Discreet by Nicole French

2

Chicken shit really, really stinks. It was one of the things I’d managed to block out in the last six years, but now that I was ankle-deep in the stuff, the memories of just how much I’d always hated mucking out the coop were vividly clear.

“Shit!” I yelped as a big glop of it fell down the top of my boot. “Oh, gross!”

In return, I received a loud cluck from the ringleader of the brood, which sounded suspiciously like laughter.

“Oh, shut it, Glinda,” I snapped at the busty bird, named for the rosy tips of her mostly white feathers that made her look like she was wearing a bubblegum-pink gown. That, combined with the jaunty pink comb crowning her head, recalled the good witch from The Wizard of Oz.

Unlike her namesake, however, Glinda was most certainly a force of evil. Having done her very best to thwart every attempt to clean up the coop, she’d burrowed into the dirt and shit at the bottom of the building. I had to lock her in the area normally reserved for new chicks while I shoveled the last of the mess into the compost barrel. A few more scoops, and I was done.

It was the fourth large chore, along with cleaning the gutters, fixing some of the Adirondack chairs, and straightening the wood pile, that I’d done on the property that day. Mom wasted no time putting me to work once I asked what needed to be done while she left for her morning appointments at the salon. Unlike me, she hadn’t totally given up on her dreams, and the reality was, she needed to make some money now that she didn’t have her boyfriend’s income to live on. So it was back to cutting hair for her while I stayed home, knee-deep in chicken crap.

It wasn’t really the restful sanctuary I had hoped for, but even if the work was hard, it was familiar. At the end, I could see exactly what I’d achieved.

I tossed the last shovelful into the composter, then spread fresh hay at the perimeter of the outdoor caged area and inside the coop. After I freed Glinda to chase the other birds, I headed back down the hill to put away the shovel and cool off in the lake.

Down on the main dock, I stripped off my sweaty work clothes until I was just in my sports bra and underwear, then tugged my dark brown hair from its ponytail and dove into the water. It was warm again for the beginning of June—more like July or even August. “Global warming, even if some of these yahoos out here don’t believe it,” Mama said with a snort the night before. Global warming or not, the water felt perfect as I swam out to the floating dock by the five mile per hour marker. Both our docks were floating a little crooked—they had waterlogged buoys that need to be replaced. Also on the list.

I took a few laps between them, then climbed onto the floating one and lay on the warm wood slats, gazing up at scattered white clouds.

The lake was quiet. The water was fairly still, even in late afternoon, with only a few boats here and there rippling over its surface. Come the weekend, people from Spokane and Coeur d’Alene would bring their boats and jet skis, which would echo everywhere and cause larger waves from their wakes to crash against each shore. But just then, I could close my eyes and listen to the sound of an occasional fish jump and the distant cry of the osprey nesting in the hills.

“Maggie Mae!”

And, apparently, my mother, back from work already.

I tipped my head back toward the main dock, where Mama waved and held up the basket of eggs I had just brought down from the coop.

“Can you take the eggs to the store?” she called over the water. “And get some baking stuff too while you’re at it? I’m all out.”

I lay back down and sighed up at the clouds. No rest for the weary.

“Margaret!”

“I’m coming!” I yelled back, then rolled off the dock and into the water to start my next task.

* * *

Newman Lake boastedone teeny store located at the far end of a small marina where vacationers could store their boats. It was about a mile from the house—an easy walk this time of day, especially when the weather was starting to cool for the evening.

“Well, look at what the cat dragged in!” Cathy, one of the owners, greeted me from behind the counter that stored both fishing bait and ice cream sandwiches.

“Hiya, Cathy,” I said as I leaned over the counter to accept a hug.

Cathy was maybe ten years older than me, and started living at the lake full time when her father died and left her the store. Since she had gotten a divorce just before that, it was strangely good timing, despite the loss. I might not have been back for six years, but that didn’t stop Mama from giving me all the gossip.

“Look at you, honey,” Cathy said as she combed a few fingers through my hair. “You finally figured out what to do with this hair of yours. It looks lovely.”

I patted self-consciously at the long, mostly straight waves drying down my back. My natural hair, which was curly to the point of unmanageable, had earned me a lot of crap over the years. Despite the fact that my mother was a hairdresser, my hair had been the bane of both our existences through most of my adolescence. It wasn’t until I moved to New York, met Calliope, and let her escort me to a hair salon uptown that I finally learned how to take care of it the right way. To get ready for my showcase, I had sprung for a keratin treatment a few weeks ago, but it was already starting to wash out a bit, and in a few weeks, I’d be back to ignoring my hairbrush and using Moroccan oil treatments.

