This is the Part Where You Laugh (7 page)

I walk through the automatic doors. Walmart's the toughest because the workers are looking for people to take stuff, and there's a man stationed by the carts. I look at him and smile. That's always my strategy. Don't try to be invisible, because ducking my head or hurrying by would seem shady. Better to seem friendly and casual. Like a regular customer.

I walk through the aisles. Look at the electronics, but I don't want to take something with a strip on it. I pass through the book aisle next, but none of the books seem very interesting, plus they're all bulky. I go through the office supplies, put a mechanical pencil in my pocket, a glue stick, and an eraser. Then I walk up front.

I wait in line for the self-checkout. When I see the worker look the other way, I slide by like I already purchased everything. And that's when I grab a 12-pack of Coke, put it on my shoulder real obvious, look right at the cart man again, smile, and walk out.

Even though I act relaxed and I probably look relaxed, it still gives me a rush. I know it's weird that it doesn't get old for me, but I don't do it that often anymore, just every once in a while, and I guess that makes it better than doing it all the time. I don't know, though. I guess it's wrong too. I guess stealing, even little things, is wrong.

Trim the hedges. Rake. Weed-whack against the uprights. Edge the lines. Check the 2-in-1 level. Refill. Fill the mower with gas. Run it on full, not empty, so the engine isn't gulping the bottom-of-the-pan silt.

I look up and she's in the window, looking down. I shade my eyes to see her better, but she's gone. I blink and wonder if I imagined her being there in the first place. The window curtains never moved. There wasn't any sure sign.

I go back to work on the yard. Look up a few times, but I don't see her after that.

Princess Leonilla Bariatinskaya, I knew you first from the portraits painted by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. The one at the Getty Museum is my favorite, you in ivory and pink and purple. You lay back like you're waiting for me. You finger those pearls around your neck, staring out of the canvas. There's nothing proper about you, nothing reserved, nothing to remind me that you're royal, but royal you are.

I gave you Michael Jordan's number because you're known as both physical and cerebral. You've always been famous at the Russian court for your intelligence and your eyes, eyes that could pick apart a defense. I know that you can tell if the other team is set up in a 1-2-2 zone or a box-and-1, and if I was going to face-guard any one player, it would be you. But you'd anticipate that.

You witnessed the pillaging of the Tuileries, the overthrowing of Louis Philippe in 1848. You wondered at the swallowing of jewels and the lack of violence on the part of the king. You moved with the seasons, making your way through Europe with children and tutors and expensive luggage. Ours was a strange love, always waiting for Ludwig to go away, for his business to separate the two of you. And I was always chasing you, you looking over your shoulder, hoping for a glimpse of me coming after you.

I traveled with you that one time in the horse-drawn coach to Rome, the wagon wheels jolting over the Dolomites, another rhythm for our bodies, me too tall to lay out, but you improvising. And a year later, we were alone in the bathroom of the Sayn Castle, the stonework cold against our nakedness. I put you on the countertop, you sucking in breath at the shock of the stone, and me saying, “Ooh,” as my thighs hit the cold.

I liked to count the pearls on your neck, one kiss for each pearl, refusing to touch you until all of the pearls had been accounted for. You undressed yourself while I kissed you, the layers of your clothing like the complications of royalty, all title with no power, and you saying over and over, “If only, if only…”

I grab my fishing pole and flip the canoe. Paddle south, down-lake, to one of the boggy ends. It's dark down there, no streetlights or back-porch floodlights. The blackberry overgrowths on both sides are walls that no one crosses on land. The lake's water is shallow 30 feet from the shore, and I drift the canoe, looking for eyes on top of the water. I scan with my headlamp, but I see nothing.

I paddle a deeper channel, cut to the east toward the oldest house on the lake, an original farmhouse from the end of the 19th century. The old lady who lives there has never repainted the slat-board siding, and she lets her grass grow to two feet in the spring. She won't hire me to mow even though I've offered her a deal a few times. But I kind of like the way her place looks.

At night, the long grass of her backyard is deep and dark, blackish, and paddling up to it, I can see the trails and burrows animals have cut into the field from the water. When my canoe scrapes a gravel shoal, I spook a couple of deer in front of me. They pop up and run, two blacktail does bounding through the high grass and disappearing around the side of the farmhouse.

I shine my headlamp along the lake's shelf. The bank overhangs in a few spots and it's difficult to tell what I'm seeing. I scan for caiman eyes, but don't find any. Then I paddle back out into the middle of the lake and drop a silver spinner 20 feet off the stern of the canoe. I know I'm not going to get a strike without spotlighting, but I wedge the pole behind my leg anyway so I can grab it if anything sees the lure and bites.

