Page 101 of Lovebug
Then he literally shakes a leg in an attempt to get the excess water off his soaked clothing, leans over the shower door, and looks deeply into my eyes.
“I think you’re amazing, you know that?”
“Ummmmmm” is all I can manage.
“I’ll see you up there.” He kisses me quickly on the lips, then takes off up the hill.
What. In the world. Just. Happened?
I begin the process of toweling off my body, but soon, I hear his voice coming over the loudspeaker—geez, did he beam himself there?—and decide to forgo the towel and just throw these clothes on and head up the hill myself. I need to understand what the heck is going on here.
When I make it to the main area, Wally has just wrapped up his speech. He’s soaking wet, seemingly without a care in the world, shaking hands and kissing babies. Well, he’s notreallykissing babies, but you know what I mean. Naomi is standing close by him, smiling and nodding at everything he says to festival-goers.
I’m standing there, mouth open, taking in the scene. How in the world is this jovial people person the same grumpy monosyllabic guy I met a few weeks ago? The curmudgeonly man who the CITS were certain spent his days murdering people and burying them in his backyard? How is he the owner of the arboretum?
But I suppose the real question I should be asking myself is how did I let myself get so weirdly intimate with someone I clearly know nothing about?
I’m so lost in my wondering, I almost don’t see her as she saunters by.
“Aunt Tina?” I call out.
A woman in her early forties turns at the sound of her name. Her eyes widen and her mouth falls open when she sees me.
“Mabel?”
“Oh my gosh,” we both say at exactly the same time.
She instantly wraps me up in a hug. “How did you? Why are you—? My gosh, you’re...”
“Soaked?” I laugh uncomfortably. “Sorry, I just—”Not a clue how to explain my recent water sports to my long-lost aunt, who I haven’t seen in fifteen years.
She pulls back and looks at me in what can only be described as wonder.She doesn’t say anything. Just continues to stare at me.
“What are you doing here?!” I squeal, suddenly out-of-my-mind excited.
“I thought I’d check out the festival.”
“No, I meant here in Pennsylvania. Surely you didn’t come all the way up from Tampa for the festival.”
She laughs lightly. “No, I didn’t. I actually, uh …” She hesitates. “I live in the area now.”
“Seriously? Wow! That’s amazing!I can’t wait to tell my dad! He’ll be so—”
“He knows,” she cuts me off gently.
“What?” I cock my head to the side. “No, he doesn’t.”
“Mabel, sweetie. He knows,” she says. “We’ve been here for three months.”
“Oh. Really? Wow, he never said anything.” I feel a Mabel monologue of epic proportions brewing, and it won’t be stopped. “Not that he ever says much. About anything really. And certainly not about you. Last time I brought you up, boy, did he almost blow a gasket! And you know with his heart thing—do you know he has a heart thing?—we can’t risk gasket blowing. But boy, I’d really like to know what went down between you two. I miss you. You were my favorite aunt. Myonlyaunt, of course, but don’t let that lessen the expression of affection. I’m pretty sure you’d have been my favorite even if I had fifty aunts.”
She doesn’t respond for a moment. Just smiles. She seems to take in my appearance.
“Are you wearing… an eggplant-colored power suit?”
I look down at myself. “I… think I am, yeah.”
“Wow,” she says, shaking her head. “You’re doing really well for yourself then, huh?” Her eyes go a bit misty at that.
