Lake News

by Barbara Delinsky

  In the space of seconds, Lily recalled every last one of those charges and was mortified all over again. Her words came in a rush. “I never said those things the way he reported them. I didn’t want to talk about you at all, but he struck up a conversation and just slipped things in. He kept saying that women found you attractive, and I kept saying how absurd that was, with you a priest.”

  There was understanding, even a bit of humor in the Cardinal’s voice. “I know, Lily. I know. You’ve never been anything but respectful of me that way.”

  “How could I not? You are a priest.”

  “Tell that to the little redhead who came on to me at the Governor’s Ball last year.” When Lily gasped, he chuckled. “It happens. And yes”—his humor faded—“I suppose there may be priests who cheat, just as there are husbands who do. I never have and never will. I’ve always felt you were the same. Unbalanced? Fat chance. I’ve been counseling you for years. I know how sane you are. Good Lord in heaven, you give me strength—though, of course, if I told them that, they’d twist it around.”

  “Why do they do that?” she cried. “What gives them the right? And why me?” She did hate that question, but it poured out with the rest. Fran Rossetti drew it out. Perhaps it was the fullness of his voice that suggested vast knowledge—more, suggested that if there was a God, this man was indeed one of His messengers. Lily wasn’t religious, but she responded to him, and she wasn’t alone. He had a way of reaching inside people and cleaning the dust from dirty little corners with the gentlest of hands.

  So, the Lily who rarely spoke as voluminously asked, “Why this now? Why Donny Kipling then? Why my mother and my stutter? Have I done something wrong, Father Fran? Why do these things happen to me?”

  “I don’t know that for sure,” he said, “but it could be because God knows you can handle them. God knows you can learn from them. Some people can’t. Some people aren’t strong enough. Jesus was. So are you.”

  Lily wanted to say that she wasn’t Jesus, that she had no wish for martyrdom, and that she didn’t take to being crucified—which was one word for what she felt had been done to her—but that would have been disrespectful. As frank as she had learned to be with Father Fran, there were certain lines she would never cross.

  “Ach,” he chided. “There I go again, forgetting that you’re not sure about any religion, let alone mine. But I did mean what I said. You are strong, Lily.”

  “And innocent,” she reminded him, feeling the anger that startled her so—startled her because it was directed at him. If he truly had been a mensch, to use Sara’s word, he would have come out vocally and publicly in her defense. If he had an ounce of chivalry, her sister Poppy would say, he would have put her vindication before his own.

  “You’re also smart,” he said now. “You know that self-pity accomplishes little.”

  With a long breath she let the anger go. Sheepish, she smiled. “I should have known that was coming.”

  “You should have. I am predictable. Y’know,” he teased, “I always did want to get you closer to home. I’ve been inching you along for years. Manhattan, Albany, Boston, Lake Henry. Can’t get much closer. Have you seen your mother?”

  Lily had to laugh. “Predictable there, too. You don’t beat around the bush.” Her smile ebbed. “My mother wasn’t thrilled to see me. It seems I’m the bane of her existence.”

  “Did you talk?”

  “Not about important things.”

  “You need to do that.”

  “I know. But it’s hard.”

  “You talk with me.”

  “You’re not my mother. I talk with friends, but they’re not her, either. Why are mothers so tough?”

  “God makes them that way,” said the Cardinal. “Who else can He rely on to shoulder the burdens of the world without cracking under the weight?”

  “Seems like I’m the one shouldering them.”

  “You may think that now. Wait till you’re a mother.”

  He said it as though it was only a matter of time—something Lily had once believed. She wasn’t sure she did anymore. She was thirty-four. God had designed women to have children by the age of nineteen, at least according to her gynecologist. The Cardinal claimed that God had updated His thinking since her gynecologist had done his training and that He was confident that the female mind could compensate for the minor failings of a slightly older body.

  Old-line clerics believed that the purpose of marriage was procreation. Lily didn’t, but that was another line she didn’t cross.

