Lake News

by Barbara Delinsky

  Was she making a deal with the devil for this?

  If so, he was a handsome one—square jaw, trim mustache and beard, hair that fell over his brow and looked great even with receding temples. He had been more rumpled at dawn, but every bit as attractive. She wondered if he knew.

  His eyes were a warm cocoa. Not seductive. Just warm. They invited trust. Deceptive? She was asking for his help, asking media to punish media. Last time, he had offered his help in exchange for her story, and she had refused him outright. That felt like an eon ago.

  “Is the price the same?”

  He lowered his arm and studied his hands. His fingers were long and lean, forearms lightly haired, flannel shirt rolled to the elbow, its tails loose over faded jeans.

  He met her gaze. “Yes.”

  So much for warm eyes. “My story.”

  He nodded. “An exclusive.”

  “For the paper?”

  “No. I want to do a book on the media versus an individual’s right to privacy. What’s happened to you is an example of things run amok.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. A book might not be so bad. That suggested something more… thoughtful. “Am I the only example in your book?”

  “I think your experience illustrates a widespread problem.”

  “That’s a yes.”

  After a pause, he conceded the point. “Yes. Your case would be the focus. Media dysfunction is a hot topic right now. I could have a book published by summer.”

  “Do you know that for sure?”

  “I have a publisher who wants to do it.”

  Ah. He had already talked with a publisher. He was ambitious. That was a strike against him. She was wise not to trust too much, too easily.

  Then again, this way there would be movement, at least. Summer was nine months off. Nine months was better than the thirty-six the legal system might take.

  “The book would be a major release,” he said. “This publisher has a remarkable record of hitting best-seller lists. He goes out with tens of thousands of copies, gets reviews in every major outlet, bookings on major talk shows.”

  “I won’t go on talk shows.”

  “I will. It’s one way of getting your side of the story out.”

  Well, that sounded nice, but there was still the question of trust. “How do I know you’re really on my side?”

  Again he studied his hands. When he looked up, he was sober. “I’ve told you I am.”

  “I’ve been burned before, John.”

  “Not by me. Besides, you know my feelings about Terry, and I’ll be focusing on him just as much as on you. One of you is the good guy and one the bad guy. It’s a no-brainer which one.”

  She supposed so. “You have a personal interest in smearing Terry. Will you mention that?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  But she had. “It’s the only honest thing to do. If I cooperate, I’ll need that.”

  “Honesty.”

  “And veto power,” she added because it didn’t hurt to ask. If she worked with him, she would be compromising what little privacy she had left.

  “You don’t want the business about the marriage coming out.”

  “No.”

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  Because he seemed agreeable enough, she said, “I don’t know. I’ll tell you as I go.”

  “That gives you an advantage.”

  She shrugged. “It’s the best I can do. How bad do you want that best-seller?”

  The look in his eye suggested a whole other story behind the question. He turned sideways to face her fully. “You can’t talk with anyone else.”

  “I wasn’t about to. I’m not a talker.”

  He smiled. “You do fine when you want to make a deal.”

  She smiled back. “It’s desperation.”

  “You want justice that bad?”

  She thought about the mortification, the embarrassment, the humiliation, the loss. Terry Sullivan hadn’t worked in a vacuum; other papers had picked up his story and perpetuated it. But his had been the lie on which they were based. For whatever reasons, he had wreaked havoc with her life.

  “I do,” she said solemnly.

  Lily was invigorated. Upon returning to work, hidden again under rubber coverings, she worked deftly positioning racks, folding cloths, positioning racks, folding cloths. Her heart pulsed in time with the gears of press, steady and rhythmic, purposeful now.

  Maida directed the work through the midafternoon break, but when it came time to transfer cider from the refrigerator unit to the bottling station, she left Oralee in charge. When two hundred gallons of fresh cider had been bottled and sent off to the warehouse, the machinery cleaned, and the cider house hosed down, Lily went down to the main house. She found Maida in a rocker on the porch, looking pale.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  Maida set the rocker in motion. “Tired. Accidents take a toll.”

