Six. Waiting for a Girl like You

SIX

Waiting for a Girl like You

Joe

It's Thursday night, five days after my dad worked a miracle and somehow convinced Maren to move into cabin twenty and work at the resort. I was skeptical and halfway expected her to change her mind after she lost the weight of my daughter holding her in place and woke to the light of day, but I should have known better than to bet against my dad.

Or maybe Fost's cabin is just that bad.

Scratch that—I know Fost's place is that bad. It was that bad five years ago when we moved the old man out. It'll take weeks, maybe even months, to fix up—a fact that I am finding too encouraging even though there's no fucking way I'll examine why. Let's just say I'm glad she'll be safe where my parents can keep an eye on her.

"Six Spotted Cows, Joe. For cabin four. And can we put in for a few pizzas?"

I take down Gus's order without asking for clarification on the toppings. This group of retired firemen come up every year in mid-September, renting half our cabins (the older ones, of course) and parking themselves on my barstools every night after dark. They only ever order two meat-lover's pizzas with extra cheese, though Big Freddy will take a small dish of sardines on the side.

"How're the fish biting?" I ask, passing the first few glasses from the tap.

"Like shit," Gus grouses, but he's smiling huge, revealing a missing incisor, and already pouring his beer down his throat.

"He's full of it." Jack Dawson, another member of their group, climbs onto his own stool and reaches for his glass with a tip of his head. "That little girl took us all over god's green earth, making sure even All Thumbs over here limited out."

"Maren did all right, then?" I ask, being polite, even though I know she did.

"All right? I've never seen so many fish. Felt like we should have paid more! A couple of us wanted to check on her availability later this week. Can she fit in a musky trip?"

I pull the guide schedule notebook out from behind the counter. I've worked pretty hard at updating the resort into the twenty-first century, but the last time we lost power for three days, my dad drew the line at computerized records. "I'll have to confirm with Maren. She's on loan, but muskies are her bread and butter. She might be convinced to carve out time for a tour."

More men show up and they eventually move the group to a couple of tables. I fill orders and keep an ear to the loud conversation happening in the dining area. It's evident Maren won over the group of old guys when a loud cheer erupts as she finally makes it back to the lodge. From the waist down, Maren's swallowed up in navy rain gear, but her jacket's tied around her small waist and she's wearing a fitted white tank top over a sports bra, her hair in a messy topknot.

She steals the fucking air from my lungs.

I watch as she walks over to the group of men, passing out high fives and sweet smiles. The effect would be hilarious if I wasn't so caught up in it myself.

"Who's that?"

I jerk my gaze back to the job literally at hand. As in, I'm filling drinks from the tap and need to focus. Angela Hartley, one of our daytime bartenders, hops behind the bar and fills a plastic cup with a few maraschino cherries and lemonade. Angela only works summers since she teaches high school English the rest of the year.

"Here to pick up your last check?"

"Yes, but Matt's supposed to meet me here. I hate this time of year. I'm basically a single parent. Sorry," she offers belatedly. Matt is Angela's husband. He teaches at the high school, too, and is also the football coach.

"No harm, no foul," I say, waving her off. "And that's Maren Laughlin."

"Oh! Liam's little sister? I remember her. Didn't she have that YouTube channel way back when?"

"She's a park ranger these days, but on a sabbatical. Fost left her the keys to his empire, so Dad recruited her to do guided tours while she fixes things up."

"She looks like a hoot. Those geezers are a tough crowd to win over."

Just then Maren makes her way over and plops on a stool, her hands slapping playfully on the polished bartop. "Bartender, pour me a drink."

I swallow a grin. "Got an ID?"

"In my other rain pants, I'm afraid." She bats her lashes and smirks. "You want to call my mom and ask her my birthdate? I'll warn you, she loves to talk about the episiotomy."

"All right, smart-ass. What'll it be?"

"Leinie's on tap?"

I nod and pour her drink, tilting the glass expertly to minimize the foam, before slipping a lemon slice on the rim.

Maren plucks the fruit in her fingers and squeezes it in her beer. Then she takes a long sip, closing her eyes. "That's good."

"Don't they have Leinie's in Michigan?"

