by Jess Lourey
Kennie promised to do the deeds as soon as she got done leading her As Good As Gold on the Otter Tail River Tour. Apparently, the Minnesota Nice business wasn’t doing as well as expected. People felt too guilty about hiring someone else to do their dirty work and decided to go back to the tried-and-true practices of avoidance and denial. To supplement her income, Kennie had started a gold-panning business on the Otter Tail River. There was no gold in the river, and Kennie got around that fact by trademarking the term “As Good As Gold” to refer to any of various types of river rocks. I promised to hand her brochures out at the library and go out on one more outing with her and Gary as payment for the favors she was doing for me. Apparently, I had gone over like gangbusters with Ody, and he wanted to take me fishing before he returned to Alaska. How much worse could my reputation in town get? At least I knew our time together had an expiration date.
I knew I needed more time to heal before I went diving, but by the next afternoon, the need to satisfy my curiosity outweighed the need to be pain-free. I borrowed Jed’s diving equipment and got permission from the landowners to take off from the creek on the north side of the lake. My bruises made swimming slow going, but eventually I found the camo netting about seventy-five feet straight out and twenty-one feet straight down, just like Nikolai predicted. If not for him, I would have passed right over it, since the greenish-gray cover blended perfectly with the lake bottom if you weren’t looking for it.
The box underneath the camo cover was light once I loosed it from the rope and anchor mooring it. I started swimming back before I decided I should bring the rope and netting back with me, too. No reason to litter the lake. I wasn’t able to open the box on my own, so I called the Star Tribune. They were grateful someone had finally found it, and the timing was perfect, what with all the publicity Peyton’s abduction and subsequent return and Regina Krupps’s stolen jewelry were getting. They ran a front-page story on the “Real Jewels of the North Country,” and the featured photo was of Peyton draped in the jewels.
I felt momentarily bad that Nikolai wasn’t getting any of the money for finding the box, and then I realized I had promised him only that I would not keep more than half. By the end of the week, a “secret donor” had arranged for all the cabins at the Last Resort to be painted, inside and out. I also arranged for a deluxe Scrabble game, complete with a lazy Susan, to be sent to the Fortune Café.
The children’s section at the library got completely revamped as well—new chairs, new stuffed animals, new equipment for watching movies and listening to books on tape, and a cavalcade of happy, colorful new books. Peyton received a colossal box of Sugar Lips Wax Chewing Gum, Strawberry Pop Rocks, Razzles Candy Gum, and chocolate cigarettes in the mail. When I spoke to her the day after she was found, she told me the kidnapping was really fun. She said the only downside was the crabby man who had to tie her up even though she would have stayed anyways. I had no reason to doubt this, and apparently Leylanda heard this too and took it to heart, because she loosened up a little on her daughter and let her keep the candy. She even let Peyton chew gum in the library.
Those donations took up a big chunk of the contest money, and I figured not spending all the money on myself was the same as not keeping it. With what was left, I paid my bills three months out, leaving just enough to hire a landscaper to do some touch-up work at my place. I called Swenson’s Nursery, and Johnny promised he would be over before the end of the week. I felt conspicuous enough requesting him specifically and after hours, so I refrained from offering extra for shirtlessness.
While I waited for him to show up on a beautiful Friday evening, I phoned my mom. When Peyton had been kidnapped, some more of my heart froze. What I hadn’t known was how much it was going to thaw when she was found. My mom and I hadn’t talked in over a year, but there’s something about worrying about kids and getting the shit beat out of you that makes you want to hear your mom’s voice.
“Mira?”
“Yeah. Sorry I haven’t called in a while, Mom.”
“How’re you doing?” She sounded so grateful that it brought tears to my eyes.
“I’ve been pretty good. How about you?”
I heard her weigh her options, and she chose to keep it light, even though she couldn’t keep the emotion out of her voice. I suppose she didn’t want to scare me off again. “I’m real good. We’re having a wedding shower for your cousin next weekend. We’d love to see you.”
“Yeah, maybe. I’d like to see you, too.” The funny thing was, I meant it. My mom and I had drifted apart after my dad died, no doubt about it. Or maybe I had pushed her away. But now she seemed too far away. I was relieved it wasn’t too late to change that.
“You still have Tiger Pop?”
“Yeah, she’s on my lap right now.” I stroked her soft fur. “I’ll give you a call about next weekend, ’kay?”
“That’d be nice. I love you, Mira.”
The tears were rolling down my face now. This had been a damn tough week, but my mom still loved me. I made my voice sound strong. “I love you too, Mom.” I clicked the phone off and dug my face into Tiger Pop’s clean fur.
When Johnny showed up a half hour later, I was composed and wearing my sexiest fellow-gardener-cum-natural-woman look—no makeup save for lip gloss, hair loose around my shoulders, a white tank top, and faded cutoffs. The lightness of my clothes accented the fading, greenish-yellow bruises on my face and arms. I was still stiff from the beating but feeling whole and strong. I hardly made a fool of myself the whole time Johnny was over.
He spent more time admiring my gardens and giving me tips on improved water retention and maximization of sunlight than actually landscaping, but it was a wonderful evening. Once, I caught him staring at the rainbow of marks spattered across my face and neck. I had to glance away, the angry and protective look in his eyes too much for my emotional state.
