Back to the Lake Breeze Hotel

by Amie Denman

  “You can do this, just take short steps until you’re more comfortable.”

  Nate took his hand off the railing and held it out to his side for balance. He made a short, wobbly sweep of his right foot and followed with his left.

  “Nice,” Alice said. “Back straight.”

  Nate had played basketball throughout high school and on an intramural league in college, so he had some balance and strength. He tried to channel the athleticism he’d let lapse in the past few years as he’d concentrated on his career and keeping his life together. Trust yourself and take a chance.

  He tried a few more glides and stayed on his feet. Concentrating on the ice right in front of him, he was afraid to look up. He hoped the skaters who visited were more confident than he was so they could appreciate the location and the Christmas decorations. What good would the scenery be if people only stared at their skates in desperation? They’d miss the most beautiful part.

  “I wish the speakers for the music were functioning,” Alice said. “Music makes skating a lot more fun.”

  Nate bobbled and caught himself. “I don’t think I could handle the distraction.”

  “You could. It would take your mind off the fear of falling.”

  Fear of falling. That was a feeling Nate knew very well. He risked a glance to his side. Alice’s cheeks were pink and her eyes bright. With a shock, he realized he was in grave danger of falling for her. Again.

  He pulled his arm free.

  “Are you ready to try this on your own?” she asked.

  He nodded, keeping his attention straight ahead. As he tried several awkward steps and repeated the movement, Alice stayed right by his side. When he gained confidence enough to lengthen his strides, Alice moved out in front and skated backward so she could watch him.

  “Show off,” he said.

  She laughed. “I’m just trying to encourage you.”

  They made it halfway around the rink and Nate remembered Henry with the camera. He wasn’t taking video of this, was he? Nate halted by the rail and glanced across the ice. Henry sat on the bench with the camera beside him. Good.

  “Enjoying the show,” Henry yelled. “Waiting for you to get good at this.”

  “Got all day?”

  “If we hold hands, would you feel braver?” Alice asked. “We might even complete a lap.”

  “Sounds like a challenge.” And a very bad idea. They’d held hands at football games, the movies, between classes and on long walks on cold nights.

  It had all ended with her giving back his ring and refusing his hand in marriage.

  Nate took a deep breath and took Alice’s hand. It was the only way he was going to make it around the rink and provide decent video for the advertisement he desperately needed to create.

  They both wore thin gloves, but he felt the warmth of her slender fingers anyway. He found a bit of rhythm as they skated together. Dangerous rhythm. Gained confidence and something resembling speed. Too fast. He waved to Henry as they passed by. It made him temporarily lose his balance and sway, but Alice let go of his hand and grabbed his arm to steady him. He didn’t fall.

  As they skated, haltingly on his part and gracefully on hers, a lap around the rink, Nate caught a glimpse of Henry with the camera raised. He had to make this look good. He stood straighter and smiled at Alice. Just a happy couple skating away at Starlight Point. She caught his glance and smiled back. Her hand in his felt as if it belonged there. Maybe there was a chance for them again. Did Alice feel the same way? Her eyes practically danced. Was it for him, or was it the joy of skating?

  Nate lost his fear of falling for just a moment as he looked into Alice’s eyes, and that’s when he lost control. The world spun, and he let go of Alice’s hand so he wouldn’t pull her down with him. He tried to tuck his head and arms for impact, but it didn’t help.

  Ice is hard.

  Nate opened his eyes. Alice hovered over him, her brows together and mouth forming an open circle.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I think so.” He had to put on a brave face no matter how he felt.

  She extended a hand and pulled him to his knees. As he tried to stand, she put her arms around him to steady him.

  “This is the hardest part,” she said. “Getting back up when you fall.”

  She kept her arms around him for a moment more. As he struggled to his feet, breathless and disoriented, he was also strangely happy. He looked down at Alice and fought the impulse to hold her close and kiss her. Her lips parted and her eyes widened. Was she thinking the same thing?

  Nate swallowed. “I think my skating lesson is over for the day.”

  She nodded and turned, still holding onto his arm. “Only half a lap to the bench.”

  They skated together, haltingly, to the gate where Henry waited with the camera.

  “I got the whole thing recorded,” Henry said. “You two will be immortalized.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “IS IT CHEATING to start our Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving?” June asked.

  “All the shops are decorated,” Virginia said as they walked together in downtown Bayside, “and we’re not the only ones getting ahead of the season.”

  “You’re right. Evie already finished hers. She had it on a spreadsheet.”

  “My Christmas list keeps getting longer,” Virginia said. “I should have started shopping a month ago.” She put an arm around her daughter. “You know what’s strange for me? Seeing Starlight Point decorated for Christmas. Garlands on the carousel horses, red and green lights in all the trees, shops and restaurants with their windows painted. I can’t believe we never did it before.”

  “A lot of those ideas came from Alice. She has enough imagination for five people.”

  Virginia stopped walking in front of a men’s store. A sweater in the window would be a perfect gift for a man with gray eyes and just a little silver hair at his temples. June gave her a curious look, but Virginia wasn’t ready to share her thoughts. Instead, she opened her purse and dug through it for her list.

