Chapter Two
May
I inhale deeply, reveling in the crisp ocean air as land approaches ahead.
Chicago was in the seventies when I left this morning. Two layovers, a
flight delay, and fifteen hours later, the fifty-five degree day’s high has
dipped to low forties and I had to dig my winter jacket out of my suitcase.
“Have you ever been to Alaska before?” the captain, a soft-spoken
white-haired man named John asks, his hands resting easily on the ferry’s
wheel.
I shake my head, my gaze drifting over the sea of evergreen and rock
as far as the eye can see. We left the dock in Homer thirty minutes ago. It
didn’t seem like it would take that long to cross, but Kachemak Bay is vast
and wide and unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
And on the other side of it is my home for the next four months.
I’m so glad I remembered to pop an Antivert an hour before boarding.
I’d be puking over the rails by now had I not. Boats and I have never
coexisted well.
“So, what made you come?” I can tell John likes to talk, as much for
conversation as to assess the foreigners coming to his homeland.
“A brochure,” I answer simply, honestly.
He chuckles. “Yeah, it’ll do that, all right. Lures plenty of folk our
way.”
I smile, though his words resonate deep inside. It “lured” me. Yes,
that’s exactly what it did.
Frankly, the brochure didn’t need to work too hard.
When things take an ugly turn, people are always saying they’re
going to pick up and move far away. Australia, France, anywhere that puts
an ocean between them and their problems. Most don’t ever act on that. I
certainly had no intention of doing so.
And then I went to that job fair in the city library, more than a little
panicked about what I was going to do this summer. Recruiters were
peddling administrative and counselor positions, trade internships, day care.
Nothing I was interested in. Plus, they were all local Chicago-based
positions. The last thing I wanted to do was stay in Chicago for the summer.
I needed to separate myself from it and its bitter memories, if for only a few
months until school started again in the fall.
But the idea of going back to Pennsylvania, where everyone including
the cows had heard the nitty-gritty details about my breakup with Jed, was
even more unappealing.
That’s what happens when you grow up in a small town and then go
away to college with your high school sweetheart, who’s also the reverend’s
son, who you were supposed to marry the summer after you both graduate
college.
Who you’ve been saving yourself for.
Who you caught with his pants down and thrusting into some raven-
haired jezebel.
And, while in the depths of despair, though you know better, you tell
your upstanding, churchgoing mama, who is known around town as much
for her raspberry pie as for her big mouth.
That scandal sure gave the folks of Greenbank something to talk
about during Pennsylvania’s long, cold winter. It’s been months since D-
Day, or what I like to call Dick Day, when I caught him. February 2, to be
exact.
I’m sure tongues were wagging across pews during church service.
When I visited over Easter weekend though, I got nothing but sympathetic
nods and pats. Jed, sitting in the pew directly across from us, earned more
than a few glowers. Not everyone shared those feelings, though. His father,
Reverend Enderbey, decided that giving a sermon on man’s weakness for
carnal flesh and the need for forgiveness and understanding would be more
appropriate than discussing the resurrection of Christ that day.
Much like Jed promised me, Reverend Enderbey has promised my
parents that this is just a momentary blip in Jed’s faith; that he’s feeling
confused and needs to sort out his priorities. He’ll come back to me, after
he’s done sowing his wild oats.
Why do they all think I’ll want to take him back?
He broke my heart that day, and has continued breaking it daily, every
time I see him walking hand in hand around campus with her.
He’s not just sowing wild oats. They’re dating now.
So when I passed by the Wolf Hotels booth at the job fair a month ago
and spotted the pamphlet with a beautiful vista of snow-capped mountains
and forest, I immediately stopped and started asking questions, and within
ten minutes I knew that Wolf Cove was my ticket away from sadness,
temporarily at least. I just needed to get myself to Homer, Alaska. They’d
provide transportation to the hotel, subsidized accommodations and meals
onsite, and weekly transport to Homer, if needed, and in turn I’d work like a
dog and keep my mind occupied.
The best part? It was almost 3,800 miles from everything I know.
It sounded perfect. And unattainable. I walked out of that interview
feeling hopeless, assuming that there was no way I’d get the job.
And yet I’m standing here today. I call that divine intervention. God
knew I needed this miracle.
It came in the form of a phone call a week after the interview, with an
official offer for a position in the Landscaping and Maintenance crew. I
screamed. I even shed a few happy tears, which was a nice change from all
the sad tears I’ve spilled since February. Knowing that I could avoid
Greenbank, Jed, and my family, that I would be leaving my dorm room the
day after my last exam and hopping onto a plane... that’s the only reason
I’ve held it together this long.
The ferry turns left to run along the coastline, farther into the bay.
“What are those places, over there? Do people live out here?” I point
toward the little huts speckling the shore, camouflaged within the trees.
“Nah. They’re mostly lodges and cabin rentals.”
I study the structures, like yurts on stilts overlooking the water.
“They’re nice. Rustic.”
“They are, indeed.”
“Not like Wolf Cove, though.”
John chuckles softly, shaking his head. “Not quite.”
If the pictures in the pamphlet are at all accurate. My mama’s
convinced that it’s all computer generated, that nothing that luxurious
would exist up in Alaska. That I’ll end up contracting West Nile from the
thick fog of mosquitoes, or I’ll wake up in the rickety shack that I’m
sleeping in to find a bear gnawing on my leg.
