And then I’d met Giulio.He was sweet natured and looked like a young Renaissance prince with his curly brown hair and slim body.He stands heads and shoulders above all other men in my memory, because he gave me my first non-vibrator related orgasm.
Excuse me for being bitter that I still have my vibrator but I don’t have him!
Despite my acidic memories of how he left me, I have the same concerns as any other woman who worries that lightning might not strike in the same place two times.Will I ever dare to love again?And if so, will he be a good lover?
Throwing a lump of clay on the potter’s wheel, Tallie gives me a wink before wetting her hands and digging her thumbs deep into the cold, gray blob.
“You do that, Luna.Drive up to Landslide and have a look around.It can’t hurt.”
ChapterTwo
Luna
This far north, all of the trees are evergreen.But I don’t need yellowing leaves to tell me that fall is on the way.
The further north I drive, the worse the weather gets.When I jump out to fill my little hatchback with gas, the wind whips my hair around my face so that I have to keep on spitting out the soft, red filaments.
It had been a harrowing six-hour-plus journey for someone who dislikes driving and has a pathological hatred of chaos.As my neat and well-ordered Twin Cities life recedes further away, I try to swallow my panic.I’m literally heading into the unknown.
Spending the night in a highway motel seems like a good idea.I have to reach the ferry early in the morning.And I amsonot a morning person!
I manage to reach the Long Point jetty and drive up the ferry gangplank only a few minutes before it departs.There are other ferries that can take me to Angle Inlet, but it would involve me producing a passport.Needless to say, I’m the only passenger.
“Got here by the skin of your teeth, Missy.”The ferryman seems to be in a chatty mood.“We don’t go up to that part of the Angle Inlet creek every day.”
Mr.Bryant told me as much.The waters get shallow when the lake tide ebbs.Lake of the Woods is closely connected to the Great Lakes system, and apparently, the subsidence that caused Landslide to form makes the tides there more acute.
Looking around the deck, I see pallets with loads of brown cardboard boxes strapped to them.Pointing at the pallets, I take a guess.
“Are you also the local Amazon delivery guy?”
The elderly man snorts.“Ha!Out here, you’ll be lucky if you get your Amazon delivery in forty-eight days, never mind forty-eight hours.Like I said, we don’t go up to that part of Angle Inlet every day.”
As the ferry chugs along, the man points out some local spots to me.
“That’s Garden Island State Recreation Area.Can have a nice picnic there if you want.”
And, “If you squint over that-a-way, you’ll see Hay Island.Nothing there but biting flies.”
It’s so bizarre knowing that’s Canada a short distance away across the water.
“How long has Landslide been a township?”
The man sucks his teeth while he thinks.“I’m not sure.Maybe when the general store was allowed to start accepting mail.”He points to a bag in the cabin.“That’s a United States postal service delivery right there.They get mail from the Canadian side as well, but as for who they pay their taxes to, I have no idea.”
This baffles me.“So, where do I pay my property taxes?Canada or the U.S.?”
Chuckling, the ferryman shrugs.“Damned if I know.”
I feel the ferry begin turning sharply to the left.
The lake narrows significantly.Lushly green riverbanks and overgrown creeks are all I can see on either side.We have left the lake behind.This must be the inlet.
After what seems like hours, I have to ask, “Where’s the northwest angle?”I want to know, because that’s the furthest anyone can go before the United States gives way to Canada.
Jerking his head back the way we came, the man says, “We’re long past it.”Then he points up ahead.“There’s your final destination.”
When I heard that Landslide was an isthmus island on the border between the two countries, I got an image in my head of Panama sunsets and balmy palm trees waving in the breeze.I could not have been more wrong.
