Skinny Dipping Season

by Cynthia Tennent

  I pulled my feet out of the water and let them drip-dry on the dock. “Are you telling me there are snapping turtles in this lake?”

  “Well, yes, my dear. Although it’s been a while since I set eyes on one.”

  I scanned the water, searching for dark shadows, and took a big sip of wine. Elliot grabbed a soda and the last Twinkie out of the picnic basket. He shook his head at me and snickered.

  “Did you ever hear how Russ Littleton is doing?” Nestor asked.

  “Well, last I heard he was having trouble getting the hang of walking with only four toes,” J. D. said.

  “Poor man.”

  J. D. shook his head in woeful agreement and looked down at his glass. “Who would think one lost toe could throw a man’s balance off so much.”

  “What happened?” I asked. They were probably just trying to scare me. But I was curious.

  “Well, now, Russ and his brother-in-law, Hank, were out here last summer at just about this time of day. They were fishing and having a lot of success too, I hear. Then they had a nibble. It was a lunker for sure!”

  “What do you mean—a lunker?”

  “Jeez E, don’t you know anything? It’s a big fish,” Elliot said.

  J. D. nodded. “The kind you only catch once every couple of summers—”

  Nestor interrupted. “I hear it was a pike that measured almost two feet.”

  “I heard that too. Anyway, you’ll like this story, Elliot. They started to pull in their line, when out of the water jumped an enormous snapping turtle. And get this: That snapping turtle jumped right into the boat.”

  “Oh come on. You guys are making this up just to scare me,” I said. Even so, I scooted backward toward the picnic basket.

  J. D. put a hand over his heart and said with a serious face, “I swear, I was just as shaken when I first heard the story too.”

  I looked down at the bottomless lake and back at J. D. I didn’t think he would say that if he didn’t mean it. “What did they do?”

  “They tried to kick that turtle out of the boat. But Russ had taken off his shoes while he was fishing—”

  “If only he hadn’t done that,” Nestor said gravely. Both men paused and sighed. Nestor took another long sip of his wine. His mouth trembled.

  “I could hear him screaming like a girl all the way from my house,” added Nestor.

  “I heard some people say they heard him down on Echo Lake too.”

  “Once that turtle finally let go, both men jumped in the lake and swam to shore, leaving their fishing boat with a pike flopping around inside it.”

  I was on my knees now with my feet tucked under me.

  “Well, time to head back. This wine is going straight to my aging cranium,” said Nestor.

  We put away the food and loaded up the basket. As we boarded the rowboat, I eyed the surrounding water warily. When Nestor was comfortable in the back bench of the rowboat, J. D. and Elliot jumped in.

  I hesitated. “Do you think a snapping turtle could jump in this boat?”

  “I doubt it,” said J. D. “What? Are you worried?”

  “No. Of course not.” I crawled to the bow of the boat and let J. D. row from the middle seat. We had left our shoes on shore, so I could only curl my toes tightly and hope for land soon. We were passing over a particularly dark patch and I craned my neck to get a better view of the sinister shape.

  “That might be one—” J. D. started to say, and before he could finish I jumped from my perch onto J. D.’s and wrapped my hands around his neck. I clung so hard his breathing was impaired.

  “It’s all right, E. I’ve got you,” he wheezed. He put his arms around me from behind and brought me down hard in his lap.

  “Get a room!” Elliot jeered.

  “How come Grandma never told me about the snapping turtles in this lake? We used to swim in it when we were little.” I had skinny dipped in it just a few days ago. Well, never again!

  Nestor’s shoulders were shaking in the shadow of the advancing evening. Reaching out, I took his hand. “It’s okay, Nestor. We’re almost to the shore. We won’t let anything hurt you . . . just don’t jump out, okay?”

  Elliot made a noise that sounded like a strange sniffle. I sat up rigidly, feeling as if I’d missed something.

  “What? I’m nervous too,” insisted Elliot. J. D.’s mouth tilted in the corner.

