Skinny Dipping Season

by Cynthia Tennent

  I pointed to his full mug. “You want me to heat that cup of coffee up?”

  He shook his head. I sighed and sat down. The rain beating against the window was the only noise in the diner. Main Street was eerily empty and the evening had arrived prematurely.

  “I saw Sandy Miller earlier.”

  He took a long breath. “How’s Cherry?”

  “Completely spoiled. Ellie pulled out all the Easter candy she’d been hiding under her bed and let Cherry have whatever she wanted. Sandy keeps asking if she needs anything. Neither will let her move off the couch.”

  He nodded, letting me see his eyes for the first time since I entered the diner. They were so bleak I wanted to cry. I knew he didn’t want my sympathy, but I couldn’t help reaching across and touching his hand. “Sandy asked me to tell you that most people on the dock today thought you were doing the right thing.”

  J. D. grunted and moved his hand away. “Yeah . . . right.”

  “Really, J. D. Dylan was completely out of line. Actually, he was more than out of line: He was a belligerent ass.”

  J. D.’s mouth tilted at the corner. “Keep it PG, Teach. I heard enough R-rated language on the dock.”

  “Well, he was. I don’t know where he got off talking to you that way, but he must have a screw loose to think his kid was innocent and you were some kind of bad guy.”

  A moment of silence filled the air. An unspoken question hung between us.

  “He was simply stating the truth.”

  “What? That his son’s accident was your fault? C’mon, J. D. You don’t think for a second this was in some way your doing?”

  He took a deep breath and brought his leg off the seat, turning to face me. “I know we did the right thing today, but all the other stuff was correct.”

  “You mean you aren’t sweet and innocent Barney Fife after all?” I grinned at him, lowering my head to see under the brim of his hat. I tried to catch his eyes with my smile, as if he were a frowning child. He pushed his coffee cup away.

  “Aw, Sheriff, I thought I was sleeping with the straitlaced nerd of Truhart. You mean to tell me I’ve actually found myself a bad boy?” I put my hand up and pumped the air with my fist, trying to lighten his mood. “Awesome! You couldn’t have made me happier. Let’s go. Your place or mine? I’m—”

  J. D. reached out and grasped both of my hands. “I was picked up by the police twice by the time I was sixteen.” He leaned forward and stared me in the eye. “You were probably an honors student, right? Well, I finished my GED online from a juvenile-detention center. Did you hear me?

  “I lived in Detroit until I was thirteen, then my mother hooked up with a truck driver and moved me to a trailer in the woods off M-33. I hated it. I knew more about how to hot-wire a car and pick a lock than how to ride a bike or hunt deer! In high school I was wasted every day before the sun set. I fought with Dylan and his friends all the time. When I was living in Truhart I was the local juvenile delinquent.”

  I started to protest, but he squeezed my hand tighter. “That’s why they renamed me Juvenile Delinquent Hardy—my own mother wouldn’t bail me out of trouble half the time. My father? Some would call him the accidental sperm donor. She called him lucky! He never had to deal with me.”

  My hands hurt from his iron grip, but I didn’t let him know. I stared straight back at him and forced myself not to flinch.

  He slowly released my hand and looked away. “After I was picked up for lifting a six-pack at a convenience store, my mother moved down to Florida with a new guy and I never heard from her again.

  “Sheriff Howe took me under his wing before I ended up in prison and showed me that I could be better. He told me I was young enough to turn my life around. He was the father I never had.” He swallowed and struggled to keep his voice even. “It was hard, but I did change. When I finished my diploma I took college courses in law enforcement. The chance he gave me was one in a million. He trusted me—encouraged me to become a police officer. After a few years in Detroit, he even invited me back here, to the town that knows me as a criminal deviant. No wonder everyone has a hard time with the fact that he made me his deputy sheriff.”

  He shrugged. “Today just proves I can’t do this. These people don’t want me around. They won’t forget.”

  I knew all about being around people who wouldn’t let the past go. I still felt the shame of being the troublemaking congressman’s daughter from Toledo. But there was one huge difference between J. D. and me.

