Skinny Dipping Season

by Cynthia Tennent

  “I know that trick. Lure kids in by having them call you by their first name and act like one of them before starting the adult moralizing.” I raised my hand to my mouth, but I couldn’t keep my giggle inside.

  “Did you make that?” Cherry pointed to a bracelet I had made in a group-therapy session once.

  “Do you like it?”

  She walked over to my outstretched arm for a closer view. Years ago, I had loved crafts. But I had driven myself crazy with the perfection I imposed on myself while weaving bracelets and knitting. I used to spend hours remaking a finished bracelet or unraveling a sweater with a single minute flaw. One of the healing exercises I had undertaken in a group session had been the return to crafts that I used to love. But this time, we were tasked with the job of making things wrong. On purpose. On a whim, this morning I had put on a bracelet I had made five years ago. The designs were fairly intricate, but the execution was all wrong. The brightly colored thread had frayed in several places and threatened to come undone. Cherry nodded her head as she lifted her fingers to touch it.

  “I’ll show you when we go inside.” Her hair was pulled back from her face, making her look younger and sweeter than she had in the grocery store. Her eyes traveled from the bracelet to me, as if she doubted I would be able to impart any knowledge on crafting.

  I shrugged. “I’m hot. Do you want a popsicle?”

  Cherry narrowed her eyes. But she followed me back toward the house. We passed the garden gnome and she said, “That thing is creepy. You should throw it away.”

  I looked down at the funny little man with one eye. “I like him.” I stepped aside and opened the back door for her. “After you.”

  We hadn’t finished sweeping. And Cherry probably thought she had outsmarted me. But my gut told me that she needed to feel like she had the upper hand. Then again, maybe I was deluding myself into thinking I was the one controlling this situation.

  We entered the house and she turned back to me and put her hands on her hips. “By the way, you really ought to learn how to clean a little better.” Her hands pointed to the overturned trash can and clothes scattered across the couch. “You’re kind of a slob, you know.”

  Chapter 7

  She stood alone in the mist, her sodden clothes clinging to her like a second skin. Then she heard the sound. Slowly at first and building to a crescendo. She turned and saw a horse galloping toward her. Afraid that her pursuer had found her, she froze, too scared to move. Her pale face lifted as he approached.

  And then in a terrifying moment he was there, swinging her up in his arms. Struggling to escape his grasp, she opened her mouth to scream and found herself silenced by a pair of familiar lips. She sagged in relief and threw her arms around him.

  I closed the next installment in the vampire series, Bitten and Bedded, and smiled. The best thing about the paperbacks I had been devouring—besides the sex, of course—were the wonderfully reliable happy endings. My soul felt much less trampled on than it had after reading the more touted literary novels. It certainly made sleeping for more than a couple of hours a little easier.

  I sat in the folding chair on the screened porch and let my eyes travel over the weed-free yard. Cherry and Ellie had come over twice now, to help get the house and yard in order. My role had been minimal, which was a victory in my ongoing war against obsessive-compulsion. The whole thing was convenient. I was easing my own conscience for my role in the shoplifting fiasco. And my yard was semi-clean by someone else’s hand.

  A few days ago, when the girls finished working, we sat on the floor of the living room and I showed them how to weave bracelets. At times Ellie made mistakes and I was proud that I didn’t feel the need to correct her. Afterwards we walked into town to the Dairy Cow for ice cream. I watched Cherry for signs of cutting or an eating disorder. I knew she was troubled, but I worried there might be other issues. It was absurd of me. I was the one who couldn’t handle a little stress. But she was almost the same age I was when my OCD developed. She hadn’t discussed her shoplifting attempt again, but when I paid her for her work in the yard, I deliberately reminded her to buy magazines with the money. That comment had earned me a major eye roll, which was fine with me. I wasn’t trying to be her friend.

  Fragments of information unraveled as we spent time together and I was forming a pretty good idea of what was going on inside Cherry’s head. She hated the town she lived in and couldn’t wait to grow up and move out. I didn’t need a psychology degree to understand that what she needed was a redirection of her anger, a pursuit that would channel her energy into something other than shoplifting.

