Secrets of the Lost Summer

by Carla Neggers

  Why had Marilyn chosen the restaurant and not Roger?

  Did it even matter?

  Olivia shoved her hands into her pockets, wishing now she’d worn gloves. She could see sleet collecting on the sidewalk and car windshields. She turned stiffly off Newbury toward Commonwealth Avenue.

  Think about spring wildflowers. Trillium and lady’s slippers, jack-in-the-pulpit, wild geraniums....

  She lost her footing in a slick spot, dispelling any image of wildflowers trying to take form. She and Marilyn had developed a pattern in their friendship of focusing on Marilyn—her work, her problems, her accomplishments. Olivia hadn’t felt any great need to talk about herself or break out champagne over her own accomplishments, but it was more than that. She saw that now, if too late.

  Intellectually, she knew that her own situation had nothing to do with the turnaround in Marilyn’s career. Every career, Olivia told herself, went through downturns and she would get through whatever was coming at her. She rarely discussed her career with Marilyn. She tended to be more private, and Marilyn was busy, caught up in her newfound success and focused on herself and her own career. She had said repeatedly that she couldn’t allow distractions. It was easy to think she had pulled back from their friendship once Olivia was no longer of use, but Olivia doubted it was that simple.

  Until just now. Seeing Marilyn with Roger Bailey had Olivia reeling. Had Marilyn actually targeted a friend’s major client?

  The wind eased as Olivia came to Commonwealth, one of her favorite streets in Boston. She waited for the light, then crossed the wide avenue in front of a line of stopped cars, their headlights glowing in the gray, their windshield wipers grinding steadily against the unrelenting rain and sleet. Only the buds on Commonwealth’s dozens of magnolias suggested that spring had, indeed, arrived and was just having a setback.

  Olivia smiled to herself. “I can identify.”

  She had seldom taken time to celebrate when she was Boston’s hot designer. Now she couldn’t help but wonder if she would ever have another reason to break out the champagne.

  Well, she thought, she would just have to make up a reason—like getting parsley, rosemary and dill to grow in pots in her city window. Wasn’t that reason enough to open a bottle of bubbly?

  The attempt at boosting her mood failed. She’d just walked into a restaurant and caught her biggest client blowing her off to have lunch with another designer—who happened to be one of her closest friends.

  Not happened to be. Marilyn knew about Roger because of her friendship with Olivia.

  Marilyn knew that what she was doing was unethical.

  If Roger Bailey was in her orbit, who was next?

  Olivia couldn’t deny the reality of her situation. It wouldn’t take many more Roger Baileys for her career to spiral into an outright tailspin.

  She reminded herself that how she felt about today was for her to decide. Roger was making a business decision. The meaning she gave it was her choice. She was a professional, right? A positive person, right?

  A dog walker, a graduate student who lived in her building, breezed past her with five tongue-wagging dogs of various sizes and breeds. He smiled in greeting but didn’t pause as he and the dogs barreled toward Commonwealth, all of them looking unperturbed by the weather.

  Olivia laughed as she watched them retreat.

  Nothing like a quintet of happy dogs to lift the spirits. Her family had always had golden retrievers back in Knights Bridge.

  Her father had warned her about Marilyn when he’d met her on one of his rare visits to Boston. “She’s using you, Liv,” he’d said, cutting right to the chase.

  That was Randy Frost. He denied he was cynical, instead insisting he had a realistic view of human nature. Olivia hadn’t listened. She was the one who knew Marilyn. Marilyn was driven and ambitious, but those weren’t offenses in their world.

  When Olivia reached her apartment, she shed her coat and scarf and left them in a heap by the door and walked in her stocking feet to her galley kitchen. She had pulled wool socks on over her black tights, but no one else could see them. She had wanted her lunch with Roger Bailey to go well. She had worked on fresh concepts and was ready to listen, get his thoughts on what he was looking for.

  Instead, their lunch hadn’t happened at all.

  No, she amended. It had happened with Marilyn.

