Skinny Dipping (25 page)

“Bill. Blondie. Wiley.” The dogs, hearing an unfamiliar voice speaking their names, slowed down enough to glance at him. Joe kept his gaze locked with Mimi’s. “Nagging only confirms in the minds of those you are attempting to lead your lower status in the social hierarchy. You receive attention by expecting attention.”

Mimi gave him a bored look.

The dogs, obviously unused to someone speaking and not screaming, stopped running and began milling uncertainly. Finally, Blondie, as though she could no longer stand the suspense, wandered over to him. Soon, the other two, curious, ventured nearer.

Joe looked at them, each in turn. “Sit.”

The dogs sat. Even Bill.

Triumphant, Joe looked at Mimi and found her regarding the dogs with slack-jawed incredulity. Her mouth snapped into a bloodless line. Without a word, she stomped toward the front door, whipping her backpack off the island counter as she went by.

The dogs watched her go then looked up at Joe.

“Okay,” he said.

Perhaps feeling the animosity in the atmosphere—Joe had heard that dogs were perceptive—they slunk toward the front door, peeking around the corner to find out what Mimi was doing. Joe followed. Mimi was hopping on one booted foot as she tugged on the other one. She finished and snatched her mittens off the ground.

“Mimi.” He didn’t want her to feel bad. He just wanted her to…to what?
Stay.

He didn’t understand himself.

Though she didn’t glance at him, she did glare at the dogs. They cowered behind Joe. In all fairness, had he been one of them, he would have cowered, too.

She whipped open the front door, turning at the last instant before exiting.

“Traitors!” she breathed and slammed the door shut.

Mimi relaxed back in the old claw-footed tub and crossed her ankles on the porcelain rim. Now, this
was
the way she’d envisioned her time at Fowl Lake. Little will-o’-the-wisps of steam rose from the water around her, and the soothing, rhythmic
plop
of the water dripping from the faucet lulled her into a pleasant state of inertia. Her natural state, she reminded herself.

The uncomfortable sensation that she ought to be doing something—heating a pizza, picking burrs out of Blondie’s coat, wishing Bill ill, would pass. After all, she’d been released from canine servitude only yesterday. The dogs, the house, everything on the other side of the woods, were no longer her concern. The only one she had to worry about now was Mimi. Who cared about a bunch of opportunistic four-footed sycophants? Good riddance to them. They had Drill Sergeant Tierney monitoring their every move. Finally, she was free. Free, free, free!

And cold.

The Big House, never intended to be a year-round residence, wasn’t well insulated. The will-o’-the-wisps disappeared in a matter of minutes, and those parts of Mimi’s anatomy exposed above the tepid water soon sprouted goose bumps. She turned on the hot-water spigot with her toes. The system sputtered and choked, rust-colored water gushing into the tub. Within a few minutes she’d be shivering again. Prescott’s water heater delivered really hot water.

She stood up, grabbed the towel off the forced-air heater, and dried off as quickly as she could. Downstairs, warmly dressed and refreshed from her bath, she wandered around appreciating the peace and quiet that permeated a house with no animals careening around disturbing it. At noon, she made a peanut butter sandwich and washed it down with an Orange Crush. She stared out the window. She didn’t see anything. No dogs. No Joe.

And wasn’t he a piece of work? Had he once said, “Thank you for watching the dogs, Mimi?” No. He’d followed her through the house, clucking at the various lived-in-looking areas where she’d spent the majority of her time. Then, to top it off, he’d informed her that she’d lost control of the situation when it was in-your-face obvious he’d meant to say “her life.” Pontificating, germaphobic control freak. He could have his control.

The whole master-of-my-ship thing was overrated. She didn’t want to be master of any ship, especially her own. If you were steering a ship, you were missing the view. Besides, captains ended up not only driving but driving people away. Like Solange had driven her off. Why had she ever wasted time thinking about Joe? Yeah, yeah, he had an unexpected sense of humor, he was pretty, he smelled good, and he kissed better. Dime a dozen. Okay, he apparently also cared enough about Prescott to drop whatever he’d been doing wherever he’d been doing it and come out here to take care of him. Again she was reminded of Solange. Her mother would have been out here in a heartbeat if she thought Mimi needed her. Yup, if nothing else, you had to give that to the control freaks of the world; they could always be counted on. Thank God she didn’t have to count on anyone.

That settled—though she would have been hard-pressed to say exactly what “that” had been or why it had needed settling—Mimi found her romance novel and spent the next four hours curled in a corner of the lumpy chintz-covered sofa. At midafternoon, she tried to get up. She could barely straighten her legs. She limped to the kitchen and looked without success for a bottle of Tylenol. She briefly considered going over to Prescott’s and asking Joe if she could borrow something but decided he was arrogant enough to think she was making excuses to see him. A nice walk would work out the cricks…. Dang. She’d left her Arctic Explorer silk-blend socks at Prescott’s. You could not spend any time outside without the proper clothing. There was nothing for it. She’d have to go get them.