  I put down my paperback and walked into the house. The sun shot streaks of light beams through the newly cleaned front windows, promising a beautiful summer day. The fishing pole Nestor had given me was still propped in the corner near the front door. Elliot and I used to love fishing. When I bought worms from a funny older woman named Flo at the tackle store yesterday, I asked her to help me set up the rod. She gave me a few pointers and recommended I wait for the calmest part of the day, since I was using a rowboat that probably had no anchor.

  Last night I had placed a worm in the palm of my hand and let it squirm and contort itself until it was ready to get back in the box. I resisted the urge to wash my hands for a full ten minutes. Today I was ready for the ultimate test: A fishing pole. Worms. And hopefully a slimy fish or two.

  Twenty minutes later I stood on the shore of Loon Lake and surveyed the glassy surface. Loon Lake, aptly named for its most prominent residents, was actually more like a large pond. Unlike the large sporting lakes in the area, it was too small for powerboats and large vacation homes. Only a few small houses were scattered around its perimeter. Nestor’s was beyond on a bluff across the dirt road. A brown cabin near the far shore looked empty. On the other side of a reedy area, an attractive cedar A-frame with large windows and a deck overlooked the lake. The lovely home hadn’t been there when I was younger. It must have been built recently.

  I stepped onto an uneven dock and crouched next to Nestor’s little green rowboat that was attached to a rusty cleat. The rowboat had never looked seaworthy, even when I was a girl. But oars and a plug were already inside, so one of the kids in the area must have used it recently.

  I placed all my gear at the bow and gingerly climbed in, testing it for my weight. I leaned out over the edge and cast a dubious glance at the murky water below me. There was no sandy beach on this spring-fed lake.

  Elliot had once dared me to jump into the water from the reedy shore and I still remembered the horrifying way I had sunk into the bottomless muck. After that, I would only swim off the swim dock in the center where the water was deep. And then when my OCD got worse, I wouldn’t swim in the lake at all.

  The dock was still there. But I wasn’t brave enough to jump in the water today.

  I unhooked the line and pushed off. Grandma always rowed us toward the edge of a reef, where an old abandoned icehouse had sunk decades ago. We usually found bluegill and large-mouth bass within the makeshift reef. I might still have luck if I hovered over it.

  Nestor said he would cook anything I caught tonight. My mouth watered just thinking about tender fish with a crispy baked crust. Fresh bluegill, although small, had been delicious and stood out as one of my favorite meals from childhood. Adjusting my Toledo Mud Hens hat to shield my face from the sun, I practiced casting until I had the hang of it once again. Then I opened the box of worms.

  “I really hope you have no nerve endings, Mr. Worm,” I whispered as I wrapped it around the hook. I should have felt guilty, but instead I felt a sense of pride. Grandma or Elliot had always done this job for me. But this time I was doing it by myself.

  Smiling and humming a Disney song about life under the sea, I rested my hands on my knees while I waited for a nibble. The loyal reef served me well. It wasn’t long before three blue gill and one largemouth bass sloshed around in my bucket. The fish were “keepers,” as Grandma would have called
them. I couldn’t wait to show Nestor.

  I floated in the center of the lake, loving the way it felt like I was on an island in the middle of nowhere. The fluffy white clouds moved lazily across the sky and hearing the wind flutter through the leaves on the shore made me drowsy. I gave the remaining worms a stay of execution and tucked them into the shade under my seat. Pulling in my line, I propped the pole against the side of the boat and reclined against the seat, pulling my cap over my eyes. I sighed in contentment. My eyelids were heavy and the heat from the sun embraced me as the water lapped against the boat.

  I must have slept, because the next thing I was aware of was the sound of buzzing near my ear. I lifted one lethargic hand and waved it across my face to shoo a fly. A moment later he was back and I repeated the move and then pushed back my hat to stare upward. The clouds above reminded me of a shiny knight riding a white steed.

