Engagement Rings and Hot-Tub Flings

(July 13, 2016)

14: The Way Back Home

Bonum est experientia pro puero puerum cum talo caput. Prudentia usu melius, acuit ingenium, spoliare docet de victima quam.—Abies Molendus, XLII: Demovere de meus gramina, bratos (ca. 222).*

On Wednesday morning Dipper and Wendy rose early—they had again slept in the same bed, though once more, they had been far too tired even for a mental make-out session—and got back into the clothes they had worn the day before. The hotel lobby put out a daily spread of a rather stingy continental breakfast—coffee, cereals, and a limited variety of pastries—but ordinarily not until six-thirty.

The desk clerk had heard about the stolen car, and when they came in to check out, she sympathetically brewed them a pot of so-so coffee and let them pick from a basket of chilled pastries. They thanked her, warmed their Danishes in the toaster, and ate hurriedly.

"Oh, man!" Wendy said as she drained the last of her coffee. "You know what today is?"

"Wednesday?" Dipper asked. He woke up faster than Mabel, but he'd become a little coffee-dependent to get his thinking started.

"The thirteenth. Soos's birthday, man!" Wendy said.

"Oh, right! I have something for him," Dipper said. "Well, me and Mabel do, I mean. We got him a Bluetooth music player and earbuds so he can enjoy his terrible songs without bugging everybody else. Mabel's got it wrapped and everything."

"Wonder what I can give him," Wendy said. "Hey, I got it! He always pays me to lay in a big supply of firewood for the Shack. This year, I'll do it for free."

"Good idea," Dipper told her. "I'll have time when we get home to create a certificate for that on the computer. I'll print it out and you can sign it, and there you go! And when you cut the wood, I'll help."

"High five!" she said. After the celebratory slap, she said, "Hold my hand for a few seconds, Dip. I'm sending you some road smarts."

One great advantage of their touch telepathy was that one of them could instantly teach the other something—Dipper had learned more about driving from Wendy than from the driving instructor back home—and this time she sent him knowledge about the route to Gravity Falls, along with a few possible shortcuts in case they ran into unexpected traffic. "That'll come in handy," he told her.

"Then let's go, man."

They left a good tip for the clerk, Dipper made sure their bill was settled—they had kept both rooms, though they could have got by with only one, after all—and at five-ten, they set off for Gravity Falls in tandem, the more experienced Wendy leading the way and carefully obeying speed limits, probably for Dipper's peace of mind.

That morning, driving east had advantages and disadvantages. The biggest advantage was that the heavier traffic was coming toward Portland, not going away from it. It was easy for Dipper to keep the Green Machine in sight. The chief disadvantage was that they were soon driving toward the rising sun.

Fortunately, that wasn't as bad as it might have been. A little rain had fallen during the night, not much—the pavement was damp rather than wet—and clouds on their way to Mount Hood lingered for about an hour after the sun rose at 5:30, shielding their eyes from the blinding light. They passed through The Dalles before seven, turned south some way past that, and got to the Valley a little before eight in the morning.

Wendy had to pass the Shack on her way home, and she gave him a wave. Dipper parked Helen Wheels over on the far side of the lot, near Soos's pickup in the employee section, and before he got out with his bag of dirty clothes, Mabel rushed him and hugged him. "Yay! You brought her back in one piece, Dipper!"

Dipper began, "I think Wendy protected me more than the other way—"

Mabel punched his shoulder. "Don't be a dodo, Brobro! I meant you brought back Helen Wheels! Is she OK?"

"Yeah, of course," Dipper said. "I think we need to get somebody to look at the brakes, though. They're pulling a little to the right. And the tires probably need rotating and balancing—"

"You learned all that car stuff from Wendy!"

He nodded. "I sure did. So you can count on it being accurate. Let me shower and change and get a little something to eat, and I'll be ready to start the day."

They went in through the gift-shop door, and Dipper did a double-take. "What are those Gnomes doing?"

