Good Catch

Tracy Ann Lord

Camel Press

PO Box 70515

Seattle, WA 98127

For more information go to: www.Camelpress.com

www.TracyAnnLord.Camelpress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover design by Sabrina Sun

Good Catch

Copyright © 2011 by Tracy Ann Lord

ISBN: 978-1-60381-861-2 (Paper)

ISBN: 978-1-60381-862-9 (eBook)

Produced in the United States of America

To Stephen, my very own Good Catch

Acknowledgments

To Fran, for taking that taxi to Belfast twenty-seven years ago and for finding such a perfect home for this book.

To Jerri, for her sharp eyes, never faltering support and enduring friendship.

To John, for his gift of time, insight and male perspective.

To Cheryl, for keeping heart and soul aligned.

To Catherine, for patience above and beyond the call of editing.

To my mother, Nancy Lee, for sending me to the dictionary.

To my father, Jack, for his love of the water.

To Clarissa and Gillian,-just because.

Chapter 1

If Maddie Chilton had her way, she wouldn’t be here right now. She’d be back in Miami, in her condo community on Isla Naturale, about to go to work. She would have just grabbed her bag and the keys to her Mini Cooper and be heading down the elevator to the garage, just as she had done most weekdays for the last fifteen years.

Instead, she was memorizing the individual pieces of luggage at Carousel B in a podunk jetport in the boonies, waiting for her bag, which, if it was like anything else in her life recently, would never be seen again.

She was on the verge of heading to “Lost Luggage” when her bag appeared. She swooped up the emerald green Gucci valise, which looked uneasy among the LL Bean duffels and drab roll-ons, and moved out of the line of fire. Setting it down on the bench by the exit, she dropped her red leather satchel off her shoulder, unzipped it, and removed a large manila envelope.

On the outside in bright orange letters was written: “Maddie Chilton: Do Not open Until You Are in Maine—Or Else!!!” Or else what? she thought. After the last week, what else could possibly happen to her? After investing all of her energy and intelligence in her career, she’d managed to make herself redundant. Now there was an accomplishment.

Her reward for working hard, diligently—sometimes even brilliantly—positioning BZB as the go-to public relations firm for hard to handle “clients,” had been a meeting with Corporate inviting her to take advantage of a limited-time offer to cash out.

Why, as a moderately intelligent and highly intuitive person, she hadn’t seen this one coming had not simply rocked her confidence, it had thrown it out of the cradle and down the stairs.

There is always a penalty for doing too good a job, thought Maddie. What was that saying her mother always recited? “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” While growing up, she had never understood it; in fact she found it aggravating. Now it seemed prophetic. In her zeal as BZB’s wunderkind, she had created an assistant in her own image and likeness, her own successor. Except that she was a whole lot younger and a whole lot lighter to BZB’s bottom line.

There would be plenty of time for pity and self-loathing later, Maddie thought, as a wave of low-blood sugar swept over her. She glanced at her watch: 3 p.m. By Maddie’s reckoning, she hadn’t eaten anything for eighteen hours. And all she’d eaten had been some ceviche—not exactly rib-sticking fare. On the flight between Miami and New York, she would have actually paid the outrageous sum for the airline’s “Fromage and Fruit,” a sorry looking slice of parched watermelon, a couple of grapes well on their way to becoming raisins, some oddly orange cheese and a package of Melba toast.

But when her seatmate, a look-alike of Fat Bastard from Austin Powers, pulled a foot-long meatball sub from his briefcase and proceeded to consume it like a hippo grazing at a particularly grassy water hole, her appetite had departed. He then nodded off, his bulk oozing against Maddie until she was virtually pinned to the side of the cabin for the duration of the flight.

This left her plenty of time to examine the current circumstances of her life: divorced, two mostly grown—most of the time—sons, a 401 K that resembled Pamplona after the running of the bulls, and six-months severance. Six months to find the pieces that would complete the puzzle to her life’s next chapter? Maddie came to the conclusion that she was her own worst PR nightmare.

But here she was in Maine, looking around at the swarm of denim and khaki–clad, luggage–laden travelers, knowing only that she was here to have a good time. Until today, she’d never been farther north than Connecticut and that was a junket with some BZB co-workers to a Casino owned by the Mohawks where she’d succumbed to the tribal call at the blackjack tables and their spa. A thank-you from a happy client. No more clients for me, thought Maddie. Happy or otherwise. Just me. Maddie and her bag and this envelope.

Maddie once again focused her attention on the message on the envelope. She recognized Nina’s handwriting. Bold, angular and emphatic, just like Nina. She had handed her the envelope last night at Snapper’s Bar. At her surprise going-away party.

Surprise is right, thought Maddie. Every rum-laden “Painkiller” she had been handed had erased a little more of her vision of becoming President of BZB’s Corporate Suite clients.

By the time Nina had safely returned her to her condo, Maddie hadn’t felt too bad about becoming redundant—or anything else.

But when she’d been startled awake this morning—way before the Miami sun made it respectable to rise—by the discordant combination of her radio and iPhone alarms, she ’d seen the world differently.

She flung her hand out in the general direction of the radio and connected with it, knocking it off the bedside table, onto the bamboo floor and into silence. She did a controlled stumble to the kitchen, turned the coffeemaker on and checked her phone. A message from an unfamiliar voice told her she had an hour before the taxi would be there, that her bag was packed, and not to open the manila envelope until Maine. Maine?? Who was going there? Then it came to her: she was.

Bits of last night floated in Maddie’s consciousness. She tried to grab them as they surfaced.

Snapper’s Bar & Grill. Her going-away fete. Drinking. Lots of it. And toasts—to the typical stuff: health, love, and money. She might be ending her reign as Queen of the C-Suite set, but she wasn’t going to be allowed to just leave. As a final gesture of love and goodwill, her staff had banded together and bought Maddie a seven-day, all-expense-paid trip to Maine. Beginning tomorrow.

Last night “tomorrow” had seemed a long way away. Today, she thought, was here way too soon. She vaguely remembered being presented with an envelope.

What was in it? Better yet, where was it?

She headed into the living room and scanned the room for clues to activate her memory. A pair of coral sling-backs, a black knit skirt and a white silk tank top lay strewn on the marble floor.

Not good, Maddie thought. Her eyes traveled to the front hall. There, by the blue front door, ready and waiting, was her bag. And resting on top of the soft leather satchel was the manila envelope.

The coffeemaker beeped. Perhaps caffeine would improve the picture. Maddie went into the yellow tiled alley of her kitchen, opened the cherry cabinet and grabbed her favorite green mug—the one decorated with a pink lotus that her youngest son had given her long ago—and poured.

She lifted the mug to her lips, took a big swallow, gagged and spit it out. She looked down at the brackish water in the mug. She’d forgotten to put any coffee in the coffeemaker. Ordinarily she would have made more. Ordinarily she would have remembered to put in the coffee. “There is no ordinary anymore,” she said to the mug and headed to the shower.

On her way to the bathroom, Maddie picked up the clock from the floor: 6:30 a.m. A half-hour had escaped her. She stripped off her pimento-red silk gown, vaguely recalling Nina putting her into it last night after she’d said her final … The end of the sentence hung in the air like the hot steam of the shower where she took temporary refuge.

Which brought Maddie, now standing in the terminal, back to the “Or Else” part of the message on the manila envelope. She was just about to open it when a short pudgy figure with spiky red hair appeared in her peripheral vision. He looks like a cross between Jack Black and “Chucky” in a Pep Boys uniform, thought Maddie. The next thing she knew he was standing in front of her, his slightly demonic blue eyes locked on hers.

“You looking for me?” he said in a voice reminiscent of Pee Wee Herman’s.

He moved closer to her, his eyes fixed on the manila envelope. Maddie looked around for security. The tide of travelers had mostly departed, leaving Maddie and this psycho pretty much alone. Where’s the TSA when you need them? she thought.

“No,” she said.

He took a step closer. Maddie took a step back.

“Maddie Chilton?” he said.

Great, thought Maddie. My life is truly turning into a Grade D movie. A movie even I wouldn’t want to see.

“How do you know my name?” asked Maddie.

“The envelope,” he said, pointing.

“What about it?” asked Maddie, increasing her grip.

Suddenly her hip started to vibrate, quickly followed by the wailing guitar of Jimi Hendrix playing “Purple Haze.”

Demon Boy looked at her with even greater interest as she grabbed her iPhone from her red bag. Nina’s number appeared on the screen. Her savior.

“Excuse me,” said Maddie.

“No prob,” said the strange one as he drifted toward the frozen yogurt stand. She kept one eye on him as he wandered off.

“Nin—” said Maddie, relief flooding her voice.

Nina cut her off. “You made it!” said her best friend, her voice an octave higher with excitement.

“If you consider arriving at the Portland Jetport ‘making it,’ okay, then yes,” replied Maddie.

“Oh, so the limo hasn’t arrived?” said Nina in a surprised tone.

Maddie looked through the tall window facing the terminal drop-off. No limo.

“Nope,” said Maddie.

“Are you standing at the luggage carousel?” demanded Nina.

“Kinda hard not to,” said Maddie. “There are only two luggage carousels in the entire airport. Answer your question?”

“There’s no one from, wait a minute, what’s the name of this outfit?” Maddie heard papers rustling. “Here it is. ‘Easy Rider Limo’ waiting for you?”

Maddie turned full circle. Demon Boy, carrying a container of frozen yogurt, was wandering back down the corridor in her general direction.

“No, just some really strange guy who seems fascinated by my envelope.”

Nina started to laugh.

“Your envelope? You make it sound a little obscene, Maddie.”

“This is not a laughing matter, Nin. You’re in Miami safe and sound and I’m up here in the boondocks with a weirdo following me. You are not helping.” Demon Boy was getting closer and closer.

“Okay, okay,” said Nina, “let me call the limo service and see what’s going on. I’ll buzz you right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

“No, wait, just give me the number and I’ll—” began Maddie. “Nin? Nina?” She’d hung up.

“Don’t go anywhere. Very funny,” Maddie said to the iPhone.

She started to tear open the envelope, thinking it might hold some answers—or at least the limo phone number—and then stopped. Where was Demon boy? Before she did anything involving the envelope she needed to make sure he had gone to bother someone else. She turned around and found herself face to face with him. He was a foot away and on his phone.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he was saying. He looked Maddie up and down. “Think so,” he continued. “Yeah, okay. I already asked her once. I’ll do it again.”

He walked toward Maddie.

“You’re Maddie Chilton, right?” he said.

“Who told you that?”

“You have a friend named Nina?”

“Depends,” said Maddie.

“Here,’ he said shoving the phone at her.

Maddie tried to hold the phone without really touching it. She wished she was wearing gloves. “Nina?” said Maddie in a louder than usual voice, holding the phone as far away from her ear and mouth as she could and still communicate.

“Why are you yelling?”

“I’m not! Though I might have reason to. Just what—”

Nina cut her off. “We’ll just chalk it up to last night’s Painkiller competition,” said Nina.

“Chalk up what?” responded Maddie, wishing she was wearing a mask as well.

“The fact that you didn’t see your driver,” said Nina.

Maddie looked at Demon Boy. He smiled, slightly malevolently, and pointed through the revolving door.

“At your service,” he said, though to Maddie it sounded more like an invitation to a hanging.

She followed his pointing finger with her eyes. Outside, parked in the handicapped zone, was a black Windstar mini-van with “Easy Rider Limo” hand-painted in yellow letters weaving down its side. Maddie’s attempt to smile failed midway, leaving her with what could only be described as a full-fledged grimace.

“No,” was the only word she could get out.

“Have a fab time fishing in Mooselookmeguntic! Catch something big! You can thank me later. Love you bunches. Bye!” said Nina.

“Nina! Nina!”

Demon Boy reached out and took back his phone just as Maddie’s head went into a spin cycle.

Fishing? She hated fishing. Moose what? What was Nina thinking? Surely she’d told her about the ruinous sport fishing expedition with her ex … how he’d spent most of it intoxicated and imitating Hemingway—poorly—and she’d spent most of it with her head over the rail debating whether to just throw herself overboard and end her seasick Sing Sing once and for all. Hadn’t she? The episode had been seared into her soul for eternity.

Maddie re-keyed Nina’s number. Busy. Damn. I’ll thank you all right, thought Maddie, stuffing the phone back into her red bag. I’ve got seven days to dream up the un-nicest thank-you you can ever imagine. She looked up. Her bag was disappearing through the revolving door.

“Hey! Come back here!” she hollered. Demon Boy ignored her and continued walking toward the van.

Maddie hadn’t seen anything this old since visiting the founder of an antique auto museum who was thinking about using BZB’s services to publicize the recent acquisition of a rocker’s collection of Rolls’. He’d fallen on hard times and had basically gifted it to the museum for a tax write-off.

This was no Rolls. In fact, in Florida, it wouldn’t be allowed on the road. It must be twenty years old if it’s a day, thought Maddie. I should just take a taxi. Be safer. But Demon Boy had already deposited her bag in the “limo” and Maddie wasn’t sure it might not be a bigger risk to try and liberate it than submit to being a passenger. She moved closer to the van. I must be more depressed than even I think I am, she thought, unavoidably close enough to read the badge on his shirt proclaiming his name to be “Tykee.” What kind of a name was that? Indian?

“Are you a native, Tykee?”

“Guess so,” said Tykee.

“I could tell by your name,” said Maddie.

“Yeah. Was easier for Ma to say than Everett.”

She looked inside to see if perhaps she could indeed grab the bag and run back into the airport, but Tykee had stowed it completely out of her reach. She had no choice but to accompany her bag wherever Tykee was going.

“How did you know it was me?” Maddie said. “I didn’t have a rose in my teeth.” She stepped gingerly inside the van so as not to disturb the layer of dust covering the once beige, now putty brown, Naugahyde seat.

Tykee slammed her door shut, and Maddie saw the layer of dust rise before finding a new resting place on her linen pants.

“I was told to pick up a lady with big brown eyes and a large envelope, dressed like she didn’t belong here,” he said, getting into the driver’s seat.

Maddie looked at her linen pants, bright pink top and gold sandals. You got that right, she thought, looking around the van’s interior, which had the fine patina that only comes with age, neglect and cigarette smoke: I don’t belong here. And being called Lady? It always made her feel twice her age—which would make her four years shy of a hundred—to be called a lady. She jammed her sunglasses on to block out as much as she could of her environment, clutched her bag to her chest like an amulet and fell asleep.

Chapter 2

The Windstar jolted to a stop, bouncing Maddie’s head against the window and waking her up.

“Man, you sure passed out,” announced Tykee.

Maddie rubbed her head as her eyes slowly adjusted to consciousness. She glanced at her watch. 5 o’clock. Maddie blinked again. Two hours? Where were they, Canada?

“Where are we?” she asked, seeing nothing but a couple of pickups older than dirt sitting in a pothole-filled gravel parking lot.

“Wanted to get to Rangely, right?” he said.

Maddie couldn’t exactly recall Nina’s words regarding her ultimate destination, but Rangely rang no bells.

“Look, right here,” Pep Boy said, showing her his clipboard.

Though the writing was almost indecipherable through the coffee rings and grease spots, Maddie could make out the word Rangely. He was right. But this looked very wrong. Maddie looked out the window and saw nothing beyond the trucks but a very large body of water. The envelope! The answer must be there.

He opened his door and got out. Maddie could almost hear the sand running through the hourglass. She reached for her bag, unearthed the manila envelope and tore it open. Quickly scanning the itinerary, she saw the words Mooselookmeguntic and Wilson’s Sport Camp.

“No,” said Maddie. “Mooselooksomething. I have to get to Mooselookmeguntic,” she called after him. Her initial relief that he wouldn’t abandon her was quickly replaced by doubt when he didn’t respond.

Maddie looked out the front. No Demon Boy. She craned her neck out the back window to see the back view of him, legs spread in a familiar male stance, watering the parking lot. Rather than witness what he might do next, Maddie flung open her door to alert him he was no longer alone. She was greeted by a blast of wind that cut right through her clothes. This wasn’t the Maine in June she’d seen in the travel magazines. This was more like Siberia with a dash of global warming.

“Hey, she yelled into the wind, “Mooselookmeguntic, I have to get there.”

She reached into the car for her jacket—not that it would do much good at this temperature. But before she could grab it, Demon Boy sauntered back to the van.

“That’s the way,” he said pointing to a sign tacked on a near-by tree emblazoned with the name, Bub’s Float and Fly, and an arrow pointing to the water.

“Bet you thought we’d never get here, huh?” said Tykee, handing her the bag.

“I was hoping,” Maddie said, looking at the water and the whitecaps dancing maniacally around a pontoon plane— hopefully not one of Bub’s but most likely one of Bub’s—tied to the wave-soaked dock. What had she done to deserve perishing in a plane straight out of Loony Tunes? Maddie came to the conclusion that when Nina had booked this trip she had completely lost her mind.

She was suddenly filled with a desire to take refuge in the Windstar, no matter what had taken possession of the driver. Just as Maddie was about to act on her instincts, a horn beeped and she turned to see Easy Limo bumping its way out of the parking lot, her jacket still in the back seat. Tykee’s hand stuck out the side window, waving goodbye.

You just wait, Nina, Maddie thought, before turning to see a man almost as tall as the plane was long coming down the dock. As he grew closer, Maddie could see that a big smile consumed most of his thin face. She tried to return the favor, but the fact that she was cold, hungry and starting to believe that Nina was not the friend she had pretended to be all these years, slowed her own smile’s appearance.

“Bub Bartlett,” he said, shaking her hand.

“Maddie Chilton,” she said.

“That’s the name I was hoping for.”

If I had a choice right now, I’d take another, thought Maddie.

“Picked a great day for a flight,” he said, grabbing her bag and heading back toward the plane.

As she made her way to the plane, Maddie felt the dock bounce underneath her like a trampoline and the spray from the whitecaps soak her pants. Oh yes, this is just a Jim Dandy day, thought Maddie.

“Can’t just drive there?” she asked.

“Could. But it would take you another two hours. Your friends did you a favor. Much quicker this way.” He pointed to the co-pilot seat.

Quicker way to die, Maddie thought, looking for other seats. There weren’t any. The plane was now bobbing around like an empty Clorox bottle in the Atlantic Ocean. Agnostic though she was, Maddie mentally crossed herself, got in, and strapped the seatbelt around her tight enough to be uncomfortable.

As Bub taxied the plane away from the dock, Maddie noticed the whitecaps were getting bigger. A floating deathtrap with wings, she thought. He revved up the engine and started the props. Maddie dug her hands into the seat. Bits of foam flecked off in her hands; she realized the seat had said goodbye to its upholstery long ago and there was nothing solid to hold on to.

The plane’s pontoons started playing percussion with the oncoming waves and the throb of the engine took up residence in her head. Her stomach suddenly remembered the ceviche at Snapper’s and wasn’t at all happy about it. She was wondering just how bad the aftermath of vomiting in a small plane would be when the contraption catapulted from the lake right into the face of the wind.

“Sorry,” yelled Bub. “Could get a little bouncy—you might want to tighten that seatbelt.”

The seatbelt was already cutting off circulation to her stomach, but Maddie gave it another yank for good measure. She closed her eyes and held her breath. Why couldn’t she just drive to the damn camp?

Bub was saying something about the wonders of fly-fishing when the plane descended like a magnet to its polar opposite. Maddie made the mistake of opening her eyes just as a huge abyss opened beneath the clouds. She sat paralyzed, waiting for the Grim Reaper to fly in through the window and join them. Then the abyss became water. Big water. Maddie closed her eyes again.

The plane found its mark and skittered like a stone across the lake’s surface. Bub cut the engine and, over the fttt-fttt-fttt of the props, said, “Nice to see a female so relaxed. I can tell you’ve done this before.”

Maddie opened her eyes, surreptitiously loosening the seatbelt in hopes of regaining circulation in her stomach. She exhaled. There were mountains—real mountains—everywhere she looked. She had never seen so many different shades of green or shapes of trees. The wind had dropped, the whitecaps had disappeared, and Maddie focused her gaze on the view at lake level. One hundred feet away was a pile of floating logs and the plane was taxiing straight toward it. Maddie looked at Bub. He seemed completely calm, but for all Maddie knew he was crazy. This cannot be the way my life is supposed to end— to die in a head-on collision with a pile of floating logs.

“Why are we going this way?” said Maddie, re-tightening the belt and bracing for the impact.

“Only way I know,” said Bub.

She closed her eyes again. It didn’t take long to realize Bub did indeed know what he was doing. The plane gently glided to a slow stop beside what Maddie now realized were logs rafted together in chains. Bub jumped out of his seat, grabbed a line from the side of the plane, and tied it to one of the least decrepit.

Dangerous way to make a dock, she thought, attempting to extricate her legs from the cockpit. Suddenly a face appeared next to hers. She involuntarily jumped back in her seat as her vision encompassed a florid, turnip-shaped visage wearing a baseball cap monogrammed with Wilson’s Sport Camps and smiling through the cockpit window.

Finally, the visage moved far enough away for her to slowly open the cockpit door.

The face was attached to a body tightly encased in a denim shirt emblazoned with the name Wayne on the pocket and heavy brown canvas pants.

“You must be Maddie. Welcome to Wilson Sport Camps,” the man boomed in a loud voice.

“I must be,” said Maddie, trying to negotiate her way past the turnip face and onto the dock from hell.

“Nice to meet you. Wayne Wilson, at your service,” he said, extending his hand. Maddie watched his eyes travel up and down her body and fix on her breasts.

Okay, she was jacketless, cold. Her nipples were taking a stand and Wayne Wilson was enjoying the sight a little too obviously. She grasped Wilson’s hand hard enough for him to be surprised by her grip and pull back, giving Maddie a chance to step around him and head to the rear of the plane where Bub stood with her bag.

“You got some really nice friends. Send you to a place like Wilson’s,” Bub said. That’s up for interpretation, thought Maddie.

“Yep, you can say that again,” Wayne chortled, grabbing her bag from Bub.

“Here, this goes, too,” said Bub handing Wayne a box.

Wayne studied the box as though he had x-ray vision. “Nice,” he pronounced.

“Do much fishing?” Bub asked.

“Can’t say as I do,” said Maddie, trying, to keep her balance on the springboard of a dock.

“Well,” he said, looking at Wayne. “That’s all about to change, wouldn’t you say?”

“No doubt about it,” said Wayne.

“Guess I’ll be seein’ you next week,” Bub said, taking her hand and shaking it.

Guess? There’s no guessing. Maddie held onto Bub’s hand as a drowning person would a life ring.

“Unless she changes her mind and decides to stay longer,” said Wayne.

About as likely as you becoming a microphysicist in your spare time, Maddie thought.

“Ayuh. Never know. She could.”

No, I do know, Maddie thought. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t. She was thinking about herself in the third person. That was a very bad sign.

He turned and headed down the dock. It took all of Maddie’s restraint not to run after him and beg for emotional asylum in his pontoon plane. She watched helplessly as Bub climbed into her one hope for escape and started the engine.

“How was your trip? Bet you are some glad to be outta that Florida heat and—”

The dock lurching in the wake of the plane’s departure interrupted the rest of his sentence. Maddie, not wanting to end up taking a swim, stepped to the center of the dock and into a large puddle of water that, according to the shock waves going up her calves, was only a few degrees away from frozen.

“Watch your step,” Wayne said.

Maddie looked down at her soaked sandals. Her new, very expensive Ferragamos, once butter-soft and beautiful, now clung to her feet like wet Kleenex. Wayne followed her like a spider after a particularly convenient fly.

A long row of reddish-brown wooden structures clung for dear life to the shore. To call them cabins was an extreme overstatement—more like roofs held up by four corners. Hadn’t they heard of cement block up here? She was hoping for something a bit more upscale—at least something with walls to keep the outside out.

“Something, huh?” Wayne said, heaving a deep sigh of pride.

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” said Maddie.

“Was a logging camp before—fact, most of the places on Mooselookmeguntic were,” he said, like a preacher warming up the congregation. He pointed to the string of small docks jutting out from the shore.

“All the docks were added in the ’50s. This,” he said, motioning to the building whose wide stairs they were currently climbing, “was the main bunkhouse.”

Maddie tried to think of something complimentary to say about the two-story log building with its over-zealous red petunias spilling out of window boxes, its front emblazoned by a sign of entwined antlers spelling “Wayne Camps,” but all that came to mind was an incoherent plea to get away from this get-away.

“After you,” said Wayne grandly opening the screen door for her. “Don’t take too much time. Bugs will be out soon.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Maddie was engulfed in a black haze. “What the—?” she began, her arms pin-wheeling in self-protection.

“Black flies. We haven’t had ’em like this in a few years.”

Hooray for timing, thought Maddie.

“You are some lucky,” he continued.

“Because—?” she said, bolting into the dark cool of the Lodge.

“It’s June. June’s got the most bugs. More bugs, more fish. It’s that simple.”

And that awful, Maddie added to herself.

“Sounds charming,” Maddie said.

“You’ll get used to them.”

I sincerely doubt that, thought Maddie.

The screen door slammed shut behind her with a vengeance.

“Don’t worry if they getcha—not poisonous or anything like that.”

“That’s a plus,” said Maddie, thinking how nice her pest controlled and chemically nuked against all insects condo in Miami was looking. She felt a prick on her neck and smacked the spot. It immediately started itching.

“Bites don’t leave much of a scar,” Wayne said, watching Maddie paw at her neck. “Long as you don’t scratch ’em.”

Once her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw lots of other eyes. Staring back at her. She blinked. They didn’t go away. In fact, more of them appeared. Antlered, furred and feathered, some with bodies, some just heads, but all the unblinking eyes were on her.

Wayne pointed them out like a teacher at a chalkboard. “Deer, trout, bear, salmon, grouse, moose, and pheasant.” He nodded proudly. “All of them came from right around here,” he said. “Woods and water here are just like a farmer’s field in September, waiting to be harvested.”

An animal wall of death welcoming committee, Maddie thought. How unique.

Ancient photographs filled the walls, almost obliterating the knotty pine paneling. Fish—on drying racks, in hands, laps, buckets, and boats. Maddie had never seen so many fish.

“All those fish came from this lake?” queried Maddie.

“Yep.” Wayne nodded, as proud as if he’d created them himself for the catching.

Maddie realized that a growing chill was replacing the adrenaline from her Bub adventure.

“Hey,” Wayne said, looking like a teenager about to get into a make-out session. “You look like you could use a drink.”

For the first time in twenty-four hours, Maddie thought maybe, just maybe, there was a God and that she was taking pity on her. “Yes, you could say that.”

“Well, you just come right into the dining room and I’ll see if there isn’t something in the kitchen to take the edge off your day.” He disappeared through a set of swinging doors.

Maddie wondered how he knew about her day but at that point, her clothes were beginning to hurt, the wall of death was beginning to glare at her, and she was past caring who saw her do what. She walked into a large dining room filled with tables decked with red-and-white checked cloths and even more sepia-toned photographs. Pipe-smoking, stone-faced men standing in front of huts and women sitting in canoes, surrounded by mountains of fish and looking absolutely miserable.

“I know how you feel and I only just got here,” she said to the photographs.

A stream of picture windows ran across the front of the room, offering a wide vista of Mooselook. Maddie watched as lines from different points on the flat calm lake slowly began to converge directly in front of Wilson’s, accompanied by what sounded like an army of lawnmowers. She leaned against the window and saw the lines turn into boats filled with the bulky shapes of men and fishing poles.

The door from the kitchen banged open and Wilson appeared, carrying two juice glasses filled with amber liquid. He handed one to her and raised his own glass in a toast.

“Down the hatch and to the catch,” he said before chugging the contents.

“You bet,” said Maddie, following Wilson’s lead.

Rocket fuel—or what Maddie imagined rocket-fuel to taste like—filled her mouth, hit her throat and morphed into hot coals. Through her tearing eyes, she saw Wilson smile. She argued with her knees not to buckle.

“Guy down the road gives me a bottle every Christmas. Makes it himself.”

Out of what? Maddie thought. Propane mixed with formaldehyde?

“Don’t think I’ve ever had anything like it,” she said as the coals hit her stomach.

“Nope, you won’t find it anywhere but here,” said Wilson, his voice ringing with pride.

Thank God for small favors, Maddie thought, setting her glass on the table. As it hit the table, the coals settled into a medium burn.

“He calls it ‘Scorcher.’ Get it? For hot?”

“I’m getting it,” said Maddie.

“You must have done something pretty special to get a gift like this,” said Wilson, his head bobbling up and down.

“Evidently,” said Maddie, mentally flogging herself for being so special.

Wilson eyed her glass. “Little more?”

“Maybe later,” she said.

Like the next century, she thought.

The dining room’s pine paneling and floors had taken on a golden glow and her internal fortitude, jolted temporarily back to life by the Scorcher, was ready for the next challenge: getting to her room.

“So, am I staying in this building?” she asked.

“Well, we could arrange that–if you don’t mind sleeping with me,” said Wilson, his big smile getting bigger and his eyes slightly popeyed.

Maddie had plenty of experience with guys like Wayne. Too dumb to know how silly they were. “Thanks but, think I’ll pass,” she said.

Unfazed by her rejection, Wayne said, “Well, then. Let’s get you down to your cabin before Cook sees us in her dining room. She hates anyone here before 5:30. Course she hates anyone here after 6:30. Not really a people person, that one.”

“Cabin?” Maddie repeated.

“My own personal favorite,” said Wilson, picking up Maddie’s bag and heading back to the living room and out the door.

Maddie followed, trying not to make eye contact with the Walls of Death before moving outside. She glanced around to see if the Black Swarm was about to descend. Assured of temporary safety, Maddie made a beeline for Wilson, now several feet beyond her down the narrow path. She caught up with him in mid-conversation with himself.

“Yep, Woodside is Wilson’s oldest cabin. The rest of them burned or fell apart over the last forty years or so. But this one is unique,” he said, heading up the narrow set of steps of a roughly hewn cabin barely taller than the dense overgrowth it sat in.

In the dimming light Maddie had to look hard to see where Wayne was headed. Focusing all remaining fortitude into a vision of herself in a hot shower and a soft bed, she followed Wayne’s wide backside onto a screened-porch. Except that the screen was more holes than screen and the Black Bombardiers, picking up her trail of carbon dioxide and fading perfume, suddenly launched a kamikaze raid on her head. In an effort to escape the marauders, Maddie beat Wilson through the door and into the cabin.

She had the immediate sensation of being in a funhouse. The floor had a noticeable incline and the floral curtains framing the two small windows looked mismatched in length. A small pot-bellied stove squatted in the corner, next to a lopsided pile of kindling. Flanking a three-legged table with a built-in lamp decorated with a plaid hexagonal lampshade were two upholstered chairs, one covered with flying ducks and the other with wide-eyed deer. The overall effect made her a little nauseous. Maddie placed her hand on the wooden table to steady herself.

So this is what “unique” means around here, she thought.

“Great, isn’t it? The whole cabin’s got a tilt to it,” said Wilson proudly. “Every fall I think, ‘Well, she probably won’t make it another year.’ But every spring, she’s still standing. She’s got a life all her own. You wait and see.”

Famous last words, thought Maddie, as images from Nightmare on Elm Street flashed through her mind.

“Just look at these beds,” he said, walking into the next room. “When was the last time you spent the night in a real cast-iron bed?”

I don’t think that’s ever been high on my list, thought Maddie. The beds looked like relics from a WWII hospital.

“Can’t say as I recall,” said Maddie.

“Well, then you haven’t really slept. Once your head hits one of these pillows, you’ll know what Dreamland is all about.”

“Sounds wonderful,” said Maddie. And what would be even more wonderful would be if you left, so I can do some primal screaming into one of those pancakes of a pillow, she thought.

“In there’s the bathroom,” he said, flicking on the light.

Wilson put his nose up in the air like a dog that’s just picked up the scent of a dropped cheeseburger at a cookout. He looked at his watch and headed for the door.

“Dinner’s on. Roast beef tonight. Don’t take too much time getting settled now or it’ll be over. See you soon,” Wilson said, giving her one last look before touching his index finger to his cap and disappearing down the darkening path.

Fantastic. She didn’t eat meat.

A combination of relief, exhaustion, shock and self-pity escaped her lungs. She really could go for an all-out meltdown but opted for a more pragmatic approach to her situation. Aqua therapy. Anything could be endured after a hot shower.

She headed into the bathroom. It was about the size of her condo refrigerator. A toilet with a wooden seat, a sink large enough to fit two hands in, a stack of paper shower mats and a few white towels artfully piled around a large roll of paper towels.

“Nice touch,” said Maddie, picking up one of the towels.

It was so thin she could almost see through it. So the bathroom wouldn’t be a place she’d spend a lot of time, she rationalized. At least it appeared functional—which was more than she could say about herself at the moment. She went out to the bedroom, unzipped her satchel and took out her cosmetic bag.

She peeled her sandals off, trying to preserve what was left of their shape, and noticed that her feet were colored an interesting gold. She stripped off her clothes—now speckled with an arresting combination of dirt from Easy Rider Limo and flecks from Bub’s seat—and walked back into the bathroom.

She stared in the mirror, trying to look past the slightly slack skin at her jaw line and the small curves at the edges of her mouth that only disappeared when she was smiling, which she wasn’t. She removed her contacts. There, things were looking better already.

“I will emerge as one of Botticelli’s beauties,” Maddie said to the mirror. “You just wait.”

She turned to step into the shower. She turned again to look in the mirror in disbelief. But the mirror only confirmed what she didn’t want to see. There was no shower.

“Cleansing breath, cleansing breath, cleansing breath,” Maddie chanted as she walked back into the bedroom. Goosebumps were starting to form on her arms and legs. There was no place for a shower to hide. Maybe it was outside. But the thought of putting her clothes back on was just too awful. She’d have to make do with what was at hand.

Filling up the Lilliputian-sized sink and using one of the Kleenex-sized washcloths, she managed to remove some of the travel grime from her body and some of the blackness from her attitude. She was starting to pull some clothes out of her satchel when a tidal wave of fatigue hit.

Maddie approached the bed as one might a blind date—with caution and hope. The quilt’s bright primary colors were a bit too optimistic for her present mood but, after wrapping it around her, she found it softer than she would have imagined. The bed, though smaller than she would have preferred, appeared slightly more inviting than earlier. Maddie closed her eyes. The sooner she went to sleep, the sooner she could put this day behind her.

Chapter 3

A buzzing sound invaded Maddie’s subconscious mind and pushed her eyes open. She reached for her alarm. There was none. But the buzzing continued. Pink light streamed through the window by her bed. Neon? No. Wait, where was she? Right. New Life.

She stood up and looked out. Her cabin may have been called Woodside, but it was, more accurately, Lake Side. And in front of her was a lake turned mirror with mountains reflected in duplicate, upside down like a Rorschach inkblot test.

Beautiful, in a wild kingdom sort of way, thought Maddie, as a fishing boat, the source of the buzzing, sliced through the picture.

So much for the wild, thought Maddie. A yawn gripped her and she turned back to the bed and peeled back the now very warm blankets. She was just about to slide back into sleep when the buzzing stopped. She looked out the window to see what had happened to the noise just in time to see the figure in the boat stand up. The moment her brain grasped that it was nude and it was a man and a very fine-looking nude man, he dove into the water. Maddie shook her head. She felt like a cartoon dog who has just dreamed he was about to sink his teeth into the world’s largest, juiciest bone and is then woken up by the family cat tickling his nose with its tail. She waited for her vision to clear, for the boat to disappear. But it didn’t.

Maddie squinted hard, watching for a head or better yet a body to break the surface of the water. She wanted to grab her glasses but didn’t want to miss the moment when that hard, slender body reappeared. She may not know a damn thing about fishing, but she did know about swimming. It had been her drug of choice for many years. There was nothing like sixty laps without stopping to get the endorphins screaming and silence the 24/7 anxiety caused by her responsibilities at BZB. Correction: former responsibilities at BZB, she thought.

Her musings on the oddity of having a “former” life were cut short by the realization that her neck was starting to hurt from the strain of not moving and the temperature of the cabin felt equivalent to a walk-in cooler. She bent over quickly to grab another blanket off the bed and, in that instant, the buzzing began. She looked out and watched as the boat slowly moved away from her and down the lake.

“No, not that way. Come this way!” Maddie commanded through the window. Evidently he didn’t hear because the boat continued to move away. “Nina will never believe this.”

Next time she’d be ready with her iPhone to take a picture. She went into the bathroom to brush her teeth; then she went into the bedroom and opened her Gucci bag, which looked even more ridiculous sitting on the flying duck upholstered chair than in the airport.

After tearing through it, she donned a leopard print thong, a pair of her favorite jeans and a long-sleeved yellow French terry t-shirt embroidered around the neck with tiny palm trees. Digging to the bottom of the bag, Maddie found her pair of pink leather slippers. She opened the door of her cabin and walked onto the porch.

The smell of the dripping pine hit her like a shot of tequila. She pushed opened the porch screen door and stood there for a moment, taking in the shimmering grass and the glassine lake. Suddenly remembering the fate of her gold sandals, she took off the slippers, walked down the lopsided stairs, and stepped onto the grass. Her feet recoiled.

“Jeez Louise,” Maddie said as the wet, cold green seeped into her pedicured toes. On tiptoe she made her way across the small gangplank of a bridge and onto the dock. As the sun started to crack open the day, more buzzing began. Maddie realized her dock was one of several at the camp. She watched as fishermen made their way down to their boats, loaded their gear and started their engines. None of them had the physique of the dawn diver. She glanced at her boat and those now crisscrossing the lake. They all match, like some sort of boat team, she thought.

A whiff of coffee reached her nostrils and her stomach started to growl. Maddie looked for the origin and spotted a white Styrofoam cup in the hand of a guy heading toward his boat. He raised it in greeting. He was wearing some kind of flack jacket covered with pockets protruding with what appeared to be hundreds of feathery flies. He looked like a big bug. She raised her hand and waved.

She began to wonder if she really had seen the dawn diver or if he had just been a figment of her over-tired imagination. She stuck her toe into the water and quickly jerked it out. It was numbingly cold. Anyone who can get in this water has to be out of his tree, she thought. Another waft of caffeine infiltrated her senses. Coffee. Coffee would quell her imagination.

Maddie turned, tiptoed back to the cabin, grabbed her slippers and headed up the narrow path to the Lodge. The fragrance of frying bacon and sausage mixed with cinnamon hung in the warming air. She picked up her step. Save for the clanging of pans and strains of music coming from the kitchen, the place was quiet.

She pulled on the door of the Lodge. It didn’t budge. She tried again. It seemed to be stuck. She looked through the screen into the dining room. Empty. She turned and walked around the outside of the Lodge in the direction of the music. Opera? Here in Fishland? Maddie listened more closely. Maddie was more of an R&B girl, but even she recognized the voice of Pavarotti pouring through the open windows of the lodge. She peered through one of them. Inside, Maddie saw the backside of a woman pulling a pan of enormous cinnamon buns out of a commercial oven. Just as she was about to tap on the screen door, the woman looked up from her cinnamon rolls and straight into Maddie’s face.

“Hungry? Then Get Stuffed!” proclaimed the apron that only barely contained the ample cleavage spilling out from a brassy gold t-shirt. It perfectly matched the hair piled-up and then mostly subdued by a pink bandana. Lime-green eye shadow fanned out and around sunglasses. Lips tortuously enhanced by mauve lipstick were now tightly pursed. The effect, particularly on an empty stomach, was breathtaking.

“Good morning?” Maddie asked.

“Who says?” was the response. Pavarotti clicked off.

Then the light dawned: Cook. Cook who doesn’t like latecomers, cook who doesn’t like people. But Maddie was starving and in caffeine withdrawal and at that moment had no pride. She went into BZB schmooze-mode.

“I did something really dumb last night and fell asleep before I could get to dinner,” she said through the screen.

“Not my fault. Breakfast starts in fifteen minutes. Dining room opens up then,” said a voice that suggested too many Tom Collins and Camels.

Maddie felt herself starting to sag into the screen. “I saw someone on the dock with a cup of coffee and was really just wondering if I could get one, too.”

The cook shook her head the same way a teacher who’d been at the job way too long might.

“That’s because he brings his own damn coffeemaker.”

It was going to be a very long week. And if Maddie didn’t get her caffeine fix soon, a very nasty beginning to a very long week. “Oh, all right. Well, I’ll just …” She had turned to go back around to the front of the Dining Hall when the cook’s voice rang out behind her.

“Make an exception, this once. That way I don’t have to watch you lookin’ all pitiful out there.”

Maddie felt like a winning contestant on Let’s Make A Deal.

“Thank you,” she said easing open the screen door. “I’m Maddie.”

“I know,” said the cook, handing her a plate.

A cinnamon bun oozing warm white icing looked up at Maddie. She thought she heard it whisper, “Eat me.” The cook stuck a heavy blue mug in Maddie’s general direction and pointed to a stainless coffee machine.

“Help yourself. And there’s a table out there with your name on it, so don’t be makin’ a habit of comin’ in my kitchen,” she said, before disappearing into a walk-in cooler.

If Maddie hadn’t been so hungry, she might have felt more insulted. Instead, she made a beeline to the coffee machine. She filled the mug to the brim and brought the steaming contents to her lips. Black liquid happiness enveloped her mouth and spilled down her throat. She picked up the bun, and was about to retreat into the dining room when the kitchen door swung open.

“There you are!” Wayne Wilson said, advancing toward Maddie.

He sounded like a tracker who had just found his prey. She backed into the kitchen and braced for Wayne’s impact just as the cook emerged from the walk-in lugging a basket filled with melons, grapes and strawberries.

“Well, if it ain’t ‘Wayne the Wiltin’ Wonder’,” she said, placing the basket on the stainless steel counter.

All Maddie wanted to do was get through the door and start in on her coffee and cinnamon bun. Nothing else mattered.

“Aw, c’mon now, Flo-Bo,” said Wayne.

Flo-Bo? thought Maddie. Same name as that Olympic runner with the Fu Manchu fingernails?

“Be nice, especially in front of our newest guest,” he finished.

“Don’t be talking to me about being nice, and my name is Florence to you,” she said, slicing grapes with lightning speed.

All that came to Maddie’s mind was Florence Nightingale, and that didn’t exactly fit the person hacking up a cantaloupe like Lizzie Borden with an ax.

“And where’s that dipstick Linda?” Florence demanded, mid-hack.

“Thought she’d be here already,” said Wayne, sidling toward the coffee machine.

“You thought wrong,” said Florence hurling strawberries into a stainless bowl. “She’s late once more and she’s history.”

“Aww, give that poor kid a break. She’s tryin.”

“Tryin’ is right. Tryin’ my patience,” growled Florence.

She lifted up her sunglasses and glared at Wayne. Like her eye shadow, her eyes were an unreal shade of green. Colored contacts, thought Maddie. Either that or she has leprechaun in her heritage.

“Let me see what I can find out,” said Wayne, heading for the swinging doors. He turned to Maddie. “Isn’t she just the dickens?” he said with a chuckle.

Maddie was reminded of something one of her BZB cronies used to say: ‘This woman could bite the balls off a brass monkey.’ She nodded and murmured softly, “Wow,” and started out into the dining room.

“Wow, what?” called the cook.

“Oh, I was just ...” Say something. Say anything, Maddie thought. “That was impressive, Florence,” she said, sidling toward the door and safety.

Florence looked like she wasn’t sure whether to take that as a compliment. “The name is Flo,” she said, tossing cantaloupe into the fruit bowl. “To everyone but him, that is,” she added, pointing to the swinging kitchen door.

Maddie’s philosophy at BZB had been to keep her mouth closed under fire so as not to make the blaze worse. Especially when a client was present. Didn’t appear that Flo held the same philosophy. “Getting along with co-workers …” she began.

“For thirty-eight years we haven’t gotten along,” Flo said, heading to the sink.

This is not a good vibe, Maddie thought. Time to murmur something totally innocuous and vamoose. “But you still work together,” she said in her best cheerleading voice. “That says something, right, Flo?”

“I work,” Flo said, grabbing a box of eggs and cracking them rapid-fire into a deep bowl. “He hangs around to make my life more difficult.”

The sound of the approaching lawnmower army saved Maddie from making another inane response. She craned her neck so she could catch a view of the lake. Several Wilson boats were headed to the shore.

“Fishermen always travel in a herd?” Maddie asked.

Flo shook her head. “Only when it’s time to eat. Rest of the time they ain’t too social.”

The backdoor slammed and a small figure wearing a hippie skirt and peasant blouse drifted through the kitchen and into the dining hall. She was singing what sounded like “If I Had a Hammer.” A red bandanna tied around her long black braids and Band-Aids covering her eyebrows, she reminded Maddie of a Joan Baez-Mona Lisa hybrid.

“’Bout time, Linda. And what’d I tell you about not wearing a uniform?” Flo called.

Linda turned, smiled at Flo and left the room.

“What happened to her eyes?” asked Maddie.

“Stupidity,” said Flo. “Health inspector don’t like pierced eyebrows. Big surprise, huh? So, she has to cover them up when she waits table. Hammerhead.”

A timer went off on the stove. Flo bent down and pulled out the bacon. It was perfectly crisp. She put two strips on a plate with some of the fruit.

“Here,” she said, handing Maddie the plate.

Maddie didn’t eat meat and particularly not breakfast meat. Maybe she could stash it in a napkin in the dining room or something.

“You better eat it here before you drop it.”

Trapped. Flo’s look seemed to be daring her not to eat it. Well, maybe just a bite to be polite. Maddie put the bacon to her lips. After her divorce she had started professing her desire for veins free of cholesterol and fat and all things life-clogging. She expected to gag. Instead the bacon filled her mouth with the taste of Sunday mornings past.

