The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [54]
By the time I started back to the patio, people had begun to drift away. From a distance it was such a happy scene: candles glowed, and the tables were strewn with paper plates and crumpled napkins. Georgia bustled around picking up before she left, too; Austen took Zoe home to study for a final exam. I lingered in the wild remains of my mother’s moon garden, where a few roses straggled out of the greenery, fragrant and pale. A few moonflowers, too; the sprawling lavender released its piney scent when I passed it. I was thinking of my father and our last conversation here, when the garden was still orderly in its wildness, wondering what he would have made of this party, this night, the direction my life had taken. Stilled by sadness, I paused amid the fragrant ruins. The group dwindled until it was only Art and Joey, along with my mother, Blake, and Avery, gathered on the patio around the fire pit, where the embers still glowed. The conversation meandered. Blake had discovered a photo of the founding of Dream Master in an old filing cabinet at the store, our great-grandfather digging a shovel into the earth by the outlet in a groundbreaking ceremony, and they talked about that for a while, passing the photo around. My mother excused herself and went inside, the screen door slapping shut behind her. The answering machine beeped and voices murmured faintly as she paused in the dark house to listen to her messages. I thought of Andy’s voice, and imagined her smiling to hear it. On the patio, the conversation stalled. Then Art raised his glass and made a toast.
“To the new venture,” he said. “To The Landing.”
I’d been about to join them, now that I’d composed myself, but I paused at his words, watching as Joey and Blake and Avery raised their glasses and clinked them together. I thought of the rolled papers between Art and Joey on the table at The Green Bean, and the easel full of drawings for their development in the corner of Art’s office. Plans, I’d imagined, plans in their early stages, but this sounded like more, and I waited.
“Isn’t it too early to celebrate?” Blake asked, sounding a little self-conscious and ingratiating; I felt a surge of anger that he was trying so hard to be a part of this. “Plenty of things could still fall through.”
“No, now that we’ve got the initial land and the financing is set up, it’s just a matter of time,” Art said. “Of course, we’ll have to navigate the obstacle course of those injunctions, but they’ll never hold. As for stage two, I feel quite sure your mother will want to sell eventually, Blake. We’ve had several conversations.”
“Really? I’m not so sure,” Avery said. “Not about Blake’s mom, but the rest.” She repeated the story she’d told me on the boat about the various conservation groups meeting over lunch. “There’s that meeting tomorrow. And Keegan Fall has been really active doing grassroots work.”
Blake made a dismissive sound. “No one wants the land to go back to the Iroquois,” he said. “That’s a political dead end. His business may be thriving, but he doesn’t have a lot of clout.”
“New businesses come and go in this town,” Joey noted from his place deep in the low chair. “We’ll see if Keegan Fall has what it takes.”
“He’s doing himself no favors,” Art noted. “Lining up with the tree huggers and the land grab. He’s going to end up on the wrong side of history if he doesn’t watch out. People here have long memories.”
“He’s already on the wrong side of history,” Joey observed, taking a long drink from his beer. “He’s just choosing to stay there.”
Stung, I touched the lavender again, its fresh scent rising. Keegan was a year older than I was but ended up in my grade because his mother took him away and traveled for a year. When Keegan came back to fifth grade the next fall, thinner, his jeans a bit too short, he sat by himself near the window. He got teased on the playground, mostly by my cousin Joey, who was tall and strong but lacked kindness. He