As she followed the footpath between the two houses, she rehearsed what she would say. She would be civil, of course. There was no sense being unnecessarily antagonistic. The simple truth was that she and Joe held such different views on life that they barely comprehended each other. They were like two space alien species trying to exchange recipes. Not only didn’t they understand the instructions, they didn’t have the same ingredients. Like her recipe called for some kind of mushroom and his planet didn’t even have dirt.

Before she realized it, she had crossed the property line and was at Prescott’s front door. She peered through the big glass door. She saw Joe on his knees at the end of the hall, just inside the kitchen, a plastic bucket beside him. He was scrubbing the floor tiles. Suave Joe Tierney, scullery maid. Ha!

She knocked. He turned his head at the sound and regarded her expressionlessly, then dropped the brush into the bucket. He rose with fluid grace and started toward the door, snapping off his yellow gloves with the same sexy proficiency with which George Clooney had taken off his OR gloves when he’d played that surgeon on television. How could a man with hand towels tied around his knees look sexy? Because he’d rolled the cuffs of his blue dress shirtsleeves up over his forearms—and extremely nice forearms they were, too, muscled, tanned, and with a light covering of silky dark hair that ended at the wrist. Mimi was a sucker for manly forearms. He opened the door.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I forgot my socks,” she said.

He nodded. “Right. Come in.”

She sidled warily into the house.

“I’ll be right back.” He left her at the door and disappeared into the house.

“You’re scrubbing the floor,” she called after him.

“Yes,” he said.

She had to give him credit for not saying something like, “God knows, it needed it.”

“I didn’t see I had much choice,” he added from deeper in the house. So much for giving him credit.

She looked around for the dogs, expecting that at least Wiley, with whom she’d shared so many nights, would show up to greet her. She’d sort of looked forward to seeing him and Blondie. Not so much Bill. “Where are the dogs?”

“They’re in the laundry room,” he answered. “I gave them baths. They’re drying out.”

Poor dogs. Joe returned a minute later holding a paper bag. He handed it to her.

“You put my things in a paper bag?” she asked. For some reason, this offended her even more than the crack about the floor.

“I washed them first,” he said, adding, “Your tampons are in there, too.”

“Thanks.”

By dusk, it had begun to snow. Mimi, wandering along the shoreline, found herself looking at Prescott’s place. A warm golden hue illuminated the windows looking out over the deck. Poor Joe. She wondered what he and the dogs had eaten tonight. Not much, would be her guess.

Mimi returned to the Big House and a can of Hormel chili and beans. She appreciated the fact that she wouldn’t have to share her meal with anyone, particularly Bill, considering what the meal was. Afterward she considered calling Ozzie, but her cell phone service had been crappy all week. Instead, she wandered around the Big House, stopping now and again to close her eyes as she tried to populate the rooms with long-gone Olsons. She had no success. Her imagination refused to open the doors to the past, staying firmly fixed on Prescott’s house and the man and dogs in it. Was Joe bored, too? Wait. She wasn’t bored. Simply…inert.

She wandered some more, opening drawers and trunks and finding nothing until the pantry. On the floor beneath the bottom shelf, she found a box of old photo albums. She hadn’t noticed them there and, in fact, only vaguely recognized them. The Olsons weren’t much for looking back. Mimi couldn’t recall the last time someone had dragged out the battered books with their rusty black pages to look through them. She wondered whether she could find the forebear responsible for Great-Uncle Charlie’s six toes.

She lugged the box of albums into the parlor and started leafing through them. The Olson archivists had pasted pictures in whatever album was closest to hand on whatever page had room. Most of the pictures had names printed on the backs; some had dates. Many peeled off their moorings as she opened the pages, the glue holding them giving up after decades of service. Mimi began piling these loose photographs up, dividing them by families and eras. It was better than a Sudoku.

She had just started on a new decade when she heard a faint sound at the front door. Joe? No, Joe wouldn’t be scratching. A raccoon? She went to the door and peered cautiously out the window. On the step below stood Bill.

She couldn’t help the…the what? It wasn’t pleasure exactly. Satisfaction? No. Certainly not happiness. Gratification. That was it. She couldn’t help the
gratification
she felt at the sight of him.

He looked up at her. She opened the door and put her hand on her hip. He was all glossy and brushed and—she sniffed—he smelled like baby shampoo.

