The Summer Hideaway

by Susan Wiggs

  “Well, George?” she asked. “What do you think? How does it look to you?”

  “The town has changed remarkably little since I was last here,” George said. “I wasn’t sure I’d recognize anything.” His hands tightened around the notebook he held in his lap. “I think I want to die in Avalon. Yes, I believe this is where I want it to happen.”

  “When was the last time you visited?” she asked, deliberately ignoring his statement for the time being.

  “It was August twenty-fourth, 1955,” he said without hesitation. “I left on the 4:40 train. I never dreamed another fifty-five years would pass.”

  That long, thought Claire. What would bring him back to a place after so much time?

  “Would you mind pulling in here?” George asked. “I need to make a stop at this bakery. It was here when I last visited.”

  She berthed the van in a big parking spot marked with a disabled symbol. On good days, George could walk fairly well, and today seemed to be a good day. However, they were in a new place and she didn’t want to push their luck.

  The Sky River Bakery and Café had a hand-painted sign proclaiming its establishment in 1952. It was a beautiful spring day, and tables with umbrellas sprouted along the sidewalk in front of the place, shading groups of customers as they enjoyed icy drinks and decadent-looking sweets.

  She went around to the passenger side of the van to help him. The key to helping a patient, she’d learned from experience, was to take her cues from him. Respect and dignity were her watchwords.

  Though she had a wheelchair available, he opted for his cane, an unpretentious one with a rubber-tipped end. She helped him down and they stood together for a moment, looking around. His somewhat cocky persona slipped a little to reveal a face gone soft with uncertainty.

  “George?” she asked.

  “Do I look…all right?”

  She didn’t smile, but her heart melted a little. Everyone had their insecurities. “I was just thinking you look exceptionally good. In fact, it’s kind of nice to tell you the truth instead of having to pretend.”

  “You’d do that? You’d pretend I looked well, even if I didn’t?”

  “It’s all a matter of perspective. I’ve told people they look like a million bucks when in fact they look like death on a cracker.”

  “And they don’t see through that?”

  “People see what they want to see. In your case, there’s no need to lie. You’re quite handsome. The driving cap is a nice touch. Where did you learn to dress like this?”

  “My father, Parkhurst Bellamy. He was always quite clear on the way a gentleman should dress, for any occasion—even a bakery visit. He took my brother and me all the way to London for our first bespoke suits at Henry Poole, on Savile Row. I still get my clothing there.”

  “Bespoke?”

  “Made-to-measure and hand tailored.” He glanced at himself in a shop window. “Do me a favor. If I ever get to the stage where I look like death on a cracker, go ahead and lie to me.”

  “It’s a deal.” She hesitated. “So do you expect to see someone you know in the bakery?”

  He offered a rueful smile. “After all this time? Not likely. On the other hand, it never hurts to be prepared for the unlikely.” He squared his shoulders and gripped the head of the cane. “Shall we?” He gallantly held the shop door for her.

  The bakery smelled so good she practically swooned from the aroma of fresh baked bread, buttery pastries, cookies and fruit pies, and a specialty of the house known as the kolache, which appeared to be a rich, pillowy roll embedded with fruit jam or sweet cheese.

  A song by the Indigo Girls drifted from two small speakers. The shop had a funky eclectic decor, with black-and-white checkerboard floors and walls painted a sunny yellow. There was a cat clock with rolling eyes and a pendulum tail, and a hand-lettered menu board. Behind the counter on the wall was a framed dollar bill and various permits and licenses. A side wall featured a number of matted art photographs and articles, including a yellowed newspaper clipping about the bakery’s grand opening nearly sixty years ago.

  George seemed like a different person here: gentle and pensive, shedding the impatience he’d shown occasionally on the drive from the city. A small line of patrons were clustered at the main counter. George waited his turn, then ordered indulgently—a cappuccino, a kolache and an iced maple bar. He also ordered a box of bialys and a strawberry pie to go.

