Meet Me at the Lake

I wake up at 2:02 a.m. It’s always just after two—my insomnia arrives with Swiss precision. Sometimes I open the window and listen to the breeze in the tree boughs and the lake lapping against rock, willing myself to doze off. Sometimes I put on a meditation app and attempt to mindfulness my way back to sleep. Most often, I lie here in my childhood bedroom, trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with my life.

Tonight, I shift onto my side, then my back, then my stomach, but I can’t get comfortable, not when my mind is circling on the fact that Will Baxter is here, and that my mom met him. My mom hired Will.

I know the resort isn’t as busy as it should be, but the idea of my mother ceding an ounce of power to a consultant doesn’t track unless things are far worse than I guessed. Why did Mom seek Will’s help instead of mine? The possibility that she didn’t believe I was capable bothers me.

Eventually, I text Whitney.

You up?

Unfortunately. Everything OK?

It’s one of the perks of my best friend having a five-month-old. Owen is the sweetest little guy, but he’s a terror when it comes to sleep.

Do you remember Will Baxter?

Whitney never met him, and at first, I didn’t tell her much. She and Jamie were close, and I was afraid she wouldn’t approve. But I couldn’t not talk about Will.

The Will Baxter from a million years ago? The one you were obsessed with?

Ha ha, I write back.

What about him?

He checked in here today.

In seconds, my phone is vibrating.

“Tell me everything,” Whitney says in an excited whisper when I answer, and I can’t help but laugh. I feel less stressed already.

I fill Whitney in on the little I know.

“What does he look like?”

“Tall. Dark,” I say.

“And handsome?” Her ability to sound so gleeful while whispering is a skill.

“Extremely,” I grumble. “And he’s staying in Cabin 20.”

There are two rows of cabins on the lakeshore. My grandparents built our house, a small board-and-batten home with a gabled roof, at the end of the north path. It’s tucked into the woods and directly across from Cabin 20.

“This just gets better.” Whitney lets out a squeal. “Mystery Guest!”

I groan.

Mystery Guest is the spy game we invented the summer between sixth and seventh grades. It essentially involved us low-key stalking one of the resort guests, collecting as much information about them as possible. We tracked our findings in a spiral-bound notebook, the words top secret scrawled on its cover in black marker. Because they were so close to the house, the lucky residents of Cabin 20 were often our unwitting subjects. If Whitney shows up on my doorstep in the morning dressed in a trench coat and holding a pair of binoculars, I won’t be surprised.

“Anyway,” I say, “I’m supposed to be back to work at Filtr next week, but . . .”

“You can’t leave yet. You shouldn’t leave at all.” Whitney isn’t subtle about wanting me to move home for good. She went away to school for her dental hygiene diploma and has been back in Huntsville ever since. “Besides, I’m sure they’ll survive without you a little longer. No offense.”

Normally, I’d protest—we’ve had versions of this conversation before—but tonight I know she’s right. I’ve been back to my apartment in Toronto once, just to make sure there were no science experiments growing in the fridge and to ask my neighbor to collect my mail. I miss my things. But I have to stick around at least until I find out what’s happening at the resort. I’ll call the accountant first thing tomorrow, and after that, I need to talk to Will.

“I spoke to Philippe yesterday,” I tell Whitney. “He said to take all the time I need.”

Philippe was my boyfriend—that is, until I found him bent over the hat designer from the shop next to our original location. I should have known something was up when he started wearing fedoras. Lesson learned: Dating your boss is always a bad idea.

We broke up two years ago, and I’ve been on a hiatus from men ever since. Scratch that, I added sex back into the equation after five very long months—it’s relationships I have no interest in. All that time and energy and compromise, for what? Dirty man socks lying around my apartment followed by the disappointment of things not working out. No thanks.

“I would have told him to take a biscotti and shove it,” Whitney says.

“We don’t serve biscotti.”

“Then whatever gross vegan hemp energy ball you do serve. You should have left that job a long time ago.”

