by Susan Wiggs
“What about me and Olivia?”
Julian flashed him a grin. “You worked late last night. Really late. Like, all night long.” He almost laughed aloud when he saw Connor’s ears turn red.
“Do me a favor and don’t say anything to her,” Connor muttered. “Or anyone.”
Julian wouldn’t commit to that. He wanted to say it was about damn time, but he restrained himself. “She’s totally into you,” he said, giving his brother a slug on the arm.
Connor slugged him back. “Yeah, well, I’m totally into her.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Be into her for a while. I guess I could probably propose to her, get turned down.”
“Nice attitude, Con.”
“I usually prepare for the worst, and then I’m surprised by the best.”
“Why not expect the best? Reach beyond your grasp and all that?”
“You’ve been reading those air force recruiting brochures.”
As Julian had hoped, Daisy was in the dining hall. Over the summer, he’d thought often and intensely of hooking up with her. She was sophisticated and was clearly experienced, but he got a weird vibe from her. And she was dealing with a lot of crap with her family, which made him reluctant to hook up with her for laughs. That just didn’t seem right.
He fixed himself a sandwich. “So are you up for some rock climbing?” he asked her.
“I told Dare I’d help her with the centerpieces for the big celebration. She’s making them out of birdhouses,” Daisy said.
Great, he thought. She wasn’t even going to pretend to be interested. “Oh, that’s important,” he said. Sometimes girls were such a drag.
“I was totally planning on going with you,” she said airily.
“Really.” He couldn’t keep the grin off his face.
“Are you sure, Daisy?” asked Greg. “Rock climbing is incredibly hard, not to mention dangerous.”
A dad who worried about you, thought Julian. What a concept. “She’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ve done tons of climbs at Joshua Tree in California, honest. We’ve got all the gear we need, and I’ll only pick easy climbs—no more than a five-point-one, max. And we’ll use a top rope and belay from the top.”
“Cool,” Max piped up, handing a crust of his sandwich to the dog. “Can I come?”
“No.” Both Daisy and her father spoke emphatically, at the same time.
“But I can, right, Dad?” she said.
Greg leaned back, arms folded, and considered for a moment. “I’ll make you a deal. You can take the afternoon off and go rock climbing. But only if you promise to go fishing with Max and me one more time.”
To her credit, she didn’t roll her eyes or pout. “Deal,” she said, and headed for the door.
They parked inside the Mohonk Preserve and hiked along a marked trail to the cliffs.
“Okay, now this is disturbing,” Daisy said. She bent back and shaded her eyes to look up at the pebbled rock face, seamed by fissures and shadowed by overhangs, with little tufts of vegetation growing out of the cracks. There were a few climbers out, their routes marked by rock-colored slings at rappel stations.
“Dude,” Julian said, already picking his route as he followed her gaze.
“It’s not quite what I pictured.”
“We could find another ascent if you like,” Julian said. “The climbing guidebook lists a bunch that are a lot more challenging.”
“You’re not challenged enough by this?”
“It’s a rock.”
“A vertical one.”
He laughed. “That’s what makes it fun.” He demonstrated the basic techniques of climbing, which she was familiar with from the indoor climbing walls she’d done. He chalked his hands and took a quick side route to the top, where he secured a rope to an anchor and then rappelled back down. “Not too heinous,” he commented, already exhilarated from the rhythm and balance of the climb. He showed her a simple opening move, pointing out the way to the crux and then to the top. “The main thing is to take your time. Don’t grab the wrong thing because you’re scared or in a hurry.”
“How do I know which choice is the right one?”
“Because it leads to the next right choice.”
“Jeez, Julian.”
“And don’t be afraid. You can always stretch a little farther than you think.”
She laughed. “Now you’re sounding like a graduation commencement speaker.”
“I don’t think we have those at my school. Come on, let’s give it a try.”
She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders. “All right.”
He helped her with her gear, which led to a couple of strangely intimate moments, especially when she stepped into the swami harness and he drew the webbing snug against her crotch. “Sorry,” he said. “I just need to make sure you’re safe.”
“It’s all right. This is the closest I’ve had to a date all summer.”
She was a beginner but not clueless. He demonstrated the climb and it felt good, reaching and stretching, conquering the rock face hold by hold while she spotted him.
“I’m going to fall,” he said when he was about halfway up.
“You look fine to me,” she said. “A regular Spider-Man.”
“I mean on purpose. So you can see how the sling works. I’m going to fall, and you’re going to catch me, just like I showed you.”
“Don’t—”
“I trust you.” He let go with his hands. There was a moment of weightlessness and an even shorter moment of free fall; then the apparatus kicked in and caught him.
“You’re insane,” she scolded.
“Nah. I just like the rush.” He reprised the climb, showing her again. Hold by hold, always looking ahead to the next move.
“What if you can’t see what your next move is going to be?” she asked.
“Then you grab for something and hope for the best.”
They did a relatively short climb, no overhangs or anything too hazardous. She was a bit shaky but did all right, shrieking a little here and there. He spotted her while she made the climb. She went slowly and cautiously, but she was strong and didn’t make many mistakes. When she did, she was smart about correcting them. Ultimately, they both reached the summit, covered in sweat. Daisy did a little dance of triumph. “I feel like Frodo at the top of Mount Doom.”