  “You came back to face your demons, J. D. Nobody does that. I certainly didn’t. I couldn’t take the pressure of dealing with what everyone at home thought of me. So I ran away. But you didn’t.”

  “It’s different.”

  “Not really.” I pulled my journal out of my purse and waved it in front of him. “You’ve already won your battle. I have to do homework to keep from slipping. And even then, I still fail.”

  I shoved the leather-bound book in his hands and he flipped through the pages. “What’s this toward the back?”

  “The homework I made for myself.”

  “You’re missing something.”

  “No, I’m not. I wrote it down a few weeks ago. Take a big risk.”

  “That’s not what you ne—”

  “The point is that I still need work. But you—you did it all on your own. Without expensive therapy.”

  “Well, I had Sheriff Howe and his family.”

  “You did the hard work, J. D. You were successful.”

  He handed me the journal and a flicker of doubt wavered in his eyes. “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

  “What? I’d never do that. I take way too much pleasure in teasing you and making you miserable.”

  He grunted.

  I put both hands on the table and leaned forward. “You know what coming back here makes you, J. D.?”

  I leaned in and pushed his hat back until my face was inches from his. “You’re going to have to excuse my R-rated words, but my bad-girl side is coming out. It makes you my damn hero!”

  Speechless, he stared at me for a moment. Then the corner of his mouth slowly curled and much of the tension left his face. “I might have to arrest you if you keep swearing like that.”

  “Well, you know, all day I’ve been daydreaming about you, me, and those handcuffs.”

  God, I loved making him smile! It was perhaps the best thing I had done all year. The shadows were still there. But I had cracked his mood. A warmth spread over me and warded off the chill from the rain.

  J. D. wiped his hand across his face and straightened his hat, trying to disguise his boyish smile. It made me light-headed. “You are really something, you know that?” J. D. said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before. Stupid. Crazy. Certainly trouble. But never a hero.”

  “It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? J. D. Hero. What the heck is your real name?” His smile disappeared for a moment.

  I quickly changed the subject. “Well, we need another way to translate J. D. How about Just Divine Hardy?” He tilted his head and rolled his eyes.

  “Just Delicious Hardy?” The smile returned.

  “How about Just Dumb?” he said caustically.

  I sat back and swatted the air. “Stop that, J. D. I’m going to have to have Nestor help with this project of reinventing your name. You are way too caught up in this Juvenile Delinquent thing.”

  A flash of lightning made the lights overhead flicker. A grumble of thunder followed.

  “I think we’re in for more rain.”

  “Yep.”

  “I feel bad for all those kids who don’t get to see any fireworks tonight.”

  His mouth twisted down at the corner. “Not me. After you see a few hands blown apart in the city, you learn to hate the Fourth of July.”

  “Thanks for the sobering mental image, Sheriff. We really need to get you out of this funk.”

  Mischief twinkled in his eyes. “Just a suggestion, but I’m
off duty. We could start our own fireworks.”

  “We could?” I put my foot in his lap and wiggled my toes.

  He caught my foot and tickled, making me cry out. “Yeah, I know how to start great fireworks without even using a match.”

  “No match? What do you use?” I asked.

  “My tongue.” He still had my foot, but he ran a hand up the inside of my leg.

  “Let’s go, hero.”

  Chapter 15

  The first ray of sunshine cast a hazy glow across the road. It burned off the fog that had hovered since daylight. Taking advantage of the change in weather, I walked into town, feeling like a night creature coming out after a long sleep.

  Since the Fourth of July, it had rained for over a week. The Chamber of Commerce had postponed the fireworks twice. They finally decided to light them off after the Timberfest in August. The rain had put a damper on everything. Summer residents watched reruns on TV, played cards inside, and took off to movie theaters and shopping at the outlet stores near I-75. It was like Truhart went dormant.

