Meet Me at the Lake

Jamie and I are huddled in front of a computer in the office when Will knocks on the doorframe.

I look at him and then notice the time. “Shit. I’m so sorry.”

Whitney and Cam were supposed to arrive an hour ago for dinner.

It’s Will’s last week here, and I’ve been working twelve-hour days. I don’t have a choice. I’ve been telling myself that it’s only a phase, that if I’d opened my own place, there would be similarly horrendous periods and that busy is better than slow. But our sommelier, Zoe, gave her notice this morning—she’s going to run the wine program at The Daisy—and it’s become that much harder not to feel discouraged.

“It’s fine,” Will says. “Whitney and Cam are on cocktail number two, and Whitney’s mom called to say Owen is fast asleep. They’re in new-parent heaven.”

Will achieved what I had not and convinced them to stay at the resort for the night, their first away from the baby.

“I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. You haven’t answered our texts.”

I glance around the office. I have no idea where I’ve put my phone.

“Too busy making out,” Jamie quips, and I belt him in the chest.

“He’s joking,” I say, scowling at Jamie. “Obviously.”

Will does not seem to find this funny.

“Go,” Jamie says while I search the desk drawers for my phone. “I think we’ve done all that we can for now anyway.” I’m trying to stay on top of the bookings while he finalizes all the details for the dance.

“You sure?”

“Yes,” he says, plucking my phone out from under a stack of papers. “Get out of here.”

I fill Will in on my day while we walk, waving to the Roses as we pass Cabin 15. Will has a standing invitation for martinis. When we showed up on Sunday, he ushered me to the love seat with his hand on my lower back, and Mrs. Rose clapped hers together, crying, “Isn’t this a happy turn of events?” I am happy—Will and I spend every moment we can together, and it feels so easy and right. But summer doesn’t last forever.

Before we round the corner to Cabin 20, I see multicolored streamers and balloons through the trees. There’s a painted sign that reads welcome home, baby! hanging over the door. Whitney and Cam are standing on the porch, grinning like kids who raided the candy drawer.

“You monsters.”

“Will has been warned to use the nickname at his own peril,” Whitney says, pulling me into a hug. “I know I’ve said it before, but you coming back here is probably the best thing that’s happened to me, the birth of my child included.”

I laugh, feeling the stress of this week begin to ebb. “You need more friends.”

“I have plenty,” she says. “And they haven’t put me through what you have. But they’re just not as good.”

Will directs us out to the front deck, where he’s set the picnic table with linens and candlesticks he’s borrowed from the house and a massive vase of wildflowers, a free-for-all of purple asters, goldenrod, and black-eyed Susans. My favorite.

He steps into the cabin and returns with a gin and tonic for me in one hand and a cheese board in the other.

“The freshest lime in Muskoka,” Will says, handing me the drink.

“You wouldn’t believe the number of questions I’ve had to answer this past week,” Whitney says over dinner. Will made mushroom risotto. “Pasta or risotto? Mushrooms or tomatoes? Favorite kinds of cheese?”

I glance at Will.

“It’s not every day you decide to change your entire life,” he says, and he sounds full of admiration. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this adored. I don’t realize that I’m staring at him and that the meandering stream of chatter has stopped until Cam clears his throat.

We savor Peter’s dark chocolate cake in silence. Will says he asked for the recipe, but Peter offered to bake it himself—I’ve rarely seen him warm to a person so quickly. Yesterday, he gave me a lemon poppy seed loaf to share with “my friend.” We invited Peter tonight, but he said he was still perfecting the bread rolls for the dance.

From nowhere, Whitney disrupts the quiet with, “So, Will, when are you leaving?”

His eyes flick to mine. “Sunday,” he says. I do my best not to look like hearing this makes me want to rip off my skin. Will and I haven’t talked about his leaving or what it means for us. I didn’t think an us was possible. But watching him with my friends tonight, seeing how much care he’s put into the dinner, maybe it is. Maybe this isn’t just a break from reality for him. Maybe this could be the kind of relationship that’s worth the effort. Maybe this is the start of an us.

“The day after the dance,” Whitney says. I narrow my eyes, wondering what she’s playing at. I’ve already told her this.

“Right. I’m looking forward to it,” Will says.

“And after that?”

Will looks at me again.

“Whit,” I warn. I don’t want Will to endure an interrogation from my best friend. That’s not what he signed up for.

“What?”

I shake my head at her in a plea to halt whatever scheme she thinks she’s running. But she does not.

