The Simple Wild

by K. A. Tucker

  All in all, it was a peaceful yet uneventful afternoon, after a difficult morning.

  “I hope you brought your appetite. We’ll eat as soon as the guys get here.”

  The guys? “Which guys?” I ask warily.

  “Just Wren and Jonah. They should be here soon. Jonah got stuck up near Nome with the fog, but it was beginning to clear when I left. He figured he’d make it back in time.”

  “Jonah’s coming, too?” I struggle to hide my displeasure.

  Agnes smiles. “It’ll be fine. I promise.”

  I sigh heavily. Yeah, I’m guessing everything “will be fine” in Agnes’s eyes.

  Fucking hell. I can’t get away from this guy.

  “Jonah has worked for your dad for over ten years now. He’s like his right-hand man. Does all the risky off-airport landings for the hunters and fishermen, sorts out most of the plane issues. And the customer issues, not that we have that many. Helps Wren make the tough decisions. He’s a good guy, once you see past that hard shell.” She glances over her shoulder at me, her eyebrows arching when she sees the daisies.

  “Just something to say thanks. For dinner . . . and everything else you’ve done.”

  She smiles wistfully. “I can’t remember the last time anyone brought me flowers. It’s been a while.”

  I damn well know Jonah hasn’t. But has my father, ever? Is he the kind of man who would? Have they ever had the kind of relationship where he should?

  “Do you have a vase that I can put them?”

  “I think I have a tall jar. I’ll have to dig it up. Just leave them on the counter for now.”

  Setting the bouquet down, I yank my sleeves up and head for the sink to wash my hands. “What can I help with?” I note that the table has already been set.

  Agnes peers at the tall pot that sits on a trivet, and then at me, as if considering. “The potatoes need mashing, if you don’t mind?”

  “No problem.” I can’t remember the last time I mashed potatoes. Mom has all but eliminated them from our house, the carbohydrates “devastating” to her waistline. But every once in a while, I come into the kitchen late at night after she’s gone to bed, to find Simon at the table with a bowl of instant mashed and a sheepish look on his face. Where he’s ferretted those packets away, I haven’t figured out yet.

  “The masher is over there.” She juts her chin toward a drawer. “And there’s milk and butter in the fridge. Wait, can you have that? Because we can make it without.”

  I smile, appreciating her concern and the fact that she remembered. “It’s fine. I’ll skip the potatoes.” I push up my sleeves and set to work. “So, did my dad say anything about bringing my luggage home today?”

  “No, but I expect him to. The plane should have arrived an hour ago.”

  “Thank God. All my shoes are getting ruined.” I found an old scrub brush under the sink today and spent an hour gently brushing the mud from my wedge heels. I’m afraid it was in vain, though.

  Footfalls stomp up the six wooden steps outside then, and a moment later the door flies open.

  My stomach tightens automatically as I turn, preparing myself to greet one of two men, both of whom seem to cause me anxiety, for entirely different reasons.

  Instead I find a teenaged girl facing me, long, glossy hair the color of espresso pulled into a messy, off-kilter ponytail, her inky black eyes sparkling with curiosity. “Calla! You’re here!” She kicks off her muddy boots.

  “I am,” I say warily. She seems to know who I am, and yet I have no idea who she is.

  “I was gonna come over last night but my mom said you were tired, and then I stopped by on my way to the farm and Jonah said you were still in town.”

  Her mom . . . My gaze flickers to Agnes and then to the dining table, where the four chairs tricked me into not noticing five settings, and then past, to the wall of pictures, to the child’s face that graces more of them than I first realized, and it suddenly dawns on me. “This is your daughter?” Agnes has a child? Did she mention her last night and I missed it, too wrapped up in my own worries?

  Agnes smiles. “This is Mabel. She’s a fireball of energy, just to warn you now.”

  Mabel’s face splits into a wide grin that rivals her mother’s. Her face is not as round as Agnes’s, I note. But she certainly has the same deeply set, hooded eyes, only larger.

