Etta tried very hard to close her door as quietly as possible when she left her room at 6:30 a.m. for her morning run. It would certainly be easier to get in an early run today, given that the humidity hadn’t really let up much overnight. It had taken an hour or so for her to get comfortable enough to sleep, but when she did, she’d gotten some really good rest after a physically taxing moving day. She felt ready to take on a new day in a new place with a vim and vigor she hadn’t felt in a long time. This was going to be a good run.
The door across the hall from hers opened slightly as she bent to tie her errant left shoe, glancing up to see her housemate, Izzy, entering the hallway with a baseball bat over her head, looking disheveled, obviously awoken from her sleep by Etta’s comings and goings.
Seeing the intense look of fear in Izzy’s eyes, Etta jumped back to her doorway for protection. “Hey, hey, hey. Hold your horses. It’s just me.” She braced her arms over her head, water-bottle in hand.
The frightened look on Izzy’s face melted as she lowered her implement of torture. “Oh, man, you scared me to death. I wasn’t sure what was out here, but I was gonna kill it.” Izzy put one palm to her chest. “My heart is beating a million miles a minute.”
“Sorry I scared you. I was just headed out for my run. Wanna come?” Etta asked, with a cheerful smile and happy attitude, hoping that Izzy would take her up on her offer.
“Oh, you’re a morning person, huh? No offense. I’ve heard of your type. Thanks, but a cup of coffee is about as healthy as I get in the morning. And a run at …. What time is it anyway?”
“6:30.”
“Oh God, no wonder I’m so beat. Nobody should be up at this time of day.” Etta just laughed. “You’re a crazy person to run at this time of day, but I suppose it’s better to beat the heat, huh? Have fun.”
“Yeah, I want to get a run in before it gets uncomfortable. Suit yourself.” Etta started jogging down the stairs. Izzy leaned into the stairwell. “Oh hey, my brother and a gang of numbnuts are going to be tearing off the roof today. He said he’d be here around eight. Just so you aren’t shocked by the multitude of male bodies - Hubba, hubba - when you get back. They’ll be hanging around all week, while the weather holds.”
Etta turned back. “Thanks for the warning,” and smiled widely. “Get some coffee. You’ll need some stamina. Later.” Etta walked out the door and set out to explore the lakeshore of Marquette, her water-bottle in hand, a spring in her step and a smile on her face. Izzy was flirty, hilarious and fun. She liked her and that was good.
The house she was living in was a large, white, federal-style home probably built near the 20s or 30s with a wide porch or, maybe it was a veranda. Her grandmother would’ve called it a “sitting porch”. The house featured a large living room, with a separate closed-off dining room just off of a spacious kitchen. The kitchen was an old “farm style” with all the cupboards along the outside edges of the room and a large eat-in table in the middle, which seemed to be serving as a type of “island”, a place to eat, catch mail and converse, with benches along each side so many people could sit, if necessary.
The house belonged to the Donato family, who had bought the place as a sort of “dorm” for their children who attended Northern Michigan University. They were a large family from Minnesota, like herself, with twelve children, four of whom were currently attending college or graduate school in Marquette. Two of their daughters had all been living there for the past two years, while their eldest son, who roomed with the hockey team, as he had been on a scholarship for hockey, had done work on the home. Etta had been referred to the Donatos by a friend of her advisor who was also from Minnesota. She’d heard of an opening for a “mature housemate” who favored the Vikings and Twins and was willing to share “mother hen” status with the eldest daughter in the household, Izzy, who was also attending graduate school, for Public Education and Administration. And yesterday she’d finished moving in after two or three weeks of talking to Izzy on the phone about arrangements, etc.
There were three floors, with two huge bedrooms on the third floor, which were intended to be shared by two girls each, and one larger and one smaller bedroom on the second floor. Izzy had given up the larger second-floor room to Etta, who actually paid rent. Each floor had a shared bathroom, although there was only a shower on the second floor. Izzy’s best friend had gotten married and moved out after this years’ spring term. Etta had arrived one week before the undergraduate programs began to get settled in, meet her advisor personally and the professor she’d be working for as a teaching assistant. Izzy’s sisters, Sophia and Gabriella, shared one of the third-floor rooms and were still sound asleep, while the other bedroom remained empty, until next week, when two freshmen friends of Gabby’s, who were also starting her first year of college, would be coming.
