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“Well,” she sighs shakily. “I’d better finish unpacking.”
At the same time, I blurt out, “I’m going to hit the lake.”
We part ways as I imagine we did as pre-teens: awkwardly.
Chapter 5
Penny
He doesn’t remember kissing me. Or writing me letters.
But that can be discussed later. Right now, the distant horn of a freighter ship overpowers all the overthinking. Almost.
Quickly, I pour myself a glass of chilled white wine and claim my rocking chair on the porch of the cabin, lemon balm spritz bottle in my hand. It’s a glorious twilight, but the mosquitoes are unreal up here. My mother always brought Deep Woods Off, but I prefer the natural stuff, and it works just as well.
Joshua has a spring in his step as he makes his way down to the dock.
The way he’s walking, the way he behaved after that hug—that adorably clumsy hug—I can tell. He has no clue that he was my first kiss or my first pen pal. Or my…anything. I was just Penny from summer vacation and her annoying little sister.
The footfalls on the rickety dock call up more nostalgia. How many times every summer did my sister and I get yelled at for running on the dock? And who knew I’d be sitting here as an adult one day, all the sights and sounds tugging at my heartstrings?
Joshua stows his tackle box and poles and tosses aside the life vest that’s been placed on the captain’s chair. None of us ever appreciated being forced to wear those things when we were kids. Of course not. We were wild, largely unsupervised children having the time of our lives. The wearing of life jackets was the only rule of vacation, it seemed.
Joshua starts up the engine on the pontoon boat—one of the same stripped-back vessels that that cabin offers for its visitors to use—and smoothly steers the boat away from the dock, pausing before he crosses the channel.
The freighter must be closer than I thought.
The gigantic cargo ship with its long, flat deck causes chills to run down my spine. Joshua’s pontoon boat looks like a bug floating on the water in comparison.
Everything comes to a halt when the ships chug by. No matter what’s happening, I never get tired of stopping and staring. I’m glad I’ll never get used to it the way the locals do.
The ship passes, and Joshua is on his way across the choppy channel to the cove. I wonder if the cranky old tugboat captain still lives in that little shack over on that island. I wonder if Joshua’s memory about that salty old geezer is better than his recollections about our letters and the kiss. All I can do is screw up the courage to ask.
I sip my wine and recall that those letters were hastily scrawled on notebook paper, torn out, and stuffed into a borrowed business envelope from his dad. A teenage boy would think of letter writing as an obligation to be carried out, if he felt compelled to write to a young girl at all.
So I should not be surprised that he might have forgotten.
The pontoon disappears behind the captain’s island. Does Joshua know he’s now in Canadian waters? Guess we’ll find out soon enough if their border patrol stops his boat.
All those things I can understand forgetting.
But a kiss?
All right, Reeve, let’s break it down. I had been upset because it was the last night of vacation and I was about to start fifth grade. Nothing about fifth grade seemed fun. My swimsuit was washed, dried, and packed away. Mom handed me actual shorts and a shirt for the end-of-vacation cookout. But I wasn’t hungry, so I wandered off to the end of the dock.
After a while, Joshua came down and sat next to me. I remember he smelled like bug spray and campfire smoke. He asked me what was wrong. When I told him, he said, “I’m going into eighth grade and trust me, it gets so much better. You’re right: fifth grade sucks.”
I said, “Thanks.”
“But you could just go on vacation in your brain,” he said.
“How?” I replied.
“You just close your eyes and remember the good stuff.”
I shrugged. “I guess.”
“You look different with your hair dry,” he said, changing the subject.
