Wicked River

by Jenny Milchman

  They were both so primly, perfectly polite with each other, Mia could hardly stand it. She spun around on the heels of her dressy shoes—her flip-flops had disappeared somewhere by the hotel pool—and stomped off down the hall.

  “Mi?” her dad called.

  She stopped. “Yeah?”

  “I thought we could go grab a late lunch.” Her dad eased himself off one of the kitchen stools and began walking toward her. “The phone signal was so poor up there, I never got to hear about the wedding.”

  “We?” Mia echoed, and there was silence.

  Then her mother spoke. “I ate so much yesterday, I’m still full.” Her voice sounded brittle, merry. “You and Dad go out,” she instructed. “Bring me back some kung pao.”

  “I hate Chinese,” Mia said, hearing the sulkiness in her voice. “I want pizza.”

  “Since when do you hate—” her mom began.

  But her dad interrupted. “Pizza sounds great.”

  In her room, Mia traded the heels for flats and shucked off her T-shirt as well, grabbing a tank top. It was like a hundred degrees in the city. She wished she were back in the mountains, at the hotel, or with her aunt and uncle on their kooky canoe trip—anywhere but here.

  When she returned to the kitchen, her dad was hanging his keys on the hook where they stored the extra pair, and her mom was pretending not to see.

  • • •

  The line at the pizza place was out the door, and there weren’t any spots at the counter, so Mia was forced to agree to Chinese after all.

  Over lunch specials—chicken with cashew nuts and General Tso’s—her dad pinched a nut between his chopsticks and asked, “How was the wedding?”

  Mia had requested a fork. She stabbed a piece of chicken and began to chew.

  “Look at those teeth,” her dad said. “Worth every penny. I mean, every dollar.”

  Mia flashed a smile for display. “It was awesome,” she said around another mouthful. “Aunt Nat and Uncle Doug are such a great couple.” There’d been that weird exchange between them under the tree, but Mia didn’t have any reason to go into that.

  “Where’d they go on their honeymoon?” her dad asked. “Europe? A cruise?”

  “No.” Mia frowned. “They went on some camping trip. I thought you knew that.” Her parents really must not be communicating.

  Her father held out the teapot in her direction, but Mia shook her head. She hated the tea they served here. It tasted like old bathwater.

  Her father drained the tiny cup he held, almost hidden by his cupped palms. “That’s an interesting choice. Up there, you mean? In the Adirondacks?”

  Mia nodded, poking around in the gloppy sauce for more chicken.

  Her father pushed his plate aside and took out his phone.

  Mia couldn’t tell whether he was checking the time, or looking to see if he’d gotten any texts. She hunted for something to say to draw back his attention. “Something kinda weird happened at the wedding. Before the wedding, I mean.”

  Her dad placed his phone on the table. “Oh yeah? What was that?”

  Mia’s face felt hot. She didn’t know what had happened really. And any reference to it not only exposed how out of it she was, but also resurrected the memory of those two hot guys, and what one of them had told her when he and Mia walked back to the inn.

  “Um, I don’t exactly know,” she mumbled.

  Her dad’s gaze had wandered. He held up a hand, signaling for the check.

  “I think one of Uncle Doug’s groomsmen, like, freaked out or something,” Mia said hurriedly. Could that have been why he was almost late to the ceremony? “Something in his past,” she went on, cobbling together pieces from what Uncle Doug had told Aunt Nat.

  Mia’s dad gave a distracted nod as he fished around for his wallet.

  “He didn’t exactly tell me details,” Mia added, talking so fast now that she felt a little breathless. “The groomsman, I mean. I guess maybe he felt embarrassed. So we talked about other stuff when he walked me back to my room.”

  Her dad looked at her then, brows drawn together in a frown. “Wait… What?” he asked. “Who walked you back to your room?”

  Mia felt a flush of pride. “Uncle Doug’s friend,” she said. “Who was a groomsman in the wedding. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  Her dad’s frown deepened, cutting into his face. “You spent time alone with Uncle Doug’s friends at the wedding?” he asked. “Aren’t they, well, Uncle Doug’s age?”

