Summer's End (14 page)

Tommy said that she acted this way out of choice, that she didn't have to be the little sister for ever and all time. Everything would change, he said, if she started exerting herself more, and he was probably right, but it didn't seem worth the effort, not when she was around so little, and not when Phoebe and Ian were Phoebe and Ian. “I just know to sleep with some windows open so a propane leak won't kill us.”

“We can do that,” Holly said.

Jack brought the rest of the luggage in, carrying hers and Holly's into the bedroom. Holly lifted her suitcase onto one bed; her mother was standing ready to help unpack. Jack was at the door of the little room. “So how's it going, Mom?” he asked.

“Wonderful,” Gwen answered. “As you can see, it is a beautiful place.”

That was no answer. Amy suddenly realized that she was the outsider here, that Gwen couldn't speak honestly in front of her, that the most helpful thing she could do, the only thing she could do, was get out and give the three of them a chance to be alone.

“If you all will excuse me,” she said, “I want to go see the lake.”

“Do you need some company?” Jack drew back, out of the doorway, letting her pass.

He was being polite. He wanted to stay and talk to his mother. “No, no. I think the lady in the fuchsia blouse has given up on me by now.”

“Good thing. Since you probably wouldn't want to hide out in the bathroom here.”

“That's for sure.” She smiled and went outside. A little set of steps led down to the lake in front of this cabin, but the only dock was at the main cabin. She went in that direction. As she grew closer, she could hear children's high-pitched voices, and a moment later the four little kids, Alex and Claire, Scott and Emily, came scrambling up the bank. They greeted her exuberantly, carelessly, and dashed off.

A moment later her sister came into view. Phoebe was carrying what looked like nearly a dozen life jackets, the old orange kapok Mae West type. She had thrust her arms through the neck openings and so at times had to turn sideways to maneuver between the trees.

Amy hurried to meet her. “Let me help you. What can I do?”

“Actually I'm okay. They aren't heavy, and I've got them all balanced.”

“Where are you taking them?” Amy stepped out of her way.

“We've been keeping these under the bow of the boat for ages,” Phoebe said over her shoulder. “I can't imagine we'll ever use them again. So I thought we should store them in the garage.”

If no one was going to use them, why store them at all? Why not throw them out?

But Amy didn't say anything. She was not going to interfere.

“Dad and Gwen were delighted you could come,” Phoebe said. “How long are you staying?”

“I don't really know. It depends on a lot of things.” Amy quickened her step so she could open the side door to the garage.

This big, free-standing garage was between the road and the new cabin. In the male-dominated culture of the Iron Range, garages were occasionally bigger than a family's house, and this was certainly true here. The garage, built by a man who had been an electrician in the mines, was bigger and perhaps even better built than the new cabin itself.

To get through the garage door, Phoebe had to turn sideward again. The late afternoon light fell full on her face. She looked pale, and her eyes were tired and tense.

That wasn't right. Phoebe wasn't supposed to look like this at the lake. Phoebe was supposed to be happy at the lake.

Phoebe's life in Iowa City was busy and fragmented. Whenever Amy spoke to her, it seemed as if a million things were happening at once; she was always planning Girl Scout trips, baking cupcakes, planning class parties as well as working, worrying about the law students, the legal aid cases. She worked hard at the lake, of course she did, she was Phoebe, but up here she only did one thing at a time. She was soothed, made peaceful again.

Not this year.

Let me take those life jackets…let me massage your shoulders
. Amy longed to do something for her sister.
I
brought a cashmere robe, please take it, it's so soft, it will warm you, comfort you…

Phoebe never did anything nice for herself. She never bought herself scented bath oil or thick feather-edged writing paper. She never took time for herself. When did she make herself a cup of tea and sit in the sun on a spring afternoon? When did she ever buy flowers just for herself?

Amy followed her to the garage. There was a loft across one end of the building. Phoebe dropped the life jackets there.

Then it was Phoebe who got the ladder—Amy didn't know where it was—and it was Phoebe who climbed up the ladder, balancing precariously while Amy handed the life jackets to her.

“I'm glad that's over,” Phoebe said, brushing off her hands after she had put the ladder away. “I'm not crazy about heights.”

Then why not have me do it?
Amy wanted to ask.
Heights don't bother me at all. Why not me?

And for a horrible, overpowering, swamping moment Amy wondered why she was here. What was the use? What was the point?

