by Jessica Park
After much fussing, Mary Ann helps me find a suit that I feel okay about, and so we venture outside.
Jackson is already in the water and floating in one of the new tubes I bought. While the sloth floaties were fun, I thought it best to buy some that weren’t so outlandish.
“This weather is glorious. And the view is not too shabby, is it?” I ask.
“Not. At. All.” Mary Ann lowers her sunglasses and sighs. “Shirtless, ripped, tanned boys doing hard labor. It’s sexy as hell. Not that objectifying people is a good thing, but we’re human. We’re merely humans admiring other humans. And while they do happen to be pretty spectacular-looking, that’s not what makes them the most attractive, is it?”
She’s right. It’s impossible to ignore the physical appeal, but each of these people we’re gazing at have so many beautiful, alluring qualities that draw us in.
After we’ve all been chatting for a bit, I get us to paddle into a close group. “So, I have this lovely Mediterranean menu that I’m ready to make,” I start, “for Mary Ann and Slowski.”
Jackson gasps. “Ooh, exciting!”
“But only if she asks him out. Otherwise, I’m tossing the ingredients and not making a thing.”
“Shut up! You will not!” she protests.
“Try me,” I dare her. “To add to this challenge, Jackson, you need to ask out Matteo.”
“What? What do you mean?” he stammers. “My shop needs some work done—”
“Yeah, blah, blah.” Mary Ann waves around a hand and gives me a look before she repeatedly points a finger at Jackson. “Matteo is a god, and you need to go there.”
“You both need to go there,” I say definitively.
“Like you went there with my best friend?” she asks me with a mischievous grin.
Jackson interrupts us when he makes a show of leaning back and soaking his hair in the water before trying to style it with his hands. “Does my hair look weird? Am I okay? Am I’m gonna do this? Yes, I am. Fuck it.” His shared inner dialogue is inspiring, and I hope Mary Ann is listening.
“If he says no, he says no. And I’ll crawl home and bake a hundred cannoli and pretend this never happened.” Then, he sits up and looks at Mary Ann. “Oh, and Callie and Danny? They definitely did it. They both bought condoms on the same night.”
And there it is.
“You both did what?” she squeals. “Holy shit! You and Danny had sex? I knew it!”
At least she looks delighted, but I raise my hand and stop them both before they say anything else. “I’ll tell you everything if you two courage up. Not a word otherwise. Go get your men!”
We all swim from our tubes and climb onto the deck, and I watch with glee as my friends breathe, brace themselves, and walk toward their love interests as they motion them away from their work. I catch Danny’s eye and wave my hand, begging him to rush my way.
“Hey, what’s up?” he asks when he reaches my side. “And also, fuck! How am I supposed to focus on anything but you when you’re half-naked and drenched?” He looks me up and down and runs his hand against my waist. “Paul’s going to throttle me if I don’t finish the porch today.”
I laugh. “You with no shirt, yet again, isn’t exactly horrifying, but this might also get your attention. Look.” I turn his head.
Mary Ann is standing in front of Slowski, her head down while she rocks back and forth. And Jackson is gesturing like mad and probably talking about supposed work he wants done at his place until he finally holds still and looks solidly at Matteo.
“God, my stomach is in knots,” I say. “I hope this works out.”
His hand embraces my waist. “Okay, now, you have me nervous too. Jackson and Matteo would be awesome together.”
Both of us cheer when Matteo and Jackson hug, and when Mary Ann reaches up for a soft kiss from Slowski, I almost scream, but I manage to merely grasp on to him and whisper, “This is all so damn cute!”
“Wait, what?” He looks to me. “Mary Ann and Slowski? She likes him? They like each other? I … I … what is happening?”
I do my best not to laugh at his horrified expression and the fact that he’d somehow only noticed Jackson’s intent.
Mary Ann screams joyously at me from her spot. “Get cooking, Callie! We got dates tomorrow!”
Danny takes a minute to recover but then pulls me in. “Thank you. I loved watching that. Okay, most of that.” He’s protective over Mary Ann, but he’ll have to get over it.
