The Lake House (2 page)

Victoria closed her lips. From deep within her throat she vibrated the count of three. On three, the girls pressed their faces closer together, trying to pop the bubbles. When the bubbles finally burst against the girls’ cheeks and chins, laughter erupted, and they peeled the candy from their skin.

Victoria pulled a sticky piece from her long, wavy, golden hair. “Bubblegum is one of the world’s best inventions.” When her father had brought her to the World’s Fair last fall, he’d bought her the biggest jar of bubblegum she’d ever seen. She
rationed the candy throughout the year, sharing it with her inner circle of friends.

The five girls rolled onto their backs, their heads in a circle, and watched the fluffy clouds sail across the blue sky. Victoria snapped and popped her gum, knowing that her mother couldn’t hear her being unladylike this far out on the lake. She adjusted the strap of her red bathing suit. Unlike the other girls, whose suits covered their stomachs, Victoria had four inches of bare skin above her waist. Though her mother hated the suit, her father had allowed it.

Molly pointed her finger toward the sky. “I see a heart.”

The hot breath of summer air flowed over Victoria’s skin. The day felt like late August instead of the end of May. “You always see hearts,” Victoria said. “It’s because you’re in love with Bill.” Victoria poked Molly’s side and her friend batted Victoria’s hand away.

Born two and a half weeks apart, she and Molly lived next door to one another and roomed together at Dana Hall, an exclusive all-girls’ school in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Molly sat up and watched the boys of the neighborhood playing volleyball on the beach. She pulled at the top of her bathing suit, trying to cover the new curves that had blossomed on her petite body during freshman year, and fluffed the short skirt of her blue suit over her thighs. Victoria watched Molly stare at Bill. The rosy color that naturally tinted her cheeks blushed brighter. When they’d returned from boarding school last week, Bill had noticed the change in Molly’s body, and instead of pulling her black hair the way he had since early childhood, he now stared at her royal-blue eyes and stumbled over his words when he spoke to her.

“Victoria, let me braid your hair,” Sarah said. She sat up in her plain green suit and nudged Victoria to move.

Victoria sat at the edge of the raft and dangled her feet and calves in the cold water. Sarah knelt behind her and gently combed through Victoria’s knotted hair with her piano-player fingers.

Sarah, Victoria’s other roommate, loved to play with Victoria’s hair, and many nights were spent with Sarah brushing Victoria’s long locks. The two were often mistaken for sisters—both tall and thin, with pale skin and blond hair. They shared the same classes and danced in the school ballet. It wasn’t uncommon for them to exchange makeup and clothing, and from a distance it was hard to tell them apart.

“I see a dog in that cloud,” Evelyn said. She rolled over onto her stomach and crossed her tiny feet behind her thighs. Her short blond hair had dried into fairy curls around her forehead.

Sarah finished the braids and leaned her chin onto Victoria’s shoulder as they watched the boys play volleyball. Victoria pulled Sarah’s arms around her and stared across the lake. Bill, Carl, Joseph, and James were as inseparable as the girls.

“Do you think Carl is cute?” Sarah asked.

“He’s annoying,” Victoria said. Carl was the shortest of the boys and she could already tell at sixteen that he would be as bald as his father.

“I think he’s funny,” Sarah said. She tugged on one of Victoria’s braids. “You just don’t like him because he called you Frog Face when we were little.”

“I socked him in the stomach more than once for calling me that name and he doubled over. Who would want a man who’d been beat up by a girl?” Victoria teased.

“I don’t think you could still beat him up,” Sarah said. “And
who else am I going to choose? Molly’s in love with Bill, Evelyn with James, and we all know at some point you’ll stop pushing Joseph away. The two of you are meant to be together. Or are you going to let Maryland have Joseph?”

Maryland stared up at the clouds and didn’t respond to Sarah’s words. The boys had never paid her much attention. Considered a plain Jane, everything about her was average. She was shy and quiet, always following along with whatever anyone wanted to do. But she was also the first to give a hug if she saw that you were sad, the first to take a barrette from her hair to replace the one you’d lost.

When they were little, Joseph Anderson had followed Victoria around, saving her from the other boys’ pranks. His blue eyes had been too big for his thin face and he had a cowlick even the best hair oil couldn’t tame. He’d brought her flowers and chocolate candies and the other kids made kissing noises to tease her. He’d been annoying.

But over the last few years he’d grown into his features. As he jumped up to spike the ball, Victoria noticed the definition in his bare chest, sending butterflies to her stomach. “You know there are men outside of Nagog we could marry.”

“But then we might not be together,” Molly said as she moved closer to Sarah and Victoria. She leaned her head on Victoria’s shoulder and dangled her feet in the water.

Victoria squeezed her friends’ hands. “We’ll always be together. And no matter where life takes us, we’ll always come back and spend the summers here.”

“And when we’re old like our parents, we’ll live here with our children,” Molly said.

“Friends forever,” Sarah whispered.

T
he memory faded. Victoria looked across the lake into the empty night. As a child there’d been a silver dock built as a protective barrier from the deep end of the lake. The marker for adulthood had been the day you were allowed to run down the dock and dive into the water. When you could swim out to the raft you were no longer considered a baby. The dock had been removed years ago.