"Practicing their dance!" Mabel said. "They're subbing for the Wolf Boy. Oh, Gideon's coming in today to work the other register with you, and I'll help Teek in the kitchen. Ulva's gonna help Wendy keep the gift shop tidy—she's a wiz at making sure everything stays in order. Go on, get your stinky self into the shower and get ready!"

"Stinky?" Dipper asked. "Really?"

"Well, you got some boy-pong going on, probably your clothes. Hurry, hurry!"

Dipper rushed through a hot shower, then got dressed. He opened his laptop and took a few minutes to create a nice-looking half-page certificate: "In Honor of Soos's Birthday, I will supply the Shack with a great big load of prime firewood for the coming winter. Signed Wendy Corduroy, Lumberjack Girl." It had a colorful border of alternating pine and oak tree silhouettes and a watermark of an axe and saw, forming a central X like the crossbones of a pirate flag. Before printing, he went online and checked out the definition of "boy-pong," and got nothing, but then learned that by itself, "pong" meant "a fetid stench, as of unbearable body odor." I wonder where Mabel picked up that particular term, he thought. Whatever, he was pretty well convinced that he hadn't really had a fetid stench, maybe just a little sweaty funk.

He sent the document to the printer downstairs—Soos, more tech-savvy than Grunkle Stan, had put everything on a local network—and then went down, picked it up, and folded it into an envelope.

He didn't have a lot of time, but he cooked some bacon in the microwave (not his favorite way of preparing it), cut some sourdough bread and a slice of sharp Cheddar, and improvised a bacon and cheese sandwich, toasting it beneath the oven broiler. Enough coffee remained for him to have a second cup, and he started another pot.

Wendy breezed in about a quarter to nine. He gave her the certificate, and as she signed and re-folded it, she said, "Perfect, dude! I told my dad we'd celebrate Soos's birthday after work, so I'll be a little late getting home. He growled like a bear and said he was gettin' used to it! He looked at my car with me and we both think that once I get the entertainment box back in I ought to do something to keep it from being stolen again."

But they didn't have time right then to discuss it. Soos entered, decked out as Mr. Mystery, and Gideon and Ulva came in ready to work—Gideon, now looking beefy rather than fat, was wearing a better-fitting powder-blue suit with a regular tie, Navy blue and gold striped, Oregon's state colors, in place of the string bolo, and next to him, Dipper felt underdressed in his red tee shirt and vest. But so what? That would only mean that Gideon would attract more of the customers, and that would ease Dipper's work load. Good grief, I'm thinking like Grunkle Stan!

Ulva really looked exotically attractive these days. Her short hair was a deep blonde, and now she wore shoes—well, sandals, but it was summer—and Gideon had bought her a Mystery Shack tee shirt, black with scarlet trim and a big scarlet question mark on the front. She wore it with knee-length red culottes. Dipper thought she looked elfin—but in a good way, not in a cold-hearted "stand aside, puny mortal" way.

Mabel told him that the Gnomes had traded out, and today's dance team was made up of younger Gnomes, "beardlings" (males whose whiskers had only come in the previous year) and "femlings" (girls who this year could do whatever it was that Gnomes did in place of dating). Jeff had come along to supervise, though, and the band was the same. Watching them rehearse, Dipper started to wonder if he and Wendy could stand hours of the music—"Straight Blanchin" might be a shade harder to endure, but not much.

Then they got busy. Tourist attendance at the Shack fluctuated constantly, but on the average, the weeks just prior to and just after July 3 were the pinnacle, with the run-up and actual day of Labor Day coming in a close second. At noon, Soos reported that by his count, they were getting about fifteen per cent fewer tourists than in the days around the Fourth, but still a lot more than the old place had seen back in the day when Dipper and Mabel had come up for their first summer.

And that meant so many tourists streamed through that Wendy and Dipper couldn't even find time to have lunch together. Like Mabel, Dipper found himself impressed by Gideon's salesmanship—he could probably give even Stan a run for his money in that department.