She took another bite. The crunch of sweet grilled pork fat—which should taste like greasy, gunky guilt to her taste buds—was heaven. How could she have turned traitor on her meat morals like this? Well, how could BZB have turned traitor on her? All these years away from meat … Shouldn’t it be upsetting her stomach? Was she deep down a carnivore junkie who’d been parading as a noble no-meat eater? Flo didn’t let up with the watchtower role until she’d finished the bun, the bacon and the fruit. I had no choice; I had to do it, she told herself.

At the sound of clomping feet entering the dining room, Flo stuck a new CD into the player, and Patsy Cline replaced Pavarotti. Maddie could see through the fish-shaped cutout in the swinging door that the dining room was full. Males of all shapes and sizes hunched over menus, anticipating food and swilling down the coffee that Linda poured non-stop.

She scanned the tables for the shape of the Dawn Diver. None were even close. Maddie turned back and as she did, she caught a glimpse of herself in the coffee machine. Last night’s fatigue had moved into her hair, causing it to alternately droop and stick out. The fine lines in her face, now unmoisturized, had turned into crevasses. Her eyes, still sporting yesterday’s mascara, gave her a slightly crazed raccoon look.

Maddie cringed. What in God’s name would her cronies at BZB think?

“This was great. I usually don’t even eat breakfast,” said Maddie.

“Need to if you’re goin’ fishin’. Lunch ain’t for another five hours.”

Fishing is the last thing on my list, thought Maddie. Right below having a filling without Novocain and getting a flat tire on the Skyway Bridge during rush hour. Maddie picked up her plate.

“Just stick it there,” Flo said, pointing to a long, deep sink.

“You don’t have a dishwasher?” Maddie asked.

“Yup. Long as he hasn’t been out drinking all night.”

All right, thought Maddie, putting her dish in the sink. I’m just here for a few days. I can do this—whatever it is—I can do it.

Linda wandered in humming Janis Joplin’s “Down on Me.” Maddie watched as she handed a stack of orders to Flo, who gave her a good glare in return before she wandered back out again.

“Linda’s got a nice voice,” Maddie said, heading to the door. One more step and she would be free.

“Too bad she don’t have a brain to go with it,” Flo said, pinning up the slips with one hand and shuffling hash around on the grill with the other.

Maddie had just laid her hand on the door pull when she heard Flo explode behind her. She froze, then slowly turned.

“Damn it!” said Flo, glaring at an order slip. She held it up to Maddie. “Can you read this? Jesus H, I’d go out there and haul her ass back in here if I didn’t have these pancakes ’bout done. Go grab her, would ya? And you don’t have to be gentle about it; she’s number than a pounded thumb.”

Maddie’s inner voice said: Do not run interference between a hot-headed cook and an eyebrow band-aided waitress. But Flo’s outer voice was much louder, and Maddie was unwilling to alienate the person who would be feeding her for the next week. She mentally duct-taped shut the mouth of her inner voice.

“Sure,” said Maddie, opening the swinging door.

Right in front of her was the juice machine where Linda was loading up a tray of juice glasses. She reached out and tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me, but Flo would like to see you in the kitchen.”

She was met with a blank stare. Linda then thrust the tray at Maddie and walked through the kitchen doors. No sooner had the doors stopped swinging than the yelling began.

“What’s wrong with you? Eggs? What—am I supposed to have ESP? How do they want ’em? Now go back out there and find out. And don’t come back until you can tell me ... in writing!”

Maddie looked around the partition to see if anybody was hearing this other than her. The fishermen appeared oblivious to anything other than their coffee mugs. Maddie waited for a moment for Linda to reappear, and when she didn’t, she looked around for a place to set the tray. There was none.

Fine, I’ll take it back into the kitchen. Let Linda deal with it from there, Maddie thought.

Carefully balancing the tray in front of her, she was beginning to open the swinging door with her foot, when suddenly it opened against her from the other side. She jumped back just in time to miss Linda, but the glasses on the tray took a seismic shift to the left. A combination of tomato, orange and cranberry juice came flying and scored a direct hit on her t-shirt, which acted as a perfect sponge. Maddie could feel the juice oozing its way toward her flesh.

“Wrong door,” Linda said, taking the tray with the half-filled juice glasses from Maddie and proceeding into the dining room.

What a little twit, Maddie thought. She walked into the kitchen. Flo took one look at her and shook her head.

“Supposed to drink it not wear it,” she said and threw Maddie a dishtowel.

Maddie attempted to sop up the juice, but her shirt had absorbed most of it and wasn’t giving it up. The shower was looking more like an oasis, appearing and disappearing in the heat. Maddie put the towel in the sink and opened the back door. This place was a madhouse.

“Next time, you might want to use the other door,” said Flo, opening a bag of blueberries.

Not going to be a ‘next time,’ thought Maddie.

Flo glanced at Maddie’s shirt, peppered the pancakes with the berries and flipped them. “Might wanna consider a shower. Go fishin’ like that, well, black flies will eat you alive.”

“About that ...” she began.

“’Bout what?”

“The shower. In Woodside?”

Flo snorted. “Only shower in Woodside is when it rains.”

What??

Maddie took a stab at an alternative. “Well, is there another cabin that’s available?”

“Nope. Full-up.”

Unpleasant thoughts about her co-workers started circling in her head. “What ...” Maddie began.

Flo finished her sentence. “What everyone else does around here does.”

“And that is??”

“Use the Barn,” Flo said, slamming a stack of sausage patties onto the grill.

Visions of pigs and chickens and manure floated across Maddie’s minds-eye.

“The Barn?”

“That’s where the shower is—also the bathtub. Go out the door and turn left. You’ll see it,” she said squishing the sausage into submission.

Maddie gave the screen door a push and headed out.

“If you hear water running it means someone’s in it,” she heard Flo call.

The idea of sharing a shower room appealed to Maddie as much as getting a bikini wax from a blind person. “Thanks,” she said, unconvincingly. Leaving the kitchen, Maddie peered to her left. Yet another brown swayback building, this one with a red doublewide door, looked back at her.

I guess that might qualify as a barn, she thought. She turned and began walking back to her cabin to get her shower stuff. The sun hit her shirt. She smelled like a human Mai Tai.

She felt her shirt begin to glue itself to her skin. She picked up her pace, pretending she was doing her power-walk on the treadmill in Isla Natural’s fitness room. Experience had taught her that the faster she moved, the more optimistic she felt. One foot in front of the other. Pump it up, thought Maddie. She started to hum some Bonnie Raitt under her breath. She could see the path down to her cabin. The lake was a different blue than earlier and a light breeze drew diamonds to the water’s surface.

Maddie had to admit that it was dazzling. Perhaps a little too dazzling.

She gathered steam and Wham! She was face down on the ground. Without taking a breath, she jumped up and looked for the perpetrator of her fall. A root. She scanned her body. The only damage was to her ego—and her shirt, which was now encrusted with pine needles and dirt. She tried wiping it off but only succeeded in getting the mixture all over her hands. Something had landed in her hair. She put her hand up to brush it away and her hand stuck to her hair. Sap. In more ways than one she thought. Thank God no one was around.

“You okay?” said a voice behind her.

Maddie jumped and turned all at once, which almost took her down on the ground again.

The Dawn Diver! Even clothed, he looked good. In fact, up close, he might even look better. Her age, maybe a little younger, maybe a little older. Hard to tell. Sandy brown hair with blue eyes—her weakness. Jeans that clung in all the right places. He was holding a cooler in one hand and a fishing pole in the other.

“Just not used to roots. Asphalt, muggers, homeless people: yes. Roots: no.”

“Sounds like a fun place. I’m Cal.”

Was that a half-smile or just the shape of his mouth? His voice was low and she couldn’t quite place the accent. Not foreign, exactly, but not like Flo or Wayne’s, either.

“I’m Maddie.”

Cal nodded. “Maddie from Miami,” he replied.

“Yes, well ... guess it shows,” Maddie said, looking down at her obliterated ensemble.

Cal started down the path to the dock.

Nice backside, she thought when he suddenly turned. Maddie felt her face color the same shade as her shirt.

He looked her up and down. “It’s up to you, but you might want to change your clothes before we go out. The bugs will think they’ve hit the mother lode,” he said.

Until her fall into this primeval pit disguised as a sport camp, Maddie had always thought cockroaches were the insects to worry about. And just where did he think they were going?

“Go where?” she asked.

Cal pulled a piece of paper from his jeans pocket.

“Well, according to my schedule, I’m supposed to take you fishing at nine.”

He looked up at the sky. Maddie followed his gaze, thinking he was looking at a plane or a bird or a particularly interesting cloud formation.

“I’d say it’s at least nine-fifteen. Better get to it before the wind changes,” he said.

“Sorry—there must be some mistake. I didn’t book a fishing trip,” said Maddie.

“Not a trip. A lesson. And you’re right. You didn’t book it, your friends did.”

Maddie felt her pleasant professional demeanor heading south. What happened to order, to control? she thought. To being able to have something as normal as a shower?

“But, I don’t even have a fishing pole—”

A fingernails on a chalkboard grimace crossed Cal’s face. “Up north, they are called rods.”

No question I am up north, thought Maddie.

“Rod, pole, I don’t have one,” said Maddie, making no effort to hide her exasperation. And I don’t really want one either, she thought.

“Well, as a matter of fact you do. Your friend, Lena?”

“Nina?” said Maddie.

“Yeah. Nina set it all up.”

She did, did she? Maddie mentally wrung her little neck.

“She set it all up?” she said aloud.

“Had Bub fly it in with you. Pretty tricky friend you got.”

She recalled the package Bub had handed to Wayne. Nina was obviously more talented at deception than Maddie had credited her.

“So, I’ll be down on the dock,” he said.

Maddie felt like there was some unseen conspiracy working against her. First she loses her job, and then gets shipped off to some fish camp designed by Satan. And now this? Wasn’t she the guest, and didn’t that count for anything?

“I’d like to re-book for later today.”

Cal turned midway down the path. “Up to you,” he said.

No negotiating, no jockeying no counter offer? Maddie was painfully unaccustomed to dealing with straight talk. She felt both confused and strangely intrigued.

Cal grabbed his gear from the dock and began walking up the path.

“So, when is the best time to go fishing?” she called.

“Depends on who you ask.”

“Well, I’m asking you.”

“Depends on the day.”

Jeez, thought Maddie. Some guide. How difficult is it to answer a simple question?

“Today,” she said, a note of irritation creeping into her voice. He was beginning to look a little less attractive.

“If the wind drops, then around four o’clock,” he replied.

“Okay, then, I’d like to re-schedule for four o’clock,” she said, turning to head inside the cabin.

“You got it,” said Cal heading up the path.

Maddie wondered if the small sense of accomplishment fueling her up the steps and into her tilting Hilton of a cabin was based on taking control of her fishing lesson. If so, that was really sad.

She dug out some clean jeans and a white t-shirt from her bag. Carefully avoiding her reflection and grabbing a towel and her shower stuff, she headed for the Barn and, possibly, salvation.

Chapter 4

The Barn was empty. Maddie opened the door and peered into semi-darkness. She felt for a light switch. Nothing. Taking a few steps into the room she felt something brush against her face. She swatted, and it caught at her hand. She jerked her hand back, and something small and solid smacked her cheek. All at once yellow light flooded the small room. Her hand was tangled in a pull chain composed of a piece of twine weighted with a good-size screw.

“What brilliant person came up with that idea?” Maddie muttered.

She untangled her hand, rubbed her cheek and looked around. The walls were painted elementary-school-restroom green, circa 1968, the floor was partially covered in curling linoleum, and one small window was covered by flowered curtains that by Maddie’s reckoning were at least fifty years old and probably hadn’t been washed since they’d been tacked up. A shower stall stood self-consciously in the corner of the room, along with yet another stack of paper bath mats on a shelf and a garbage can ostensibly to throw the paper bath mats into. That completed the interior design.

She pulled back the plastic shower curtain. It was surprisingly clean. Maddie didn’t care that the shower nozzle was the size of a fifty-cent piece or that the stall was not much wider than she was. She dropped the rusty hook through the eye on the door, peeled off her sappy, pine needled, juice-infused clothes and turned on the shower.

The water was hot and the pressure was hard. She poured shampoo in her hair, suds up and rinsed. I might be able to handle this, thought Maddie. She was just starting to put conditioner in her hair when the water went lukewarm. She tried turning up the hot faucet. It was up all the way. She turned the cold faucet completely off. The water continued to get colder. She stepped out of the shower, leaving only her head under the now frigid flow, and rinsed out the conditioner as best she could.

The towel she had grabbed from her cabin was about the size of a dishtowel and the absorbency of the paper bath mat that now lay dissolved under her feet. She balled up the bath mat, rang out the towel, put her clothes on and shook her hair out. There was no mirror in the shower room.

“What a surprise,” Maddie said.

She opened the door and was blinded by the late morning sun spilling through the trees. It lit the side of the barn and drew her down onto the steps leading out of the barn.

She leaned back against the side of the building. The warmth of the building took the edge off the cold shower. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.

Then it hit. The flood of pity and self-loathing. What was she going to do now? Well, not now but in seven days when she had to return to Miami and her nothing life. What were the skills that would translate into a new job? Schmoozing? Manipulating? Spinning facts into palatable fiction?

And why had she done such a splendid job of passing everything she’d learned on to that fresh out of the MBA oven protégée Bridgette? How could she have been so guileless as to suppose she was irreplaceable? At her age. At her age. How had she even gotten to be her age? And how boring a thought was that? Face it Maddie. You are verging on old. There is nothing about middle age that goes in any other direction. And who is going to want a verging-on-old person in such a youth driven market? All these questions churned faster and faster until her brain felt like a pool of butter. Enough of this. She stood up and started walking back to her cabin.

As she neared the back of the Lodge, Maddie could see Flo sitting outside. She was parked at a picnic table by the kitchen door. Beside her was a fat, sleeping cocker spaniel. As Maddie grew closer, the dog raised its head and began to bark—short, wheezy barks.

“Taffy, you stop that right now. You know that’s not good for you,” Flo said.

The dog waddled underneath the picnic table and glared at Maddie.

“She’s just shy. She’ll warm up to you,” Flo said, taking a deep pull on a cigarette.

Maddie nodded, unconvinced. Shy is different than anti-social.

“Would it help if I petted her?” Maddie asked.

Flo exhaled a long plume of smoke. “Don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Okay then,” she said. Sensing the conversation over, Maddie started walking away.

“Thought you was supposed to be out fishing,” she said.

No such thing as privacy around here, thought Maddie.

She stopped and turned back to Flo. “I changed it until 4. I wanted to make a couple of phone calls and let people back home know I got in safely,” she said.

“They already know.”

Maddie didn’t know whether to feel relieved or aggravated. She opted for both. “Really? They called? Did they leave a name?”

“Dena? No, maybe Rena,” said Flo, delicately picking a bit of tobacco from between her teeth.

“Nina?”

“Yeah—that’s the name. Told ’em you was fishin’,” Flo said, standing.

“Oh. Well, thanks. Where is the phone, anyway?” Maddie needed to personally deliver all the grisly details of her “vacation” thus far.

Flo reached down to the bench of the picnic table and held up a cordless phone.

“Is it all right if I use it?” Maddie asked.

“Nope. It’s only for incoming calls.”

Maddie was stunned. One-way phones?

“You gotta cell phone right?”

“In my cabin,” Maddie replied, trying to contain her ire.

“Go down dock number 8. Sometimes, if you walk right out to the end, you can get reception.”

Maddie hadn’t noticed any number on her dock. “So the numbers are posted—”

“On the back side of the dock. Can’t miss ’em.”

“Great.”

“Careful, though. There’s a loose board Wayne prob’ly hasn’t gotten around to fixin’ yet.” She took another drag on the cigarette. “And know’ him, he prob’ly won’t.”

“I imagine he has his hands pretty full taking care of everything here,” Maddie said, hoping that installing a new hot water heater was on his ‘to do’ list.

“Oh yeah. He’s a regular workaholic, that one,” Flo said.

“Well, thanks for your help,” said Maddie. Such as it was.

“Don’t mention it,” said Flo. Taking a final drag on her cigarette, she reached down and ground it out in a bucket filled with sand.

“If you really want a signal, you gotta walk down the road. There’s a telephone pole with a fish painted on it. I’d take you out but I gotta do lunch. It’s only ’bout six miles.”

Six miles? For a phone call? Short of a Big Foot sighting, which was plausible around here, there was nothing she had to share that was six miles out important—a depressing realization.

“I’ll think about it,” said Maddie.

She took the shore path to scope out the dock numbers. As she was walking down the path toward her cabin she spotted a kayak leaning up against the side of one of the cabins. She’d always wanted to try one. As she bent over to look at the inside, a petulant voice cut through the air. Maddie looked around the edge of the cabin. Linda. She was standing on a nearby dock, cell phone in one hand and an apple in the other, doing deep-knee bends and having a hizzy fit.

Must be Dock 8, Maddie thought.

“You told me I wouldn’t have to work!” Linda’s voice overflowed with indignation. “I’m serving food! Food! You know I hate food!”

Bulimia? Another issue to add to her list, thought Maddie, as the ranting continued.

“This was all your idea!” Pause. “Yes, it was! I said I wanted to spend the summer on Lake Como with Nonnie.” Pause. “Yes, I did, too!” Pause. “No, he’s mean to me and I want to come home. Mother? Mother do you hear me?”

Maddie heard a splash as something landed in the water.

“There! Just try and get me now!”

Maddie ducked back around the corner and began walking quickly away from the conversation. She had made it to the stern of the kayak when Linda appeared around the other corner. Her auric field oozed persecution.

“Hey,” Linda almost spat.

“Hi.”

Linda pointed to the boat. “Going out in that?”

Maddie looked at her options. She saw only one.

“Thinking about it. You like to kayak?”

“No way. They scare me.”

Maddie saw Linda’s expression shift from hostile to slightly less hostile. Perhaps there was even a trace of respect in there as well. Maddie looked at the lake. Not too much wind. Could be okay. What’s the worst that could happen? Falling out and getting wet? Big deal. She turned her attention from the boat back to Linda. “Really? Why?”

“Look at how it’s made.” She pointed to the narrow hole of the cockpit. “I bet if you turned over in that, you’d never get out.”

Was Linda just being nasty or did she have a point? Maddie looked more closely at the boat. Wilson’s wouldn’t put killer boats out for guests. Even this place would know better than that.

“Haven’t tipped over before,” said Maddie. At least that much was true.

Linda leaned against the side of the cabin and crossed her arms over her chest. The pose suggested suspicion. Maddie thought that she might make a good cop.

“So, where did you learn to paddle?”

“Oh, I spend lots of time paddling in the canals back home,” Maddie lied.

“Canals? Where do you live?”

“Florida.”

Linda’s face clouded. “That’s too bad.”

This little chiquita is never going to make it in the hospitality business, thought Maddie.

“Why’s that?”

“Disney World.”

“You don’t like it?”

“Ever played Snow White to a bunch of jerky dwarfs?”

Some of the boys at BZB popped into Maddie’s mind. She swept them out.

“You worked there?”

Linda nodded and then kicked at the ground with her foot like a mad sheep. “Worst summer of my life. Well, until this one.”

You got that right, thought Maddie. Which was quickly followed by a discomforting feeling that she would share something in common with Linda.

“You didn’t like playing Snow White?”

“I loved playing her. But every time we’d get to the part where I’d eat the poisoned apple and fall into a deep sleep those little perverts would try and feel me up. One day I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Maddie felt compelled to ask the question. “What happened?”

Linda did a total body shrug.

“I broke character and smacked Sneezy across the stage. Even though management thought I’d been one of the best Snows, ever, they had to fire me. Those midgets have quite a union, I guess.”

Linda’s baleful stare was more Evil Stepmother than Snow White.

“Who would have thought?” said Maddie.

Linda heaved a large sigh. “Probably have bad dreams for the rest of my life. I wanted to sue, but my parents didn’t want the attention. What about my rights? Just because I happen to be of normal height, I don’t have any??” She focused on Maddie, as if seeing a human being standing in front of her for the first time. “Does that seem right to you?”

“No, not really.”

But then, neither do you, she thought.

The aroma of something wonderful wafted down the hill and into Maddie’s nose.

“Exactly. Try telling that to my parents.”

Linda looked up the hill toward the kitchen. “Well, I have to go back into hell’s kitchen before Lucifer’s wife comes looking for me. See you.”

“Yes. See you.”

Maddie watched Linda trudge up the path toward the Dining Room. Was that “Whistle While You Work” she was singing? Maddie took a long hard look at the kayak and decided she could hold off for another day.

Once Linda disappeared from view, Maddie picked up her shower stuff and carefully jogged down to the cabin. She hung her towel outside on a branch and went inside. Given the size and scarcity of windows in Woodside—even in the middle of the day—her cabin was semi-dark.

She was in the bedroom and digging around for her phone when the sound of little feet scurrying across the rafters interrupted her search. Maddie looked up in time to see a small tail disappear into the wall. She wasn’t afraid of mice. But it wasn’t a mouse. The tail she’d seen had been bushy. Standing on the bed, she spotted the exit route. The thing had gnawed a big enough hole in the side of the cabin to make her just a little nervous.

Don’t they know about poison around here? Should she go get Wayne? No, having him in the cabin meant having to get him out, and at the moment, Maddie didn’t have that much energy.

Getting down from the bed, she went outside to find a piece of wood to block the hole. When she returned, she heard the pitter-patter once again. It was back inside and this time in full view. A chipmunk sat on the porch table, staring at her with open hostility. Maddie advanced upon it.

“Shoo shoo you!”

The chipmunk didn’t bat an eye. Then she noticed the remnants of a peanut in its thieving little paws. There was only one place that peanut could have come from—her bag. The idea of that rodent rooting around in her belongings gave her the heebie jeebies. She’d completely forgotten she’d even had them. They must be really old. Good, maybe the chipmunk would get sick. Bad, maybe the chipmunk would get sick in her cabin. Maddie stomped her foot. The chipmunk twitched his tail, leapt to the porch rafter and, looking down at her with complete disdain, began nibbling on the nut.

“I’ll deal with you later,” she said.

Maddie grabbed her bag and took it outside to check for damage. She slammed the porch door extra hard, hoping to scare the thing away. The chipmunk uttered a short screech in rebuke. She dumped the contents out on the dock. Only the bag of peanuts appeared to have suffered. Maddie looked closely at the plastic bag. Carribe Air. Maddie sighed.

The trip to St. Martens had been her last gift to Raymond—what, six years ago? The final sorry attempt to rebuild their relationship had resulted in Ray going on a major shopping spree to several high-end cigar and wine shops, leaving her with a McMansion-sized credit card bill she was still paying down. She felt another attack of the self-pities coming on. Time for a dose of Nina.

Putting her iPhone in her pocket, she stuffed everything else back in the bag and took it into her bedroom. Then, hoping to lure the chipmunk away from the cabin, she took the peanuts and dropped them carefully behind her on the way to Dock 8.

The dock was empty. Maddie pulled the phone out of her pocket. She touched the screen and it came to life. She rolled onto Nina’s number and watched as the phone attempted to find a signal. She moved to the edge of the dock. Nothing. Thinking higher might be better, she stood on the wooden bench. The phone was blinking hard but that was all. Then the message: “No network found.” Damn it.

Maddie got down from the bench and sat on the dock. She summoned all her positive energy, directed it at the phone and tried Nina’s number again. This time the icon signaled a connection. Maddie listened to the sound of Nina’s phone ringing. It had an almost blessed quality. But then it continued to ring. Nina always had her phone on. What was she doing?

“C’mon Nina. Pick up,” Maddie commanded.

It was lunchtime and oh, right—it was lunchtime. Nina did her best work at lunch. No one could close a deal like Nina over a Coconut Shrimp and Pinot Grigio. Maddie heard a click and Nina’s almost psychotically perky recorded voice.

“Hello there, Nina Pernico at your service. Please leave a message and tell me what I can do for you. Thanks and bye for now.”

“Nina. It’s so good—”

Maddie heard a beep. She looked at her phone. “No network found” blinked back at her from the screen.

“There was, too,” she said to the phone. “It was just there!”

She stood up to try again. The screen was black. She turned it off and pushed restart. Nothing happened except for the realization her battery had given up the ghost. Maddie sighed. Well, she wasn’t here to stay in contact with the outside world. She was here to restore, rejuvenate, replenish and now, like her iPhone battery, recharge. At least that’s what River Way, her yoga teacher, would say.

Maddie bet River Way would not be having such an enlightened time himself once outside the air-conditioned walls of Hatha Spa Way. She slumped down on the dock’s bench and dropped her chin down to her chest. There, sitting on a rock under about an inch of water, was Linda’s cell phone. She fished it out and shook it off. Probably destroyed, but she’d give it back to her nonetheless. Maybe she had insurance—certainly should with a user like Linda—and it wouldn’t be a total loss. Maddie’s stomach growled. How could she be hungry so quickly? She must be making up for what she hadn’t eaten on the trip to Maine. She stuck the phones in her pocket and headed to lunch.

In the daytime, The Wall of Death looked more like the Wall of Hypnotized Heads. The Dining Room was almost empty. Linda was taking an order from another table, but when she saw Maddie, she pointed to a table in the corner. Maddie walked over to a small pine table with a place card stating “Chilton, 1.”

That about sums it up, she thought, plunking herself down into the pine chair.

Okay, so she hadn’t had the greatest series of relationships since her marriage had imploded. In fact, if she was to really look at them—and she had—they weren’t even relationships. More like lust-and-leaveships. Why do all the work of relating when you knew it was just going to ultimately blow up? Besides, BZB was her true love and now she’d been given the ultimate jilting. She felt the tears start again. She went to grab the red-checked napkin at her place setting and realized Linda was standing there.

“Hey,” said Linda. She’d rolled up the sleeves on her Wilson’s shirt—nicely showcasing the peace signs inked on her arms.

“Hey,” replied Maddie in a voice that came out so bright it hurt her own ears. “So, what do you recommend?”

Linda shrugged and pointed to a small chalkboard on the wall with the day’s specials.

“How’s the corn chowder?”

Linda shrugged again. “Wouldn’t know. I’m allergic to corn,” she replied.

“Oh. Well,” said Maddie in a conspiratorial tone, “at least you don’t have to worry about dwarfs up here.”

Linda studied her as a psychoanalyst might a patient. “What do you mean by that?”

Either the girl is an amazing actress or shouldn’t be let loose in public, Maddie thought. At least around juice machines.

Nothing else on the chalkboard really appealed to her for lunch.

“I, uh ... I’ll try the corn chowder and will let you know what you’re missing.”

She’d meant that as a nicety but it came out sounding more like a jab.

“Thanks. I’ll do the same for you some time,” said Linda.

“And a glass of ice tea, please.”

Linda wandered off toward the kitchen. Maddie thought she heard strains of Jim Morrison’s “Soul Kitchen” in her departure. A guy at a nearby table was launching into an enormous pastrami sandwich. That’s what she’d smelled outside. Melted cheese dripped down his chin and his fingers were greasy with meat juice. He wore a smile of complete contentment. She hadn’t had a pastrami sandwich in decades. They were fatty and unhealthy and unkind to the poor pigs that were sacrificed in the making. Or cows. Was pastrami beef or pork? Had eating the bacon this morning done something to her brain?

Her stomach sat up on its hind legs and begged. She tried ignoring it, but the begging grew so loud she finally gave in. Maddie walked over to the kitchen door and peeked in.

Linda was putting the chowder on a tray. Flo was back-to at the grill.

“Excuse me?”

“No excuse for ya,” hollered Flo.

Maddie thought Flo might be joking but she wasn’t sure. Maybe she should just close the door and slink back to her seat.

“I was wondering if I could change my order?”

“Nope. Not allowed,” came Flo’s voice.

What was this? Some kind of a haven for sadists? Just as Maddie was about to leave, Flo spoke again. “Just kiddin’ ya. What’dya want?”

“Pastrami sandwich?”

“Fries?” said Flo.

“You bet,” said Maddie.

“Coleslaw?”

“Why not? Thank you,” said Maddie, closing the door and walking away before Flo could change her mind.

Sitting back down in her seat, she wondered if she should be concerned that she was seeking comfort in food. She looked out the picture window at the sheer abundance of trees and sky and water and felt a stab of longing for the security of Miami. Where were the endless strip malls, noise, crime, and hype when you needed them? Here there were no distractions, no places for her to lose herself in work. No work. What was she to do?

Linda appeared just before her inner questioning made off with her appetite. Maddie forgave her expression of disdain mixed with dislike after she placed the enormous pile of pastrami on the table. The smell alone moved Maddie to a carnivorous place and after the first bite, she became someone unrecognizable, entering a cave with her meat like a saber-toothed tiger with an antelope. With each mouthful, the yammering diminished until all Maddie heard was her own sighs of contentment as she consumed every last piece of pastrami, shred of coleslaw and fragment of French fry.

Chapter 5

Lunch hit her like a tranquilizer gun. She barely made it back to Woodside before falling through the door and onto the bed. When she woke, it was to a banging on her door and Wayne Wilson’s garrulous voice reverberating through the paper-thin walls of the cabin.

“Hullo? Anybody home??”

Maddie sat up. Why was Wayne here? The knocking continued and she stumbled to the door. He smiled through the screen.

“Everything’s ready. How about you? Ready for your first lesson?”

“Ah, I’m not sure where …”

Wayne seemed to be a mind reader. “Your rod? Got that. I even put it together for you.”

He looked triumphant.

Maddie inched herself through the door and onto the porch. “What happened to Cal?”

“Jeez, I hope nothing,” replied Wayne.

“Then why—” began Maddie.

“Busy guy, that Cal. When you switched times this morning he asked if I’d take you.” Wayne grinned.

God, I’d rather stick needles in my eyes, Maddie thought.

“Okay, well, just let me get my shoes on,” she said, easing back through the door. Immediately the screen door slammed behind her. She turned to find him following her into the living room.

“So, how’re you enjoying it so far?”

Wayne was watching her bend over to get her sneakers from under the bed. Watching a little too closely for Maddie’s liking.

“Great. Just great,” she said.

Maddie stood up and, using her sneakers as a shield, edged past Wayne, who’d ensconced himself in the doorway.

She put on her sneakers faster than she had in recent history and quickly went outside. “Okay, where do we start?”

Wayne pointed to the dock. “Thatta way.”

Wayne, for all his bulk, was right on her heels. “Look at that beauty,” he said, pointing to her newest unasked for companion.

“Just look,” Maddie said, eyeing the rod perched on the seat of the boat. She attempted a philosophical approach. There must be a reason why she was here. God knew what it was, but she wasn’t talking. She took a step into the boat.

“Wait just a minute little lady. Where do you think you’re going?”

Maddie thought it should be self-explanatory but then realized she was dealing with Wayne. “Fishing?” she asked.

“Well, you can’t run before you can walk. It’s the same thing with fishing, you can’t just jump right in. Get it? Jump right in??”

Maddie groaned inwardly and wished she could. But the water was too damn cold and she’d freeze immediately and have to look for help from Wayne to haul her out and that would be even worse than listening to this moron’s mixed metaphors.

She looked up at the sky for a sign that she was at the right place at the right time. No eagle, no unique cloud formation. Nothing. Just a solid empty expanse of blue. She pasted a smile on her face, pretended she was dealing with a particularly trying CEO and turned to Wayne.

“You certainly have a way with words. Now, tell me what I need to know to become an overnight fly fisherwoman sensation.”

So I can get rid of you as fast as possible, she thought.

Wayne chuckled. “Fisherwoman. Boy, oh, boy. You are quite a rig.”

“So,” she said picking up the fishing rod as one might a particularly odiferous open can of cat food. She was expecting it to have weight, heft. Instead it almost floated out of her hands. Jeez. This must be the cheapest rod they could find.

Wayne was grinning. “Nice, huh? Your pal really did this up right.”

Maddie was nonplussed. “Sure did.”

Wayne took the rod from her and started lightly stroking it. She tried not to flinch.

“Now what we have here is a very nice Winston Blix. Once you get the hang of it, this baby will have fish fighting to be first in line. Get it, first in line?”

Maddie felt her smile tighten, like her face was covered in a therapeutic mud masque left on a little too long. Wayne handed it back to her.

“So, it’s a good thing it’s so light? I’m not going to break this pole with the first fish I catch?”

“You break this, and it will be because you’re doing something other than trying to fish. And don’t get a good rod confused with a good pole,” he said, giving her a hopeful leer.

Maddie looked at him as though he was speaking Swahili and watched two dots even redder than his nose appear on his cheeks. Wayne collected himself.

“Now this rod is made out of Graphite. Best stuff around. One of your pals knows something about fishing.”

Sure she does, thought Maddie.

“You got a #5 line on it—should be just the right weight—and,” Wayne said, pointing to a feathery fly, “a Doodlebug. And boy, do the trout love those this time of year.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they love the feel of that piercing their mouths,” she said, unhooking the fly and starting to unwind the line as she had seen her ex-husband do on so many disastrously memorable occasions.

“Oh, fish can’t feel it. No brain to speak of,” said Wayne with total confidence.

Maddie let that one go. It was just too easy a shot. She placed her hand on the reel.

Wayne moved to her side. “You could just strip it. Be a lot faster,” he said. He gave her another grin.

Maddie did not return it.

“Now don’t take me wrong. I meant the line,” he said. “Fishing term for pulling out the line.”

Maddie wasn’t totally convinced that was the truth and just to make it perfectly clear she was not at all interested in his moronic drivel, took a step away from him. Just then the wind shifted, the dock lurched and Maddie had no choice but to grab Wayne in a bear hug or fall in the lake. She grabbed him. And Wayne grabbed her back.

“And here I was concerned you two wouldn’t hit it off,” said a voice from behind them.

Dawn Diver was back.

“This little southern thing can’t seem to stay away from me,” said Wayne, tightening his hold. Maddie had to summon all the strength in her palms to springboard off his paunch.

“Must be some fish pheromone you’re giving off,” Maddie said, regaining her balance.

“More likely the residue of last night’s dance with Jack,” said Cal.

“Dance? Jack?” said Maddie.

“Daniels,” said Cal.

“Aw, c’mon now. Don’t let all my secrets out,” said Wayne.

The circulation was coming back in her hand where the rod had gotten jammed in between her and Wayne’s bulk, and she began reeling in the line that was tangled around her feet. She was aware of a scent coming from Cal that was neither insect nor alcohol related. Aftershave? Here?

“Weren’t you booked for the afternoon?” she said.

“Finished early. Just wanted to make sure Wayne was treating you right.”

“You know it,” said Wayne simultaneously sucking in his gut and hiking up his pants.

Maddie looked down at the dock so Wayne wouldn’t see her rolling her eyes.

“Glad to hear it,” said Cal.

Neither of the men made any motion to move.

“So, are you going to tag team me now?” asked Maddie.

“Gee, I think two of us sounds like a real good idea,” said Wayne.

Nina is going to pay for this big time, Maddie thought.

“You trust me to put that part in the grader?” said Cal.

Wayne lit up like a neon sign. “What? It came?”

“Just arrived,” said Cal.

Wayne got a hangdog expression on his face. He put his hand on her shoulder, like a coach explaining to one of his players why he put someone else in the game.

“Maddie, sorry honey, but Cal just isn’t mechanically inclined the way I am.”

She’d dodged the Wayne bullet. Perhaps the day wouldn’t be a complete horror.

“I’m sure he has his strong points, though,” said Maddie, giving Cal a faux sympathetic smile.

“If anyone can help you catch a fish, it’s Cal,” said Wayne.

“There you go,” said Maddie. She didn’t have the foggiest idea why these particular words came out of her mouth.

“You know where I am if you need me,” Wayne said.

No way around that, thought Maddie, giving Wayne a BZB smile and a wave goodbye.

“So, where were you and Wayne in the lesson?” said Cal.

“Hadn’t gone past go, hadn’t collected $200,” said Maddie.

“So, jail?” said Cal. He leaned against the dock rail and crossed his arms.

Maddie nodded. She eyed him from the edge of the dock.

“I usually do better figuring things out for myself,” she said.

“Well, just let me watch a couple times so you don’t get into any bad habits.”

“Sure,” she said.

Bad habits? How can you have bad habits when it comes to hurling string from a pole into the water She took a deep breath, gave herself some line, raised her arm out to the side and flicked the line out and beyond as though she was a cowgirl looking to hogtie a doggie. The fish gods smiled. The line went out straight and true and fell flat across the top of the lake.

“Thank you,” said Maddie, under her breath.

“Nice one. Say what you will about Wayne—he’s a good teacher,” said Cal.

“Must be it,” said Maddie feeling her confidence take a step further into Fishland. Maybe there was no mystique to this after all. Perhaps it was like throwing a ball or riding a bike. Once you got it, you got it.

“Good. Let’s do it again. Just be careful with the stripping,” he said.

Maddie recalled the morning and Cal’s swim. You should know, she thought.

“You don’t want to get too much out there,” Cal continued.

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

She turned, gave Cal a dazzling, confident smile and let fly. But this time, instead of the line flowing smoothly into space and across the water’s surface, it prematurely ejected, spluttered and stopped, suspending itself in a tangled heap just above the water.

The fishing gods must have gone on a coffee break.

“Not to worry,” said Cal.

I’m not worried, she thought. No job. Now there’s something I could be worried about. But I’m not, because for the moment I am successfully blocking that worry out and focusing instead on something I can do—like untangle this line.

She put the rod down on the dock and scootched down on the dock. Cal walked over and bent down.

“May I show you a trick?” Cal asked.

“No, I’m fine,” Maddie said, wondering how it had gotten so messed up so fast.

“Suit yourself,” he said watching her.

Maddie was sorely tempted to tell Cal she didn’t like being watched. She was sure he was the reason no matter where she started to unknot the line, it simply led to another knot. As one snarl relaxed, another tightened. When she tried visualizing line as a person, and her coaxing them into doing what she wanted, all she accomplished was getting stuck by the hook. She hated asking for help but this was completely ridiculous. She heaved a sigh of frustration.

“I give,” she said holding the rod out to Cal.

“Just relax,” he said taking it from her.

His fingers were long and his wrists were quite slender. Not what she would’ve expected in a guide. For some women crotches were the target of observation. With Maddie it was hands, and not for the size but for the shape. Experience had shown her that nice hands often led to very fine times. She watched his hands as they quickly unwove the mess. In an instant the line was free of tangles.

“Wait, how did you do that?” Maddie demanded. “What’s your secret?”

He shook his head and shrugged. “No secret. Just lots of practice.”

Practice does not always make perfect, Maddie thought. She was walking proof of that.

He handed the rod back to her.

“Thanks,” she said more grudgingly than not.

“Ready to try it again?” he said.

Do I have another choice? she thought.

“You bet,” she said.

She turned away from him and took out the frustration of being trapped on a dock with an uncooperative fishing rod and a smug guide on the line. It flew off the reel like a shot and onto the dock. Suddenly his hand appeared on hers. That it was cool and calm, just like his eyes, only increased her ire.

“You might want to slow down. It’s not a race,” he said.

Maddie hadn’t even realized she was moving fast. “Habit,” she said, lamely. She took a breath and reeled in the pile of line. Looking up, she saw he was studying her.

“You’ll get it,” he said.

Maybe she didn’t want to get it. What she wanted was for Cal to leave her alone.

Maddie concentrated hard on keeping the ire from her voice. “How about if I just practice on my own for a while?” she said.

“How about you try it again?” Cal said.

Maddie’s frustration level spiked. It was one thing to perform under duress at work, but this was supposed to be, well, not anything like this. She stood up, stripped out some line and made a cast. The line flew backwards.

“Whoa there!”

Maddie turned. She’d hooked Cal in the arm. She felt faint. “Are you all right? Did I get you?”

“My fault for not moving farther to the back of the bus,” Cal said.

“I am so sorry. I’ve never done—”

“This before?” he said.

“Something like that,” she said.

Cal unhooked himself, handed her back the line and walked over to the boat. “Think it might be time to go,” he said.

Oh rapture! The torture is over! she thought.

“Thank you. It was ...” Maddie began, then stopped. Cal was untying the bowline of her boat. “We’re done for the day, aren’t we?”

Cal’s expression was midway between nonplussed and motivational. “Nope,” he replied, getting into the stern.

So much for hope, she thought.

“Grab a couple of life jackets off your porch,” Cal said.

Maddie did not have a good feeling about that request and it must have showed on her face.

“Don’t worry. I’ve done this before. Haven’t lost anyone yet,” he said.

The six-mile walk out might be worth it to give Nina a piece of her mind, Maddie thought, as she grabbed the life jackets and put them in the boat. The wind took a breather, and Maddie watched as the lake smoothed.

Cal reached into his front pocket. “Here,” he said, handing Maddie a small bottle. “Put some on.”

She opened the top and grimaced as the smell of a mixture of tar and dirt rushed up her nose.

“What is this?” said Maddie.

“Bug dope,” Cal said, checking the fuel gauge.

Maddie recalled the black swarm from last night. Looking around now, she didn’t see any bugs. She watched as Cal primed the engine and pulled hard on the starter cord—just like she used to do as a child in her own boat on her grandparents’ lake. Of course it was a man-made lake and about ten feet at its deepest. But still, she did recall the basics of starting a motor. And she did love those days of being master of her own ship—all five feet of that old metal dinghy.

“This stuff smells toxic,” said Maddie over the noise of the engine.

“As long as you don’t drink it, you’ll be okay.”

“Think I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, putting the bottle in his shirt pocket.

“So I’ve graduated to ‘casting from the boat class’?”

“No,” Cal said.

“Then what?” said Maddie.

“Get in and you’ll find out.”

Coming from another mouth, Maddie might have taken this as a pickup line. But this guy was like a monk—sort of detached and present all at once.

Cal untied the stern line and motioned for her to sit in the bow while he stowed her rod under the gunnels of the boat. Maddie plunked herself down on the florescent orange cushion. It was sun-warmed and felt great on the backs of her thighs—like the hands of a good masseuse.

“But we are going fishing, right?”

“Maybe,” he said pushing off from the dock. “Maybe not.”

Cal headed up the middle of the lake. The prow of the boat sliced the water into white-tinged liquid seams. The engine’s low drone was like a chant in her ears. Maddie lifted her face to the sun. It was a different kind of warmth. Not the scorch of Miami, more like a pre-bake. The wind was throwing blue-tinged billowy clouds back and forth across the sun. She felt a loosening inside her chest.

The scent of something pungent and primeval filled her nostrils. She closed her eyes to better isolate the smell in her brain—to take an olfactory picture of it for future identification. One of her life-long quirks—her ability to smell so well. Pine and tannic acid and fish. But not a stinky, dead fish smell. This one was the breath of creatures inhaling and exhaling water. It was fresh and cool and …

“Maddie,” came a voice from the stern.

She opened her eyes.

“You need to duck.”

Maddie turned in her seat to look at Cal. “What for?”

“Because we’re going under that causeway.”

Maddie turned and saw a much too small space between the top of the water and the bottom of a bridge. The steel band wrapped itself back around her chest. She decided that, while Cal might look normal, he was completely deranged.

“We’ll never fit,” she said, aware that her voice had risen a half-octave.

“You will if you duck,” said Cal. “Now!”

Maddie quickly put her head between her knees. Suddenly there was a bang overhead—like a large firecracker going off.

“What did we hit?” Maddie yelled through her legs.

“Nothing,” said Cal. “Just a truck going over the causeway.”

“Oh, great,” said Maddie studying the floor of the boat. She was starting to feel the blood pulsing in her brain. Interesting approach to guest relations, she thought. Torture followed up by trauma. What a winning combination.

“You can stay that way if you want … but you’ll probably see more if you sit up,” said Cal.

“No more causeways?”

“No. I promise.”

Maddie looked up from her crouch. They had entered a low, marshy area. She sat up. The blood starting running in the right direction and her vision cleared.

“There’s no other way to get up here?” she asked.

“Well, you could always put your boat in at the landing on this side,” replied Cal, slowing the engine even more.

“But that would take all the fun out of getting here, right?” said Maddie, turning to see perfect upside-down triangles of mountains swelling around a shallow lake of blue glass.

“Something like that,” he said and grinned.

He’s twisted but he’s definitely a looker, thought Maddie.

“Where are we?” she said. Shadows from passing clouds speckled the mountains. Small brown and green camps were camouflaged on the lake’s shore. It was both striking and spooky.

“This is the Logans. Best fishing on Mooselook—sometimes,” said Cal.

“Why ‘sometimes’?” asked Maddie.

“Depends on where the fish decide to hang out, the water temperature, whether there’s been a hatch. Or what the moon is up to,” he replied, looking down at the water.

Maddie shifted in her seat to look at Cal. He stared back at her. His eyes were the color of the water. She felt a part of herself start to soften. A part she hadn’t felt in a while.

Oh Maddie, she told herself. Don’t do it. Do not do it.

“Seriously,” Maddie began.

“Oh, yes. Very seriously,” he responded, shutting off the engine.

The boat went into a slow drift. The light changed in the sky and behind Cal, Maddie saw a dancing collage of pink and purple clouds spilling down the lake. She opened her mouth in awe and inhaled hard enough to suck in a passing black fly. Grabbing her throat and starting to gag somehow alerted fellow bugs it was time to mount a suicide attack. Her swatting only seemed to inflame their desire for revenge. Cal tossed her the bug dope.

“A little goes a long—” he started to say.

She grabbed it, opened the bottle and doused herself.

“Way.” Cal finished.

The flurry departed.

Her eyes burned and she reeked, but she was bug free.

“You just might want to stay away from open flames for a while,” said Cal.

Maddie looked down at her arms. Small beads of blood dotted her skin. Looked like a mad tattooist had attacked her. She inspected the floor of the boat for bodies. None. She conceded defeat.

