The Wanderer
Author: Robyn Carr
“Your friendship is important to me,” he told her. “I need it.”
“Sure. Your friendship is important to me, too,” she had said. “But I didn’t kiss you. I kissed you back. And I wanted to. So understand something, Mac. If you ever do anything like that again, you better mean it. And you better not turn and run.”
After a long silence, he said, “Understood.”
She pulled back then, gathered in her emotions and desires like poker chips she’d just won, so he wouldn’t know. Because she didn’t want him if he didn’t want her. She hadn’t needed Dr. Phil to tell her relationships were risks. That was the point, wasn’t it? She wasn’t fifteen anymore. She no longer risked her heart without weighing all the facts. She knew him well enough and knew enough about him to realize he’d be worth it.
But she wouldn’t have him unless he also thought that of her.
So for years they’d continued as friends, had midmorning coffee together, sat together at games and watched their daughters cheer, worked as a team at too many pancake breakfasts and school carnivals to count, and remained best friends and confidants without any pesky kissing. Or fondling. Or anything.
But she still felt that lilt in her chest when he walked in the door. She tried to tamp it down, but her blue eyes glowed. He sat down at the counter, diner empty, and she filled his cup with a smile. “I don’t think this town is going to get over last night’s game anytime soon,” he said.
“I know I won’t. I’m hoarse. I could hardly sleep. I’m still vibrating under the skin. Thanks for bringing over a beer last night—that was nice of you.”
“Eve didn’t get in until twelve forty-five.”
“After the biggest game of the year? Of five years? What an impossible child. I think you should ground her for life. Or just execute her.”
Mac smiled that lazy one-sided smile. “I didn’t say a word.”
“But you were waiting up,” she said with a lift of her light brown eyebrows over twinkling eyes.
“Well, that’s a given.”
She knew that he’d want to be sure Eve came home in shape—not traumatized, compromised, inebriated, using, holding, et cetera. The cop in him gave him the experience to make very good judgments, but it was the father in him who cared about the child. A couple of times he’d asked Gina for advice, because teenage girls don’t have to be in crisis to come home a mess. A failed date, a falling-out with a girlfriend, a disappointment—any number of dramas could look like trouble. Sometimes it took a woman, a mother, to be able to separate the real trouble from its look-alike. She found herself honored that he’d talk to her about those things even though he had Aunt Lou at home.
When Gina was a pregnant teenager and, later, as the single mother of a little one, she’d have traded so much for any father figure for her baby. Now, with Ashley a teenager, she was proud of the parent she’d become. But she’d still give the moon for her daughter to have a father like Mac.
“Ashley was in by midnight, but that’s because she brought her boyfriend with her. I tried to stay awake and listen to what was going on in the living room, but I didn’t last long.”
“That’s getting really serious, isn’t it?” Mac asked. “Ashley and Downy?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You talk to her about that?” he asked.
“I talked to both of them,” she said. “I can’t control their emotions but I can damn sure give them the facts and have a discussion about the consequences.”
“I hope we don’t end up doing some damage in the other direction,” he said, lifting his cup. “We could end up with two lonely old maids on our hands. I want our girls to have full lives, I just don’t want them too full, too soon.”
Gina poured herself a cup of coffee. “You mean end up as two lonely old maids like us?”
“I’d pay any amount of money for a few hours of loneliness,” he said.
“We’ll get a break soon,” she said. “A day or two between football, hockey and basketball.”
“We should go see a movie,” he said. “We haven’t done that in a while.”
This was not an overture—they’d gone to a few movies over the past few years. Despite the fact that neither of them ever saw other people, nothing romantic happened between them.
“Maybe,” she said. “Not a bloody one.”
“What’s the point, then,” he joked. “We have to see something we can’t experience in real life. Maybe a sci-fi, then. Or horror movie. Not some chick thing all about true love....”
“Trust me, Mac. I don’t experience that in real life.”
Silence hung out there and she thought, Don’t you dare do this again! Unless you mean it!
