Page 96 of The Love Haters

The moment just happened to happen in front of a purple-and-orange sunset.

So many great visuals.

On the way back, once I had all my shots, I fell into step beside them.

“I can’t believe you live on a houseboat,” I said. “Who lives on a houseboat?”

“It’s not mine,” Hutch said. “It’s Rue’s. Or, actually—it was her husband, Robert’s. He built it himself. He was an engineer. Anyway, she couldn’t bring herself to sell it. She kept it in storage all these years. When I moved here, she offered it to me, and one weekend we docked it at the marina.”

“It’s Rue’s? I can’t believe she hasn’t decorated it for you.”

“She wants to. Badly. But I’m holding firm. Just keeping it clean is enough for me.”

“It does seem quite clean. Almost brand-new.”

Hutch’s voice got a little quieter. “Well, Robert had just finished it when… the accident happened. They were going to retire and spend summers on it, but they never got the chance.”

Just then, George Bailey stopped and dropped his head.

“Shit,” Hutch said, dropping to his knee beside him. And in seconds, Hutch had pulled a yellow dishwashing glove out of his pocket and shoved his hand into it, and then took ahold of George Bailey’s snout. “Nope, nope, nope. That’s a nope.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Hutch put his fingers into George Bailey’s mouth, trying to pry his jaws open. “Toad,” he said.

“Toad?”

Hutch nodded, still working. “He likes to scoop them up in his mouth.”

I stared in horror. “He eats live toads?”

“He doesn’t eat them. He just holds them. In his mouth.”

“He just—?”

“Which is fine. To each his own, you know? And native toads are fine. No harm, no foul. But there’s an invasive species called the cane toad that squirts poison—like lethal in fifteen minutes if you don’t do anything. So he just can’t be messing around with toads. I keep explaining this to him,” Hutch said, still working on George Bailey’s jaw, “but he never listens.”

Right then, Hutch’s fingers must have tripped a gag reflex, because George Bailey made a little hacking noise, lowered his head, and opened his jaw.

Out flopped a medium-sized toad.

Hutch pulled out his flashlight and peered at it while the toad took a second to gather its wits, and then it hopped off into the grass, unharmed.

“Was that a poisonous one?” I asked.

Hutch shook his head. “There’s no ridge on the head. We’re good.”

“Wow,” I said, in a tone likeThat was close.

“Yeah,” Hutch said. “Normally, I walk him earlier. And watch him closer. But today I’m—” He glanced my way. “Distracted.”

By the time we got back, the sun was down. The plan was to film Hutch making dinner, and then eat together, and then sit down for an official interview, where I’d ask him about the Puppy Love rescue. I always filmed the interviews—but since I only used the audio, the visuals didn’t matter, and so I generally did those at night.

We had time. No rush.

Hutch made pasta with fresh tomato sauce and basil, and we ate it on the rooftop deck, with the vast starry sky above and the sparkling water below.

And then, after a careful sound check of all the locations on the boat, I determined that Hutch’s bedroom, of all places, was the quietest spot for recording sound. I got set up in there while Hutch was off in the kitchen, making George Bailey’s dinner.

---