“Why does it mean that?”
“If he didn’t, then he should get his fair share like the rest of us. He should get a say.”
They arrived at the barn. It was large and red, the upper level filled with the hay that got loaded in for winter every August. They hadn’t canceled the order for this winter, since they didn’t know what was going to happen with camp. The barn was ten years past when it needed a coat of paint, but it had been built a hundred years ago of solid post and beams. Everything else would fall down around them before it would go anywhere. Unless everything on the property was bulldozed for condos. Though maybe they’d keep the barn for authenticity’s sake. They could hold weddings there or old-timey gatherings that used dried grass for table decoration.
“But then we’d still have a fight about what to do with the place,” Mary said. “Is that what you want? A fight?”
“I only want what’s fair.”
She wrapped Cinnamon’s reins around the hitching post. She didn’t want Kate to come inside with her. Kate was allergic to horses, and though it wasn’t her fault, she found the way Kate was constantly sneezing and apologizing annoying.
“If you’re looking for fairness, you’re looking in the wrong place.”
“Probably.” Kate scanned the barn and up to the paddocks behind it. “Did you ever wish you could see what this place would look like if we had enough money to do it right?”
“No.”
“That’s pretty definitive.”
“It’s fine the way it is.”
“It’s falling apart.”
Mary glanced at her sister, trying to figure her out. Kate was pretty, like all of them, and nondescript, which was like all of them but Margaux. Put her in some different clothes, and she could pass for one of the counselors still. She’d been the last of them to leave camp, and then only because their parents had made it clear they weren’t going to let her take over while they were still around.
“It’s always been like this,” Mary said.
“But it could be so much better.”
“So that’s your vote? Keep it and spruce it up? With what money?”
“We could sell off Secret Beach. That would still leave us with a hundred and fifty acres—plenty of room. And then we could invest the proceeds into getting this place up to standards, which would allow us to charge more and make a profit. For everyone.”
“It wouldn’t be the same if we did that.”
“It would be better.”
Mary patted Cinnamon’s head, as much for her own comfort as for the horse’s. “You’ve never gotten this place, have you?”
“Of course I have. I love it here.”
“You love what you think it could be. But ask anyone else. Ask the staff who are coming on Sunday for the memorial, the lifers, whether they want the kind of changes you’re talking about. I’ll bet you a million dollars they’ll tell you to leave well enough alone.”
“If you had a million dollars.”
Mary smiled. “That’s right.”
“So we’ll just sell it? No way those guys want that either.”
“True. But it’s not their decision to make, is it?”
Kate looked downcast. Mary knew she should feel bad about this, but she couldn’t muster up the necessary emotion. She felt like throwing herself on Cinnamon’s back and returning to her own stables, where everything was arranged exactly the way she wanted it to be. But she couldn’t gallop away from her family, not right now, maybe not ever.
“It shouldn’t be ours either,” Kate said.
“Probably not.”
“Did you know Ryan was there that night?”
“Where? The Island?”
“Yes. He confirmed it to me just now.”
Mary was both surprised and not. It would explain the reason for the police’s interest in him all those years ago. When she’d asked her parents about it then, she was told to stay out of it, that it didn’t concern her. And then, when the investigation had closed, it had seemed beside the point. She’d let it go, and she’d thought everyone else had also.
“I didn’t, no.”
“Well, he was. So he could’ve done it. Dad might be right.”
“There were a lot of people on the Island that night, Kate.” Mary didn’t wait for her to reply, she just unlooped Cinnamon’s reins and walked into the cool of the barn.
Amanda
July 22, 1998—11:30 p.m.
This time, I was the one who did the surprising.
I watched as Ryan rowed slowly to shore, looking over his shoulder to make sure he hit the sweet spot between the rocks. I was perched on another rock, crouched down, hoping my toes wouldn’t cramp as they often did when I was in this kind of position. It happened to me when I went windsurfing: horrible cramps that left me clutching my toes, trying to tread water, hoping not to drown. Ryan had rescued me in the crash boat and told me I looked cute almost drowned.
I couldn’t believe he’d actually showed. My heart thudded in my chest, my breath a thread. Ryan was here. Ryan was here for me. What did that mean? Was this where it was finally going to happen? On a rocky beach with him having to put a hand over my mouth to muffle the sound of . . . what? Oh my God. I’d been reading too many romance novels. He wasn’t going to ravish me on the rocks. Maybe he’d kiss me or put his hand under my shirt. Or maybe he’d be one of those guys who expected me to give him a blow job, pushing the top of my head down instead of asking for what he wanted.
The only guy I’d ever kissed had been like that. As if the fact that I let him put his tongue in my mouth meant I wanted to take his penis in my mouth as well. He’d gotten kind of aggressive about it when I’d said no, and then—
I stopped myself. I was always doing that. Dredging up the past instead of living in the moment. Why was I even thinking of that idiot in the first place? Oh yes. Ryan!
