The Summer Cottage

by Viola Shipman

  “Hi, yes, sorry to bother you...”

  “What makes you think you were bothering me?”

  I think briefly about busting him, but decide against it. “I’m Adie Lou Kruger...Clarke...Adeleine Clarke,” I say.

  “Can’t make up your mind today?” he asks.

  I can feel my pulse race and the blood rise in my face. I inhale deeply and slowly, and the scent of the lavender I used earlier slows my heart rate.

  “I have a boat in storage here, and I’d like someone to take a look at it,” I explain. “It’s a 1940 Chris-Craft that I’d like to get back in shipshape.” I smile at my little joke.

  “Good one,” the man says. He begins to cough, violently, and then proceeds to cough up what sounds like a boatload of phlegm. He walks back into his office, grabs an empty bottle of beer and spits into it.

  I nearly pass out.

  “Pretty fancy boat,” he says, a rivulet of spittle dangling from his mouth. “Husband must do all right.”

  My pulse instantly quickens.

  “It’s my boat,” I say. “No husband.”

  He holds his hands up as if I were Capone himself. “Okay, lady,” he says.

  “It’s not lady,” I say. “It’s Miss Kruger.”

  His face twitches, and I have a feeling he wants to curse me or call me a “women’s libber” or “bra burner,” but he heads toward a metal file cabinet in the back, and pulls open the third drawer. He rifles slowly through green file folders filled with manila envelopes, and I impatiently want to scream, “Don’t you think it’s time you updated your systems here?” but I keep my mouth shut, lean down to Sonny and stroke his ears to calm my nerves.

  “Only Kruger we have in here is the ol’ man Kruger and his wife,” he says. “Jon and Jo.”

  “Those were my parents,” I say.

  His face breaks into a big smile. “They were some characters.”

  I can’t help but smile, too. I like it when people refer to anyone—including my parents—as characters. To me, it means they have lived memorable lives.

  “They were,” I say.

  He looks on the sheet of paper he is holding and then digs farther into the file. “Follow me.”

  “What’s your name?” I say, realizing he hasn’t told me.

  “Cap’n Mac,” he says, before grabbing his rather round stomach and breaking into a belly laugh. “Although my wife prefers to call me Cap’n Mac and Cheese.” He stops. “Spot 42,” he says, before checking the file again. “Been here awhile.”

  “I know,” I say. “I think it’s been in storage since my parents passed.”

  “Heard your dad died of cancer and your mom died of heartbreak.”

  His bluntness hits me like a hurricane. I pull Sonny closer and realize Cap’n Mac is just speaking the truth, like many locals do here. No time for BS.

  “You heard right,” I say, clenching my teeth as Cap’n Mac pulls back the tarp covering the boat to reveal its glorious, burnished back end: Adie Lou is spelled out in scrolling gold letters, 1940 in the far right corner of the wooden stern.

  My heart catches in my throat. She’s even more beautiful than I remembered.

  “Hot damn,” Cap’n Mac says, running his hand over the wood. “This is a piece of art.”

  I nod. It is. My mom used to joke my dad loved this boat more than her. He bought it from a dealer in Lake Tahoe and restored it back to its original glory: the original interior pigskin leather, the marbled steering wheel, the blue face gauges, the orange seams, the spotlight on the hull card. Every nut and bolt my dad used was vintage.

  “I think it might need some work,” I say. “I’m hesitant to pull it out until someone takes a thorough look at it.” I stop. “I don’t know what I’m able to afford right now.”

  Cap’n Mac nods. “I agree,” he says. “Might cost a pretty penny.”

  I think of the cottage and the boat, and then of my savings, and I see an endless line of pretty pennies diving off a cliff and into the lake, like lemmings.

  “Go see Scott Stevens,” Cap’n Mac says. “He’s the Chris-Craft master, the Yoda of wooden boats.”

  “I remember him,” I say, thinking of the always tanned, silver-haired man, the only person my father trusted with his boat besides himself. “Thanks. Do you think he’s in today?”