  She ordered a glass of iced tea sweetened with Stevia.

  They took a seat at a side table decorated with a large travel poster depicting a scene at the lake. A guy in a flour-dusted apron and a name tag identifying him as Zach brought their order. He was an unusual-looking young man, his hair so blond it appeared white—naturally, not bleached. Claire had changed her own hair color enough times to know the difference.

  “Enjoy,” he said, serving them.

  “You didn’t order anything.” George aimed a pointed look at her glass of tea. “How can you come to a place like this and not want to sample at least one thing?”

  “Believe me, I want to sample everything,” she admitted. “I can’t, though. I, um, used to have a pretty bad weight problem. I really have to watch every single thing I put in my mouth.”

  “You’re showing remarkable self-denial.”

  So much of her life boiled down to that, to self-denial. What she couldn’t tell him was that her diet was not a matter of vanity alone. It was a matter of survival. As a teenager, she had used food as a comfort and a crutch, turning herself into the dateless fat girl. She was the nightmare everyone remembered from high school—overweight, reviled and given over to foster care.

  When everything fell apart, her survival had depended on altering the way she looked as much as possible. In addition to changing the cut and color of her hair, the way she dressed, acted and talked, losing weight had been a key element of disguising her former self. Thanks to her young age at the time, and the stress of being on the run, the pounds had come off swiftly. Keeping the weight off was a daily battle. It was dangerously easy to pack on the pounds. It started with a simple, innocent-looking pastry like the one George was holding out to her.

  But she had the ultimate motivation—staying alive. “Thanks, you go ahead and enjoy that.”

  “And what the devil are you going to enjoy?”

  “Watching you eat a kolache,” she said.

  He shrugged. “My funeral. Whoops, I’m not supposed to be saying things like that, am I?”

  “You can say anything you want, George. You can do anything you want. That’s what this summer is going to be about.”

  “I like the way you think. Should’ve lived my whole life that way.” He took an indulgent bite of his pastry and chewed slowly, his face turning soft with quiet ecstasy. He opened his eyes and saw her watching him. “Well,” he said, “there’s good news and there’s bad news. The bad news is, I’m not going to heaven. The good news is, I’m already there.”

  “According to the GPS, the resort is only ten miles from here, so I’ll make sure you get a steady supply of those pastries,” said Claire.

  “Honestly, it’s that good. Are you certain you can’t be tempted with one?”

  “I’m certain. And it’s nice to know there are kolaches on the menu every day in heaven. Do me a favor and take a bite for me.” Sipping her tea, she checked out the other patrons. Another paranoid habit of hers was checking to see if she was attracting attention, and scoping out escape options—the swinging door behind the counter, and the main entrance to the street. Seeing no telltale signs of trouble, she studied the framed art poster on the wall. “That’s a beautiful shot of Willow Lake.”

  “It is,” George agreed.

  The image captured the placid mood and quality of light that pervaded the forest-fringed lake. She noticed a scrawled signature where the photographer had signed and numbered the print. “‘Daisy Bellamy,’” she read. “George? Any relation to you?”

  “Possibly.” A tiny
smile tightened his mouth, and she could see him forcibly shifting gears. “It’s a singular sensation,” he said, alternating bites of the pastry with sips of his full-cream cappuccino. “After decades of having to watch my cholesterol, “I’m not going to die of a heart ailment after all.” He sampled the maple bar. “I wish I’d known.”

  She decided against pointing out his circular logic. One reason he’d enjoyed good health as long as he had was probably because he watched his diet.

  “I could even take up smoking,” he said, blotting his mouth with a napkin. “Cigars and cigarettes won’t kill me. I could pursue it, guilt-free.”

  “Whatever makes you happy.”

  “I’m working on it,” he said.

  “On what?”

  “On making myself happy. All my life, I told myself I’d be happy someday.”

  “And now that day has arrived,” she said.

