Missed Connections (18 page)

Denna's eyes lingered far too fondly on Ryan for Jessie's comfort. She was talking to another woman about a charity sale to be held later in the summer and other things. Jessie listened quietly, fighting to stay awake. None of the women present seemed to be the least bit interested in politics or having a career. Their conversations all focused on the boards of the charities, museums, and arts programs that they sat on. They talked about the Junior League and garden clubs and the social calendar for the summer. None of them seemed to notice that their tired nannies ran behind their screaming children or that their husbands came up only on weekends if at all.

Nobody seemed worried about the civil rights marches or the growing unrest in the country. Endless Lake seemed caught in some type of bubble, a timeless warp that caused it to hover above the mundane. It was as if the minutiae of reality did not exist there—there was only the sun, the water, the sky and the endless soft whisperings of the wind in the high canopy of the trees.

And Ryan.

He was the sour patch in her little slice of this particular heaven. Sighing inwardly, Jessie turned her attention elsewhere. The lifeguard climbed down from her seat and she had to look away. Even from a distance she was beautiful—dark hair cropped close to her head in a sleek little cut, a tall lithe body and a dark brown tan, with burnished gold undertones.

She walked up, twirling her whistle around one slim finger, and Jessie saw Ryan tense. His back went rigid, his knees locked. Before she could wonder what had caused that reaction, Denna's heavily ringed hand came out and stroked along his collarbone, a possessive little touch that made Jessie uncomfortable all over again.

Glittering splashes of light shot from the diamonds on Denna's fingers.  It was obvious she had gained weight over the years; her fingers looked like the rings were squeezing her flesh painfully and the light prisms danced across Jessie's vision.

Cal walked deliberately through that rainbow. It shattered and broke, Denna's hand fell off her son's flesh, and Ryan sank deeper into the cushions on his chair.

"Isn't that Callie Branson? I suppose her mother better give up on her ever marrying a good boy since she spends so much time trying to look like one these days," an arch voice said from one of the chairs ranged along the porch.

Snickers rang out. Jessie's face burned with heat and shame; she was afraid to raise her eyes, afraid to see the young woman who seemed to look right through her and into her heart, into her secret desires. A waiter rushed over to deliver a tall ice-choked glass filled with a clear liquid that Jessie knew was vodka to him and a tall glass of tea to her. It tasted salty, saline-laden. It tasted like tears.

*~*~*

Moonlight rode over the tall two-storied Holloway house. The façade was plain, in keeping with the simpler life that the lake represented and the lawn was a pretty jumble of neatly mowed grass, wild and cultivated flowerbeds and a tall statue of a wood nymph that an ancestor had hauled in from somewhere.

Jessie sat on the ground in front of the house, staring up at it. She hated it, hated its blank and blind windows, its long doors, and covered porch. She could see the golden light beaming from one of the upstairs windows—Ryan's bedroom. Every few moments his shadow would pass across the blinds, throwing a darker caricature of him toward the ground near her feet. She knew he was pacing, angry, drunk, and looking for her.

A whistle sounded, at first Jessie thought it was a bird but when she looked around she saw that was not a bird but Cal, the lifeguard. Jessie scrambled to her feet, brushing the dirt and softly rotting pine leaves from her rounded bottom quickly.

"Are you enjoying your summer?"

Jessie wanted to say yes but the lie stuck in her throat. Ryan's shadow clotted against the window again. "I'm only here for a few more days."

"He's no good, you know."

"I know. I would not have come except..." Jessie could not say it; she held out her hand instead. "I'm Jessie."

"Cal." Cal's voice was a low alto that softened her Down East accent.

The loons screamed and Jessie jumped nervously. "They sound like they're dying," she laughed, but the sound broke at its edges and tears blurred her eyes. Before she could stop them from falling, they were running down her cheeks in two long crystalline trails that ended abruptly at her jaw.

