Skinny Dipping

by Connie Brockway

  “You would have blackmailed me if you had, wouldn’t you?”

  “Probably,” Solange agreed without the least bit of embarrassment.

  “And all that other stuff?”

  “Oh, I meant that. You are changing, Mimi. It’s taken a while, granted, but you’re finally coming into your own. You’re going to be a force to be reckoned with someday. You’ll finally achieve the promise of your youth.”

  “Oh, please.” At the sound of Mary’s voice, Mimi turned. Her half sister was standing in the doorway of the solarium, enveloped in a black cashmere coat.

  Solange smiled at Mary and said, “Look who dropped in.”

  “Unfulfilled Potential?” Mary asked, one brow angling derisively.

  “Hi, Mary,” Mimi said. She was in no mood for Mary. She’d always thought of herself as someone who accepted without flinching or whining those things she had no control over. Apparently not so much, because she was practically twitching and definitely on the cusp of a whine. “I was just heading out.”

  Her mother’s face crumpled. “Oh? Why don’t you stay? I’ve got another box of vanilla wafers in the kitchen.”

  “Thanks, but I gotta go. I have a destiny to fulfill, remember? A chrysalis to burst forth from. Eagle wings to grow. A mountain to climb. A river to cross.” She said all this mostly to annoy Mary, and it worked.

  “Yeah, yeah, so I just heard,” Mary said. “You’re on the brink of actually doing something. Or trying to. Let the angel chorus sound! Really. No one could be happier about it than me. I promise.” Mary spoke with unsettling conviction.

  Mimi, who’d been about to bend down to kiss Solange’s cheek good-bye, checked instead, caught by Mary’s forceful tone. Why would that make Mary happy? It wouldn’t. Mary was just being sarcastic.

  “Before you go, Mignonette,” Solange said, dragging Mimi’s attention from her half sister, “have you heard from Sarah lately?”

  “Let me think…,” Mimi said. “Yup. I did last Saturday.” Since the Grandmother Werner incident, Sarah had been e-mailing Mimi twice weekly. Mimi still wasn’t sure what to make of this or even how she felt about it. They weren’t girlish confidences, mostly just stuff about patent law and an occasional question about relationships that Mimi invariably answered, “I don’t know,” or, “I’d let matters take their own course.” That Sarah apparently saw her as an expert on human relationships was a sad commentary on her baby sister’s own experiences.

  “Why?” Mimi asked. “Is everything all right?”

  “We don’t know where she is,” Solange said and, seeing the expression on Mimi’s face, hurried on. “She calls and she sounds fine. I mean, really fine,” Solange emphasized. “But she hasn’t been in her apartment for weeks and she won’t say where she’s staying. Or with whom. And I sometimes hear a voice in the background. It sounds male.”

  Bingo. The no-strings-attached sexcapades partner. “Have you asked her?”

  “I don’t want to pry,” Solange said primly. Which meant she had asked and been rebuffed.

  “She’s probably got a boyfriend,” Mimi said, wondering how much Sarah would or wouldn’t like her to say. Mimi had always found it best to stay as close to the truth as possible with Solange. She had a positive gift for ferreting out untruths.

  “Really?” Solange asked. “Do you know who?”

  “No.”

  Her mother’s laserlike truth-finding glare leveled on Mimi and she opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Mary did. “Speaking of boyfriends, seen Joe Tierney lately?” Mary asked.

  How would Mary know about her and Joe Tierney? Not that there was anything to know about. Joe was a moment from her past. A couple moments. Three. Two good and one not so good. Or mostly good until he’d proven to be a jerk. Why was she thinking about him again?

  “Is Mimi interested in Joe Tierney?” Solange asked, her eyes brightening, Sarah, for the moment, forgotten.

  “No. I—We just—I met him at—” She was not going to do this. She was forty-one, for God’s sake. “No.”

  Solange sighed. “Well, nothing much would have come of it anyway. The man was putting in eighteen hours a day in order to finish up here last week. As soon as he was done, he said he had another project to start, somewhere overseas. I suspect he’s already left the state.”

