Summer on Mirror Lake

by JoAnn Ross

Wanting to crowd as much as possible into a busy day, she’d called ahead to Nordstrom and arranged for a personal shopper who’d already had a selection of possible clothes and shoes set aside for the girls to try on when they arrived.

  “I’ve never heard of a personal shopper,” Hannah said, as they tried on clothing from the racks that had been wheeled into the oversized dressing room.

  “It’s handy for saving time,” Chelsea said. “I know my favorite departments, but I have no idea how to find things in the girls’ section.”

  “It’s like when Cinderella’s fairy godmother made her a beautiful dress for the ball.” Hailey twirled in front of the three-way mirror holding her flowered skirt out as a ballerina might a tutu, in what Chelsea remembered as being demi second position from her four years of ballet classes with Mrs. Petryka, who’d immigrated here from Ukraine with her fisherman husband.

  Chelsea had started classes when she was about Hailey’s age. Of course, eventually, she’d had to stop as Annabelle’s leukemia took precedence but she still remembered how her sequin-adorned tutus had always made her feel like a princess. She knew the little girl would love lessons. Just as she knew, despite one of her former classmates now teaching a new generation of young Honeymoon Harbor ballerinas, that the chances of that ever happening were slim to none.

  After the girls had changed into new outfits to wear for their day on the town, she saved out the light jackets they’d need on the Space Needle’s windy observation deck, then left the rest of the bags to pick up later.

  The two-minute monorail ride there might not be all that special to most, but Hailey declared it “just like Disneyland!” Hannah, unsurprisingly, pointed out they’d never been to Disneyland, but Hailey blithely ignored her, refusing to allow anyone, even her adored big sister, to spoil her special day. Her eyes widened as they approached the elevator line. “We’re going to go all the way up there?”

  “I thought it would be fun,” Chelsea said, worried by the furrowing of Hannah’s forehead. She should have thought to ask if either one of them had a fear of heights. It certainly wasn’t uncommon. Her father had taken their family one time, when Annabelle had still been a plump, healthy toddler, and he’d started hyperventilating before the elevator had reached the lower level. “Unless either of you would rather not. The stairs aren’t really an appealing option. The brochure says that it’s nearly six hundred feet to the top, which works out to ninety-eight flights and eight hundred thirty-two steps.”

  “I want to take the elevator!” Hailey raised her arm and started waving it around as if she were in kindergarten and was the little girl who was always eager to answer the questions. Just as she had been. It occurred to Chelsea that she could recognize a bit of herself in both girls. Hailey was the before; Hannah, the after.

  “Sure. Why not?” Hannah said. Despite her words, Chelsea saw the seeds of worry in her eyes. Damn. If she were a mom, she’d probably know what decision to make. Or, perhaps not. The difference, Chelsea considered, was when you started out with a newborn, you could build your own history and relationship. Instead of trying to guess what all could be in these girls’ backgrounds.

  After passing through security, they stopped to have their photo taken, which could be downloaded for free when they came back down. Obviously that option hadn’t been available when Chelsea had last come, but she did have a faded Polaroid of her parents on their honeymoon at the top of the tower, before her father had begun his residency at UW Medical School. They’d looked so young. And happy, oblivious to what their future held. She’d decided over the years that it was better not to be able to know your future. Annabelle had been the best of them at living in the moment, celebrating joy whenever and wherever she’d found it.

  Hannah closed her eyes on the ride up and her cheeks paled a bit, but she didn’t look about to pass out. When Chelsea took hold of her hand, she did not pull away.

  “This is weird,” Hannah said, as they got out on the lower level with its glass floor.

  “Don’t look down,” Chelsea advised.

  “I kind of want to.” Taking a deep breath, Hannah looked at the floor, which revealed the city laid out at their feet below. “Okay.” She blew out the breath. “It’s still weird, but kind of cool, too.”

  “It’s like walking in the sky,” Hailey said. “We’re like that eagle.” She held out her arms, bending back and forth, the way the bald eagle had while flying over Hurricane Ridge.

