Page 95 of Fluke
“It’s just doing monkey things.”
My heart thumps as I try to wrap my brain around what I’m seeing. “There are monkeys in Florida? How did I not know that?”
Jess shrugs, amused at my reaction.
“There are more of them.” I watch as three others join the first monkey on a branch at the edge of the water. “They aren’t going to attack us or anything, are they?”
“Probably not.”
“Probablynot?”
The troop begins to make noise, growing louder and louder as we float by.
“They might if you keep acting like you’re calling for a fight,” he says.
I look over my shoulder. “Can they swim?”
“Very well.”
Fuck.“No, they cannot.”
“Fine. They can’t.” He grins. “But they can. And they have Herpes B so if they grab you …” He grimaces. “Not sure I’ll fight them for you.”
I gasp, making him laugh.
“See? We’re by them and they didn’t do anything to you,” he says.
I paddle more into the middle of the river. “If I’d have known there were monkeys in Florida, I would’ve picked another adventure.”
“There aren’t supposed to be, but a boat captain released a few of them on an island out here to help tourism. And, unsurprisingly, they had babies.”
“I’m shocked.”
He shrugs like I’m the only person in the world that didn’t know they were here.
We float without incident for a long time. We spot a couple of turtles and some fish. Jess saw an alligator but smartly didn’t tell me until we were well past it.
The sound of the trickling water and the soothing colors of the environment are equivalent to a massage. Stress melts from my body; my mind rests.Maybe I could be an outdoorswoman after all.
“What would your perfect day entail?” Jess asks out of nowhere.
“Where did that come from?”
He shrugs. “You asked me earlier, so now I’m asking you.”
Fair enough.
Very carefully, just like the instructor at the boathouse showed us, I crouch down and then sit in the middle of the board. I rest the paddle across my knees.
Jess looks at me over his shoulder. “Look at you being fancy.”
“I know.”
He sits too. “It was really me asking you about your perfect day, wasn’t it?”
“Why would that have anything to do with me sitting down?”
“Because you associate a perfect day with being on your back.”