“Fine,” he said. “Once we get through football, you can pick the movie.”
Seven
Cooper found himself disappointed that he hadn’t seen Landon all weekend. He did see the dog and the girl with the red slicker; she apparently walked that dog rain or shine. That would be Sarah, Landon’s sister. She didn’t come near the bait shop or dock, but the dog did. At the base of the steps that led to the beach, Ham ran right up to Cooper and dropped the ball at his feet. He gave it a mighty throw in the direction of the girl and that was the end of it. From that point on, the dog and girl headed back toward the town.
He still hadn’t had a good look at her face, her hood pulled up and all. He had to wonder how this whole thing came to be. Here they were, Sarah and Landon, so far on the fringes of the community, both always alone. He’d catch up with Landon eventually. After what he’d seen, what he knew, Cooper wouldn’t be missing a ball game from now on.
* * *
On Monday, the sun came out. The day was unseasonably warm on the beach and Cooper was sitting on the deck with his phone and laptop, trying to learn more about his friend. Ben, and perhaps his father before him, had an odd way of running their business. If they discovered a need, they tried to fill it. If someone needed a place to wash their clothes, voila! A Laundromat appeared, even if it served only a few people. A few breakdowns on the freeway? Buy a ninety-thousand-dollar tow truck.
Ben wasn’t the only one with a patchwork business. Cooper had seen the same thing in many of the small towns he’d passed through lately. Tires/Lube/Laundromat/Chinese Food/Dry Cleaning. It was a survival instinct.
He looked up as Mac came around the corner, his boots hitting the wood deck hard.
“You’re still here,” Mac said by way of greeting.
“Still here,” Cooper answered. “You ready for me to move on?”
Mac shrugged. “No matter to me. This is your place. What you have going there?” Mac asked, indicating two closed laptops on the table beside Cooper. “Dueling computers?”
“I found Ben’s laptop. It’s got a bunch of websites and message boards bookmarked on it, plus a lot of emails he saved, dating back about five years. I don’t really expect to find anything, but I’ll read through ’em.”
“For?” Mac asked.
“I don’t know. It’s not like Ben kept a journal, but there might be something important in there. Maybe I’ll figure out what he expected from me. Maybe he wrote an email to someone about trouble he had around here or something.”
“You don’t have to limit yourself to saved emails, you know,” Mac said. “You can look through old and deleted emails and websites.”
“I’ll get to that eventually,” Cooper said.
“You’ll let me know if you find anything, right?” Mac said.
“Absolutely. Rawley and I went through his things. Found Ben’s old truck and a Razor, his off-road all-terrain vehicle, in that shed. I gave Rawley the truck. He didn’t say thank you, just took the keys. But the truck’s still sitting there. I guess he doesn’t have a way to move it without asking someone to help and God forbid he ask me. That Rawley—he didn’t say ten words while we worked, but he’s an interesting guy. Clothes he couldn’t use that he wanted to give to the Vets, he washed them before he bagged them up to give away. I think he’s the only reason that place didn’t fall down years ago. Now the shack is empty, kind of clean, but full of mold we can’t see. Uninhabitable.”
“You comfortable in that thing?” Mac asked, indicating the toy hauler.
Cooper laughed. “I’ll tell you what’s a pain—dry camping. I can’t go a whole week before I have to muster that camper up the hill and down the freeway to an RV park where I can dump and fill the tank with water. I’m cooking and cleaning dishes with bottled water, and I only shower with water from the tank, although I’m sure it’s safe. But at least the electricity is turned on so I can run an extension to the shack.”
Mac laughed. “Is that all you got for your time? Electricity?”
“I’m sure as hell not trusting the plumbing. But I have a plan. I have a bunch of contractors coming out this week to give me estimates on repairs and reconstruction. I think maybe I’ll get the shack in shape and sell it. I’ll just sell the structure and the parcel it’s on, though. I’m going to hang on to the beach and the point until I have a better idea of what to do.”
