Return to Willow Lake

by Susan Wiggs

  The light changed and she walked on, her fingers clenched around the key until its teeth bit into the palm of her hand. She wasn’t so sure herself. The way her career was going at UNESCO, there was scarcely time to squeeze in a trip upstate to see her own mom, let alone raise a kid.

  On the other hand, her twenty-eight-year-old body was awash in hormones raining from an invisible emptiness inside her, just begging to procreate.

  She wondered what Orlando would say if she brought it up. He’d probably bolt for the nearest exit. They were still too new, key or no key. He had told her long ago that he wanted to postpone having kids. There would be plenty of time for that unspecified “someday.”

  As far as she was concerned, nothing could dampen her spirits today. She had the ultimate good news to share, and she was about to share it with the two people who would totally get how cool it was.

  She’d been racing around madly all day, trying to get ready for this new chapter in her life. A Hartstone Fellowship. She, Sonnet Romano, from the tiny town of Avalon on Willow Lake, had been chosen for the honor. People who won the Hartstone Fellowship tended to change the world. She’d always been eager to measure up to her father’s expectations. Personal accomplishments were so important to her father. She could understand that. They validated you, told the world you did things that mattered.

  As usual, she was in a hurry. It was her normal mode. She had hurried through school, graduating with a 4.0 GPA and zooming ahead to her dream school, American University. From there she’d pursued a double major in French and international studies, then raced ahead to grad school. Sometimes she asked herself what the hurry was, but mostly, she didn’t slow down long enough to wonder.

  And it was working well for her. The letter in her satchel was proof of that, for sure.

  As she hurried down the stairs to catch the train—she was on the verge of being late, an unforgivable offense in her father’s book—her phone chimed, signaling an incoming text message, sneaking in just before she lost the signal underground. At the same time, she heard the train rattling into the station. She rushed to slip her pass through the turnstile and proceed into the fecund heat of the underground station.

  The train’s moon-yellow headlights were filmed with the ever-present dirt of the subway, and its brakes gave a tired-sounding squeal. The doors clanked apart, disgorging streams of passengers. Just as quickly, people on the platform boarded. She paused and bent down to help a woman with a stroller over the gap between the platform and the train car.

  At the same time, she thought about the text message that had come in. She didn’t know what made her grab for her phone just in that moment; she got text messages all the time. Habit, probably. Or it could be Daisy’s cryptic comment about checking in with her mom.

  As Sonnet stepped across the gap and took out her phone. someone jostled her from behind. Both the phone and the key dropped from her hand. She saw a coppery flash as the key disappeared onto the tracks, and her heart sank along with it. The phone screen stayed lit momentarily. Before it slipped from her hand, she saw the name of the sender of the incoming message: Zach Alger.

  A crush of passengers pressed in from behind. The doors clanked shut, and the train lurched away.

  Sonnet grabbed a safety pole and clenched her jaw. Her stomach turned to a ball of ice. You made me drop the key, she silently seethed. Prepare to die.

  His name on the screen reminded her that she should have taken him off her contact list months ago. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean she could erase him from her mind. She used to look forward with pleasure to his text messages, but now the thought of him made her shudder.

  Given where she was now, her relationship with Orlando moving ahead, Zach could ruin everything. Having sex with him the night of Daisy’s wedding had been the ultimate boneheaded move on both their parts, and she bloody well knew it. As soon as she’d floated back down to earth, as soon as the pink cloud of champagne and wedding bliss wore off, she had felt a terrible twist of foreboding in the pit of her stomach. In one foolish act, they had changed their friendship irrevocably, and not for the better. Her father had just introduced her to Mr. Wonderful; she needed to focus on Orlando, not get drunk with Zach Alger.

  She hadn’t spoken to him since. He’d called a bunch at first, sent text messages, and she finally texted him back and said, Don’t call me. Don’t text me. Can we just leave it at that?

  His calls had stopped, and she told herself she was relieved. There was nothing to say. What were they going to say? Sorry I screwed up a beautiful friendship? Have a nice life?

  Willfully she pulled her mind away from the lost phone and focused on the more immediate problem. The missing key. Now, there was a boneheaded move for you. When your boyfriend finally gives you a key to his amazing midtown east apartment, losing it immediately is a bad move. Sure, it was an accident, but the symbolism was hard to ignore.

  On top of that, she was going to be late. Both her father and Orlando were sticklers for promptness, yet somehow she’d fallen behind. And now she didn’t even have a way to send Orlando a text.

  Her stomach clenching, she found a vacant seat and sat down. Across from her sat a teenage girl and her mother. Sonnet studied their reflection in the window glass of the subway car. The two of them looked alike, except for the way the mother’s Nordic coloring and blond hair contrasted sharply with the girl’s nappy hair and café-au-lait skin. She wore her mixed heritage like an ill-fitting garment. Sonnet related to that kind of discomfort because once, not so long ago, she’d been that girl—biracial and wondering just where she belonged.

