Chase

Three

At the dump, another truck pulled in next to Jeff’s as he was emptying the last can of garbage. Painted on the side were the words: SHADY ACRES RESORT.

Jeff knew the place. It was another fishing camp just down the lake from Flo’s Cabins. To call it a “resort” was pushing it. It was a collection of cabins as old and run down as Flo’s were. But fishermen — and often the family members they brought along with them — weren’t all that picky. As long as they had a roof over their heads, a place to lay their heads at night, a boat that didn’t leak, and the fish were biting, they were happy. And even if the fish weren’t biting, if the fridge was stocked with cold beer, they’d be okay.

Jeff had driven past Shady Acres a few times in his twelve-foot-long aluminum boat, but he’d never set foot on the place. It was one of Aunt Flo’s rare kindnesses that she let Jeff have his own boat to run around in, which he took out onto Pickerel Lake for a spin whenever he had a few free minutes. But he never took out the boat to fish. Jeff never fished. He just cranked up the ten-horsepower motor as fast as it would go and bombed around, making sharp turns, looking for waves tall enough that he could fly over the top of them, hoping to hear the roar of the propeller catching air.

One thing he’d never noticed when buzzing past Shady Acres was the person getting out of the passenger side of that resort’s pickup truck right now.

A girl. About twelve or thirteen years old. Skinny, straight brown hair to her shoulders, wearing ratty jeans and sneakers and a faded red T-shirt that said SHADY ACRES.

Getting out of the driver’s side was a man Jeff guessed was her dad. Pretty old, maybe even forty. Heavyset, balding, in a plaid shirt and dark work pants.

The girl got to the back of the truck first and dropped the tailgate. Then she jumped up and started moving the garbage cans towards the back. Her dad grabbed them, upended them to allow the trash to drop into the huge pit, then set the empties to one side.

She was pretty strong, Jeff thought, for a girl. Especially a girl who was about the same age he was. He noticed her arm muscles tense and strain as she shifted the cans around. She glanced at Jeff, standing in the bed of his aunt’s pickup.

“What are you lookin’ at?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said, turning away. Time to get behind the wheel and head back to Flo’s Cabins.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

He turned his head, told her the name of the place.

“Oh,” she said.

Her father said, “Yeah, I know your spot. That’s Flo Beaumont’s place. Been running it ever since her husband passed away, about six years ago.” The man smiled at Jeff. “I heard she got her nephew helpin’ her. That you?”

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded. “I’m John Winslow. This here is my daughter Emily.”

“I’m Jeff Conroy.”

“How old are you?” Emily asked in an accusatory tone.

“Huh?”

“You can’t be old enough to drive. How can you be driving? You don’t look any more than twelve.”

“Excuse me?” he said. “I’m not twelve. I’m sixteen.” But his voice practically squeaked as he said it, and he knew the girl was never going to believe him. But you had to be sixteen to drive legally, and he didn’t want her father reporting him to the police. He seemed like a nice guy, but still. Jeff wasn’t so sure Aunt Flo was right about being able to buy off the cops with a free boat rental.

“Seriously?” she said.

“What are you?” he asked, determined to be just as insulting. “Nine?”

“I’m thirteen,” she said, trying to make it sound important.

Jeff smiled. “Well, maybe in three years, your dad will let you drive the truck. Maybe even by yourself, one day.”

“Nice to see you two hitting it off,” Mr. Winslow said. He’d continued emptying trash cans while his daughter and Jeff sparred. “You gonna help me, Emily, or you just going to flirt with that boy all day?”

Her face flushed with embarrassment. Jeff’s did, too. Flirting? Jeff was pretty sure what they’d been doing was not flirting.

“Dad,” Emily said. She turned away from Jeff to help her father while Jeff got back into the cab of his aunt’s old Ford. He turned the key and drove out, glancing into the oversized mirror bolted to the door along the way.

The girl looked his way once, then, maybe afraid Jeff had seen her in the mirror, spun around again.

Sheesh, Jeff thought. The very idea, that beneath all those insults they had taken some kind of instant liking to each other.

But it was nice to know her name was Emily.