"Sure," she admits, wiggling happily in her seat. "But it tastes better in Wisconsin, at a bar with Foreigner playing on the jukebox after a long day catching walleye on the water."

I'll give her that.

"I'm Angela," Angela says, holding her small hand out to Maren. "I knew your brother."

Maren's nose scrunches up as she takes Angela's hand. "Sorry to hear that. Which one?"

"I ran around with Kyle during the summers, but I married Mathew Hartley, who was close with Liam and Joe."

"Woof," Maren says, good-naturedly. "Well, you saved the best for last. I'm Maren."

"Musky Maren, right?"

It's fascinating to watch, the way Maren's face ices over. If you blink, you'd miss it altogether because just as quickly she's back to her naturally warm and open expression. I tuck it away to dissect another time. "That was me. These days you can just call me Mare, though."

The two get along like a house on fire, and after two more rounds, their stools are practically attached. Matt walks up behind them, his eyes round.

"You didn't wait for me?"

"You can have an annoyed sober wife tapping her toes waiting for your ass to get here or you can have a happily tipsy wife who might let you cop a feel in the bathroom, if you're lucky."

A stool opens next to Angela and Matt sits down and orders a drink. "Just a beer. It's a school night and it looks like I'm driving."

"After a trip to the bathroom, don't forget. Cleaned it this morning, just for you."

Matt smirks, then tips his bottle neck-first at me as Angela introduces him to Maren.

He chokes on his sip. "Little Laughlin?"

"Jesus. Always the little sister," Maren says, owlishly. "You know I've been up here way more than all three of my brothers combined, right?"

"It's not that," Angela offers helpfully. "You were just such a little tomboy running around after Fost. It's hard to imagine that little girl growing up to be… well, you know. A knockout."

Maren's face flushes, but she's saved by the fishermen who have finished their pizzas and are heading back to their cabins.

"Hey, darlin'," Gus says, approaching her as if he's her long-lost uncle. "You got another trip in you this week? The fellas want you to take us hunting for musky."

"I think so." She looks to me. "Am I available?"

I lean forward so only she can hear and speak in her ear. "Do you want to be? They're essentially asking for Musky Maren."

Maren blinks at me, slowly. Her tongue darts out to lick her bottom lip and I watch it before suddenly shifting backward. She shakes herself and pushes her half-finished drink toward me.

"I think I'm done. I just realized I haven't had dinner."

"Mare, you available?"

She nods. "Okay."

I look to Gus. "Give me a second to double-check the schedule." Then I turn to Matt. "Cover me a minute?"

I don't wait for his response. I just round the bar, tug Maren off the stool, and lead her back toward the small kitchen.

"I said okay," she tells me, sounding more herself.

"I heard you," I tell her, squeezing her hands in my grip. "But I don't want you to feel like you're put on the spot. You get a weird look on your face whenever Musky Maren comes up. You don't have to tell me why, but if you're gonna work for my parents, I don't want you to feel pressured into anything."

"For you, don't you mean?"

"What?"

"I'm working for you , Joe. Your dad might've meddled, and your mom might've played the mother card, but you're the one in charge. I work for you."

I choose to ignore the way those words shoot straight to my groin. "Fine. Sure. Do you want to do the musky tours or not?"

"Yes. But please don't advertise it. I'll do them on a case-by-case basis."

"You got it. But you realize there are going to be a lot of cases that come up at this rate."

Maren nods, and looks down at her hands, still clasped in mine. She pulls them away and I clear my throat. What am I doing?

"Sorry. Force of habit," I joke. "I hold Lucy's hands a lot to get her attention when I'm talking to her."

Maren relaxes. "Yeah. I get it. The kid thing again."

That's not it at all, but I don't know what it actually is, so I let it drop.

"Okay, so I'll sign the firemen in cabin four up for a musky tour and you let me know when you're ready for more."

"Thanks, Joe. I'll stop in tomorrow for details. Close me out? I should get back to Rogers. We both need to eat."

"Drinks are on the house when you're an employee. See you around, kid."

Maren waves her goodbyes to the old guys and Matt and Angela and gives me a small salute before leaving. I return to my place behind the bar.

