Summer at Willow Lake (26 page)

“Not at all.” He led the way to the kitchen and hastened to turn off the radio. “Glad for the company.” He bustled around, clearing piles of mail and clipped coupons off the table.

As she watched him, her expression turned thoughtful and, Connor suspected, relieved. He didn’t blame her. The Terry Davis of the past had been, in the eyes of the world, a hopeless drunk. Except to Connor. Even as a kid, Connor had refused to give up hope. He had gotten his heart broken countless times because of it, but he was his father’s only kin. Out of foolish loyalty or desperation or maybe unwavering filial love, he persisted in believing his father could recover. He had believed it so fiercely that when it came to making a choice between his father and Lolly, he had chosen his dad without hesitation, on a summer night nine years ago, a night that was burned forever into Connor’s memory.

“I’m happy to see you again,” Olivia said politely. “You probably don’t remember me. Everyone used to call me Lolly.”

“Now, there’s a name I remember,” Terry assured her. “You were that cute, chubby one Connor used to run around with.”

Connor stifled a groan. Drunk or sober, his father had never balked at saying exactly what was on his mind. “Dad—”

Olivia’s smile didn’t falter. “I don’t know about cute, but I was definitely the chubby one.”

“Lost your baby fat, I see.”

“Dad.”

“How about a soda?” Terry asked her.

“I’d love one. Thanks.” She didn’t seem the least insulted by his candor as she graciously accepted a blue bottle of Saratoga Springs water and had a seat at the round table.

“So here you are, all grown-up,” Terry said. “Been what, ten years?”

“Nine.”

“Man. Connor sure was crazy about you. Still single?”

“Dad, for chrissake—”

Terry waved him silent. “All right, all right, I’m sure you didn’t come here to get teased about your old girlfriend.”

“It’s fine,” Olivia assured him. “Really. I don’t mind hearing that Connor was crazy about me, although that’s not quite the way I remember it.”

Bringing her here was a bad idea, Connor thought. Why the hell had he brought her here?

Terry chuckled. “He’s had other girlfriends since you, but none of them lasted.”

“Neither did I,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, but that was because—”

“Hey, Dad.” Ready to change the subject, Connor said, “Olivia found this old photograph. We were wondering if you could tell us anything about it.”

Olivia handed over the yellowed snapshot. “It was developed in August 1977. The guy in the picture is my father.”

When Connor’s father saw the photograph, his face changed. He went from mild and congenial to tense and agitated. He quickly handed the print back to Olivia. “That’s a picture of Mariska Majesky,” he said. “She’s Helen and Leo’s daughter. She’s been gone twenty years, maybe thirty.”

“You mean she passed away?”

“I mean she’s gone. Took off one day and no one ever saw her again. She was always the restless type,” he added. “Had a habit of taking off for a while, but she always came back to see her kid. Up until that last time, I guess. Mariska up and left, and no one ever saw her again.”

“She had a kid.” Connor looked at Olivia and they both had the same thought.
Jenny.

“Was she married?” Olivia asked, her voice unsteady. “Or…involved?”

“I reckon you should talk to your father, ma’am,” Terry said.

As she left the small, cluttered apartment, Olivia felt as though something had been sucked out of her. She must’ve looked that way, too, because Connor put one hand at the small of her back to steady her. She wasn’t sure how he had come by this latent sense of chivalry, but he was careful with her in a way no other man had ever been.

“I keep thinking there must be a zillion explanations,” she said to him, “but they’re all just excuses.”

“We could still be drawing the wrong conclusion,” Connor cautioned. “Maybe there’s no mystery at all about who Jenny’s father is.”

“Your dad knows,” Olivia insisted. “You saw his face. He just didn’t want to say.” She’d hoped it was some local guy—anyone but Philip Bellamy—but based on Terry Davis’s discomfiture and his insistence that she talk to her father, her certainty was hardening fast. She stopped walking and held the photograph in front of Connor. “Take a good look. See my dad’s chin?” She pointed out the Cary Grant–style dimple. “Jenny has that, but her mother doesn’t.”

He smiled. “It’s not exactly unique.”

“It’s a recessive trait, like blue eyes. According to the laws of genetics, a person with a cleft chin always has at least one parent with one.”

