Skinny Dipping (3 page)

“No. You stay. You’d only cramp my style by trying to keep me from killing those kids. I’m gonna put a moratorium on teenage boys at Chez Ducky. If I gotta be the goddamn head of this goddamn place I might as well get some satisfaction out of it. Unless you want to be the head of the place?”

“Ha. Ha. No, thank you.”

She hadn’t thought so. It was too bad. “Can I take the inner tube?” she asked. “I’m not as strong a swimmer as I used to be.”

“Sure,” Mimi said. “You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

“Nah,” Birgie replied absently. She was thinking. What she needed was a replacement. But who? The Olsons of Chez Ducky had always been led by a matriarch, and the only other old ladies around were Birgie’s dead brothers’ widows, Naomi and Johanna. Neither would work. Naomi had been halfway round the bend for years and Johanna was so frantic trying to keep hidden the fact that she’d lately started shacking up with Charlie, her long-dead husband’s twin, that she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. But there was no reason
Mimi
couldn’t head the family.

True, Birgie couldn’t think of anyone more ill suited for the job, but she also couldn’t think of anyone better equipped. Ill suited by virtue of her temperament, well equipped by virtue of her abilities. Mimi might deny it with her dying breath, but the fact was that everyone knew that during Ardis’s last few years it had been Mimi who’d been the glue that had held Chez Ducky together. She’d sent in the taxes, arranged to have the septic tank sucked, kept track of…whatever needed to be kept track of.

True, Mimi might hate it, but she
could
do it. Hell, she might even keep Chez Ducky from being sold, and that would be good for her. Okay,
them.
Two birds, one stone.

True, Mimi would never agree, and she couldn’t be pressed into service. Mimi had withstood her mother’s demands to apply herself and do something—anything—for three decades.

But
if Birgie was really good, really careful, and played this right, Mimi
might
be slipped into the position. Like an oyster slips down your throat.

Hell
, Birgie thought as she dipped up and down on the corner of the raft, sending the pontoon rocking violently, it was worth a shot. She dove into the lake, causing barely a ripple.

Birgie was wrong, Mimi thought, studying the family holdings. Chez Ducky hadn’t changed. The same shorn-off boulder on which a half-dozen generations of Olsons had tanned still basked in the same bulrush-choked waters where, Mimi was quite certain, the same family of leeches still waited patiently to attach themselves to the next crop of Olson bottoms.

True, the cottages had faded to gray and their gutters sprouted seedlings. And the slide some forgotten Olsons had pilfered from some long-closed school yard had rusted and now listed sideways in the water as though attempting to struggle out of the lake and return to the playground. But other than those small signs of passing time, things were the same now as they’d been when Mimi was born. Or her father was born. Or her grandfather.

A single electrical wire connected them to the outside world. No telephone lines, no gas lines, no sewage lines. Here, the past and present not so much coexisted as existed parallel to each other.

It was too bad Birgie wasn’t enjoying the last few days of summer before they shut the place down for the season. But Mimi would be acting weird, too, if she had a bunch of people expecting things of her. Thank God, she didn’t. And wouldn’t. If Birgie did squirm out of this—and it looked like she might—her sister-in-law, Mimi’s great-aunt Johanna, was heir apparent, then Mimi’s grandfather’s second wife and widow, Naomi. Okay, maybe Mimi’s step-grandmother Naomi would need a regent. After Naomi came Debbie, who was married to Naomi’s son and Mimi’s half-uncle, Bill.

Debbie. Always doing things, fixing things, organizing things. Though she didn’t
seriously
think Debbie could single-handedly run Chez Ducky into the ground, Mimi would still prefer to be dead before Debbie took over. But since Debbie was only ten years older than Mimi, she didn’t hold out much hope for this. Maybe she’d be demented by then? The thought cheered Mimi considerably.