  “It’s hard,” he said quietly.

  “To be happy? Tell me about it.” She took his arm and moved toward the door before he could question her. “Come on, George. Let’s go buy you some cigars.”

  They left town and headed northward along the lakeshore road. In the last part of the afternoon, the golden light deepened to amber, orange and fiery pink. Claire was silent, undone by the splendor of it. She wasn’t accustomed to being surrounded by so much riotous beauty, and it pierced her deeply, causing an unexpected welling of emotion.

  Here I am, she thought. Here I am.

  “This forest has grown so lush,” George remarked. “The area used to be all logged out. It’s good they replanted it. This is as it should be.”

  She could feel his excitement spiraling upward as they approached Camp Kioga. It was their ultimate destination—the camp where he’d spent the summers of his boyhood. He eagerly pointed out landmarks as they passed them—mountains and rock formations and lookout points, a waterfall with a bridge suspended high above it.

  The final approach took them deeper into the forest, where the foliage was so dense that for the first time Claire relaxed into a feeling of safety, false though it might have been. The resort came into view, its lodge and outbuildings nestled in the splendid wilderness at the northern end of the lake.

  According to her hastily read brochure, the resort had recently been renovated and was run by a young couple, Olivia and Connor Davis. Yet the place retained its historic character in its timber and stone buildings, handmade signs, wild gardens, wooden docks where catboats and canoes bobbed at their moorage. The resort’s Web site, which she’d browsed the night before, explained that Camp Kioga had reached its pinnacle during the era of the Great Camps in the mid-twentieth century, when families from the city would take refuge from the summer heat.

  The deep history and beauty of the place made her yearn for things she couldn’t have, like people who knew who she really was. What a gift it would be if she could stop running.

  Gravel crunched under the tires of the van as they trolled along the circular driveway leading to the main lodge. Three flags flew over the landscaped garden in the center of the driveway—the U.S. flag and the flag of New York, and lower down, another one she didn’t recognize.

  “It’s the Camp Kioga flag,” said George. “Nice to see they didn’t change it.” It depicted a kitschy-looking teepee by the lake, against a background of blue hills.

  She pulled up next to the timbered entryway and went to help George. There was no one around. It was early in the season and a weekday afternoon, and the place was virtually deserted.

  After a few minutes, a young teenager in coveralls, who had been working in the garden, came over, peeling off his canvas work gloves.

  “Welcome to Camp Kioga,” he said as she opened George’s door. “My name’s Max. Can I give you a hand?”

  “Thank you, young man,” George said. “Perhaps after we check in you can help with the bags.”

  “Will do,” said Max. He appeared to do a double take, studying George for a moment. Then he held the door open for them.

  Claire could feel tension in George as they stepped into a magnificent Adirondack-style lodge, constructed of tree-trunk timbers and river rock. It smelled faintly of wood smoke, thanks to a fireplace that was large enough to walk into.

  The reception area, which was decorated with rustic furniture and primitive art, felt like another place in time, a place Claire had never been except in her imagination. The decor was subtle, with muted colors and light filtered through mica-shaded windowpanes and colored lampshades. A side room housed what appeared to be a well-stocked library, and there were stairs leading down to a game room.

  Beyond the reception area lay an elegant dining room and a darkened bar. The dining room was being readied for dinner service, with white linen tablecloths and napkins. One wall was completely filled with wine bottles. French doors lined the far side of the room, offering access to a vast deck overlooking the lake.

  She saw George’s fist tighten on the head of his cane. “Are you all right?”

  “Very much so.”

  A pleasantly efficient woman named Renée checked them in and gave them a quick orientation to the hundred-acre resort. Each accommodation on the property had its own character and name—the Winter Lodge, the Springhouse, Saratoga Bunk, the Longhouse, and so forth. Claire and George would be sharing a well-appointed two-bedroom cottage named the Summer Hideaway, according to the illustrated property map. When she’d made the booking, Claire had requested a wheelchair-accessible accommodation, and this one turned out to be the most elaborate on the property. It had its own private dock and boathouse, and, according to the literature, was “the perfect place to escape and dream.”

