1 · Lucy
This can only get easier.
It’s my first day at the resort, at the summer job I didn’t want but took because I couldn’t find a way to say no.
Emily pokes my arm. “Lucy?”
“Hmm?” I look down at the little girl. We sit on the sidewalk in front of her house, a bucket of colored chalk next to her. She holds a bright blue piece in one hand and shields her eyes from the sun with the other as she looks up at me.
“Can I have a drink?”
I tug on one of her blond pigtails. “Your water bottle is on the porch,” I say, and she hops up.
Emily turned five a few weeks ago. She’s a smart girl and knew a hundred words by the time she was two—I know because Trixie and I made a list. Emily is Trixie’s cousin. We used to babysit her together; now it’s only Emily and me.
It’s the Saturday of Mother’s Day weekend, fishing opener. A teaser—soon summer will arrive here in Halcyon Lake and hundreds of other small Minnesota resort towns like ours in the land of 11,842 lakes. School will end, and our sleepy little town will wake up, overrun with tourists.
Trixie’s aunt and uncle—Emily’s parents—own the Cabins at Apple Tree Lane. It’s been in their family for generations, just like my family’s restaurant. My job here is to take care of Emily and help out with housekeeping and light maintenance at the resort. I’ll pick up as many shifts as I can at the restaurant, too, to help out.
Busy is good.
“Lucy?” Emily has gotten her water bottle and set it on the sidewalk next to her colorful chalk drawings of misshapen butterflies. “Can we go swimming today?”
It’s spring, too early for swimming. And even though I grew up splashing around the lake in my backyard, fishing and water-skiing and tubing, I’ve never been much of a swimmer. Even before.
Trixie was a champion swimmer, strong and fast, a fish streaking through the water.
“Ooh, too cold,” I say.
“Lucy?”
“Yes, Emily?”
“Tell me a Trixie.”
I smile. This has become one of our favorite activities, a way I can keep Trixie alive. The stories I tell Emily about her cousin have become a part of our routine.
“Once upon a time—” I start.
“There lived a happy little girl named Beatrix.”
“But everyone called her Trixie.”
“And she had a brother named Ben.”
“Right,” I say. “She had a brother named Ben.” My throat tightens a little at his name.
“Tell me the first one, the first Trixie.” Emily laughs, a dramatic ha-ha-ha with her hands on her stomach. She’s playing along. This is how the Trixies go. I only tell the happy Trixies.
“One day, when Trixie was five years old, she went to kindergarten—”
“And she met Lulu. Lulu! That’s you.”
I smile. That first day of school, I was so nervous, I threw up on Trixie’s shoes, but she wanted to be my friend anyway.
I wasn’t Lulu yet, not when we met. It was Trixie who first called me Lulu—then Ben and their parents. I felt special, unique, remarkable. So much more than boring Lucy. Even as we got older, when I was with the Porters, I was Lulu.
It was like I was a part of their family.
No one calls me Lulu now.
A car pulls into the driveway, a 1989 Formula 350 Firebird, black.
“Ben!” Emily squeals, and hops up again. “Ben’s here.”
Ben. Ben’s here. My heart sinks to my toes and rebounds back up to my throat.
I swallow, stand up, and brush my chalky hands together.
I can almost hear Trixie’s voice in my head: Be really brave, Lulu.
Her voice, vibrant and silvery, is fading.
Emily stands on the sidewalk to wait for Ben. She hops up and down, first on both feet, then alternating. She squeals again as he comes around the front of the car, tapping his knuckles twice against the gleaming hood, and crosses the driveway to her. I move closer to the porch, hoping to disappear into the whitewashed, morning-glory-covered lattice.
I love to spend time with this sweet, funny little girl who is now the age I was when I met her cousin, my very best friend in the world. There is always a nagging feeling that Ben will show up when I’m with her, though. The fear. The small hope.
“Ben!” Emily screams as he scoops her up in a hug. He is tall, with broad shoulders and lean, muscular arms. A swimmer, like his sister. When he lifts Emily above his head, his blue St. Croix Rod T-shirt hikes up, and I catch a glimpse of his smooth stomach above the waistline of his ratty cargo shorts. He’s already tan, his hair washed out to a light brown, curls sticking out the sides of his baseball cap.
“Hi, Miss Emily.”
Be really brave.
BRB—our code.
It’s what Trixie used to say when I needed an extra push—to climb the stairs of the tall slide in the school playground, to leap onto a balance beam, to climb the one hundred thirty steps to the top of the Fire Tower.
It was all worth it—the rush, the gymnastics medals and accolades, the view from the Fire Tower, my world stretched out before me, Halcyon Lake and miles of jack pines and all the places I loved.
Those things were easy compared to this.
You should tell Ben how you feel. It will be worth it.
He notices me, glances in my direction and away in half a second. My heart skips, and I let myself think he might smile at me like he used to, his deep brown eyes flashing.
“Oh, hey, Lucy,” he says, his voice dull and flat. “What are you doing here?”
Lucy. Not Lulu. Not anymore.
“Lucy’s my babysitter,” Emily says.
He drops her back down to the sidewalk. “Oh, yeah. I always forget.”
“No you don’t!” Emily cries. “Are you going fishing?”
“Yep. Where’s your dad?”
“Dunno.” Emily plops down and picks up her chalk to finish coloring in the bright blue wings of a butterfly.
“I gotta go. See you later, Emily.” Ben’s so good with her. She adores him.
I haven’t said one word. The pounding of my heart in my ears slows and melts a little. My wonderful Ben.
No, that’s not right. Ben is not mine. He is not wonderful, not anymore.
He walks around the other side of the garage to the path that leads to the resort and the lake. He doesn’t look at me again. He doesn’t say good-bye.
It wasn’t always like this, back when we were friends, back when I thought someday we might be more than friends. Before Trixie died. I miss him, I miss him as much as I miss Trixie. Sometimes I catch him looking at me, and I wonder if he misses me, too.
I slip my hand into the pocket of my jeans. It’s there—Ben’s agate, smooth, cool to the touch. I flip the agate again and again between my thumb and index finger.
I wish I could find a way to get Ben Porter out of my heart.