The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [53]
“He said he’d try to make it. He asked if you’d be here,” she added. “I think he was really glad to see you.”
I nodded, trying not to reveal the charge I’d felt, knowing he might stop by. Not on his motorcycle, I reminded myself, and maybe with Max, but that only made the idea more attractive. “Keegan’s changed a lot,” I said. “He’s so calm, and so accomplished.”
“He probably says the same about you.”
Someone I didn’t know touched my mother’s arm before I could reply and she turned to her guests. Talk and laughter floated. I poured drinks and offered Avery’s delicate spinach and goat cheese appetizers. Art arrived with Joey, his voice a notch deeper and louder than the other voices, so I always seemed to know where he was—in the kitchen, greeting my mother on the patio, putting an arm around Lawson, Georgia’s husband, who’d come here straight from work, his shiny shoes looking odd against the grass. Joey got a beer and stood by the shore with Blake, talking quietly, while Zoe, with the mercurial moodiness of teenagers, planted herself in the hammock with a book, looking up now and then to gaze at the water. I couldn’t tell if she wanted to be left alone or simply to look like a tragic nineteenth-century heroine to the audience of assembled guests.
“Oh, don’t give her the satisfaction,” her mother said when I asked if she thought Zoe might like some company. Auburn-haired and very thin, Austen had started selling real estate in recent years, and looked glossy to me, burnished. She waved her drink in exasperation at Zoe’s moody presence. “She’s driving me absolutely crazy these days. I suppose that’s her job, right, at this age? But everything’s such high drama. From the way she storms around the house you’d think we locked her in a cupboard every night. We ruin her life. She has nothing that her friends have. Et cetera. Lucy, if you ever want a visitor over there in Japan, I’d be happy to send her to you for a few weeks. Oh, well,” she added when I didn’t respond, taking a long swallow of wine. “I lived through Joey, who was no saint, so I suppose I’ll live through this, too.”
I glanced at Joey, remembering our high school days, his careless disregard, his clothes hanging from the branches where I’d thrown them.
We ate, and opened more wine, and the evening deepened into twilight, stars emerging. As darkness fell, the moon, nearly full, rose over the horizon. I thought of Rose, the beautiful border of pale interwoven spheres in the blanket and the windows. Avery started bringing out slices of cake, and my mother put bowls of whipped cream and strawberries on the glass-topped table. I stepped into the shadows, watching the party as if it were taking place on a stage, feeling a strange sense of distance, knowing that this sort of gathering happened all the time and would carry on once I was gone again, as well. I slipped my phone from my pocket to check the time. Almost ten already. If Keegan hadn’t come by now, he probably wouldn’t; he, too, was in the midst of a life that had gone on quite well without me. I walked down to the dock and kicked off my shoes, sitting on the end with my feet dangling in the water, and dialed Yoshi. He picked up on the second ring, the pulse and murmur of his office in the background.
“Hey there,” I said.
“Ah, Lucy.”
“I’m at a party,” I told him, lying back on the dock. “I’m looking at a sky full of stars. It’s the longest night of the year, you know.”
“Not here, unfortunately.” His voice was soft. “Look, I can’t talk right now. Can you Skype this evening? That would be what—tomorrow morning your time?”
“Sure. Is everything okay?”
He sighed. “Yes. Yes and no. The trip to Indonesia is getting complicated, that’s all. I can’t really talk about it now. You okay?”
“It’s a beautiful night,” I told him, searching for the Big Dipper. In Indonesia we’d had a screened balcony off our bedroom where we used to sleep on the hottest nights, under these same stars. “I miss you.”
“Believe me, I wish I was there.”
“Soon.”
“Yes, soon.”
He was gone then. I closed the phone but didn