Chapter 20
When I got home there was a note from Jack under my door:
What about a night swim in the lake? J.
I found myself smiling, while I held the note in my hands. The handwriting was stylized, except for the J., which was curled and elaborate. I liked the contrast between the two handwritings. It was the first time Jack asked me out for a night swim, and I felt that with this request he was trying to resolve a knot within himself, perhaps unconsciously. Just one week ago we had gone out to restore the boat, and now he wanted to swim. I wondered if he was attempting to exorcize the death of his girlfriend by approaching the water again with me. What links me to this girl? Why is he assimilating the two of us? Or is he? I want to know more about Lisa. I’ve always believed that there are connections between people that logic alone cannot explain. Perhaps Jack and I have met for a reason, perhaps I am somehow bound to Lisa and Jack is bringing us together. Nonsense, we are just going for a swim.
I was standing on the door lost in these thoughts when Mrs. Wheeler waved me hello from her garden. I waved back. “Do you have a moment?”, she shouted. “Sure”, I said, and walked towards her house. When Mrs. Wheeler opened the gate of the low shite fence Wooster came running towards me, and leaped up, licking my hands. I pat him laughing at his contagious joy, then looked up at Mrs. Wheeler smiling.
“I wanted to invite you over to our place one of these days”, she began, “We have news to share”
“Which news?”, I asked.
“Oh well, we’ll tell you everything once you come over, if you have time of course”, she replied, with a motherly smile painted on her face.
“I could drop by tomorrow…”, I said tentatively.
“That sounds just perfect”, she said overriding the doubts in my tone with the emphatic enthusiasm in her tone, her smile broadening, and walked away in her flowery dress, waving at me again when she was halfway to her door.