Moonlight on Butternut Lake (21 page)

She came over to Mila now. “Hi,” she said, “I'm Jessica. What can I get for you?”

“Um, let's see,” Mila said, looking back down at the menu.

“The Butternut Burger's good. Frankie—he's our cook—grinds the meat fresh every day,” Jessica said proudly, looking at Frankie.

“I'll bet he does,” Mila said, taking in Frankie's gargantuan arms, which were larger in circumference than her own waist. He smiled back at Jessica now, an adoring smile, and Mila realized that she was watching two people who were obviously very much in love with each other.
Great,
she thought.
Just what I need to be seeing now
. “You know what,” she said to Jessica, a little abruptly. “I think I'll just have the vanilla milk shake.”

“One vanilla milk shake,” Jessica murmured in concentration as she wrote out the whole order on her check pad, and then she hurried away, bumping into a table as she went, and leaving Mila to worry about how she fared when the restaurant was actually busy.
Oh well,
she thought.
I probably wasn't a very good waitress either. Especially since I always had a chemistry textbook or a letter to Heather waiting for me to come back to between orders.

But thinking about writing letters to Heather made her feel sad, so she tried to think about something else and immediately thought of Reid, which made her feel jittery all over again.
Low blood sugar,
she reminded herself, and when Jessica brought her milk shake, which was delicious, she drank it as dutifully as if she were taking medicine. And she
did
feel better afterward, but she still felt that same strange little quiver of excitement she'd felt all day. She sighed, paid her bill, and, leaving a generous tip for Jessica, she walked back to Lonnie's car and drove back to the cabin, grateful for once that the twisty road required all her attention.

After she'd walked into the kitchen and thanked Lonnie for letting her borrow her car, she lingered there for a little while,
chatting with her and, at Lonnie's insistence, showing her the dress she'd bought that afternoon.

“You don't think it's too . . . too dressy?” Mila asked shyly, holding it up to herself. She didn't really mean dressy, though. She meant something else.

“Too dressy?” Lonnie repeated. “No, honey, it's perfect,” she said, with her by now familiar and reassuring smile. “I'm glad you're going out tonight,” she added. “It's about time you had some fun up here this summer. Honestly, I don't know how you've survived all these lonely nights out here all by yourself.”

“Well, not
all
by myself,” Mila corrected, not looking at her as she put her dress back in the shopping bag.

“Oh, of course,” Lonnie amended. “You've had Reid to keep you company, too. And I must say, he's doing so much better, isn't he, Mila? I like to think,” she confided, “that it has something to do with my home cooking. You know, now that he's actually eating it and not just picking at it.”

“You know what?” Mila said. “I think your home cooking is definitely doing the trick.” Privately, though, she now had another theory about Reid's improving mood.

“Oh, by the way,” Lonnie said, “Allie called while you were out. She told me to remind you that she'd pick you up at five. I wish I could come, too, but my church is having a potluck tonight and I've already baked five dozen lemon squares for it.”

“Your church is very lucky then,” Mila said, and she left Lonnie in the kitchen and went to take a shower. Afterward, she blow-dried her hair with a little more care than usual and then slipped on her new sundress. She didn't look at herself in the full-length mirror in her room, though. She was afraid if she did, she'd lose her nerve and take it off. But she did use the small mirror above her dresser to put on a little bit of mascara and lipstick. And then
she went back to the now quiet kitchen—Lonnie had left already for the night—and tried to keep her nervousness at bay while she waited for Allie to pick her up. But when Allie was late, and her nerves had had time to ratchet up another notch, she decided to call Ms. Thompson at Caring Home Care. Mila had gotten in the habit of calling her at least once a week, and, no matter how busy Ms. Thompson was, she always made time to talk to her.

“Mila,” she said now when she heard her voice. “I'm so glad you called.”

“I'm not interrupting anything, am I?”

“No, of course not,” Ms. Thompson said, though Mila could hear her rustling papers in the background. “I'm just refiling all the filing my niece, Janet, did today.” She sighed audibly. “Is it wrong to call someone who's your own flesh and blood a dolt?”