“You won’t know anything for sure until you ask your father about her,” Connor said, digging his keys out of his pocket.

Olivia couldn’t forget the way Terry Davis had avoided her eyes. She looked around the parking lot, at the world that hadn’t changed one iota in the past few minutes. It was an illusion, though. A fundamental shift had occurred. The earth had slipped its bonds and was slowly spinning off course. “I don’t really need to ask. I know. The laws of genetics aside, you can see by the way he looks in this picture that he was with this…Mariska when he was engaged to my mother. God, maybe even after he married my mother. And Jenny Majesky is…”

She wobbled a bit, and Connor helped her into the truck. She felt like the victim of a violent accident as she spoke her next thought aloud. “I have a sister.” A sister. A sister. The word reverberated through her on a wave of disbelief.

“This is all speculation.”

“We both know it’ll be confirmed.”

“And what if it is? Would that be such a bad thing, having a half sister?”

“God, no. The bad part is that we grew up not knowing each other.”
I have a sister.
She wondered what her life would have been like, had she known Jenny through the years. Someone to share secrets and jokes, to give her advice or quarrel with her. Maybe Olivia’s childhood wouldn’t have been so lonely. Maybe she would have had more self-confidence.

“What do I do now?” she wondered aloud. “Is it possible Jenny doesn’t know who her father is? I can’t just walk up to her and ask.”

“Call your father,” Connor suggested. “Ask him yourself.”

“I can’t do it by phone. I need to talk to him in person. I need to see his face.”

Connor nodded. “You’re right.” He turned on his signal and headed up the river road. “What time do you want to leave?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Tomorrow,” he said. “For the city. I think we should leave by seven in the morning. Can you be ready that early?”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Taking you to see your father.”

Olivia was incredulous. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I’m a good guy. Always have been, which is something we haven’t really talked about yet.”

“Wait a minute. You’re taking me to the city?”

“First thing in the morning. This secret’s been kept for a long time. It can keep one more night.”

“Just like that? We’re going to drop everything and go to the city?”

He balanced his wrists casually atop the steering wheel. “That’s the beauty of being self-employed. We get to drop everything if we want to.”

“But you don’t have to drive me. I could always take the train.”

“Not this time.”

Her heart lifted. She didn’t know why he was offering this kindness. She was almost afraid to trust it. “It’s a three-hour drive.”

“You don’t think we can find something to talk about for three hours?” Though he kept his eyes on the road straight ahead, he grinned. “I think we’ve got plenty to talk about, Lolly.”

CAMP KIOGA TRADITIONS

Camp Kioga serves young people, ages eight to sixteen. One of the most important Kioga traditions is continuity. Campers of good character are invited to serve as counselors as soon as they earn their high-school diploma and are certified in lifesaving and water-safety techniques.

Nineteen

Summer 1997

F
ollowing high school graduation, Lolly had mixed feelings about returning to Camp Kioga to be a counselor, but as a Bellamy, she didn’t have much choice. It was a family tradition that all Bellamys served as camp counselors, and Lolly was no exception.

And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. After the summer she was twelve, she had learned to hate camp just a little less. The reason for this could be summed up in two words: Connor Davis. What took root and grew that first summer was an unexpected friendship, and for the next two summers, the friendship flourished. Even though she thought he was rude and he said she was a prissy know-it-all, somehow they just clicked.

When she was with him, hiking or kayaking or serving on breakfast duty or facing off over a rainy-day game of Scrabble, she was content in the moment. With Connor, she didn’t have to be a certain way. He didn’t expect her to have good grades or important friends or prizes for piano and art. He didn’t expect her to act like the class clown. She just acted like herself. Just Lolly.

Subsequent summers—following seventh and then eighth grades—were no exception. Even though she and Connor might circle each other warily and trade insults back and forth, their taunting was built on a bedrock foundation of something mutual and unexpected—respect and friendship.

There was no obvious reason that they should be friends. He was this giant boy, an athlete, with a difficult mother and stepfather in a working-class life in Buffalo, and a father who kept breaking his heart, year in and year out. She was an unhappy girl with too much riding on her shoulders. In other words, a total mismatch. Except they clicked. From the first day they’d met at the age of twelve, and learned too much about each other, they had shared a quirky friendship.

Each summer, they would meet again and pick up where they had left off, as though they had never been apart. Then it would be a long season of kitchen raids at midnight, dumb but hilarious pranks played on counselors or other campers. They would team up for anything requiring skill and brains because he always had the skill and she had the brains.

Eventually, they told each other even more secrets. Connor confessed his shame over his father’s drinking and his unrequited crush on Evelyn Waller. Lolly admitted her favorite subject in school was fiber arts and that she was obsessed with her idol, Martha Stewart. He challenged her to be better, braver and more confident than she was, and he supported her when she was down. He treated her like an equal. Like one of the guys. She liked that because it was a way to get close to him without the awkward boy-girl tension.

Each Labor Day, Connor returned to Buffalo and she to New York, and they didn’t speak or see each other between summers. Sometimes she would think about writing him a letter but she never had anything to say:
Dear Connor. My life sucks.
Who wanted to read that?

She supposed she could make stuff up. Some of the girls she knew at school did that. But she couldn’t imagine how making up stories about her fabulous life would make it suck less.

Then, without warning or explanation, the friendship ended. The summer following ninth grade, Lolly arrived at camp expecting to meet Connor again, but he never showed up. When she screwed up enough courage to ask his father about him, Mr. Davis would say only, “My boy’s got a job in Buffalo this summer. He won’t be coming.”

When Lolly finished tenth grade, her mother thought it was time for her to see the world, and took her to visit the capitals of Europe. Not to be out-done, her father claimed the entire summer after eleventh grade, whisking her off on a Mediterranean cruise.

It all sounded fantastic. It should have been fantastic. Yet the pressure robbed something from the experience. Her parents expected everything of her—perfect grades, perfect test scores, prizes at music competitions and science fairs. “I just want you to get into a good college,” her mother maintained, though she never explained why. As far as Lolly could tell, going to Yale and marrying a Yale man had brought Pamela Lightsey no joy, just a lot of money and a divorce. It made Lolly wonder why her mother insisted getting into the perfect college was the key to some magical kingdom.

Now she was done with high school and had been accepted to Columbia, which she hoped would fulfill her obligation to be her parents’ trophy daughter. This was to be the last summer of her childhood, and she had come back to Camp Kioga.

She considered staying away, knowing her grandparents would understand. Then a phone call from Nana made up Lolly’s mind for her. “Connor Davis will be working at Camp Kioga this summer,” Nana had said. “I thought you’d like to know.”

“This year, things are going to be totally different,” declared Dare Yates, Lolly’s closest cousin.

“No shit, Sherlock,” said Frankie, who was Dare’s sister, older by a year. “We get to be in charge.”

“I just hope being a counselor is as good as it looked when we were kids,” Lolly said, walking out on the porch of their bungalow to shake the mud from her hiking boots.

Frankie looked around the cottage the three of them would be sharing for the summer. “This is nice,” she said. “Why is it so nice in here?”

“You can thank Lolly for that,” Dare said. “She got here a day early and fixed up our cabin.”

Lolly was pleased that her cousins had noticed. It had taken so little to make their army-barracks-plain cabin more pleasant. She’d raided the camp’s storage sheds and trunks, reclaiming treasures from summers past. She’d covered the bunks with colorful tartan blankets, added a braided rug, some old Adirondack twig chairs and a rustic table. Nana had encouraged her to help herself to left-behind crafts projects—a birch-bark sign with Kioga spelled out in twigs, some lanterns with parchment panes, even a handwoven doormat. Jars of wildflowers brightened the windowsills.

“It’s great, Lolly,” Frankie called through the screen door. “I think you have a flair for this.”

“That’s me,” Lolly said. “The girl with the flair.”

She and her cousins were in charge of the youngest group of campers—the Fledglings. The little girls had arrived the day before, and had survived the first night with just a few tears and no hysteria. Lolly loved the way the girls giggled and shrieked when they were having fun. She even liked bandaging their hurts and comforting them when they were afraid—and for some of these kids, she suspected, that was going to be every night. She thought particularly of little Ramona Fisher, who had cowered in her bunk last night like a bivouacked soldier under fire.