by Mary McNear
“Do you think you should give your sister a call now?” Everett asked, interrupting her reverie.
“Why?”
“To tell her that we’re almost there.”
“Oh,” Poppy said, momentarily at a loss. And then she tossed her long blond hair. “No. I’m not going to tell her,” she said. “I thought we’d surprise her.”
Everett stole a quick look at her. “But . . . she knows we’re coming, right?”
“Not exactly,” Poppy said, feeling a first twinge of nervousness.
Everett was quiet. Then he asked, “Does your sister like surprises?”
“Not really,” Poppy said, and there it was again, that nervousness. She tamped it down, firmly, and said, “But what are sisters for if they can’t just . . . drop in on each other?”
“‘Drop in’?” Everett said, after another pause. “It looks like you’ve got a lot of your stuff with you, though, Poppy. Isn’t it more like, ‘move in’?”
Poppy ignored this question. Harder to ignore were her suitcases, wedged in the trunk of Everett’s car, or her boxes, stacked on the backseat beside Sasquatch’s pet carrier. And it wasn’t just a lot of her stuff, as Everett had pointed out. It was all of her stuff. Though, truth be told, that wasn’t saying much. It had taken her less than an hour to pack everything up. Traveling light was a recurring theme with Poppy, and a necessary one, too, since her peripatetic lifestyle was the norm.
“Sisters don’t have to call ahead. They’re there for each other,” Poppy said now, though she was annoyed by the defensiveness she heard in her own voice.
“But do you think your sister—Win—will be home right now? It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday night.”
“Oh, she’ll be home. If I know her, she’s probably . . . alphabetizing her spice rack,” Poppy said, “or color coding her sock drawer.” As soon as she said this, though, she felt disloyal. “Actually, she’s a sweetheart,” she said, turning to Everett. “And I don’t blame her, at all, for being a little . . . neurotic or controlling, or whatever she is. I told you about what happened to her, didn’t I?” And Poppy pictured Win as she’d been the last time she’d seen her, her dark blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and her girl next door approachableness only slightly tempered by the wistful expression on her face.
“Yeah, you told me what happened to her,” Everett said. It was quiet in the car again as he negotiated another sharp turn, and as Poppy watched the car’s lights skim over an entrance to an old logging road. She smiled. She and Win had driven down that road as teenagers, looking for bears at dusk.
“All right,” she said, after a few more minutes, “we’re getting close. After this next curve, it’s the first driveway on the left.” And, suddenly hungry, she added, “Here’s hoping Win’s got some leftovers from dinner.”
“Yeah, and here’s hoping she’s in a good mood,” Everett added wryly.
Chapter 2
Win, it turned out, was in a good mood, or at least in what passed for a good mood in her life these days. After dinner—a sesame shrimp and noodles dish whose recipe she’d found in a cooking magazine’s “gourmet dinners for one” column—she’d emptied out her kitchen’s utensil drawers and begun rearranging their contents. Not that they needed rearranging; they’d been rearranged less than two weeks before. But Win found this particular organizing project so satisfying that tonight, after she’d washed the dishes and wiped down the countertops and swept the kitchen floor, she’d thought, Oh, what the hell, and dumped all four utensil drawers out onto the kitchen table and gotten started on them. Now, an hour later, with just one utensil—a cherry pitter—left, she was still so absorbed in this project that she didn’t even hear a car pull up outside.
Where to put the cherry pitter, she wondered, picking it up and studying it critically. For the most part, she had a simple classification system. The more a utensil was used, the higher a drawer it went in to. So a whisk, or a vegetable peeler, or a garlic press, for instance, went into the top drawer, while a fish scaler, or a canning funnel, or an olive stuffer went into the bottom drawer. Utensils that fell somewhere in between went into one of the two middle drawers. But the cherry pitter was a special case. Before tonight, it had been in the third drawer, with, among other things, a citrus zester, a nutmeg grinder, and a gravy separator, but now, with cherry season upon them, Win wondered if it should be promoted, at least temporarily, to the second drawer, where it would take its place alongside utensils like a cheese grater, a marinade brush, and a ladle.
Yes, it should go in the second drawer, Win decided, but she hesitated for a moment and, in that moment, she heard car doors slamming outside. Startled, she glanced at the kitchen clock. It was a little after ten. The only person she knew who’d stop by at this hour was her friend Mary Jane, and even Mary Jane wouldn’t do this without calling her first. She knew how much Win hated surprises.
She put the cherry pitter down and left the kitchen, feeling the little tremor of unease she imagined was familiar to any woman who lived alone in a rural area. But by the time she got to the front door, she could hear laughter and voices, and one of those voices was as intimately familiar to her as any voice on earth.
“Poppy?” she said, swinging the door open before her sister could knock on it.
“Win!” her sister said, pulling her into a hug. “I told you she’d be home,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the man who was with her. Win hugged Poppy back, a little distractedly.
“I can’t believe you’re here. Is everything okay?” she asked worriedly.
“Yes, everything’s okay,” Poppy said, letting go of her. “Well, I mean, it’s not perfect. More about that later,” she said, with a roll of her eyes. “But anyway, I thought it was high time I visited you here. You’ve only asked me to come about a million times.”
