Summer at Willow Lake (29 page)

Even though a few years had passed, Connor still felt as if he could talk to her. When they were younger, he found her bossy and annoying, but he quickly learned that her bossiness was a front. Underneath, she had a good heart and a great sense of humor, and he knew for a fact that you couldn’t have too much of that.

He liked their silences, too. He never felt as if he had to fill the lulls in their conversations with small talk. With Lolly, he could be quiet, and she didn’t make him feel as if he should be kissing her or trying to get into her pants. Not that he had anything against kissing and getting laid, hell no. He had plenty of luck in that department. For whatever reason, scoring with girls had never been a challenge.

Having it mean something. That was the challenge.

Or maybe it wasn’t supposed to mean anything. Maybe that was all bullshit for books and movies.

He liked the fact that Lolly was honest with him, and the fact that he could be just as honest with her. There weren’t many people in his life he could tell things to, but she was one of them. “I’ve got another reason to be back this summer,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“My little brother.”

He heard her gasp in the darkness. “I never knew you had a brother.”

“Julian is eight. He’s in the Fledglings. Julian Gastineaux.”

The expression on her face was comical. “I did see that kid today—jumped out of a tree into the lake.”

“That’s the one.” Connor nodded. Julian was always climbing to high places where he didn’t belong. No wonder he drove their mom nuts. Connor supposed the tactic made just about as much sense as Connor’s method of trying to be a good son, keep his nose clean, get good grades. Neither approach was going to win her love. He’d come to terms with that quite a while ago, but he still remembered how much it had hurt, back when he’d believed it was possible to get her to love him. Julian was probably still at that stage, and clearly it was making him squirrelly.

“I never would have taken the two of you for brothers,” Lolly said.

He grinned. “We get that a lot.”

“You don’t look much alike,” Lolly said, clearly trying to be diplomatic. “You must be…half brothers?”

“That’s right. His dad’s African-American. Mine is…”
A drunk.
“Mine isn’t.”

She gave him a light slug in the arm. “I can’t believe you never said anything.”

“I was eleven years old when Julian was born,” he told her. “To me, there was nothing unusual about him. He was just a baby, you know? Then Julian’s biological father showed up and I was, like, damn. The kid’s half African-American.”

“What happened?” Lolly asked. “Why didn’t your mom raise you together?”

“Nobody explained it to me at the time. When Julian was about six months old, my mother started dating Mel. He convinced her that she couldn’t afford a baby, and that Julian would be better off being raised by his father.”

Connor discovered that the memory still had the power to hurt. By the time Gastineaux came for Julian, the baby was old enough to squirm and coo and laugh at Connor, who had loved him with a fierce, intense joy. When Julian was taken away, Connor had felt his heart being ripped out. He’d raged at his mother for weeks afterward. “How could you?” he asked her over and over again. “He’s my brother. How could you?”

“It doesn’t do to get attached,” his mother had told him, her eyes red rimmed with tears. “Julian is better off with Louis, anyway.”

She might have been right about that. Gastineaux was not a man of great means, but he had a town house and a serious job, which was more than most kids’ fathers had.

“So now Julian lives in New Orleans with his father,” Connor told Lolly. “He’s some kind of college professor, a rocket scientist, and this summer he’s on sabbatical overseas, so Julian came to stay with my mom and me. She was going to let him sit around all summer and watch TV, probably get into trouble. So she called my dad and told him we were both coming. I can only imagine what my old man thought of that—having his grown kid and his ex’s other kid coming up for the summer.” Connor’s relationship with his dad was complicated by the fact that Terry Davis was a man completely without judgment or pretense, and he’d do anything to have Connor with him. When Connor’s dad was sober, he was the best guy on earth. Things would be simpler, Connor thought, if his dad was an asshole. That way, drunk or sober, Connor could simply hate him.

“So your dad’s okay about…?” Lolly’s voice trailed off, as if she sensed herself heading into unknown territory.

“He and my mother never talk anymore, but he’d never make Julian feel weird about being here.”

“He must be a tolerant guy,” she said.