  “Keep at it, Lily,” the Cardinal said.

  It was a moment before she realized he was referring to Maida.

  “I want you to work things out with her. Will you try?”

  “I don’t have much choice,” she said quietly. “I think I’m here for a little while still.”

  “It must be beautiful there this time of year.”

  “Yes.” Through the window she saw the yellow of an alder at the edge of the woods. It was flanked by a crimson maple. Both were surrounded by the rich green of hemlock. All this, even in the fog.

  “And you have the house. Is there anything else you need?”

  Revenge, she thought, but she would no more have told the Cardinal that than she would have argued about the Trinity. The Cardinal was in the business of forgiveness. He would never condone thoughts of revenge.

  John Kipling might. Lily thought about that as morning ended. By midafternoon she was restless and bored. She needed something to do. So she changed into jeans and the kind of plaid flannel shirt that half the town wore, tucked her hair under a Red Sox cap, put a loose wool scarf around her neck to hide her chin, and Celia’s huge sunglasses on her nose to hide whatever else could be hid, and drove into town.

  The fog hung heavy on the lake road and the foliage framing it, as well as the houses that stood closer together as she neared the center of town. The moisture made the air raw, so that few people lingered outside. That gave Lily extra coverage, she realized, driving past Charlie’s in broad daylight for the first time since her return. She turned in at the post office, pulled all the way down to the yellow Victorian housing the newspaper office, and parked beside the pickup she assumed belonged to John.

  No doubt which door the paper used. It was a beautiful wood thing that was riddled with slots. After ringing the bell, she let herself into the kitchen. Walking silently, leaving the hat, the scarf, and Celia’s dark glasses firmly in place, she followed the sound of a voice to the front of the house. A young woman sat at a desk there. She was holding the phone to her ear, frowning, sounding confused as she studied something on the desk. It wasn’t until she turned to look at Lily that Lily realized she was more girl than woman, and very pregnant.

  Seconds later Lily heard footsteps on the stairs and John appeared at the opposite door. He shot her an uneasy glance, then bent over the desk to see what the girl was trying to do. Taking the phone from her, he finished getting information for what sounded to Lily like a classified ad.

  “There,” he told the girl when he hung up. “You did just fine with that.”

  The girl sounded even younger than she looked. “You had to finish it.”

  “Nah. You had most everything we need.”

  “I have to leave,” the girl said. “Buck’s coming at three.”

  “I thought we agreed you’d work till five on Tuesdays.”

  “He said he was coming at three.”

  John sighed. He ran a hand around the back of his neck. “Fine. Neaten things up. I’ll take it from here.”

  With a single sweep of both hands the girl consolidated the papers on the desk. Then she pushed herself out of the chair and with surprising agility, given the bulk of her belly, slipped past Lily. Lily turned to watch her. Footsteps faded, the door slammed, the girl was gone. Lily looked at the desk with its ragtag pile, then at the dismay on John’s face.

  It was a handsome face, she realized—tanned skin, close-cropped beard, enough weathering to s
uggest time spent in the great outdoors. There was only a vague resemblance to Donny, though her memory was of a twenty-one-year-old, and this man was mature. She was drawn to his eyes in particular. They were a deep brown, gentle even in frustration.

  “I’m trying,” he said in a controlled voice. “The girl’s gonna need some kind of skill after that baby’s born, unless Buck gets his act together, which I seriously doubt he will.”

  Lily hadn’t been so long gone from Lake Henry that she didn’t remember the cast. “Buck, your cousin?” she asked as she unwrapped the scarf.

  John nodded. “Total jerk.”

  “Is the baby his?”

  Another nod, then a muttered “Poor thing.” He looked her over. The corner of his mouth twitched. “That’s a fair disguise. Not that you’d need it with Jenny. She’s too young to know you, and when she watches the tube, it ain’t for the news.” He glanced at his watch.

