An unassuming man in his forties came out to meet them. He wore canvas work pants and a T-shirt. His clean-shaven face was weathered and creased, evidence of a life lived outdoors doing hard work. He shook their hands as he introduced himself.
“I’m Stan Hooks,” he said, squinting at them.
“Hi,” Wally said. “I’m Wally, and this is Kyle. Sorry to just barge in—I know you probably have set visiting times, but—”
“You’re Wally Stoneman?” Stan wanted to know.
She was taken aback. “Yes.”
“Jake and Ella have told a few stories,” Stan explained. “You’re something of a legend around here.”
Hearing this, Wally felt a huge rush of emotions: relief, happiness, regret. Jake and Ella still thought of her, and they still cared for her. How had she not known that would be true? Why had she kept herself at a distance from them for so long, when what she needed most in the world was friends she could trust?
“If it’s all right, I’d like to see them.”
“I’m really sorry,” Stan said. “Most everyone is down in western Pennsylvania for a few days. It’s a 4H event—they’re showing our hogs and taking some classes. Jake and Ella are going to be really disappointed they missed you.”
Wally’s heart sank a little. She couldn’t imagine anything better at that moment than to have her friends’ arms around her. To come so close and miss them made her heart ache.
“Me too,” she said. “Let them know I stopped by?”
“I’ll be sure to,” Stan said. “I know it’ll make them happy that you tried.”
After leaving a short note for her friends, Wally and Kyle got back on the road. Wally felt a wave of sadness as they pulled away, Stan Hooks waving goodbye in the rearview mirror. Her disappointment was obvious enough for Kyle to see.
“You okay?”
She was on the verge of tears, actually, but she waited for the feeling to pass before answering.
“Yeah, just sad. The good thing is, I had some questions—some things that were weighing me down. I think I just got the answers.”
“Good answers?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
They made it back to the rural highway and stopped at a gas station to fill the thirsty Explorer and take bathroom breaks. From there, Kyle took the wheel. The highway led them north into the thick of the Adirondacks, a winding road through dense, green forest, broken up by occasional lakes and abundant streams that were flowing full from the runoff of winter snow.
After an hour or so—by then it was late afternoon—Kyle turned the Explorer off onto a two-lane dirt road, rutted and rough. They followed this track for five slow, bumpy miles until the road ended, becoming a private drive with NO TRESPASSING signs everywhere.
“Private road?” Wally asked. “Does that mean this is all yours from here?”
“All my father’s, yeah. It’s a lot of land. We have a local guy who comes in the spring to grade the road, but he obviously hasn’t been through yet.”
The dirt was even rougher now, and several times they were forced to stop and clear fallen branches out of the way. When the private drive finally ended, the first thing Wally saw was the enormous lodge constructed of actual logs—like something out of a Ralph Lauren ad, she thought—two stories high, with a large main section and long wings stretching out at both sides. Just a hundred feet from the porch of the lodge was a big lake. It spanned at least a mile across and there were no other homes visible on the shore.
“Wow,” she said. “It’s like some kind of mountain paradise.”
“I know.”
They climbed out of the car and stretched. The air was very quiet, but then a soft, mournful sound came to them from the water.
Wally looked across the water and could see a pair of birds floating a hundred yards out, their elegant necks silhouetted against the reflection of the deep-orange sun, hanging low in the sky. Wally followed Kyle past the house and toward the lake, where an old and weathered wooden dock reached fifty feet or so out onto the water. Crossing the gravelly shore, they reached the dock and began to walk out toward the end, the wood under their feet creaking loudly and echoing out over the water.
Wally could see that, for Kyle, returning to this place was a powerful experience. He seemed drawn to the lake by an invisible force, his eyes never leaving the water.
“How long since you’ve been back here?” she asked.
Kyle ignored the question, instead skipping a few yards ahead and peeling off his clothes. It all came off—boots, socks, sweatshirt, shirt, and cargo pants, until only his boxers were left. Then he sprinted as fast as he could and dove athletically off the edge of the dock, disappearing with hardly a splash under the surface of the lake.
Wally reached the end of the dock and scanned the surface of the water. The ripples from Kyle’s dive radiated away, eventually quieting altogether, until everything was still and silent again. How much time had passed since he’d gone in? Fifteen seconds? Twenty? Wally started getting nervous—she stepped to the very edge of the dock and peered down into the water.
“Kyle?” Wally called out, a hint of panic in her voice.
No reply. Ten more seconds passed, but it felt more like ten minutes.
“Kyle!” Now she was genuinely scared for him. She kicked off her shoes—fully prepared to go in after him—but just then he burst to the surface in front of her, rising high out of the water and splashing back down again, hyperventilating from the cold of the water yet wearing a wide, happy smile on his face.
“Woo!” he hollered, elated and breathless. “It’s so cold, but soooo awesome!”
“That was NOT funny,” Wally yelled back, but something about his goofy grin was contagious and she grinned back at him despite herself.
“What? You missed me?” he teased.