I’m not going into this with her again. Philippe aside, I like what I do. I started working at Filtr when there was only one location. Now we’re a little west end espresso empire, and I helped get us there. I have an office on the second floor of our original coffee shop, and when they’re slammed, I’ll pop down and help behind the counter. The crunch of the grinder, pressing the coffee into the portafilter, the whir of the steamer—I find it soothing. Crunch. Press. Whir. Repeat. There’s a singular satisfaction in watching the line dwindle. A task conquered, disorder controlled. It’s perfect, except for the fact that I share the office with Philippe. And that it’s his empire, not mine.

I’ve wanted my own place for ages. The fantasy goes like this: I renovate the little mom-and-pop convenience store in my neighborhood, the one the owners will never sell. But this is my fantasy, and they do. It’s a red-brick building with big windows on the corner of a leafy residential street. I paint the walls the deepest shade of blue and outfit the space with overstuffed furniture from antiques markets. The orange velvet chair goes in the corner by the window. I hang a community bulletin board and find a gorgeous old bookshelf. I fill it with cookbooks. Instead of Nigella Lawson, I collect ones with recipes for pastries and tarts and pies—The Violet Bakery Cookbook, Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Cookies, New World Sourdough, The Complete Canadian Living Baking Book. They are a nod to Peter. The shelf of Agatha Christies is a nod to Mom. I spend weeks selecting the music for opening day—songs that are all triumph and joy. The first one I play is Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good.” My coffee shop is cozy and warm and not at all like Filtr’s Scandinavian cool. I name it after myself. I call it Fern’s.

I had at least another year of saving before I could cover start-up costs and look for a space to rent, but now everything’s changed. If I sell the resort, I’d be able to buy a commercial property outright. I could turn Fern’s into a reality, minus my fantasy location. But giving up Brookbanks to bankroll my dream doesn’t sit easily with me. The resort has been in the family for more than fifty years. It was my mother’s life’s work. It’s home.

Owen starts crying and Whitney swears. “I thought he’d nodded off,” she says. “I should go, Baby.”

I growl.

“Sorry, sorry. It slipped out. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Realizing how one-sided our conversation has been, I ask, “What about you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah? I mean, as okay as you can be when you’re a certified dairy cow functioning on little to no sleep.”

“I’m sorry. I get the no sleep part, but not the milk thing. You’re a hero.”

“You know what’s weird? I miss Cam. I see him even more than when I was working, but it’s all in service of the baby, you know?”

“How about I babysit for you one evening? I can watch Owen and you two can go out.”

“Maybe,” she says. “I left Owen with my mom for an afternoon, and it didn’t go well.”

“Just think about it. I’ll take him anytime.”

“Does that mean you’re staying?”

“Nice try. Good night, Whit.”

“ ’Night, Baby.”

She hangs up before I can scold her.

I drag myself out of bed and slump down to the kitchen for a glass of water. As I reach for the switch, I notice a warm yellow glow through the trees—a light is on in Cabin 20.

I creep over to the window. Will’s curtains aren’t drawn and I can see clear into the living room, but only enough to glimpse the fireplace and coffee table. I lean over the sink to get a better look and laugh at myself—this used to be one of the spots Whitney and I would spy from. I have regressed.

When a figure suddenly appears, it takes me by such surprise, I let out a yelp.

Will raises his hand, but I don’t mimic the gesture. He knows this is my house, I realize. He knows it’s me in the window. We stand there, looking at the shape of each other.

My breaths come fast and shallow. I’m trying to decide whether I should march over and demand answers, but then he moves out of view and his cabin goes dark.

I return to bed, heart pounding as though I sprinted up the stairs.

It’s been a long time since the question of what happened to Will Baxter kept me up at night.

Why didn’t he meet me nine years ago like we planned? Why leave me waiting, wondering?

I turn the pillow over, pressing my cheek against the cool side, a whole new set of questions swirling.

Why, after all this time, did he come here last summer? How did he end up talking with my mother? Was he hoping to see me?

It’s that final thought that has me lying awake until the chickadees begin to chatter outside my window.

—

I must fall back to sleep in the early morning, because I dream of driving down the highway in my mother’s car. It’s night and I don’t see the deer until it’s leaping in front of me. A huge, graceful whitetail. I have no time to swerve, yet I’m not hurt. I topple out of the front seat to see if the animal is injured, but it’s not a deer lying bloody on the road—it’s Will.

