Chapter 3
The next morning I woke up with the sun, the dawn spreading its pink and velvety tints across the sky. The block was still asleep and I drank my coffee on the porch in the silence of the morning, broken only by the slow, reiterated whine of my old rocking chair.
There was a lake close to my house where I would swim early in the morning, often before going to work. The water was chilly and it was painful to dip in, but after a few minutes making laps the cold would become almost unnoticeable and after half hour I would emerge from the lake feeling optimistic and pacified with myself. I went back into the house to leave my cup in the kitchen, grab my bathing suit, a towel and the car keys.
When I turned on the ignition Wooster rushed out of my neighbours’ backyard, running towards me. Wooster was a black Labrador who made its way to the Wheeler’s house as a puppy one year earlier, carried in the arms of their over-excited kids, shortly after I had begun working at FoodTech labs. The Wheeler’s had mounted a swinging door on the back, from which Wooster would come and go as it pleased. The town was small, Wooster would never go too far and everyone knew it was the Wheeler’s dog anyways. I had brought Wooster to the lake a couple of mornings, and after that it had gotten into the habit of joining me whenever it heard my ignition start at my typical swimming hours.
I drove in the woods with Wooster on the front seat beside me, head tall, scrutinizing every detail on the way as my wonky third or fourth-hand Buick made its way on the unpaved trail. When we reached the lake the colours of the dawn hadn’t yet faded and they mirrored on the smooth surface of the water, flickering with reddish-pink reflections.
I laid my clothing on a rock and tested the water with the tip of my food. Wooster looked at me, waiting for me to go in first. I carefully walked in the lake, holding up my arms to avoid contact with water for as long as I could and finally I plunged in, followed by the dog. Wooster would swim with me for a while only and then find his way back to the shore, shake the water off and sit waiting for me to return.
When I got back home I found a brown paper bag in front of my door, accompanied by a good morning note written in stylized print. Unmistakably Jack’s. The muffins in the bag felt warm and their smell made me salivate. I walked inside with my muffins, smiling. Jack had moved to California after working in all sort of trades across the States and finally decided to settle there few years earlier, after opening a small bakery. He had started off by working alone 7/7 for ten hours a day, but when the business had begun to thrive he hired a local boy to help him out with the shop.
Back then I couldn’t tell for sure what was the nature of Jack’s feelings for me, but I knew he liked me and he did for me things he didn’t do for the other people in the town. By the time I showered and had breakfast the sun was high in the sky and the air was turning hot. Suddenly I missed the ocean, driving along the coast with the car windows rolled down and eating in one of those restaurants by the beach. I thought I’d go find Jack and ask him to join. I drove to his flat at a leisurely speed, taking the time to observe what was along my way, the trees, the trimmed gardens, that old lady with her dog and that man talking to himself as he read the news.
Jack’s flat was one storey above the bakery and could be accessed from the back of the building through fire stairs, which I used as if they were the regular ones when I wanted to see him. When Jack opened the door and saw me he smiled, looking as if he had been expecting the visit, and asked me if I had liked the muffins. I said I did, and then we both fell silent for a moment. Neither of us was a fast talker. When I asked him to come with me for a day on the ocean shore he looked at me strangely. Which beach did I want to go to, he asked me. Any beach, I said. He wanted to know if I would you mind spending a day fixing a boat. For a friend who needed a hand, he added. The idea of restoring old relics always pleased me, and when I said so Jack smiled, I think more at the way I phrased my thoughts than at the concept itself.
“Just give me a moment to put on a shirt and I’ll be back”, he told me, before disappearing into the house.
For some reason he didn’t let me in that day, so I waited beside his truck and a few minutes later we were heading to the highway, making our way to Mission beach.