The Lost Women of Lost Lake (2 page)

“He wants to talk to Helen,” said Lyndie.

“He won't get anything out of her.”

“What about the Alzheimer's?”

The last time Tessa had talked to Helen she'd seemed almost normal. Still, it was something to consider. “Just keep your mouth shut. You haven't said anything to George, have you?”

George was Lyndie's fiancé and the pastor of Lost Lake Lutheran. To think that Lyndie, alias Judy Clark, with her past, had ended up engaged to a minister might have been hilarious if it weren't so absurdly ironic.

“If George ever finds out what we did—”

“Call me tomorrow,” said Tessa. “And relax. If the guy had more, we'd already be in jail.”

“Or dead.”

“I can always count on you to be Miss Sunshine, right, Judy?”

“Don't call me that. They might be tapping our phones.”

“Who's
they
?”

“You know. People who tap phones.”

“Just be careful.”

“A little late for that.” She hung up.

Tessa was glad now that she'd called the rehearsal early. She was directing an Alan Ayckbourn farce,
Relatively Speaking
, for the Lost Lake Community Theater, but as the evening went on, she found herself growing increasingly annoyed by the playwright's babbling dialogue. Dialogue was supposed to be an Ayckbourn speciality. She usually found the riffs and charming misunderstandings entertaining. Perhaps it was the leaden way the actors were delivering their lines. For the past four weeks she'd done her best with them. Summer audiences expected humor, light entertainment. The show opened next Friday. She had work to do before then, but couldn't deal with it tonight. Ultimately, the play would be what it would be. She laughed, somewhat bitterly, to think that her youthful idealism had turned into such aging fatalism. Cozy bromides aside, “'Twas ever thus” still seemed an accurate statement of human affairs.

Early on, Tessa had chosen to keep her partner, Jill, in the dark about her past, although she often wondered if she'd made the right decision. Unbelievable as it seemed to her now, the kid who had once wandered the streets of a small town in Nebraska wondering if there was anyone like her anywhere else on earth had ended up in a twenty-six-year relationship with a woman she adored. Dreams did come true.

Jill's family had owned Thunderhook Lodge, Lost Lake's premier resort, ever since Lars Anders Ivorsen, Jill's great-grandfather, had built the main lodge in the early nineteen twenties. For Jill, Thunderhook was a connection to her childhood and a job she loved. For Tessa, Lost Lake suited her needs because it was about as remote as a person could get and still find some semblance of civilization.

Unlike Lyndie, who never saw a cocktail she didn't like, Tessa rarely drank anything stronger than a glass of wine with dinner. Back in the day, she remembered thinking that people who did drugs were weak-minded. She refused to partake, even when most of her friends, people she trusted and admired, frequently got wasted on booze or stoned on pot. After the phone call from Lyndie, however, she felt the urge for something stronger than chardonnay.

Tessa held the tequila bottle over the blender jar. Several long glugs later, she added the Rose's lime juice and the triple sec, then a bunch of ice cubes. In a matter of seconds she had herself a pitcher of margaritas. Not that she bothered to find an actual pitcher.

Stepping out on the deck overlooking the lake, feeling the breeze off the water ruffle her short, dyed blond hair, she drank straight from the blender jar as she stood at the railing. The burn in her throat felt good, centering. In the blue twilight, lights dotted the far shoreline. She assumed that Jill was still up at the main lodge working the reception desk, which meant she had some time to tuck her emotions safely back inside. She hated all the lies, although in the years she and Jill had been together, she had found no way around them. To tell Jill the truth would have made her an accomplice.

It was possible, Tessa supposed, that Steve Feigenbaumer would find nothing concrete and go away quietly. If all he had was a faded snapshot, he didn't have much to go on. Still, the fact that he was even
in
Lost Lake meant that he'd learned something, and that thought acted like acid, eating away at the barriers Tessa had so carefully erected between the woman she used to be and the woman she was now.

What was that famous Faulkner line? “The past is never dead. It's not even past.” That was the best definition of her life she'd ever come across.

