Skinny Dipping Season

by Cynthia Tennent

  Dad smoothed his hair and cleared his throat. “There’s no one for miles around. Who the hell would call the police? We don’t need the law involved.” He started to say again, but clamped his mouth shut.

  “Well now, one of the neighbors is a bit sensitive to noises. You would be surprised how responsive we are to disruptions in our town.”

  I nodded my head and tried to keep my voice even. “It’s true . . . very responsive. This is my friend, J. D. Hardy.”

  They all stared in silence. Alexa had the temerity to laugh through her tears. “I thought you were never going near a cop again.”

  I wished J. D. could lift me up on his white steed and carry me away like one of my paperback heroes. But he didn’t disappoint me. Instead of a sword, J. D. used his most powerful weapon on my family: an absolutely charming smile.

  “It’s wonderful to meet all of you. Now, I’m not sure why Gladys Stubbs called the sheriff’s office, but this doesn’t look like there’s a problem. Just a little loud talking, maybe. It’s nothing compared to most of the disagreements I get called to.”

  J. D.’s eyes rested on Elliot. “Anything I can do to help?”

  My mother took a deep breath. “I don’t suppose you know where I can find a drink?” She peeked at J. D. hopefully.

  “Not a bad idea,” J. D. said. He took his hat off, placed it on the end table in the living room, took the wineglass she had been holding, and calmly walked into the kitchen.

  For a shocked moment I thought he was going to pour himself the drink. Instead, I heard the refrigerator open. He came back with a glassful of Faygo Red Pop. She took it and frowned. “Sorry, no vodka,” he said. Then he reached out and shook my father’s hand. “You must be Congressman Lively. It’s nice to finally meet you, sir.” Dad was so shocked by J. D.’s take-charge attitude he forgot to let go of J. D.’s hand.

  J. D. continued: “I am sure, being a congressman, you are familiar with the expediency of mediation to solve disputes.”

  “Mediation? . . . ahem—I mean, yes!” my father said, pulling his hand away.

  “I find that sometimes it’s better to work out problems in a smaller group. Why don’t the three of us, Elliot, you, and me, go out on the back porch and discuss things on our own.”

  The two men stood, measuring each other.

  “What do you say?” J. D. inclined his head, waiting for Elliot and Dad to make a decision. It was hard not to be impressed.

  “Sounds like a grand idea.” Dad must have recognized the impact a rational bystander could make on the situation. He didn’t even question how J. D. knew about the dispute.

  Elliot, on the other hand, stood with a pinched face, looking like a cornered child. Perhaps it was the steely glare J. D. used, while maintaining that princely smile, or maybe the badge that glowed in the sun on his chest—but Elliot finally rolled his eyes and walked out of the room. My jaw dropped as I watched all three of them exit to the back porch. The door closed firmly behind them.

  Alexa daintily wiped the last tears from the corners of her eyes. “How did you meet a man . . . like him, Elizabeth?”

  Was she really thinking about a man at a time like this? And more importantly, that was my man. I would fight her to the end if she ever came near him.

  My mother had found the Cabernet Sauvignon that I had bought for another sunset with Nestor. She dumped out the Faygo and attempted to uncork the wine bottle with a corkscrew that I had left beside it. I felt the familiar hurt and something else burn deep inside me as I watched her pour a generous glass and take a long sip. She drank like a woman who had walked for miles in the desert.

  My family could be a study in the American Academy of Psychiatric Medicine.

  Mom sat down at the dining-room table and raised her eyes and spoke. “God, I hate this house!”

  I focused on her as she raised the glass. It was as if she were having a private conversation with herself. “I spent seventeen years in this house. Seventeen miserable years. And I couldn’t wait to get out of this dump.”

  I leaned against the nicotine-stained wall in the living room. “Surely there were good times. Was it really that bad?”

  “Yes it was . . . and even worse.” She shook her head and continued in a shaky voice: “Becky Blodget, they called me. Becky! The most exciting thing that ever happened in this town was a Saturday-night high-school football game or a fish fry at the Elks lodge . . . with cheap cans of beer in Styrofoam coolers and tuna casseroles. God, I hate tuna casserole . . . And I hate housecoats and curlers. Your grandmother wore them everywhere.”

