The Eclipse of Moonbeam Dawson (12 page)

Maybe he could stick a little note on the cart that would be wheeled into their suite. It would be propped up next to the flowers, with her name on it. Michelle. A beautiful name. Wonder whether she has two
l
s or one? Probably two. A girl like that would have more of everything. He would write her name very nicely on the envelope of the card. Michelle. Then inside it would say something simple and right to the point.
For a good time, see Reid. Apt. #3.

She would slip the card carefully into her pocket while her father was in the bathroom or something, and then after the dining room closed and he was hanging out in his apartment he would hear this light tap-tap on his door.

“Reid, I came as soon as I could.”

“Cool.”

“Great apartment. Can I come in?”

“Be my guest.”

“Do you live here alone?”

“Yes. We are alone, Michelle.”

“Oh, Reid!” Then she throws herself into his arms and they kiss wildly, and passionately. “Oh, Reid. You are an animal!” She pants breathlessly. Then she takes his hand and …

Reid couldn't believe it. Michelle and her father walked into the dining room and Joan, the hostess, showed them to a corner table next to the window. He stared at them as they studied their menus, then Susan, their server, went to their table.
Susan's taking their drink orders. Okay, as soon as she leaves it's time for the water. Just pick up the glass, lift it away from the table, then replace it. Piece of cake. Nothing to it.
Reid watched the table carefully.
Okay, Susan's leaving to get their drinks, now go. Simple. Nothing to it. Serve from the left, take away from the right. Pick up glass, lift away from the table, fill, and replace.

Reid grabbed a large water pitcher from the sideboard, then paused a minute. He held his shoulders back and lifted up his head. Pick up glass, lift away from the table, fill, and replace. Pick up glass, lift away from the table, fill, and replace. Pick up glass, lift away from the table, fill, and replace. He repeated it like a mantra as he crossed the dining room and walked toward their table, carefully holding the pitcher with two hands. Two more steps and he'd be there.
Pick up glass …

“Hi, Reid.” Michelle looked up at him and smiled. Her full lips parted, her teeth gleamed with their toothpaste advertisement whiteness, her cat's eyes shone and sparkled in the candlelight, her thick honey-blond hair hung softly around her shoulders.

“Hi, Michelle.” He lifted the glass away from the table and returned her smile. Gazing and smiling into her lovely face, he poured the water. As he smiled, the water missed the glass and dumped all over her.

“Eeeeek!” she shrieked as some ice cubes bounced in her lap and water soaked her shoe.

“Oops! Sorry!” Reid set the pitcher on the table and bent to pick up the ice cubes from the floor. Mr. Lamont pulled his chair back.

“Are you out to get us, kid?” Mr. Lamont laughed and handed Michelle his napkin.

Reid crawled under the table trying to get more ice cubes.
He's gotta be there thinking, stay away from my daughter, you pervert. I didn't bring her to this place to have her spilled on by a clumsy, sex-starved maniac like you.

“Sorry sir,” Reid mumbled from under the table as Susan came up with their drinks.

“Reid,” Susan leaned over and spoke to him in whisper, “just leave the ice cubes where they are. There are other guests now that need water.”

“I've got almost all of them.” His butt stuck out from under the tablecloth.

“Get out from under the table, Reid.” Then she looked at Mr. Lamont. “I'm so sorry. Reid is new here.”

“Surely you jest,” Mr. Lamont said sarcastically, as Reid crawled out, bumping his head.

*   *   *

He wanted to slink right out of the dining room and right out of the lodge. But luckily for him, the worst was over; the Lamonts didn't drink much water so he didn't have to return to their table to fill their glasses again, just to get their plates.

He was still mortified, but as the evening wore on, he realized he had begun to get the hang of bussing. Not that he was perfect. There was the lady's fork that slipped off her plate as he was clearing it and stabbed her in the leg, and the man whose uneaten tomato flew into his lap as his salad plate was taken away. But all in all, Reid thought he had done a reasonably decent job.

