Summer at Willow Lake

by Susan Wiggs

  A blue lake in the middle of the woods might be some people’s version of paradise, but not Julian’s. Not even close. A concrete skateboard park would be good. Back home, he had his best times flying his board over a freeway divider or surfing at Huntington Beach during a storm. Here, he had no clue what to do with himself. With his luck, his brother would have him digging latrines or something. Because that was another thing about Connor. Although Julian barely knew him, he understood somehow that his older brother had that thing known as the “work ethic.” As in, the harder you work, the more ethical it makes you. The logic simply didn’t follow. Julian could even prove it using a deductive model, but every time he used his brain for something like that, it seemed to get him deeper in trouble.

  They passed by Meerskill Falls and the bridge arching above the gorge. Oh, man, did he remember that bridge. At the age of eight, he’d made his first bungee jump from it. There had been hell to pay after, but the ride had been worth it. The stunt had even earned him a nickname from the other kids—the Birdman of Meerskill Falls. He’d earned a different name from his brother—shit-for-brains dumb ass. Connor had always worried about Julian in a way Julian’s parents never had.

  “We’re bunking here,” Connor said, indicating a row of cabins tucked against the brow of the hill and surrounded by miles of forest. The cabins were identical, made of weathered wood, each with windows facing the lake and a rock-clad chimney, steps leading up to a front-porch area. “The whole camp’s been shut down for years,” Connor explained, unlocking the cabin on the far end. “We’ve got some cleaning up to do.”

  Julian set down his backpack and duffel with a sigh. Clouds of dust rose from every surface. “Dude,” he said in his best surfer imitation, “this is awesome.”

  “Uh-huh.” Connor headed for the larger of the two bedrooms. “I’m taking this one,” he said. “You get the other.”

  “I can’t believe you’re making me stay here.”

  “Hey, considering the alternative, you’re in fine shape.” Connor didn’t take the bait, didn’t lash back. “You can take the whole day off. Make your bed, get going on the cleaning. Rest up after your trip, check out the camp, grab something to eat.”

  If that was his idea of a day off, Julian thought, then work was going to be a bitch.

  “Ma e-mailed me a list of recommendations from family court,” Connor continued. He took some folded pages out of his back pocket. “There’s, like, forty-seven rules and guidelines.” He tossed them on the shelf in Julian’s room. “As far as I’m concerned, you only have to remember one rule while you’re with me.”

  Julian narrowed his eyes, thrust up his chin. “Yeah? What’s that?”

  Connor stuck the wad of keys deep in his pocket. “Don’t fuck up,” he said.

  It was close to sunset when Julian’s hunger overtook his pride. Sadly, it didn’t take much. He ate all the time, his appetite like some insatiable monster with a ravenous need for sustenance. Initially, Julian had planned to keep to himself the entire time and go to bed hungry, just to show Connor what he thought of this suck-ass summer.

  Connor probably thought it made him seem cool to reduce all the house rules to a single one—don’t fuck up. What Connor didn’t know was that he was taking away the only thing Julian was good at.

  Now, with hunger gnawing at his belly, he made his way to the dining hall, which was in the main pavilion. It didn’t seem as big and palatial as it had when he was little, entering the place with the other Fledgling boys.

  A bell rang to signal mealtime, just like it used to when the camp was operational. Connor said that if Julian missed out, he was on his own. Julian had every intention of skipping this pukefest of a meal, but as usual, his stomach betrayed him. He was hungry enough to start gnawing on his own leg. When the dinner bell sounded, he made a beeline for the dining hall, salivating like Pavlov’s dumbest dog.

  Connor introduced him to everyone—Olivia Bellamy, who had hired Connor’s firm to renovate the camp, was a complete blond hottie. She said she remembered him from years ago, but he didn’t recall her. In his mind, all the counselors were a blur of bland, smiling white folks who listened to bad music and sang lame campfire songs. There was some guy named Freddy, and some combo of relatives—Cousin Dare, the event planner, who also prepared the meals, a guy named Greg and his annoying-looking kid, Max. The apple-cheeked boy, who was about ten, resembled one of the von Trapp children in the most horrifying film on record—The Sound of Music.

