Serpentine (3 page)

PART TWO

SUMMERTIME

BLUES

THREE

When he caught his first glimpse of the lake, Joe was unimpressed.

He watched it roll by from his seat in the back of his dad’s car as they crossed a bridge. The bridge carried them high over the water and while the bridge itself was sort of cool, Joe was not at all moved by the sparkling sunlit landscape. There were a few fishing boats scattered here and there, casting tiny silver glints of sunlight across the water. A single speedboat blazed by with a skier connected to the back. On the tiny speck of shoreline he could see, three boys splashed about in the water.

Everywhere else, though, there were trees, trees, and more trees. They surrounded the lake like some weird barrier and, as far as Joe was concerned, made the lake seem boring.

A muddy lake, and trees. That was it.

Ahead and behind, there was only the rural town of Clarkton. There were boat shops, tractor supply stores, bait and tackle shops, fast-food restaurants, and convenience stores. They were spread out as if each building gave off its own vibe, the brick of each business too scared of the next to get too close. Joe had heard his dad talk about this little town repeatedly over the last month or so as he had tried to get his family excited about their trip…but when it came to Joe, it had fallen on deaf ears.

Beside him, his sister looked out at it all with a wide-eyed fascination. But she was only eight years old. She still thought One Direction was good music and thought there was a fat dude in a red suit that came to see her every Christmas. It didn’t take much to fascinate her.

Joe rolled his eyes, still looking out to the rural scene. The sun sat fat and hot in the sky, doing little to enhance the scene. Clarkton Lake looked like any other lake he had ever seen. And that was being generous.

His parents sat in the front, his mother craning her neck to get a better look at a boat that was speeding across the water about one hundred feet below. A slight smile touched her lips.

“It’s cute,” she said without much enthusiasm.

“Yeah, it’s not too bad,” his dad said.

This irritated Joe to no end. His dad was usually a pretty straight-laced guy as far as dads went. To see him so desperately trying to make himself like this place was sort of sad. Drew Evans was not the type of person to fake something just to make someone else happy. As his fourteen-year-old son, Joe knew this all too well.

As for his mom…well, Joe knew that she was going to agree with just about anything her husband said while in front of the kids. In his fourteen years under their roof, Joe had pieced that together. But he knew they argued; they just waited until they thought the kids were asleep.

And now here they were, Drew and Amy Evans, a united front trying to sell their children on their family vacation for the summer. Meanwhile, Joe was sitting in the back with his dud of a sister, trying to figure out why his life sucked so much.

He’d had enough. He knew it would probably cause some drama if he opened his mouth, but he was fine with that. It would finally add some flair to what had, so far, been a boring twelve-hour drive from New York.

“Whatever,” Joe said. “It looks like a big mud hole.”

Joe had never been one to soften his words. His dad had told him that he’d grow out of his smart mouth and that it was something most males suffered from until the age of twenty-five or so.

Beside Joe, his sister made a dramatic show of disgust, shaking her head. “No way,” Mackenzie Evans—“Mac” to her friends and family—said. “I think it’s cool. Daddy, are you gonna teach me to ski?”

“We’ll see, honey,” Drew said.

Even Joe knew that their dad had no intentions at all of teaching Mac to ski. She was only eight years old and the thought of getting her out onto the water terrified both of his parents; he could tell by simply looking at their faces every time the topic had been mentioned over the last two weeks or so. Besides, their dad had only driven a boat once before and that had not gone well. Joe knew that this was one of those conversations his folks would have behind closed doors when they thought he and Mac were asleep.

“You can barely ride your new bike,” Joe said. “How do you expect to ski?”

“I ride my bike just fine!”

“Yeah, for a crash test dummy.”

“Hey,” Drew said, peering in the back at them. “Cut it out. Let’s not start our vacation like this, okay?”

“This isn’t a vacation,” Joe said. “This is like a two-month family rehab.”

“You’re right,” Amy said sarcastically. “Maybe A&E will contact us about doing a show.”

Joe knew that when his mom started using sarcasm as a defense, it was best to shut up. He puffed out his chest, folded his arms, and looked out of the window again.

Joe saw his dad give him a chagrined look in the rear view before turning his attention back to the lake. Only now, the lake was being hidden by more trees as Drew brought the car to the end of the bridge and came to a stop sign. Joe peered ahead and saw that the trees only grew thicker and thicker.

It was unsettling to know that this was where he’d spend the next two months of his life. Yet hidden behind his angst-laden teenage exterior, he knew that this vacation was sort of necessary for his family. He knew that his dad had ultimately rented a lake cabin in Clarkton for a low-profile vacation that would hopefully help bring their family closer together. With the turmoil and in-fighting they’d been working through in the last few months, it was certainly needed.

But if his first impression of Clarkton Lake was any indication, Joe didn’t know it was going to work. More than that, he had a feeling that it was going to be the sort of environment that was going to set his parents off. Isolated and out in the middle of nowhere, Joe didn’t see how they were going to make it out alive. He knew that they had been bickering lot lately but, of course, he hadn’t let them know that he was on to them.

Still looking out of the window, Joe watched his dad pull out the sheet of paper that his agent had given him just before they had left town. Joe had read it a few times himself during the long drive down here. He’d read it over and over again, trying to envision where directions like the ones his dad was following might lead them.

