The Lake Season (7 page)

“Um, let me check.” Iris rummaged in her purse, but she only managed to find an uncapped cherry ChapStick that belonged to Lily. “Here. Just don't get any on your dress.” When she pressed it into Leah's palm, she felt Leah's fingers shaking. Iris gave her hand a squeeze. “Are you okay?”

Leah withdrew her hand quickly. “I just need a minute.”

Millie beckoned to her from the front of the store. After several moments, when Leah still hadn't joined her, Iris peeked behind the curtain. The dress had slid off the chair into an unattended heap on the carpet. Leah stood exactly as Iris had left her, in her underwear. Unaware her sister was watching her, she stared hollowly in the mirror drawing the ChapStick back and forth, back and forth, across her smeared red mouth.

Eight

S
o, how's Paul?” Stephen asked. The family was huddled around the kitchen island making lunch. “Is he joining you soon?”

Iris drew the paring knife down sharply through the cantaloupe, narrowly missing her finger. “Not this weekend.” Iris was going to have to tell them soon.

Iris had always been the family's pleaser: the “plaster,” as Leah used to tease. It was a sort of sacrifice she had long acknowledged with a certain level of pride. But now she realized it hadn't served her so well. She felt unbalanced, worrying already about the reactions her news would cause, when really, she knew she shouldn't have been concerned about anyone beyond herself and her kids.

They sat down to eat and Leah filled the men in on her dress fitting, which she described with a joy more embellished than ­actual, until Stephen cleared his throat and smiled at her. “Honey, I'm afraid we're achieving wedding domination at the table.” He turned politely to Iris. “So, Iris, I hear you're a literary agent.”

Iris considered the lack of sales she'd made that year. Winter was a slow time. “Trying to be, anyway.”

Stephen grinned at her. “That's great. Any woman who is able to hold down a career and raise a family sounds successful to me. What are you working on now?”

Encouraged, Iris told them about her latest pitch. It was the one project she'd felt most excited about that spring. Before Paul had brought her world to a screeching halt. “One of my lifestyle writers and I have been working on a cookbook concept. I've spent most of the spring shopping it around, but we're still trying to get an editor on board.”

Bill perked up. “What kind of cookbook was it?”

“The concept is to do a family cookbook using local farm-to-table ingredients.”

“Well, that's right up our alley,” Millie said approvingly.

Leah agreed. “That's what we're pushing here at the farm. Mom and I have been talking about turning it into a CSA.”

Iris brightened. “Exactly. One of my favorite cookbook editors, Joan, loves the idea. But she wants to take it back to her marketing team for final approval. I'm hoping to hear from her any day.”

“Well, that sounds promising,” Leah said.

Iris wished that were true. But Joan usually gave her a decision right away. The wavering left room for doubt. “I hope so. My writer is great, but I'm a little worried about her lack of cooking experience.” Honestly, Iris was worried for herself, too. She needed a project now more than ever.

“Fingers crossed,” Stephen said. “Maybe they'll think she's got the culinary chops to get if off the ground and you'll get your offer.”

Iris smiled. “Maybe.”

It had been a while since anyone had shown interest in her work, and she welcomed the spark of hope she felt. “What about you, Stephen? I'd love to hear more about your foundation.” As Stephen spoke, Iris was surprised to hear just how much he traveled, giving presentations to corporations and schmoozing executives in his fund-raising efforts.

“Really, I'd love to say I get to spend more time with the kids,” he admitted. “But I'm afraid I'm knee deep in the business end of things.”

“Fund-raising allows those kids to have all of those opportunities,” Bill reassured him. The admiration in her father's voice was evident.

And her own was beginning to form. Besides his clear friendliness, the evidence was irrefutable: Stephen pausing to refill Leah's glass before it was empty, gently touching her arm between lulls in the conversation. Not to mention the look on his face every time she entered a room. The guy was smitten.

“I just hope I can convince this beauty to join me,” he said, grinning at Leah.

But it was clearly a subject she did not want to pursue. “Enough about work,” Leah said, tossing her napkin on her plate. “What are those kiddos up to?”

Despite the distance between the two sisters, Leah had always adored Iris's children. Elaborate packages arrived in the mail for birthdays and holidays, and letters from exotic places appeared in the mailbox regularly, the kids' names scrolled across the blue airmail envelopes in sparkly ink. In fact, the distance had worked to Leah's advantage, shrouding their young aunt in mystery, a light far more intriguing than that of their predictable suburban mother.

