“Soon,” she said. “But I’m okay for a little while. Can we get something to drink? It’s so hot today. Why is it so hot?”
I glanced around the block. “Mother nature is getting revenge—probably against my kooky family for bringing thousands of people into the woods for a festival every year. Come on, this way.”
Without speaking, we walked in tandem toward the corner, and I steered her toward a stucco storefront there that was painted an electric shade of blue. A sign above the door read:
THE BAIT SHOP
IF WE DON’T HAVE IT, YOU DON’T NEED IT.
NOMADS WELCOME.
Condor’s corner shop. Maybe more of a general store.The original owners were hippies from San Francisco. Flower power and acid trips, free love, all that. They opened the Bait Shop in 1969, and it was one of those places that are sort of stuck in time. You either loved or loathed it, but it was an iconic part of the lake.
I pushed my sunglasses up on my head as we stepped inside. A few unhurried customers browsed narrow aisles between rainbow shelves bursting with a strange assortment of granola snacks, knickknacks, flip-flops, and health food. Beach towels and bright umbrellas hung from the ceiling next to an old-fashioned machine that roasted almonds. There was even a rotating display of random hardware—just in case you needed to buy one loose nail or screw, and who didn’t? And then there was the obligatory homemade kombucha and yogurt for sale next to a closed dispensary window with a giant marijuana leaf.
“I love this place,” Jane murmured. “Mostly because Frida gets distracted by the smells on the floor, so she doesn’t bark at people or try to take anything off the shelves. So I can spend a lot of time browsing.”
“They probably haven’t mopped in thirty years,” I told her. “Are you hungry or just thirsty? I’ll get it.”
“Just thirsty, thank you,” she said. “I need to give Frida some water too. Maybe we can sit outside? Do they still have those little café tables out back? They remind me of Paris. Not that I’ve been. Paris in my mind. Just with more pine trees, ha.” She wiped her forehead. “There’s never anyone out there this time of year. At least, there didn’t used to be. Maybe that’s changed. Everythinghas around the lake since I was here last. Are you hot?”
She was talking a mile a minute, completely flustered and anxious. Fucking adorable. I was going to die from her adorableness. At a small deli counter next to the register, I bought one giant limeade and a bottled water from Condor’s resident Jimmy Hendrix look-alike. Then I held the back door open while Jane ducked under my arm, and we walked out of the shop onto a sprawling lake patio.
Alone at last. Us.
“Yes, excellent. This is the best view on the Strip,” she said, sounding a little calmer as she took out a little cup from her bag and filled it with bottled water on the patio for Frida.
She wasn’t wrong about the view. The wooden patio was half on shore, half over the lake, where a few sailboats glided in the distance. It was a perfect June day, not a cloud in the sky. The mountains beyond the water looked like something out of a storybook, capped in snow.
My mind was spinning a million miles an hour. About the apartment and my mother. About Jane sitting next to me now. I was trying to process how I felt and what I wanted to say, but nothing was coming out. Jane put up the dog’s water cup and drank half the limeade through a striped straw. I drank after her while her eyes stayed on mine, and it felt ridiculously intimate to put my mouth where hers had been.
Behind us, the door creaked open, and a couple emerged from the shop. They sat down on a bench by the patio wall, under a sign that saidRIPPLE. As in, Grateful Dead. Still water. Pebbles.All that. I wasn’t a Dead fan, but that was their best song. So peaceful and beautiful…
And I wanted to murder the Ripple couple for interrupting my moment alone with Jane.
She held on to her elbow and gave the couple a tight smile.
“We can take those deck stairs down,” I suggested, pointing to the far side of the patio. There was a walking path that snaked around the lake. All of the shops along the way had two entrances—the main doors from the Strip, and the lakeside entrances around back. No one used the path but locals this time of year. Sometimes you’d see runners here early in the morning, but right now, it was shady from trees and the shadows of the buildings.
Blissfully deserted.
I loosely carried the limeade cup by the rim in the tips of my fingers while watching her from the corners of my eyes. Her black polo shirt had Mad Dog’s logo stitched on it, as if she were his property, or something. That pissed me off, which was dumb, I guess; especially when I looked down at the name tag on my own shirt: property of the record shop.
“Does she know?” Jane asked.
“Know what?”
She stopped and looked at the water over a waist-high stone barrier that ran along the path. The lake was yards away. Rocks and trees and small outbuildings marred our view. Frida wagged her tail at a beetle crawling between blades of grass.
“Your feelings,” she said. “Your mother, I mean.”
“About?” I wanted her to say it.
Her eyes flicked to mine. “I’m just trying to figure out what is going on. My father doesn’t do stuff like this.”
“Oh, like… rent an apartment that your son specifically mentioned wanting just to throw it in his face because the girl chose his brother instead of him?”
She was offended. “I didn’tchoose. There wasn’t a bachelor contest. No one gave me a rose and said, ‘Here, offer this to the one you want.’ I’m not a spoiled debutante who gets invitations to galas.”