  “Daisy should be here any minute,” Olivia said. “Go ahead and get something to eat.”

  Daisy? Daisy?

  Trying to quell his curiosity, Julian sauntered over to the buffet table. All right, he had to admit, Cousin Dare was a phenomenal cook. He shamelessly loaded his plate with chicken potpie, mashed potatoes, salad and rolls. Beside him, Max watched with an open mouth.

  “You going to eat all that?” the kid asked.

  “For my first course,” Julian said. “For my second course, I eat little boys.”

  It didn’t work on Max. Instead of scurrying away to the protection of his father, the kid snickered. “Oh, I’m shaking.”

  Ah, well. The fun in scaring a little kid was limited, anyway. Julian set down his tray at a table just as Daisy—apparently the missing cousin—arrived. Maybe it was a trick of the light, and maybe Julian was hearing things, but the moment she appeared in the arched doorway of the dining hall, everything changed. There was a hush, like an indrawn breath of anticipation.

  As she stood there, her feminine silhouette backlit by the setting sun, he was sure he heard a chorus of heavenly voices blaring in perfect harmony. Hallelujah.

  Usually, he had to shut his eyes in order to conjure up a fantasy this good. But now here it was, in three-dimensional living color, walking straight toward him. The chorus in his head switched to “Pretty Woman” as she approached with a runway-model rhythm, as if she heard the music, too.

  Some latent lesson in manners kicked in, and Julian rose to his feet as the introductions were made. Daisy was from New York and like Julian, she had just finished her junior year in high school. She offered him a smile that lit up the world, her amazing blue eyes sparkling. “Mind if I share your table?” Though it was a question, she didn’t wait for an answer but sat beside him as though bestowing a royal favor.

  He wasn’t about to argue.

  Daisy’s family resemblance to her father and brother, Max, was unmistakable. She, too, was a von Trapp—blond and Germanic, with features so appealing they should probably model a Barbie doll after her. However, Julian observed, the girl-next-door cuteness masked something else, something he couldn’t quite identify, like the shadow of a troubled spirit.

  During dinner, he learned that she went to some snooty-sounding New York prep school, one she insisted everybody should have heard of. Her mother was a lawyer who practiced international law, and her father was a landscape architect who had taken the summer off to renovate Camp Kioga.

  All right, that was annoying, thought Julian. Bragging on your parents. Who did that? Not him, that was for damn sure, and the nosy blonde had better not ask him about his family.

  Fortunately, she dropped the subject when Dare brought out dessert—thick slices of peach pie with vanilla ice cream. The pie was so good, Julian almost wept. He looked around the table and everyone else clearly felt the same way. They had the closed eyes and ecstatic expressions of people in the throes of a religious experience.

  “The pie’s from Sky River Bakery,” Dare said.

  “No, it’s from heaven,” Greg amended.

  The only flaw in the perfect dinner was that Julian and Daisy had to do the dishes. Even that wasn’t so bad. The big, industrial kitchen had walk-in coolers, tall steel racks and a commercial dishwashing system. They made short work of everything, laughing and teasing as they scraped, soaped, rinsed and dried everything. By the time they finished, it was dark outside. Freddy took Max and the little mutt called Barkis to the
rec hall for a game of Ping-Pong. Connor and the others sat around drinking coffee and looking over plans and schedules. It was all so frigging wholesome, Julian wanted to puke.

  “Can we go make a fire on the beach?” Daisy asked.

  “You and Julian?” her father asked.

  “Duh. Yeah, Dad. Me and Julian.”

  So here was something interesting, Julian observed. Some sort of power struggle between Daisy and Greg Bellamy. Julian decided to speak up. “I promise I’ll be on my best behavior. Sir.”

  Girls’ dads were suckers for “sir.” One little syllable, and they acted like their daughter was dating Dudley Do-Right.