Very diplomatic, thought Connor. In fact, Connor’s dad and Julian had hit it off. Connor figured that, although completely unrelated by blood, Terry Davis and Julian Gastineaux had something elemental in common. They were both destroying themselves, Terry with his drinking and Julian by jumping from high places.

“I have your grandparents to thank for this summer. They gave me a job and invited Julian to camp. That’s cool of them.” He wondered if Julian would appreciate the chance he’d been given. He wondered if spending the summer at Willow Lake would change Julian’s perspective on life the way it had Connor’s.

Back when Connor had been a camper here, enjoying a camper’s rights and privileges, he knew he’d been given a rare opportunity. The Bellamys had no idea what those summers had meant to him. Living with a dozen other guys in a bunkhouse that smelled like a hamster cage by the end of week one didn’t sound like much. But to Connor, it was huge. It was a chance to live a different life, even if it was only for the summer. For ten whole weeks, he got to experience the kind of summer a kid was supposed to have: a string of sunny days filled with fun and laughter, practical jokes, sports that stretched strength and endurance to the limit, incredible meals every day, goofy talent shows, ghost stories whispered in the dark, singing around a bonfire. They were the kind of summers a kid had in his mind somewhere, whether or not they were real. And for those three years, Connor’s summers had been like a dream.

It was too idyllic to last. Summer pleasures were fleeting, and so was childhood.

Calvin, the head counselor, came over to their table. “I need a volunteer for lights-out duty.” He held out a police-style nightstick. “Lolly, I volunteer you.”

“Ha-ha,” she said, though she took the Maglite and headed for the door willingly enough.

Connor watched her for a few seconds. Then he spotted Jazzy, with the big lips and the boob job, coming toward him again.

“I’ll go, too,” he said, ducking out just in time to evade Jazzy as she moved in for the kill.

Despite the loud music blaring from the stereo, he could hear someone say, “No accounting for taste.”

Idiots, he thought. When he reached Lolly, he was a little out of breath.” Hey, wait up.”

She looked surprised, her eyes illuminated by the faint starlight. “You didn’t have to leave the party early on my account.”

“There’ll be plenty more this summer. In fact, if you’d rather hang out at the party,” he said, “I can do the rounds myself.”

“No, I’m good. It was too loud in there, anyway. Too hot.”

“My thoughts exactly.” They walked along a path, picking their way through shadows. The Milky Way arched in a swath across the night sky and they stopped just to look up at it in wonder. That was when Connor started—finally—to feel the old connection with Lolly, the friendship that used to mean so much to him.

“Really?” she said. “You weren’t having any fun, getting hit on by a different girl every five minutes?”

“I wasn’t—”

She chuckled. “It was hard to miss.”

He was glad for the darkness to hide his red face. “Lots of people were hitting on each other.”

“Not me.”

“Yeah, well, you’re smart,” he said. “I don’t know why everybody rushes into things.”

“Because they don’t want all the hotties to get away,” she said. “Ever think of that?”

“No,” he said.

“I know of at least three girls who called dibs on you. Nobody wants to get stuck with a loser.”

“Are you saying you’re a loser?”

“Did you see anyone trying to hook up with me?”

No, he thought, I would have run them off.

“It sucks,” she said, “the way everything’s based on looks. Don’t you think?”

“People say my mom looks like Sharon Stone, and it’s never brought her anything but assholes who treat her like shit.”

“Jeez, Connor,” Lolly said.

She made him smile in spite of himself, simple as that. He liked being with her, and if the other counselors had to wonder why, it was because they were idiots. He felt perfectly content, walking with her along gravel paths that had been there for generations of campers. It was an hour past lights-out, and through the screen windows of the bunkhouses, they could hear the expectant whispers from the Fledgling group. Lolly lingered under the window of Saratoga Cabin, and Connor went to check on the boys, in Ticonderoga. They didn’t go in because that got the kids all excited. They were only supposed to go in if something seemed wrong. When he came back for her, she held a finger to her lips.

The sound that reached them was the titter and hiss of little girls who thought they were getting away with something. Which, of course, they weren’t. Lolly hesitated for a few more moments. Then she motioned for Connor to move on.

“There’s a little one named Ramona I’m keeping an eye on,” she said. “Homesick.”

