by Ann Leary
We live in Connecticut in the electronic age. What scenario could he have possibly fathomed that would involve our needing to know which direction was true north?
Whit showed me once the way a female duck will swim erratically, feigning a broken wing. We were out fishing in the old skiff when we saw one do this. “Watch this,” Whit said. He paddled after her, and suddenly she shot into the sky, as healthy and sound as could be.
“She’s got ducklings in the cove. It’s an instinctive defense against predators. She was making herself look vulnerable, so we’d go after her and away from her offspring. Then she flew off once we weren’t a threat.”
I often wondered why Whit didn’t travel more. Why didn’t he go on treks in Nepal or Tibet? Why no trips to Antarctica or safaris in Africa? Joan would have been game; she loves anything involving exercise. But he never really left town much after we moved up here. He just built his banjos and made music.
“You’re so clever,” Laurel was saying as she pulled the Jeep back onto the road. “Here I thought you were a total shut-in, and instead you’re out riding your bike all over the countryside in the middle of the night.”
There’s a driveway right there at the end of East Shore Road where you can turn around and drive back, but she just paused at the stop sign, then took a left.
“I thought we were going home,” I said.
“Let’s drive around the lake, I hate backtracking,” said Laurel. “I always prefer going forward.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Don’t you feel the same?” she asked. “Like when you’re hiking, wouldn’t you rather make a loop than backtrack?”
“I don’t really hike.”
I looked up at the stars. The road straightens out for about a half mile before you turn onto West Shore Road. We started going very fast. A lot of people speed on that stretch because it’s so straight. The top was down, so I tilted my head back and looked up at the sky. Where was Polaris?
We sped past the turn onto West Shore Road.
Now we were on Housatonic Road. There are woods on both sides and you can’t see much sky there, just the treetops spinning past.
“What’s going on, Laurel?” I managed to say.
Each fraction of a mile, each turn of the wheels was tearing at me. We were getting so far from home. I tried to maintain a casual tone.
“I just thought we’d chat,” she said.
She slowed down slightly and veered off onto a dirt road. It was Hunt Hill Road, a steep incline that leads from the lake to the neighboring town of Wakefield. She drove up the road a short distance, until we came to an open field, then she steered the Jeep into the field and turned it around. I thought she was going to take us back to the road, but she stopped the car and said, “Wow, look at that view.”
You can see the lake from there. The storm clouds were rearranging themselves, and for a brief moment we saw the moonlight, pearly and muted, slanting across the lake’s glistening surface. Then the wind shifted, a dark cloud settled over the moon, and the lake was lost in the gloom.
“I know you took my phone this afternoon. I know you read my texts and my e-mails.”
I was silent.
“Do you have any questions?”
“Questions about what?” I whispered.
“About what you found on my phone. Don’t lie, don’t even apologize. I admire you, Lottie. You and all your little sneaky life hacks. So go ahead, ask me anything.”
There was nothing to ask, really. I’d had Matt do some Internet sleuthing that afternoon. He had provided me with information that I hadn’t been able to piece together from her phone. Laurel wasn’t from Sun Valley. She never had a sister. She had grown up in Breckenridge—that’s why she was such a great skier. But she wasn’t on any ski team. Her mother was a pothead who cleaned motel rooms. Laurel had been arrested twice, from what Matt had seen. Once for soliciting as a minor, once for extortion. She was thirty-five, not twenty-seven. She had been married to a man named Craig Henley. Matt wasn’t able to find out anything about him.
“Why Spin?” I asked finally.
“Why did I fall in love with Spin? He’s very lovable, you know that.”
I heard the hollow cry of an owl.
“I don’t think you love him,” I managed to whisper. “I know about you and Everett. I know what you did the night of the party.”
“Oh yeah?”
There was the owl again, calling out into the dark.
“I downloaded all the texts and e-mails on your phone. I have them. I can prove to Spin that you’re not who you say you are. That you’re a user and a fraud. That you slept with his best friend.”
“I don’t think you should do that, Charlotte,” Laurel replied. Her tone was casual and breezy. “I think we should all be friends. We’re so alike, you and I.”
This made me laugh. “Alike? In what way are we alike?”
“Almost every way. We’re both good people, but we’re smarter than most. It’s unfair that some people are given things in this world that smart people like us should get—like college degrees. So we find a way to get them. I think you love holding court on your blog from your little perch in the attic. I think the whole reason you don’t like to leave the property is because you can’t face honest people, you’re such a fraud.…”
“I’ve never taken advantage of anybody. I’ve never lied to anybody about who I am—anybody I know in real life. Does Spin know that you were married before? Does he know how old you are? I downloaded everything on your phone, all your texts to your friends, making fun of Spin—making fun of all of us. I’ll show them to him.”
“No, I don’t think that would be a very good idea. I’m married to Spin now. You live in our house. I think you should be a little bit more gracious.”