"Liam know she's here?"

I look at Matt and nod. "He followed her up for a few days, though he stayed here while she was out at Fost's place."

"He know she's working for you?"

"No idea. I don't talk to him every day. He's got a life." And he does. There was a time, during and just after my divorce, that Liam checked in on me nearly every day, but that was years ago.

Matt nods, tipping back his bottle. "She grew up well. She married or anything?"

"She just broke up with her boyfriend," Angela offers. "They worked together and apparently he went behind her back and applied for the promotion she's been working towards for the last decade. Won it out from under her and then had the nerve to propose marriage in a very public way, thinking she would be cool playing the little woman, barefoot in the kitchen."

Yeesh. That's worse than I thought.

"And now she's working for you."

I shrug. "Technically. You know my parents, all up in everyone's business. But she's a hell of a guide and the old guys love her."

"I'll bet they do."

I narrow my eyes, but Angela is the one to snap, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Matt smiles into his beer. "Nothing, dear. I swear. I just meant she's a lot more appealing than Johnson or Casper. Not only her appearance," he clarifies. "She's the whole package and she probably doesn't cuss them out when they talk too loudly on her boat."

"Probably not, though I don't think they'd mind if she did."

"Well, I have a couple of girlfriends from school who've been wanting to hit the water and try for some musky. I never wanted to deal with Johnson or Casper, but Maren is a goddamn delight. Think she'd take us out?" Angela asks me.

"I'll check. But I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem. Just call me back to schedule."

By ten, I'm turning off the lights and locking up the lodge. It's a weeknight and technically the off season, so it's not uncommon for me to get home before midnight, as opposed to the height of the summer when I often close down after two A.M .

The air is unseasonably warm, still, and clear. I slip my hands into the pockets of my hooded sweatshirt and double-check the locks on the outside storage shed. It used to be a padlock, but I convinced my parents to put a little more advanced security up. Though, to be honest, the only times anyone was caught breaking in, it was me. Me and Kiley, most often, but Liam and I snuck out for underage beers a few times as well.

Kiley never loved the resort the way I did. She was always ready to move on from the Northwoods and go anywhere else. Which was why she loved my being in the Marines, at first. It was our ticket out. For the first decade or so of our marriage, she was cool with it. Loved to travel, didn't mind base living, had lots of friends and a real estate license… She never seemed to mind when I was shipping out for training missions or longer. She liked her space. When I was around, we were together, and when I wasn't, she could do her own thing. Not that she was unfaithful or anything. At least not that I knew, and the shit she told me makes me think if she was, she would have owned up to it. No, she just liked living as a single woman, focused on her career.

Which was fine until it wasn't. I always wanted kids and I always hoped to move back to Wisconsin one day and help my parents with the resort and raise my family here. I'm an only child, and, practically from birth, they talked about how it would all come to me one day. Kiley knew, but I don't think she ever took it seriously. Not that it mattered. I would have given it up for her. If she told me she couldn't come back, I would have figured out something else. My parents would have sold the resort or passed it along to a cousin and moved on. It wouldn't have been worth my marriage.

But that never came up. We never even made it that far. She wanted Anders as bad as I did. It was time and we felt ready for the next step. I was still active duty, but Kiley felt solid in her career and had a lot of friends on base with kids. She was confident she could pull it off. And she did for a while. So well, in fact, she wanted to try again and became pregnant with Lucy almost immediately. Almost overnight she went from wanting me to stay in the Marines as long as possible to needing me home. Needing something more—something more that would require a livable income—so I brought us all back to Wisconsin to the resort. My parents were ready to hand over some of the power and wanted to have their grandkids close by. For the first year, it was good. We adjusted, I thought, to living together as a family. Kiley set up her real estate business locally and I kept the kids with me as I slowly took over the day-to-day responsibilities of the resort.

It was pretty clear from early on, however, that Lucy had developmental delays. We were able to confirm by her second birthday that she was autistic and would require intervention and assistance. That's when Kiley decided she was out. She'd adjusted to living in Wisconsin, but the market wasn't as incredible as it was in California. She hated the cold. She didn't want to deal with the resort. Lucy wasn't the reason, but her diagnosis was the last straw in a package of a lot of fucking straws. Within the week, she'd packed her bags and moved out of the state. First to California, then to Florida after she fell in love with her new husband.

