Hope & a Canoe, Page 4

  “Umm yeah, I just...I was thinking of something sad,” Tember said.

  Gracie continued to look into Tember’s eyes. Her gaze seemed to incite tears in Tember’s eyes. Tember bit her lip and looked away. Gracie shifted in her seat and put her hand on Tember’s shoulder.

  Gracie said, “You know my dad taught me a lot of stuff. One great thing he taught me was you don’t have to be something you’re not. If I’m gay, I’m gay. If I’m sad, I should be sad. If I’m happy, be happy. I’m not uncomfortable being around someone upset. I’m not afraid of tears.”

  “Okay,” Tember said as she inhaled a few deep breaths.

  Gracie said, “I don’t feel like going back to the campground with it raining like this. Do you mind if we put on some music and drive around, trying to get lost for a bit?”

  Tember nodded. “Sure that actually would be great.”

  Gracie navigated the truck down a winding road that wrapped around lakes; through towns that if she blinked, she would miss them; and down a five-mile-long road surrounded by tall pines. Amber pine needles covered the shoulder of the road. Every road was adorned with a sign for moose, and Gracie counted the moose signs.

  “Never seen a moose, but I’ve seen at least a million signs,” Gracie said. That was the only thing she’d said in the hour they’d been driving. The lull of the road and the soft music playing on the radio caused Tember to drift off to sleep.

  She was abruptly woken by feeling the truck shake as Gracie said, “Oh no!”

  7

  “Moose?” Tember asked in a sleepy stupor before she even opened her eyes.

  Gracie answered, “No, ran out of gas. I kinda wish that it was a moose. My dad’s going to kill me.”

  “He won’t kill you,” Tember said as she rubbed her eyes and sat up in the seat. The truck was stopped on the shoulder of a narrow road. Pine trees lined the road for as far as she could see. The rain clouded her view until the wipers cleared the windshield.

  “Okay, he’ll do worse. He’ll tease me and hold this over my head. He’ll remind me that one of the two times he lent me his truck, I ran out of gas,” Gracie complained as she hit the steering wheel.

  Tember unhooked her seatbelt, squared her body toward Gracie, and pulled her knee into her chest. She smiled and shook her head at Gracie.

  “What? What’re you smiling at?” Gracie asked. “It’s a sweet smile, but what are you smiling about?”

  “Two things,” Tember answered. “One, this is my first time seeing you stressed, and two, this is the oldest trick in the book.”

  “What? Oh, you think I ran out of gas on purpose?”

  Tember said, “Guys have been doing it since the beginning of cars. I bet you when they traveled by horse, they told the woman that the horse had a hurt leg or something.”

  “This is not...I’m not–” Gracie paused and then said, “Would it work if I was trying to make a move on you?”

  Tember shook her head and laughed. “Not enough points yet.”

  “Darn it,” Gracie said as she snapped her fingers. “Let me call my dad so he can...oh, he doesn’t have a car. We have roadside assistance.”

  Tember looked out the windshield and asked, “Do you even know where we are?”

  “Maine. I think,” Gracie answered and Tember raised her eyebrow. “Well, I normally know where I am, but I was distracted. You looked so cute sleeping. I just kept driving so that I didn’t wake you.”

  “Excuses, excuses,” Tember said. “But, you do get ten points for calling me cute.”

  “Between my phone and the truck’s GPS, we should be able to figure it out,” Gracie said. She turned on her phone. “No reception.” She played with the GPS on the truck, and it didn’t have satellite reception either.

  “And then we were in trouble…I don’t have a phone,” Tember said and laughed.

  “You forgot your phone?”

  “No, don’t have one,” she said.

  “Okay, so we either walk to the nearest anything…but I don’t remember the last house or business I saw…or we wait to be rescued,” Gracie said.

  Tember looked out at the rain pelting the windshield. “I vote for waiting out the rain before we walk anywhere. How about waiting to be rescued?”

  “Good, me too,” Gracie said. “Since I don’t have enough points to do what I want to do, what do you want to do?”