How did this world of childhood fond memories become the place where her worst nightmares had happened? There were nights when Victoria awoke from dreams with her breath caught in her rib cage and the dry, bitter taste of regret poisoning her mouth. She feared that she’d never find release from her sorrow. Guilt, which started as a small grain of sand in the gut, had grown to a boulder that shackled her movement. Worst of all was the feeling of loss—a black hole that sucked life’s vibrancy into its vacuum.

Tears froze on Victoria’s cheeks and she brushed away the new ones that fell. She should retire to bed, but in her family’s home, the place she’d known her entire life, the silence echoed with voices from the past like a child’s imaginary monster when the lights go out.

It was in that house, nineteen years ago, that she’d said goodbye to Melissa and watched her daughter return to God. And it was here on this beach that she’d cradled her granddaughter, Annabelle, in her arms and screamed for help, knowing her angel had barely any breath left in her body.

On the other side of the beach, a light went on in Joseph’s home. Through the bare trees she could see his body move around the sunroom. Her frozen legs were hard to control as
she crunched through the snow; more than once she almost fell before she reached the road. Joseph looked out the window and she waved. He returned the gesture and turned off the light.

Behind Joseph’s dark house was a path that led to a secluded beach where the two of them had once shared the most intimate of moments. Images from the past played like a movie in her mind, with big band music as the sound track.

—

Under the thin tablecloth, cool sand had formed curved beds for their half-naked teenage bodies. Beyond the trees she could see the party lights on the patio and hear the music. Had anyone noticed they’d slipped away?

“I love you, Victoria,” Joseph whispered in her ear.

Though he’d once driven her crazy as he followed her around, now her heart craved him when they were apart. The past year of school had been torture—months went by with only letters to fill the distance between them. She’d thought they’d marry as soon as she graduated, but now he was going to war, and it would be years before she could touch him again.

Joseph swirled his tongue in delicious patterns over her neck. Warm sensations flowed through her veins like powerful energy currents and pooled between her hips. Every cell in her body burst with happiness as his hands moved over her thighs. She tried not to jump when he touched the soft, warm mound, but lightning struck her body.

He pulled away.

No one had explained sex to Victoria. Her heart was split between fear and her desire to seal their relationship before he left for the war.

“Please, it’s okay.” She caressed the dimple in his cheek; her
finger fit the indent like a puzzle piece. The little boy with the thin face had grown into a man with chiseled cheekbones and broad shoulders.

He gently covered her body with his as he kissed her—her heart skipped as her body begged with a need she didn’t understand. Pain stabbed through her lower abdomen. Her body tightened and she pulled back from his kiss, biting her bottom lip and focusing on the sensation in her mouth.

His hand swept her jaw and he nuzzled her neck. His warm breath tickled her ear, sending shivers across her arms. “Relax. I’ll wait.”

He drew hearts on her cheeks and placed kisses on her forehead. His fingers combed through her hair. Her muscles unwound. She felt the thickness of his body entwined with hers. The lake’s small waves lapped against the shore and he moved in slow circles to its rhythm. Joseph’s masculine fingers stroked her sides. Her eyes widened at the pleasurable sparks firing in her belly.

Giggles broke free. “I’m sorry I’m laughing. It feels wonderful,” she said.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

His tongue teased her lips as she began to move with him. Deep hunger grabbed her. Her nails dug into his back. Her thighs tightened around his waist. Explosive, joyous waves shook every muscle. Sunlight blazed through her. Her body went limp, the world went dark, and she floated in peace.

Joseph moaned. “Victoria,” he called out through quick breaths.

She felt him move deeper within her. Their lips pressed, merging together. His orgasm flowed through her, pleasure not of her flesh but of his.

He rolled onto his back and she laid her head against his chest.
The breeze tickled her skin. She touched her body, so different to her now: a pleasurable world to discover.

“Again,” she’d said, tracing his stomach. “Again.”

—

Victoria shivered as the wind picked up. She closed her eyes and placed her hands across her heart. Her toes felt like icicles and burned with pain. Part of her wanted to walk that path behind Joseph’s house and turn back time to when he belonged to her and not to his wife.

She stared at the quaint neighborhood with its gabled snow-covered roofs, bay windows, columned porches, and decks. The community didn’t seem real. Purity, innocence, and old-fashioned values were safe here, as if a protective bubble hovered over the circle of homes and kept them isolated from the outside world.

Most of her childhood friends had moved to Boston during their working years, but they visited Nagog on the weekends, stayed during the summer months, and celebrated every holiday together. When they retired, they returned, as promised, to live once again in the Nagog homes that had been passed down to them. Victoria had been the only one to walk away and live another life.

In the eyes of many in the community, she’d fallen from grace—and no one had pushed her. As Lucifer had done, she’d made choices that barred her from Heaven.

Had she come home to let her demons take her into death or had she returned to Nagog to find the whisper of wind that swirled between the trees and floated over the lake—the call of a little girl who once believed in magic? In this place where the past had been kept alive, she was afraid to pray for forgiveness. But the truth was that Nagog and her childhood friends were all she had left.

T
he last thirty hours hung heavily on Heather Bregman’s shoulders. The knot of pain at the base of her neck radiated to her forehead as the airport noise vibrated behind her eyes. Two days of flying in coach had left her exhausted. Yesterday, the man next to her had snored his way from Johannesburg to London with his large thigh pressed against her hip and his elbow dug into her waist.
Whoever had decided that a human could be stuffed into a box with only a ten-degree recline should spend the rest of eternity folded in half,
she thought.