  At the shore, J. D. released me and jumped off the boat to drag it farther on shore. Then, still holding a shaking Nestor’s hand, I guided him off the boat and onto land . . . where Nestor proceeded to snort and bend over in laughter.

  I sent J. D. a worried glance. Maybe this whole thing had been too much for Nestor. J. D. was staring hard at the ground. His chest was shaking.

  Elliot burst into laughter. “That was great! She always falls for that shit!”

  I grabbed the picnic basket from the boat and swung it at J. D.’s head. “You cretin! I almost knocked the boat over after that story!”

  “We would have saved you,” defended Nestor.

  “Men are so stupid. Why do you love to scare women like that?”

  “It’s what we do best,” said J. D.

  I stomped off to the SUV while J. D. and Elliot guided Nestor up the path to the waiting car. Nestor was still giggling. “That was a good one, J. D. Almost as good as when I first pulled the story on you.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t go swimming for a month after that one. . . .”

  When they arrived at the truck they found me sitting behind the wheel. “I’ll drive.”

  J. D. narrowed his eyes and handed me the keys. “Just be careful with this truck, Betsy. It’s not like that guppy you drive. The acceleration really has a lot of kick.”

  I nodded and stared straight ahead. “Only when you push it off a cliff, Hard-ass.”

  J. D. chuckled and helped Nestor into the truck, then went to help Elliot finish loading up the back. Nestor put his hand on my knee. “Don’t blame them too much my dear. I was in on it as well.”

  “Well, as the saying goes, ‘Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge,’ ” I said with a wicked smile. I shifted the SUV into drive.

  “Watch out for snapping turtles on your long walk home, boys!” I yelled out the window. I looked in the rearview mirror at J. D. and Elliot eating road dust.

  Chapter 18

  The first troops arrived less than forty-eight hours later. My parents, Rebecca and Tom Lively, pulled their bug-spattered Lincoln Town Car next to my own dusty Honda. The cloudless sky and the lack of any breeze made the midday heat unbearable. Through the open windows I could hear their car doors slam and their feet bite into the gravel driveway. Elliot had just enough time to jump up from the dining-room table, where he had been playing Candy Crush on his cell phone, and dash to the bedroom to hide like a coward.

  The front door slammed against the wall. “Where is he?”

  I wasn’t expecting a pleasant reunion, but I was surprised they had managed to keep their anger so fresh. I would have thought two days and a half-dozen phone calls might have calmed them down. But they entered the house bringing their fury with them like a firestorm.

  I greeted them in bare feet at the door and held up my coffee mug, hoping I could delay the inevitable. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like some coffee first?”

  Dad’s generous head of slicked-back gray hair and his perfectly pressed khakis and polo shirt might have fooled most people into thinking he was in control. But he had dark shadows under his eyes and a layer of sweat on his neck, a sure sign for me that he was losing his grip.

  Mom’s Chanel sunglasses rested at a crooked angle on her head, keeping her hair back like a wayward headband. She held onto the handle of her Tory Burch handbag with white knuckles. The fact that she made it through the front door said a lot about how upset she was.

  Dad swept past me and headed down the back hallway. The sound of the bedroom door being torn open made me wince. “I hope you’re happy! We drove all the way from T
oledo. What the hell were you thinking, taking off in the middle of summer school like that? You didn’t even let us know where you were going.”

  “It’s not my fault you didn’t check voice mail until after cocktail hour.” Elliot’s muffled response did nothing to placate Dad.

  “You still have more than a week left of summer school!”

  I followed Dad into the hallway and tried to explain. “He isn’t going to respond to that kind of logic right now—”

  My dad turned around. “If you had listened to us in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this godforsaken town trying to bring him home.”

  “But I—” He ignored me and continued to berate Elliot.

  I returned to the living room and perched on the couch, watching my mother fidget. She paced back and forth as she listened to the argument. I gestured to the chair, but she shuddered and turned away.

  After a few minutes Elliot stomped into the living room and sank down next to me. I don’t know if he thought things would improve in the living room, but now both of my parents lectured him about his future. Every time I tried to intervene, I was told to stay out of it.

