The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [43]
“Want some iced tea?”
“I’d love some, thanks,” I said.
Avery moved as deftly in the narrow galley as she did in her restaurant. She piled up all the papers on the table and placed tall glasses of tea, with sprigs of fresh mint, on two bright yellow coasters she pulled from a drawer. I had to smile: never in a million years would it have crossed Blake’s mind to buy coasters. “Those are some sketches your mom did,” she said as she sat down. “They’re plans for organic vegetable gardens, actually. That’s my dream someday—to have organic gardens to supply the restaurant. I hate paying to ship all that stuff, using all that energy just to move produce around. She drew these up for me for my birthday last month. It was really nice of her.”
I sipped my tea: cold, faintly raspberry. I remembered Avery from high school as quiet, so shy she’d hardly spoken the few times we’d met before. But that was years ago, before she’d gone away to school, before she and Blake had ended their romance and started it again several times. She seemed so different now, confident and sure of what she wanted. She was at least two years younger than I, and yet she already had her own business and a baby on the way. I felt a pang of unexpected envy. Envy, and the feeling I’d had so often in Japan that despite my wild adventures, I’d really been circling around the same still point for years.
“I think you’re brave,” I said.
“What? Dating Blake?”
“Well, that, of course.” I laughed. “No—taking all this on, I mean.”
“I’m nuts, actually.” She laughed, too, relaxing back on the cushions. “Really nuts, I sometimes think. It’s exciting, sure, but there’s so much pressure. And it never ends. Still, I love working with food. I love it when the place is full and I look out and see everyone happy, eating healthy things.”
“My meal was so good.”
She grew serious. “Thanks, but it could have been better. If I had everything fresh, it would have been tons better. Your artichokes were canned, I don’t like that. We were hoping—Blake and I were hoping—that maybe we could get some acreage when the depot land is sold. Or else down the road, when your mother sells her place.”
I caught my breath a little to hear how far my mother’s plans had traveled, trying to sort out my complex feelings before I spoke. Loss, of course, and anger that I hadn’t known, and the feeling that I’d been left out, which wasn’t fair; I’d been gone for years, after all. Avery didn’t notice and went on speaking.
“Not the lake lots, of course. Too pricey. But that land is black earth, as rich as Iowa soil, and it used to all be farms, before all the bunkers and airstrips. There’s a black walnut tree just inside the depot gates—my great-grandfather planted that tree decades ago when that part of the land belonged to him. I’d like to get it back.”
There was wistfulness in her voice, and hard determination, too, and I thought about the day I’d arrived—was it only two days ago?—Pete leaning into the truck and saying, You sure you don’t have a dog in this fight, Blake?
“Were you at the rally?” I asked.
She shook her head and gave a short laugh. “It seems I’m only ever at the restaurant anymore. But I heard about it—people came in for lunch after it was over. Were you?”
“I saw it, that’s all. Driving by with Blake the day I arrived.” The boat swayed gently with a wave; one of my mother’s drawings slipped from the table and I leaned over to pick it up. “So many people were there.”
“So many—it’s true. It’s a huge controversy. The wetlands people may be getting together with the white deer people, though. They had lunch together, anyway—eggplant soufflés and white wine.”
I thought of the deer emerging from the trees and moving like clouds against the sea of tall grass. My father used to tell us stories about them, growing up, and sometimes we’d go out in the evenings to search for them, driving slowly on the gravel roads around the depot. People came to school with stories of having glimpsed one standing in the road or disappearing into the trees, but that was rare, and in all our searching, we