by Susan Wiggs
As they climbed, passing switchbacks and rocky outcroppings, nocturnal animals scuttled in the underbrush. He heard Lolly stumble. “You okay?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m wearing flip-flops. I didn’t think I’d be taking a hike tonight.”
“You don’t have to come.”
“You think I’d miss this?” She gave a familiar, snorting laugh.
He knew she’d say that. Lolly Bellamy knew how to be annoying, but she wasn’t a quitter, no matter what she said. “Grab on to me if you feel like you’re going to fall.”
“Huh,” she said. “You just want someone to grab your ass.”
“Yeah, that’s the plan.” They fell easily into their old pattern of bickering, a pattern that had been set years before when they were twelve years old. It felt familiar. Comfortable, like an old shirt.
Connor could make out two shadowy silhouettes on the bridge now. One of them seemed to be on the outside of the safety fence. A very bad feeling clutched at his gut. “You stupid little shit,” he muttered under his breath.
“What?” Lolly asked.
“Julian!” Connor burst into a run.
At the same time, an exuberant yell split the night: “Gee-ronimo!”
Lolly shone the light on the bridge and they watched in horror as a small figure detached itself from the concrete railing and hurtled through the darkness. Lolly made a terrible sound, something between a gasp and a scream.
The long beam of the Maglite illuminated a small, fleeing figure on the bridge—not Julian but another boy Connor didn’t recognize. Then the beam started to tremble as Lolly aimed it at the area under the bridge.
“Julian,” he said, pulling in stinging gasps of air.
The light wobbled through the forest as Lolly searched. Panic hammered so wildly in Connor’s ears that he couldn’t hear anything. Then he realized that she was talking, grabbing his arm to steady him, and finally, he made out what she was trying to say.
“Okay,” she gasped. “I think he’s okay.”
Shrieks of boyish glee drifted through the night forest. Lolly took Connor’s hand and guided the flashlight beam to a long rope attached to the bridge.
His heart rate slowed, though his blood felt as if it were about to boil up through his head. “The little son of a bitch,” he said, striding up the last part of the trail. “The stupid little son of a bitch.”
A moment later he reached the bridge deck and collared the accomplice, a kid named George from Texas who babbled like a coward that he had nothing to do with this, that Julian had forced him to come along.
“Shut up,” Connor barked, and young George subsided. Lolly shone the light on a spot where the safety fence had been clipped. She slipped the beam downward to the small, swaying figure at the end of what appeared to be a bungee cord.
“You are so busted,” he said to his dangling brother.
“Shee-it,” Julian replied.
It was a half hour later by the time they had reeled Julian in, marched him and his accomplice down the mountain. “You crazy-ass little fucker,” Connor said, unfastening the elaborate system of harness and carabiners with which Julian had secured himself to the bungee cord.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to call me that,” Julian said. “Kioga Rule 11. ‘Under no circumstance will foul or vulgar language be tolerated from either campers or staff.’”
“Yeah? So what rule prohibits dumb asses from jumping off bridges?” Connor demanded.
“What on earth were you thinking?” Lolly asked.
Julian gazed up at her, and in the moonlight, the kid looked as guileless and angelic as a choirboy. He gave her a sweet, vulnerable little smile and Connor imagined Lolly’s heart melting into a puddle on the ground.
“Ma’am,” said Julian, his voice quivering with sincerity, “I wanted to know what it feels like to fly.”
Connor expected Lolly to be taken in by his little brother’s infectious charm. Instead, she said, “Ha. That wasn’t flying. That was a free fall.”
Another half hour had passed by the time they put the boys to bed, warning them that they both faced disciplinary action, maybe even expulsion. Great, thought Connor, knowing that if his brother left, Connor was a goner, too. Summer would be over before it had a chance to begin. As he and Lolly left the bunkhouse, he said, “Sorry about that. You probably should have stayed at the party.”
“Are you kidding? It’s not every night I get to see somebody jump off Meerskill Bridge. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
“What the hell am I going to do?”
“Talk to him about a career as a stuntman?”
Counselors were supposed to report infractions to the dean. Connor tried to see Lolly’s face, but it was too dark to tell what she was thinking.
“I didn’t see a thing,” she said. “You have to admit, he was pretty creative and resourceful.”
True enough. Julian and George had helped themselves to the camp’s rock-climbing harnesses, ropes, slings, bungee cords and hardware. Working from a diagram they’d found in a book, they’d constructed a workable apparatus. Connor’s kid brother was an awkward combination of child prodigy, stuntman and idiot. “According to his dad, he started jumping off things as a toddler,” he told Lolly. “He’s always been obsessed by heights.”
“Let’s put him in high-dive lessons tomorrow. If he’s going to be jumping off things, he might as well be safe about it. There’s also zip-lining and rock climbing.”
Sweet relief unfurled inside him. Connor was tempted to kiss her at that moment. The last thing in the world that he wanted was to lose his brother again. “That would be completely…terrific,” he said.
She shrugged. “No big deal. I believe in following your impulses even if it takes you to a weird place.”
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t screw up again.”
“All right.”
He indicated the dining hall. “Hey. You up for a kitchen raid?”
