The Secrets of Lake Road
Read The Secrets of Lake Road Online
Authors: Karen Katchur
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For my sister, Krista, and our late grandmother, Ann
for their love of the lake
I spent many summers as a kid at a lake in the Pocono Mountains, but not nearly as many as my sister, Krista, and our late grandmother, Ann. It was their love of the lake and its community that inspired this book.
Although this is a work of fiction about made-up people who just happened to inhabit a real place, I would be remiss not to mention the very real lake community, past and present, who are some of the kindest people I have ever known. Thank you for so many good memories.
Also, I would like to thank Joseph Shambo and the Whitehall Fire Department Underwater Recovery Team for being so generous with their time and answering all of my questions about the amazing work they do. Any and all errors with regard to underwater rescue and recovery are mine and mine alone.
I want to thank my agent, Carly Watters, for pulling me from the slush pile and taking a chance on me. Your belief and support overwhelm me. I couldn’t have asked for a better guide and advocate. Also, I’m grateful for my editor, Anne Brewer, who knew exactly what I was trying to do and helped make this book so much better than it was originally. My gratitude extends to St. Martin’s Press and their amazing staff for their continuous enthusiasm and hard work.
To Kathy Kulig, Terri Prizzi, and Sylvie Kaye, thanks for being there from the beginning, for reading almost everything I have ever written, and never letting me give up. You ladies rock.
A special thanks to my mom, Johanna Houck, and my mother-in-law, Mollie Katchur, for being such strong women and amazing role models.
And, of course, a huge amount of gratitude to my girlfriends in no particular order, Tracey Golden, Mindy Strouse Bailey, Tina Mantel, Kate Weeks, Karin Wagner, and Jenene McGonigal. I cherish each and every one of you for your warmth, your wisdom, your guidance, and most of all, your friendship.
And last, but certainly not least, to my husband, Philip and our two beautiful daughters, without whom none of this would be possible. You are my heart, my everything.
No one touched the bottom of the lake and lived. If you were lucky, you’d surface wide-eyed and frantic, babbling at the darkness, the thickness of what lay below. If you were unlucky, underwater recovery dragged the lake for your body.
As Caroline unpacked her duffel bag in the small bedroom where she had slept every summer since she could remember, she wondered who would be brave or stupid enough to try to touch bottom this summer.
The cabin door to
The Pop-Inn
creaked open and closed with a bang. Caroline rushed to the window to see who it was. A warm breeze blew, carrying the dampness of the lake and the smell of a barbecue. The leaves rustled in the hundred-year-old trees. She looked down the dirt road that led into the colony, catching her older brother, Johnny, pass by. If he’d noticed her watching, he pretended he hadn’t. He wasn’t five steps away when he lit a cigarette, a habit he perpetuated at the lake but never at home. Rules at the lake were lax if they existed at all.
He blew smoke from his lips and whipped his head to the side, sweeping the wavy bangs from his eyes. He walked down the hill with a swagger that was uniquely his, cool and a little cocky, but with enough insecurity that hinted at a sensitive side and, as much as she hated to admit it, a certain charm.
Caroline hoped Gram didn’t see the cigarette. “No smoking in front of Gram,” their mother had warned repeatedly during the three-hour drive from their home in New Jersey to the lake. But at sixteen-years-old, Johnny always did what Johnny wanted to do, no matter what anyone said. In a way she believed their mother was trying to protect Johnny from Gram’s wrath, a disposition Gram reserved solely for Caroline’s mother, but apparently her mother was as oblivious to that fact as she was to other things, in Caroline’s opinion.
She returned to unpacking, putting clothes into the dresser she and Gram had painted white last summer. Her mother walked into the room and handed her clean sheets. While she made up the bed, her mother leaned against the doorjamb with a far-off look in her eyes. Her long dark hair cast shadows in the hollows of her cheeks, making her face appear gaunt, haunted.
The way her mother looked, her expression, reminded Caroline of the lake. There was a place inside of her mother as vast and as murky. It must be a sad place, because she often heard her cry. She imagined it was also a place where her mother felt trapped. She’d pull at her clothes and hair as though she were tangled in fishing line. Sometimes she’d run out of the house and drive off. Sometimes she wouldn’t return home for days.
Gram said we all run from something, whether it was a terrible childhood or a bad marriage, or perhaps we run from ourselves, and Caroline’s mother was no different. Caroline understood what Gram was saying, but she couldn’t help but wonder why her mother was always running from her.
“All set?” her mother asked when Caroline had finished making up the bed.