“Is it like this all the time?” she said, scratching her neck.

“Unless there’s a stiff wind. And that poses its own difficulties,” he said, reaching for Maddie’s rod.

Maddie looked at her hand. It looked like Count Dracula had visited her. She leaned over the side of the boat to wash off the blood.

Her face floated up in the black water. Her hair looked like it had been coiffed in a wind tunnel. Using the water as a mirror, she tried to covertly pat it into submission.

One of her pats must have been a bit violent for it dislodged her sunglasses and, even though they slid in slow motion off her face, her hands were so slippery with bug oil she couldn’t save them.

“No, no, no …” Maddie lunged for her sunglasses. Her hands came up cold and empty, her shirtsleeves dripping. Her watch didn’t look too happy. She looked at the second hand. It wasn’t moving.

“Don’t worry. We have sunglasses for sale in the Lodge. They float.”

“Wonderful,” said Maddie squeezing the water out of her sleeves.

“Your watch waterproof?” Cal asked.

“No,” said Maddie. It had been a gift ages ago from her ex. She didn’t even know why she still wore it. Another habit, probably. Well, broke that one at least, she thought morosely.

“Worse things than not wearing a watch for a while,” he said.

The calm in his voice irked her. This was not at all the right time for a new pair of glasses, a new life, a new anything. And who was this guy to be dispersing wisdom? Who does he think he is—The Zen Fish Master?

Just as Maddie was about to turn around and ask Cal to go back to the camp, he stood up, undid the hook from the rod and cast. Nothing like the beer in one hand and pole stuck in a belt herky-jerky kind of sport fishing Raymond did. This was effortless, fluid, almost, Maddie had to admit—beautiful.

In one fell movement he stood up, undid the hook from the line and cast. The line did a slow arc and landed taut on the water. Immediately, there was a pull.

“Got a baby,” said Cal gently reeling in the dancing line. “Like a nursery up here. Little ones stay pretty protected. So do some of the big ones.”

Maddie watched as he knelt over the side of the boat and lifted a small brown flash of a fish out of the water. He quickly released the hook from its mouth. The fish went slack.

“You going to keep it?” Maddie asked.

“No. For one thing it’s illegal to keep a fish this small and for another, I don’t generally keep anything I catch. Wouldn’t want to fish myself out of a job now would I?”

Maddie watched as Cal placed the fish just under the surface of the water, holding it gently but firmly in his hands—in those fine hands.

“Dead?” said Maddie.

At those words, the fish sprang to life. Cal opened his hands and it swam quickly away. “Just needed to get his bearings back. Sort of a shock getting a hook in your lip. He’ll be fine.

Maddie thought about the hidden barbs at BZB and silently empathized with the fish.

“But they’re disguised like bugs. Fish like bugs. How’s the poor fish to know?” she said.

“Age old question,” said Cal, standing up to cast again.

Maddie looked down into the water, searching for the fish. She looked up in time to catch the flick of his wrist, the ease with which he reeled the line in. Really didn’t look so difficult. She wanted to try again. But she wanted to watch him more.

“How long have you been guiding?” she asked, rolling up her sodden shirtsleeves and wiping her hands on her jeans. She shivered inadvertently.

“A while,” Cal answered.

Probably born and bred right on this lake—so different from her dermabrasioned, high-pro glowed BZB clients. What did he know about the real world? Nice hands and nice smile and nice eyes aside, the guy had obviously led a pretty simple existence. And on the totem pole of sophistication? Ground level.

Cal took off his shirt and handed it to her. “Here. Can’t have you tropical–types getting chilled,” he said.

Startled, she took the shirt and muttered, “Thanks.”

Maybe he isn’t sophisticated, but he’s polite, Maddie—somewhat grudgingly—thought. The smell of his shirt, slightly sweaty with soapy undertones, hit her nostrils in a very pleasurable way. Damn my nose.

“Ready to give it a try?”

Maddie thought about it for a full millisecond. She felt like a little prima donna, but her shirt was just wet enough to seal her decision. “Think maybe I’d like to get dry clothes on first.”

Cal nodded. “Dinner time anyway,” he said.

“How can you tell?” Maddie asked. She looked at his finely muscled arms with just the right amount of fine bronze hair totally void of any watch.

“Man does not live by fish alone,” said Cal. “Watch the bottom, would you?”

He gave the cord a yank and the engine started with a whine.

She looked at him quizzically. Whose bottom?

“It gets kind of shallow here.”

Maddie looked into the water. It almost looked like there wasn’t any bottom—just sand and rocks. Why were they taking a different route anyway?

“Might be a bit early but maybe we’ll get lucky,” said Cal.

“And not get stuck?” said Maddie.

He began maneuvering around sunken objects that made Maddie very nervous. Logs, increasingly large rocks and patches of thick grass, waiting to grab the engine and pull it off the boat. Maddie mentally composed her next phone conversation with Nina.

“Having such a great time. Falling on my ass, taking cold showers, being harassed by the owner and his cook and even the waitress. Oh yes, let’s not forget getting stuck upriver because my guide was hoping to get lucky.”

That should get Nina going. Serves her right, too, thought Maddie as the boat crept closer and closer to the shore.

“See it?” Cal said in a low whisper.

“See what?” asked Maddie, scanning the shore and seeing only trees, trees and more trees.

“Over there. One of Mooselook’s namesakes,” Cal said, pointing to what looked like a large, dark boulder.

“Isn’t it Mooselookmeguntic?”

“Same thing. Shorter version.”

Maddie squinted hard in the direction of his hand. The boulder moved. And then it sprouted antlers. A dripping wet head came up out of the water, looked at them and snorted.

“It’s a, it’s a …” Maddie couldn’t believe her eyes. A moose. A huge moose.

“Pretty great, huh?” said Cal.

“Oh, yes, very great,” said Maddie.

Great big antlers, great big hooves, great big bodies ...

Cal brought the boat closer toward the moose.

Close enough for Maddie to see the big brown eyes, the flaring nostrils. Closer still. Maddie, even without her glasses, could see that the moose didn’t look exactly happy to see them. In fact it looked downright unhappy. The snorting increased, now broadcasting a “stay away or you’ll be sorry” tone.

“Is it okay that we’re so close?” asked Maddie.

“As long as the motor doesn’t stop. That is one very fine young bull. He’s pretty full of himself.”

Good, thought Maddie. A four-legged half-ton bomb of testosterone. Straight ahead.

The beast started advancing toward the boat.

“Do moose ever charge?” she asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

Cal nodded.

“Been known to cause humans quite a bit of damage in certain situations,” said Cal. “Of which we are not in, so don’t worry.”

Cal the Calm, thought Maddie. Maybe he was doing it on purpose. Maybe this was some kind of perverse hazing all new fish campers had to endure. All she knew was that she did not want to get in the middle of some Maine version of a bull fight.

The moose was now swimming toward the boat. Maddie was amazed that something so cumbersome could move so quickly. It appeared have a bead on her. She moved back to the middle of the boat.

“Ah, I think it’s asking us to leave,” said Maddie, not taking her eyes off the encroaching beast.

“Just posturing,” said Cal. But he put the boat in reverse.

As soon as the boat changed direction, the moose gave one last snort and turned around.

“What would you call that? A draw?” asked Maddie, watching the moose lumber onto shore, turn and look at them with baleful eyes. At least, she imagined them to be baleful. The moose was now too far away for Maddie to see anything but a dark hulk disappearing into the woods.

“Special,” said Cal. “I’d call that special.”

Yeah, thought Maddie, one for the memory book. She turned herself around in her seat and saw they were almost back to the causeway. Maddie got into crouch position.

“Once is not enough, huh?” she said.

“Never,” said Cal. He flashed a small, quick grin, which lit up his face in an Indiana Jones kind of way. Then it was gone—like that baby trout.

“You have a unique sense of humor,” said Maddie, as she put her head down.

Smooth as silk the boat coasted under the bridge and out into the mouth of the Mooselook. Maddie saw several other boats heading toward Wilson’s. They looked like homing pigeons.

“Are the boats synchronized to return at meal times?” Maddie asked.

“No one wants to make Flo wait.”

Flo sure does have everyone on the run, thought Maddie. Always nice to see a woman given respect—even if she did have to stay in a kitchen to get it.

Chapter 6

As they drew nearer to the camps, Maddie noticed a figure standing on one of the docks. Except he wasn’t exactly standing, more like hopping around in circles and waving his arms. It was Wayne and he was on her dock. His hopping was causing the dock to bounce up and down.

“Looks like Wayne is really happy to see you,” said Cal.

“You don’t think there’s something wrong?” said Maddie.

“I don’t see any smoke,” Cal said, looking up and down the shoreline. “So, no.”

“Do most owners of fish camps behave like him?” said Maddie.

“I sincerely doubt it,” said Cal. “You ready?”

Wayne was now in a hunched–over position, like a Labrador waiting for a ball. Maddie could almost see his tail wagging. He was looking straight at the boat.

“For what?” asked Maddie.

“To throw the line to Wayne,” said Cal. “That’s what he’s waiting for.”

He cut the engine and the boat slid up next to the dock. Maddie grabbed the line from the bow of the boat and threw it in Wayne’s general direction. What she didn’t take into consideration was the momentum the heavy metal clasp on the end of the line would gain in flight. The line flew straight to his broad face like a magnet, clocking Wayne neatly on the forehead. Holding both hands to his forehead, Wayne reeled backwards on the dock. The boat did a nice grounding on the rocks lining the shore. Maddie froze. She didn’t know whether to jump out of the boat and help Wayne or push the boat off the rocks.

Wayne took his hands away from his face, looked at them and then at Maddie and Cal and said, “See any blood?”

There was no blood.

“I am so sorry, I …” began Maddie, wringing her hands.

To her surprise, a big smile broke out on Wayne’s face. “Pretty good joke, huh? “ He beamed like a jack o’ lantern.

“You get ’em every time, Wayne,” said Cal, jumping out of the boat.

He grabbed the boat by its gunnels, and Wayne pulled it off the rocks, leaving Maddie sitting alone in the bow. What was wrong with these people? She started to get out of the boat, but the wake from the engine hit the boat, knocking her back on the seat. The very hard seat.

“Ow!” she yelped.

“Oops,” said Wayne. He peered down at her. “You okay?”

“I’ll let you know when I have feeling again in my legs,” said Maddie.

Cal came over to the side of the boat and offered her a hand. Maddie refused it.

“Aw, please don’t be upset. Boss will dock my pay,” said Wayne. “Get it: dock my pay??”

He started to laugh. “Hey, I got to get back up to the kitchen before Flo comes looking for me. See you soon.”

Not if I can help it, Maddie thought.

With a wave, Wilson started down the path to the Lodge.

Cal looked down at Maddie. “You know, Wayne doesn’t pull that stunt on everyone. I’d consider that a real compliment.”

“Great. I’ll keep that in mind when I end up in the hospital because he likes me so much,” said Maddie, rubbing her derriere.

“I thought you had one,” said Cal.

“What, a bruise?” Maddie said, continuing to rub her backside.

“No, a sense of humor,” he said and grabbed her rod. “C’mon, let’s get you some food. That always improves things.”

Maddie failed in her effort not to watch Cal’s backside as he strode in front of her. He really did fill out his jeans nicely.

Keep your eyes on the ground, Chilton. Don’t want another episode like this morning. She could see the headlines: Guest Breaks Leg Watching Ass Not Path. Flatlander Float-Planed out of Camp.

Fortunately, given her thoughts and her hunger, the walk to the Lodge was fast. A low hum from the dining room intermittently interrupted by occasional laughter signaled men eating. Through the kitchen window, she could see Flo piling pasta onto plates. Cal stopped by the screen door.

“Have to check in with Flo. Enjoy your dinner.”

“Thanks for the … experience.”

“Anytime,” he said.

He doesn’t waste time on small talk, thought Maddie. Something else she was unaccustomed to.

She watched as he entered the kitchen. Flo was steaming around, piling salad into small brown bowls. Maddie began walking around to the front but when she heard Flo’s voice, something made her stop.

“What you been up to all day?” said Flo.

“Just the usual. Making sure the guests get what they pay for,” replied Cal.

“Really? The usual don’t usually involve you coming in late to dinner with no shirt on.”

“Can’t have ladies getting cold,” came the reply.

Maddie knew she was eavesdropping, but suddenly her curiosity was greater than her integrity.

“Only one lady on the grounds that I can see,” said Flo.

“You’d be right there,” said Cal.

Was he referring to her?

“I see that look. You need a trip out of the woods.”

“I had one this morning. Went to Oquossoc and took care of that bill for the backhoe work on the road.”

“Before you go out and make the rounds, there’s a bottle of wine on the counter needs to be opened.”

“Can do. What table does it go to?”

“Right on the bottle,” said Flo.

“For Maddie, love Nina?” said Cal.

Maddie’s heart warmed. What a great friend she was.

“Arrived today on UPS,” said Flo. “While you was ‘keeping the guests happy,’ ” she added.

“Just doing my job,” said Cal.

“I know someone who might think differently and you do—”

Maddie heard the sound of the cork being freed from the bottle. She couldn’t stay to hear the end of the sentence. She hustled around the front, took off Cal’s shirt and walked into the dining room, barely making it to her seat before he came through the swinging door—with a clean Wilson’s shirt on but without any wine.

Instead of heading to her table as she’d anticipated, he went over and started hobnobbing with another table of eight. After a few minutes he drifted over to another table and did the same thing. More like a politician than a guide, thought Maddie, wondering what he’d done with the wine.

Linda made her way to Maddie’s table. Along with a deep scowl, she wore a black turtleneck and long, trailing skirt. All she needed was a peaked hat and a broom to have stepped off the stage of Wicked.

Maddie put on her best smile and tried to forget Linda’s earlier hostility. “Hi Linda, certainly smells good in here.”

Linda was regarding Maddie as though she were speaking a dialect from a lost Amazonian tribe. Casting her a look of thorough annoyance, she stuck out her thumb toward to a huge trout on the wall with a clock embedded in its belly.

“You know, you’re late,” she said finally, dropping a small bowl of tossed salad in front of Maddie and a piece of paper and a pencil.

“I was having a lesson, so you can blame that guide Cal,” said Maddie, attempting to sound conspiratorial.

Linda sniffed. “Some guide. You want the lasagna or the spaghetti?” she said.

“Whatever you think is better,” said Maddie.

Linda probably wasn’t much younger than her youngest son. Maybe she’d try a motherly tact the next time she returned. It had been a while, but was worth a try.

She looked at the paper. It was an order form for a box lunch. She looked at the choices for sandwiches, drinks, and desserts and decided she didn’t want to make any decisions. She was taking a break. Just as she finished writing, “You decide for me,” on the form, a wineglass appeared on the table, followed by the bottle of wine.

“Courtesy not of the house,” said Cal.

Fortunately, Maddie had a mouthful of greens. Her inability to speak gave her an opportunity to feign surprise while coming up with an appropriate response. She swallowed and said, “How’s that?”

“It seems your friends want to ensure you have a good time,” he said.

They shipped me off here, so a bottle of wine is the least they can do, thought Maddie.

“How much did they send?” asked Maddie.

“As far as I know, just this bottle,” said Cal, pouring her a glass.

Well, I’ll just have to make it last, Maddie thought.

Maddie looked at the label. Her favorite Petite Syrah. Nina was pulling out all the stops.

“To catching the big one,” said Maddie raising her glass.

“And letting it go?” said Cal. He raised an imaginary glass in return.

Maddie put the glass to her lips. We’ll see about that, she thought.

He set the bottle down on the table just as Linda arrived at the table holding a plate piled with lasagna and a basket of garlic bread. Maddie watched the steam rising off the mozzarella oozing out between the layers of pasta onto the plate.

“You joining her?”

“No Glinda, but thanks for asking,” said Cal.

“Whatever,” said Linda drifting in the direction of the kitchen.

“Did you just call her Glinda?”

“Yeah. My attempt to get her to be a good witch rather than just a witch,” said Cal.

“What a novel approach,” said Maddie. “Though from the looks of her, she had more exposure to the Addams Family than the Wizard of Oz.”

“Just wait. She has lots of different sides to her.”

“I thought Flo said she just started here.”

“She did. But I’ve known her a long time.”

“Friend of the family?”

“No, I am the family. Linda’s my daughter.”

Oops. Maddie immediately regretted her Addam’s Family comment. If he had a daughter, he probably had a wife. So much for the softening she’d felt in the boat.

She took a breath and attempted to cover herself.

“Well, isn’t that great you get to work together,” said Maddie.

“It’s something of an experiment,” Cal said.

Maddie thought about the breakfast breakdown in the kitchen. “Nice that Flo is the experimenting type,” said Maddie. She took a sip of wine. It seemed a bit off. Had it turned?

“She’s not. It was my idea,” said Cal.

Some ideas are better than others, Maddie thought. But maybe those Disney dwarfs had a leg to stand on.

She took another sip. The next one tasted just as off.

Linda appeared like a little black storm cloud. “Flo needs to see you in the kitchen, something about the refrigerator.”

“Where’s Wayne?”

“In the kitchen. That’s why Flo wants you,” Linda said before heading straight past a table ready for dessert, another table waiting for water and out the dining room door.

Cal shook his head. “Not sure if she’s cut out for waitressing. What do you think?”

“You never know,” said Maddie. She finished the sentence in her head with until it’s too late. And boy is it ever too late for that one.

“Enjoy your meal,” he said.

Before turning her attention to the pasta, she watched his backside as he pushed through the swinging doors. She lifted an amount way too large for her mouth and stuffed it in. Almost immediately she could feel the fat globules zeroing in on her inner thighs. Maddie mentally vowed to do some leg lifts later on to counteract all the carbs barreling down her gullet.

The sound coming from the kitchen—of something heavy being scraped across a floor accompanied by grunting and moaning—didn’t slow down her intake until her plate was empty. She looked around for Linda. No Linda, just a few men wolfing down apple and lemon meringue pie before heading out for night fishing.

She decided to take her wine, go down to her dock and watch the fisher folk. Perhaps its taste would be improved by being outside. In a pasta haze, she stuffed the cork back into the wine bottle, pushed herself back from the table, walked through the hall of the undead and outside. A chill went through her. Must be ten degrees colder.

She half-jogged to Woodside, grabbed a blanket and a plastic cup from the no-bath room, took off her sneakers and tiptoed through the damp grass down to the dock. Light rimmed the mountains and the outgoing boats looked like black stains on the darkening water.

Maddie set the wine on the dock, wrapped the blanket around her and started to sit down. As she did, there was a long, high-pitched wail. She jerked from a crouch to a jump and managed to knock the bottle over. She backed off the dock. Maybe something was about to crawl onto the dock. She took another step back so she could get a running start if a creature from the lake came at her and then bumped into something bigger than she was. She whipped around, ready to scream. Cal stood there smiling. What was he doing here?

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

If you like the sound of pain and suffering, thought Maddie.

She took a couple of steps back and looked at him. Stripes of dirt lined his shirt and a faint odor of fish surrounded him. She momentarily forgot the wail.

“You must have one mean refrigerator,” she said.

“More like one mad Flo,” said Cal.

Something bumped against the dock. Involuntarily, Maddie jumped. A small jump, but big enough for Cal to say, “You okay?”

Damn, she thought. No problem in dark city parking lots, but a bump on a dock—now that’s scary?

Cal went to the edge of the dock, bent over and, with the ease of Hatha Way—though Maddie couldn’t imagine Cal doing yoga—plucked something out. The wine bottle.

“Lose something?” he said, handing her the bottle.

“A few things,” she said. “That just happens to be one of them. Thanks.” She said took the wine. “So, what did happen in the kitchen?”

“Don’t need to bore you with the details. I just—”

He’s giving off the ‘guest treatment’ vibe, thought Maddie. After all, she was an expert at it herself. But, she decided, I am not drinking this bottle of wine by myself. It’s too good.

“No, as long as I’m not in charge, I love hearing other people’s tales of woe. Join me?” she said, sitting down on the dock and pouring some wine into the plastic cup that looked suspiciously similar to those used in doctor’s offices for urine samples.

Cal sat down a polite distance away and then leaned back on his elbows, stretching out his legs. Maddie caught a whiff of something sweet—like “Chocolate?” The word was out of her mouth before she could stop it.

“Flo’s chocolate soufflé, to be exact,” said Cal. “Good nose—thought I got most of it off.”

“How did you get it on?” Maddie said. “You, I mean.”

“Tipped over when I was moving the fridge,” he said. “Which I wouldn’t have had to do if Wayne hadn’t forgotten to plug back in the fish refrigerator after he cleaned it.”

“But he did forget?” Maddie prompted. She really was kind of enjoying this—in a strange vicarious way.

“Oh, yeah. Thought he could store today’s catch in the kitchen reefer and Flo wouldn’t notice.”

“But she did?”

“Kind of hard not to when the fish is leaking all over her soufflés. And onto the floor. Had to pull it away from the wall to clean behind it.”

That explains the scraping, thought Maddie.

Cal let out a long exhale and shook his head. “Not the first time. Probably won’t be the last,” he said with a resigned smile.

A very nice resigned smile, thought Maddie.

When it comes to bosses, there is only so much you can say. How well Maddie understood that.

She held out the cup. “Here. You’ve earned this.”

“After you,” he said.

“Cheers,” she said and took a drink. A combination of lake water and Petite Syrah filled her mouth. Maddie stood up and spit into the lake. “Blech.”

Lovely. Just lovely. Invite a guy for some wine and then show off your spitting skills.

“That good huh?”

“Cork must have been loose. Think it had an infusion of Lake Mooselick.”

Cal laughed. “Mooselook.”

“No, it really tasted more like mooselick,” said Maddie. “Sure you don’t want some?”

“Think I’ll pass. Though I can probably dig up another bottle for you.”

Invitation or just being the good staff member?

Maddie bent over to wash out the cup. “Thanks, but I’ll just—”

Another wail, this time very close. She backed up, almost tripping on Cal’s legs.

“What is that?”

Cal stood up. Look over there,” he said and pointed to what looked like a small floating piece of wood.

“Yes. What about it?” said Maddie.

The wood threw back its head, opened its beak and uttered a call like something out of a time before dinosaurs fell into the tar pits.

“Loon. Guardian of the lake,” said Cal. “Come here. You can see it better.”

Maddie made her way over to Cal. The thing that had given her heart palpitations was a bird smaller than a pelican? She felt a little foolish. “Why isn’t it asleep?”

“It’s one of their big social times. Plus, they don’t have to compete with us for food. ”

“They eat fish?”

“Fish, frogs, minnows, leeches ...”

Maddie took a step back from the edge of the dock. “Leeches? You mean bloodsuckers?” At age eleven, Maddie had survived a very unfortunate incident at a friend’s camp. She’d spent the day swimming, and it wasn’t until she’d removed her bathing suit that she’d found that a leech had set up residence on her bottom. It took a quart of salt to get the thing to let go, mountains of embarrassment both for Maddie and her friend’s dad—the only parent home at the time—and months for Maddie to even think about getting into fresh water again, beyond that of her own bathtub.

“Have you ever gotten one on you?”

“What?”

“A leech.”

“A few.”

Maddie shivered. “How can you swi–,” she started to say.

She’d almost said ‘swim’! Damn my mouth, she thought.

“How can I what?” Cal asked.

“Swi—” Come on brain, Maddie thought. “—itch. Switch. Gears.”

Cal looked at her strangely. Maddie blatted on. “Gears. You know, from being a fish guide to a repairman to an aquatic bird specialist ...”

“Spend much time on lakes?” he asked.

“Miami’s not really known for lakes,” she said.

“Well, it’s amazing how much you can learn around them.”

Not going to be here that long, thought Maddie with relief.

“Now,” continued Cal. “There is one loon on this lake with a reputation. But I just think he’s smarter than the rest. More of a renegade than anything else.”

“Really,” Maddie said, leaning back on her elbows.

“This loon is very canny. He’ll hang around a boat and wait for the fisherman to get the fish; then he grabs it before it can be reeled in. He’s ruined tackle, even broken rods.”

“This bird is strong enough to break a fishing pole?”

“Rod.”

Okay, okay rod. Such a male thing, she thought.

“How do you know it’s a he? If it’s so smart, maybe it’s a female loon.”

“Maybe,” said Cal.

“What about the fly?”

“Oh, he gets rid of that.”

Maddie was beginning to have a hard time with the story. “So this loon has the ability to untie the fly?”

“More like rip it off. This loon has major beak power, ” replied Cal.

“You ever personally see this loon?”

“Yup. A couple times.”

“How do you know it’s one specific loon? They all look alike.”

“But they don’t all behave alike. This guy—” Maddie raised her eyebrows in mock disapproval.

“Or girl,” Cal continued,” has the patience of a St. Bernard. One way or another it manages to get the fish.”

Maddie wondered if this was the opening night act he performed for all the guests.

“I think what you’re talking about is called an urban legend. Course here it would be a rural legend. Excuse me, an ultra-rural legend. I’m sure, as a guide, you have lots of them,” said Maddie, yawning.

Cal shrugged. “Have it your way, skeptic,” he said.

He sounded sincere. Now there was a word she hadn’t used in a while. Just how jaded had her time at BZB made her?

“Speaking of way, I have to find my way to bed before I fall asleep on this dock.”

Maddie grabbed the blanket and stood up. She noticed Cal already had the wine bottle and cup. Service is getting better, she thought. Her hand brushed a lump in her pants’ pocket. Linda’s cell phone. She’d meant to leave it on the dining room table.

“Oh, I found this on Dock 8.”

She handed it to Cal. He looked blank as he took it.

“Think it might belong to your daughter.”

“Haven’t seen it before. You sure it’s hers?”

“Pretty sure. I saw her with it earlier in the day.”

“She must have wheedled her mother into giving her another one,” Cal said, sticking it in shirt pocket.

She’s probably not going to be too happy Linda gave it a bath, Maddie thought. Doesn’t sound like they see much of each other.

She started walking up the path to the cabin.

“Well, thanks for the loon bedtime story.”

“Not a story,” he said.

She stopped and turned. His frame was illuminated in the half-light from the exposed bulb by the side of the porch door. Such a nice outline, she thought.

“You can be quite convincing,” she said.

Cal smiled and shook his head.

“See you in the morning,” he said, before walking up the path.

Not before I see you, thought Maddie. Cal might be unavailable, but he sure wasn’t invisible. If he chose to skinny dip there was nothing illegal about a little voyeurism. She headed into her crooked cabin and sleep.

Chapter 7

She wasn’t sure, but she thought the sound of her own snoring woke her up. She rolled onto her side. The light pouring in the window told her it was much later than she wanted it to be. Yawning, she put her hand to her mouth and realized she’d also been drooling. She crawled halfway out of bed and peeped outside. Damn. Broad daylight. She’d missed the Dawn Diver’s morning performance.

Small dark waves were running up the lake, and a cool breeze hit her chest and ran down the front of her flimsy Floridian pajamas. She quickly slumped back down under the covers. Once she’d recouped her body heat, she jumped out of bed, grabbed the Gucci bag, and pawed through it looking for slippers and a robe. No such luck.

She dumped the entire contents out on the bed. Nina must have packed for her after she’d passed out. None of these clothes made sense for Maine. But then again, what would Nina know about Maine? She never went anyplace where the mean temperature wasn’t seventy degrees—inside or out. Perhaps if she put on every item of clothing at once, she might be warm. As she pulled off her pajama top, she that saw the bug bites on her arms had turned into a connect-the-dots picture. She’d take the occasional scorpion and Black Widow over this any day.

Just in case they had those as well in this god-forsaken place, she checked her sneakers before putting her feet in them. No spiders, just cold and damp. Wonderful. As soaked with fly dope as they were, she opted instead to put on yesterday’s clothes. She might stink, but she’d be protected.

Maddie went into the bathroom. You are quite the picture, she told the face in the mirror. You are caught in a Maine version of Groundhog Day, with no chance of escape. She pulled back her hair to examine her neck for welts. She stopped counting at seventeen. After scrubbing her face, she threw on some moisturizer. Bad idea. Instantly the bites started itching. And burning. She washed it all off and grabbed her hairbrush. The brush immediately jammed in her hair, and she realized she’d done a decent job of giving herself a bug dope conditioning. She grabbed a scrunchie from her cosmetic bag and subdued her hair in a semi-ponytail.

“Abandon all Vanity, Ye Who Enter Here,” she told her reflection before heading to the Lodge.

The dining hall was empty. Maddie looked at the fish belly clock. Nine. She peeked into the kitchen. Empty. Damn. Not only had she missed the Dawn Diver, she’d missed breakfast. At least there was coffee. She filled herself a mug and went to sit down at her table. Except it was no longer her table.

She looked around the room and saw “Chilton 1” had been moved to one of the picture window tables. There on her new table was a white paper bag. Inside was a roast beef, tuna and ham and cheese sandwich, an apple, an orange, a banana, a bag of chips and bottles of water, lemonade, and ice tea. A smaller bag contained chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin and peanut butter cookies. At the bottom of the bag was a note that said, “Careful what you ask for.—Flo.”

The downside of not deciding exactly what you want. Maddie felt a surge of unlikely but sincere respect.

She sat down and ate the banana. A battalion of hummingbirds arrived, and Maddie watched them vie for total dominion over the feeders. Merciless little buggers, she thought. They reminded her of some of her clients. She dunked an oatmeal cookie rather violently into her coffee. After pouring more coffee, she ate the peanut butter cookie—her kind of balanced breakfast.

All the docks but hers were empty. Fortified and slightly sugar-high, Maddie took that as a sign she needed to be out with the rest of the boys. As she stood up to go, Maddie saw Flo, encased in black stretch Capri’s and a red and black striped tube top, come through the swinging door. She’d set one foot in the dining room when there was a bark from the kitchen. Flo disappeared.

“Taffy, you get back,” came her voice. “Get back outside now or Mumma won’t give you no candy. You want your candy, don’t you baby?”

The sound of paws being dragged across the floor and the smell of cigarette smoke signaled her location. Maddie picked up her lunch and cut around to the back of the dining hall.

“Well, if it ain’t Ms. Miami,” said Flo, sitting cross-legged at the picnic table.

Maddie had never been called ‘Miami’ before. And she didn’t appreciate it now.

Flo, spilling out of both her top and Capri’s, was chopping onions. Taffy, lying at Flo’s feet, took one look at Maddie and, with a loud wheeze, morphed from a bowling ball with fur into a guided canine missal. Lips drawn back, little flecks of spit at the corners of her muzzle, feet barely touching the ground and eyes fixed squarely on the target, the dog launched herself at Maddie’s ankle. Just as she was about to make a painful connection with flesh, Flo looked up from her chopping.

“Taffy! You come here!”

The dog slowed but did not stop heading her way. Maddie looked around to see where she could hide. There was a woodpile not too far away and she headed toward it. Her bag lunch started to rip, and she decided that if worse came to worst, she could throw the contents at the dog. The sandwiches were pretty heavy, and aimed properly might even stun the thing.

“Taffy! You come to Mumma right now or no TV tonight!” At those words, the dog pulled a U-turn and slowly headed back to Flo.

“Aren’t you just a bad baby? I’ve told you it’s not good for you to do that,” said Flo, continuing to chop onions.

“She sure is spunky for an old dog,” said Maddie, keeping a safe distance.

“Yep,” said Flo proudly. “She’s awful smart, but once she gets that look in her eye, she’s gone. Funniest damn thing.”

Flo’s face grew serious for a moment. “Had an aunt just like her. Aunt Wilma. As sweet as could be most of the time—next thing you know, we’d be visiting Uncle Edgar in the hospital. Ended up having to send her off to the mental asylum in Bangor. Course that was after Uncle Edgar took a hit in the back of the head from a skillet. He never was quite right after that himself. What a pair, huh?”

“Quite,” said Maddie.

Flo looked down at Taffy and shook her head. “I’d never send you away though, baby. No I won’t. Don’t matter how many people you go after.”

She was a mother standing by her child, regardless of whether it was a serial killer. Maddie’s confidence in the dog not attacking again was nil. She backed up several paces. Flo scratched the dog behind the ear. Maddie thought she could see Taffy’s lip start to curl. She swore the dog smiled, and then wheezed—which Maddie construed as a laugh—before slinking back into her hiding place under the picnic table to await her next victim.

“So, headin’ out for the day?”

“When in Rome …” Maddie said.

Flo looked at her queerly. “Better get out there before Wayne finds you. He seemed real excited about giving you another lesson.”

Was Flo being rude or just not very nice? Ever the peacekeeper, Maddie chose her words as carefully as a soldier going through a minefield. “He’s quite the enthusiastic teacher.”

“Oh, a regular Einstein, that one,” Flo said.

“Well then, I guess I—” began Maddie.

“Should stop standin’ here and get a move on,” Flo said. Her tube top had fallen to a dangerous low and she gave it a good yank. Standing, she pulled down her Capri’s so that the camel toe in her crotch mostly disappeared, grabbed the bowl of onions and went inside. From underneath the picnic table Maddie could see a pair of baleful eyes staring out.

“Flo,” Maddie called, not moving.

“That’s my name. Don’t wear it out,” she returned from somewhere inside the building.

“Know where I can buy some sunglasses?”

“Yeah.”

Maddie waited for more. There was none. She called back.

“And that would be?”

“Go into the office. Cal should be around there somewhere,” she hollered from the bowels of the kitchen.

Maddie looked around. She didn’t remember seeing an office.

“Next building over,” called Flo from the kitchen.

“Thanks,” said Maddie.

“Might want to get yourself some real clothes, too, while you’re at it,” hollered Flo.

Was she watching her? Real clothes? What a difficult person, Maddie thought, keeping her eye on the picnic table until she was far enough away for Taffy’s gleaming little eyeballs to be out of view.

On the outside, the office looked like a mini-version of the Lodge. On the inside it was Hall of Death, Part Two, set in a living room stuffed with retail opportunities for the fish shopper. Hats, sweatshirts, pants and jackets—all sporting the Wilson’s antlered logo—hung on racks and sat on shelves, interspersed with cases of flies, line and loon-decorated coffee mugs. On a coffee table, a large jar of chocolate-chip cookies sat next to a decrepit stuffed fox, and a pheasant that had seen better days flew over the TV.

But the piece de resistance—sitting on the reception counter and sporting a Wilson’s baseball cap—was the biggest beaver Maddie had ever seen, not that she’d seen many. This one must measure three feet long, including the tail and the pine stump it would gnaw until they both turned to dust.

Maddie looked closer at the face. Whoever mounted it decided not to give it any teeth. That’s just plain wrong, thought Maddie, who was, however, just about to stick her finger in the beaver’s mouth when the door slammed behind her. She jumped and turned to see Wayne grinning at her.

“Go ahead. Give her a pat,” he said, reaching out and rubbing the red fur back and forth in a way that made Maddie instantly queasy.

“That’s why she’s there. Everyone likes to pat Beavee. It’s good luck,” he said, nodding.

Maddie backed away and shook her head.

“Think I’d rather pat one that still made sawdust rather than was stuffed with it,” said Maddie.

“Hmm. Hadn’t thought of that,” he said, gazing at the beaver as if for the first time. He leaned over the hapless creature, his paunch spreading out against the fur. Maddie wasn’t sure how strong the internal construction of a stuffed beaver was. One wrong move and Wayne could break the thing into smithereens. She really didn’t want to be around for that.

“I need some sunglasses,” said Maddie.

Given Wayne’s reaction, nothing could be more exciting. In a flash, Wayne was behind the counter. He bent over, exposing a backside crevice that would make any chubby plumber green with envy, and began pawing through the sunglasses in the glass case.

“Got just the thing for ya. Look at these beauties,” he said, placing a pair of the blackest, scariest sunglasses Maddie had ever seen on the counter. “SOS Catalina’s. Our most popular model. Distortion free, polybicarbonate, 100% full-spectrum UV polarized protection. Full seven-day money back guarantee if not completely satisfied.”

Well, she was only here for another seven days or so. What’s to lose?

He handed them to her.

“Put these babies on and you’ll never want to take them off.”

Maddie put them on. It was like the time she had been given Vicodin for a bad tooth. Her vision was immediately sharper, the colors of the room more vivid, the sun streaming in no longer sharp. Everything just smoothed right out. And the beaver. Maddie could now see entire rainbows of color in each strand of fur.

“Great, huh?” said Wayne.

“How much are they?” she asked, not caring. She had to have them.

“Normally they sell for $79.99, but today, for you, they’re on special. $75.” Wayne beamed.

She nodded. “I’ll take them.” The ones she’d lost overboard were three times as expensive. “They float, right?”

“Well, the FBI, the DEA, the FDA, hell, even the USDA wear ’em,” said Wayne, almost busting with confidence.

“They should know,” replied Maddie.

She looked at the sweatshirts. They were the color of wood glue, and the only size available was extra large. She pulled one off the rack. As she pulled it over her head, she had the distinct impression there was no turning back. She, Maddie Chilton, had gone around the fashion bend and was heading up river, like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now.

“Can I pay for this later?” she asked picking up her lunch.

“Course.”

“Thanks.”

Over the sound of the screen door slamming came Wayne’s voice. “Hey, where you headed so fast?”

“I hear the fish calling,” said Maddie.

Wayne’s voice followed her out the door. “Boy, you must have good ears. I’ve never heard ’em.”

Chapter 8

The wind had come up and the forest green Rangeley boat was bumping like an aggravated goat against the tires on the dock. Placing her lunch and rod in the bow, Maddie slipped on her new shades, went down to the stern and gazed at the 5HP Mercury. “Okay, you and I are going for a ride,” she commanded.

She bent over, untied the stern line and got in. Then she squeezed the bulb on the line connecting the gas tank to the motor and opened the choke. Half-kneeling, she gave the starter cord a pull. Nothing. She tried again, this time using both hands. The engine whined to a start.

“Houston, we have lift-off,” Maddie said.

Suddenly she was reliving her glory days of summer spent on her grandparent’s man-made lake in Boca Raton, tooling around for hours with a 3-horse engine on a snub-nosed pram. She scooted up to the bow, undid the line, and put the boat in reverse. Just as she was turning out into the lake, she noticed a person on her dock waving.

He was wearing a slightly too tight t-shirt, a torn Wilson’s cap and jeans that looked like they’d spent the night in a mud puddle. Cal. Damn, he looks good, she thought. She waved back. Over the noise of the engine, she thought she heard him say, “Bye.”

Maddie returned the holler, put the boat in forward gear and headed out into the lake.

One advantage to all the bug dope in her hair was it didn’t get in her face as she motored across Mooselookmeguntic. She noticed a bright spot on the far shore and pointed the boat in that direction. Behind her the wake split open like a huge zipper. Wilson’s was becoming a small red caterpillar against the black rise of Kennebago Mountain.

The last time she’d been on a body of water this big was on an ill-fated anniversary cruise to Cancun with Raymond, her former husband. Should have known better than to get on a boat with 2,500 other people and not expect to get something. Typhoid, Ebola, West Nile-something.

In Maddie’s case it had been ten days of recovering from food poisoning while folded into a stateroom the size of a shoebox. In between bouts of her body’s quest to turn inside out, Raymond was having a grand time. So grand, he didn’t even know how sick she was until some steward came in to make the bed and found her on the floor. If it hadn’t been for the steward she probably would have died of dehydration. Instead she’d recovered and extended her misery for another five years in marriage to the quintessential Peter Pan. As long as she had played Wendy, it had worked.

That’s probably what made him such a great father, she thought, angling the bow of the boat so it continued to point to the bright spot on the shore. He was young when the boys were born and stayed young. Not just young at heart—but young in mind. First, he was a semi-pro golfer and a pretty good one; that allowed him to be at home and involved with the children as much as she was. But then he got bored with golfing and decided to go into condo sales—which, ironically enough, was how Maddie got hers. She kept taking on more and more at BZB and seeing less and less of Raymond.

Jack and Tristan were both off at college when he really started to head over to Never Never Land. Blissfully oblivious to what was really happening at any point in their marriage, he was of course stunned when she told him she wasn’t happy. The final straw that would have broken an entire pack of camels’ backs came when he told her he wanted to sell the house, buy an RV, and head for the desert. And he did just that. Only not with her. Last she’d heard, he’d made it to New Mexico with an old college flame. Maddie hoped the woman had a lot of money and patience.

After four years of being divorced and lots of therapy, she was still pissed it had taken her so long to figure out that she was the embodiment of the biggest stereotype there is: the woman who feels she can make it work no matter what. How tragically boring.

A Wilson boat approached from the other direction and Maddie stuck up her hand in greeting. As she did so the wind geared up and her boat swerved, causing some of the wake to come over the gunnels and nail her in the thighs. She was soaked. Goosebumps formed under her jeans. She quickly adjusted the angle of the motor and the boat planed again. Back on course. Occupants of passing boats looked at her in surprise, as if she was some extinct, wingless bird.

She tried to squeeze some water from her pants. No go. There were only two solutions—take them off or turn around and head back. She was not going to do that. She scanned the oncoming shore for a good place to dry out. The bright spot that had been her original destination had turned into a large wooden boathouse sitting on stilts, like Babba Yaga on a pebbled beach.

She was just about to cut the engine and coast to shore when it cut itself off with a clunk. What the hell was that? She’d been so busy looking at the shore that she hadn’t noticed the bottom, which was covered with rocks. One had nabbed the prop. Like Scarlett O’Hara, she’d think about that tomorrow. Well, not tomorrow, but later. Her quickly numbing legs took precedence.

She grabbed the engine, raised the prop and held it out of the water just as a wave lifted the boat to a nice grinding stop on the beach. She jumped out and, using all her strength, dragged the boat about six inches farther up. Her biceps screamed in insult. She ignored them, tied the bowline as best she could around a big rock, and reached for her lunch. The ride over hadn’t improved its appeal. The bag had pretty much turned into a lump of wet paper from which bits of sandwich protruded. Better than nothing.

Maddie took one step and started to slide and then slip head first toward the very rocky beach. She froze and slowly sank to a kneeling position.

“What good are you?’ she demanded of her ridiculously inept sneakers.

Rather than break her ankle, she took them off and started tiptoeing toward the boathouse. The rocks felt like they’d been cut by hand with the express purpose of inflicting pain. She missed the sand of Vero Beach, where you only had to worry about the occasional fishing lure or broken bottle finding your feet.

Up close the boathouse showed its age. Roofing shingles littered the beach and a few of the windows were broken. Most of the paint was gone, leaving the wood a silver gray with an occasional red streak.

“Whoever owns this has obviously never lived in a gated community,” she said aloud. “They would be lynched.” She then retracted the “lynched” part, knowing it was positively un-PC. But still.

She peeked inside. Underneath a nice coating of dust were motors, canoes, and rows of boats just like hers. She thought about extending her survey but there was a wide ramp leading up to double doors that positively screamed, “LIE DOWN ON ME, NOW!”

The wind had dropped a bit, and the ramp, covered in some kind of bumpy roofing shingles, actually felt hot. She took off her jeans and stretched them out on the ramp. Her lime green thong was a tad damp. She noticed it had crept up around her anatomy in a way that was downright uncomfortable.

She looked down to see what the problem was. Thank God she had a tan, at least. Her thong felt uncomfortably snug around her waist. How could she have put on weight so fast to thrust her out of her underwear? Then she saw she’d put her leg through the waist and her waist through the leg.

She slipped it off, stretched out on the ramp and demurely crossed her ankles in a nod to modesty. Through her new shades the sky was one big cloud lap dance. Such quiet, such stillness … such a wonderful big noise. Maddie sat up. There it was again. A rustle. Not the rustle of a bird or a squirrel—a large rustle. Instinctively she went into a pike position. Minus her thong, this meant greater personal exposure. Bad idea.

Upside-down or not, she jammed the still moist thong back on and grabbed her jeans. She began battling to pull them on when it suddenly dawned on her that she wasn’t in Miami Dade; she was in Moosesomethingorother and psychopaths don’t wander the Maine woods. Only sweet things like deer and bunnies and all the other poor, stuffed bodies adorning Wilson’s walls that used to peaceably roam the woods. She strained to hear another movement other than her heart, which was now beating at circuit-training pace.

Nothing came back to her ears but the water splashing on those razor sharp rocks.

A shadow passed over her. She looked up just in time to see a large gray bird coming straight at her. She felt like Tippi Hedren in Alfred Hitchcock’s, The Birds. She looked around for the black cloud of crows that would signal her demise. Instead of pecking her eyes out, the bird landed on her lump of a lunch, ripped into the middle of the wad, picked up an entire limp sandwich and took off. She stood up and yelled.

“Hey, you bring that back. Now!”

How dumb. Like it was going to turn around and return, any more than that mugger who’d ripped off her pocketbook downtown in broad daylight.

She sighed. “Get a grip and get on with it,” she said, echoing one of her favorite mantras when in the heat of a BZB backfire battle. Like the time they were in charge of a gala for all the upper management of a credit card company on the same day the CEO was given a vote of no confidence by the shareholders. Even she had to admit the guy was a schmuck. Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” suddenly popped into her head and her forte of coming up with the quick rhyme, the well-timed witty remark to pump up those already swelled egos, turned to the dark side.

“How many yachts does it take you to own before you can call yourself a man? Yes and how many trips to Majorca by jet before you find that perfect tan? Yes and how many beach homes do you need to acquire before your head is stuffed with sand? The answer my friend is blowing in the bucks …”

Where exactly did that talent get you? Maddie thought. On a trip to the middle-of-nowhere to give you time to sit and repent all those wasted years?

She walked over and examined the remains of her lunch. “Damn bird took the tuna sandwich. The only one I wanted,” she said.

Maddie looked at the chop of the water. The wind had increased even more. Practicing her casts would be like begging to land a hook in her cheek. “There must be someplace more protected for lunch that wouldn’t involve the risk of piercing or pecking,” she continued to herself. She would find it.