It was definitely going to be a full house, but there seemed to be plenty of space, if they all respected each other’s privacy. And it was a little like acting as a resident assistant with Izzy, although Izzy held power, as a sister, she wouldn’t possess. Etta was excited by this opportunity, to make friends and develop close relationships with other women, something that had always been lacking in her life.
Etta lightly jogged down to lakeshore drive, along the asphalt pathway that ran parallel to the beach. There were parking spaces all along the pathway, which were, of course, empty this early in the morning, but she had no doubt they’d be filling up fast as the day went along. She made her way to an area along the path where the trees surrounded the pathway, acting as a natural corridor, with a cathedral ceiling of beautiful leaves. And to glance out at the beautiful view of Lake Superior. How could you beat that? A brilliant pastel blue stretching out across the horizon as far as I eye could see. And not a cloud in the sky. This was the stuff of poets and dreamers and …. Well, wasn’t that what she was doing this morning?
Yes, she was dreaming, as she ran past CoCo’s, the sight of last night’s debacle, which she’d just as soon forget. She was dreaming of this new crisp life, not knowing what it would hold. A new day, a new way of living. It wasn’t easy to start life over somewhere else, but it was also an opportunity not everybody got in life. She could leave her problems behind her, the mess, and walk away free and clear. Nobody knew her. She could be and make of herself anything she wanted to be.
The sound of her feet hitting the pavement over and over reverberated in her ears and she thought to herself of the beautiful blue lake beside her, wide open spaces as she ran along an expanse on the path with piles of granite chunks pushed into barricades along the shoreline. These were apparently put in place to protect the path and roadway from erosion from the constant, and sometimes fierce, waves upon the shore. Perhaps they were there to protect the roadway from the giant ice dams that were created in the spring when huge chunks of ice washed up in ever-increasing patterns of ice sheets.
She thought to herself that this time around she would be polite and kind with people, yet protective and wary. No, not wary. She’d be cautious, cautious with her feelings. She wouldn’t just jump into friendships. She would pick and choose and get to know people before she handed them pieces of herself. She had to do that.
She came up to an entrance to Presque Isle, which she’d read about in some tourism brochures. There was a nature preserve on the island and a natural sand point. Yes, she’d have a great time checking out this “island”. As she walked deeper into the park at this early-morning hour, she saw a fawn, at the edge of the preserve entrance sign, munching on some tender shoots at the base of a tree. She stood as still as possible. There didn’t seem to be any people around. Not one car was in the parking lots that ran along each edge of the island. And so she just stood and watched the fawn for almost ten to fifteen minutes before it leaped, literally leaped, happily back into the deeper forest. She wasn’t sure if the fawn had spotted her. It was really hard to hold still enough not to be noticed.
This was a beautiful spot and she was going to love gathering her thoughts here every morning and building her new life. She’d make her life as beautiful as that young fawn.
* * *
Tommy had a lot to do this morning, preferably before it got any hotter. The forecast today was for more wind and less humidity, but it was still going to get hot and being up on a hot roof, no matter what, always made the day feel hotter. Good thing he liked to get an early start on a day and it was early, way too early for Izzy. He’d get some stuff done before he went in the house. At least he wouldn’t be alone. Hopefully the guys wouldn’t give him too much crap over what happened at CoCo’s, but he sincerely doubted it.
In his undergraduate years, Tommy had a full-ride hockey scholarship that he’d earned being the number one forward at Duluth East High School, where his senior year his team had brought home the coveted Class AA High School Hockey championship. He was tall and lean, with muscular shoulders that he’d beefed up with years of pumping iron. He had deep-set brown eyes and jet black hair, which he wore somewhat long, so he had a slight “bad boy” image. Well, that’s how all of the hockey guys wore their hair but those whims of fashion would come and go and he was his own guy. He liked being able to pull it into a little ponytail when he got hot and sweaty. That was the main reason he wore it kind of long.
He’d been very careful with his teeth all throughout his hockey career and was one of the only players in his freshman year who could claim to still be the proud owner of “all original pearlies”, as he so proudly put it. He’d been scouted by several of the professional teams and offered a chance to go pro before he finished his college career. His parents, though, insisted he finish college and get a degree to fall back on, which was a good thing. Last winter, mid-season, he’d had what could be considered a career-ending injury, completely severing his ACL tendon in his left knee, which up until now had left him with a slight limp and the knowledge that his long-lived dreams had come to an end.
