Devin thought about that for a moment. “I still like it here, even if Dad wouldn’t have. Is that bad?”
“No, sweetheart,” Kate said into Devin’s hair. “That’s not bad at all. Your dad would want you to be happy.”
“Alligators make me happy,” Devin said right away.
That was new. “Really? Why?”
“Because they’re here.”
“There aren’t alligators here, sweetheart. You heard Eby.”
“I think there are.”
“Okay, then. Watch your toes,” Kate said, reaching down and making a snapping motion with her hand, biting at Devin’s feet. Devin laughed and twisted away. But then she rolled back into Kate’s arm, as if gravity had pushed her there. Right where she was supposed to be.
And that’s how they fell asleep their first afternoon at Lost Lake.
*
It was twilight, and Eby, Bulahdeen, and Selma were on the lawn, each sneaking peeks at the walkway to the cabins, silent in anticipation, like waiting for a breeze to blow through the stagnant air. Bulahdeen and Selma had reacted with enthusiasm and feigned indifference, respectively, when Eby told them about Kate and Devin arriving that afternoon. But Eby could tell that they weren’t quite sure what the girls’ presence here meant. Eby wasn’t even sure. It was so unexpected that Eby found herself wondering if it had really happened. Had she really seen them in the dining room? Had she really taken them to their cabin? Or had she just imagined it, daydreaming at the front desk again?
“Here they come,” Bulahdeen said from where she was sitting at a picnic table, a jelly jar full of wine in front of her. Eby turned from the grill to see the girls materialize from the dark end of the walkway. Kate hadn’t changed from her yoga pants and T-shirt so big it fell off one shoulder, revealing a racer-back tank. But Devin was in another costume, this time a tie-dyed T-shirt dress, red cowboy boots, a red cowboy hat, and a fringed vest. “She favors you, Eby.”
“Kate or Devin?”
“Kate, of course.”
“Although the child does seem to share your sense of style,” Selma commented dryly.
“I’ll take that as a compliment, from both of you,” Eby said, watching the girls approach. Eby secretly agreed with Bulahdeen. Kate did favor her in some ways. Kate had inherited her green eyes from Eby’s sister, Marilee. But her long nose, which was both elegant and awkward, and her coltish limbs—those were all Eby. Even her short choppy hair, flipping up at the ends in the humidity, was the same heavy chestnut color Eby’s had been. When Eby had first met Kate, she’d seen in her a dreamy, bookish version of herself, and she had wanted so much to know her. But Kate’s mother, Quinn, had left in anger that summer, and Eby knew from experience that there was nothing left to do but keep the door open and hope Kate might walk back through one day.
“You say she just showed up?” Bulahdeen asked.
“I tried to keep in touch with her, but her mother wouldn’t have it. Apparently, today Kate found a postcard I sent her fifteen years ago. She decided to come see me.”
“Atlanta is a long way to come just to stop by,” Selma said, staring out over the darkening lake.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bulahdeen asked.
“It means she wants something.”
“Oh, hush,” Bulahdeen said. “Don’t listen to her, Eby.”
When Kate and Devin reached them, Eby waved away some of the smoke billowing in front of her like a potion. “The hot dogs will be ready soon and hopefully not too burnt. These grills are unpredictable,” she said. “Kate, Devin, I’d like you to meet Bulahdeen and Selma. Ladies, these are my nieces.”
“Come here, baby. Sit with me,” Bulahdeen said to Devin, patting the seat beside her at the picnic table. “Would you like a piece of candy?” She took a warm linty roll of Life Savers from her trouser pocket.
Selma had yet to acknowledge them, her gaze still on the lake. She was sitting alone at the next table, leaning back with her legs crossed and her skirt billowing down like a stage curtain. She was fanning herself with an old complimentary card fan from a wedding chapel in Las Vegas. Selma sniffed and suddenly put the fan down. Eby knew she’d been paying attention. “You call that candy? That’s not candy. Come with me … girl,” Selma said, as if she’d forgotten Devin’s name already. “I’ll give you some real candy.”
“Can I, Mom?” Devin asked.
Kate automatically turned to Eby, and that made Eby smile. No one looked to her for direction like that anymore. People in town used to do it all the time. It had been the reason most locals came out here. Eby always used to know what to say, what to do. And the falloff had happened so gradually that she wasn’t sure if the reason she stopped helping was because people stopped coming, or vice versa. Eby nodded at Kate, telling her it was all right. Selma made terrible first impressions with other women.
“Okay,” Kate said to Devin. “But save it until after dinner.”
“Selma, don’t take that child into your cabin,” Bulahdeen said. “It looks like a brothel in there.”
“What’s a brothel?” Devin asked.
“A place for only beautiful women,” Selma said as she walked by them. Devin hurried after her like a cat following a string.
“Don’t worry,” Bulahdeen said as Kate watched them go. “Selma really does have better candy. But she’s not doing this out of the goodness of her heart. She’s doing this so she can specifically say, ‘I’ve got the best candy here,’ and make it a double entendre. Mark my words.”
“Selma doesn’t seem very … happy to be here,” Kate said.
Bulahdeen shook her head. “Oh, that’s just the impression she likes to give. She’s come back every year for the past thirty years. I think she comes for the rest. She’s been married seven times. I know I’d need the rest. But she only has one more to go.”
“One more what?” Kate asked.
Bulahdeen leaned forward and said, “Husband. Selma has eight charms. Eight surefire opportunities to marry the man she wants. She’s used seven of them. I’m anxious to see who she’ll use number eight on. He’s bound to be a big deal, being her last and all. He’ll have lots of money. And he’ll probably be old.”
Kate looked to Eby again. This time, Eby just smiled. Kate hesitated, then said to Bulahdeen, “You mean eight actual, physical charms?”
“That’s what she says.”
“So she thinks she has magical powers,” Kate said, her eyes going to where Selma and Devin had disappeared, probably second-guessing her decision to let her daughter go off with this woman.
That made Bulahdeen laugh, and she reached over and patted Kate’s hand. “Magic is what we invent when we want something we think we can’t have. It makes her happy to think she’s a femme fatale. We go along with it.”
A minute later Devin came running back, delighted with a single piece of chocolate wrapped in gold foil. Selma sauntered after her.
“I’ve got the best candy here,” she said, taking her seat back at the separate table, away from them.
“What did I tell you?” Bulahdeen winked at Kate. “Selma, there’s not a man for twenty miles. Don’t you ever turn it off?”
“Of course not,” Selma said.
“She really does have the best candy here,” Devin said. “I don’t want her to turn it off.”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Selma said.