Молли Харпер - And One Last Thing...

In an entire childhood of fishing, I think I caught a grand total of three fish.

But the point of fishing was our talks. Gammy would tell me about the adventures she had before she got married, sneaking away to Memphis for weekends with her high school friends, serving as a nude model for art class at her college, singing in a piano bar under the name Georgia Lutece. There was an episode involving her dating identical twins from a military school up the road, but given Mama’s expression when I repeated it, I don’t think that I was supposed to know about it. When Gammy died, her will dictated that her whole family gather at the dock, drink daiquiris, and tell funny stories about her. It was my job to row her ashes out to the middle of the lake and “scatter her at sea.” So much of the part of my life when I knew myself, when my life made sense, was spent sitting right there, watching the water swell.

So even if I didn’t still have my husband, at least I kept the dock. It was nice to feel that continuity and connection as I floated unfettered on a sea of shit.

“Floating unfettered on a sea of shit?” a voice behind me mused. “That’s good. Mind if I use that?”

I turned to find Monroe standing behind me with two beers.

“That was out loud? Damn it,” I groused. “Look, I promise I’m not going naked swimming or boating or waterskiing or anything that will in any way place myself in danger, so you don’t have to worry about jumping in and ‘accidentally’ feeling me up in the course of saving me.”

“I just came by to apologize,” he said.

I did not expect that, which was evidenced by my spluttering, “I - I’m sorry?”

He grinned, even white teeth glinting at me full force now. “No, I’m supposed to say that.”

I resisted the magnetic pull of those teeth, the wide-set hazel eyes. This was obviously a trick, meant to lull me into complacency so he could mock me again. “I thought we were each going to pretend the other didn’t exist. It’s been working out so well.”

He grimaced. “I’m sorry about that. I’ve been rude. I justYou have no idea how many times I’ve had to escape from an apartment in the dead of night because a newly divorced person has moved in next door.”

I groused, “We’re not diseased, you know. It’s not contagious.”

“No, but the drama is,” he said. “I’ve been threatened by angry ex-husbands just for living within a mile of their exes. One woman told her kids that I was going to be their new daddy-before they even finished unpacking their stuff. But the worst is when they decide to make you their replacement husband.”

At my confused expression, Monroe’s voice rose to a flirty soprano. “I just don’t know anything about garbage disposals and I was hoping you could come over and take a look at it. In return, I would be willing to cook you a nice candlelit dinner.” He groaned, his voice returning to normal. “Next thing I know, I’ve got some woman breaking into my apartment with a baseball bat to tell me that if I don’t appreciate her sorting my sock drawers for me, she’ll go find someone who will.”

I giggled, tried to stop, and ended up giggling more. I hadn’t laughed like this since, well, a long time before the Beebee revelation. It felt so good, like I was using muscles I hadn’t stretched in months.

“It’s not that funny!” he rumbled, drinking his beer.

“How many times has this happened?” I asked.

“Four!” Monroe exploded. “One of them was sixty! She kept mixing me up with her husband and calling me Herbert.”

“So that certainly explains why your entire face shut down when I said the words ‘newly separated,” I said, wiping at my eyes. “And why you’ve been, well, sort of a prick.”

“I shouldn’t have reacted that way. And I shouldn’t have yelled at you the other night. I just saw you in the water and thought it was some bizarre nude Ophelia thing. And I thought, ‘Oh, God, it’s starting again.”

I sniffed, giving my eyes one last swipe. “But you still jumped in after me. So you do have a little bit of a rescuer’s complex.”

“I debated it for a few seconds,” he admitted.

“Well, that’s because you hate people.”

Monroe seemed offended. “I don’t hate people.”

“Well, you do a remarkable impression. Okay, so you’re not a misanthrope. Then why the seclusion? Why live up here in the middle of nowhere? I mean, I’m up here because I’m not fit for interaction with normal people. What’s your story?”

“I live up here because it’s quiet, the rent is cheap, and I like the view.”

I waited a beat to let him say more, and when he didn’t, I said, “That is disappointing. I had this whole ex-con, porn addict, possible serial killer persona built up for you.” At his aghast expression, I added, “I have a vivid imagination.”

“I thought maybe if I was rude enough, I could just destroy any romantic chances you thought there might be between us. And then you’d move out and leave me alone in peace.”

“You really do think a lot of yourself, don’t you?” I said, shaking my head at him.

He leveled his gaze at me. “Four times, Lacey.”

“You really thought you could chase me off just by being rude? What was your backup plan? Rattling chains in my attic and making me think the cabin was haunted?”

He shrugged. “I thought about something like that, but infestations of flies are too hard to round up at the last minute. Plus, there’s no outside access to your attic.”

“I’m going to choose to believe you’re just joking and that you didn’t actually check,” I told him. “So what has changed your mind about me not being a total pariah?”

Monroe took this as an invitation and sat next to me, easing his feet into the water. “Well, beyond the nude swimming, you seem pretty normal. You’ve had visitors and they haven’t commanded me to take care of you, threatened me to stay away from you, or otherwise approached me. And you don’t seem to want anything to do with me.”

“So because I don’t want anything to do with you… that makes you want to get to know me?”

“Basically.”

“You are contrary.”

“Yep,” he said, grinning. He pointed to my head. “You have something different going on up here.”

I retorted, “You don’t know the half of it.”

“No, your hair.”

I ran a hand through it. “Yeah, my brother got me drunk and cut it. It’s sort of a thing with him.”

Monroe pursed his lips. “Interesting. Did that girl with all the cranial accessories catch up to you?”

“You saw Maya?”

“She was hard to miss,” he said, gesturing to where Maya’s piercings were. “She came to my place first and I told her where to find you.”

“Okay, new rule-when strangers with face piercings come looking for me, don’t tell them where I live,” I said as I accepted the beer. I laughed, took a sip, and winced. “You know, there’s a reason I only drink booze with fruit in the title. I’m not good at the casual beer drinking.”

“Would it help if I chanted chug chug chug?”

“So you’re trying to peer pressure me? Haven’t you heard? Emotionally vulnerable divorceés are easy pickins, we don’t need drunkenness as an excuse. We throw ourselves at every available man to prove we’re still sexually relevant.”

He took a moment, I prefer to think, to make the blood go back to the appropriate places. “Okay, I deserved that one.”

“And, please, the moon glittering on the water, gentle waves lapping against the shore, cold beer, clever innuendos. This is a terrible seduction scenario.” I paused to take another drink and then added, “Amateur.”

He sighed. “I’d really like to sidestep all the weird tension stuff and just be two people who happen to live near each other. You seem like a nice person and it takes up too much energy to try to ignore you. You’re un-ignorable.”