  “He will,” Connor said. No further words passed between them, but Julian caught a repeat of the warning: Don’t fuck up.

  “I guess it’s all right,” Greg said. “I might come out to check on you later.”

  “Sure, Dad,” Daisy said with forced brightness. “That’d be great.”

  Olivia handed her a box of kitchen matches. “Just keep it in the fire pit, okay?”

  Making a fire was actually harder than it looked on Survivor. They used up the whole box of matches before their pile of twigs finally caught, creating more smoke than fire. Trying to avoid the thick billows of smoke, Julian found himself wedged comfortably next to Daisy. Score.

  “So what’s your story?” she asked.

  Julian thought about inventing some high-class-sounding boarding school just to impress her. He was too damn tired to make up a story and stick to it, though.

  “My mother’s an out-of-work performer—sings, dances, acts,” he said, and decided not to explain about his father. When people heard what happened, they got all sympathetic and mushy, which Julian hated.

  “I got in trouble with the law in May,” he confessed.

  The truth worked like an aphrodisiac. He thought he could maybe even feel Daisy’s boob pressing on his arm as she leaned toward him and whispered, “So what was the incident? Did you steal a car? Deal drugs?”

  Of course. That was what people thought when they looked at Julian Gastineaux. A big black kid with dreadlocks and an attitude. What else could he be but a small-time criminal?

  “I raped a girl,” he said. “Maybe I raped three.”

  Daisy tried not to be obvious about scooting away from him, but he noticed when the warm tension between them slackened.

  “You’re lying.” She looped her arms around her drawn-up knees.

  Damn, but she was an annoying girl. She not only knew he was lying; she knew he was already regretting characterizing himself as a rapist. It had been a stupid thing to say. “I got caught bungee jumping off a highway bridge,” he admitted.

  “Whoa. Why would you go bungee jumping off a bridge?” she asked in horror.

  “Why wouldn’t you?” asked Julian.

  “Oh, let me see. You could break every bone in your body. Wind up paralyzed. Brain dead. Or just plain dead.”

  “People wind up dead every day.”

  “Yeah, but jumping off bridges tends to hasten the process.” Daisy shuddered.

  “It was awesome.” His gaze tracked a spark to the sky. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’ve always liked flying.” Anything that even remotely resembled flying was his dream, and always had been.

  “Then you’ll like this.” Daisy reached into her pocket and took out an eyeglasses case. She opened it up to reveal a fat, misshapen joint.

  Holding the glowing end of a twig to it, she lit up and inhaled. “This is my kind of flying.” She took a second expert hit and held it out to Julian.

  “I’ll pass,” he said. “I need to watch myself. See, the judge in California gave my mother a choice—I had to leave town for the summer or do time in juvenile detention. By coming here, I get the incident wiped off my record.”

  “Fair enough. You won’t get caught.” She offered the joint again.

  So now he had to admit the truth again. Even though it made him seem like a Boy Scout. “I don’t partake.”

  “Come on. It’s really good weed,” Daisy said. “No way we’ll get caught. We’re out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” he said. “Just don’t like getting high.”

  “Whatever.” Daisy added a twig to the fire, watched it burn. “A girl’s got to find her fun where she can.”

  “So are you having fun?” he asked.

  She squinted at him through the smoke. “So far, this whole summer has just been…weird. It’s supposed to be a lot more fun. I mean, think about it. It’s our last summer as regular kids. Next year, we’ll graduate and have to spend our time working and getting ready for college.”

  “College. That’s a good one.”

  “You’re not planning to go to college?”

  At first he was so stunned by her question that he just laughed.

  “What?” she asked, seeming to forget the smoldering joint.

  “No one’s ever asked me that before,” Julian admitted.

  “You’re going to be a senior, aren’t you?” she pointed out.

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “And your teachers and advisers haven’t been hounding you since ninth grade?”

  He laughed again. “That doesn’t happen at my school. People don’t go to college. At my school, they figure they’re doing a good job if a kid makes it through without dropping out, having a baby or being sent up.”

  “Up where?”