  The girl had her iPhone turned up too loud, and through the earbuds, Sonnet recognized the thud and angry tones of Jezebel, the latest hip-hop sensation. The chart-topping song was called “Don’t Make a Ho into a Housewife” or some such nonsense. Though she was no fan of the genre, Sonnet was aware of Jezebel from the scandal blogs and magazines. She was the latest of many to be doing time for something or other.

  The girl listening to the music looked angry, too. Maybe she was having a bad day. Maybe she was ticked off at her mom. Maybe she was wondering why her dad only got in touch with her on Christmas and on her birthday, and half the time he forgot the birthday. Maybe she was trying to figure out what she was supposed to do in order to get his attention.

  In the window glass, her gaze met the girl’s. Both glanced quickly away, perhaps recognizing in each other a kindred spirit.

  You’ll be fine, Sonnet wanted to reassure the girl. Just like I’m fine. Fine.

  As she approached her stop on the subway, Sonnet tried to come up with something plausible to tell Orlando about the key. Saying she’d dropped it on the subway sounded so…so careless. And she did care. Having access to his apartment, his private space, was a huge step for them as a couple. It meant something, something big.

  The very thought of it made her heart skip a beat. To Sonnet, this was not a pleasant sensation.

  * * *

  Zach Alger stared down at the screen of his iPhone. He shouldn’t have sent that text to Sonnet. He really, really shouldn’t have sent it. What was he thinking? He wasn’t thinking.

  Maybe being in church affected his judgment. Although he wasn’t in church, attending services. He was doing wedding prep work at Heart of the Mountains Church, getting ready for a big video job here. So at the moment, it didn’t count.

  He wrote down a couple of measurements—they were cramming too many people i
nto the sanctuary, but he’d deal—and then paused to check his phone. Good, no reply. He scrolled to email, and his queue was full of work stuff. Endless work stuff, sandwiched between a few notes from women. Yeah, he was “dating.” In a town like this, with a population that couldn’t fill a high school stadium, that simply meant he was keeping his options open. On the menu today—he could go to the climbing gym with Lannie, and there were worse things than staring at her cute butt while holding the belaying rope. Or, he could go to Viv’s for dinner. She was a sous-chef at the Apple Tree Inn, and she had trained at the Cordon Bleu. Third option—an open invitation from Shakti, who practiced a form of yoga she liked to call Yoga Sutra.

  His buddies on his mountain biking team envied him the attention from women. And hell yeah, he loved women. He loved their soft hair and their curvy bodies, the flowery scent of them and the lilt of their laughter. He loved them all, yet to his dismay, he wanted only one. And the one he wanted was Lady Insanity herself, Sonnet Romano.

  No. Correction. She was not the one he wanted. She was the one he wanted to avoid.

  Contacting her had been a bad lapse, and it was convenient to foist the blame on something other than himself. He hadn’t spoken to her since that night. Yeah, that night. But he’d felt compelled to contact her today because something weird was going on. After the epic night of sex, he’d been pretty sure it was their secret.

  Yet now he was not so sure.

  His friend Daphne, aka the ace internet mole, had alerted him this morning that something was up. A web-based rumor mill had published a nasty little bit hinting that the daughter of a certain candidate for the U.S. Senate was into, ahem, post-wedding hookups.

  Politics was a dirty business. In the race for public office, nothing was off-limits, not even the candidate’s family. In making a run for national office, Laurence Jeffries was putting everyone in his orbit in the spotlight. Zach wondered if the guy had thought about that when he’d decided to go for it.

  Zach’s own father—still serving time for defrauding the city of Avalon—certainly hadn’t taken Zach into consideration. Sometimes, Zach thought that was what tied him to this little town, long after he should have left. He had something to prove; he wanted to show people that he wasn’t anything like his father.

  Upon seeing the link to the hookup story, Zach had impulsively sent Sonnet a text message. A heads-up; it was the least he could do. He didn’t actually worry too much on his own behalf. Thanks to his father, Zach was beyond the point of embarrassment. But Sonnet had always been super sensitive about her reputation.

  Yet the moment he’d hit Send, he started wondering if the rumor mill had simply made a lucky guess, or if they really knew something. Or if there had been a different wedding…and a different guy.

  He batted at a fly buzzing around his head and got back to work.

  She probably wouldn’t respond. Ever since the wedding—the post-wedding-champagne-fueled sex they’d enjoyed—Sonnet had been in hiding. To be honest, Zach was okay with what had happened—hell, he’d liked it, but Sonnet insisted they weren’t a match. No way they were a match, despite the mind-blowing boathouse encounter, and she claimed they were both old enough to realize it. She wanted them to go back to being friends, the way they’d been since kindergarten.

  He wanted more. She wouldn’t let him convince her, though. She made it clear that being with him would put a crimp in her future plans. Fine, then, he thought. He had plans, too.