She bent over, her derriere experiencing a delicious downdraft of Canadian air, dragged on her not-so-wet jeans, and pulled on the barely better-than-nothing sneakers. From the wreckage of her lunch she extricated the still intact bag of chips, a chocolate chip cookie and a warm ice tea and started down the ramp. She gave the beached boat a once-over to see that it looked secure and headed away from the lake on a steep windy path. At the top she glimpsed the outline of another, even bigger building. Onward, ho!

She hadn’t taken ten steps when her eyes fell across a dilapidated sign, half hidden in brush. Bending over, she pushed the greenery aside and studied it. Large, with an ornate border, it was faded almost to the point of indistinguishability. When new, it must have been lovely.

Maddie removed her Survival Shades and saw that the letters on the sign had been carved. A very long time ago. She closed her eyes and traced the letters with her finger, identifying them out loud as she did so. “E-s-s-e-n-c-i-a.”

Essencia? Essence? Perhaps her years of college Spanish were finally worth something.

“So where did all your essence go?” she asked the sign.

She put her shades back on and continued up the path, which continued to widen and then open out onto what must have been a playing field. But not for baseball, more like croquet or badminton.

“Whoa,” said Maddie. “This wasn’t Paul Bunyan’s. This belonged to someone much higher up the food chain.”

She gazed at a compound of buildings designed to fit the property like a glove. She looked around for signs of recent habitation. None.

Kind of like being in a fancy ghost town, she thought, venturing forth toward a leaning flagpole. It stood flagless by the front of the main Lodge—a three-story building with an open porch running the length of it that made Wilson’s look ghetto. Where Wilson’s was barn-red clapboard, this place had silvery cedar shingles and multi-paned windows bordered by slightly faded but still deep green trim. She tried the steps. Seemed strong enough to hold her. Holding her breath, Maddie put all her weight on the first and then the next until she was on the front porch.

The screens on the downstairs plate glass windows had rusted out, making it easy for Maddie to let inner Peeping Tomasina out. She took a swipe at the glass with her fingers and cleared away a spot big enough to get a decent look inside.

“Oh, c’mon. Give me a break.”

Except for a two-inch space, thick drapes hid her view. All she could see were sheet-covered shapes and an enormous stone fireplace framed by an ornate carved mantel. A crest hung over the fireplace and the walls were tongue and groove paneling. Maddie scanned them as best she could for evidence of hunter’s lust.

“How wonderful. Not one dead head in the place,” she said.

Maddie approached the large front double door. She looked at the pair of antlers serving as pulls. “I’ll just give it a try and see what happens,” she said. If she didn’t have to break anything to get in, it wasn’t really breaking and entering.

She gave it a tug. And another. The thing was jammed tight. With her final effort, the antler broke off in her hand. Now she really felt guilty. Destruction of property. She pushed the antler back in place. Perfect—as long as no one touched it.

Feeling like an overgrown Goldilocks, she found a rocker that had most of its parts, carefully sat down, rocked back and forth experimentally until she was satisfied it was safe, then relaxed and pretended she was a guest. She held her arm out in front of her like a hand on a sundial.

“If this was the front of the place then the dock should be right about …”

Her eyes followed the line down to the water. The vestiges of a large dock protruded from the shore.

She would have made a great archeologist. That’s where she’d been headed at Arizona State when she’d gotten sidelined by love. Raymond was there getting his MFA, and one day he asked if she wouldn’t mind being a subject in a project he was working on. Ultimately that project turned out to be him, and she’d never made it back into the archaeology game. Biology had other plans for her.

Not that she’d change anything about being a mother. It was the one aspect of her life she’d always known was right. One of the great things about being almost fifty, she mused. You realize it’s a done deal—the good, the bad, the okay. It just is, at least on a good day. Why was she spending so much time thinking in reverse, anyway? Time to move forward.

Maddie grabbed her ice tea, took a deep drink and gagged. Tasted more like the inside of a teabag than ice tea. She looked at the label: Made in Massachusetts.

“Damn Yankee tea,” she said wrinkling her nose. Where was a good glass of sweet tea when you needed it?

She opened the bag of chips and, with little effort, consumed them all. As she tipped the bag up to her mouth to catch the remaining bits of salt and grease, her eye caught a small yellowed sign tacked to one of the porch posts.

** NOTICE **

Let this notice serve to any interested parties that this property is available for lease. Further information may be obtained by contacting Florence Merrifield at 883-2765.

Signed Florence Merrifield

Town Clerk

October, 1992

Maddie looked around.

“Eighteen years since anyone has been here? Why?” said Maddie, unwrapping the chocolate chip cookie and taking a bite.

Moist and dense with nuts and chocolate—the possibility of incurring a larger waist notwithstanding—Maddie wanted another. She balled up the wrapper and stuffed it in her pocket. She took a swig of the wretched tea, stood up and stretched. She rolled down and hung upside-down for a minute, feeling her back release. When she came back up she was no longer alone.

He looked like a Next-Gen Ichabod Crane. Hawk nose, furrowed overhanging brow, jutting jaw, deep-set eyes and about six-and-a-half-feet tall. Even in the heavy brown work pants and shirt, he probably weighed less than she did. He stood at the bottom of the steps staring at her. Was there some kind of a prison up here no one had bothered to mention? Was he an escapee?

Maddie’s first impulse was to bolt. That’s ridiculous, she told herself. She waited for a better impulse. Icabod smiled. And then he raised his hand in greeting like a TV Indian. Maddie followed suit. He nodded. She nodded. Then he turned and walked away, leaving Maddie to follow his back as he disappeared into the woods. Then she acted on her initial impulse, which was to take off like a scalded cat in bad sneakers to the beach.

Adrenaline was on her side, so it didn’t matter that the waves were pounding against the stern of the boat or that the sky had turned an angry gray. She untied the bowline, pushed the boat into the water and jumped in—all the while keeping her eyes peeled for Ichabod.

Using an oar, Maddie poled out until the water was deep enough to put the engine down into the water. She pulled the starter. No response. She tried again. And again. Each time the boat surged back toward the shore. Maddie grabbed the oars, stuck them in the oarlocks and pulled them hard. The boat didn’t appear to notice. Her second try, the right one totally missed the top of the water, the result being that it came back at her full force, slamming into her chest. The left one submarined, jerking Maddie forward onto the oar.

She channeled the pain into desperation and, after three or four more humiliating tries, got both oars working in semi-conjunction and managed to pull away from the edge of the lake. Congratulating herself on her strength, she started humming, “I Am Woman,” under her breath. She’d never liked the song, so why was it in her brain and carrying a death-march cadence to boot?

Maddie headed toward the middle of the lake, and that’s where the real trouble started. Unlike the playful waves at the shoreline, these waves had taken out a contract on her. Instead of just battering against the sides of her boat, they barged over the sides like a precision Swat team. Whitecaps appeared and the boat started bucking and slamming like a crazed bronco.

Maddie was so busy trying to keep the boat on course that she didn’t hear the drone of an approaching engine. Not until the bow of a faded black boat pulled into her peripheral vision did she turn and find herself looking straight into Ichabod’s face. He was giving her that same off-kilter smile and interspersing his Indian “how” greeting with pointing toward her bowline.

Maddie smiled back the same way a psychiatric nurse might when humoring an escaped patient back into a padded cell. At which point Ichabod moved ahead, grabbed her bowline and clipped it onto the stern of his boat. The speed at which he took her captive was impressive.

Hijacked? It would have been frightening if the idea wasn’t so ridiculous. Still, with the drag of the boat, when Maddie started crawling to the bow to untie the line, she might as well have been trying to untie a steel rod. And when Ichabod turned, smiled again and jacked up the engine, the boat started flying on top of the waves. This time she got the spray full-force.

Maddie moved back to the middle, pulled in the oars, and grabbed the sides of her boat. She looked around for any other signs of life. None. Just roiling water and a stiff cold wind. She wiped her hair out of her face, swiped off her sunglasses and saw that Wilson’s was straight ahead.

Once close to the docks, the man slowed the engine, unclipped her boat, performed his nod and wave ritual, and motored away, leaving Maddie wide-mouthed and staring. Who was that unmasked man? Instead of being hijacked, Maddie had been saved by the Lone Stranger.

She ungripped the sides of the boat, let the circulation come back into her fingers and started rowing sideways to Woodside. As a nod to her endurance during the non-hostage taking, the wind slackened just enough for her to clunk gracefully into her dock.

Chapter 9

She had just stripped off her clothes and was standing buck-naked in the bedroom when the screen door slammed. A shadow crossed the window. In her race to get her clothes off, she’d left the door into the cabin wide open. Maddie did a broad jump into the bathroom and slipped the lock into place.

“Hello?” she called from behind the bathroom door.

Nothing.

She decided to try a hospitable tack. “May I help you?”

“Nope,” said an unfamiliar voice.

The response was followed by the sound of something being dumped onto the floor of porch, the slam of the door and retreating footsteps. She grabbed one of the postage stamp sized towels and, holding it matador-style in front of her, slowly opened the door. She stuck her head out and looked out through her bedroom window to the porch. No movement. She bent down, crawled to the bed, grabbed her pajamas and pulled them on.

Standing up, she took two steps to the doorway leading into the living room and stopped. Again, no movement but the trees doing a boogaloo in the wind. Using the wall as backup, she advanced into the living room and looked outside before opening the door and scoping out the porch. There was a trail of water outside the door, leading to a small red cooler she’d hadn’t noticed earlier.

She walked out on the porch and tentatively opened the lid. After Ichabod, she didn’t trust anything to be what it should. A small exhale escaped her upon seeing the contents.

“The ice man cometh,” she said. A craving for a Patron Silver margarita on the rocks with lots of salt and extra lime poured through her.

A screen door creaked in the cabin next door. Maddie looked out and saw that all the Wilson boats had come home for supper. Worried that another uninvited guest might arrive at any moment, she went inside, grabbed some clothes, went into the bathroom and locked the door. Pulling off her top, she noticed two almost identical bruises on her chest.

Oar attack. In combination with the fading but still evident bug bites she was a real looker.

Well, at least I’ve got ice for them, she thought, pulling on a long-sleeved navy and white striped shirt. She dug through her bag looking for a pair of dark pants to cover up all the dirt she knew would find her. No luck. She had no choice but to put on a pair of white pants.

These should stay unsullied for about five minutes, she thought, zipping herself into the straight-legged jeans. Standing on tiptoe, she checked out her rear-end and, satisfied—at least of that view—slipped her feet into a pair of navy flats and headed to the Lodge. Maddie doubted she’d find any tequila, but maybe Flo had some cooking sherry she’d share with her.

The closer she got to the kitchen, the louder Caruso—or whoever it was—became. They all sounded alike to her. When she was in shouting distance of the door, another voice syncopated itself into Caruso’s downbeat. Maddie slowed her advance. From what she could hear, Flo had her own show going and it wasn’t going well. As Flo’s voice swelled over Caruso’s, an image of her dressed in full Viking gear complete with spear and horned headpiece advanced across Maddie’s mind’s eye.

“Damn it Jimmy, take off those frickin’ sunglasses and look at these plates.”

“Yeah, so?” came the sullen reply. Maddie’s ear for voices kicked in: The Iceman.

“So there’s pieces of yesterday’s lasagna stuck all over them. Run ’em back through. What in God’s name is the matter with you? You wanna eat from dirty plates?”

“I dunno,” came the response.

“You don’t know?” Flo said.

Maddie heard a click. Pavarotti went silent.

“What, your mother drop you on your head as a baby? Next time I find food on plates will be the last time you frig up in my kitchen. Jesus H. Christ.”

Sounds of dishes being slammed into a rack and then the dishwasher being started drowned out any remaining dialogue. Prepared for a human missile launch at any moment, Maddie cautiously approached the screen door and peered inside.

Flo, squeezed into a bright orange jumpsuit circa Mod Squad, was bent over the stove; the errant Jimmy was hosing down plates. His action had a lethargic quality that spoke of someone who had never heard the word motivation and probably couldn’t spell it if his life depended on it. He was wearing a frayed black and red baseball cap turned backwards. “Proud Member of the Redneck Nation” proclaimed the brim.

Maddie tapped on the door. “Good evening?” she said.

“It’s gonna be,” replied Flo from the bowels of the oven. “Soon as I’m outta here.” Maddie quickly adjusted her angle.

“I was wondering if you knew where Cal was. I had a little trouble with my engine …” began Maddie.

“I’ll say you did,” Flo said, hoisting an enormous pan of brownies onto the counter.

She turned and looked at Maddie. Her apron du jour was rainbow striped. The rainbows were running horizontal, as rainbows do, and, in combo with the jumpsuit, made Flo look like some tightly wrapped piece of Mexican hard candy.

Maybe a glass of cooking sherry wasn’t worth the abuse from Flo.

“So, is Cal—”

“Not around at the moment,” said Flo, shoving a chocolate-covered mixing bowl the size of a large beach ball in Jimmy’s general direction.

“Oh, all right.”

This woman is wasting her talents here. She should be competing in the Obnoxious Olympics, thought Maddie, turning to leave.

“Hey, Miami,” called Flo.

Here comes a parting shot, thought Maddie.

“Just about to take the edge off. You interested?”

Was this an invitation? From Flo? Maddie struggled to connect the two concepts.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Maddie said.

“If it was, I wouldn’t ask.”

She’s got the backhand down perfectly, thought Maddie. Recalling Flo’s earlier request for her to stay out of the kitchen, Maddie stood by the screen door awaiting further instruction.

“In case you’re wondering, I don’t do take-out,” said Flo.

“Of course,” said Maddie, opening the door. She came into the kitchen like a peon entering a royal court.

Flo flicked the CD player back on and opera flooded the kitchen once more. She grabbed two milkshake-size glasses from the drying rack and a gallon of milk from the cooler.

Maddie could see Flo’s features soften as the tenor did his magic.

“Not that Peerce needs any help to sound better,” said Flo, shoving the glasses at Maddie.

Peerce? Maddie’s personal understanding of opera began with “I” and ended with “don’t like it.”

“Here, go put some ice in these. Not too much, just about two fingers worth.”

Maddie was about to ask how she knew so much about opera, but Flo was on a roll.

“Hey, Lightning, I need you to go pull a few of cases of Poland Spring and get them in the walk-in. And don’t take all day. Dinner starts in fifteen minutes, which means that in thirty, the dishes are going to be piling back up in here.”

Without so much as a glance in Flo’s direction, Jimmy shut off the spray and swaggered out the door. Maddie got ice from the machine. As she passed the glasses back to Flo, she noticed a bottle of brown liquid sitting next to the milk on the counter.

“Just listen to that.” Flo paused in the middle of mixing the drinks. A look of orgasmic ecstasy crossed her face. “Know right where I’d put his vibrato,” said Flo, pouring equal parts of brown liquid and milk over the ice. She stirred them vigorously and handed one to Maddie.

“Bottoms up,” she said.

Maddie raised her glass. Recalling her drink with Wayne, Maddie wanted to smell it before she actually did any ingesting. But once again, Flo’s unblinking stare gave her no choice. She took a small sip. It was a coffee milkshake but much better, and it slid down her throat with the greatest of ease.

“This a White Russian?”

“Don’t know what you’d call it in Miami, but up here it’s called a ‘TPPR.’ ”

Maddie took another long swallow. It was just the right balance between sweet and deadly.

“‘TPPR’?”

“Trailer Park Panty Remover,” said Flo.

Maddie’s mouthful of panty remover almost went up her nose. She reached for the bottle. The label almost looked handmade. What a cute marketing idea.

“ ‘TPPR.’ Never seen that one before.”

“Won’t neither,” said Flo. “Unless you’re here.”

“Well, it’s a hell of an improvement over what your husband offered me the other night.”

Flo gagged. “Just what in blue blazes you talking about?”

“Wayne gave me a shot of something that defies ...”

“Husband? Wayne?” Flo spluttered.

Maddie tried rewinding her words. “Aren’t you and …”

“May have been dumb when I was younger but I’m not stupid,” said Flo, wiping off the front of her apron with a dishtowel before taking a deep drink.

“You two aren’t married?”

“Not for the last fifteen years,” said Flo.

“But you used to be?” asked Maddie.

“I said I was dumb,” she said, taking another drink.

“Believe it or not, he used to be a looker. But the guy can’t keep his dick to himself. And for some damn reason—maybe it’s because there’s more moose up here than women—if you wear pants and have a dick, well, you’re pretty much set.”

“So you’re business partners?”

Flo’s expression was a unique blend of hostility and incredulousness.

“No way. He don’t know the meaning of the word ‘business’ and he sure as hell don’t know how to be a partner,” said Flo, pouring herself another drink.

Either this drink is a lot stronger than it tastes or I am losing my ability to reason, thought Maddie. Before continuing, she took another swallow to test her theory.

“Neither you or Wayne own Wilson’s Camps?”

“Nope,” said Flo.

Maddie saw no other way to say it than to sound like ‘a village idiot’—one of her mother’s favorite terms for her children.

“Well, then why is it still called ‘Wilson’s’?”

“Cal wanted it that way,” said Flo.

“Cal? What’s he got to do with it?”

“Not much. Other than he owns the place,” said Flo.

Maddie’s vision of Cal the hired hand crumbled like a cookie left in the sun on a dashboard.

“Cal owns this place?”

“Yep.”

“He’s not a real guide?”

“Oh, he’s a real guide all right. But he’s also the real owner.”

Maddie couldn’t get the picture to stop moving in order to get a clear look at it. Her brain took pity on her and moved to another picture.

“So, you and Wayne are not married; you just kept Wilson as your last—”

“I ain’t no Wilson,” said Flo indignantly.

“No, I get that, but your last name is Wilson—”

“I wouldn’t use that name if you offered me an all-expenses paid trip to Modena, Italy. Pavarotti’s birthplace?” Flo added, responding to Maddie’s blank stare.

What was all this opera trivia about? Maddie thought. Who cared?

“ ‘Merrifield’ is the name I was born with and it’s good enough to die with,” said Flo. She swigged down the rest of her drink.

A waitress came through the dining room doors like a shot. Smiling—with blond hair in a neat bun, wearing a blue skirt and white bodice—she looked like a runaway “Heidi.” She was humming a tune under her breath. Maddie thought it sounded like “Edelweiss” from the Sound of Music. Only the telltale Band-Aid on her brow gave her away.

Maddie struggled to digest the transformation—sort of like a boa constrictor with a recently ingested goat. Linda pinned some orders up on the line, grabbed four tossed salads, a basket of rolls, and a plate of butter pats and was gone.

“Was that—?”

“Yep,” said Flo. “Human—what’d you call ’em?—little squiggly things that change color?”

“Chameleons?” Maddie guessed.

“Yep,” said Flo.

“She really changed her look. Pretty impressive, I mean, without looking at the downside of having—”

Flo nodded. “A nutcase in your kitchen. And who’s stuck with her? Me. Never know which one of her will walk through the door. Sort of like that movie with ah ...” Flo popped out her eyes like Marty Feldman. “You know, smoked a lot.”

“Bette Davis. All About Eve?”

“Bingo!” said Flo, slamming her fist on the counter for emphasis.

The screen door slammed and Maddie turned to see Jimmy. With his pale skin, pale brown eyes, and pointy mouth, he reminded Maddie of a ferret in jeans. He was almost eclipsed by the four cases of bottled water he was lugging.

“’Bout time,” said Flo, loading up more plates.

He stopped short in the middle of the kitchen like an amnesiac. “What do you want me to do with these?”

Maddie hoped he’d only seen the inside of the cooler on her porch and nothing more.

“What do you think? Put ’em in the cooler. And you got some dirty dishes waiting for your personal touch,” said Flo, ringing the bell again.

Jimmy staggered off toward the cooler.

“Shallow end of the gene pool,” said Flo, slicing like a surgeon into the tray of brownies.

Maddie took another gulp of her Panty Remover and felt the stool under her butt soften.

The new Linda glided into the kitchen with a beatific smile, carrying a large brown tray filled with empty salad bowls and singing “Climb Every Mountain.” Dumping the dirty bowls in the sink, she pinned up new orders, placed the dinners on the tray and disappeared through the swinging doors.

“Sounds like she’s channeling Julie Andrews,” said Maddie.

Flo nodded. “Yeah. Kinda like her. Too bad she won’t stay.”

Flo pointed to the clock. It was another fish clock. This fish was pointing straight up and its googly eyes were synchronized with the swishing of a long pendulum tail. “Kitchen’s only open for another half–hour. No exceptions. You gonna eat or drink your dinner?”

Maddie’s stool had gotten very comfortable. But some vestige of her was still unsure whether there was a time limit on being welcome in the kitchen.

“Mind if I eat in here?”

“No skin off my nose.”

That answered that. Her body sank another level into the stool and the kitchen took on a rosy hue.

“Hey, did you say your last name was Merrifield?” said Maddie.

“Yep,” said Flo, handing her a steaming plate of sliced turkey, baked stuffed onions and potato pancakes smothered in gravy.

“I saw your name today at that—” Maddie started to say.

“Where?” said Flo, sticking a knife and fork on the counter.

But the herb-scented aroma rising from the turkey had affected Maddie’s ability to think. All she could do was offer Flo a smile of thanks before falling on her dinner like one of the Donner party.

Flo moved to the cooler like a roller derby queen without the skates.

“Jimmy!” she called.

The sound of a door opening and then quickly slamming rang through the room.

Flo’s voice echoed through the kitchen.

“What the hell have I told you about that? Now get out to the sink and do them dishes.”

Jimmy emerged, wiping his mouth and with an even greater glazed expression on his white face, an odd smile and Flo right on his tail. She threw a can of whipped cream into the trash with enough force to jolt Maddie from her plate.

“What kind of an Einstein eats a can of whipped cream just to get the nitrous oxide?” she demanded.

She pointed a finger toward Maddie’s plate.

“Want some more?”

Maddie looked down. Her plate was empty. How had that happened? She held it out to Flo for a refill.

“My lunch got a bit wet,” she said.

“Not surprised. Cal tried to warn you that it might get a bit dicey out there today,” said Flo, handing her back the plate.

Maddie thought back to her departure from the dock. Her mental picture of Cal standing on the dock was now infused with a soft, Rembrandt-like light.

“Thought he was saying goodbye.”

“Nope,” Flo said, disappearing around the corner.

“Did pretty well … until I hit a rock,” said Maddie, feeling a little defensive.

“Figured something like that happened when I saw Eef giving you a tow.’

So he hadn’t been a runaway from an asylum. He had a name.

“You know him?”

“Better than most. He don’t get out much,” said Flo, disappearing around the corner.

Probably a good thing, thought Maddie. He looks like he could be dangerous.

From Flo’s vicinity, Maddie heard a heavy door open and close.

“Never met anyone called Eef,” said Maddie.

Her voice sounded loud. She hoped she wasn’t shouting. But between the turkey and the Panty Remover she’d become one with her stool. Flo came around the corner, rolling a ten-gallon drum with her foot.

“Rhymes with deef—which he is.”

“Deef?”

Flo pointed to her ears, “Ya know, can’t hear? His real name is Ephraim.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Hey Lightning,” Flo called to Jimmy. “Come put this ice cream on the counter.”

Jimmy was either lost in a nitrous haze or intentionally ignoring Flo. Flo raised her voice a few decibels and repeated her request. Again, no response. She took the ice cream container and, using her foot, rolled it directly at the back of Jimmy’s legs. Her aim was good. Especially given the indirect angle between her and Jimmy. The ice cream hit him neatly behind the knees, which buckled. He sat down hard on the tub. After a moment, he stood up, picked up the ice cream, carried it to the counter and then returned to the sink without a word.

“Works every time,’ said Flo, ripping the top off the tub.

Maddie had the feeling she’d been plunked down in the middle of a backwoods Barnum and Bailey circus.

The screen door opened. Cal walked in, covered with grease and a nice sheen of sweat.

“And here’s the ringmaster himself,” said Maddie from her perch. She gripped her glass for better balance.

He stood in front of her, legs spread like a sea captain on a ship, arms crossed, hips thrust out just long enough for Maddie’s eyes to linger for a moment on the picture before her.

“Never met a guest who liked to be in the kitchen like you do,” he said.

“Neither have I,” said Maddie. She was starting to feel very calm and rather happy.

“By the look of the prop on your engine you had quite a day,” he said, heading to the sink to wash his hands.

“I had a great day. It’s the bottom of this lake that’s the problem,” said Maddie.

“Eef rescued her,” said Flo, ringing her bell.

“Yeah, there was that,” admitted Maddie.

“What did you do? Flag him down using sign language?” said Cal, pouring soap on his hands.

“No. My pants got wet and he showed up like some apparition—”

“Your pants?” said Cal.

“A what?” said Flo.

Maddie took a deep breath and started again.

“When the water started coming in the boat I got wet …”

“I tried to tell you about the wind,” said Cal. As the suds crept up his fine forearms, Maddie envisioned what was underneath the greasy t-shirt, beneath the dirty jeans.

This guy was definitely distracting her.

“I thought …” Maddie began before she lost her train of thought. She tried again. “I thought you were …” she said.

Just like that, the thought was gone. Hurtling down the track to an unknown destination. What had she meant to say?

“Hey Miami, want some?” said Flo, hurling scoops of chocolate ice cream onto the brownies.

She watched Cal rinse off and towel dry.

“Yes, oh yes,” said Maddie.

“Boy, someone really likes ice cream,” muttered Flo.

Cal shot Maddie a look and said, “Are you okay?”

She reluctantly let go of her fantasy and attempted a return to the conversation at hand.

“I’m better than okay.”

“If you say so,” said Cal.

Maddie didn’t think he looked convinced. “So I tried lunch on the beach, but I hit a rock and that’s where I met Eef,” she continued.

Flo looked at Cal. “You eating in here?”

Cal nodded. “Is it okay with you?”

“Don’t you start with me,” Flo said.

But Maddie thought she noticed a half-smile on her face as she handed him a plate piled high with pot roast and vegetables. Was it just the pot roast or did she feel the warmth of Cal’s body as he sat down next to her?

“He was waiting on the beach?” Cal said, picking up a fork full of mashed potatoes.

Maddie had to wrench her eyes from his hand in order to talk.

“Who?” she asked.

“Eef.”

“No, he wasn’t waiting on the beach. He was at this place. Had some kind of a sign … Latin or Spanish.”

“Essencia?” said Flo.

“That’s it!” said Maddie. She wished the stool would twirl. “You know where I’m talking about?”

“Just a bit,” said Flo.

“Like someone just walked out and never came back. Know what I’m talking about??”

“Said yes to that already,” said Flo.

“Hey!” said Maddie, looking at Flo, “you’re the Flo!”

“Yes, I am, and Miami, I think you’re good to go,” said Flo, removing the TPPR bottle from her reach.

“Go where? I don’t want to go anywhere. I’m telling you your name.”

“I know my name: Florence Merrifield.”

“You’re right! And you’re a town clerk.”

“No. I ain’t.”

“But the posting had your name and underneath was ‘Town Clerk.’ I saw it with my own eyes!”

Flo looked at Maddie like she was speaking from the Great Beyond.

“Used to be. You saw one of them lease postings at Essencia? Thought they’d be gone by now.”

Maddie felt validated, even if she didn’t completely comprehend what was going on.

“So how can you be a town clerk when you don’t live in town?”

“You can’t,” said Flo. She went over to Jimmy and grabbed some bowls from the drying rack.

“That’s what I thought,” said Maddie, to no one in particular.

“Anyway, that’s where Eef was.”

“Makes sense,” said Cal.

“Thank you. I’m glad somebody understands.”

When Flo turned to get more dessert plates, Maddie seized the opportunity to grab another dose of ‘TPPR.’ She didn’t notice Cal looking at her with a raised eyebrow until after she had downed the glass. For some reason she didn’t really care. She was on vacation. And while this was no Snappers Cafe, it wasn’t bad. In fact it was getting better all the time.

“Looks like someone put a ton of money into building it. Like it was some kind of a compound for the rich and famous. Boy, do I know some people who’d give their eyeteeth to stay there. Well, if it was fixed up.”

“Really?” said Cal.

Maddie thought he shifted a bit closer to her. Or did she shift closer to him? She was just about to tell Cal how nice his mouth looked when he ate, when Linda came in carrying a pile of dirty dishes and singing, “Doe, A Deer.” Going up to Jimmy, she did a little curtsy à la Von Trapp Family, then deposited the dishes next to him.

From the safety of her stool, Maddie asked, “You have a gorgeous voice, Linda. Do you take voice lessons?”

The Maria look-alike gave Cal a sweet smile and said, “When my father isn’t kidnapping me.”

Maddie looked aghast. “That’s horrible. What kind of a father would do that?”

“You got me,” said Cal.

Linda focused her attention on Flo. “You’re getting lots of compliments on the dumplings tonight,” she said, loading up a tray of desserts.

“Should be. They’re good,” said Flo. “Now get those out there because in seven minutes Taffy and I have a date with Madame Butterfly.”

Linda finished loading up and departed, singing, “So Long, Farewell.”

Maddie watched her do another curtsy just before she thrust open the swinging door into the dining room with her hip and exited the kitchen.

“You weren’t kidding, were you?” asked Maddie.

“About what?” said Cal, through a mouthful of pot roast.

“That Linda has many different sides.”

Cal shook his head matter-of-factly. “I don’t kid.”

A bit of mashed potato was lodged in the corner of Cal’s mouth. Maddie reached over and wiped it away with her finger. She saw him start to smile.

“There, all gone. No potato face for the boss.”

The smile stopped. Cal looked at Flo and frowned. Then he resumed eating.

Maddie looked over at Cal. “She has a lovely voice,” she said.

“Takes after her great-grandmother,” said Cal.

“Oh, you know the family?” said Maddie. The stool felt like it was getting slippery underneath her.

Cal took another bite of pot roast. “We had this conversation. Remember? I am the family,” he said.

“How’s that?” said Maddie. She felt warm and soft and fluffy.

“Linda is my daughter.”

Maddie tried to line up all the thoughts in her brain so they formed some kind of order. But at that particular moment, they were behaving like a group of preschoolers at a zoo.

Flo untied her apron and turned to Maddie and Cal. “You two think you can get your dishes over to the sink?”

“No problem,” said Maddie, though the sink looked a long way away.

“Good.”

She looked at Cal and pointed her thumb in the direction of the dining room.

“Anything happens out there, you’re now responsible.”

Another small smile tugged at the corners of Cal’s mouth. Maddie had to fight the urge to trace them with her fingers.

“Nothing new,” he said.

“And,” she said, looking at the back of Jimmy’s head and raising her voice so that even if Jimmy was in a coma he would hear her, “that includes making sure Genius Boy over there don’t spend the night in the supply closet, like last night.”

“You bet,” said Cal.

Maddie looked at Flo. The reflection from the overhead light bouncing off the hanging pots behind her head, in conjunction with the TPPRs coursing through her bloodstream, created a halo around Flo’s head.

“You’re a real kitchen angel. You know that, Flo?” said Maddie, giving her the biggest smile she could without compromising her balance.

Flo looked at Cal. “Special, isn’t she?” she said.

“Think so?” said Cal.

“No doubt about it.” Flo patted Maddie gently on the head and walked out of the kitchen.

Chapter 10

Except for waking up fully clothed and sitting in the duck covered chair in Woodside’s parlor and feeling like she’d been dipped into a large vat of coffee milk, Maddie felt pretty good. Not that she had any memory of getting into the chair, fetching a blanket from the bedroom or taking off her shoes. All of which appeared to have happened.

She did remember eating dumplings and Flo talking about a butterfly and Linda singing, a lot. Her mouth felt like she’d swallowed sand. Time to get water. Had she called Cal a ringleader or something? The light was just beginning to poke itself into the room. It was early. Early enough, perhaps, to get another look at Dawn Diver. Leaning forward in her chair, she willed herself to stand.

“You’re obsessed,’’ she told herself.

She hadn’t felt this way since Bobby Carr. And that had been in the eighth grade—the first time she’d ever looked at a boy as anything other than a royal pain. And yes, it did so happen that even in the eighth grade she’d noticed his great pair of hands.

The window seemed farther away this morning. When she finally got there and looked out, the lake was empty. She reached down and grabbed her glasses from the table. Everything snapped into focus. No Dawn Diver.

Maybe she really had imagined that whole morning. Jet lag, shock, getting thrown out of your own life—that sort of thing can do strange things to people. She wobbled to the bathroom, making a point of not looking at the mirror as she bent over the sink, sucked a goodly amount of water from the faucet and stuck on her glasses.

Making her way slowly out into the parlor, she scanned the lake. Only the occasional fish jumping marred the black surface. She went out on the porch. The floor was damp but not cold. Odd. It was warmer outside than in her cabin. Either that or her Florida blood was starting to thicken.

She looked at her dock. It looked different. Bigger. Then it registered why. Her boat was gone. While it took a few steps to get coordinated, she accomplished a tiptoe half-run down to the lake and looked up and down the shore. Every dock but hers had a boat neatly connected to it. She stepped out onto her dock to get a better view of the shore.

Shoot. First she breaks the boat, and then she loses it. Maddie tried to visualize clipping the boat to the dock yesterday. Closest she could get was Eef unclipping her after towing her back to Wilson’s. Slowly, she started walking down the shore path in search of a loose boat. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed movement in the middle of the lake. A boat moved up toward the Logan’s.

She bent over and tested the water. Not bad. In fact, it felt really good on her skin. Enticing even. She scanned the shore for signs of leeches. Nothing but rocks and water. Of course, the water was so dark she wouldn’t be able to see them unless they were the size of trout. And if that was the case Cal would have told her. Wouldn’t he?

Maybe it was her minds-eye image of Cal diving, or middle-age insanity, or being slightly hung-over or just realizing that life as you think you know it never is. Maybe it was because Woodside was the last cabin in the line and between that and the tall grasses at the edge of the lake she felt completely concealed.

Maddie laid her glasses on the edge of the path, unbuttoned her jeans, ripped off her shirt and bra and then squiggled out of her pants and panties. She was no longer courting fifty and redundant; she was the Skinny Dipping Queen of Lake Mooselookmec-something.

Maddie looked around for the best diving platform and fixed on a low flat stone. She inhaled deeply and stepped onto it. Covered in sludge she couldn’t see, the stone was like the back of a squid. Before she could get her balance, she belly-flopped into the water. It rushed her like a smack in the face. Somehow the water had gotten much, much colder than seconds before.

Between that and the burning from the belly flop, Maddie stifled the urge to yell, closed her eyes and started stroking hard. The water gently drew her hair away from her face and pushed coolly against her eyelids. No goggles, no cap, no suit, no pool … She was Nature Girl re-born. Her body grew long, the pain in her stomach dwindled to tolerable and the endorphins kicked in. She blocked out any thoughts of leeches, pulled hard, increased her speed and felt her body turn to air in the water. She doubled her kick. She was flying, she was light and speed. Her shoulders sprouted wings, her legs became pistons of power.

Just as Maddie was on the verge of an almost orgasmic level of swimmers bliss, a cramp shot into her foot and lodged in her arch. She sucked in a breath of air, bent in two under the water, grabbed her foot and started kneading. No good. She lay on her back, stuck her foot in the air and continued to try and exorcise the cramp that had turned her foot into a c-shape block of wood. She tried to visualize breathing air into her foot. What might have worked in her Hatha Spa Way yoga class was not working in the middle of this lake.

She looked around to see where she was in relation to the shore. Under other pain-free circumstances, she might have been proud of her location; today, seeing just how far she had swum from Wilson’s was not a good thing. The cramp, having made such a hit in her foot, was gaining power and creeping up into her calf.

“Okay, Wonder Woman, time to gut it out,” she murmured, trying not to let water into her mouth.

Maddie stretched out as far as possible and, pretending she only had one leg—which wasn’t far from the truth—began a pseudo-backstroke to shore. Her ears filled with water. She was concentrating so hard on keeping the cramp in her leg contained and her arms and good leg somewhat coordinated in forward movement, that she didn’t hear the drone of an engine. It wasn’t until Maddie felt the vibration under the water that she stopped. And by then the boat was way too close. Close enough for Maddie to count the checks on Cal’s shirt as he cut the engine and drifted up beside her.

Serves me right, she thought.

Maddie rolled onto her stomach and let her legs drop underneath her so that only her head showed. She started treading water with her hands and then realized how exposed that left her. But because of her cramping foot, if she didn’t use her hands she would sink.

“You okay? I was taking your boat for a test drive and saw some splashing,” Cal said.

Missing Boat mystery solved.

Maddie hoped the tannic-stained water was some help in hiding her.

“I’m fine. Just practicing my Esther Williams impersonation,” she said, trying to sound perky.

Maddie felt the circulation starting to slow in her extremities.

“You’re looking a little blue around the lips,” said Cal.

“Really? I don’t feel cold,” said Maddie, trying to stop her teeth from chattering.

Cal was watching her face.

“Can’t offer you a ride?”

“Now why would I want a ride? I’m out for a swim,” said Maddie, starting to lose the feeling in her fingers.

“Okay then. Suit yourself.”

Maddie thought she caught a small grin emerging on his face as he started up the engine, gave her a wave and headed slowly toward Wilson’s.

He wouldn’t let me die out here. It would be bad for business, she thought. Maddie figured she had another quarter mile to shore. She couldn’t drown on vacation. It would be just way too embarrassing. And the boys? She could see them now, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes, saying, “Mom … she always was a little nuts.”

Pinpointing Woodside, she rolled over on her back and pretended she was in the last leg of a relay. The water was no longer enticing. It was an icy opponent and she had no choice but to do battle. Windmilling her arms and kicking her good leg, she propelled herself through her adversary’s battle line. By the time her hand hit bottom, the cramp was gone and her body temperature was high enough for her to half crawl, half slither out of the lake, swathe herself in her clothes and duck back inside Woodside.

After wrapping her hair in a towel, she slid into bed, but the sheets felt the same temperature as the lake. Maddie tried flutter-kicking her legs to warm them, but that only resulted in the cramp returning to her foot. She had no choice but to get up and try another avenue for heat production.

Minutes later Maddie walked into the lopsided parlor and groaned. 7:30 a.m.? How could it only be 7:30? In Miami, she would be just waking up. Here, she’d already swum the Mooselookmeguntic Channel, exhausted the midget hot water heater under her bathroom sink in a sponge shower, layered two pullovers under her Wilson’s sweatshirt and a pair of sweat pants over some shorts, and done twenty-five jumping jacks to reboot her circulation.

And even if she wasn’t excited about going to breakfast, she couldn’t put it off any longer. Her stomach was growling louder than an angry pit bull. She sighed and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, slid her feet into sneakers and stuck on her sunglasses. If only she could remember more about last night than soapy arms and chocolate ice cream.

She went out on her porch and looked through the screen door. Her boat rested against the dock. Cal must have dropped it off.

She walked down to the dock and looked inside the boat. On the floor was a Wilson’s cap. Maddie recognized the bent brim. Cal’s. She picked it up and then, before she knew it, stuck her face in the cap and inhaled deeply.

“Anything you find in there, I get half.”

Maddie tore the cap away from her face. Cal was standing there with the same half-grin on his face as earlier. What did he have, she thought, radar?

“I … I was looking at the tag,” she said.

Cal raised his eyebrows.

“The tag?” he repeated.

“Yes, I have a thing about—”

“Tags?”

No turning back, Maddie told herself.

“Actually, about where things come from. You know, like the U.S. or China or …”

Maddie looked at Cal, hoping it sounded less dumb to him than it did to her.

“And?” Cal pressed.

Maddie glanced inside the cap. “Look at that. There is no tag,” she said, handing Cal his cap. She felt all twelve quarts—or however many a body has of blood—rush to her cheeks.

“Made right here in Maine, actually,” he said, putting it on.

Maddie decided it was a good time to head for the Dining Hall. She began moving off the dock. “Fancy that. Well, I’ll—”

“Quite a swim you took,” he said.

She stopped and turned around. Gone was the Fish Guru. At that moment, with his hands stuffed in his pockets and a glint in his eyes, Cal was a midlife Dennis the Menace.

“Pretty normal—for me,” Maddie lied.

“Pretty remarkable—given last night,” Cal said.

Maddie felt her body temperature take another nosedive. She shifted from one foot to another as she racked her brain for some shred of recollection.

“Last night?”

“Gotta watch out for those drinks. They don’t call them Panty Removers for nothing.”

Maddie struggled to employ all her best BZB deflection skills. “I’ll take your advice the next time I decide to have one,” she said, starting off the dock.

Cal reached out and gently took her by the arm.

“You might want to think twice about that,” said Cal, obviously enjoying himself.

“What, taking your advice or having another Panty Remover?”

He smelled just like the inside of his cap—sweetly sweaty with a touch of bug dope. If anyone had told her that would ever be such an irresistible combination she would have called them loony. Loony. Would she ever have used that word before coming here? Maybe it was a kind of delayed reaction to being bumped out of BZB: a businessperson’s traumatic stress syndrome.

Cal released her as gently as he’d held her a moment before. “Well, I’ll let you and what happened last night be the judge of that.”

She would be boiled in oil before she’d ask him point blank exactly what had happened last night. She gave him what she hoped was a knowing smile and looked over at her boat.

“Am I correct in assuming my motor is back in working order?”

“Yep. All ready for another adventure … with the addition of an extra strong shear pin, in case you find another rock,” he said.

Maddie resisted the urge to be defensive. “Thank you. Wayne really is lucky …” she began. A piece of last night floated to the surface of her consciousness. “To have such a great boss,” she finished.

For the first time since she’d met him, Cal looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Right. I was hoping that would be one of the things you didn’t remember about last night.”

Ah, the sweet smell of leverage. Now she was back in the game. “Why? Are you in the witness protection program or something?” she joked.

All the color drained from Cal’s face. “Hardly. I just prefer to keep my role here, well, quiet.”

Maddie wanted to let him squirm on the hook for a little, but he looked so damn unhappy she relented. “Well then. Looks like we both know things we need to forget.”

She stuck out her hand.

Cal looked at her hand then stuck out his own. “Deal,” he said clasping her hand. His skin was not too rough, not too smooth. Maddie held on longer than necessary.

“Deal,” she said.

Until, Maddie thought, I can remember everything about last night. Then, all bets are off.

Chapter 11

Maddie’s derriere had barely touched the seat of the chair when Wayne burst though the swinging doors wearing a striped towel over his arm and a wide grin.

“Well, here she is,” he proclaimed loudly.

She leaned back and looked around the dining room for she—whoever she was. Turned out she was the only she in the room.

Wayne was like a preacher with a full congregation. “While the rest of you was sleeping, guess what this little lady was doing?”

Maddie felt panic rising up from some deep hole in her psyche. This was where she was going to find out what happened last night? Oh God, no, not here. Where was Linda? Where was split personality girl when you needed her?

Wayne was gazing around the room. His smile had gotten even broader. He tucked his thumbs in his belt loops and stuck out his belly as if he’d just won some big prize. All faces were now focused on her. She prayed for some natural disaster to strike and swallow her up. A cyclone would be nice, or maybe an earthquake. Please. Now.

Wayne took a deep breath and said, “This little lady was swimming across the lake.”

An appreciative sound, like a herd of contented cows, went through the room.

Maddie braced for the next part of the story—the part that would brand her forever as a total middle-aged miscreant.

General head-shaking. “No way,” someone said.

Wayne looked at her like he was wearing x-ray glasses. “More to her than meets the eye,” he said.

Maddie pretended she was mid-meeting with one of her worst CFOs. If she could handle that, she could certainly handle this. Maddie smiled weakly and turned away to face the view out the picture window.

“Don’t believe me,” continued Wayne, “just ask Cal. He can give you all the details.”

Maddie’s view went solid red. Hadn’t they agreed to forget certain things? She would personally garrote Cal when she saw him. That should solve any further slip of his tongue.

Wayne bent over her with a pot of coffee, looking like he’d just done her a big favor. He was so close she could see the hair escaping his nostrils.

“Stepping in for Linda?” Maddie asked.

“She had some kind of appointment in Oquossoc this morning,” said Wayne.

Probably getting her meds adjusted after last night, thought Maddie unkindly.

“Good thing you’re so versatile,” said Maddie, wishing it extended to personal grooming.

“Just goes to show: can’t judge a book by its cover, can you?” he said, filling her cup.

“No, we certainly can’t,” said Maddie. She stifled the urge to say any more, instead taking a deep swallow of coffee and studying the blackboard. The mere act of moving the cup to her mouth ignited a revolt in her triceps. Lactic acid already hitting her muscles? She was getting old.

“So what’s it gonna be this morning? Steak and eggs are what I like after a long, hard night,” said Wayne.

Maddie cringed. “I’ll keep that in mind for future reference,” she said.

Her comment sailed over Wayne’s brain like a balloon on the run.

“Big plate of corn beef hash can do the trick too,” he continued.

“Blueberry pancakes,” said Maddie.

“One or two?” asked Wayne.

Maddie thought of how hard she’d swum. “Two.”

“Sausage?” asked Wayne.

Maddie felt noble and pure when she didn’t eat meat. But the bacon had been the gear shift and the pastrami sandwich the acceleration onto a one-way street of carnivorous cravings. No U-turns allowed.

“Sure,” said Maddie.

“Links or patties?”

“Links.”

“Good choice. Especially for someone like you.”

What the heck did that mean?

“Not like you’re going to be in any swimsuit competition, right?” Wayne said.

Maddie saw his eyes start to well up in an effort not to laugh.

“Not for a while,” said Maddie.

“How about some eggs to go with that?”

“Fine,” said Maddie. What was she saying?

“Over easy? Or sunny-side up? Which way you like it? I mean them?”

Garroting is too gentle for Cal, she thought. Maybe she could find an Iron Maiden up here. There’s an idea.