It took me that long too, to really understand myself as a woman of color in the first place. My whole life, people would ask me what I was. Where I was from. But if my hair was straightened or I had on the right makeup, sometimes they wouldn’t. On the outside, I looked a lot like my mom in the face. We had the same light skin, though mine had more than a touch of brown in it, the same deep brown eyes, though mine were a little darker, the same button nose and full lips, though mine were just a little more pronounced. But where her hair was a light brown that verged on blonde and was manageably wavy, mine was a darker brown mass of curls. I didn’t look white, and I didn’t look black or Hispanic, or whatever was responsible for half my genes. I just looked…different.

She didn’t say it, but other people did. Illegitimate. Bastard. I was born out of countless one-night stands, out of hundreds of careless nights. The only thing either of us knew for sure was that my father wasn’t white, though that didn’t narrow it down much. And everyone around us made sure I knew it.

These were the things Mama never knew. It was hard enough helping my mother recover from her hangovers without complaining about the way kids at school called me Simba because of the way my corkscrew curls stuck out around my face. And I definitely didn’t tell her about the times some of them, even with their parents not five feet away, called me the n-word. Wetback. Chink. Whatever seemed to occur to them that day—they were never very original.

No. I definitely didn’t tell her about that. But it was one of the main reasons why Newman Lake, even if it was where I grew up, never quite felt like home. And Cathy’s touch, though it was intended to be kind, only reminded me of that.

“Lemme guess,” Cathy said. “Ellie's out of baking soda again. I swear, I’m going to gain another twenty pounds with all the cookies she brings by the house.”

I nodded. Mom did have a habit of baking, especially when she got a little tipsy. It was a bittersweet thing. When I was a kid, I’d wake up in the middle of the night to the smell of chocolate chip cookies. I’d be excited, because what kid doesn’t like cookies, but dread it at the same time, because I knew I’d find her passed out on the couch. I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I knew she was done and the house wasn’t going to burn down.

I also ate a lot of burned cookies.

“I’ve got some eggs for you too,” I confirmed. “Mama said you’ve got a bunch of buyers these days.”

Cathy eagerly took the carton from me. “Yes, ma’am. All these young couples out from Seattle for the summer. Would you believe they’ll buy a carton of eggs for six whole dollars? I swear, you put organic on anything, people will pay double for it.”

I chuckled. She had no idea. Cathy’s eyes would have probably fallen out of her head if she saw what some of the grocery stores in New York charged for “premium” produce.

“Hey, Cath, what’s this?” I picked up a neon-pink flyer from the stack sitting on a clipboard next to the cash register.

“Oh, that’s for the new triathlon event the inn is starting this year. Don and Linda Forster are trying to bring in some more tourists, I guess. Their boy—you remember Lucas, don't you, hon?—got the bug for marketing last year.”

I nodded back and turned away to avoid her knowing look. Of course I remembered Lucas. Lucas was my first boyfriend. The one who took my virginity in my room one lonely night while Mama was at the bar. For so long, Lucas was the one who kept me safe. When we were in high school, he was the type of guy people wanted to be around—a pickup truck driving, football-playing golden boy, and so when I was with him, people wouldn’t call me names. I stopped being the one “colored girl” in our class and became Lucas Forster’s girlfriend. It traded one limited identity for another, but the latter was far preferable.

And then I got my scholarship to NYU and left him and Newman Lake behind. I hadn’t meant to break his heart, but deep down, I think I always knew I would. Because as much as Lucas Forster had been in love with me, it hadn’t been enough to keep me here. Now he was just one more person I hadn’t seen in six years. We hadn’t even spoken once since I left.

Like my thoughts called a ghost from its grave, the bell over the store door jingled, and the man himself walked in.

Lucas looked the same as he ever did. A little more filled out, sure. Maybe a little softer, with a slight belly that pressed at the bottom of his t-shirt. But he still had the same smattering of brown stubble over his rounded jaw. Still the same old Mariners cap perched on the crown of his head. Still the same big shoulders that would shelter me from a world that was less than kind.

When he caught sight of me, he stopped in front of the beer case, jaw dropped.

“Holy…Maggie, is that you?”

I smiled shyly and gave an awkward wave. “Hey, Luke. Yeah, I’m home for a little while.”

“Dang…wow.” His eyes roved over me openly, like he was checking for cracks. He pushed off his cap, revealing a severely receding hairline, then quickly put it back on. “You look good. I, um, like your hair like that.”

I fingered the half-dried waves again. I didn’t know why, but it made me feel weird to hear him say that. Lucas’s sisters both had pin-straight hair, and they were always flat-ironing mine when I would come over. Back then, Lucas would tell me I looked beautiful no matter what. Of course, that was usually when I was sitting on top of him in the bed of his pickup. It’s hard to take compliments seriously when the guy is trying to sneak a hand down your jeans.