  But he missed her. Shit, he really did. He missed the friendship, the easy feeling of being with someone he felt completely comfortable with. Most guys had a family to lean on, but not Zach. He was the son of a bad man who was behind bars. His mom had left when he was a kid, remarried and then died of cancer. So he was not exactly a member of the all-American family. Through the years, Sonnet had become his default go-to person, the one he could call or text at all hours, the one who knew his history and didn’t judge him for it, the one who loved hearing his good news. Correction—she used to love it. Now she didn’t even pick up the phone.

  Inside the church, he ran into the pastor, a paunchy, sober man who took great pleasure in marrying starry-eyed couples in his storybook-cute church.

  “Hey, Reverend Munson,” he said. “I’ll be out of your way shortly. Just needed to make a plan for Saturday’s ceremony.”

  “Take all the time you need, Zachary. I know how important the video is to the bride.”

  “Yep,” he said. “You’re right about that.”

  “Jenna’s back from her mission trip to Korea,” said Reverend Munson, referring to his youngest daughter. “I imagine she’s going to want to tell you all about it. She always did like you, and she took a lot of video footage over there. I’m sure she’ll be in touch.”

  She’d already been in touch, Zach reflected. It was awkward as hell making small talk with the reverend, who was clearly unaware that not so long ago, Zach had spent a few pleasant hours sipping Zima from his daughter’s navel. And doing some other things as well.

  “I think I’ve got everything I need,” Zach said with hearty decisiveness. “See you on Saturday, sir.”

  “I’ll be camera ready.” Reverend Munson playfully framed his face with his hands. His clean pale hands, the ring finger encircled with a band of gold. For some reason, Zach started feeling guilty.

  What the hell, he thought as he left the sanctuary. He’d been working as a videographer and editor for Wendela’s Wedding Wonders since college. Nothing wrong with the gig except that he was forced to work crazy hours, endure bridezillas and their maniac moms, and he hadn’t seen a Saturday night since he’d become old enough to drink.

  And what Zach wanted, what he longed to do, was tell stories. Not his own. God, no. Other people’s stories. He’d been doing it ever since he was old enough to hold a camera. He had a knack for capturing a subject’s emotions on film, finding their hidden vulnerabilities, peeling away the layers to reveal truths that were often raw, but beautiful. He wanted to go out into the world and find those stories. He ought to get out of Avalon before he got stuck here forever.

  But that took dough, lots of it. For a long time, it had seemed like an impossible dream as he dug himself out of student loans, made regular payments to the town of Avalon in an attempt to make up for what his father had stolen and gambled away, and simply went about the business of living. There was no law requiring him to make restitution for the damage his father had done, but the night with Sonnet had reminded him that this was not a dress rehearsal.

  In order to move ahead in the field, he needed to go where the work was. L.A. or New York. He’d been sending out his portfolio for the past couple of years. So far he’d won loads of admiration and a prestigious award or two, but no offers of paying work.

  Pissed at his thoughts for circling around to Sonnet again, he scrolled through his contacts, the digital equivalent of a little black book, and without much thought, hit on one. Shakti. She always picked up.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” he asked.

  “Waiting for you to call.” She gave a soft, ego-stroking purr.

  “I’ll be right over.”

  * * *

  Later that night, Zach went to the Hilltop Tavern, an Avalon watering hole favored by locals. Two of his buddies were there—Eddie Haven, a talented singer and songwriter who had settled in town to hide from his past as a troubled child star, and Bo Crutcher, a pitcher for the Yankees who used to play bass in Eddie’s band, and
kept a vacation cabin on the lake. Zach had filmed both guys’ wedding videos, and they’d become friends along the way.

  “I got girl trouble,” he said, sliding into the booth with them.

  “My favorite kind,” Bo said, filling Zach’s glass from a frosty pitcher of beer.

  Eddie raised his glass of root beer. “What’s up, my brother? Shit, don’t tell me somebody’s pregnant.”

  “No,” Zach said instantly, shuddering with a chill at the very thought. “It’s complicated. See, I kind of…you know, I’ve always been one to play the field.”

  “Boy slut,” said Eddie. “We’ve all been there.”

  “That’s why I’m telling you this,” Zach said. “So now—and I never thought I’d be saying this—it’s getting old.” He thought about Shakti, who had rolled out the welcome mat earlier in the evening. He hadn’t taken advantage of the welcome. Instead, he’d bought her dinner, dropped her off at her house, and called this meeting with his friends to confess that he was losing his mind.

  “Dude,” said Bo. “Welcome to adulthood. We all take a while to get there, but we get there. I know I did.”

  “You did it by marrying a woman who looks like a supermodel,” Zach said. “That must have been so hard for you.”

  Bo laughed. “I reckon it was harder for Kim. So what’s on your mind?”

  “Who, not what. Sonnet Romano. Yeah, that Sonnet Romano. The one I’ve known since she was Willow Lake’s hopscotch champion. We had…we did…”

  “Nina’s girl? You finally nailed her? Awesome,” said Eddie, high-fiving him. “Doesn’t sound like so much trouble to me.”