Playing Hurt

Clint

sin bin





A birthday party for a fish,” Chelsea says, shaking her head in disbelief. But she doesn’t look like she really thinks it’s stupid at all. Her eyes sparkle, and her shoulders are so relaxed that the strap of her sundress keeps falling off and dangling across her upper arm.

Just as I start telling myself to stop looking at her, to stop thinking about how pretty she is today, my eyes hit the bottom of her sundress. The yellow material ripples around her knees, which are as pink as the wads of cotton candy that dot the crowds. And I bet they’re just as sweet …

“A fish,” Chelsea repeats.

“Not just any old fish. A two-ton concrete fish. Willie’s a legend,” I remind her.

She smiles, her sandals scraping against the pavement of Baudette’s Main Street, which is overtaken today by a carnival. Booths line the curbs, advertising homemade jams and pickles, wire jewelry, door wreaths twisted out of grape vines. Runners who competed in the morning’s 5K still wander through the crowd, easy to peg in their running shorts, numbers still pinned to their backs. Entries in the lumberjack chainsaw-carving competition are still perched on a wooden ledge outside a camping gear store: a bear, an old man’s wrinkled face, and three different versions of Willie Walleye himself.

Umbrellas cover wooden tables, shading jugs of frozen root beer, plates of fried food, laughing faces. And there doesn’t seem to be a single face here that isn’t smiling, isn’t laughing.

For the first time in my life, Willie Walleye Day sure seems like some sort of magical cure-all.

At least, it’s a cure-all for everybody except me. I just can’t make my brain shut up. Or get my nerves to calm down. I keep asking myself what we’re really doing here. I mean, it’s not like we have something to celebrate, not like the day she caught that walleye. And it’s not like this can pass as some boot camp exercise. Sure, we’re walking. But so what? Walking? Not even hiking. She wasn’t hurt so bad that walking would be considered a real workout.

What are you doing, Clint?

“This is nothing like the Heritage Festival back home,” Chelsea admits as she takes it all in.

I nod, staring down the street, doubting that her heritage festival looks much different. But the fact that she said it, that she’s so happy, makes me feel insanely good. Kind of adrenaline-high good.

“Frozen lemonade,” she says, reaching for the little purse she’s got twisted around her wrist.

“No,” I say, kind of offended by the way she’s reached for her money. But why should I be? I fork over a few dollar bills. It’s not like we’re on a date here—right?

Only I did put on a clean shirt before I left to pick her up. I shaved. And when I swore I could still smell the lake on my skin, I took a shower. I feel like an idiot for picking out a button-down shirt that looks like it should be in a sit-down restaurant instead of an outdoor festival. At least I put on jeans instead of khakis.

I pay for her lemonade and steer her away from the booth with the flashing lemon sign. Point out the sign above a large tented area that proclaims Beer Garden.

“Hmm,” she says, swirling her straw through her lemonade. “That makes me feel a little silly for wanting this. If I’d known you were going to have a beer …”

“Just come on,” I say, pushing her toward the garden.

“Don’t make me card you two,” Pop calls from the side of the tent as he flicks the caps off two amber bottles and hands them to thirsty runners. “I don’t want to know anything about fake IDs.”

“I don’t have a fake ID,” I tell him, but Pop rolls his eyes.

“Everybody has a fake ID. I had a fake ID when I was your age. But I guess you don’t need one, do you?” Pop’s tone lets me know that he found out about the two raspberry brews Chelsea and I drank at Pike’s Perch.

What Pop’s hawking here at the beer garden is his award-winning Pike’s Porter. Dark as the backs of eyelids staring into the sun, with the same warm, red tint running through it.

“Get you two some fresh chips?” Pop asks, pointing at Mom, who’s sweating over the fryer. She tosses us a wave until she notices who I’m with. And then a grin grows. She purses her lips in this uh-huh, I see exactly what’s going on here kind of way.

I start to shake my head. But a drum steals my chance to tell her that she’s got it all wrong.

Pop points over his shoulder at the makeshift stage just behind the beer garden. “That brother of yours has whipped Clint’s friends into shape,” he shouts at Chelsea. We both turn toward the stage, where a hand-painted sign announces, Appearing Every Night At Pike’s Perch!

“Hope your family doesn’t mind me giving him a steady gig,” Pop tells her. “If it puts a kink in the rest of your vacation plans …”

Chelsea laughs, shakes her head. “No way. You’ve made his entire year.”

She puts her lemonade down, tugs my arm until we hit the edge of the crowd clustered for the band. This is a real treat—usually there’s no music at all until the street dance kicks into gear. I’m about to tell Chelsea this when my eye travels to the far side of the crowd, where Kenzie sips from a bottle of Pike’s Porter. She raises the bottle in greeting, but her smile tumbles when she notices who I’m with. She stares down at her hands and chews her lip before disappearing into the crowd.

“Live, from Willie Walleye Day in Baudette,” Brandon announces into his mic. “It’s … the Bottom Dwellers!”

Chelsea tosses her head back and laughs. I’d call it a belly laugh, but it seems deeper even than that. Before I can stop myself, I think Man, that’s a great sound.

“Your brother’s becoming quite the celebrity.”

She turns, then jerks backward a bit when she finds Kenzie about half an inch from her nose.

Kenzie’s got her long hair stuck through the hole in the back of a ball cap; her Lake of the Woods T-shirt hangs out of a pair of scruffy capri pants. She looks like she came straight from the resort. Slowly, she runs her eyes over my stupid shirt and Chelsea’s sundress. She flashes me a come off it—just admit what’s going on here frown.

“He’ll have groupies tagging along behind him everywhere he goes,” Kenzie says.

“Brandon?” Chelsea laughs. “No way.”

“Just might have to join them,” Kenzie adds. “What do you think about that?” She says this last part to me, and just stands there weighing my reaction. It’s some kind of crazy test. “I like his wild hair,” she prods. “I told him so.”

I feel like climbing up onto the stage, pushing Brandon aside, and tapping his mic. Attention, Baudette, I want to say, see that girl over there in the sundress? I am not here on a date with her. I’m her trainer. She has a boyfriend. I’m not interested.

But how am I supposed to deny what Kenzie thinks when Chelsea’s standing right here? Wait—why can’t I deny it with Chelsea standing right here?

I can’t because, when I glance at her, the devil on my shoulder just keeps telling me how nice it would be to know what she tastes like.

I take the coward’s way out, and step to the side a little, separating myself from Chelsea—but not too much.

Kenzie’s still staring at me when Chelsea takes my hand and starts moving her feet to a decidedly garage-band version of an old Rolling Stones song, “Waiting on a Friend.” And before I can completely take my eyes away from Kenzie, before I can mouth something at her like not my type or you’ve got it wrong, Chelsea pulls me deep into the crowd in front of the stage. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m swaying with her.

“Careful,” Chelsea teases. “This seems awfully close to dancing.”

From the corner of my eye, I watch Kenzie slam her bottle into one of the metal trash cans and stomp away.