I wasn’t a forced passenger on his roller coaster. I got even better at that after he died the summer before my senior year. He was driving drunk and slammed head-on into another car when he swerved over the center line. He killed himself and a passenger and her baby in the other car. I finished growing up that day. I still wasn’t sure if that meant I became an adult or a permanently stunted child. Actually, I wasn’t so sure there was a big difference.
I was so lost in thought on my way out of the Sunset that I was on the other side of the security doors and all the way to the lobby before I noticed the crowd. I stood on my tippytoes to see what was going on. In the center of an elderly mob was what appeared to be a Harlequin clown and a lion tamer accompanied by a small person dressed as a lion.
“How about you, young lady?” boomed the lion tamer, beckoning to me dramatically. “Wouldn’t you like to see a local production of the honorable William S. Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, starring esteemed members of your community and played out in a Gothic carnival setting?”
I stepped back as he stepped forward, shoving a piece of paper into my hand. I looked at him, confused. Had any of my English profs ever mentioned Shakespeare’s middle name? I decided they hadn’t and made a mental note to check out whether or not it was really an S. And what was going on?
I glanced at the second leaflet of the day to be shoved into my hand. It was card stock with gilded letters in a flowing serif font proclaiming, “The Famed Romanov Traveling Theater Troupe Is Coming to YOUR Town!” Underneath were pictures of the selfsame lion tamer, the Harlequin clown, comedy and tragedy, and various scantily clad Gypsy harlots. It was like the Renaissance Festival minus the big turkey legs and Dungeons and Dragons geeks. I wondered if Kennie was going to love this or hate it. I also wondered if the troupe knew the Senior Sunset folks were on lockdown. The rules, probably dictated by the Sunset’s insurance policy, said the residents could only leave the premises if checked out by family. There was going to be no Gothic carnival for them, but I was intrigued.
“Sure,” I said. I shoved the flyer back at him and studied his face. He wore the wide, empty grin of somebody who smiles for a living. His nose was broad, and his eyes, small and close set, darted around the room even as he talked at me. He seemed in habitual need of an audience. The Harlequin clown and lion wove in and out of the crowds, singing, dancing, and huzzahing, and I couldn’t get a good look at either of them.
“ ‘Sure,’ it is! We are in agreement!” The lion tamer made a departing grand gesture with his plastic mini-whip and strode purposefully out the front doors of the Sunset, the clown and lion dragging along behind him, their backs to me. I looked around at the stunned room of nursing assistants and old folks. A familiar face came forward, shaking his head.
“And they call me crazy?”
“Hey, Curtis. How’s the fishing?” Curtis Poling was another of my faves at the raisin ranch. People said he was crazy because he fished off the roof of the Sunset around lunchtime every day. The crazy part was that the closest body of water was a quarter mile away. I had found Curtis to be harmless myself, and he had a wicked smart streak that most people overlooked because he was old. He was also a hit with the ladies, due to his ice-blue eyes and rakish charm.
“Hmm, not so good. I might need to switch bait,” he said.
I shook my head knowingly. “That’ll happen.” Truth was, I didn’t eat fish and knew nothing about fishing. I had a rule about consuming anything that spent its whole life wet.
“Yup. Don’t be a stranger.” Curtis slapped me once on the butt and walked away.
It was time to go rent a diving suit and tank. I had already had too much human interaction for one day. As I stepped outside the home, the sun broke free from the clouds for the first time that day and warmed me to my toenails
The only place to rent scuba equipment in all of Otter Tail County is a little business called the Last Resort. The Last Resort has seven two-bedroom cabins, all carved out of the same country-schoolhouse theme. Every one of them has chipping white paint and pine green trim with screened-in porches on the front, and they all line up in a row to face the sandy brown beach of West Battle Lake. Each front porch holds a splintery picnic table next to a rusted Weber grill. The owners, Sal and Bill Heike, place a complimentary can of pine-scented Off! in every kitchen. To the far side of the seventh cabin is a fish-cleaning shed with running water inside and a scale-and-gut hole outside. Closer to the main road, Highway 78, is the Heikes’ house, with the front office attached.
If you stay a full week at the Last Resort, you can rent a fishing boat with a ten-horsepower Evinrude for a hundred dollars. The bait is not included, though you can buy that and more at the store attached to the front office. The leeches and worms are in the same refrigerator as the vanilla Cokes, cheese, and bologna.
Years ago, Sal and Bill taught scuba certification as a side business. There was a train car intentionally sunk about two hundred feet straight out from cabin number three, and the scuba crowd brought in extra business. Unfortunately, pesticides and waste ponds around the lake had upset the delicate balance in the water, and now the weeds were so thick on this side of the lake that underwater visibility was only seven feet.
The Heikes kept the equipment, because used scuba gear doesn’t go for much. Bill also kept the tank filler, though he always complained that it didn’t pay, what with the cost of insurance. I knew the couple from around town, mostly from their frequent trips to the library to check out books on building your own greenhouse, making your own paper, growing your own organic vegetables, creating your own compost pile, et cetera. I also knew their twenty-two-year-old son, Jedediah. He had tried to sell me pot on several occasions, and every time, he was genuinely astonished that I declined. The beauty of having a brain-atrophying drug habit is that the world is born anew for you every day.