  “How are the men?”

  “Fine. The backhoe isn’t. We’ve rebuilt it once too often. It has to go.”

  “Is a new one very expensive?”

  Maida shot her a reproving look. “You wouldn’t ask that question if you had any idea.”

  Obviously, Lily thought.

  Maida sighed and looked out over the orchards that flanked the gravel drive. “I can’t afford a new one. There’s an auction coming up north. I can get one there for less. Such a shame. It was one of the last of the small dairy farms. Just couldn’t make it.”

  Lily leaned against a post and followed her gaze. The apple trees were a muddy green, drab in comparison to the more vibrant foliage down by the lake, but there remained a lushness to them. They were squat and full. An old wood carton sat under one. A long picker lay close by.

  “The trees were larger when I first came here,” Maida mused. Her voice was faraway. “That was how they did it then—bigger trees and fewer of them. Then the thinking changed, and we began planting four small trees for every large one. The yield is better that way.”

  Lily remembered the unsureness accompanying the transition. After generations of doing things one way, her father had borne the brunt of the responsibility for change, and that change had been gradual. Painfully so. “How is the yield this year?”

  “Oh, it’s good. We’ll have a record year. Will we have more money to show for it? No. Costs are rising more than profit. I worry sometimes. Not that any of you girls wants the business. There are times when I wonder why I work myself to the bone. I’ll die in my sleep like your father did, and the business will be sold. I should have had a son.”

  Lily had heard that before. Starting with the not-that-any-of-you-girls part, she had heard the whole speech. It had always made her feel doubly guilty for who and what she was. But, Lord, she was tired of feeling that way. So, sharply, she asked, “Why didn’t you?”

  Maida turned her head against the rocker’s back to meet Lily’s eyes. “I put in an order, but it came through wrong.”

  It was a typical Maida statement—but different. There was actually humor in the voice, in the eyes.

  Lily wasn’t sure what to make of that. “You could have tried again,” she said more gently.

  Maida smiled, shook her head, closed her eyes. “I couldn’t. I’d had trouble carrying Rose. They suggested I leave it at that. So I had my girls.”

  Lily felt a whisper of warmth. It wasn’t the words, but the way Maida said them. There was satisfaction, even peace. It was completely uncharacteristic and totally welcome.

  Then came the sound of a car turning off the road onto the drive, and Maida sat forward. “It’s Alice.” Alice Bayburr was one of her closest friends. She rose and went to the edge of the porch.

  “I’ll leave,” Lily said.

  “Not yet. Why do you think she’s come, if not to see you?”

  Sure enough, Alice was barely out of the car when she called, “They were talking about it in town, but I had to see for myself! Lily Blake! You ar
e a celebrity!”

  “That’s what you always wanted,” Maida said out of the side of her mouth.

  “No. What I wanted was to play the piano.”

  “And sing.”

  “Yes.”

  Alice was a brunette of average height and build who fought mediocrity by wearing pink. Lily hadn’t known there were pink jeans until she had seen Alice wearing them when she was home the Easter before, and the color had had nothing to do with the holiday. Today, Alice wore pink slacks, a pink blouse, and a pink blazer that flared out as she approached.

  “Good Lord, give me a fright, you look like Celia,” she said, holding Lily at arm’s length to look her over. “A little taller, a little thinner. But you smell of apples, just like your mom.”

  “She’s been helping out in the cider house,” Maida said.

  “So I heard. That’s good of you, Lily. Someone else in your situation might be doing absolutely nothing. Someone else in your situation might be afraid to show her face, after being called a slut.” She caught herself. “Oh my, that sounded harsh. What I meant was that after going through what you have, another woman, a lesser woman, would be sitting at home absolutely paralyzed.” It was one faux pas after another. “What I meant—”

  “We know what you meant,” Maida said, and Lily remembered something else about Alice: she was renowned for putting her foot in her mouth.

