The Lake Season (18 page)

Adele shrugged. “Well, of course she looks beautiful, darling. She's always beautiful. I was just saying . . .”

Just in time there was the gentle chiming of a dinner knife against glassware. Bill Standish had positioned himself formally at the head of the table. “If I may,” he began, clearing his throat. “I would like to thank all of you for coming this evening to celebrate Leah and Stephen's union and the joining of our families, most especially. We welcome Stephen, Adele, and Lance wholeheartedly into our home. And into our lives.” There was a murmur of approval. “Tonight, my lovely wife has created a feast for us to savor, and I invite everyone to join us. Let it be the first of many family dinners together.” Always the gentleman, Bill came forward to kiss Adele and shake hands with Lance.

“And another toast, if I may.” Lance lifted his glass heartily. “We are grateful to be merging with the Standish family, a fine New England clan, if I do say.” There was a pause as guests chuckled and murmured their approval. “And we have an announcement of our own to make. As many of you know, our family runs the Willets Foundation for Special Olympics. We are thrilled to invite Leah, a promising young woman who we think has a promising future, to join our foundation as head of national fund-raising.”

Iris's heart pounded in her chest, drowned only by the eruption of clapping. Across the way, Bill and Millie were poised on the patio's edge, their expressions hovering somewhere between uncertainty and false cheer. Stephen was grinning, looking at Leah expectantly. But Leah's paper smile was answer enough.

Iris waited until Leah was able to break free from the congratulations and well wishes around her. She caught her at the bar.

“How're you doing?” Iris glanced around and lowered her voice. “That was a lot for the Willets to unload on you tonight in front of everyone.”

Leah took a glass of champagne and tossed it back. “It's an opportunity,” she said flatly.

“You're kidding, right? They basically arm wrestled you into a job in front of your whole family.”

Leah set the champagne down on the tray, smiled sweetly at the bartender, and took another.

“Iris, you have to stop.”

Iris was genuinely confused. “But I just heard you tell them that you had some farming ideas you wanted to propose, and they didn't even listen. Instead they made you fund-raising chair.”

Leah shook her head. “They didn't make me anything. Stephen's family is different than ours, Iris. There are some sacrifices that you have to make when you join a family like that.”

Iris stepped back. “I'm sorry. So you're telling me that you really want that job?”

Leah met her gaze. “I'm telling you to butt out.” And with that she brushed past Iris.

“Iris!” Trish appeared suddenly at Iris's elbow.

“Thank God you're here. I don't think I'm going to survive this dinner.”

“Sure you will.” Trish did a quick spin. “Now tell me, how do I look?” Her apricot dress was stunning against her dark curls and tanned skin. “It's new. I figured if we're going to strike it rich with this cookbook, I could splurge on a little treat for the ol' girl.” She looked down at her highlighted cleavage. “And these girls, too!”

Iris smiled. “You're stunning.” At least some measure of rescue was here. They found their seats at the table, which to her dismay were directly across from Millie, who looked less than celebratory as she flopped down in her seat and glared at the empty plates in front of them.

“Where is the food?” she hissed across the table at Iris.

Iris looked around, flummoxed. “Isn't the kitchen staff on it?”

But the look on Millie's face warned her not to argue. “Come with me. Now.”

Once in the kitchen her mother dropped her calm demeanor like a hot plate and began simultaneously directing the staff and interrogating Iris.

“Did you know anything about this fund-raising job? I had no idea your sister was joining the Willetses' foundation.”

“No, Mom. I swear. Leah doesn't exactly tell me everything.”

“What about her work on the farm?” Millie pulled a pair of mitts right off the server's hands and tugged the oven door open to inspect the chicken herself. “I wish you'd talked her out of it, Iris.”

“How could I? She never told me!” But the words were lost on her mother, who was distracted by the food.

“Iris, get the chicken to the table, quick, before it's cold.” She draped a towel on Iris's arm and shoved a platter into her hands.

Warily, Iris maneuvered toward the door, holding the juicy platters away from her silk shirt. As soon as this godforsaken dinner was over, she was going back up to her room with a bottle of wine.

