Knee High by the 4th of July (10 page)

5. And finally, don’t eat anything that can get stuck in your teeth. Stick to low-fat, low-carb, leaf-free dishes like carrots, boiled chicken, and lean steak. When he smiles at you, he doesn’t want to see the broccoli smiling back!

I threw the magazine down, disgusted. Women had earned the right to vote in 1920 and eighty years later had apparently traded it in for the freedom to be cute. I walked over to the fridge for some cold water and saw the can of Miller Lite in the back, a leftover from Sunny’s tenure. Next to that was a carton with a half dozen brown eggs. I looked from
Cosmo
back to the inside of my fridge. Well, there was nothing wrong with having shiny hair, I told myself. And I wouldn’t be doing it for Johnny, I’d be doing it for me.

I grabbed an egg and the beer, cracked both, and whipped them together in a bowl. I leaned my head over the kitchen sink and poured the slimy, fizzy mess onto my nearly dry hair. The article hadn’t mentioned how long to leave it in, so I stayed put for eleven—my lucky number—minutes. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I turned on the tap and rinsed out the glop until the water ran clear, and then bundled it up in a towel turban on my head.

In for a penny, in for a pound. I rummaged through my make-up drawer and finally came up with some crusty old rouge that I dabbed on my lips. It was more liver pink than lover red, but hopefully wherever we were eating would be poorly lit. I had less luck finding vanilla oil. As a compromise, I grabbed the bottle of 100% vanilla extract from my spice rack and dabbed a little on each wrist and behind each ear. It was sticky, but I smelled like cookies. I knew I didn’t have pineapple juice and wasn’t going to order boiled chicken tonight, so I’d just have to stop at half crazy.

I was trying to regain some self-respect by reminding myself how I didn’t want to date because all men went bad or dead on me when Johnny pulled up. He had been to my house once before, in June, to help me do some landscaping. I thought we had made a connection that night, but I was either too afraid or too smart to pursue it. I was wondering if tonight would tip that balance.

I let my hair out of the towel and quickly brushed it. It was damp but would dry quickly in the heat. I had visions of it drying and plumping into a perfect, sassy and sexy Barbarella-do. I patted Tiger Pop and Luna goodbye and loped out to meet Johnny. He smiled when he saw me, the sun making a halo of gold around his sun-browned face. He opened the door for me and I glided in. When he slid in his side, I could see his dimples carving out a little space on each cheek.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

Johnny put the car into first and took off down the driveway. “You smell like a beer hall and have something yellow on your shoulder.”

I looked down, mortified. “Oh, um, it’s a new shampoo. Beer shampoo. Beer and egg. Yolk.”

“Really?”

“I got it at the store.” I swatted at a fly buzzing around my head, but the movement of my wrist just attracted another.

“Are you OK if we eat at Stub’s?”

“That’d be great.” Suddenly, there was a swarm of heat-drunk flies around me. Were they after the beer and egg in my hair? I swung again and caught a whiff of vanilla. Christ. I had turned myself into fly bait. I should have just rubbed some raw hamburger under each armpit and called it a night. I shoved my vanilla-dabbed hands under my legs and tried to wipe at the sweetness under each ear with my shoulder. Johnny watched out of the corner of his eye, a smile tugging at his lip. When flies buzzed close, I blew at them out of the side of my mouth, hoping the radio covered up the sound.
Cosmo
sure was right: I was making a memorable impression on this first date.

As soon as we got into Stub’s Dining Hall, I excused myself and went to the bathroom. I was able to scour the vanilla and scrape most of the egg drippings off my shoulders. My hair, however, had dried and was now irreparably crusty and not reflecting any light. Fortunately, I always carried a hair band with me. Once I pulled it up and back and scrubbed the uneven, ailing pink off my lips, I felt slightly better. I still smelled like a beer hall, but at least I was
in
a beer hall.

Johnny was waiting for me at the bar, a teasing smile still playing across his lips. He didn’t comment on my changed appearance. “I got us the last table, Mira, but they need to clear it off first. Can I get you a drink?”

