by Sara Biren
“Oh.” I’m not sure how to respond. “Lucy tells you stories about Trix?”
“Yeah. You can, too. It’s easy. I’ll start for you. Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Beatrix, but everyone called her Trixie. She was smart and sweet and nice to everyone. She had a best friend named Lulu and a brother named Ben. One day . . .”
She stops and looks at me. “Well, it’s your turn now. One day . . .”
“Oh,” I say again. “Okay. One day—well, night, really—Trixie and her friend Lulu took the rowboat out—”
Emily cuts me off. “I know this one! This is the one where Trixie drops the oar in, right, and you come out and rescue them?”
I swallow hard. When will this pain in my chest ease?
Emily’s bobber goes under and she squeals. “Help me!” she cries, and she forgets about the story.
I don’t.
34 · Lucy
When Hannah wakes, I’m already packed.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she says, pulling on shorts and a T-shirt and her purple hat. “I’m starving!”
We walk to the campground convenience store, buy coffee and breakfast sandwiches, and find a picnic table close to the lake.
“So, how was it?” Hannah asks after she downs her first coffee and starts on the second.
I blush. “How was it supposed to be?”
She laughs. “That good, huh? Tell me he used a condom.”
I nod.
“Well, that’s a relief. Makes you wonder, though.”
“Yeah. Kinda presumptuous.”
“You know he’s going to want it all the time now,” she says. She laughs again, then grows serious. “Do you—I don’t know, do you regret it?”
I shake my head. “No. I wanted to do it. I wouldn’t have if I didn’t want to.”
“But?”
“He’s so sweet. He makes me feel like I’m something special, you know? It’s just . . .” I pause, and then, “It’s not his fault that he’s not who I want him to be.”
There’s a long moment when neither of us speaks. I wanted being with Simon to mean getting over Ben.
A chill washes over me.
I don’t know that I’ll ever get over Ben.
“What do you love about Ben? I mean, I didn’t know him before, but he seems like a moody little prick, if you ask me.”
“He wasn’t always like that, you know.”
“So you’ve said.”
I don’t even know where to begin. Why do I love Ben? Why do I breathe? Why do I eat? And then I remember that first day I told Trixie, and the first five things I loved about him.
“Well . . .” I say slowly. “I love that when he laughs really hard, he gets this one little dimple on the right side.”
Hannah looks at me and rolls her eyes. “I have never seen Ben laugh really hard. Scowl, yes. Laugh, no.”
“He used to laugh all the time.”
“Before,” she says, her tone sad.
“Before.”
“What else? There’s got to be more than a dimple that is clearly an urban legend.”
“Funny. You know about the agates, how he used to polish rocks?” I slip my hand into my pocket to make sure the agate is there and startle when I remember that it’s not. “I don’t think he does it anymore. But when he did, he was always so careful and gentle with the stones. Like they were the most precious things on earth. And I always thought that he treated people the same way he handled the rocks. He cared.”
“‘Cared’ as in past tense?” Hannah asks. “Again, this is not something I’ve witnessed.”
“I know.”
“What else?”
“He calls his mother Mum.”
“Weird.”
“She’s British. Emily was the first baby he ever held. She was so tiny in his arms, and he held her so carefully, like she might break. I remember everything about the day she was born. I got to go to the hospital with them to visit. He looked down at her and grinned, like he’d never seen anything so amazing in his life.”
“That’s so sweet,” Hannah says.
I nod. “Emily has always felt so safe around Ben. He’s strong and smart and he knows how to take care of people. And I guess that’s what I loved most about him. He made me feel safe, like if I was with him, nothing bad would happen.”
“But it did,” Hannah says, slowly, cautiously. “And he hasn’t been very protective of you since, has he?”
She’s right again. I nod. “He’s changed.”
“Yeah, he’s changed, but it doesn’t mean that deep down, everything you loved about him isn’t still there.”
Maybe. Maybe it is. But I’ve changed, too.