  Chills ran through Tember’s body after receiving a teasing glance from Gracie. She finally said, “I don’t know.”

  “We can do your least favorite thing, talk,” Gracie offered.

  Tember said, “It’s not my least favorite thing. I’m out of practice. I was homeschooled, and other than walking by people my age in the grocery store, I haven’t had much interaction since I was ten. It’s just me and my grandparents—who aren’t my favorite company.”

  Gracie smiled, unbuckled her seatbelt, crossed her legs, and turned toward Tember. “See, my plan’s working. I just learned several things about you, and it explains a lot about why you aren’t so talkative and are a little rough around the edges.”

  Tember replied, “Ouch! Rough around the edges?”

  Gracie cocked her head to the side, raised her eyebrows, and then frowned.

  “Okay, I’m a little rough,” admitted Tember. “Tell me something about you.”

  “I’m a lesbian.”

  “Something I don’t already know,” Tember said.

  “I’m a pretty social person. I can strike up a conversation in stores with strangers, knew everyone in every clique in high school, and I’m pretty popular,” Gracie said.

  Tember looked out at the rain and then back at Gracie. “Wow, what I take from that is that you’re tired of being positive and pleasing everyone else, and you’re pretty damn lonely.”

  Tember looked at Gracie, who shifted in her seat and glared at Tember. Tember saw that Gracie was vulnerable and seemed like a confident, outgoing person, but she was lonely just like Tember.

  “Now that you totally ruined the mood…” Gracie said.

  Tember reached across the seat and shook Gracie’s knee. Gracie’s skin felt smooth and warm. Tember held her breath and then removed her hand.

  Tember said, “I get lonely too. All the time.”

  “Now we can be lonely together,” Gracie said. “When’s this rain going to stop?”

  “Now that you’ve trapped me, you want to get away from me?” Tember teased.

  “Well, no. I guess you’re right. How do I get more points?”

  “You’re uncomfortable. That’s interesting. You’re an open book, but you keep a few pages glued together,” Tember said.

  Gracie uncrossed her legs and nudged Tember with her foot. “And your book is hidden on a high shelf, triple locked, and written in a secret code.”

  “I don’t disagree,” Tember said.

  “How about we play Name that Tune?” Gracie asked.

  They scanned radio stations and called out the names of groups. They played three games to ten, and Tember won all the games.

  “You’re supposed to go easy on me,” Gracie said.

  “Who said?”

  “Dating etiquette dictates,” Gracie said.

  “Have we established this as a date?”

  “I don’t know. Are you gay?” Gracie asked.

  Tember could not believe her luck. Just as soon as Gracie asked the coming-out question, the rain abruptly stopped. Tember smiled and jumped out of the truck. The humid air hit her quickly. She raised her hands and stood at the back of the truck.

  Gracie exited the truck and met Tember. “At least there’ll be some sunshine on your birthday.” Gracie put her hands in her pockets and kicked at the gravel.

  “Who said there wasn’t already?” Tember asked as she nudged Gracie’s shoulder. “Let’s walk into town or somewhere. What do you think?”

  Gracie smiled and waved Tember back to the bed of the truck. As they glanced into the bed of a truck, they noticed a red jug sitting th
ere.

  “Tell me there’s not gas in that jug,” Tember said.

  “I forgot it was back here, I swear,” Gracie said.

  Tember laughed. “If you did, I’m not really sure if it would be negative or positive points.”

  Gracie poured the gas into the tank, and the two climbed into the truck. Gracie started the engine.

  Gracie said, “You’re only temporarily saved you know. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I know,” Tember said.

  Gracie rolled down the window, propped her elbow on the window’s edge, and put her head in her hand. She looked sad or disappointed. Tember couldn’t decipher which.

  Tember said, “You’re just disappointed you didn’t get enough points.”

  8

  Gracie dropped off Tember at her campsite, and they made plans to meet at the pool later. Tember rummaged through her belongings for a suit. A weird jitteriness came over her. She felt jumpy, making it difficult to concentrate. The only feeling she could compare to it was being scared or when she was about to beat her high score on a video game. Then she realized it was the feeling of excitement.