  After walking around the lower level, they went up to the top, where glass benches leaned against a tall glass wall that tilted away from the tower. “It’s supposed to make you feel as if you’re sitting on a cloud,” Chelsea read from the brochure.

  They stood there, watching as people got up the nerve to try it. “I don’t need to sit on a cloud,” Hannah decided.

  “Me, neither,” Chelsea agreed. Unlike her father, she’d never had a fear of heights, but this might test her limits.

  “I want to!” The soles of her new sneakers flashing, Hailey raced to the bench and flung herself down, causing Chelsea to gasp and instinctively reach out for her as, without hesitation, she leaned backward.

  “Welcome to my world,” Hannah said. “She has no fear.”

  “Apparently not.” Chelsea wanted to close her eyes as Hailey leaned back against the glass wall, over the edge of the towering building. “You deserve a medal.”

  “I love her,” Hannah said simply.

  “Take my picture, Chelsea!” Hailey called out.

  “I’m not certain we should show this one to Mrs. Douglas,” she murmured as she snapped a series of photos with her phone.

  “What she doesn’t know...” Hannah agreed.

  As they shared a conspiratorial smile, Chelsea decided to stop worrying about bonding. Because it was happening anyway, and if it was what Hannah needed at this moment in time, she wasn’t about to deny her.

  After her heartbeat had settled to normal, they walked around the platform that offered a spectacular 360-degree view. “There’s downtown, where we just were.” Chelsea pointed out the Nordstrom and the short monorail. “And that’s Elliott Bay.” Despite it being a workday for most people, there were several pleasure boats on the water. “That’s Mount Rainier.”

  “It looks as if you could reach out and touch it,” Hannah said.

  “Doesn’t it? We’re lucky she decided to come out today. Some days she hides behind the clouds she makes.”

  “The mountain can make clouds?” Hailey asked.

  “It’s so tall it blocks the air that has to rise up over it. As the air cools, it makes water droplets that form into clouds.” That was a hugely simplistic answer, but she was, after all, talking to a five-year-old. “Other times there are circular clouds that look like flying saucers. In fact, a lot of times the police get calls about them. But they’re just what’s called lenticular clouds.”

  Chelsea heard Hannah murmur it to herself, as if to learn the word. Wasn’t that exactly what she’d done growing up? Unfortunately, she knew more words about cancer and chemo than she would’ve chosen to remember.

  “See those mountains,” she said, pointing toward a range of towering, snow-capped mountains, wanting to get those negative thoughts out of her mind. Live in the Moment. Which, she admitted to herself, was what that uncharacteristic, first-time-ever door sex had been all about. “Those are the Olympics. They’re the same mountains you can see from town, and where we had our picnic yesterday.”

  “Wow,” Hailey breathed in awe. “They’re really far away, but we can still see them!”

  “Thank you,” Hannah said quietly.

  “For what?”

  “For everything. But especially for bringing us here. It makes you think differently about things.”

  “How?”

  “How small we are when compared to this city full of people, and the water and mountains. Even
when things get bad, we can still find something to feel good about. And to maybe make a difference in someone else’s life.” She looked up at Chelsea. “Like you have. Whatever happens, wherever we end up, Hailey’s going to remember this day for the rest of her life... Me, too.”

  “Look what you’ve done,” Chelsea complained, as she ran her fingers beneath her eyes. “You’ve made me cry.”

  “I’m sorry.” Although she was an expert at hiding her emotions, Hannah’s young face turned openly distraught.

  “No, don’t be.” Chelsea gave her a big hug. “They’re happy tears, and I’m going to remember it forever, too.”

  Although they had official photos waiting at the base of the Needle, she took a selfie with the girls, wanting to document this day. “Hashtag Making the Best Memories.”

  * * *

  “SO,” QUINN ASKED GABE, who was sitting at the bar, eating a pulled pork sandwich with fries and coleslaw, “how does it feel to be a family man?”