“Always.”
The kitchen was locked every night, mainly to guard against raccoons and bears, but there was a key kept above the lintel, and they were inside in seconds. The camp kitchen, with its fragrance of spices, yeasty fresh bread, the stacks of institutional-size cans, the packed walk-in fridge, seemed like a place of endless abundance.
Connor grabbed a loaf of bread, cracked wheat from Sky River Bakery, the same kind they’d served when he was a camper here. That was one of the things he’d grown to like about Camp Kioga. Nothing ever changed, year in and year out. You could always count on bread from the local bakery, milk delivered in reusable glass bottles and fresh produce from the farms of Ulster County.
Lolly opened an institutional-size jar of peanut butter and pushed it down the counter to him. He slathered peanut butter on thick slices of bread, added honey from a squeeze bottle and pushed a sandwich across the counter to her. He poured himself a glass of milk, then offered the jug to Lolly. She shook her head.
“You have an interesting family, Connor,” she said. “I think it’s great that you’re spending the summer with Julian now.” She licked a drop of honey from the corner of her sandwich.
Hearing her say so made Connor feel better about Julian. He was a crazy little kid, but Connor was glad, too. They finished their snack and cleaned up the evidence.
“It’s late,” Connor said. He held out a hand to help her up from the table. She didn’t really need help getting up. It just seemed like the polite thing to do. After turning out the lights, he closed and latched the kitchen door and they stepped out into the cricket-filled night.
“I’ll walk you back to your cabin.”
“I know the way back,” Lolly said.
“You should know that’s just code,” he said, taking her hand again.
“Code for what?” she asked.
“When a guy tells a girl he’ll walk her home, that means he wants to kiss her good-night.”
“Very funny.” She gave her trademark snorting laugh, th
e one that used to annoy him when they were younger. “You don’t want to kiss me good-night, Connor,” she said.
“You’re right,” he agreed, stopping in the path and slipping his arms around her. “I want to kiss you now.”
SCOUT VESPERS (TRADITIONAL)
Softly falls the light of day
As our campfire fades away.
Silently each Scout should ask,
Have I done my daily task?
Have I kept my honor bright?
Can I guiltless sleep the night?
Have I done and have I dared,
Everything to be prepared?
Twenty-One
“What do you wear when you go to confront your father about his secret love child?” Olivia asked Barkis. The little dog had skittered into her room as she was drying her toenails, freshly painted a luscious candy pink.
“Lilly Pulitzer,” she concluded, reaching into the closet. It was a crisp summer dress in a cool aqua-and-lime print, one that would be comfortable during the long drive but that would also look smart in the city. As she stepped into wedge sandals, grabbed a Long-champs bag and put on earrings, she realized that it felt absurdly good to dress up, even at six-thirty in the morning. The weeks of grubby renovation work had turned her into a frump. Now, with her hair and nails done and makeup on, she felt like a new person.
The last thing she expected, however, was for Connor Davis to dress for the city, too. When he came to pick her up, she scarcely recognized him. He was wearing slacks that looked as though they had been specially tailored for his narrow hips and waist. He had on a good white shirt with the sleeves rolled back, and a jacket and tie hung on a hook in the backseat of the car. He’d left his customary Agway Feed cap at home and had done something to his hair, something involving gel and finger combing, she suspected. In his clean-shaven, suntanned face, his eyes looked bluer than the lake under a clear sky.
“Wow,” she said, startled to feel a warm pulse of attraction, “Look at you. You clean up real well.”
“Wow, yourself,” he said. “You look like an episode of Sex and the City.”
Compliments from men always made Olivia suspicious. Do guys watch that show? she wondered. Then she thought of Freddy. Yes, they did.
Julian showed up from the direction of the cabin he shared with Connor. In loose sweats and no shirt, he had the softly blurred look of someone whose older brother had just nudged him from a sound sleep. “Morning,” he said to Olivia.
“You’re up early,” she said, smiling at him.
“Not by choice.”
“I wanted to make sure you were up by the time my dad gets here.” He turned to Olivia. “He’s coming up to do some maintenance work.”
“Huh,” said Julian. “He’s going to be supervising me.”
“No offense, but the way you’ve been acting, you need supervision.”
“That’s such bullshit. When we first got here, you said my only rule was not to fuck up. Have I?” He glared at Connor, then Olivia. “Have I fucked up?”
“Watch your damn mouth,” Connor warned him.
“You’ve been enormously helpful,” Olivia said, “and I’m grateful for that.”
“We’ll be back around dark,” Connor said. “Maybe later.”
“I’ll try not to miss you too much.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I know.” Julian waved a hand, offered a brief smile.
Olivia clipped a leash on Barkis. “Can you take him? He gets a scoop of food at lunchtime and another at dinner.”
“No problem.” Julian took the leash. “Um, does that fax machine in the office work?”
“I think so, now that we have phone service. Do you need to fax something?”
“Some paperwork.” He avoided Connor’s eye. Olivia hid a smile. She had been talking to Julian about some options for his future, and the boy was surprisingly open to suggestion. He himself had brought up the idea of the ROTC and the Air Force Academy, and Olivia had urged him to explore further, to learn what was involved. Once he’d discovered that he might have a chance to fly high-tech fighter jets, he was sold on the idea.