  “He never stops working,” Cap’n Mac says, reaching over to give Sonny a pet. “Unlike us, right, pooch? We need our naps.”

  NINE

  Blue Star Highway is as cold and empty as the marina. All of the ice cream shops, bike rentals and art galleries are shuttered.

  SEE YOU THIS SUMMER! the signs say.

  The snow has picked up, and little tornadoes of white are whipping across the narrow road that connects west Michigan’s resort communities. The bike trail, which is filled with activity May through October, is covered in drifts.

  I am driving like Mr. Magoo, slower and more carefully even, my body hunched over the wheel, my eyes glazed on the road, the wipers whipping back and forth. It is suddenly dark as night, and my headlights are illuminating just a few feet in front of my car.

  I barely see S.S. Boat Works through the snow. I slow the car, fishtailing slightly, and crawl into the parking lot. The building is an old boat storage facility, to which a small office has been attached to the front. It is old and weathered.

  As much as Mr. Stevens must now be, I think.

  I look over and Sonny is unconscious in the passenger seat, the heat blowing his ears to and fro.

  “Nice time for a nap,” I say to him.

  I reach for him but decide not to disturb his sleep.

  “You finally have a little peace,” I whisper. “You must be exhausted.”

  I leave the car running with the heat on and lock it. I pull the hood on my coat over my head and rush through the snow. I enter to find an elderly woman asleep in her chair.

  The woman looks a bit like Mrs. Claus. She is seated in an office chair, her head rolled to the side, her half-glasses barely on her nose, snoring.

  The whole world is unconscious today, I think.

  I don’t know whether I should laugh, wake her up or just leave, but then she snores so loudly—making a sound similar to a trash truck—that she wakes herself up.

  “Good morning,” she says, not missing a beat. “Welcome to S.S. Boat Works. How may I help you?”

  You’re good, I think.

  “Hi, I don’t have an appointment, but I’m here to see Mr. Stevens. I don’t know if he’s in or not.”

  “He’s in,” she says. “He’s always in, unless he’s personally delivering a boat.”

  He still drives? I think.

  “Your name?” she asks.

  “Adie Lou Clarke...Kruger...Adie Lou Kruger,” I finally stammer, telling myself I’ll stop doing that.

  The woman picks up her phone and dials an extension. “There’s a Ms. Culverson here to see you,” the woman says, not even close to getting my name right, something that I can completely understand given my maniacal babbling. She looks up. “Mr. Stevens will be right out.”

  I pull down my hood, take off my coat and take a seat. I am checking my cell when I see a pair of dusty jeans appear in front of me. I look up and drop my phone.

  “Oh, my God,” I say. “Scooter?”

  “Adie Lou?”

  I stand, and he hugs me tightly, so tightly my face smashes into his nubby sweater, which is dusted in wood chips and smells like pine. I inhale, and the dust fills my nose. I know what’s coming next but can’t stop the train: I sneeze, not once, or twice, but over and over again as I always do.

  “Eight sneezes,” he says, laughing. “You haven’t changed.”

  “Do you mean me, or my allergies?”

  He laughs again. “Both.” He stops and just stares at me, until the s
ilence makes me uncomfortable. “Do I have something on my nose from all that?” I ask, wiping the sleeve of my coat across my face.

  “No,” he says.

  “What?” I ask. “Then what is it?”

  “It’s you,” he says. “I can’t believe you’re standing in front of me.”

  I drop my arm. “Me either,” I finally reply. “I thought that the Mr. Stevens I was told to see was...well, your dad.”

  “He passed away a while back,” he says, his voice wistful. “Mom, too.” He stops. “I heard about your parents. I’m real sorry, Adie Lou.”

  “Me, too, Scooter.”

  Growing up, everyone in Saugatuck except me called Scott Stevens “S.S. Golden Boy.” The town idolized him: he was the golden-haired high school quarterback who led the team to its first ever state championship. His father was idolized, too: he made a fortune salvaging and repairing vintage boats, and then reselling them for a pretty penny, before vintage, retro and HGTV were buzzwords. Scott was the captain of his own ship, and he could do no wrong.

