The Winter Lodge (14 page)

Rourke hoped it had worked. He’d spent half the evening with the Giggler. He couldn’t really remember her name, but he needed her. He didn’t know what else to do. Jenny was starting to fall for him; he’d fallen for her long past, but he couldn’t let that matter. Joey liked her, he had from day one and there was no way Rourke would take that away from Joey. Rourke just needed to make Jenny believe he was a son of a bitch, which according to his father, he was.

Then she’d stop liking him and start liking Joey, which was the way things were supposed to be.

Joey deserved her in a way Rourke never would. Joey knew just how to treat a girl like Jenny.

He didn’t feel as though someone had set him on fire, the way Rourke did, burning with feelings so intense they would consume them both.

For the rest of the summer, he made sure she saw him with any number of girls. Just to remind her—he was a son of a bitch, and she was better off with Joey.

Food for Thought

by Jenny Majesky

Happy Cake

Here’s something I bet you never noticed. But once I point it out, you’ll never fail to notice it again. A small, family-owned bakery is a happy place. Think about it. When was the last time you walked into a bakery and found a cranky person? It just doesn’t happen. The people behind the counter are cheerful. The customers are cheerful. Even the sounds and the smells of the place

—totally cheerful.

I bet if a study was done on the air quality of a bakery, pheromones would be found. One of the happiest recipes in my grandmother’s arsenal is this one. It’s actually a pound cake, but Gram created a neologism for it:
Szcześsliwe ciastko.
Roughly translated into English, that means

—you already guessed it, didn’t you? “Happy Cake.” This is distinguished by its sunny yellow color and by the fact that it’s impossible to eat a slice and not feel happy.

HAPPY CAKE

1 pound cake flour (3 cups)

1 pound eggs (about six)

1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened (don’t substitute) 1 pound (about 2-1/4 cups) sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease and flour Bundt or tube pan. Beat butter until light and gradually add sugar, vanilla and then eggs, one at a time. With mixer on low, add buttermilk. Sift together all the dry ingredients and add slowly. Pour batter into pan and bake for about 1 hour and 20

minutes, until a thin blade or toothpick comes out clean. Allow cake to cool 15 or 20 minutes in pan. Then gently remove it, and serve at room temperature with fresh fruit or lemon curd. Makes 12 generous servings.

Eight

A
ll of Jenny’s earthly possessions fit in the back of a rented panel truck. And actually, she was mildly surprised that the salvage operation had managed to recover so much. Everything had been cleaned up and placed in marked containers, then loaded onto the truck. She was supposed to go through the salvage and determine what to keep and what to discard, but she had no perspective on that, none at all. For the time being, she would store the items. She stood back and crossed her arms, shivering and stamping her feet. She had lost her favorite gloves in the fire, the leather ones with the cashmere lining.

Rourke pulled up in the driveway behind the truck. Today, as part of his crime prevention initiative, he had visited the local junior high, and he was dressed accordingly. He believed the police uniform, or even a suit, was a barrier to communicating with kids, so he was wearing loose cargo pants and boots unlaced to the ankles, an oversize jacket and knit cap, and he looked more like a snowboarder than the chief of police. “’S’up?” he said.

“Everything’s up,” she said, gesturing at the loaded truck. “How was your school visit?”

“I think they like me. About a dozen kids signed up for community service projects.”

She couldn’t imagine how anyone, kid or adult, could resist him. Kids could spot a phony a mile off, and Rourke seemed to know that. He was completely at ease in the casual getup. It wasn’t just to patronize the students. “How’d you get so good with kids, Chief?” she asked.

“You listen to them and show respect, and after that, it gets easier. And you’re looking at me funny. Is it the clothes?”

“It’s not the clothes.” She hesitated. What the heck, she thought. “Do you ever wish you had kids of your own?”

He stared at her in astonishment, then burst out laughing.

“I’m not trying to be funny,” she said. “I can’t help but wonder what sort of father you’d make, what sort of family man.”

“No kind of father, and no kind of family man, thank you very much.”