She turned on her back and floated. She was immersed in blue: the jade-speckled indigo of the blooming lake beneath, the cobalt sky above, the blue-green of pine trees drifting by on the shore. She closed her eyes and drank the soft air, a hint of autumn crispness teasing her exposed skin into gooseflesh.

It was late summer, almost autumn.

And so are you.

She jackknifed in half, dropping beneath the lake’s surface and coming up sputtering.
Where the hell had that come from?

She was only forty-one. The only difference between early summer and late summer was a few less hours of daylight. And all that meant was that there might not be quite as much time to get things done.

Or get things going.

Jesus! What had gotten into her lately?

Lately? She could pin down the exact date: March fourteenth, around four o’clock in the afternoon, when the mail arrived with the lab results for a pregnancy test she hadn’t even realized she’d taken.

This year when she’d packed her borrowed car to come to Chez Ducky, she’d come with a motive: she was determined to recapture her lovely soporific bliss. For the most part it worked. But even here she sometimes grew fidgety, her unoccupied thoughts seesawing between her father’s postcard and a computer-generated lab report. Frank Sinatra kept crooning, “It Was a Very Good Year” in her head, and she’d taken to captioning her experiences with Hallmark card sentiments like “It was late summer, almost autumn, and so was she.”

“Mimi!”

With a sense of relief, Mimi swam around the raft to see who was yelling. The beach was filling up with people arriving for the picnic. Birgie was nowhere to be seen, but Mimi spied Debbie holding court near the fire pit in the middle of the beach. Naomi perched atop Chez Ducky’s other pontoon where it had been beached three years ago as unusable.

“Mimi!” Naomi hollered again. She’d draped herself in a white bedsheet, which she’d hitched up around her waist, revealing a pair of bright pink polka-dot pedal pushers underneath. Above her head she waved the claw hammer with which she’d spent the last two days pounding together some sort of scaffolding on top of the pontoon.

To Mimi’s knowledge no one had bothered to ask Naomi what she was doing. Few people did anymore. The answers might lead to uncomfortable conclusions about Naomi’s mental state. It wasn’t that Naomi was incapable of taking care of herself, or wasn’t aware of what was going on, or who was who. Not at all. She just reveled in being odd.

“What?” Mimi called back.

“You’re going to turn into a prune!” Naomi shouted. “How long you planning on staying out there? People are starting to arrive.”

Naomi had always taken her step-grandmother duties seriously.

“I’m coming in now!” Mimi shouted back.

“Good!” Naomi stooped down and recommenced thwacking at some boards.

Mimi paddled to the pontoon to retrieve her swimsuit. It was gone. She frowned, gripped the edge of the raft, and was about to hoist herself up to peer over the pontoon to the other side when she realized she’d be hoisting herself out of the water in full view of the picnickers on the beach. She moved to the other side and looked around. It was empty.

In a flash, she realized what had happened. Her suit, caught on the corner of the pontoon, had fallen into the water when Birgie had jumped up and down before diving into the lake. Mimi dove under the raft, squinting as she tried to see through the soft green veils of suspended algae. No good. She couldn’t make out a thing. She swept her arms around, hoping her suit had gotten tangled in the weeds as it drifted to the bottom twenty feet below. She came up after about a minute—sans suit.

Damn. She scanned the beach, looking for some place she could make shore and scoot straight into some bushes. There was none. A hundred years of pulling up brush had made the Chez Ducky beach, if not the cleanest one in the county, at least one of the more open ones.

The closest any bush came to shore was fifty feet past the Big House, where a swamp elder thicket marked the border of Olson land. Better still, the shoreline there was thick with water lily pads. If she could slither to shore, then duck into the brush, she might be able to sneak through the woods to the other side of the property, where arriving guests would park their cars. Someone was bound to have left a door open, and every Minnesotan carries a blanket in the trunk. Even in the summer.

