“Are you cold?”
“Yes, but a little water never hurt anyone.” She gave him a sad smile.
Beckett sighed. “Dan just said something very similar. Speaking of water, I have a bus to catch, to go throw sandbags. I’ll get a break though. In three months I’ll get a weekend. I’ll see you somewhere.”
Luna said, “At your house. There’s no way Chickadee lets this last three months. She’ll burn it down first.”
Beckett smiled. “You’re in good hands.”
“Definitely.”
“And Roscoe is the best. He’ll get everyone out, it’s just a matter of time. I didn’t know — you see that right? I didn’t know this about the camps.”
“Not one person believes you did.”
Beckett blew out a breath of air. “Are we cursed?”
Luna looked at the chain-link separating them. “Some might say so, but I prefer my friend’s opinion, that you and I are living an epic love story.”
“Is this Chickadee we’re talking about? She told me I needed to be with someone who helped me write the punchline of my life’s sitcom, or something like that.”
Chickadee chuckled merrily, “I’m sitting right behind you. If you’re going to quote me, get it right.”
Luna asked Beckett, “What would your punchline be?”
“I’m not sure — maybe it’s something about how the girl I’m writing it with and I are never alone together.” Beckett glanced over his shoulder at the crowd gathered around them.
“We Waterfolk are never alone, no one would find that funny. I think your punchline is that you volunteered.”
Beckett smiled, “True that, or what about — man terrified of ocean finds himself inside the ocean, lots of ocean.”
“You jumped.”
Beckett chuckled. “That’s our punchline, ‘and then we jumped.’ Now we have to write the joke.”
“In six months.”
Beckett groaned. “If I have to be away from you that long I need more to think about. I know your birthday is August 15th, and you’re learning how to dance. And that you are slowly falling in love with Calvin and Hobbes and that you paddle like a badass. And you have my grandfather’s — wait where’s my grandfather’s watch?”
“They took it when they forcibly showered me.”
Chickadee struggled out of her chair with a, “Oh, hell no!”
Beckett smirked. “Chickadee you heard that?”
“I certainly did. This travesty will not be allowed to continue. That is stolen property. Roscoe! Roscoe!”
Dilly said, “Chickie dear, Roscoe left to deliver your morning filings to the court administrator.”
Chickadee, rain pouring down her face, said, “Mark it someone, mark this moment, I will get my grandfather’s watch back from these evil people for Luna and Beckett if it’s the last thing I do!” She plopped down into the chair sending her chain rattling.
Beckett chuckled and leaned his forehead against the fence again. They looked into each other’s eyes. He said, “Tell me something about you that I don’t know.”
Luna said, “Hmmm, a big thing?”
She stared off into space. She considered telling Beckett the really big thing, the terrible thing, about the night she lost her family, but speaking the words would hurt. They would hurt in her heart and her throat and she didn’t know if she could take that much pain. And it would cause him pain too — he might — she didn’t want to think about what he might think. Or say. He would feel it for all those days, what,ninety, until she saw him again?
So she went for simpler. “Did I tell you that it was my mother that taught me how to navigate? Usually the men do it, but my grandmother taught my mother, and she taught me. She told me to keep it secret. I loved that it was just between us.