I wake with a jolt. It’s light out now, and the chickadees have been joined in their dawn bird song by finches, vireos, and a cawing crow.

By the time I’ve scrubbed, shaved, and shampooed, I’m still rattled. I haven’t dreamed about the accident before. Most of my dreams about Mom are the same warped flashback. I walk into the kitchen and find her wearing an apron—the one with the red apples on it. She’s mixing pancake batter, which means it must be Sunday. Sundays are Mom’s day off, and sometimes we stay in our pajamas until noon. Mom lets me finish stirring the batter while she melts butter in the cast-iron pan. She tries to make a pancake in the shape of a fern, but it looks like a regular pancake. She tells me to set the table, so I lay out the cutlery and a bottle of maple syrup, then take a seat to wait for her to finish. But Mom doesn’t stop cooking. She makes pancake after pancake, and I never get to the part of the dream where she sits down and we eat together.

I throw on a robe and trudge downstairs. Mom isn’t in the kitchen wearing her apron with the red apples on it.

Before I make coffee, I call Reggie, the resort’s longtime accountant. He began leaving messages about a week after the funeral, gentle prods that he was available and that we should meet sooner rather than later. He picks up on the second ring and agrees to meet, even though it’s Sunday.

I pop a green disc into the coffee machine. It’s one of those pod contraptions, same as the guest rooms have. I watch as the brown liquid comes out, too hot and too weak, thinking about how it’s typical of my mother not to get herself a decent coffee maker. She didn’t bother redecorating the house, either. She treated this place as little more than a landing pad—it’s pretty much the same as when my grandparents lived here with us. Only the sunroom has been given a face-lift. I don’t spend any time in it, though. I’m still not at peace with the memories it stirs up.

Despite her disinterest in home decor, Mom’s imprint is everywhere, little hints of the person she was beyond her job. The framed black-and-white photos from the trip she took to Europe just before I was born. The bookshelves, stuffed with Louise Penny novels and paperback mysteries and nineteenth-century British classics.

I’m about to take my first, unsatisfying sip of coffee when I hear a knock. I can tell who it is from the rhythm of the tap, tap, tap. Peter’s had the same knock forever.

I step onto the porch, not worried that I’m still in my robe. I’ve known Peter my entire life. My grandparents hired him right out of culinary school—let him stay at the house his first year working here. My bedroom was his. Mom was still in high school then.

Nothing about Peter says baker except perhaps for the softness that’s crept in over time. Everything else—the thick fingers, the salt-and-pepper beard, his propensity for plaid and aversion to overt displays of emotion—says retired lumberjack, not creator of sugared pansies and master of sourdough.

“Jamie get you into the dining room last night?” he asks by way of greeting. His voice is gentle, the kind that makes you lean in and listen, but right now my attention is set on the three shoeboxes he’s holding. One orange, one red, one black. I haven’t seen them for years, but I know exactly what’s inside. I look up at Peter, unsteady.

“Where did you get those? I thought she threw them out,” I say. It’s something I’ve always felt guilty about. The fire was my fault, not hers.

“She gave them to me for safekeeping,” he says. “Figured she’d want you to have them.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

Peter sets the boxes on the rattan love seat. “They belong with you. And you might want to read them again one day. You’re older now—older than Maggie was when she wrote them.”

I could argue, but I learned a long time ago that Peter is always right. “Have you read them?”

“No. I figured they were private and that there’d be stuff in there I didn’t want to know.”

I nod. I used to wish I’d never read them.

“I thought about it,” he continues. “I thought it might be like hearing her again.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because Maggie would kill me. She wouldn’t want me knowing what was going through her mind back then.”

“But you were best friends,” I say, though I know secrets are a key ingredient in close friendships.

“Sometimes.” What does he mean he and Mom were sometimes best friends? He’s about to say something else, but then he shakes his head.

“I should get going,” he says.

