12. Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
Cal Truitt
“ I s the life hack in the room with us?” I ask Skip while scratching my neck. Each day drives home the point that this man is living with his head in the clouds.
I’m in a chronic state of bewilderment around him. “That’s going to make it more difficult, not easier.” He’s met with me three times today about an ‘innovation’ for mini putt ball retrieval. He’s making me itch.
Glancing out the window at the back of his office, I keep hoping to spot Remi. She teamed up with Keenan on the mini putt course today, leaving me to deal with both Kami and Nat on bumper boats. Neither of them is interested in being helpful, the mess created by Skip’s impromptu meetings hasn’t helped. “I wouldn’t ask that last maintenance person you hired and then fired. He was an inbred tennis ball of a human being. That’s how you almost got electrocuted, remember?”
He taps his pen against his lips, his eyes closed, “Oh, yeah. Do you think Charlie could figure it out?”
Each passing day this summer is making me feel like I’m living in the longest and most chaotic comedy skit ever. When I’m not trying to figure out what my life has become, working here throws baffling things my way. No one should try what he’s proposing, but I bet if Skip contacts Charlie, he’ll accept that conclusion from him . Just not me. I shrug in response.
My walk back to the bumper boat fiasco gets sidetracked when I see Remi struggling to get a child’s shoe off one of the course obstacles it was thrown on. I reach around her to pluck it off. “If Skip summons me to his office one more time, I may have to demonstrate why his plan won’t work. Then I’m going to need a padded cell somewhere.”
She bumps into my side with her rear playfully, “Tell him that I’m on the way. That’ll shut him down. We had ‘words’ this morning about me leaving in a couple of weeks. He doesn’t understand why I can’t find a school near here. But when I explain why to him, it’s not good enough.” When she told me the news, apologizing that she’d been hesitant to share, I told myself not to react. Not to show her how hurt I’ve been.
But I have obligations to return to also.
Hugging her tight to me, I say softly, “It’s all going to work out.” It has to, because life without her sounds deeply deplorable. It’s nothing I’m looking forward to.
Her friend, Keenan, walks our way idly swinging one of the mini putt clubs. “She’s got more faith in that top than I have in most of humanity.” He directs the golf club at a red-faced mom trying to reason with her out of control toddler whose shoe we’ve rescued. “It’s impressive.” Her thin, barely there crop top is fighting to make it against the flotation devices she had surgically attached to her chest.
The pop music that is piped into the Funpark cuts out with an announcement on the speaker, “Cal to base, Cal to base, please.” For the fourth time.
Remi puts her hand against my chest, straightening up taller, she says firmly, “Oh no. Uh uh. I’ll take care of his bullshit. Besides you need to head back over to the bumper boats, they haven’t been running for over fifteen minutes and the line is winding back all the way to the office.” She leans in to give me a kiss on my cheek. “Try not to drown your co-workers.” She immediately slaps a hand over her mouth, her cheeks reddening. “Oh my God, I didn’t mean… what I meant was… Oh for fuck’s sake. Can we just forget I said something so insensitive an-”
I cut her off with a kiss, as I slap Keenan on the back because he starts to choke on his gum next to me.
“It’s okay. You didn’t mean anything by it,” I say through a chuckle. She’s still making comments under her breath because of her bad word choice.
She looks over her shoulder mouthing sorry once more, before heading inside the office. She’ll say sorry a dozen more times for the faux pas before she drops it. “Do me a favor, please?” I ask Keenan who is making faces of disgust at the toddler’s mom.
“Oh, this should be good. Go ahead,” he says sarcastically.
“Switch places with me. Please? I’ll owe you a huge favor.” There is no way I want to deal with Nat or Kami for the rest of the day. Nat can’t stay focused, she’s always wandering off, and Kami is either trying to flirt or fight with me during every forced interaction.
“Hmph. I don’t think we can be friends anymore. Memories will suffice. Goodbye, old friend,” he says mockingly, kicking his leg up behind him, giving a little wave. “Bye, bye. Be gone.”
I can’t help laughing at him.
Ten minutes later after bargaining with him he finally agrees to switch to the bumper boats; he gets thirty dollars, a yes or no on whether Remi has used any of his gifts… she may not be happy about that admission, and two of his drive-in shifts.
The bumper boat line and unhappy customers have spilled into the mini putt line by the time that Keenan turns to leave. Minutes later, Remi comes back from the ticket office, frustrated. “The hypothetical fixed it. You and Charlie should be safe from his antics for now. Where’s Keenan, what happened?”
“He is off to the bumper boats. Wasn’t that nice of him?” I wink at her,
She pulls a rubber frog on a keychain from her pocket with a key on it. “I forgot to give this to you earlier. It’s for my apartment at school. I want you to use it. Use it a lot. I mean all the time.” She isn’t leaving for twelve days. It’ll go by fast, but I wonder why she’s giving this to me now. She must be as nervous as I am that she’s moving back to Florida. Even if it’s temporary, if she needs us, we won’t be close by.
“You’ll come back to see us, too?”
There’s a pang of discomfort in my chest. A need to make sure she knows that I don’t want this to be a summer fling. She’s jump started my heart. A jolt that’s given me purpose again. The amount of times my mind wanders to thoughts of her daily would be embarrassing to admit out loud. Hell, I’ve never felt so compelled to share the most mundane occurrences with someone. Not even Charlie, who I’d normally tell.
“You won’t be able to keep me away.” When she grabs my hand to lead me back to the start of the course, I notice she has crafted all of our names: Wilder, Charlie, Grady, and I out of googly eyed frogs up one arm. The way my heart feels like it’ll swell out of my chest can’t be healthy. Damn, the way I feel wrapped up in her still stuns me.