When I pulled my brown 1984 Toyota Corolla into the circle drive that marked the front of the Last Resort, it was Jed who limped out to greet me. “Hello, you! What can I do for you?”
I smiled at his excitement as I pulled myself out of the car. “What happened to your leg?”
Jed grinned sweetly, stretching the bong-shaped ring of acne around his mouth. “I twisted my ankle unloading a boat yesterday. I am so cool though, Mira. It’s a beautiful day!” He waved his hands expansively in the June air, the sun shining down on his curly light-brown hair and through the spindly Fu Manchu mustache he was trying to grow. He hugged me spontaneously, and I let him.
When he stepped back, grinning, I returned his smile. He certainly made cluelessness look appealing. “Say, you wouldn’t have
any scuba equipment left to rent, would you?”
Jed actually scratched his head. “You know, weirdest thing. Everyone and her brother suddenly wants to rent our stuff. We’re out.”
My heart sank. I should have known. To be honest, I liked the idea of breaking this diamond story wide open, but the real reason I was going to so much trouble is I wanted the five thousand bucks for finding it. Since I didn’t have any house payments and my electric bill was currently low, my only major expense was student loans—$276 every month. However, my part-time reporting job and now full-time library job paid only a frog’s hair above minimum wage, which didn’t leave a lot of spare cash lying around. It would be nice to add to the $20 in my savings account.
“Well, ’cept for my stuff and my ma and pa’s. You could borrow that, if you like. We haven’t been diving in a while.”
“Jed!” I said happily. I was back on. “That would be great!”
He nodded his head like a happy Muppet and grabbed my hand. “Let’s go back and check it out. It’s all stored off the front office.”
When we walked past the row of cabins and close to the store, I saw the Swenson’s Landscaping truck around the side of the Heikes’ house, which was done in the same chipping white and green as the cabins. My heart took a little electric leap. “Swenson’s here doing some landscaping?”
“Yup.”
“Who’s doing the work?”
“Johnny.”
My electric leap turned into a full-blown charge. I had had a crush the size of a Mack truck on Johnny Leeson ever since I had bought a flat of annuals from him a few weeks earlier. He was not tall, maybe five-eleven, in his early to mid twenties, and he had thick, longish blonde hair. The Scandinavian-exchange-student look wasn’t normally my physical type, but he was strong and lean, he had even white teeth, and he knew everything there was to know about gardening: when to plant your peas, how much water to give your corn, where to bury your tulip bulbs, how to fertilize your roses—if it could grow in dirt, Johnny could advise.
For me, there was something very erotic about a man with a green thumb. If he could coax blueberries to grow in low-alkaline soil, what could he do with a prematurely jaded woman on a Sealy Pillow-Top? Plus, he always smelled like fresh-cut grass, and his eyes were the color of a blue raspberry slushie. I was pretty sure he didn’t know I had these lusty organic thoughts about him. He just saw me as the chick who bought a few seed packets every week. My crush felt safe and exciting at the same time, in a crazy-lady sort of way. I told myself that I was being aloof and respectful in not hitting on him because he was currently dating Liza, personal stylist at the Under the Lilacs salon in downtown Battle Lake. The truth, though, was that I was a big hairy chickenshit.
“Where’s Johnny now?” I said, my voice cracking slightly.
“Dunno.”
“What exactly is he doing here?”
“Dunno.”
By now we had reached the front office, and I didn’t want to hurt Jed with any more probing. I could hunt around for Johnny on my own after Jed got me set up with the gear. I walked through the creaky screen door he held open and glanced around the musty porch. The mildewy smell reminded me of my grandma’s basement, a dirt-floor affair where she kept her canned goods. One corner of the porch was cluttered with cracked chairs stacked seat on seat, retired ice augers, and bright orange, foamy flotation devices. There were some old BCs—the buoyancy compensator vests that controlled a diver’s depth and held the tank, air hoses and regulator, and dive gauges—and wetsuits hanging on ceiling hooks in the other damp-looking corner.
The main office was on the other side of the porch. It was surprisingly modern, with tongue-and-groove knotty pine walls, a sitting area with In Fisherman magazines splayed around a Skittles-filled candy dish, and a long front counter. There was a newish Dell computer behind the desk hooked up to a scanner, printer, fax machine, and flat-screen monitor. I wondered how the Heikes could afford the new technology. It seemed like their resort was half empty most of the time now, and they had no other source of income that I was aware of. I thought the money would have been better spent on paint for the cabins, but maybe the computer saved time and helped them book reservations and advertise.
“Just lemme check something real quick.” Jed slid over the counter with a practiced air and grabbed one of the walkie-talkies from next to the computer. “Breaker, breaker, this is Angel Eyes, come in. Over.” Jed winked at me and started getting the giggles.
