Until I heard a woman's voice downstairs.
My bedroom door was open a crack, and I listened intently, not moving a muscle. I knew one of them was Dad, so I relaxed, lazily stretched my arms over my head and slid out of my plush covers. What was I wearing? Soccer shorts and a black tank top. Presentable enough. I glanced at the clock as I pulled on a sweatshirt. It was only 9AM. Who was over this early?
I carefully stepped down the hallway, hoping to avoid as many creaky floorboards as I could. I stopped at the stairwell.
"How could you not have told me she was moving back here?" came a female voice. At first, I had been hopeful that the female voice might have belonged to Celine. I knew now that it wasn't.
"What did you expect from me, Meg? A telegram? I'm sorry. Tell me what I should have done." Dad sounded awfully defensive. I thought on turning back and going to my room.
"You were thoughtful enough to tell Celine. She's already met Lana. Rick, how could you tell her before me? You can’t let her be the only one to get through to her. It's not fair."
"Lana met her at the store!" Dad roared. "Furthermore, she absolutely will not be brought into the middle of this mess."
That was it. I thumped noisily down the stairs, giving them a chance to change the subject. Dad and Meg were standing behind the couch in the living room. I tried to act casual, bounding down the stairs with a false confidence.
"Hi," I exclaimed, trying to act surprised.
"You’re up," Dad said shortly, looking harshly at Meg. "Sorry if we woke you." I wasn’t even listening to him. Meg was standing there looking at me with the same blank expression that I felt on my face.
I noticed right away that she could look me right in the eyes. She's tall, I thought. Her medium tan complexion, and soft green eyes gave her away. She must be Becca's daughter.
"Lana, this is Meg Whitfield. She’s a good friend of mine," said Dad, affirming my suspicions.
"Hello," Meg said in a much friendlier voice than before.
"Hi Meg," I said with false enthusiasm. Another Whitfield. Hope this went better than the last night's ordeal.
"I’m so happy to finally meet you. Your father talks about you all the time," she said very slowly.
"It’s nice to meet you too," I said, shooting Dad a questioning look. Why hadn't he ever mentioned these people before? I hated looking like an idiot, like I had never heard of these people before. The least he could have done was brief me. "Dad doesn't really fill me in on the details of town, so I'm sorry. I don't really know anyone yet."
"I understand your frustration there. Your dad does tend to avoid details," she looked crossly at him. "But hopefully you will make some friends soon. In fact, the reason I came by this morning was to invite you both to dinner at the Inn." She must have caught my horrified expression. "Sometime in the next few weeks," she added quickly.
"We can do that," Dad mumbled, in a dreading tone.
"Good," she said to him. She turned back to me, "I'm happy you have met Celine already. And I'm sorry if you heard us arguing a minute ago. I'm just scared for what she has told you. My adopted sister's judgment has not always put her real family first."
I disliked Meg from then on. "I see," I said, folding my arms. "But isn't that a contradiction? An adopted family is not a real family, at least by your definition. Certainly not more real than a husband and children."
Dad rocked back on his heels, either from embarrassment or pleasure, I couldn't tell. Meg smiled. Not the reaction I had anticipated.
"I’m sorry," she said suddenly. "I shouldn't have brought that up."
I nodded in agreement.
"Dinner? Was this your idea, or Sully and Becca?" Dad interrupted.
"They told me they saw you two at dinner last night," she said.
"I’m sure they did. They didn’t do a very good job of hiding their surprise at seeing Lana either."
"It would make us all very happy to see you both at dinner, Ricky. Is that an answer enough for you?"
"Right," said Dad, suddenly sounding awkward. He gestured for Meg to take a seat on the couch, the argument now over.
I excused myself while they sorted out details. Back up in my room, I made my bed and then decided to forgo showering and instead dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, and went outside to load our yellow kayak into the back of my truck. I left the tailgate down, the end of the boat sticking out into the air. I yelled to Dad that I would be back in a few hours and, holding the handle of the kayak with one hand, I slowly steered the truck down to the boat launch. I had done this before. I had to keep a careful hold of the kayak while I backed down the ramp to keep it from sliding out and ending up in the water, out of reach. The winding ramp did not make this easy.
Somehow it all went smoother in my head. For one split second I let go of the handle to turn the wheel with both hands. Stupidly, at the same time I had stepped on the brake, jerking the car forwards and then back.
Too hard.
And there it went.
Faster than I could react, it slid out of my desperate reach, first slamming onto the concrete ramp and then torpedoing into the water. There was nothing I could do but watch it float away, mockingly bobbing up and down in the dark water.
"Son of a bitch!" I cursed, putting the truck in park and stomping the parking brake on.
The sun was perfectly blocking my view and I stood, swearing under my breath as I struggled to see. It would eventually be a warm day, but there was still a chill in the morning air – the water would be freezing no matter what. Even in the middle of August, the water was barely tolerable. Lake water was something people could handle around here, but only on the hottest of hot days could one swim in the Sound for more than two minutes without getting painfully cold.