  “So, you’re from Toronto, right? That’s so cool! I want to visit Toronto so bad one day. George has been there and he said it’s amazing! I’ve creeped, like, your whole Instagram account. You should be a model. You’re so pretty!”

  “Toronto’s great,” I agree, taking a moment to process all that just flew from Mabel’s mouth. She’s definitely not shy, and she talks a mile a minute, in an oddly husky voice for a girl, and with an inflection that’s slightly different from her mother’s.

  But most importantly, how does this girl from Western Alaska know my Instagram handle?

  “There was a link at the bottom of your email,” Agnes explains, likely able to read the confusion on my face. “I was curious, so I clicked on it and found your website. I swear, Mabel’s scoured every last corner of it.”

  “Ah. Right.” My automated signature. I completely forgot about that. Now it makes sense.

  “So, you took a cab to the river today?” Mabel asks.

  “Uh . . . yeah.” It takes a moment to connect the dots. I posted a few pictures from earlier, and decided to ignore Diana’s captioning advice and talk about my day in Bangor, about the friendly cabbie whose name isn’t really Michael, with the six kids and one on the way, and how he uses the river to see them. It just seemed more interesting and way more honest.

  I posted those maybe an hour ago, but I guess even all the way up here in the middle of nowhere, teenagers are linked to their phones.

  “Mabel, why don’t you go wash up for dinner and then pull out that chair from my room.” Agnes begins carving the chicken with expert strokes of her knife, setting the freshly cut meat onto a small white platter.

  Mabel wanders over and leans in to inspect the chicken as her mother just did. She’s taller than Agnes by at least three inches, and dressed in the same type of department-store-brand budget jeans. “So did I pick a good one?”

  Agnes tugs at the left leg. The meat begins to separate, and clear juices dribble over the golden skin. “You did. Though I would have liked a bit more fat on its thighs.”

  “He was the slowest one of them! I barely had to run to catch him!”

  “You caught our dinner?” I blurt out.

  Mabel grins at me. “Barry let me bring one home this week, for helping out on the farm.”

  “Is that the farm down the road? I think I saw it when I went for a run today.”

  “The Whittamores,” Agnes confirms. “It’s pretty famous. No one’s been as successful at farming around here as Barry and Dora. They grew over fifty thousand pounds of vegetables last year. And who knows how many eggs in that underground chicken coop of theirs. We fly their produce to a lot of the villages.”

  “I was surprised to see it,” I admit. “My mom’s big into growing things and she wasn’t ever able to do it.”

  “The season’s longer and warmer now than it was twenty-four years ago. But, still, it’s a lot of work to grow anything around here. Like the Whittamores do, anyway,” Agnes murmurs. “Barry’s out there thawing and tilling and prepping the soil for two years before he can plant anything in the ground.”

  “Yeah, he puts up these huge tunnels so we can start seeding things in February. There’s no wind or snow, and it’s way warmer in there.”

  Agnes chuckles. “That’s where I find her most days after school, in the winter. That or in their root cellar.”

  “Oh. That’s right!” Mabel exclaims, as if she’s just remembered something important. “Barry said he saw you this morning.
You were in bright pink, tearing down the road.”

  At least he didn’t say I was naked. “That was me. Getting eaten alive by mosquitoes,” I add, giving my arm a scratch where an itch suddenly springs.

  Mabel’s sweet face scrunches up. “The mosquitoes and no-­see-ums will get you good.”

  “The no-see-ums?”

  “Yeah. They’re bad this year. Make sure you wear jeans and a hoodie when you go out, and you’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll be sure to do that.” When my hoodie gets here from Anchorage, that is.

  “How was it at the farm today, anyway?” Agnes asks.

  “Same ol’. Kinda boring.”

  “Remember how lucky you are. There are plenty of people around here who’d collect eggs and vegetables in exchange for fresh produce and the occasional chicken.”

  “I’ll bet they’d rather do it for cash,” Mabel mutters.

  “When you’re older, I’m sure he’ll pay you with real money. Unless you keep showing up whenever you feel like it. In that case, he might not hire you at all,” Agnes scolds, in that gentle way of hers.