“Thanks,” I said. “It’s temporary. How, um, how are you?”

“Good. Good.” He reached into the case and pulled out a six-pack of Bud. “Just, you know, getting ready to take over the inn, doing some contracting on the side. Dad’s retiring next year, so he and Mom are stepping back.”

I nodded. “That’s great.” It was pretty much what I would have expected. Don and Linda owned the Forster Inn, the single lodging accommodation on Newman Lake—a big, five-bedroom house that had been converted to a bed and breakfast years ago, plus a camping “resort” that basically just allowed people to park their campers or pitch a tent on their five acres of lakeside property at the north end.

Lucas removed his cap again to rub his forehead, revealing just how far back that hairline went now. It wasn’t unexpected—his dad was totally bald, and Lucas was already losing hair when we were in high school.

“You thinking of doing it?” He pointed at the flyer in my hand. “Kick everyone’s ass again, like the old days?”

I looked down at the paper. Compete in the first annual Newman Lake Triathlon this Fourth of July! It was only about a month away.

Once upon a time, I had been a decent athlete. Good enough to get myself a few scholarship offers to state schools, all of which I had turned down when I’d gained acceptance at NYU. “Like a workhorse,” my coaches had said. It wasn’t until I left Spokane that the undertones of that particular term, directed at someone who looked like me, would really sink in.

I shrugged. “I doubt it. I’m not much of a swimmer anymore. And I haven’t been on a bike in years. I’d probably fall over during the transitions.”

Lucas looked me over frankly. “You look pretty fit to me.”

Cathy hummed, barely masking her grin at the comment. She was leaned over the counter, chin propped on her hands while she watched us like her favorite soap opera.

I blushed. “Um, thanks.”

“I just, uh, I just mean that you used to like it, didn’t you? Racing?”

His fumbling once again returned me to those heady days in the back of his truck. Lucas, always caring and tender with me, but always so unsure. Though we had been together for close to two years, and were one of those couples people assumed would “end up together,” whatever that meant, there had always been that hint of uncertainty when he approached my character. Every statement ended with a question. I had been left to provide the answers.

Still looking at the flyer, I nodded. “Yeah,” I said softly. “I did.”

It was the truth. If music had been one constant in my life, sports had been the other. I had given up the latter when I moved to New York to pursue the former. But now that part of my life was over. Maybe it was time to return to rediscover something else that made me tick.

I looked up at Lucas. “All right, sure. Count me in.”

Lucas grinned. “Awesome. Just put your name over there on the sign-up, and I’ll be in touch.”

“Already on it!” Cathy called out from the register, scribbling my name and Mama’s number in the appropriate columns.

I turned back to Lucas with a sheepish smile. “Sounds good.”

“So, your mom, how’s she doing? We heard about Alan leaving and everything…”

Inwardly, I grimaced. The gossip of this place was something else I never missed. Didn’t matter how hard you tried—everyone always knew your business. While Mama has yet to reveal the whole story, I could guess what probably happened. Clothes tossed out the window. Shouts that echoed over the water. Shit-talking on a cocktail cruise. She and the Forsters didn’t exactly run in the same circles, but they still attended the same church. And it was a small town. A very, very small town.

“She’s all right,” I said. “We’re trying to get the property cleaned up so she can move forward with the B and B licensing. There’s a lot to do, though. The work that Alan did was pretty shoddy to begin with, and he walked off with a lot of their savings.”

Lucas frowned sympathetically, but he didn’t seem surprised. “Sorry to hear that. I’ll come by and see if there is anything I can help with.”

“No, that’s okay,” I replied quickly. “You don’t have to do that. Especially since we’ll be your competitor and everything.”

In response, all I got was a lopsided smile that told me neither he nor anyone else on the lake really believed that Ellie Sharp would be able to run a bed and breakfast. And really, they were probably right. But it didn’t make me any less irritated.

“I’ll stop by,” Lucas said again, though this time his smile was warmer.

I blinked, but saw no sign of ulterior motive. It was just Lucas, as kind and straightforward as always. Maybe I really had been in New York for too long.

Slowly, I smiled back. “Okay, then. I’ll, um, tell Mama you’re coming.”

Lucas tipped his hat at me, then paid for his beer and waved to Cathy on his way out. Cathy and I both watched until the bell over the door rang after him.

I turned to Cathy, who was examining me with far too much enthusiasm. I sighed. “How much do I owe you, Cath?”

She pushed off the counter, opened a small laminated binder, and ran a finger down the price list on the first page. “Six fifty minus four for the eggs—that’s your cut—is two fifty.” She pulled out a calculator to finish the math. “With tax, that’s two seventy-two for the sugar and soda.”

I dug out three dollars from my wallet and set them on the counter. “Keep the change.”