Over his shoulder, I see a golf cart pull up to the cabin beside Will’s. The resort has a small fleet of carts that deliver luggage and room service. Years ago, Mom had them re-covered in peppy green and white striped tops. There’s a rip in this one. It’s something I noticed last week—all the golf cart covers should have been replaced a few seasons ago. I watch a young woman in a hunter green Brookbanks polo and khakis take a silver domed tray from the back.

“Did Mom say anything to you about hiring a consultant?” I ask Peter before he leaves.

“She mentioned bringing someone in a while back, yeah. I’d forgotten with everything.” Peter’s memory is usually infallible, but he’s not himself these days. He’s so quiet, I’m not sure anyone else would notice, but he’s slightly off. Whenever I’ve visited him in the pastry kitchen, there’s been no music playing—only eerie silence. His sarcastic sense of humor—it’s like it left with her.

“Maggie said he was overqualified,” Peter says. “Think she was pretty pleased about the deal they struck up.”

Before he goes, Peter gives my shoulder a pat. I watch him set off back down the walkway, then I turn my gaze to Cabin 20.

—

I rap my knuckles against Will’s door, taking steady breaths to ease my heart rate. Will caught me off guard last night, but today I’m channeling Mom. I will set the tone.

It’s after nine, but it’s hard to tell if there’s any movement inside Will’s cabin. Like the others, Number 20 is postcard cute—wood sided with dark green awnings. I’m standing at the back, where there’s a screened porch facing the bush and the gravel path that leads to the lodge and the beach. I press my nose to the screen, but I can’t see whether there’s a light on inside.

I knock again, wait a few seconds. Nothing. I’m walking down the set of wooden steps when I hear him.

“Fern?” His voice brushes over my name in a rough rasp.

After Peter left this morning, I blasted my You’ve Got This playlist while I coaxed my bob into submission and formed a plan. Invite Will over for coffee. Ask him about the scope of the work he agreed to do for my mother. Act professionally. Do not bring up nine years ago. Or ten years ago. But as I stare up at him, the plan gets ripped to pieces and scattered to the wind.

Will is wearing sweats and his hair is mussed, like he just pulled on his T-shirt. His face is shadowed with stubble, and he’s squinting as if his eyes are adjusting to daylight. Because they are. Will was clearly sleeping.

He runs his fingers through his hair, and I see a flash of the tattoo on his arm. My heart does a Rockette kick. I follow his hand as it moves from his head to his side, where he shoves it deep into a pocket, and my mouth goes dry.

“I’m sorry,” I say with a wince. “I thought you’d be up already.”

“I didn’t get much sleep last night.” His expression is indecipherable.

“Oh,” I say as if I hadn’t been standing in the window across from him at two a.m. “Was it the bed? The mattresses are supposed to be good.”

“It wasn’t the bed,” Will says.

A beat of silence passes between us. A spark flares to life in my chest, a candle in a dark apartment. I quickly snuff it out, then scramble to get back on track.

“We should talk.” I gesture over my shoulder. “I’ll make coffee. Meet me on my porch when you’re ready?”

Will’s eyes drift to the home where I grew up. “I’ll be there in ten.”

—

“It’s terrible, you’re welcome,” I say, handing Will a mug and sitting across from him on the rattan love seat. His frame fills the tiny wicker chair. He’s combed his hair and changed into proper pants and a white shirt, sleeves rolled, top button undone.

He takes a sip and winces.

“Told you.”

“No, it’s great,” Will says. “Subtle, but great. Thank you.”

I take a drink of my own. It’s awful. “I don’t know what this is, but I don’t think you can call it coffee. It’s like the suggestion of coffee.”

“Mmm,” he says. “Very water-forward.”

I smile despite myself. I don’t want to feel too warmly toward Will. Preferably, I wouldn’t feel much of anything at all.

“You put sugar in it,” Will says, taking another sip.

I took a chance. Some people change how they doctor their coffee, but a four-packet sugar fiend? I made Will’s so sweet, it’s essentially blackened simple syrup. I can’t tell if he’s pleased or surprised or simply making a statement. His face is as blank as an untouched canvas.

I let his comment pass. “So how did my mother come to hire you?” Of all people, I don’t need to add.