But Mila didn't know how to answer that so instead she asked, “How's your book club going?”

“Oh that,” Ms. Thompson said with another sigh. “Well, I haven't been drummed out of it yet, if that's what you mean. But I sense a growing impatience with me just the same. Honestly, I don't know how those women find the time to always read the book, Mila. I really don't.”

“Are they all still working, like you?” Mila asked.

“Oh, God no. Most of them had the sense to retire years ago. Something I should probably be considering doing, too,” she added, though Mila somehow knew that Ms. Thompson would never retire. Not voluntarily, anyway.

“What about you, Mila?” she asked. “How are you doing?”

“I'm doing fine,” she said carefully.

“And your patient? How's he doing? Still being difficult?”

“Um, no. Not at all. And he's not—he wasn't ever, really—as bad as I've made him out to be,” she said, knowing she couldn't
explain to Ms. Thompson, or herself, for that matter, the way she was feeling about Reid right now. “He's getting his cast off today,” she said, redirecting the subject. “And his family's having a little party for him tonight at their cabin. I'm actually waiting, right now, for his sister-in-law to give me a ride there.”

“You're going to a party?” Ms. Thompson asked.

“Well, a barbecue, actually.”

“By the lake?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That sounds like fun,” Ms. Thompson said encouragingly. “And you know what? You deserve to have fun, Mila. You haven't had nearly enough of it lately, have you?” And Mila hesitated, thinking that what Ms. Thompson had just said to her sounded a lot like what Lonnie had said to her a little while ago. But she didn't say anything, because at that exact moment Allie's car pulled up outside. “My ride's here,” she said, her stomach feeling fluttery again.

“All right, well, have a good time. And call me back soon,” Ms. Thompson said. “It'll give me something to look forward to.”

“I'll do that,” Mila assured her, and then she said good-bye and hurried out to the waiting car.

“I'm sorry I'm late,” Allie said as Mila climbed in beside her. “All our guests just arrived at the same time.” Glancing over at Mila, Allie added before she headed up the driveway, “I like your dress. It's really pretty.”

“Thank you,” Mila said, relieved to see that Allie was wearing a sundress, too. “How did Reid's doctor's appointment go?” she asked casually as they turned onto the main road.

“Fine, I guess,” Allie said. “They're not back yet.”

“No?” Mila said, surprised. But Allie shrugged, unconcerned. “I think Walker was going to run a few other errands while they were in Ely,” she said. “I'm sure they'll be back soon.”

They drove the remaining five minutes to Allie and Walker's cabin in silence, and when they'd driven down its long gravel drive and pulled up in front of it, Mila was relieved to see there were only a handful of other cars there.
Good,
she thought with relief, s
o it isn't a big party.
And it wasn't, as it turned out, a big cabin, either. It was small and rustic, and very charming, in its way, but it didn't look big enough to accommodate a family of four and Mila said as much to Allie.

“It's been a tight squeeze,” Allie admitted as they got out of the car. “But it's been good for us, too, to all be so close together this summer. So
literally
close together. It was the same way for my family when I was growing up.”

Mila nodded. The cabin did look like a sweet place, she thought, but it had still been generous of Allie and Walker to turn over their larger and more luxurious cabin to a convalescing Reid for the summer. “Come on,” Allie said now, companionably taking her arm, “I want you to meet our friends.”

Mila felt her natural shyness intensifying then, but she let Allie lead her around the cabin to where a lawn sloped gently down to the lake and to a small boathouse and dock. On the lawn was a large grill and a long picnic table that was covered with a blue-and-white-checked cloth, weighted down by picnic food that looked so delicious it could only have come from Pearl's. The guests, not surprisingly, were scattered around this table, sipping drinks, nibbling on finger food, and talking, and their children were at the other end of the lawn, clustered around a tetherball game, which Walker and Allie's adorable nine-year-old son, Wyatt, seemed to be playing with an almost ferocious determination. It was nice, Mila thought, all of it. Pretty and summery and festive. The sky was shaded the palest pink of early sunset, and the air was tinged with the smell of recently cut grass and
charcoal smoke and filled with the sounds of conversation and laughter. And Mila got the feeling she'd gotten sometimes as a child, the feeling that she was on the outside looking in, and that something other people took for granted—in this case, friends getting together for a barbecue on a summer evening—was for her nothing short of amazing.
God, I want this,
she thought. She wanted now, more than ever, to be a part of something, a family, a group of friends, a town, anything, really, to banish the loneliness that had been the one constant in her life. But what were her chances of ever having anything like this? she wondered, looking around. Almost nonexistent, she decided. No, she amended.
Completely
nonexistent. As long as Brandon was looking for her, and she knew he was looking for her, scenes like this would always be unattainable to her.

