A Slender Thread (27 page)

M
argot hailed a cab, gave the driver her address, and collapsed onto the backseat. Her heart pounded as the taxi bumped and lurched out of midtown. When the driver reached West Seventy-Second Street she asked him to let her out at the edge of Riverside Park, hoping that walking the rest of the way home would help to clear her head. Neither the soft, freshly green leaf canopy of the trees nor the gentle evening light mangaged to soothe her. She navigated her way north, dodging baby strollers pushed by nannies, dogs pulling ahead of their owners, clots of teenagers plugged into electronic devices. The sounds of children echoed up from the playground below.

The ringing of her cell phone startled her. For a second she feared it was Alex, calling to apologize. Or worse, to say more.

It was Oliver. “You have to come here right now.”

“What?”

“The shipper is coming tomorrow morning.”

“To take your paintings?”

“I need you to help me decide.”

Margot caught her heel on the cobbled path and lunged forward, but managed to regain her balance without falling. At first confused, she felt her anger grow. “Decide? What are you talking about?”

“Mags, the Croft chose twelve paintings and they told me they'd pay the shipping for an additional three. I want you to help me choose. You've got the eye.”

“Right now?”

“Grab a cab. We'll get dinner after.”

Margot was furious. Oliver had been working full tilt for the past month, barely home at all, and now she was supposed to come at his beck and call.

“I really need you, Mags,” he said. “And I want you to see the work.”

Need,
she thought.
Now
he
needs me
. Alex had needed to talk because only she could understand. And now Oliver. What
she
needed right now was to be left alone. She slowed her steps. Alone. Did she truly want that? She pushed aside the image of Alex's anguished face and saw Oliver—energized, driven, wanting to capture in art what no one else ever had. Some days Oliver stayed lost inside himself, unable to surface into the real world. Once, she had awakened in the night and he had held her close, whispering reassurances that only she could get him through, that without her, nothing would matter. She looked once more at her hand, the hand Alex had taken in his. “I'm on my way,” she said.

Margot found a taxi on West End Avenue. The driver began the slow, lurching journey downtown. Thanks to Alex, the memories she'd stowed carefully away like the old photographs in her box of mementos had surfaced in sharp focus.

She and Alex had both gone to Bow Lake by themselves the summer before her sophomore year in college. Margot had volunteered to close the cottage for her grandmother. It was after Labor Day. Alex had come to do some final chores for his parents before leaving for his first year of business school.

The lake was quiet. Most summer residents had departed. The hum of motorboat engines no longer filled the air, voices ceased to echo across the lake, and gone were the creaking and banging of porch doors with the revolving arrival and departure of visiting family and friends. That night only the sound of a loon carried across the water, breaking the silence like a lament.

“Anybody home?” Alex had called through the trees.

“On the porch,” Margot replied, immediately recognizing his voice. She listened to the soft approach of his footsteps on the pine-covered path that connected the two camps through the woods. She had arrived that afternoon but had not yet mustered the energy to tackle the chores on her grandmother's checklist: emptying the flowerpots into the compost heap, draining the hoses, bringing the porch furniture into the living room, dragging the canoe under the porch, stripping the beds, doing the final wash, and stowing the linens and pillows in the cedar chests, out of the way of the hungry critters that somehow always found a way to make themselves a home in the cottage for the winter. Margot knew the routine. She had helped her grandmother do it for years.

Alex opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. “No electricity?” he asked, as though he had seen Margot only the other day. As they had grown older, Margot, Lacey, and Alex had spent less time at Bow Lake, but the old cottages in New Hampshire always remained part of their lives—a special place to which they returned periodically, like migratory birds.

“Too lazy to get up and turn on the lights,” she said. “I kind of like sitting in the dark.” She stood and they hugged briefly, the way they usually did, though being alone with Alex at the lake seemed strange to her, as if they were both playing hooky or had been caught somewhere they weren't supposed to be. Lacey and all their other friends were already at their jobs or back in school.

“How've you been?” he asked, joining her on the wicker settee.

“Wishing I'd spent more time here. I worked at a frame shop in Concord this summer.”

“Lacey told me.”

“She said she saw you in Boston earlier in the summer.” Margot knew that Alex was starting at Harvard Business School in the fall and that he had spent his summer working at his father's company in New Hampshire.

“Yeah. I went into the city to look for an apartment.” He shifted his position. The wicker creaked. “She showed me around her neighborhood. I ended up getting a place with two other guys closer to school.”

Margot couldn't see his face, but his body seemed to give off a kind of energy. Summer after summer they had swum to the raft, raced the canoes, hiked the trails in the woods. Though still tall and lanky, he seemed more solid now, more like a man. Over the summer she'd gone out with a few of the guys she'd known in high school. Compared to Alex, they seemed like boys.

She smoothed her hair back, relieved that it was dark. “Well, you'll probably get to see more of Lacey,” she said, wondering if there was anything between Alex and Lacey now, or if their summer flirtations were a thing of the past.

“Sure. Maybe. I'm going to be pretty busy with business school. They say the first semester is brutal. Is she coming up this weekend?”

Margot realized Alex couldn't have talked to Lacey recently. “She's on a retreat with some of the faculty from her school. She starts teaching next week.”

“Too bad. This is my favorite time here,” he said, turning toward her as if to share something more.

“Mine, too. I've missed this place.” Margot leaned forward and rested her arms on her legs. “Bow Lake feels like an escape. Now more than ever.”

“Margot, I know you've had a rough spring. Lacey told me how sick your mom was at the end.”