“I know I have,” Win said. But a little advance notice would have been nice, she thought.
“Um, are you going to invite us in, or are we going to stand out here all night?” Poppy asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“Oh, of course, come in,” Win said, gesturing them inside, but she was still flustered. “When did you decide to drive up?” she asked, closing the door and following them into the living room.
“Oh, it was spur of the moment,” Poppy said.
“But, Pops, I talked to you a couple days ago,” Win pointed out.
“It was spur of the moment since then,” Poppy said. She stretched her arms over her head and arched her back. “It is so good to be out of that car.” She sighed. “We only stopped once. I think we set a record or something. Everett is an excellent driver,” she added, glancing at her companion.
“Are you going to introduce us?” Win asked.
“Oh, my God,” Poppy said, slapping her forehead. “I am so rude. Everett, this is my sister, Win Robbins, and Win, this is Everett, Everett . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Everett West,” he finished for her, stepping forward and holding his hand out to Win.
“Hi Everett,” she said, shaking his hand and giving Poppy a look that she hoped said, Who is this guy? But no explanation was forthcoming.
Instead Poppy was taking in the living room as though she was seeing it for the first time.
“Look at this place,” she said softly. “It’s exactly the same as I remember it.” She walked over to a bookshelf and took down a duck decoy, turning it over in her hands. “I’m so glad you didn’t change anything.”
“Well, you know me, I’m not great with change,” Win said, shooting a glance at Everett. “Um, Poppy, can I see you in the kitchen?” she asked, pointedly.
“Okay. We’ll be right back, Everett,” Poppy said, following Win through the kitchen’s swinging door.
But as soon as it shut behind them Win turned to her. “Pops, what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she said, mystified.
“I mean, who’s the guy?”
“That’s Everett. Everett West.”
W
in rolled her eyes. “No, I mean, are you dating him?”
“What? No,” Poppy said. “He’s a friend. Well, an acquaintance, anyway. We both get our coffee at the same place every morning. You know, that little hole in the wall near my apartment? I took you there when you came to visit at Christmastime.”
“So, you hang out together there?” Win said, still trying to clarify their relationship.
“Not hang out, exactly, but we’ve stood in line together a couple of times.”
Win’s eyes widened. “And that’s the extent of your relationship?”
“More or less.”
“And other than his first name, and where he gets his coffee, do you know anything else about him?”
“Well, those things and . . . oh, and he’s a techie,” Poppy said, proud to have remembered this much about him.
But Win shook her head in disbelief. “Poppy, am I the only one seeing a problem here? You drive up with someone you barely know, and then you invite him into my cabin. I mean, for all you know, he’s a serial killer,” she hissed.
“Oh, for God’s sakes,” Poppy said, “Everett is not a serial killer. He’s a web designer. And trust me, I have excellent radar when it comes to men. He is not dangerous. I would think even you could see that, Win.”
And Win, irritated by the implication of Poppy’s “even you,” had to admit, to herself anyway, that Everett didn’t seem very dangerous. He reminded her, in fact, of a type that was popular now on television and in movies; the smart but accessible guy who worked in the lab on a police procedural, or the soft-spoken but humorous sidekick to the male lead in a romantic comedy. Geeky-cute, she decided. And there was something about his eyes, too, that was appealing, the way they drooped down, just a tiny bit, at the corners, making him look just a little bit sleepy.
“Is he tired?” Win asked suddenly, glancing in the direction of the living room. “Everett, I mean. Is he tired from the drive? Or do his eyes always look like that?”
“Like what?” Poppy asked, perplexed at the direction the conversation had taken.
“You know, his eyes look kind of sleepy.”
Poppy shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never noticed his eyes before. But I’m assuming this means it’s okay for him to be here now.”
“It’s okay,” Win said.
“And it’s okay for me to stay here?” Poppy asked.
“Yes. You’re always welcome here, you know that,” Win said, but this was followed by an awkward pause. Win knew without having to be told that Poppy believed the cabin should belong to both of them. “But what’s, uh, what’s Everett going to do tonight?” she asked, returning to the matter at hand.
“Oh,” Poppy said, her blue eyes widening with surprise. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it. Drive back to the city, I guess.”
“At this time of night? He won’t get back until . . . two o’clock in the morning.”
“Maybe he can get a motel room,” Poppy suggested.
“Are you going to pay for it?”
“No. He’s a big boy. He can pay for it himself.”
“Poppy, that’s not the point,” Win said, shaking her head.
“What is the point?”
“The point is that he drove four and a half hours to get you here,” Win said, with forced patience. “You can’t just say ‘good night’ and push him out the door.”
Now it was Poppy’s turn to look incredulous. “Win, two minutes ago you were afraid he was a serial killer, and now you’re worried I’ll hurt his feelings? And, just for the record, he didn’t do me that much of a favor. When I bumped into him this morning at that coffeehouse, and I asked him if he could drive me up here today, he said yes right away. He said he loved coming to this part of the state. You know, the north woods and all.”