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “Yes.” He reversed himself in the next breath. “No. It is not. I came to Lake Henry because I didn’t want rigid deadlines. The paper’s supposed to be at the printer at noon tomorrow. If it’s a little later, no one’ll die.”

  The kitchen door sounded, then footsteps. Lily turned fast, fearing that rather than Jenny it would be someone more apt to recognize her, when John came from behind her and touched her arm. “Go on up the front stairs,” he whispered. “All the way to the top. I’ll be up in a sec.”

  She moved quickly and quietly, turning on the second floor landing, continuing on to the third. The openness of the place struck her first, then the brightness, even under clouds. There were three desks, each with a computer, each showing signs of use. More interesting, though, were the walls. One held time-worn maps of the lake and aged photos of the town, framed in wood and exuding reverence. Another held newer photos, richer in color, taken on the lake itself, shots largely of loons. A third was black-and-white and busy.

  Removing the dark glasses, she approached that one and felt a chill. Here were newspapermen at work, photos taken during John’s time in Boston, if the banner on the wall was any indication. Hard to believe that a photograph could capture such focus and intensity, but there were faces with the very same ardor she had seen in her nightmares. Terry Sullivan’s face jumped out at her from one print, other familiar faces from others, though she couldn’t place them. There was an attractive woman in one, but mostly she saw John. He looked different from how he looked now in person, and it went beyond the beard and the tan. In glossy black-and-white he was like the others—tightly wound, frightening, definitely a man to avoid.

  “Scary, isn’t it?” John said from the door. He could imagine what Lily was thinking, looking at that particular wall. And his mug shot? A disaster, if the goal was to win her trust. If he’d known she was coming, he might have rethought the decor.

  When she shot him a nervous look, he was doubly sorry he hadn’t. The big glasses were off, exposing the fear in her eyes. She was fully dressed now—no nightgown this time—but with her hair stuck under that cap and jeans encasing slim legs, there remained a fragility to her.

  She glanced at the large manila envelope in his hand.

  He tossed it on his desk. “Essays and poems from the academy. I always try to print a few. I’ll have to sort through later and pick.”

  She eyed the other two desks. “Where’s the rest of your help?”

  “Jenny’s it.”

  “Then why three desks?”

  “Different desks for different jobs.” He pointed accordingly. “Editorial, production, sales. I have a correspondent in each of the towns we cover, and freelancers drop things off, but none of them works here. They don’t do enough to warrant it.”

  She folded her arms on her chest, left the Post wall, and moved in for a closer look at his loon pictures. “Did you take these?”

  “Every one,” he said with pride. He had sat hours for many of those shots, waiting for trust to build so that he could paddle closer, then waiting with the camera at his eye for just the right moment to trip the shutter. “Some are last year’s, but most are new.”

  “Did you print them yourself?”

  “Yes. That’s one of the perks of the job—a darkroom down cellar.”

  Lily went from print to print. There were nearly a dozen in all, taken at various times of day in various weather. With the exception of one of a loon on its nest, they were water shots—an adult grooming itself, a pair leaving a smooth liquid trail, a family of adults and their young. One print was of an hours-old chick. Another was of two chicks riding on a parent’s back.

  With Lily seemingly engrossed, John went in for a closer look himself.

  “Are they the same pair of loons?” she asked.

  “I think so.” He pointed at the short white lines ringing the neck of one bird in each of two shots. “Two different years, but the same little break in the line right here. I imagine he has a scar that prevents the feathers there from growing smoothly.”

  “He?”

  “I think. He’s bigger. Hard to tell otherwise. They share parenting chores, take turns sitting on the nest and fishing for food.” He amended the thought. “Actually, I know that’s the male.” He pointed to one of the other pictures. “This was taken last April, my first loon sighting of the year. See that little break in the neck marking? Males typically return a week or two before females. They scout around for nesting sights. I’m not sure if the female is the same one both years, though. Loons are monogamous through an entire breeding season, but we don’t know for sure whether they mate for life.”