“Don't spill!” Millie called behind her.

“I've got it, Mom,” Iris snapped, then instantly regretted it as she realized too late that the patio door was latched, and she hadn't a free hand to open it.

“Um, Mom . . .”

There was a clatter of pans behind her. “Oh, for Pete's sake,” her mother cried. “The basil biscuits!” A large cloud of smoke filled the kitchen.

Desperate, Iris glanced at the chef, who'd conveniently ducked into the pantry. “Um, can somebody help . . .”

“Let me.”

Iris turned and found herself staring up at Cooper Woods. His hair was still damp and he smelled like soap. The platter tipped in her hands. “What are you doing here?”

“Is that how you greet all your guests?” He grinned, then reached quickly to right the platter. “Your father asked me. I hope that's all right.”

This was not how Iris had pictured facing Cooper. Not after last weekend's Vermont debacle and her subsequent week in hiding. Certainly not coming to her rescue with a plate of chicken. She'd been so engrossed in just trying to get out of bed each day, and in distracting herself with the cookbook, that she'd pushed Cooper Woods out of her mind.

Or so she thought.

“Iris, get the salads!” Millie shrieked.

Cooper raised his eyebrows playfully. “Go on, Iris. Get the salads.”

Reluctantly she surrendered the chicken, and even more reluctantly followed him outside with her mother's salads. Luckily, the guests appeared unaware of the kitchen chaos on the other side of the wall. Iris snuck a glance at Cooper as he settled the chicken platter before her father, greeting him with a clap on the back. She tried not to watch as he returned to her end of the table, taking his seat on the other side of Trish.

“Sorry I'm late,” he said, greeting everyone.

Leah's eyes rested on Cooper a moment too long.

“So, Cooper, I didn't realize I'd have the pleasure of seeing you tonight,” Trish said, nudging Iris.

Iris nudged back.

“Pleasure's all mine,” he said, looking directly at Iris. He lowered his voice. “I missed you in the barn this week. Things okay?”

“I-I wasn't feeling well,” she stammered, glancing away. Iris tried to focus on the gorgeous dishes being passed around the table, instead of the swirl of unsettling emotions around her.

Adding to them, Millie set a platter down in front of Iris and leaned in, her voice a sharp whisper. “What is Cooper Woods doing here?”

Leah was watching, her eyebrows also raised in question.

“Dad invited him,” Iris whispered back defensively. But even as she said it, Iris realized she was relieved that her father had invited Cooper. Thrilled, in fact.

Millie leaned in again, too close. “I know you've had a rough week, dear, but this isn't the evening to be inviting just anyone.”

Iris had had it. It had been all she could do to pull herself together for this dinner. Now, here she was, polished and grinning for the guests like one of those wind-up monkeys with cymbals. While her own marriage was in the toilet! And then Cooper appears, charming and handsome and the rescuer of dinner plates. And finally, here's Leah, who has an amazing man on her arm, and a rock on her finger, but for whom it still doesn't seem to be enough. And Millie, her own mother, who can't get past her platters of food and heirloom linen to notice the crises rising like a wave around her. Yet, despite it all, Iris had swiped on lipstick and showed up at the table. If it were up to her, she thought, she deserved a fucking Oscar.

Iris bit her lip, trying to temper the fury she felt at all of them in that moment just as Millie reached over and deposited a large spoonful of curried couscous on her plate.

“Mom, no thanks.”

“But why not? It's a beautiful dish. I made it myself,” she said, a little loudly.

“It is beautiful,” Iris said, lowering her voice. “But you know I don't like curry.”

Millie scowled. “Oh, just have a few bites, Iris. You'll love it. It's Leah's favorite.”

And just like that, Iris lost it. “Fabulous. Then Leah can have mine!” Abruptly, Iris reached across the table through the oversized floral centerpiece and snatched her sister's plate. With one audible scrape she dumped the offending mound of salad onto it and slammed it back on the table before Leah, who jumped in her seat.

The conversations halted. At the head of the table, her father cocked his head tentatively. “Iris?”

“What?” Iris barked. “It's Leah's
favorite
!”