  “Funny . . .” I added gently, “Elliot and I loved this town. We thought it was the most comfortable place in the world.”

  Mom let out a pent-up breath and took another long gulp of the wine. “I never should have let you and Elliot spend so many summers here. I know that now. You two somehow got it in your minds that this trash is better than what we have at home.”

  Her red-rimmed eyes bored holes in me. I looked away, feeling singed. All those years she had smiled and lifted babies across the state of Ohio. She had spoken of being raised in a small town and of the struggles that were part of small-town life.

  Another knock sounded from the front door. It was already half open and Nestor appeared, carrying a box. He nudged the door open farther with his foot.

  Nestor spotted my sister and mother and smiled. “I didn’t know your family was visiting, Elizabeth. Becky! How good to see you again!” My mother flinched.

  I took the box from him and shoved it in the corner next to the fake fern. It occurred to me that if the whole town kept showing up at my door, I was going to have to get more chairs.

  Nestor walked over and gave Mom a hug where she still sat at the table. She stiffened at his touch. He turned and greeted Alexa. When Nestor’s back was turned, Mom lifted the glass of wine and finished it off before reaching for the bottle and pouring more.

  “Elizabeth, I hope you don’t mind. I saw several cars and I thought I would stop in and bring that.” Nestor pointed toward the box. “Alexa, I haven’t seen you since the funeral. And even that was so brief. How are you?”

  Alexa mumbled a response.

  “Are you spending a few days with Elizabeth?”

  Mom and Alexa shook their heads and pressed their lips together.

  Nestor moved closer to me. “I finally found the box I saved of your grandma’s, Elizabeth. Can you believe it was in the basement next to my old winter clothes? I guess I never saw it, because now that I spend the winters in the Keys I don’t need my old longjohns. Ha! I can’t imagine how flea-ridden they must be after all these years.” Alexa put a hand to her mouth. Her face had taken on a chartreuse color.

  “Your daughter has been a joy to have around this summer,” Nestor said to Mom. “We’ve had ourselves some grand euchre games. And the fish Elizabeth caught on the lake were some of the best-tasting morsels I’ve had in years.”

  Alexa turned to me as if I had sprouted horns. I stuck out my tongue, wishing it was forked.

  “Thank you for bringing that by, Nestor. I always appreciate more fishing equipment,” I said, trying to break the awkward silence that had descended.

  I was beyond grateful when I finally heard the back door open. Elliot ambled in with his hands in his pockets. My father, although still grim, was less flushed. J. D. was last. His eyes met mine over the tops of their heads and he sent me a reassuring look. I tried to hide my distress, but it was exhausting to put forth the effort. I reintroduced Nestor to my father and was pleased that Dad managed to be polite. Elliot put his fist up for a bump. Nestor let out a high-pitched giggle and covered Elliot’s fist with his full hand.

  “We’ve talked it over and have a solution. Rebecca, I think you should head up to Harbor Springs with Alexa and finish off the week. Elliot and I are going to stay for a few more hours while he packs up and I have a little talk with Elizabeth. Then I’ll take him home this evening to finish out his exams,” said Dad, fro
wning at the glass of wine in Mom’s hands.

  Elliot added, “I’m coming back after my last test is done, though.”

  “Just for a week or so,” Dad conceded. “If that’s all right with Elizabeth.” I had no idea what magic J. D. had inflicted on Dad and Elliot, but I was relieved beyond measure. Perhaps everything would work out after all.

  “Maybe you’ll all want to come to the Timberfest when you return,” said Nestor. “Elizabeth has been working hard on it. She just arranged several new attractions for the little ones. They’ll have elephant ears and a bouncy house, and a pie-eating contest!” Mom choked on her wine. “Oh, before I forget, the property manager at the Tall Pines wants to sponsor a dunk tank.”

  J. D. walked over until he stood in front of me with his back to the rest of the room. “All good?” he asked quietly.

  I nodded. He gave my arm a reassuring squeeze. Speaking to everyone, he said, “I have to get going. It was nice meeting all of you.” What a good liar he was.