  How old is Mabel exactly, that this farmer doesn’t feel comfortable paying her in cash?

  Mabel waves her mother’s worries off with an annoyed frown. “Barry doesn’t care what time I come in. And besides, the hens lay twice as many eggs when I’m around. I’m his chicken whisperer.” She gives me a toothy grin and then stretches to her tiptoes to pull out a bag of chips from the cupboard.

  Agnes promptly plucks the bag from her grasp and tosses it back into the cupboard. “We’re eating dinner soon, Chicken Whisperer. Go on and get washed up.”

  With a groan, Mabel retreats down the hall, leaving me staring after her.

  “She does have a lot of energy.”

  “It’s something, trying to keep her busy enough to burn it all off, especially during the summer break. I’m so thankful to Barry for giving her something to do.” Agnes pauses and then says more quietly, “She doesn’t know about Wren yet. I’m going to tell her soon. I just . . . He asked me to wait.”

  He also asked her not to tell me or Jonah, but she didn’t stick to that request, I note.

  Two more sets of boots clomp up the six wooden steps of the porch then, these ones heavier, and moving more slowly.

  I peer over and find unreadable glacier-blue eyes watching me intently from the other side of the window. I can’t help but glare back at him, even as my chest tightens with anxiety.

  A single knock sounds, followed immediately by the creak of the door opening.

  “Doesn’t smell like muktuk,” my dad says, bending over to unlace his boots. His voice instantly stirs something familiar inside me.

  “Thought we’d ease Calla into Alaska before I start feeding her whale blubber.”

  I struggle to keep the disgust off my face, earning Agnes’s chuckle.

  “Did she catch a fat one this time?”

  “Fat and slow, apparently. Not as slow as you two, though. I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.” Agnes smiles, even as she softly reprimands him for being late.

  “You know how it is.” He saunters in farther to study the platter of chicken, my eyes on him the whole time as my hand moves mechanically, crushing the white potato flesh as I’m absorbed in a surreal fog.

  I’m actually here, in Alaska. With my father. I’m a spectator, watching his daily life as it happens, surrounded by his people, inhaling the faint waft of cigarette smoke that trails him.

  “Mabel home yet?” he asks.

  “Washing up. She’ll be out in a minute.” A bit lower, but loud enough for me to catch, “As soon as she hears Jonah’s voice.”

  My dad groans. “I’ll be happy when that crush wears off.”

  Mabel has a crush on Jonah? My eyebrows pop in surprise as I peer over my shoulder, just as the supposed object of her affection comes into view, having removed his outer clothes and hat.

  I’ll admit, he’s far from bad-looking, even with all the hair. If only I could take a pair of scissors to him . . . My fingers twitch just thinking about it.

  And then Jonah’s words from earlier ring in my ear—his claim that I’ve been picking everyone apart since I got here—and guilt has me turning away from mentally grooming him.

  I find my dad’s gentle gray eyes watching me keenly.

  “So? How was your day, Calla?”

  Simon’s words echo inside my head.

  Is he running? Or are you chasing him away?

  You can’t control him, but you can control how you act toward him.

  “It was . . . good.” Aside from the tongue-lashing from his right-hand man over there. I press into the potatoes. “Quiet.”

  He nods slowly. “I suppose it’s a lot different from what you’re used to.”

  “Yeah. A little bit.” I smile my agreement. How many days will I be able to survive out here, before I long to be back in my city? Or any city, for that matter.

  “Did the truck give you any problems? Getting into second gear has been a bit sticky lately.”

  “Uh . . .” I glance at Agnes questioningly, to see the subtle head shake. I guess she didn’t tell him that I can’t drive. And, obviously, neither has Jonah. Should I?

  Things are already uncomfortable between us; I don’t need to make them more so by pointing out all the things he doesn’t know about me right out of the gate.

  “Nope. No problems.”

  “Good . . . good . . .” His head bobs slowly. An awkward moment stretches.

  “Did Calla’s suitcases come in?” Agnes asks.