“Oh, come on, McKnight. You’re not the first kid to have a lousy childhood. That’s no excuse.”

“There’s also the small matter of how to acquire those kids you’re so convinced I want. It

’s not so easy for a guy.”

The way he was looking at her was way too intimate. “Listen, we really need to have another talk about this…living arrangement. It’s crazy, me staying with you.”

“Why is it crazy?”

“We have no current relationship.”

“Maybe we should,” he said. “Roommates.” He turned away abruptly, going around the back of the truck to check out the work the salvage company had done.

Roommates, thought Jenny. What the heck did he mean by that? She couldn’t figure out a way to ask him, so she changed the subject. “One truckload. Kind of pathetic, huh?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “It’s not pathetic. It’s just something that happens.”

“Pathetic,” she repeated. “How about you let me wallow a little?”

“All right. If it’ll make you feel better.”

“It won’t. But it’ll make you feel worse and that will make me feel better. I’m a taxpayer.

It’s the least you can do.”

“Fine.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Seeing this stuff, seeing that it’s all that’s left of your house—makes me feel like shit. Okay?”

A massive four-wheel-drive pickup truck with a snowplow blade pulled up. Out jumped Connor Davis, and then Greg Bellamy. Greg was Philip Bellamy’s youngest brother, which made him Jenny’s uncle, though he was only a few years older than she was. Recently divorced, Greg had moved to Avalon with his two kids, Daisy and Max. Daisy was going to be working at the bakery, Max was in the fifth grade. Like all the Bellamys Jenny had met, Greg had that affable, effortless charm, coupled with the natural good looks of the well-bred. She didn’t feel at all like a Bellamy, and those sunny, upper-crust looks had definitely passed her by. Everyone who had known her mother swore she looked just like Mariska—who of course was beautiful, but in a totally different, dark and earthy way.

“Hey, guys, thanks for coming,” Jenny said.

“No problem at all,” Greg assured her.

As she introduced him to Rourke, she reflected that the three men together—Rourke, Connor and Greg—looked like the kind of fantasy a woman didn’t want to wake up from. Each was tall, strong, sexy. And there was something about the presence of heavy equipment and work to be done outdoors that seemed to cause the testosterone level to rise.

“I really appreciate this,” she said. “Are you sure it’s all right to take all this stuff up to Camp Kioga?”

“Sure,” said Connor. “There’s nothing but space up there, and no one around all winter.”

“Well, I’m grateful. I was going to move everything into the garage, but it was damaged, too, and it’s got to be torn down along with everything else.” She was still a little dazed by the concept of not having a home, no place to park her things, or what was left of them. It was agreed that Connor would drive the pickup to the camp, with Rourke and Jenny following in the panel van. They had to drive the private road to the camp at a crawl, with the plow blades producing founts of snow on either side as it cleared the way.

“I can’t believe how nice everyone’s being,” Jenny said.

“You’re not that hard to be nice to.”

“Is that why you’re helping me? To be nice?”

“I’m not nice,” he said. “You of all people should know that.”

Both of them had made mistakes in the past. Jenny was haunted by regrets, while Rourke still suffered from an old guilt that ran bone deep. That was the reason they’d grown so distant, but since they’d been spending so much time together lately, she felt entitled to bring up old business. “You’ve never forgiven yourself for Joey,” she said, bringing up the sorest of subjects.

“What’s it going to take, Rourke?”

He kept his eyes straight ahead, on the road. “Interesting question, coming from you.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“All right, how about this. Maybe I haven’t forgiven myself for Joey because some things…they aren’t forgivable. You just try to move on and live with it.”

And spend the rest of your life doing penance, she reflected. For some reason, she thought about
Beauty and the Beast
—the raging, violent French version, not the squeaky-clean Disney version. In the original, the beast’s fury was calmed by the unquestioning love of the heroine, yet the redemption came with so much pain and sacrifice from both of them that it made her wonder if it was worth the struggle.

