Skinny Dipping (27 page)

Ten minutes later she sat contentedly flanked by Blondie and Wiley, their warm doggy heads resting on her lap. She was a rolling stone.
No direction. No home.

She frowned. That wasn’t how the song went. It was “no direction home.” Oh, well. She slapped her thighs, rousing Blondie and Wiley. “Okay, who’s up for pizza?”

Joe heard the front door open and close. A few minutes later, Mimi came into the living area carrying a large padded envelope. She walked toward the couch, reaching out and absently tapping Joe on the head as she passed, murmuring, “Touch.”

“Would you please stop that?”

“Nope,” she said. “I should be charging you for this. I’m desensitizing you.”

“I don’t want to be desensitized.”

“Sure you do. Look how far you’ve come in just a couple days. You barely flinch anymore.”

“You’re reading that book by Stephen King, the one with the wacko nurse taking care of the novelist, aren’t you?” he asked morosely.

“Misery?”
she asked, delighted. Mimi spent a lot of the time being delighted. Anything that struck her as quixotic or odd, which in Mimi’s slanted worldview could be almost anything, tickled her sense of humor. “No. Why? Do you think I’m going to come at you with a baseball bat some night?”

“No. That would be too quick. You want to torture me.”

Her brows rose.

“Besides,” he went on, “unlike what’s his face, I’m not killing off your favorite fantasy.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I had this fantasy that you wore starched boxers and ironed your socks.”

He raised his brows. “How do you know I don’t?”

“I’m guessing.”

“Well, if you are really curious, we could always check. Together.”

Mimi laughed again. She had a great laugh, low and throaty. “And there goes my fantasy. Someone who starches their boxers would never make such an improper suggestion to his day nurse.”

“So…” he said hopefully. “Do you wanta?”

His pulse drummed a little heavier in his chest as he saw the inadvertent speculation in her quick glance. Then it was gone.

“Men, eternally optimistic, aren’t they?” she asked, shaking her head. “Here you are, trussed up tighter than a Thanksgiving turkey and still hoping for the best. And before you make any snide comments, yes, by ‘best’ I am referring to me.”

“There’s only one way to prove it,” he replied solemnly.

She didn’t bother answering this time, but sat down on the sofa and began peeling the strapping tape from the package. He wasn’t entirely joking in his half-assed attempts at seduction. The reason he didn’t refine his pitch was that he wasn’t sure how it would be received and he wasn’t yet at the place where he wanted to find out.

Besides, he didn’t want to screw up with Mimi again. That first day here, Mimi had examined anything he said to her for a hidden subtext. She needn’t have bothered; if he hadn’t already decided that whatever Mimi was, she definitely was not out to drain Prescott of his hard-earned cash, one day in her company would have been all it took to convince him. He didn’t surmise this because he thought her particularly moral or ethical, but because he didn’t think she had the necessary motivation to follow through with a plan that would require as much work and organization as a scam.

It wasn’t that he thought she was lazy, either. Mimi was categorically not lazy, at least not in the accepted sense of the term. It was simply that conning Prescott would not get her anything she considered worth the effort it would take to acquire. That included money. Joe had never known anyone less interested in material possessions.

She lived like a stowaway on the Good Ship Earth, someone who’d figured out a way to avoid paying her passage with blood, sweat, and tears like everyone else. Yet, that wasn’t quite true, either, he thought, watching her give up trying to peel the tape off the package and resort to gnawing on the corner (he cringed thinking about where that corner might have been). She clearly cared for things. Things like the dogs and Chez Ducky. She cared for her family. She even cared for him to some degree. She just went to great lengths to keep a distance between her and the things she cared for, a physical as well as emotional distance that kept her from investing too much.

She was frowning now, looking through a thick stack of variously shaped and weighed papers, someone’s records and files.

“Mimi?”

She looked up, her expression uncertain. “It’s from this guy, Otell Weber. He’s a private investigator I hired to try and find out what happened to my father.”

“Your father? What happened to your father?” Joe vaguely recalled asking Mimi about her father during the picnic. He’d gotten the impression then that he was around somewhere, just not at Chez Ducky at the moment. If Mimi’s father had recently disappeared, she certainly was casual about it. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“Thirty years ago.”

“What?”

“Thirty years ago. He dropped me off at Chez Ducky for the summer and went off to wander the world.” She tapped her finger on a stack of paper. “Turns out the world may have stopped in Montana.”