Besides, she didn’t see that she had much of a choice. The option, marching out of the lake naked in front of a hundred people, didn’t hold much appeal. Naomi might think Mimi had finally seen the light and was going Druid, but the rest of them…well, Mimi wouldn’t mind their amusement as much as Debbie’s assessment. Nope. Mimi did not think she wanted svelte, liposucked, gym-toned, spray-tanned Debbie giving her body a pitying once-over.

Mimi waited until everyone on the beach was occupied, then began nonchalantly breaststroking her way to shore. As she got closer, she sank lower in the water, submerging until only her eyes and nostrils were above the smooth surface of the lake. Sort of like a Nile crocodile approaching a wildebeest herd, she thought. She imagined launching herself out of the water, grabbing Debbie, and dragging her back into the lake. She grinned as she drew closer to shore, making a mental note to share this vignette with her cousin Gerry’s wife, Vida, who held similar views regarding Debbie.

She took a deep breath and sank seamlessly beneath the water. Once under, she shot forward, porpoise kicking for all she was worth. The water grew warmer as it got shallower. The wild celery swept along her sides and brushed her stomach and thighs and breasts, as silky as feather boas. Her lungs had just started to burn when her hand hit the mucky lake bottom.

She planted her knees and carefully raised her head. Bingo. She was in the lily pads, only yards away from the beach and bushes. She yanked up a thick handful of the tuberous lilies and festooned herself with them just in case someone did spot her—she didn’t want to be responsible for some little old man dropping dead at the sight of her in all her feminine glory. Then, trailing her legs in the mud, Mimi crept forward on her elbows and forearms until she felt the kiss of cool air on her ass. She tucked her feet beneath her in a runner’s crouch, took one last glance at the people on the beach, and shot out of the water, diving headfirst into the bushes, shedding weeds and muck as she went. She rolled and squatted, listening. Nothing.

She smiled. From here she could stay in the brush all the way out to the dirt road that led to the lake, cross that, then continue through the woods to where the cars would be parked.

“Ow!” Her smile faded. A posse of mosquitoes was humming excitedly around her, alerting their brethren to the bounty of exposed flesh that the mosquito gods had sent them. It was going to be a long hike.

Fifty yards up the beach, Naomi stopped pounding nails and looked down into the upturned face of the little boy tugging at her bedsheet.

“What is it, Emil?”

It would have surprised Naomi to hear that the kid’s name wasn’t Emil, and in fact, the little boy wasn’t even an Olson. His name was George. But as he was only three, it didn’t really matter to either of them what Naomi called him.

“Did you see the monster?” he demanded.

Naomi, who loved children, put down her hammer and patted Emil-George’s head. “What monster?”

“The monster that came out of the lake.” He pointed down the beach.

“What did this monster look like?” Naomi asked.

“Smelly.”

Naomi regarded the child in delight. “What else?”

Emil-George nodded. “Dirty.”

“Ah,” Naomi breathed, nodding sagely. “That wasn’t a monster, dear. That was your aunt Mimi.”

This apparently made sense to Emil-George, for he said, “Oh,” and wandered off.

Naomi went back to her hammering.

Joe Tierney squatted next to the front tire of his rental car, staring at the lug nuts he’d tightened. He’d been squatting for five minutes, his shirtsleeves rolled up, one arm resting on his thigh, a wrench hanging loosely in his hand. He wasn’t staring because he didn’t trust the job he’d done—it wasn’t rocket science—but because as soon as he got up he would be forced to continue the journey that ended at Prescott’s new vacation house.

It was an obligatory visit, just as it had been an obligatory invitation. Joe could have found a hundred excuses not to go, and most of them would have been valid, but Joe Tierney was nothing if not persevering, and he had not yet reached the point where he was willing to give up on this relationship—despite Prescott’s obvious wishes to the contrary. Joe was unused to failure.

