by Laura Singer
Chapter 9
Jenni woke up the next morning feeling much better. She took her time getting dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a wool sweater, then went for a brisk half-hour walk along the road. There were few people in the cottages by the water, and the woods were damp with a heavy dew. A couple of dogs barked once or twice and a string of geese flew over, but there weren't many bugs out and most of those ignored her. There seemed to be a lot of spider webs, but she realized that they'd always been around; it was just the moisture from the dew making them visible. They were so pretty in the first light that she wished she'd brought a camera.
When she got back to the lodge, she walked to the end of the docks and watched the water for a few moments. The last of the morning mist was almost gone. Seeing a large feather in the water, she knelt and picked it up, examining it. Heron feather, she decided, from the size and color. She took it with her.
Back in her room she made some instant coffee and a bowl of cereal, then sat on a chair in front of her room. Through the screening she could see mists rising from the lake. The heron was back, looking for fish near the shallows, and a boat from one of the other lodges was trolling the usual spots out by the island.
Jenni knew she would have to face Emilia eventually, but she was worried that Emilia and maybe Saundra had got up to some more meddling. That would have been fine, Jenni figured, if there had been any hope that she and Matt would get together, but she couldn't see any way ahead in her current situation. Anything she and Matt could do would be wrong. The thought depressed her, and she really didn't want to meet anybody who would tell her, as they had when she left Julio, "You'll find love again." Yeah, right.
She got out her tablet and checked out her various email, text and social network sites. There were a few things to deal with but nothing she felt like posting at the moment. Eventually, she took a picture of the lake with the heron flying by, and posted it. Then she tried to figure out something worthwhile to do, and couldn't, so she grimaced and went to the lodge office.
Emilia, who was looking bright and cheerful in a red Two-and-a Half Pine Lodge sweatshirt and jeans – a sensible outfit for a person who might have to lug a tank of gasoline to a boat or show someone where the fish-cleaning station was – greeted her with a big smile. Jenni's heart sank a bit lower; she probably didn't want to know what that smile meant. "Good morning!" Emilia said. "Have you had breakfast, or can I make you something?"
Jenni, suppressed an urge to say, "I think I'll find someplace where I can get an omelette, maybe Nicaragua, like," and merely said, "I ate. I had a coffee."
"Well, are you up for a few items of news?"
"Look," Jenni said, "I'd really like to just relax a bit today, if you…."
"Tough," Emilia said. "Too much happening." She checked to be sure there was no one else in listening distance, and said, "the police called. They're going to upgrade the charge against Julio to 'attempted murder.'"
"I'm not sure…."
"They were there – at the campsite – yesterday, and remember when there was that bit of jiggle in the picture when the shotgun went off? That was a pellet of buckshot hitting the stump where the camera was. They dug it out. From the angle, most of the buckshot went over your head, but the closest piece couldn't have missed you by much."
"Oh." A vacation from her vacation was looking like a better bet every second.
"That's right. And the second news is that Saundra and I agreed that you and Matt were running on misunderstandings of each other. So we decided to straighten him out."
"I think I'll take a drive about now. A long drive to somewhere." Jenni couldn’t tell whether she was more hurt or angry.
"Sorry. Chained your car to a tree, just in case. Just joking. Matt thought it was funny, and sent us his poem, completed this time." She pulled a piece of paper from the desk, and motioned to a chair beside the little table. "Let's look at this thing together."
"You're meddling," Jenni said.
"Damn right. Someone has to straighten you two out. What would have happened if someone had stepped in to help out Romeo and Juliet?"
"Someone did," Jenni said. "They fell in love instantly, realized they were in trouble, but a well-meaning priest stepped in with a plan."
"Really? I don't remember that part."
"In love, married, dead and buried. Took maybe three or four days from one to the other, thanks to the meddling priest." She paused. "We aren't teenagers, Emilia. We can handle things ourselves at our age."
"I doubt it. Here's the poem."
Jenni tried to ignore it, but couldn't, and read it.
Come and share this world with me
The night is full of fears
And on tomorrow’s trails, we’ll place
Our footprints on the years
Come and spend the night with me
We’ll listen to the dark
Beneath the vault of endless sky
For you are flame, I am spark
You are flame, I am spark
And in the velvet night
In torch and touch and sudden flame
To find, then hold on tight
"So I'm to share the world, am I," Jenni said. "I suppose that's supposed to be an upgrade to sharing his tiny tent. Big promise, but he doesn't own the world. At least he owned the tent."
Emilia sighed. "I think he just means to share his experience of the world. His world. He's offering."
"Like I shared Julio's experience of the world. I'm not seeing much of an offer."
"Okay, now. Calm down. Poets abbreviate a bit. It probably means he's offering to share what experience two people can make of this world.
"And all he wants is me to spend the night. I guess that's direct enough. Does Annie get a copy of this poem? And what's this about him being a spark? He's down to a spark now, is he?" Jenni shoved the poem aside.
"Well, you're his flame; that sounds promising." She added, "Matt's going to phone sometime this morning."
Jenni shook her head. "I can't see any reason to talk to him." I can see a reason to take a walk off the end of the dock about now, with an anchor, she thought. "He thinks the whole thing is a misunderstanding. Well, maybe not everything is a misunderstanding, you know. There's that long-term commitment to Annie, or was that a fib?"
"It's a very long term commitment, for sure." But Emilia was smiling. "And they love each other dearly."
"Duty, then, is it? She's in a wheelchair and he's not going to abandon her? And she's so incapacitated that she'll let him play around? I don’t think that's something I can accept."
