Lost Lake (Lost Lake, #1)(46)

Selma was sitting at one of the picnic tables, watching them with detachment. “My second husband was a dance instructor. Did I ever tell you that?” she said to no one. She suddenly stood and took Jack by the hand. “Dance with me.”

“I don’t know how to dance, Selma,” Jack said, panicking.

“And they do?” she asked, gesturing to Wes and Devin.

“Hey,” Wes said, in mock offense.

Selma dragged Jack onto the floor and began to execute some complicated move that involved Jack putting his leg between hers and spinning her around.

Jack promptly fell and twisted his ankle.

Selma just stood there and looked at him, then she sighed at the injustice of it all and went to sit back down while everyone gathered around Jack.

“I’ll get some ice,” Eby said, rushing to the house. She returned with not only ice but Lisette. Lisette didn’t have on shoes, and her toenails were painted a surprising color of orange. Her dark dress was buttoned wrong, as if she’d hastily dressed, and through the missed buttonholes, some bright yellow lingerie could be seen. Her hair was pushed back with a headband, wet in some places, like she’d just washed her face. Everyone suddenly stood still. It was as if she was a wild animal who had lost her way and they didn’t want to startle her. Lisette never came out to the lawn at night.

They had gotten Jack’s shoe off by this time. Lisette took the ice pack from Eby and set it on Jack’s foot. She looked up at him worriedly, darting her head back frequently to look at the grills where the hot dogs and burgers were now sizzling.

“It’s okay,” Jack said. “It’s not broken. You go inside. I’ll be fine.”

Lisette looked relieved. She hurried back into the house as if the smoke from the grill were chasing her, as if she might just get sick from it.

The group helped Jack to his cabin, and they ended up having dinner in there with him. Even Selma joined them. She never exactly apologized, but she had gotten up and refilled Jack’s drink once, which everyone figured was as good as it got with Selma and contrition.

Later, color high from laughter, they all said good night to each other, and Wes helped Eby and Kate take the dishes and trash back to the main house. Eby went upstairs, and Kate and Wes walked back outside. The umbrella lights were now off, and Devin was trying to catch fireflies in the dark.

They stood side by side and watched her. Wes could feel Kate’s arm graze his. When he was twelve, this was what he had lived for, a brief touch from her—their legs as they sat on the dock, their hands as they both reached for something at the same time. He’d known she hadn’t felt the same way, not until that very last moment, just before she left. It had been floating around the lake for years now, that longing they’d left behind. But it too had grown. There was a different tenor to it now, something grittier, more lusty and heavy. He couldn’t deny that he had stared at her legs as she’d walked around today, studying the way they moved. She was small breasted, and after careful consideration, he was fairly certain that she didn’t wear a bra. He wondered what it would feel like to kiss her, what she tasted like with Bulahdeen’s wine on her lips. Things would never be as simple as they had been. And yet … here they were, barely touching, and he found himself thinking that he would be perfectly happy to stay here all night like this, with just the feel of her arm against his.

“Well, good night, Wes,” Kate finally said, her voice slightly breathy. “See you tomorrow.”

He nodded.

Kate called to Devin. “The alligator says good night, too, Wes!” Devin said as they walked away.

When Wes got into his van, he sat there for a moment.

This had been the best summer night he’d had in a long time, and it left him afraid that it was happening all over again, that he was going to fall in love and wish for a life he couldn’t make happen, because that life could only ever exist here for a single moment, with Kate.

Maybe it was for the best that Eby was selling, that he was getting rid of his own land. You can’t spend your whole life unhappy, just waiting for a moment of something perfect. Wes had already made his life into something good.

This was just a place.

And Kate was just a girl he’d once known.

He needed to let them both go.

*

Lisette loved the flavors of old, simple recipes, ones made so often that their edges were worn down and they tasted soft and sure of themselves. They made her think of her grand-mère, who had lost her husband and two of her sons in the war. She had cried every day for a year, walking the same stretch of road from her home to the train station, waiting for them to come back. Her tears fell as black stones to the ground, and to this day those stones lodged themselves in car tires and let all the air out slowly in a wail. People called it Sorrow Road. Lisette had very few memories of her grand-mère and her house in the country. She remembered the bread she had baked there in a sooty black stove. And she remembered her grand-mère once holding out her spotted, papery fingers and telling Lisette that old hands made the best food. “Old hands can hold memories of good things,” she had said.

That made Lisette look at her hands as she stood there at Jack’s door that next morning, holding a tray of food.

She had old hands now. Sometimes it came as such a surprise. Interacting with Luc could make her believe she was so much younger sometimes.