As a richly endowed venture capital group’s chief field executive, Joe’s job was to go into recently acquired companies, assess, evaluate, and then make a recommendation on the future of those companies. As such, he was used to resentment. He didn’t take it personally. But Prescott’s dislike was of the most personal variety, and Joe had no idea what to do about it. Doubtless, it might help if he understood it. He didn’t. Most people liked Joe. He was poised, polished, and amiable. A little compulsive, perhaps. For example, some people might say his fastidiousness bordered on the obsessive. But Joe preferred to think of himself as tidy. And committed. Which was why he was here on a dirt road in the middle of northern Minnesota; he was committed to connecting with Prescott.

Commitment, however, did not require enjoyment. The early Christians had probably not been rubbing their hands in anticipation as they stumbled into the Colosseum to face the lions. He had just added “fire jumpers diving out of airplanes into infernos” to his list of the Unhappily Committed when he heard branches snapping in the woods on the other side of his car.

Joe had no idea what sorts of animals roamed the woods three hundred miles north of Minneapolis and within spitting distance of the Canadian border. Bears? Moose? Wolves? For all he knew, Sasquatch was standing on the other side of the car. He waited. A few seconds later he heard the unmistakable sound of whatever it was moving closer. He quietly bent lower and peered under the car.

On the other side was a pair of dirty, sand-encrusted, scratched, feminine feet. He knew they were feminine because the nails had been painted a hideous neon pink. They shuffled a bit, and Joe heard his car door open. Joe, much reassured (no one who wore that color nail polish could possibly be a danger to anyone—except possibly the standards of good taste), stood up. “May I…”

A naked female was on her knees on the front seat of the car, dripping mud and gunk all over it. Weeds caped her shoulders, and twigs and leaves stuck out of curly dark pigtails. Mud caked her from elbow to ankle. For an instant she froze, a pair of wide, startled eyes gleaming up at him through a tangle of wet, dank hair.

“Jesus Christ,” Joe whispered. “A Wolf Girl.”

Whoever it was jumped like she’d been hit with a Taser, banging her head on the car roof. She grabbed the top of her head. “Holy Mother! Sonofabitch—”

She caught the direction of his gaze and looked down. With a sound halfway between a shriek and a squeak, she turned and bolted, crashing headlong into the undergrowth.

Joe stared, uncertain whether to follow her or call the cops. Obviously she was running away from something, but she hadn’t appeared scared; rather, she seemed flustered and, after she hit her head, pissed off. Followed by extremely embarrassed.

She’d probably strayed off the grounds of some sort of local cult, a cult that worshipped nudity and mud and…twigs.

Crap.

If there was a cult up here he hoped to God Prescott wasn’t involved in it, but that hope was faint. No one was riper for cult picking than Prescott: wealthy, socially awkward, defensive, and pathetically eager for admission to any group. Even twig worshippers. Joe was prepared to do a lot for the sake of their relationship, but he drew the line at twig worship.

All these thoughts zipped through Joe’s mind in a matter of seconds and were interrupted by a female cry rising above the sound of crashing in the underbrush. This was followed by a string of colorful and anatomically specific invectives. She must have hurt herself and might need help. Joe, as incapable of leaving a situation that needed attending unattended as he was of breathing underwater, walked to the edge of the woods. “Are you all right?”

There was a long pause, then a grudgingly relayed, “I’ve got a mother of a thorn in my foot.”

Joe carefully parted the top of the shrub in front of him. Ten feet into the woods he saw the woman hunkered amidst a thick undergrowth of plants that hid most of her bottom half. She was holding her foot in both hands.

“Want me to take a look?” he asked.

“No!” She hunched down further in the weed patch. “You scared me,” she went on accusingly. “I didn’t think there was anyone near that car—Hey! Do
not
look at me! I’m naked. Geez!”

He turned around and considered asking her why, if she didn’t want anyone to see her naked, she had shed all her clothing, but something in her tone argued against this.

Perhaps she wasn’t part of a cult, simply mentally unbalanced. She didn’t sound particularly loony, but his experience was admittedly limited.