  “I’ll call you later, E,” J. D. said. I wanted to jump in his SUV with him. But I stayed behind with the crazies.

  “I’ll leave with you,” Nestor added. He turned to my mother with a gleam in his eye. “Have a nice trip to Harbor Springs, Becky.”

  When the sound of their cars faded down the road, Mom rose unsteadily to her feet. She grabbed the whole bottle of wine.

  Dad pulled the bottle out of Mom’s hands and put it on a nearby table. “Rebecca, it’s best if you hit the road now.” He ushered her toward the front door.

  I followed numbly.

  On her way to the car, Alexa walked past the garden gnome and announced to no one, “That tacky thing has been here forever. It belongs in the trash.”

  I glanced at the gnome, feeling a kinship with him. “At least he’s loyal.”

  She kicked it out of her way. “Bitch,” she said under her breath.

  Once in Alexa’s BMW, Alexa and Mom rolled down the windows until the air-conditioning kicked in. I heard them debating about whether there would be a decent restaurant on the way home. Dad stood by Alexa’s BMW. “I’ll call you when Elliot and I get on the road.”

  Elliot slouched in the shadows and didn’t bother with good-byes.

  I walked to Mom’s window and grasped the car door.

  “Mom—” I didn’t really know what I wanted to tell her.

  She looked down at my reddened hands. “This place will be bad for you, like it was for me. You need to think about that offer of being an au pair. ” Then she leaned in closer and said in a low voice, “The Tall Pines? So now you’re friends with trailer rats and queer hillbillies, Elizabeth? You certainly are moving up in the world.”

  I went cold.

  Nothing I could say or do could ever salvage my relationship with my mother. I was too far lost to her. Or perhaps it was the other way around.

  I walked away, leaving my father by the car. My legs felt like lead and I wanted to drop down on the couch and pull the blanket over my head, like I did that first morning.

  On my way to the door, I tripped over something sharp that bit into my bare foot. I looked at the ground. The top of the gnome lay facedown in a bed of pine needles. His little blue clogs and short legs lay several feet away in the ditch.

  The last of the gnomes had met his end.

  Chapter 19

  I grabbed my car keys and bolted. I didn’t even feel the sharp stones on my bare feet. There was only an explosive rage at my mother’s words and the fleeting thought that I was as shattered as the gnome.

  The tires skidded out from under me as I backed down the driveway and shifted onto Crooked Road. By the time I hit the county road my speedometer showed twenty miles over the speed limit and climbing fast.

  I passed Ellie and Cherry’s small trailer at the Tall Pines Community and felt the bile rise in my throat at my mother’s comments. Trailer rats. And Nestor. I couldn’t even think the words she used about Nestor, because they were so obscene to me.

  My hands were shaking and I was hyperventilating by the time the buildings at the outskirts of Truhart came into view. I forced myself to slow down behind a caravan of pickup trucks and rusted sedans and I curled my fingers on the wheel, trying to keep from hitting the horn.

  All my life my mother had smiled for the cameras, supported the right causes, and claimed her tolerance for others. In real life she wouldn’t let us attend public school, sign petitions, or shop at Wal-mart.

  I passed the new hardware store with its huge parking lot and the fake log-cabin bank with its new ATM drive-through window. The trucks and sedans ahead of me peeled off onto the smaller roads and I traveled under the banner inviting everyone to the Timberfest next weekend.

  I was tired of apologizing to my parents.

  At the diner, two of the regulars sat in the large booth in the front window, drinking coffee. I could barely make out Corinne behind the counter. Then the road opened up again and I gunned through a stale yellow light. Colony Cleaners on my left had its Y back in place. A road sign for Booties bragged about the best chili fries south of the Mackinac Bridge.

  I headed west and the Family Fare came into view. Abruptly, I yanked the wheel toward the parking lot, almost hitting a shopping cart that had strayed into the driveway.

  I thought of the last piece of homework I had written on the last page of my journal. A daring idea prickled at the back of my mind. I never thought I would do it. But suddenly, that plan was the perfect antidote to my mother’s bitter words, and my own irrational fears.

  I parked diagonally in the last aisle, disregarding parking lines.