•    •    •

In the safety of the bathroom, she turned the faucet on and let it run, bracing the pedestal sink with both hands. There was a gentle rap on the door.

Iris groaned.

Trish poked her head in. “Boy, you weren't kidding,” she joked, closing the door behind them. “Dinner at the Standish table hasn't changed a bit.”

“You're not helping.” Iris patted her cheeks with cold water.

Trish smiled sympathetically. “You'd better get out there. Plus, I think Cooper's wondering where you went.”

Cooper.
Iris wondered how much he'd seen. And what he could possibly be thinking.

A moment later, there was another knock at the door.

“I'm coming,” Iris groaned, pulling the door open. Only it wasn't Trish.

Millie's face was pinched. “Are you sulking? Because you're missing Leah's special night.”

“Mom. I need a minute.”

“You've taken plenty already. And for the record, I did not appreciate that scene.” Millie spun on her heel.

Iris stared after her mother's departing figure. She closed the door again and pressed her forehead against the mirror. Then banged it.

She realized someone was hovering outside the door again. This time she threw it open.

“Mom, I'm not in the mood . . .”

Cooper Woods leaned against the door frame, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Well, remind me not to make you couscous,” he said, breaking into a slow smile.

Iris winced, flushing. “Sorry. My family is driving me crazy.”

“Isn't that what family's for?” Before she could answer, he reached around with one hand and gently tucked a stray piece of hair behind Iris's ear. His fingers lingered a moment, touching her cheek.

Iris blushed. “Um, did you need to use the bathroom?”

“No.”

Suddenly Iris couldn't avoid it any longer. She'd never been good at playing games, and here was Cooper Woods, touching her hair, in her mother's bathroom no less. “Listen, about Vermont . . .” she began.

“What happened? I thought you'd said you were coming with me.”

Iris frowned. “I was. I mean, I wanted to, but then you took Leah.”

Cooper's brow wrinkled. “Only because she came up to the barn and said you couldn't make it.”

“What? You didn't invite her?”

“No. I figured you'd changed your mind. Leah insisted on coming along instead.”

Iris shook her head. It was suddenly too warm in the doorway. And Cooper Woods was standing so close.

“Are you okay?” Cooper asked. He leaned in, searching her expression.

“I just . . .” Her voice trailed off as their eyes met.

“You just what . . . ?”

“I just need . . .”

“This?”

Cooper leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers gently. His mouth was flushed and sweet, like a summer peach. Exactly what she'd imagined. It was the whole summer, coming to a breathless, heady halt between them.

But they were interrupted. “Iris, where are you? Dessert's ready.” Leah rounded the corner of the butler's pantry, a stack of delicate ironware dishes in her hands, the ones their mother reserved for special occasions. She halted, and the dishes rattled precariously. “Oh,” she said, her eyes moving from Iris to Cooper as they stepped apart.

Iris spoke first. “Let me help with those.” She reached for the plates, which Leah surrendered without question. Her gaze had fallen hard on Cooper, who jammed his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat.

“I was just washing up,” Iris explained, drawing her sister hastily back out to the patio, where the others were waiting.

Leah said nothing, but as everyone sat around the table, passing tiny plates of impossibly red strawberries, Iris stared at her lap, unable to contain her smile. She would not steal a look at Cooper, two seats away, who she knew was studying her. Nor would she look at her sister, whose curious gaze felt like an intense weight. The moment was hers, and though she wasn't entirely sure how she felt, the unmistakable smile she struggled to contain between her aching cheeks was pretty damn telling.

Eighteen

O
h, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. All night Iris tossed and turned in bed like a restless schoolgirl. He'd kissed her. Cooper Woods had kissed
her.

Her mind shot back to the kiss, again and again. The fullness of his lips. His warm breath, which she'd inhaled as they parted.

But then came the aftershocks. Leah's interruption, and the pained look on her face. Had she once kissed Cooper Woods like this? Was she mourning something that Iris was only tasting for the first time?