  Mia nodded. “Maybe even a little older.” Hey, it was possible, right? The hot guy had never actually told her his age. And the look in her father’s eyes now made the announcement, wrong or right, worth it.

  He spoke under his breath, but Mia could make out what he said.

  “So now’s the time your mother decides to stop supervising everything.”

  His tone was so bitter and brutal that it made Mia’s heart clutch. “It wasn’t like that!” she protested. “Uncle Doug’s friend acted perfectly normal.” Boring even, except for when he’d said that last thing to her. “And Mom didn’t do anything wrong. It was a wedding. Everyone was having fun.” Unexpectedly, tears came to Mia’s eyes. They flew off her face as she shook her head back and forth, refuting her father’s accusation.

  A waitress came darting over, holding out a handful of white cloth. “Extra napkins for you.”

  Mia sniffled and took the bundle. “Thanks,” she said, and the waitress maneuvered away between the tightly spaced tables.

  Her dad visibly suppressed a breath. “You ready? Do you want any ice cream?”

  “No,” Mia said, staring down at the table. “No ice cream.”

  At that moment, she heard a voice at once startling in its sadness and as familiar as her own. Mia twisted around in her seat, stretching to see.

  “Yes, just one today,” the voice said.

  The waitress who had brought the extra napkins hustled by again, a woman fighting to keep up behind her. Mia’s mom.

  She stopped when she got to their table.

  “Oh, hello,” Mia’s mom said. “I thought you two were going to Famiglia’s.”

  Mia’s dad turned around in his seat, hunting the waitress.

  Mia pictured him asking for an extra chair to be dragged over to their table, the three of them putting up with cramped quarters while Mia’s mom ate her dish. Three had always been kind of tricky when they’d gone out to eat as a family—restaurant tables were geared to four, or two. But Mia had never minded squeezing. She’d just decided to order ice cream after all when the waitress arrived.

  “You can add her charge to my card,” Mia’s dad said, pointing to her mom as he stood up. “And she can have this table.” He took a look around the crowded restaurant. “Isn’t everyone supposed to have cleared out of the city by now?”

  “I can take care of my bill,” Mia’s mother snapped. “And find my own table too.”

  Mia’s father dropped the pen he’d been using to sign the check. It clattered on the glass-topped table. He gave Mia’s mother the coldest look Mia had ever seen. “Of course you can, Claudia. You can do everything.”

  “Elliott, please,” her mom said. “Not in front of Mia.”

  Her dad had been starting to steer Mia toward the exit, but when her mom spoke, he stopped and went back. “Speaking of whom…”

  Mia’s mother looked up from her menu.

  “Why was our daughter hanging out with thirty-year-old men at the wedding?”

  Mia’s mom gave a dismissive shake of her head and let out a huff. “I wouldn’t call it hanging out,” she said. “One guy escorted Mia back to our room. He was just doing us a favor.”

  Like the hot guy had been babysitting her or something. The General Tso’s started to sizzle in Mia’s stomach. She burped and tasted a bitter orange f
lavor. “He was not!” she burst out. People at the surrounding tables looked up. “You don’t even know what we talked about,” Mia flung at her mom. She knew she should stop talking, but something red-hot compelled her, and her next words rushed out in a lava flow. “He didn’t tell anybody else!”

  Mia’s dad blinked. “He didn’t tell anybody else what?”

  Mia’s mom held up one hand in her I’m-in-charge-here gesture. “Mia?” she pressed, her voice sharpening. “What are you talking about?”

  Mia squirmed. “Nothing,” she said at last. Only it came out sounding a lot like Something. Which it had been, hadn’t it? The hot guy had steered her out of the parking lot double time, like the PE teacher urging them around the track at school, while asking Mia to keep his secret. Her parents didn’t have to know it was a stupid secret, one nobody would really care about, especially not now.

