The Lake Season

by Hannah McKinnon

  But Trish interrupted the thought. “Isn’t the farm great? We’ve expanded our summer catering menu, thanks to all of their organic produce. Leah got a bunch of the local restaurants on board.”

  “What? I didn’t know you did business with the farm.” Iris stared into her mug. It was still happening. From a thousand miles away, Leah was already taking her seat at the table with them. Reminding her of her special spot within the family. Even in Iris’s best friend’s life, too, it now seemed.

  “The local news channel ran a big feature on them this spring. But you probably saw that already,” Trish added.

  Iris nodded. But she hadn’t seen the segment. She’d heard about it, had even gotten the CD her mother had mailed her with the seven-minute recording on it. But she’d never actually taken the time to sit down and watch it. She had a fuzzy recollection of seeing it stuffed in a junk drawer in the family room. Or was it the laundry?

  “I didn’t realize how big the ‘farm stand’ had gotten,” Iris admitted sheepishly. “I knew Leah was working with Mom when she came home last summer, but I thought it was more like Mom giving her a little charity work.” The truth was, Iris hadn’t given it much thought when she heard that Leah had left her job at Yellowstone and was stealing back to New Hampshire. If anything, it had annoyed Iris that her parents still tolerated her sister’s flippant approach to life.

  Iris changed the subject. “Enough about my crazy family. Look at you. And this place!” The bakery was just as she’d imagined it. A cluster of vintage tables lined the picture window that looked out onto the cobblestone village street. The café walls were a rich butterscotch yellow. “Even the color is cozy!” Iris exclaimed.

  “Yellow makes people hungry,” Trish confided.

  “I’m so proud of you,” Iris said, peering longingly at the tidy arrangement of pastries and cakes in the bakery case.

  Iris had marveled at her friend’s gumption when Trish left her nursing job and threw open the doors to the Chat n’ Chew. Been jealous of it, even. But secretly, she’d worried. After all, Wayne’s dental practice was still relatively new. And the economy was a mess. Shouldn’t Trish stick with her RN position? Wasn’t that the more sensible thing to do?

  But Trish had plowed ahead. She could make her own hours to be home for the kids, Josh and Michael, who were both working as counselors up in Maine for the summer. And besides, with all the sugary confections she’d sell, she’d be cultivating a slew of new patients for Wayne’s practice. Iris couldn’t argue with that, as she bit into another key lime tart.

  “Oh, and look at that!” Trish said suddenly. She pointed to the sidewalk outside. “The view’s not bad, either.”

  Iris turned. Across the street, stepping out of his truck, was Cooper Woods.

  Instinctively Iris ducked.

  “What?” Trish asked. “It’s just Cooper Woods.”

  “Exactly!” Iris hissed, burying her nose in her coffee mug. “He’s not coming in here, is he?”

  Trish glanced out the window. “Unfortunately, no. He’s headed for the post office.” She looked questioningly at Iris. “What’s going on?”

  “We sort of had a run-in,” Iris explained sheepishly.

  “Ah,” Trish said, eyebrows rising. “So you’ve crossed paths.”

  “You could say that.” With a friend like Trish, there was no choice but to spill, sharing every detail, however humiliating.

  “You mean your mom never told you Cooper worked for them?”

  Iris shook her head emphatically. For all her long-distance, one-sided conversations about soil and fertilizer, couldn’t her mother have thought to mention that?

  Trish snorted. “Well, I guess he knows you’re back in town.”

  “That’s one way of putting it. What’s he doing back here anyway? Last I heard he’d moved out to Colorado after high school.”

  “He’s been back for about a year now. Runs a restoration business, preserving local buildings and that sort of thing. He comes in sometimes for a coffee. And he looks pretty damn good.”

