The House Across the Lake(6)

Hard.

Much harder than earlier.

These are deep, rough hacks loud enough to echo off the water. The blanket falls away, and Katherine hugs herself until she rides out the coughing fit. She looks frightened when it’s over. Another cloud shadow passes over her face, and for a second she looks like she has no idea what just happened. But then the cloud vanishes and she flashes a reassuring smile.

“Well, that was unladylike,” she says.

“Are you okay?”

“I think so.” Katherine’s hands tremble as she pulls the blanket back over her goose-pimpled shoulders. “But it’s probably time to go home now.”

“Of course,” I say. “You must be freezing.”

I certainly am. Now that the adrenaline of my earlier attempted heroics has worn off, a fierce chill takes hold. My body shivers as I haul the anchor up from the bottom of the lake. The entire rope—all fifty feet of it—is wet from being stretched underwater. By the time I’m finished with the anchor, my arms are so spent it takes me several tugs to start the motor.

I start to steer the boat toward Katherine’s place. Her house is an anomaly on the lake in that it’s the only one built after the seventies. What had previously been there was a perfectly acceptable bungalow from the thirties surrounded by tall pines.

Twenty years ago, the bungalow was removed. So were the pines.

Now in their place is an angular monstrosity that juts from the earth like a chunk of rock. The side facing the lake is almost entirely covered in glass, from the wide, rambling ground floor to the tip of the peaked roof. During the day, it’s impressive, if a little boring. The real estate equivalent of a store window with nothing on display.

But at night, when all the rooms are lit up, it takes on the appearance of a dollhouse. Each room is visible. Gleaming kitchen. Sparkling dining room. Wide living room that runs the length of the stone patio behind the house that leads to the edge of the lake.

I’ve been inside only once, when Len and I were invited to dinner by the previous owners. It felt weird to be sitting behind all that glass. Like a specimen in a petri dish.

Not that there are many people around watching. Lake Greene is small, as lakes go. A mile long and only a quarter mile wide in spots, it sits alone in a thick patch of forest in eastern Vermont. It was formed at the tail end of the Ice Age, when a glacier plowing its way across the land decided to leave a chunk of itself behind. That ice melted, digging a trough in the earth into which its water eventually settled. Which basically makes it a puddle. Very big and very deep and quite lovely to look at, but a puddle all the same.

It’s also private, which is the main draw. The water is only accessible by one of the residential docks, of which there are few. Only five houses sit on the lake, thanks to large lot sizes and a shortage of additional land suitable for construction. The northern end of the lake is lined with protected forest. The southern end is a steep, rocky bluff. In the middle are the houses, two on one side, three on the other.

It’s the latter side where Katherine lives. Her house sits tall and imposing between two older, more modest structures. To the left, about a hundred yards down the shore, is the Fitzgerald place. He’s in banking. She dabbles in antiques. They arrive at their charming cottage on Memorial Day weekend and depart on Labor Day, leaving the place empty the rest of the year.

Sitting to the right of the Royces’ is the ramshackle abode of Eli Williams, a novelist who was big in the eighties and not so big now. His house resembles a Swiss chalet—three stories of rough-hewn wood with tiny balconies on the upper floors and red shutters at the windows. Like my family, Eli and his wife summered at Lake Greene. When she died, Eli sold their house in New Jersey and moved here full-time. As the lake’s only permanent resident, he now keeps an eye on the other houses when everyone else is away.

There are no lights on in Katherine’s house, making its glass wall reflect the lake like a mirror. I catch a distorted glimpse of the two of us in the boat, our reflections wobbling, as if we’re made of water ourselves.

When I bring the boat to the property’s dock, Katherine leans forward and takes my cold hands in hers. “Thank you again. You truly did save my life.”

“It was nothing,” I say. “Besides, I’d be a terrible person if I ignored a supermodel in need.”

“Former supermodel.”

She coughs again. A single, harsh bark.

“Are you going to be okay?” I say. “Do you need to go to a doctor or something?”

“I’ll be fine. Tom will be back soon. Until then, I think I’ll take a hot shower and a long nap.”

She steps onto the dock and realizes my blanket is still over her shoulders. “God, I forgot all about this.”

“Keep it for now,” I say. “You need it more than I do.”

Katherine nods her thanks and starts to make her way toward the house. Although I don’t think it’s intentional, she walks the dock as if navigating a runway. Her stride is lengthy, smooth, elegant. Katherine might have grown tired of the modeling world, with good reason, but the way she moves is a gift. She has the effortless grace of a ghost.

Once she reaches the house, she turns back to me and waves with her left hand.

Only then do I notice something strange.

Katherine mentioned her husband several times, but—for now at least—she’s not wearing a wedding ring.