“So that’s it?” Hannah says in a light tone when I don’t say anything. “That’s what you love about him so much? How about those abs or that cute butt?” She grins.
“Oh, there’s more. But Trixie asked me what I liked about him right after I confessed to her. Those were the first five things I thought of.”
“And you remember them? After all this time?”
“I’ll never forget.”
“I wish I had known Trixie,” Hannah says. “Do you think all three of us would have been friends? Or maybe you wouldn’t have needed me, and I would have been the lonely new girl.”
“Oh, I think Trix would have loved you,” I say, and I mean it.
“Tell me about her,” Hannah says.
I do. I tell her all my best Trixies.
I tell her about swim meets and sleepovers and shopping trips to St. Cloud for new school clothes. I tell her about summer days on the pontoon, summer evenings at the Watermelon Days carnival.
Someday I will tell this story to Emily, how Hannah and I sat at this picnic table and talked about Trixie, and this memory will be one of my best Hannahs.
“I suppose we should get back to the boys,” I say.
I’m surprised when Hannah hugs me.
“I know I tease you about Ben a lot, but it’s obvious, Lucille. You shouldn’t be hooking up with Simon Stanford. You and Ben should be together. I’m serious. Anybody can see it.”
“That’s sweet, but I think we both know that is not going to happen.”
“You don’t know that it won’t happen with Ben. Miracles happen every day. You have to believe it in your heart.”
“I don’t believe in miracles.” Not since that day on the beach when I prayed for a miracle that didn’t come.
“Aw, honey.” She stands and brushes crumbs off her shirt. “Don’t let this bring you down. Come on, let’s go home and face that music.”
“Thanks. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Hannah.”
“You know I got you, Lucille.” She squeezes my hand and we walk back to our campsite.
Dustin stops the truck at the side of the road, doesn’t even bother to pull into the driveway. Simon gets out and unloads our bags from the back. He hands me my duffel but doesn’t let go, not right away, and his hand grazes mine.
“Hey,” he says, his eyes locked on mine, “it’s okay, Luce. Everything is going to be okay.”
I pinch my lips together in a grim smile. “I hope so.”
We walk up to the driveway. He leans in, kisses me on the cheek, and says hello to my dad, who is waiting on the front porch.
“Mr. Meadows,” he says, and nods. Like we hadn’t just sneaked off to a rodeo without his permission and had sex in a tent.
Dad ignores Simon and pulls me into a tight, quick hug, then nearly pushes me away. “Lucy, how could you? How could you do this?”
I don’t know how to answer that. I look back at Simon, who mouths, “Call me later,” and disappears down the other side of the driveway.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Dad. There’s nothing else. There’s no reasonable excuse, no way to explain it away. I follow Dad into the house.
Mom sits at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of her that looks untouched.
She’s not at the restaurant. She’
s here, waiting for me, her daughter, to come home. I wonder who’s covering my shift.
“Mom.” I take a tentative step forward. “Mom, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have worried you like that.”
The look of sadness and concern in her eyes when she looks up from her cup of coffee stops me cold.
“What has gotten into you, Lucy?” she asks, her voice cracking. “You’ve never acted this way before. You’ve never disobeyed us. Your dad tells you that you can’t go to South Dakota, and the next thing we know, you’re sneaking off in the middle of the night.”
When she pauses, Dad starts in. “You should not have gone to that rodeo. We were worried sick. So it should be no surprise that you’re grounded for the rest of the summer. You can go to work at the resort and the diner and that’s it. And you will not be allowed to see any of your friends.”
“No,” I cry. “You have to let me see Hannah. Please—”
Mom cuts me off. “You made your choice, Lucy, and now you’ve got to live with the consequences. End of discussion.”
I turn and run up the stairs, away from my parents.
I shower and crawl into bed, but I don’t fall asleep for a long time. I send Hannah a text to make sure everything’s all right and her text back is that she’s tired, she’s worried about me, she’ll talk to me tomorrow.
