Prologue
Gretchen
8 years ago
My dad always says the summer people have changed and this is the reason why Lake Stuart has gone to shit.
He doesn’t mean he’s worried about drugs or gangs or getting carjacked six steps from the front door.
It’s his way of explaining his grudge against city money now that it’s everywhere, crowding out the charm of the commercial district and plopping modern architecture eyesores on every inch of the lakefront.
Alex Aaronson chooses to take this trend personally.
Being born in a tourist town means being eternally aware that people are divided into categories; one set permanent, one set temporary.
In the winter, Lake Stuart is dull and rather ugly, just another anemic upstate town struggling through ordinary days until tripling in size once the calendar turns to June. Lake Stuart wouldn’t survive without the summer people and this is the way it’s always been, stretching back to the distant yesteryear when my great grandfather opened The Rosebriar Resort.
My dad would sound like a broken record when he got in a certain kind of mood and in this mood he talked endlessly of Rosebriar, like it’s an alternative dimension or a fantasy land we are not allowed to visit. Then my mother would yell at him to forget about stupid Rosebriar and get a job before he drinks himself to death.
But she doesn’t have a job either and she also drinks. They live as they’ve always lived, off the dwindling invested proceeds of the sale of Rosebriar.
Or at least they used to live that way.
The Rosebriar Resort no longer exists. And Lake Stuart has since been discovered by the Wall Street barons who scoop up all the scenic property to build twenty six room palaces with private docks and behave as if the locals are uninvited wild animals.
My history is fused to Lake Stuart. We’ve always been told to take pride in being among the generational families but this seems like a silly thing to be proud of. It would be like being proud of my red hair. I did nothing to achieve either and anyway, I have no memory of Rosebriar. It was shuttered the year I was born and my father, the lone heir who was never prepped for a destiny other than that of a resort heir, sold off the land before the real estate in these parts skyrocketed. No one forced his hand and yet this is mostly why he blames the summer people with such bitterness.
Maybe that’s why he killed one of them.
“Your bag is already in the trunk, sweetie,” my sister says when she sees me looking around.
Jules, only three years older, didn’t used to speak to me so gently. She talks like a parent now but I feel lucky to have her because I’m short on capable parents. Our mother has retreated into a useless ball of self pity and our father will be in prison forever.
“Okay,” I reply to my sister even though I wasn’t looking for my bag at all.
I was wondering when I will be back here again, in the only home I’ve ever known.
We thought we would lose the house and have nowhere to go because lawyer fees were gobbling up every penny in sight, but my dad’s estate attorney, a lifelong friend, got creative. He found a loophole that allowed the title to transfer to Jules when she turned eighteen three months ago. He gave some complex lawyer reason on why this makes the house untouchable but nobody cares about the details. In a year that’s cost us almost everything, at least we still have a place to live.
Jules is the one who decided that I needed to get out of here for a little while. She discovered the fancy behavioral health clinic outside Ithaca and found the courage to make a pleading phone call to Abigail Fisher. The aging singer who used to perform at Rosebriar every summer before she began headlining shows in Vegas felt some pity for the remnants of the family who were so good to her in her youth. She has offered her financial support. She is the reason why I feel like I’m able to breathe again.
I’ve seen pictures of the place I’ll be staying at and even if there weren’t horses and tulip gardens I would still want to go. Since the night last summer when I discovered my father standing in the laundry room amid a pile of bloody clothes I’ve been drowning in slow motion on the inside while faking good behavior on the outside.
Eventually, that takes a toll.
Jules looks into my eyes now and moves a piece of wayward red hair away from my cheek. I’ve always wished my hair was a deep, lustrous brown, like hers. We both have our father’s green eyes. So does Danny, who stands by the staircase with his hands in his pockets and misery written on his face.
The day I cracked up with no warning in the middle of trigonometry, Jules was already gone because her senior schedule allows her to leave after lunch. Danny was the first one who had to deal with the fact that I’d tucked myself into a screeching, hysterical knot underneath my desk. I remember him saying my name and touching my shoulder like he was afraid of me.
Then he started to cry, and Danny doesn’t cry.
Danny didn’t cry when Dad was arrested. Danny never sobs when he gets heckled on the baseball field for being a murderer’s kid and he didn’t shed a tear when he heard Dad would be locked away for twenty-five years. But although we don’t get along and probably won’t get along in the future, my brother sobbed his heart out when he found me beneath a desk, recoiling from human contact and screaming as if someone had set my hair on fire.
I finally stopped screaming when my math teacher, Mrs. Reinholtz, jerked me to my feet and slapped my face hard. Danny yelled at her for doing that but I could see she took no pleasure in slapping me. The police were on the way and I might have been handled more roughly if I didn’t quit screaming. I hope Mrs. Reinholtz knows I’m not angry with her at all even though my cheek stung for the next three days.
“Mom is in her bedroom,” Jules says. “She’s waiting for you to say goodbye.”
I doubt that’s true. But for my sister’s sake I nod and say, “I’ll be right back.”
The first floor bedroom where my mother now sleeps alone is dark and stuffy and reeks of a bad habit. She supposedly quit smoking when I was in grade school but now puffs through two packs a day in between crunching on butterscotch discs. When she’s not smoking or eating candy, she’s either sleeping or wailing that we’re all doomed.
She’s sleeping now.
I wait just inside the doorway for a few seconds and listen to the dry racket of her snoring before sliding out. I’ll tell Jules we enjoyed a nice farewell if she asks.
She doesn’t ask.
My sister, who should be getting ready for tonight’s prom and looking ahead to a carefree summer before she starts college at NYU, plasters a cheerful smile on her face.
“This time away is going to be so good for you, Gretch. Don’t worry about your finals. I’ve already talked to the school and they’ve agreed to let you make them up at the end of the summer. Your math teacher waived your final exam completely because you already have a high A.”
This news will probably mean more to me when I’m able to think clearly again. In normal times I’m obsessed with my grades. Perhaps in a few years I will manage to earn a scholarship to NYU like my sister, although lately she hasn’t said much about the fact she’ll be leaving in August.
Danny tries to smile and make an awkward joke. “That’s right, loser. I have faith you’ll be back to geeking up the place in no time.”