  At least her parents weren’t fighting, for the first time in forever. Instead, they were looking at each other without glaring, deciding what to do, her dad signaling a message that Mia recognized. Pick your battles. While her mother wore an expression that Mia couldn’t identify at first, because it looked so weird on her mom’s face. After a moment it came to her. Her mother looked uncertain.

  Mia settled her arms triumphantly across her chest.

  Chapter Ten

  The leaves overhead made dappled patterns, like lace upon the amber water, as Natalie and Doug crossed Gossamer Lake. Dip, pull, dip, tea-colored droplets landing on Natalie’s arm as they fell off the blade of her paddle. The water felt warmer than the air, which Natalie knew meant that her stroke was too shallow. Only the surface inches of the water got heated by the sun. After that came depths no summer rays could touch.

  She made an effort to sink her paddle deeper—remember to dig, the guide had said back in that picture-perfect town—so as to spare Doug doing the brunt of the work in the rear. Natalie twisted around on her uncomfortable perch, more of a bar than a seat. Doug’s hair hung over his eyes as he repeated the same sequence over and over in a seemingly effortless swirl.

  “Get down on your knees,” Doug advised. Her competent husband, always knowing what to do. It was so quiet out here that he hardly had to raise his voice to be heard. “Use that bar to lean back against, not sit on. It’s different from a raft.”

  Natalie lowered herself as instructed, instantly feeling more comfortable, then peered around again. Doug had worked hard to keep them streaking along at a good pace while Natalie got herself resituated, her own paddle scarcely skimming the top of the water. Doug’s biceps strained with exertion, the tendons in his forearms standing out.

  He looked hot, Natalie thought, and suppressed a grin.

  “What’s funny?” Doug asked.

  I could say anything out here, Natalie realized. There was no one to hear. “I was just thinking how sexy you look while doing all the work.”

  A grin took hold of Doug’s face. “I love doing your work.”

  “I could get used to that,” Natalie called back, picking up her paddle and attacking the water with renewed vigor. In truth, it felt good to be contributing, one part of the engine steaming them along.

  But when Doug momentarily lifted his paddle out of the water, taking a break, the canoe immediately slowed down, trees changing from a blur of greens—hunter, forest, teal, even a few early shades of apple-gold—to distinct trunks and scallop-shaped leaves.

  Natalie paddled harder—dig—but she couldn’t get them up to speed again. “No fair!” she shouted. “All the power is in the rear!”

  “Yeah, baby,” Doug said in his Austin Powers voice, and Natalie had just let out a groan of protest when a sheet of water hit her in the back.

  She shrieked, then jerked around.

  Doug sank his paddle into the lake and began to pull hard, his muscles rounding. The canoe sped up as he blinked back at her innocently.

  Natalie held her soaked shirt away from her body. “Turnabout is fair play,” she said, rising to make her way toward Doug across the wobbly canoe bottom. “Literally.”

  “Watch it!” Doug said, flinging one hand out to steady the boat. “You’ll tip us!”

  Natalie immediately dropped back down.

  “Paddle, Mrs. Larson,” Doug said, grinning. “I’m sure you’ll find an opportunity for revenge before too long. It’s not like we’ll be leaving the water any time soon.”

  They left it a mile later when the water began to shallow out, the blades of their paddles striking sandy bottom until the canoe rode up on a wash of brown leaves. Forest loomed over them, deep and impenetrable. It was cooler here by at least ten degrees, and Natalie’s wet clothing had become a clammy coat against her. She shivered. She could fish out a change of clothes from her pack, but it might be better to let the sun dry her rather than start accumulating laundry so early on in their trip.

  Doug pulled out his backpack and started rooting around in the outer pocket. He unzipped the little black case that contained their GPS device. “This is our first portage.”

  Natalie reached for the device. “How does it work?” she asked. Maps she wanted nothing to do with, but something akin to a cell phone seemed all right.

  Doug showed her the screen. “This is us,” he explained, zooming in. “And look, see where the river starts again?”

  “It’s not that far,” Natalie replied, studying the tiny display.

  “Only a quarter mile or so,” Doug agreed. His tone was coach-like, encouraging. “And then we’re on the water with no interruptions for a while.”