They toasted each other with their water bottles. Then she took out a pack of cigarettes. He scowled at her. “Those’ll kill you before climbing will.”
She hunkered down and flicked her lighter. Ignoring him, she dumped the cigarettes onto a rock and set fire to them, one by one, adding twigs to keep it burning. As the small heap smoldered and turned to ashes, she sat back on her heels and said, “I’ve been wanting to do that all summer.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
She stood up, stubbed out the smoke with her heel. “It turned into this thing between me and my dad. I kept expecting him to put his foot down, but he never did. So I realized waiting for my parents to tell me to stop might have taken years and by then, I’d be a hopeless addict. Might as well quit now on my own, without being told.”
“Good plan.” On impulse, he leaned down and kissed her, briefly and sweetly, on the mouth. “I’ve been wanting to do that all summer.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t sure you wanted me to.” His heart was beating erratically. “Let’s try rappelling.” He backed off, bouncing expertly off the surface and measuring the rope with his gloved hands. When he touched down, she leaned over the ledge and gave him a little round of applause.
“Are you ready to give it a shot, or do you want another demo?”
“Hmm. I don’t know. What does your Spidey sense tell you?”
“That you’re going to be great.”
She was hesitant at first, testing the gear, and then finally letting herself down. Her descent was none too smooth, but she was flushed with victory when she touch
ed down. “That was awesome,” she yelled, and her voice bounced off the walls of the cliffs.
“You’re a good coach,” she said. “Do you do this a lot?”
“You’re my first student.”
“Yeah? Then you’re a natural. That’ll come in handy if you decide to go for that ROTC scholarship.”
They had stayed up late many a night, discussing the pros and cons. By now, Julian understood the process. It was, like, ten times more involved than applying for college because there was a physical-fitness component and a health exam in addition to the usual stuff.
“I’m not going to go for it,” he said glumly, considering the long road ahead.
“Why not?”
“They take your freedom away, monitor your every move. Your life is totally regulated. How is that different from going to juvenile detention?”
“It’s not that different,” she admitted.
“I came here this summer just to avoid incarceration. Why would I sign up for four years of it?” He shook his head. “Besides, it’d just be a waste of time.”
“Why do you say that?”
“My grades suck. My school sucks. I got nothing going for me.”
“Nice attitude, Gastineaux. And what was it you were just saying about stretching farther than you think you can?”
“I was just bullshitting you so you’d do the climb.”
“Were not.” She adjusted her helmet. “I’m ready to try another climb now.”
Her exuberance as she bounced down the rock wall made him laugh. She made him laugh. More than that, she made him think outside the box. Just because he lived in a crappy town and went to a crappy school didn’t mean he had to have a crappy life. If he took a chance, and he made it, he might be sent all over the globe. He might learn to fly.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “So you think I should go for it?”
She took off her helmet and brushed the hair off her sweaty brow. “What does your Spidey sense tell you?”
Thirty-Four
Daisy’s fishing expeditions with her father and brother had become a joke around the camp. Not once, all summer long, had they come home with a trout. Daisy didn’t really care, though. She and Max had finally learned that the whole point of fishing was not to catch a fish. The act was more about learning to be patient. Be still inside your head and relaxed in your body and be in the moment. Simple as that.
Still, hope sprang eternal and they went out yet again, probably for the last time of the summer. At least it gave her plenty of time to daydream about Julian. He was like no other guy she’d ever met. Inhumanly good-looking, but that wasn’t what was so special about him. It was the way he made her look at things like her life, her family. A few months ago, she figured her life was in the toilet, what with her parents splitting up. Julian made her see that there were all kinds of definitions of a family, and it didn’t only have to be people who were related, who lived under the same roof. He also made her see that there was no such thing as a perfect family, but that didn’t mean giving up on the whole idea. Here he was, this guy who had lost his father, whose mother sounded like a loser, coming all the way across the country just to be with the one person he could count on—a brother he barely knew.
“What’re you looking at?” Max said. “You’re looking at me funny.”
“Just appreciating the fact that I have a brother,” she said.
He snorted. “Yeah, right.”
She shook her head, knowing she’d never convince him she was sincere. Then the unthinkable happened. The bobber on Max’s line dipped. Daisy thought she was seeing things, but there it went again. It trembled and dipped down.
“Are you watching, Max?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he said. “Dad, check it out. I’m getting a bite.”
“You sure are, son. You want some help?”
“Nope, I got it.”
“Remember to give a quick tug. You have to time it just—”
“Got it.” As if he’d been doing it all his life, Max whipped his pole back. Then he started cranking the reel. The fish put up a fight, jumping clear out of the water, spraying diamond droplets across the surface. Max dropped down on his knees in the bottom of the canoe, his face a mask of total absorption. Smoothly, with a patience hard learned over the course of the summer, he reeled in the fish. Dad scooped it into the net and it flopped down in the boat, lying on its side as if in exhaustion.
