his brain.
At the time, I
didn’t care because Kip was so much fun to be around. After the volleyball game,
we danced on a deck lit by Japanese lanterns. The moon rose over the lake,
magnified by the water, the stars poked out one by one, and the DJ cranked out hits
from the ’80s and ’90s. Kip was a terrific dancer: sexy, inventive, limber as a
gymnast. We were doing the dirty jerk when a woman cut in on me, a stunning
redhead with a silk scarf wrapped sarong-style around her hips and a bottle of
wine clutched in one hand. She twined herself pythonlike around Kip and began
gyrating. She was looped; her bottle slipped out of her hand, fell on Kip’s
instep and broke, slicing open a major vein as cleanly as a surgeon’s knife.
We all stared at
the spurting wound. Who would have thought a foot contained that much blood?
The redhead threw up, Kip collapsed into a deck chair, looking stunned, and
everyone else just stood there, goggling at Kip’s gushing foot as though they’d
never seen blood before. I was the only one who seemed capable of action.
Snatching a beach towel, I wrapped it around Kip’s foot. Then, when no one else
volunteered, I drove him to the emergency room.
After Kip was
stitched up, he was ordered to rest in a cubicle. I sat with him while we
waited for his doctor to okay his release. “Do you want me to call someone?” I
asked, handing Kip a glass of water, recalling that he’d told me his mother
lived in a Milwaukee suburb. “Your mom, maybe?”
“God, no. My rule
is never tell my mother anything.” He sipped the water. “You’ll understand when
you meet her.” He squeezed my hand. “Sorry I spoiled your evening.”
“You didn’t.”
Truth: at the moment I would rather have been sitting in a
disinfectant-smelling emergency room with Kip Vonnerjohn than anywhere else in
the world. He was pale beneath his beach tan, his hair was plastered sweatily
against his forehead, and his hands shook slightly as the local anaesthetic
began to wear off. He rubbed his eye sockets with his fists like a young kid.
That was the
moment I fell in love.
Females are not
all that impressed when males flex their biceps, fan out their tails, or pound
their chests. What makes us take leave of our senses is seeing a guy clumsily
holding a baby in his arms or sucking his thumb after he’s blasted it with a
hammer or squirming in embarrassment because he’s just discovered his
girlfriend is allergic to the bouquet of daisies he’s brought her. We can’t
resist a guy making an adorable dope of himself.
Kip and I shared
our first kiss on that emergency room cot.
We saw each other
nearly every day for the rest of the summer. Dates with Kip were always adventures.
We went sailing in his boat. Golfed on elaborate, expensive courses. Walked on
the beach and played catch-me-if-you-can with the surf. Hiked in state parks.
Took the train to Chicago and toured the Shedd Aquarium. Went to a lot of
parties.
We never discussed
money. Although I assumed that Kip was well-off, I didn’t associate Kip with the Vonnerjohns. It wasn’t until our ninth date that I learned Kip’s
great-grandfather had been Yost Vonnerjohn, the Dutch immigrant who’d started
the plumbing company now known around the world for bathroom fixtures. It
wasn’t until our twelfthdate that he
told me that he was first cousin to Stanford Brenner, who was running for
United States Senate.
We
went to the zoo on our fourteenth date. Kip produced a box of animal crackers
from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. The box was already open and I
figured he’d been nibbling on the crackers, which seemed odd; Kip wasn’t the
animal crackers type. We stopped to watch the giraffes while I munched on the
crackers, Kip watching me from the corners of his eyes. I ate a bear with a
broken leg, a headless zebra, and a blob that was either a horse or a hippo.
Then my scrabbling fingers touched a piece of paper. I pulled it out and
Chris Ryan
Sarah Price
Dana Stabenow
Philip R. Craig
Nancy Straight
Steve Hayes
Frank Christopher Busch
Ali McNamara
EC Sheedy
Janet Frame