The last tourist bus pulled away around four in the afternoon, and then the day wound down to family groups, a bunch of Scouts in a minibus (what the heck were they trying for, Dipper wondered—their grifting badges?), and a few young-to middle-aged-to retired couples coming in to be awed by the Ballet des Gnomes ("I thought that up myself!" Mabel boasted) or to have their photos snapped with a beaming Jeff, a frowning stuffed (and fake) Sascrotch, the terrifying "Our Founder" bronze statue of Stanley Pines, or a looming Soos.

They all took a break at six, when the Shack officially closed. Everyone who had manned a register tallied up the day's income (very nice), turned it over to Soos, and then—more or less collapsed. Gideon and Ulva went out to sit at one of the picnic tables and share a soda. Mabel and Teek got the snack-bar kitchen in shape for the next day. Soos sat in his recliner and put his feet up. And Dipper and Wendy walked down to the bonfire clearing.

"Is your dad mad at us?" Dipper asked her as they settled onto the log.

She stretched her long legs out in front of her and leaned back. "Not so much. I think he's workin' on letting me go out on my own, man. I told him we rented separate motel rooms in Portland. I didn't say anything about not really using one of them, though. Oh, he says he's gonna pay you back—"

"No," Dipper said. "We wouldn't even have gone to Portland except for my wanting to do the ring shopping thing, and your car wouldn't have been stolen—seriously, just no."

"You tell him that, then," Wendy said.

"I will."

"Mm, you do have guts, man," Wendy said with a chuckle. "But let Dad find some graceful way out of wantin' to repay you. I mean, if you won't take his money—"

"I'll tell him I'd be happier if he put it in your college fund," Dipper said.

"That might do!"

They sat quietly together for five or ten minutes, breathing in the warm, balsam-scented summer air, listening to the woodpeckers hammering frantically, as though they knew a flood was coming and they were building a second Ark, and, in general, the teens just enjoyed the summer afternoon and unwound.

Wendy reached for his hand and sent him a thought: Dipper, I've been mulling some things over. I think there's something you ought to know.

—What?

Well—I've kinda changed my mind.

—Wait, what? Because of something I've done? Wendy—

Whoa! Whoa! Dipper, don't get all worked up. Just let me explain. Dude, I can feel how nervous you are! Don't be scared, man. It's not like I'm breaking up with you. But it does have something to do with you and me and our future.

—Wendy, what is it?

Well—I think I probably mentioned to you like a dozen times or so that my dream is to live in Portland.

—I remember. What about it, Wen?

Everything that happened sorta changed my mind. I guess I'm more a small-town girl than I thought I was. But after we marry and graduate from college and so on—would you mind if we lived in some little place?

—Like Gravity Falls?

Yeah, that would be fine with me. But any small-town place, really, wherever life takes us. Only I think I wouldn't be happy in a big city, OK? Still, it's your call, man. If you really want to, I'll give it a try—

He let go of her hand, pulled her close, and kissed her. "You don't even have to ask," he whispered to her. "Portland or Timbuktu or Gravity Falls or anywhere, Wendy. I'll go anywhere to be with you. Wherever you are—that will always be the place my heart calls home."

They kissed again, and she whispered instead of using telepathy: "My Big Dipper is getting all smooth. Thanks for understanding, Dip. I love you."

"Love you right back, Magic Girl. But whatever happens, wherever we travel—I'll always want you with me. Especially if there are scary guys with guns around."

"Deal," Wendy said, smiling. "Let's not let this little walk make us all hot and steamy, Dip! Not right now. You ready to go help Soos celebrate his birthday in his own quiet way?"

"Ready," Dipper said, standing up. As they walked hand in hand back toward the Shack, both were feeling, somehow, as though the future had just begun to glow a tiny bit brighter.

Bring it on, Dipper thought. Whatever's in store, we'll face it.

Sometimes even then he forgot that when they were touching, Wendy could hear his thoughts. He got one back from her:

Together, man. Yeah. Together.

*"An experience of the greater world is a good thing for young knuckleheads. It teaches them discretion, improves their wit, and instructs them in the art of fleecing a mark."—Abies the Abrasive, Treatise 42: Get off My Lawn, Brats.

The End