Page 34 of Grumpy Bear

“You did the whole property?”

“I started with the lodge. Then around the pool. I was not the genius who put the pool at the bottom of the creek. That was before my time. I did the RV park last since the residents do so much of the landscaping themselves.”

“It’s awesome. Thank you.”

Coleman frowned, surprised. “For what?”

“For letting me help you with all this. I had no idea. Between what Austin told me and Jim’s warning about manual labor, I thought… I don’t know what I thought I was going to be doing. Picking up trash. Digging latrines. This is… inspiring.” He looked away, but I waited until he met my eyes again. “You’re an artist.”

It was a revelation for both of us. I was discovering it, and I thought maybe he was hearing praise for his work for the first time. Or maybe the compliment was just a lot for him to take.

He tried pulling a face like I’d said something truly insane, but I could tell he was struggling not to smile. He looked really young in that moment, and he sounded like a shy teenager when he mumbled, “Whatever.”

I’d been told many times before my sincerity made people squirm. “I just embarrassed the fuck out of you, didn’t I?”

He spluttered and looked around at anything that wasn’t me, arms flopping like he didn’t know what to do with them. He turned to walk away, but I stopped him with a hand on his biceps. “No, seriously.” I grabbed his arm without thinking and almost lost my train of thought at the feel of the warm ball of muscle and thick vein under my thumb. “You deserve to have your work recognized. And I’d love to have what you have.”

He glanced down at my hand. “What do you mean?”

“Your work and your life are blended. Your home is your art. Your creativity is your job. You actually live every day inside your own massive art project. It's a creative person’s dream. And being in nature like this on top of it… It’s all so grounding.” I wasn’t sure if I was convincing him or speaking my own dreams out loud.

There was a beat of silence as Coleman studied me before he stepped out of my reach. He didn’t jerk away though. He watched my fingers linger as we slid apart. His eyes narrowed, but there was a definite smile on his pursed lips. “Has anybody ever told you you’re a total fucking hippie?”

I laughed, mostly because I was relieved I hadn’t totally mortified him, and followed his lead, shaking off the heaviness of the moment with humor. “Is it the hair? Or was that a rhetorical question?” I reached up to pat my bun. “It’s the hair, isn’t it?”

He shook his head at me, trying to look annoyed, but I knew he was amused. His expression was fond like when he spoke about Jim. “Go stick the damn flowers in some dirt.” His words were gruff, but the tone of his voice didn’t match. “I’m walking over to check on the pool situation.” Without looking back, he called out, “And if you do see any trash, pick it up.”

I spent the next half hour either on my hands and knees, squatting, or bent over.

And not in the way you’d think. I was tucking red and purple flowers into the raised beds around the bathhouse. But I had been eye-fucked a dozen times. Shirtless in Coleman’s oversized shorts, I was definitely giving away some serious plumber’s crack.

Guys came and went from Bathhouse Three in various states of undress. The most common being sandals with a towel flung over the shoulder. I wasn’t counting cock rings as clothes. Most of the men openly checked me out. A few even catcalled me.

“Well, don’t you look like a whole snack.”

I looked up to find a beefy Latino grinning at me as he tiptoed barefoot across the gravel. It was a hungry grin—he’d throw down in a heartbeat if I offered—but his vibe was genuine and sweet. He sighed in relief when he reached the flagstones leading up to the cabins. “I am never leaving without flip-flops again. I can promise you that.”

I swiped back some escaped bits of hair and squinted up at him. “I think that’s wise.”

He looked me over, made a sound of satisfaction in his throat like he’d tasted something good, and then he was gone.

There were lots of little exchanges with strangers like that. Most of the guys who wandered by had the same energy—openly flirtatious but with a happy warmth.

The anticipation of good times this weekend was palpable.

I should have done the edging and the trimming before planting delicate flowers right next to weeds. I ended up having to pull a lot of shit up by hand.

I stood back and squinted at my arrangements, pleased with the soft, ragged edges and the asymmetry I’d used. I’d even put a cluster of flowers beside a patch of moss in the hollow of a small boulder as if the wind had blown a few stray seeds there.

Did Coleman imagine those kinds of stories when he did this work, envisioning the wild creep of nature? I could hear his baritone voice in my head describing it all like a narrator in a documentary.

I could get into this. I’m sure there were some toilets and dishes to scrub, but balanced with tasks like this… For a temp job, it was nice. I could even work on my song a bit, although I didn’t have a way to write anything down. I hummed the melody over and over, trusting the words would come later. One day, they’d just appear, clear as could be like the song had always existed and had finally found me.

My thoughts kept drifting to my dead phone, and my waterlogged guitar, and the hours and days I had left until I had to find my next place to land, but I pushed all that away. People paid good money and made plans to be here, in this place, in this moment, investing so much more than I had. The universe had delivered me here. I felt like it was my duty to be grateful for this random pause in trying to get somewhere.

A golf cart rumbled up piled high with towels and toilet paper, Trey behind the wheel. His perpetual sneer became more pronounced when he spotted me. He pulled to a dead stop and surveyed my work like he was some kind of supervisor. “Does Sawyer know you’re planting flowers all random like that?” The implication being, of course, that I was doing it wrong.

I experienced a brief stab of worry that might be the case, but then who the fuck was he? He was bitter Coleman had chosen me to assist him.