The Secrets of Lake Road

“Doesn’t count,” Ned said when Caroline climbed the ladder and stepped back onto the pier. “You have to do it from the high dive.”


Caroline made a face at him. Ned resumed flapping his arms like a chicken. A little girl poked her head out from behind him. She was maybe six or seven years old, with blond braids and bright blue eyes. Her bathing suit was yellow with pink polka dots. She must be new to the lake. Caroline had never seen her before.

“Hi,” Caroline said, pushing Ned out of the way. “Is this your first summer here?”

The little girl smiled and nodded.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Sara,” she said.

“I’m Caroline.” She pointed to Megan, who hadn’t moved from sunning herself. “That’s my friend Megan. And the boys, well…” The boys had stopped teasing one another, and they jumped off the pier, splashing around in the lower end of the lake. “Don’t listen to them. They’re not very smart.”

Sara’s eyes widened. “Why not?”

“Because they’re not. They were just being stupid.”

Sara twisted her mouth to one side as though she was considering what Caroline was telling her.

A woman wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat was standing on the beach waving her arms at them. Caroline waved back. “Is that your mom?”

The little girl nodded.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Sara’s mother called.

“Okay,” Caroline called back.

“What are they up to now?” Megan interrupted, pointing to Adam and the twins. Adam was holding something in his hand. The twins were hunched over him, looking at whatever he had found.

Megan stood. “I’m going to find out what it is.”

Caroline hesitated, wanting to follow her. But Sara’s mother had turned her back, and Caroline couldn’t just walk away from the little girl.

“So,” Caroline said, looking over her shoulder at her friends. The circle they made around Adam tightened while she tried to think of something to say to Sara. “Do you like to swim?”

Sara smiled and nodded again.

“Me too.” Caroline looked toward the beach, where Sara’s mother was struggling with a beach umbrella. “Did you feed the ducks yet?”

“No,” Sara said.

Caroline used to love feeding the ducks when she was Sara’s age, although she couldn’t remember the reason why she had thought it was so fun. “Ask your mom if you can feed them.” She glanced at her friends again. The twins were holding whatever Adam had found, and Adam looked upset. “The ducks like it when you do,” she said absently, wondering what the twins were teasing Adam about this time.

Megan motioned to Caroline. “Come here!” she called.

But Sara’s mother still had her back turned as she continued to fight with the beach umbrella. Caroline glanced at her friends again. Adam’s face was flushed.

“Did you ever touch bottom?” Sara asked.

“What? No,” Caroline said. “Never.”

Megan continued waving her over. Caroline shifted her weight from her right foot to her left, gazing at her friends. Sara stared at the diving boards.

Finally Caroline couldn’t stand it any longer. She had to know what her friends were up to. Sara’s mother had said she would only be a minute. She reasoned Sara wouldn’t be left alone for long. She bent down so she was at eye level with the little girl. “Wait for your mom, okay?”

Sara nodded.

“Okay,” she said, and in the next moment she was racing down the pier. “And remember,” she called, “the boys were just being stupid!”





CHAPTER TWO

Jo fooled herself into thinking she didn’t know the reason she had hopped into the old Chevy and sped down the dirt road away from the cabin. She rolled down the window. A warm breeze blew her long hair from her shoulders. “Three Times a Lady” by the Commodores crackled on the radio. You couldn’t get a decent radio station within twenty miles of the lake. With the Pocono Mountains surrounding you on every side, reception was scant, and the outside world as distant as outer space.

She was stuck in a time warp, and the year was 1978, when the lake was at its finest if you listened to the old-timers tell it. Vacationers were attracted to the sense of familiarity, simplicity, sameness. It was the lake’s charm and the reason you came back year after year. The place and the people and their desire to cling to the good old days were what pissed Jo off. There wasn’t anything good about the good old days, at least none that she could remember.

Still, the song wasn’t bad, and for awhile she sang along as she drove around the colony and fought the urge to turn onto the highway and leave the blasted lake and everything that came with it behind.