But most pressing and terrifying of all was the one question Iris refused to consider, could not consider, until daylight came and brought with it some perspective. Iris was still a wife. A mother. And she took pride in that. It confirmed that, despite all, she had not fallen weak as Paul had. She had not given in to loneliness or doubt or ego at her family's expense. And now this kiss. Of all the questions that swirled through her head as she tossed among the sheets that night, there was one Iris kept returning to. What did this make her now?

•    •    •

Iris arose groggily the next morning. In the bathroom she stared at her reflection, touching her face, examining herself for change. She'd half imagined she'd see a different person in the mirror.

Downstairs the Willetses were at the table, sipping coffee with her parents. Leah and Stephen had not yet come down.

“Well, good morning,” Bill greeted her.

“Morning, Daddy.” Iris bent over her father's chair, shyly, to kiss him. Wondering, as she had as a teenager, if he could tell what had happened to her last night. And what he'd think, if he could.

To her dismay the coffeepot was empty, so she waited by the counter, half listening to the conversation behind her, as she brewed another batch. “Why don't you join us?” Millie asked. It wasn't so much an invitation as an SOS call. “We were just telling Adele and Lance about the farm,” Millie said.

“It must have been nice to grow up in such natural environs,” Adele said, turning her attention abruptly to Iris. She drank her coffee black, which Iris thought fitting somehow.

“We were lucky,” Iris agreed, pouring her cup and sitting down at the table. She was eager to escape outside. “Though I'm sure Leah's told you all about it.”

Lance and Adele shook their heads in unison. “Your sister's a quiet one,” Adele said. “Quite the little mystery.”

Millie interjected. “Leah was a star swimmer, did you know? We had her in the lake at age two! Couldn't keep her out of it.”

Lance chuckled fondly, but Adele turned to Iris. “And you? Were you an accomplished swimmer as well?”

Accomplished? Iris gulped her hot coffee, unnerved by the intentness of Adele's gaze, and struggling to put a finger on any one thing she might truly describe herself as accomplished at. “Not quite like Leah,” she allowed. “But I loved to swim. Still do.”

“And what do you
do
?”

Iris glanced at the clock on the wall. Was this an interrogation? “I'm a literary agent,” Iris answered, standing quickly. “But I'm working on my own project now.”

“Iris has her first book coming out,” Millie lauded. “A cookbook. With farm-to-table recipes, much in the spirit of our family business.”

Iris flashed her mother a look, shocked that Millie had paid enough attention to realize what she'd been working on, and just as shocked she was pitching her so hard. There was no mistaking her aim, though—Millie was driving the ball right into the Willetses' net.

“There's no publisher yet, Mom,” Iris corrected, leaving out the very real possibility that there might never be. That at present it was little more than a pipe dream between old friends, and therapy for a runaway wife. “It's in the works,” she explained to Adele.

“How charming. And I hear you have children. Where are they?” There was a note of appraisal that made Iris bristle. Millie, too, glanced into her lap.

“They're coming up soon,” Iris said. “They're at camp for the summer.”

“And your husband?”

Iris drained her cup and moved to the sink. “I need to get to work,” she said to the group, forcing a smile.

“Iris is very busy,” she heard Millie telling the others as Iris hurriedly filled a thermos with coffee. “Did I mention that she's also restoring one of our antique barns this summer?”

“Is that so?” Adele said. “You know one summer, Stephen—”

But Millie's voice rose above Adele's. “That's our girl. Books, barn restoration. Busy, busy, busy.” Score two for Millie Standish. For once Iris felt like they were on the same team.

•    •    •

Cooper's truck was parked in front of the barn. Iris hesitated outside. What exactly did a soon-to-be-divorced woman on the brink say the morning after a stolen kiss?

Inside Cooper was on a ladder, his back turned, but he had sensed her arrival. “Good morning.”

“Morning to you, too.” Iris could not bring herself to look up to see what he was doing. She could barely will her body to remain still, suddenly aching as it was with the urge to flee.

Speak
, she ordered herself.
Now, while he's too high up on the ladder to get a good look at
the wreck that you are.