Sitting down on a chaise, Tessa continued to sip from the blender jar. Under normal circumstances, the waves lapping against the shore would have provided some sense of calm. Tonight, however, with the restless mood she was in, the waves did nothing but irritate her. She couldn't work on the new play she'd begun writing, didn't want to think. The truth was, she was sick to death of her own nihilism. If Nietzsche and Eugene O'Neill were right, a person needed a heavy set of delusions to find any meaning in life. Her delusions had been burned to the ground long ago.

Hearing the garage door open, Tessa got up and walked over to the stairs leading down to the driveway. Jill was backing the Jeep out into the drive. When Jill cut the motor, Tessa called down, “Didn't expect you home so early.”

Jill slid out of the front seat and smiled up at her. “I figured you'd be at the rehearsal until ten.” She cocked her head. “What's in your hand?”

“Margaritas.”

“Are you planning to share?”

“Possibly.”

“Something wrong?”

“What could be wrong?”

Jill leaned partway over the hood. “Thought I'd run up to the store and get us some munchies. I was hoping we could watch a movie tonight.”

Tessa took an unsteady step down the stairs. “How do I know you don't have a girlfriend waiting for you at the Piggly Wiggly?”

“If I did, would you be jealous?”

“Damn straight.”

Another smile. “I'm a little too old for that kind of hanky-panky.” She pointed to her silver hair.

“You look pretty good to me.”

“That's because your eyes are aging as fast as my hair.”

Tessa had just turned sixty-five. Jill was sixty-eight. Her hair had gone gray in her late forties, so it was nothing new. Tessa thought it was beautiful, thought Jill was beautiful. “Don't forget the chip dip.”

“And don't you start the festivities without me.” With that, she hopped in the front seat.

Tessa watched the red tail lights disappear up the gravel road, surprised by the tears welling in her eyes. She wasn't sure what she'd do if anything ever happened to Jill.

Tessa lived her life inside her head. She always had. She was clumsy when it came to sports, never did play on a softball team like every other good dyke in the universe. She was chunky and hid it under heavy sweaters in her youth and updated Mexican peasant dresses now. She favored scoop necks to show off her turquoise jewelry and shawls to hide her one too many curves. Given the choice between sitting in a chair and reading a book or going for a walk, the chair and the book would win every time.

Jill was athletic, lived in a body that still water-skied in the summer, skated and cross-country skied in the winter. She ran a couple miles every day, swam in the evenings if the weather permitted. She loved activity and took great pleasure in the simple joy of motion. She liked nothing more than fixing things—cars, motorcycles, boat motors, clocks. To her, everything was a puzzle, and that meant everything had a solution.

What seemed most ironic to Tessa was that Jill, in the eyes of the world, was a nobody. Tessa was the accomplished one. She'd written twenty-seven plays, most of which had been produced at least once. She had a dozen or more awards to her credit. And yet, without Jill as an anchor, she would have spun off into the cosmos long ago. Jill kept her going, kept her feet firmly planted on the ground. She was strong and centered and kind. In a crazy world, Jill was Tessa's tether to a reality that kept her sane.

Taking another couple of swallows from the blender jar, Tessa continued down the stairs to the garage. She weaved a little, thinking it was funny until she nearly tripped over a crowbar. She kicked it, angry that it had crawled into her path, then bent down to pick it up. The cold, heavy metal felt good in her hand. A solid means of destruction. Swaying out of the drive, past the log pile into the trees that surrounded the cottage, she took a swing at a low-hanging branch. To her amazement, it ripped clean away. She would take this crowbar up to her study to help her hack through the thick weeds of thought.

Forging ahead, with a nearly full moon lighting her way, she continued to sip from the jar. By now there wasn't much left, which was probably why her body felt light and buoyant. In contrast, her ruminations had grown so heavy that she was afraid they would crack her head open.

“Stop it,” she ordered, recognizing alcohol-fueled melodrama when she saw it.

“Besides,” she grumbled, “it was all Hubey's fault.” She took a swipe at another branch. “It was freakin' kindergarten ethics. Always has been. You're either for us or against us.”