  For his part, when he wasn’t in bed with me, J. D. said that the rain at least helped him get caught up on a dreaded pile of paperwork that had been piling up on his desk. But even with that, he had a bad week. Two cantankerous speeders insisted they would see him in court. A bonfire on Reply Lake burned a cottage down and sent the owner to the hospital. And Dylan Schraeder lawyered up.

  J. D. and I ate dinner together or at Nestor’s, and went to a movie in Gaylord one night. We spent several sweet nights listening to the rain on the roof and sharing secrets. He helped me with my homework from my therapist. And my own self-imposed homework. We had fun imagining what kind of risk I should take—especially during lovemaking.

  As I walked along, dodging puddles, I wondered how many times my mother had traveled this road. Were there any happy memories here for her? My mother and Grandma always seemed to fight. It was one of my last memories of the two of them together.

  Grandma had made a rare visit to stay with us one cold weekend in the middle of the winter when I was a senior in high school. On the second evening, Grandma came down the stairs wearing heels and a red dress with matching lipstick. I was used to seeing Mom and Dad leaving the house dressed up for the fund-raising crowd, but it was strange to see Grandma that way.

  “I’m going with your parents to a swanky party for one of your dad’s campaign donors. Do I look fancy enough, sweetpea?” Grandma had asked me. I made her pose for a picture and when I finished she grabbed the camera and took one of us both.

  Later that night I woke up to the sound of angry voices. Grandma came into my bedroom and hugged me. “Good-bye, darlin’. I have to go.”

  I rubbed my eyes and threw my arms around her. “But we were going to play cards all morning.”

  Grandma kissed me on the top of my head. “I am so sorry, hon. You know I love you. We’ll play loads next time you visit. I promise.”

  But that never happened. I heard later that a major donor of Dad’s kept making disparaging remarks about homosexuals at the fund-raiser. Grandma poured her Manhattan on his head.

  I went to college the next year, thinking I would be back in the summer. We kept in touch with phone calls and birthday cards. But I never saw Grandma Dory again.

  I was so lost in my thoughts that I reached Main Street before I knew it. I stopped at the drugstore to buy shampoo and Twinkies, fooling myself that it was about homework rather than the fact that I had grown fond of them.

  It was Wednesday. Ladies’ day at the diner. I had gotten in the habit of joining them, enjoying the conversation that ranged from raising children, to diet tips that never worked, to menopause.

  When I entered the diner the bell over the door jingled. Mac, the cook, passed me on his way out. He usually left the diner to Corinne when the ladies invaded. Cherry and Ellie sat at the counter with Sandy, eating grilled cheese. They waved me over.

  “Can we make bracelets this afternoon, Elizabeth?” Ellie asked. A few days ago I had brought up an idea that had been brewing in my head for a while. I thought the girls should set up a small booth in the Timberfest craft tent and sell their bracelets. Ellie was all in, but Cherry was still skeptical.

  Cherry put her head in her hand. “Here we go. She won’t give in, you know. Now that your house is clean, I knew you were going to come up with another scheme to keep us busy, Elizabeth.”

  I turned to Cherry. “Well, I was getting worried I was violating child-labor laws.”

  Cherry popped a potato chip in her mouth. “Aren’t we going to look stupid sitting next to grannies who display their crocheted blankets and men who carve owls out of tree stumps?”

  “Believe me, Cherry, no one looks silly when they count their cash.”

  “I don’t know . . . maybe. As lame as the festival is, at least it’s something to do,” she admitted.

  I stole a chip from her before Sandy and I joined the rest of the women at the booths. I sat down across from Marva, who was busy adding packs of sugar to her iced tea. “Sorry again about your stove, Elizabeth.”

  “Thank Joe again for not billing me.”

  “Oh, honey, don’t worry about that. Joe never charges my friends,” she said, stirring the tea.

  “Wait a minute! He charged me last year when the worm refrigerator went bad,” Flo complained from the seat next to her.

  “Don’t start on that, Flo. You can afford it. Besides, Elizabeth here has already dealt with a busticated washing machine. She needs a break.”

  I wasn’t denying it. Making car payments was hard enough, but my bank account couldn’t handle new appliances and I refused to ask my parents for a dime. Despite what the media said about me being rich, working for a nonprofit hadn’t been very lucrative.