  The daily rate took Claire’s breath away, but George didn’t blink as he handed over his bank card.

  Renée ran the card, then paused before handing it back. “Bellamy,” she said. “The resort’s owners are the Bellamys. Any relation?”

  “Possibly,” said George, though he offered no further explanation.

  “You might qualify for the friends and family discount, then,” she said.

  “That won’t be necessary. Excuse me.” George made his way across the empty dining room and out to the deck.

  Claire joined him there a few minutes later. She didn’t say anything. He stood there, bathed in the last of the sunlight, his hands braced on the railing as he gazed out at the lake. The water was placid, showing only the faintest of ripples in the wake of a pair of water birds paddling along. The light struck a bright ribbon of color across the water. In the distance lay a small island with a dock and gazebo, inked in black against the darkening sky.

  As she watched George, she realized he wasn’t seeing the incredible scenery. He was looking out, but she sensed he was gazing inward, toward a lifetime of memories.

  After a while, he let out a sigh. “Am I a foolish old man to come here, in search of my lost youth?” he asked.

  “Probably.” She offered her arm. “But don’t let that stop you from enjoying it. George, it’s so beautiful. It’s a privilege to be here.” She had never seen a place like this before. She’d read about this sort of thing in books, maybe seen a glimpse in the movies. “This place is a dream,” she added.

  “I suppose if I get to choose where I say goodbye to it all, I might as well choose this.”

  She frowned. “Don’t you go all On Golden Pond on me. Come on, let’s go settle in.”

  The boy named Max escorted them with their bags to the Summer Hideaway, driving a gas-powered golf cart with obvious enjoyment. As they passed the various areas of the camp, George turned animated again, pointing out familiar sights. “There used to be an archery range here. And see that waterfall? We’d sit around the campfire, telling ghost stories about a couple who committed suicide off the hanging bridge above it. Never figured out whether or not there was any truth to the story. Oh, and there…I learned to play tennis right there on those courts,” he declared. “And I’m proud to say, I could hold my own against
everyone. My first year here, anyway. When my brother and I teamed up for boys’ doubles, we were virtually unbeatable.”

  Max parked in front of the lakeside residence and helped them with their luggage. George thanked him with a tip big enough to make the boy protest.

  “Sir, it’s not necessary.”

  “A tip never is,” George said. “We appreciate your help.”

  Claire caught the boy’s eye and offered a shrug.

  The cottage was a dream, far larger than most houses Claire had lived in. The furnishings were deceptively simple but supremely comfortable. The place had a rustic elegance that didn’t seem manufactured or contrived. It was bright and airy, and George’s room featured a picture window with a window seat.

  “Do you need to rest?” Claire asked.

  “I do far too much of that,” he said.

  “How about you have a seat and I’ll help you unpack,” Claire suggested. She herself hadn’t brought much along. She was prepared to disappear at a moment’s notice. She always had an escape plan—a bag packed with a few basics—hair coloring and scissors, a wallet with ID, cash and credit cards, a new background and personal history. If something happened, she simply had to retrieve the bag from its hiding place and she would be gone.

  At the moment, the bag was hidden under an electrical box near the parking lot of the resort. She hoped she would never have to use it, because she already knew she was going to love it here. She checked her phone and saw a missed call from “number unavailable,” another name for Mel Reno. She made a mental note to phone him later.

  George had packed with neat efficiency, things from pricey clothiers like Brooks Brothers, Ted Lapidus, Henry Poole, Paul & Shark. There was a briefcase filled with papers and documents, and a box of books and photographs.

  “Family pictures and old journals, that sort of thing,” George explained. “We can go through them later. I’ll want to enjoy my mementos in the living room, I imagine.”