“They're great,” Iris said, wondering how they really were. The table quieted as Iris struggled to summarize Sadie's year in middle school, leaving out the parts she really would have liked to talk about, like how emotionally draining her teen had become. She mentioned Jack's second prize in the art show, and the first story Lily'd ever written, things that caused Iris's heart to swell and tears to press the corners of her eyelids.

“What about soccer? Are they still playing?”

Iris nodded that yes, they were. But her throat grew tight, and she reached so quickly for her iced tea that she almost toppled her glass.

She could feel Stephen's concern from across the table.

“I'll never forget that right foot Lily had as a toddler,” Leah went on. “What was she, like two? And she kept kicking goal after goal!”

They all laughed, recalling how Leah had fussed over the kids, spending whole afternoons teaching them to kick the ball into a net she'd fashioned from one of Millie's bedsheets hanging from the clothesline.

“I miss the kids,” Bill said, his voice rich with fondness.

To her horror, Iris's eyes suddenly spilled.

“Honey, what is it?” her father asked, reaching to touch her hand. Which only made the tears fall faster. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket.

“It must be hard to be away from them,” Stephen said. He turned to Leah. “I can't wait to have some of our own.”

Even through her tears, Iris was sure of what she saw: Leah pulling her hand swiftly away from Stephen. The startled look on her face.

“Will you look at all these dishes?” Leah said, standing abruptly. “Let's get these cleared.” Was she giving Iris a moment to compose herself? Or was this about something else?

“You know, maybe I'll call the kids now,” Iris said, standing with the rest of them.

“Good idea.” Leah tapped Stephen's arm, her silver bracelets jangling on her wrist. “Honey, give her your cell.”

He fumbled in his shirt pocket.

“That's okay. Mine's upstairs. I need something from my room, anyway.” But Iris didn't go inside. Instead she headed across the backyard, taking deep and desperate breaths. By the time she'd rounded the house and walked up the grassy rise to the barns, her scalp began to prickle with perspiration. The talk at the table had been too close to home: weddings, babies. The way Stephen reached for Leah, the way she lit up beside him.

Feeling as if she might be sick, Iris sought refuge in the red barn, stumbling into its cool, dusty recess. “Oh, God,” she cried, sinking onto an old bale of hay by a horse stall. Then, more urgently, “Damn him. God damn him to hell.” Standing, she swiped furiously at the hot tears that sprang from her eyes. Paul had sent her here, tearing her summer and her family apart. Without thought, she grabbed the first thing she saw, a dented old shovel in the corner. And she swung.

Again and again, Iris swung the shovel. First overhead, then, when she tired, sideways like a bat. She hit the door of the horse stall over and over, the metal clattering against wood. It sent a splintering vibration down her arm and into her spine, and it was a relief as welcome as it was painful. In her mind the slights flashed with each blow: the soaked heap of bathroom towels Paul left for her to pick up from the tile floor each morning. The impatient way he clicked his tongue whenever she joined in the conversation at a dinner party, and how he'd shamelessly correct her in front of their friends and embarrass her. But most of all, the curve of his spine away from her in bed each night. As if he could not stand to be near her. Which only flamed her suspicions about his fidelity. With each image, the shovel struck the wooden door with a resplendent shudder.
Slob
. Thud.
Arrogant.
Thud.
Liar.
Thud.

Iris was bent over the shovel, heaving, when she heard a shuffle in the doorway behind her. She spun around.

“That's quite a swing.” Cooper Woods set down a large red cooler and flicked the lights on.

Iris closed her eyes, willing herself a million light-years away. “Oh, God. I . . .”

“Did you bring your tool belt?”

“What?”

Cooper looked directly at her. “Because it'd be a shame to waste an arm like that.” Before Iris could explain, he filled the awkward silence. “Why don't you go outside and pick out a hammer. My tools are in the back of my truck.”

Iris set down the shovel. “Excuse me?”

“Well, as much as I'm sure you'd like to talk about it, we can't just stand around chatting all day.” He pointed to the roof.