One lamp is lit to the north of me, up-lake on the east side, on a dock, and I paddle slowly, trolling the spinner, making my way toward the light.

When I get a hundred feet out, I see that it's Natalie reading a book. She has a Coleman lantern next to her, the light shining on the side of her face. She looks serious as she reads, her head bowed, and I paddle slower. It's nice to see her without her phone, with a book instead, and I try to paddle up without getting her attention.

When I'm 20 feet out and I think she hasn't seen me yet, she says, “Don't you ever wear a shirt?”

I look down at my bare chest lit up by her lantern, wishing I'd brought a shirt with me. I say, “I guess not.” There's no moon, and the full surface of the lake is black. Little ripples tap against the side of my canoe, making a
psht-psht
sound. I say, “What are you reading?”

“
Catcher in the Rye.
Required summer reading for English class.”

“What high school?”

“Starting Taft in the fall.”

“Starting? Then are you a freshman?”

“What?” she says. “No, I'm
not
a freshman. I'm a transfer. A junior. Do I look like a freshman to you?”

“No,” I say. “It was just how you said ‘starting.' ” I paddle a J-stroke to bring my canoe closer to her dock. “Where are you transferring from?”

“A better place,” she says.

“Where's that?”

“Lake Oswego.”

I laugh. We beat the Lake Oswego basketball team by 30 points in a preseason game last year.

Natalie says, “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing.” I put my paddle in the water and pull the starboard side of my canoe a little closer. Then I reverse the stroke and slide the canoe back out.

“You really love that boat, huh?”

“This canoe?” I slap the hull with the flat of my hand. “Yeah, I do.”

“Did you name it?”

“Huh?”

“You know,” she says. “Boys are always naming their cars. Giving them stripper names like
Candy Baby.
Shit like that.”

“No,” I say. “I didn't even think about that. Maybe I should, though. My grandma gave it to me, and she has cancer, so maybe I'd name it for her.”

“Your grandma has cancer?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. That's terrible. I'm sorry.”

“Yeah,” I say. “It's pretty sad.”

Natalie looks down at her feet. She has her thumb in her book, holding her place, and I wait for her to set it down. I tell myself that if she sets her book down, I'm going to paddle the canoe to the dock and hop up next to her. But she doesn't set her book down. She keeps her thumb marking her place. So I wait.

I say, “You like to read outside?”

Natalie looks over her shoulder and nods her chin in the direction of her house. “I don't like to read inside
that
house. That's for sure.”

“Why not?”

She looks right at me, right at my eyes, and she doesn't blink.

I look away. Turn and stare out across the lake. The lights on the back porches of the mobile homes on the west side are like cheap imitations of stars.

My fishing line zips and my rod bends. Then the pole rips overboard. “Oh, damn.” I stash my paddle and dive in after my fishing pole. Catch it as it drags across the top of the water. When I get ahold of the pole, I lean back against the weight of the fish, tread water, and sidestroke back to the dock. I have to kick my legs hard, grip the pole in my off hand and paddle with my right. When I get to the dock, I hold the pole up. “Take this.”

“What?” Natalie's laughing so hard that she's bent over.

“Just take it.”

Natalie is still laughing, but she grabs it, and I turn around and swim to my canoe, take hold of the side, and push it back in. Then I pull myself up onto the dock, grab the bowline, and hitch the boat to the cleat. Natalie's holding the fishing pole but not controlling it, letting it whip one way, then the other. She hasn't reeled the fish in at all.

I say, “You've gotta hold that steady and reel it, or that fish will snag the line or break it off. Or break your pole.”

“Oh, okay.” Natalie tries to turn the reel the wrong way and it won't go. Then she cranks it the other way and starts to bring the fish in. As soon as she starts reeling, I can tell that the fish is a carp. The fish makes heavy S movements in the water, but doesn't jump or make a run.

Natalie reels until the fish breaks the surface 10 feet away. “Oh my God. It's huge.”

“Yeah,” I say, “big, big carp out here. They're no good to eat, but they're fun to catch.”

“Why can't you eat them?”

“Well, you can,” I say. “I've eaten them before. But they taste like mud. And in this lake they kind of taste like goose-poop mud. Plus, there's lots of bones in them.”

“That's a great combination.”

“Yep.” I reach down and wet my hands. Natalie has the fish next to the dock, and I take the line and pull it in. Then I reach the fish, put my left thumb in the roof of the mouth to hold it, and with my right hand, I pull the treble from its lower jaw, the barb making a wet click sound as it tears through the edge of the lip.

Natalie says, “Oh, that's nasty.”

“Yeah, not the best sound, huh?” I hold the fish at the waterline. Because it's a carp, it doesn't struggle to swim away. I say, “Do you want to release it?”