  Natalie handed the GPS back so it could be secured in its case. It was amazing how reassuring such a small piece of technology could be, like the tether that attached an astronaut to his spaceship.

  She climbed out of the canoe, tea-colored lake water sloshing into her Norlanders, best water shoes on the market. She helped Doug drag the canoe onto higher ground, then got out her own pack and shrugged into it.

  “Count of three?” Doug suggested, clipping his pack’s cross strap on his chest.

  Natalie lifted.

  • • •

  “This can’t be a quarter mile,” she huffed after fifteen minutes of trudging along. It might even have been more than fifteen; it was hard to keep track of time without any signifiers—phone or computer screen, mealtimes or appointments—especially while working out this hard. Too bad both of them tended to keep phones pinned to themselves all day and night and had never worn watches. Natalie wondered why Doug hadn’t suggested getting one. It seemed the kind of detail he’d usually have been prepared for: the need to keep track of time in the outdoors when there wasn’t any cell service. Unless schedules and hourly counts were just two more aspects of life back home that Doug wanted to put on hold for a while.

  Natalie panted, the canoe a long, sagging weight, her fingers fighting to get a good grip on its rim. Her hands were slick, sweaty despite the chilly temperature. The straps of her pack hugged her like a straitjacket, cutting off breath. She and Doug were deep in the woods, and there didn’t seem to be any hint of a river nearby. Not a single trickle, let alone a rushing sound, no dip in the landscape. It actually felt as if they were climbing. “Are you sure we’re on the right path?”

  “Well, it’s not really a path,” Doug said, prompting a flash of annoyance in Natalie. The line between knowledgeable and pedantic sometimes blurred in her husband. “We’re essentially bushwhacking with a little help from our guide.”

  “But is the GPS saying we’re in the right place?” Natalie asked. “I mean, it feels like we’re going uphill to reach water.”

  Doug frowned. “I don’t think we’re going uphill.” He gestured for her to take a break, and Natalie lowered the canoe to the forest floor with a grateful grunt. Doug dug out the device, and she came over and looked. “This is right,” he said, pointing.

  Natalie couldn’t tell if
she detected a faint note of relief in his tone.

  “How about this?” he said. “We have another two-mile paddle to reach the world’s most romantic camping spot, on the shores of our very own island.”

  Natalie raised her brows, impressed.

  “So listen,” Doug went on. “Why don’t you take off your pack and rest for a sec. I’ll run up ahead, check out how long the rest of the portage is.”

  Natalie glanced around. A breeze came up and slapped leaves on the trees back and forth, the foliage large and leathery this time of year.

  “It’s really just up ahead?” she asked, gesturing for another look at the device.

  Doug handed it to her. “You’ll be able to see me the whole time.”

  Natalie gave a nod, then unclipped her pack, letting it fall to the ground with an exhalation of relief. Must from the moldering leaves rose in a cloud, tickling her nostrils. She sneezed, and the sound was a loud bark in the thick, sleepy silence.

  Doug strode away while Natalie got down on her knees to unzip her pack, its shrill whine jarring in the afternoon hush. She took a look around. Doug could be seen a little ways off, loping along between the trees, his feet sure despite the hills and furrows of the forest floor. At least he’d mat down a path they could use for the rest of the carry.

  Her clothes hadn’t dried fully due to the shade in the woods. Natalie pulled out a fresh shirt, making sure she was alone before pulling her damp one up and over her head. The only creatures that would’ve been treated to her peep show were some birds and small mammals, but the trappings of polite society were hard to lose.

  Branches swished and swayed, a sudden wind picking up.

  A piece of wood split with a smart crack, and she jumped. Had Doug broken that somewhere up ahead where he was walking? This wind didn’t seem strong enough to sever a branch.

  Suddenly self-conscious, Natalie wrenched her head through the collar of her dry shirt, bare skin goose-pimpling as she took another quick look around. She peered in the direction where she had last seen Doug. The vista ahead was clear.