He was almost to the rocks, stabbing the oars into the water to keep himself from hitting the shore too hard. I heard him swear as one of the oars fell out of its slot and splashed into the water.
“I got it,” I said, and Ryan jumped.
“Amanda?”
“Were you expecting someone else?”
“No, I . . . It’s getting away.”
I walked into the warm water, my Tevas slipping on the rocks, the edges of my cargo pants soaking up the water. I reached out and grabbed the oar by the neck; it was slippery, and chipped. A piece of it caught in the webbing between my thumb and forefinger.
“Shit.”
“You okay?”
“I got a splinter.”
“Help me bring the boat up, and I’ll take a look.”
I sucked at my hand and put the oar on the ground. Then I turned and grabbed the prow. Ryan was on the other side, a foot away, and close enough for me to smell his sweat and the lake on his hands.
“Ready? And one, two, up!”
We lifted the boat together. It was heavy, and when I looked, I could see that the back had filled with water. Mr. MacAllister talked about fixing this rowboat every year but never did. We carried it two feet up the beach so it was safe, then laid it on the ground. Ryan grabbed some larger rocks and shoved them under the prow so it could drain. Then he pulled the plug out of the bunghole, and the water started to whoosh out.
“I should let this thing sink,” he said.
“How would you get back?”
“Good point.”
He took the bow rope and tied it with a bowline to a tree, securing it tightly. “My dad is such a fucking cheapskate.”
“Mr. MacAllister is?”
“Haven’t you noticed? How everything is falling down around us?”
“I love camp just the way it is.”
He grinned. “Yeah, truth be told, I kinda do too. Don’t tell Margaux.”
Did he mean
about the fact that he loved camp or that he was here with me? Better not to ask. I nodded instead. “It’ll be our secret.”
“Exactly.” He patted his pocket. “Just like this.”
He pulled out a flask of something.
“What is that?”
“Jack Daniel’s. Have you had it before?”
“Someone gave my dad some once.”
Dad had called it “hillbilly whiskey,” but I didn’t think Ryan would appreciate that. Besides, my dad was a snob about most things.
“It’s strong,” I added.
“That’s the idea.”
He twisted the cap off and handed it to me. I took a small sip. It tasted awful, like cough medicine.
I handed it back. “I shouldn’t drink much. The kids.”
He took a long pull. “Sure, the kids.”
“Who’s looking after your cabin?”
“Ty.”
Ty was his best friend.
“So he knows you’re here.”
“He does.”
“With me?”
Ryan gave me a slow smile. “With someone.”
My stomach clenched. Did I want him telling Ty that we were hooking up? Probably not. But did the fact that he didn’t say who he was meeting mean he was playing with me? Did I care? At least then, if things didn’t work out, I wouldn’t have anything to hide. But now Margaux knew and Ty knew (if he knew Ryan was on the Island, he knew it wasn’t to hang out with Margaux or Mary), which meant that by the time we sat down to breakfast tomorrow, everyone would know . . . what?
“You going to come closer?” Ryan asked as he sat down on the rock I was perched on before.
I sat down next to him. The rock was cool and rough, but the side of my body that was touching Ryan’s felt like I had a sunburn. Ryan looked at my hands, twisting between my knees. He reached out and took one of them. He had a row of multicolored bracelets on his wrist—the kind girls weave in Craft Shop from embroidery thread—that I’d never noticed before. But I knew what they were. Conquest bracelets, a rainbow of all the girls he’d been with before me.
What color would I be?
I looked up. He was smiling at me, his teeth white in the night.
“I want to kiss you,” he said.
And then he did.
Amanda
Margaux
Ryan
Mary
Kate & Liddie
Sean
9:00 p.m.
Lantern ceremony
Lantern ceremony
Lantern ceremony
10:00 p.m.
On the Island
On the Island
On the Island
Crash boat
11:00 p.m.
Back Beach
Back Beach
On the Island
6:00 a.m.
Secret Beach
Secret Beach
CHAPTER 15
ANGER MANAGEMENT ISSUES
Margaux
After Swift left, Margaux wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself. She went back to the French Teacher’s Cabin, and when she saw the time and the phone, she decided to call Mark again. He answered this time but sounded annoyed. Margaux wasn’t in the mood to placate him, so she let him know she was okay, then said a hurried goodbye. She went out onto the deck overlooking the lake and tried to read the book she’d brought with her, but she couldn’t sit still. She’d never been able to do that well, just sit, always feeling as if she needed to be doing something, to be useful. Liddie could lie around in bed all day. She’d always been envious of that ability.
