mountains, and the great camps, and the Vanderbilts and the other families who came up here.â
âBankers came even then,â Evelyn said with a light laugh.
âOhâyesâI get the joke,â he said, looking down at his suit.
âOh, no, I didnât meanââ
âSorry. Just. No. Iâm justââ
âSo you were saying? The great camps?â
âThe architecture is really something. Itâs an interesting style that was replicated in some of the national-park lodges, but really nowhere else.â
Evelyn began to ask about who the architects had been, but the station house door opened and Nick Geary stepped in wearing white tennis shorts and a white polo shirt. His hair was still chocolate brown and perfectly floppy, his eyes the same dark blue, his skin perfect, and his lips a deep red that girls wouldâve killed for. His nostrils were the only problem, large and quivering; they had no doubt seen their share of coke, Evelyn thought as she smiled and kissed his cheek. âNick!â
âEvelyn. Itâs been ages. Howâs the singing?â he said, not as distantly as Evelyn had expected. âSir,â he said to Scot. âSo Iâve been deputized as your chauffeur for the day. Hop in. Evelyn, how much luggage do you need for a three-day weekend? Jesus Christ.â
âThe singing?â Scot asked.
âI was really into musicals when I first met Nick. Iâm surprised he remembers.â
âOh,â Scot said, sounding like a horse neighing.
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CHAPTER THREE
Shuh-shuh-gah
The stores of Lake James Village topped out at two stories, crowded together on one mile of the three-mile-circumference pond in town. It looked, comfortingly, exactly as Evelyn had remembered it from her first and only other trip there, the summer after Prestonâs Sheffield graduation. Though years had passed, no Walmarts had arrived to suck the specificity out of the village, and there were not even any chain drugstores, as those were relegated to the road leading out of town. Instead, it was Just Bead It and Custard Mustard & Ale and the confusing promise of the Steak Loft.
Even the smell of the air through the rolled-down windows was familiar after all these years, wet leaves and burning wood and muddy grass. Evelyn, whoâd decided to sit in the backseat to let Nick handle conversing with Scot, watched as the light green of the trees whirred by. It was quiet but for some chirps of birds and the rumble of the ancient Hacking Jeep along the road.
Though it was late May, the local clothing store, the Sweater Haus, still had thick Irish sweaters and Wellies in the windows. Even the Gap and Bass outlets, part of an aborted attempt on the part of the town elders to make Lake James into a discount-clothing destination, showed what remained of winter gear in their windows: puffy jackets, raincoats, heavy leather hiking boots. The Lakeview Innâs A-frame chalkboard promised seven-bean soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and weather that was fifty-five and cloudy.
Evelyn looked over James Pond, which the Lakeview sat on, remembering the first time sheâd seen it. All that talk about Lake James as a summer playground for the rich and well bred, she remembered thinking, and it was a rinky-dink middle-class vacation town with a tiny lake and wooden bears surrendering with their paws up outside every third store. Then sheâd followed the directions Preston had givenâthe same directions Nick was following nowâand taken a right between two stone pillars with a hanging wooden sign that read M T. J OBE R OADâ P RIVATE D RIVE , and perceived her error. Here was an unfinished rough dirt road, and glimpses of an enormous lake to the left, and the suggestion of very nice houses, as implied by the trees in front of them that hid them from view.
âOh,â Scot said from the front, having the same realization Evelyn had had years