“Oh, that must be it, Poppy. He’s here for the flora and fauna,” Win said, amused in spite of herself. “He couldn’t possibly be interested in a gorgeous girl like you.” But Poppy—whose official position on her beauty was to refuse to acknowledge it—shrugged this off.
“Besides,” she said to Win, “his cousin has a cabin an hour north of here, on Birch Lake. Starting next week, Everett’s going to be able to use it. He wants to get into the habit of doing this drive.”
“All right. Whatever,” Win said, shifting gears. “Why don’t you two bring your stuff in from the car. You can have our old room,” she said, of the guest room she and Poppy had shared during summer vacations as children, “and Everett can have the couch, if he doesn’t mind.”
“He doesn’t mind,” Poppy said, confidently.
“Good,” Win said, warming now to the idea of having guests. “We can all have a late breakfast together tomorrow morning—I’ll make French toast—and after that, you’ll have time for a swim before you head back to the city. Unless you want to leave really early Monday morning to get back in time for work.”
“Yeah, about that . . .” Poppy said. “Um, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the whole work thing.”
Win frowned. She didn’t like the way that sounded. “What happened to your job, Pops?”
“What happened to it is that I don’t have it anymore.”
“You were . . . fired?”
“No,” Poppy said, offended. “I quit.”
“Pops,” Win groaned. “Why?”
“Because it was so unbelievably boring. I mean, have you ever been a receptionist before?” She pantomimed wearing a headset. “Hello, Johnson, Lewis, Lester & Grouper, how may I help you? I did that two hundred and fifty times a day. Can you imagine? Plus, one of the partners, Grouper”—she paused here to shudder—“was really starting to creep me out.”
Win took a deep breath. Do not freak out, she counseled herself. Stay calm. You can’t kill Poppy. Not with someone else in the next room. She exhaled, slowly. “Just out of curiosity,” she asked, “did you find another job before you quit this one?”
To Poppy’s credit, she answered this question with admirable directness. “No, I didn’t. And there’s something else, too.”
“What’s that?” Win asked, a little weakly.
“I’m subletting my apartment.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t afford it, Win. No job, no paycheck. No paycheck, no money for rent. No money for rent, no apartment.”
Win rubbed her temples. “No, I see the connection,” she said. “But you’re not . . . you’re not moving in with that guy you told me about, are you?”
“Patrick?” Poppy said. “God no. No, he kept telling me he wanted to take our relationship to ‘the next level’ and I kept thinking, ‘Look, I don’t know what’s on that level, but I am not going to go there with you.’ So, yeah, he’s kind of out of the picture now.”
“Okay, but . . .” And Win paused here, not really wanting to know the answer to this next question. “Where are you going to live now?”
“Here?” Poppy asked, hopefully.
“Poppy,” Win said, shaking her head. “Do you remember the last time we—”
“Look, I know what you’re going to say. And I get it. I do. Before you say it, though, I want to ask you one question. One simple question.”
There was more massaging of temples from Win. But Poppy, undiscouraged, pressed on. “What day is today?”
“That’s your question?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Saturday.”
“No, what day of the month is it.”
Win sighed. “It’s the twenty-first.”
“It’s June twenty-first,” Poppy said, significantly. “Think about it, Win.”
“It’s . . . the first day of summer?”
“Yes,” Poppy said triumphantly. “Yes, yes, yes. It’s the first day of summer, and here I am. Here we are. At the cabin. At your cabin,” she added, quickly, “but still, the cabin where we spent every summer of our childhoods. Don’t you get it, Win?”
“Not really.”
“This is it, Win. This is our chance to have another summer together, on this lake, at this cabin, for the first time in thirteen years. I mean, I’m between jobs, and you’re on vacation, and—”
“I wouldn’t call it a vacation—” Win interposed. She was a social studies teacher at the middle school in Butternut and she used summer break to plan for the year ahead.
“All right, fine, you’re on a working vacation. The point is, you’re still going to have some free time, and now, you’re going to have it with me,” Poppy said, giving Win her most charming smile. “It’ll be fun. We’ll go canoeing, and we’ll go on picnics, and we’ll go raspberry picking. And skinny-dipping. There’s no age limit for that, is there? And that goes for making s’mores, too. Oh, and playing Monopoly. We can do that, and maybe, maybe, if you’re really nice, I’ll even let you have the thimble this time,” she said, of the Monopoly game piece they had battled over as children. “And Win, seriously, when was the last time we watched 13 Going on 30?” she asked of their favorite chick flick.
Win chewed on her lower lip. “I don’t know,” she said. Because while she and Poppy had had fun together over the years, they’d had other things, too: hurtful words, screaming matches, slamming doors. And the six months they’d shared an apartment during Win’s last year of college came to mind now. Poppy had left a trail of wet towels, unwashed dishes, and unpaid bills in her wake—unpaid bills that, in the end, Win had paid for her. And she was always avoiding some lovelorn suitor, and worse, always carrying that godforsaken cat around with her.
“Look, I really need this,” Poppy said, with an urgency that surprised Win. “I need a change. I need to figure things out. And, for some reason, I feel like . . . like this is the place I’m supposed to be right now,” she said, looking around the kitchen. “Right here, with you, on Butternut Lake.” She smiled at Win, a little tremulously.