“Great,” said Maddie.

“What is?”

“Over easy.” She was losing her appetite by the moment.

“Thought so. Juice?”

“Orange,” said Maddie.

Anything to get him into the kitchen, thought Maddie.

“Be right back with that,” said Wayne, bounding away.

No way around that, she thought.

She drank her coffee as painlessly as possible and watched the hummingbirds bombarding each other. They hovered then zipped away, pretending not to care until one started to drink. Then it was a ‘no holds barred drag out knock the other one off the feeder’ brawl. Even though there were plenty of available feeders, they were all focused on maintaining control of the same feeder. Why hadn’t she seen that big hummingbird named Bridgette coming to knock her off the BZB feeder?

She watched them go round and round in circles through her entire breakfast. They were mesmerizing—just as mesmerizing as the C-Suite set. Maddie had just finished the last bite of the second plate-sized blueberry pancake and was wondering how when Taffy started barking. Flo’s booming voice cut through her maple syrup-induced haze like vinegar.

“Ready?”

She was decked out in a pair of yellow stretch pants and a black-checked sweatshirt proclaiming, “Kurt Busch knows how to handle his stick,” and holding a cooler.

“They have NASCAR up here too?” said Maddie.

Flo either didn’t hear her over Taffy’s barking or chose to ignore her. “C’mon. Don’t have all day. And Taffy’s getting impatient.”

“I don’t know what—” Maddie began.

“This was your idea. Now let’s get a move on.”

The only move Maddie wanted to make was to the airport—except there wasn’t one. Against the wishes of her thighs, she stood up. What idea? Obviously she’d asked Flo to do something and she’d said yes. What changed, thought Maddie, between yesterday and today? Only one thing came to mind: ‘TPPR.’

“What was in that drink, Flo?”

“Not what was in it, but how much you had.”

Maddie looked around to see how many diners were enjoying their conversation. There was only one elderly gentleman still in the dining room and he seemed oblivious to anything but his corn-beef hash. If I’m lucky he’s deaf like Eef, thought Maddie. Blind could work, too.

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

She felt like a twelve-stepper or whatever people in those programs were called.

Flo shrugged her shoulders. “I did. But—”

“But what?”

“Guess it was too late.”

Maddie cringed. “What do you mean?”

Flo rolled her eyeballs and stuck one hand on her hip. “I didn’t go to the trouble to get lunch off to spend it yakking. Now c’mon.”

Flo headed out the door. Maddie followed. The back of Flo’s sweatshirt had a picture of a racecar about to cross an abyss, flames shooting from its tires.

Oh, to be in that car, thought Maddie.

“Where’re we going?” she asked.

She felt like a first-class moron, if there was such a thing. But there was no way around the fact she didn’t have a clue as to anything she’d done or said and, to top it off, this was not characteristic behavior. Actually, it was just the opposite—which was probably bothering her even more than her total lack of recall.

“Where else? Fishin’. Now c’mon. Perfect day. Boat’s all loaded.”

The elderly gentleman smiled at Maddie as she passed his table. Maddie returned the smile.

“Have a nice time fishing, girls,” he said.

So he wasn’t deaf after all. He didn’t appear blind either. She tried her best to look happy and hurried out the door after Flo. Maddie looked out on the lake. The sky was overcast.

“Doesn’t it look like rain?”

“Yep. All the better to catch fish,” said Flo, untying Taffy from the flagpole.

Taffy took one look at Maddie and made a beeline for her ankle. Flo hauled on the leash just before the dog made contact with Maddie’s skin. The dog did a complete back flip and landed on all four paws as if nothing had happened.

“You be a good girl or Mumma won’t take you fishin’,” said Flo. She bent over and gave the dog a kiss on the muzzle. The dog kissed Flo back.

In Maddie’s stomach, the blueberry pancakes did a back flip of their own. She wasn’t a big one for exchanging bodily fluids with pets. No way was that animal going fishing with them.

Flo started down the path with Taffy in tow.

“Let’s get a move on. Haven’t been out on the water yet this season.”

Maddie was just about to outlaw Taffy from her boat when Flo suddenly stopped in her tracks and looked her straight in the eye.

“Taffy hasn’t been feelin’ real well lately. It was awful nice of you to invite her, too, Miami,” said Flo.

Given the way the day was going, being called ‘Miami’ should have resulted in a quick dispatching of some essential organ. Instead, Maddie felt a strange warmth spread across her chest. Was it heartburn, or what she actually beginning to like Flo? She picked up her pace in order to catch up with the Reubenesque backsides of Taffy and her owner.

“You bet,” said Maddie. She could have invited the entire camp for all she remembered. “So, Flo, what did I do last night?” she said, jogging in order to keep pace.

“Can’t tell ya,” she said.

“Why not?” said Maddie.

Hadn’t they had a bonding moment?

“Wasn’t thaya. When I left, was just you and the Boss-Man sittin’ at the counter. Well, he was sittin’. You was kind of leanin’ against him.”

Maddie groaned. “So you didn’t actually see me make a fool of myself.”

“Not me, no.”

“But you heard about it from Cal?”

“Cal don’t kiss and tell,” said Flo throwing the cooler into Maddie’s boat.

A bamboo rod and a tackle box were already stowed under the gunnels. She loaded Taffy into the bow of the boat. Much to Maddie’s surprise the dog curled up on a life jacket and went to sleep.

Maybe she hadn’t made a fool of herself after all. Maybe Cal had simply escorted her back to Woodside and that was that. Or, if not, there appeared to be no witnesses. Maddie began to feel better. Perhaps she could make it through the rest of this stay in fishing limbo and come out the better for it.

“And who can believe what Linda says?” continued Flo, piling all the cushions onto the stern seat. “Undo that line, will ya?”

“Right,” said Maddie, following Flo’s direction before getting into the boat.

Then it hit her. “Linda?” she said?

“No one in their right mind would believe anything out of that crazy mouth,” said Flo.

Wayne Wilson would, thought Maddie. She wracked her brain for any clues it might offer as to what had happened after Flo had left the night before.

She remembered mashed potatoes, but not why. She remembered Cal bending over her and … what?

“Can’t go anywhere ’til you untie the boat,” said Flo.

Keeping an eye on Taffy, she did as she was told and sat down on the middle seat. The dog appeared not to be faking sleep. Flo bent over the engine, gave the starter cord a yank and undid the stern line. They were off.

Midway across the lake, Flo cut the engine. The boat went into a slow drift. In a flash, she threw out the anchor, grabbed her rod and undid the fly. “You gonna sit there or you gonna fish?” she asked.

Maddie was not inclined to do anything. Seemed her always-on-duty work ethic had finally had enough. It took all of her will to summon the strength to lift her rod. She turned in her seat to find Taffy watching her. Rather than engaging in a stare-down with the dog, Maddie fixed her attention on releasing the doodlebug without sticking herself in the process.

From her seat Flo made a cast from her side, the way a genteel woman of another century might ride a horse. Seeing her look so proper, even for a moment, was a shock.

“You don’t stand up to cast?” asked Maddie.

Flo grunted. “That’s a man thing. They stand up to take a leak so they figure it’s better to fish that way too.”

“Maybe they do it so they can take a leak and fish at the same time,” said Maddie.

“Like the way you think, Miami.”

Maddie whipped the line out like Flo. Nothing happened.

“Helps to undo the hook from the rod,” piped Flo.

“Thanks,” said Maddie. She quickly freed the fly from the side of the rod and tried again. To her shock it fell smoothly across the water’s surface. “Who taught you?” she asked.

“My Daddy. With this very rod.”

Unlike Maddie’s, Flo’s rod looked like it sprang not from a factory line, but from a tree.

“It’s a beautiful rod.”

“Bamboo. Old, too. When I was married, Wiener Brain kept trying to get me a new rod.”

Wiener Brain?

“This is a genuine Charles Wheeler. Same kind Fly Rod Crosby used. Doesn’t get any better than that.”

“No, I’m sure it doesn’t,” Maddie said. She hadn’t a clue what Flo was talking about.

“Who taught you to fish?”

Maddie laughed. “You … so far.”

“What you talkin’ about! You had a lesson with Cal, didn’t you?”

“Mostly I watched. Too nervous to really try it.”

“Well, then: get to work!”

Maddie took another cast. “Not a bad cast,” she said out loud. Another good one. Twice in a row. Maybe it was more than luck.

“Better close your mouth before a bug gets in there,” piped Flo.

Maddie was just about to thank her when there was a huge tug on her line. “Oh, oh, oh!” she said loudly.

“Let your line out. Give it some room,” ordered Flo.

Maddie did as she commanded. Suddenly her line went slack. “What happened?

“Lost it,” Flo said, shrugging.

“But I just had it,” Maddie spluttered.

“Well, it got away,” chuckled Flo. “Happens to everyone. All part of the game.”

Maddie reeled in the line and went into a slump. “Think I’ve had one too many games for the moment.”

Flo piped up from the stern. “What’s with you anyway? Here we are sitting outside on a beautiful day and you’re moanin’ about losing a fish? Make another cast and quit feelin’ so damn sorry for yourself.”

As if to punctuate Flo’s point, a raindrop hit Maddie on the head. She cast again.

Nothing. From the corner of her eye she watched Flo cast. There was a smile on her face she hadn’t seen before, even when Flo was merging with her opera CDs. She cast and cast and cast. She obviously didn’t care a whit whether she caught anything. And she looked happy. No other word for it.

Maddie tried again. The wind took the line and cast it back toward her. She stripped in the line and did it again. The line neatly wrapped around Flo’s. Flo didn’t move, just turned her head, raised her eyebrows high, and tipped her face down so that Maddie could see those green eyes.

“Nice work, Miami.”

“Now what?” said Maddie.

Flo shrugged. “Get ’em untangled.”

“Yes, but—”

Flo’s sigh was more like a horse’s than a human’s. “Give me your rod.”

Maddie did as she was told and a moment later Flo handed her rod back.

“Thanks. Think I’ll fish off the other side for a while,” Maddie said.

“Not a bad idea,” said Flo, resuming her casting.

Maddie was just about to let fly again when Flo spoke: “Just make sure you pull that hook back out through the end of the rod first.”

Maddie looked at her rod. The line was indeed not attached to the rod. “Well of course,” she said, sitting down to try and figure out how to do it without Flo’s help. “So, Flo,” she continued, slowly feeding the monofilament up the rod.

“So, what?” responded Flo.

“How long has Cal owned Wilson’s?”

Maddie threaded the last part of the line up and out the tip of the rod. The fly now hung free. Maddie mentally patted herself on the back.

“Few years,” said Flo.

Maddie put the rod down and turned to look at Flo in the stern.

“Does that mean three?”

Flo thought for a moment. “Yeah, that’s about right.”

“Did he grow up around here?”

“Nope.”

“So he just came out of nowhere and bought Wilson’s?”

“Yep.”

Flo’s lack of curiosity piqued Maddie’s. “Don’t you find that odd?”

“None of my business.”

“If someone bought my business and asked me to keep that fact a secret, I’d find it odd.”

“People have lots of reasons for secrets. Don’t mean they’re odd,” said Flo.

“No, I’m not saying Cal is odd. I’m just saying he’s kind of mysterious.”

Flo snorted.

“Mysterious? You got one heck of an imagination, know that, Miami?”

Was she just bored and trying to create some excitement in this desolation? Or was she truly interested? Something propelled her to question further. “Well, why would he want to keep his ownership a secret? What’s the big deal?”

“You wanna know so bad, why don’t you just ask him?”

“Maybe I will.”

But probably I won’t, thought Maddie.

“Speaking of secrets, Miami, just how good are you at keeping ’em?”

Maddie thought about all the times people had asked her that. She loved secrets and wanted to be good at keeping them, but she wasn’t. She looked down at her rod and shook her head.

“Point taken.”

Flo started laughing. Maddie joined her.

“You’re honest. Say that much for ya,” said Flo.

Maddie let any further questions about Cal go. Probably not that important anyway. In a few days this would all just be part of the mental scrapbook that she’d carry back to Miami.

She made a half-hearted attempt at a cast. But the line didn’t seem to know that. It landed in the water and Maddie felt an immediate pull, then a tug. She knew she had one.

This time she said nothing. The fish danced back and forth on the line and Maddie focused on keeping enough tension to keep it on the hook. She could see it flicker copper under the water’s surface. The closer it got to the boat the more nervous she became.

“Flo,” she said in a whisper.

“Yup.”

“I have one.”

“Well, that’s why we’re here.”

Flo turned back to her line.

Maddie heard her voice rise. “No, I mean it’s getting closer!”

In the bow, Taffy woke up.

“Shhhhhh! Holler like that and you’ll scare it away. Either that or you’ll scare it to death,” said Flo, balancing her rod against the inside of the boat.

She moved closer to Maddie.

“I see its face,” said Maddie.

She loved eating fish but there was no face on a nice serving of halibut surrounded by haricot verts and potatoes Dauphine. Suddenly she was unsure how she felt about having put a hook in something with a face.

“Just realizin’ fish have faces? Kinda slow, ain’t ya?”

Maddie tried handing the rod to Flo. “Here, you take it,” she said.

“No way in hell. This is your fish—whatever happens to it.”

Flo grabbed the net from the stern and angled it out over the side. “Keep reelin’ it in. Closa … closa … slow …”

Flo reached over the gunnels. One quick swoop and Maddie saw her fish. The first Maine fish of her life. Not only was it beautiful, it was big.

“Nice trout you got there, Miami,” said Flo, unhooking the fish and holding it by the gills for Maddie to admire.

Even though the sky was overcast, the fish gleamed like it had been polished. Maddie could see it watching her with one eye.

“It’s a keeper,” Flo pronounced.

“Oh, no! I don’t want it. Let’s put it back,” said Maddie.

And with that, as if some issues were ordered that only a dog could hear, Taffy cleared Flo’s lap and grabbed the fish headfirst.

Maddie’s scream was louder then when she caught the fish.

“Taffy, you drop that now!” Flo roared.

Taffy looked at her owner. The tail of the trout was flipping frantically back and forth from her mouth.

Flo advanced on Taffy. Taffy growled. Maddie thought she might throw up.

“Taffy! Drop!” repeated Flo, this time taking the flapping fish in her hands. Maddie could see the dog was weighing the pros and cons of the situation.

Taffy clamped her jaws together and gave a little shake before releasing the fish into Flo’s hands. It was minus the head. Maddie heard a gulping sound, and then the dog curled her lip. Maddie thought that if Taffy could raise the middle claw on her paw, she’d do that, too.

“Taffy! You say you’re sorry!”

Taffy slunk under the seat back onto her perch in the bow, where she curled up facing the other direction. Maddie was horrified. Not only was the fish dead but, now that the dog had ravaged it, it couldn’t even be eaten. Flo put what was left of the fish into the cooler.

“You know, she does this every season. And every year, I think it’s going to be her last. And it never is. Strange, isn’t it?”

She spoke with the detachment of an existentialist discussing the meaning, (or lack thereof), of life.

What’s strange, thought Maddie, is that I haven’t taken that creature and deep sixed her. Turned her right into fish food. That would be fitting.

“What are you going to do with it?” asked Maddie, dejectedly.

“Gonna cook it up and feed it to the dog. Can’t have it go to waste,” said Flo, matter-of-factly.

Maddie glared at Taffy’s backside. “Damn dog murders my fish and gets away with it. What kind of justice is that?” she asked.

Flo sat back down and picked up her rod.

“No kind,” said Flo, circumspectly.

“Right,” said Maddie. She went to pick up her rod. “Flo, where’s my rod?”

“There,” said Flo pointing to the water. About six feet away, bobbing gently in the lake, was her Winston Blix.

“Good thing they float, huh?” said Flo.

She pulled up the anchor and Maddie used an oar to pull the boat alongside the rod. Maddie grabbed it and inspected it for damage. There didn’t appear to be any. But she’d had it. Time to get out of this boat and away from Flo and her maniacal mutt.

Once again, Flo did her mind-reader routine. “Okay, your turn now,” she said.

“What?”

“To do what you want. Fishing was my idea. Now we do what you said you wanted to do,” said Flo.

Maddie looked at her blankly.

“Last night?” said Flo. “When you interrupted Madame Butterfly?”

“Great,” said Maddie, wondering what the heck she’d said.

“You want to drive?” said Flo.

Where was it she said she wanted to go?

“No, you go ahead,” said Maddie.

“All right then,” she said, starting the engine. “Essencia it is.”

It took Maddie a few moments to connect what Flo had said with what it meant.

Chapter 12

Without any wind, the beach looked almost welcoming. No bumps, no broken shear pins, just a smooth drift, a slight grind of rocky shore meeting the bottom of the boat and the splash of Flo’s bare feet in the water.

“Okay, Princess, we’re here.”

Maddie thought she was talking to her until Flo picked up the dog, who quickly scrambled out of her grasp and up the path.

“Sometimes I think she’s Muttha reincarnated, the way she behaves,” said Flo.

“Muttha?” Maddie repeated, getting out of the boat.

She did her best to emulate Flo’s apparent lack of sensitivity in her feet and not flinch as the rocks did their best to hurt her.

Was it just yesterday I was here? Maddie thought.

She looked at her wrist. Right, no watch—not since it had taken a swim.

“That’s what I said,” replied Flo, grabbing the cooler and setting it on the beach.

“And that would be?”

“Muttha,” said Flo, looking at Maddie like she was slightly less intelligent than a one-celled organism.

She pulled the boat up on the beach and tied the line to a tree.

“Ohhhhhhhh, mother,” said Maddie, wondering if it would be a good thing to have your mother and your dog combined.

“Well, don’t stand there like a lump. Let’s go find her,” said Flo, heading up the path.

Maddie didn’t dare ask if ‘her’ was the dog or her mother.

“So your mother used to live here?”

“Why would she do that? Had their own house over in Oquossoc,” said Flo.

Forget that idea, thought Maddie. I should have known I wouldn’t get a logical answer, just because it was a logical question.

When they pulled up adjacent to the boathouse, Flo slowed and shook her head.

“It don’t seem right,” she said.

“Yeah, this place feels funny to me, too,” said Maddie.

Flo looked at her like she’d just said opera was for losers. “There ain’t nothing funny about this place,” said Flo.

“What then?” asked Maddie. Confusion was her new best friend these days.

“Never figured out why it all just stopped,” finished Flo. She walked up the boathouse ramp.

Maddie, rather than risk inadvertent insult, silently followed her up the ramp. She figured Flo would let her in on what she meant at some point.

Using her sweatshirt sleeve as a rag, Flo cleared a small circle through the dust on the boathouse window. “Imagine leaving that,” she said, peering inside.

Flo moved aside and Maddie looked into the gloom of the boathouse, half expecting to see a person or an animal or something other than exactly what she recalled from the day before. Boats: some covered in tarps, some sitting on sawhorses, others suspended on ropes from the rafters.

“I saw those yesterday. Who do they all belong to?”

“Belonged. Madame Sayao. She loved them.”

Madame Sayao? Maddie had heard that name somewhere before. “I’ll say,” said Maddie. “What did she do? Play Armada?”

Flo wiped her sweatshirt on her pants. “She didn’t play anything. She sang. Long as she was singin’, she could buy whatever she wanted. Had more money than Carter’s got liver pills,” said Flo.

Maddie hadn’t heard of liver pills but she was getting a fix on where she’d heard the name, ‘Sayao.’

“Her favorite was ‘Jubilee.’ See it?”

Maddie could make out the shape of a very large powerboat.

“Story was it was a gift from some mobster. After dinner she’d load it up with her city friends and take the chef along so he could make that Cherries Jubilee for dessert. Imagine that!”

“Wasn’t she—”

Taffy’s barking interrupted Maddie’s question.

“C’mon. Taffy must have found somethin’,” aid Flo, heading down the ramp.

Or someone, thought Maddie. Maybe that strange man who hides out here?

Maddie watched Flo walk up the path like a mountain goat. She was looking at the sign Maddie had uncovered in the brush yesterday.

“Gonna have to speak with him about this.”

“Who?”

“Who else? Eef,” she said.

Flo must know him well, thought Maddie.

“Essencia? Is that how it’s pronounced?”

“Yep,” said Flo.

She brushed the sign off and leaned it against a tree.

“Do you know what it means?”

“Means Essencia.”

“Sounds Spanish,” said Maddie.

“Ain’t Spanish. It’s Brazilian,” said Flo, picking up her pace.

Didn’t know Brazilian was a language, thought Maddie. But she also quickly decided not to correct Flo by telling her the sign was in Portuguese. That would be a good way to be un-invited to lunch.

The woman behind the name Sayao came bolting into Maddie’s brain. She jogged to catch up. Between the steepness of the path and her quest to find Taffy, Flo had worked up a sweat. Her normally curly hair was now extra curly and her cheeks were just a couple of shades lighter than her blood-red nail polish.

“Madame Sayao. Wasn’t she an opera singer?” asked Maddie in between breaths.

Flo nodded in agreement and raised her eyebrow. “Yep.”

Maddie was impressed that Flo was only moderately panting. “Called the Brazilian Nightingale?”

“Yep.”

Maddie could remember reading about her in a coffee table book sitting in her therapist’s waiting room.

“Was something of a savant?”

“A what?” said Flo.

“Musically gifted but—”

“’Course she was gifted. She was a diva,” said Flo. Maddie could tell her patience was wearing thin.

“So this was her place?” continued Maddie.

“Summer place,” said Flo.

“And your mom—”

Flo cut her off. “Worked here for a good part of her life. Probably the best part,” said Flo.

Maddie’s hand—the one holding the cooler—started going numb. “Flo, what is in this thing? Rocks?”

“Lunch. Like Muttha used to make for Madame,” said Flo.

“So you’ve known this place since you were little?”

Suddenly Taffy came barreling down the path with Eef right behind her. The same Ichabod Crane, only his smile was enormous. Maddie took two steps back and held her breath until he stopped in front of Flo.

To Maddie’s shock, Flo reached out and gave him a quick hug.

“Where you been? Why haven’t you come over to see us? Look at you! All bones and skin. We’re gonna fix that some right now.”

Maddie thought Eef’s face would split in two if his smile grew any wider. He looked at Maddie and waved. Maddie waved back.

“Daddy, this is Miami. You remember her from yesterday?” said Flo.

“’Ami,” said Eef, taking her hand and pumping it up and down.

Maddie nodded, too stunned to say anything. Daddy. Eef was Flo’s father? She was struck by how strong his grip was. So unlike the limp-wristed CEOs she handled. She corrected herself: used to handle.

“Got something you want to say?” Flo asked Maddie.

Maddie felt like the clutch in her brain was slipping.

“Uh … you helped me—” she began.

“Helped?” said Flo. “You’d be down at the other end of the lake by now if Daddy hadn’t rescued you!”

“Yes, yes, I would,” admitted Maddie. “Thank you, Ephraim.”

He looked confused.

“Call him Eef,” said Flo. “He’s a good lip reader.”

“Thank you Eef,” said Maddie.

Eef nodded again, took the cooler from Maddie and motioned for them to follow.

His quick clip soon carried him out of their view.

“So your father is the caretaker for Madame Sayao?”

“Was. She passed a while back.”

“This year?” said Maddie, looking around at the overgrown grounds.

Not much of a caretaker, she thought. He would never have survived doing this quality of work in Miami.

“No. Few years back. But she stopped comin’ here … oh … what’s it been? Prob’ly twenty.”

“Your father’s been taking care of this on his own for twenty years?”

That would never happen in Miami or anywhere else, thought Maddie.

“Daddy does a good job,” said Flo proudly.

“Why did she stop coming?” asked Maddie.

“Madame quit tourin’, but she didn’t stop spendin’ money. Got to be too much for her to keep up. Then she got sick and, well, that was that.”

“But if Madame is gone, then why is your father—” Maddie began.

Flo rolled her eyes and said, “Where else is he gonna go? This is home.”

Maddie looked around at the buildings. They weren’t in great shape, but they looked to be structurally sound.

“Who pays for him to maintain all this?”

“There’s some money in a Trust Madame left to keep it goin’. ’Tween that and Social Security, he gets by.”

“I thought you just said she ran out of money?”

“I got better things to do than stick my nose into other people’s affairs. All’s I care about is Daddy has a place to live.”

The rumble in Flo’s voice warned Maddie to change the topic. “So who owns it now?”

“Hard to say. The Paper Company owns the land; that much I do know,” said Flo, hiking up her pants.

The green roof of the Lodge peeked over the hill.

“And they pay him to stay on?”

“Phhh! Like they’d do anything but look after themselves.

“And your mother?”

“Left us ten years ago. The cancer got her. Worked at the ‘Tackle Box’ with me right up till her last day.”

Maddie’s head was beginning to hurt from playing twenty questions. But Flo seemed to be enjoying herself.

“The Tackle Box?”

“My diner,” said Flo. “Don’t know what I woulda’ done without her—what with me and Wayne split. Had to move to town and … wait a minute.”

Flo bent over and tied her sneaker, exposing a rump that bounded beyond the stretch limits of her pants.

“Split? I thought you’d only been divorced five years?”

“Second time,” said Flo, adjusting her sweatshirt so it covered up most of her stomach.

“You married him twice?”

“Bingo,” Flo said.

Maddie, who prided herself on having just the right thing to say perpetually poised on the tip of her tongue, went mute.

“Yep. There’s fools in love and then there’s just plain fools,” said Flo, reading her mind.

They came up to the top of the path. Eef was on the Lodge’s long front porch, holding a squiggling Taffy under one arm and waving at them with the other. Like a dead fish, a fragment of last night floated to the surface of Maddie’s mind. “That explains it,” she said.

Flo stopped in her tracks. “’Scuse me?” she said in a hurt tone.

“No … I mean, that explains why your name was on that posting. When you were the town clerk?”

“What postin’ you talkin’ about?”

“The one right here on the porch. We talked about this last night, didn’t we?”

“You drank. I worked. That’s pretty much what I remember,” said Flo before turning in the direction of the Lodge.

Maddie summoned what little recall she had. “I may not remember much, but I do remember asking you about being a Town Clerk,” she said.

“And just where is it?”

Maddie looked for the yellow sign she’d seen there the day before.

Maybe Eef’s head was blocking it, she thought. But the closer she got, the clearer it became that the posting was gone. Probably it had fallen and was lying on the porch.

“I’ll show you when we get up Mt. Everest,” said Maddie. But at the top, she forgot everything but what lay before her.

Eef had spread a blue picnic cloth out on the log table and unpacked a whole roast chicken, tomato cups stuffed with shrimp, egg salad, homemade pickles, biscuits, sliced strawberries, melon and a blueberry pie. Flo had cut a big E in the top of the crust.

“Looks like Daddy has got everything ready for lunch,” said Flo. “I get the biggest kick out of him. Just like a kid, isn’t he?”

“No wonder the cooler was so heavy,” said Maddie.

Flo’s eyes fastened on the table and Maddie watched as her face lit up like a carnival midway on a Saturday night.

“Daddy, that what I think it is?”

Maddie followed her gaze to a small bottle of ruby liquid sitting in the middle of the table.

Eef looked like a kid who had just snuck into the movies without a ticket. With a smile that went through his entire body, he put Taffy down, held up a finger that Maddie interpreted as “wait a minute” and disappeared around the end of the porch.

As soon as her pudgy paws hit the ground, the dog made a high jump for the table. Flo caught her mid-spring.

“You wait until we all eat, young lady,” said Flo, putting the dog back down on the ground.

Taffy looked disgusted and then slunk under the table to plot her next move.

Maddie took a closer look at the layout of the compound. Yesterday, she had seen emptiness; now she saw glitterati wandering the lawn. Some wearing bathing suits drifted down to the lake. Others listened to Madame holding court on this porch, the sound of music spilling forth from the open windows of the Lodge.

“So this place just sits here empty year after year?”

Flo sighed. “Thought mebbe someone be foolish enough to buy buildings on someone else’s land. No one ever was.”

“Need another Brazilian opera singer to show up,” said Maddie.

“Lots of those floating around,” said Flo.

Scattered around the main Lodge were several guest cottages. Maddie pointed to a small, white windowless building down by the shore.

“What’s that?”

“The health spa,” said Flo.

“Get out. She built a Health Spa in the thirties?” said Maddie.

Flo shook her head.

“No expense was spared. That’s what everyone said about this place. No expense was spared.”

“What was in it?”

“Sauna and some kind of a whirlpool deal.”

“Lady had class,” said Maddie.

“She also had a love life that’d peel wallpaper,” said Flo.

“You lost me,” said Maddie.

“Steamy,” said Flo. She pointed to the upstairs balcony. “Madame’s bedroom. If those walls could talk—”

“They wouldn’t have any wallpaper on them?” finished Maddie with a laugh.

Flo grinned and nodded in agreement.

Eef came around the corner carrying glasses and plates and a small pitcher of ice.

“Your father looks like he’s been doing this all his life,” said Maddie.

“When Madame had extra guests, he’d help in the dinin’ room,” said Flo.

He sat down, opened the bottle, put a few cubes in each glass and topped them off with the ruby liqueur.

“Well, take one, Miami,” said Flo.

“To a very good day,” replied Maddie, thinking Miami had never felt farther away.

“You bet,” said Flo.

Maddie thought about what she’d had to endure with Wayne’s hospitality. Hoping to minimize the trauma to her taste buds, she swallowed the entire contents of her glass.

She was pleasantly shocked. Several different flavors—some sweet, some floral, some berry—danced around in her mouth.

“Flo, what is this? It tastes like, like magic,” said Maddie.

“Daddy calls it ‘Raspberry Ripper,’ ” said Flo.

Maddie looked at Eef. “You made this?”

Eef nodded.

“Oh my goodness. You should sell this. It’s fantastic! What’s in it?”

Eef placed his fingers on his lips.

“Secret recipe,” said Flo. “And you already told me how good you are with secrets.”

Maddie raised her glass. “Here’s to learning how to keep secrets,” she said. And maybe getting the recipe from Eef in the process, she thought. Just for personal use, of course.

Eef poured them all another drink. Maddie looked down at the grass. It appeared to have just gotten a little greener.

He cut into the pie. The wedge he handed to Maddie was enough for three people.

“He likes dessert first,” said Flo.

“Works just fine for me,” said Maddie. She no longer had to worry about fitting into pencil skirts or … any skirts. She looked at Flo’s stretch pants. Maybe she’d get herself a pair.

“Daddy, why’s Essencia’s sign on the ground like that? Don’t think Madame would be too happy,” said Flo.

“New one come,” said Eef.

“Oh, you’re making a new one! That’s good, Daddy.”

Eef smiled, demolished the pie and continued to make his way through Flo’s cooking until there was nothing left. Then, pushing himself away from the table, he smiled and rubbed his stomach, which looked no different to Maddie than before he ate.

She wondered if he was hollow.

“Nap time?” said Flo.

Eef nodded.

“You go lie down and we’ll do up these dishes. Be seein’ you soon,” said Flo.

She gave him another quick hug. Eef took Maddie’s hand.

“Lovely to meet you,” Maddie said.

He smiled, nodded, waved at them both and disappeared down the hill, Taffy trundling behind.

“Where’s he going?” said Maddie.

“Hammock down by the beach,” said Flo.

“Quite a man, your Dad,” said Maddie.

“Yup,” said Flo with a smile. “Only wish he still had Muttha for company.” Her smile faded away. “Oh well,” she sighed, “we do the best we can, right?”

“I’d like to think so,” said Maddie. She stole a glance at the door pull. Should she tell Flo she broke it?

Casually she stood up and walked over to the porch post where she’d seen the notice. The wood was unmarred. No nail holes or a darkened spot where the posting would have shielded the sun from the wood … nothing. Maddie ran her hand up and down the post to make sure she wasn’t missing anything. It didn’t make sense. Eef must have done something with it. She was searching the ground when Flo called.

“Hey, what are you lookin’ for?”

“That sign. About leasing this place? The one I told you about last night?”

Flo shook her head.

“Last night wasn’t one of your better nights,” said Flo, collecting the dishes.

“Flo, it had your name on it. I saw it!”

“Sure, sure. Hey, some of us have to work. Grab the cloth and let’s get a move on.”

“Don’t you remember putting it up?”

“All I used to do was sign ’em. Paper Company put ’em up.”

Maddie shook out the cloth, folded it and followed Flo behind the main house toward a small, white-shingled cottage with a green roof and trim.

“This your father’s?”

Flo’s nod was similar to Eef’s.

“Madame give it to him. Even though it really didn’t belong to her,” said Flo, opening the screened kitchen door. The inside was freshly painted in yellow. Maddie felt like she was in the middle of a buttercup.

“Why would she build this place on land she didn’t own?” said Maddie, still stuck on the preposterousness of the idea. She placed the cloth on a small white kitchen table sitting by the window.

“Thought she did,” said Flo. In the center of the white counter sat a blotch of robin-egg blue.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sink that color,” said Maddie.

“Prob’ly won’t, neither. Custom-made,” Flo said, putting the dishes into the sink and starting to wash them with a vengeance.

“So, when did she actually stop coming here?” Maddie picked up a neatly folded dishtowel from the counter and began drying dishes.

“Some say she’s still here,” said Flo.

“You mean as in ‘ghost’?” Maddie laughed. She believed in spirits about as much as her own intuition at the moment.

“Why you laughin’?”

“You ever seen her?”

“No, but that don’t mean nothin’. And you shouldn’t be laughin’.”

“Sorry. I’m not trying to be disrespectful. But who told you that?”

“Daddy.”

“Oh,” said Maddie, putting the remaining piece of pie in Eef’s refrigerator.

Eef’s spent way too much time alone, thought Maddie.

“So, do you remember Madame?”

“Not much, except she was a looker. Muttha and Daddy worked here days and I stayed with Muttha’s sister Lorraine over in Oquossoc. Madame didn’t take to having kids around.”

Maddie took in the view out the kitchen window. Even in its slightly abandoned state, the place had class.

“Why would she have spent all this money to build a place like this and leave it?”

“You sing opera?”

“Wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t,” said Maddie.

“There you go,” said Flo, as if that explained everything.

She put a dishtowel over the drying dishes and looked out the window facing the lake.

“C’mon, Miami. Time to shove off,” said Flo going out the door.

Maddie started to follow and then realized they didn’t have the dog. It would have been fine with her if they forgot the four-legged misery, but she was still feeling badly about breaking the door pull.

“What about Taffy?” she asked.

“What about her?” said Flo, walking up to a large bell by the front door. “Might want to cover your ears,” she said, taking a few strong pulls on the rope.

Within seconds Taffy came tearing up the hill.

“Grab that cooler, would ya?”

Just as Maddie bent over to pick it up Taffy arrived and tagged her on the lips. Maddie dropped the cooler. She felt like a corpse had kissed her.

“Hey, careful with that! Coolers don’t grow on trees,” said Flo, ignoring Maddie’s attempts to wipe away the dog germs with her sleeve.

“Yech!” Her mouth would never be the same. She felt like Lucy in Charlie Brown after Snoopy had slurped her.

Flo was caressing the jiggling creature.

“You are such a good baby. Givin’ Miami love? Are you givin’—”

“Flo, she stinks!” Maddie would have sworn the dog looked particularly smug.

“Well what do you expect?? No self-respectin’ dog’s gonna pass up a dead fish. Stop bein’ such a wuss.”

Maddie picked up the cooler. As she did, she heard a window slam.

Eef must be working down at the health spa, she thought.

“Sounds like your Dad is working.”

Flo looked at her. “He never works after lunch. Told ya he’s on the hammock.”

Maybe Flo’s hearing was going. Maddie rubbed her lips where the dog had kissed her. “Do you have any water?”

Flo pointed to the lake.

“Plenty of it right where we’re headed,” said Flo, moving down the path.

“Great. Now I can add salmonella or whatever it is that lurks in these lakes to the rotting fish bacteria floating around in me.”

“Way you’re behavin’, think you’d nevah had a dog show you affection,” said Flo.

“A tail wag is good enough for me,” said Maddie, jogging to catch up.

She thought of Coco, the brown poodle her ex-mother-in-law had given the boys. Who ever heard of a brown poodle? Should of known the dog wasn’t quite right just by that. And who ever heard of giving a miniature poodle to eight- and ten-year-old boys?? Ended up becoming blind and deaf and having a skin condition that required daily oatmeal baths. Not because of the boys but because of its genetic minefield. By the time the dog was a few months old, Coco and all her needs had become Maddie’s. And she’d done such a good job taking care of her that Coco had lived longer than her marriage. Maddie began ruminating on the message in that metaphor.

“Hey!” hollered Flo. “You gonna just stand there dreamin’ or help me?”

Flo untied the line from the rock and threw it into the boat, at which point Taffy did a running leap into the boat. Half of her made it. Maddie buckled over laughing.

Serves the vermin right, she thought.

Flo quickly grabbed Taffy’s struggling hindquarters and slid the dog inside the boat.

“That’s not nice. She could’a hurt herself,” said Flo, indignantly.

Not with all that fat, thought Maddie.

“I doubt that,” she said. “She’s a pretty strong dog, don’t you think?”

“You gonna push or just stand there bein’ mean to my dog?” said Flo. Whereupon she sat down in the stern, nicely doubling the weight Maddie had to move.

She grabbed onto the bow. The boat didn’t budge. Taffy assumed the figurehead position so that Maddie was now forced to breathe in the dog’s stench.

“Flo, can’t you please move her?”

“Never mind the dog. Just quit complainin’ and push.”

I’m not complaining, Maddie thought. Merely trying to keep my air breathable so I can push this stupid boat off the beach.

She took a deep breath and focused all her energy into freeing the boat. Slowly it ground its way down the rocks and into the water.

“I’m more in the habit of pushing people than boats,” Maddie said, rolling up her pants and stowing the cooler under her seat. Flo pushed up her pants and together they waded into the water.

“Have much luck with that?” Flo grabbed an oar and sat down in the stern.

“Not anymore,” said Maddie. The regret was more like a bee sting than a cobra’s bite.

“Good. Put it into the boat then,” said Flo.

Just as Maddie gave the boat one last push and put one foot inside, Flo started the engine and put it in reverse.

“Flo, stop!” Maddie yelled, trying desperately to get both feet into the boat.

But the force of the boat going backwards was greater than her balance. Maddie felt as if unseen hands had grabbed her by the shoulders and thrown her into the water. The several layers of Maddie’s clothing turned to wet cement. Flo cut the engine, jumped out of the boat and ran back onto the beach and into the woods—all the while laughing her angry red squirrel laugh. Taffy started barking and scrabbling to get out. Trying to stand, Maddie found her sneakers were like polished glass, so she dragged herself—crablike—to the beach, took off her sneakers and began removing a layer of clothing.

Maddie wondered if this was some kind of backwoods baptismal. It felt like one. A cleansing of corporate buildup, like when a floor gets stripped.

“This is ridiculous,” she said out loud as Flo came out of the woods, still laughing.

“Sure is,” she said.

“Didn’t you see me getting into the boat?” said Maddie, prying off the first of two shirts.

“Haven’t laughed so hard since Wayne fell out of the car.”

“Oh, that sounds like a riot,” said Maddie.

“It was. Fool shoulda known betta than to drive with the door open—’specially when he’d been drinkin’.”

“True,” said Maddie, who, now dressed in shorts and a t-shirt was feeling the late afternoon breeze crawl into her nether regions.

“God, my bladder’s not what it used to be,” Flo said. “Almost didn’t make it.”

Flo waded out to the boat. Taffy was so relieved to see her she looked like she was having a seizure.

“Don’t know what it is about this place. I have no problem staying dry in Miami,” said Maddie, trying to wring out her clothes.

“Here, gimme those,” said Flo. She grabbed Maddie’s clothes and proceeded to whack them on the rocks.

“Hey! Wait a minute!! Those are Jimmy Jazz!!” said Maddie, struggling barefoot on the rocks to stop Flo before she completely destroyed the garments.

“I don’t care if they’re the President’s. Gotta get the water out or else we’ll swamp,” said Flo, again smashing them against the rocks before giving them one more squeeze and handing them back.

Maddie looked at the sodden pulp.

“Thanks,” she said, remembering the day she’d bought them. It had been right after an all-day meeting with one of her least favorite CEOs about whether he should wear a brownish black or blackish brown suit for his portrait in the Annual Report. She’d left the meeting and gone straight to the Miracle Mile in Coral Gables and shopped herself into a stupor.

“Don’t mention it,” said Flo, getting into the boat. Taffy catapulted herself into her owner’s lap like a toddler suffering from separation anxiety.

“I wonder what else Nina has packed that’s going to get ruined,” said Maddie, watching Flo carefully as she got into the boat.

“Oh yeah, she called,” said Flo, putting the prop into the water.

Maddie felt as if someone from heaven had hurled her a lifeline.

“Nina?” said Maddie. “When?”

“Last night,” Flo said. She extricated herself from the dog and started the motor.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” said Maddie, attempting to find a comfortable position to sit on a wooden seat in wet clothes. She looked up to see if there was any chance of sun. No.

“Tried,” said Flo.

“You tried? I don’t remembering you trying,” said Maddie.

“Bingo,” said Flo.

Maddie realized she was right back where she started this morning. She knew no more about what had happened last night than when she woke up.

“Well, what did she say?” said Maddie.

Flo paused for a moment. “Just wanted to make sure you was havin’ a good time,” she said.

“What’d you say?”

“No doubt about it,” said Flo.

Maddie looked at the water running in rivulets down her calves, her chipped Persimmon-Passioned toenails and the indentations left by the three layers of pants on the inside of her thighs.

“As long as you say so,” said Maddie.

“Right,” said Flo. “Now can we get this show on the road?”

“You’re driving,” said Maddie.

“I will be,” said Flo, starting the engine and jamming it into gear.

The boat lurched forward. Maddie decided not to say anything about her technique. Instead, she grabbed a cushion, slid onto the floor of the boat and, ignoring the fact that it was decorated with coagulating fish blood from Taffy’s earlier dispatch, put it under her head and closed her eyes.

“Wake me when we’re back,” she said.

Chapter 13

A tremendous crack woke Maddie up. She sat bolt upright and looked around. She was alone in the bottom of the boat and the sound of heavy machinery biting the air superseded another earsplitting crack. Followed by yelling and the sound of machinery being shut off. She went into a crouch and looked around. She could hear Cal’s voice. Somehow, that had made her feel better, reassured that Wilson’s hadn’t been attacked by North Woods survivalists.

“Wayne, that’s the wrong tree,” she heard him yell.

Getting out of the boat, she looked up the hill. There, sitting in the pulpit of what looked like some circa 1940s backhoe, was Wayne. He was wearing an orange metal helmet and matching shirt. He looked like the Great Pumpkin.

“Can’t hear you. Wait a minute. What’d you say??” He took off the helmet.

“That’s the wrong tree,” repeated Cal.

Wayne looked stricken. He squeezed himself out of his seat and climbed down from the backhoe. “You sure?”

Cal stood next to a tall tree wrapped in florescent orange tape. “Pretty sure,” he said.

“Well, what do you know? Sorry Boss. They all look alike.”

“Let’s take a break on this,” said Cal. “How about you take the grader and finish up what we started on the road.”

Maddie thought he sounded just a little perturbed. So he’s human, after all.

“You bet,” Wayne said.

Maddie watched Cal cross the road and, rather than turn toward the Lodge, continue in her direction. If she tried to make it to the cabin now, it would look like she had been standing there watching him. She had, but he didn’t need to know that. She scurried back, lay down in the bottom of the boat and did her best to be invisible. After what felt like a safe amount of time she poked her head out of the boat.

There was Cal, sitting on the dock watching her. He was wearing gray work pants and a blue oxford cloth shirt torn at both elbows.

“Having a good time in there?” he asked.

“Just watching the clouds go by,” she said.

“I see,” said Cal looking up at the solid block of gray.

The boat cushion had slipped, her neck was stiff and it felt like the floorboards were digging their way into the backs of her thighs. She wanted nothing more than to get out of the boat and into dry clothes. Except, perhaps, to recall what—if anything—had happened last night.

Maddie reached for her fishing rod and started to get out of the boat. Cal’s expression shifted from bemused to surprised. Looking down, Maddie realized that—somewhere between falling into the lake and the ride back to Wilson’s—her shorts and t-shirt had taken a turn for the worse. Or, more accurately, the smaller. It wasn’t the floorboards digging into her thighs, it was her shorts. And her shirt barely covered her midriff.

She silently cursed Nina for packing clothes that were supposed to be dry-cleaned. On top of everything else, Nina owed her a new outfit.

She put down the rod, grabbed the dripping mess from the floor of the boat and attempted to hide behind it.

“Flo and I went fishing,” she said.

“What did you do, go after it with your bare hands?” said Cal.

“No. I just had a little trouble—” began Maddie.

“Getting into the boat?” said Cal.

A blast of cool air hit her. She involuntarily arched her back like she’d been goosed.

“Flo told you already?” said Maddie.

Was there no sense of boundaries in this godforsaken place?

“Never get between Flo and Taffy. You’re lucky it wasn’t worse,” said Cal.

Was he serious? She looked at his face. Inscrutable. “I’ll remember that the next time,” said Maddie.

Not that there would be a next time. From here on out, she’d handle her own fishing expeditions. Maddie stepped out of the boat and, not knowing just how much of her was over-exposed, began like a tightrope walker moving backwards to slowly back off the dock. She tried to make her retreat look as natural as possible. Once over the log connecting the dock to the shore, she switched the bundle to her back, turned and walked up the steps to the cabin.

“Maddie,” he said.

His tone made her stop. Maybe he had something important to tell her about last night—something that would alleviate her growing anxiety over her behavior.

“Yes?” she said, expectantly.

“Want me to throw that stuff in the dryer?”