“Why did you send the letters to the police? I liked you. I don’t get why you would come in and sabotage everything. You didn’t have to fuck Everett. We could have all gotten along.”
“Spin is stuck. I wanted to move things along, get you and your mother to move along. This town is dull. I’ve made Spin see that. Now he wants to move, but we can’t afford it. All our money is tied up in the house.”
“Our money?” I blurted out incredulously.
“Yes,” Laurel said.
We were silent for a minute or two. Then I said, “I won’t say anything to Spin. About you and Everett. About any of it.”
“I know,” Laurel said.
“Not because of you, but because it would kill him. I wouldn’t hurt him that way.”
“I know.”
“Let’s go back home, okay?”
“Whose home? Do you have a home now? Did you and your mom and sister finally find a place to live so you’re not freeloading off Spin and me anymore?”
“No, I guess I meant Spin’s home.”
We sat for a moment.
“Your home,” I said.
Laurel started up the Jeep and drove us to Lakeside.
* * *
It was the third day of rain. I waited in my room until I smelled coffee. When I went downstairs, I found Joan pacing around, waiting for it to finish brewing.
“My tennis got rained out,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said.
“I need to run. I can’t sleep if I don’t run, but it was thundering a few minutes ago.”
“It’ll let up,” I said.
She was very still for a minute, then she pulled me close and said, “They’re finished painting all the residences at Holden. I wonder when they’re going back? It feels a little crowded. I mean, I’m not used to having company for so long.”
“I don’t think they’re going back, Joan. I don’t think they consider themselves company.”
“What do you mean?” Joan asked.
“I think Laurel would prefer to live here.”
“No,” Joan said. “They can’t live here. Why would they want to live here with us? It’s much more fun living on campus with the other coup
les.”
According to Laurel, she already did live here. When I’d gone into her phone, the day before, I’d seen the e-mails to the architect in New York. He was the architect Perry and Catherine had used for their house—I recognized the name. She and the architect had made a date for him to come up and look at the house for the “renovation project.” He was coming up the following Thursday. They had several back-and-forth e-mails. Spin was CC’d on all of them.
We heard their footsteps on the stairs and we both made ourselves busy—pouring coffee, putting bread in the toaster.
“Morning!” said Laurel.
“Good morning, dear,” Joan said. “Who wants breakfast?”
Joan made us scrambled eggs, and as soon as we sat down, Spin began. “Joan, Charlotte, we wanted to have a talk. I think this is a good time, while Sally’s still away. You know, Laurel and I have discussed this a great deal. We just don’t see living on campus. Laurel’s not going to take the teaching position. She needs to finish this manuscript. She’s not going to be able to teach until her book is finished.”
Her book. She wasn’t writing a book. I had been up all night. Matt had found out more about Laurel. She had never been to college or graduate school—that’s why she’d suddenly decided not to apply for the teaching job. All of it, everything she had told us about herself, had been fabricated.
Joan said, “Spin, are you trying to tell us that you want to stay on here? With us?”
“I’m really sorry, Joan,” Spin said. “Laurel and I’ve talked about this. I’ve talked about it with Perry. There’s no way that would work. That’s too much of a strain to put on a new marriage, sharing a house with—family.”
“Besides,” Laurel said, “we’re going to have some work done on the house, and we know how unsettling that would be for you, Joanie.”
“Nobody calls me Joanie,” my mother snapped. Actually, we often call her that. We children do—her children and stepchildren.
“They want to sell the house, Joan,” I said.
“No,” Joan said. “Spin, that’s not true, right? Why would you sell it? Where would you live?”
“Anywhere, Joan. Anywhere I want. I’d like to live someplace that I choose, not a place that was chosen for me.”
And there it was again: the quiet rage I had heard that day with Sally.
“I could live anywhere I want, if I got my assets out of this place.”
Joan took on the stern maternal voice she had used when scolding us as children. “Spin, I didn’t ask you to buy Perry’s share of the house. If you hadn’t done that, you’d have plenty of money.”
“You have plenty of money. You could live anywhere,” Spin said. “Joan, one of the reasons Dad kept the house separate from the marital trust is because you always complained that all your friends went to Florida in the winter. He thought that you might want to move there and he didn’t want you to be burdened with the house. I remember having that conversation with you, Perry, and Dad.”
“Yes, that’s true, Spin. But I didn’t expect your father to die when I was still relatively young. I can’t move to Florida now. This is my town. I’ve lived here all my life. Your father meant for me to live here, in this house, as long as I want. I’m not planning to move anytime soon.”
Laurel stood up and said to Spin, “This is uncomfortable for me. It’s family business. I’m going upstairs, sweetie.”
After she left, I said, “Spin, listen, before you met Laurel, you were so happy at Holden. This lake project with Yale was really important to you. Now you want to abandon all that? You just met Laurel—”
“I’m calling Jim Haskell. Then I’m calling my attorney,” Joan interrupted. She stood up shakily. “Your father would be so disappointed in you right now, Spin.”