“Back up. Now, details, please.”

She looked surprised by his interest but obliged. “After my parents divorced when I was a baby, Dad got me for the entire summer, every summer, as part of the settlement. And that meant we spent every summer up here at Chez Ducky. Always. It was just like it is now, kids and adults stacked to the rafters in those cottages. You could go days without actually speaking to an adult. Don’t get me wrong; there were plenty of people to keep an eye on things, they just didn’t interfere with kids being kids. My dad, in particular, had a very relaxed parenting style.”

“He also must have had some job to be able to take off entire summers like that,” Joe said.

“Oh, he didn’t really have a job,” she said casually. “I mean, he worked. But not like…a career. He worked to live, not lived to work.”

She was making excuses for the old man, Joe realized. And what better way to tell the world that you stand behind your dad than to adopt his lifestyle for yourself? The whole “let it slide till it slides right on by” philosophy was beginning to make a little more sense.

“Most of the time Dad hung around, but it wasn’t unusual for him to take off for a week or even a month or two here and there. But usually not so long during the summers.”

What kind of dad just dumps his kid and disappears for weeks on end?

Me.

The word popped unbidden into his mind. At once, Joe discounted it. It wasn’t the same thing. Not at all. Mimi’s father didn’t have a career and responsibilities keeping him away from Mimi. John Olson had a choice; Joe didn’t.

Or maybe the difference was that Joe had an excuse.

How different were he and Mimi’s father really? Both had left the work of raising their children to women they were convinced were fundamentally more capable, who seemed to enjoy, no
need
, to raise them. Why had John done so? Had he truly been as footloose as Mimi evidently thought him, as cavalier and heedless, or had he been secretly relieved not to have to step up to the plate? Had he, too, been afraid?
Like Joe.

Joe didn’t flinch away from uncomfortable questions, and he didn’t now. But he didn’t have a definitive answer. Maybe the truth was somewhere in between. Maybe that was the reason behind Prescott’s animosity. Not that he felt Joe had abandoned him, but that he’d sensed Joe’s relief that Karen had given him dispensation from full-time fatherhood. Joe wasn’t even certain how he felt about that. Only that whatever relief he’d initially felt had not lasted.

When had his relief begun to turn to resentment? When had he realized that it wasn’t only Prescott he was failing but himself? Before Karen’s death? He couldn’t remember. He’d never asked himself the question so directly before. He felt vaguely disloyal, questioning the consequences of Karen’s devotion to their son. At the same time, he wondered whether it might not be disloyalty but simply seeing things with a new objectivity.

“Hey,” Mimi said. “No need to look so stricken. I’ve had plenty of time to get used to the idea.”

Joe pulled himself back from thoughts of Karen and focused on Mimi. She wasn’t as detached as she’d like to believe after all. In fact, reading behind the shuttered brightness of her eyes, he would say she was far from detached. “What happened then? To your dad?”

“I don’t know. He called from Mount Rushmore and spoke to my granddad. He said he was having a great time and had lost track of the days and he didn’t know when he’d be back.”

“That’s all he said to you?”

“I didn’t talk to him,” she said, again a little too pertly. Too nonchalant. “Busy playing capture the flag. That was the last time we heard from him. Far as I know, he’s still out there somewhere, and time still hasn’t caught up.” She grinned and Joe realized how thoroughly her self-protective insouciance had been constructed.

“And after all this time, you’re still looking? Still getting reports from this Otell Weber?”

“Still? Oh. No.” She shook her head as if she was denying some unpleasant accusation. “No. I’ve left it all alone for decades. I just hired Otell Weber last spring because I got this postcard. It must have been lost in the mail and”—she gave an embarrassed little laugh—“and, ah, it finally made it to me. It was from my dad, written thirty years ago. It was sent from Montana and I knew the people Granddad had hired originally to look for him had looked in North Dakota, so I…I just…I really just shoulda let it slide. I mean. What did I think would happen?” She laughed again. She was talking too quickly. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. None of this can be interesting to you. I usually don’t babble about, you know—”

“Personal stuff?” he suggested quietly.

She snapped her fingers at him. “Bingo. Personal stuff. Sorry.”

“No, please. It’s interesting.” He purposefully kept his tone cool and objective, guessing that sympathy or concern would send her running. “Did your private eye find something?” He nodded toward the papers in her hand.