She tried to brush away these thoughts, though, as Allie introduced her to all the guests, some of whom were already familiar to her. There were Jax and Jeremy Johnson, who owned the hardware store in Butternut, and their four adorable daughters, who ranged in age from four to sixteen, and whose names, like their parents' names, all began with the letter
J
. The oldest of their daughters, Joy, looked very happy to be toting Brooke around with her everywhere, and Brooke, it seemed, was very happy to be toted around by her in return.

And then there were Jack and Caroline Keegan, who owned Pearl's and whom Lonnie—who liked to gossip about Butternut's residents, though never in a malicious or mean-spirited way—had told Mila about over coffee at the breakfast table one morning. Apparently, Jack had left Caroline and their daughter, Daisy, almost twenty years before, when Daisy was only three, only to return again last summer and work his way back into their lives and their hearts. According to Lonnie, he and Caroline had
gotten remarried in the winter and had a small wedding reception with only their family and closest friends in attendance. As Allie introduced her to them, Mila looked for signs of their tumultuous past, but she couldn't find any. Jack was as handsome as Caroline was pretty, and they both looked happy and relaxed, holding hands and smiling at each other as if they'd never been apart before. Or maybe, she thought, they looked that way because they
had
been apart before, and now, after all those years, they had a true appreciation of what it meant to be together again.

“I was at Pearl's today,” Mila told them, after she'd shaken hands with both of them. “And I had the best vanilla milk shake I've ever had.”

“That's nice to hear,” Caroline said, smiling. “I like them, too, but I prefer chocolate. Drinking them, though, is an occupational hazard for me, so I try to save them for special occasions.”

“Speaking of special occasions,” Allie said, “Jack and Caroline's daughter, Daisy, called them today to say that she and her boyfriend, Will, are engaged.”

“Oh, congratulations,” Mila said.

“Thank you,” Jack said, looking pleased. “We're very happy for them.”

“We are happy,” Caroline said, in a qualifying tone. “But unlike Jack, I'm also a little worried. I mean, Will's stationed in Virginia, and Daisy will be going to graduate school in Michigan, and I just think it's going to be hard for them to be engaged to each other when they're so far apart.”

“They'll be fine,” Jack said reassuringly. “And in the meantime,” he told Allie and Mila, “I've got my eye on a little cabin for them. I'd like to fix it up and surprise them with it after they get married here next summer. That way, if they don't have time for
a real honeymoon, they'll at least have a place of their own to stay the weekend of their wedding.”

“Jack, that is
so
sweet,” Allie said, beaming at him. “And, as wedding presents go, I think a cabin's going to be much more useful to them than a juicer. Now, if you'll excuse us, I need to introduce Mila to the rest of our guests.” With that, she dragged Mila away to meet some more families. And Mila tried to be polite, and tried to seem interested, but the truth was, she was intensely preoccupied by Reid's impending arrival. And just when she thought she couldn't stand it anymore, Allie looked up from the conversation they were having and said, “Oh look, here they are now.”

Mila's eyes followed hers to the driveway, where the van was pulling up, and she felt her nerves ratchet up another notch.
I can't stand this anymore,
she thought, and though the night was warm, she realized her palms were sweating, and she tightened them around the icy can of Coke she was holding. She followed Allie over to the van, though, and only hung back a little as they got close. Then she watched as Walker got out and opened the passenger-side door. Positioning a pair of crutches beside it, Walker helped Reid out of the van and assisted him in hooking the crutches under his arms. And that was when Reid looked up and looked straight at Mila.