 

Whoop-di-do. Two whole laundry baskets shoved underneath the lower bunk for his stuff. Was this ever first-class treatment. The two little dudes he was bunking with—Nick couldn't imagine ever being able to keep their names straight—got only one basket apiece. But Aunt Gwen had given him two.

Thanks, Brian. Thanks a heap. Look where you got me
.

Nick was lying on his bunk, staring up at the underside of the mattress above him. Aunt Gwen had said that cock-
tails would start at five-thirty.
Oh, does that mean there will be a cocktail for Cousin Nick?
He hadn't even bothered to ask.

It was five forty-five. He could hear voices outside the bunkhouse. This place was some kind of trip, all right. The full-scale isolation might be cool if there weren't so goddamn many people all living on top of each other. He levered himself upright, swung his feet around, and stood up. There was no point in putting this off any longer.

The driveway ended in a little clearing in front of the cabin. A couple of rough-hewn boards had been laid across some sawhorses, and Gramps—Aunt Gwen's new husband—was tending bar. Aunt Gwen herself was passing around crackers and cheese. The kids were playing some kind of game, the two teenage girls were sitting together on a picnic bench, and the other adults were all standing around being too polite. That always signaled the start of something weird—when grown-ups were being too polite.

He looked over at the two girls. They were not exactly read-each-other's-diaries-forever friends. He had picked up on that right away. The tall, dark one—Maggie was her name—did not want to have one thing to do with the other one, the mousy one, Ellie.

Maggie was a looker. She wasn't pretty-pretty like the icky-sweet cheerleaders at school. She was super pale with big soft lips and dark eyes. Her eyebrows grew low and close to her eyes. She was wearing a man's black shirt. She was tall, but the shirt was big on her, drooping down over her shoulders. Nick wondered if she was self-conscious about her boobs, which—based on his insufficient eyeing of them—looked quite majestic.

He had less of an impression of Ellie. She seemed pretty boring, even a little pathetic, but Nick supposed
that was what happened to you when your folks gave you a name that worked best on a cow.

He watched the two of them from the corner of his eye. Ellie was turned toward Maggie, trying to talk to her. Maggie was looking straight ahead, obviously ignoring her.

“So what will it be, Nick?” Gramps asked. “We're making the little kids drink powdered lemonade. Otherwise we'd be surrounded by half-drunk cans of pop. But you and Maggie and Ellie can certainly have pop.”

Pop. That's what people around here called soda. God, it was a stupid word. Pop, pop. No wonder people thought Midwesterners were stupid; they ran around saying “pop” all the time. It didn't exactly scream sophistication.

Unlike the words “bourbon, gin, and vodka.” Those items were also on the table. Gramps could have shown himself quite the sophisticate by uttering those words in Nick's direction, but clearly that was not meant to be. He was a member of the pop brigade. He took a Sprite and sauntered over to where the two girls were sitting. Maggie instantly moved over, crowding Ellie, making room for him. Clearly he was to sit by her.

Not cool. A mistake, a misstep, too obvious by half. Sorry, sweetheart, but Cousin Nicky wasn't here to make things easy.

He sat down next to Ellie.

 

Joyce couldn't believe the junk that Gwen had set out for the kids—potato chips and cheese curls. The cheese was Brie, soft, full of fat—there was more fat in that wedge of cheese than her family ate in a week. Gwen had cut apple
slices, but they were accompanied by one of those preprepared caramel-chocolate dips. The little girls, Emily and Claire, were using the apple slices as spoons. They would scoop up a wad of the dip, lick it off the apple slice, then stick the apple back into the dip dish. Joyce's own kids, Emily and Scott, would be wild before the evening's end. But it wouldn't be her fault. They weren't used to that much sugar.

At least that boy Nick was here so Maggie wouldn't get stuck with Ellie all the time.

“Ellie's such a dork,” Maggie had said on the airplane. She and Joyce were sharing an aisle and a window seat while Ian was in the row behind them with Scott and Emily. “I just can't stand her.”

Joyce agreed…and she would have said so except that there was a chance Ian would overhear. “You know that Phoebe and Giles wish that the two of you were better friends.”

“Oh, come on. She's a baby. She's dumb.”

“You're exaggerating, Mags. She's not stupid.”

But she's not like you
.

It was a source of nearly immeasurable satisfaction to Joyce that her child was so very, very smart. Maggie might not have any Legend blood in her, but she had the kind of abilities that the Legends so valued.