I had decided in the bathroom that this wasn’t a date, if for no other reason than to save my sanity, and so was sticking with my plan of crossing number four off the
Cosmo
list. “A Coke would be nice.”

The bartender nodded, and Johnny reached for his wallet. Out of the blue, Heaven, in all her clean-haired, immaculately made-up, youthful glory, popped up next to him. “Johnny! I’m here with some friends of my brother’s from college. They say they know you. You should come sit with us!”

Johnny put his hand firmly on my waist, and my side tingled where he touched it. “I’m with Mira.”

I quickly leaned over to the bartender. “Can you make that a pineapple juice?”

Heaven pouted. “Whatever. Maybe we can all hook up at the fireworks later.”

“Maybe.” Johnny smiled agreeably, grabbed our drinks, and let me lead the way into the dining room. Our table was relatively private in the crowded room, set back in a space like a closet with hanging curtains instead of a door on the front. We studied our menus inside the curtained alcove. We both ordered—steak for Johnny and chicken for me—before he told me the real reason he had asked me out.

“I have a favor to ask of you.”

That didn’t sound like one potential lover to another. I stared miserably at my salad, wondering if I had indeed turned him off by ordering something leafy.

“I’m going out of town for a few days, and I need someone to watch my place.”

I hoped I hid the disappointment on my face with a good cover of confusion. “House sit? But aren’t you still at your mom’s place?” When Johnny came over to help me in June, I had learned that he had been starting grad school in Wisconsin when he got word his dad was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. He returned to Battle Lake to help his mom take care of his dad and was making the best of his current life working at the nursery, giving piano lessons, teaching community ed classes, and being the town handyman. His dad had died around the same time I arrived in Battle Lake, and Johnny was staying on another year to make sure his mom was situated. He was an only child, like me.

“Yeah, but I’m working on my cabin out on the west side of Silver Lake. I think some kids were partying out there last night, spinning ueys in the driveway. The locks are still on the door, but I don’t know for how long, especially if they get wind that I’m out of town.”

“Couldn’t Jed watch it?”

“Jed’s a great guy, but not what you’d call reliable.”

“Sure, I suppose.” I frowned. “You just want me to drive out there every day?”

“Easier than that. All you need to do is keep your eyes peeled for a car with red paint on it.”

“Huh? A red car?”

“No, a car with red paint on it. I filled some balloons with paint and put them in the dried-up mud puddles in my driveway. They’re covered with leaves, and anyone driving at night won’t be able to see them. Whoever is tearing up the driveway is going to have a car full of red paint splatters.”

“Isn’t that a little vengeful for you?”

Johnny ducked his eyes. “My dad and I built that cabin. It’s fallen apart since I’ve been to college and he was sick, and I’m just getting it back together. I don’t want it trashed.”

“I’m sorry. Of course I’ll watch for the red paint. You just want me to call the police if I see something?”

“I want you to call me. I can be back within a few hours.”

“Where are you going?”

The waitress took our salad plates away, distracting Johnny’s gaze. “Wisconsin. Stevens Point, actually. To visit my grandma.”

“Hunh.” I watched Johnny watching the waitress and wondered why he was suddenly unable to make eye contact with me. If I didn’t know him better, I’d say he was telling me a big fat fib. I tried remembering where he had told Dolly and me his grandparents lived when he had run into us at the Fortune Café, but the beer fumes cloaking my head discouraged clear thinking.

Johnny nodded. “Yup.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Tonight. When we’re done with supper.”

For sure no lovin’ for me tonight. “On the Fourth of July? What’s the rush?”

Johnny rubbed his palms on his pants. “Sure is taking our food a long time.”

“Sure is.”

“Yup.”

“Yup.”

“Yeah, no rush, really. I just thought I’d go see my grandma tonight, beat the weekend traffic. Can we talk about something else?”