Joe recited them in his head as his dad read them from the driver’s seat.
At stop sign, turn left. Look for dirt road on right two miles ahead. Turn.

Drew came to the stop sign in question and took a left. For a moment, the lake was completely blocked from their view by a copse of trees. As drove down the thin, unmarked road for two miles, Joe noticed the forest growing thicker all around them.

Joe suddenly found it very easy to imagine a series of rough dirt roads winding through the trees and leading to only God knew where. His mind conjured up serial killer scenarios or maybe a horror movie type thing where rednecks and inbred country folks would assault them with machetes and pitchforks.

As the trees grew thicker and the road became darkened by their shadows, the entire Evans family went silent. Joe didn’t know if it was because they were instantly uncomfortable with their surroundings or if it was the calm before the storm, a warning of an impending argument.

Never one to handle silence well, Joe responded to it in the only way he knew.

“This stinks. My iPhone doesn’t even have any service out here,” he said, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Look…I have two bars. Now one. Nope, now two again…and back to one.”

“My God,” Drew said. “How will Facebook ever operate without the insights of a fourteen year old to keep it lively?”

“I
would
like to call some of my friends this summer, you know,” Joe said.

“I know,” Drew said. “Look, we’ll get it figured out. Let’s just give it a chance before you get upset.”

Joe frowned but he was secretly hopeful. There was something in his dad’s voice that indicated that he wasn’t a huge fan of this vacation so far, either.

It had all sprung out of Joe discovering that his parents had been discussing a divorce. He’d overheard a heated conversation one night while sitting halfway down the stairs (something he did to sneakily watch
Game of Thrones
since his parents wouldn’t let him watch it) and had not taken it well. He’d started acting out in school, doing incredibly stupid things like spray-painting a penis in the girl’s locker room and being intentionally rude to his teachers.

Joe had gone so far as to tell Mackenzie what may potentially be happening to their parents but she had ignored him. She had responded by informing Joe that their parents were like the princes and princesses in Disney movies and that divorce was an ugly and stupid thing.

Joe found her attitude towards this both naïve and irritating. It was one of the many reasons he thought his little sister might have a legitimate mental condition.

The dirt road that had been called out in the directions—Kerr Lane—appeared as if by magic to the right. When Drew turned onto it, the car bucked a bit. Joe watched as his sister peered out to it all like a girl that had been sucked into a fairytale. All she had ever seen were the crowded streets and buildings of Manhattan (with the exception of their Disney vacation two years ago), so Drew was sure that driving down a dirt road must be surreal to her. Joe had seen similar wooded area during camp for the last two years, so he wasn’t all that impressed.

Well, maybe not
entirely
impressed. While he’d never let either of his parents know his real thoughts, there
was
something sort of cool and ominous about the overhanging branches scraping at the roof of the car and how the woods seemed to go on forever.

Maybe this is going to turn out alright, after all,
Joe thought.

Immediately after that thought, the car struck a small rut and he let out a surprised shout. His mom laughed at him but he saw that she was sitting rigid in her seat. She looked like she was strapped into a roller coaster rather than the same car the Evans family had owned for the last six years.

Finally, after what felt like forever, Joe saw the house for the first time. The boyhood wonder in him loved it at once, but the anger-ridden teen hated it. It was marked by a simple wooden plank that was bolted into a pine tree, boasting a simple painted 31 to mark the address. His view cleared a bit when his dad pulled the car into the thin driveway. There was no gravel on the driveway—just dirt and fallen pine needles. Joe studied the house with a skeptical eye, trying to imagine himself living here for eight weeks.

From the passenger seat, Amy Evans mother responded predictably. “Isn’t it charming?” she asked in a sugar-coated way that made Joe wonder if she was being genuine or making some underhanded jab at her husband.

“What is this?” Joe said. “Some painting in an old woman’s house?”

“Zip it,” Drew said, killing the engine.

Slowly, the Evans family unloaded from the car. Mac wasted no time in running around the shaded yard, kicking up dust and pine needles. Meanwhile, Joe leaned defiantly against the side of the car, scrolling with this thumb on his iPhone. He could feel his dad’s eyes on him but was pretty sure the old man wouldn’t say anything to him. Joe knew his dad did not want to start an argument so soon after getting here. And he was right—his dad took his mom by the hand and they walked to the house, ignoring his defiance completely.

With his parents turned away from him, Joe took a chance to check the place out. The house was actually very quaint but he still stood by his original thought; given the wooded lot and the cabin-like appearance of the house, it
did
look like something from a painting in an old woman’s house or a dentist’s office. Looking at it, Joe felt like he was actually standing in a painting. It didn’t seem real to him. He was used to the business of New York City, the buildings and the foot traffic, the honking and the chatter.

This was like another world. There was a crispness to this place, a rich earthy smell that he had never experienced before. There was a trace of grilling meat in the air, wafting on the slight summer breeze from one of the other summer homes along the road.

It’s not so bad,
Joe thought.
But I bet it’ll get boring really fast.

He sighed and watched his parents heading for the porch. Joe wondered how long he’d be able to get away with being a smart-ass. He’d seen his dad go from chill to berserk in a few seconds but Joe didn’t think he’d do such a thing on vacation…would he?

“When will the truck get here?” