The Lake, the River & the Other Lake

by Steve Amick

  Roger finally laughed with a snort. “Yeah, you better go remind him about that.”

  She gave him a wink and pushed away from the counter and squeaked her leathery exit. “’Night, Coach.”

  Of all the thoughts he might have had at that moment—bed, food, relief—the one he had was this: hey, she’s okay. She’s funny, she’s smart, she’s cute. She’s all right, that girl.

  42

  SHE WAS OUT IN THE CRUISER, doing a routine patrol along Fifel Drive, the old unpaved road that served the older houses, like the bootlegger’s place, along Lake Michigan. The sun was bright and high, with a slight breeze that shimmered the silver poplar leaves, but there was something else ahead, kids on bikes, pulling out of the unkempt driveway. They turned in her direction and she let them pass—two boys, maybe ten, and a little girl maybe seven. Janey kept going to the end of Fifel Drive, watching the kids in her rearview mirror. She thought it looked like they were stopping in the middle of the road, looking back at her, checking to see if she was following.

  This is the extent of my police work, she thought, outwitting small children. I’m a regular Angie Dickinson here . . . She kept going till the dead-end turnaround, executed a sharp three-point and put it in park, giving them a full sixty seconds on her dive watch. When she drove back, they were gone. But she wasn’t buying it.

  It wouldn’t take much to flush them out, she figured. She pulled into the dark drive, past the two stone posts now dwarfed and overshadowed by the big beech trees, staying off the siren but making the big dropped-in 427 roar, keeping it in second and letting it tach high. Thing sounded like a dragon to little kids. Then she backed out of the drive, looked to her right and there they were: still half in the trees, their front tires pointed out, little mouths gaping at being busted, unsure which way to go now, the boy in the lead stamping on the brakes and skidding, dumping his bike. She’d blocked their only exit and forced them to the woods and now they were surprised to see her.

  The boys recovered fastest, cleared the underbrush and the dip in the shoulder and took off, pumping fast and screaming. But the little one in the back was stuck, her bike, bubblegum pink, hung up in the tangle of brush. She kept struggling with it, looking down at the problem, then up to yell “Tommy!” at one of the older boys, who were now in full retreat and shaking their heads, then back down at the problem, then “Tommy!” and so on.

  Janey put the cruiser in park and got out, slipping off her shades to put the child at ease. It didn’t help that much: she could see the panic increase tenfold in the little girl’s face as she approached. Janey suspected it was that leather cop squeak, the belt and holster. She knelt down, keeping a few yards’ distance till the girl relaxed a little. “Stuck, huh? Maybe I can take a look?” There was a long pause and then the girl nodded. At least she’d stopped yelling for Tommy, who was now a dot at the end of the road. Janey moved closer and saw the problem was her training wheels, which were caught in the roots of a knobby-looking birch. “Step off a second.” The girl got off. Janey unhooked the bike and carried it clear of the woods, setting it down on the shoulder. “No charge.” She said her name was Janey and the girl said she was Lucy.

  Janey pointed out that their names sounded kind of the same. Lucy looked like she had to think about this for a while. She stared down the road, then said, very quietly, “Yes.” She made no move to bolt. Janey waited. “I live here in the summertime,” Lucy said. “Do you? Or do you live here in the all-the-time?”

  Janey told her that she lived here in the all-the-time.

  “When it’s cold and snowy?” Lucy asked.

  “When it’s cold and snowy. So what’s going on, Lucy? What’re you and the boys up to today?”

  “We’re riding bikes.”

  “In the woods? Does that seem like a good idea?”

  Lucy shrugged.

  “Trying to hide from me, huh?”

  She shrugged again. “We were going to leave anyways, ’cause we dint see him.” She started to eat her finger.

  Janey asked who “him” was. Lucy removed her finger and said, “David Lemmerman.”

  Janey wasn’t sure she’d heard this right. “David Letterman. You were looking for David Letterman?”

  The little girl pointed back into the woods. “Uh-huh. Down there. In the boot luggage house. David Lemmerman’s staying in the boot luggage house.”