What I wanted to talk about was how Johnny was turning into a great big liar, just like the rest of them. Instead, I sipped at my saccharine-sweet pineapple juice and wondered if Johnny’s uneasiness had anything to do with the missing Chief Wenonga, the bloody scalp, or the missing parade Indian. I made myself a promise to check out his cabin and see what this booby-trapping paint balloon dealio was really about in the very near future.

My non-date supper
finished
uneventfully. Johnny drove me home so I could grab my own wheels to have at the fireworks. He flashed me an unusually shy smile when he opened the car door for me. Of course, it could have just been the beer fumes still wafting from my tapped keg of hair that made him look uncomfortable. As we said our goodbyes, he told me he would call me when he returned if I didn’t call him on his cell first.

I considered biking to the fireworks at Glendalough Park to keep a low profile. However, Fourth of July traffic is notoriously dangerous since people are excited, drunk, and looking at the sky. It’s a bad time to be on a bike, so I reluctantly drove my Toyota to the park on the north side of town, hoping the gravel dust blanketing it would make it indistinguishable from other cars in the deepening dusk. With my windows down, I could hear the frogs sighing and the crickets singing in the fragrant sloughs hugging the road. The cooling evening breeze felt like a soft kiss on the baby hairs of my neck, and I began to get excited at the thought of fireworks.

My family rarely made it to the Fourth of July festivities when I was younger. My dad was usually drunk by dark, and before I hit the age of ten, my mom had started going to bed early to avoid him. I had spent every Fourth of July that I could remember perched on the slouched metal roof of the storage shed on our tiny hobby farm in the middle of the flat, west-central Minnesota prairie. I couldn’t see the real fireworks streaking through the sky above Lake Koronis, six miles away, but I could hear them, and I could see our neighbors shoot off Roman candles smuggled in from North Dakota. Every time I heard a pop, I’d throw handfuls of tree helicopters into the air, or grass clippings.

I soon outgrew the Fourth of July on the roof and was left to watch fireworks on the little black and white TV in our living room, for as long as I could put up with my dad’s drunken commentary on everything from the problems with me to the woman he should have married. Now, as a grown-up, watching real fireworks was like reclaiming the childhood I never had. This would be the fifth summer I had seen the fireworks in Battle Lake, thanks to Sunny.

I knew the parking would be impossible in Glendalough, and even worse trying to leave after the fireworks, so I joined a sprinkling of parked cars at the mouth of the park. I fell in line with the crowds all the way to the pay booth where park guests were asked to donate if they didn’t already own a Minnesota State Park sticker.

On the far side of the large map and interpretive sign, I almost missed Dolly walking in. She still had the lighthearted step and distant smile of a happy woman, and I was about to holler at her when I noticed Les hot on her heels. I think he thought he was blending in with the crowd, but with the angry set of his shoulders and the grimace on his face, he stood out like a snake in a baby crib. When Dolly stopped quickly to smell a tiger lily sprouting up amid the prairie grass, Les stopped also and dropped down, pretending to tie his shoe. Did Dolly know she was being followed, and why was Les following her?

I was about to become the third car on that train when Gina popped up alongside me.

“There you are! How long have you been here?”

Gina wore a shapeless, patriotic T-shirt, blue-jeans, and flip- flops. Her thin blonde hair was pulled back in a pony tail, and her bright green eyes smiled at me.

“Just got here. So, what’s your big news?”

“Let’s walk and talk.” Gina hooked her arm through mine and navigated me around the jostling crowds over to a choice spot on the banks of Molly Stark Lake.

“We’re walking, but we’re not talking.” I was studying the crowds, trying to catch a glimpse of Dolly, but I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that Gina was unusually quiet.

She stopped dead in her tracks and faced me. “OK, Mira, don’t be mad at me, but I’m pregnant.”

My initial thought was
ohmygod, better her than me
, but my sporadically effective social filter managed to click down in the nick of time. I grabbed her up in a big hug. “Mad? Why would I be mad? You’re going to be a fantastic mom!”

Gina laughed and pushed me off. “I know how you feel about Leif, but he’s changed. He swore he’ll never cheat again, and he’s changed. He’s excited for the baby.”

