Summer Snow (31 page)

Janice's voice was muffled and unclear, but I was quite sure I heard her say, “No! Not yet. She can't know.”

And then, that woman's intuition, that subtle little prick at the back of your neck that tells you someone is watching you, must have alerted Janice to my presence. She turned suddenly, and I was caught staring at her through the transparent see-though in the door. From her perspective I must have been nothing more than a disembodied eye.

“I gotta go,” she blurted out. Then, “What are you doing up, Julia? I thought you went to bed.”

I left without saying a word.

The second time I wasn't lucky enough to hear any of the conversation. Janice was more cautious, fearful of getting caught, maybe. I stepped into the kitchen after work one night to hear her mutter an awkward good-bye and slip the telephone into its cradle shiftily, as if putting it down gently would stop me from realizing that she had been on the phone. The utter silence in the house told me that Grandma and Simon were not home.

“Who were you talking to?” I questioned Janice without preamble.

“Oh, no one,” she murmured dumbly, forcing herself to smile at me. It was so unnatural, so fake, that I was afraid it would crumble off her face.

I continued to pursue her with my eyes.

“Just an old friend,” Janice finally admitted, unable to stand up beneath my wilting stare. “No one you would know.”

To say that her covert conversations made me apprehensive would be an understatement. Janice's behavior didn't change at all; she was no different than she had always been around Grandma and Simon, but I felt like I could sense something brewing just out of view. There was a brooding, indecipherable shift in her manner. It was as if I could feel her expression alter the moment I left the room.

I was sure she was conspiring against me. It occurred to me that Janice was so bent on getting me to give up my baby that she was ready to take matters into her own hands. I just didn't know how far she was willing to go. Not that there was anything she really
could
do about it—I was no longer a minor—but I still had a difficult time shaking the feeling that she was hiding something from me. What could it possibly be about but the baby?

And for some reason, I balked at the idea of going to the lake with her. It seemed like the perfect opportunity for her to poison my thoughts, to talk me into what she thought was my only real option. Maybe even to try to win Grandma over to her side. I wanted to beg her to leave me alone. I needed to figure this out by myself, without the shadow of her own broken past hanging menacingly over me.

But there was no way out of it. Simon was single-minded and even Grandma exuded a feeling of magnitude, as if this act of togetherness, of normal family behavior, was the culmination of four months of struggle, sweat, and tears. It seemed significant to me, too, though somewhat less promising.

We all piled into Janice's car on Saturday and left for the lake with Simon making up songs to the tune of “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” in the backseat. His words rarely rhymed or fit the meter of the song, but he more than made up for his lack of skill with an abundance of intoxicating gusto. Grandma and Janice giggled from the front seat and I sat next to Simon, shooting him sidelong glances of theatrical annoyance that only egged him on to grander verses and exaggerated accompanying arm gestures.

Mill Lake was a forty-minute drive north, and by the time we had entered the outskirts of the nearest town, I was enjoying myself far more than I had anticipated. Even the cloud of Janice's clandestine late-night conversations seemed to evaporate in the elation of Simon's singing and the blissfully warm sun that blazed through the back window of the car.

Not today,
I told myself determinedly.
Today is a cease-fire, a rare oasis of peace in this seemingly endless journey.

Though we were probably the only group of people at the lake that didn't drive up with some form of water entertainment hitched to the back of our car, we didn't mind. We spread our oversize blanket on the sand near the water, taking advantage of the sprawling shade of a burr oak that would have required at least three of us linking arms to reach all the way around it. Half of the blanket was draped in sun so that the already yellow-toned quilt took on the appearance of melted lemon sorbet. A fluttering division of leafy shadows flung the rest of our little island into tones of hushed blue-gray, and Grandma parked the cooler and picnic basket deep in the shade, where there were almost no coins of golden light glittering between the leaves.