After ten pages she didn’t absorb, she put on her running things. She had a long run to do this weekend; might as well get it over with. She filled her water bottle from the tap in the sink, her face curdling at the odor of rotten eggs. The water was perfectly good to drink, but it smelled like Hades.
As Margaux jogged up the road, she wondered what the property was actually worth. They’d all said, her whole life it seemed, that her parents were sitting on a gold mine, that if only the trust didn’t exist, they could sell it and live like kings. But what if that wasn’t true? Sterling Lake wasn’t that popular a destination. It was small compared to Lake Champlain or Memphremagog, both of which straddled the US-Canadian border and therefore had two countries clamoring for lakefront. And the boat restrictions meant that only small motorboats and party boats were allowed. The lake was nine miles long and two miles wide, and much of it was relatively unoccupied. Perhaps that was because of the two other camps on it, the ones they’d, oddly, never had much to do with. But it might also have been because it was that much farther off the beaten path, that much longer from the highway. That much less desirable.
Wouldn’t it be funny, hilarious in a way, if regardless of what they decided, they were stuck with camp after all?
She reached the road and checked her pace. For these longer runs, she liked to stick to a ten-minute mile, walking for thirty seconds in between in order to drink some water and stretch out her bad knee. She never used to think about her knees, pushing through injuries and warning signs, because running was her salvation. Ever since she’d joined the cross-country team in high school, it was the way she got herself right when she had things to work out in her head. But in this last year, there’d been physical therapy and discussions about surgery and long stretches when Margaux couldn’t run. Those had been torture, sitting in the PT’s office, hooked up to enough machines to make her feel like if the wrong switch was flipped, she’d end up some kind of mutant. What would her life be like, she wondered, if she couldn’t run at all?
She pushed that thought aside, then turned right onto the highway, toward Mary’s farm, knowing this stretch of road would be less occupied by cars. She’d almost been driven off the road the last time she’d gone running out here, an experience she didn’t want to repeat.
Her cadence was steady now, her brain on autopilot. Three miles passed without a thought to cloud her mind. Her watch beeped to remind her to stop and walk. As she took a swig of stinky water, she noticed that there was someone there, running like her. Running too much like her. Liddie.
She picked up her pace and caught up to her in a few easy minutes.
“Boo.”
Liddie leaped and darted to the side, almost tumbling into the ditch. She ripped her headphones from her ears.
“Margaux. Shit.” She leaned over her knees, rubbing down her right leg. “Damn. I think I turned my ankle.”
“I didn’t see your headphones. I thought you must’ve heard me.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
Liddie sat down in the grass. She was wearing long surf shorts and a basketball singlet, and her socks were those cheap, ribbed white ones boys wore in high school gym. Did she own any clothes made for women? Margaux knew she wasn’t supposed to ask such questions these days or think such thoughts, not unless Liddie brought it up, but she wished her sister could confide in her. Margaux wouldn’t judge, but she was sick of all the things that were hidden in her family.
“Are you okay?”
Liddie pulled off her sock and wiggled her ankle. She winced, but it didn’t look like it was swelling.
“It hurts.”
“Sorry.”
“Run’s over for today, that’s for sure. Dammit. How are we supposed to get back?” Liddie pulled her iPhone out of
her pocket. “No goddamn bars.”
Margaux looked around. There was a run-down building up the road.
“Twilight.”
“What?” Liddie turned her head. “Oh, man, that place?”
“Doesn’t look like we have many options.”
“I guess.”
“Here, I’ll help you.”
She held out her hand. Liddie stuck her sock back on and shoved her foot into her shoe like a slipper. She took Margaux’s hand and stood.
“Can you put weight on it?”
“I think so. But: ouch.”
“Lean on me.”
Liddie put her arm around Margaux’s shoulder, and Margaux put hers around Liddie’s waist. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d been this close, maybe never, though surely as children they’d at least tumbled around the grass together. Margaux couldn’t help but notice that Liddie even smelled a bit like a man; was that the same shampoo Mark used?
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
They hobbled down the road like contestants in a three-legged race till they got to the Twilight’s parking lot.
“I count eight cars,” Liddie said. “And my guess is no men at the bar.”
This was a game they’d played when they were staff. Twilight was rumored to be the local whorehouse. The cars outside never matched the number of patrons at the bar.
“I say one man at the bar.”
“One tall beer?”
“Deal.”
They hobbled in. The bar was empty of men. There was a ragged-looking woman standing behind the counter and two others in their midforties sitting on barstools wearing men’s work shirts and heels and nothing else.
“Looks like the beer’s on you,” Liddie said.
“Looks like.”
She led Liddie to a table and went up to the bar. The bartender wasn’t anyone she knew; it had been years since she’d been a regular patron. The staff used to come there some nights after the kids were in bed—downstairs only, if you please. Her name tag said her name was France.
“Can I use your phone?”
I'll Never Tell Page 9