She looked down as though she’d forgotten she held them. “Maybe. I don’t know. He actually found a guy who remembers seeing Dad. What are the odds?” She shook her head ruefully.

“You must be eager to find out if anything comes of it.”

She shook her head again. “I don’t know. I have this feeling that I should have just—”

“Let things slide.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” he asked curiously. “Why didn’t you ever try to find him before this?”

And just like that, that simply, all the bright, fake nonchalance fell off, swept away like a magician’s cape, revealing the truth beneath. Her gaze was frightened, anxious, and bleak.

“I was afraid I’d find him,” she said so quietly he barely heard her. “You’d think I’d know better.” Giving him a small sad smile that told him she thought he’d know exactly what she meant, she slapped the file lightly against her thighs and got up.

The odd thing was that he did. He understood perfectly; if her father was dead, that was the end, and if her father was alive, well, then, that, too, was the end. Because he’d never come back for her.

“I better take the dogs for a walk.” She edged by him and brushed her fingertips against his shoulder. “Touch.”

“Could you set the wheelchair up inside the door? I’d appreciate it,” Prescott asked, hanging between his crutches inside Bombadil House’s front door. Prescott wasn’t supposed to use the crutches except to transfer from one area to another. The rest of the time he was relegated to the wheelchair. “Thanks for driving me from the airstrip.”

“No problem,” said the pilot of the plane he’d hired—well, actually, Joe had hired—to fly him from Duluth. Nice of Joe, but Prescott didn’t need his father’s help. He had Mignonette.

“You’ll be all right?” the pilot asked, returning with the wheelchair and deftly unfolding it.

“Yes. Someone’s here. I’ll be fine,” Prescott said, smiling.

Thus assured, the driver clapped Prescott on the shoulder and took off. Since neither Mignonette nor the dogs had greeted him when he’d opened the front door, he guessed they must be out taking a walk.

Prescott gently lowered himself into the wheelchair and set his crutches against the wall. It had been eleven days since he’d fallen in the swimming pool, his stay in the hospital elongated by a second surgery on his ankle, but all had gone well and now he was home. He took a deep breath and looked around in delight, noticing that all the furniture had been pushed back and the rugs rolled up and stored against the wall in order to make using the wheelchair easier. She was so thoughtful. And the place looked beautiful. The tiles gleamed and the granite countertop in the kitchen sparkled. The hardwood floor had a deep luster. She’d really taken wonderful care of his home. He’d known she would.

He rolled the wheelchair down the hall and into the kitchen, turning toward the living—

“Hello, Prescott,” Joe said quietly.

He started and looked around, spotting his father lurking in the shadows across the room. He was sitting in a wheelchair, one leg sticking straight out on the footrest, his hands folded in his lap, his expression pensive.

“What are you doing here?” Prescott blurted out.

“I came to take care of you. I arrived four days ago to get your home ready, but then this.” Joe ruefully indicated his leg. “I could ask the same of you, you know. I didn’t think you were supposed to be released until tomorrow.”

“My blood work came back fine, so they let me go early,” he said; then, “What happened to you?”

“I had an accident. I wrenched my knee and dislocated my shoulder. I should be out of this thing in a couple more days. Sorry about having had to rearrange the furniture. You’ll find it more convenient, too, I hope.”

“Where is Mi—Mrs. Olson? Where are the dogs?
Did you send her away?
”

Joe studied him a second. “Come with me, Prescott.” He rolled across the floor with an adroitness that Prescott couldn’t help but admire, stopping in front of the windows overlooking the lake. Prescott rolled his wheelchair up beside Joe’s with a great deal less dexterity.

“There they are.”

Prescott followed the direction Joe pointed. On the lake below he saw his dogs running away from a cross-country skier hot on their trail.

“What’s going on? Who is that? Why is he chasing my dogs? Where’s Mrs. Olson? She’s supposed to be here. Not you!” All of this came tumbling out of his mouth as he watched in horror as the demented cross-country skier pursued his frantic dogs.

Joe didn’t even turn his head. “
That’s
Mrs. Olson, and she’s not a Mrs., she’s a Ms.”

“What?”

“And she’s not chasing the dogs, they’re pulling her. She’s
skijoring
. They’re attached to her by traces and they’re pulling her. I taught them that,” he said wistfully. “It’s really fun. She’s been out there for almost two hours. She left me here. Alone.”