So much for her intuition. She felt like her shrunken clothes—tight and useless. Sure, let’s just ruin the lot of them, she thought. They’d only cost her a small fortune. Maybe she should just call it a day and go to bed.

“Thanks. But I think I should—” began Maddie.

“Slip into something more comfortable first?” finished Cal.

This time there was definitely something in his voice. She would get to the bottom of last night. She nodded. “Be right back.”

“Take your time,” he said.

She went into the cabin and stripped faster than the first time she’d had sex. In the time it would have ordinarily taken her to find the right underwear, Maddie put on the only remaining clean and dry clothes she had—a long, pale green skirt, bright orange tank and the formerly gold sandals, which now had more of a mottled gray appearance, sort of like elephant skin.

She looked like a landlocked mermaid with a tail fungus. Can’t be helped, she thought.

Sighing, she raked her brush through her hair, sloshed some moisturizer on her skin and, lacking any readily available lip gloss, put some on her lips as well. Blech. It tasted like a combination of rubbing alcohol and perfume. She glanced at the ingredients—that’s what it was. Grabbing one of the pitifully small bath towels, she swooped down, scooped up the wet stuff she’d dumped on the bathroom floor, wrapped them up, and went outside, letting the screen door slam behind her. Cal was leaning up against one of the birch trees that lined the shore. At the sound of the slamming, he turned.

“Wow,” said Cal, looking stunned.

“I know. But these are—” Maddie started to say.

“You look—” he continued.

“Good or bad?” Maddie asked.

Oh God, I’m groveling, she thought. How revolting.

“Oh no, it’s good. Very good.”

Maddie felt slightly better.

“Well, thanks.”

Cal reached out for the clothes.

“Oh, no. I can carry them.” She could feel her tank top getting soaked.

“I’m sure you can. But that’s not the point.” He took the sad sack of wet clothes from her as if it was a newborn. “C’mon,” he said, touching her elbow, “the dryer awaits.”

“I think it might be too late. Should just give them a proper burial.”

“We’ll see,” said Cal.

Before they got to the Lodge, Cal turned left. Tall pines crowded either side of a narrow path, cutting out the quickly disappearing light.

“Don’t I remember the laundry room being in the barn?” asked Maddie.

“Good memory,” said Cal.

“But we’re going in the opposite direction.”

“Right again,” said Cal.

“Where are we going?”

“To the inner workings of Wilson’s Camp.”

Was there a shift in his voice or was she just imagining it? Yes. His tone was definitely more approachable.

The path stopped abruptly at the door of a cabin that appeared to have been the work of hobbits. From the shingles covering the steep peaked roof to the heavy ornate door, to the boughs forming the railings on the wrap-around porch, the building looked as though it had been carved out of the woods. A plaque over the door said: “Bem Vindoa.” Maddie pointed to it.

“Welcome?” she said.

“In Portuguese,” said Cal.

“People certainly like foreign languages up here,” said Maddie.

“What? You weren’t expecting any culture?” he said, pulling a heavy rope doorknob.

I guess not, thought Maddie.

“After you,” he said, motioning for her to enter.

Instead of flying duck upholstery and half-pitched windows, Maddie saw antique furniture and perfectly level white plaster walls and dark pine floors. A few very well painted abstracts and some fine oriental rugs completed an interior where any of her BZB—her former BZB—clients would have felt right at home.

I bet there’s even a shower in here, thought Maddie.

The place smelled both old and new—a mixture of ancient wood and some peppery herb Maddie couldn’t immediately identify. Cal took Maddie’s clothes and disappeared.

“Did you build this?” she asked, taking in the detail on the newel post, the construction of the narrow winding stairs leading to an open loft, the moss-green trim around the windows, subtle yet elegant. Maddie heard a dryer start; then Cal reappeared.

“Rebuilt. The original owners have been gone for at least one hundred-fifty years,” replied Cal before heading around a corner.

Maddie walked into the living room. A large portrait of a dark-eyed woman dressed in spectacular rose silk with a gardenia in her hair graced the mantle of an enormous stone fireplace. Maddie thought about her conversation with Flo and then completely abandoned her plan to keep quiet.

“So how did it happen?” asked Maddie.

Cal leaned into the room. “What?”

Maddie spread out her arms. “All this.”

“Accident of birth,” said Cal.

“That can be said of most of us, don’t you think?” asked Maddie.

“Probably me more than most. What happened to bring you to Wilson’s?” Cal asked.

“Accident of intellect,” said Maddie, laughing.

“Ah, that one I know myself,” said Cal, disappearing again.

Cal The Inscrutable was becoming Cal The Warm.

She looked around the room for photographs of Linda or Linda’s mother. Even a girl as unique as Linda had to have a mother. Collections of books lined the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a few really lovely small bronze sculptures of fish sat on end tables, some framed pieces of sheet music graced the walls—but no photos. She thought of her condo, crammed to the gills with photos of the boys. But the living room yielded nothing more than the painting.

She heard the welcome pop of a cork being eased from a bottle. Maddie went to investigate. She walked around the corner and into what could pass as a test kitchen for Bon Appetit. Copper pots hung from the ceiling, and on the counter sat a knife block to make any cook drool, along with bottles of olive oil and spices. Tuscan platters were mounted to the walls.

“Are you a closet chef?”

Cal pulled the cork from the bottle, set it on the counter and gave her an appraising look. “No closet.”

Maddie leaned against the counter. “Great for snaring women, then,” she said without thinking.

Cal raised his eyebrows, and Maddie suddenly felt as if she’d been way too honest. She changed the subject. “What is that smell? I noticed it when I first came in. It’s like pepper mixed with—”

Cal opened the oven door on his gas range. Maddie instantly recognized the blue, five-quart Le Creuset Dutch Oven sitting on the rack. She had one just like it.

“Lamb shanks,” he said, he said closing the door.

“They smell fantastic.”

“Won’t be ready until tomorrow. Think you can wait?”

“Is that a dinner invitation?” said Maddie.

Cal closed the oven and stood up. “I guess it is.”

He has to be divorced, Maddie thought. No man invites another woman into his home if he is already sharing it with someone else, right? The evening was growing more enjoyable with every moment. She looked more closely at the wine bottle—a Bordeaux, her absolute favorite red.

“So did you inherit Wilson’s?”

“No, I inherited the money to buy Wilson’s.”

So why is your being the owner such a big secret? That’s what I want to know, Maddie thought, before completely editing herself. After all, she wasn’t here for life. She was here to have a good time. Keep it light and keep it simple. “How nice.”

“Has its moments—like now,” he said, picking up the bottle of wine and two wine glasses.

“Had you stayed here before?”

“No. I heard about it from a friend who was contemplating purchasing it himself. He brought me along to see it and then decided against doing the deal. Actually, I just wanted this cabin. But Wayne and Flo said it was all or nothing. So I took it all.”

Pretty big ‘all,’ thought Maddie.

“Why here? Why a fish camp?”

You’re an inquisitive one, aren’t you?” Cal said.

“Yes. And proud of it,” said Maddie. “Well, most of the time.”

And you certainly look confident enough to answer questions, thought Maddie.

“So ... Why here?”

“Wanted a place to get my head back on straight and, after my grandmother passed away, I was given the resources to do it.”

“What had happened to your head?”

“Got kind of lost in work.”

Hmm, thought Maddie. I know that feeling. “What kind of work?”

“Architecture. And you?”

That fits those hands, Maddie thought.

“Public Relations—which is an oxymoron most of the time,” Maddie said.

“And you can say that with a smile?”

Maddie hadn’t realized she was smiling. “I guess so, now that it’s over,” she said.

“Never say over. But do follow me,” he said heading out of the kitchen.

As they entered the living room Maddie pointed to the portrait. “She’s beautiful.”

“Yes,” said Cal, stopping briefly to acknowledge the painting before heading to the screened porch.

Maddie followed him. “Who is she? “

“Was. My mother,” he said pouring the wine.

“Sorry. I—”

“It’s all right. Ancient history,” said Cal.

She hadn’t worked around all those CEOs to not know when a man was in avoidance. She let it go. But her eyes didn’t. By her reckoning, the woman in the portrait appeared to be from the early twentieth century. That would make Cal around eighty. Unless he was a poster boy for cryogenics, something didn’t fit.

“Wait a minute. How old are you?”

Cal put the wine down on a small table before turning and smiling.

“Fifty-five. I’d ask your age but it doesn’t matter to me.”

She had been a bit blunt. “No. No, age doesn’t matter to me, either.” Though you sure look good for yours, she thought before continuing. “It’s just that the clothes she’s wearing look—”

“That was painted as a wedding gift to my father. But she’s wearing my grandmother’s wedding gown.”

“Oh. That’s why she looks so happy.”

“Unfortunately, my father left before the wedding.”

“You mean like, with your mother standing at the altar?”

“Never even made it to the altar. Seems he disappeared as soon as my mother told him she was pregnant.”

Her thoughts turned into words as fast and unstoppable as a bobsled at the Olympic trials.

“What a schmuck.”

“Thanks for putting it so nicely.”

“No, I’m sorry. It’s just … what kind of a person would do that?”

“A schmuck.”

“You never met him?”

“I was told he died.”

“Told? You mean you don’t know for … never mind. It’s none of my business. Sorry.”

“It’s all right. My father,” Cal hesitated. “My father was not a good person.”

If this wasn’t so sad it would almost be funny, Maddie thought.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” said Cal.

Okay, Maddie thought. He’s compartmentalized it.

Cal gestured at the painting. “I think she looks so happy because she thought she was leaving my grandmother’s domain.”

“She was living with your grandmother when she met your father?”

“Different upbringing than most.”

“I guess,” said Maddie. “You couldn’t have paid me to stay with mine. Eighteen and I was off to college. Only went back to Florida on holidays, and that was under duress. “

“Well, my grandmother was a force to be reckoned with. Mother used to call her ‘My Way or the Highway Sofia,’ ” said Cal, setting the wine on the windowsill.

“What was your mother’s name?”

“Lydia.”

Maddie was not big on mortality. It made her uncomfortable, which made her say strange things.

“Death and taxes and childbirth; there’s never a convenient time for any of them,” she said.

Cal looked like he was stuck in the middle of crossing a street.

“Margaret Mitchell? Gone with the Wind,” said Maddie.

“Never read it,” said Cal.

She studied the painting. “She’s really quite stunning.” Maddie looked intently at Cal. “But there’s not much of a resemblance between you and your mother,” she added.

Cal took a breath and slowly exhaled. “Been told I take after my father. Not exactly a compliment in my book, but ...”

Maddie attempted to wrench her foot from her mouth. “Not that you aren’t attractive. I just meant ...” Maddie’s foot grew another two sizes. “Well, of course I—”

“Here, let me save you.” He handed her a glass.

“Thanks.”

She should never open her mouth in these situations. Better to just sit it out and let the other person talk. Could she do that? No. Instead, hoping to silence the awkwardness now ringing through the cabin like the bells of St. Mark’s on Christmas, she raised her glass. A toast: just a simple, innocuous toast. “Thank you for taking pity on me and my wet clothes.”

Cal raised his glass in return. “No pity, just pleasure,” he replied.

Perhaps the car holding the evening was no longer headed to a ditch. She took a swallow of the wine and froze. Not because it was bad. It was good, like Chateau Margaux good.

Cal put his wine down. “You don’t like it?”

Maddie shook her head. She looked at the bottle. It was a Margaux. Maddie took a deep breath, and exhaled. Much better. Keep everything on the surface. Do the breast stroke—no diving.

“No, it’s very good. I love it—and your view,” she said. She wondered just how small ‘small talk’ could get before it stopped existing altogether.

“Always changing,” Cal replied.

“The view?”

“The way the light hits different parts changes what the eye catches first.”

Maddie couldn’t help but notice the muscles in his back as he put his glass on the windowsill.

He pointed to the golden end of day touching a beach across the lake. “Heard you went back there today.”

The air seemed to quiet just enough to enable Maddie’s mind to clear.

“Where? Essencia?”

Cal nodded and motioned to a wicker rocking chair. As they sat down, his thigh brushed her calf. Maddie wondered if it was intentional.

“See the boathouse tucked up in the trees?”

She had seen it. When she and Flo had been on the beach. Without her glasses, the only thing Maddie could see now was a blur of balsam. She hedged. “You mean the home of Madame’s flotilla? An opera diva hiding out summers in the Maine woods with all of her ritzy guests and Cherries Jubilee. The parties she must have had! You probably know all this, don’t you?”

Cal nodded. “Sort of.”

Maddie felt like she was on a roll. She picked up speed. “I had this feeling that huge life forces collided there. Does that sound weird?”

“Not really.”

“Have you ever been over there?”

“Once or twice,” Cal said, taking a drink.

“Can’t figure out why someone let it all go. Strange, don’t you think?”

“Much in life is.”

Oh, the profound one has returned. She leaned back in the rocker and gave it a push. When was the last time she had been in a rocking chair?

“Place just reeks of history. Don’t have much of that in Miami,” said Maddie, looking around the porch and realizing that, although many eye-catching design elements were present, none was more so than Cal. “Sorry. I get carried away sometimes talking.”

“Not at all. Flo told me you had a good time.”

“Well, after the Taffy incident,” said Maddie.

Cal twirled the stem of his wineglass between his fingers. “Yeah, that dog can rip a head off pretty fast,” he said.

“I know some people just like her,” said Maddie, thinking of her replacement—that slippery little Bridgette.

“There’s lots more,” Cal said.

“That’s for sure. Miami is full of them.”

“I meant fish,” said Cal.

“Oh, right, fish. Sorry, I was still stuck on ... Oh, never mind.” She took another sip of wine.

Focus, you idiot, she told herself.

“But it was such a nice fish. I wasn’t even going to keep it. Thought I would, until I saw it, and then I just wanted to put it back where it came from.” Maddie shook her head. “What a way to go.”

“Look at it this way: you made Taffy very happy. And if Taffy’s happy, Flo’s happy. And if Flo’s happy ...”

Maddie took a few rocks. The floor made an agreeable squeaking in response. “Maybe I’m meant for non-aquatic sports.”

“How can you say that after this morning?”

Had that just been this morning? Time here was not like Miami time. There was an elasticity Maddie had never experienced—like the melting clocks painted by Salvador Dali.

Maddie knew he was right. She was a good swimmer. “Pretty good therapy session out there,” she admitted.

“Therapy?” said Cal. “You make it sound like work.”

Let’s see long it takes for Dawn Diver to surface.

“If you swam, you’d know what I meant,” said Maddie.

“I do a bit of swimming every now and then,” said Cal, leaning back in his chair. “More for pleasure than anything else.”

“I see,” said Maddie.

Nope. He was going to stay under for a while longer. She took a sip of wine.

“And I have a confession to make,” she added.

“You don’t strike me as Catholic,” said Cal.

“Christian Scientist. Past tense. Wasn’t allowed to play with Catholics. And you?”

“I’m pretty much a hedonist. So your confession is safe with me.”

Nice, thought Maddie.

“When I first got here, I felt like, I felt like I’d been sent to some re-education camp.”

Cal laughed. “Maddie, you may find this hard to believe, but some people actually look forward all year to coming here.”

“I know—I mean, I don’t know—but maybe I’m beginning to see that.”

Maybe it was the wine or the dry clothes or the dawn swim, but a feeling of wellbeing poured over her. “This might sound ridiculous, but there’s something really familiar about this place,” she said.

“That would make sense, given you were here last night.”

Maddie stopped mid-rock. So did the feeling of wellbeing. She opened her eyes and sat bolt upright. “I was here?”

“Yes,” Cal continued. “You sat right in that chair and told me how you’d never felt like this before and, from the moment you laid eyes on me, all you wanted to do was,” Cal paused as though what he had to say was difficult, “get laid by me.”

“What?”

“That was before you insisted on stopping and seeing Flo and telling her how much you liked her and wanted her to teach you how to fish.”

“I did?”

“Which meant we interrupted her time with Madame Butterfly.”

“We did?”

Damn those Trailer Park Panty Removers! Damn Flo for feeding them to her and damn her for drinking so many and finally damn Cal for being such an arrogant jerk. Then, like a triangular message in a Magic 8-Ball, a different truth floated into her consciousness.

Ahhhhhhh, Maddie thought, this must be what the Buddhist Masters call: “experiencing enlightenment,” à la 21st century, of course. She leaned back in the rocker.

“You know, Cal,” she began.

“Whoa, that’s a first,” interrupted Cal.

“What, calling you by your name?

“No, using that tone. It’s pretty frightening. And that steely-eyed glare could turn me into a pillar of salt.”

Cal’s smugness acted like lighter fluid on her sense of righteousness.

“Here, let me do it again. Cal, I’ve been around too many men who are much better at lying than you. Plus, even if I had been sitting here last night—which I might have been— and even if I did say I’ve never felt like this before—which I might have—I would never, ever, even in my most inebriated state, use the term “get laid.”

Maddie took great pride in seeing chagrin charge across Cal’s face.

“You’re right,” said Cal. “You didn’t.”

Relief swept over Maddie. So she hadn’t come across like a desperately horny cougar. That would be Nina’s word. Maddie admired cougars—but not when used to describe women of a certain age and aspirations as predators—even if the prey was older.

“You got me,” he said.

Maddie smiled. So he was kidding. The guy could be funny and she’d taken him seriously. She relaxed and her self-righteousness took a hike.

“I do know myself just a bit,” she said, trying not to sound too superior. “Here’s to your sense of humor,” she raised her glass and took a deep swallow of wine.

Cal raised his glass in return. “ ‘Jump my bones,’ ” said Cal. “And thank you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You said you wanted to ‘jump my bones.’ ”

Maddie groaned. He had her. That would be the exact phrase she would use. What had she been doing drinking that coffee brandy coated truth serum? She took a rather larger swallow of wine than normal and stood up.

“This has been love—” she began.

“Don’t you want to know what happened next?”

“Some kind of a wildly provocative mating dance?” guessed Maddie through gritted teeth.

“You passed out,” said Cal matter-of-factly.

“What?”

“Yep. And let me tell you, you’re heavier than you look.”

“What??”

“How do you think you got back to your cabin?”

There was only one explanation—one awful explanation.

“You carried me?”

“No easy feat in the dark either. But Wayne came along—”

“Wayne?? You’re kidding, right?”

“I told you I don’t kid.”

Maddie felt nauseous. And speechless. Cal stood up and stepped into what Maddie considered her personal space. Close enough for Maddie to see the strands of gray at his temples and the edges of his tan around his eyes. He had a slight chip to the tooth next to his front tooth and a small scar on his chin. Despite the feeling that she might throw up, her endorphins were assembling at the gate like a bunch of racehorses.

“You really don’t remember anything?” he said.

She shook her head and tried to look anywhere but into his eyes. His breath was sweet in a way that made her mouth go dry. Passing out was one thing. She had to get out of this cabin before she did anything she would remember and live to regret.

“Look,” she began, “not that it matters—except it does matter or else I wouldn’t be saying any of this—but I really am not the sort of person that drinks Panty Removers and passes out. Except I did. I mean you tell me I did. But what I mean is, normally I—”

She really intended to leave. But when Cal silenced her rambling by putting his mouth on hers, she couldn’t move. At least not out the door.

His kiss was so dark all her inner lights went on. First kisses are supposed to be awkward and tentative and not very rewarding. None of those adjectives fit this kiss. And what was this humming in her ears? On a first kiss? No way. Impossible. Stop thinking, stop arguing, and just go, she told herself. And she did. Right toward the floor.

Fast enough that when she reached out to steady herself against Cal, she misjudged the impact of her descent and took him with her. He did a move similar to one she’d seen Mikhail Baryshnikov do in Swan Lake, and they ended up on the floor in a more-or-less graceful heap.

“You don’t mess around with small talk do you?” he said, cradling her head with one hand.

“No,” she said, reaching up and pulling his mouth down on hers.

His fingers were like fire and water—hot and cool—and Maddie wanted them running all over her body. But wait, no! She couldn’t have him doing that. For crying out loud, she barely knew the guy. With a guttural groan, she stretched out her arms to stop the action and when she did, her hand hit the leg of the table holding the wine. Cal caught the bottle of wine before it reached the floor, but not before Maddie’s tank top was baptized with Margaux.

She probably should be mortified, but since her brain was heading toward shutdown and her body toward lift-off, she wasn’t. Cal brushed his hand over her chest and wiped some of the spilled wine off her skin, before licking it off his fingers.

“There you go, getting wet again,” said Cal.

Maddie wanted his fingers and then perhaps another of Cal’s body parts to do whatever it chose to do—which is why she gently grasped his hands and tried to sit up. “Cal, this feels wonder—” she began.

Cal interrupted her. “Maddie? Is that short for Madeline?”

Maddie nodded. No one had called her that for forty years. And that was because she had never liked the name. But hearing it come from Cal’s mouth, she might be changing her mind.

“Thought so. You look like a Madeline. I’d say I haven’t seen anything so beautiful in a long time, Madeline, but I’d be lying,” he said, kissing her eyebrows.

His kisses felt so good that it took Maddie a moment to realize what he had said. She jacked herself up on her elbows and with great personal difficulty forced Cal’s face far enough away from hers to create some personal space.

“What kind of a—” she began.

“You didn’t think you were actually covered up by that water, did you? I almost jumped out of the boat right then,” he said.

Maddie’s nose started tickling—kind of like a personal warning system, but in a good way. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. “And just where do you think I got the idea to skinny dip?”

“What? You were spying on me?”

“Oh come on. If you really didn’t want anyone to see you, you’d have gone farther down the lake.”

“Now there’s a thought,” he said, running his hands through her hair.

Not only did his fingers feel remarkably perfect, but they made Maddie even gladder about her own swim. Had she not taken it, Cal’s hands would be completely tangled up in her bug dope conditioner.

His breathing had shortened and, impossibly, he kissed her harder and longer than the last time. Just as she was about to swallow him head first, Maddie heard a knock at the door. Cal lifted his head and looked in the direction of the knock.

“Hey Boss? You in there?”

Wayne. Two days in a row he manages to catch her in a compromised position? What, did she have some kind of a tracking device implanted in her shoe that he was monitoring? Cal put his finger across his lips and slowly lowered himself down so his head was resting on Maddie’s stomach. His hair tickled her stomach and she had to fight not to laugh. From their vantage point on the floor, they could see Wayne’s round head pressed against the screen like a kid looking through the window of a closed candy store. But since there were no lights on inside the cabin, he couldn’t see them on the floor.

Wayne’s head disappeared. Maddie exhaled in relief and, just as Cal was moving back into position, they heard tromping coming around to the front porch. This time there was no freezing. As Wayne advanced, Cal pulled her up off the porch floor and into the living room.

“Take my hand,” he whispered.

They made it through the darkened living room with Maddie only hitting her shin once.

Cal guided her into the front hall and toward the stairs.

No way was she going up any stairs—especially after their recent conversation. Cal either read her mind, or had the same thought as he gently pulled her down onto the bottom step.

Wayne was now banging on the porch door. Maddie and Cal perched on the stairs.

“Does this happen often?” Maddie whispered.

“Which part? Wayne arriving unannounced or having a beautiful woman on my stairs?”

“Wayne,” said Maddie.

He put his hand on the back of her neck and kissed her ear. Maybe taking a few more steps wouldn’t be such a terrible idea, she thought.

“I think he has a crush on you,” said Cal.

“Oh, you know how to get a girl going,” said Maddie.

She placed her hands tentatively on his chest. Her imagination had been dead on. Pectorals built for the long haul. She was just about to slide her hand beneath the neck of his shirt when Wayne’s thrashing around in the underbrush outside the house like a moose in search of a mate suddenly stopped. Cal pulled back from Maddie’s touch and sat up. Together they waited for Wayne to make a move. Nothing.

“What’s he doing?” Maddie whispered.

“With Wayne, you never know,” said Cal.

Suddenly the crunch of footsteps at the back of the house ratcheted up through the quietude. Now it was Maddie’s turn to sit up. Then the sound of tramping grew less pronounced until finally all they could hear was the lapping of the lake against the shore.

“Where will he go?” Maddie whispered.

“Probably to your cabin. And if he doesn’t find anyone there—”

“He’ll come back here?”

Cal nodded and stood up. “Better go cut him off at the pass,” said Cal.

Maddie followed his lead and stood up. Wayne’s shenanigans had put the kibosh on finding out first-hand how Cal’s skin might feel against hers. She put on her best Mission Impossible voice. “Do whatever it takes to stop him.”

“And if I succeed, dinner here tomorrow night?”

Since romance was now thrust to the back burner, Maddie could more easily envision the alchemy occurring in Cal’s Dutch oven as they spoke. The onions morphing into caramel, the garlic into succulent sweetness redolent of The Ancients’ promise of everlasting love, melting marrow seeping through the rosemary-wrapped flesh.

“Yes, I think that can be arranged,” she said. “You know where to find me if you need back-up.”

In the semi-darkness Maddie could see Cal smile. He tipped her face up and placed his lips on hers. Knowing it was the last—at least for this evening—made it the sweetest kiss she’d ever tasted.

“You can find your way back to the cabin?”

It was the last place she wanted to go. But she nodded and managed to make it back to Woodside without falling or running into Wayne. Once back, she was so keyed up she took her phone down to Dock #8 and tried calling Nina again. It wasn’t until she was pressing in her number, using a dinky little light from her key ring, that she realized she’d never bothered to charge it after the last attempt.

This is a hell of a way to spend a beautiful evening, she thought, walking back once more to find the charger. After she plugged it in, she went down to her own dock. She’d never seen so many stars. It was almost as if the Maine sky had a double dose of heaven. Maddie had taken an astronomy class once but had forgotten most of the constellations, except for the Archer and the Dippers and the Three Sisters and Orion. Maybe Cal knew more; he certainly knew about kissing.

When the loons began calling, she only jumped once. Granted, it was a decent jump, but the longer she listened, the more beautiful their call became and the less her mind worked until finally, dragging herself up to the cabin, she conked out and didn’t move until the morning sun had successfully bored through her eyelids.

Chapter 14

Maddie was too late for the breakfast rush so she was alone in the dining room, watching the hummingbirds doing lazy looping circles around the feeder.

I know just how you feel, she thought. And to top it all off, I have dry clothes.

She repositioned her chair so she could watch the dock activity without having to move her body. Last night’s quick descent to the floor had left her a little stiff. She stretched out her legs and felt her hips realign.

If Nina were sitting across the table in the dining room, she would look at her right now and say, “Okay, spill.” She’d ask her questions about his family and Maddie would say that—with the exception of his very individualistic daughter—his family appeared to be gone. “Where’s the ex-wife?” And Maddie would say, “She’s alive. I heard his daughter talking, rather, yelling at her.” “Yes, but where is she, exactly?” Nina would press, and Maddie would say she didn’t know. Then she’d ask about his background and bank account balances and Maddie would say she didn’t know. And then, in frustration, Nina would say: “Do you even know his last name?” And Maddie would laugh and say, “Of course I—”

Maddie sat up straight in her chair. She didn’t know Cal’s last name. How could that be? She attempted to retrace their conversation, but all that came up were multitudes of sensations and zero substance. She was walking on a path free of any pertinent information regarding the man she’d been making out with on the floor. It delighted and horrified her—slightly. Mostly delighted. About time she did something exciting and escapist where nobody was endangered. Come on, she argued with herself. You must have heard his last name.

Her brain balked like a mule being pulled away from an open bag of grain. Well, for years she’d been using her brain more than any other part of her and look what happened? Relax, Nina. I’m bound to find out one way or another. You’ll just have to wait until I get back for all the details. Back? Maddie quickly shoved that thought to the end of the line, instead revisiting Cal’s back as he reached for his wineglass. For now, that was the only “back” she wanted to contemplate.

A marching sound encroached and then overran her mental meandering. Maddie turned to see Linda advancing toward her, dressed in full military garb and armed with a pot of coffee. Patton in drag, thought Maddie. She thought of her boys—how completely conventional they were in comparison.

Not that they didn’t have their quirks. Tristan did have a penchant for working in developing nations—aka third-world countries—that chilled her to the bone, and Jack couldn’t seem to stay away from teaching teenagers the juvenile system termed “delinquents.”

Maddie had never been a big Gilbert and Sullivan fan but she had to give Linda credit for her execution of “I Am a Modern Major General.” She could feel the air being sucked right out of the room and into Linda’s lungs. The hummingbirds, perhaps picking up on her militant energy, formed a brigade and began storming the feeder. Linda nimbly performed the last note tableside and then stood at attention. Maddie didn’t know whether to say “Bravo” or “At ease.”

“Morning?” asked Maddie, unsure if she would be viewed as friend or foe.

“Yes, ma’am,” Linda replied, pouring coffee into her cup. “Reporting for your order, ma’am.”

Friend. Maddie exhaled.

“Oatmeal, two eggs over easy and home fries, please,” said Maddie.

“Would you be wanting any juice or fresh fruit with that, ma’am?”

“Both,” said Maddie, perfectly sure that whatever calories she took in now would only be make-up for the dinner she’d missed last night, thanks to Cal.

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”

Linda left the dining room at a good clip, her black boots leaving dash marks on the waxed floor.

Hope G.I. Jane likes to clean floors, Maddie thought, pouring cream in her coffee.

She looked at the lake and smiled. No need to try and sneak a peek at the Dawn Diver this morning. Having experienced some of his skills, she could personally vouch for just how good he was on land as well as water.

There was no wind. Fish like no wind. The water lay like dark blue silk and, as a boat pulled out away from the dock, Maddie decided she would try her luck with a rod of the fishing kind after breakfast. After all, she’d caught one yesterday and that was with a psychotic dog in the boat. She leaned back in her chair and visualized catching a big, fat fish. A breeze went across the dining room. Maddie turned to see Wayne coming at her. Wayne was not what she wanted to catch. His expression was buoyant to the extreme and he made his way to her table so quickly Maddie felt a tailwind hit her. He stood facing her, breathing heavily.

“Morning,” he said.

His stomach was in line with the rim of her coffee cup and she tried not to watch the rise and fall of his paunch as he looked at her expectantly. She braced for some comment regarding last night.

“Isn’t it?”

“Goin’ for another swim today?”

“Why, are you?”

He laughed and smacked his knee. “Naw. Boss has me workin’ the road all day. He can be a hard man to please sometimes.”

“Really?” said Maddie.

“Yep. A real hard man,” Wayne repeated.

“Can’t see it’s done you any harm,” she said.

“Could say the same about you,” he said pointing at her.

Maddie was relieved at the clicking of Linda’s boots across the floor. Wayne eyed the tray piled high with her breakfast.

“Well, someone has a real good appetite this morning.”

She wished there was a trap door in the floor that would open and make Wayne disappear. Instead, he plopped down across from her.

“Hey, Linda, why don’t you be a good soldier and grab me a cup of coffee?”

“Sorry sir, you will have to get that yourself. I have strict orders from the kitchen not to serve you,” replied Linda, placing a steaming bowl of oatmeal in front of Maddie.

“That little Flo-Bo in a mood today, is she?” said Wayne.

“Yes, sir,” said Linda. She held up a banana. “Would you like me to slice this for you, ma’am?

“No, I can handle it,” Maddie said, anxious to eat.

She placed the rest of Maddie’s food on the table and stood at attention.

“Will that be all ma’am?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Linda didn’t budge.

“Dismissed?” guessed Maddie.

They watched her march away.

“She’s somethin’, ain’t she?”

“Absolutely,” said Maddie, mentally willing Wayne to leave so she could taste the golden, onion-laced home fries that were smiling up at her from the plate.

“Well,” he said, standing up and looking at the potatoes longingly, “I’ll leave you to it.”

He was the picture of dejection.

Maddie couldn’t help herself. The lovely time she had enjoyed with Cal, in combination with Wayne’s behavior being relatively acceptable, brought a flush of benevolence. She would give the dog a bone.

“Wayne, if you were going to go fishing, where would you head?”

It was like he’d gotten a blood transfusion. His face lit up.

“Well, wouldn’t tell this to most people but, seeing it’s you—”

He bent over and moved her bowl of oatmeal. Maddie hadn’t noticed her placemat was a map of Mooselookmeguntic marking all the best fishing areas.

“Day like today, I’d head straight here,” he said, plunking his short stubby finger down on the edge of the map.

“The Ledges?” said Maddie.

“If you’re going to catch anything, you’ll catch it there,” said Wayne. He wore his confidence like a sheriff wears a badge.

“Really?”

“Yep.” Wayne looked across the lake. “No one’s there yet. I was you, I’d leave now.”

Maddie looked down at her uneaten breakfast. “Can I at least eat first?”

“Depends on whether or not you’re serious about catching a fish.”

“I am,” said Maddie. She looked at the eggs. They were perfection. Golden and—

“Person who gets there first gets the best spot,” continued Wayne.

Maddie noticed how the brown sugar had melted into the oatmeal—just the right temperature for eating.

“Go now and you’ll be back for lunch,” he said.

Maddie imagined a nice fat trout sitting on a plate. One that she had caught and Flo had cooked for her. Or one that she had caught, taken a picture of and returned to the lake. What better time than now while she was sitting pretty in the middle of a good luck stream?

“So I just head at a diagonal until I see some big rocks?”

Wayne stuck his arm out and pointed like a retriever.

“See ’em? They’re the only ledges on the lake,” he said.

Maddie stood up.

“Well, then, I’m on my way,” said Maddie.

“Here, take this.”

Wayne handed her the banana.

“And put a Woolly Bugger on before you leave, said Wayne.

“I beg your pardon?” said Maddie

“The biggest fly you got,” he said.

“Right.”

Maybe Wayne wasn’t so bad, Maddie thought, as she left the dining room. Maybe he just took a little getting used to. He actually might be an okay guy, in a very strange way. But when she turned around to thank him, there he was, sitting with his back toward her, in her chair, eating her breakfast.

Chapter 15

Maddie looked around the cove that formed the Ledges. The sun was out, the anchor was down, the Woolly Bugger was on and she was ready to bring home the big one. She made her first cast from her seat, à la Flo. The line skipped across the surface nicely before going slack. Not bad, she thought. She stripped the line in and cast again. Some of Cal’s technique must have rubbed off on her—in a manner of speaking.

She made another cast. How good it was to be outside. Not stuck in some air-conditioned hell listening to an overpaid, lame-brained CEO drone on about his company’s need for more exposure. Such a relief! No iPhone, no watch, and no plan for her next chapter. Well, that part was still a little frightening. In fact, it was quite frightening. She decided to concentrate on the positive, however fleeting: Cal.

She grinned and looked down the expanse of the lake. The dock at Essencia jutted out from the shore. Now that she’d seen the boathouse, the dock’s size made sense. She imagined Madame Sayao’s personal flotilla out and about. The sailboats and the canoes must have made quite a picture against the backdrop of the mountains.

And that Chris Craft … if it was what Flo made it out to be, she knew some people who would like to take a ride in that kind of style. She thought of her C-Suite clients in white linens—okay, admittedly, there were some she could handle, perhaps even liked— sipping champagne and being served Cherries Jubilee as the stars came on for the night. Not only would they love it, they would be able and willing to pay dearly for the experience. A vision of restored grounds, repaired cottages, the doors flung open on the boathouse flashed through her mind.

Ah well, perhaps in her next life. Not this one. Before she had time to become depressed again, her line became so taut that the rod almost jerked out of her hands. Maddie squealed. Whatever was on the fly was big. Remembering Flo’s advice, she let the line out. The thing took it all and asked for more. Maddie was running out of line. She had no choice but to tighten her grip and slowly bring in the fish. She felt the alternate zig and zag as the fish tried to extricate itself from the fly. “They have no feeling in their lips” she kept repeating. Yes, yes, yes. Come to Maddie. “Closer, closer my pretty,” she intoned. She could see the fin breaking the water. Even allowing for the water’s magnification, this was a very big fish.

Wait. How was she supposed to get it into the net? She only had two hands, and they were both occupied. Maddie’s mind raced for a solution. Worse came to worst, she could always bring it into the boat on the line and then take the hook out. She’d never seen it done that way, but how difficult could it be?

Just as she reeled in the fish to the side of the boat it dove and went under. Damn! This was just what wasn’t supposed to happen. Maddie had no choice but to give the fish more line and hope he came up on the other side. The line loosened. Standing up in the boat, Maddie watched as the line came up on the other side. Okay! Back in business.

Suddenly the fluorescent orange line went AWOL. The entire reel whooshed from her hand.

“Ahhhhhhh!” she screamed.

Her excitement was paralyzing. Maddie stood and watched an enormous dark shape at the end of the line cut quickly back under the boat. What kind of a monster had she caught? One thing was certain: this time it was coming into the boat and no dog was going to bite its head off.

Regaining movement, she braced one foot against the stern seat and one against the middle and began her siege with the fish. The line went straight down in the water like it had some enormous weight tied to it. To counteract that, Maddie, using all the muscle she had, pulled the line straight up. She felt the line start to give. Yes! And then it gave completely, throwing Maddie into a heap in the bottom of the boat, still holding the rod. She was so surprised, it took a minute to regain her footing. Once she did, she rushed to the bow of the boat to scan the surface for signs of the escaping fish. Nothing.

If there had been room in the boat she would have thrown a Rumpelstiltskin hissy fit. But there wasn’t. All she could do was gaze at the broken line. No fish, no fly, no freshly caught breakfast for tomorrow. What was worse, in her zeal to get out on the lake, she’d left her extra flies on the dock. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Damn, damn, damn. She gazed at her rod.

The line, where there should have been a nice fat trout, hung empty and frizzled. Kind of the way she felt at the moment. She sat down hard on the stern seat and took a breath. The boat rocked back and forth in the water. Maddie thought about which direction to go with her mood. Why hadn’t she been more organized? That was one of her strong suits—or it used to be, anyway. Maybe BZB had more than one reason for ushering her out. She’d failed there and she was failing here. Couldn’t even catch a fish.

Suddenly she felt a tap on her head, like a big bug had bumped her. Maddie looked around. The only movement was the wind playing with the water. But she’d definitely felt something. Like a psychic slap—albeit a gentle one. She sat still in her seat until she knew what to do.

So a fish got away; there’s another waiting to be caught. She pulled the anchor into the boat, started the engine on the first try and turned the boat back toward Wilson’s to get what she needed.

She was almost back when she saw a couple of loons sitting in the water off her dock. She marveled at the complexity of the black and white markings, the graceful necks and the serenity of their movements. Watching them, Maddie could feel some of that peace moving into her.

As she got closer, she noticed that one of the loons had an odd bump on its back. The closer she got, the more agitated the other one became. Maddie cut the engine and let the boat drift. That’s when she realized the “bump” was a baby loon. She watched as the one caught a little fish and stuffed it down the baby’s gullet while the other acted as an aircraft carrier. The baby uttered little loon cries for “more, more.” Babies are the same across the board, thought Maddie.

Not wanting to disturb the bucolic scene, Maddie put the oars in the oarlocks and rowed to shore. Maddie was half-hoping Cal would be working on the road, but Wilson’s was quiet except for the strains of Puccini, Pavarotti or another composer or opera singer whose name began with a P.

She docked the boat without a clunk, patted herself on the back and managed to get the new fly on without losing any blood. She wasn’t sure if it was another Woolly Bugger, but it had a brightly colored feather and little tail, and if she were a fish, she’d be tempted to latch onto it.

The day had warmed up considerably and Maddie ran inside to put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Even though they were clean, they didn’t smell like Cal.

Smitten, she thought. That’s what you are: smitten.

Cal’s bottle of bug dope sat on the dock. She grabbed it. This time she’d be ready if the flying black death squad materialized again.

The loon family was still dining when she loaded her rod and extra flies into the boat. Maddie gave them a wide berth as she carefully rowed the boat far enough away to start the engine but still close enough to see one of the birds look long and hard at her as she passed.

“Don’t worry, not going to disturb you. You’re safe,” she muttered.

She puttered a small distance away, cut the engine and put the anchor down. She was just getting ready to cast when she heard a hooting. She looked back at the family. One was missing.

Maddie made her cast. The line skimmed the water just as it was supposed to. She heard the sound of a very large fish jumping. Turning, she saw it wasn’t a fish. It was a loon and as quickly it appeared, it disappeared. Stripping her line, she watched for the loon to surface. It did, right next to the boat. Close enough for her to see its glowing red eyes.

“No way.”

The bird had a distinctly suspicious look.

“You go away. Now. Shoo.”

The loon ignored her.

Maddie tried being polite. “Please?”

The bird fixed its attention on Maddie’s rod. She cast and the loon immediately disappeared under the surface. That was the shape she’d seen earlier! The renegade loon was real. Cal was right, which didn’t make her feel any better right now. Maddie jerked the line back as fast as possible and looked for the loon. The loon popped back up in the exact same spot as before, pre-cast.

“What are you? Some kind of stalker?”

The loon offered no opinion, instead increasing the velocity of its stare. Keeping her eye on the loon, she switched sides and cast. Quicker than she could finish her curse at the thing, the loon dove. Once again Maddie hauled in her line and once again the loon reappeared, ready to follow her every move. So much for the sanctity of family and feeding the young—it was every fish catcher for herself.

“Follow this,” she said.

She started the motor, and pulled up the anchor. She repeated this scenario three times, motoring farther out in her attempt to elude the loon. Each time the loon appeared just as she was about to cast. By that point she was almost all the way across the lake and very frustrated. Short of hurling the anchor and stunning the bird, Maddie had no clue how to get rid of it.

She sat down in the boat and looked at the afternoon sun dallying with the shore. Essencia’s beach appeared to be covered in gold nuggets. The loon was waiting for her next move. Maddie made a decision.

“You want me, you’re going to have to come out of the water, because that’s where I’m headed,” she said, starting the motor. The loon bobbed beside her boat for a moment before sinking below the surface.

“Good riddance,” she said.

Maddie realized, coming from this direction, there was enough of Essencia’s old dock to tie up to. Reaching up to grasp the piling, she could determine at what point the dock had originally been much longer. In her mind’s eye, she could see the Chris Craft sitting pretty at the end, waiting for all those high society types to board.

She turned and looked up at the Main Lodge. From this perspective it looked much grander than from the beach. A small gazebo that had seen better years tilted to one side of what had been a lawn and was now closer to a hayfield.

She grabbed the banana from the boat, stuck it in her back pocket and put one foot on the weathered gray dock to test its strength. It creaked a warning but held. Imagining herself as a cross between a mountain goat and a contestant on Survivor threading her way over an abyss on a swing bridge, Maddie proceeded to repeat the process board by board until she hit land. She really meant to go looking for Eef, but instead found herself turning right and heading down a short slope to the low, white-shingled building Flo had called the Health Club.

“Kind of ahead of your time, weren’t you, Madame Sayao?” she said out loud.

She imagined the upper crust strolling in white robes down the rock-lined path for a steam.

Stretches of purple and pink lupine bending in the breeze gave off a peppery scent that reminded her of Cal.

“Yowsa,” she said using a fond phrase of her father’s. “You, Cal, are a very nice part of my escape from reality.”

Wasn’t really an escape though, was it? Hadn’t been her choice. Perhaps it was fate. She’d been sent here. And tonight, over lamb shanks, she might just tell him what she felt about Essencia and watch his reaction. Then again, perhaps she was going into the deep end. Maybe she should just keep her mouth closed until she had all her ducks lined up. That would be a first. Pull back, Maddie. She had a tendency, when excited, to lose her center.

She walked up to the originally red, now faded to pink, front door. Locked. And the windows had been covered over from the inside.

“Maybe there’s a back door,” Maddie said to the building.

Hiking around the building, she found a much smaller door. It was unpainted and looked more like an entrance for a dog or perhaps a child. The door gave and the smell of old cedar—like the closet in her grandmother’s bedroom—rushed into her face. Taking off her sunglasses, she peered into the darkness. Her eyes were no help. Wishing she at least had gloves on but not letting that stop her, she stuck her hand inside and felt around in the darkness. Wherever she touched, she felt wood, smooth wood.

“A tunnel,” she said, feeling like an Egyptologist in Tutankhamen’s tomb.

“But where does it go and how lucky do you feel today, Alice?”

Her instincts told her nothing, which Maddie took as a cue to return when she had a tour guide.

“I’ll be back,” she told the building.

Closing the door, she turned and began walking up the hill to Eef’s cottage. She stopped and looked at the ground under her feet. It felt harder than just ground. Pushing at the dirt she exposed a tile—deep blue like the Adriatic. And then another, and another. She bent over and touched them. These were no Miami knock-offs. These were the real deal. Madame had these tiles shipped from Italy. Flo was right: no expense had been spared. But then, why would these tiles be here like this? Maddie looked at the trees growing at the edge of the tiles and realized the trunks were about six feet below. She was standing on a tiled rim of what had been an in-ground swimming pool.

Maddie imagined beautiful men and women lounging around the pool, a Cabana Boy in attendance. Witty conversation spills through the air, perhaps someone is playing music. Well, of course, music, silly. Perhaps Madame would spontaneously break into an aria. Maddie looked at what she now recognized was an estate. But what had happened? Why would she just stop coming? Let all this go? Didn’t add up.

“Okay, calm down, Agatha Christie,” Maddie said.

That’s what her father used to call her when Maddie would want to try and figure everything out. She drew in a deep breath and let it out.

As she walked up the hill to Eef’s cottage, Maddie’s eye picked out several flowerbeds that had mostly gone wild. Berry bushes—perhaps raspberry—created a now haphazard hedge around what must have been some kind of playing field. Bocce?

Past the bushes was a tall, wire fence. Closer in, she saw it surrounded a tennis court. “A clay court here? La-de-da.”

And it was still in decent shape. She was buffaloed by the extent of Madame’s extravagance.

Coming up to Eef’s cottage, Maddie looked in the windows and then walked around to the back to see if he was working outside. Was he asleep? Was it after lunch? She went behind his house and took the route she’d seen him follow after their picnic the day before. There, in a clearing and tied between two enormous oak trees, was a striped hammock. But no Eef.