  I was invisible and irrelevant, it seemed. I sat back on the couch and tried to focus on breathing.

  I wasn’t prepared for the second assault less than a half hour later.

  Alexa honored us with her presence.

  “I came from Harbor Springs as soon as I could,” she announced, strutting through the doorway. “Dad, I just got a message from your press secretary. Someone found out that Elliot skipped out of summer school. That nasty reporter from Cleveland is all over social media about our family problems. He’s likening it to your potential mismanagement of the Commerce Committee. I figured it was time for family intervention before things got worse.” Alexa had a habit of inflating our importance in the political scene.

  Mom’s voice shook. “Thank you so much. Maybe you can help talk sense into them.”

  Alexa pointed a finger at me. “Both of you are ruining the summer for all of us! Dad will be lucky if he still has a career after this.”

  Elliot slumped farther down on the couch, and tilted his head backwards to stare at the ceiling. “Great. Now we have Vacation Barbie here to lecture us.”

  “Oh, grow up, Elliot. This place is like a sauna. Didn’t Grandma have air-conditioning?” Alexa flipped her hair over her white halter top and ran a hand across her pink floral skirt. Her blond highlights glistened in the sunlight. Her headband matched her skirt. She was perfect. But I couldn’t help feeling like I was watching one of Elliot’s video-game characters.

  She accidentally touched the cheap curtains and recoiled.

  “No need to call the CDC. Grandma’s tacky living room isn’t contagious, Alexa,” Elliot sneered.

  Alexa wiped her hand on her skirt and turned to me. “You two are so selfish. Did you even think about the rest of us?”

  “Hey, I’m the one you’re mad at. Not Elizabeth.” Elliot was protecting me. Strange. Especially given the fact that I was here because of his marijuana stash.

  “I canceled my golf game with the CEO of Landfills Unlimited for this, so put a lid on it, Elliot,” said Alexa.

  “Can you find me something to drink, Elizabeth?” Mom asked. “And make sure the glass is clean.”

  I felt guilty for abandoning Elliot, but no one was interested in hearing from me anyway. I debated jumping up and down to get their attention. But the truth was, I was relieved to retreat to the kitchen and its peeling atomic-age linoleum. I grabbed a glass from the cabinet and I listened to Alexa and Dad pick Elliot apart and demand that he get his “butt off the couch” and climb into the car. The hands on the red plastic clock over the stove ticked the minutes away.

  I moved to the sink and reached for the soap. An absurdity struck me: My family was gathered here in Grandma’s house for the first time ever. Even my mother, who barely crossed the threshold when she dropped me off each summer. My sister hadn’t stepped through the front door since she was very young. Not even after Grandma’s funeral.

  Alexa’s shrill voice was on a familiar tangent. “—your loser friends do nothing but sit around and play emo music and fool around with those stupid video games.”

  “Hey, I just beat Legends of Zelda!”

  “God, Elliot. Get a life! That’s all you ever do.”

  “That’s the only thing worth doing in life.”

  I forced myself to stay in the kitchen. If this continued, I could always return to Toledo. I might find more peace and quiet there.

  I blinked and looked down at my abraded red hands. Without realizing, I had abandoned the glass I’d been washing and started on my hands. Now they were raw. A stream of hot water washed away the last remnants of soap. How had I started this again? With a sick feeling in my gut, I turned off the faucet and stepped back. I peeked around the corner, relieved that no one noticed my lapse.

  Alexa and Dad stood over Elliot, who was still sprawled on the couch.

  “Why are you on those video games all the time?” Dad asked. Weariness was beginning to seep into his voice.

  “Because everything else in life sucks!”

  “Don’t talk to your father like that,” Mom said. “He has done everything possible to make sure you have the very best in life. You have no idea how hard he works on his campaigns and deals with the burden of traveling between Toledo and Washington so you can go to one of the best schools. And for what? You don’t want to play tennis anymore; you don’t go to the club. You don’t seem interested in being with kids who you grew up with. Instead, you just hang out with those hippie kids who do nothing.”

