The Lake House (8 page)

She didn’t care about his career. She’d never seen anyone so beautiful.

After dinner, they strolled along the sidewalk, peeking into Beacon Hill’s art galleries and antiques shops. At Pinckney Street, he grabbed her hand and hurried up the steep hill lined with brick colonial row houses. At the top, they reached a tiny park with two small trees. Before she could catch her breath, he kissed her, his tongue ravaging her mouth.

He pulled away. Stunned, she looked at him. This godlike man had kissed her. Desired her.

Charlie pointed to a row house. “This is where I’m going to live someday.”

Ornate white metal circles decorated the windows that surrounded a bright red door. Through the glass she could see a carpeted spiral staircase reminiscent of an old movie set.

“Do you want to live here someday?” he asked.

The ability to speak was locked up in her throat. She worked two shifts as a waitress and still couldn’t make ends meet. Bills were piled up on her kitchen table. When she’d moved to Boston, she’d maxed out her Visa with a cash advance to pay the two months’ security deposit and first month’s rent on her apartment.
In the last three years, she’d opened a MasterCard, a Discover, and another Visa, which she maxed out paying rent and buying groceries when tips were low. She had student loans from the year she’d been able to attend college. But here was Prince Charming, and it almost felt like he was asking her to live with him in a mansion on Beacon Hill.

She couldn’t tell him that she didn’t have time for ambitions or dreams; she was too worried about becoming homeless. For one moment, she allowed her fantasy to emerge, though she felt like a four-year-old saying what she wanted to be when she grew up: “I want to be a travel writer for a magazine or newspaper.”

“I have a friend at the
Globe
. If you write an article, I’ll help you publish it,” he’d said.

Charlie had helped her to make her biggest dream come true. Meeting him had changed her life. And now she was going to end their relationship.

The closer the cab came to their apartment, the less Heather could feel her body. Her arms and legs felt invisible, or detached. Charlie paid the driver as the car came to a stop in front of their building. A spinning feeling began. A child’s racetrack whirred in her head as her heart beat faster.

Charlie’s cell phone rang and as he took the call he walked away, not even bothering to offer his arm while she stepped from the cab onto the icy pavement in four-inch heels. Charlie had already unlocked the front door and had closed it by the time she arrived at their apartment. Heather opened the door, peeled off her shoes, and walked toward the bedroom.

Before she reached the room, Charlie grabbed her around the waist. “Where are you going, my hot little columnist? Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?”

“I think you might have forgotten to mention it. You were a little too busy flirting with the women at the bar,” she said.

“Just working the room for business,” he said, unzipping her dress.

“Stop!” She moved his arms away and pulled the zipper back up. “How could you think that I want to sleep with you right now?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” The muscle in his cheek twitched and his brow furrowed, as he stared her down. “Whatever issues you’re having these days, I need you to get over them and fast. We’ve lost another syndicate this week and I’m trying to save your career. I have twenty other clients I need to keep happy.” He picked up his cell phone and began to make a call as he walked away.

She grabbed the phone. “Will you just listen for a minute?”

“Maybe I’m tired of listening.” He grabbed the phone from her hand.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She folded her arms across her chest.

“I can’t make you happy. I work my ass off to give you everything and all I hear about is what I haven’t done.”

“Well, maybe I feel invisible.” Her voice came out louder than she intended.

“Invisible? You’re kidding.” He forcefully threw his hands in the air as he continued to yell. “Everything I do is about you and your career. I’m trying to build a life for us, yet you don’t seem to care. Do you want to end up a waitress again, barely able to make ends meet?”

Heather looked at the floor and bit her lip until it swelled. In the fairy tale, “The End” never mentioned that the prince spent
the rest of his life reminding Cinderella that she’d once scrubbed floors in rags. Anger fumed and she lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. “Oh, and I have nothing to do with that success? Who’s done the traveling, Charlie? Who’s lived out of a suitcase for the last six years? Not you. And then when I come home there isn’t even room for me in this apartment. It’s like I’m a guest here.”

“You’ve gone off the deep end. I’m sick of this.” He turned his back to her. “You want more room, then find your own place, because obviously what I’ve given you isn’t enough.”

Her voice became softer as she delivered the words that needed to be said. “That’s my plan. I was serious when I said we needed a break. I think we should take some time apart.”

The artery in his throat bulged as he turned, his face red. He came within a foot of her and loomed over with his large frame. “You leave for Europe in ten days. Make sure you have a place to live when you return, because I want you out.”

She reached to touch his arm, hoping to salvage some tenderness. “Charlie, let’s talk about this. We need to be able to work together. I don’t want animosity between us. I just need . . .”

“I don’t care what you need anymore.” He pulled away and walked out of the room. She heard the front door slam.

There should’ve been tears, a tsunami of emotions. Instead, she felt numb and couldn’t stop shaking. She grabbed her cell phone from her purse and called her friend Gina, but it went straight to voice mail. Her fingernails tapped against the metal of the phone.

She needed to talk to someone, and before she could change her mind, she dialed the number she knew better than to call. “Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, Heather, are you back from your trip?” Heather heard her mother take a deep drag from her cigarette. Heather could picture her mother at the kitchen table, smoke circling her lined face—a bad habit that came with her bartending job. Her mother had been a beautiful woman. The few memories Heather had of the lake house, she could remember her mother laughing. But years of financial struggle that caused her to work nights at the bar and days in a supermarket had taken their toll. “It must be nice to be able to travel all over the world. I don’t know how I’m gonna pay my taxes this year. No matter how hard I work, it still seems like Uncle Sam takes everything.”

The usual guilt hit her as she thought about her mother’s life compared to how she now lived. She tried to help her mother financially, but she wouldn’t accept. Instead, she just kept piling guilt onto her daughter.

