37. I’m Not Getting Naked
I’m Not Getting Naked
LILLIAN
“Ican’t believe I’m doing this.”
The Thanksgiving Day Polar Plunge is a yearly tradition in Naknek. The town gathers on one of the pebble beaches and strips down to their skivvies for a dip in the frigid November waters. Some people even go naked.
To my right, Matt pulls off his sweater, bare-chested to the winter air.
“You’re insane!” I gasp.
He grins. “And you love me for it.”
“I do,” I grumble.
To my left, Jesse and Sarah are squabbling.
“I’ll watch,” Sarah says, casting a hand toward Jesse.
“Don’t be a wuss.”
I wince. Those are fighting words to Sarah.
“I’m not a wuss!” Sarah shouts back.
Jesse pulls off his shirt, and then pushes down his pants. I turn away just in time not to see my boyfriend’s brother’s birthday suit. “Prove it!”
As expected, Sarah responds, “You’re on!” and a second later, her shirt lands beside me on the pebble beach.
“She’s naked, isn’t she?” I ask Matt.
Matt laughs. “You think I’m looking at your sister naked? No way.”
I grin up at him.
I hear their feet trampling through the rocks, and then their screams as they leap into the cold water.
“Okay, Lil. You ready?” Matt asks.
“I’m not getting naked.”
“Neither am I. I only do that when we’re alone,” Matt says with a cheeky smile.
I shiver. Not from the cold, but the memory of us skinny dipping in the Egegik months ago before anything really happened between us. Oh, how things change. “Can we go slow?”
Matt grabs my hand. “Of course.”
We approach the water’s edge. The riverbank is filled with people running in and out, shrieking at how cold it is. Jesse has Sarah wrapped up in his arms, keeping her from escaping the cold grips of the water. I’d be worried if she wasn’t grinning ear to ear.
I probably wouldn’t do this if I wasn’t trying to be a good local. I’ve earned the trust of many, but I have to keep that trust.
And evidently, that means taking a dip in the nearly-frozen Naknek River.
I shrug off my robe, wearing only a bathing suit. “This is crazy.”
“This is Alaska,” Matt says, then taps the tip of my nose. “You ready?”
“Ready.”
Hand in hand, we run into the water, so cold it’s like knives. But I understand why Sarah is smiling. It’s exciting to feel the shock and know the thrill of it all.
Matt dives under, and I follow suit because if you’re going to do a polar plunge, you have to actually plunge. I come up for air with a brain freeze.
“Alright, let’s get you warmed up, California!” Matt scoops me up in his arms and takes me back to shore.
“My hero.” I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him.
“Who wants pie?” Gwen exclaims as she enters the room with a pie in each hand.
“Everyone wants pie, Gwen,” Sarah says from her spot across from me at the dinner table.
Matt bought this table especially for Thanksgiving. It was the only room in the house still unfurnished. “It just feels sad to be a single guy in such a big house with a dinner table no one ever sits at,” he told me one night under the covers.
Cue an immediate trip to Anchorage to pick out a table all of our family could fit around for the very first Thanksgiving we are hosting together as a couple.
It's hard to believe that only a month ago I was in Los Angeles, and now, here we are, figuring out a life together in Alaska.
“These look amazing, Gwen,” I say as she places the pumpkin pie in front of me and a pecan pie at the foot of the table.
“You have Marina to thank for the pecan. The supermarket ran out before I could get to them, so she?—”
“Let me guess,” Sarah says, eyeing Marina at the other end of the table. “She flew to Dillingham.”
Marina goes red in the face. “It was King Salmon, actually.”
“Yeah, it was King Thalmon, actually,” Winnie parrots in defense.
The whole table laughs. Marina and Gwen are taking things slow. Slower than slow. Jesse and Matt were shocked when they found out the two of them were dancing around the idea of a relationship, but I wasn’t. Not at all.
Marina returned to Anchorage for the season, but you wouldn’t know it since she’s back in Naknek almost every weekend. Yes, to spend time with Gwen, but also with Winnie. Marina’s babysat on a few occasions so Gwen and I can have a girl’s night.
The shy, dinosaur-loving kid comes alive around Marina now. The two are best buddies. I know that eases Gwen’s burden of being with someone new. Not to mention being with a woman, something that sticks out around here like a sore thumb.
“Oh, my apologies,” Sarah says, clutching her chest.
“You’re such an asshole,” Jesse teases my sister.
She shoulders him, and then he pokes her in the side. The two of them are a match made in younger-sibling heaven.
Matt and I exchange a smile. He sits at the head of the table with me on his right. It’s so comfortable and fills a part of my soul I never realized was there. He grabs my hand and squeezes.
“Gwennie, give me a piece, will you?”
At the other end of the table sits Matt’s father.
I’m still getting my footing with Wayne.
We didn’t even know if he’d come tonight.
I encouraged Matt to extend the invitation.
Wayne is his dad after all. He showed up an hour late with a bottle of whiskey as a host gift that he immediately opened to pour himself a drink.
I guess it’s a win that he’s not abusing me anymore for my work. The way Naknek has responded to my grant proposal certainly hasn’t been lost on him. Despite the ever-shortening days, Naknek has been infiltrated with hope and optimism.
In fact, when I greeted Wayne, he grunted at me in a way that felt . . . friendly?
It’s the little things.
Gwen attends to her father’s pie while the rest of us dig in.
“Oh! I forgot the vanilla ice cream!” Gwen says.
“I’ll get it,” I say, and find that I’m in chorus with Marina, who is halfway out of her chair. I cackle. “You’re a guest, Marina. Please, sit.”
Winnie grabs onto Marina’s pullover and gives it a tug, which is enough to convince her to stay.
“Just trying to be helpful,” she says with a sheepish smile.
“Yeah, we know. You want to be all kinds of helpful,” Matt says.
More laughter. I playfully slap him on the shoulder as I go. “Dude.”
The kitchen is a wreck of pots and pans, and the smell of our Thanksgiving dinner fills the air. It brings a smile to my face.
I go to the freezer to pull it open but find my attention grabbed by a movement outside the window. It gets so dark out here that sometimes you can’t see into the night. But tonight, the sky is filled with shifting ribbons of green and blue—cosmic, unreal.
“Oh, my god.” I abandon the ice cream and go to the window.
The Northern Lights.
I’ve never seen them before. They’re mesmerizing. I grab a jacket and wrap it around myself as I step outside, looking up at the sky. It’s so quiet out here. So still. Like the world has stopped everything except for the vivid, dancing rivers of light.
Tears prick my eyes. I’m surrounded by so much beauty every day. It’s hard to describe just how lucky I feel.
“Lil?” Matt calls out.
I turn back to the house where Matt’s peeking out from the kitchen door. “Aurora Borealis,” I say, pointing up to the sky.
Matt comes outside and looks up. “Would you look at that?” He comes up behind me, wrapping his long arms around my waist and resting his chin on top of my head.
I lean into him, giving him all my weight. “It’s beautiful.”
“You know, I’ve seen them more times than I can count, and they’ve never been more beautiful than right now. Seeing them here with you.”
I smile at him. He’s the most handsome man in the world, even more beautiful because of his big heart and the unwavering confidence he’s had in me from the start.
Matt nudges his cold nose against mine.
I melt further into his body, arms entwined, both of us looking at the heavens.
When love finds you, it can light up the entire sky.