  Iris couldn’t disagree. Unlike Cooper and Leah, Iris had been one of those kids who was friends with everyone and with no one in particular at the same time. The kind of girl who was pretty enough and smart enough. But also quiet enough to be overlooked, certainly by the group that Cooper hung out with. Cooper was one of those enigmatic kids who was charming enough to smooth the disapproval from even the strictest teachers’ foreheads when he made excuses for lost homework, but also nice enough to tell the other lacrosse players to lay off the freshmen, whom they routinely shoved into lockers. Iris could remember one incident when Cooper had whispered her name in chemistry class, asking to borrow a pencil. She’d been stunned that he knew her name. But Cooper dated the popular girls. Girls who roared up to keg parties in their Jeep Wranglers, a bevy of backup blondes packed in the backseat. Not red-faced girls who stupidly surrendered their only pencil and spent the rest of class gawking at the back of his head.

  Trish grinned wickedly. “Maybe we’ve found you a date for Leah’s wedding after all.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Besides, I’m still married, remember?”

  “A technicality. What’s a spin on the dance floor, even if it is twenty years late?”

  On her way out the door, with a loaf of warm sourdough bread tucked under her arm, Iris gazed over her shoulder. Trish belonged here. Concocting sweet confections, nourishing neighbors. Iris licked the crumbs from her fingers, wondering where exactly she belonged.

  • • •

  Back in her bedroom at the farm, Iris pulled the linen shift dress over her head and turned in front of the mirror. Not terrible. Even after a second long shower, her hair still held a faintly acrid scent of tomato. There was a rap at the door. Millie poked her head inside.

  “What do you think?” Iris asked, turning left then right in her dress.

  “Nice, but what are you still doing here?”

  “Doing here?”

  “In this room. Why is all your stuff still here?”

  Iris glanced around. Her bags had long since been unpacked, her shirts folded in the armoire, her jeans tucked into the antique dresser drawers.

  Millie pointed across the hall. “Didn’t your father tell you? I’m putting Stephen and Leah in here.”

  “But this is my room.”

  “This room has a queen. And there are two of them.”

  Iris knew her mother didn’t intend it that way, but the reference to her singleness caused her to bristle.

  “So I’m being moved out?”

  Millie scowled. “It’s not personal.”

  Across the hall, Leah’s bed was a single canopy, fairylike and girlish under its lace overhang. Iris couldn’t help but notice that little had changed in her sister’s room since childhood. While Iris’s old room had been stripped of its boy-band posters and rearranged to accommodate guests, Leah’s remained the same old teenage living space, a sort of high school mausoleum. She caught herself looking up at the doorway as if a young uniformed Leah might stride through at any moment with a gaggle of friends and her field hockey stick.

  Iris dumped her suitcase on the bed and allowed herself a good sulk, indulged by the adolescent decor around her.

  Outside, the farm rolled out in front of her, a sight that caused Iris’s chest to suddenly ache. It wasn’t just the rural beauty of the barns and garden plots, but the thought of all that life within; each plant carefully tended and nurtured. Attention Iris feared she herself might never feel again.

  As she stood looking out, a silver truck rolled up the drive. It stopped in front of the large red barn.

  Iris pressed her forehead against the cool glass. Cooper Woods exited the cab. With a rush in her chest she watched him lower the tailgate and pull lumber from the bed of the truck. She still couldn’t believe he was here, working for her
parents, no less. How strange time was: in high school she’d dreamed of stealing a single moment with Cooper Woods. Now, twenty years later, here he was in her own backyard. She admired the competent ease with which he carried the materials, the swift pace at which he worked. And then, just as quickly, to her dismay, he drove away.

  Downstairs, Iris sought relief on the porch, joining her father for drinks.

  “Feeling better, my dear?”

  It was a relief to see Bill fretting over olives, rather than her pupils. He handed her a gin martini, another love the two shared, which she gratefully took a deep sip of. The cool liquid slipped easily down her throat, and she sank into a wicker chair. “I am now.”

  From out front came the crunch of gravel in the drive.

  “They’re here!” Millie shrieked.

  Without warning, Iris’s stomach filled with dread.

  “Come,” called Bill excitedly as he strode to greet them.

  Iris stood. But she couldn’t bring herself to follow. Instead she slipped into the dark privacy of the back hall, pressing her back against the cool plaster wall.