Mac was clearly surprised. “But you’re not going to open for business?”
“Nah, that’s just not me. Look at me, man. I’m a nomad. Thirty-seven years old and all I have to show for it is a toy hauler and some toys. I’ve never stayed long in one place. I wouldn’t be here at all except for Ben. I can’t stay here. Still...I don’t have any objection to getting rich but I just can’t sell off a beach and a promontory he obviously wanted to keep.”
“But you’re going to fix it?”
“Just to sell it,” Cooper clarified. “Then I’m gone. I’ll put someone in charge of the beach and the bird sanctuary. How about you? Pay you twenty-five bucks a month.”
Mac laughed. “Wow, that’s a hard offer to pass up. This project is going to set you back some, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s going to seriously cut into my nest egg, but I’m going to sell Ben’s tow truck. I finally saw it. He kept it at the Shell station in town and I think they’ve been using it since he died. The look on the guy’s face when I said I owned it and wanted to sell it was nothing short of grievous. Poor guy. He thought it was found property.”
“I didn’t know you were looking for it, Cooper. I could’ve told you exactly where it was. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it—that was one of Rawley’s ten words.”
“That tow truck, that was up his alley—he liked to work on cars and trucks. He always kept Gina’s old Jeep running for her. He wouldn’t take money but I swear to God, when she told him something was wrong with it, his whole face lit up.”
“I guess he wasn’t as interested in working on this place. You know how old it is?” Cooper asked. “Some parts of it, more than fifty years. The deck is relatively new, but I don’t see how it can survive a renovation.”
“You’re a strange guy, Cooper.”
“Is that right?” he asked, laughing.
“What are you going to do with yourself while this place gets worked on?”
“I guess I’ll help here and there. I’m not a builder, but I’m a competent helper. And I’ll take in another football game or two—haven’t done that in years.”
“What are you going to eat?” Mac asked.
“I’ve been feeding myself for a long time, Mac. No Auntie Lou in my kitchen. The food around here isn’t bad at all. And I bought myself a little grill.”
“Your friendship is important to me,” he told her. “I need it.”
“Sure. Your friendship is important to me, too,” she had said. “But I didn’t kiss you. I kissed you back. And I wanted to. So understand something, Mac. If you ever do anything like that again, you better mean it. And you better not turn and run.”
After a long silence, he said, “Understood.”
She pulled back then, gathered in her emotions and desires like poker chips she’d just won, so he wouldn’t know. Because she didn’t want him if he didn’t want her. She hadn’t needed Dr. Phil to tell her relationships were risks. That was the point, wasn’t it? She wasn’t fifteen anymore. She no longer risked her heart without weighing all the facts. She knew him well enough and knew enough about him to realize he’d be worth it.
But she wouldn’t have him unless he also thought that of her.
So for years they’d continued as friends, had midmorning coffee together, sat together at games and watched their daughters cheer, worked as a team at too many pancake breakfasts and school carnivals to count, and remained best friends and confidants without any pesky kissing. Or fondling. Or anything.
But she still felt that lilt in her chest when he walked in the door. She tried to tamp it down, but her blue eyes glowed. He sat down at the counter, diner empty, and she filled his cup with a smile. “I don’t think this town is going to get over last night’s game anytime soon,” he said.
“I know I won’t. I’m hoarse. I could hardly sleep. I’m still vibrating under the skin. Thanks for bringing over a beer last night—that was nice of you.”
“Eve didn’t get in until twelve forty-five.”
“After the biggest game of the year? Of five years? What an impossible child. I think you should ground her for life. Or just execute her.”
Mac smiled that lazy one-sided smile. “I didn’t say a word.”
“But you were waiting up,” she said with a lift of her light brown eyebrows over twinkling eyes.
“Well, that’s a given.”