“What is it, Jed?” Sal’s voice was crackly.
“Heyah, Cool Momma, is cabin three still getting used tonight? Over.”
Crackle. “No, Angel Eyes, cabin three canceled.” Sal walked through the door, still speaking into the walkie-talkie. “They’ve moved to Shangri-La. Cool Momma out.”
“Roger.” Jed put the walkie-talkie back into its holder, and Sal clicked hers off.
“Hi, Mira. What brings you to our lonely resort?’
I pursed my lips. I genuinely liked the Heikes. Being ex-hippies, they passed for ethnic diversity in this town. “Business not so good, huh?”
“Not so good. But it’ll pick up. We’ve got new plans.”
I nodded at their computer. “You guys’ll be fine. Anyhow, I’m just here to rent scuba equipment. I’m gonna do some diving on Whiskey.”
“You and the rest of the world. What’s going on over at Shangri-La?”
I considered not telling, but the world was going to know soon enough. I explained the missing-diamond story, the Star Tribune drop box, and the five-grand reward, adding, “I’m going to check it out. Who knows, maybe they put the box in early.”
“Hmm. It might be time to pull me and Bill’s gear out of retirement. Maybe we’ll see you on the wet side, Mira!” Sal stepped over to the computer, clicked in a few words, and then went out through the back door. Jed followed her and was out of sight.
I knew he’d remember that I was waiting soon enough, so I poked my head out the side window and looked around for Johnny. It wasn’t too hard for my eyes to find him next to the fish-cleaning shed, what with the sun kissing his rippling, sweat-glistened, shirtless body and his thick hair curling around his ears and neck where it had gotten hot and wet. Except for the feed cap on his head where the wreath of olive leaves should have been, he was Apollo soaking in his own brilliance.
“Hey, Johnny, how’s the day treating you?” I asked nonchalantly. And quietly. In my head. No way was I going to destroy this moment with my own brand of dorkism.
He was getting ready to plant marigolds around the shed. I knew the flats of flowers he was unloading from the back of the pickup couldn’t have weighed more than five pounds each, but when he grasped one of them, his arm muscles flexed and the lean ropes of his back defined themselves. His dark Levi’s hung below the waist of his boxers, the whiteness of his underwear contrasting nicely with the brown muscles of his back. When he turned, I couldn’t see his eyes behind his dark sunglasses, but his full lips were closed tightly as he concentrated on his work.
Once he had all the flats out, he leaned over the side of the shed with a garden spade in hand. He dug down deeply, removing divots of earth, which he placed off to the side. Then he methodically and gently removed a marigold from its four-pack, placed it in the hole, held the earth clump over the flower, and shook the dirt loose from the sod. He repeated this for every flower. By the time he was halfway down the side of the shed, the hot sun was sending trickles of sweat down his back, through the soft valleys made by his lean hips, and into his shorts.
“Ready to go, Mira?”
I blushed and kept facing forward when I heard Jed’s voice behind me, thanking God almighty that you can’t see a woman’s hard-on. I shook my head to coax some blood back to my brain and turned to look into Jed’s friendly eyes.
“Oh, there’s Johnny!” Jed pushed me aside. “Hey Johnny, Mira’s looking for you!” He yelled and waved simultaneously, pointing over to where he had pushed me, out of Johnny’s
view. “Here she is!” He held my hand out the window and waved it. I peeked my head around the corner and smiled lamely. Johnny gave one brief wave, flashed a short, solemn smile, and strolled over.
“Hi, Mira.”
I looked down at my shoes, certain that a movie reel of my impure thoughts was playing on the big screen above my head. “Hi, Johnny. What’re you planting?”
He looked back over his shoulder. “Marigolds, mostly. Have you gotten a chance to plant the zinnias you bought last week?”
My blush returned. He remembered I had bought zinnias. Could it be that he thought about me as much as I thought about him? “Not yet. You’ve been too hot outside.”
Johnny cocked his head. “Excuse me?”
My face turned purple, and my internal switch flipped to Loser. “It. It has been too hot outside. To, you know, plant. Well, you better get to work, right? And I have to get to work. Not work, so much. More like investigating, you know. Underwater. I’m like a detective fish, but I can walk, too.”
Johnny nodded his head at me, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Okay. Catch ya later, Mira. Jed.”
Jed nodded dopily, and I slid down the wall into a pit of shame. With Johnny out of sight, I was able to flip my switch off Loser and onto Self-Loather. Could I be more of a moron? But that man, that body, those hands. I sighed. I liked Johnny just as he was—that is, at a distance—but I would have to seriously consider unpacking my vibrator out of homage to him. I had retired it a few months earlier because I was concerned about overuse. It got to where I was having a Pavlovian response to the sound of any small electric motor. Even the buzz of a blender on liquefy could get me going. After watching Johnny garden, though, I made a mental note to dig out the pink kangaroo from the bottom of the closet. If I didn’t take care of myself, I was going to do something silly like ask the guy out. “You got anything to drink, Jed?”