Will smooths his hand down the front of his shirt. “A friend of mine got married here last summer. I considered not coming, but . . . I stayed in the lodge for a week, ate at the restaurant every night, and I spoke with your mom a few times. She was all over this place—it was like there were two of her.”

I close my eyes for two seconds, rubbing my chest. It hurts. That she’s not here, that he can describe her so perfectly.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

I nod and take a beat to collect myself. “You were saying?”

Will searches my face before speaking. “My firm specializes in marketing and rebranding, but I have a soft spot for turning around struggling businesses. Helping them modernize, cut costs, reengineer their growth strategies—whatever they need, really.”

I don’t know what is more unlikely: that the resort might be in real trouble or that Will is the kind of person who talks about reengineering growth strategies. His voice is formal, like he’s making a practiced pitch.

He takes a sip of coffee, and I try not to stare at his mouth and the scar beneath it.

“When your mother found out what I do, she had a lot of questions. I offered to have coffee with her, and she told me about some of the challenges she was facing. I made a few suggestions. We emailed a couple of times after I left, and then a few months ago she proposed a deal,” Will says. “A four-week stay this summer in one of the cabins for my help.”

“Four weeks?” My surprise is audible.

“Right. Your mom wanted to keep my work private, and Cabin 20 is closest to the house.”

I do the math on this. A monthlong visit isn’t cheap, but I’m guessing from the suit Will rolled up in yesterday, his fee would be exponentially higher.

Will must see the confusion on my face, because he adds, “The deal was based on a significant discount for my services.”

“But why? If you’re so successful, you must not be short on clients. What’s in it for you?”

Will shrugs, looking out at his cabin. The lake lies beyond, glittering through the trees. “I like it here.”

It can’t just be that, can it? Even if I weren’t back at the resort, he must have known I’d find out he was working with my mom and staying here for a month.

“How are you holding up?” Will asks, turning back to me, his voice softer. “It must be difficult. You never wanted this.”

When I lay awake last night, I told myself that I’m not the same person I was in my early twenties, and that Will almost certainly isn’t, either. But when my eyes shift to his, it’s like being pulled into a black hole.

“No,” I tell him. “I didn’t. But here we are.” Will Baxter and me, at Brookbanks Resort.

“Here we are,” he murmurs.

For a fleeting moment, I picture leaning my head against his shoulder and feeling his voice vibrate against my cheek when he tells me that everything is going to be okay. It’s the exact kind of thinking I need to avoid. I will not fall down the Will Baxter vortex again. There’s still a faint purple bruise on my heart from last time.

And right now, it feels as fresh as it did nine years ago. I don’t know if it’s the kindness in Will’s voice, or the fact that he’s here and my mother’s not, or if the weeks of sleeplessness have finally caught up with me, but I feel raw. Ravaged.

“We were supposed to be here a long time ago,” I manage to bite out. Will’s eyes return to mine, which sting with tears I refuse to shed. “You could have seen all this before last summer.”

“I know.”

We watch each other, and I hold my mug with two hands to keep it from shaking.

“Why didn’t you?”

He looks away, jaw clenched.

“Did you forget?” I ask. It’s not the first time I’ve wondered if I became a distant memory as soon as Will left me.

He lifts his eyes to mine again. “I didn’t forget, Fern.” My name sounds rough on Will’s tongue. When he speaks again, his voice is low and ragged, its corporate sheen abandoned. “You wouldn’t have liked who I was back then anyway.”

I blink in surprise. Whatever I thought he’d say, that wasn’t it.

Will’s gaze is dark with an unspoken apology and I’m about to ask him more when my phone buzzes. Jamie’s name lights the screen, and I send him to voicemail, but not before Will sees.

Our eyes meet. And then Will’s up and out of his seat, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve taken up enough of your Sunday,” he says, the formal tone slammed back into place.

He sets off down the stairs before I have a chance to reply, to ask him one of the many questions swimming through my mind.

You wouldn’t have liked who I was back then.

But then Will turns around and says, “I would like to help. Think about it. You know where to find me if you need me.”

I watch him walk toward his cabin, hoping I don’t need him at all.