When he did have to go back to the Lamonts' table, he pretended they were statues and that he was a robot automatically taking their plates away. Michelle looked out the window each time he came to the table so he didn't have to worry about her talking to him and messing up his concentration. But it also meant, without a doubt, that she thought he was a total jerk. And he felt like it, too. A complete jerk for imagining all that stuff about him and her together. What a laugh.

After the last guests had gone and the dining room was empty, Reid got his dinner from Claude and took it into the dining room where the staff was eating. On his way to the staff table, Susan took him aside and told him
never
to crawl around on the floor to clean up any dropped food. She reminded him that ice cubes also came in this category. “The items that should be picked and replaced are any silverware that falls or dishes or glasses.”

“Okay.”

“Just wanted to make sure you learned from this tonight, Reid,” she said as she went back into the kitchen.

“Okay, I won't crawl under the tables again.”

Gloria overheard him as she came out of the kitchen. “What was that about?”

They walked to the staff table and sat next to each other. “This looks great.” Reid dug his fork into the pasta puttanesca Claude made for the staff.

“It is. Even though we don't get to eat the food from the menu, whatever he whips up for us is always fantastic.” Gloria put her napkin on her lap. “So what were you telling Susan about the tables?”

“Susan?” Reid slurped the pasta.

“Yeah, Susan the server, just now. Look if you don't want to tell me…”

“It's just embarrassing, that's all.”

“Everyone who works here has done something goofy. You can't help it. Stuff happens.”

“I suppose so. Well, I dumped water on this girl, that's all.”

“Oh.”

“Then I crawled around under the table trying to get the ice cubes.”

Gloria swallowed hard, like she was trying not to laugh. “Was it Lamont's daughter? She's the only guest I know about who's under the age of twenty.”

“That's who it was.”

“Well, I think she deserved it. You should have dumped the whole pitcher on her head and his, too. He's one of the top people who's responsible for the clear-cutting. They're destroying the old-growth forest.”

“But she's not.”

“Maybe in your heart you wanted to make sort of a statement. I don't mean exactly a planned thing. Maybe just a little protest that slipped out accidentally, since after all you'd been at the protests in ninety-three.”

“No, I know it wasn't that.”

“You were there, weren't you? I thought you told me that you and your mother were there. John and I were there with our parents.”

“I was there, but I'm sure that's not the reason.” Reid looked at Gloria and wondered if he should tell her. She had said that brother-sister stuff and he was sure now that meant she just wanted to be friends. And she seemed to want him to confide in her, like a friend would. Reid gulped. “See, it's just that she's so beautiful that I got sort of shook up.”

Gloria picked up her plate. “I'm taking this back to my room to finish.”

“You're leaving?”

“I'm tired,” she said, coldly. “Bye, Reid.”

“What's wrong?”

Gloria stomped back to the table. “You should have changed your name to Ken,” she hissed.

“Ken?”

“It fits with Barbie!”

Reid watched her leave the dining room and then stared glumly at his plate, poking the pasta with his fork.

Chapter Eight

Reid got up early to work on his geometry assignment, hoping to get a lot of it done before he had to prep all the fresh fruit for the breakfast buffet. The assignment had to be in the mail by Wednesday. After twenty minutes of diameters, circumferences, and measuring a bunch of angles, his yawns became more and more frequent and the geometry got more and more boring. Better get some fresh air or this will never get done, he thought, stretching and yawning for the third time in two minutes.

He pulled on his sweatshirt and left the apartment, taking the path to the bluff southeast of the marina. The wooden bench there was one of his favorite spots on the island. Good. It's empty. Reid sat down, draping his arms over the back of the bench, stretching his legs out in front of him. He breathed in the crisp sea air, wishing he could sit there all morning and not have to finish his geometry and go cut up fruit. It was a good place to think. And there was plenty to think about, with his performance last night; dumping water on Michelle. And then Gloria all mad at him. Did she really expect him to do something like that on purpose just because Michelle's father was a lumber executive? It's not a person's fault who their parents are. Gloria had seemed so much more reasonable than that. And it was just a fact Michelle Lamont was beautiful. Anyone could see that, it's not like he confessed to Gloria all the stuff he'd been imagining.

