Лори Касс - Gone With The Whisker

“You’re not talking.”

“That’s evidence of anger?”

He shrugged. “You haven’t said a word to me since Frances mentioned Celeste, so it only follows that talking about Celeste made you think about the boardinghouse, which made you think about the houseboat, which made you think about how you’re jammed in there all summer with Katrina when it would have been a lot better if I’d been able to finish the house and we could all be staying there instead of the two of you being in such close quarters, which can’t be easy.”

The trail was now relatively flat, and Rafe was walking next to me, his long legs taking one step to every step and a half of mine. His straight black hair glinted in the sun, and his slightly reddish skin, an inheritance from native ancestors, seemed to almost glow. I felt a burst of love for him and wondered if my face looked anything like my aunt’s had. “That was a very long sentence,” I said.

“Yes.”

He didn’t say anything else, which made me laugh. “Did you know,” I asked, “there’s a betting pool going for when you get the house done?”

Rafe stopped. “That can’t be. I’m the one who sets up pools, not the subject of them.”

“Yeah, well, not this time.” He would eventually find out I was the one who started the pool, but with any luck, it wouldn’t be soon. “Absolutely no one had you down for finishing in April.” I’d been collecting money for months and the kitty had grown to the point that I was keeping it at the library in a locked drawer. And every week someone handed me more cash and whispered a date.

“Huh.” He started walking again. “Don’t suppose you’d tell me the day you have down.”

I smiled at him fondly. “Nope.”

“Don’t suppose you’d let me put some money in.”

“Not a chance.”

“How about the average date? The last date? How many people entered?”

Grinning, I shook my head to all of his questions. It was a rare thing for me to have so much information he didn’t have, and I was finding the sensation enjoyable. Which should have been disturbing, but wasn’t.

He heaved a tremendous sigh and took my hand. “Then I guess we’ll just have to go on with enjoying your birthday.”

“Guess so,” I said, and felt my heart swell with love.

* * *

The sun had slid down over the line of hills that separated Janay Lake from the majestic Lake Michigan. A small channel connected the two lakes, and Chilson was strung along the northwest end of twenty-mile-long Janay Lake. The waterside location had allowed the city council to, over the years, construct a public marina, an adjacent park complete with gazebo, and a performance shell that hosted everything from chamber of commerce awards to traveling professional shows. Tonight the stage would be crowded with a local community band who’d be playing music to accompany the fireworks, and I’d been looking forward to the evening for weeks.

Up at my aunt’s house, we’d stuffed ourselves with hamburgers, corn on the cob, and potato salad, and we’d walked the long way to the park to work off some of our intake.

“I haven’t gone to fireworks since I was little,” Katrina said, watching as Rafe and I spread blankets on the grass. “Fireworks are for kids and old people. They’re all the same. Boring.”

I glanced at Aunt Frances, but she was hand in hand with Otto, chatting away with our right-hand neighbors, a quartet of downstaters in their fifties. Though I assumed Katrina meant fireworks were boring, not little kids and the elderly, I wanted clarification. “You don’t think fireworks are fun?”

“Booooring,” she said, drawing out the word.

Rafe looked at her, looked at me, and smiled, since he knew what was coming.

“Only boring people find life boring,” I said.

Katrina rolled her eyes and flopped down onto the middle of the blanket. “You sound like Grandma,” she muttered.

For a moment I was horrified. Then I took a deep breath and calmly said, “Grandma has been around the block a time or two. You might want to listen.”

“Whatever.” She rolled onto her stomach. “And from now on, my name is Kate, okay? I’m tired of stupid jokes about the hurricane.” My niece pulled out her phone and was mentally gone from the here and now.

Kate? Did her parents know about this? I was thinking seriously about ripping the phone from her hands and pitching it into the lake when my aunt tapped my shoulder.

“Enjoy the night,” she said. “Things will work out.”

I wanted to object, to say that life could be cruel and painful, to tell her that horrible things happened to people for no good reason, but since I’d just told Kate-not-Katrina that grandmas knew what they were talking about, I should probably listen to someone of the same age. Besides, my aunt knew all about life’s hard knocks. And she also knew how wonderful life could be.

So I took her advice and went back to enjoying myself. Dusk was falling slowly and softly, as it did in the north so close to the summer solstice, and it was a sweet pleasure to sit and watch the sky darken, listen to the murmur of passersby, and smell the drifting scents of charcoal fluid and cotton candy.

As soon as it grew dark, the band started playing and the fireworks started exploding. It wasn’t the exquisitely timed production that big cities could put on, but knowing half the band members more than made up for the timing issues.

I leaned against Rafe, and side by side, eating the popcorn Otto had bought for me as a final birthday present, we watched the sky. From a barge moored out in Janay Lake, small canisters zipped high and burst into explosions of white, red, blue, green, pink, and even purple. Huge bangs made toddlers squeal and adults wince. Sparkles snapped-crackled-and-popped into fireworks that blossomed into more fireworks that blossomed into even more.

It was a stupendous show. Once I glanced over at Katrina-now-Kate and smiled to see her staring up at the sky with a look of delight. I nudged Aunt Frances, who was sitting on my other side, and tipped my head in Katrina-Kate’s direction.

My aunt nodded, mouthed, “Told you,” and then came the grand finale with its torrent of booms and bangs and enough exploding fireworks to light the entire sky.

The last one hadn’t finished fading when the crowd started applauding, and as always, I got a lump in my throat at the sound.

“Are you ready?” Katrina asked through the applause. “Because I have to be at work Monday morning and I don’t want to mess up my sleep schedule.”

“You got a job?” I blinked. “Where?”

“Oh, you know. Around.” She stood, brushing off her shorts.

I got to my feet and motioned at Rafe, Otto, and Aunt Frances, who were in a conversation with our left-hand neighbors about local farmer’s markets, to move aside so I could pick up the blankets. “Around where?” I asked. “And when?”

“Part time, is all. That toy store, the antique place with the weird name, and the old store that belongs in a movie from a hundred years ago.”

I interpreted these to be the toy store managed by Mitchell Koyne; Older Than Dirt, which was owned and run by my friend Pam Fazio; and Benton’s, a family-owned general store now under the competent hands of Rianne Howe.

“Did you tell your parents?” I asked.

Even in the dim light, I could see Katrina’s scowl. “Why do they need to know?”

“Because they’re your parents, and—”

“I don’t care,” Katrina said as she started walking backward through the crowd.

This worried me a bit, because she wasn’t looking where she was going, but she was backing away from the water, not toward it, so I tried to stop worrying.

“I’m stuck here for the summer with no friends and nothing to do,” my niece said, “so if I want to take ten jobs, I’m going to do it,” she called as she continued backing into the dark. “I have to do something to keep from going nuts and— oohh!” She tumbled down.