  Olivia opened her refrigerator. She didn’t have a bottle of champagne chilling, or anything she wanted to eat, either.

  She wasn’t hungry, anyway, she thought, shutting the refrigerator again. Her herbs looked cold on the windowsill. She raked one hand through her hair, damp from the sleet and rain. How could she go back to work and tell Jacqui Ackerman what had just happened?

  She heard her iPhone ding and went back to the door and unearthed her handbag. She pulled her iPhone out of the outer pocket and glanced at the screen, hoping for a minor distraction—the latest from J.Crew or L.L.Bean—but, her day being what it was, she saw it was an email from Peter Martin, a digital marketing specialist she had dated last summer. He’d taken a job in Seattle in September, and that was that. He and Olivia had never been that serious, but the thought of relocating to the West Coast had seemed as out of the realm of possibility as her signing up to be an astronaut.

  She couldn’t help but read his email.

  Can you send me Marilyn’s phone number and email? I have a client I’d like her to talk to.

  Olivia started to respond, then realized she was out of her mind and deleted the email. Feeling faintly as if she’d done something wrong, she shoved the phone back in her bag. She dreaded going back to her office. She’d have to tell Jacqui what was going on. Olivia reached into the closet for a dry scarf. Last fall, when she and Marilyn were still regularly laughing and bitching over wine and takeout, plotting Marilyn’s career revival, had her friend been envious, tapping Olivia for her contacts, expertise, insights and energy but secretly hating her for her success? Had Marilyn always planned to dump her as a friend once her own career took off?

  Olivia wasn’t sure she wanted answers. They were moot questions now, anyway.

  “Make friends with a plumber or a kindergarten teacher or something,” her father had advised. “Forget other designers. They’re your competition.”

  It wasn’t how Olivia viewed herself or the creative world in which she operated, but now she wondered if he didn’t have a point.

  She loved her little apartment and she loved Boston, but as she lifted her winter coat, she knew she was done. It was spring. The wintry weather would end. The magnolias would soon be in bloom on Commonwealth Avenue. All would be well, she thought as she put on her coat. She’d head back to work, but as she locked her apartment door behind her, she pictured the herbs on the windowsill and knew, deep in her gut, that it was time to make a change.

  It was time to go home to Knights Bridge.

  Olivia didn’t wait. She got busy that night, packing her books and calling her sister to borrow her truck. The next morning, she gave Jacqui official notice. Jacqui asked her to stay, but she also indicated she was open to having Olivia freelance. Roger Bailey had finally called, first Olivia, then Jacqui, to explain his defection to Marilyn Bryson. He insisted it wasn’t a reflection on Olivia’s work. He just needed a fresh eye.

  Jacqui was obviously disappointed but also philosophical. “You know this business, Liv. The only constant is change.”

  She did know.

  A week later, when Jessica Frost arrived on Marlborough Street in her pickup truck, Olivia had what she wanted from her apartment ready to go. She and Jess would load everything into the truck themselves.

  “I don’t know how you lasted here all this time,” Jess said as a cockroach scurried across the kitchen floor.

  Olivia smiled. “It’s only the occasional cockroach. I think it’s because I stirred things up in here when I started packing.”

  “Oh, that’s reassuring.”

  Jess, eighteen months younger,
was blunt to a fault, as pragmatic as their father and as caring as their mother. She wore a faded blue plaid flannel shirt over jeans that were baggy on her slender frame. Her hair, as dark as Olivia’s, was chin length but still managed to look wild and unruly. Her eyes were flat-out green, not Olivia’s hazel mix. Her sister’s one concession to not looking as if she had just stepped out of a barn was a silver Celtic-knot necklace, a present from Mark Flanagan, a Knights Bridge architect who specialized in historic preservation and restoration. Olivia, and no doubt everyone else in town, expected an engagement ring would be forthcoming.

  It was Mark who had introduced Olivia to Roger Bailey in the first place.

  “How long are you keeping your apartment?” Jess asked.

  “Through April, at least. I’ll be freelancing for a while, but my landlord won’t have trouble finding another renter when the time comes.”