She stayed silent during the rest of the drive. The south end of the lake was close to town, where cozy cottages, most of them closed for the winter, huddled shoulder to shoulder along the shore. The frozen docks, piled high with snow, projected out onto the field of white. They passed the Inn at Willow Lake, a 19th century mansion rumored to be haunted. When they were young, Jenny and Nina used to ride their bikes past the place, speculating about who might be haunting it. Nina always said she wanted to own the inn one day, but after she got pregnant with Sonnet, her life shot off in a different direction.

The lake wound through a deep valley that quickly turned to wilderness, and soon there was nothing to do but watch the winter woods slip by. The otherworldly perfection and quietness mesmerized her. The thin trees were inked upon a background of snow, which was marked by the crisscrossings of animal tracks. Chickadees and cardinals flitted in and out of the branches.

The streambeds resembled small ice floes and glaciers. By the time they reached the grounds of Camp Kioga, she felt as though she were worlds away, rather than mere miles.

An historic seasonal resort, the camp reflected the style of the “great camps” of the Gilded Age. Marked by a rustic timber-and-wrought-iron archway, the entrance to the camp was a smooth drift of snow leading to the main pavilion. There were sports courts now buried in snow, equipment sheds, a boathouse situated out over the lake, which was now frozen into a vast, flat field of white.

Everything was in a slumberous state of hibernation. The timber bunkhouses and cottages had drifts of snow sloping up each stairway. In the lake stood an island with a gazebo hung with icicles. Jenny found herself caught by the impenetrable quiet and the spun-sugar scenery. She had never seen the remote camp in winter, and it looked magical to her.

Connor’s truck lumbered to a halt at a storage shed. Greg unlocked it, and within just a short time, they had everything stowed in the big wooden building.

“It’s beautiful here,” she said. “I’m glad you and Olivia have decided to reopen the place.”

“It’ll be open year-round one day,” Connor said.

She noticed that Rourke was standing apart, looking out across the lake, maybe lost in memories. He’d spent many a summer here, he and Joey. There, ankle deep in the frigid lake water, they had stood together skipping stones, keeping score of every skip. And there at the dock, they had started their swim races. There had been a rope swing suspended from a huge tree with its branches arching out over the lake, and they had challenged each other to swing higher or farther, to dive deeper. Everything had always been a contest with them.

She tried to remember the moment it had started, the rivalry that had torn an unspoken rift in their friendship. Was it the moment the three of them had met? Had it been invisible, like magma in an underground conduit, seeking a way to burst forth?

Greg stood back and regarded the stacked and labeled boxes. “All set.”

“Thanks again.” Jenny refused to think about the fact that everything she owned was in those boxes. That one day in the near future—perhaps at the spring thaw—she would have to go over every single item and decide its fate. Should she keep her grandmother’s bent eggbeater, her grandfather’s box of fishing tackle, a clay ashtray made by her mother in Campfire Girls?

It started snowing lightly, and Jenny lifted her face to the sky, feeling the flakes touch her forehead and cheeks. Everything was going to be all right, she told herself. The world was beautiful, and she had all kinds of options open to her.

“We’d better get back.” Connor headed for his truck.

“Meet me at the bakery,” Jenny suggested. “I need to get some work done in the office. I’

ll give you a cup of coffee and any pastry you want.”

“I’ll take a rain check,” Connor said. “I need to get back to work.”

“Same here,” said Greg. “But I’ll see you Saturday, right? For dinner?”

“Of course.” Her father, Philip, was coming up from the city to see her. She’d told him she didn’t need anything, that she would be okay, but he’d been insistent.

After Connor and Greg left, Jenny and Rourke followed more slowly, lingering for one last look at the lake. “It’s beautiful here,” she said. “I feel…nostalgic. Don’t you?”

“Maybe,” he said. “A little.” He quickened his pace, and she felt him shutting down. It was probably just as well, she decided. They had never been good at talking about the things that really mattered.

Nine

J
enny was finishing up at town hall after spending a seemingly interminable afternoon filling out forms to replace lost records. The process was less tedious because Nina Romano took time out to visit with her. “So be honest,” Jenny said. “How many tongues are wagging because I’ve been staying at Rourke’s?”

“Would you believe none at all?”