  I had been reading way too many romances. But it was nice not to wake up ticking off the endless to-do items from my job or my screwed-up future. I concentrated on the clouds and tried to imagine what my prince would be like if I could fabricate him from the sky. Well, it went without saying that he would have to be attractive. But maybe not that preppy, clean-cut style I had grown up with. No, I think my prince would have a dark, slightly dangerous mystique about him. He would be less predictable than Colin. He would be a man who didn’t look at his watch and his phone more often than he looked at me.

  Oh my God, I was being ridiculous. That kind of man didn’t exist.

  I pulled my elbows behind me and propped myself to a sitting position. How long had I been sleeping? The sun was lower on the horizon and the boat had drifted toward the reedy shore. I gazed around, trying to get my bearings, and that was when I spotted him.

  J. D. Hardy leaned casually against a tree, his arms crossed in front of him. He was staring directly at me.

  A shiver ran up my spine. For the first time since I had met him, he wasn’t wearing his uniform. Faded blue jeans and a gray T-shirt were molded to him as if they had been tailored. The breeze blew a lock of hair across his forehead and I felt my body tense—well, I wasn’t actually sure it was tension. But it was something.

  “What are you doing on my lake?” It came out of me like a squeak.

  He stepped away from the tree. “I’ll have to tell the real-estate agent who sold me my house that he made a mistake.”

  I sat up and clutched the side of the boat. “You know what I mean. This is my fishing lake.” Then I noticed where I had drifted. Behind him was the A-frame house. A path from the deck to the lake led to where he stood.

  “Tell me you don’t live here.”

  “I could tell you that, but it wouldn’t be true. What’s the matter? Is it so strange to consider that I actually have a life outside of the Sheriff’s Department?”

  I pulled the baseball cap low on my head. My mood could now officially be described as grumpy. “No. It’s just that I thought you lived in a coffin and only came out when the sun set.”

  “Funny. Remind me to keep you away from wooden stakes.”

  “Something tells me you would require both wooden stakes and a silver bullet.” I grabbed the oars and muttered under my breath, “Of all the dumb luck.”

  I pulled the oars, trying to turn the boat around to face the open water. The sooner I got away from Officer Hardy, the sooner I could go back to daydreams and puffy “man clouds.” Unfortunately, the boat didn’t move. Readjusting my position on the seat, I dug the oars deeper in the muddy water and attempted it again. Nothing. When you live through Ohio winters you learn to rock your car between drive and reverse when you are caught in snowdrifts. I figured a boat was similar. So I tried to rock the boat with my weight, leaning forward and backward as I pulled with all my strength on the oars. I’m sure I looked like a moron. All I managed to do was stir up the muck around me and kill a few lily pads and reeds in the process.

  J. D. was back to his annoying position against the tree. He started to whistle “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Very funny. My hands were getting sweaty and my shoulder muscles burned.

  “Would you mind shutting up?” I could feel dampness developing in my armpits.

  “What? I thought you liked songs. You were having so much fun with them a few weeks ago in your empty living room.”

  “You’re hilarious! Why don’t you go get some starch from your uniform and chew on it for a while?”

  My efforts weren’t working. I was only miring the boat deeper in the muck.

  Eventually, I gave up and turned my back on him. I picked up the line at the bow that had been used to tie the boat to the dock. But it was too short to be of any help. I could step out and take the risk of getting sucked into the endless muck. Or I could phone for help. But the most obvious person who could assist was standing on the shore. His whistling had stopped and I peeked over my shoulder to see what he was doing.

  He still watched me. His eyes traveled over my faded cutoff jean shorts and pink Life is Good T-shirt and a shiver ran up me, as if he had caressed me with his hand. But that must have been the wind.

  “I don’t suppose you could actually be of any assistance, Officer Hardy?”

  “Now, why would I do that? Every time I find myself doing my job around you, I get myself in trouble.”

  Stubbornness was obviously a major personality flaw for J. D. Hardy. But I was learning to be equally hardheaded. I grasped the oars again and made several more futile attempts to remove myself from the reeds.