Heather didn’t want to burden her mother with her problems, but she needed to talk to someone. “Mom, I ended my relationship with Charlie,” Heather said.

“You did what?”

“I told him I needed a break.”

“God, Heather, what were you thinking?”

The words were a punch to the gut that knocked the wind out of Heather. Just once, she wanted to call and feel supported. “Forget it, Mom. I’ll deal with it on my own.”

“Don’t take that tone with me. This isn’t my fault.” Her mother sighed. “I’m sorry I’m not being more supportive, but Heather, I’m just tired of it all. I’m trying to get myself through the day and pay the bills. I’m trying to keep a roof over my head and food on my table. I had one good thing happening in my life, and that was that you were gonna be taken care of. Now that’s gone.”

Heather kicked at the floor. The story never changed. “Maybe I don’t need someone to take care of me. When I was a kid, I told you that I wanted to travel the world and write, and you told me that people like us don’t get those chances. I proved you wrong. Why can’t you tell me that everything’s going to be okay?” Heather sank onto the couch.

“You think it’s easy to do it on your own? Without Prince Charming, you’d still be a waitress instead of a columnist. We’ll see what happens without him. I’ve been alone trying to take care of you since the day my mother died. I had dreams too, Heather, but my life has been shit since that day. The only thing that ever mattered was you. And now I’m gonna see you have the same life I did.”

“I can’t do this right now, Mom. Life with Charlie is far from perfect.”

“Oh, Heather, you don’t know what a bad relationship looks like. When you tell a man you’re pregnant and he walks out on you, or when a man loves his booze more than you,
then
you can tell me what a bad relationship feels like. But when he buys you a diamond, cares about your career, and gives you a home in the Back Bay, you make sure he’s happy so
he
won’t leave
you
.”

“I have to go,” Heather whispered.

“There aren’t many Charlies in the world. Do whatever it takes to get him back. I just want more for you than I had.”

“I know, Mom. I’ll talk to you later.” Heather hung up the phone.

I
t felt like winter would never end. Every morning since Victoria had returned to Nagog, she awoke to see the blue sky out her window and thought it would finally be a sunny day. But by ten in the morning, the clouds moved in and the sky turned a depressing gray. Even on days that it didn’t snow or sleet, Arctic air from Canada froze her bones until she thought they’d crack.

Big red
X
s on her calendar marked the two weeks that had passed since she’d arrived home. She’d assumed spring would awaken by late March, but Mother Nature wasn’t ready for flowers and green grass. For days, flakes almost the size of poppies fell like inverted parachutes, and then turned to white blasts of static so thick Victoria couldn’t see her front yard. Trees crashed along the road. The power had gone out twice, and yesterday the governor had declared a state of emergency. The Nagog residents stayed huddled in their homes as the snow blocked doors and drifted halfway up the windows.

Victoria’s car sat unused in her garage. No one but Molly had invited her for coffee or dinner since she’d moved home. She hadn’t spoken to anyone except for her brief encounter with Sarah and Carl Dragone. Everyone had decided to hibernate
through winter’s fury. When Victoria complained, Molly told her to be patient.

“Things always brighten in the springtime,” Molly had said.

She understood why people in California seemed happier—they had sunshine. She imagined her former home in Malibu, where she could dig her toes in the warm sand while the sunset turned the white-capped waves pink. But then her psychiatrist’s words returned: “The only way out is through. You need to return to Nagog and face what you lost, without an escape route.”

Tired of being cooped up, Victoria grabbed the boots Molly had left in the breezeway and zipped up the blue Michelin Man jacket. She walked the quarter-of-a-mile street from one end to the other and back for the hundredth time. Winter made her feel old. The arthritis in her left hand ached and her muscles were stiff from lack of movement.

Annabelle flashed through her thoughts. Her granddaughter’s energy always made Victoria feel years younger than her age: shopping for the latest fashions, traveling throughout Europe, laughing through the night as they talked about dreams and life. Victoria enjoyed watching her granddaughter fall in love and pursue her career. Melissa and Annabelle had been the two greatest gifts of her life.

As she walked toward the beach, she pulled her hood over her head to protect her ears from the cold and tucked her gloved hands into her pockets. She burrowed into the coat like a turtle tucking its head into its shell and looked at her feet.
What a sight I must be in this outfit.
She could see the caption: “Victoria Rose, former actress, seen walking in a velvet jogging suit with big purple boots.”

Almost out of habit now, she glanced at Joseph’s house. As kids, he’d follow her around and rescue her from the other boys’ pranks, bugs in her lap or frogs in her shoes. The girls had teased her that he was in love, and it had driven Victoria crazy. She’d told him more than once that she hated his guts. Her mother scolded her, saying that a proper lady never said things like that to a gentleman, but Victoria didn’t care—she hadn’t wanted his attention.

But the year she turned fifteen, everything changed. The night had been hot and sticky, and the entire neighborhood had driven to Whalom Park in the next town. People drank malts with ice cream and rode the Ferris wheel to catch a breeze. Molly and Sarah felt tired in the heat and didn’t want to stand in line and wait for the Comet roller coaster, so Victoria went by herself. As she was buckling the seat restraint, Joseph leaped into the car.

“I can’t allow a lady to ride alone,” he said.

“If you’re going to sit with me, then you have to raise your hands in the air when we go over the hills,” she said.

“I don’t think I’m that daring,” he said and winked at her.

The car bounced around the wooden track until it clicked into the chain that carried the coaster up the hill. There was a moment, a second when the car reached the top and froze, and she could see the entire park: the band playing on center stage, boys throwing baseballs at milk containers, girls riding painted ponies on the carousel. Victoria raised her hands over her head, the car tilted, and just as her stomach jumped into her heart and the coaster began to shoot down, Joseph turned her head and kissed her full on the lips.