We were set up in less than five minutes. With a contented sigh, Grandma bunched up a couple of beach towels and positioned herself against the cooler, gazing out at the water. The rest of us took to the sun. Simon looked to his mother for permission and, seeing the slight nod that he'd hoped for, kicked off his shoes and ran for the water, trailing a bucket in one hand and a long-handled scoop in the other. Janice plunked down on the blanket, rolling up her shorts instead of taking them off, even though I could see the lime green strap of a swimming suit peeking out from underneath her tank top. Consulting the sky, she aligned herself perfectly to the arc of the sun and lay back with her eyes closed. I found a comfy spot to sit cross-legged in the middle, Grandma's foot resting lightly against my knee on one side and Janice stretched out beside me on the other.

The lake spread out before me, a sheet of rippled, stone-blue steel that was dotted with boats and Jet Skis. All along the shoreline, trees stepped right up to the edge and hung dropping branches over the water so that the cove we were in was soft and rolling, spreading gracefully out to disappear around the bend almost a mile away in both directions. There were a few people on the beach, a handful of kids splashing in the water, but Simon alone could have been a portrait at the edge of it all.

He stood up to his ankles in the tiny, lapping waves, the red bucket at his side and his other arm still clutching the yellow scoop as it swept across his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun. His swimming trunks were almost exactly the same color as the water, and his white T-shirt popped as if cut out against the immense blue backdrop. I could see the breeze rake invisible fingers through the dark curls at the nape of his neck.

“Perfect,” Grandma exhaled.

I turned to look at her and found her eyes closed, her head thrown back in surrender to the luxury of the day. The dancing shadows cast her wrinkled profile into relief, the angles sharp and chiseled, a reminder of the beauty she had once been.

“It is,” Janice agreed, not moving. “It's why we wanted to take you here so badly.” She popped her head up to shoot me a phony dirty look. “Why haven't we been here every weekend this summer?”

“Don't look at me.” I raised my arms as if to fend her off. “Why is it my fault it took us half the summer to make it to Mill Lake?”

“Because you're young and cool, Julia. You should think about these things. You know, be our social coordinator and such.” Janice flopped back down and raised her chin just so to take full advantage of the hot rays.

I made a noise of dissent but didn't bother to defend myself. Young and cool. Yeah right. More like old beyond my years and experiencing a pregnancy hot flash. I moved into the shade.

There was a boat pulling into the dock at the opposite end of the beach, and I watched wistfully as a guy in board shorts and dark sunglasses hopped barefoot onto the smooth planks. He ran both of his hands through his longish hair and then reached out an arm to help a number of young women climb out of the boat. They were all bikini clad and wet, the last one still removing her life jacket after what I assumed was a stint on the kneeboard. I could see another guy lifting the board onto the wide, flat back of the ski boat, wrestling with the long Velcro straps as he tried to reposition them for the next rider. Somehow they all reminded me of Michael and his group of friends at Thomas and Francesca's wedding.

It had been easy to avoid them throughout most of the reception because Francesca hadn't overlooked a single detail and our seats were meticulously assigned. Grandma and I sat around a table with six other adults who were all at least thirty years older than me, while most of the people my age were across the room from us, crowded around a few tables near two towers of stacked speakers. When the deejay put on something fast and loud after the first few slow dances, I watched Michael and his friends hop to their feet and loosen their ties as they flooded the dance floor. Grandma and her companions laughed and seemed ready to settle in for a long night of observing their flailing attempts at the actions to “Y.M.C.A.” and “Stayin' Alive.” But I wanted to leave so badly that I could hardly make myself sit still.

After a few dances, some desperate look in my eye finally alerted Grandma to my suffering. We said our good-byes, picking our way through the maze of tables and haphazard clusters of people. We had almost made it to the door when the song switched again and a few strains of piano music filled the air. A row of line dancers dispersed, and people melted into pairs or slipped quietly away in search of a partner. The polished wooden dance floor was only feet from the door, and though I didn't want to notice, I was very aware that Michael was walking right toward us. He was alone. If I turned to him, if I smiled, would he smile back? Would he ask me to dance?