  But I knew him before I knew all of that. To me, he was always Scooter, the little boy I met one summer riding a scooter on Lakeshore Drive. At the time, I had difficulty distinguishing his real name from his toy, and I forever referred to him by the nickname. We were fast friends, the city girl and the local boy, the tomboy who wanted to do everything her friend did.

  Every high school summer I spent Memorial Day through Labor Day in Saugatuck, and Scooter and I worked part-time on the Saugatuck Chain Ferry, the only hand-cranked chain ferry left in the US. I was the first girl to work on the chain ferry, thanks to Scooter. No one questioned him in town, even when he’d drag down Water Street in his souped-up truck or wanted a girl to work one of the town’s main attractions. We used to take turns cranking the pretty, white Victorian ferry—embellished with ornate woodwork—across the Kalamazoo River. It was a shoulder-aching, backbreaking two hundred cranks to move the ferry across the river from the town to the beach side, transporting passengers and their bikes. While one of us cranked, the other recited an oral history of the town and ferry to passengers.

  Originally used to transport horses across the Kalamazoo River, this Victorian ferry is now a top tourist attraction...

  The older Scooter and I got, the smarter, and by our second year working on the chain ferry, we began asking passengers if they wanted to give it a try.

  I look at Scooter and say, “Think you’re strong enough to crank this ferry across the river?”

  He takes over, remembering our schtick. “I don’t think your wife and kids think you can do it, sir. Want to prove them wrong?”

  “They always fell for it, didn’t they?” I laugh. “Saved our arms.”

  “Pride,” he says. “Always gets in the way.”

  Scooter says this with incredible sadness, and then kneels to pick up my phone.

  “Remember the time I came up for the Halloween parade, and we dressed as the chain ferry?” I laugh. “Sprites covered in chains.”

  “We were just kids,” he says, his voice again wistful. “I still can’t believe you’re standing in front of me. What are you doing here?”

  “Well,” I start, bringing him up to date on the last few decades of my life. “And you?”

  He smiles, and his eyes change colors, like a mood ring. Right now, in his gray sweater, his thick silver hair slicked to one side and matching silver stubble, his eyes are the same blue-gray color as a West Point uniform.

  “I think you might need to sit for this,” he says, interrupting my thoughts. “Want to come into my office?”

  I nod, and then hesitate.

  “Something wrong?” he asks.

  I look back at my car, which is still running. “I sort of adopted a stray dog yesterday. I felt like I wasn’t stressed enough.” I laugh. “He’s asleep in the car.”

  “That’s so Adie Lou of you,” he says with a smile.

  Adie Lou of you. My heart again leaps.

  “Want to get him?” he continues.

  “I think he’ll be okay for a few more minutes. Maybe we could ask your receptionist to watch the car?”

  We turn, and she is asleep again, her neck like a Slinky. I stifle a laugh, and we tiptoe past her. We enter the hallway, and Scooter says, “She worked for my dad. I can’t fire her.”

  “You can’t even wake her to fire her,” I say, and then burst into a fit of giggles.

  Scooter laughs. The hallway is filled on one side with windows overlooking the former boat storage facility, now filled with wooden boats in various stages of restoration. Some are just skeletons, some are nearly finished. Wood and parts line the massive space, as big as an airplane hangar. Men are working slowly, meticulously on the boats, almost as if they’re performing surgery.

  “These are Chris-Crafts and Rivas, like George Clooney has,” Scooter says, not an ounce of boastfulness in his voice. “They are works of art, like any painting you’d find in a museum.” He points toward a corner. “We’ve even started working on vintage cars. That’s a 1947 Ford Sportsman convertible. We’re restoring and varnishing the original wood on the car.”

  He leads me to his office, a tiny space that holds just a desk with a laptop and phone, and two wooden chairs. I take a seat, my knees hitting the desk.

