“Just do it in your car. I promise I won’t peak.”
“Well... I suppose I don’t want to walk into the cottage looking a mess.” She opened her trunk and rummaged through her bag. “Are your kids and Dot at the cottage?”
“Yep. They stayed back. We weren’t sure how much luggage you were going to have or how long you were going to take.”
“What did you expect, a boatful of clothes and shoes.”
“Well, you are a woman,” he joked.
“Well, I only have one bag, thank you very much.”
“That’s great. That’s impressive actually. You should see the stuff my mother brought.”
“I can imagine.”
“You’d swear she was planning to set up a shop on the island.”
Angela took a quick look around and seeing as the place was quite deserted, she acted hastily, without thought and turned around. “Turn around and don’t look,” she ordered.
“Yes ma’am.”
As she took off her shirt, she was suddenly self conscious. What was she doing? This little trip was not starting out as she had planned.
“So did you have a good trip?” Michael asked her.
“Fantastic,” she said as she slid her new top on. “It’s really nice up here. You can turn around now,” she told him.
He checked her out for a second and took her bag, a rather large bag, but a single one just the same. She could smell the sunscreen on him as they walked to the dock. She hadn’t put on her sunscreen yet but she figured she would be fine for the boat ride; her olive complexion being somewhat forgiving. He stepped in and settled her bag into the crawl area.
He took her hand and helped her onto the boat. It was a nice speed boat with lots of seating and various steering controls which seemed quite complicated to Angela.
He handed her a life jacket and she took a seat beside him. The ride was windy and bumpy.
“The lake is wavy today,” Michael told her. He was wearing aviator style sunglasses and a white t-shirt which clung to his body as the wind pressed against him. He hadn’t bothered to put on a life jacket which she thought kind of reckless but nevertheless had resulted in a better view for her. She turned away, remembering the promise she made to herself. She marveled at the great expanse of blue in front of her and the lush greenery, so much uninhabited land, free of noise and pollution.
As they came to a close, he pointed out in the distance at the cottage on a beautiful lone island. It was majestic, perched on rocky land, not too big but just right, white with a wrap-around porch. It was heavenly. As they got closer, he reduced his speed as they made their way to the dock. Angela spotted Eric running down to greet them. The dock was huge; a two part dock which consisted of a floating rectangular dock which was attached to a second walkway dock. As he settled in, Eric came down to help dock the boat.
“Fantastic dock,” Angela told Michael.
“Isn’t it? Complete with a thousand dock spiders,” he joked.
Angela didn’t think it was funny.
Eric smiled at her as he gave her a hand and helped her out of the boat.
She asked him how he was. Her French was a little rusty but she figured she might as well start practicing.
Michael took her up the steps leading to the cottage. She held on to the rails as she stepped up. She couldn’t believe how high from the water they were. She got a closer view of the cottage; a quaint cottage, the kind of place where someone could forget all their troubles and just get lost. She saw Dot coming in the distance, Michelle holding her arm, helping her maneuver the rocky terrain.
“Miss Angela. Why, you’ve finally made it.”
“I did. It’s nice to see you.”
“I will try to be kinder to you, seeing as you went out of your way to come. But I can’t make any promises,” she teased.
“Do your best,” Angela replied as she greeted Michelle.
“Bonjour Michelle.” She didn’t know her very well but she planned to make it her mission to do so in the next two days. She seemed a little reserved but Angela was determined to break her out of her shell.