  “I do it every time,” she said in quiet apology to Maida. Then she turned to Lily. “When did you get back?”

  “Last weekend.” It would be a week that night. Hard to believe. Boston felt at least a year away.

  “And we just found out? Well, maybe it’s just as well. There’s been a lot of concern here, mostly churchwomen thinking back to the incident with that boy. We weren’t sure what to believe when this whole thing first broke. Lily Blake corrupting a man of the Church? Some in town said they weren’t surprised, others said they were. But there was no doubt you knew him. We all saw those pictures. There you were, a beautiful girl in the city, sitting hip to hip with the Cardinal. The Cardinal.” Her voice lowered, conspiratorial now. “What’s he like?”

  “Alice,” Maida protested.

  But Alice said, “I want to know,” and repeated the question.

  “He’s a nice man,” Lily said.

  “As handsome as the pictures suggest?”

  “I guess.”

  “Definitely a ladies’ man.”

  “Alice,” Maida protested again.

  Alice shushed her and returned to Lily. “Is he?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t think he’s ever—?”

  “Alice!”

  “Well, goodness, Maida, it’s a natural question.” To Lily, she said, “There’s the intrigue, you know. Does he, or doesn’t he? After his elevation, the papers were filled with every other bit of information on him. It was only a matter of time before it turned to that. You, my dear, just happened to be there when it did.”

  A clamor came from around the corner of the house, footsteps on the gravel, breathless little laughs. Rose’s youngest daughters appeared, shooting out across the grass with their heels kicking up as they ran. Rose came at a more sensible pace in their wake. Looking at her, Lily marveled at the strength of certain genes. She and her sisters—all three—looked just like Maida. What set Rose apart was the natural color on her cheeks, and the way she dressed. Maida and Lily wore jeans, which were appropriate for work at the orchard. Rose wore long skirts or tailored pants, which were appropriate for marketing, chauffeuring, and socializing around town.

  She climbed the porch steps, set a large pot on the rail, and gave Alice a hug. “Come sightseeing, have you?”

  “Better me than all the others wanting to take a look. Since word got around your sister was back, the phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Mark my word, this is one for the Lake Henry history book. There hasn’t been such a buzz since… since…”

  “The polygamists,” Rose put in dryly.

  “That was before all of our time, but you’re right. Since the polygamists. It’s all about morals and where this town stands. I tell you, there’d o’ been half a dozen ladies up here right now if I hadn’t said I’d come. But I’ve seen what I want, so I’m leaving now.”

  “No tea?” Maida asked.

  “Not today. Lily, don’t you mind if people stare. You’re a spectacle right now, is all. No, that came out wrong. You’re different from them right now, is all. They’ll get used to you again.” She was off down the stairs before Lily could say that she wouldn’t be staying long enough for that.

  But her job at the club was gone. Gone.

  “Stay there, girls!” Rose yelled and held up an open hand until Alice had turned her car around and passed them on the drive. Then she closed her fingers to unfreeze the girls, let out a breath, and turned to Maida. “I made a chicken stew. It should last you several days. How do you feel?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Were you sick?” Lily asked.

  “She gets headaches,” Rose answered. “They’re from tension.”

  “No,” Maida said. “They’re from eyestrain. I need new glasses.”

  “Percy DeVille died last summer,” Rose told Lily, “so she doesn’t know who to go to, but I do. There’s an optometrist in Concord who’s good. I had to take Hannah to see him just last month.”

  “Where is Hannah?” Lily asked.

  “Hannah?” Rose called.

  Hannah came quietly up the steps.

  “We thought she needed glasses. The teacher called to say she was squinting. Thank goodness, it was a false alarm.”

  “I wouldn’t have minded,” Hannah said.

  “You’d look awful with glasses.”

  “Movie stars wear glasses. Some of them look cool.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” Rose told her, then turned in dismay to Maida. “Would you believe? This is what I’m dealing with now. She argues with everything I say.”