“I’m glad,” I whisper coyly. “Their double date might be on your property. Perhaps. A picnic. Only, you know, if we’d already planned this out.”
“I might need a minute,” he says as he runs a hand through his hair. “But okay.”
“I’ll help you work through that minute,” I assure him.
“You’d better. I gotta keep working, but I’ll be back, I swear. And tonight? Maybe we’ll even watch the polar bears for a bit. Before.”
His kiss is still so new and passionate, and admittedly, I don’t know what to do with that energy.
I bite my lip when he lifts his mouth from mine and murmurs, “Seems love is in the air in Wake.”
twenty-seven
At sunrise, Danny is still asleep, but I’ve woken up very early because it’s Friday, the first day of Wakefest, and I cannot wait to see this town shine. Usually, I have my coffee outside, but today, I sit in the living room for a bit because even though it’s been a few days, I still cannot get over the light that the new windows and French doors bring in and how this whole room has new life. The black iron framing is gorgeous, and once these dark wood walls get a coat of soft white paint, they are going to pop even more. This house is coming back to life.
I take pictures of the windows, the bathroom, the front and sides of the house, and the dock and then text them to Marlena, and we message back and forth again for over a half hour. When I hint to her about what’s going on with Danny, she is dying for details.
Did he show you his “fascinators”?
She adds about a hundred laughing emojis.
My reply is full of assurances that I’ll fill her in. But that, yeah, he did. And that I was completely impressed.
Then, I swing open the glorious French doors and move outside to sit by the creek.
Danny’s footsteps sound as he comes down the stairs, and then he hugs me from behind, nearly making me spill my coffee. “Wakefest is here! Wakefest is here!”
“I know,” I say with a laugh. “I’m excited to be at Mary Ann’s booth with her and Alex. But you still haven’t told me what you’re doing. Is it something crazy embarrassing? Like, you’re watching over the porta-potty section?”
“No, it is not something embarrassing.” He hops beside me and steals my coffee. “It’d be better for you to see it in person. I’m hoping you’ll think it’s cool,” he says with a hint of shyness that I find adorable.
“I’m sure I will.”
Suddenly, he lets out a big, irritated sigh, pops up, marches down the porch, and points at my bird feeder. “What the fuck is this?”
“Um, that is a device used to dispense seeds of various sorts to our avian friends. Are you unfamiliar with such a thing?” I ask with a smile.
“Callie, I’m not screwing around here.” He’s really not, and I’ve never seen him this serious. “You know what else this is?”
As I have no idea what he is freaking out about, I shake my head.
“It’s a fucking bear lure,” he says angrily as he takes it down. “Jesus. And what if one showed up and your fancy new French doors were open?”
“Oh. I didn’t know.”
He softens, and he walks to me. “I’m sorry. I just … I just got you, you know? I don’t want to lose you to some grotesque bear attack.”
“You just got me?” There’s no way to hide my pleased reaction.
“Okay, that didn’t sound right, but you know what I mean.”
I grab him by the front of his shirt and pull him in. “And
maybe I just got you and don’t want to be lost in some grotesque bear attack. So, thank you.” After a long kiss, I say, “I mean, I thank you, but the birds all hate you.”
“I can live with that.”
“And I know you want to get going, but you need a big breakfast first. It’s going to be a long day.”
“But there’s so much to do—” he starts.
“And so much has already been done. Everyone’s been prepping for days. All you have to do is show up to your mystery station with your mystery supplies that everyone but me knows about. Besides, I know you won’t turn down eggs Benedict.”
He lights up. “Oh, that’s the one with the sauce I love? How had I never had that before you?”
“Wake doesn’t have a diner, so …”
“True.” He eases a hand down my back and rests it on my ass. “Now that I think about it, I hadn’t had a lot of things before you,” he adds.
“You’re either being sincere and sweet and sexy or you want extra hollandaise.”
“Or maybe all of the above.” Danny scoops me up and spins me around. “And it’s Wakefest!”