It was a concept with which Connor was totally unfamiliar. He had no idea what it would be like to have the kind of home you actually missed when you were away. He wondered if Julian was missing his dad and New Orleans. From what little he knew of the kid’s life, it wasn’t so bad. Louis Gastineaux had never been married, and according to Julian, didn’t go out on dates. As far as Connor could tell, they lived like a couple of bachelors.

Lolly didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get back to the party, and Connor didn’t blame her. He liked it out here, where it was dark enough to make out stars you couldn’t see from the city, and quiet enough to hear the whir of an owl’s wings and the water lapping at the dock pilings and canoe hulls. From a distance, the sounds of the party were muted and pleasant, carrying across the lake.

The moon had risen and now washed the compound in an eerie pale light. The distant roar of the falls sounded like a cheering crowd at a football stadium. Through the trees, the lights of the staff cabins glimmered, and Connor thought about his father, spending another night drinking beer and listening to old songs on the radio. As he had for the past two decades, Terry Davis lived alone in one of the all-season cabins at the fringes of the camp, losing pieces of himself while life passed him by.

Pushing aside the depressing thought, Connor tracked the flight of an owl, and then something else caught his eye. A flicker of light, maybe a flashlight. He grabbed Lolly’s arm. “Look up on the footbridge over Meerskill Falls,” he said. “Do you see anything?”

“No, just shadows, but—yikes, I think you’re right. Someone’s up there.” She switched on the nightstick and headed up the trail, as fearless and focused as a cop on patrol. “Let’s go check it out.”

The trail rose steeply alongside the rocky gorge. The falls crashed down over the boulders, throwing up a needle-fine mist that cultivated a lush fringe of moss everywhere it touched.

As they climbed, passing switchbacks and rocky outcroppings, nocturnal animals scuttled in the underbrush. He heard Lolly stumble. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m wearing flip-flops. I didn’t think I’d be taking a hike tonight.”

“You don’t have to come.”

“You think I’d miss this?” She gave a familiar, snorting laugh.

He knew she’d say that. Lolly Bellamy knew how to be annoying, but she wasn’t a quitter, no matter what she said. “Grab on to me if you feel like you’re going to fall.”

“Huh,” she said. “You just want someone to grab your ass.”

“Yeah, that’s the plan.” They fell easily into their old pattern of bickering, a pattern that had been set years before when they were twelve years old. It felt familiar. Comfortable, like an old shirt.

Connor could make out two shadowy silhouettes on the bridge now. One of them seemed to be on the outside of the safety fence. A very bad feeling clutched at his gut. “You stupid little shit,” he muttered under his breath.

“What?” Lolly asked.

“Julian!” Connor burst into a run.

At the same time, an exuberant yell split the night: “Gee-ronimo!”

Lolly shone the light on the bridge and they watched in horror as a small figure detached itself from the concrete railing and hurtled through the darkness. Lolly made a terrible sound, something between a gasp and a scream.

The long beam of the Maglite illuminated a small, fleeing figure on the bridge—not Julian but another boy Connor didn’t recognize. Then the beam started to tremble as Lolly aimed it at the area under the bridge.

“Julian,” he said, pulling in stinging gasps of air.

The light wobbled through the forest as Lolly searched. Panic hammered so wildly in Connor’s ears that he couldn’t hear anything. Then he realized that she was talking, grabbing his arm to steady him, and finally, he made out what she was trying to say.

“Okay,” she gasped. “I think he’s okay.”

Shrieks of boyish glee drifted through the night forest. Lolly took Connor’s hand and guided the flashlight beam to a long rope attached to the bridge.

His heart rate slowed, though his blood felt as if it were about to boil up through his head. “The little son of a bitch,” he said, striding up the last part of the trail. “The stupid little son of a bitch.”

A moment later he reached the bridge deck and collared the accomplice, a kid named George from Texas who babbled like a coward that he had nothing to do with this, that Julian had forced him to come along.

“Shut up,” Connor barked, and young George subsided. Lolly shone the light on a spot where the safety fence had been clipped. She slipped the beam downward to the small, swaying figure at the end of what appeared to be a bungee cord.