I hadn't turned to him. I had grabbed Grandma and ducked out the door too afraid that some silly dream was exactly that instead of a sweet possibility. In lieu of the real thing, I had gone home and imagined what it would have been like to dance with Michael. And on the beach I did the same thing. I imagined that my life was different.

The Walkers had a boat, and back in the days when Thomas and I were close, I had spent many scorching summer afternoons on the water with them. Thomas taught me to ski and wakeboard, but I never got the hang of kneeboarding no matter how many times I tried. It made my knees ache.

I wondered if I would even remember how to do those things if I ever had the opportunity again. Was it like riding a bike? Or had the person that I used to be disappeared as completely as I felt she had? Maybe the new me knew nothing about water sports.

As the driver of the boat looped a thick rope around one of the poles sticking out of the dock, I made a distinct effort to look away.

For lunch we ate sandwiches piled high with turkey and provolone that were dressed up with generous slices of tomatoes from Grandma's garden, lettuce, and spicy homemade dill and garlic pickles. Simon had peanut butter and jelly but barely wolfed down two bites before claiming that he wasn't hungry and racing back to the water.

Grandma laughed. “He's a little frog, isn't he? One foot on dry ground and the other soaking wet.”

Sure enough, Simon was crouched right at the water's edge, half in the hot sand and half in the water. He was scooping great shovelfuls of soggy sand into his bucket, one leg of his shorts hanging in the water and wet halfway to the waistband.

“He's always liked the water,” Janice told us. “I took him to the pool a few times when he was a baby and he just adored it. Even at that age! I would've thought he'd have hated it.”

“You should enroll him in swimming lessons,” Grandma encouraged. “It's too late for the summer session, but I know that they start again in the fall.”

Janice gave Grandma a hesitant smile and looked quickly away. “Yeah, maybe.”

She wasn't the only one who didn't know how to respond to Grandma's suggestion. Swimming lessons in the fall? Long-term plans to stay? I was torn between wanting to get on with my life and worrying about what it would be like when Janice and Simon were gone. Though it should have been easy to know the answer, I couldn't discern which ending I hoped for. I had to keep reminding myself that this couldn't last forever; they couldn't share the tiny sewing room indefinitely, nor had Janice made any indication that she intended to stay permanently. Sometimes that thought comforted me. Other times it plucked uncomfortably at my heart.

Grandma also picked up on Janice's reluctance and cleared her throat quietly. She stared out at the cobalt water for a time, and I knew that she was feeling the same way I was. At what point had Janice and Simon become a part of our lives? At what point had we begun to wonder if we wanted them to slip out of it again or not? But such musings seemed out of place with the lake sparkling before us.

Leaving talk of our future behind, Grandma turned the conversation around 180 degrees. “You know, Julia, technically you could have the baby any day now. Have you figured out a name?”

The gloom in Janice's face deepened. She looked at me pointedly and bit the inside of her lower lip. For a second I thought she was going to be brash and come straight out with her recommendations for my baby and my future. But then she tore off another bite of her sandwich and turned her eyes to Simon.

“I think so,” I said carefully. “I want it to be a surprise, though.”

“Of course.” Grandma smiled. “I wouldn't have it any other way. It would be like telling someone your birthday wish after you've blown out all your candles.”

“What about you, Janice?” I blurted out, desperately wanting to shift the topic away from me and my baby. “I know I was named after my great-grandmother, but where did you get Simon's name from? Family too?” Some wicked little corner of my soul wanted Janice to feel just the tiniest bit ill at ease. Better her than me.

But although Janice blushed, she didn't say what I thought she would say. “No, actually. Simon's not a family name.”

Grandma and I looked at her quizzically, waiting for the story. I almost reminded Janice that Simon thought he was named after his dad and his grandpa, but the set of her jaw made me think that I might be treading on volatile ground if I mentioned such a thing. Janice certainly didn't seem inclined to say another word, but Grandma pressed her.