One of my favorite things? When I open an email to find new Wilfair fiction written by a reader.
Reader Caitlin #1 has taken on a prequel idea, an idea that brims with nature and whimsy and includes the hotel's citrus topiaries. Thank you, sweet lady! Love it.
Please Rate the Value of Small Opportunities
I wasn’t spying, exactly.
Lurking? Maybe. Monitoring?
Possibly. Standing among The Wilfair’s citrus topiaries on a slightly chilly
November afternoon, watching Gomery Overbove scoop dead leaves out of the Motel
Fairwil pool, hoping he wouldn’t notice my presence?
If you wanted to be precise about
it, well...yes.
It wasn’t intentional. I had been
heading for the motel lobby, to make yet another noise complaint about
late-night skinny dippers in the pool, when I spotted Gomery sooner than I
expected. And rather than act like the mature, confident, nineteen-year-old
hotel manager I was supposed to be, I instead panicked and froze.
I watched him finish his task, hang
up the pool scoop, straighten one of the chairs on the deserted pool deck, and
head back towards the motel lobby. As he placed one hand on the door handle, he
turned his head -- and looked straight at me.
Crap.
I ducked behind a tree, staring hard at an orange. I pretended it was the most
riveting thing I’d ever seen, when in fact, if I were making a list of the most
riveting things I’d seen in the last five minutes, the orange would be a
distant fifth. Items one through four on that list? The man currently
redirecting his steps toward the Wilfair-Fairwil property line.
“Fair?”
I reluctantly edged out from my
leafy and clearly inadequate hiding spot. “Um, hi. I was just, uh...inspecting
the topiaries. You know.” I nodded emphatically.
Gomery’s eyebrows raised the
tiniest bit, but he didn’t question my excuse. “Everything shipshape?”
“Oh, yes. Everything seems to be,
uh, in order here.” I gave a fakely hearty thumbs up, then wished I could take
it back.
“Don’t you have gardeners or
landscapers or something for that?”
“Oh, well, you know, as the
manager, I should really be, like, overseeing everything. Supervising.
Managing. You know. Okay. Bye now!” I hurriedly turned to make my escape.
“Were you by any chance supervising
the pool as well, just now?”
Busted. “Um. Maybe?”
Gomery sighed and shoved his hands
in his pockets. “The pool’s not yours, nor is it going to be yours anytime
soon,” he said softly but firmly, though he addressed himself more to my ankles
than to my face.
“I know. Sorry. I just...I’ll just
be going. Sorry. Sorry.” I started to back away.
“Wait.” He held out a hand.
“Please. Is there anything else? Anything other than the pool that we could
talk about?”
“Um. I,” I began, casting about for
the words to follow, when something small and red further distracted me, as a
ladybug alighted on Gomery’s outstretched arm. “There’s, like, a ladybug on
your arm,” I pointed out helpfully, albeit obviously.
“So there is,” Gomery replied, his
voice slightly hushed. I watched intently as he slowly rotated his forearm and
the beetle crawled toward his now-upturned palm. “They’ve been everywhere
lately, trying to find warmth as the autumn weather cools down. Monty
complains, but I kind of like them. Some guests love them, too, especially the
kids, but then they also complain about them in the pool.” He coughed, then
gave a “what can you do, you know?” shrug.
I wondered if the cough indicated
that Gomery regretted mentioning the pool again. He adjusted his glasses with
his non-insect-holding hand, then placed the tips of his thumb and middle
finger together, preparing to flick the ladybug away. He paused for a long
moment, fingers of one hand tensed in the palm of the other, before finally
sending his new friend on its way.
“Were you going to say something
else?” he asked politely, but I wasn’t listening. “Fair?”
“The ladybug is in your, um, your
hair now.”
“She must like me.” Gomery dimpled.
“Give me, and her, a hand?” He bent his head towards me.
“It could be a he. The ladybug, I
mean. There must be some man-ladybugs, right? Or else there wouldn’t be, uh,
baby ladybugs.” I swallowed nervously. Gomery Overbove was asking me, his
family’s sworn enemy, for help. Not only that, he was offering me a free pass
to touch his hair, to boot. His fascinating hair that curled in sixes and eights.
And here I was, babbling about ladybug reproduction instead. Hopeless, that’s
what I was. Hopeless.
The face attached to that head of
hair dimpled further. Fleeps. Not helping. “That’s true,” he agreed. “Must be
rough for those man-ladybugs, always being mistaken for their female
counterparts.” He bent his neck again. “So. Care to help him or her out?”
My gloved hand hovered for a
second, and then two, half an inch above the curl where the beetle perched. I
mentally chastised myself for pausing too long, and then, ever so carefully and
gently, I lowered my fingers and scooped up the insect stowaway.
Gomery’s hair was undoubtedly the
most exciting thing with which my glove had ever been in contact. Even through
the satin barrier, my fingertips could feel that his hair was smooth and
enticingly soft. As I reluctantly moved my hand away, I saw the curl I’d just touched
spring back into place. Fleeps, again.
I would have liked to ask the
ladybug to describe exactly how it felt to crawl through those sixes and
eights, since my fingers were unlikely ever to find out. Or to ask my glove how
it felt, for that matter. Fortunately, I had enough presence of mind left to
know that trying to live vicariously through an insect or an inanimate object
was downright ridiculous, and not to do either of those things in Gomery’s
hearing.
Instead, I stood awkwardly and
silently, still holding the ladybug in my cupped hand. I watched her, or him,
crawl slowly over my palm, briefly contemplating if I might be able to keep it
as a pet, the better to remember this moment. With a sigh, I decided against
that idea, then prepared to shake my small charge free.
“Wait.” Gomery laid a single finger
on my gloved wrist, then pulled it away a fraction of an instant later. It was
a move so fleeting, I might have imagined it. “Make a wish.”
“What?”
“When a ladybug lands on you, it
means you get to make a wish when you help it fly away.”
“But it landed on you, not me.
It’s, like, your wish.”
“I got to make one a minute ago.
You can have this one.” He smoothed his tie.
“No, I can’t.” ...Take this from you, too, I thought but
didn’t say.
Gomery sighed. “Please. I’m giving
it to you.”
I couldn’t look him in the eye any
longer. “O...okay,” I faltered, barely louder than a whisper. “Thanks.”
Gomery shrugged but didn’t say
anything, waiting patiently while I searched for a wish that would befit the
current situation.
I
wish the Overboves and I could be friends instead of foes, I thought, not
for the first time and probably not for the last. Then I brought my hand near
to my face, and set the ladybug airborne on a puff of breath. I watched my new
friend fly away in the direction of the motel’s tar bubble.
My old foe cleared his throat. “I
should, uh, get back to work.”
“Oh. Yeah, me too.” I nodded.
“Okay. Well, bye, then.”
“Bye.” I waved weakly, then watched
for a moment as Gomery turned away and strode to the motel lobby.
As I set out through the topiaries,
I couldn’t shake a sudden, furtive hope that sharing something small, like a
wish on a ladybug, might be a solid first step on a path to sharing other,
larger things.