My eyes misted over. I didn’t know whether or not Leif had or would change, but I knew that Gina was a whole lot braver than I would ever be. I had decided that being single was like being fat; if society let me get away with it, it’d be my preferred method of existence. I’m not talking “need to remove a wall from your house to heave you out when you die” fat. I’m talking “eat until you’re full and then have a piece of cake with ice cream” fat. A girl could dream.

“I’m sure he is excited. I hope this is everything you want it to be.”

Gina squeezed my hand, sniffing at the air. “Did someone spill a beer on you? You reek.”

“New shampoo.”

“You know, Mir, they say pregnancy is contagious. Once one friend gets it, they all do.” I could hear the teasing in her voice. “You’re on birth control, right?”

“Ha! That’d be like wearing a parachute while you’re driving. Is that Leif over there?”

We wove through the crowd to the blanket Leif had set out for the three of us. I said my greetings and allowed myself to be introduced to the two couples Gina and Leif came with. From what I could tell from an initial glance, both were from the heavy-drinking and TV-watching stock, the women sporting 80s claw hair and the men condescending and dumb. It was only an odd combination if you’d never been west of the Twin Cities. I’d tolerated this type of people when I had to, but when one of the guys, who was coincidentally sporting a Long Hard Johnson Fishing Poles T-shirt, asked Leif if he’d ever heard the joke about how you can’t rely on a woman because you should never trust anything that bleeds for seven days and doesn’t die, I decided it was time to look for greener pastures.

I stood, brushed myself off, and said goodbye to Gina. It was going to be hard to find Dolly among the crowd since it had grown dark. There were hundreds of blankets covered with couples and families dotting the shoreline. No alcohol was allowed within the park limits, but people were openly swigging beer. I decided it would be the best use of my time to hit the far end of the lakeshore and work my way back in an inward pattern, walking along the beach and then backtracking one layer in, until I had worked myself between every group of people. Of course I’d only find Dolly if she had situated herself in this prime firework-viewing location. If she wasn’t on Molly Stark, or if Les had knocked her over the head and dragged her into the woods, I was SOL.

I caught snatches of conversation as I walked through the crowds, punctuated by the first, sparkling fireworks lighting up the sky.

“Oooh! That looked like a purple mushroom!”

“When I was a kid, the fireworks blew up in shapes, like flags or George Washington’s profile.”

“Did you bring the Boone’s Farm?”

“You gotta emphasize the
Boone’s
, not the
Farm
, man, or it just sounds gross.”

“Wow! That lit up the whole night!”

“Think they’ll have one shaped like Chief Wenonga?”

I was at the far end of the crowd, trying not to get distracted by the beautiful rainbow reflections of the fireworks shimmering on the lake. It was when I was pulling my gaze away from the water that I caught sight of a couple, thirty feet up the shore on a little stretch of beach almost too narrow to stand on, the water on one side and marshy reeds on the other. I waited for the next explosion to light up the sky before I could see who it was. In a flash of brilliant red, white, and blue, I clearly made out Dolly’s signature reddish-blonde hair and the dark silhouette of a tattoo on her right wrist, but the person standing next to her was obscured in shadows.

It was a masculine figure, taller than Dolly, leaning down to talk to her. Whether his hair was light or dark, I couldn’t tell. Either way, Dolly was happy to have him close, so I was pretty sure it wasn’t Les, who was shorter than Dolly anyway. I casually strolled closer, dropping down on my haunches when Dolly looked my way. When I reached the edge of the reeds, about twenty feet from where the couple was standing and away from the bulk of the fireworks crowd, I could make out bits of conversation floating over the water.

“… for another week or so.”

“You sure that’s right?”

“I’m positive.” Dolly’s deep chuckle. “You think I have what it takes?”

“… up to you …”

I risked a peek around the reeds. Dolly’s back was to me, but her companion was looking in my direction. I quickly darted back behind the reeds, but not before Johnny Leeson’s eyes locked on mine. He was out with Dolly, and he had seen me spying on them.

“Mira?” he called out, but I was already jogging toward my car.