Maddie sat down in the hammock and pushed off with both feet. She felt something squish in her pocket. The banana. She quickly stood up, extricated the worse-for-wear fruit from her shorts and, having had no breakfast or lunch, wolfed it down. She put down the peel and, keeping one foot on the ground, lay back on the hammock.

The cloud parade was just starting. Maddie pushed the hammock from side-to-side with her foot. It felt like she’d seen more varieties of clouds in the last few days then in all her previous years in Miami. Or maybe she just hadn’t noticed. The sky was the color of a ripe peach. She felt her eyelids sliding south. No wonder Eef liked this spot—it seemed to have magical sleep properties. With an effort, she stood up and walked back to Madame’s Lodge.

When she got up on the porch, she looked once again for the lease sign and again she came up blank. Trying the heavy rope knocker on the front door brought no one. Maddie looked at the antler. The fractured pieces had been carefully glued together. Eef must have repaired it. Carefully, she tried the door. This time it opened.

She stuck her head inside. “Eef?’ she called. “Eef, are you here? It’s Maddie.”

No response. Should she be polite and just close the door and leave? This time she did get a message from her inner self, and it was a green light. Fine. She’d take her own tour.

Stepping into the front hall, Maddie was caught by the sense that whoever had lived here had taken living well very seriously. After opening one of the lined drapes covering the windows, she peeked under the sheets covering the furniture. Faded floral chintz and pale silks met her eyes. Wide pine boards the color of ripe pumpkins lined the floors. An ornate marble mantle surrounded the large fireplace, and tall bronze standing lamps littered the room. A formal dining room boasted an enormous mahogany table with matching chairs and a huge sideboard.

Another, more casual living room flanked the dining room and, beyond that, an enormous kitchen filled with all that was cutting edge à la 1980. The appliances looked barely worn and, except for a thin veneer of dust, appeared to be ready for use. She ran her hand over the commercial-grade eight-burner gas stove. Her condo only had room for a pitiful four-burner. Maddie bent down and looked at the connections. They seemed to be in good shape. Remarkable.

She went back out through the living room and into the front hall, all the while half-listening for Eef. Nothing but the sound of a drape occasionally catching the breeze broke the stillness.

“Why are all your belongings still here after all this time, Madame?” Maddie whispered as she mounted the wide staircase. Almost bursting with guilty pleasure, she padded up the thick runner covering the stairs. You are one cheap date, she told herself. Reaching the top stair, she looked at the long hall running the length of the Lodge with doors on either side, train car-style. They were all closed.

“Should I or shouldn’t I?” said Maddie. “Oh, hell, this might be my only chance.”

She turned the heavy brass knob on the closest door. Locked. She tried another. It too was locked. Maybe that was her cue to let it go and leave? She chose to ignore that thought and moved down the hall. By the time she reached the last door, she’d counted eleven doors—all locked.

“You’re my last desperately snoopy hope,” she told the door.

When she reached for the knob her hand touched glass, not brass. “Aren’t you pretty,” she said, putting her hand around the prism-cut knob. It turned easily and the door opened into a semi-dark room filled with sheet-covered furniture.

“Not exactly a treasure room,” said Maddie.

Once her eyes adjusted to the gloom she walked over to what she supposed was a bureau and lifted up the sheet. Staring back at her from a painting was a young, dark-eyed woman holding an infant. Both were dressed in white lace and neither looked particularly happy. She put the sheet back down and walked over to the bed. A pale blue silk spread with matching pillows lay under the sheet. One of the pillows was monogrammed with BCS.

“BCS? Sayao who?” said Maddie.

Beside the bed was a small stand that held a Tiffany lamp with a base in the shape of the Eiffel Tower.

“Major bucks,” Maddie said, gently touching the stained glass shade.

A large armoire stood in one corner. She gave the handle a tug and it gave. Her excitement quickly turned to disappointment. Empty. Maddie sighed.

She was just closing the door when she heard them. Footsteps downstairs. Eef? Feeling like seven kinds of fool, she jumped into the armoire and closed it. Then she realized she’d left the bedroom door open. She opened the armoire, raced to close the bedroom door and, thanking God Eef was deaf—not that that was a nice thing to be thankful for but in this situation it certainly was a godsend in the true sense of the word—bounded back into the armoire. Bizarre. This was how C.S. Lewis began the Chronicles of Narnia, she thought.

She held her breath as the footsteps grew louder. He must have seen her boat and now was looking for her. They were coming down the hall. The bedroom door opened. Maddie thought that if she could get through this without peeing her pants and without anyone knowing she was a trespasser, she would never, ever, again go where she didn’t belong.

How do people do this? She would have been a terrible thief and, of all the career mistakes she’d made, at least that wasn’t one of them. Maddie stuck her finger in her mouth and bit down on it like she’d seen in movies to stop from screaming. It hurt but it worked. After what seemed like centuries, the door quietly closed and the footsteps retreated down the hall.

She waited for the sound of the front door closing. The armoire was getting overly warm and the combination of heat and dust made her want to sneeze. When she could stand it no longer, she cracked open the door to get some better air. Silence.

Quietly as possible, she stepped out of the armoire and made her way around the room to the door. Saying a little prayer for the door not to squeak, fall off its hinges, or heaven forbid, be locked, she tried the knob. It opened. Hugging the hall wall like a cat burglar, and saying another prayer every step she took that she would not be discovered, she made it down the stairs and out the front door. Sticking close to the trees so as not to be seen, she ran down the hill faster than she’d run since she’d had to chase her boys out of various potentially dangerous situations, onto the dock of danger, and into her boat.

On the way back to Wilson’s, Maddie’s heart was smacking as hard against her ribcage as the waves against the boat. Not because of her little foray into trespassing and her escape from being found out, but because she had a plan. Well, she was forming a plan. And she knew from past experience and watching lots of Disney as a kid, that “if you can dream it, you can do it.” In Maddie’s case, if she could see it, she could do it.

Chapter 16

When Maddie came flying through the kitchen door, Jimmy was washing the floor and alternately using the mop as a dripping air guitar. Flo was wiping down the counter and muttering, “Time to have a little ‘Come to Jesus’ talk when he gets back. Just look at this!”

She pointed to a pile of empty salt and pepper shakers. She was dressed in a lime green spandex ensemble that did every curve a disfavor.

“Linda knows not to leave before these are filled. Helena comes to town and she gets even crazier.”

Maddie put her enthusiasm on hold for a moment and thought about how independent her boys had been by Linda’s age. “Isn’t she a little old for that?”

“What?”

“A ‘talk’?”

“Not Linda! Her father!”

“Her father?” said Maddie.

Flo looked at her like she was Linda’s intellectual twin. “Cal. It was his bright idea to have her here. She should’ve stayed at that singing school instead of running amok in my kitchen.”

Why did she keep forgetting he was her father? Was it Freudian?

“Well, can’t blame him for trying,” said Maddie.

“Why not? Anyone should know better, it’s him.”

Maddie plunked herself down on a stool and leaned over the island in Flo’s direction. “Flo, I have a plan. Well, the beginning of one. And I want you to tell me I’m not crazy.”

“Too late for that,” she said, dumping the crumbs into a wastebasket.

“It’s about Essencia—”

“Someone was a busy girl. Missed dinna. Got some leftover Chicken Florence—my secret recipe. Want some?”

Maddie looked at the time. 6:50. How long had she spent in that armoire?

“No. But thanks.” She had lamb shanks on her docket for later. “Flo, when you were Town Clerk, were you responsible for getting a lease going … you know, between someone and the paper company?”

Maddie had given up on finding that notice. Didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was Flo being able to show her the next step. Maddie watched as Flo peered deeply into the refrigerated pie case.

“Want some dessert then?”

“No, thanks. But I—”

“Let’s see, we got some lemon meringue, chocolate cream, blueberry—”

“Think I’ll pass. So Flo, question: how long do you think it would take …”

Maddie watched as Flo reached into the case, further accentuating her already too-defined derriere, and pulled out a bottle. She turned and with a smile that said, You only have one liver. Make sure you keep it exercised, held the bottle under Maddie’s nose.

“Sure I can’t interest you in just a little dessert?”

Of course. Flo meant the liquid kind. “Well, perhaps just a small slice,” said Maddie.

Like a magician, Flo grabbed lemon slices, ice, glasses and—presto change-o!—handed Maddie a martini glass filled with a sunflower-yellow drink.

“Here’s to you and your plan,” she said.

Maddie felt like she’d run into a wall in the dark. “But you don’t even know what it is!”

“You’re right. But get your glass up there so I can taste what a great drink I make.”

Maddie raised her glass. “To my plan?” she said and took a sip. Lemon quicksilver slid down her throat. “Flo, what is this?”

“One of Daddy’s. He calls it Lemon Sucker. Pretty good, huh?”

Maddie nodded and took another swallow. The first one was great, the second even better.

Flo put her glass down, leaned across the counter and looked at Maddie. “Essencia … you been back over there today, haven’t you?”

Maddie took another sip of her drink. “Your father saw me, didn’t he? I tried to find him but—”

Flo interrupted her. “Daddy wasn’t there today. He had a doctor’s appointment in Rangely.”

Then whose footsteps had she heard?

“Are you sure?”

Flo leaned against the counter. “Sure, I’m sure.”

Maddie took another sip, still trying to make sense out of Flo’s words.

“So, lemme guess. You wanna take over the lease on Essencia and turn it into a fancy schmanzy inn or something.”

Maddie opened her mouth but nothing came out.

Flo cocked her head and looked at Maddie like a crow would a promising bug. “Figured you two would make a good fit. Both kinda different,” said Flo.

Maddie recovered enough to take another swallow of her drink. “Who’s kind of different?”

“Saw it on your face the day we went over to see Daddy.”

“Saw what?” Maddie said nervously.

“Funny look you had. Like you could see the future or somethin’.”

“I think I was seeing the past.”

Flo grunted. “Mebbe so. Lots of it over there.”

“Future, past—perhaps they are one in the same.” Maddie pointed to her glass. “I think it’s your bartending technique. No, I’m really just—”

“Just, remember what I told you. Some parts of Essencia you haven’t seen yet and, well, that’s all I’m going to say for now. You might see ’em, you might not. Time will tell.”

Maddie had gotten more specific forecasts from the fortuneteller who appeared sometimes on the street in front of the BZB parking garage. Maddie couldn’t say no to him. Or her. She wasn’t quite sure about the gender.

“C’mon Flo. You can’t make that kind of a statement and then stop. What are you talking about? Not the ghost part?”

Flo made a zipping motion across her lips. “Let’s talk practical. You ever done any manual labor?”

Maddie hadn’t gotten around to thinking about manual labor … or who would be doing it. Flo raised a good point though. What was she thinking? Was it a lack of oxygen in the armoire that had made her plan seem sensible?

“Flo, I gave birth twice, was married for almost twenty-five years and spent most of my career working for men who weren’t as smart as me,” said Maddie. “That count?”

Flo grinned. “It’s a start,” she said.

Maddie felt a trickle of confidence begin to wash away her anxiety. “The lease would have to be reasonable. I couldn’t afford a fortune. I do believe that, with who I know and what Essencia is, I could make a go of it … with the right help, of course.” She looked at Flo.

“I don’t know nothin’ about this lease you keep talkin’ about. I ain’t been a part of that scene for too long.”

“Oh,” said Maddie.

Had she imagined the posting?

Then Flo’s eyebrows, like two gulls, rose slowly up her forehead. “But … think I might know someone you could talk to. If I can reach him, you up for a ride into town tomorrow after breakfast?” A beatific smile slowly spread across her features. Flo looked like the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Maddie nodded so violently her neck almost snapped. She would call Nina tomorrow with the news. It was pure brilliance … summers in Maine, winters in Miami. What could be better? “Really? Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

She reached over the counter and hugged Flo. Flo jerked away as if Maddie had tasered her.

“Don’t get too excited there, Miami. One step at a time.”

Maddie thought of all the steps in Madame’s staircase, which might end up being hers. She swallowed the last of her drink and went to the sink. “So the big man on fish campus hasn’t returned?” she said, ratcheting down her excitement to just shy of ecstatic.

“You talking about Cal?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t I say they’ve gone to see Helena?”

“Maybe. I wasn’t really listening. Who is she?”

“Who else? His wife.”

Maddie’s head suddenly felt like a pinball machine and her brain was one of the metal balls. Wife? An image of the night before in vivid, living color popped into her head. She tried to blot it out, but there was Cal lying with his head on her stomach. How perfect the weight of his arms around her felt.

“I thought he was divorced!”

“You thought wrong.”

What happened to her personal warning system? Maddie felt like a dolt with a capital D. What made her think he was a divorcee like her? Wishful thinking? She hadn’t asked him straight out, and she should have. His deceit. Her fault.

Flo walked to the kitchen door and stopped. “Jimmy, if I come in tomorrow morning and find the lights on, I’m gonna dock your pay for the wasted electricity. Do you hear me?”

Jimmy did another riff on his air guitar in response.

Taffy started barking and Flo chuckled. “Taffy knows it’s time for Sex in the City. Interested?”

Not in the city, not in the country, maybe not in this lifetime, thought Maddie. Besides, the show was called Sex and the City.

“Think I’ll pass. But thanks,” she said waiting for the blinking neon lights behind her eyes to fade so she could walk out of the kitchen and into hiding until it was time for Bub to pick her up and fly her far away from Wilson’s, the seventh circle of fish camp hell.

Once outside, she debated whether she should go torch Cal’s place or wait for him to arrive and do something equally damaging to him. Since she didn’t trust herself to restrict the fire to one building, she opted to wait for his arrival and spend the time devising a particularly slow torture directed at his most vulnerable parts.

No, no, no. That wasn’t the answer. What was then? Maybe Flo was wrong. Perhaps she had no right at all to be angry. Maybe she should just keep quiet about it, have dinner with him and be on her merry way.

Once she came to that conclusion, she felt much calmer. But inside her mouth, the lemon martini was going head to head with the bitter taste of Flo’s news. Maddie went to her cabin to brush her teeth. She’d just started to rinse her mouth when there was a knock. She jumped, and water spewed out of her mouth onto the mirror. Perhaps she wasn’t so calm. But at least she had fresh breath. She pasted on a smile and walked into the living room.

Cal stood in the yellow glow of the porch light. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he looked almost angelic—or innocent, at least. Maddie was having a hard time reconciling the man she’d been contemplating making love to with the wannabe semi-adulterer who now stood smiling before her. Play it cool, she told herself. The urban sophisticate. She opened the door, and he stepped inside and moved toward her.

“You left the lantern burning,” he said.

“Told you I would,” she replied.

“I missed you today,” he said.

“Really? That’s nice to hear, after all you’ve had on your plate.”

“Speaking of which, are you ready for dinner?”

Lamb shanks or no, she just couldn’t do it. “Will your wife be joining us?”

Cal’s expression was like an abacus. When he’d totaled her words up in his mind, he spoke. “Flo tell you about Helena?”

“Yes.”

“What else did she say?”

“There’s more? What, you make advances toward all the single women who come here?”

“No, I just thought she might have mentioned we haven’t lived together for the last three years.”

“But you’re still married?”

“Maddie, I haven’t felt married for a very long time.”

He couldn’t come up with anything better?

“Oh please. I don’t feel forty-eight, but I am. A truth is a truth, Cal.”

He looked genuinely surprised. “C’mon. You’re forty-eight?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Look, I tried to tell you a couple of nights ago but …”

“But what?”

“You had that little incident with the Panty Removers and, well, let’s just say you couldn’t follow what I was saying.”

Maddie winced. Her internal scoreboard changed: Maddie 99, Cal 1. Under other circumstances she might have found his beseeching expression beguiling. Now it infuriated her. “You could have told me last night. I believe I was in control of myself then.”

“Madeline,” he began.

“Do you think calling me that will help you right now?”

Cal looked down at the floor, as if maybe there was a message there. He raised his head and spoke.

“I haven’t been with a woman in a very long time. And I, I guess it just felt so good to hold you and, well, I guess I just didn’t want to spoil the moment …”

The moment? This man was a walking compendium of clichés. She put up her hands like a soldier surrendering to the enemy.

“Stop. Just stop. I think it’s probably best if we just call it like it is, okay?”

“So, what is it?” Cal looked at her expectantly.

That you are a selfish, sleazy, lying, SOB and it would give me great pleasure to watch you tied to the train tracks as the steam engine bears down the rails.

“Confusing. Very confusing,” Maddie said. She turned and started to walk out, which put her in the only other room—her bedroom.

“I agree.” Cal said.

She turned around. He looked sincere enough. But then he’d looked that way when he’d kissed her the night before. He moved to the doorway and held out his hands as though extending an olive branch.

“For all I know, you could be married, too.”

“But I’m not. Haven’t been for almost five years.”

“Maddie, just listen to me. I’ve been trying to get a divorce from Helena for the past two. Our marriage died a long time ago. But she uses Linda’s emotional state as leverage and—”

Maddie interrupted him. “Linda? You’re going to use your daughter as the reason for your duplicity?”

“No, that’s not what I was going to do,” he said. His voice had an edge Maddie hadn’t heard before.

She’d struck a nerve. Bravo for her. And now, time to finish the whole thing off. “Cal, I understand. I really do. I don’t like it, and I wish you’d told me up front. But it’s okay. I should have asked you. My responsibility. We’re both old enough to know better. I had a great night with you and—”

He took her in his arms and did that kiss that took her down and lifted her up at the same time. She found it an effort to separate her lips from his, but she managed. She stepped back from him and found herself sitting on the bed. She quickly stood up.

“Just because you can kiss like that doesn’t change your marital status.”

“You taste just like a lemon drop.”

“Just call me a sucker,” Maddie said.

He shook his head and leaned up against the doorway. “Maddie …” Cal stopped talking and took a deep breath. “Remember last night? Wayne crashing around the cabin? Well, he was trying to get a message to me from Helena. That’s where I was today.”

“I know that’s where you were. Flo told me, remember?” She had tried not to sound sarcastic but, given the pained look on Cal’s face, she’d failed.

“It looks like Helena’s willing to give me a divorce if I agree to certain conditions concerning Linda. Timing. Kind of funny, huh?”

Maddie saw nothing funny about the situation, the knot in her stomach or the dull thud in her temples.

He turned and left the cabin. Just like that. No pleading, no expounding. Just left.

Maddie threw off her clothes and got into bed. Well, she’d gotten exactly what she asked for—to be alone. Stupid. She’d just met the man. And now, by being self-righteous, she had cut off her chance to get to know him. What was the matter with her?

The screen door opened. She sat up in bed.

“Maddie?” He sounded miserable.

“Yes?”

“I should have told you. I wanted to tell you. I didn’t know how.”

That’s for sure, thought Maddie.

“I’m sorry.”

Maddie had heard those words before. She just hadn’t felt them the way she did right now.

Maddie watched as he opened the door and started going down the steps. She pulled the quilt around her and got out of bed. What difference did it make that he hadn’t told her sooner? Ultimately, she would either choose to continue letting him into her heart, or not.

Had she, Maddie Chilton—who had vowed after her divorce it would be a cold day in hell before she would trust any animal, vegetable or mineral again—just used the word heart?

Was this what travel was like on the midlife expressway once you left the safety of the rest stops? She walked out onto the porch. “Cal?”

He turned and looked up at her. His expression was a mixture of confusion and resignation. “Yes?”

“Then show me,” she said, stepping down the porch stairs toward him.

“Show you what?” he said.

“Just how sorry you are,” she replied.

His smile was broad enough to catch the light from the porch. “I can do that,” he said.

Maddie planned for him to kiss her, to hold her and maybe stroke her skin. Perhaps she’d even feel like stroking him. But that would be all. There would be nothing more than that tonight—not after finding out just how up in the air everything still was. That would be crazy and foolish, but then he picked her up and carried her down to the dock, and something about the way he kissed her face and neck ... Her body, without even asking, decided on changing the plan.

She wrapped her arms around him and the quilt fell away. Cool air licked her skin and played Reveille with her nipples. He spread the quilt on the dock and drew her down upon it. Cal’s lips were like the stars—everywhere at once.

She lifted his shirt over his head. His skin was cool and smooth. She ran her hands down the space between their bodies, then across his pecs. She wanted to close her eyes, but she wanted to keep them open too. She blew gently on his nipples. His back arched slightly and he pressed his body against hers and lifted her hair back from her face.

She felt him harden against her thigh and started to laugh. Cal looked up at her. “What?” he said.

“Nothing,” she said, before taking her hand and slipping it in between the top of his pants and his skin. He moaned.

“That’s hardly ‘nothing’ you’re headed for,” he said.

Maddie found she could still unbuckle belts without looking. “Oh, I know exactly what I’m heading for,” she said, kissing one nipple, then the other.

“How’s that?” he said, before flicking his tongue in her ear. She involuntarily tensed in a most pleasurable way. “I’ve been watching, remember?”

“Uh, no. I don’t remember.” Cal tried to sit up.

“People who skinny-dip want to be seen,” whispered Maddie, giving his jeans a tug.

“Oh ... People who live in glass houses,“ he said, running his fingers down her spine. “You’re not really in much of a position to talk.”

“Precisely,” said Maddie.

She slipped her hands around to his back and pulled down his boxers. He really did have a very sweet ass—muscular and just the right amount to hold onto. She undid his pants and pushed them down far enough to feel his incredible warm hardness against her stomach. His skin was warm under her hands. She played with the hair on his groin before sliding her hand farther down. Once again, her theory held true: nice hands lead to very fine cocks.

Before she could explore farther, she felt Cal take a breath and then his mouth did a slow dive downward. She felt his breath on the inside of her thighs and his fingers opening her slowly, before his tongue slipped into her. Maddie didn’t know how he was doing what he was doing. All she knew was, she was now a puppet and his tongue was the puppeteer and she would go wherever he took her.

She raised her hips up and wrapped her legs around his neck, pushing his face even deeper. He responded by raising his head up long enough to let her know just how much he was enjoying himself. Maddie felt herself lift off the dock and out of her body. She had never seen a night sky like the one over her head.

“Stop, you have to see this,” she said, rolling him onto his back. She kissed him hard before sliding down his torso and putting the tip of his cock in her mouth. Cal let out a small moan as she sucked harder and faster.

“Stop? Why?”

Maddie did not mean to let her body take over. But it did. Suddenly she had to have him inside her. He looked up at her as she climbed onto him.

“Hard to know which is more beautiful,” he said as she slipped him inside of her.

“Oh, I know,” she said, looking down at him.

“God, you feel so good,” she moaned, as Cal arched his back and she was taken so far up that she felt they’d both land in the lake. She wanted to slow herself down, but it was useless. The deeper Cal moved into her, the faster she moved against him until she came so hard she had to bury her face into his chest to keep from waking up all of Wilson’s with her screams.

Once she could catch her breath and then connect it to her vocal cords, she looked down at Cal. “I accept your apology.”

Gently, he placed his hands on either side of her face and kissed her. “But I’ve only just begun.”

Chapter 17

“What’s with you, Miami?” said Flo. “Been drivin’ fifteen minutes and I’ve been doin’ all the talkin’. Thought you’d be rarin’ to go. ’Stead I had to come drag you out of bed.”

Maddie had only been in bed for a few hours—and not asleep. The mosquitoes had driven them off the dock and into the cast iron bed, where they’d taken turns bringing each other to bursting in the dawn’s early light.

She had just accepted Cal’s invitation to go fishing with him later that day and was about to do some trolling of her own along his body, when they heard Taffy’s barking, followed by a truck door opening and slamming. If it hadn’t been for that, Cal might not have made it out before Flo herself climbed onto the porch and started banging on the screen door. Maddie hastily threw on the first outfit she could find, grabbed her satchel and headed outside.

Flo took one look at Maddie, screwed up her face and announced, “What’d you do? Sleep in your clothes?”

“No, I took them off first,” said Maddie, pulling on her navy flats and grabbing her jacket, which she noticed was getting a little grimy around the edges. She rolled up the sleeves so the dirt showed less. And to think she used to not leave the condo if there was a crease not razor-sharp, a hair not moussed into place. How the mighty had fallen. And boy did it feel good.

Flo stuck her nose up in the air and looked at her sideways. “Wha’d you do after you took ’em off?”

This woman has no bounds, thought Maddie.

“Went to bed.”

“Alone?”

Maybe Maddie wasn’t the only one with a nose that never quit—either that or she really did reek of Eau d’Après Sex.

Dressed completely in fluorescent pink, Flo looked like Barbie’s grandmother out for a drive. There the comparison ended. Instead of a rosy-hued Dream convertible, she and Maddie got into the black, circa Grapes of Wrath pickup and were now bouncing along a godforsaken logging road that was more rocks and washouts than road. Taffy sat in Flo’s lap with her front paws on the steering wheel.

“So,” Flo said. “I repeat: what’s your problem?”

“Didn’t sleep much,” said Maddie. She grabbed the armrest as Flo swerved to avoid missing a colossal pothole.

“Jee-zus,” Flo said, bouncing in her seat as the rear wheel caught the edge of it. “Might be nice if the paper company did more than just ruin what’s left of this road.”

“This isn’t a road. It’s an obstacle course designed by the Marquis de Sade,” said Maddie as Flo struck another hole.

“Never met him,” said Flo. She sped up over a stretch that the logging trucks had turned into a dirt washboard. If she weren’t so supremely exhausted from Cal’s hours of apologizing, she’d be getting carsick.

“So, I talked to Hiram this mornin’. He’s lookin’ forward to meetin’ you.”

“Just who is Hiram?”

“Oh, an old friend of mine,” said Flo.

Maddie glanced at her. This was a new tone, one that matched Flo’s face right now—a softness even her pancake makeup couldn’t conceal.

“What kind of friend?”

“He was a customer at the Tackle Box,” said Flo. “Had some good times. When me and Wayne was split of course.”

“Of course,” Maddie said.

“Anyway, just so happens he’s the one who knows how to get the ball rollin’ on a lease.” Flo’s voice oozed affection. What other balls had she seen rollin’ around with this guy? Maddie thought.

She knew the rational thing to do would be tell Flo to turn the car around, enjoy the last couple of days at Wilson’s and get ready to tell Nina lots of stories about the one that swam away. Instead she was considering using what was left of her 401K as an investment in a property that was on land she could never own. Who was doing the driving here—her body or her brain? And why couldn’t she manage to get them together?

“Flo, does this make any sense to you?”

From over her glasses Flo looked at Maddie hard. “You’re kiddin’, right?”

“Well, no,” said Maddie.

“Course it don’t make no sense,” she said, turning her attention back to the road just in time to swerve out of the way of an oncoming Tacoma. Maddie grabbed the dashboard.

“So I’m either truly brilliant or completely out of my mind,” she said, finishing her thought out loud.

“Usually the case,” said Flo.

She braked hard to miss a rabbit. Taffy held her position in Flo’s lap and Maddie’s stomach lurched, just like whenever the boys dragged her onto a roller coaster.

An enormous logging truck appeared from nowhere.

“Roll up your window,” ordered Flo, pulling over to the side of the road.

“Roll up?” Maddie looked at the door. Right, nothing automatic about this vehicle. She grabbed the handle. Her reflexes were so used up, it took all her will to get the window closed by the time the big rig went lumbering by. Their truck was eclipsed in a thick cloud of dirt. When the visibility had cleared to that of a thick fog, Flo pulled back out.

And Maddie used to think the bumper-to-bumper crawl to BZB was a problem. She waited until she could see the road, and then rolled the window down. Even then she got a nice mouthful of dust.

“This works out, how soon will you move up here?”

Move up here? Hadn’t Flo tried to talk her out of this?

“What, you mean you’ve changed your mind?”

“Oh, just testin’ ya.”

“Did I pass?”

“Don’t sound like there’s much left for you there. Not like you got much more than a condo. Tristan and Jack sound like they’re doing good and that Busy Bee place you used to work for gave you a nice fat check.”

Had she told Cal this? Had Cal then told Flo? Was she becoming slightly paranoid?

“And you heard all this where?”

“When you stopped over unannounced.”

“The Panty Remover night?”

“That one.”

The Night she couldn’t remember but would never be allowed to forget.

Flo pulled to a stop in front of a gate that ran the length of the road. A small log building squatted next to it.

Maddie thought about Pearly Gates, one of her favorite BZB clients. They specialized in building high-end gates for condo developments. “Nice gate,” she said. “This how they keep people in here?”

Flo glared at her. “No, this is how the paper company keeps people out. Bastids.”

Flo’s pronunciation of ‘bastard’ made it sound like it came from a swearing sheep. Baaah-stids. Maddie grinned.

“I’ll say,” she agreed. Perhaps now wasn’t the best time to share fond memories in public relations.

“Watch this,” Flo said, moving Taffy off her lap and onto the seat closer to Maddie than she liked.

Taffy looked up at Maddie and scowled. Maddie shifted closer to the door.

Flo beeped the horn and the gate started to open. Taffy barked and took a flying lunge for the windshield.

“Thinks it’s some kind of toy. Cute, huh?” said Flo. “’Cept for the first time. She was in my lap. That was a little hard on the ol’ crotchital area.”

Maddie imagined Taffy’s Fu Manchu toenails embedding themselves in her groin.

“I bet,” said Maddie, watching the gate open. As they drove through, she saw a hand from inside the building’s front window waving. Flo waved back.

“Don’t stay out too long,” hollered a voice.

“Know better’n that,” called Flo as she downshifted.

Taffy slid off the seat and onto the floor.

“Flo, your dog is glowering at me.”

“Well, pick her up and she’ll stop.”

Maddie bent over, grabbed Taffy around the mid-section and started to lift. With that, Taffy let out a low snarl, Maddie let go and Taffy landed with a ‘flump!’ back on the floor.

“Don’t pick her up by her stomach. She hates that,” said Flo matter-of-factly.

No kidding, Maddie thought.

“So where then?” asked Maddie, thinking maybe around the neck wouldn’t be a bad idea.

“Like you’d pick up a baby. Flo looked down at the floor. “You’re mumma’s baby, aren’t you?” she cooed.

Maddie bent over and tried again. Aside from behaving more like a large water balloon than a baby, Taffy allowed Maddie to put her on the seat, where she quickly sought refuge in Flo’s lap, burying her head under one of the rolls of flesh emerging from Flo’s top.

“So what’s Hiram do exactly?” asked Maddie.

“Works in some office at Far Northern. Does a lot of talkin’ about the company.”

“So, he’s a spokesman?”

“I don’t know. You can ask him yourself when you see him.”

“Is he expecting us at a certain time? Or … where are we meeting him, anyway?”

“Gettin’ cold feet?” asked Flo.

Frostbite is more like it, Maddie thought.

“No, I’d just like to know, that’s all.”

“Oquossoc.”

“Oquossoc is a …?” said Maddie.

“A town. What else would it be?” said Flo.

“Around here? It could be an Indian burial ground,” said Maddie.

“No, that’s Passadumkeag, not Oquossoc,” said Flo.

They hit the main road; Flo downshifted and the pickup went from a crawl to a transmission-shaking high speed.

“Where did you learn to drive?” Maddie said, holding on to the dash.

“You wanna do it?” said Flo just as they hit a bump large enough to bounce her up in the seat. Flo’s pink bandanna touched the roof of the cab.

“No, no …” said Maddie. She didn’t drive standard anyway. Something else she’d have to learn to do if she stayed. “I was wondering if you’d teach me,” she finished, somewhat lamely.

“Glad to,” said Flo. “Long as you do what I say.” She floored the gas pedal.

“Of course,” said Maddie. She envisioned herself screaming down a backwoods road in pink stretch pants with a dog wedged between her legs.

It wasn’t long before signs for food and tackle started appearing. They crossed a bridge across a river speckled with fly fishermen and pulled into a parking lot overlooking a lake.

“Look for a blue Ford pickup. At least that’s what he used to drive,” said Flo, scanning the lot like an eagle looking for food.

“So Oquossoc is a parking lot?”

Flo pointed to the water.

“No, it’s that lake.”

Maddie had never seen a parking lot so packed with SUVs carrying kayaks, RVs towing cars and minivans laden with luggage. She didn’t see one sedan or compact.

“We’re meeting Hiram in a parking lot?”

“Little slow today, Miami,” said Flo. “It was either that or the gas station.” Flo craned her neck out the window. “’Sides, it was kind’ve a meetin’ place for us.” She sighed and turned off the engine. “Might be a tad early.”

The “of course” light went off in Maddie’s cranium. Two women still hoping for the right one to come along. Some things didn’t change, no matter what the age. When will we ever learn?

“So that’s why you were driving to endanger,” said Maddie.

“What you talkin’ about?” said Flo, prying Taffy away from her stomach and putting her on the seat. She dragged a cosmetic bag from her pocketbook and liberally applied bright fuchsia lipstick and a perfume so sweet and cloying that Maddie could taste it.

“You stay with Taffy. I’ll have a look-see for Hiram.”

“You do that,” said Maddie.

“What’s that grin for?” Flo demanded, opening the door.

“You tell me,” said Maddie.

“Nothing to tell,” said Flo, getting out and slamming the door.

“Sure,” said Maddie, watching as Flo checked herself out in the side-view mirror, hoisted up her cleavage, pulled in her stomach and disappeared between two RVs.

Taffy went to the driver side, put her paws on the window and let out a combination whine and howl. Maddie rolled up the window so anybody else in a ten-mile radius didn’t think she was beating the dog. Trying to calm Taffy down was like trying to mollify an enraged three-year-old. When her ears started to ring and all she could smell was dog breath, she gave up.

“Fine, if you’re going to do that, you can do it alone,” said Maddie.

She got out of the truck and shut the door. Taffy’s whining doubled in volume.

The sun was just arriving on the job. Maddie walked over to a large tree standing in the middle of the parking lot.

Only in Maine, she thought, leaning up against the wide trunk and closing her eyes.

She took a deep breath then rolled down to release some of last night’s Kama Sutra contortions. Her cell phone, lodged in her back pocket, suddenly burst into “Purple Haze.” Maddie looked at the phone’s screen. “Nina!”

“Maddie?” she screeched. “Are you okay?”

“Nina! Of course I’m—”

“What’s with your phone?”

“Nina, you sent me to the middle of nowhere! Why?”

“I know! Isn’t it great? That’s just what the ad in ‘All About Me’ said. ‘Ready to find the you you never knew? Come to Wilson’s’—”

An ad in a magazine—that’s how she’d landed here?

“Nina, you have no idea—”

“Is it kind of like a dude ranch for beginner fishing people?”

More like a boot camp, thought Maddie.

“Why haven’t you called me? I’ve been calling and calling you!” Nina’s voice had ramped up to a frequency that would attract bats.

“My phone’s been dead. But Flo—”

“You mean that gatekeeper who won’t let me talk to you?”

“She’s really not that bad. It’s just that—”

“Have you caught anything?”

“Well, I’m not sure. Maybe.”

“Maddie, you’re cutting out.”

Maddie walked away from the tree. “Nina?”

“I’m here. Tell me—is it great?”

Great?? Maddie wasn’t sure the last—how many?—days could be described as “great.” But Wilson’s had been a gift and she didn’t want to hurt Nina’s feelings. “I’m having the best time I’ve had in recent history.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She’d been really stressed and crazed and totally out-of-control at BZB. That’s what it meant.

“It’s just hard to describe. I mean, Nin, I’ve taken two showers since I’ve been here, I’m eating meat—”

“Two? Meat?? Maddie, what is happening to you? Okay. Spill!”

Hearing those words, she realized that she didn’t want to spill. She wanted to keep this—whatever it was—to herself.

“No, Nina, it’s good. I’m getting some relaxation, doing some swimming—”

“If you would like to make a call, please hang up and try again,” interjected an automated voice.

Maddie looked at the screen. She’d lost Nina.

She tried the number again and this time the screen stayed black. Damn thing was dead again.

“I’m … happy, Nin,” said Maddie, putting the phone in her pocket. She’d call her later. Maybe Flo would even let her use the camp phone. Either that, or Cal must have one. She stuffed her cell back into her pocket. Maddie realized she wasn’t hearing anything but her thoughts. No barking Taffy. She’d reward her good behavior by letting her out.

When she got back to the truck all Maddie saw was Taffy’s nose and tongue pressed against the window. She looked more like a Pekinese than a Spaniel. Just as she went to open the door, Taffy’s paw hit the lock and Maddie heard a click. She pulled on the door. Locked. She ran to the other side of the truck. Taffy had locked that one, too.

Maddie looked around. No Flo.

She tried the doors again just to make sure she needed to panic. She did. Taffy was doing the same. The windows were gathering condensation. She thought she’d heard there was always air in a vehicle—unless it was under water or something. Maddie squinted through the windshield and saw she had gotten down on the floor and was trying to crawl under the seat.

“Good girl. I’ll be right back.”

Where was she going to go? If Flo came back and found the truck locked and Taffy passed out, it would be really, really bad. She didn’t want Taffy’s death on her conscience in addition to quasi-adultery or whatever she had committed.

Just as she was about to yell for help she saw Flo arm-in-arm with Abraham Lincoln—if he were alive, shorter and very tanned. The Anti-Wayne, thought Maddie. There was no other word for Flo’s expression than enraptured.

She tried to channel her fear into enthusiasm as she crossed the parking lot to the glowing couple. If Taffy’s life wasn’t hanging in the balance she would’ve enjoyed just watching them.

“Miami, I’d like you to meet Hiram Small,” said Flo in a tone that came ridiculously close to mellifluous.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Hiram.

Maddie shook his hand, thinking that even his voice was the opposite of Wayne’s—soft and measured. His brown pants and shirt were accented by a green and brown striped tie. He looked like a park ranger going to a convention.

“I’ve been tellin’ Hiram all about you,” said Flo.

Did Flo just flutter her eyelashes at him?

“Thank you for coming today,” said Maddie. “I mean, thank you for seeing me today. For seeing us—”

Flo and Hiram were looking at her strangely.

What was she saying? Stop your blathering and get to the point.

“Sorry, it’s just that … Flo, do you have your keys?”

“Why would I need ’em?”

“The doors seemed to be locked and Taffy—”

Flo took off like an Olympic sprinter toward the truck. She slid under the truck chassis like a seasoned grease monkey and popped back up again, holding a key.

“This isn’t one of my better days,” Maddie confided to Hiram.

“Flo’s pretty particular about that dog,” Hiram said.

Master of the understatement, thought Maddie.

Within seconds, the door was open and a very alive Taffy emerged, wrapped around Flo’s neck. Flo’s fury was barely contained. Kind of like a G-string on an obese exotic dancer. If Hiram hadn’t been here, she told herself, that G-string wouldn’t stand a chance and neither would Maddie.

“Taffy says she forgives you,” said Flo.

“Glad to hear it,” Maddie said, slowly exhaling.

“Might take me a bit longer,” said Flo.

“Thought it might,” said Maddie.

Her pulse slowed a few notches and her head started to clear. Taffy glanced at Maddie with a look of pure glee before burrowing her head back in Flo’s neck.

Hiram reached out and patted Taffy on the head. “Remember when we were over in Little Abenaki and she did the same thing?”

Flo’s expression shifted from fury to fuzzy.

“You remember way back then? You little varmint,” she said.

Maddie couldn’t tell if Flo was referring to the dog or Hiram.

“How could I forget?” he said, now looking more like Abe Lincoln on spring break.

“That was some fun,” Flo said and giggled. Actually giggled.

“Yes, it was,” replied Hiram.

Maddie’s overweening urge to reach out and rap Taffy on the head was superseded only by her desire to get to the point of this meeting. If you can call a gathering of three people—one of whom is holding a panting, obese but very happy Cocker Spaniel while cuddling up in a most unbusinesslike fashion to a willing-to-return-the-cuddle second person if the third person weren’t there while standing in the middle of a parking lot in northern nowhere—a meeting. This information couldn’t all have been given over the phone?

Maddie wondered if molls or stoolies felt the way she did right now. Just looking at the entwined expressions, Maddie could see these two were taking a walk down memory lane, and she didn’t need to join them. She cleared her throat. “So, Hiram, Flo tells me you’re the go-to person for leases around here?”

Hiram broke away from gazing at Flo, his demeanor shifting from besotted to bureaucratic. “She did, did she?”

“Hiram, you stop bein’ so modest,” Flo burbled.

Hiram gave Flo an “Aw Shucks” look before responding: “Have to ask you: how did you know about Essencia?”

“I saw a posting on the porch there.”

Hiram looked at her so intently, Maddie wondered if she had something hanging out of her nose. She brushed her nose with her finger. Nothing.

“Funny, ’cause this lease just came up for renewal. Hadn’t even had a chance to post it.”

“But I saw it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have even known it was available to lease. Right?”

“Seems like that would be the case, except …”

He looked at Flo like he was unsure he should continue.

“She’s been talkin’ about it for days,” said Flo. “I don’t understand it neither.”

“Well,” Hiram said. “Here’s the situation: Far Northern is electing to discontinue the option to renew leases.”

“What does that mean?” Maddie asked, hoping Hiram would give her another answer than the obvious one.

Hiram looked a tad uncomfortable.

“Far Northern wants to maintain its options for development in a broader manner than it has in the past.”

Pretty impressive mental gear-shifting for a guy who was just fantasizing about a tryst in a truck with Taffy watching, Maddie thought.

“Is Essencia one of those leases?”

Hiram pursed his lips for a moment before speaking.

“If the lease isn’t renewed by the deadline, then Far Northern will exercise its right to stop leasing entirely.”

Maddie was all too accustomed to double-speak in Miami. She just hadn’t expected to hear it spoken in a parking lot in Oquossoc, Maine.

“So does that mean I can apply to lease Essencia or not? I mean, if it’s not too expensive.”

“Should,” said Hiram.

“Told ya Hiram was the man,” said Flo. She reached up and tickled his ear. Hiram’s slight squirm of pleasure was fleeting.

“Only problem is, someone else has taken out an application,” he said.

Maddie felt like a soufflé removed from the oven too soon. Flo stopped her tickling.

“What?” said Flo. “That don’t make no sense. Who’d want it?”

Flo looked at Maddie. “Besides you, I mean.”

“Sorry to have to be the one to tell you,” he said softly.

Maddie was confused. It wasn’t just land, it was all those buildings.

“Wouldn’t the applicant have to have spoken with someone at Essencia?”

Hiram looked like he wishing he could plead the Fifth. “Usually.”

Maddie drummed her fingers on her thighs. “Any way I might be able to speak with this person?”

Hiram looked like he was being pinched. He shook his head. “Confidential information.”

How could it be that her brilliance was so fleeting? Something wasn’t right. Weren’t epiphanies supposed to be positive?

“First come first leased?” said Maddie.

“By rights, yes. But—” he stopped.

“But what?” said Flo.

“Well, they’ve had the application for a month and haven’t returned it. After Friday, all bets are off.”

Maddie’s internal soufflé started re-rising.

“Friday as in today, Friday?” Flo asked.

“You don’t work on weekends, I suppose?” Maddie asked.

Flo shot Hiram a look that made Maddie picture one of those mind readers who could bend spoons. If ever the rules were going to be altered, she thought, it was now.

“Really like to help you out on this but no, you’ll have to wait until Monday.”

So Hiram was a true company man, thought Maddie. And to think she used to respect those people.

Flo sidled a little closer to Hiram. “What about if Miami couldn’t be here on Monday? Could she call you and set it up?”

Hiram looked miserable. He shook his head. “Love to talk with you—but I can’t do much over the phone.”

“Now Hiram, you and I both know that’s not true,” said Flo with a purr.

Hiram turned the same shade as a salmon during mating season. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded like his necktie had gotten tighter. He cleared his throat. “Flo, you don’t want me to lose my job, now, do you?”

Flo took Taffy’s paw and started stroking Hiram’s arm. Taffy looked confused but acquiesced.

“Course not,” said Flo, continuing to use Taffy as a masseuse.

“It’s all right, Flo. I understand. Hiram’s just doing his job.”

Hiram shifted just enough to be out of Taffy’s reach.

Maddie didn’t know where or when she was supposed to depart. She didn’t even know how she was getting to the airport. But she knew she had time, and for now, that was all she needed.

“Well, if you need me in person, I’ll be there.” She motioned to the parking lot. “Or here. Wherever.”

So much for the days of meetings in corporate boardrooms.

Hiram’s relief was palpable. “Good, good, glad to hear it.”

“So if you don’t receive the application today, then I’m first in line?”

Hiram shook his head again. “Not quite. There’s a little wiggle room in there for the applicant. Long as it’s postmarked today, they’d be considered to have met the deadline even if I didn’t get it until Monday.”

“I see,” said Maddie. She would have to tread water for forty-eight hours. She could do that.

“Looks like you’ll be giving me a call on Monday to let me know what to do,” said Flo, sounding more like Mae West than she probably knew.

“Looks like it,” agreed Hiram, enthusiastically. He looked at Maddie, his expression serious. Abe was back from spring break. “Now remember, we’re just talking about the land. You’d have to contact the property owner about the buildings.”

“Of course,” said Maddie.

Taffy emerged from the recesses of Flo’s armpit just in time to see a squirrel crossing the parking lot. Any time Flo and Hiram might have wanted to spend in a long goodbye was cut short by Taffy’s jumping out of her arms in an attempt at murder. Flo grabbed her by her hind leg just as she hit the ground. Taffy gave an indignant yelp and Flo bent over in such a way that Hiram got a nice view of Flo’s derriere. Maddie bet she did that on purpose. Flo stood up, cradling the dog and cooing.

“Ooh, Mumma’s sorry. But Baby can’t have that squirrel. No, Baby can’t have that.” She placed Taffy on the seat, but Taffy was having none of it. She jumped down and partially jammed herself under the gas pedal. “Guess we ought to go. If she gets too upset, she throws up.” She pried Taffy out and put her on her lap.