But Emilia suppressed a giggle. "You remember saying he didn't react well to learning you'd walked out on your husband? At the campfire?"
Jenni said nothing.
"Well, it seems that about that time he figured out you thought his telling you about his bad marriage… that you thought it was a marriage to Annie. But he was disappointed enough in you that he just encouraged you to believe that."
"Just what damn difference does it make!" Jenni was getting red.
"We told him about your concern about his… lack of faithfulness to Annie, and how badly you reacted to such shenanigans after your husband went around picking up strays."
Jenni gave Emilia her coldest stare.
"Ah, well, Jenni, we both made an assumption from the beginning."
"Which was what?"
Emilia spoke slowly. "Jenni. Annie is Matt's sister."
There was a silence in the lodge. Outside, a couple of seagulls argued over something. "What?" Jenni said. "Say again?"
"His older sister. Injured in a car accident maybe ten years ago. She lives with him now."
"He's…."
"Free, as far as we can tell." Emilia began to laugh.
"Well, then…." and Jenni began to laugh, too. She laughed till she hurt her side and tears ran down her cheeks. Then she got the hiccups.
Then the phone rang. Jenni waved her arms, to tell Emilia to get it.
"Hi, Matt," Emilia said into the phone. "Yeah, she's here, but when I told her about your sister, she started laughing her guts out. Now she's got the hiccups so bad she can't talk." Emilia laughed at something Matt said, then, "You sure? She's a bit, ah, flustered right now. I'll ask her, if you want. You're sure you don’t want to wait for a week or two to see if she survives the hiccups?" Emilia listened a bit while Jenni tried a couple of tricks that were supposed to stop hiccups, but didn't work, then Emilia said, "Well, okay, then."
Jenni tried to say something, but burst into laughter and hiccups again.
Emilia waited till Jenni was a bit quieter, then said, "Matt would like to ask you out to lunch. Personally, I think he's probably out to lunch to ask you, but that's up to him." Jenni's laughter stopped, but the hiccups didn't. After a long pause, she nodded.
"Well, she stopped laughing, at least," Emilia told Matt, but you won't get much conversation out of her till the hiccups stop. But she nodded; yes she did, so I guess I'll have to clean all those cottages myself this afternoon." Emilia nodded and said "okay" a couple of times while she took notes on a piece of paper." She turned to Jenni. "Try a spoonful of sugar, while holding your breath and pulling on your tongue while crossing your toes. Matt says he'll pick you up at noon and take you to …" she read the notes. "to the Blue Roof Bistro. Banana crepes, if you want. Nod your head, if that's all right."
Jenni nodded, and Emilia said to the phone, "she seems to be agreeable to that. Okay. You're welcome; just one of my many services. Bye." After she put the phone down, she turned to Jenni and raised her eyebrows. "You've got," Emilia said, looking at the clock, "less than an hour and a half.
"Omigod!" Jenni said. "What have I done? What will I wear?" It took two hiccups just to get that out.
"Well, if nothing else, you can wear yesterday's outfit. He seemed to like that. Of course, he'll figure out that you only have two outfits then, the skirt and the one you wrassle bears in the back woods in. But I have a different blouse that will probably fit you, if you want."
"Thanks." Jenni ran up to her room before she remembered that she should have taken Emilia's blouse with her. She closed the door, put her back against it, and tried to think. While she was taking another shower, she noticed that the hiccups had stopped.
The shower was a good idea; she did a lot of thinking in there.
When she came down to the office, wearing the skirt and a jacket, she was a lot calmer. The first thing she said to Emilia was, "Let me see that poem again." Emilia handed it to her. Jenni read it, folded it, and put it into the backpack she was carrying.
"You understand," Emilia said, "I think I've been a bit pushy on this thing. Probably just bored with life at the lodge. I mean, men are like blenders; a woman thinks she needs one, but isn't quite sure why."
Jenni laughed and shook her head. "You were right. Matt and I have both been pushing ashes around for a while. It's time we took some chances."
"You're sure?"
"It's time to take a chance or two."
"Scared?"
"Freakin' right, but I like Matt. After all, I've known him almost two days now." She smiled. "I'm going to trust my instincts; maybe this time it'll work."
"I wish you all the best. What are your plans?"
"Well," Jenni said, "maybe we'll have a good lunch. Maybe I'll be back in a couple of hours after I decide I was mistaken about him. Maybe we'll sing in the sunshine, pick daisies, fall in love and have a dozen kids and climb a few hills. Or maybe not, but I like the odds. And sometimes you don't get much time to make a decision."
"Fall in love?" Emilia gave her most shocked look. "Is that possible?"
"Could be. Every flame starts with a spark, you know."
"Maybe Annie and you will be close friends."
Jenni nodded vigorously. "Maybe we'll laugh a lot and I'll bring her over to meet you."
"You still need that blouse?"
"Sure do."
"What's in the packsack?"
"Odd and ends," Jenni said. "In case…."
"In case?"
"In case I don’t get back till tomorrow, like. Think I'm nuts? I plan to be prepared." Jenni felt happier than she could remember.
Emilia brought Jenni a brown blouse and gave her a big hug. Then she looked out the window. "Tell me that's not a helicopter I hear!"
"Sure sounds like it" Jenni ran out and was at the end of the dock by the time Kevin had landed the helicopter and was paddling it in to shore. He took Jenni's hand, as she stepped onto the float. Matt, reaching from the doorway, helped her into the aircraft. He looked, she noted, very happy. A couple of minutes later, as they lifted off, Jenni waved to Emilia, who was standing on the deck.
### END ###
The Author
Laura Singer has written a number of poems.
This is her first novel.
She may be contacted at [email protected].