To say Bernadette Mitchell is unhappy about this Alaska job is an
understatement. At first she flat-out told me that I wasn’t allowed to go. I
hung up the phone on her that night, the first time I’d ever done that.
Probably the first time anyone’s ever had the nerve to hang up on a woman
like her. I half expected her to drive the nine hours and slap me upside the
head.
Two days later, after she’d cooled off, she called and tried to persuade
me. I was making a grave mistake, leaving Greenbank and Jed. We’d be
away from the chaos of Chicago and the temptations that made Jed stray.
We’d have each other, day in and day out, and I could remind him of why
we’re so perfect together.
I know it’s not going to be that simple.
So I dug my heels in. I’ve been “good girl Abbi” all my life, sitting
next to my parents at church service every Sunday, keeping company with
like-minded people, staying away from the “bad kids” who drank and
smoked pot and had sex. Always listening to Mama.
Maybe if I’d just spread my legs for Jed, my heart wouldn’t have
been smashed into a thousand pieces.
While she’s my mama and I know she wants what’s best for me, she,
too, thinks that Jed and I belong together, and that our reunion is inevitable,
once he gets “the devil” out of his system. I had to bite my tongue before I
pointed out to her that the girl currently sucking Jed’s dick is a significant
obstacle in this imminent reconciliation of ours.
I scan the approaching buildings, my excitement triumphing over my
exhaustion. “Where is it?”
“Wolf Cove is just around the bend.”
Wolf Cove Hotel in Wolf Cove, Alaska. “How do you go about
renaming a cove, anyway?”
John chuckles softly again. He’s such a pleasant man. “The cove has
been Wolf Cove for hundreds of years now. The Wolf family has a lot of
history up here, with the gold mines. That’s where they made their first
fortune. Though I’m sure they could afford to have it renamed, if it came to
that. They’re a successful lot. Generous, too.”
Man, to be a part of that family. They must have a lot of money, to
risk opening a location like this all the way up here, and set their employees
up the way they’re doing for us, and all the benefits. “Hey, thanks for
coming back for me. I didn’t want to stay in a motel.” It’s just John and me
on the ferry, and a deck full of crates and supplies. He was kind enough to
make another trip across the bay and pick me up after my flight delay.
Apparently he carted a full load of college-aged employees over hours ago.
“We didn’t want to leave you stranded. ’Specially on the first day. I
woulda had to come back for the supplies first thing in the morning,
anyway.”
I glance at my watch with dismay. “I’ve missed the orientation
session.” It started at seven, almost an hour ago. The skies are deceptively
light for this time of evening. “I can’t believe how bright it still is.”
“Wait ’til June.”
“Less than five hours of darkness on the equinox, right?”
He grins. “Someone’s been doin’ her homework.”
“I like to be prepared.” The day I applied for the job, I ran home and
researched Alaska late into the night instead of studying for my exams. The
further I dug, the more excited I became, and the harder I prayed that I’d get
the job.
“Well, I’m sure one of the ladies will be kind enough to fill you in on
what you missed. They seemed like a nice group. Polite youngsters like
yourself, for the most part anyway.”
At twenty-one, it feels strange to be referred to as a “youngster,” but I
guess next to John, who’s got to be pushing seventy, that’s exactly what I
am.
The ferry rounds the crop of small islands and turns toward the cove.
John points to the massive building ahead. “And there’s Wolf Cove Hotel.”
My eyes widen. “Whoa. The brochure pictures weren’t fake.” And
they don’t do this place justice.
John chuckles again. “No, they certainly weren’t.”
I stare at it quietly, mesmerized. The main lodge towers over the
water. Even from this distance, I can see that the lodge is grandiose in its
design and massive in size. I can’t make out the details to appreciate it yet,
but there’s no doubt it’s something to be admired.
“They just made the finishing touches two weeks ago. Been working
on it for almost three years, now.”
“Is it still opening on Sunday?” Belinda, the woman who called to
formally hire me, said that these first few days would be focused on training
and last-minute preparations.
“I’ll be ferrying in the first guests at noon. I’ve been bringin’
employees in by the boatload over the last two days. There are a lot of you.
A high staff-to-guest ratio, I heard someone say.”
“How is the Wolf family going to make any money?”
“I’m guessing the twelve-hundred-dollar-a-night price tag will help.”
My mouth drops open. “Who can afford that?” I barely scraped
together the eleven hundred I needed for my plane ticket here.
“What’s that famous line from that movie? Oh, shucks. You may be
too young to remember. The one with the baseball and all those cornfields.
‘If you build it...’”
I smile. It’s only my dad’s favorite movie.
He winks.
We fall into a comfortable silence as we approach, and I realize that
I’ve been rolling my promise ring around my finger unconsciously this
entire time. It’s been three months since Jed and I broke up and I haven’t
been able to bring myself to remove it. Now, I slip it off, letting the cheap
metal rest in the palm of my hand. A part of me—the hurt, angry part—
wants to toss it into the water and be done with it. A symbol of my faith in
Jed.
But I can’t bring myself to do it just yet. So, I slip the ring into my
pocket and try to focus on the months to come.