That
was Mignonette Olson? Prescott stared disbelievingly. That careening skier on the lake was his placid, middle-aged, preeminently mellow neighbor? “You’re kidding.”

Joe might not have heard him. “Don’t you think that shows a lack of human feeling? She must know I’m bored, that sitting here while she’s out there—with the dogs,” he hastily added, “is making me crazy. With envy. Of being out there. Not of being with her.”

Joe apparently knew more about Mignonette than Prescott did. He
hated
that. “How do you know she’s not a missus?” he demanded.

“She told me. She was here with the dogs when I arrived.”

“
Why
did you arrive?”

“The physical therapist said you’d need help for a while and I know how difficult it is for you to be comfortable around strangers.”

Prescott opened his mouth and then snapped it shut, unwillingly affected by Joe’s concern for him. However, that didn’t make up for the fact that he was here and Mignonette was not.

“If you saw that Mi—Ms. Olson was here, why didn’t you just go home?” He didn’t want Joe here. He wanted Mignonette Olson here. He’d imagined mornings eating oatmeal with her and afternoons napping while she moved around the house, tidying things. They’d spend the evenings playing chess (or checkers if chess was too difficult to teach her). He would help her research a health insurance provider and teach her how to set up an online retirement fund. They’d be a little family. Mignonette Olson, Bill, Merry, Sam, and him. Instead, he had Joe.

He looked over to find Joe regarding him pityingly. A familiar sight. “Well?” he demanded.

“She didn’t want to stay here, Prescott. I did.”

“I don’t believe you,” Prescott said angrily, his resolve to keep his voice as level and melodious as Joe’s disappearing. “Why would she go to the trouble to take such good care of Bombadil House—and yes, Joe, I named it after a house in
The Lord of the Rings.
I don’t care!—if she didn’t want to stay?”

“She hasn’t taken good care of the house. I’ve hired a Mrs. McGoldrick to come in every other day and clean, but with Mimi and the dogs around, I should have made it daily. She is
such
a slob.” He shook his head. “And those dogs…”

No, she wasn’t! Casual, maybe, but not…
unclean
. Prescott loathed grime. He refused to believe his paragon didn’t share this view.

“If the house got a little untidy, it was only because it was too much work for her,” Prescott said. “I should have realized. It wasn’t fair to ask her to keep up a house and tend the dogs.”

“No, that’s not the problem,” Joe said. “The problem is that Mimi is categorically opposed to expending effort that she considers unnecessary. And that pretty much covers eighty-five percent of everything. She is undisciplined and proud of it.”

Where the hell did Joe get off calling Mignonette “Mimi”?

“Look at her, Prescott,” Joe continued, tipping his head in Mignonette’s direction. “She’s vibrant, lovely, intelligent, and a world-class slacker.”

Joe finished with a deep heartfelt sigh. In calmer moments, Prescott would have thought this an odd way to end disparaging someone. But as this character assassination was directed at the woman he revered, Prescott spun his chair around and faced Joe. “Take that back.”

Joe looked at him, nonplussed. Amused, but nonplussed, nonetheless. “Or what? You’re going to hit me?”

Prescott lurched forward, delivering a roundhouse blow. Unfortunately, it connected only with air. Joe, segueing from nonplussed to startled, had wheeled his chair back. “Cut it out, Pres. Watch it. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Take it back!” His jaw clenched, Prescott shot forward in his chair. This time when he swung, the force propelled him out of his chair and into Joe. With a crash, Joe’s wheelchair fell over, sending them both sprawling.

“Ouch!” Joe yelped.

Prescott, saved the majority of the impact by the layers of gauze and plaster, lifted himself up on his forearms and began dragging himself—and his plasticine-encased lower limbs—toward his father. “You deserved it. And it’s
Mignonette
, not Mimi!”

“Jesus, Pres! Have you lost your mind?” Joe asked, cradling his wrist against his chest. Then, seeing the look on his son’s face, he backed away, pushing with his good leg and skidding on his good elbow.

“And don’t call me ‘Pres,’” Prescott ground out.

“Fine! Have you lost your mind,
Prescott
?”

“She’s a warm, caring, wonderful woman, and you have no right to call her names. Apologize.”

“Names?! So help me, Prescott, if you don’t stop acting like a third grader with a crush on his teacher—
ow
!”