Summer's End (38 page)

Amy touched her opals. Everyone had changed since the beginning of the summer. Phoebe was gentler, Giles more willing to put himself first. Ian had stopped living with blinders tied to his eyes. Ellie was more confident; Nick was willing to admit that there were things he cared about. Jack had made peace with his father; Amy had learned to live within the heart of the family. And of course she and Jack had fallen in love.

Everyone had changed except Holly, cool, organized, self-contained Holly. Holly might never change; she might always be the elegant, urbane creature whose natural name and warm coloring had nothing to do with what she was like. But if she ever was going to change, the change would start, Amy knew, at the lake.

“And then, of course,” Giles said slowly, “the log cabin becomes not Amy, Holly, and Jack's, but Amy and Jack's.”

Amy's eyes shot to Jack. But he was folding up his papers, and suddenly he started being very careful about how he was folding them, getting the edges perfectly lined up.

“Do you feel like you need permission?” Giles went on. “You won't get it from Hal or Gwen. They won't interfere like that. You can't have an affair, you know that. In fact, you can't even have much of a courtship. You can't be like normal people. You can't splash around in the shallow end for a year or so. You'll get the rest of us wet. The two of you, you have to jump straight into the deep end. But if you're willing to get married, and if you want permission, for what it's worth, you've got mine.”
He stood up. “Now, I suppose you have things to talk about.” He faced the room and raised his voice so that everyone could hear him. “Let's play charades.” And as a parting gesture he poured the rest of his red wine into Jack's beer. The ruby liquid funneled down and then blended into the amber beer.

“He thinks we should get married,” Amy whispered.

Jack nodded. “I know.”

“It's probably been our only choice all along, marriage or nothing.”

Jack nodded. “I know.”

“But this summer…I wasn't ready to talk about marriage.”

Jack nodded. “I know.”

On the other side of the room, the kids were shouting. They loved the idea of charades. Emily jumped up so quickly that she kicked the Parcheesi board by mistake and all the pieces slid off.

“Would you stop saying that you know everything?” Amy kept her voice low. “And tell me what you think.”

Alex had been winning Parcheesi, and now charades didn't sound so good. He thought they ought to figure out where the pieces had been and finish the game first. “I know where my pieces were.”

“They weren't there.” His sister Claire snatched them off the board as quickly as he could put them down. “You weren't that far.”

“I was too.”

“You were not.” The brother and sister were fighting.

Jack glanced over his shoulder at them. Then he bent his head close to Amy's. “I've always assumed that if I ever got married, I'd do it about three days after meeting her. So by my standards we're been courting nearly forever.”

If they weren't in the same family, it would be different. But if they weren't in the same family, they would have never met.

Giles was speaking to the kids. “Emily didn't mean to knock the board over, Alex. I know you don't like what's happened, but you need to accept it and move on. Do you want to play charades or not?”

“I want to play charades,” Alex said, “but I want to finish Parcheesi first.”

Was this the way other couples decided their futures? Yes, there had been imported champagne, but it turned out that Amy's beloved didn't like champagne and he was drinking beer, beer that was now mixed with red wine. There was candlelight and a fire, but those were physical necessities; without them everyone would be freezing and bumping into the furniture. The kids were on the floor bickering. Gwen and Hal were sitting on the love seat, the bumblebee yellow satin of her skirt spilling over his knee. Giles was tearing up slips of paper for charades; Phoebe was gathering up pencils; unfortunately Eleanor Roosevelt's gown had a little train on it, and people kept stepping on her. Ian was showing Ellie how to use the timing feature on his watch. Holly and Nick had finished their game, and they were doing the last few dishes.

“I'm not going to stop skating until I'm ready,” Amy said, “and that means traveling.”

“And I can't promise I'll stay in one place or one job for more than a few years.”

She didn't care about that. “Our kids certainly won't win any perfect attendance awards.”

But they would travel, they would see Europe, they would ride in limousines, they would live at disaster sites.

Amy put her hand out. Jack covered it with his. So
what if they didn't know exactly where they would be living, what they would be doing, for every minute of the next fifty years? They would share the adventure.

“I would kiss you if I could,” Jack said. “But if anyone saw, Giles would never get this charades game going.”

That was true. “I think everyone's going to be pleased.”

“I don't know about everyone, my mom, your dad, yes…Holly, Phoebe, and Ian, them too…but frankly I don't think Alex and Scott will give a damn one way or another, and if we have a wedding and they're forced to dress up, they're going to be pissed off.”

That was certainly true, but Emily and Claire would be thrilled to be junior bridesmaids. “What about you?” Amy asked. “Aren't you going to be pissed off if we force you to dress up for a wedding?”

“I'm wearing this.” Jack flicked a hand across his cummerbund and set his little plastic Santa Clauses dancing.

Giles had finally succeeded. The kids were dumping the Parcheesi game into the box, ready to play charades. Alex and Scott were shrieking that they wanted to be the captains, they wanted to choose their teams.

“No, no. Jack and Amy will be too humiliated when they are chosen last,” Giles said. “We'll divide by sex. Men against women.”

People were starting to stand up, the men gathering near Nick, the women near Ellie.

“I'm really bad at charades,” Jack said to Amy, “but I don't suppose we have much choice.” He got up, took a last swallow of his beer, then grimaced. He had forgotten about the red wine Giles had poured into his glass. “Listen, the ice on the lake is plenty thick. People were out there all day. If I sweep off a patch tomorrow, will you skate for me?”

Since she had come directly from a competition, she had her skates with her. “I'd love to.”

Holly was gesturing to them to get with their teams. Amy let her arm brush against Jack's and started toward the women's team. Her royal purple skirt caught against the picnic bench. Jack had to lean down to free her.

They would tell everyone tomorrow. She would skate on the lake, and then they would tell the family that they were getting married.

She wouldn't be able to skate well. The ice would be rough, and the space small. But that didn't matter. She would be skating at the lake. After dreading the place for so many summers because she couldn't skate here, now she was going to be able to.

She sat down with her team. Holly and Phoebe were full of ideas for charade clues; Ellie was scribbling them down as fast as she could. Gwen was helping the two little girls take the garnets out of their hair, but she was still listening, commenting on Holly's and Phoebe's ideas. Amy had nothing to add. Jack's shirt felt warm against her arms, her mother's opals were a cool, delicate weight, and the water-marked royal purple taffeta rustled when she moved.

Tomorrow she would skate at the lake.

Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

Cover photograph by Richard Ross/Getty Images