“So, Bill,” she said, “you’ve come to beg me to take you in, have you? And just look at you now,” she continued scathingly, “you’re nothing but Joe Tierney’s fancy-dog.”

But Bill’s indifference was supreme. He plodded past her and headed down the hall. She followed him. He took a leisurely saunter around the parlor. Here the moldy scent of albums generated a few seconds of interest; then that was over and he wandered out. Again Mimi followed.

He returned to the front door and stopped. He didn’t even bother to turn and gaze beseechingly at her. She reached over his head and pulled open the door. Without a glance in her direction, he hopped down the steps. She shut the door, looking out in spite of herself to make sure that he was heading back to Prescott’s. He was, but first he lifted his leg and peed on the bottom step.

She was cold that night and the next night after that. She kept reaching down by her feet to drag Wiley closer.

The next day Mimi moved the multiplying stacks of photographs and albums from the parlor to the dining room, and drove to Fawn Creek. Once in town, she collected some groceries, including a couple of frozen pizzas, should she just happen to have any other late-night callers, and headed to the drugstore for photo-album supplies.

The pleasant woman behind the counter, scanning her goods, asked her whether she was scrapbooking. Mimi, who had no real understanding of what that was, said she thought she might be. The woman’s face bloomed with delight, and she declared that she was a scrapbooker, too. Mimi regarded her blankly as she took Mimi by the hand and led her to a section of goods at the back of the store. Fifteen minutes later, Mimi left with a sack filled with metallic ink pens, dozens of sheets of stickers, special border-cutting scissors, glitter, hundreds of little die-cut figures, stamps, ink pads, construction paper, and special glue.

She returned to the Big House and spread her booty on the dining table. She liked the looks of all the crap she’d bought. But first she had to take all the old pictures out and clean the old glue off in the manner in which the nice lady at the drugstore had told her it must be done. She plugged in her earbuds and began.

When Mimi finally stopped for a bathroom break, she was surprised to see it was two o’clock. She glanced outside the dining room window and at once felt her equilibrium waver. She’d been bending over the photo albums too long. She needed some fresh air.

She donned coat and gloves and headed down to the beach, taking deep breaths and stomping her feet to get the circulation running. Hearing the sound of barking, she looked around and spotted Prescott’s dogs—and Prescott’s father—heading toward her across the lake. The dogs were straining against some sort of tethers attaching them to Joe, who was on cross-country skis. The dogs were pulling him, barking their protests as they went.

Now that, Mimi thought in disgust, was laziness. The poor dogs. She wasn’t even sure that wasn’t cruel. Joe was no lightweight, and those dogs, even pitiful little Bill, were really working. The dogs spied her and, undoubtedly seeing her as their only hope of salvation, veered toward her, yelping and squealing and dragging Joe after them.

As they grew nearer, Joe lifted one of his ski poles in greeting. He looked like a REI sports advert dressed in a manly-looking oatmeal fisherman’s sweater and heavy brown wool slacks. A close-fitting ski cap hugged his head, accentuating the handsome angles of his face.

When they got to her, the dogs began bounding about, nipping at her hands and legs. Except for Bill, who plopped his round little rump down in the snow and yawned. Joe smiled, his face ruddy with health. His blue eyes looked like he was wearing cerulean contacts, and his teeth gleamed as white as the snow.

Mimi felt dumpy.

“What are you doing to these poor dogs?”

“Hello, Mimi. Stay down, dogs.” The dogs didn’t exactly freeze in midstride, but they did stop trying to knock her over. As they settled down, Mimi saw each was wearing a harness.

“Aren’t they doing well?” Joe asked. “I had the belt and harnesses overnighted yesterday before the storm. This is only the third time I’ve had them out, but they really seem to have caught the hang of it.”

“The hang of hauling your butt around the lake?” she asked sarcastically.

He didn’t take offense. He laughed. Obviously something had tickled him. “No, no. Well, yes, actually. We’re
skijoring.
”

He looked at her as though he expected something to click. It didn’t. She waited expectantly.

“Skijoring,”
he repeated. “It’s a sport invented by the Norwegians, a hybrid between cross-country skiing and mushing. The dogs love it.”

Mimi seriously doubted this, but when she looked at the dogs, they were staring at Joe with adoring concentration. They’d never looked at her like that. Except the time she’d shared the quart of ice cream she’d found hidden in the back of the freezer.

“They look exhausted.”

“Oh, no. They enjoy this. All animals thrive on performing the function for which they were bred.” He sounded like Solange.

“I don’t think Bill was bred to pull you around.”

“No. But he was bred to do something more than eat and sleep. Just like humans, animals need a job. It gives their life purpose, makes them happy, relaxed, more content.” Definitely, he was channeling Solange. Could you channel the living? Maybe she’d better give her mother a call…