  Iris took another sip of her martini, imagining the scene unfolding in the driveway. Her mother’s air kisses, the exclamations over the happy couple’s arrival. Her father would shake hands with Stephen, and the two would playfully argue over who would carry in the bags. Iris was exhausted by the mere thought of it all.

  The voices grew louder, followed by the thump of footsteps ascending the porch stairs.

  “Dinner will be ready in half an hour!” Millie’s voice carried down the hall, and Iris sank a little lower against the wall.

  “I’ll bring the bags up,” Leah answered, and suddenly, hearing her sister’s voice filled Iris with a soft and familiar guilt.

  Around the corner, in the butler’s pantry, came her father’s lighthearted whistle, followed by the clink of bottles; he was probably searching for the champagne he’d stowed earlier. And then the slap of the screen door, which meant they’d gone back out to the porch for drinks. Iris pressed a hand to her temple. She really should go out there. She stood, just as the patter of light footsteps approached.

  “Hand it over!” Leah swept around the corner and flattened herself against the wall, beside her older sister. She reached for Iris’s martini, tipped her elegant chin, and downed the remains. “Much better.” She closed her eyes dreamily.

  Leah’s dark hair fell across her shoulders, and her skin was warm and brown against Iris’s bare arm.

  “What are you doing?” Iris whispered, feeling the sudden rise of girlhood laughter in her throat.

  Leah grinned and raised the empty glass. Her engagement ring flashed between them. “Same as you, my dear. Now, go and get us another.”

  Six

  The early morning was Iris’s favorite time on the lake. The dew lay dense across the grass blades as she strode barefoot from the porch to the shoreline, savoring the spongy carpet beneath her.

  She’d found one of her old swim tanks in the mudroom closet tucked in a faded L.L.Bean bag where Millie stored all the beach towels and forgotten swimsuits from previous seasons, along with a few errant pairs of goggles. The suit, once bright red, had been sun bleached to an orangey hue, which Iris preferred, and she pressed it to her nose, intoxicated by the heady scent of lake water, sunscreen, and sand.

  Iris paused at the shore, peering over her shoulder at the shadowy house. The curtains to her room were still drawn, and she imagined Leah and Stephen asleep behind them, their legs entwined, safely ensconced in darkness.

  Iris stuck her big toe in the water and resisted the urge to tug it back out. The water was penetratingly cold this early in the season, not reaching its warmest temperatures until mid-­September, which any lakeside resident knew was the best time to swim. Nevertheless, the invigoration she felt surprised her, and she welcomed it as she waded in. She began a slow paddle toward the center of the lake, but quickly realized that she hadn’t the stamina. So she turned onto her back to float. The night before had been fun. But despite the easy candor, Iris had been unable to concentrate on the content, distracted instead by her sister’s fiancé, Stephen.

  Stephen had ignored her outstretched hand when Leah introduced them, opting instead to pull Iris into a firm hug. Which had made her blush; the guy was ridiculously good-looking—dark haired and strong jawed. But what had she expected? Look at Leah.

  Iris marveled at the couple’s shared ease, something she and Paul had never mastered in all their years. Paul just never seemed invested in forging relationships beyond casual banter, business talk, and the polite consumption of beverages. While her parents had always gotten along with Paul, she couldn’t say for sure if they’d ever actually liked him. But Stephen was different. Immediately he’d slid open his coat pocket and pulled a Cuban cigar out for her father, then offered one playfully to Millie. Iris had been rendered speechless when Millie shooed him with a dainty hand and laughed, a completely uncharacteristic gesture of “Oh, go ahead” acquiescence. Iris was impressed; Stephen knew not only what Bill Standish liked but also how to navigate Millie Standish to make it happen, something the man himself had been unable to do in all the years of his marriage.

  But despite the abundant flow of chatter and wine on the patio, Iris found herself stealing curious glances at her sister throughout the long evening, remembering Naomi’s words that morning. She’s better now. It made her wonder again about Leah’s cryptic postcard. But on the surface, she detected nothing. Leah shone in her pale blue crepe dress, and Iris couldn’t help but note the enviable flush of her cheeks, dewy with both her youth and excitement. She’d never been more radiant.

