Instantly flustered, Kent swung his head wildly between the boat’s stern and the tall man who was staring in astonishment with eyes as wide as an owl’s. Kent corrected the boat. Alarmed, he wondered if he had caused major damage. Would he get into trouble for it? Be responsible for some exorbitant repair bill?
Once out into the privacy of open water, Kent abandoned the steering wheel to check the stern for damage. Some of the black rubber trim bumper had buckled out of its track, and there were some long scuff marks, but nothing too bad; no cracks or dents. Thank Christ! Kent slid back into the captain’s seat, still reeling from the sound of the impact, the sudden confusion, and the shrill, humiliating reprimand of Linda. Worst of all was the fact that it had been witnessed by the tall man on the dock. Kent vented his torment in a loud diatribe, not minding his mouth one bit in front of Matt. Linda knew better than to interrupt.
When it was safe, she broke the silence with, “That wind was coming in real strong. It wasn’t your fault...”
“I know how to operate a boat, Linda,” he said curtly. “Wind or no wind. Cripes! People standing on the dock staring, you screaming your head off, calling attention... Cripes!”
“Nobody saw anything.”
“There was a man standing there looking! Looking at me like I’m some kind of idiot!”
“I think you might be overreacting,” Linda said quietly. “Just a tiny bit.”
They cruised along the shoreline, past grand cottages fashioned in the Olde Muskoka style. Matt was wowed by the inflatable water trampolines, slides, and climbers anchored in front of each place. Linda was impressed by the boathouses — their size and architecture — the cedar shingles, the copper weather vanes, the flower-filled landscaping, the painted Muskoka chairs, the drama of the granite rocks, and the towering, wind-swept white pines. Everything looked exactly like the pictures from the newspaper article! Exactly like a postcard!
Kent said nothing. He kept the motorboat steered straight for the rental cottage. In his mind, he saw the tall man’s eyes widen into two big circles in a continuous loop.
He knew what that astonished, owl-eye look meant. He’d seen it before. The first time, when he was seven or eight — Matt’s age — and came downstairs wearing a hand-me-down muscle shirt. The adults, all gathered around playing Euchre, collectively widened their eyes at the sight of him. One of them, the neighbor woman, laughed at him and pointed.
“Look, Kentie’s got arms like a sparrow’s kneecap!”
The others, happy on rum punch, laughed along. Embarrassed, Mom leapt up and whispered for him to put on another shirt.
At work, there were widened eyes whenever he dared to contribute an idea in a meeting. And also from Linda, that time on their first date when he took her behind the movie theater and showed her the door propped open for ventilation. She had looked at him in that same owl-eyed way when he said, “C’mon, I sneak in all the time... money for concessions if we do...”
Owl Man’s widened-eye look from the dock meant: You don’t belong around here. You have no experience with boats. You’re a low-class loser. Kent writhed at the thought of it. Of course he had experience with boats! He had piloted lots of boats during his youth at Dickie Lake, and the smaller Frog Lake. Piloted boats all day long, screwed local chicks in them too, Linda included!
She was nothing but a small-town rube with aspirations no higher than working cash at the Dickie Lake supermarket when he first met her. He was the sophisticated big-city guy, only in the area for the summer. Make no mistake, she latched onto him. And, thanks to his acumen, he got her enrolled in community college and pointed at something with a future — administrative work. After getting married, they moved out east to Whitby where houses were cheap and had the kid, Matthew. Life was just fine until she saw that damn newspaper article. Movie stars and television personalities and NHL players. Old money and the nouveau riche. Fine dining, trendy shops, and a plethora of watersport and recreation options all set in magnificent, unspoiled Canadian Shield splendor.
“Oh, let’s vacation there next summer,” Linda had begged. “Just to see what it’s like...”
Who was this woman lying next to him, Kent wondered in the silence of night. Those comments she had made today — “Isn’t the water in Muskoka so blue? Nothing like that dull, shallow green we’re used to, eh? It’s because these lakes are big and deep. They’re glacial lakes, you know.” It was so unlike her. Since when did she care so much about the color of lake water and about glaciers and stuff?
She was snoring, oblivious to the stinging agony he’d been in ever since the boat-dock incident. One measly inquiry at dinner into why he was being so quiet hardly qualified as caring!
The mushy mattress was uncomfortable. Kent lay awake with a stiff neck and the pressure points of his body aching. Outside the window, there was the soft hoot-hoot sound of an owl perched in a nearby tree.
Owl Man. Laughing at him, eyes wide in aghast, yet amused, disgust at the lame, subpar motorboat scraping against the dock. The sound of wood and fiberglass grinding played at full volume over and over in Kent’s mind while the owl taunted him with its incessant hoot-hooting. Kent exploded out of bed and slammed the window shut. Linda turned over and murmured.
“Cold air blowing in,” Kent whispered in a clipped tone. “Go back to sleep.”
The next day, Linda wanted to go for a day cruise on the lake to gawk at the celebrity cottages of Stephen Spielberg, Goldie Hawn, Tom Hanks, and a bunch of others. The newspaper article, of course, provided a complete “Map to the Stars.” Kent had zero desire to see celebrity cottages, and zero desire to get back into the boat.
“Noticed we’re out of charcoal briquettes,” he said, slapping a mosquito to death on his arm. Earlier that morning, Kent had dumped out a half bag of briquettes behind the cottage and covered it up with leaves in case Linda called him out. She felt the need to do that from time to time.
“Already? Didn’t we bring up a whole fresh bag?”
“Need to get more. There’s a hardware store in that town we passed through — Port Carling.”
Linda referenced the newspaper article. “We can boat there,” she said. “Port Carling’s on the lake.”
“I’d rather drive.”
Linda looked at him. “Are you still upset about yesterday? About bumping into the dock?”
Tensing up, Kent said nothing. His hands squeezed into fists.
Linda laughed at him. “You can’t be! Oh, that’s just silliness if you are.”
In Port Carling, the small family visited the hardware store then walked across the road to get hot dogs and fries at Howard’s. After, Kent wanted to go back to the cottage and fish for rock bass off the dock. But Linda insisted they stroll up and down the busy main drag — “see and be seen” and “take in the atmosphere.”
Glumly, Kent walked along, trying to remain unnoticed. It was the smart play, he thought, keeping a low profile. The super rich all did the same thing. Who was to say he didn’t have a hundred-million bucks in the bank and, so self-assured by it, felt no need to advertise the fact to every stranger. Only posers and wannabes clamored like desperados for attention; everything brand name, everything in your face. The main drag was full of them. Kent figured they were all in fathomless amounts of debt trying so hard to look rich. He wondered how the hell they slept at night.
Linda dragged them into a décor/gift shop. As Kent reluctantly browsed the offerings, he overheard some men having a conversation about “wakeboarding camp” for their children. Listening in, if only for the grotesque hilarity of it, Kent gleaned that “wakeboarding camp” was the hot trend of the season. Apparently, if you didn’t grab a spot for your kid by last February, you were clean out of luck for the summer.