  Gone? A gentleman would have apologized before blowing town. So maybe he wasn’t such a gentleman after all. Looks could be so deceiving. The thought didn’t bring her as much satisfaction as she thought it should. “Geez,” she said, “look at the time. I’m late for work.”

  “Wait.”

  Mimi froze.

  “You are coming for Christmas dinner, are you not?”

  Mimi did some quick weighing of the pros and cons. On the con side was leaving her snug apartment to spend an evening answering snide Christmas-themed remarks about her occupation (“Ever run into someone named Ebenezer on the Other Side? Ha-ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”) and unwrap a bunch of expensive presents she didn’t need as Solange blithely informed anyone who’d listen that her oldest daughter was simply a late bloomer and Mary muttered, not quite under her breath, “Like a century plant?” On the pro side, she would get an excellent free meal, make Solange happy, and…get an excellent free meal.

  “I’ll try, but you know Christmas is one of our biggest days at Straight Talk. I’ll have to see if I can get two or three hours off.” Whether they woke up missing a loved one or came home filled with Christmas spirits and regrets, more people tried to make contact on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day than any other day of the year.

  “Oh, Mignonette. Please. As if taking advantage of those poor souls during a normal day isn’t bad enough—”

  The unfortunate choice of words brought ungentlemanly Joe Tierney back to mind, and she was not thinking about him. “Gotta go!” Mimi chirped, swooping down and planting a kiss on Solange’s cheek. She snagged her jacket from the back of the wrought-iron chair and fled.

  Mimi stopped at her apartment on the way back to work to grab a bite of lunch. She was letting herself in when she heard the door behind her open and Jennifer Beesing say, “Look what came for you!”

  She turned around to see what appeared to be a rose shrub sprouting from a plump pair of jean-clad legs. Jennifer lowered the bouquet and peered over the top. “They smell good, too!”

  “They’re for me?” Mimi asked.

  Jennifer nodded. “They came about an hour ago. There’s a card.”

  “Hold on while I get the door,” Mimi said, suiting action to words, then taking the flowers. “Thanks.”

  “No problem,” Jennifer said. “Secret admirer?”

  Mimi smiled at this absurdity. “I’ll let you know,” she promised and backed into her apartment, shoving the door closed with her hip. She set the vase on the table inside the door and opened the note dangling from a gold cord.

  Please accept my apologies for my inexcusable rudeness. I am sorry I am leaving Minneapolis having given such a poor account of myself.

  Joseph L. Tierney

  That was supposed to be an apology? It was about as impersonal a statement of culpability as she could imagine. And why now? Why after all these weeks?

  Because now he was leaving, she realized. Had he sent flowers earlier, she might misconstrue his apology as an invitation to reconnect. But if he left it as the last item on his Things to Do Before I Blow Town checklist, he wouldn’t have to risk any awkward encounters or embarrassing phone calls from her.

  Well, he didn’t have to worry. He could pop off to wherever it was he was popping off to secure in the knowledge that he’d acted the consummate gentleman. Bully for Joe.

  She ripped the card in half and as she did so heard a scale of notes coming from her purse, signaling that a text message had been delivered to her cell phone. She dropped the torn card beside the vase and dug her cell phone out of her handbag, flipping it open and reading the few short lines of text.

  D got realtor license. Hired guy to ass
ess Chez. Consensus seems 2 B 2 sell. Guess that’s it. Having lawyers in F.C. draw up paper. Get junk out of Chez by spring. No 1 else around 2 do it. Shot 85 last week. Birgie

  “Hey, Birgie, are you up for another nine holes?” her golf partner, a woman from Bonita Springs who had skin like shoe leather and whom Birgie had just met this morning, called from the golf cart they were sharing.

  “Hold on a minute, Mugsy,” she shouted back. She waited hopefully for Mimi to send back some reply.

  She felt a little underhanded about sending that text message to her great-niece. No one had actually hired an assessor yet, and a firm date hadn’t been set to meet at the lawyers’, but it was only a matter of time and Mimi would have to get her ass in gear if she was going to lead the movement to save Chez Ducky. Debbie was rallying the younger cousins to pressure the older family members to sell. Some of Johanna’s grandkids were talking about getting dirt bikes, which meant that the die was almost cast.