  “Who says?”

  The girl shrugged, arms raised, fingers splayed, completely stumped on this one.

  “You just heard he’s staying here and you thought you’d try to see him?”

  She nodded again.

  “Why’d you want to do that, Lucy?”

  She threw up her hands, like Janey must be some kind of a dope. “He’s famous.”

  Well, she thought. At least it’s not because she wanted to get a job as a comedy writer. Janey wasn’t sure she could handle the competition. This girl was priceless. She patted Lucy on the head, right along that perfect part between the pigtails. “Get a helmet,” she said. “That goes for Tommy and the other one, too. And ask them to tell you what trespassing means.” She made a shooing motion, then rethought it, holding Lucy by the shoulder. “Wait. You’re too young to stay up and watch Letterman. You sure you really know who he is?”

  She was nodding, waggling those pigtails.

  “Really?”

  The girl shrugged, squinting back at her, repeating, “He’s famous.” Then she pedaled away, each stride a giant effort, as if that was answer enough.

  43

  IT STARTED OUT AS JUST A BIKE RIDE, following Courtney around the village. Mark knew she was bored, as usual. She even pedaled in a bored-looking way, lazily careening from side to side and narrowly avoiding getting clipped by people pulling away from the curb in trucks and SUVs. They had to squeal their brakes to avoid her, producing nothing more from her than, at the least, a roll of the eyes that said she was making allowances for the village retard or, at the most, a flip of the bird or a grab of her crotch and a Lick me! The biking ended pretty quickly, after a dipped cone at the Daisy June, which she only tasted, then tossed in a trash can. It got dark and she led him along the back access street that ran parallel to the main drag, River Street. There were Dumpsters back there, he noticed with a little apprehension, but also the service entrances for the bars and stores. Some were fenced off as little backyards. She seemed to have a plan, pushing her bike down into the alley that ran alongside the bar called the Wobbly Moose. She slid her bike in behind the Dumpster and he did the same, though he wasn’t sure he was up for another Dumpster dive, if that’s what she had in mind, no matter how much her filthy-rich friends back home thought it was cool.

  There was a wooden sign over the open back door that said “Rear End of the Moose.” Recorded music and voices and laughter drifted out. She stopped in front of a frosted dirty window and turned, grinning. “When I was young? This other girl and I? We’d sneak back here and stand on a crate and press our little titties up against the window. It’s the men’s room. The owner got mad and chased us off. Then they put in some frosted glass.”

  He was afraid to ask how long ago that was. He had a feeling it was probably just last summer.

  “Anyway,” she said, “you got some condoms, right?”

  He nodded, then thought it might be too dark in the alley for her to see him nod, so he tried to say, “Yeah, sure,” but it came out a sort of wet, breathy sound. Of course he had condoms—he’d quickly learned with her that it was best to have them at all times. You had to be prepared with her because she only wanted to do it at times when a person—a normal person—would not be prepared.

  She took him by the hand and led him farther down the alley, toward the end where you might otherwise step out onto the sidewalk, only it was blocked with a short section of wooden picket fence, high and pointy. He could hear the voices of people milling in front of the bar, loud and clear, just a few feet away. Taking a moment to first peek out at the street through a la
rge knothole about eye-level, Courtney then stood with her back pressed against the fence, resting one Teva-clad foot back on the low crossbeam, about six inches off the ground, so that one leg was bent, her pelvis cocked and spread. She unhooked the sarong-y wrap she wore over her bikini bottoms and raised it up around her shoulders, letting it rest there like a shawl. Then she gripped his face in her hands and pulled him to her, kissing him hard. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

  He kissed her back. Once he’d locked on, she let go of his face and he could feel her getting ready down there, yanking aside her bikini bottoms.

  “You going to take them off?” he said, into her mouth.

