For a moment, Patrick doesn’t answer, and it’s like I can’t backpedal fast enough. “I mean, I get that that’s probably colossally weird,” I say. “On top of which you’re probably busy with Tess and the shop and stuff, I just . . .” I trail off, a little helpless. “I don’t know.”
For a minute, Patrick just looks at me, wordless. I feel like he can see the tissue underneath my skin. “I don’t know, either,” he says finally. “But, yeah, let’s try.”
Day 44
Sasha at the front desk has her break at three-thirty, so I offer to cover, straightening my ponytail and my Star Lake Lodge name tag both. I check in a family with three triplet girls, all blond and bespectacled, and a pair of paramedics from the Berkshires who wanted to try a different mountain range for variety’s sake. Their two redheaded toddlers climb on the leather couches, all dimpled arms and legs.
The couple who comes in behind them is older, a guy in khaki shirts and a sun-leathered woman in a brightly colored parrot T-shirt, a plastic tote bag with hula girls, and lime-green flip flops on her feet. “Welcome to the Lodge,” I say as she hands over her credit card.
The woman ducks her yellow-gray head forward conspiratorially, like we’re old friends. “Maybe you can tell me,” she says, voice lowered, just-between-us-girls. “Does Diana Barlow really live in this town?”
Well.
“She does,” I confirm, trying to keep my face neutral. I fish their keys out of the cubby behind the desk. “You a fan?”
“Oh, the biggest,” the woman assures me. “Mostly her early stuff, but have you read Driftwood? I cried for two days. And you know it’s about the daughter.” When I turn back around she’s leaning almost all the way over the desk as if she thinks my mother is possibly crouched back here, hiding. She shakes her head. “It’s heartbreaking stuff.”
“Terrible,” I agree, my whole body heating up like a torch held to copper, like if you looked at me from above I might seem to glow. This is the worst part, I remind myself, working to keep my face impassive. Except for all the other worst parts. “So sad.”
The woman takes her room keys and her bloated-looking husband and heads upstairs, finally, leaving me alone in the lobby with no one to blame but myself. I hold one palm to my flaming cheek, unpin my name tag with the other. Molly, it reads in big block letters, innocuous, anonymous enough that the woman with the parrot shirt probably didn’t even think to look.
That’s when I turn and see Tess.
“Don’t,” I say, holding my hand up. She’s hovering in the doorway that leads to the office in her flip-flops. I have no idea how long she’s been there, but from the look on her face I can tell it’s been long enough. “It’s fine.”
“I wasn’t going to say a word,” Tess says, and something in her voice telegraphs she’s serious, that she probably would have brought that particular exchange to her grave. She nods at Sasha, who’s crossing the lobby to reclaim her post. “Was gonna take my break, though. You wanna come for a walk?”
I open my mouth to refuse her, then close it again. “I—sure.”
We wander out onto the back porch, down the crooked wooden steps to the pool level. It’s overcast today, just a couple of little kids gallantly dog-paddling their way across the shallow end, teeth chattering and lips tinted purple. “We used to be just like that,” Tess says, gesturing with her chin. “Me and my brother. We’d have swum in February, if we could.”
That makes me smile. She’s never mentioned her brother before. “Is he older or younger?”
“Older,” Tess tells me. “He’s at NYU, so I’ll get to see him a little bit in the fall. I’m going to Barnard, so it’s pretty close.”
“That’s cool.” We slip our shoes off and sit down on the concrete edge of the pool, dangle our feet into the chilly water.
“Uh-huh,” Tess says, reaching down to skim a leaf off the surface of the pool. “I had to promise my mom I wouldn’t stop shaving my armpits once I got there, but I don’t know, their econ program seems interesting enough. We’ll see, I guess.”
I think of my email from the dean about declaring a major, still flagged in my inbox and awaiting a response. “How is that a thing you knew you wanted to do?”
Tess shrugs. “I’m good at math,” she says. “I’ve always been good at math; I’ve been doing my parents’ bills since I was eleven. And I like international stuff—like, how what happens in one country money-wise affects what happens in another country.” She grins. “I get that that’s, like, really boring to most people, don’t worry.”
“No, it’s not at all. I’m super impressed.” I shake my head a bit and pick at a place where the caulk is peeling on the side of the pool, making a mental note to tell the maintenance guys about it. Tess leans back on her palms, turning her face up like she’s trying to wring sunshine out of the clouds. “Do you think you and Patrick will stay together?” I ask, then immediately feel awkward about it—feeling like a creep and not even knowing why I’m asking, exactly. “Sorry.” I look down at my feet. “That’s totally weird and over the line.”
Tess shakes her head. “No, it’s fine; I’d be curious, too. I think so, yeah. We’ve talked about it a little. He’s not sure where he’ll be, but it’s not so far from there to here.” She wrinkles her nose a bit. “Did you guys used to talk about going to college together?” she asks me. “As long as we’re, you know, being over the line?”
That makes me smile—it is weird, no question, but in some strange kind of way I appreciate it. “Yeah,” I tell her, “we did.”
Tess nods at that, seemingly unbothered. “Sun’s coming out,” is all she says.
Day 45