“Breakfast and showers first though.”
“And each done together?” he suggests.
“Each done together,” I agree.
After both very satisfying activities, he drives into town with Shallots because he still wants to be there early, and I leave in my own car an hour later. The ride in is so fun. Unused fields are now occupied by tents and booths, stages for performers, and great fenced-in areas to show off animals. Local food and treats are being snatched up, and after I park and I walk, I see Jackson facing a crowd at his booth and even more people at Nicole’s pop-up crêperie stand. The masses are wandering around and appreciating this town.
When I reach Mary Ann’s table, I am fired up. “What can I do?”
She is lugging a tray of perfectly ripe tomatoes from the delivery truck, and I’m already dying to slice into them. “Help unload all of this produce, wool, yarn, and goat cheese from the truck and listen to me fawn all over Slowski and our hot date.”
“Done.”
“And Danny’s been at your place every night, I gather? Can’t wait to hear more about that!”
Alex moves a few feet away. “I do not want to hear about fawning. Or condoms.”
“Sorry, Alex! We’ll keep it down,” my friend shouts. “But we will stop talking about condoms. To be safe, maybe you want to see if Danny needs help? He’s going to be slammed today.”
“Yes. I will do that.” He strides off to another part of the festival, clearly relieved.
“So, your date went well?” I ask as I arrange wrapped chèvre on a platter.
She’s been so busy over the last few days, and we haven’t been able to talk or even text, so I’ve had no details about her double date. And Danny and I managed to refrain from spying on the two couples during their picnic on his property.
“It was perfect. And your incredible food didn’t hurt. Jackson and I kind of hand-fed Matteo and Slowski respectively. We all drank wine, and there was non-stop chatting and flirting and laughing. My God, it couldn’t have been easier.” She fluffs the basket of llama and sheep wool. “And at the end, Slowski took me on a walk and then totally dropped me back into the grass for a full-on kiss that went on for days. And … there was maybe a little groping.”
“What?” I set a hand on her shoulder. “What? Well, how did that feel?”
“Totally hot.” She about twirls.
“I mean, emotionally! You were comfortable?”
“I was. I was ready for it. For the first time in so long.” She shrugs. “You know, he’s so gentle and sweet. I wanted it, welcomed it. Asked for it really.”
This makes me so thoroughly happy.
“What about Jackson and Matteo?”
“Oh, those two couldn’t stop talking and touching each other. I’m sure it went well. But at a certain point, their incessant chatting became too much, and that’s when Slowski and I moved away a bit and found a new spot. That greenhouse at Danny’s is so romantic. Kissing there while the sun sets? Like nothing I could have dreamed of.”
“I’ve seen it. It’s incredible. That’s full of his mom’s glasswork, right?”
“Yeah. It’s all so beautiful and all sort of heartbreaking.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure what Danny has told you about his mom, but I don’t love what I’ve heard.” She fiddles with arranging produce. “And also what I haven’t heard.”
Mary Ann’s posture changes, and she tenses as she oversees her table. “Andie left him when he was a kid. Left him to be cared for by this town. She barely even checks in. Did you know that when he turned eighteen—literally on his birthday—she signed the house over to him and took off? That’s fucked up. Sick, if you ask me. Andie is not the mother he talks about or the mother he wants her to be.”
Now, I understand why he finds rowboats. Why he can’t sleep. Why my own mother thinks so little of Andie.
“Since you’ve been here?” she continues. “Danny’s been different.”
It’s hard to control how much I’m shaking, and I ask, “How?”
“Oh God, where do I start? He used to get himself into stupid bar fights, and he drank way too much. Fuck, we used to carry him home more times than I could count. He was darker, sometimes moody as fuck. I mean, always good to his friends, but not always light. The day you came back? Something changed. He’s calmer, happier. Somehow grounded.”
“Something changed for me too. I haven’t been this happy in forever.”
“You two help each other somehow. Heal each other.”
Suddenly, there’s a mob of people around us.