  “You’ll miss Boston.”

  “It’s not even two hours from Knights Bridge. I’m not moving to Tucson.”

  Jess lifted a box of dishes. “Have you decided on a name for this getaway of yours?”

  “I have. I’m calling it The Farm at Carriage Hill. What do you think?”

  “Love it.” Jess headed through the kitchen into the living room with her box, but stopped abruptly at a large open box on the floor. She glanced back at Olivia. “Why do you have a hundred sets of sheets?”

  Olivia smiled at her sister’s exaggeration. It was at most fifty sheets—a lot, she knew, by most standards. “They’re antique sheets. I’ve been collecting them at flea markets and yard sales and such.”

  “What are you going to do with them?”

  “I don’t know. Something will come to me.”

  Jess shrugged. “You’re the one with the creative flair.”

  When they finished loading the truck, they threw a blue tarp over the back and secured it with bungee cords as best they could. Olivia could have hired a mover but why spend the money? She had always watched her expenses. A good thing, she thought, now that she wasn’t drawing a regular paycheck. In the back of her mind, especially lately, she had known she would go back to her hometown one day and start her own business. Over the past week she had wondered if that was part of the reason she hadn’t experienced the kind of explosive success Marilyn was enjoying. Then she reminded herself that she had enjoyed great success and was still a sought-after designer.

  Her sister was frowning at her and Olivia forced herself to stop thinking about the past. She couldn’t let Marilyn get to her. Marilyn was a superb designer. Her work was striking a chord with people. Olivia didn’t want anything bad to happen to a friend, even if that friend had betrayed her trust and dropped her once she was no longer of use.

  She’d just learn to watch her back.

  “No one’s here to see you off?” Jess asked.

  “It’s a workday and I’m not going far.”

  As she pulled open the passenger door, Olivia felt a sense of excitement tempered by no small measure of uncertainty at what lay ahead. Maybe on some level she was running from failure and disappointment, but she was also running to something. A new life. A new set of challenges.

  “All set,” Jess said, climbing in on the driver’s side. She gave her sister a sideways glance. “Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind?”

  “Positive.”

  “It’s warmer here than at home. We still have snow on the ground.”

  Olivia settled into the passenger seat with her little pots of herb seedlings on her lap. The dill was tall enough to tickle her chin. “I know, Jess. I was just there.”

  “All right, then. Let’s go.” Jess was still obviously unconvinced. “Olivia, are you sure—”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Nothing’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Liv—”

  “It’s just time to make a change, Jess. That’s all.”

  Her sister gripped the steering wheel. “It’s Marilyn Bryson, isn’t it? She’s done something. Flaming narcissist. Never mind. You’ll tell me if you want to. I’m not going to pry.”

  Olivia said nothing, watching out her window as urban sprawl gave way to rolling hills and fields.

  The Farm at Carriage Hill…

  It was perfect, she thought. Just perfect.

  A winding, off-the-beaten track road led from the main highway to Knights Bridge, often cited as one of the prettiest villages in New England. Situated on the edge of the Quabbin Reservoir and its protected watershed, the village had changed little in the past century, at least in appearance. Olivia watched the familiar landmarks pass by: the white church, the brick library, the town hall, the general store, the school, the pristine town common surrounded by classic houses, the oldest built in 1794, the newest in 1912. When her historic house came onto the market in October, the idea of converting it into a getaway had seemed more like a fantasy than a realistic goal. Regardless, she had expected to keep her job and apartment in Boston for the foreseeable future.

  Jess was silent as she turned onto a narrow road just past the village center and navigated a series of potholes as they came to an intersection with an even narrower road. Olivia grimaced at the run-down house on the corner. The whole place had become an eyesore. The house, built in 1842, was in desperate need of repair, its narrow white clapboards peeling, sections missing from its black shutters, its roof sagging. If possible, the yard was worse, overgrown and littered with junk.