From the earliest days of her marriage to Ian, Joyce had known that she was in competition with Phoebe. Who was the first Legend grandchild? Ellie, the first child born to any of their children? Or Maggie, older than Ellie, brought in the family before Ellie's birth but not officially adopted by Ian until well after?

Phoebe had named her daughter Eleanor after her mother. Why had she done that? Joyce knew. Phoebe had
been drawing a line in the sand; she had been trying to make sure that everyone knew that her daughter was the one who counted.

But then Maggie started to read at three and a half. She was labeled gifted and talented during her first semester in kindergarten. And Ellie? All anyone could say about Ellie was how sweet she was, how nice, how helpful. Ellie was clearly one of life's Miss Congenialities, someone people sort of liked, but never respected or feared.

Joyce looked across the clearing at her daughter. All three teenagers were sitting together. Ellie was in the middle, but both Nick and Maggie were leaning forward, talking to each other, ignoring her.

And in addition to being smart, Maggie had her father's striking looks.

How many people had said “I told you so” when Matt—Maggie's father—had let his heroin problems get the best of him? Joyce would like to be able to gather all those people up in a room now and make them look at Maggie, listen to Maggie. That would show them.

Jack had been assigned quarters in the narrow enclosed porch of the log cabin. It had a set of bunk beds, and rather reluctantly he flipped back the covers on the lower one. He had never particularly liked bunk beds; that's where men slept on a submarine. But this one wasn't too bad, he decided a couple of minutes later. The bunks had been wedged along the narrow wall at the end of the room. There were windows along one side of the bed, and at the foot were more windows that faced the lake. The dark plaid curtains were drawn, but behind them the windows were open. The fresh air was cool, and the pile of quilts was heavy on his body.

Everyone had survived the evening without any hissing or snarling. Jack attributed it to his mother. People tended to behave themselves around her.

But the hissing and snarling were bound to come. There was too much tension for it not to.

Phoebe's husband Giles, the one with the bum leg, seemed okay. In fact, he seemed like a pretty good egg. Phoebe herself Jack was less sure about; she seemed like she was swimming through a fog, forcing herself to eat and speak. But he had heard enough about her life, how
busy and active she was, to know that she couldn't always be this way.

Ian was tedious; he had spent most of the evening talking to Hal, which is what Jack would have liked to have been doing, but of course Ian was the Real Son, so Jack could hardly complain. Ian's wife Joyce—the only good thing Jack could think about her was that she hadn't been sleepwalking like Phoebe. But the world probably would have been a better place if she had been. Her energy was nervous and jangling, and she seemed to have her antennae pitched only to notice people's mistakes, especially those she could interpret as criticism of herself.

His mom and Hal must have noticed all this—except maybe Ian's tediousness, Hal didn't seem to see that—but they were letting it happen.

His own father wouldn't have. No, sir. Dad would taken charge. He wouldn't have let snippy Miss Maggie get away with her rudeness. Such rudeness would have been considered insubordination in the ranks and treated as such.

But apparently Hal Legend didn't view himself as commanding a submarine. He was an adult, playing host to other adults.

 

Jack woke to the muted sound of the screen door being eased shut. He hitched himself up on his elbows, listening for a moment. Morning light edged the curtains, but he heard nothing else. It was probably only Amy or Holly going to the outhouse. He punched his pillow and crooked his arm across his eyes.

A moment later he heard a rustling outside his window, followed by two whispering voices.

“I haven't done this in ages,” he heard Amy say.

“I don't think I've ever done it.” That was Holly. “Do you think anyone will see us?”

“So what if they do?”

“That's easy for you to say. You probably have a gorgeous body.”

“No, I don't,” Amy returned. “I have no waist, no hips.”

Jack sat up. Two splashes were followed by a muffled shriek.

Holly and Amy had gone skinny-dipping.

He heard more little yelps. The water must be cold.

This could
not
have been Holly's idea, but it sounded like she was having fun.

Jack swung out of bed and pulled on his jeans. Embers were still glowing in the barrel stove, and so the water in the kettle was warm. He poured some into a saucepan and put it on the gas stove to get it hot enough for coffee. He built up the wood fire and draped a pair of blankets in front of it.

He was pouring the water through the coffee grounds when he heard the two of them returning. He glanced out the kitchen window. They were coming around the corner of the cabin. Both had towels wrapped around them, and they were mincing barefoot through the pine needles, their nightgowns in hand. He pulled open the screen door. “Hello, ladies.”