  Tember finished putting on her bathing suit when the familiar sound of her grandfather’s Buick pulled up the drive. She threw on her shirt and shorts over her bathing suit. A lump formed in her throat, her body stiffened, and she forced herself to take a deep breath. With the creak of the Buick door, her grandfather exited his car.

  Tember could see him through the tiny unzipped portion of her tent. He staggered from his car, swaying back and forth as he stopped to pull keys out of his pocket. He’s drunk, Tember thought. With the help of the RV railing, he kept his balance enough to make it up the stairs.

  Tember held her breath as if he could hear her breathing in her tent. She wondered if he knew that her grandmother had left the campground and if he would assume that Tember was with her. Her grandparents were not the best communicators. They were like two ships passing in the night. Tember listened for his movement inside the RV, surmising that he was at the back end of the trailer.

  She slowly unzipped the tent, grabbed her backpack, zipped the tent, and crept her way out of the campsite.

  “Jenny!” her grandfather called.

  Tember turned and answered, “Hi, Grandfather. I wasn’t sure if you were sleeping, so I was going to go explore the campground and give you time to relax.”

  He waved his hands in a lose manner back and forth as he slurred, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. How much money do you have?”

  “None,” Tember answered.

  “None?”

  “Sorry,” Tember said. “I was hoping to get some for my birthday, but that didn’t happen.”

  “Nothing?” her grandfather asked. Tember was convinced that he too had forgotten her birthday.

  “No, sorry. I haven’t had money since the last time you cleaned me out.”

  Her grandfather’s face changed into a grotesque frown, as though he’d eaten a lemon.

  “I cleaned you out? The way I see it, you owe me that money,” he said as he pointed his leathery finger at Tember. Tember lowered her head and shuffled her feet. “Empty your pockets.”

  Tember pulled out her pockets, showing they were empty. “Nothing.”

  Her grandfather closed the space between them quickly and poked her shoulder.

  “Give…me…your pack.” He poked her as he said each word.

  The physical abuse she endured was capped with aggressive poking from her grandfather and a raised hand by her grandmother. She considered herself lucky that it stopped there. She handed her pack to her grandfather. He unzipped the pack and dumped its contents onto the picnic table. Her iPod, hairbrush, towel, eReader, journal, pens, and tampons fell onto the table. A roll of ChapStick rolled off the table and into the dirt.

  “How much is this worth?” her grandfather asked as he held up the iPod.

  “Grandfather, that’s important to me,” Tember pleaded as he held it high above his head. “I don’t know, twenty dollars.”

  “Don’t lie to me!”

  Tember stiffened and winced. “I’m not. It’s a third generation iPod, and there’s been like six upgrades since then. It’s old. Nobody wants it, especially since there are smart phones now.”

  “Okay, okay, and this?” Her grandfather held up her eReader.

  “Fifty maybe, but this one is old too. I got it two years ago for seventy dollars,” Tember answered. Her grandfather threw both of the items on the table.

  “The rest of your stuff.” Her grandfather waved both of his arms wildly at Tember.

  “What?”

  Her grandfather went to the tent and pulled out her sleeping bag and pillow. He grabbed at the knife on his belt, flipped it open, and sliced open the pillow. Stuffing flew all over the tent as he searched for some unknown treasure. His hand came out empty, and he stared at Tember.

  A piece of cotton floated down from the air and landed on his head. Despite Tember’s fear at this moment, she still needed to suppress a laugh.

  He said, “I know you have to have some money.”

  “I don’t, but if you wait until tomorrow, I can get you some. I did some babysitting–”

  “Not enough,” he said as he threw the pillow and sleeping bag back into the tent. Tember walked over and zipped the tent. Her grandfather turned and walked back into the RV.

  Tember shoved her belongings back in her pack. She placed two of the tampons in her front pocket and knelt down to pick up the ChapStick from the dirt. She stood to see her grandfather drinking from a beer bottle and staring out the window at her. The way he looked at her made her feel uneasy. He pointed at her, slowly rotated his wrist, and pulled his pointer finger at her, motioning for her to come in.