She walked on, not thinking too much about where she was headed. The night air felt cool against her hot skin. When the blender was empty, she set it down on a rock, intending to come back for it. “Time for a gut check. Gotta keep doing those gut checks. Where are you? What are you thinking? Come on, now. No cop-outs. A cop-out is a mortal sin.” She cringed at the jargon of her youth.

Wielding the crowbar as if it were a scythe, she cleared the brush as she went. “Always needed a theory to rationalize my life. Gotta have a good theory. A good theory can take you anywhere you want to go.”

Stumbling over a tree root, she righted herself with some difficulty and then turned around, deciding that it might be politic to head back. “Before I get totally lost,” she mumbled. “Hell, I am totally lost. With me, it's a state of being.” She thrust the crowbar in the air. “Kill the mind-controlling maniacs.”

She was halfway up the deck stairs when Jill pulled the Jeep back into the drive. As she got out, she glanced up. “What are you doing with that crowbar?”

“Where's a good dose of healthy doubt when you need it?”

“Huh?”

“Doubt!”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“My
life,
” she shouted. She twisted around to make her point by banging the crowbar on the railing. Instead, she lost her balance and fell forward. She heard Jill's scream as she hit the bottom step.

“Are you all right?” cried Jill, rushing to her. She knelt down, a look of horror on her face.

“I think…” said Tessa, arching her body in pain, “I think I just broke something.”

3

“Her ankle?” said Jane.

“Gravity isn't always our friend, Janey.” Cordelia reapplied her lipstick as she gazed languidly in a compact mirror. “She fell down the deck steps last Thursday. Jill called me last night, told me it was a grade-two sprain—partial tearing of the ligaments. Thank God she didn't break it. The doc wants her to keep it up and apply ice through the weekend. She gets an air splint and a walking boot tomorrow, although it will be a few weeks before she's back to normal.” She smacked her lips together, looking satisfied that she'd completed the repair.

Jane pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down, stunned once again at how swiftly accidents could happen. “ Can she walk at all?”

“For now she's using crutches. She can't put any weight on it until she's in the walking boot tomorrow. Makes you think twice about being out in the boonies all by yourself.”

The comment was directed at Jane. She'd taken the last two weeks of July and the first two weeks of August off from her restaurants in Minneapolis to vacation at her family's summer lodge on Blackberry Lake. She had good managers in place, men and women she trusted—longtime employees. Instead of sticking around to micromanage, her usual MO, she'd decided to give herself the gift of a real vacation. With everyone and his uncle dropping in to say hi, it wasn't exactly the kind of peace she'd been hoping for. Since the lodge was only fifty miles north of the Twin Cities, it was Cordelia's third trip out. “I better call Tessa.”

“That's one possibility.” Cordelia stood with her back to the kitchen counter, sipping from a tall can of Izze blackberry soda, her current “go-to” beverage. “She's in for a long haul.”

“Poor kid.”

“Yup. That's why I'm here. Cordelia Thorn to the rescue.”

Jane had wondered why her friend had appeared so suddenly on a such a lovely Sunday afternoon. It wasn't as if Cordelia was into the joys of nature. She could easily have phoned with the news. She'd arrived shortly after one in her newest car fetish, a used 2006 cherry red Mercedes CLK350, the top down, the radio blaring. Mouse, Jane's brown lab, had begun barking even before the car purred off the gravel road and stopped in the dirt drive. Again, Cordelia had made her usual flamboyant entrance. When she got out of the car, revealing a faux leopardskin dress with a plunging neckline, shoulder pads, and a wide-brimmed raffia sun hat, Mouse simply sat on his haunches and stared.

Cordelia was a large woman, in every sense of the word. Six feet tall—even taller in the patent leather pumps she was wearing—and well over two hundred pounds. She was a curvaceous giant. Her lipstick matched the car, a small detail that most would never have noticed but would have been central to Cordelia's “idiom,” as she called her various fashion statements. She'd even managed to find pantyhose with seams down the back. All clothing was costume to Cordelia. And, of course, all the world a stage.

“So here's the deal.” She crushed the empty soda can in her fist and flipped it over her shoulder into the sink, “I want you to drive up to Lost Lake with me.”