  She gripped the paper with both hands as it flapped in the wind off the bay and read the names aloud. “Jack, Augusta, Nora, June, Mel, Ross, Abigail, Evie, Scott and their baby—won’t we know soon if it’s a boy or girl?”

  “Ultrasound next month, I think,” June said. “What did you write next to my name? Something fabulous, I hope. You always give the best gifts.”

  “Caroline and her husband, Matt,” Virginia continued, concealing the paper from June, “I consider them part of the family now.”

  “Me, too. How about Henry?”

  Virginia glanced up. Had June noticed her looking at the gray wool sweater?

  “Henry,” June repeated. “You know what I’m talking about. He’s on your list, right?”

  “Of course we always do something special for the people who work for us, especially the ones who stick around when the weather gets cold.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” June said. “Henry doesn’t just work for Starlight Point. You two are...friends.”

  Virginia didn’t say anything. Of course they were friends. Her children and everyone else who worked at Starlight Point knew that. They were coworkers who trusted each other’s judgment. Brought each other food and drinks when the day got long. He had a key to her home in case she needed someone to run over and let Gladys out when she wasn’t available.

  That was a friendly relationship, wasn’t it?

  Virginia started walking. “Your father and I used to come downtown to do all our Christmas shopping. That was before people ordered everything online. We’d leave you kids with my mother and try to get it all done in one day. Except the gifts we got for each other, of course.”

  “Shopping is always fun,” June agreed. “But Christmas shopping is the best.”

  “While
we were gone, my mother would let the three of you decorate the tree so we’d be surprised every year when we came home.”

  “I remember that,” June said. “We always thought we were genuinely surprising you.”

  Virginia laughed. “You used to put so many icicles on our tree. It was the gaudiest thing.”

  “But sparkly,” June protested.

  “Jack thought the higher branches were his territory and he’d load them up with bulbs. It was a miracle it didn’t tip over. And Evie would put all her ornaments on in perfect lines so it was symmetrical and balanced. She liked it to be mathematical.”

  “No surprise there. I’m sure she still does that,” June said, laughing. “I hope Scott doesn’t mind.”

  “I don’t know about that, but she did tell me he won’t have a live Christmas tree in the house. He made her buy a flame retardant fake one.”

  June shrugged. “I guess firefighters see hazards everywhere. Especially Scott. Imagine what he’ll be like when their baby comes. He probably won’t even let his kids have candles on their birthday cakes.”

  Virginia laughed. “I bet he’ll be okay. He and Caroline have both finally put their pasts behind them, losing their sister in that fire. It’s nice seeing them both happy.”

  “Second chances,” June said. She paused in front of a children’s clothing store. “Want to help me pick out a Christmas dress for Abigail?”

  “I’d love to.”

  Virginia and June sorted through holiday dresses as the sun streamed through the wide store windows. Like many of the shops at street level, this one had a long history. Its floor was made up of tiny tiles arranged in a pattern and bearing the name of the original owners of the building, Chase and Mackert. The heavy front doors had brass handles, and merchandise was arranged under a high ornate ceiling.

  After much deliberation, June held up her two final choices—a deep rose dress with a smocked bodice and satin skirt and a red velvet dress with sequins in a diamond pattern on the skirt. “Which one?” she asked her mother.

  Virginia smiled. “You and Evie had matching dresses one year with smocked bodices.”

  “I remember those dresses,” June said, nodding. “Maybe that’s why I like this one.” June held the deep rose one higher than the other.

  “Decision made,” Virginia said.

  “Should I text Augusta and see if she wants me to get one for Nora, too? Matching cousins?”

  “They have plenty of them. Maybe you could show it to her when you’re all over for Thanksgiving and she can decide.”

  June paid for the dress at the old-fashioned counter and waited while the clerk zipped it into a weatherproof bag. When they left the shop, Alice was nearby, just leaving her mother’s clothing store.

  “Hello,” Alice said as they came under the shadow of the awning. She wore a gray wool coat with a pink and gray plaid scarf. She gestured toward their bags. “Christmas shopping?”

  June nodded. “Getting a head start before we start cooking for Thanksgiving.”

  “My mother is in pre-Thanksgiving mode. She dug out all the fancy plates and silverware and they’re stacked and ready. My sisters are coming home so she’s also in full mom mode.”

  “Your mom’s store is one of my favorites,” June said.

  “Want to see the new clothes she has in the shop? I already took a green dotted skirt and velvet jacket off the rack.”

  “I saw that,” June said. “In the video promotion for the Winter Weekends. It was perfect with the ice skates, like an advertisement for a good old-fashioned holiday.”

  “That was the idea. I haven’t seen the video yet. Did it happen to include any bloopers? Perhaps of Nate flailing on the ice?”

  June shook her head. “He must have edited that part out. It was all you. With your wonderful red hair and that green outfit—not to mention your ability to skate—you’ll have families coming to our rink from all over Michigan.”

  “I’m glad we invested in a big stock of rental skates, then.”