“What’s the plan?” she asks. “Because I really wasn’t a fan of how things went the last time.”

I shoot Cam a look but he gives me the tiniest shrug.

Whitney points her fork at Will. “Are you going to drop off the face of the earth again? Because I don’t want to have to scrape my friend off the floor like I did last time.”

“Whitney,” I say, my face hot. I can’t even look in Will’s direction. “Stop.”

She glances at me, and then Will says, “I think this is a conversation for Fern and me to have in private.”

“Agreed,” I say.

Whitney takes a bite of cake. She chews, glaring at Will, until she finishes her slice.

“I like you,” she says to him when she’s licked the last of the ganache off her fork. “You’re too pretty and too tall, but you’re good with babies and you seem smart. And frankly, that was the best risotto I’ve ever had. But if you fuck my friend over again, I will drive to Toronto, and I will kill you.”

Will stares at her for a second, and then nods. “Sounds like we have a plan.”

—

“You’re avoiding me, aren’t you?” Whitney asks when I pick up my phone on Friday.

I have been avoiding her. She meant well, but I’m still annoyed about the other night.

“I know I went rogue at dinner. I’m sorry. I haven’t had that much to drink since before I was pregnant.”

“It’s fine, Whit,” I say. She knows she overstepped. I apologized to Will after she and Cam had left, and he said that he didn’t really mind Whitney’s inquisition, that he was more concerned by how her questions bothered me.

Two seconds of silence. “So why aren’t you answering your texts?” she asks.

“Because I’m in a hell of my own making?”

“That bad, huh?”

“The dance is tomorrow, so Jamie is busy with last-minute stuff while I’m interviewing job candidates who call me Fran and think customer service is one of the underlying problems of capitalism.”

I take a bite of the cheese croissant Peter dropped off earlier, then wipe the flakes from my chest. He keeps swinging by with food. I think he wants to make sure I’m okay after his revelation about him and Mom. Mostly I’m sad they didn’t get a happier ending. I’m sad she never told me about Peter herself. I wish we could have had more time together, the three of us. My family.

“What’s going on?” I could use a distraction.

“Much bigger problems over here, let me tell you,” she says. “I have no idea what to wear tomorrow. My body is all wonky after having a baby. Nothing’s in the same spot it used to be. Can you look at the photos I sent?”

I scroll through the pictures. “You know I’m not good at this stuff. Maybe the pink romper?” I suggest.

“Yeah, maybe. Maybe with heels. What about you? Did you find anything in town?”

“No. I meant to, but I haven’t been able to find the time. I’m going to raid Mom’s closet tonight.” I’m sure she kept every party outfit she ever wore. “I think there are dresses from the nineties in there.”

Whitney gasps. “Remember the purple one with the big bow in the front?”

It had ruffles at the neck and the most over-the-top sash. The fabric was so stiff, it could stand up on its own. We were probably fourteen the summer she wore it to the dance.

“We called her Grimace all night,” I say. “God, we were assholes.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “But she loved us anyway.”

She did.

“So . . .” Whitney says after a few moments of silence. “Two more nights with Will here.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And after that?”

“After that, he goes back to Toronto.”

“But obviously you’re going to keep seeing each other.”

I don’t know if that’s obvious. I don’t want Sunday to be the end, but I haven’t come out and said it.

“We’ll stay in touch.” I think.

Whitney scoffs. “Stay in touch? That man is into you. Not into you in the Hey, let’s bang when you come to the city kind of way. He’s into you in the I’m picturing what our kids will look like way. Trust me, he’s in deep.”

I chew on a nail. “I wonder if it’s just that he’s here, with his first taste of freedom in a long time. He’s in vacation mode. Once he goes back to his actual life, he might realize I don’t fit in it.”

“I really don’t think that’s what’s going on here,” Whitney says. “He made risotto.”

I laugh. “And a cheese board. I just don’t know if I can put myself out there again, especially right now.”

Whitney stays quiet for a moment. “Even before the hiatus, you closed yourself off. And maybe that has to do with your mom. And maybe it has a bit to do with he who shall not be named”—which is how Whitney refers to Eric—“and maybe what happened with Will back then didn’t help.”

I sigh.

I’ve been trying not to think about what happened nine years ago—how big my feelings were and how suddenly they got crushed. I’ve been trying not to think about how much bigger those feelings have become.

“Come on,” Whitney says. “You can tell some guy you like him.”

“Yeah,” I murmur. If only that were it.