She knew that he’d want to be sure Eve came home in shape—not traumatized, compromised, inebriated, using, holding, et cetera. The cop in him gave him the experience to make very good judgments, but it was the father in him who cared about the child. A couple of times he’d asked Gina for advice, because teenage girls don’t have to be in crisis to come home a mess. A failed date, a falling-out with a girlfriend, a disappointment—any number of dramas could look like trouble. Sometimes it took a woman, a mother, to be able to separate the real trouble from its look-alike. She found herself honored that he’d talk to her about those things even though he had Aunt Lou at home.
When Gina was a pregnant teenager and, later, as the single mother of a little one, she’d have traded so much for any father figure for her baby. Now, with Ashley a teenager, she was proud of the parent she’d become. But she’d still give the moon for her daughter to have a father like Mac.
“Ashley was in by midnight, but that’s because she brought her boyfriend with her. I tried to stay awake and listen to what was going on in the living room, but I didn’t last long.”
“That’s getting really serious, isn’t it?” Mac asked. “Ashley and Downy?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You talk to her about that?” he asked.
“I talked to both of them,” she said. “I can’t control their emotions but I can damn sure give them the facts and have a discussion about the consequences.”
“I hope we don’t end up doing some damage in the other direction,” he said, lifting his cup. “We could end up with two lonely old maids on our hands. I want our girls to have full lives, I just don’t want them too full, too soon.”
Gina poured herself a cup of coffee. “You mean end up as two lonely old maids like us?”
“I’d pay any amount of money for a few hours of loneliness,” he said.
“We’ll get a break soon,” she said. “A day or two between football, hockey and basketball.”
“We should go see a movie,” he said. “We haven’t done that in a while.”
This was not an overture—they’d gone to a few movies over the past few years. Despite the fact that neither of them ever saw other people, nothing romantic happened between them.
“Maybe,” she said. “Not a bloody one.”
“What’s the point, then,” he joked. “We have to see something we can’t experience in real life. Maybe a sci-fi, then. Or horror movie. Not some chick thing all about true love....”
“Trust me, Mac. I don’t experience that in real life.”
Silence hung out there and she thought, Don’t you dare do this again! Unless you mean it!
“Fine,” he said. “Once we get through football, you can pick the movie.”
Seven
Cooper found himself disappointed that he hadn’t seen Landon all weekend. He did see the dog and the girl with the red slicker; she apparently walked that dog rain or shine. That would be Sarah, Landon’s sister. She didn’t come near the bait shop or dock, but the dog did. At the base of the steps that led to the beach, Ham ran right up to Cooper and dropped the ball at his feet. He gave it a mighty throw in the direction of the girl and that was the end of it. From that point on, the dog and girl headed back toward the town.
He still hadn’t had a good look at her face, her hood pulled up and all. He had to wonder how this whole thing came to be. Here they were, Sarah and Landon, so far on the fringes of the community, both always alone. He’d catch up with Landon eventually. After what he’d seen, what he knew, Cooper wouldn’t be missing a ball game from now on.
* * *
On Monday, the sun came out. The day was unseasonably warm on the beach and Cooper was sitting on the deck with his phone and laptop, trying to learn more about his friend. Ben, and perhaps his father before him, had an odd way of running their business. If they discovered a need, they tried to fill it. If someone needed a place to wash their clothes, voila! A Laundromat appeared, even if it served only a few people. A few breakdowns on the freeway? Buy a ninety-thousand-dollar tow truck.
Ben wasn’t the only one with a patchwork business. Cooper had seen the same thing in many of the small towns he’d passed through lately. Tires/Lube/Laundromat/Chinese Food/Dry Cleaning. It was a survival instinct.
He looked up as Mac came around the corner, his boots hitting the wood deck hard.
“You’re still here,” Mac said by way of greeting.
“Still here,” Cooper answered. “You ready for me to move on?”
Mac shrugged. “No matter to me. This is your place. What you have going there?” Mac asked, indicating two closed laptops on the table beside Cooper. “Dueling computers?”
“I found Ben’s laptop. It’s got a bunch of websites and message boards bookmarked on it, plus a lot of emails he saved, dating back about five years. I don’t really expect to find anything, but I’ll read through ’em.”