  Birgie had been doing what she could, staying in close touch with Naomi to keep track of Debbie’s movements and then funneling the information through Vida to Mimi. She’d have contacted Mimi herself, but then Mimi might get all comfortable with the idea that since Birgie was interested she was going to do something, and, well, she wasn’t. She couldn’t. Despite Mimi’s opinion otherwise, Birgie knew she didn’t have the sort of personality that could sway others. She also didn’t have force of will, and she was too old to start acquiring it now.

  “You ready, there, Birgie?” Mugsy called.

  “I’m coming,” Birgie said and flipped down the phone.

  WINTER

  Chapter Twenty-six

  January

  “Ms. Olson? This is Otell Weber.”

  “Who?”

  “Otell Weber, the private investigator?” the man on the other end of the phone said patiently.

  “Oh, yeah. Hi.” He sounded, Mimi realized, just like he’d looked: gray, tired, and rumpled.

  “Hi. I just got back into town and since I told you I’d get in touch, here I am.”

  “Oh. Well, thank you.”

  “Nothing to thank me for, Ms. Olson. I haven’t been real successful for you.”

  “I didn’t really expect you would be,” Mimi answered, trying to keep the disappointment from her voice.

  “It’s not all bad news, though. Before I left I sent out inquiries to any motels operating along Interstate 2 between here and Bainsville, Montana, asking them to search any records they might still have for summer 1979 for a John Olson.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, Bainsville, Montana, was the postmark on the postcard your father sent you, and that town is on Interstate 2, and since your dad didn’t have a car, the chances are he was hitching a ride or taking a bus along that highway. He might have stayed at one of them.”

  “I see. Anyone answer?”

  “Nope. But since I got back I’ve compiled a list of motels that were in operation during ’seventy-nine but have since closed.”

  “And why is that not bad news?”

  “Well,” said Otell, “there’s quite a few of them. And most of them were cheap joints, the sort a guy with limited means might stay in. Better yet, they tended to be family owned and operated, so a lot of the folks that ran ’em are still around, not like the chains who have a different kid manning the front desk every season. They also tend to hold on to things. So, there’s some slim hope we might find your dad’s name there.”

  “That sounds promising,” Mimi said.

  “That’s way overstating the case. It’s better than nothing. Marginally.” God love a stoic, honest-till-it-hurts Minnesotan.

  “Anyway,” Otell went on in his laconic voice, “that’s what I got. It’s a long shot, Ms. Olson. I wanta be perfectly fair here. But if you want, I can keep at it. Your call.”

  Another shot, thought Mimi, was better than no shot. What the hell?

  “That’d be great, Mr. Weber.”

  It was another few weeks before Mimi rented a sturdy four-wheel-drive vehicle and drove up to Chez Ducky with promises to Oz that she’d be back in two weeks at the most. As post-holiday business tended to be slow anyway, he didn’t kick up a fuss.

  As soon as the headlights picked out the old wood-burned sign with its welcoming Daffy Duck–like character, she regretted having waited so long to come. Above, the starry river of the Milky Way coursed through the indigo sky, while below, a fresh blanket of snow unfurled like a luminous white banner along the drive. Moonlight turned the Big House’s pale facade silvery and glinted in the upper-story windows, all the light-reflecting snow creating a faux day, a dusky hybrid of silver and blue. She got out of the car, taking her backpack with her and slinging it over her shoulders as she trudged to the doorway.

  Beneath her boots the snow squeaked, a quality it took on only when the temperature dipped below zero. It didn’t feel that cold, but then Mimi was dressed in worst-case-scenario clothing: an oversized Alaskan Bag Company down jacket, a layer of thermal underwear beneath her felt-lined pants, wool choppers, and Will Steger mukluks.

  Inside, the electricity had been shut off, but the same moonlight that illuminated the outdoors had seeped in here, too. Her breath made phantasms in the chill air as she moved down the hall, the floorboards creaking underfoot as she made her way to the kitchen. There, she opened the battered gray fuse box, threw on the master lever, and then flipped on the kitchen’s single ceiling light.