  “And?” I ask, as Scooter sits. “What have you been up to?”

  Scooter sighs, and his eyes seem to change color again, this time sadder, bluer—like a gas flame.

  “You know I went to Western Michigan on a football scholarship, broke my arm in two places my sophomore year? Well, my backup went on to have a great year and become all-conference. I never played another down,” he says softly. “I was so humiliated, I dropped out of college and couldn’t return home. I felt like I’d let the town down. I felt like I let my dad down.” He stops. “I felt like I let myself down.

  “So I sort of just ran and I wandered around the world,” he continues. “I worked as a deck hand and then a mate on some private yachts. I traveled along the east and west coasts, picking up jobs working on people’s boats to earn enough money to keep moving.”

  “What were you running from?” I ask.

  He looks at me, his eyes intense. “Rules,” he says. “I did everything I was supposed to do. Followed all the rules in the playbook, on the field and off. And where did it get me?”

  “Here,” I say.

  He smiles. “You’re right, Adie Lou. You’ve always been such an optimist.”

  “Me? Really?”

  Scooter nods. “What was that you used to say? ‘A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.’”

  “You remember that?” I say, my voice rising. “I forgot that.” I stop. “I forgot who I was for a long time, too.”

  Scooter nods. “When my dad got sick, I came home. I was so angry at first, that he was sick, that everyone saw me as a failure. But then I remembered how much he sacrificed to make this place a success, to give me everything I ever wanted, and I felt a renewed sense of purpose. I didn’t want to run from my history anymore, I wanted to embrace it.”

  My eyes grow big. “That’s exactly how I feel,” I say. “And I wanted to play by my own rules for once, too.”

  “So why are you here, Adie Lou,” Scooter asks, “since you had no idea I was going to be here?”

  “Remember the 1940 Chris-Craft my parents had?”

  “How could I forget? The Adie Lou. What a beauty. Your parents got it after that trip to Capri, didn’t they? Your dad found it in Tahoe?”

  I nod. “It was my dad’s pride and joy,” I say. I’m impressed he remembers the story.

  “Besides you,” Scooter adds with a wink, causing me to smile. “That’s why he named it after you.”

  “It’s been in storage awhile, and I’m thinking
of using it for sunset boat rides. Maybe serving some wine and cheese. But I think it needs some work.” I hesitate. “And I think I might need a deal.” I hesitate again. “Deal meaning I don’t think I can afford to do it.”

  “Is that what you say to a small-business owner?” Scooter asks.

  My face flushes. “No, it’s what you say to an old friend.”

  “An old friend you didn’t stay in touch with,” he says, and my stomach drops.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I was in college, I met Nate, I got pregnant soon after... It was a blur.”

  “I know,” he says. “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just odd that two people who were in each other’s lives for so long just fell away from one another.” He stops and repeats what he said earlier. “We were just kids, though.”

  Scooter shakes his head and smiles.

  “Let me do this,” he says. “I’ll shoot you an email after I look over my calendar. We’ll set a time to see your boat, and I’ll see what I can do.” He stops and winks. “As an old friend.”

  He stands, and I follow suit. I notice there is a photo of him in his high school glory on a file cabinet behind him. He’s being carried on the shoulders of his teammates, holding the state championship trophy, and the look on his face says that he is unbeatable, unstoppable, invincible.

  That was before we grew up, I think. Before we knew what the world had in store.

  We walk into the hall, and he gives me a big hug.

  “It was great to see you, Adie Lou,” he says.

  “You, too.”

  I turn and begin to walk away.

  “Oh, Adie Lou?” Scooter calls.

  I turn around too quickly, my heart racing for some reason, wondering what he wants to say to me.

  “Be careful not to wake up Gladys,” he says. “She likes her naps.”

  TEN

  A tarp is flapping on top of the turret when I arrive home. In the wind and snow, it looks like a ghost that got trapped in the midst of trying to enter the cottage to haunt it.