I instead got Johnny to talk about himself some. Turns out he wasn’t kicked out of college, either for knifing someone or for stealing plants, though he did write his senior paper on the blade tree, a plant native to Bolivia. When he graduated with his BS in plant biology, he wanted to go on to grad school to get his PhD. He’d seen himself as either a professor or an activist, but before he decided what college he wanted to do his doctoral work at, his dad was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. Johnny returned to Battle Lake to help his mom take care of his dad and was making the best of his current life working at the nursery, giving piano lessons, and playing with a local band.
“Mira?”
I was walking Johnny to his car. The sun was setting the lake on fire as it dropped in, clouds of pink and orange rising like steam on the horizon.
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something personal?”
My heart skipped and dropped. I clenched my teeth to hold back the slew of dumb babbling suddenly pushing to escape my mouth. “Sure.”
“Are you dating Ody?”
I think I might have laughed, but it came out like a horse bark. “No. I was just doing Kennie a favor.”
Johnny looked relieved, then amused. He reached out as if to touch my face, shook his head once quickly, and stuffed his hands in his worn jean pockets. “I’m sorry someone did this to you, Mira.”
My heart tumbled. “Thanks. But I’ll heal. I always do.”
“It was a good night, tonight. I had fun with you.”
I smiled. “I had fun with you, too.”
Johnny didn’t give me a bill at the end of our wonderful evening, but immediately after he left, I wrote out a check and dropped it in the mailbox at the end of my mile of driveway, retrieving the day’s mail at the same time. I wanted an excuse to walk down the road barefoot. On my way back, I slowed to scratch my feet in the soft sand pool, an unexplained spot in every country driveway where the sand is so smooth it almost feels wet. I decided when I got back to the house, I’d eat some fresh peas, drink a Dr. Pepper, and watch Thelma and Louise, one of three movies I owned. A
nd maybe, if I had the time, I’d draw Johnny’s name over and over again in a notebook and sketch hearts around it.
It was such a good night that I almost threw out the letter from the University of Minnesota I found among the bills before I even opened it. Instead, I studied the return address as I crunched down the gravel and smelled the dusty earth and listened to crickets sing. The letter was from the U of M’s English department. I had blown off my studies since I had moved to Battle Lake in March, and I didn’t see how this letter could be good news.
Curiosity, my only consistent vice, won over eventually, and when I reached my front deck I sat down and ripped open the letter, my toes digging into the still-warm earth of my front flower bed. The letter was from the one professor I had connected with at the university, Dr. Lindstrom. He was a literature professor who questioned everything and had a wonderfully dry sense of humor.
His letter was short and sweet:
Dear Mira:
You are missed! I hope you haven’t gotten so involved in the active animal-rights movement up there in God’s country that you can’t give us a hand back here. I need a research assistant this fall, and you’re my woman. Pay is meager, but your tuition would be free. Is it a deal? Respond at your
convenience, as long as it is before August.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Michael Lindstrom
I read the letter three times before I was convinced it wasn’t a joke, and that’s when I started to feel green around the gills. This would have been a no-brainer a month ago. An opportunity like this came once in a lifetime. Who wouldn’t want to live in the Twin Cities and go to school for free and eat at restaurants that didn’t serve hot beef and white bread as their specials? But now, I wasn’t so sure.
I stood up so abruptly that I scraped the back of my leg on the deck. I went into the house purposefully, crumpled up Dr. Lindstrom’s letter, and tossed it in the garbage. I opened the fridge, fixed myself supper, and stuck Thelma and Louise into the VCR. I watched it until I was too tired to keep my eyes open, and then I popped off to bed, but not before I pulled Dr. Lindstrom’s letter out of the garbage, smoothed it out, and set it on my kitchen table to look at again in the morning.
Acknowledgments
I’m indebted to Ray and Diane for the alternating Mondays and Wednesdays they sacrifice so I can write without guilt, and for being adept copyeditors. Oh, and for telling me I could be whatever I wanted to be when I grew up. Also, there isn’t a sufficiently big enough thank-you to give to Holly for being my first reader and best cheerleader, so I’m offering only a ten-point font thank-you and hoping she understands.
I am grateful to Joan Jung at the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office for gathering insight into the smell, juiciness, and overall condition of a body in the unusual state of decomposition it finds itself in within these pages, and for not turning me over to the FBI for asking.
Barbara, Brian, and Lisa, you are the dream team, turning out great books with brilliant covers and making sure that people read them—thank you. And thank you to Wade for always setting me straight on the eighties and toning down my myriad references to pooping and being on fire. You are a priceless resource. Jessica Morrell, your freelance editing is incisive, thorough, and encouraging.
Christine, I appreciate your neighborly ways, and Suzanna, many thanks for always feeding my sense of humor. Dr. Jen, I value your support in sales, signings, and kid-watching, as well as your deft
adjustments. Finally, thank you to Zoë and Xander for wearing your costumes way past Halloween, for putting up with the “don’t talk to Mom when she’s reading or writing unless it’s an emergency” rule, and for your fuzzy morning bedheads.
About the Author
Jess Lourey lives in Alexandria, Minnesota, where she teaches creative writing and sociology full time at the local college. When not raising her two wonderful kids, teaching, or writing, you can find her gardening, devouring novels, and navigating the niceties and meanities of small-town life. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the Loft, and Lake Superior Writers.
Table of Contents
Cover
Splash Page
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Acknowledgments
About the Author