Throw me line if you willGo home, Bridget. His voice startled me from the dark. He was sitting on the stump just up from the water, tucked into the edge of the woods proper.
My trembling hands can't hold the truth you tell
Why are you hiding, Lochlan?
I bet you don't listen at all, do you? He laughed but it was a harsh sound. He stood up and walked over to where I stood on the grass right beside the lake. He planted a kiss on my cheek. Sloppy. Now I smell like beer too. Yuck.
He points at me. You really should go home.
Why are you drinking beer? You're not allowed yet. You have to be like twenty. I think. I don't know what I'm talking about but I know he is fourteen and too young.
Bridget, you're too uptight for an eight year old. Most kids wouldn't even notice.
You're sitting in the dark alone. Where is Caleb?
On a date or something.
Why don't you have a date? It's Saturday.
So I should be out with some girl?
Isn't that how it's done? Do you like someone?
Maybe.
Then you should ask her out.
She doesn't know I like her.
Why don't you just tell her?
Bridget, have you ever thought that you were in the wrong time and space? That something that should be easy can't be because of circumstance?
I don't know what you mean.
Nevermind. Now why don't you tell me why you're at the lake by yourself after dark. You know you can't swim alone, right?
I wasn't going to go in. Bailey is up the path at the swing and I didn't want to be there. They're smoking. It's gross.
So you decided to wander in the woods?
I'm not in the woods, I stayed on the path and came straight back to the beach.
What is the plan, then?
I have to go back and ask Bailey to take me home.
How about we go together and let her know that I can take you home.
You can't drive. You've been drinking.
We'll walk. It's nice enough. Are you warm enough?
Not actually.
Here, take my sweater. He took off his hoodie and zipped me into it, pulling the drawstrings of the hood tightly. Then he smiled at me. You look like a pixie. You look cute. Let's go.
****
And sadly, just as I start to write about last night (which wasn't all that different than that moment in 1979), Ben comes upstairs with my carpet bag and tells me I should go pack, because we have a two a.m. flight to New York to catch, a long weekend in the biggest city I have been to, unless you count Paris but that might be area rather than density and I was only there for a day anyway so it might not count if I did know what I was talking about.
But I don't. What else is new?
Lochlan does not want me to go, and so he's taken a turn from my bookmark in the big book of immaturity and gotten himself onto a good bender. A mild one, but one nonetheless and he can hang out here with New Jake and PJ and lament the sorry state of his (amazing) life all he wants while he sips all of the good (Irish) whiskey and I play Pepper Potts for another day or two and steal all of the attention from Ben, who is all business these days anyway, and then visit some of the restaurants I have read about lately, so I can make butternauts with freshly churned goat butter siphoned from a thousand cashmere pearl mountain lambs born under a waxing crescent or whatever the hell ridiculous things are written on menus now to sway the one percent.
I am hoping we can get in and out before the Russians find out I am in town. Batman assures me I am safe but I'm not in the mafia so I have no idea what their clubhouse rules are or what sort of revenge they enact past breaking knees and scaring women. And since I don't know what I'm talking about that's one of those side-worries, kind of like what if I die when my will isn't up to date? and Jesus H. Fucking Christ, Schuyler, please don't let Henry drink chocolate milk morning, noon and night for the next three days.
And PJ, please look after my Lochlan so he doesn't miss me too much. Because as I took the bag and headed upstairs to pack, Lochlan pointed at me from across the room.
Wrong time and space, peanut. That's what this is. I am the outsider. You were right.