“Absolutely not,” she said, folding her arms squarely in front of her.
He responded by smacking the surface of the lake, splashing cold water on her.
“Asshole,” Wally objected as she jumped back, laughing with him.
He wiped the water from his eyes and spun slowly around, taking in the whole panorama of the lake and the lodge.
“It’s weird,” he said. “I don’t know if you have a place like this, but I can be away for a long time and forget the feeling it gives me—then as soon as I get back in this water it’s like I never left.”
Wally sat down at the edge of the dock and rolled up her jeans, submerging her feet in the water until it lapped at her legs all the way up to her calf muscles. Did she have a place like that? The old apartment on the Upper West Side, maybe? She had some good memories from her life there, but not enough to make it a home, exactly—she had no desire to ever go back there. Wally wondered if there was a place from her earliest childhood in Russia that would make her feel that way, but if there was she had no recollection of it.
“I have that with a few friends,” she answered. “I can be away from them for a while, but the moment we’re together again we pick up like we were never apart.”
She was thinking about Jake and Ella, of course. She wondered if it were still true, if the three of them really would meld naturally when—and if—they were all together again.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s the same kind of thing. It’s good, you know?”
Slowly kicking her feet in the water, Wally found herself wondering if that was the way she and Kyle would feel about each other someday—where the hell did that idea come from? There was definitely something different about Kyle now, as if he had begun to rediscover himself. Wally figured she could get used to this new, confident version of him.
Kyle 2.0.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked, his directness catching her off guard.
“Uh . . . ”
&nbs
p; “It’s not a complicated question,” he said, a mischievous smile on his face.
“Well, no,” she said. Her face felt a little hot, suddenly, and she prayed that she wasn’t blushing enough for him to notice. She pulled her feet out of the water and hugged her legs close to her chest. “Not lately.”
“C’mon, that can’t be true,” he said. “There’s no one special you’re close to?”
An image of Tevin suddenly flashed through Wally’s mind, piercing her heart. “I was sort of involved with this one guy,” she said. “But it didn’t end well.”
“Painful breakup?”
“You could say that.”
“Well?” he asked after a moment, treading water in front of her. The late-afternoon sun shimmered off the drops of water on his powerful shoulders.
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you gonna ask me? It’s only polite.”
Wally sighed dramatically. “Fine. Do you have a girlfriend?”
As soon as the question passed her lips, Kyle held his hands up out of the water in a gesture that said “back off.”
“Easy, woman!” he protested. “I don’t need you pressuring me. My god, we’ve only known each other for like a day and a half!”
“Hilarious,” Wally said in an irritated tone, but again she couldn’t help smiling.
He chuckled with self-satisfaction. He kicked his way to the dock, grabbing the edge and gracefully lifting himself out of the water. Before she even realized where her eyes were directed, Wally noticed that Kyle’s boxers were practically transparent. She looked away quickly, but if Kyle was embarrassed he didn’t show it. He wiped some of the water off his body with his hands and stepped—still half wet—back into his clothes.
“Now I’m cold and hungry,” he said. “Let’s get inside.”
Wally opened her mouth to speak but found that she was at a loss for words. She climbed to her feet and followed Kyle toward the lodge.
9.
KYLE FOUND THE HIDDEN KEY TO THE MAIN HOUSE and led Wally in through the door on the back porch. It was dark and nearly freezing inside, much colder than the outside air. The windows were covered with exterior storm shutters, and the room filled with light as Kyle went back out onto the porch and swung them open. Inside, Wally raised the windows, letting the fresh air in to chase away the thick, musty atmosphere of the old lodge.
“It gets pretty rank in here over the long winter,” Kyle said. Wally actually liked the smell. It was like breathing in history.
The center portion of the house was a “great room,” a big open space two stories high with solid log beams across the ceiling. White linens were draped over large, masculine leather pieces of furniture; plush sofas and high-backed chairs huddled like a gathering of ghosts before a massive stone fireplace. There were trophy fish mounted all over the walls but no other game. A big picture window faced the shore, and with the shutters now open the orange glow of the setting sun filled the room, spotlighting the myriad particles of dust in the air that had been unsettled by Wally and Kyle’s arrival.
“The power is out,” Kyle said. He left the room for a few minutes and then returned, carrying four brass oil lamps. “It happens every winter. I guess they haven’t had a crew out here to fix the lines yet. I like the lamps better anyway—it’s more like camping out, you know? The stove and the water heater are propane, though, so I have those going. In an hour or two there’ll be hot water.”
Kyle lit all four of the lamps and placed them at various spots around the large room, spreading a mellow yellow light. There was a large pile of split wood and kindling next to the stone fireplace, and Wally sat nearby watching as Kyle built a fire, arranging the various tiers of wood so expertly that once he lit the pile with a single match it grew fast, burning large and hot within minutes. He did all of this easily and naturally, as if he was born doing it. Kyle was taking care of her, and it felt good to be taken care of. It was a feeling Wally wasn’t altogether used to.