Iris shook her head, paralyzed somewhere between humiliation and curiosity. “But I don't know anything about building.” Besides, couldn't he see that she was in the middle of a nervous breakdown?

Cooper held up his hammer. “Know what this is?”

Iris rolled her eyes. “Duh.”

He flexed his arm. “Got any muscle left?” He glanced at the dented stall door behind her.

She crossed hers self-consciously. “Enough.”

Cooper tossed her a pair of gloves. “Good. Then stop gawking and get to work.”

For the next two hours Cooper showed Iris how to support an overhead beam with two-by-fours. He didn't ask one question about the scene he'd witnessed, and she didn't offer any explanation. The work was too focused, and soon she'd forgotten herself and settled into a rhythm, passing materials up the ladder and listening to his careful explanations as he worked above her.

They only broke once, for iced coffee, which Cooper shared with her from his thermos. “Go on, have some.” It was sweet and icy, and Iris found herself opening up a little. Asking questions about the barn. The materials. The job he was doing for her parents. Anything was a welcome refuge from all the pent-up stuff in her head.

Cooper seemed pleased to share. At one point he rested one hand on her shoulder, directing her gaze overhead with the other. “These old beams are still solid,” he explained, pointing to massive columns that crossed overhead. “But they just need a little support. Which is why we pair a new beam beside it, and link them together.” He paused. “It's called ‘sistering.' ”

Iris followed his gaze, making note of the younger, narrower beams buttressed beside the older, and sucked in her breath. “That's beautiful.”

Cooper glanced at her appreciatively. “I think so.”

By the time the sun began to hover above the hills, they'd finished buttressing a wide stretch of the center beam. Iris was completely out of her element. It was intimidating and wildly liberating. When they finished, Iris flushed as she stood back to survey the work.

“Well, look at that,” Cooper said, standing beside her. “Iris Standish has tool skills beyond her beloved shovel.”

Iris winced. “I'd better get back down to the house. They're probably wondering what's happened to me.”

“Wouldn't want to take you away.”

“Oh, believe me. I wish you would.” She blushed again. “I mean . . .”

Cooper shook his head. “You always were a funny girl.”

Iris followed him back to the truck. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“The stuff you say.” He looked at her, smiling. “I sat behind you and Penny Middleton in chemistry class, remember?”

Iris nodded, her eyes narrowing.

“You girls whispered back and forth the whole class. And the more you talked, the faster your ponytail swished back and forth on my desk.” He laughed. “I could barely take notes.”

“You were eavesdropping on my private conversations?”

“It was kind of hard not to. For such a quiet girl, you talked nonstop
.
”

Iris laughed self-consciously. “No, I did not.”

Cooper grinned. “Still do. Especially after a thermos of ­coffee.”

Iris pushed him lightly on the arm. “Well, that's the last time I share coffee with you.” But she was secretly touched. Cooper remembered her from chemistry class? And that she wore ponytails, no less?

•    •    •

Before leaving, she helped him carry the tools back out to his truck. When they finished, Cooper hopped in the cab. “Hey,” he said. “Thanks for today.”

Iris blushed, thinking back to the way he'd first walked in on her. “Look, about before . . .”

Cooper held up his hand, silencing her. “You did great.” He smiled. “Besides, next time I have a demo project, I'll know who to call.”

Iris pulled off her gloves and handed them to him. “Very funny.”

She watched as he rolled down the drive, a new sense of fullness in her belly.

Cooper braked suddenly and leaned out the window. “You know, I could always use another set of hands,” he shouted back to her. “I'm here almost each day.”

Iris shielded her eyes. “I may take you up on that.”

Iris stood in the driveway, watching him go. For the first time all day—in weeks, come to think of it— she couldn't stop smiling.

“Here you are!”

Iris turned, pulled from her reverie. Leah was making her way up the hill from the house. “Mom sent me to find you.” She stilled, noticing the truck. “Who was that?”

“Remember Cooper Woods? Mom and Dad hired him to work on the barn.”

Leah followed the truck with narrow eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

Iris glanced at her watch and gasped. “Is that what time it is?”

“You've been gone a while.” Leah chewed on her lower lip, something Iris knew was a sign of her sister's agitation.

But Iris was already heading back into the barn, admiring her work one last time. She smiled up at the ceiling. “Didn't realize how late it was. I helped Cooper support one of the beams.”