  “No way!” she whispered back. “What if someone comes by?” She sounded excited at the prospect actually, but he was getting used to this—or as used to it as he thought he’d ever be—and knew not to question. “You can get in there,” she said. When he pulled out the condom, she grabbed it from him and tore it open and got it on him, stroking him. Then tipped her leg a little more to the side and started trying to shove him in by hand, muttering, “Hurry . . . hurry . . .”

  Mark had read a lot about foreplay and how women liked to go so slow. On Loveline, the radio show, they always told guys to approach a girl like you’d pet a cat, not how you’d roughhouse with a dog, and though that had always sounded good in theory, it was sort of out-the-window with Courtney.

  He couldn’t move in and out much because of the weird angle, the two of them standing face-to-face. And the edge of her bathing suit bottoms, the hem along the crotchline or whatever, was constricting, cutting up against his junk. Even through the condom, he could feel that thing rubbing like a piece of elastic. The fence made a creaking noise as they banged their weight into it. She was smiling now, her head rolling to one side, giggling a little and muttering something about how they were going to get in trouble. The smile was the only one he ever saw from her—that very brief sex smile. The thought flashed through his mind of maybe asking her please, as a favor, to take off her bathing suit bottoms. As if she’d really bother going to a little trouble to make it nice for him. Sure, she might have to get them back on quickly, but maybe it would feel a little more romantic. Besides, if they got busted, they’d be busted, flat out. No one would say, Oh, I’m sorry! I thought you kids were maybe doing it back here but now I see the young lady there is wearing a tiny little bathing suit, so never mind! Sorry to interrupt your little game of whatever it is . . . Carry on!

  Suddenly she stopped moving with him, her hand clamped on his mouth, listening to the voices on the other side of the fence, her eyes wide. He was still inside her, but she held his shoulder with her free hand, indicating he should stop with the thrusting. There were several voices, laughing and talking, men and women. Mark didn’t recognize any of them. They were only a few feet from the people passing on the other side, but she had known that when they started.

  “Oh my God . . .” She straightened her legs and tightened and he slipped out of her like he was being shoved out, rejected. She tugged the bikini bottom back in place and, turning to peek out the knothole, swung the wrap down and back around her waist in one motion. “I knew it!” She almost squealed, something he hadn’t really ever heard from her before (even when they’d been doing it, as they just had, moments before). “I knew it! It’s Daddy!” She peeked through the hole some more and Mark could hear two distinct voices now, a woman and a man, as they moved away from the fence, leaving the bar. As the sound drifted away, Courtney stepped up on the bottom crossbeam, tippy-toe, and tried to peer over the top. “Looks like they’re going over to that other one, Carrigan’s, across the street. Probably want the next drink to be a little more . . . in-ti-mate.” She let each syllable roll off her tongue like it was the dirtiest word in the world, and followed it up with her rendition of a cheap seventies porn soundtrack: “Bow-chicka-bow-bowwwwww . . .”

  Mark looked now, too, just managing to see over the fence. There was a tall, tanned man with his back turned, crossing the street, his hand lightly leading, flat against the back of a dark-haired woman dressed in khakis like a forest ranger or something. Mark wasn’t convinced: the guy did have the same wavy white mane as Dick Banes, but the woman seemed too short and not blond enough to be Mrs. Banes. But Courtney apparently thought it was them, so who was he to argue?

  Hopping down off the fence, she moved quickly back to the rear of the building, where they’d stashed the bikes by the Dumpster. “Come on. He told me I had the condo to myself tonight, that he was going to sleep on the boat.”

  “So?”

  She was already on her bike. “So we have to hurry if we’re going to beat them there.” She pedaled hard down past the rear entrances of all the nightspots and he followed her, down to the water. He didn’t really get any of this, but he wasn’t in the habit of asking Courtney to explain herself. They stashed their bikes at the rack behind her condo, then ran across the parking lot and down the dewy grass to the marina. He assumed, from her grin, that they were going to lie in wait and play some sort of joke on her folks. Maybe listen in on a private conversation.

