notes: Inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I don't have much time to write these days, but I've had this one sitting in my heart for a while now.
I was 17 when my parents got divorced. Dad's art dealing business had been dwindling for years, and in the summer before my senior year of high school, Mom told him to leave and find a new job. It was implied that he would get to return once he started making money again, but by the time he locked down a stable job the following spring, Mom was no longer interested.
Dad moved to downtown White Plains, and Mom and I moved into a townhome in Ossining, a strictly middle-class part of Westchester County. We turned our little home into a sorority house, scattering lipstick tubes across the kitchen counter and hanging bras on the doorknobs. We were happy.
On the day they separated, I drove over to my friend Alicia's house and sat on her bed for hours, puzzling through the big news.
"I just don't understand," Alicia said, her voice in genuine anguish. "Money was tight, sure, but your parents seemed so happy."
I frowned at her, wondering how she hadn't seen this coming the way I had. Then I shrugged and simply said, "You just never really know what's going on behind closed doors."
-x-
Claire and I were having one of our usual post-frat house brunches when she made me the offer.
"What's the status on your summer job?" she asked.
"I think Dad is emailing some of his old co-workers," I said.
Claire narrowed her eyes at me, and I affixed her with the patented Kristen Gregory Death Stare. Claire was my cousin; we'd grown up minutes apart in Rye. After sixth grade, the Lyonses moved down to Orlando, and my parents moved into a more affordable suburb of Westchester in an effort to make ends meet. We kept in close contact for the better part of six years, and we met in the middle at Vanderbilt, where we both pledged the same sorority and became little sisters to the same big.
"You waited too long," Claire said admonishingly.
"They don't really hand internships out to English majors," I sighed. "Besides, we've got another month left in the semester. Something could turn up."
"Yeah, a month left in the second semester of our junior year," Claire said. "Lucky for you, I found something."
"Unlike you, I can't go waltzing off to D.C. or some other fancy city—"
"It's in Kissimmee," Claire interrupted.
Throughout high school, the Lyonses had lived in Orlando and spent their summers in Kissimmee, sunning themselves on Lake Toho. Once Claire and Todd, her younger brother, had graduated from high school, Aunt Judi and Uncle Jay moved to the lake house for good.
"There's a bookstore down there that Todd and I used to work at in the summer," Claire said. "They're looking for some new summer help, and they want someone who can tweet and blog for them. I told them to hire you."
"But my mom—"
"Marcia thinks it's a great idea," Claire said. "And the shop owner should have contacted you by now. Check your email."
I tapped my phone screen and found two emails—one from my mother, stating how excited she was, and another from a woman named Valerie, asking me about my summer availability.
"What would I do without you?" I asked, shaking my head in amazement.
"Life would be a much duller place," Claire said with a grin. "You'll live with Mom and Dad at the lake house. You can drive my old car to work. Todd will be there all summer, too."
I scrolled through Valerie's email again. Social media for an independent bookstore. I couldn't think of anything more that I wanted to do with my life.
"Really, Claire," I said, my voice wavering. "Thank you."
Claire snorted. "Don't thank me just yet. Mom invited Todd's girlfriend to spend the summer there too."
-x-
Even though I knew Claire better than I knew myself, I'd never quite figured out Todd. Growing up, I'd always thought of him as a snot-nosed brat. Even at holidays, I'd hardly ever interacted with him—I'd always been too preoccupied with catching up with Claire, and we had more than enough boy cousins for him to go play with. I knew that he and Claire were closer than they let on, though. Todd and Claire could give each other a single look across the kids' table and burst out laughing, never letting the other cousins in on their endless secrets.
So it was with curiosity and a little hesitance that I landed in the Orlando airport in early June. Uncle Jay was there to greet me with a Bojangles bag in hand.
"I figured that it's been a while since you've had one of these," Jay said. I grabbed the bag out of his hand a little too eagerly.
"New Yorkers have little appreciation for fried chicken," I said. "I think I binge-ate chicken biscuits the entire last week I was down at Vanderbilt."
"Just wait till you try Whataburger," Jay chuckled. I grinned at him. I always missed the fast food when I had to go back up north—Tim Horton's donuts could only sustain me for so long.
"Sorry that you couldn't get a direct flight into Kissimmee," Jay said as we got into his Escalade. "We thought about sending our plane up to Westchester for you, but Judi told me not to be ridiculous."
I blinked at him, startled. Both in Westchester and at Vanderbilt, it was considered rude to flaunt your wealth. Every once in a while, though, indications of a parent's income trickled through. A Dior formal dress, an Instagram of a yacht, my own uncle offering to fly me on the Lyons family private plane so that we wouldn't have to suffer the forty-minute drive from Orlando to Kissimmee.
Our ride was easy, though. We quickly finished an order of Cajun fries from Bojangles and laughed in unison as we licked the seasoning off our fingers. I learned about Todd, who had finished his first year at University of South Carolina. He was aiming to get into the business school, but he was keen on minoring in film studies—apparently after watching The Usual Suspects at age 14, he developed a rabid love of cinema. I was surprised to hear that he had such an artsy interest; the last time I'd seen Todd, he'd burped in Claire's face before returning to some violent Xbox game.
We came to a stop in front of a quiet lake house I'd only ever seen in Facebook photos. Jay hadn't even turned off the car before a short Hispanic woman came bounding out of the front door. She opened Jay's car door as well as mine.
"Welcome! I'm Inez," the woman said in near-perfect English, eagerly shaking my hand.
"Inez helps us out around the house," Jay explained. "Feel free to ask her for anything."
"So nice to meet you," I said, feeling a little breathless.
"She'll be staying in the other guest room," Jay said. Inez nodded and began pulling my suitcases out of the trunk.
"I can get those," I offered, but Inez rolled away with my luggage before I could help.
What seemed modest from the front gave way to high ceilings and fine furniture on the inside. An island kitchen was being filled with food on my left while a Tiffany lamp gently lit the living room on my right. Above the stone fireplace was a vintage map of Lake Toho with a hand-scrawled star marking the location of the Lyons' house.
Lake Toho was huge; on paper, it seemed to take up as much room as Kissimmee itself. The Lyons family home rested on one of two peninsulas shaped like little fists, affectionately called Right Hook and Left Hook. The Lyonses lived on Right Hook, which was all mahogany and maids' quarters. Left Hook was for those seeking marble countertops and bedroom-sized closets.
"Majestic, isn't it?" Jay said. It took me a minute to realize he was referring to the view of the lake from his picture window, not the opulence of Hook families. I crossed the room and nearly pressed my nose to the sliding glass door.
"Truly," I replied. I couldn't wait to get in to the glittering waters.
"Judi and I are in the back," Jay explained, gesturing to his left. "So is Todd. We put his girlfriend up in the guest house—we're hoping to keep them a little separated this summer—and we've made up a room for you there too."
Jay slid open the back door and gently pushed me onto the porch.
"Todd's so excited that you're here," Jay said. "Go on, Judi will catch up with you later."
I rounded the corner of the main house and quietly opened the door to the guest house. A short hallway led me to a large main room with a pool table and the largest flatscreen television I'd ever seen. Two heads, one red, one brown, peeked out from above a pristine white couch. Through the windows I spied a lithe blonde laying out in the grass.
The redhead turned to me with a grin.
"Kristen Gregory," Todd drawled. "It's been too long."