The murmurs of my mom and dad carry upstairs through the vents. Their anger and disappointment tear at me. I’m sorry that I went to South Dakota and I’m not sorry.
My mother’s words echo in my mind.
You made your choice, and now you’ve got to live with the consequences.
35 · Ben
A couple of days after Lucy gets back from the rodeo, Tami takes Emily to Brainerd for a doctor’s appointment, so Lucy’s shift is all resort work. I heard from Guthrie who heard from Hannah that she’s grounded, only allowed to go to work. That she can’t even see Hannah. Or Simon.
There’s a small part of me that’s happy about it, the part about Simon, at least.
And there’s another part of me, a bigger one, that’s pissed at her and Hannah for going to that rodeo in the first place. But why should I be pissed about it? What right do I have?
Which pisses me off even more—at myself.
I watch as Lucy scoops goose poop off the beach and lawn. She fills bird feeders and puts fresh water in the birdbaths, cleans the fish house, even chops firewood.
I’ve been helping out around Apple Tree Lane for years, tagging along beside my dad and uncle, fishing, raking the beach. It’s never felt like work. There’s something about the hum of a boat motor, the shimmer of the midafternoon sun on the surface of the water, the cool breeze off the lake on a hot day.
Whoever named this lake couldn’t have chosen better. Halcyon Lake. Idyllic. Untroubled. Peaceful.
Until your sister dies swimming to the island.
But the landscape doesn’t care that my world changed that day. The lake and the jack pines and the breeze carry on like nothing’s different. Somehow we’re all supposed to carry on, too—my parents and me and Lucy and everyone who loved Trixie.
At three o’clock, Lucy starts the garbage run, driving the UTV around to pick up the bags of trash guests leave outside their cabins. From the dock, where I’m getting the boat ready for my next fishing trip at four, I hear a sputter and a high-pitched whine, then the engine dies.
I wait for a minute to see if John will come out of the lodge to help. He doesn’t. Lucy turns the key and hits the start button, tries to get it going again, but the engine doesn’t turn over. Then she gets out of the driver’s seat and kicks one of the tires.
Shit.
I walk up to where she’s stalled, in front of Loon. She’s red-faced and sweaty. She looks down, scratches a line in the gravel with the toe of her tennis shoe.
“I don’t need your help,” she snaps.
She used to let me help her. The time she and Trixie took the rowboat and lost the oar. The time Trixie dared Lu to climb the tallest tree at Sullivan Street Park and she couldn’t get down. I climbed up, too, and talked her the whole way down, one shaky step at a time.
She used to trust me.
I didn’t used to be such a dick.
“Let me take a look,” I say.
She takes a step back, then another, giving me plenty of room to move around the utility vehicle.
I slide into the driver’s seat, turn the key, flip the kill switch, and press the start button. Nothing. I glance at her, but she’s got her back to me, facing the lake.
I push down the brake, try it again, and there’s a sputter. I adjust the choke and the thing fires. She looks at me then, and I wonder if she’s about to smile, but she does the opposite. Her brows furrow together.
“Um, thanks,” she says, “but what if—”
“You want me to finish the run?” I ask. Slow, tentative, not sure how she’ll react. I want to do something nice for her, even if it’s just picking up garbage.
She looks at me for a long time, like she’s trying to figure out if she should let me help her, or if she’s going to be stubborn and tell me to shove off. She should tell me to shove off. I deserve it. Seconds tick by, and I’m worried that if she doesn’t make a decision soon, I’ll be late for my fishing trip.
“You drive,” she says. “I’ll ride along and pick up the garbage.”
I take a chance and smile at her. She doesn’t smile back.
She gets in, and I drive her to the next cabin and the next. She doesn’t say a word. I take her up to the Dumpsters behind the lodge and get out to help her toss in the bags. Still she doesn’t say anything, and I don’t, either.
What should I say? That I’m sorry?
There’s too much to be sorry for.
It’s not until after I’ve driven the UTV back down to the utility shed and she’s climbed out that she says, “Thanks for your help, Ben.”
It’s nothing, it’s so stupid, but my heart fills up when I hear her say my name.
36 · Lucy
The terms of my prison sentence allow me to go to Apple Tree Lane and the Full Loon. Nowhere else. For four weeks, until school starts. I’m okay with it, except that I don’t get to see Hannah. Simon sends texts and leaves voicemail messages while I’m at work: Can’t wait till u can kick my ass at mini golf again. Miss u. Any chance u can bring me a slice of 5 layer chocolate?
He’ll leave for the summer before my sentence is up. There won’t be any more mini-golf. I can’t say that I’ll miss it. Him.
One afternoon, my parents both at work, I take a chance and walk into town for a few books at the used bookstore.
Mom and I used to love coming to the Broken Spine. “We’ll just pop in for a minute,” she’d say, “to see if there’s anything we can’t live without.”
We couldn’t live without a complete set of the Little House books, which she read to me the winter of second grade, or the Betsy-Tacy books, set in a town in southern Minnesota. We couldn’t live without Kneeknock Rise and The Search for Delicious. Of course we couldn’t live without Harry Potter.
After I buy a few books, I step through the open doorway between the Broken Spine and Sweet Pea’s. I love the combination of the musty bookstore and the sugary sweetness of the candy shop.
I stand at the fudge display for a long time. They’ve added new flavors since I was here last—maple bacon and white-chocolate cake batter and salted caramel.
“Hey, Lucy,” Mrs. Stewart says when she sees me at the counter. “What can I get for you?”
I ask for my family’s favorites: peanut butter, rocky road, mint chocolate chip, maple.
I think about the last time I bought fudge for Ben, the week before Trixie died.
“It’s a sign, you know,” she’d said as we left the store to walk back to her house. “That you and Ben both love maple fudge.”
A sign. I laughed and Trixie swatted me on the arm.
“You laugh now,” she said, “but just you wait and see.�
�
“Sorry,” I tell Mrs. Stewart now, “can you make that two maples instead of the mint chocolate chip?”
I furrow my brow. I think I just bought fudge for Ben. I don’t know why I would buy fudge for someone who’s hurt me. But I do it.
My phone buzzes with a text as I pay. It’s from Simon: Break out of prison today?
How did he know?
What do you mean? I send back.
Why r u at Sweet P’s?;) I’m across the street.
I step outside into the sunshine with my bag of used paperbacks and box of fudge. Simon meets me on the sidewalk and reaches for the bag from the bookstore. His tan is deeper, dark against his Dr Pepper T-shirt, the one he was wearing the first day we met. He smiles, a slow, lazy grin that’s become so familiar the last few weeks. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since South Dakota. He’s still my boyfriend.
I can’t help but think of the extra piece of maple fudge, wrapped in light green tissue.
He reaches out and touches the brim of my Twins baseball cap, pulled low on my forehead. “Your clever disguise isn’t working. I’d recognize you anywhere.”
“What are you doing here?” I try to smile.
“I should ask you that! Sneaking off to buy—what’s in this bag?”
“From the bookstore? Books.”
He opens the bag and pulls out the books. “Wuthering Heights. The House of Mirth. The Awakening. Light summer reading or what?” He slips them back into the bag.
“Well, I have a lot of extra time on my hands now.”
“Yeah,” he says, “sorry about that. What did you buy at Sweet Pea’s?”
“Fudge.”
“Ooh.” He takes the box and sniffs. “Maple? Do I smell maple?”
I grab the box back.
“Whoa, this must be pretty good fudge. Who’s it for?”
“No one. My family.” My words are sharper than I intended, but he must not notice.
“Lucy, I’ve really missed you.”
I nod and reach for my books. “I’ve missed you, too. But I should get going. I need to get back home before anyone else sees me.”
Simon tucks the bag under his arm and reaches for my hand. “I’ll give you a ride, okay?”