  “It’s temporary. The girls needed an emergency place to stay and I have way more rooms than I need.”

  “That’s what Aiden said.” Quinn squeezed some limes into a pitcher of margaritas for a table of women undoubtedly in town for a wedding. “He also said you were staying in some housekeeper’s cabin?”

  “Yeah.” Gabe took a drink from the bottle of Surfin’ Safari, a pale ale with a zing of Meyer lemon that not only continued his brother’s seeming salute to the Beach Boys, but, like his Good Vibrations, tasted like summer and was made for barbecue. “Trust Mr. Perfect to make a nonalcoholic beer that doesn’t taste like piss.”

  “Thanks. I think. So, I guess there’s nothing going on between you two?”

  “Why would you think that?” Gabe hedged as he took a longer drink from the pilsner glass. He’d decided that since he was responsible for kids, even for the short term, it’d be more adult not to drink during the day. Not that he’d ever had a drinking problem, like Aiden had said he had the first weeks he’d come home, but Mrs. Douglas, who might hear it through the grapevine, wouldn’t have any reason to know that.

  “I don’t know.” Quinn hit a button on the blender. “Maybe because she rowed across the lake to the house? And you were at her apartment. You also bought out the patio for dinner at Bastien’s place. Which, I have to admit, is a more romantic date place than here.”

  “Word gets around.”

  “Always does. I suspect you remember that, or you wouldn’t be ordering a nonalcoholic beer that doesn’t taste like piss.”

  “To answer your question, Chelsea and I aren’t together out at the house, because—hello?—there are currently kids living there.”

  “If Mom and Dad had subscribed to post-child celibacy, I’d have been an only child.”

  “Yeah. I’ve thought of that. And I’d ask them how they did it, but...well, hell...it’s complicated. Especially since I’m going back to Manhattan after Labor Day.”

  “And Chelsea Prescott isn’t a booty call woman.”

  “No.” Though there had been that door sex. Which, if the kids stayed until Labor Day, might be the only sex he got all summer. “It’s also different here. There’s no such thing as anonymous sex.”

  Quinn laughed as he turned off the blender, poured the frozen margaritas into four salted glasses, then the rest into the pitcher.

  “What?” Gabe asked.

  “You might want to talk to Seth about that. He and Brianna were foolish enough to believe that they’d hidden their affair. But the fact was, the whole town knew. But Seth had had such a hard time after Zoe’s death, everyone wanted to give the two of them some privacy to see if it was going to work out. As it was, he wasn’t exactly with the marriage program until he just about lost her and saw the light.”

  “He’s always been a friend but if he’d made our baby sister cry, I would’ve had to come back here and beat him up.”

  “Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger.” Quinn placed the pitcher and glasses onto a tray and took them over to the table.

  “That is something I never thought I’d see,” Gabe said when his brother returned and ran a wet towel over the bar.

  “What?”

  “You waiting tables.”

  “It’s different when it’s your own place.”

  “That’s another thing I don’t get. You spent your entire life preparing to be a lawyer. Don’t you ever miss it?”

  “Not for a heartbeat,” Quinn answered without hesitation. “Maybe it would’ve been different if I’d decided to be a prosecutor and put bad guys behind bars. Or a defense attorney seeking justice for the wrongly accused. But all I did was push around mountains of paper, figuring out ways for the one percent to get even richer.” In the kitchen behind him, Jarle put a half order of ribs and a baked potato in the window. “After a few years, I felt as if I needed a shower when I got home at the end of the day.”

  As he watched his brother deliver the ribs to one of the Cops and Coffee guys who was sitting at the end of the bar, Gabe felt an unwelcome twinge of recognition at Quinn’s description of his former career. His wasn’t the same thing at all, he assured himself as he polished off his beer, tossed some bills on the table, waved to his brother, who was now taking a meal order from the margarita women, and returned to the shop.