Startled, Holly shrieked, stopping so suddenly that Amy crashed into her.

“You scared the daylights out of me, Jack,” Holly reproved.

He smiled and held the door. They crowded past him into the little kitchen. Their hair was wet, their shoulders damp and bare.

Amy did have a narrow torso and almost boyish hips. Her arms and legs were long for someone her height.

“I am freezing,” Holly shivered. “Why did we do that? Why did I think I minded being dirty?”

Amy giggled. That was the only word for it. She didn't laugh, she didn't chuckle, she giggled. “I had fun.”

“But you must be used to freezing your tuckus off,” Holly returned. “I'm not.”

Amy made a face.

She had been quiet at dinner last night, hardly saying anything, but he had heard Holly and her talking softly in their bedroom late into the night.

“Do you ‘girls' want some coffee?” he asked. Holly loathed being called a “girl.”

She didn't even notice. “Coffee? Oh, Jack, you're wonderful.”

She had already started to pour it, so he stepped into the living room and grabbed the blankets, folding them back in on themselves to hold in the warmth. He draped one over Holly, rubbing her shoulders briskly. She purred at the warmth. Even admirals like being taken care of once in a while.

He turned to give the other blanket to Amy. She looked up at him and smiled.

The early morning light from the open door shone against the smooth skin of her shoulders. The curve of her arms was lean and muscular. Everything about her was so…he didn't have a good word for it…so compact. She was slender, even petite, and yet every ounce of her was muscle. He stepped forward with the blanket, ready to swirl it around her.

But then at the last moment, just as he was about to shake the blanket open, he stopped. He handed the blan
ket to her politely and moved to get her a cup of coffee.

He was interested in her. No, not interested. That was too polite a world, too cerebral. This was about bodies. He was drawn to hers, attracted to hers.

Which did not seem like good news.

It made no sense. His instincts were as good about women as they were about business and safety. If a woman was trouble, it didn't matter what she looked like, he wasn't attracted to her. Ever. He would walk into a room and be immediately drawn to the one woman who was funny, good-hearted, and wise long before he could have a clue that she was funny, good-hearted, and wise. His body was more astute than his mind.

Lurking at the ends of his consciousness had been wispy impressions of Amy—her posture, her gait, her perfume—and now suddenly
Whammo!
here it was—full-scale, industrial-strength attraction.

She's in a towel. Who wouldn't be attracted to a beautiful woman in a towel? And not only beautiful, but famous and incredibly fit as well. Who wouldn't want her?

He wouldn't, that's who. Since when did he ever care about beauty and fame…although fitness, well, that could have its merits.

What could possibly be right about this? He was here for his mother and his sister; he needed to make sure Mom was okay and to try to get Holly to relax a little.

He wanted his mother to be happy. That's what he cared about. No question about it. Two of Hal's kids were having a lot of trouble with the idea of their dad having a new wife. Surely Jack's attempting to seduce child number three wasn't going to make the family-blending process any easier.

So his instincts were wrong.

But his instincts were never wrong.

With a deft move Amy swirled the blanket around her and then pulled her wet towel off from underneath. She bent her head forward and wrapped the towel turban-like around her hair. She straightened. Her neck was graceful, swan-like.

He wasn't supposed to be noticing stuff like that.

What was it about her that attracted him? Was she funny, good-hearted, and wise? He had kept hearing hushed laughter in the dark last night; she and Holly had amused each other. And everything he had ever read about her talked about all the charity work she did and about her ability to comfort, to make people feel that someone cared. She must have a good heart.

But was she wise? She seemed a little childlike, a bit passive.
Should we get some milk?
she had asked.
I wonder if we should get some milk
.

When had he ever been attracted to a woman who couldn't decide whether or not to buy a gallon of milk?

“Would you like a dry towel?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her now turban-covered head. “The rule is one towel a person. If you forget to hang yours up, you are out of luck. It's too hard to do laundry.”

That might have been
her
mother's rule, but it wasn't his mother's. When he had carried the suitcases into the little bedroom last night, he had seen a nice pile of towels on top of the dresser. Hadn't she noticed them?

Holly had gone to sit in one of the rocking chairs. She rested her toes on the stove. She sipped her coffee. “You know, this isn't so bad.”

Jack tried to focus on his sister. “You two sure were whispering late last night,” he said.