But before she could decide what to say, Cooper was climbing back down. Iris busied herself with a nearby broom; a handy prop, she decided, sweeping madly at sawdust shavings. A cloud of dust rose between them, but she kept sweeping. Even as Cooper came to stand beside her. Even as he reached for the handle and gently removed the broom from her grip.

“Iris.” He was so close. She had no choice but to return his gaze.

Cooper set the broom against the wall. “About last night . . .”

Iris blinked. “Yes?”

Cooper paused, choosing his words carefully. “I was going to start out by apologizing.”

Iris held her breath.

“But I'm not sorry. I kissed you. And I'm glad that I did.”

She exhaled.

“But I am sorry if I overstepped my boundaries. I don't know what's going on with you and your husband. But I want you to know that what I did last night is something I've wanted to do for a while. And I hope it didn't offend you, or put you in an awkward place.”

Iris couldn't speak. But she found that she could move. She shook her head rapidly from side to side,
No, no, you did not offend me.
While inside her thoughts raced,
Yes, yes, I wanted it, too!

“So, we're good?” he asked, placing his hands on her upper arms. It was not an embrace, but Iris could feel the warmth of his skin on hers.

“About that.” Iris paused. She wanted to tell him. “You already knew I was separated from my husband.”

Cooper nodded solemnly.

“We're divorcing.” There. It was out.

“Iris, I'm so sorry.” He pulled her against him, his chin resting on her head. “You don't have to go into it.”

She would some other time. When she was ready. “I just wanted you to know.”

Cooper squeezed her gently. “Thank you for trusting me with that.”

It was all she needed to hear.

•    •    •

Together they went over the final buttressing work to be done. Cooper reviewed the measurements of wood he'd need cut while Iris turned her attention to the saw and the lengths of lumber. But she could not concentrate.

Instead, she found herself staring up the ladder at Cooper. At his Levi's that fit just right. At his strong shoulders that moved smoothly beneath his faded T-shirt as he worked. Combined with the humidity of the growing day, it left her light-headed.

Now what?
she kept wondering. Were they just friends, acknowledging feelings but tucking them responsibly into their back pockets? Or were they more? And was she crazy to want more at this stage in her life? She knew the answer to that one. She yanked the plug out of its outlet. The last thing she needed in her condition was to be operating a power saw.

Cooper glanced down the ladder. “What's up?”

“Just need a break.” She slipped outside and flattened herself against the barn siding, which was rough and already growing warm with the sun's heat.

Below, the lake surface stretched green and placid, and Iris yearned to submerge herself. But it seemed someone else had had the same thought.

Leah strode across the grass, to the far edge of the yard where the sand was the only interruption between lawn and water. She paused and glanced over her shoulder. Behind, Stephen followed, his gait slow and measured, as if he was deep in thought.

They were just below the barn, and their voices carried up the rise, allowing Iris to feel somehow like less of a spy.

“I'm sorry,” Stephen said, stopping a few feet away from Leah. “Like I said, I had no idea my parents were going to announce that.”

Leah's arms were crossed. She turned away.

“Come on, Leah,” Stephen said, reaching out. “Please understand.”

“We already talked about this!” Leah cried. “You promised that I could define my own role with the foundation somehow.”

“Nothing's been decided!” he insisted. “Listen, we can work this out. I'll talk to them.”

Iris glanced toward the house, wondering if any of the others were within earshot. Stephen and Leah may have thought they'd chosen a spot a safe distance away from the house, but the water carried voices across the lake all the time.

Leah spun to face him. “What about my work here on the farm?” she said, and Iris realized she was crying. Instinctively, she stepped toward her sister. “I've grown this business with my own two hands, out of the dirt. Being back here, I realize how much a part of me this is.” Leah opened her arms, gesturing to the fields and the barns above them. “I can't just give it up.” Her voice fell, to a low and pleading timbre that Iris could barely make out. “Don't ask me to, Stephen.”

And then Stephen pulled her against him and she relented. She raised her face to his, kissing him desperately. Breathing a sigh of relief, Iris turned away. She could not watch as Stephen bent to the grass with her still in his arms. She wasn't alone in her struggles that morning. But it was no real comfort.