If you'd told me twenty years ago that I could be where I am, with all that I've done and everything we'd built, without Kiley, and be okay with that, I wouldn't believe you.

But it turns out it's pretty fucking easy to move on from someone who's capable of leaving their kids.

Kiley had her straw. I found mine.

The lights at the resort are few. Just enough to illuminate a safe path from one end to the other where my house sits. The kids are sleeping at my parents' tonight. Some nights, when I'm bartending, they sleep there; on others, my mom or dad will come to my place and sit up with them to try to keep a schedule for the kids. I pass by the cabins one by one, not really taking them in until I come to cabin twenty.

"Hey, stranger," Maren says from a chair on her small deck. There's a battery-powered lantern on the ground next to her and her feet are perched on the railing. I detour toward her, and she offers the second chair.

"Beer?" she asks.

I should probably get home. I'll be up before sunrise. But I'm feeling wired, so I sit and take the bottle she offers me, cracking it open and settling back in the chair.

"These chairs are shit," I say.

"I mean, I wasn't gonna say anything, but… yeah. They're not great."

I shift to get comfortable. "These are young people's chairs."

"Someone needs to inform management. Adirondack or nothing else."

"I'll put a note in the suggestion box."

She snickers. "Do they still have that thing?"

I shake my head. "Nah. Dad got tired of kids spitting their chewing gum in it."

Maren narrows her eyes amusedly in the flickering light. "Wasn't that you who did that?"

I shrug. "Not every time."

We sit in silence after that, and it doesn't feel weird. Just two old friends having a drink.

"Where's Rogers?" I ask her, eventually. Unhurriedly.

"Inside. He goes to bed early. Once it hits nine, he gives me a disapproving look and puts himself to bed."

"That's handy."

"Not exactly. He gets up early, too. He's got a puppy's bladder and an old man's spirit."

"How was he sitting in the cabin all day?"

Maren makes a humming noise in the back of her throat. "He's fine. I worked longer hours at the park service, though I had a neighbor boy come and walk him on the really long days."

"I bet Anders would be happy to come by and walk Rogers or even pick him up and bring him back to my place anytime you need. That kid loves dogs."

"That would be super nice. Thank you. I'll ask him."

"No, thank you . This way I don't have to get him a dog yet. I've been putting it off."

"Why? Having a dog up here is surprisingly easy."

"At first it was because of Lucy. Not because she doesn't like dogs, but I was wary of adding anything else to the general chaos that is our house. I guess maybe that's still the reason, though we're settling in, so maybe I should start looking. Anders has been patient."

"He's a good kid," Maren says.

"He is," I agree. "The best." And then the words just keep coming. "I worry about him feeling neglected, though, pretty much all the time. There's only one of me, and even with my parents helping, Lucy gets so much of my attention just by being her. Anders likes to play it cool, but he's angry about Kiley leaving. I tried to shelter them from it, but he heard her complain about having an autistic child. It pisses him off and makes him that much more protective of his sister. There's just a lot to unpack there and not enough minutes in the day to unpack it."

"Oof. I'm sorry, Joe. That sucks."

I sip my beer, bemused at the way all of that somehow spilled out of me at the slightest provocation from Maren. She must have some kind of magic "confide in me" gene at work. Still. I guess I needed to get it off my chest. Which is strange, because Liam tried to get me to talk when he was here, and I shut him down. I suppose the difference is Liam always tries to fix everything before taking off again. I don't need a fixer. A partner, maybe? Or even just someone to say "That sucks," I guess. Because hearing Maren say it really feels nice. "Yeah."

"No. Really. What a shitty situation. I can't begin to relate to parenting an autistic child, but having met both of your kids, I can tell you, they're awesome. Really. You're doing a great job."

"Thanks. Just don't ever come over at seven thirty in the morning when I'm trying to get Lucy dressed and Anders off to the bus. It's a disaster."

"Ha," she says, smirking behind her bottle. "I'll take your word for it."