  “Right. About that . . .” Dad scratches his graying hair, hesitating. “They couldn’t make room for them on today’s flight.”

  “You’re kidding me!” My disappointment swells. “But I need my clothes! My rain boots!”

  “We can do another load of laundry tonight,” Agnes offers.

  “Yeah, I guess,” I mutter, though that’s not the point. “How could they all of a sudden not have room?”

  “There were some last-minute supplies that needed to get to one of the villages today. It’s just the way things go around here.” My dad gives me a sympathetic look.

  “Food. Medicine. You know, real necessities,” Jonah adds, his tone laced with amusement.

  “We’ll get your things in tomorrow.” Agnes smiles with assurance, even as she adds, “Probably.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure Billy’s taking really good care of it all.”

  I grit my teeth and return my focus to the potatoes while I take a calming breath and work my frustration out, because there’s nothing I can do about the luggage and bludgeoning Jonah to death with this potato masher would put a damper on dinner.

  “Hey, Aggie. I grabbed these for tonight.”

  “Wow! First flowers from Calla. Now this?”

  A familiar clanking sound against the counter has me turning in time to see Jonah set a six-pack of Budweiser cans down.

  My jaw drops. I abandon the potatoes—which are basically pulverized—to face him. “You said I couldn’t buy beer in Bangor!” My voice is thick with accusation. “You said it was a dry community.”

  “You can’t,” he says simply, pulling two cans off the rings and tossing one to my dad, who smoothly catches it.

  I glare at his smug face. Another one of his fucking games. He probably hatched it from the grocery store aisle as he was lying right to my face.

  “Bangor’s technically a damp community now, because they passed a law that allows the sale of it,” my dad says. A snap and sizzle sounds as he pulls the tab on his can to crack the seal. “But the town hasn’t been willing to issue any licenses yet because they’re so worried about the villages. So you either have to fly or go to one of the bootleggers, which I don’t recommend you doing, Calla. Some of the stuff they
have will make you go blind.” He shifts his gaze between Jonah and me, his brow furrowing a touch. “Let me know what you want and we’ll get it in for you next time someone’s in the city.”

  “Thank you.” I breathe through my irritation. “And I promise I’ll bring something better to dinner than cat piss.” I nod toward the red-and-white cans with distain, aiming that slight at Jonah.

  Jonah snorts. “Your dad happens to love cat piss. But I guess you wouldn’t know that, would you?”

  We square off against each other, my jaw clenched tight as I search for a retort. Yes, Jonah knows my dad better than I do, and he uses that as a weapon, jabbing whenever he sees an opportunity.

  Our tense showdown is broken up by laughter.

  My dad and Agnes, doubled over, tears streaming down Agnes’s plump cheeks.

  I steal a wary glance at Jonah. He looks as confused as I am.

  “I think you need to expand your palate, Wren,” Agnes says, transferring a large hunk of succulent white breast meat onto the platter.

  My dad takes a sip and then makes a point of smacking his lips. “I don’t even like cats.”

  Jonah hangs his head for a long moment, and then his shoulders begin to shake and a genuine, deep-in-the-gut sound that reverberates in my chest fills the room.

  “What do you know? Satan is capable of laughter,” I mutter, though my own smile is emerging, the tension in the kitchen dwindling quickly.

  My dad shakes his head, still chuckling. “Exactly how hard a time have you been giving my daughter, Jonah?”

  My daughter. Such foreign words, and yet the simple acknowledgment makes me blush.

  It quickly evaporates as Jonah’s heavy arm lands on my shoulder and he pulls me into his side. He’s a brick wall compared to Corey’s lanky frame. “Me? Give this patient, delightful, down-to-earth girl a hard time?”

  I try to wriggle free but Jonah only tightens his vice-like grip, pulling me in closer, until I’m practically molded to his torso and hip, my cheek pressed against his chest. The faint woodsy-scented soap on his skin is gone after a day of work, but he still smells indescribably pleasant.

  The last thing I want to be doing is smelling Jonah.