  Lily thought it might be the other way around, and she knew how that felt. “Actually,” she said, studying Hannah’s round, serious face, “you’d look good in a pair of those wire-thin Calvins.”

  “Lily,” Rose complained, “why are you saying this?”

  “Because it’s true. And someday she may need glasses. If she does, she’ll look adorable.”

  Rose waved a hand. “I’m not arguing with you about this. The fact is that she doesn’t need glasses. Don’t ask me what the squinting was about, but her eyes are fine. I thank the Lord for that. She’s only ten.”

  “Almost eleven,” Hannah said. “My birthday’s a week from Tuesday.”

  Lily smiled. “Are you celebrating?”

  Rose pressed her knuckles to her brow. “That’s a whole other bone of contention. She wants a party. Don’t ask me why. She isn’t a party girl. I wouldn’t even know who to invite.”

  “I would,” said Hannah.

  “Who? Melissa and Heather?” To Maida, she said, “Those are the only names I ever hear. This is not a girl with a large circle of friends. I don’t see the point of throwing a party for three girls.”

  “I do,” Lily said. Her heart was breaking for Hannah. It was bad enough that Rose was thinking those things, worse that she was saying them, worst that she was saying them in front of the child.

  Rose turned to her and smiled. “Fine. You throw the party.”

  Lily was good for the challenge. She smiled right back. “I’d like that.” She held out a hand to Hannah. “Walk me to my car. I need to know what kind of party you want.”

  In the few seconds before Hannah joined her, it struck Lily that she might be worsening the situation between Hannah and Rose, but she couldn’t stand by and let the poor child feel so bad about herself. Someone had to give her a boost. Lily had had Celia to do that, but Hannah didn’t seem to have anyone at all.

  She closed her hand around Hannah’s. Passing Maida, she said a quiet “I’ll be here Monday morning.”

  Maida didn�
�t answer. She seemed startled, but not by Lily. Her eyes were on Rose.

  CHAPTER 18

  Griffin Hughes of the sexy baritone tried calling the chief of police again on Friday at the exact time he had called on Tuesday, but Poppy didn’t take him for being forgetful or dense. She figured he would know that if Willie Jake hadn’t been in his office at seven-thirty Tuesday, he wouldn’t be there now. That meant Griffin didn’t really want to talk to Willie Jake, but to her.

  Or so the fantasy went.

  After their last talk, that fantasy had a face. Poppy conjured up red hair, blue eyes, and neat little ears. But it was still the voice that touched her most. It was low and divine.

  “Well, hi there,” she said brightly.

  “Hi, Poppy. How are you?”

  “Just fine. But if you’re looking for Willie Jake, he’s not here.”

  “Home again, huh?”

  “Yup.”

  “That’s okay,” Griffin said with admirable honesty, “I was really looking for you. Rumor has it that Lily’s back home. I thought you’d be the person to know.”

  Poppy would indeed, but she didn’t care how sexy Griffin Hughes’s voice was. “Knowing is one thing, telling is another.”

  “Will you tell?”

  “Nope. Nothing’s changed there.”

  His voice fell another few notes. “I am not the enemy.”

  “Any guy out to make money off my sister and this bogus story isn’t good,” she said, but good-naturedly. It was hard to be any other way with so charming a guy.

  “I’m out to redeem her,” Griffin argued, but before she could respond, he asked, “Are your friends there tonight?”

  Poppy winked at Lily, who stood against the doorjamb. They had just finished dinner—a lemony chicken from a recipe Lily brought. It had been delicious.

  Griffin, of course, was referring to her Tuesday group. “No,” she answered truthfully, “they’re not here.”

  “Then tell me how old you are.”

  She relaxed in her chair. “Thirty-two.”

  “Aye-aye-aye. Old. What color’s your hair?”

  “White.”

  “It is not.”

  “No. It’s brown. And short. Probably shorter than yours.”