A House at the Bottom of a Lake

6

Straightaway the canoe scraped against the concrete walls of the tunnel and James thought about his uncle Bob.

Shit. The paint.

The green paint. Chipping.

The canoe fit. But just.

It was so tight they couldn’t use their paddles. Couldn’t even lay the paddles across their knees. James laid his on the floor instead. Amelia did the same. They pushed their way through the tunnel with their fingers and palms.

They didn’t speak of not doing it. They didn’t speak of backing out.

Amelia was surprised when James pulled a flashlight from his backpack. It underscored how dark it was in here.

It felt like they were going to get stuck, over and over, too tight, the tunnel narrowing. But the tunnel didn’t narrow, and they didn’t get stuck. Just more of the scraping and chipping.

Halfway through they had to duck and two-thirds of the way they had to really duck, until their shoulders were between their knees.

“Like a coffin,” Amelia said. It sounded funnier in her head.

James was breathing hard. It wasn’t easy work.

“Look at this one,” he said, bent completely at the waist, shining the light on the wall, an inch from the side of the canoe.

It was a stick-figure woman with enormous tits. Something like milk was squirting out of them. A second stick-figure woman was on her knees, tongue out, to accept it.

“Wow,” Amelia said. “An artist tunnel. Horny vandals.”

James liked hearing her say that word.

Horny.

A foot from the drawing was the word pricks in pink.

They laughed. And their laughter echoed in the tunnel.

“Can we stop for a second?” James asked.

“Here?”

“Yeah. It’s killing me.”

“Yeah.”

James turned off the light. They both breathed hard. Amelia had a vision of him turning the light on again, under his face, monster lighting, revealing grotesque graffitied lips and eyebrows.

“I had another weird first date,” James said in the dark.

“Weirder than this?”

“There used to be a coffee shop in town called Rita’s. Remember Rita’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. I used to read books there all the time. I really got into Agatha Christie and—”

“Wait. Wait. Agatha Christie?”

“Yeah.”

“My grandmother reads Agatha Christie.”

“She’s great.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“I believe you. So what happened?”

“Well, this girl was reading Agatha Christie, too, and she’d come talk to me about it. Which book was my favorite. That kind of thing.”

“Sounds like a good start.”

“I guess. And then she asked me out.”

“Where?”

The echoes of their voices were sharp, high-pitched. Their breathing sounded like the breathing of four people, not two.

“She asked me if I wanted to hang out that night, after the coffee shop closed. That’s all she said. And I said okay. But then she walked back to her table and it all felt really weird, you know? Because she was reading at her table and I was reading at mine and here we were, supposed to go on this date I guess, but we weren’t talking to each other at all. You know? I wanted to leave the coffee shop but I felt bad about it, like I’d be standing her up or something. So I read eighty more pages of the book than I had planned. And the whole time she’s reading hers across the coffee shop. And the second they closed she walked right up to me and said, ‘Ready?’ And I said yeah. She said we should go to her place and watch a movie.”

“Wow,” Amelia said. “Was she wearing a hospital bracelet?”

“What?”

“What happened next?”

“We went to her house. We went into the basement. We sat on opposite ends of the couch.”

“She had a sitting-close-to-you problem?”

James laughed.

“Yes she did! And she says, ‘Have you ever seen The Woodsman?’ And let me ask you, Amelia, have you ever seen The Woodsman?”

“Oh boy. You did not watch that movie on a first date.”

“We did,” James said. “We did.”

Amelia laughed. Then she laughed again.

“Ready?” James asked. “I think I’m rested.”

“Yep.”

They planted their palms against the slick walls and pushed forward again. The scraping and chipping returned immediately.

Ahead, sunlight. But no view. Not yet.

They pushed. Amelia felt sweat dripping down the sides of her breasts, the sides of her belly.

They were able to sit up a little more again. Halfway.

“Almost there,” James called.

The canoe got stuck.

Felt like it wasn’t going to move.

“Shit,” James said.

“Shit.”

“Let’s just do it. Let’s give it a really hard push.”

“Are you worried about scratching the canoe? Are you worried about the paint?”

“Yes.”

“What are we gonna do about it?”

“I’ll get some paint from my dad’s store.”

“Your dad’s store?”

“Shit.”

“What?”

“I just didn’t want to tell you that my dad owns the hardware store I work at.”

“Why didn’t you want to tell me that?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No. But that’s great.”

“I was worried you’d think that was my future.”

“Really?”

Of course, that meant he was thinking about a future with her. She didn’t know how that made her feel.

“Are you ready?” James asked.

Amelia was glad for the subject change. They both were.

“Ready.”

They flattened their hands against the walls. A new sound announced itself: bent metal. The phrase sounded like a band to Amelia.

Bent Metal.

James grunted and shoved as hard as he could.

Water sloshed against the tip of the canoe. It sounded fresh, cold, new.

They gave it one more hard push and, with a deafening squawk, the canoe broke free.

Cool air washed over them and they fell back onto their benches, leaning back, as the canoe slid out of the tunnel on its own, propelled by their final thrust.

Neither went for their paddles as the canoe slowly drifted out onto the surface of a third lake.

“Holy shit,” Amelia said.

“Yeah,” James said. “Holy shit.”