“You can fax anything you want.” She ducked into the passenger side of the car, slinging her sweater over the headrest and putting on her sunglasses. “Ready,” she said to Connor.
“Look,” he said, “I’m glad you hit it off with Julian, but he’s my responsibility. There’s no need for you to try to…rehabilitate him, or whatever it is you’re doing.”
“Meddling,” she said simply. “I’d call it meddling. I’ve been telling him that going to college is not so impossible.” Olivia saw, too late, the effect her words had on Connor. She knew he had once dreamed of going to college, too. But that hadn’t happened, and she couldn’t find a way to ask him why.
“He doesn’t have the money or the grades,” Connor said flatly.
“Wasn’t there a settlement from his father’s accident? Social security? A pension from Tulane?”
“I’m not privy to all the details, but I understand there was no negligence in the accident. Julian’s portion of the settlement was gone by the time the lawyers, the relatives and our mother took their cut. Even if he had the money, I don’t think college is an option. Because mainly, he doesn’t have the attitude.”
“Don’t give up on him up,” she said. “He’s only seventeen.” She liked Julian, with his face like an angel and the brains of a Nobel Prize winner, his obsession with heights and danger. “And don’t rule out an ROTC scholarship. He could actually do something with all that energy.”
Connor’s expression turned skeptical. “That takes a lot of motivation.”
“Maybe he has a lot of motivation.” She studied Connor. Lord, but he was good-looking, his profile clean and masculine, his piercing eyes watching the road. “You don’t think he should go into the military, is that it?”
“I don’t think he understands the risks.”
“How would being in the military be riskier than what he’s doing now?” she asked.
He frowned. “Good point.”
“Are you upset that I’ve been talking to him about these options?”
“Hell, no. It just seems like a long shot.”
Of course it would to someone who had grown up the way Connor had. In his world, just having a decent place to live had probably seemed like a long shot. But there was something else, she thought. “You’re worried about him, aren’t you?” she said. “About your brother.”
“Sometimes I think I’m the only one.”
“He’s lucky to have you,” she said, recognizing the pain in his voice. “Do you think he’s going to be all right?”
“That depends on whether or not he can keep his record clean and figure out something to do with his life.”
Which was exactly what Olivia was trying to help the boy do. It appeared her efforts were not wholly welcome. She was a born meddler, and she was headed to the city in order to meddle some more. Surreal as it seemed, she was going to ask her father if he’d had a baby out of wedlock when he was in college. The thought caused her stomach to cramp, and she tried to concentrate on the scenery out the window, a rapidly changing slide show of bucolic villages, farms nestled in the rolling hills, gas stations and strip malls.
“You’re too quiet now,” he said. “You’ve barely said a word in forty miles. Don’t be so tense.”
“I can be tense if I want,” she said. “You think it’s going to be easy, asking my dad if he has a daughter he never told me about?”
“Maybe he doesn’t know about Jenny Majesky.”
Olivia wanted to throw up. It was bizarre, imagining this whole alternate life for the father she thought she knew. Once she put together the pieces of the puzzle—the photograph, the silver pendant, the information from Terry Davis—everything she’d once believed to be true flew out the window.
“I’m completely freaked out about this,” she confessed. “If I’m right, and Jenny’s my sister,
then she’s been missing from my life when she could have been a part of it.”
“It’s better you never knew,” he told her in a low voice. “For me, growing up and knowing I had a little brother, well, it just…hurt.”
Oh, God. She tried to picture him as a little boy, with a baby brother one minute, and an only child the next. Maybe he was right. Maybe it hurt too much to know.
He drove with surprising ease into the city, navigating the flow of traffic with patience and skill. Under different circumstances, she might have given him a quick tour of her father’s neighborhood—the deli and newsstand, the gardens and quirky neighbors. Her stomach was in knots, though, and her throat ached. As he pulled up to the curb in front of the extended awning of her father’s building, she said, “I have a huge favor to ask.”
He grinned and shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
“Please…”
“You don’t want me there, Lolly. I promise you don’t.”
He was right, of course. No way could she ask him to come inside with her. It was already too awkward, the questions she had, the answers she was afraid to hear. “You’re stronger than you think,” Connor said.
Olivia couldn’t believe how good it felt to have someone believe that about her, not with high expectations but with a sturdy certainty in her innate abilities. A wave of tenderness eased through her, dissipating the tension a little. This was new—being with a man who made her feel both relaxed and capable.
“Call me when you’re finished here,” he said. “I’m heading downtown.”
“Downtown?” She tried to picture him sightseeing in the Village, perhaps, or at Chelsea Piers. “Do you have a particular destination in mind? Or are you open to suggestions?”
“I’m not playing tourist,” he said. “I’ve got an appointment downtown, at Greenwich and Rector.”
“Oh. Is it anything…God, listen to me. I’m horrible. Totally nosy.”
“With my broker,” he said.
She must have betrayed a look of amazement, because he chuckled. “Even backwoods contractors sometimes have equity funds.”
