Prince of Pot by Tanya Lloyd Kyi

Author:Tanya Lloyd Kyi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
Published: 2017-08-10T19:47:28+00:00

10

On Saturday morning, Sam drives to the campground and waits for me at the trailhead. When I see her — which I do well before she spots me — her cut-offs and halter-top seem like a costume. Underneath, she looks like a girl who’s scared of bears but trying hard not to show it. She scuffs one running shoe in the dirt.

“Hey.”

She jumps.

I don’t risk leading her anywhere near the grow. Instead, we take a trail that skirts the side of the mountain past a beaver pond. This is the scene that’s going to sell Sam on life in the woods: the perfect stillness of water broken by the ripple of a fish and the dip of a swallow.

“It’s gorgeous,” Sam breathes. Then she slaps at a mosquito.

She insists on leaving the trail and walking through the reeds until the ground is marshy and sucking at our shoes. Maybe she thinks a beaver will pop its head out of the water. There’s no sign of them today, though. Just their lodge across the pond. We’re trespassers walking the edges of their property line.

I have a sudden image of a beaver-Walt, aiming a shotgun at us from inside the lodge.

Sam slaps at more mosquitoes.

“Why aren’t they eating you?” she asks.

They probably are. “I’m immune.”

The image in my head for this morning involved Sam and me lying on a patch of grass, which in my mind was much shorter and softer than these beaver pond reeds. There was a splash of sunlight and a lot of skin.

I reach for her, wrap one hand in her hair and breathe girl-smell.

After a few minutes, she pulls away to scratch her legs again.

“You’re not loving this place.”

“No, I am! It’s beautiful,” she says. “I guess I’m just in the mood for people today. How far is your house from here?”

I shrug. “It’s a bit of a hike.”

“Maybe I could meet your mom,” Sam says.

She’d love my mom. She might even like the cabin. But even when she leans against me again and her breasts press against my chest and her breath tickles the skin at my neck, I don’t entirely lose my mind. There’s no way I can take her to the grow. Am I going to introduce her to Dad and the bears? Tell her to duck if she hears Walt grab his gun?

When I shake my head, she presses her lips together.

“It’s just…Mom won’t be ready. She’ll want to impress you and if she’s not expecting us…”

It’s lame, and Sam knows it.

“Another day,” I promise. “Next time they’re in town, we’ll get together.”

They haven’t been to town in ages, but it’s not impossible. When we were kids and we would grocery shop with Mom, she would occasionally run into someone she knew from her past. It seemed strange, but it was okay. No one got shot.

Sam turns and heads back toward the campground. I trail after her, not sure whether it’s safe to speak.

But then, when we’re almost there, she looks back at me.

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