“For?” Mac asked.
“I don’t know. It’s not like Ben kept a journal, but there might be something important in there. Maybe I’ll figure out what he expected from me. Maybe he wrote an email to someone about trouble he had around here or something.”
“You don’t have to limit yourself to saved emails, you know,” Mac said. “You can look through old and deleted emails and websites.”
“I’ll get to that eventually,” Cooper said.
“You’ll let me know if you find anything, right?” Mac said.
“Absolutely. Rawley and I went through his things. Found Ben’s old truck and a Razor, his off-road all-terrain vehicle, in that shed. I gave Rawley the truck. He didn’t say thank you, just took the keys. But the truck’s still sitting there. I guess he doesn’t have a way to move it without asking someone to help and God forbid he ask me. That Rawley—he didn’t say ten words while we worked, but he’s an interesting guy. Clothes he couldn’t use that he wanted to give to the Vets, he washed them before he bagged them up to give away. I think he’s the only reason that place didn’t fall down years ago. Now the shack is empty, kind of clean, but full of mold we can’t see. Uninhabitable.”
“You comfortable in that thing?” Mac asked, indicating the toy hauler.
Cooper laughed. “I’ll tell you what’s a pain—dry camping. I can’t go a whole week before I have to muster that camper up the hill and down the freeway to an RV park where I can dump and fill the tank with water. I’m cooking and cleaning dishes with bottled water, and I only shower with water from the tank, although I’m sure it’s safe. But at least the electricity is turned on so I can run an extension to the shack.”
Mac laughed. “Is that all you got for your time? Electricity?”
“I’m sure as hell not trusting the plumbing. But I have a plan. I have a bunch of contractors coming out this week to give me estimates on repairs and reconstruction. I think maybe I’ll get the shack in shape and sell it. I’ll just sell the structure and the parcel it’s on, though. I’m going to hang on to the beach and the point until I have a better idea of what to do.”
Mac was clearly surprised. “But you’re not going to open for business?”
“Nah, that’s just not me. Look at me, man. I’m a nomad. Thirty-seven years old and all I have to show for it is a toy hauler and some toys. I’ve never stayed long in one place. I wouldn’t be here at all except for Ben. I can’t stay here. Still...I don’t have any objection to getting rich but I just can’t sell off a beach and a promontory he obviously wanted to keep.”
“But you’re going to fix it?”
“Just to sell it,” Cooper clarified. “Then I’m gone. I’ll put someone in charge of the beach and the bird sanctuary. How about you? Pay you twenty-five bucks a month.”
Mac laughed. “Wow, that’s a hard offer to pass up. This project is going to set you back some, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s going to seriously cut into my nest egg, but I’m going to sell Ben’s tow truck. I finally saw it. He kept it at the Shell station in town and I think they’ve been using it since he died. The look on the guy’s face when I said I owned it and wanted to sell it was nothing short of grievous. Poor guy. He thought it was found property.”
“I didn’t know you were looking for it, Cooper. I could’ve told you exactly where it was. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it—that was one of Rawley’s ten words.”
“That tow truck, that was up his alley—he liked to work on cars and trucks. He always kept Gina’s old Jeep running for her. He wouldn’t take money but I swear to God, when she told him something was wrong with it, his whole face lit up.”
“I guess he wasn’t as interested in working on this place. You know how old it is?” Cooper asked. “Some parts of it, more than fifty years. The deck is relatively new, but I don’t see how it can survive a renovation.”
“You’re a strange guy, Cooper.”
“Is that right?” he asked, laughing.
“What are you going to do with yourself while this place gets worked on?”
“I guess I’ll help here and there. I’m not a builder, but I’m a competent helper. And I’ll take in another football game or two—haven’t done that in years.”
“What are you going to eat?” Mac asked.
“I’ve been feeding myself for a long time, Mac. No Auntie Lou in my kitchen. The food around here isn’t bad at all. And I bought myself a little grill.”