Chapter 20

I keep the shoes. I love them. Good for me.

* * * *

The following weekend. The Fourth of July. It’s unbearably hot. Exhausting. Almost one hundred degrees. I can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. We’re all going to die if it doesn’t start to cool down. We’ll all sizzle to death. Fried egg stuff. The end days.

The temperature doesn’t matter, though. Why? Because Jamie Oakley packs a weekend bag for me, blindfolds me, and we end up on an island along Pennsylvania’s Lake Erie coastline. Once we arrive at the unnamed island, he loosens the blindfold.

“Welcome to Chipmunk Island.”

I’m blown away. Speechless. There’s a forest green 4x4 Suzuki ATV in front of us. Our two canvas bags are strapped to its ass end. Before I realize it, we’re both on the ATV, bumping up and down, heading to the center of the island, an upward climb over mounds of rock and dirt. We drive away from the shoreline, heading somewhere.