“I guess we’re open,” she exclaims.
The hours that we spend meeting people and selling products from the farm are wonderful.
“I wish my grandparents were up for this,” she says that afternoon. “Unfortunately, they’re not mobile enough. It breaks my heart.”
“Let’s at least send them pictures.”
So, we do, and while I’m at it, I send my mother a few pics of the house. She’s got to love what I’m doing, and it’ll feel nice for her to finally have a reason to be proud of me. I get back a few thumbs-up emojis and a let’s talk soon, so that’s something.
Hours later, when things quiet down a bit, I wander, determined to find Danny and see what he’s up to and what everyone is hiding from me.
While on the way, I eat thick onion rings and buy a Wakefest tank top. I walk past animal adoptions and stages with singers belting out songs and rallying the audience.
Then, I find Danny with his truck backed up to his workspace.
Before he sees me, I find a spot a bit away so that I can watch.
And I watch in awe.
His sign might tout his skills as simple face painting, but he’s not selling all that he can do. His genius and skill and creativity are mind-blowing. A beautifully detailed painting—almost like true oil painting—of a lion comes to life on a man’s face as Danny painstakingly applies color after color, blends, and continues. The razor-sharp focus he shows is admirable, given all the distractions around him from the large crowd that surrounds his station, so many people wanting to watch him work. It’s not surprising to see a sign-up sheet that has him booked for all three days.
My gaze shifts to the table next to him. The number of tools and colors he has splayed out are really impressive, and he’s even got a roll of parchment paper coming off of his truck and under the table, presumably to catch color that might fall to the grass. There are more makeup brushes than I can count, liquid eyeliner, highly pigmented eye shadows, and so much other makeup that even my sister would be impressed. Shallots is, of course, lying under Danny’s chair, unimpressed and enjoying the shade.
Alex and another person sit nearby and are painting more faces, mostly on children. I can’t see any kid sitting for as long as it must take for Danny to produc
e on of his masterpieces, but the kids all seem happy with their simple cat ears and whiskers, unicorn colors, and Mickey Mouse faces. Alex is doing a lovely job, and I see that he’s got more than creative culinary talents. Plus, he looks a lot happier here than at Mary Ann’s Table of Sordid Details.
But I shift back to looking at Danny’s work. It’s intoxicating to see this artistic side of him that I knew nothing about. Without reservation, he sweeps more black eyeliner over his client’s cheek, fills in the area he’s blocked out with wet eyeshadow, and then locks it all in by tapping a big brush full of dry powder over his client’s face. He is obviously skilled when it comes to home renovation and design, but this? There’s a level of detail and fine motor brilliance that blows me away. And an intrinsic, intuitive talent.
Maybe talent that he gets from his mother.
Maybe talent he puts to use to create or seek a tie that isn’t really there.
Not wanting to interrupt him, I head back to Mary Ann’s booth, and the smell of so many fresh herbs makes me want to dive into the kitchen. “You’re really hopping, huh?”
She hands a large bag of produce over to a customer and thanks him. “This is crazy! It’s got to be the best year we’ve had.”
We work for hours until the sun starts to set and the lights over the stage turn on for the evening performances—our cue to finally shut down for the night. After we load the little that’s left back into the truck, she lets out a big sigh.
“Shit, I’m tired. But that was great. Did you have fun?”
“I really did! See you back here tomorrow morning?”
“Yes, and … well, I hope you don’t mind, but we lost our guy who was doing the dunk tank for the last shift tomorrow, so I was thinking you could fill in?”
“Sure. What do I do? Take tickets and stuff?”
She busies herself with more produce. “Or wear that bathing suit that holds you in.”
“I’m the dunkee?” I nearly shout.
“Sort of.”
“There’s no sort of in this,” I say definitively.
“I know,” she admits. “The dunk tank has been around for years, and people love it. But don’t worry; no one is mean-spirited or salacious about it. Plus, every time that you get dunked, a group of businesses from Burlington makes a twenty-five-dollar donation to one of several awesome Vermont charities.”