  He switched tunes and whistled an old Rolling Stones ballad about satisfaction.

  “Your whistling is good, but I wouldn’t quit your day job if I were you,” I couldn’t help mimicking what he had once said to me.

  “That attitude isn’t going to get you very far, Miss Lively.” He continued where he left off. He had just reached the second verse when I gave up and stopped rowing. I had two options: the muck or a lowering, pride-sucking request for assistance.

  “Okay. What will it take to get your help?” I asked politely as if he were nothing more than a stranger in the grocery store.

  He put his finger to his lip and seemed to contemplate the issue. “Hmm . . . Well, how about an apology to start with. You could say something like, ‘I’m sorry, Officer Hardy, for obstructing a police situation at the Family Fare and lying to keep you from doing your job’ . . . or you could say, ‘I’m so sorry I was rude to you when you kept my house from burning to the ground, Officer!’ Maybe you could retract your earlier comment about Dracula. Or you could take back the reference to my whistling just now. That one really stung.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I just love the way you are taking advantage of the situation. Why don’t you ask for my firstborn while you’re at it?”

  “Sweetheart, if your firstborn is anything like you, I would be wise to demand that she live on the next continent as my reward.”

  I nodded at the cabin on the opposite shore. “Remind me to buy the property next door and send all my kids to haunt you then.”

  I squared my shoulders for what I was about to do, aware that in my previous life I had made apologies for everything all the time. Even when I wasn’t at fault. And that was what brought me here in the first place. Ironic, wasn’t it?

  Taking a deep breath, I lowered my chin and prepared for the inevitable lowering moment. “Okay. Here it goes, but listen closely because I am only going to say it once.”

  He straightened up and moved closer to the shoreline.

  “Are you listening?”

  He nodded his head and cupped his ear. Wise guy. He deserved my best executive-director language for that.

  “I . . . apologize . . . for any disrespect you could possibly have construed by my tone of voice and manner in the past few weeks.”

  He lowered his hand and tilted his head, unimpressed. “That’s it?”

  “That is all you’re going to get from me.”

  “I have to think about it, then.” He turned away an
d started walking up the path to his house. My mouth hung open as he disappeared in the trees.

  “Wait! Where are you going?” For a moment I pictured myself still sitting in the boat as the sun set. I swatted a black fly away and wondered how many days I could go without food. I looked at the fish in the bucket. Did blue gill make decent sushi?

  Several minutes later, I was under attack by a family of black flies. J. D. returned down the path holding a rope, which he swung back and forth. His mouth tilted crookedly. “I want you to know that even though your apology was really quite pathetic, I am going to be the better person and rescue you. Here, catch.” He threw one end of the long line out to me.

  Of course, I missed. “A little warning might have helped.”

  He pulled the rope backward, shaking his head. “See, Liz . . .” he paused. “You don’t mind if I call you Liz, do you? Elizabeth is so formal. Liz, let me spell this out for you. The point is that you’re supposed to attempt to catch one end of the line. Get it?”

  I clenched my jaw and squinted my eyes. “Officer Hardy—you don’t mind the familiarity, I assume, Officer? If you had actually given me a little time to catch the darn rope—and of course had aimed a little better—I might have been successful in my attempt to catch it. And by the way, I don’t like the nickname Liz. My name is Elizabeth. Use it.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Funny, I could swear you were the nickname type. How about Beth?” He threw the rope again. This time it hit the side of the boat and as I reached for it, I lost it in the muddy reeds. He hauled the rope back with exaggerated patience as if I were a child.

  “Not Beth. Just Elizabeth.”

  “Very well, Elizabeth.” He threw the line perfectly and I caught it easily. “Bingo.”

  I felt around the rim of the boat for a cleat or loop that I could use to attach the line.

  “Just hold on while I pull,” J. D. said. He moved to a more strategic location near the dock that would ease the boat bottom from its mooring. “By the way,” he asked, nodding at the fishing pole, “Did you catch anything?”