  They were tasks she’d performed a half dozen times over the last decade during Ardis’s infrequent and impromptu winter visits. Ardis would call from Sun City, exclaiming gleefully over some cheapo last-minute airfare she’d gotten. Mimi, who’d inherited the use of Ardis’s old Pontiac LeBaron during the winter months, would pick her great-aunt up at the airport, and they’d head north, arriving at dawn.

  Mimi would leave Ardis snoozing in the warm car while she got the place ready, just as she was doing now. Except when she looked out the window this time, she wouldn’t see Ardis, roused by some arcane Olson sixth sense that told her that all the work had been done, crawling out of the car and blinking like a baby owl.

  Mimi looked around the kitchen, noting the ice chest, the Formica-topped kitchen table, and the old corked floor. She could see Ardis in her ratty old chenille bathrobe, her bare feet calloused, hammer toes crooked, adding a single spoonful of new coffee grounds to yesterday’s in the old percolator. God, that coffee had been vile, but Ardis wouldn’t hear of getting a drip brewer, and any suggestion that they start with fresh grounds when making coffee earned a stern lecture on wasteful practices.

  “Ardis?” She held her breath and listened, half hoping to hear a reply. But all she got was the pop and groan of the house protesting over being awoken, so she shoved open the back door, pushing against a drift of snow that had accumulated there. She squeezed through the opening and slogged over to the propane fuel tank squatting beneath the kitchen’s back windows. She turned its knob, then went back inside to the parlor and crouched down before the old gas furnace in the corner. Like many old cottages, the Big House had no basement, so all its mechanical guts were in the public rooms for easy access. She reached into the little door on the side of the furnace, turned on the pilot light, and waited. The light flickered on and, with a little whoosh, the furnace started. Mimi stood up, wondering what to do next.

  Experience told her it would take a couple hours for the lower rooms to warm up enough for her to shed her jacket and a couple more after that before she could start the pump and return water to the pipes. The antique water heater would take an additional two or three hours to warm up enough water to fill a shallow bath.

  She looked out the front window toward the lake. It reminded her of a particularly sugary Christmas card, the kind with the shimmering snow made out of glitter that gets all over when you open it. She had always wanted to walk through a Christmas card. She was certainly dressed for it, and it beat the dickens out of shoveling the snow away from the b
ack door.

  Pulling the earflaps on her hat down, she headed back outside and trudged through the snow to the beach, where she followed the icy heave along the shoreline to the edge of Chez Ducky’s border. She stopped and looked up at Prescott’s monolith. Not a light shone from it. Like the rest of the Fowl Lake summer people, Prescott had undoubtedly ditched the place for the winter. He and Bill were probably sitting in some spectacular replica of a Moorish castle he’d built on the Mexican riviera, staring down at some other beach. Good. She had the lake to herself.

  She stood without moving for long minutes, memories awakening to fill her mind’s eye. She remembered the last winter her grandfather had been alive. Solange, housebound in her eighth month of pregnancy with Mary, had agreed to let Mimi’s grandfather bring her up here during Christmas break along with Naomi and Bill, who’d returned from college for Christmas vacation. Granddad had woken her up in the middle of the night and made her get bundled up for a walk. She’d been a sullen, moody teenager and definitely not the best company, but he’d insisted.

  They’d ended up just about here, Mimi thought, looking around. Her grandfather had told her some wacky Scandinavian fairy tale she didn’t recall much about other than there had been ice trolls and wolves and a snow princess. She’d been thirteen, after all, so more or less obliged to scoff. He hadn’t minded. He’d only said, “So you’re too old for fairy tales?”

  She’d rolled her eyes, not deigning to reply.

  “And I suppose you’re too old to make snow angels, too, huh?”

  Once more, she’d rolled her eyes.

  Her grandfather had grinned at her. “Thank God I’m not,” he said. “Because it would be a crime to waste perfect snow like this.”

  Then he’d turned around, dropped flat on his back in the snow, and made a snow angel.

  When Bill and Naomi had woken the next morning and looked out at the lake, they’d seen the entire shore lined with snow angels, alternating tall and tiny. By noon, they’d vanished in the wind.