A seagull streamed by. My hair, whipping, stung the sides of my face. ‘But I know Ev from school.’ We looked out over the water together. The lake was oceanic. I released my finger from the book, watching the pages flutter violently before it closed on its own.
‘Is Ev okay?’ I asked.
He let Abby go. She settled at his feet.
‘Is she mad because of the inspection?’ I fished.
‘Inspection?’
‘The inspection of her cottage. In six days.’
John opened his mouth to say something, then closed it.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘I’d steer clear of all that family stuff if I were you,’ he said, after a long moment. ‘It’ll make it easier to enjoy your vacation.’
I’d never been on a vacation before. The word sounded like an insult coming from his mouth.
‘You don’t seem like the other girls Ev’s brought,’ he added.
‘What does that mean?’
His eyes followed the seagull. ‘Less luggage.’
That was when Ev appeared, bearing ice cream sandwiches. Her version, I suppose, of an apology.
Back on land, finally close to Winloch, worry about the inspection slipped through my fingers. The roadside hot dogs were flabby, the mosquitoes ravenous, and Ev was still grumpy, but we were in Vermont, together, on an open road winding through farmland. Dusk shrouded the world.
We filled up at the only gas station I’d seen for miles, and a knackered Abby joined me in the backseat, promptly laying her heavy head upon my knee and curling into sleep. We drove on, past a shuttered horse farm, signs for a vineyard, and an abandoned passenger train car, and finally, as dusk gave way to night, onto a two-lane highway that streamed south under a starry sky. At one point, the road broke out into a causeway that looked like something out of the Florida Keys – or at least pictures I had seen of the keys – and the moon burst forth from behind the clouds. It lit a yellow ribbon on the water and cast the dark outlines of the distant Adirondacks against a purple-black sky.
‘How’s your mother?’ Ev asked. At first I thought she was speaking to me, but then, she knew how my mother was; she’d comforted me about her only the night before.
In the gap made by my racing mind, John spoke. ‘Like always.’
Oh wait, I realized, he’s not Ev’s brother.
I wanted them to go on. But Ev didn’t ask any more questions, and we crossed the causeway in silence.
On the other side of the glistening water, we were once again plunged into darkness. A sudden forest swallowed what became a gravel road. Birch trunks glowed ghostly in the moonlight. John’s headlights gave us glimpses of barns and farmhouses. He took each turn with the reckless speed of someone who has driven it a thousand times. Ev unrolled her window again to let the sweet night in, and we were embraced by the soft chirping of crickets, their pulse growing louder as we drove into a vast meadow. The moon greeted us again, a milky lantern.
We slowed after a particularly skidding turn – I could feel the rocks kicking out from under our tires. ‘We’re here,’ Ev sang. Outside stood dense forest. Nailed to one of the trunks was a small sign with hand-painted letters spelling out WINLOCH and PRIVATE PROPERTY. Our headlights pointed onto a precarious-looking road hung with warnings: NO TRESPASSING! NO HUNTING – VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED! NO DUMPING. This bore no resemblance to the grand estate which Ev had described. The skittering sound of the leaves brought to mind a movie I’d once seen about vampires. I felt a prickling up my spine.
It occurred to me then that my mother was probably right: Ev had brought me all the way here only to leave me on the side of the road, an elaborate trick not unlike the one Sarah Templeton had played on me in sixth grade, asking me to her birthday party only to disinvite me – with a roomful of classmates looking on – the moment I materialized on her doorstep, because I was ‘too fat to fit in any of the roller coaster seats.’ The doubt my mother had been planting began to spread through me – I was a fool to think Ev had actually brought me to her family’s estate for a summer of fun.
But Ev laughed dismissively, as though she could read my thoughts. ‘Thank god you’re here,’ she said, and the warmth of her cheer, and the softness of the azure cashmere, brought me back to my senses.
John flipped on the radio again. Country. We plunged into the forest as a man mourned his breaking heart.
We braked once, abruptly. A raccoon blocked our way, his eyes glowing in the glare of our headlights as he waited, front paw lifted, for us to hit him. But John flipped the lights and radio off, and we sat with the engine purring low as the animal’s strange, uneven body scurried into the scrub lining the road.
We cut our way past a smattering of unlit cottages, then tennis courts and a great, grand building glowing white in the moonlight. We turned right onto a side road – although it could hardly have been called more than a path – which we stayed on for another quarter mile before sighting a small house set at the dead end.
‘No dogs allowed, but I’ll make an exception for Abby,’ Ev offered as John pulled up in front of the cottage.
‘Don’t do her any favors.’
‘It’s not a favor,’ she replied, eyes skimming John.
He took Abby toward the woods to piddle. The night came rushing in: the rhythmic cricket clamor, the lapping of water I couldn’t see. The moon was behind a cloud. Beyond us, I could sense an expanse which I took to be the lake.
‘What do we have to do before the inspection?’ I asked Ev quietly.
‘Make it livable. Now we only have six days until my parents arrive, and I don’t even know what state it’s in.’
‘What if we can’t do it that fast?’ I asked.
Ev cocked her head to the side. ‘Are you worrying again, Miss Mabel?’ She looked back at me. ‘All we have to do is clean it up. Make it good as new.’
The moon reemerged. I examined the old house before us – an indecipherable sign nailed to it began with the letter B. The building looked rickety and weatherworn in the moonlight. I had a feeling six days wasn’t going to cut it. ‘What happens if we can’t?’
‘Then I move in with my witch of a mother and you spend the summer in Oregon.’
My lungs filled with the chemical memory of perc. My feet began to ache from a phantom day of standing behind the counter. I couldn’t go home – I couldn’t. How could I explain my desperation to her? But then I stepped into the night, and there Ev was, in the flesh, smelling of tea roses. She threw her arms wide to envelop me.
‘Welcome home,’ she murmured. ‘Welcome to Bittersweet.’