  On board The Courtney, he followed her down the narrow steps into the main cabin and turned on a light. There was a couch and a built-in entertainment system and bar behind louvered white doors. She opened a narrow closet and frowned at the contents: a bunch of exercise equipment including a long gizmo that looked like a torture rack, with a sliding seat and a series of complicated pulleys. It was upended, crammed in there on top of the heap. He read the word Reformer on its side. His own mom did Pilates and he suspected that’s what it was for.

  “Help me make room.” Courtney dug out a big laundry bag and started stuffing it with the smaller loose things: a pink yoga mat, dumbbells, ankle weights, some sort of big rubber ball and a Pilates hoop like the one his own mom used. “There’s no place for this crap. He’ll see it lying around.” She cinched up the sack. “Just throw it overboard.”

  “No way,” he said. “We can’t do that.” Spying on her folks was one thing, but wrecking their property . . .

  She looked annoyed, rolling her eyes and exhaling a big huff like he was being a baby. “Fine! Tie a line to it then, we’ll pull it up later. Jesus . . .” She started yanking on the Pilates machine next, dragging it out with a grunt. Apparently that was going, too. He started to explain that it would get rusty and stuff. “Piehole!” she said, musically, pleasantly, and made a closing motion with her hand, instructing him to keep his closed. So he did as commanded, hauling the bumpy sack and then the Pilates machine up the narrow stairway to the deck. It seemed like a lot of work for a prank and he wondered again why they were doing this. The best he could figure, there was probably some big parental discussion the Baneses were about to have, some important issue concerning their daughter—the kind of debate he knew for a fact his own parents had about him in the kitchen sometimes, too often, in his opinion—and that she just wanted to eavesdrop and see what they were saying about her.

  He tied everything snug to a nylon mooring line, using the tugboat hitch he’d learned from Keith, and eased it all over the side with a bubbly glub, telling himself it wasn’t very deep there in the slip, anyway. If the line broke, they could maybe still fish out the Pilates machine, at least. Maybe.

  Back downstairs, there was still a big Rubbermaid bin at the bottom of the closet, full of gym outfits and larger free weights. “We’re not tossing that in,” he said.

  “No, duh. We’re gonna sit on it, dummy.” She had him do just that, then closed the closet door, calling, “Can you see me through the slats?”

  He leaned forward and saw a narrow slit of her, stretched out on the couch. “Yeah . . .”

  She hopped up and turned off the light and joined him in the closet, sitting on his lap. It was a tight fit, but she managed to get the door closed and then it was pretty solidly dark. She whispered, peeking through the slats, “Now, let’s just hope they turn the lights on . . .”

  It wa
s becoming clear that eavesdropping on a conversation wasn’t what she had in mind. “Please tell me we’re not actually going to watch your mom and dad having sex.”

  “That’s not my mom. What’s wrong with you? You’ve seen my mom—did that look like her?”

  “I guess I thought she was maybe . . . doing her hair different?”

  “She’s doing my dad different—but she’s not my mom. Mom flew down to Ann Arbor, for the Art Fair.”

  He didn’t know what to say. Besides, being from Birmingham, he was not unfamiliar with the Ann Arbor Art Fair and was pretty sure it wasn’t now. But he kept his mouth shut.

  “Anyway,” she said, “it wasn’t just the dark hair that was different. Didn’t you see the khakis and the shorts and all? The chick was dressed like Smokey the fucking bear.”

  “I can’t believe this,” he said. “What are you going to do?”

  “We’re doing it: we’re going to wait here until they show up and then we’re going to watch.”

  “Are you going to tell her?”

  “My mom? I don’t think so.”

  He tried patting her shoulder, stroking the ponytail that was now tickling his nose, not sure it was a comfort. “You must be really upset, I guess.”

  She squirmed and reached back to flick his hand away. “Please. It’s hilarious.”

  He couldn’t see what was so funny about it. Anything remotely this crazy, with either one of his parents, he’d probably be crying or puking or both. But she was glued to the door like any minute now the circus was going to start. He pointed out that they would hear them breathing in there. She shook her head and it made his nose itch. “No chance. My dad? He’s like loud. It’s always a big production with him.”