“He was my father, Joan. I’ll have to reconcile that with myself, but it has nothing to do with you.”
Joan stormed out of the room. I started to go after her, but Spin put his hand on mine and whispered, “Wait, Lottie. I shouldn’t have said that to her.”
“Let’s go out on the porch,” I said.
He followed me outside and I sat on the old porch swing. He stood there, staring out at the lake.
“You know, Lottie, I thought I loved Holden, but what I really loved was that I had a neutral place to live when I was a kid. That’s why I spent so much time there before I even became a student. My mom always resented the time I spent here; my dad resented the ‘influence’ he thought Mom had on me. They were both happy when I was at Holden, because I wasn’t with one of them or the other.”
“I get that,” I said.
“Shove over a little,” he said, and he sat next to me on the swing. “Holden was more of a home to me than either of the houses that I grew up in. My mom’s house was really her husband Peter’s house. This house was yours—Sally’s, Joan’s, and Dad’s.”
“How can you even say that, Spin? Whit always made this a home for all of us. And you’ve always been so involved here. What about the lake study? The task force?”
“I’m just telling you the way I experienced it. When I finished school, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. It felt comfortable to go back there. But now I want to move on. I’m almost finished with the lake survey. The results are going to be published, my name will be on it. Laurel and I want to travel. Use my schooling and experience with inland waterways in parts of the world where clean water is a matter of life or death for the people living there.”
We could hear somebody, either Joan or Laurel, walking around upstairs.
“Spin,” I said quietly. “I get it. I really do. And I’m sure there’s some way that we can work something out with the trust so that you can get your assets out. The trust should be able to purchase the house back from you, right? Or maybe, with Joanie’s money, and some money I’ve saved, we can lease it from you.”
“No, we’re selling Lakeside. We’re going to do some renovations and then we’re selling.”
I said, “What if things don’t work out with Laurel?”
“Not this again,” Spin said.
“She’s not who she pretends she is. I have proof.”
Spin turned to me angrily. “Proof of what, exactly?”
“She wasn’t in an accident, she never had a sister who died.”
“I know you think that’s shocking for me to hear, but I’ve always known that.”
“You have?” I asked.
“Well, I’ve known it for several months, yes. She told me before she moved here. She was trying to write a novel. It turned into sort of an online writing experiment. Maybe a little bit like your fake blog.”
I said nothing.
“Yeah, Laurel told me about it—about your whole weird virtual family.”
“That’s not really what my blog was.”
“That’s true, your blog is different. Your blog is about getting money by deceiving people.”
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t that. Anyway, it’s gone now, the blog.”
“Well, Laurel didn’t profit from what she was doing online. And you’re wrong about the other stuff. She did go to college and graduate school. She was on the U.S. ski team.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because she told me,” Spin said, his voice trembling with rage again.
Why hadn’t he ever told us he was so angry? All we’d ever done was love him. How could he be such a fool?
Fuck him.
My sudden anger gave me relief. He was right. He was an adult, he could make his own decisions. He deserved her. I had Everett. It was time for all of us to move on.
I put my hand on Spin’s arm and squeezed it gently, then I went up the back stairs to the attic.
TWENTY-FIVE
I was sitting in the dark when I heard Everett’s truck pull in. I peered out the window and waited until he turned on the little lamp next to his kitchen window—the signal we’d used for years—inviting me over.
I pulled on a p
air of jeans and a T-shirt, then opened the door and peeked out into the hallway. I walked down to the second floor. It was dark; there was no sound coming from any of the rooms. Riley, who had been asleep on the floor, rose and wandered over to me, his tail thwap-thwap-thwapping the wall as he came. I grabbed his collar and we made our way down the stairs together. Then we both crept out through the dog door. The front door is creaky; I didn’t want to wake anybody.
Everett met Riley and me at his front door. He pulled me into the house, into his bed. He hadn’t been gone a full day, somehow it felt like years. Afterward, we went down to the lake. The rain hadn’t cooled the air, it had only made it thicker, soupier. Everything was sodden. We dove into the cool water and swam out to the float. We needed to be away from the land, Spin and Laurel’s land. Away from our houses, the houses that belonged to Spin and Laurel. We lay on our backs on the float, just as we had done so many times when we were children.
I told Everett everything.
“Spin needs to know,” Everett said.
“He doesn’t want to know,” I said. “Let’s get out of here. Let’s move. We can both work anywhere. Let’s move to California.”
Everett sat up and grinned at me. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m serious,” I said. “Would you want to do something like that?”
“Hell yeah,” Everett said. “I could get a lot more business if we were someplace where I could work outside with dogs year-round. Maybe Southern California. I can’t believe you’re even considering this. Let’s do it.”
The idea terrified me. The idea terrified and thrilled me.
“Or the San Francisco area,” Everett said. “I have a cousin there. In the meantime, let’s get out more. I can’t look at the two of them together. You’re right: There’s no point in telling Spin. He won’t believe us.”