Reid sat forward on the bench. Gloria was down on the dock. What was she doing down there? Then he remembered. It was Monday. The boat from the Opitsat village picked her up on its way to Tofino. Then the bus took them to Ukee. If he didn't get down there and talk to her, he wouldn't have another chance until she came back on Friday. He sat there, trying to get up his nerve.

Look, Gloria, I'm sorry I didn't dump the water on Michelle's head on purpose. Maybe I'm not as committed to saving the environment as you'd like me to be, but is that any reason to get so mad?

Or maybe he should just try to be cool and blow the whole thing off.
Hey, Gloria, I know there's no way you can stay mad at me. See you Friday, eh, sis?

Reid sighed and kicked a stone next to the bench.

Why don't they teach you something useful in school, like How to Talk to Girls, instead of geometry, which is no help with anything in my life.
This is pathetic.

Oh no, here comes the boat. It's now or never, he thought and sprang from the bench, charging along the path toward the steps, which he took two at a time.

“Gloria!”

He sprinted along the dock. Ahead of him a bunch of seagulls had been flocking around some fish guts that hadn't been completely cleaned off the dock, and the planks were slick with bird droppings.

“Hey, Gloria! Wait!”

As the boat pulled into the dock, he knocked over a bucket that had been left near one of the pilings.
Splat!
Fish guts all over the place.
Splat!
Reid slid on the slime. His legs flew out from under him.
Splat!

As he landed on his butt, he could see the kids from the Opitsat village leaning over the rail, doubled up with laughter. Then Gloria waved and climbed aboard.

Fine. Laugh your heads off. Flattened by fish guts. Hilarious. He could hear them laughing as the boat left the dock and still laughing as it went down the channel on its way to their school bus in Tofino. Mustering as much dignity as he could, Reid picked himself up off the dock, wishing he was invisible. But as much as he wanted to be invisible, what he really wished was that he was on that boat.

*   *   *

As he was washing his hands at the faucet next to the steps, he saw an old fishing boat come down the channel. It was towing a smaller boat behind it, a skiff. Seemed like an odd combination. The fishing boat was gun-metal gray and pretty beat up. Neither boat looked like it would belong to guests that used this marina, that was for sure. Maybe some new employees.

Reid watched the boat go into a slip at the far end of the marina. A woman jumped out and secured the lines, then a guy handed her a large box. Then the guy jumped on the dock and tried to take the box away. He seemed to want to carry it for her and they horsed around, tugging it back and forth. Then the guy got it away from her. But he set it right down on the dock. Then he took her into his arms and kissed her. Just like that. Right there on the dock.

Reid thought about how he'd poured water on Michelle's foot and then about Gloria leaving without speaking to him. How come it's so easy for some people? He shut off the faucet and went up the stairs.

Behind him the laughter and voices of the couple from the old boats got louder as they got closer. In a second the voice became unmistakable; he didn't even need to turn around. His mother. His mother and Harvey, laughing and talking, her arm linked through his as Harvey carried the box for her and they came toward the stairs.

“Moonbeam!” She waved to him. “Hello!”

Reid went back down the steps and walked over to them. “Here, I'll take that.” He grabbed the box from Harvey.

“It's okay, I've got it.”

“I've got it.” Reid yanked it away and rushed up the steps. Abby and Harvey followed behind him and he heard her whisper, “Shh, it's okay, Harv.”

You're darn right it's okay, buddy. I've been taking care of stuff for her practically since I could walk.
Reid waited at the top of the stairs. “You're taking this to the clothes shop, right?”

“Right. I'm meeting Anne Depue this morning. Keep your fingers crossed. Hopefully she'll want to sell some of my sweaters and shawls.”

“Of course, she will. They're great.” Reid walked ahead of them, clutching the box.

“That's what I've been telling her,” Harvey chimed in.