  “Well, between the stove and the washing machine, I guess it’s time to get a job.” I pulled the paperwork for the Timberfest closer and started looking through Marva’s forms.

  “Can we have a milkshake now, Mom?” Ellie asked from the counter.

  Corinne spoke up. “I still see a corner of that sandwich left, Ellie. I’ll make it when you clear your plate. And don’t throw your piece away when I’m not looking, Cherry. I’m watching you.” Corinne saw me smiling and winked. She had raised four boys. She was tough as nails. “You are doing a great job getting us organized for the Timberfest, Elizabeth. Even the acting sheriff is helping us out. J. D. got the fire truck from Harrisburg to put that sign that’s been hanging in the middle of the street to rights again.”

  “And he’s organizing security at a much cheaper rate than anyone Regina Bloodworth was trying to hire,” I said. A few ladies nodded. But others looked away. Corinne and I were on an unspoken stealth mission to break down the old resentment against J. D. But we weren’t having much success.

  “I still can’t believe you got a refund for that horrible Eiffel Tower that Regina Bloodworth bought,” June Krueger said. “I hear we might get a giant slide to go with that bouncy house.”

  “Well, let’s wait and see what our expenditures look like before we commit,” I said, looking back over the papers. “The inflatable company only needs twenty-four hours’ notice.”

  Corinne leaned over and set a cup of coffee in front of me. “Exactly what did you do before you came here, Elizabeth?”

  “Uh, well . . . I worked for a small company.”

  “I don’t know what it is about you, but you just don’t seem the type to work in the secretarial pool,” said Flo.

  Marva nodded. “Were you around last week when Elizabeth tried to get me to start a book club? She was dead serious. Now, a magazine club I would enjoy. People or the National Enquirer. But all those thick books that make you cry and get mad at the world? No, thank you.”

  “Well, I like those books,” said Flo. “I just finished Atlas Shrugged for the third time. Elizabeth and I had a nice discussion about it two days ago.”

  I was still amazed by Flo’s literary knowledge. “I don’t
know how you have time, Flo.”

  “Business is a little slow in the winter. Summer’s harder.”

  “I guess you aren’t hiring at the bait store then, huh?” I joked.

  She shook her head. “Sorry, hon. Speaking of which, I have to get back. Call me if you ladies need my opinion or anything.”

  When Flo left, I turned back to the ladies. “Well, I do have to find a job eventually, so let me know if any of you hear of any openings. There was nothing at the library in Harrisburg.” The librarian looked like she should have retired ten years ago. But she’d narrowed her eyes at me when I asked, as if she was offended by my question. Too bad the old bookstore on Main Street was closed.

  “A library does seem to be your style, Elizabeth. Of course, when you get dressed up to interview you might want to tone the makeup down a bit for that one,” June said.

  “Well, my bank account is shrinking, so I am getting a little desperate.”

  Marva grinned. “After watching you at that pole-dancing party you might be barking up the wrong tree. I’ll bet you could get hired to mow lawns in your bikini.”

  “Hey, there’s an idea! At least it would get me a paycheck.”

  Corinne walked over with a coffeepot and put her arm around my shoulders. “You wouldn’t want to do that, honey. Believe me.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “You’d be cleaning grass clippings out of your navel all the time,” she said with a perfectly straight face before topping me off.

  I almost dropped my cup.

  “In all seriousness, if you decide you want to sell something, I can help,” Marva said. “As you know, there’s a new party coming up. You ladies ever heard of Sneaky Peaky?”

  A low moan echoed in the room as the ladies turned their backs on Marva and pretended not to hear.

  June hugged her chest. “Those Sneaky Peaky bras you tried to sell me were awful, Marva. They made me feel like Dolly Parton. I wanted breast-reduction surgery after thirty seconds of wearing one.”

  “And let’s not forget, we still have the Timberfest to work on,” Sandy said. “I’ve got to get back to the department soon. So can we finish our plans?”