  When he got a text that Chelsea was on her way home with the kids, he packed it up for the day. Feeling good about the progress he was making, he drove back to the lake house. He’d lost some work time, but not having experienced any unforeseen glitches yet, he should have the faering back on schedule and finished in time for the Labor Day wooden boat festival. He’d already had people coming by the shop to see it, and apparently word had spread on wooden boat message boards because he was also getting email inquiries from all over the country and Canada. All of which boded well for the Welcome Home auction.

  As he punched the code into the gate of what could only honestly be referred to as a log mansion, Gabe thought back on what Quinn had said about his dissatisfaction with the law.

  “It’s not the same thing,” he assured himself again. “If you weren’t making money, you wouldn’t have any to give away.”

  He also wouldn’t have been able to provide a shelter for those girls.

  “Nope. Not the same at all.”

  If you keep telling yourself that, a nagging little voice in the back of his mind piped up again, you might just start believing it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “GABRIEL!” HAILEY BURST into the house like a tiny blond hurricane. She was dressed in—surprise—pink leggings, a purple T-shirt with a unicorn jumping over the Space Needle, and a pair of pink sneakers that flashed colors as she ran. “Chelsea drove the car right up onto a big boat! And we got to go stand outside, and I thought I saw a whale, but it turned out to be a dolphin.”

  “That’s still great,” Gabriel said. “I grew up here, but don’t remember ever seeing one.”

  “Well, I did today! Then we drove to Seattle and I went way up in the sky and sat on a cloud!”

  “The walls on the upper deck of the Space Needle are now glass.” Chelsea who’d just walked in the door with Hannah, both of them laden down with large shopping bags, caught him up on yet more changes that had occurred since he’d left Honeymoon Harbor. “They slant outward, so you can sit on glass benches and lean backward beyond the tower base.”

  “Not me,” he said, taking the bags off their hands and moving them to a couch in the great room.

  “Me, neither,” Hannah agreed. “Chelsea didn’t, either. Hailey was the only one crazy enough to do it.”

  “It was fun! And we got lots of clothes and rode on a monorail, and I ate a...a...”

  She turned toward her sister.

  “Crêpe au fromage,” Hannah told her. “A cheese crepe.”

  “That’s it! A crepe! It’s kind of like a grille
d cheese sandwich,” she explained to Gabriel. “But the cheese is inside a pancake instead of bread.”

  “Sounds great,” he said.

  “And we saw men throwing really big fish!” She stretched out her arms to demonstrate. “Oh! And I forgot to tell you that when we were way up high on the Space Needle, I could see all the way to the mountains where we had the picnic. And there were lots of boats. And Mount...” She looked over at her sister again.

  “Rainier,” Hannah supplied.

  “Yes! And we were lucky because she wasn’t making clouds today. Did you know that sometimes the clouds look like flying spaceships?”

  “I’ve seen them.”

  “There weren’t any today, but that was okay because I saw everything else!” Again she threw out her arms. “Maybe even to the edge of the world.”

  “Sounds like you had quite a day.”

  “We did! And we bought this T-shirt and space pasta, and astronaut ice cream Chelsea said we should save for dessert tonight.”

  “Where did you find that?”

  “At the Space Needle!”

  He glanced over at Chelsea. “Freeze-dried ice cream,” she explained. “And the pasta is in the shapes of planets, rocket ships and the Needle.”

  “Cool,” he said. “I’ve never had either of those.”

  “Astronauts eat it in space,” Hailey informed him. “It floats around in space. But you don’t have to worry, because it won’t here. Because we have gravity.”

  “That’s reassuring.” He glanced over at Hannah. “I like the outfit.” She was wearing distressed jeans, a red sleeveless hoodie with the message Girls Are Powerful repeated in white all down the front, and high-top red sneakers. “And you got some sun.”

  When Hannah lifted a hand to her cheek, Chelsea remembered the insecurity of adolescence.

  “It looks good on you,” he said, demonstrating that she needn’t have worried about Gabriel understanding that. Then again, she reminded herself, he had grown up with a sister he and his brothers all had tea with.