  He looked down at the top of her cap. It didn’t quite reach his chin. Wisps of dark hair—shiny hair—escaped at the neck and the hole in the back. The bill prevented him from seeing her eyes, but he could easily hear her voice, soft though it was.

  “When I was growing up,” she said, “there was concern about a decline in the loon population.”

  When John was growing up he hadn’t given a hoot about loons. He had been gone from Lake Henry by the time the concern had been voiced, but he had read about it since.

  “The decline continued. The concern grew. Eventually people realized that big boats and jet skis were taking a toll. Too much noise for loons—they were being frightened off their nests and the eggs were lost. Too much sediment stirred up—loons rely on clear water to see the fish that they eat. Too much wake—eggs were being washed right out of nests. So jet skis were outlawed and boat speed was limited. Lo and behold, the population rebounded.”

  When Lily tipped her head back and looked up, something inside him flip-flopped. Her eyes were as soft as her voice. He hadn’t expected that.

  He swallowed. “Life’s solutions should always be so easy.”

  “They’re magnificent creatures.”

  “Yes.” He couldn’t look away. Her face was exquisite.

  “They’re wonderful pictures,” she said.

  His heart was beating faster. “Thanks.”

  Her eyes grew vulnerable. “You said you had ammo. What did you mean?”

  For an absurd minute, John felt like the guy with a crush on a girl who had a crush on someone else and wanted his advice. Like he’d just been shot down. It wasn’t betrayal exactly. More like disappointment that business could intrude.

  But business was the name of the game. So, valiantly, he said, “Terry Sullivan has a history of rigging stories. It’s never been proven, because he’s shrewd. He worms his way into the confidences of someone in a higher position, someone who can protect him. But there are a whole lot of someones in lower positions who know exactly what he does.”

  “Do they know why?”

  “Ambition. Ruthlessness. Greed.”

  “Malice?”

  “I’m working on malice,” John said. He knew where she was headed. “Malice” was the magic word, where legalities were concerned. “The obvious thing is that he concocted the scandal as a personal vendetta. You didn’t know him from Adam, so it
wasn’t against you. Rossetti’s personal secretary says they didn’t know each other. So I’ll have to come at it from a different angle. For now, all I have is a growing list of times when Terry Sullivan has shown a reckless disregard for the truth, as they say.”

  “I’d have to prove malice in court.”

  “Probably.”

  “I could go through years of agony and still lose.”

  “Possibly.” He sighed. “Do you know that there’s a tape?”

  Her startled look said she didn’t.

  “He taped your conversation without telling you. That’s illegal. It’s something to add to the arsenal.”

  Lily looked crushed. “A tape will show that I did sssay those things, only I didn’t say them the way he printed them.”

  John was thinking that he believed her one hundred percent, when she said, “I met with Cassie Byrnes.”

  That surprised him. “You did?”

  “We demanded a retraction. That was yesterday. Today-yy’s today”—he saw her blink with the stutter, a split second’s bid for control—“and there’s no retraction. Cassie says not to panic, but I’m tired of doing nnn-nothing.”

  The phone rang. John might have ignored it, if it hadn’t been crunch time for the week. He picked up at the nearest desk, which just happened to be the editorial desk by the lake.

  The caller was the owner of a crafts shop two towns over, wanting to do pre-Christmas advertising. John pulled up a piece of paper and took the information he needed. By the time he hung up the phone, Lily was looking at him. Again, something turned inside him.

  He glanced at his watch. “Tired of doing nothing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Got a few minutes?”

  “Slightly.”

  Smiling, he reached for the envelope from Lake Henry Academy. His free hand guided Lily around the desk and into his chair. Upending the envelope, he shook out its contents. “Pick three.”

  She looked at the papers, then up at him—and he felt a twist in his chest this time. He figured it was the cap. He was a sucker for the Red Sox.