  “That’s the problem, Mom. You think the only thing worthwhile is being served g and t’s on the pool deck,” Elliot said.

  Alexa leaned over Elliot. “Yeah, Elliot, beating Zelda is so much more worthwhile and realistic!”

  “Shut up, Alexa. It’s better than your game, sneaking around with other people’s boyfriends.”

  Something crashed against the wall. It was followed by the unmistakable sound of a hand on flesh.

  The next thing I knew, I had planted myself between Alexa and Elliot. “Enough!”

  Elliot cradled his cheek in one hand and yelled a string of profanity-laden insults at Alexa.

  “What are you talking about?” Mom asked Elliot as he continued shouting.

  “Don’t tell me you had no idea what was going on, Mom. You can’t possibly have missed the fact that your perfect young princess was sneaking around with Elizabeth’s boy—”

  “Elliot!” I warned. “Don’t—”

  But Elliot dodged my arm. “You were lousy at hiding it, Alexa. You were all over each other when you thought no one was looking!”

  “How dare you!” Alexa screeched, jumping toward him.

  “Don’t touch him!” I shouted, putting my palm out.

  Alexa laughed bitterly. “That’s just like you two. Always sticking together—”

  I cut her off. “Was that your excuse? You were jealous of me and Elliot?”

  Alexa ignored me and screamed at Elliot. “You have no proof!”

  “I’m not blind. And neither was Elizabeth that night she walked in on you two!”

  I had no idea Elliot knew about that night. I turned to him. “How did you find out?”

  “One of my friends took a piss and saw them and—”

  “Wait.” Dad raised his hands and shook his head. “I’m confused. Are—are you talking about Colin?”

  Alexa put her hand on Dad’s shoulder. “Elliot thinks just because we hung out sometimes that we were having sex,” she sputtered. “It’s ridiculous! Elizabeth was gone and Colin’s car broke down and he needed help. It was all a misunderstanding.”

  “Misunderstanding, my ass!”

  I looked toward Elliot. He was smiling. I realized that the words had come from my own mouth. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. I finally had their attention and sat down on the floor with my back against the co
uch. I was over Colin. But in a way, it still mattered.

  I stared at my sister. “Knowing Colin cheated on me didn’t hurt half as much as the fact that it was with you—my own sister.”

  A shocked silence filled the room. Then Alexa dramatically crumpled in the chair by the fake fern. “Nobody believes me?”

  I watched in amazement as the largest crocodile tears I had ever seen erupted spontaneously from the corners of her eyes. She shifted her gaze around the room and rocked with her hands around her enhanced chest. I was struck by the fact that not a single smudge of mascara left Alexa’s eyelashes, her face as unblemished as her conscience.

  “I need a drink.” Mom headed into the kitchen. In between opening and closing the cabinet doors, she babbled that she simply didn’t understand what was happening to her family.

  “Let’s talk about this later and deal with one crisis at a time, here,” Dad said. He scolded Elliot for causing Alexa’s tears and Mom’s distress. They raised their voices over each other like a verbal game of leapfrog. Mom reappeared holding an empty wineglass, looking at us forlornly.

  What kind of mental institution had my family escaped from?

  A knock at the door broke through the noise. I was too transfixed by Alexa’s smear-free tears to pay it much attention.

  The door flew open. A figure stood in the doorway. My heart skipped a beat as rays of sunlight streamed from behind him.

  Elliot broke the silence. “Captain Universe has arrived. Here to save the town of Truhart from the raving lunatics of Ohio.”

  Good for Captain Universe. I wanted nothing more than to run into his arms. But mortification that he was about to meet the Livelys at their worst kept me from moving.

  “Someone reported a disturbance in the neighborhood. I was wondering if everything was okay.” J. D.’s eyes met mine. He stepped forward and held out his hand. Feeling like a damsel in distress, I let him help me up off the floor. He looked down at my chapped hands and a muscle tensed in his cheek. I pulled them out of his grasp and hid them behind my back.