One tear splashed onto the softly faded shirt that covered her rounded breast. Jessie’s eyes widened as she saw Cal’s eyes go to her breast and linger there. Jessie could see that she was, mesmerized by the tiny bead of moisture hanging there, suspended. In that moment, they could see each other clearly, and when the rattle of the window sounded out, they drew back instinctively into the small copse of trees.

Ryan's head stuck out the window and he yelled "Jessie, where the hell are you?" His voice was querulous, laced with anger. Jessie's hands shook and she took a deep breath, squeezing her body tighter against the rough bark of the tree in the hopes he would not see her.

The window slammed shut and she giggled. Cal did not. "He's really sore."

"He has been ever since we got here. I won't sleep with him." She offered the last up in a rush with no idea of why… or maybe every idea.

Cal's eyes were chocolate brown, fringed by lashes thick and dark. Her teeth flashed, a glimpse of bone white, when she answered, "He doesn't take no for an answer too well."

"That's what I'm afraid of." There, she had admitted it. "I wish I had never come at all. I would not have, but the girls in school, they… they… they know about me."

It was all so surreal—the moon and the darkness and the smell of the lake rising into the air. The subtle scent of the pine trees mingling with Cal's cologne and the breeze on Jessie’s bare legs, against her nipples. Those little caps had hardened, tightened until they were almost painful; they chafed against the fabric of her plain white brassiere. She had no idea why she felt so compelled to tell this girl everything when she did not even know her she only knew that she did.

"What do they know?"

Cal's lips were full and pillow-soft. Jessica leaned in to speak but instead her lips met Cal's, touched them gently. Their tongues met, darted away shyly like hummingbirds then came back together, twining, and twisting. A yearning exploded into Jessie, broke through her entire being.

This was what she had been searching for, desperate to have and to know. Cal's hands pressed against her back, walked along the archipelago of her spine. Jessie's breath caught as their breasts mashed together, softness against softness, their bodies fitting together in a way that did not make sense and yet felt so incredibly right.

They broke apart, laughing a bit. The storm moved closer and the moon disappeared behind a bank of dark clouds. The sky changed without warning, going from a translucent indigo black to lightless ebony.

Ryan stalked out of the house; they drew back further into the shelter of the trees and ducked behind a blueberry bush, giggling silently as he passed them. Just as they were about to stand footsteps sounded again and they pressed their bodies back down, their lips meeting in another long kiss.

The smell of the leaves and ripe fruit lingered in Jessie's nose as the footsteps slowly died away. Their mouths and tongues untangled and she whispered, "I think he gave up."

"The storm is about to hit." Cal said. Her face was turned up to the sky and the long arch of her neck looked tender, lovely and Jessie could not help it, she kissed her there in the hollow of her throat, feeling the tiny beat of her pulse against her flesh.

The rain began to fall softly. The trees sheltered them for a few minutes but soon they were drenched. Cal stood and dragged her to her feet, "There's a little cabin out in the woods a bit further. It's Denna's little writing cabin, she fancies herself a poet, you know."

"I was treated to some of her poems as entertainment last night."

They laughed as they dashed through the trees. Decades old leaf fall and fallen tree limbs lay underfoot and by the time they reached the cabin, they were both soaked.

"Denna must have left the light on," Cal said as the door opened under her hand. They paused on the threshold, neither of them really understanding what they were seeing at first until it dawned on them. Cal stiffened and terror flooded her face.

Jessie stood stock-still, revolted and horrified. Cal's strong hand gripped hers and yanked her from the cabin. "Run!" Cal panted.

Jessie ran. She did not need to be told that what she had just seen was a secret, a horrible and dark secret, one that could tear an entire town apart. She sobbed for breath as they ran through the woods with the sounds of pursuit coming from behind them.

It was a mad scramble. Briars tore at their legs and arms, the rain made the trail slick and treacherous, and they fell. They were nearing the clearing when Cal fell again and Jessie stopped to help her up, pulling at her arm and sobbing loudly.

"You bitches!" The venomous words yanked them apart. Jessie made to turn around but there was a terrible and black pain in her head. Her vision went dim and the ground rose up to meet her. The last things she ever knew were the taste of the loamy soil in her mouth, the scent of blood and the pain in her skull. That and the anger that had ignited in her soul at being cheated of her life, of something so sweet while she was still on the very cusp of it all.