“Not really.”

“You don't?”

Natalie exhales. “Okay.” She kneels down next to me. “What do I do?”

She smells good, her hair, like some kind of shampoo or conditioner when it's wet. I breathe in the smell of her. Say, “Wet your hands, then put your hands over the top of mine. I'll slide my hands away and you'll be holding the fish.”

She follows my directions. Doesn't say anything. I slide my fingers back and out of her way, and she holds the fish in her hands. That carp has to be at least 10 pounds, one of the biggest I've ever seen in the lake.

I say, “Now with one of your hands, stroke down the side of its body, real mellow.”

She pets the fish with the tips of her fingers. “Like this?”

“Yeah. Now run your fingers down the side a little harder and the fish will flip its tail and swim away.”

She pets twice more, and all of a sudden that carp whips its tail and rips forward into the water. Natalie screams and pulls her hands back. “Oh my gosh,” she says, and sits back laughing. “That scared the shit out of me.”

“But that's how you know you're doing it right. Cause if you pet the fish right, it'll snap to life just like that.”

She shakes her head.

“Cool, huh?”

“Pretty cool, but it still scared me.” She smells her hands. “And oh wow.” She smells her hands again. Makes a face.

“Not so good?”

“No,” she says. “Smell yours. They smell phenomenal.”

“We can get some of that smell off in the water, but mud or sand or something helps even more.” I reach down and pull some algae, scrub my hands with it, and rinse them in the water. I smell my palms and fingers and they smell a lot better. I grab some more algae and do it again.

Natalie raises her eyebrows. “Does that work?”

“Sort of. Mostly.”

She scrubs with algae too. As we're leaning over and scrubbing our hands next to each other, I can smell her again, a little bit of whatever she cleans her hair with, and the fainter smell of her skin. I dated a girl the year before, during basketball season, but that girl sprayed a lot of flowery perfume in her hair and on her neck. Every time I kissed her it sort of overwhelmed me, like we were kissing in the Glade aisle at Target. But Natalie, whatever she uses and however she smells, I like it.

Natalie scrubs her hands three times and rinses them. Sniffs and wrinkles her nose each time. “It's still not all the way gone.”

“No,” I say. “You might need a little soap to get the rest off.”

“But it's better, I guess. It doesn't make me gag now.”

I sit down and let my feet dangle in the water. Natalie sits down next to me.

I say, “I meant to ask you—why do you hate bass so much? You said that you hate them, remember?”

Natalie kicks her feet in the water. “They eat frogs.”

“And you like frogs?”

“Yeah,” she says, “I love frogs.”

“Why's that?”

“I know it sounds weird.” She shrugs. “But I guess I always did. At my old house on the edge of Lake Oswego, there was a slough nearby, and I used to catch frogs there pretty much every night in the summer. I'd go down and catch one, hold it, sing to it….” She scratches her nose with her forearm. “I guess I was a strange little girl.”

“Sounds normal enough to me.”

“Well, anyway, I loved them. And I heard that bass eat frogs, that they rip their legs off sometimes and leave the rest of them to die. So I hate bass. Fuck bass.”

“All right,” I say. “Fuck bass. Kill 'em all.”

Natalie smiles. She says, “Do you go to Taft too?”

“Yeah.”

“And do you play any sports?”

“Basketball.”

“Wait,” she says. “You play basketball?”

“Yeah, that's pretty much all I ever did growing up. All I ever do now.”

Natalie says, “I don't know why, but I didn't think of you as a basketball player.” She tilts her head and looks at me.

I look out at the water in front of us, the black ripples bigger with the wind, yellow lantern lines on black. I hate it when people don't think of me as a basketball player. I know that's stupid since they wouldn't know unless they were watching me play, but somehow I wish it were more obvious. If I looked like Creature, they wouldn't even ask me if I played.

“Sorry,” Natalie says. “I didn't mean anything by that. There just aren't a lot of basketball players under six feet, you know?”

“It's fine,” I say. “Don't worry about it.”

“You probably get that a lot, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Sorry.” Natalie splashes the water with her feet again. “Sometimes I just say things.”

I point to the scar on her knee, half lit from the lamp. She leans back and lets the light fall directly on her leg. Now I can see that the scar is one long line with four dots to the side.

I say, “What's that from?”

She shakes her head. “Long story. Maybe I'll tell you some other time.” She stands up. “But I'm gonna go wash my hands now.” She smells her palms again and makes another face. “It was nice hanging out, though.” She picks up her lantern by its handle. Grabs her
Catcher in the Rye.

I stand up. “I'll see you around?”

“All right,” she says, and walks up the dock.