“I’m sorry,” he said soothingly, just in case she was crazy. “I was changing a tire.”

“Oh.”

“Are you in some sort of difficulty?” he asked, keeping his voice mild.

“I would think that’s pretty obvious,” she snapped. “Yes, I am. I don’t have any clothes and I am supposed to be at a picnic on the beach down there.”

He assumed she was pointing. He waited.

“I was skinny-dipping and my suit fell into the lake and I couldn’t find it so I swam to shore where there were no people hanging around and came up through the woods.”

“I see.”

“I was
hoping
,” she went on accusingly, “that I’d find a blanket in your car so I wouldn’t have to march through a crowd like this.”

“That’s certainly reasonable.” He supposed. “And all the muck and weeds and things stuck to you?”

“It’s a mucky lake,” she replied coolly.

Okay, maybe she wasn’t nutty. “How can I help?”

“
Do
you have a blanket in your car?”

“It’s not my car; it’s a rental, so I don’t know.”

“A northern Minnesota rental,” she said. “It’ll have a blanket in the trunk. If you could get it for me?”

“Of course.” He suited action to words, returning to the car and popping the trunk open. Sure enough, folded neatly behind the rear seats was an old polyester stadium blanket. He shook it out, grimacing as dust exploded from it and wondering what antique bacteria was at that moment taking root in his lungs. Joe admitted that at times he was a little overly “health conscious.” Now was not one of those times.

He returned to the woods in time to hear another sharp yelp, some sniffs, and then—She was crying. Concerned, he pushed his way through the brush toward her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t look!”

He snatched the blanket up in front of his face, silently consigning her back to the unbalanced side of the population. “Listen,” he said, losing patience. “I’ve seen naked women before. You’re hurt and you need help. Given the circumstances, the modesty bit is a little out of place, don’t you think? Believe me, I am not interested in leering at you. Frankly, in your current condition I can’t even tell if you are leer worthy.”

“I know that!” she shouted. “God! Do you think I don’t
know
that? It’s just that I…I…don’t think I can walk!”

Joe realized he would never understand what her inability to walk had to do with her not wanting him to look at her. Stress had evidently short-wired her thought processes. She possibly even
knew
she wasn’t making sense, but she was caught in some sort of mental loop. He’d seen it before. Mostly in political debates. There would be no reasoning with her until the shock had worn off.

“Okay. Okay,” he said. “You tell me what you want me to do.”

She snuffled loudly. “Could you please bring me the blanket? Without looking?”

“I can try.” He started cautiously forward, sweeping his foot out in front of him as he went.

“A little more to the left.”

He went left.

“Not that much. There. Good. A few more feet. Straight. Almost…Stop.”

He stopped, the blanket still held up between them. “Now what?”

“Just, ah, throw it over me. Really gently. I’m right in front of you about three feet away.”

“Okay.” He held the blanket at arm’s length and tossed. It landed on her head and draped itself over her. “I’m looking now. You’re covered. Mostly.”

“It’s not big enough to cover all of me,” her muffled voice announced. “It’s the size of a shawl and it stinks of mildew.”

He considered. “Hold on. I have an idea.”

He reached into his pocket and took out the silver penknife he carried. Then he put one hand on top of her head.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m going to cut a hole for your head,” he said. “Hold still.”

Gingerly, he plucked the blanket up a few inches above her head and slipped the pointed end of the blade into the material. The polyester didn’t offer any resistance; it sliced open like butter to a hot knife. He sawed a foot-long slit in the blanket and pocketed the knife. Then he reached down and tugged on the blanket until her head popped through the slit. She blinked up at him. She had pretty eyes, dark and luminous. Other than that, it would be hard to say what she looked like until someone turned a hose on her.

“Thanks,” she said and smiled. Okay, he thought. A very nice smile, too, even with the caked mud cracking on her cheeks.