  “I have my own skates,” June said. “I’m not a bad skater because I had years of dance lessons. But apparently Nate thought you’d make a prettier picture.”

  “Ha!” Alice laughed. “I was only his first choice because he knew I was a junior skater.”

  “You and Nate both grew up in Bayside. Did you know each other before you ended up working together?” Virginia asked. The tension she’d noticed between them had to come from somewhere, and June had told her about the day Alice and Nate had met in the Lake Breeze Hotel lobby. They couldn’t agree on whether they already knew each other.

  “We went to high school together,” Alice said. She turned away and peered in the front window of her mother’s shop, giving someone an exaggerated wave. In the window’s reflection, Virginia saw Alice’s strained expression, but when Alice turned back to them she had a bright smile. Nate used a smile just like that when he was dealing with the press. Maybe the two of them had something in common but didn’t want to talk about it.

  “Go ahead and look in the vintage shop,” she said to both girls. “I saw something in the men’s store across the street I might pick up for...someone special.”

  June grinned at her mother. “Come find us when you’re done. I’ll probably be in the dressing room trying to decide between three things I love.”

  “Give yourself a break and get all three,” Virginia said. “Blame it on the holidays.”

  * * *

  ALICE OPENED THE closet door slowly. She knew what was on the other side. Her sisters would be home soon for Thanksgiving, and it was time for the shaming routine of moving her unused wedding dress to her own closet while the spare bedroom was in use. How many Thanksgivings, Christmases and other visits had come and gone in the five years since she’d decided not to put on that dress and marry Nate?

  Too many.

  She held it by the silver hanger. In all the years she’d been moving it, she had never unzipped the opaque bag. It was as if she was hiding a crime. She hung it on the outside of the closet door and waited for the usual feeling of how she had disappointed everyone to wash over her.

  It didn’t.

  The only person she had truly disappointed was herself, and she had learned a lot in the hard days and months following what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. She’d learned to listen to her heart and tell the truth to everyone—starting with herself. Seeing Nate again with his guarded expression and factory smile reiterated those feelings that drove her to tears, even on the day before their wedding.

  She unzipped the bag a few inches until the white satin edge of the bodice appeared. Even though she hadn’t laid eyes on the gown in years, she remembered every detail. Alice pulled the zipper down some more and realized she was looking at the back of the dress. Satin-covered buttons that hid a zipper brushed her fingers as she unzipped the bag more. The heavy train that someone—her mother?—had carefully folded was bulging against the garment bag. When she unzipped it all the way to the bottom, the train cascaded out and tickled her bare feet.

  Alice pushed the bag off the shoulders of the dress and flipped it around so she could face it for the first time since she was twenty-two. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t kill her. It was just a dress. And she had almost saved enough cash to repay her parents for it and the other wasted fanfare of her wedding.

  Did the dress still fit? Alice crossed the small bedroom and closed the door. She slid out of her sweater and jeans guiltily, as if she were borrowing something without permission. She unzipped the gown and slipped into it. In the full-length mirror on the wall next to the closet, she watched herself become, in appearance, a bride. Shoulders in place, bodice adjusted and back zipper done up only halfway because she couldn’t reach far enough to do it herself, the dress still fit. She smiled at her reflection, twisted her hair up and held it with one hand on top of
her head.

  She heard a gasp and spun around. Her mother stood in the doorway, her hand on the doorknob. Her eyes were huge and she brought her other hand over her mouth.

  “You caught me,” Alice said, laughing. “Do I look ridiculous?”

  “You look beautiful. And happier in that dress now than you were when you tried it on a few days before your wedding.” Her mother crossed the room and zipped the dress up the rest of the way. She turned Alice back toward the mirror and they both looked at her in the dress. “What made you put it on today?”

  “I came in here to move it to my closet—”

  “Which you’ve been secretly doing every time someone uses this bedroom,” her mother said.

  Alice nodded. “So you knew.”

  “Of course.”

  “And I decided to take a peek at it.”

  “Does this have anything to do with working with Nate Graham at the Point?”

  Alice sighed and let down her hair. “I don’t regret not marrying him. But I do regret not resolving anything with him. He left for Florida right after...you know. And we haven’t talked. I saw his sister once in the grocery store, but she pretended she didn’t see me. That was two years ago. Nate is a big gaping hole in my past.”

  “And now that you work together, have you talked?”

  “No. Which shouldn’t surprise me, I guess. We never talked about the things that really mattered when we were engaged. At work, he pretends that nothing earth-shattering has ever happened between us. Other people at the Point don’t even know we were once engaged.”

  “Do you plan to tell anyone?”

  Alice let out a long breath. “No. It would just make people uncomfortable, as if they were tiptoeing around a sleeping giant. And it wouldn’t change the fact that his feelings are still in a padded vault.”

  Her mother fingered the satin skirt. “Do you still love the dress?”

  “It’s a beautiful dress, but it’s not me.” Alice tried to articulate why it didn’t resonate with her anymore. “It reflects my idea of what a bride looked like when I was in high school and college. What I thought a bride should look like.”