Where do I begin to tell that tale?
Picture three mismatched socks in a laundry basket—one argyle and aristocratic, one wild and ink-stained, one bold with threads of gold—somehow forming the world’s most unlikely sock puppet theater.
That’s us.
And the show? The sock puppet theater? Oh, it’s been running for twenty years with no intermission.
The argyle? That’s our Lenny.
Harlen Lenton, aka Lenny or Len, is one of THE most in-ter—es-ting topics of conversation for Sea Breezers.
The Lentons were always ‘discussed’ by the towners, one way or another.
But Len? That particular member of the Lenton family of great local renown?
He was Sea Breeze’s own resident reclusive. A history book author, expert gardener, and aristocrat who also happens to have the whitest skin I have ever seen. You know, that porcelain china white.
Sea Breeze may have their resident prince, but he isn’t the least bit snooty.
He wouldn’t know how to be a snob, even if he tried.
But that doesn’t mean he is chatty and ‘accessible.’
Au contraire.
He does not do people at all. But I don’t mean that in a bad way.
He is just socially awkward, that’s all. (By the way, that is what he calls it…not me.)
He prefers to avoid people but is very kind. That’s Len.
But that socially awkward thing?
It is the kind of awkwardness that only he feels; it is something that NEVER shows.
Trust me, it doesn’t show. Because sometimes he has Cal and me check for it.
Yes, Len asks us to run an awkward check when we are with others sometimes because he is so uncomfortable around people.
Cal and I can feel his angst sometimes, but he hides it well.
Trust me. We three carry our angst like experts.
And now. Picture the town trying to figure out what is going on in the life of their resident aristocrat: this reclusive, walking-talking book of etiquette, the scholar who is so private, shy, and reserved.
According to the Sea Breeze Perspective (their lemon-yellow verbal tabloid that is so thorough it deserves to hit the press and circulate in print one day):
“These random women show up and forget to leave. They move into the cottage, at first on weekends…and this has been going on for years…and now? Lately? This ‘permanency’ of one of those two women, setting herself up permanently in the Lenton’s cottage?”
Deciphering the hidden facts and meanings of this situation was causing a slack-jaw epidemic throughout Sea Breeze. For years.
And the Sea Breezers loved to pick up any possible fact of mystery regarding the older generation of the local nobles.
You know, Len’s parents.
What did they have to say about this fiasco?
The Buzz: “Why were they in Florida without ever coming back to the estate at all? All these years? Disapproved of Len’s ‘living arrangement’ perhaps?
Things never change here in Sea Breeze.
The town doesn’t understand us. They never will.
Cal, Len, and me.
We’re lifers. Best friends for life that evolved into ‘family.’ Best friends since college, now we are triplets.
We have that kind of bond. It outlives distance, disasters, and decades.
But the locals don’t buy it.
“Highly Unlikely.”
That is their ‘coined term.’
I doubt they could ever understand the nature of our 20-year or so strong bond.
Lenny never really had any friends here at Sea Breeze; the towners here never really knew what he was about.
Cal, Len, and I? Like I said… We’re lifers who evolved into a family.
Best friends since college in Manhattan; now we are inseparable triplets. We have that kind of bond that outlives distance, disasters, and entire decades.
Like I said, a thousand times…the locals just don’t buy it. “Highly unlikely.”
Anyway, long story short.
A Given: Sea Breezers can’t relate to our bond.
Another Given: They are fascinated with our backstory—the one they insist is juicy but the one they don’t know.
Why such a fuss? I don’t know. Because they’re bored? Maybe.
My guess as to why they’re so fascinated lingers in the phrase they chose for us: Highly Unlikely.