  Its one redeeming feature was its location, one of the most beautiful and desirable in Knights Bridge with its sloping lawn, mature shade trees, lilacs, mountain laurel, surrounding fields and woods—and, peeking in the distance, the crystal-clear waters of the Quabbin Reservoir.

  Jess downshifted as she turned onto the quiet one-lane road. They were only two miles from the village center, but it seemed farther. “Mark says the house should be condemned.”

  “At least someone should clear the junk out of the yard. Grace hasn’t seen it, has she? She’d be devastated.”

  “I don’t think she’s been back here since she moved out.”

  Olivia noticed a rusted refrigerator on its side amid brambles, melting snow and brown, wet leaves. Whoever had bought the house two years ago from Grace Webster, a retired English and Latin teacher, hadn’t done a thing to it.

  “How did a refrigerator end up in the yard?” Olivia asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jess said. “Kids, probably. The house has sat empty for two years. There’s a washing machine, too.”

  Indeed there was.

  Olivia had asked her friend Maggie O’Dunn, a local caterer, to find out what she could about the absentee owner. So far, Maggie had discovered only that it was an older gentleman from out west. California, probably. Maggie, however, was sure that her mother, Elly, who worked at the town offices, could produce a name and address.

  “Why would someone from California buy a house in Knights Bridge and then disappear?” Olivia asked.

  Jess shook her head. “No idea.”

  The Websters had moved to Knights Bridge more than seventy years ago, after they were forced out of their home in one of the Swift River Valley towns that was depopulated and flooded for the reservoir. Grace was a teenager then. She never married and lived in her family home alone until a small assisted living facility opened in town and she finally decided to move.

  Olivia pondered the situation as the truck rattled down the road to her own house, a gem set among open fields, stone walls and traditional, well-established landscaping. When the house was built in 1803, the road wound into a pretty valley village, now under water. These days the road led to a Quabbin gate, then through what was now a wilderness and eventually straight into the reservoir itself, a reminder that, as beautiful as it was, it was a product of both man and nature.

  Jess pulled into the gravel driveway. “Do you want to wait for Dad and Mark to get off work, or shall we unload the truck ourselves?”

  “We l
oaded it ourselves. We can unload it. Unless you have something else you need to do—”

  “Nope. I’m all yours for the day.”

  “Thanks, Jess.”

  “No problem. It’ll be great having you back in town.”

  Olivia got out of the truck, herb seedlings cuddled in her arms like little babies. The air was cold, clean, smelling faintly of wet leaves. “Home sweet home,” she whispered, even as she felt a stab of panic at the uncertainty of her future.

  Jess joined her on the driveway. “It’s so quiet here. You’re close to the village, but that way…” She paused and gestured down the road, toward Quabbin. “That way, Liv, it’s nothing but wilderness and water for miles and miles.”

  Olivia smiled. “I know. It’s perfect.”

  “So you say now. Wait until it’s two o’clock on a moonless night, and it’s just you out here with the bats, bears, eagles and mountain lions.”

  “There’s been no confirmed sighting of mountain lions yet in Quabbin.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to be the first to see one,” Jess said with a grin.

  They went inside before unloading the truck. The rustic, homey kitchen, in an ell off the original 1803 structure, was washed in the bright midday light. Her friend Maggie had left a lunch basket and a milk-glass pitcher of forced forsythia on the table, a square, battered piece of junk Olivia had discovered at a yard sale and repaired and painted a warm, cheerful white.

  She felt some of her tension ease. It was almost as if the forsythia were smiling at her. Suddenly she couldn’t wait to get her stuff from Boston into the house and make it feel like home.

  Jess lifted chocolate chip cookies, apples and cloth napkins out of the basket. “Lunch first, or unload the truck first?”

  Olivia opened the refrigerator and found sandwiches and a mason jar of tea. She grinned at her sister. “I’m starving. My question is whether we have the cookies first or the sandwiches first.”

  Jess handed her an index card she found in the basket. “Maggie left you a note.”

  Olivia glanced at her friend’s messy handwriting: Mom came through with info on the owner of Grace Webster’s old house.