"Someone will find out one day," Cal held her hands up in an effort to ward off the blow that knocked her against the earth.

"Not if I can help it," was the reply.

Darkness swarmed at the edges of Cal's vision and she tried to fight it but she could not.

That night the storm rode hard across Endless Lake. It had been building, and it came, slashing rain across the buildings while lightning sent silvered sheets of color across the sky and thunder rumbled so loudly that windows rattled in the houses closest to the water. On the lake, the waves rose and banged against the hulls and sides of small boats, knocking a few loose of their moorings. Black granite rocks tumbled down the hillside and the lights went out and stayed out for most of the day and night, coming back on early the next morning. The residents slept before burned-out fires in cold fireplaces, their faces showing the wear and tear of the storm's passing.

It was two young boys out for an early morning of fishing who found them, two girls who had drowned while out for a late swim, or so it was supposed. To the coroner it looked as if they had been struck by a small craft that had drifted loose:  they both had head wounds, and Callie had lots of fluid in her lungs so she had not died instantly unlike Jessie.

Callie Branson was known and mourned but the other girl was a stranger from away, brought up by that Holloway boy for a fling. Her parents came to retrieve her body, but nobody other than Denna Holloway spoke to them.

Later it was whispered that she was from the South somewhere, and that she had gone out to meet Cal and that the two of them had been having a lover's tryst. Soon after the stories began, the two were spotted on the lake, or beside it, walking across the Holloway's lawn and so on. Most of the locals ignored those stories.

Endless Lake already had its fair share of ghosts.

2013
Endless Lake, Maine

Either the woman sitting across from her on the train was Anne Larkin or she was losing her mind. Marie tried not to stare as she scrutinized the other woman's features—long reddish-gold hair that fell in a cloud of curls, a full mouth that had a droop to it, a mouth that looked impossibly sad and utterly kissable. She had a small mole right above the upper lip and blue eyes that were the same color as a June sky. It had to be Anne; nobody else could have that exact combination of features.

She thought about extending her hand, very casually, and saying in an equally casual manner, "Hello, I'm Marie Owens. I guess we are going to be on this train together for a few hours, we may as well get to know each other."

A snuffling snort and groan from beside her interrupted her musings. The old man in the seat next to hers had fallen asleep almost before the train had left the station, his wizened face gone slack and the tufts of whitish-yellow hair sticking up on his head in almost comical clown-like tufts.

His eyes slid open and all of Marie's amusement faded. There was something so malicious about his glare that a shiver walked down her spine. She averted her eyes quickly, back to the maybe-Anne.

She was reading a book, her long fingers holding her place in the pages. It had to be Anne; Marie had often seen her in that very same pose. Reality crashed in.  Marie had seen Anne all over campus; she was forever walking or reading under trees. She had haunted Marie for years after she had left Auburn University but she likely would not remember her since Marie had never spoken to her, despite finding her incredibly attractive. Marie had been too busy fighting for her identity and had no idea of how to discern whether a girl was straight or not and the last thing she had needed was to chase Anne down only to find that she was not interested.

Besides, Anne had been one of the most beautiful girls Marie had ever seen. Marie would follow behind her, thinking how they were exactly the same height though her own body was rounded out lean with muscle from the softball and soccer that had gotten her a scholarship.

The day that she had woken up, determined to speak to Anne she had come up a day late. Anne was gone, her dorm room empty and her books on sale in the campus bookstore. Marie had been devastated.

The seat rustled beside her and the ripe aroma of cigarettes and alcohol filled her nose. Marie ignored it; she had grown up with a drinking man, and she had gauged the oldster next to her as one the minute she had seen the broken veins along his nose and the trembling in his fingers. He pulled a flask out of his pocket and took a healthy swallow of its contents before stashing back in his hip pocket in a flashy little move that must have impressed the hell out of the ladies a half-century before.