Page 90 of Grown-Up Second Chance

“You’re obsessed,” I said. “Besides, it’s late.”

“It’s July. The sun doesn’t set until nine p.m. Plenty of daylight. And you brought your shoes.”

“I’m wearing jeans,” I pointed out.

“They dry.”

“I don’t have equipment.”

“Back of the truck.”

I almost reverted to “I don’t wanna,” but remembered time with Joe was running out. “All right.”

He laughed. “I’m not going to drown you. You don’t have to sound so miserable about it.”

“But you want me to get w-e-t …” I moaned as I got into the truck. Memories returned. Whenever I used to get into a funk—which happened often enough, I was a teenage girl after all—I’d whine to Joe.

“You won’t melt,” he said.

“But I will,” I protested. “My great-great-aunt on my mother’s side was the Wicked Witch of the East.”

“I thought it was the West.” He put the truck in gear.

“Well, her too. She’s the one who got smashed by the house. The family was devastated,” I moaned.

“There aren’t any houses floating around. No tornadoes predicted.”

“But she melted.”

“You said she was smashed by a house.”

“That was the other one,” I said.

“The other other one?”

“The East witch.”

“Eastwick? I remember there were witches there. That was a movie.” Joe had a big grin on his face as he showed his senior pass to the park attendant at the booth.

“They didn’t live in Eastwick,” I protested. “They lived in Oz. The West witch melted. The East witch got smashed by a house.”

“Which witch was your relation?”

“Both of them. They were sisters.”

“So your choices of death are smashed by a house or melting? I’d go with the house myself. Faster.”

The absurdity of the conversation made me chuckle. The chuckle turned to laughter, and soon there were tears running down my face. I playfully punched Joe in the arm.

“You are soooo bad!”

He grinned, looking pleased with himself. “Just doing my job, ma’am.”

It was as if we were back to our teenage years when he’d use words and jokes to tease me out of whatever was bothering me. Later we’d talk about it, after the laughter and exercise had taken the edge off, and I was able to think rationally instead of with my hormones.

A few miles in, he pulled off into a broad spot where there was a path to the river. Trees lined one side, but on the other, green meadows stretched far to another patch of forest. There were shapes at the edges of the trees.

“Elk,” Joe said quietly as we got to the river bank.

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