I looked up. “Huh?”
“Tell him no. See how he reacts. Or beat him at a game. If he takes you bowling or to miniature golf or something, destroy him. You can tell a lot about a guy by how they deal with rejection and getting their asses handed to them.”
I laughed a little. “Okay…”
She threw the blanket off. “I’ll start breakfast. You should get ready.”
“Right.” I hopped up and hurried to my room to pick out something to wear. I settled on olive leggings and a slouchy white T-shirt and gold sandals, gold dangly earrings and a matching bracelet. Then I went to take a shower.
The water smelled weird. Like rust. Maybe the house was on a well? When I got out and brushed my hair, it felt like I hadn’t conditioned it.
I opened the bathroom door and leaned out. “Is the water weird to you?” I called. “My hair feels all gross.”
“I think it’s hard water,” she called back from the kitchen. “We’re in the iron range.”
I made an unhappy noise and wrestled the brush through my stiff knots. We started work tomorrow and I was going to shower at the hospital locker rooms whenever I could. This was awful.
I finally got through it and plugged in my hair dryer, and when I turned it on, the whole house turned off.
“Uh… what just happened?” Maddy called from the kitchen.
I tipped my head back. “I think we blew a fuse.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing, I just turned on the hair dryer.”
We spent ten minutes looking for the breaker panel until we finally gave up and called Maria.
“Oh, it’s very sensitive,” she said. “You can’t use the toaster and hairdryer at the same time. When I vacuum, I have to unplug everything.”
She told us where to find the panel. We reset the breaker and started a twenty-minute trial and error of what we could and could not use while I dried my hair. The answer was nothing. We couldn’t even use the coffee maker with the hair dryer on without tripping the breaker.
We prioritized power for the coffee maker first and we brewed a pot while I sat in the kitchen with a towel wrapped around my head. When it was done, Maddy poured me a cup and handed it to me.
“The house is old,” I said. “What are you gonna do?”
She leaned against the counter with her mug in her hand. “I bet it’s hard to even get a repair guy out here. You gotta go pick him up.”
I cocked my head at her. “I just realized we can’t get DoorDash.”
“Or Shipt,” she said, like it just occurred to her. She looked at me. “What if we need to call the cops? Do they have boat police?”
I wrinkled my forehead. “I think so. Don’t they pull people over on the lake? But do they work at night? And what if we need to call an ambulance? Do they have boat ambulances?”
“I don’t know.”
I thought about this for a bit. “Our boat is really old.”
“Yeah.”
“And if it breaks down, we’re kinda trapped here.”
“Or dead in the water.”
We sat there, contemplating this. Maddy was going to have to ferry me to the shore for my date and then come back alone and pick me up when Justin dropped me off. She was going to have to dock the pontoon by herself.
I don’t think I really realized the logistics of this one-boat thing until just now. I mean, we only had the one car, and that always worked for us. But that’s because we always had Lyft and Uber to fall back on, or public transit—or the ability to walk. But the only way on and off this island was that boat.
That rickety, ancient, canopyless boat.
“Remind me to buy rain ponchos,” I said.
“Yeah.” She took a sip of her coffee.
I took my mug and went back to do my hair.
I had breakfast while my curlers set. Then I washed the dishes, did my makeup, let my hair down, spritzed myself with perfume, and I was ready to go.
At 10:45, we set off for shore.
I couldn’t see if he was here yet. He’d be waiting in his car parked in front of the house. I probably wouldn’t see him until I walked around the garage.
“I’m going to wait until I know he’s here,” Maddy said as we approached the dock.
It was windy today. She kept having to correct the boat because we were being pushed off course by the gusts.
“Maybe if you give it more throttle?” I said over the sound of the motor and wind.
