“You. Need to email. Poppy. For me.” Holland says it like he’s ordering fast food at a drive-thru window, breaking apart the sentences into manageable chunks. As if that’s going to help me process his request.
“What the heck, man? Why?”
“Because I’m going to be swamped. I’m going to be exhausted. I’m not going to have time to sit down and wax poetic to Poppy at the end of rounds upon rounds of golf. Any mental energy I do have left, I’m going to need to use for visualization exercises for my upcoming tournaments.”
“I get it,” I say slowly, trying to be agreeable, trying to make him see what a preposterous request he’s making. “Why didn’t you tell Poppy that? I’m sure if she’s as great as you say she is, she’d understand.”
Holland looks solemn, almost contrite. “She hasn’t asked me for anything. I’d feel terrible denying her this. She’s so excited about it. Of course I had to go along with it and be excited too. But there’s no way I can keep up my end of the deal. That’s where you come in.”
Maybe I should be offended at my brother’s assumption that I have all the time in the world. He doesn’t realize that I’m working over sixty hours a week as an electrician, and on top of that, I’m the town’s resident fix-it man. I’ve got more irons in the fire than I can juggle. Most of the time, that’s a good thing. It’s one of the ways I cope with the rumors that swirl around me every time I’m out. If I’m busy, then I’m too preoccupied to dwell on what everyone has to say about me.
But! None of that matters right now. What matters is that Holland is looking at me with puppy-dog eyes. He’s begging me with his pupils to agree to this. It’s pathetic.
“Come on, Mack. It won’t be forever, and it’s no big deal. You know everything there is to know about me. Our childhoods are the same, so fill Poppy in on the basics of my history. You don’t even have to initiate. Check the account regularly, and when she emails, respond. Do your best impression of me. Easy peasy.”
We’re getting close to the airport now, and I’m panicking because I don’t know how I’m going to be able to talk myself out of this preposterous scheme Holland has cooked up. The man is not used to hearing no. So much so, that I’m pretty convinced a negative response doesn’t register in his brain. I make a last-ditch effort.
“It doesn’t seem like a good idea to build a relationship on a foundation of lies.”
“That’s deep, Mack. Really deep.” Holland rolls his eyes. “But I hardly think I’m going to take relationship advice from you.”
I can practically feel the blood in my veins turn to ice at that backhanded barb.
Holland doesn’t notice the way I’m clenching the wheel now. He’s messing around on his phone. “You’re making this out to be a bigger deal than it is. I’m still going to be texting Poppy and calling her when I can. I’ll be home for the wedding next month, and we’ll regroup then. It’s all going to be fine. I need your help with this one simple thing. If you don’t think you can handle it, I’ll figure something else out.”
I pull into the drop-off lane at the airport and exhale, ready to tell my brother to bite me. But then, I don’t know what happens…
Maybe it’s loneliness.
Maybe it’s exhaustion.
Maybe it’s a deep-seeded desire to prove to Holland—and everyone else—that I’m not such a big screw-up that I can’t handle being someone’s fake pen-pal.
But I open my mouth and out spill the words, “Fine. Give me the account information.”
3
Nicknames Are Bestowed
Poppy
“Youknowwhyit’scalled Cashmere Cove?”
I spin around to find my supervisor waddling into the room—waddle is her word, not mine.
Heather Arnold—also known as the director of the Cashmere Cove Parks and Recreation Department and my new boss—is nine months pregnant. I’ve known her for all of two hours, and what I’ve determined is that she’s basically Superwoman.
So far this morning, she’s recruited three extra umpires for the youth baseball program so they won’t be short for games tonight. She’s resolved a snafu with a concession stand order. The vendor sent the town of Cashmere Cove one thousand extra choco tacos, and Heather got right on the phone and told them they needed to come back and pick them up and issue the town a complete refund. “We don’t have the freezer space for that size order,” she told me. She proceeded to send me to where the boxes got dropped off to snag us each one of the sweet treats before they were whisked away.
She’s officially my hero.
“No. I guess I don’t.” I take one last look at the water before returning to the seat on the opposite side of Heather’s desk.
She plunks down in her seat and blows the strand of hair that has fallen from her messy bun out of her face, wiping her brow with the back of her wrist. “The sandy bottom of our stretch of the bay. People say it feels as soft as cashmere on your toes when you walk out into the water.” She shrugs. “Or something like that. I’m not an expert. All I know is it is hot, and the water is a welcome relief most days in the summer. It’s also a source for a ton of our activities, so I’m grateful for it.”
I’m accustomed to the white-sand beaches of Florida, which are stunning in their own right, but Cashmere Cove is a different kind of gorgeous. The blue of the sky blurs with the greens and grays of the rocky, tree-dotted shoreline. The buildings lining Main Street are quaint and welcoming. Each one has different colored siding and trim, so when you walk down the road, it’s like you’re on the inside of a rainbow. The whole town feels cozy and accessible.
Cashmere Cove is one in a myriad of towns dotting Cashmere County, a premiere tourist destination in northeast Wisconsin. The county spans the entirety of the peninsula that juts out from the state into Lake Michigan. Cashmere Cove is situated on the bay side of the peninsula.