“Looks like it.” She ran her hand over the new green quilt Gram had stitched, smoothing out the wrinkles.
“I’m going to see what Gram needs from me.” Her mother walked away, leaving her alone to finish unpacking.
Caroline unrolled her new poster of the latest boy band and pinned it to the wall. She particularly liked the lead singer, and it wasn’t because she was boy crazy. She liked his skateboard. Okay, maybe she liked his hair, toothy smile, and flawless skin. That reminded her. She dug into the bag in search of sunscreen. She felt around and pulled out her cell phone. No bars or messages. She wasn’t surprised. She tossed it into a drawer. It wasn’t like anyone from home would miss her enough to text. And even if someone did want to contact her for some reason, it was next to impossible, since the lake was nestled deep inside the Pocono Mountains and what was considered a dead zone.
Gram’s voice rang out from the kitchen. She paused to listen.
“Why not?” Gram asked.
“I have things to do,” her mother said.
“You always have
things
to do. What things, Jo?”
“I don’t know.
Things
.”
A cabinet door was closed harder than usual.
“Can you at least stick around for a few days and help me clean out that back closet and porch? I can’t do it by myself,” Gram said.
Her mother sighed heavily. A second or two passed before she grumbled, “Maybe.”
But Caroline knew her mother’s maybes were always nos. She had learned at a young age that
maybe
was just her mother’s way of putting off the answer you didn’t want to hear. Could she get ice cream? Maybe. Could she go to the movies? Maybe. Could she get a skateboard? Maybe.
No ice cream. No movie. No skateboard.
Another cabinet door slammed, rattling the dishes inside, and Caroline figured Gram understood what maybe meant too.
Caroline went back to digging into her bag, pulling out an extra bathing suit and shorts. The cabin’s screen door squeaked open and closed this time without a bang. Her heart beat a little faster. Someone was sneaking out and she knew who.
She dropped the clothes onto the bed, raced out of her room, passed Gram in the kitchen, and bolted outside. Her mother waved as she hopped in the car and pulled away from the cabin. Gravel and dust kicked up from the tires of the old Chevy as she headed down the dirt road.
Caroline swiped her eyes.
Crybaby,
she scolded herself. At twelve years old, she should no longer need hugs and kisses good-bye from her mother.
And yet she still wanted them.
* * *
Gram opened the screen door. “Are you hungry for lunch?”
Caroline shook her head. “I’m going to see who’s around.” She dragged her feet, and puffs of dirt covered her sneakers. No matter how many times Gram planted seeds, only sparse patches of grass grew under the shade of the old maple trees.
Most of the cabins in the colony had yards. Very few were able to get grass to grow.
Caroline grabbed her bike from the ground. It was considered a boy’s bike, with the bar going across the frame rather than scooping down like a girl’s would. She had asked the man who had sold her father the bike what the difference was other than the obvious disparity with the bar. He had said the design of the scooped frame dated back to when girls wore skirts and dresses rather than pants. Otherwise, there was no difference in the performance or the ride. She wasn’t about to wear a skirt or a dress, so the boy’s bike it was.
She coasted down the dirt hill and crossed onto Lake Road, the main thoroughfare connecting the colony to the lake, and stopped in front of the Pavilion, a big wooden building that served as the hub of the lake community. Nervous excited energy buzzed just below her skin, the kind of energy that bubbles to the surface with the prospect of things to come. The Pavilion was the unofficial meeting place, where her friends gathered, where they hung around the snack stand, bathing suits dripping wet, eating hotdogs and French fries while the jukebox played songs that were older than their parents. She checked her pockets, finding the quarters she always carried when she was there to play the retro pinball machines and arcade games, hoping for a shot at the highest score of the summer.
The lake spread out on both sides behind the Pavilion. The water shimmered and baked in the hot sun. Ducks milled around looking for handouts of crackers and stale bread. Caroline took a deep breath and smelled the faint scent of fish mixed with the earthiness of algae, a distinct smell she associated with summertime.
She dropped her bike on the side of the Pavilion next to her friend Megan’s, a pink
girl’s
bike, the same bike she had had since they were nine years old. Johnny and a bunch of his friends were sitting on the steps outside the large double doors. He had his arm slung around a girl’s shoulder, and a cigarette dangled from his fingers. The girl’s breasts spilled out of her tank top, and although Caroline tried not to stare, she did anyway. She couldn’t help it. The girl had large breasts, and Caroline knew it was the girl’s chest her brother was after. She felt a little sick and a little sorry for the girl. Sometimes her brother was a real jerk.