  “Marva!” I shouted before I was all the way through the sliding doors.

  “Marva,” I called again, marching up to her at the manager’s desk.

  “Oh hey, honey. How’s things?” Marva, hunched over Hollywood VIPs latest issue, barely looked up from a picture of some guy holding a whip. Marva would have shredded Mom’s haughty attitude to smithereens with just a loud word and a flick of her large finger. I made a mental note to introduce her sometime.

  “Marva, do you still have those Boost-‘em Bras?”

  Her face dropped. “Actually, I have only three left. They were a big hit at my Sneaky Peaky party last week.”

  “I need to buy one now.”

  Marva sent the cashier in the next aisle and her older, blue-haired customer an “it figures” look. “Now? You should have come last week. I gotta work ‘til eight PM. I can get it for you after that if you want.”

  “No. I need one now.” My world had narrowed down to this one important purchase. I didn’t want to wait.

  “Krista Walters returned one to you earlier, remember, Marva?” piped in the cashier.

  “Yeah, she did.” Marva tilted her head and surveyed my chest, top to bottom and side to side. “But I don’t know if it will fit you or you’ll even like it—”

  “I’ll take it. I don’t care if I have to stuff it with toilet paper. Just let me have it.”

  The blue-haired lady in the next checkout aisle grabbed the triple-ply toilet paper out of her grocery bag and handed it to Marva.

  “Take this, I have plenty at home.”

  Marva took the toilet paper and looked at it thoughtfully, biting her cotton-candy pink lips. “I can get it for you, but I’m a little curious why you’re in such a rush, honey!”

  I lifted my chin. “I’m going for a job interview.”

  For a moment the only sound in the front of the store was John Denver singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane” over the speakers.

  “Uh . . . What the heck kind of job interview are you goin’ on?”

  “Booties!”

  The women gave an audible gasp.

  Marva clutched her chest. “Good Lord, Elizabeth.”

  “That bra looks like it should be on the endangered-species list!”

  I suppressed the urge to cross my arms over my red leopard-print bra. Everything about the bra fit except the cup size. The stiff, mol
ded outline was clearly visible under the semitransparent microscopic T-shirt I wore. I already wanted to run into the bathroom and hide in the stall. I hunched over, willing my chest to shrink. Then I realized that was beside the point. So, I buried my pride and reached over to hand the man his beer.

  “Thank you, sweetie,” he said.

  There. That wasn’t so bad.

  I glanced over at the other waitresses and tried my best to imitate their flirty attitude. The brunette, three tables down, posed with her tray on her hip. She talked and threw her head back, laughing at her customer’s joke. I couldn’t help but admire the way she thrust her perky breasts out and held her shoulders back without any self-consciousness. Was that something some women were born with?

  I tried again at the next table. “How’s everything with you gentlemen tonight?”

  “Fine. Can you move a bit so we can see the game?” said a middle-aged man. I crouched and took their orders. One man tried to look down my shirt.

  “Ahem, the game?” I said, pointing behind me. He wiggled his eyebrows. A group of men passed by on their way to an empty table.

  “Hey, I know you!”

  I stood up and looked right into the sneering face of Dylan Schraeder—Luke’s dad. The one who had been so rude to J. D. at the Fourth of July picnic. He practically licked me with his eyes. “You hang out with Junior Delinquent Hardy.” He threw his head back and laughed at the irony. “Woo-hoo, baby! It’s funny to see you here! What’s the matter? Hardy too boring for you on a Saturday night? Well, seek and you shall find. I can help you get over the boring Hardy blues anytime.”

  Bootie stepped in front of him. “Looking for a table, Dylan? I got your favorite one right over here. . . .” He put his arm out to the men and they moved away. I took a deep breath and turned, catching the eye of one of the waitresses I hadn’t met yet. She was shorter than the others, and had red wavy hair, big blue eyes, and a smattering of freckles. Barely out of high school, for sure.

  “That guy is one of our most obnoxious customers,” the redhead waitress said. “Don’t worry. Bootie is usually good at keeping an eye on us.” She shrugged. “As crazy as it is, we don’t put out like the most of the county thinks. At least not during work hours.”