“I’ll be talking to you soon,” said Hiram.

As he slammed Flo’s door shut, he touched her on the cheek. Hiram was still waving goodbye as Flo pulled out of the parking lot.

“Nice guy,” Maddie said.

“You betcha,” said Flo, gripping the wheel and stomping on the gas. Maddie felt her head snap as they peeled onto the main road. “Sorry, wanted to get in front of that truck,” she said.

Maddie was so consumed with the fly in the lease ointment, she hadn’t even noticed the semi coming at them on her side of the truck.

“Thanks, I think,” she said, making sure nothing was broken.

“Don’t make no sense,” said Flo.

“No, I think I would have waited for the truck to go by,” said Maddie, watching the roadside turn into a green smear.

“No, it don’t make no sense that Daddy wouldn’t have said somethin’ to me about this—unless he didn’t know.”

“Flo, do you know who owns the buildings at Essencia now?”

Flo shrugged. “Dunno. Family, I suppose.”

“So Madame had children?”

“Yep. But I never knew her. Don’t even know if she’s still alive.”

“That was it? Just one?”

“Think so. All’s I know is, Daddy’s been able to be there.”

“So, wouldn’t your father know who owned Essencia now?”

“Miami, you only have a coupla days before you get your answer. Just sit tight.”

Flo was right. Patience and—as far as Cal was concerned—silence. Not her strong suits, particularly at a time when she really wanted Essencia and she was finding she really wanted Cal. But she couldn’t tell him, because, if the idea sounded a bit bizarre to her, how would it sound to him? And was she making decisions based on some form of rational thought or delusion? Or the way the small of his back perfectly fit her hand?

“You can figure out something to do with yourself until then.”

“You bet,” said Maddie.

She’d stay away from Cal for the next two days. After she went fishing with him this afternoon. There was no getting around that. Discipline. She would just have to keep her mouth shut. Like Flo’s driving, this was where the rubber met the road. And, she thought, crossing her fingers, not where their vehicle crashed with a truck.

Chapter 18

By the time they returned to Wilson’s, it was past lunchtime. They were greeted by smoke pouring out of the kitchen door and windows. Flo jumped out of the truck almost before she’d taken the key out of the ignition. Along with the smoke, Linda’s voice filled the air. She was singing a full-bore version of Tina Turner’s “Rollin’ Down the River.” Maddie didn’t even need to see her to know how she was dressed.

Before she had time to get out of the truck, Cal came out the door holding a big tray of blackened tortilla chips. Over the sound of Linda’s high-heeled boots playing percussion on the kitchen floor, Wayne’s attempt at harmony was unceremoniously cut off by Flo. “What in God’s green pasture is goin’ on here?” she yelled.

Cal walked over to the truck. “How was your trip to the real world?”

Maddie looked at the smudge over his blue eyes, his blackened shirt and listened to Flo’s tirade and Linda’s boot solo. “Not nearly as peaceful as here,” she said.

This morning seemed like a long time ago. Had she actually missed him?

“You smell like nachos,” she said.

“Well, that’s as close as you’ll get to having them today. Wayne doesn’t seem to understand you have to watch what you put under the broiler.”

Flo’s voice grew louder. “How many times have I told you not to play with the stove, Wayne? Jeezus H. Christ!! Trying to burn the place down?”

Linda’s boots and Wayne’s backup vocals ceased. Silence reigned. Maddie and Cal waited for the next display, like spectators at a fireworks show.

“Let me just get rid of these,” Cal said and headed into the woods.

Next came Tina Turner’s twin—if Tina had been white. She walked up to Maddie. “Thanks for giving my phone to my Dad.”

“Oh, you’re welcome.”

A mutually favorable exchange! Took five days but she’d broken through, thought Maddie.

“Yeah. I was trying to get a new one. And, since he told Mom I threw it in the lake, I won’t have any phone until I can pay for it. So, thanks.”

She stalked off.

But I never told him she threw it in the lake, Maddie thought. Must have been wetter than I thought when I handed it back. Oh, well. Guess she could finally cross Linda off her list of “People To Get To Know Better at Wilson’s.”

Flo came steaming out of the kitchen and headed for the truck. She looked like a walking dish of strawberry ice cream, especially since her face was now the color of a Maraschino cherries. Her words spewed like the canned whipped cream Jimmy liked so much.

“Shoulda’ known better to ask Wayne to do anything. He could screw up a wet dream.”

She grabbed Taffy from the truck and slammed the door extra hard. Taffy ran directly to the woods and the smoldering nacho pan and stuck her nose in it.

“You get out of there right now or no pizza!” Flo yelled, heading for the dog.

Taffy, now looking more like a raccoon than a dog, ran under the truck. Flo grabbed the pan and headed in just as Cal was coming out the kitchen door. She shot him a none-too-happy look as he moved off the path for her. The kitchen door slammed in her wake.

Cal took her hand.

“What did you do to her?” Maddie asked.

“Born the wrong gender?” said Cal.

“Oh, give Flo a little more credit. She likes men.”

“I’ve never seen that.”

You should have seen her today then, thought Maddie.

“C’mon,” Cal said. “Let’s go before something else happens.”

“What, like Flo setting Wayne on fire?” Maddie said.

They started walking toward the shore.

“Where’d you two go, anyway?” asked Cal. “All Wayne knew was he had to entertain the troops in the dining room until she got back.”

“Oquossoc. Flo thought I was looking a little desperate for civilization,” Maddie said, silently praying she sounded glib.

“That makes sense. Did you have a good time?”

Either there are there two Oquossocs, or he’s not listening to me at all, thought Maddie.

“Yes. Looked at all the boats, the water, the parking lot,” said Maddie.

Cal smiled. “Good.”

They reached the cabin.

“Anything I need to bring?”

“Your appetite,” he said, as his hand brushed her breast.

Since the amount of food she’d managed to consume at mealtime the last couple of days had been spotty at best, that was not going to be an issue.

“That’s all?” she replied, letting her hand advertently brush his backside.

“A couple towels?” he said, momentarily grabbing her hand. “Looks like a good swimming day.”

Maddie ran inside the cabin. She was a horrible liar and she couldn’t keep secrets and how was she going to do this? Like a caged bear, she did a few circles around the living room. She heard the engine starting and grabbed the towels from the bathroom. This was about discipline. This wasn’t about deceit. She kept repeating that over and over as she pushed through the screen door and went outside. Maybe, if she said it enough, she’d begin to believe it.

Cal had untied the line and was standing in the boat, holding onto the side of the dock. “Madame?”

Maddie’s stomach lurched. “Madame who?” she blurted.

Cal looked at her strangely. “Madame, your chariot awaits?” he said, offering her his hand.

She tried to look nonchalant as she took it and stepped into the center of the boat. “Thank you.”

In addition to the cooler and fishing gear, there was a blanket and an umbrella.

“Since when do you use a blanket and an umbrella to fish?”

“All kinds of fishing,” he said, putting the engine in reverse.

They headed up the middle of the lake, passing all the places where Maddie had attempted to catch a fish. The sun was set to a bake temperature. She’d had the presence of mind to put her suit on under her clothes that morning. She stripped them off and leaned back in the bow. Maddie wished she could come clean with him about leasing Essencia. What was the worst that could happen? He says it’s a bad idea and tries to talk her out of it? He’s says it’s a great idea and the person who has the application moves forward and she has to bow out? She went back and forth with herself until a faint smell of gasoline drifted up to the bow. Opening her eyes, she saw that Cal had cut the engine. He’d taken off his shirt and shorts and was down to his boxers. The boat was now in a slow drift.

Fascinating that a guy who didn’t go to the gym regularly or the masseuse or the dermatologist could look like he did, she thought.

And then there was the ‘this is the day after and I really don’t know this man very well, even though we were intimate beyond words.’ But there he was, coming toward her, his shirt off and his shorts just low enough to show a fine dark line of hair running down ...

Stop, she told herself. You have to stay on track.

Cal sat down between her legs and wrapped his hand around her knee.

“So ... last night,” Maddie began.

Cal reached up, gently pulled her face down and kissed her in a way that made her eyebrows tingle. Which had never happened before and which, right now, was dangerously decreasing the space she needed to keep from Cal.

He softly ran his fingers over her cheek. “Last night was—” he began.

“I was just curious about Wayne.”

“Wayne? I don’t think—”

“Yes,” said Maddie. Her thighs were getting warm, and not from the sun.

Please God don’t let me down, she silently prayed.

“When he interrupted us, did he really—”

“I told you, he was delivering a message from Helena,” said Cal, brushing her hair back from her forehead.

Read my thoughts: This is not about Helena!

“Well, trying to deliver a message from—” he began.

Maddie interrupted him. In a way, it seemed a shame to expose her apparently heightened sense of ego.

“Not about that. The other night, did you and Wayne really have to carry me back to Woodside, or were you kidding?”

“I told you; I don’t kid.”

Wayne had had his hands on her body? Maddie shifted against the seat and mentally composed herself. “Well, Wayne’s not the type to keep anything to himself. Why didn’t he say something?”

“Most likely because Wayne was dancing with Jack.”

Maddie recalled an earlier reference to Wayne’s dancing with Jack. “Jack Daniels?”

Cal stroked her foot, then began massaging her toes. Maddie had to concentrate very hard on not paying attention to him. It was a battle she was losing.

“When he gets into the whiskey, he, well, he’s kind of like someone I know when they drink Panty Removers.”

Maddie silently rejoiced. He was talking about her! “He doesn’t remember? Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Aside from being a little spooked that she had something in common with Wayne, Maddie was so pleased about his memory lapse that she suddenly felt great. She closed her eyes and let the sun caress her. Then Cal’s hands were on her cheeks and his mouth on her lips. The feel of the sun and his mouth on her face, along with the smell of the wooden boat and Cal’s own pine and water scent made her giddy.

Open your eyes and get your bearings, girl!

No boats in sight—just them in a small cove on a very large lake on a perfect day.

“Hey, I think it’s time for a swim.”

“You want to?” He pulled her into a standing position.

“Don’t you—”

Before Maddie could finish her sentence, Cal picked her up and threw her out of the boat. She tucked just in time to land without humiliating herself. When she came up she was laughing so hard she had to float on her back to keep from drowning.

God, when was the last time she had laughed so hard that nothing else existed?

“Told you it looked like a good day to swim,” he said, starting the engine.

“Hey!” she yelled.

Cal pointed a short distance away.

“Swim for shore, baby. I know you can make it.”

Had he called her baby?

“You just wait,” she hollered as he trolled away.

The water felt as warm as the air, and Maddie played porpoise on her way to shore. By the time she made it to the beach, Cal had dragged the boat up and was standing in the water, a towel draped over one arm. Maddie swam in to the shallows as close to Cal as she could without risking a full-body sanding and stood up.

“You are so damn beautiful,” he said, wrapping the towel around her.

“And you are so damn in trouble,” she responded.

“Wh—” he started to say.

Maddie pushed him as hard in the chest as she could while wrapped in a towel. He went down backwards into the water and Maddie ran screaming up onto the beach. When she was a safe enough distance away, she stopped and looked back at him.

He was doing the backstroke in a large circle. His strokes were completely relaxed and even and strong and she stood for a moment watching before sitting down on a rock to watch some more. Much nicer than hiding in the bushes or getting up at dawn, she thought.

She stood up and went to grab her clothes and the umbrella from the boat. After pulling her t-shirt on, she took the umbrella and jammed the base into what little sand there was. It stayed upright for about ten seconds before falling over. She tried again, this time sticking it in-between some rocks. That seemed to work better, until she tried to open it. Again, it fell over. She was so engrossed in engineering a successful way to keep the umbrella up and open, she didn’t hear Cal come up behind her. She only felt his very cool hands grab her hips and his wet torso on her hot back. She turned, wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, and kissed him.

“Nice outfit,” he said giving her bottom a light slap.

“Thanks,” she said and gave him one in return. “Hey, I’ve been thinking—”

“Nope, no thinking. You can do that when you get back to Florida,” he said, breaking away from her and walking to the boat.

“But—” she began.

So, had he already decided this—whatever it was between them—was just for now?

“Besides,” he said, “why would anyone want to think when they drink champagne?”

If there was a beverage she was a sucker for, it was bubbly.

Cal extracted a bottle of Veuve Cliquot from the cooler, along with two glasses. He held them up.

“I can’t imagine,” she said.

Cal popped the cork and poured. “To all that is essential,” he said, handing her a glass.

“And nothing but,” said Maddie.

Somehow, after a few glasses, they managed to get the umbrella open. Maddie put the blanket down. Cal reached into the cooler and pulled out a small crock-pot. He lifted the lid. Two glorious lamb shanks drenched in demi-glace were nestled in the bottom.

“Oh Cal,” was all she could think to say.

“And for dessert: Strawberry Rhubarb pie.”

Maddie loved pie. She especially loved strawberry rhubarb pie.

Cal lifted the golden-crusted pastry to Maddie’s face. It smelled of butter and sugar and summer.

“Did you take this when Flo wasn’t looking?”

“No, I made it while you were in Oquossoc.”

A man who made pie? What will they think of next?

Maddie reached out and kissed him as hard as she could. She looked at the pie. There, cut into the pastry, were the letters M C. “Thank you. No one ever carved my initials into a pie before,” said Maddie.

“Sorry, those aren’t your initials,” said Cal.

Maddie looked at the pie. “No way. Maddie and Cal?”

“I just wanted you to know how much I …” Cal stopped mid-sentence.

He cleared his throat but said nothing. Just sat there looking at her until she felt an overwhelming urge to say something she’d regret later. Like, “After five days of being here, I’m so wild about this place and you that I’m considering setting up camp across the lake. What do you think?” Cancel that.

Instead she poured them more champagne and they sat down on the blanket. Cal placed the crock-pot between them and Maddie was the first to reach in and grab a lamb shank. He raised his eyebrow.

“I think I brought forks …”

“Why would you want forks?” said Maddie, hunched over the meat like a cavewoman.

“Funny, I wouldn’t have pinned you as a meat eater,” said Cal.

Maddie could feel the glacé running down her chest. “Me, neither,” she murmured with a grin.

Cal reached over and licked the juice from her breast before returning to his own shank. The feel of his mouth on her was wonderful; she toyed with the idea of putting the shank down and having Cal for lunch instead, but the lamb was just too perfect, and she was very hungry.

“See? There was a reason for not eating this last night,” she said, sopping up bits of olive and garlic with a hunk of French bread.

“And that’s a compliment, right?’ Cal said.

“Yes. And here’s another: you were right about that loon.”

“Of course I was,” said Cal.

“Yes, but I didn’t believe you. And now I do,” she said, pouring the last of the champagne into her glass.

“And why is that another compliment?” he asked.

“Because there are a lot of people out there who aren’t trustworthy.”

“True,” said Cal.

“But not you. That loon is real and it took my fish.”

“Glad to hear you believe me.”

“It was a very, very big fish,” she said.

“They always are,” said Cal.

“And that,” she said, draining her champagne, “must have been one of those small bottles.”

“Of course it was,” said Cal, reaching for the pie.

She might have eaten her main course without utensils, and she might want to eat dessert the same way, but not without cleaning up in between. “Wait, I have to wash my hands.”

She meandered down to the shore and bent over. She trailed her hands through the water, stood up and felt his arms around her waist.

“Maddie,” said Cal.

“Cal,” said Maddie, turning around to face him.

“You have lamb on your cheek,” he said and kissed it away.

“You are an amazing cook. And I don’t say that to every man I sleep with.”

Jeez Louise. What was she saying??

“We didn’t sleep,” said Cal.

“Right. But you’re still an amazing cook.”

“Come here,” he said, walking back to the blanket. “I have something for you.”

They sat down on the blanket. Maddie rested her hand on the back of Cal’s neck as he cut the “C” from the top of the pie. His neck was warm and she would have planted a kiss on that golden brown skin, had he not raised his hand and popped the circle of pastry in her mouth.

“Oh my—” she said.

“You like?” asked Cal.

Like? What had he put in this? Strawberries and rhubarb and, given the way her sudden impulsiveness, some kind of aphrodisiac as well.

“You are so—” Maddie started to say, before realizing she didn’t have a single word for what he was. There were too many zooming through her brain. Sexy, sensual, stimulating …

“Romantic?” Cal prompted as Maddie cut out the “M” from the pie and popped it into his mouth. That works too, Maddie thought.

Maddie reached out and wiped rhubarb juice across his face. Then she kissed it off, took him by the shoulders and started pushing him slowly down onto the blanket.

She began kissing his chest. As she drifted farther down his torso with her kisses, she felt the back of her t-shirt lift. “If you want to take it off, you have my permission.”

“Not a good idea.”

“What?”

She looked up at him and saw that Cal wasn’t looking back. He was staring at the sky. Maddie sat up to see what was so interesting. She quickly realized it wasn’t his hands that had lifted her shirt, it was the wind. In a matter of minutes the sky had turned black and the temperature had dropped about ten degrees.

“Think we can beat it if we get move fast,” he said sitting up.

With that, the umbrella started dancing in the wind. While Maddie ran to catch it, Cal packed up the cooler and the blanket. By the time she’d subdued it, Cal was in the boat with the engine running.

“Get in the boat quick!” Cal called.

Maddie looked down the lake. Like he had to tell her that?

Given how fast she ran into the water, Maddie wasn’t sure how she made it into the boat without injury. Cal jacked the motor and took off.

“Get down in the bottom,” he ordered.

She crouched down and held onto the gunnels. Her breasts were not enjoying the whipping wind or the smacking of the boat as it hit larger and larger waves. She reached for her clothing, but the wind ripped them out of her hand. Her panties snagged on Cal’s face but the rest landed in the lake. He quickly pulled her panties off and stuffed them into the cooler.

“Use the blanket,” he hollered.

The storm was moving faster down the lake than the boat. Maddie had just finished wrapping the blanket around her when the raindrops began to fall. Each one that hit her felt more like a cupful than a drop. She huddled as low in the boat as she could, but the bottom was filling up so quickly, she had to keep adjusting her position. The rain had turned the blanket into a dead weight, and Maddie struggled to free herself without tipping over the boat.

The crack of thunder that roared around the lake was loud enough to break open the sky. As an enormous bolt of lightning lit up the lake like a football stadium, Cal turned the boat to shore.

“We’ll have to wait it out here,” he yelled. “Get ready to jump out.”

Jump?

Maddie looked up from her huddle. The boat was headed to a spot where there were only rocks with very large waves crashing against them.

“In the water? Are you crazy?? There’s lightning! I’m not getting into any water!!”

“The only way to get out of this is to get in. And when you do, grab the stern and hold on,” Cal hollered.

How prophetic, Maddie thought.

“What are you going to do?” she yelled.

“The same thing.”

Great. We can perish together, she thought.

She leaned her body toward the stern. “Cal!” she hollered.

“What?”

“What’s your last name?”

“What?”

“In case we don’t make it through this, I’d at least like to know your last name!”

He cut the engine and raised the prop out of the water. Maddie saw the boat speed toward oncoming doom. She had no choice but to trust that Cal wasn’t completely insane.

“Ready?”

“No!”

“Now!”

Maddie jumped into the black water and grabbed the side of the boat. Slowly she worked her way back to the stern. Cal was already there.

“Watch the prop,” he said.

She grabbed the handle so tightly her knuckles turned white.

“You sure know how to show a girl a good time,” she said, trying to keep her head above the billowing waves.

“Boretti.”

“You’re Italian?”

“Partially. Watch the bottom. It could get dicey.”

The boat hit the shore with a wham and Maddie’s hands were jarred loose. When she opened her eyes, she found herself sitting on a large rock, as though the Hand of God had placed her there. Cal was on another rock close by, trying to prevent the boat from crashing against the shore.

“You okay?” he called out.

Maddie did a quick body scan. “I’m okay if you’re okay,” she said. “Think I still have all my parts.”

“Since you’re pretty close to naked I can confirm that,” he said.

Maddie could see his grin from where he was standing. Such a nice grin.

Maddie looked at the sky. As suddenly as the deluge had begun, it had ended.

“Did what I think just happen really happen?’ she called to him.

“That’s the way it works around here,” Cal said. He got in the boat and started pumping it out.

Maddie started to stand, but her legs didn’t agree with the idea.

“Stay there,” Cal said. “I’ll have this done in a minute.”

“More like two minutes,” said Maddie, watching the cooler bob around in the boat.

“I’ll just get the worst of it out and then we’ll get out of here.”

“It looks like a storm in a box,” Maddie said, watching the black cloud, complete with wind and rain, travel down the lake.

“As long as we’re not in the box with it, we’re okay.”

Maddie watched the water swirling around her arms and legs. She felt like a siren who had drawn Cal onto the rocks.

“So, your father’s from Italy?”

Cal nodded and continued to bail. Maddie thought his hands were looking a little whiter than usual. Or was that blue?

“I love Italy. Where in Italy?”

“Sicily, but his family immigrated when he was pretty young.”

“To New York?”

“Montreal.”

“Your name is Boretti and your grandfather came from Montreal?”

“There are lots of Italians in Montreal.”

“You’re Canadian! That’s why you sound so funny.”

“I beg your pardon? Funny?”

“Your accent! I’ve been trying to figure it out. Mystery solved,” said Maddie. Her teeth were starting to chatter. But then the water was also starting to feel warmer and the rock quite comfortable.

“Maddie? Maddie?”

“Why are you calling to me? I’m right here,” she said.

“C’mon, let’s get you into the boat,” Cal said.

“It’s nice right here.”

“I know some place nicer.”

She tried to stand, but that didn’t work.

“I can do this,” she said. She made another attempt to move from the rock.

“Just crawl this way.”

She tried hard to focus on Cal’s face.

Maddie thought he sounded concerned but she couldn’t figure out why.

“I’m fine right here, really.”

“No, you’re really not fine. Just lean forward and I’ll do the rest.”

“No, you go ahead. I’ll see you later,” she said, trying to be helpful.

“That’s not a good idea.” He reached out and pulled her into the boat. “My God, you are like a rock, woman.”

“I’ve never been called a rock woman. Is that good?”

The last thing she remembered was sitting in Cal’s lap, her head resting against his chest and his arms around her.

Chapter 19

When she woke, she was alone in a bed. But she recognized the hall and the stairs. She must be in Cal’s bedroom. It was painted a moss green and, except for shelves laden with books, was dominated by the biggest four-poster she’d ever seen—like it had been carved from redwoods, but just barely.

“Somebody likes a lot of space in bed,” said Maddie, looking down and finding her attire to be long underwear and socks—also probably his.

She rolled over, closed her eyes and stretched. Her body felt like it had been tied to a rack and ...

What in God’s name had happened? She opened her eyes and saw a note:

A little hypothermia goes a long way. Coffee downstairs. Gone to Oquossoc. See you later today. Please rest. I may have great news. —Cal.

Today? She looked out the window.

It was morning. What had happened to yesterday? Hypothermia? Who?

She slid out of bed. Her legs felt wobbly.

Bathroom. She needed one. On one side of the room, two doors, both ajar, beckoned.

Maddie had just placed her hand on the ceramic doorknob of one when she heard an unmistakable voice.

A door opened downstairs, followed by footsteps. Were they real this time? Or was she just imagining them—like she had at Essencia?

“Taffy, you come back here.”

The sounds of paws scratching their way up the stairs … this was real.

Maddie got back into bed and pretended to be asleep.

Taffy made it to the bed first. Maddie sat up just in time for the dog to land with a thud in her lap and give her a kiss. Maddie was so relieved she wasn’t hearing things she almost didn’t mind. Almost.

Flo came through the door, carrying a cup of coffee. Dressed in red boots and a red leather jacket, like Red Riding Hood gone Harley Davidson, she took one look at Maddie and shook her head.

“Never met anyone who managed to get herself into so much trouble so quickly,” she said, handing Maddie the coffee and taking Taffy off the bed. Taffy snorted with indignation before disappearing under the bed.

“Me?” said Maddie. She took a sip of the very fresh coffee. Cal couldn’t have been gone that long. Her bladder suddenly called even more loudly for relief. She got out of bed and went into the bathroom. “Wasn’t my fault the weather around here is psycho,” she called through the door.

The bathroom was a deep purple—the color of sky before dusk. She sat down on the toilet and started to pee. She continued for longer than she could recall ever doing.

Flo raised her voice. “Boy, you got a leak or something?”

“Very funny,” Maddie said, coming back into the bedroom.

Flo was standing by the bed. “How you feelin’? Cal was real concerned. Can’t mess around with hypothermia.”

Maddie wracked her brain for some memory beyond being placed on a rock by a giant hand. Nothing.

“He almost called the doctor, but after we got you in a tub you come around.”

“You did what?” said Maddie.

“Oh, come on. You think I ain’t never seen a naked person before?”

This is all so ridiculous sounding, Nina won’t even believe me, Maddie thought. What a waste of a good story!

Maddie cringed at the thought of Flo and Cal putting her into the bathtub. Maybe it was a good thing her temporary recall had been erased. “Well, gee, Flo. Thank you.”

The color in Flo’s cheeks seemed to intensify. Is that a blush? Maddie thought.

“You can thank me later,” Flo said brusquely.

No, probably just a hot flash, Maddie thought.

“Think it must have been the champagne,” she said.

“’Course it was. I can’t drink that stuff. Dangerous. You okay?”

“Fine. I was going to take a show—”

Flo reached in her pocket and held up Maddie’s panties.

“These yours?”

“Yes, but—”

“Won’t ask why they was in my cooler. Just don’t let it happen again.”

“It was an accident.”

“Don’t need no details. Hey, I got to thinkin’ about what you said. Maybe Daddy does know somethin’. Thought we could drive over and find out.”

“What kind of ride? Not a boat ride?”

“No, the truck.”

“We can drive to Essencia?”

“’Course. Won’t be no worse than driving on this road, I don’t think.”

“As long as it’s not in a boat, you’re on,” Maddie said. She looked around the room for her clothes.

“In the dryer,” Flo said.

That Cal. He knew how to dry clothes.

Maddie started down the stairs with a thud. She hated admitting it, but her legs still did feel a little wooden. She heard the sounds of scrabbling as Taffy was dragged out from underneath the bed, and then Flo was right behind her.

“Taffy and I’ll be in the truck.”

“You brought the truck down here?”

“Didn’t know how long Cal’d be gone for. You want to surprise him, right?” She bundled Taffy out the door.

Maddie heard a clunking in the dryer. Opening the door, she watched as her cell phone stopped spinning and dropped onto the dry clothes.

Probably made my last call on you, she thought, letting it cool while she put on her clothes. After sticking it in her pocket, she scribbled a note to Cal.

“Nice bed. Were you in it with me? See you soon. Maddie.”

That should do the trick, she thought.

Even though Flo flew along the logging road at a low altitude, Maddie was still surprised how soon they made it around the lake. And even more surprised when Flo turned into a road that had two Chinese lions guarding the entrance.

Flo chuckled. “For being an opera star and all, Madame had a sense of humor.”

Maddie braced for another potholed ride from hell. But the road into Essencia was as smooth as the road out from Wilson’s was rough. “Why isn’t this road like the other one?” she asked.

“Wouldn’t know. Wasn’t like this the last time I was over.”

Maybe this is a good omen, thought Maddie.

Unlike Wilson’s obstacle course of a road, this one wound gently through some fields filled with tall spires of purple and pink flowers. Even her city slicker friends would admit it was beautiful. She rolled down her window. That peppery fragrance again. This time it filled the truck.

“Nothin’ like lupine,” said Flo.

“Nothing like it is right,” said Maddie, thinking about Cal. Between the fresh air pouring through the windows and the idea of actually getting some answers on the possibility of a future—a new, improved future—Maddie felt almost giddy.

They rounded a bend and there, blocking the road with the grader, was Wayne. Flo brought the truck to a screeching halt. “What in hells bells is he doin’ here?”

“Would the paper company ask Wayne to work the road?”

“God no, he’s dangerous on that thing.”

She laid on the horn. Wayne was oblivious to them.

“Flo, he’s got that helmet on. He’ll never hear you.”

Maddie got out of the truck and walked over to the grader. It wasn’t until she was almost directly in front of the machine and waving her arms that Wayne saw her. He waved back. Maddie made a slicing motion across her neck. Wayne nodded and cut the engine.

“Well, well, well!” His holler reverberated throughout the field. “Glad to see you’re up and at ’em. Heard you had quite a swim! Good thing Cal was there, huh?”

Well, if he hadn’t been there, I never would have been in the water in the first place, thought Maddie.

“You know it,” she replied.

“So, what brings you over here?”

“Flo had something she needed to get to Eef,” Maddie lied.

“Boat woulda been faster,” Wayne said.

“You know Flo, when she gets an idea.”

“Oh, I know. No changin’ her mind.”

“What do you think of this road? It’s a sweetheart, huh?” Wayne looked like he’d just given birth.

“Certainly is,” said Maddie.

“Boss has had me workin’ on this pretty hard.”

Boss? Here? Is Wayne moonlighting? Maddie’s mind began doing a Wheel of Fortune spin.

“You mean Flo?”

Wayne started laughing. “Oh, right. Guess I coulda meant Flo-Bo.”

“Not Flo then?”

“No, Cal.”

Maddie’s brain went into slow motion. “Cal? So he’s here?”

“Sure is. Down at the Lodge somewhere.”

Cal and Essencia? Was he the lease applicant? No, Hiram said it was no one from around here.

Maddie just wanted to turn around and run back to the truck and tell Flo to get them the heck out of there. But no, she might as well find out the bad news and get it over with. She might be flying out of there tomorrow with Bub, right on schedule.

“Flo was hoping she’d be able to get around you—”

Wayne cut her off.

“Nope, no room. I’ll just take her back to the main house and turn her around. The grader, not Flo. Didn’t want you thinking I could manage that. You just follow me.”

Oh please, no, anything but this, she thought.

“Thanks Wayne.”

“Don’t mention it. Boss’ll be glad to see you.”

Wayne started the engine and went chugging off. Maddie walked back to the truck. Flo was just getting out of the driver’s side.

“What’s he doin’ here?”

“He’s working.”

“Miami, I can see that. Why?”

“Cal.”

Flo’s expression went from angry wet hen to wounded boar. “Cal? What the—??”

“Cal has Wayne working on the road. He just told me.”

“I don’t believe it. Get in.”

Flo started the truck and gunned it.

She pulled up to Wayne just as he was turning the grader around. He looked impressed with her driving. He pulled a U-turn and headed back down the road.

Maddie saw Cal’s truck parked in the yard. Flo pulled up to the back of Eef’s cottage. Before the door was completely open, Taffy was on the ground, her pudgy little legs off and running.

Maddie looked at Flo. “Wayne said he thought Cal might be in the Lodge somewhere. I guess I’ll look for him there.”

She got out of the truck, but her feet didn’t feel like they were touching the ground. And it had nothing to do with yesterday. What was going on? “I’ll head down to the hammock,” Flo said. “Daddy might be down there. Maybe Cal’s with him.” She looked at Maddie. “And quit lookin’ like someone just poked a hole in you.”

Maddie shook her head. “I just don’t get—”

Flo walked over to Maddie and patted her shoulder. “Miami, we’ll get to the bottom of this. Don’t you worry.”

Maddie nodded. What was to worry about? She was so disappointed by her own delusion there was no room for worry.

Just as Maddie turned toward the lodge, “The Star-Spangled Banner” à la Jimi Hendrix erupted in her pocket. Her phone had gone through the dryer and lived? She grabbed it and looked at the screen. Nina calling. Nina could wait for a bit. She had to get her head together.

Maddie walked up on the front porch. The door was wide open. “Cal?”

The words sounded so strange coming out of her mouth and into the Lodge.

“Maddie??”

He was behind her. She turned and almost fell into him. He kissed her before she could stop him, so deeply the roof of her mouth tingled. Then he let her go and gazed at her in amazement. “Why are you out of bed?” Before Maddie could answer, Cal asked another question, “And how did you know where I was?”

“I didn’t. I came over with Flo—”

Now it was Cal’s turn to look confused. “You didn’t know I was here?”

Maddie’s brain was turning into cement. She shook her head. “No, I was coming over to talk to Eef—”

“Eef? Why Eef?”

Maddie took a deep breath and let fly. “I know it sounds crazy but I’m going to try and lease Essencia. I’ve fallen hard for this place; I don’t know why. Maybe it has something to do with you … and I didn’t know how you’d react and I won’t know if it can work until Monday and … there’s someone else who wants to lease it and I thought maybe Eef would know and I’m sorry, but why are you here and why is Wayne working on the road?”

Cal started laughing. He took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Maddie, not to be unkind, but maybe you should still be in bed. You’re babbling.”

He tried steering her to a couch but she dodged away at the last moment and headed back toward the door.

“All right, Mr. Bucetti, don’t you patronize me! I might be babbling, but what is going on? And why are you laughing?”

“Boretti,” Cal said.

“Boretti, Soretti, I don’t really care what your name is. I just—”

“Cataldo Sayao Boretti.” He said the words slowly, like he had a mouthful of candy apple.

“Sayao?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So Madame Sayao is—”

“My grandmother.”

“Your grandmother?” Maddie held onto the newel post for support.

“Yes.”

Maddie started out slowly, her words gradually picking up speed, and advanced upon Cal until they were nose to nose.

“Why did you keep that a secret? Why didn’t you just tell me straight out that Essencia was yours? And why are you continuing to laugh??”

Cal tried to put his arms around her, but she moved away from him and started to go outside. He grabbed her just as she hit the porch, and pulled her down onto his lap into one of the rocking chairs.

“Please, Madeleine. Just listen. I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret. I didn’t know how to bring it up.”

Maddie tried standing, but Cal tightened his hold.

“Madeline, I’ll let you go if you’ll calm down. You spent all of last night out cold. This isn’t good for you. Now, will you calm down so you can listen?”

“Yes. And don’t call me Madeline,” said Maddie.

Cal released her and she jumped up like she was spring-loaded.

“First: Essencia isn’t mine.”

“Sure. Then why are you here?”

Maddie, who had relaxed into his lap again, started to stand up. Cal gently pulled her back down.

“Wait a minute, please. Second: I’ve been trying to figure out how I feel about this place for the last three years—ever since my grandmother died.”

“But why didn’t you tell me Madame was your grandmother?”

Maddie stood up and glared at Cal. He shrugged and looked down at the porch floor. He was no longer laughing.

“Before I say anything else, can you keep a confidence?”

“That’s the same thing as a secret, right?”

“Maddie, this isn’t a joke.”

Darn right about that, thought Maddie.

“There are some King-Kong sized skeletons in my closet and …”

Oh God, thought Maddie. This is it. This is my payback for never being able to keep quiet. Could she do what Cal was asking her? She looked at his face. Sincerity was positively oozing from his pores. Her ire was rapidly being replaced by anxiety.

“I can do this,” said Maddie.

“Maddie, I’m not asking if you can, I’m asking if you will. This isn’t some kind of challenge.”

Oh yes it is, thought Maddie.

“No, I mean, I can. I will. You can tell me anything you want. Well, unless it’s criminal, then I’d have to turn you in—”

Cal put up his hands and stood. “Forget it. Let’s just—”

Maddie touched his arm. “Cal, I’m joking. Remember, you were just laughing a little while ago?”

“This probably isn’t the best time for joking,” he said.

“I’m sorry. It’s more nerves than anything.”

Cal took a deep breath and sat back down. Maddie sat down with him. “Bear with me,” he said. Maddie nodded. “My grandfather died the year my mother was born.”

“And your grandmother never remarried?”

“No, my mother would tour with her. She was raised by nannies more than her own mother—even when they were here. Madame was pretty much absorbed in her own life. My mother was an afterthought.”

“And your father?”

Maddie did recall Cal not wanting to talk about his father, but that was about all.

“He was an opera buff, a very big fan of my grandmother. He was a frequent and very generous guest here. I think, or I’d like to think, he fell in love with my mother here.”

“But after he died, your mother raised you alone? Just like your grandmother raised her?”

Cal took another deep breath. The way this was going, Maddie hoped he didn’t start to hyperventilate.

“No, not just like that. My mother, she never got over Cataldo’s abandoning her. And, well, by the time I was five, she’d pretty much become addicted to antidepressants. She died of an overdose.”

“I’m so sorry, Cal.”

Cal shook off her remark like a wet dog.

“It was a long time ago.”

“So why did your father desert you?”

Cal looked like he’d just stepped on a nail. “He didn’t—at least financially. After my grandmother died, she left enough information for me to piece the truth together.”

“What kind of information?” Maddie asked.

“Letters between her and Cataldo.”

“Why would they write to—?”

“Let’s just say, they were more than friends.”

Cataldo was with both Cal’s mother and his grandmother? Maddie’s stomach got a little queasy.

“What a—”

“Told you. He wasn’t a nice person.”

“Who gave you the letters?” Maddie asked.

Cal hesitated for a moment, like he was at a racetrack making his next bet. “Eef.”

“Eef! She gave them to Eef?”

A few pieces of the bizarre little puzzle fell together in Maddie’s mind. Madame was one smart cookie. Eef was a good choice: a man who sees everything but says little. What better confidant?

“Guess my grandmother trusted him more than her lawyer.”

And what better payment than tenancy for life? Maddie thought.

“So, Eef knows who you are and Flo doesn’t?”

“Not yet,” said Cal.

“Oh boy. And so … the money?”

Cal looked straight ahead. “My father’s money—and there is a lot of it—is all dirty.”

“You mean illegal?”

Cal nodded.

“Your inheritance is from—?”

“Gambling.”

Big deal, thought Maddie.

“Lots of people gamble, Cal. That doesn’t mean the money is—”

“No, organized gambling. Very organized.”

“Oh.”

His father was a criminal? Or had been?

“You bought Wilson’s with this inheritance?”

“Yes, but I didn’t know where the money came from until last year. My grandmother made Eef promise not to tell me unless I came back here. He waited until I’d had Wilson’s for a while and then let me have the letters.”

“What would have happened if you’d stayed away?”

“I don’t know. Might have been better, in a way.”

It was like being force-fed heavy cream—way too rich for Maddie to absorb all at once.

“Why do you say that? Aren’t you happy about being here?”

“Right here, right now with you? Yes. But …”

Maddie had no choice but to ask the question. “But what?”

“After my grandmother died, I found she’d made me Essencia’s trustee.”

“Did you know this before you bought Wilson’s?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you just move into Essencia?”

“I needed to get away from Helena, and frankly, I didn’t know if I wanted anything to do with this property.”

My therapist would have a thing or two to say about that choice, thought Maddie.

“I see,” she said. She was feeling remarkably calm—or maybe just numb.

“So that’s your good news. You feel better about this place and now you can assume your rightful place as Essencia’s heir.”

Cal shook his head. “The way the trust is set up, Essencia can only pass to a female heir.”

The drama dominoes started falling. “Female? Trust? Heir? Linda?”

“That’s what it means. When she turns twenty-five, Linda can decide if she wants to take over Essencia, or not.”

Linda? Linda, who changed personalities like underwear, was going to inherit Essencia?

“I thought you said you had good news?”

“I do. Today Helena said she’ll agree to the divorce if I agree to maintain Essencia and let Linda spend summers here until she’s old enough to make that decision.”

Maddie had to sit down. As she did, a voice rang through the doorway.

“Hey, Miami? You in here? Daddy says Cal’s up—”

A couple of loud stomps and Flo stood in the doorway. She looked like she was about to detonate until she saw the two of them sitting on the couch. Then her expression changed into what Maddie could only call sincere. “Oh, well. Ain’t this cute. Look at you two together. Just like you belong here.”

Maddie was having a hard time figuring out how she was feeling because she was getting hit by every emotion in the book. Was belonging in there as well?

“Since you’ve found each other, I’ll go help Daddy down at the dock.” Before she stomped off the porch, Flo stopped and looked at Cal. “I’m sure if there’s anything I need to know, one of you will tell me.”

“I’d say maybe the cat is out of the bag,” said Maddie.

Cal traced Maddie’s mouth with his finger. She felt her edges begin to melt.

“I didn’t know. I really didn’t know until I met you …” he began.

“Met me, what?”

“That maybe Essencia might have a future. I spent summers here when I was small. Don’t remember much, except being happy. Since I met you, I started feeling … perhaps there could be a life here. I know it sounds like madness …” Cal trailed off.

“I don’t think it sounds so mad,” said Maddie in a small voice.

Of course, there was the slight chance they were both mad.

“I was going to stay until Monday—to see if the person who applied for a lease returned the application. I thought I would try …”

Cal shook his head in disbelief. “You were going to do what?” he said.

It was all just a crazy dream, she thought.

She looked at his shining face and saw all the lights in Essencia glowing, the pool lit by Chinese lanterns and Madame’s voice floating out into the stars. And then she saw it all pass into the night. She took his hands in hers and looked straight into his blue eyes.

“Cal, I think it’s a wonderful idea—a wonderful, crazy, beautiful idea.” Her voice clouded over as the tears started. “And as sorry as I am that I won’t be able to do it myself, I really am so happy you and Linda will.”

“Linda? I love the little prima donna, but I’m not talking about Linda right now. I’m talking about us.”

He thinks we’re an ‘us’?

“Us? But you just told me I can never lease Essencia—”

“Maddie, I’m the lease applicant.”

“You! But Hiram told me it was no one from around here.”

“It’s the trust. The Sayao Essencia Trust. No wonder Hiram didn’t connect it to me. Even though I can never inherit Essencia, it is mine to care for until Linda comes of age.”

Maddie was just beginning to understand what that meant when he leaned over and sweetly kissed her. As he did so, a warm breeze brushed across her back like another pair of hands. Maddie pulled away.

“What?” said Cal.

“What was that?” Maddie looked around the room for an open window. There was none.

“What was what?”

“That breeze. Where did it come from?”

“I didn’t feel anything—except your lips.” Cal reached for her.

“No, there was a, something—”

Maddie remembered Flo’s words—that Madame was here in spirit. She thought about the footsteps and the missing lease posting and the day she’d heard the window slam when no one was working and the strange feeling she’d had in the armoire. Her brain felt like an overly ripe tomato. Any more pressure, and it might explode.

She concentrated on the movement in the room and found it came only from Cal, who was making small circles on her shoulders with his fingers.

“Never mind. You were saying something about—being together?”

He kissed her nose. “You’ve experienced everything but what Wilson’s prides itself on. And, well, for the sake of customer relations, I was wondering if you would stay a bit longer so I can make it up to you?”

Fish! She was actually going to learn how to fish!

She looked at him. “How long did you have in mind?”

He kissed her again. She didn’t want him to stop, but she wanted to hear his answer.

“Hadn’t gotten that far. Just tell me you’ll stay.”

Maddie’s head stopped swimming. “Well, it would be a pity to go home without having caught one fish.”

“That would be terrible indeed. Stay until you’ve caught that fish.” Cal wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her head. The heat from his body crept through her clothes. He pressed his hips against hers. She pressed back.

“So, what’s your answer?” he said.

Maddie whispered in his ear, “I can’t …”

Cal looked down at her, his face flooded with confusion.

“You can’t? Oh Maddie, please—”

She looked him squarely in the eye, barely able to keep a straight face. “I can’t resist.”

Cal smiled so hard, she felt it in her toes. He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around him as he carried her to the couch. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. As she laid her head on his chest, she felt his skin warm her cheek. Maddie knew that this position—resting against his body, arms wrapped around his neck, heart almost too full to breathe—was better than any she’d been in before. And there was someone who needed to know what she had set into motion. Maddie did a quick mental summation:

She’d fallen for a love child saddled with tons of illegally gotten gain, who had a daughter channeling a different musical entity for every day of the week, whose baggage included an unknown but soon-to-be-ex wife, a large, somewhat intact summer compound begging to be brought back to life—with or without a ghost. Oh yes, and, as requested: she was well on her way to catching that big one someday soon.

Nina was going to love this phone call.

Afterword

If you can’t get up here to Wilson’s for Daddy’s special brews, you can still drink like you’re there. These won’t be quite as strong as Eef’s—but they’ll get you where you need to go. Just be careful you don’t need to go too far.

—Flo

TPPR

2 ounces Allen’s Coffee Brandy

4 ounces whole milk

Fill glass with ice, add coffee brandy and milk. Stir with spoon and chug. Repeat until satisfied. Especially good on a Friday night after a tough week in the kitchen—or elsewhere.

Raspberry Ripper

3 ounces raspberry vodka

1 ounce Chambord

Fill shaker with ice. Add vodka and Chambord. Shake, strain and pour into whatever is handy. Don’t matter what. This’ll do the trick.

Blue Scorcher

2 ounces Jack Daniels

2 ounce blueberry brandy

Fill glass with ice, add liquor, give a quick stir and sit down to enjoy. Don’t worry about getting up—there’s always tomorrow.

Lemon Sucker

2 ounces lemon liquor

1 ounce vodka

Lemon slices

Sugar on a plate

Run lemon around rim of glass, dip into the sugar. Place ice in glass, add rest of ingredients, stir and forget about everything, ’cept needin’ a refill.

Tracy Ann Lord hails from the hills of Hope, Maine, and is a fourth generation Mainer. She’s passionate about traveling—especially to Italy. Lord has spent a goodly part of her life in the mid-coast, managing to find more than enough opportunities for adventure. She has been an award-winning journalist, a teacher, director and actor, an audio-book narrator, a corporate caterer, a public relations person and proprietor of a baking business called Humble Pie. Tracy has a life-long love affair with Maine and its most beguiling natural resource—water. She believes that life’s greatest pleasures involve being on or in a lake, river or ocean. She’s raised two fifth-generation girls, Clarissa and Gillian.

You can find Tracy on the Web at www.tracyannlord.com.