To anyone else that kind of break would perhaps have meant complete devastation, but Tommy Donato wasn’t a one-hit wonder. He was more than hockey. He loved his family, his family’s business, a chain of pizzerias in Duluth and the Iron Range, and, most of all, the great outdoors. It was the one thing he’d treasured most, outside of his big Italian family and hockey – the chance to spend time outdoors, enjoying nature, the beauty of what God had given. How could you not feel that way growing up on the shores of Lake Superior? Every day was a reminder of how majestic nature was, whether in a heavy snowfall or a blistering, and very infrequent, steamy summer afternoon. So, since it made the most sense, he’d majored in Environmental Sciences and hoped to “fall back” on potentially working either on the big lake systems or in Natural Resources somewhere, either in Minnesota or Michigan. He didn’t really care where. He just wanted to work in nature and for nature.
Although he had taken the injury hard and it had taken time for him to get his mind into a better place, it was something he, personally, could get over. To some extent he’d taken it better than his parents, who had a heavy investment in his hockey career themselves, over many and long hours of blood, sweat and mainly tears since he’d been a four-year-old who picked up a stick. His mother’s main worry, as always had been over that flashy smile and keeping it intact, at all costs.
He’d hung the new porch swing, set up a workspace, put the ladder in place and just needed to get the beer in order. The guys could bring up the tools when they got here. He’d just tell Izzy to send them up. He could get a head start before they arrived. He put one of the cases of beer down on the back porch to allow him to unlock the back door, knocking and calling out as he opened the door with his foot, “Honey, I’m home.” As he did so, Izzy, who was behind the door in the back pantry, which had at one point served as a closet, abruptly stood up from her crouching position, hitting her head on one of the shelves along the wall.
“Dammit, Tommy, you scared the shit out of me. Second time today and it’s not even eight am.” She rubbed the spot where her head had hit the shelf. “What are you doing?”
Tommy had made his way over to the refrigerator while juggling three twelve-packs of beer, which he was unloading onto hastily freed spaces to cool. “Cooling off today’s incentive. I ran out of room in the cooler. Sorry to scare you. What was your first time?” With a wide grin, he glanced at his twin, who was dressed, still in her nightclothes, boxers, an oversized football jersey and a lopsided top-side ponytail on the top of her head. “Oh, hey, you kinda should get dressed, ya know. Lots of testosterone arriving soon. Let’s make sure the beer is their only motivation, k? No free side shows.” He was concerned for the welfare of his sisters and Etta.
“Okay. I’ll tell Soph and Gabby when I drag their butts out of bed to shop for a new couch that doesn’t have spring issues.”
Tommy just smiled. “So what was the first?”
Izzy’s eyebrows tightened, as she looked at her brother like he was crazy. “First what?”
Tommy laughed. “Geez, Iz, tired much? First time you had the shit scared out of you … today.”
Izzy raised one finger in the air, as she continued putting dry goods on the pantry shelves, cans of soup and cereal, etc. “Sorry. I’m a little distracted. Trying to organize a free shelf for Etta in here. I do need caffeine. It’s too damned early. Throw me a Diet Dew, will ya?” Obligingly, Tommy, grabbed a bottle of soda and gently tossed it in his sister’s direction, which she snatched easily out of the air. Opening the bottle and taking a swig, Izzy went on. “Etta scared me when she went out for her run this morning. I nearly beaned her with the baseball bat.” She turned towards her brother, with one hand on her hip. “Jesus, Tommy, she’s a morning person. How am I going to live with that?”
Tommy chuckled, continuing his hand-to-hand transfer of beer cans to fridge. “I’m sure you will survive. Nature evolves.” At his sister’s sneer and squished up facial expression, he just smiled.
“And,” she said, pointing her finger in his direction, “she’s one of those cheerful morning people, like you! You know I hate that. What the hell is there to be so cheerful about anyway?”
“Oh, no! Not a happy person. How dreadful for you.” Tommy turned as he’d finished, closing the fridge door behind him. “Hey, I probably should talk to you about ….. umm …. Oh hell, I met your new housemate last night.” He leaned on the island table in the center of the room, carrying empty beer boxes in one hand.
“You did? She didn’t say anything last night when she came home.”
“Well, she didn’t know I was your brother. It was …. Well, it’s a long story and,” he walked over to her, patted her cheek, gave her a quick peck on the other cheek. “You’re my twin, so remember you love me later, k? Got stuff to do. Send the guys up top when they show.” He winked and walked back out the kitchen door, closing the door soundly behind him.
“Hey, what do you mean? She didn’t know you. You’re being all mysterious and …” Realizing her words were falling into an empty space, she mumbled, “Never mind. I’m talking to myself. Moron.”