The fish had been neatly hooked through the lip, a clean catch. It was a good size, too. Definitely big enough to keep. “Finally,” Max said, gently lifting the nylon line and holding up the prize.
Dad snapped a picture. “How about that?” he said. “Fresh trout for supper. Or maybe we should have it stuffed and mounted.”
Three concentric circles outlined the trout’s eye. The fish was strangely beautiful, definitely worthy of its name: rainbow trout. Along its slender length were all the colors of the spectrum, shimmering in the sunlight.
Within moments, the fish started to die. It was drowning in air, its gills fanning out with what looked to Daisy like desperation. She could see the delicate structure of the gills, a series of bright red petals, working hard to find water to breathe.
The trout’s mouth worked in a silent plea: Oh. Oh. Oh.
“Throw it back, Max,” Daisy said with sudden urgency.
“What? No way. I’ve been trying all summer to catch a fish.”
“And now you have. But you should throw the thing back before it dies.”
Max looked at their father. “What should I do, Dad?”
“Up to you, buddy.”
No, it wasn’t. God, just once she’d like to see her father step up and make a decision. Instead, he retreated behind his usual, “Up to you.”
Gritting her teeth, Daisy picked up the fish. It was shiny and writhing in her hands, almost impossible to hold on to. She tried to be gentle as she carefully extracted the hook, wincing as she pulled the sharp barb through.
“Say goodbye to the fish, Max,” she said.
He didn’t protest. He touched the fish with a grubby index finger and said, “It’s okay to let it go now.”
She leaned down and put it in the water. To her horror, the trout didn’t go anywhere but instead floated crookedly, its mouth still gasping. “It’s too late,” she said. “We killed it.”
It was just a stupid fish. She wondered why its death felt like such a tragedy.
“We did,” Max said despondently. “We killed him.”
Dad didn’t say anything, but leaned down and gently took the fish between his hands. He didn’t pick it up out of the lake, though. He ran the trout through the water, nose first in long strokes, and then released it. The tail swayed and propelled it slowly forward, and then the fish glided away.
Daisy felt a welling of emotion. Max gaped at his father.
“You have to get the water flowing through their gills to revive them sometimes,” Dad said.
“Cool,” said Max. “You saved it.”
“No, Daisy did.” Dad dried his hands on his shorts.
Daisy felt limp with relief. “Sorry about that, Max,” she said. “I just figured we should let it go.” She couldn’t explain the compulsion, not without digging into the pain she had endured over the coming divorce, a pain that was out of her control.
“I don’t mind,” Max said amiably enough. “I wouldn’t have wanted to eat it, anyway. And we got a picture, so there’s proof.”
“You guys are two amazing kids,” Dad said. “Good job on the fish.”
Daisy laughed. “It only took us all summer.”
“There was never any hurry.”
Dad picked up his paddle. “Ready to call it a day?”
“Yes,” said Max. “I’m starving for a peanut butter and baloney sandwich.”
They paddled back in tandem, their rhythm in sync now, with strong, assured strokes. “We might suck at fishing,” Daisy said, “but we sure can paddle a canoe.”
Their dad, who had a good memory for lyrics, sang every fish song he could think of, from “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog” to “Octopus’s Garden.” Max and Daisy joined in, no longer required to be quiet, because they didn’t care how many fish they scared. Their voices carried across the flat, beautiful water and seemed to float upward, and in that moment, Daisy felt more buoyant and hopeful than she had in months.
It was kind of dumb, of course, because nothing different had happened except that Max had caught a fish and they’d let it go. What was so uplifting about that?
Then she looked at the laughing faces of her father and brother and realized the reason didn’t matter. Sometimes it was enough just to be happy, for no reason at all.
Thirty-Five
The excitement in the air was palpable. Guests had been arriving all week, some of them people Olivia hadn’t seen since she was a child. As visitors arrived and settled in, the camp came to life once more, reflecting the glory days of a more innocent time. Olivia watched families falling into their old patterns as life took on a different, slower rhythm. The younger generation, unfamiliar with camp life, took delight in discovering a whole new world. In the days leading up to the celebration, there were footraces and water sports, pranks and late-night kitchen raids, all imbued with a sense of nostalgia.
The day of the anniversary was favored by perfect weather, just as everyone had hoped. Guests emerged from their bunkhouses and cabins, dressed to the nines. Others drove up from the city for the day. The town of Avalon was represented by the mayor, who presented the Bellamys with a special citation in their honor.
Olivia was moved by the number of people who showed up. That her grandparents had so many loyal friends was a testament to the way they’d lived their lives. There were moments of poignancy as well, when they reflected on the people they had lost.
In the midst of all the preparations, she had no time to indulge in daydreams about Connor Davis, although she yearned to do just that. It was probably for the best. Her daydreams usually turned into worry and sometimes full-blown paranoia. Had it been a one-night stand? Would they part ways now that summer was over? The misgivings were already starting, so when the Sky River Bakery truck backed up to the kitchen, she welcomed the distraction. Jenny Majesky and her assistant, the blond teenager named Zach Alger, brought the cake in sections to assemble on the center table.