  “It’s just an expression. Sent up means doing time at juvenile hall.”

  “What a nightmare,” Daisy said. “You should change schools.”

  Julian was amazed. This girl did not live in the real world. She just didn’t get it. “Where I’m from, you go to the public school that’s close to you. And after that, you get some crappy job at a car wash and play the lottery and hope for the best.”

  Daisy got the giggles then. “I do admire a boy with ambition.”

  “Just being realistic.”

  “I’m not saying that college is, like, some nirvana or something, but it sure as hell beats working at a car wash.”

  “College costs money. Even if you get financial aid—which I’d never qualify for because of my mom’s sucky financial records—you still have to come up with all kinds of dough I don’t have.”

  She shrugged. “Then get into the ROTC. God, even I know that.”

  ROTC. He’d heard of it, vaguely. Some recruiter had come to his school to talk about it, but Julian had taken the opportunity to skip class and head for the dirt bike track. Reserve Officer Training…something.

  “The military picks up all the cost of your schooling,” Daisy continued. “You could also apply for an appointment to a service academy, but that’s, like, really hard. You have to have, like, a fifteen-hundred-plus on your SAT.”

  Despite the fact that he’d already taken the SAT, and had earned a score that had school officials convinced he’d cheated, Julian felt totally ignorant. Appointment? Service academy?

  “Those schools are free,” she continued. “Actually, they even pay you to go there.”

  “No way.”

  “Way.”

  “Name one.”

  “West Point. Ha, I’m right. You could go to West Point.”

  “About as easily as I could go to the moon.” He’d seen the place in a movie one time. West Point. Guys marching around like toy soldiers, screaming into one another’s faces. And it was a college? “So you’re saying they give you a four-year college degree for free?”

  “You actually collect a paycheck while you’re there. This kid from my school, his dad’s, like, a colonel in the air force or something. He’s trying for an appointment to the Air Force Academy.”

  Air force, thought Julian. Flying. The idea grabbed hold of him, vivid as a daydream.

  “It sounds really extreme.” Daisy evidently tired of trying to get high. She put the cold joint in a Ziploc bag. “I think in addition to all the military stuff, you have to study
to be an engineer or a scientist or something. Who wants to do that?”

  Julian thought about his father, missing him with a pang as sudden and sharp as a stab wound. Science had consumed Louis Gastineaux. It was his passion. Julian understood it because he felt passion, too. Not for science but for flight and danger and speed. “So what’s the catch?” he asked.

  “You don’t pay tuition, but you definitely owe them something. You give them, like, five years of your life, minimum.” She studied Julian with knowing, sympathetic eyes. “It must be weird to go to a high school where no one helps you get into college,” she said.

  “I never really thought about it.” Julian didn’t know which was worse—that no one cared, or that the possibility of college was so remote that he hadn’t even considered it himself.

  “Well, just because no one’s helping you doesn’t mean you can’t help yourself.”

  “Sure,” he said, and tossed another dry branch on the fire. “Thanks for the public-service announcement.”

  “You’ve got a chip on your shoulder,” she said.

  “And you’ve got your head in the clouds.”

  Daisy laughed aloud, and her voice was as light as the sparks and smoke from the fire. He sat still, watching appreciatively.

  All right, he thought, maybe this summer wasn’t going to suck so bad after all.

  Seventeen

  For Olivia, each morning began with a magical hour. The birds sang the forest to life and the sun touched the world with gold. A mist gathered on the lake, the layered swath steered by the gentle morning breeze and slowly burned off by the rising sun. She went jogging every day, just as she did back in the city. Only back home, she did so on a treadmill. At Kioga, she ran an uninterrupted five-mile course through the woods, along a trail that had been newly bush-hogged by her uncle’s landscaping crew.

  To keep from getting bored on the treadmill, she used to tuck an iPod into the inner pocket of her shorts. Out here, she didn’t need Radiohead or Cake in her ears during the morning jog. The trill of awakening birds, the occasional bugle of an elk and the rustle of the morning breeze were entertaining enough.