I had no choice. I had to get the boat – Dad would kill me if I let it drift out into the shipping canal where it would inevitably be run over by a tanker or cruise liner. It was moving away from me, farther and farther with every passing second. The longer I stood and thought about it, the farther I would have to go. Cursing again, I stripped off my sweatshirt and slid out of my flip flops.
"You have got to be out of your mind." The voice came out of nowhere and it scared me out of my wits.
"And what else do you recommend?" I snarled to Cole as he strode down the ramp.
"I can bring my boat down from Salisbury Point. I’ll drag it in for you," he said trying to stifle laughter.
"I can’t wait for you to do that – it’ll be long gone by the time you get back here."
"You’ll catch hypothermia out there, you nut!" he yelled as I waded into the frigid water.
I held my breath and submerged myself. Better to get through the tough part quick. The water was so cold I had to fight back the urge to panic. Manually focusing on taking long regular breaths was all I could do to keep myself from hyperventilating. The water stabbed into my skin like thousands of little pins and it took ten or so painful seconds to even reach the stupid kayak.
Thankfully, I started to go numb as I dragged it back to shore. When I could stand, I did, taking tentative, inelegant steps across the clunky rock bottom. The air was freezing and I could feel the breeze sucking the remaining heat from my body in vicious gusts.
Cole had waded in up to his thighs, and grabbed my arm when he could, to steady my trembling body. I let him open my frozen hand and take the tow rope from me. With one swift movement, he had the kayak over his shoulder, and gracefully maneuvered it, still dripping wet, into the tailgate of the Bronco.
"You get crazier every time I see you," he said, tossing my sweatshirt back to me. "You gonna make it?"
I managed to crack a smile through my chattering teeth. I made for the driver’s door, but he protested, blocking my path with his arm.
"I don’t think so," he said, pushing me around the tailgate to the passenger’s side.
"It’s MY car!" I said through a quivering jaw.
"Look at you! You can’t stop shaking," He laughed, still pushing me to the door. "Just don’t argue for once and get in."
"Fine."
"You’re welcome."
"Thank you," I grumbled again. This would be the second time I came home with Cole, and I was in no mood for questions from Dad. He had his own explaining to do.
"What were you doing out here?" I asked after a minute of silence. I hadn’t seen his car anywhere.
He scoffed. "Can’t a guy go for a walk these days?"
"It just seems oddly coincidental that we ended up at the same place at the same time."
"Good timing I guess," he said. "But next time I'll keep walking."
"Good timing for what? To see me making a fool out of myself for the second time?"
"What is Meg doing here?" Cole interrupted as we rounded the corner near the house.
"I guess she is still here. I forgot," I said, looking at him to read his expression. "Are we about to open a can of worms here?"
"A bucket of worms is more like it."
Sure enough, we pulled into the driveway to find Meg and Dad coming out of the front door. They stood there, laughing and looking at each other without a hint of the distaste I had detected from earlier.
It was short lived. Her smile vanished instantly as she saw who was driving my truck. Her mouth turned into a stern frown as she left Rick and walked up to us.
"What happened? Are you okay Lana?" Pardon me, but wasn’t this Dad’s job?
I guess not, he was standing on the porch laughing. "What happened kiddo? You capsize?" he chuckled.
"I‘m fine, thank you," I said briskly to Meg. "And no," I said to Dad. I walked to the door, leaving my truck open, Cole, still holding my keys.
I went straight upstairs and into the shower. I didn’t give a crap what I looked like – my concern was getting warm, and that seemed impossible, given how cold to the bone I was.
When I came down the stairs again I looked as much like a drowned rat as I did going up the stairs. But at least I was warm – I should be, I was in sweats and slippers. I had fully intended on spending the rest of the day on the couch buried in blankets.
That intention was short-lived.
I was mortified to see Cole sitting on the couch with my dad, a beer sitting in front of him, the game blaring on TV. At least Meg had gone. I turned to run back up the stairs.
"You hanging in there, kid?" Dad asked after a pop fly ended the inning on TV.
"I’m fine," I said bitterly, falling into the couch across from Cole. He stared at me. I could see his eyes moving to each part of my face before he made eye contact again.
"What?" I asked, a little too rudely.
"What’s with the attitude, Miss?" Dad said, setting his beer can back on the coaster. I scoffed at him. Dad raised his eyebrows at me like he would have started a lecture on respect if we didn’t have company.
Cole had completely disregarded my rudeness. He leaned forward on the couch and rested his forearms on his knees, his hands folded. "Next time you decide to kayak, stick to the lake."
I let out a sharp breath through my nose, but couldn’t help the grin spreading across my face. Dad saw me try to hide the smile and started to laugh, hysterically actually. Cole raised his eyebrows at me and smiled, all the familiar callousness gone from his face.
Ugh, I was so embarrassed! I half laughed, half groaned, and pulled my hood up over my head, pulling at the drawstrings, closing it around my face. I shrank back into the couch and curled up.
"I hate the both of you," I said, my voice muffled through the fabric.
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