Lost Lake (Lost Lake, #1)(57)

“Lazlo Patterson,” he said.

Selma’s scalp tightened at the name. A strange reaction, she mused. It felt almost like panic, or maybe fear, the kind of disorienting fear you feel when you’re lost. “I’ve heard of you,” she said, taking her hand away.

“And yet I know nothing about you. I don’t think that’s fair.”

He thought he was smooth. And to anyone else, he probably was. He was good. But she was better. Huddled nearby under the shade of one of the umbrellas was a severe, unhappy soul with two unfortunate-looking young women by her side. They were shooting daggers with their eyes at Selma. Those had to be his wife and daughters. It was provocation enough to want to toy with them, but it felt so obligatory. Maybe she was just tired. She saw Bulahdeen sitting at a picnic table near the sign, chatting easily with some people from town. She was reaching behind her and untying the sign as she talked. Selma found herself hoping the old woman would wave and all but force Selma over, to include her in some way.

“I’m buying this property, you know,” Lazlo said.

Without looking at him, she said, “Oh, I know.”

“I’m going to do great things with it.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“Let me walk you around. I’ll show you. It’s awfully crowded here, anyway.”

She turned to him and hesitated. Finally, she smiled and said, “I’m all yours.”

“I should be so lucky.”

As soon as he turned and led her away from the lawn, her smile dropped. She would turn it on when he faced her again, but she didn’t want to leave it on in the interim. She felt like her battery was low on charge. When he led her by the dock, to the wooded trail around the lake, she slowed to a stop. He walked ahead a few steps.

On the dock was that child with the unusual sense of dress and glasses. She was on her stomach, looking down into the water, obviously waiting for the alligator she talked so much about. Her whole world was in a bubble, shimmering around her in the sun. The light from it almost blinded Selma, but she couldn’t look away.

She was getting soft.

The sooner this place sold, the better, as far as she was concerned. She had gotten too attached to it. And women like her knew the danger of attachment.

“Are you coming, beautiful?”

She was a little disgusted by him, she realized, but she sauntered over to him anyway. “The best things are worth waiting for.”

*

The cake sitting on the dining room buffet table was wide and three layers tall. There was a fondant topper shaped like a branch, and from that branch draped candy strings of Spanish moss, flowing down the side of the cake like a veil. Eby kept looking over at it. Why did Lisette make it so large? They were going to be eating cake for weeks.

Eby was sitting behind the front desk in the foyer, trying to focus on the crossword in front of her. What exactly was a seven-letter word for consequence? And why exactly did she care? The sound of car doors being shut distracted her almost as much as the smell of chocolate cake. Bulahdeen had told her that a few people from town might show up. Eby didn’t think it would happen, but the sound of voices outside had her reconsidering. It had just been so long since there’d been actual activity at the lake. She didn’t want to get her hopes up. Still, she strained to make out words, to catch pieces of conversation over the ticking and hissing of the air-conditioning.

She looked back down and tried to concentrate on her puzzle. George could never stand to be inside when he knew there was a gathering out there. He’d had to be a part of everything. He’d taken credit for new friendships, summer romances, first steps, and first swims. He’d loved this place. He’d loved this town.

She heard laughter. An unfamiliar voice. She whirled her pen back and forth between her fingers. Fifty years ago, she would have opened the front door and looked out and would have seen a swarm of people, with George in the center of it all. If she opened that door now, she knew that swarm wouldn’t be there. And neither would George.

Finally, she couldn’t take it any more. The party wasn’t officially supposed to start for another forty-five minutes, but Eby had to go out and see.

She opened the front door, and her lips parted in surprise at the size of the crowd.

The faces were all familiar ones. The past fifty years of her life were crammed into a tiny circle in front of her, nice and compact. Parked cars lined the driveway, disappearing through the trees, seemingly all the way back to the highway.

There was Billy Larkworthy and his bluegrass band, playing music under the canopy next to the dance floor. He’d been such a young man when he’d first started playing on the weekends here. He was old now. His grandson played the mandolin in the band. There were Norma and Heath Curtis, young newlyweds from town who couldn’t afford a honeymoon twenty years ago, so Eby and George let them stay here for free. Ten months later, they had a baby boy, whose middle name was George. There was Grady from the pizza place, and Harold from the Fresh Mart, and Halona from the dance studio. There were dozens of young men and women Eby and George had given jobs to over the years, now grown up with families. These people had welcomed her and George into their lives, into their town, and they in turn had fallen into Eby’s heart.

George would have loved this.

A flash of red hair caught her eye.

She automatically took a step forward. She saw the red hair again and hurried across the driveway and into the party. People began to recognize her, and there were pats on her back and hugs that slowed her momentum. Some people wanted to talk, and she kept saying, “Yes, of course, just give me a minute.”