“You ever get to go back?” Ace begins unloading groceries, and I head over to help.
“Nah.” I pull a loaf of bread from one of the bags and glance down. “We had to sell the lake house when I was seventeen.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
Shrugging, I say, “No need to be sorry. That’s just what happens when your dad leaves his family for another woman. Mom couldn’t afford both homes, so we had to let the one on Prairie Rose Drive go.”
I feel the weight of his stare. “You talk about it so . . . casually.”
“What? Am I supposed to be damaged? Bitter? My father was an asshole. He was a decent enough father. I mean, he got the job done all right. But he was a shitty husband. Mom was better off without him.” I put the bread away and grab a container of butter from the bottom of the bag. “It was hard on us after he left, but we persevered. We got through it together. And I’d be doing a disservice to myself and everything I’ve been through if I automatically assumed every man is a cheating scumbag like my father.”
Ace takes the butter from me and tosses it in the fridge. “We’re done here. Let me show you to your room.”
Twenty
Ace
* * *
“Is that what you’re wearing?” I wrap my fingers across the leather arms of a chair that’s been in my family for generations. “I thought you’d been fishing before.”
Aidy glances down, her legs bare save for the frayed cut offs that hang from her curved hips, and she tugs on the white cotton tank top that leaves very little to the imagination.
It’s not that I’m complaining.
Hell, I’d be more than happy to look at her – like this – all night.
“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” she asks. “Does it look bad?”
“You’re looking like you’re about to become dinner for mosquitos. They’ll eat you alive out there.”
Aidy smiles, retrieving something from her back pocket. “That’s why I came prepared.”
She begins spritzing some yellow-y substance all over her skin, feverishly rubbing it in. A pungent cocktail of herbal fragrances fills my nostrils and I cough.
“What the hell are you putting on?” I ask, fanning the airspace in front of me.
“Organic bug spray,” she says. “DEET is really bad for the environment, so I use this stuff.”
I hack up part of a lung. “What’s in that?”
Turning the packaging around and holding it up to her face, she reads off the label, “Lemongrass oil, mint, lavender, citronella, rosemary, clove, and eucalyptus.”
“And it works?”
Aidy nods. “Like a charm. Want some?”
“No thanks.” I rise and move toward the door, stepping into an old pair of boots I keep here.
“Aren’t you going to be hot?” she asks. “You’re dressed like a lumberjack and it’s eighty-five degrees out.”
Glancing out the kitchen window, I focus on the end of the dock out back. “I might be hot, but I won’t be bitten up.”
Aidy passes by, wrapping a hand around my bicep and squeezing. “I don’t know. You look pretty tasty to me, and you know what they always say: where there’s a will, there’s a way. I don’t think a little bit of flannel is going to stop those things from making a meal out of you. Sure you don’t want any of this?”
“I’ll pass. I’d rather be hot than smell like an apothecary.”
“All right.” Aidy clucks her tongue, lifting her palms in the air. “I’ll let it go.”
I grab a couple fishing poles I sat by the back door earlier, after I showed Aidy to her room and gave her some time to get changed, and Aidy grabs the yellow tackle box beside them. I grab the Styrofoam container of live bait from the fridge and we head through the back door to the dock.
The sun’s beginning to set over the water, and the roar of a nearby waterfall almost drowns out the chirp of the crickets. There’s truly no place else I’d rather be right now, and despite the fact that I’d originally planned a weekend to myself out here, I’m truly enjoying Aidy’s company.
She isn’t one of those annoying house guests who stand around all nervous, expecting them to give you permission to use the restroom. Aidy has no qualms about making herself at home.
“What’s the biggest fish you’ve ever caught?” she asks. “Be honest.”
“Twenty-five-pound catfish,” I say without pause. It’s nothing record-shattering, but it’s bigger than the average catfish.
“Nice,” she says.
The backyard slopes down as we get closer to the dock, and the grass turns to rock. Aidy’s in flip-flops and trying to balance the tackle box under one arm, so instinctively I reach for her hand. Her fingers thread through mine as we cross the ten-foot spread of rocky terrain. My heart beats hard for a fraction of a second, and when we finally reach the dock, she lets go.
Crossing each weathered plank, her sandals make sucking noises, and I hear a faint hum coming from her lips.
“Oh, look at that,” she says, pointing straight ahead. “A flock of sailboats.”
“A flock?” I laugh.
“I don’t know what else you’d call them. There are like eight, nine. Are they racing?”
“Probably.”
We reach the end and have a seat, Aidy removing her flip-flops and placing them aside. Her feet dangle, skimming the water beneath.
“Water’s surprisingly warm,” she says, reaching down and dipping her fingers in. “And clear.”
“There’s no run off into this lake,” I say, spotting a mosquito landing on her bare thigh. I reach across and swat it off. “It’s protected. One of the clearest in the state.”
“Thanks,” she says, rubbing her palm across her leg. She pulls her spray from her back pocket and reapplies, and I bite my tongue.
I bait the hooks and hand her a pole before casting off.
“You going to stand there the whole time or are you going to sit beside me?” she asks, glancing behind her before she casts. “It feels weird, you standing there. Makes me feel like a kid. Doesn’t help you’re so tall.”
Crouching down, I ask, “Is this better?”
Aidy bumps her shoulder into mine. “Yep.”
Her red and white bobber dips almost immediately.
“Think I got something,” she says, slowly reeling. “Oh, yeah.”
She reels faster, pulling and reeling and pulling and reeling, until a little Blue Gill rises from the water, attached to her hook. He flops around and she carefully reaches for him.
“Aw, he’s so tiny,” she says, gently pulling the hook from his mouth. Leaning down, she lets him go.
There’s a tug on the end of my line, and it feels sizable. I don’t waste any time reeling mine in and am silently pleased when I spot a good-sized crappie on the end. This’ll be good for frying. A couple more of these and we’ll have ourselves a nice dinner tonight.
I grab the stringer from the tackle box, and from the corner of my eye, I see Aidy baiting her hook. For a brief moment, I’m sucked into a distant memory. I took Kerenza here once, despite the fact that I knew damn well she wasn’t outdoorsy. She hated the fresh water. She hated the mosquitos and the pine-scented air. She hated the crickets and thought the quietude was borderline disturbing. Most of the time she’d hole up inside, sitting in front of a fan and flipping through the latest issue of Vogue and complaining about the lack of cell service every chance she got.