“I know.” Amy laughed again. “It was fun. It was like being at camp.”

“No, it wasn't,” Holly said. “At least not any camp I was ever at. My counselors were all tyrants. They never let you talk after lights out.”

“I don't want to hear that.” Amy made a face again. Jack was still watching her; he couldn't help it. “Can't you humor me? I never went to camp. It always sounded like such fun. Go and make friends you could pour your heart out to and have a wild summer romance—”

“A wild summer romance?” Holly interrupted her. “Where did you get your ideas about camp from? I never had a wild summer romance at camp. Did you, Jack?”

He had to clear his throat before answering. “Fortunately not. I went to Boy Scout camp.”

Amy protested. “But I thought there was always a girls' camp down the road or across the lake and there would be dances and raids on each other's tents, and so there would be someone to have a wild summer romance with.”

“Not at the camps our parents sent us to,” he said, and then spoke more briskly. “I hope the two of you sit here buck naked spinning tales about summer camp until high noon, but Mom gave me a list…and”—again he couldn't help himself, he wanted to talk to her; he pointed a finger at Amy—“it includes trenching a line to the bunkhouse, something that you predicted would take five years.”

She smiled. “I still bet it takes you two.”

She did have some kind of smile. He had to get out of there.

He jerked open the screen door and stepped out in the sunlight. He looked over his mother's list. He'd like to find one where he'd have half a chance of being alone for
a while. He settled on number four, get the old sauna to work.

Just outside the log cabin was a little shack with a chimney. Jack pulled open the door. He stepped into a small room that had clothes hooks screwed into two of the walls. It must be a changing room. Beyond it was the sauna itself, another small room heated by an old, airtight wood-burning stove surrounded by rocks. Next to the stove was another old-fashioned hand pump like the one in the kitchens. It fed a thirty-gallon cistern. A pipe carried water from the cistern through the stove and back, and there was a drain in the floor. Clearly the place had been designed as much as a bathhouse as a sauna.

His mother's letters had said it had been cold when they first arrived. Bathing in the lake couldn't have been any fun. If he got this going, she and Holly—and Amy—would have thirty gallons of hot water and a warm place to wash their hair. Surely that would make a big difference to everyone's comfort. Not as much as a generator would, of course, but still it would be nice.

So why hadn't the Legends ever tried to use it? Of the three cabins, they had purchased this one the most recently, but they had bought it at least ten years ago. Oh, well, the past wasn't any of his business. He started to take the stove pipe apart.

He was up on the roof, knocking the soot off the galvanized wired cage on top of the chimney, when he heard a voice on the ground. It was Ian, Hal's son, Amy's brother.

Ian was tall and lean like Hal, and he wore his light hair cropped close to his head, although Jack had seen in the main cabin some family photos no more than five years old that showed Ian wearing a ponytail. Jack won
dered what made him cut it off. He was also thinner than he had been in the photos. Actually, Jack thought he looked gaunt. And maybe he was. His wife Joyce had gone on and on about low-fat cooking last night. Maybe the man simply wasn't getting enough to eat. That would make Jack plenty foul-tempered.

“Dad says you're taking a look at the sauna,” Ian said.

“I think we'll be able to fire it up this afternoon.” There had been a few problems, but they had been minor.

“You really think it's safe?”

No. I think it is a major fire hazard. That's why I am doing this. I want to roast my mother and my sister and burn down the entire forest if I can
.

Jack generally liked people. That's the way he was. But this guy…you could make all the starvation excuses in the world, but Jack still didn't like him.

Ian was a linguistics professor who learned and recorded Native American Indian languages. Apparently there were a bunch of these languages that were down to their last couple of surviving speakers. When they died, the language would. Ian found such people and had them talk into a tape recorder for a year or so.

Why?
That had been Jack's first thought. He hoped that he wasn't anti-intellectual or anything, but he couldn't see any practical value in Ian's work. There weren't any books or documents written in these languages. They were dying for a reason—no one wanted or needed to speak them anymore.

He supposed he could understand it as a matter of curiosity, and admittedly he had on occasions felt some regret when he closed up a ceiling. With an unfinished ceiling you knew exactly what was there, where all the wires and pipes were, but once the ceiling was up, every
thing was by guess and by golly. Of course, with a ceiling if you really had to know, you could rip it down, but on this language thing he supposed there was no going back once the old guys were dead.