“No problem,” he replied. “Now what?”

“If you could find me a nice sturdy stick I could use to walk, I’ll be fine.”

He looked at her, small and bedraggled and filthy, her legs scratched and bug bitten, barely covered by a
GO VIKINGS
lap rug. His shoulders slumped with the certainty of what he would have to do. He would have to touch her. It was so clearly his duty. Before she could protest, he bent down and, with what he considered a heroic disregard for his clothing, picked her up. She wiggled.

“Please stop writhing about,” he said as the aroma of lake bottom met his nose. “My shirt is a lost cause, but I still hold out a slim hope that my pants can be saved.”

She gave a little offended gasp but stopped wiggling.

“Now, I’m going to take you to the car and drive you wherever you want to go.” His tone brooked no argument and he got none. He straightened. Slowly. She was heavier than she looked.

“How much do you weigh?” he asked, fervently hoping his back didn’t go out.

“I’m dense,” she said coldly. “My specific gravity is higher than other people’s. And I didn’t
ask
you to pick me up.”

“You’re welcome.” He made it upright without feeling any back muscles give and bounced her into a more comfortable position. Thank God, the car was only twenty feet away.

He stumbled out of the brush toward the car. He did play it up (a bit) because she was so noticeably lacking in the gratitude department. He stopped halfway to the car, panting noisily. “I’m okay. I’m…fine. I’m just glad…I could…be…of service.”

“Look, if you’re going to have a heart attack, I can hop.” Her tone was stiff, but her expression was worried.

“No,” he gulped.

“Listen, I can’t drag you into that car, and even if I could, the hospital is half an hour away. Let me down.”

“I got it.” He staggered the last ten feet and lowered (dropped) her to the ground.

She lifted her injured foot, bracing herself against the car as Joe opened the back door. She pivoted, plunked down, and pulled her legs in after her. He shut the door and got into the driver’s side, glancing into the rearview mirror as he slid behind the wheel.

“So, where to?” he asked. “Hospital? Home?”

She met his gaze in the mirror and her eyes narrowed. “How come you’re not panting anymore?”

“The doctors tell me I have a really impressive recovery rate,” he said, eyes on the road as he turned over the engine and shifted the car into gear.

“You were faking the groans.”

“Not faking. Exaggerating,” he said. “I did consider faking an attack and letting you perform CPR, but I have delicate ribs.”

She laughed. He looked up into the mirror in surprise.

“I suppose I would have deserved it,” she said. “Let me try to redeem myself.” She cleared her throat. “Thank you very much for rescuing me. You’re a true white knight and I’ve been acting more like the dragon than the damsel. Looking more like the dragon, too. Scales and all.”

He smiled back. “Ah, damsels are overrated. How often do you get to pick up a woman with a higher-than-average specific gravity?”

“True,” she said without missing a beat.

He grinned, enjoying himself in a way he hadn’t for a long time. He’d never really thought much about it, but right now he was struck by the fact that for all its ostensible glamour—the exotic locales, the various cultures, power and wealth—the life he led might be a bit, well, boring. Most of his time was pretty tightly scheduled, he met few people in a strictly social way, and he had few experiences either socially or work related that he didn’t fully anticipate. This place, this situation, but most of all this woman were completely unanticipated.

He turned his head. “I’m Joe.”

“Hello, Joe.” She trailed the name out à la Lauren Bacall. “I’m Mimi.”

“Mimi.” He liked it. “Where can I take you, Mimi?”

“If you just follow this road another quarter mile you’ll come to a Y. Keep to the right and in another few hundred feet I’ll be home.”

“You sure you shouldn’t have a doctor take out that thorn? It might get infected.” You could never be too careful about open wounds.

“Oh, there’ll be some docs at the picnic. True, they’ll be veterinarians, but a thorn’s a thorn, right? Everyone on the lake and half the people from Fawn Creek’ll be there.”