Margot could picture her sister, strong even when their mother went into the hospital with her liver barely functioning, and after her death, remaining kind and generous, being a help to their father. Lacey would have had the composure to tell Alex what they had been through, recounting the events in the calm voice of a real grown-up. Margot had either raged at the injustice of barely ever having had a mother or remained curled up on her bed during the final quarter of her freshman year, eventually flunking two of her four classes. It had been Lacey who called the dean and arranged for Margot to take incompletes, allowing her the summer to make up the work.

Alex had come to their mother's funeral. He'd worn a navy blazer, and a recent haircut had made him look boyish and vulnerable. At the end of the service, he hugged Lacey outside the church, and he hugged Margot, too. It was a windy day. His blazer had felt cool to her touch.

There was a reception at their house in Concord after the service. The living room was filled with neighbors, some of her father's friends from work, and a few of the cousins from South Carolina, one of whom monopolized Margot in the dining room. Lacey passed trays of sandwiches while her father remained by the door greeting their guests. Margot kept watching for Alex, thinking how seeing him made her feel better.

Now at the lake, sitting on the porch with him months later, she found it easy to talk. “I wasn't that sad when Mom died. Part of me was relieved. How shitty is that? Now I don't know if it's guilt or what, but some days I just start crying for no reason.”

“I'm really sorry.” Alex reached over and placed his hand on her back. “It's going to get better. You've got college ahead, your friends, and . . .”

“It's like I can't move,” she said. “I got here this afternoon, and all I've done is look out at the lake, like maybe I can just stop time if I stay totally still.”

Alex shifted closer to her and took her hand. His hair was thicker now and coarser than she remembered, curling slightly where it met his collar. Being in the near dark gave her courage, and without a second thought she sat back and leaned against him. The sleeve of his flannel shirt was soft on her cheek. “I'm kind of a mess these days,” she said.

“Hey, it's okay,” he said, putting his arm around her. “Really.”

Margot felt the warmth of his breath in her hair. They sat quietly for a while. Never-forgotten images of past summers rose in her mind: his tanned legs, the length of his back as he climbed onto the raft, the fine blond hairs on his hands.

“I'm glad you're here,” she said, turning her face toward him.

Alex brought his hand to her face. His fingers traveled across her forehead, down the length of her nose, touching her lips and chin, pausing at her neck. She imagined he was feeling her profile as if to compare it with Lacey's. She and Lacey had the same nose, the same chin, and in the dark he might think she was Lacey, maybe the Lacey she had seen him flirting with over the years.

She sat very still. Yes. In the dark, she could be Lacey. She could be the Lacey who teased the skinny boy next door, who joked with him, who coaxed him onto the sailboat in a stiff breeze, who hiked ahead of him on the trail to Boulder Mountain. Lacey, the capable one, the leader, the girl who made Alex laugh, the girl who made him come alive. Had he ever made love with her sister?

The wicker settee squeaked again. Margot raised her face to his. She wasn't so different from Lacey. They shared the same history and the same love of this place. She put her arms around him and kissed him first.

He returned the kiss, then pulled back.

“Is this okay?” She touched his lips.

“I didn't expect . . .” He covered her hand with his. “We've hardly seen each other this year.”

“Does that matter?”

“I'm surprised, that's all.”

“I want to be with you.” A voice she didn't know she had poured into the dark. “I've thought of you so much.” She kissed him deeply this time. He said nothing, but kissed her back, bringing his hand to her waist.

“You've been through a lot this year.” He touched her face.

“Let's not talk.” Margot kissed him again. Suddenly nothing mattered anymore to her except to be held and loved by Alex. Whether her need rose from loneliness, simple longing, or something more, she wanted him.

The wind brushed through the trees high above them. He smelled like the pine woods around the lake. His body felt warm and familiar to her, as if she had always known it.

“We'll always be friends?” she asked.

“You know that,” he said.

“It's my first time,” she said, standing up and pulling him with her.

He hesitated. “You're sure?”

“Please.” She kissed him. “I want it to be you.” She led him inside to her old room.

The following morning Margot awoke with the light. Alex had left her asleep sometime during the night. He had covered her with a blanket, though it hadn't been cold.

Throughout the morning, as Margot went about her chores, she heard from his cottage the sounds of a ladder being moved, a car engine starting, a screen door slamming. Maybe he was cleaning gutters or putting on a coat of paint to touch up the camp before winter.

Margot went down to the water for a swim before lunch. Alex didn't appear. She closed her eyes and dozed on the dock, replaying the feeling of his hands, the scent of his skin, and the warmth of his body. No matter what happened, she was glad they had been together.

She spent the afternoon packing the staples in the kitchen into boxes to bring home and then started on the laundry. Eventually the memory of the previous night began to fill her with doubts. Why hadn't he come over to visit and acknowledge what had happened? Did he regret their night together? She had come on to him. Maybe he was wishing she had been Lacey.

Before losing her courage entirely, she took the path to the Georges' cottage. Alex was seated on the porch sipping a beer. “Margot,” he said, coming awkwardly to his feet.

“Are you sorry about what happened?” she blurted out.

“No. God. I should have come over sooner.” He looked away from her, out at the water.

“You can't just walk away.”

“Sorry. I've been thinking and . . .”

“Alex?” She said his name as a question, afraid of what exactly to ask.

“I don't know, Margot.”

“What don't you know?”

“I didn't come over because I didn't know what to say. I know that's no excuse.”

“Just be with me. That's all I want.”

“I'm just not sure if this is what you need right now.”

“I can be the judge of that,” she said, studying his expression carefully. “Unless maybe you just felt sorry for me.”

“That's not it at all.” He stood, moved toward her, then stopped. “I was only thinking that this is kind of sudden.”