The two of them teamed up to pull the linens off the furniture and fold them into a neat pile, until finally the great room was finished and all the dust had settled. They sat cross-legged in front of the fire, watching the flames grow larger, their shoulders occasionally touching.
“Hmm,” Kyle murmured.
“What?”
“I was just thinking—did we stop for groceries on the way up?”
“Uh . . . do you remember stopping for groceries?”
“Come to think of it, no,” he said. “That was bad planning. I’m starving now.”
“Those five double-sized energy drinks you tossed down didn’t provide lasting sustenance? Are you sure?”
He winced a little at the memory. “Don’t remind me! I’ll hurl.”
“A big place like this must have something in the pantry.”
“Yeah,” he said, “there’s usually something.”
Kyle jumped up and headed for the kitchen, Wally right behind him. They found a large walk-in pantry to one side, fully stocked with the kind of staples—canned goods, rice, and a whole lot of freeze-dried things—that would survive long periods of time without going bad. There was nothing even remotely fresh, of course, but it was enough to feed a dozen people for weeks.
“Whoa, this is a lot,” Wally said. “Is your dad some kind of survivalist nut?”
Kyle shrugged. “He’s definitely got a paranoid side. What kind of things can you make?”
“I’m excellent at reheating pizza. How about you?”
“I can cook fresh trout over an open fire.”
“You’re officially worthless, then,” Wally said, but she spotted a box that read PANCAKE MIX and pointed it out to him. “There’s something. With a little teamwork we can put together some respectable flapjacks. How hard can it be?”
Harder than they thought, as it turned out. They had the mix, but the instructions on the carton required eggs and milk to complete the recipe. They went back to the pantry and found freeze-dried eggs and cans of something called “condensed milk,” which they opened to find a gooey substance that looked and felt like shampoo. For half an hour they each experimented with proportions of the ingredients, coming up with their own versions of the batter. Kyle’s came up way too thick and Wally’s much too runny.
“Mine looks like the foamy stuff that floats on the East River,” Wally said. “Totally pathetic.”
“Speak for yourself,” Kyle said. “I think mine is pretty close.”
“Are you kidding me?” Wally said. “Look at what you’ve made there. Were you one of those kids in elementary school who used to eat paste?”
Kyle dipped his index finger into his “batter” and came up with a gob of the stuff . . . which he immediately flicked at Wally. It hit her on the cheek and stuck there, cold and disgusting on her skin. She felt a sudden fight-or-flight rush of adrenaline.
“Ooooh . . . big mistake,” Wally said mock-threateningly. “Now you’ll suffer my wrath!”
Wally scooped up a handful of the watery slime she’d made and hurled it at Kyle, splashing it all over the front of his shirt. He looked down at the stain in exaggerated horror.
“You will pay dearly for this,” he shouted, grabbing a spatula and scooping a mega-sized gob of batter out of his mixing bowl.
Before he could get a clean shot, Wally grabbed her own bowl and ducked out of the kitchen, letting out a high-pitched squeal—where the hell did that alien sound come from? she wondered—as she raced across the great room and hid behind one of the couches.
“That was the girliest scream I’ve ever heard,” Kyle said, coming after her and throwing more mix. She dodged the projectile and answered with another handful of her slime, which struck him in the face.
“How girly was that?” Wally taunted him.
Kyle k
ept coming after her, and they traded a barrage of shots as they chased each other around the furniture. An unexpected rush of delight ran through Wally as she bobbed and weaved to avoid getting hit, answering every attack from Kyle with one of her own. Wally had years of martial-arts training, but it turned out that none of those hand-to-hand tactics were very useful against high-velocity clumps of pancake mix. As she raced past the fireplace Kyle managed to land a massive glop of the crud on her chest.
“Wait, hold on!” she said, standing up in full view and spreading her hands wide in a universal gesture of peace. “Truce, okay?”
“Now that I’ve got you on the run . . . ”
“No, I mean it,” Wally pleaded, apparently sincere. “Aren’t we better than this, Kyle?”
“Are we?”
Wally responded by laughing as she heaved everything that was left in her bowl at Kyle. A big splash of the slime struck him across his face as she ran away, letting out another squeal—seriously, where the hell did that sound come from?—and hid in a bathroom in the nearest hallway, locking the door behind her. Within seconds, she could hear Kyle arrive outside the door, breathing hard.
“The window in that bathroom is stuck and can’t open more than a few inches,” he said through the barricade, “so if you want out, you’re going through me.”
“Okay, then,” Wally said, catching her breath. “Truce for real this time.”
“Easy for you to say—you got the last good strike.”
“Okay, fine. I come out, and you take your best shot. Then we’re done.”
“Cool,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
Wally opened the bathroom door slowly and stepped out, shutting her eyes and bracing herself for the impact of the expected glob. When a few seconds went by and nothing happened, she cautiously opened her eyes and saw that Kyle had fashioned his remaining mix into a round white ball of glop, stuck harmlessly to his nose and accompanied by a blank expression on his face.
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