  By dessert, Naomi and Ernesto joined them, along with a few of the neighbors Millie had called and invited to stop by to welcome the soon-to-be-wedded couple.

  “It’s you!” Naomi squealed, darting across the patio. Iris couldn’t help but notice that it was the kind of hug reserved for old friends.

  “In the flesh.” Leah laughed. “Didn’t think you could get rid of me that fast, did you?” Leah gave Ernesto a hearty high five, and Iris could’ve sworn the shy man blushed.

  By ten o’clock they were all heady with celebration, and Bill set up his phonograph by the open window in his library, so that the music flowed onto the patio and across the sloping green lawns. It lent an old-fashioned elegance of an era gone by, like something out of The Great Gatsby. The stars were out, and Iris found herself slumped on the stone wall of the patio watching as her parents took a spin. When Bill whispered something in her mother’s ear, Millie laughed, and for a moment Iris was sure her heart would break. At the song’s end Stephen dipped Leah dramatically, and the others clapped.

  “You must be so glad to see your sister,” Naomi said, sitting beside Iris on the wall. “This place just isn’t the same without her.”

  Iris had already had too much to drink, but she helped herself to another glass of champagne from the table. “Nothing ever is,” she mused. And then she excused herself abruptly. Iris hadn’t meant to be rude, but it was suddenly too much. The music, the star-strewn sky, the couples moving in harmony before her. And herself: forever the forgettable older sister.

  She’d stumbled up the narrow back stairs to her room—Leah’s room—and fumbled through her purse for her phone. No messages. It was twelve thirty. If she called home now, she’d wake the kids. And she didn’t want to talk to Paul, she really did not. But she was suddenly sick with the excess of the night: the wine and whipped cream, the rich lobster that turned in her stomach, and the deafening loneliness that filled the empty room.

  At some point she’d passed out on the bed, only to wake hours later in the predawn light, heady with nausea and exhaustion. And anger. Why had Leah asked her here? It was the worst kind of escape.

  Now, safely stretched across the surface of the lake, she floated, concentrating on the cool water
that supplanted the rocking in her stomach, blinking at the cloudless sky.

  “Is this spot taken?”

  Iris lifted her head from the water, startled. On the shore, Stephen stood grinning in a pair of Hawaiian swim trunks. The dark hair on his chest was curly, and Iris looked quickly away from his taut physique, embarrassed. Why did he have to be so nice?

  “It’s all yours,” she said, slipping through the water to the shore.

  Stephen nodded toward the house. “Though, I think we have dangerous company.”

  Leah sat on the steps, dangling her legs like a child. She waved vigorously.

  Up on the porch Leah planted a kiss on Iris’s damp cheek. “You smell like a lake rat,” she teased, pressing a warm cup of coffee into Iris’s wet hands.

  And before Iris could respond, Leah was racing down the porch steps, streaking away from her.

  Stephen had already swum back to shore. Iris watched as Leah met him on the sand. Arms outstretched, she leaped, wrapping her legs gracefully around Stephen’s wet waist, and he staggered backward into the water, laughing.

  Stephen carried her all the way up the yard, the two giggling and carousing, as Iris stood awkwardly on the porch, unsure if she should turn away from their rush of affection.

  “Your sister’s a wild one,” Stephen puffed as he mounted the stairs. He deposited Leah at the top step and smacked her playfully on her bottom.

  Iris suppressed a twinge of envy. “Always has been,” she mused.

  He shook his head playfully, like a wet dog, and trotted through the patio door.

  “Watch it! Millie will have your tail if you track sand on her hardwood floors,” Leah called after him.

  Reclaiming her coffee from Iris, she sighed girlishly. “Isn’t he a catch?”

  Iris winced. “Sure. Though I might have been able to figure that out for myself if you’d told me about him earlier. You know, before the wedding announcements went out.”

  Leah just grinned over the rim of her cup. “Oh, come on, Iris. It’s not like Mom didn’t invite you up here.”