  As Tember walked up the steps, she dropped one tampon into the hole in the railing. She stepped into the RV as her grandfather took the last sip from the bottle.

  “What did put in your pocket?” her grandfather asked.

  “Grandfather, this is embarrassing,” Tember whined. “It’s a tampon, see.” Tember flashed the tampon at her grandfather.

  Her grandfather outstretched his hand. “Let me have it.”

  Tember’s mind went to scenes of cartoons when characters would say, “Let me have it,” and the other character would hit the toon over the head with a piano or a large hammer. Tember wished at that moment that she was a cartoon, but instead she handed him the tampon.

  Her grandfather clumsily ripped open the tampon paper. Hundred dollar bills fell to the floor. He looked at the floor and then back up at Tember. He started to squat to pick them up but then lost his balance. He used the kitchen counter to balance himself.

  “You pick that up!” her grandfather ordered as if she had dropped it. “How much?”

  “A thousand,” Tember whispered.

  Her grandfather put out his hand, and Tember placed the ten bills in it. “You ungrateful…where is the rest of it? You had another one of these thingies.”

  “The others are just tampons. You can open them but–”

  Her grandfather snatched off her backpack. He once again dumped the contents of the bag onto the counter. Her iPod fell into the sink. He grabbed the only tampon that landed on the counter, unwrapped it, and pulled it apart. A tampon fell to the counter.

  “Others?” he asked.

  “That’s it,” Tember said.

  “In the bathroom?” he asked as he shoved her money into his front pocket.

  “No, you can go check,” Tember said as she grabbed her pack from the floor and once again picked up her belongings. Her grandfather fled to the bathroom, and Tember heard him rummaging through the cabinet under the sink. Then she heard liquid rushing into the toilet and the toilet flushed, and her grandfather returned to the kitchen. He was doing a haphazard job of tucking his shirt into his jeans.

  “You lied to me,” he said.

  “Yes,” Tember answered. She wanted to say that their relationship was not built on tru
st. She wanted to tell him that she needed that money to get away from him and his crazy wife. She should have told him that he should feel lucky that he got the thousand-dollar tampon because she stashed the one with five hundred in the railing.

  Her grandfather walked toward Tember and then pointed to the master bedroom.

  “Get in there,” he said.

  “What, why?” Tember asked.

  Her grandfather took a swing at Tember, but he was so drunk that she sidestepped the punch and used his momentum to throw him into the kitchen island. He pushed himself back upright.

  “Guess I should be happy. I taught you that move,” he said and pointed to the back room again. Tember walked backward into the bedroom, and her grandfather pulled the lock over the door.

  “What are you doing?” Tember yelled.

  “Your punishment,” he slurred his answer.

  “But for how long?” Tember asked. “You’re not leaving me in here, are you?”

  “I will let you out tomorrow,” he said. “Or the day after. There’s water in there, so you won’t die for five days.”

  “Grandfather!” Tember said.

  “See you, Jenny. Have fun,” he said.

  Tember watched out the window as he got back in his car with a beer bottle in hand. He pulled away. Tember’s eyes filled with tears.

  9

  Gracie placed her bag and towel on a lounge chair next to her. She kicked off her sandals and leaned back in the chair. Sun beat down on her, and sweat formed on her body. Every few minutes a different boy walked up to her and tried to strike up a conversation. She decided when Tember came down, they should leave or they wouldn’t get a moment to talk. Gracie decided they should rent canoe.

  Minutes passed and Tember had not arrived. Gracie got up and jumped in the pool to cool off and then returned to her chair. She checked the time on her phone; Tember was thirty minutes late. She played the morning’s events over in her head. Her instincts told her that Tember was flirting with her and that she was comfortable with Gracie flirting back.

  Donnie swam to the edge of the pool, pulled himself out, and sat on the chair Gracie was saving for Tember. In the little time Gracie had been here, Donnie had hit on her more than any of the other guys. He was relentless.