“How old are you?” The words are out of my mouth before I can bite them back.
He laughs again, but it’s cooler this time. “Nineteen. My mom hasn’t been doing great. That’s why I’m home this summer.”
“Oh, sorry.” Now I feel like a jerk. “You’re at Yale?”
“Just finished my second year. Emilia tell you about me?”
“Tom gave me the Linden Lane tour when we were driving in.”
He grunts softly, and I strain to get a better look at his face, but he’s still backlit in the porch light. “You in school?” he asks.
“Just graduated. I start at SUNY New Paltz in the fall.”
He says something about liking the New Paltz area, how he has a friend studying theater there. He recommends a place to go hiking, and I make a mental note for September. I wonder for a moment if he’s going to open the gate, invite me inside. Maybe this is the start of something, or the sequel to a memory idling deep beneath the surface. But then a light blinks on on the third floor of the house, and a filmy shadow darkens the window. Caden turns to follow my gaze up, toward Windermere.
“I should go in,” he says, voice suddenly brisk.
I don’t want this conversation to be over. I haven’t gotten a chance to ask about his mom, what’s wrong with her, why he can’t leave. But I can see his body closing up, shoulders hunching inward, and I know it’s not the right time.
“It was nice meeting you?”
He’s already backing away from the gate. He gives me a small wave before he turns.
“See you around, Anna.”
* * *
Back in the guest cottage, I dig out my watercolor pencils from my bag. Sketchbook spread out on the bed, I draw a slender boy with light brown skin and a silver wristwatch. His arm and side are propped gracefully against a stone pillar crawling with vines, and one foot is crossed over the other where the pillar meets the drive. In my drawing, he’s turning to look at a brightly lit window in the house behind him, and his face is lost in shadow.
6 THEN
June
Herron Mills, NY
PAISLEY WANTS ICE CREAM. I raise my eyes from my bowl of granola and yogurt to peer at Emilia across the breakfast table, ready for her to tell her daughter she’ll have to wait until after dinner. But Emilia just nods and digs in her wallet for cash before slipping into her office and closing the door. While I load our dishes into the sink, Paisley chatters excitedly about Jenkins’ Creamery, the much-lauded shop on Main Street that has withstood the luxury brand takeover for two generations. In the few days I’ve been in town, I’ve already had it recommended to me three times. I insist we wait until eleven, when the shop opens, then we set off on foot, leaving Emilia to her client work and the midmorning sunshine that spills through the east-facing windows at the front of Clovelly Cottage like yards and yards of buttery gauze.
When we reach the end of the drive, Paisley tugs my hand, pulling me right, away from the shortest route to town.
“This way,” she insists. “It’s prettier.”
I let myself be dragged, momentarily mourning the fact that I won’t get to steal another glimpse of Windermere, possibly see Caden in daylight. Last night, he trailed me across a series of dreams I otherwise can’t remember, the features on his face shifting and rearranging into something out of Picasso’s cubist period. I can vividly see the outline of his body, the way he turned to meet his mother’s gaze in the upstairs window. But his face is a mystery to me, an endless jumble of possibilities that won’t let my artist’s brain rest until I see him again.
I tell myself that’s all it is. The painter in me in need of artistic resolution.
Caden and Windermere quickly fade into birdsong and Paisley’s bright chatter as we walk the other way down Linden Lane, Paisley giving me her own version of a tour, which centers around which families have kids, how old they are, and who’s here and who’s renting out their house for the summer while they flit around Europe or Japan.
Pretty nice set of options. I press my lips between my teeth.
“Do you have friends on your street in Brooklyn?” Paisley asks.
“Sure, although we’ve moved a few times. When I was your age, I had two really good friends on our block, Krista and Jayla. Our parents called us Triple-A.”
Paisley wrinkles her nose at me, fine lines creasing her soft skin.
“Because our names all ended in A? Krista, Jayla, Anna?”
“It would be better if your names all started with A,” Paisley declares, then pulls me around the corner, off Linden Lane and onto a connecting street that will take us into town. Paisley clearly knows where she’s going, but I checked the route on my phone before we started, just in case. The streets here form a wide, irregular grid, spaced far apart to accommodate the properties in between, and even on this slightly longer route, we’ll make it to Jenkins’ by eleven fifteen. They’d better have coffee ice cream.
When we turn onto Main, I’m surprised by how busy the street seems for a Thursday morning. Shop doors open and close, and sidewalk café tables are filled as we pass, the empty peace of the residential streets replaced by a low-key bustle.
“Doesn’t anyone work around here?” I mutter, instantly regretting the twinge of contempt in my voice. Paisley responds with complete solemnity.
“Not the summer people. They’re here on vacation. Mommy and Daddy are working.”
“Of course they are,” I say, steering Paisley around an overexcited Jack Russell straining on his leash. “That’s why you’ve got me.”
* * *
Inside Jenkins’, we stand before a giant, wall-mounted menu that looks like a chalkboard, but its descriptions are so vivid and smudge free, I wonder if it’s actually paint. The shop is empty, aside from Paisley and me. Behind the counter, a man in a white smock is crouched down, fiddling with something behind the case of hard ice cream. The menu boasts twelve flavors, all homemade, and an array of toppings. There’s also a soft ice-cream machine with levers for chocolate, vanilla, and twists, and a selection of two sorbets. In the very center of the menu, inside a box with jagged edges like a bright blue starburst, is the shop’s featured flavor: Chocolate Caramel Popcorn.
“I want two scoops of Peanut Butter Cup,” Paisley says, but her words wash over me. I’m still fixed on the menu board, that bright blue box advertising something I’d never usually order. But I can taste the flavor at the back of my mouth, coating my tongue like a memory. Chocolate Caramel Popcorn. I stare until my eyes lose focus, until the words squiggle and pulse against the blackness like a lighthouse in a storm. Suddenly I’m a little light-headed, and I lean my hip against the glass to keep my balance.
“Always get a waffle cone,” Paisley advises, and I force myself to tear my eyes away from the menu, focus on her. “Mr. Jenkins fills the bottom with hard chocolate so the ice cream doesn’t leak.”
“Shop secret,” says the man behind the counter, his deep, earthy voice snapping me back to reality. He straightens up and leans slightly forward, over the glass, to give Paisley a grin. “But your friend will find out soon enough.”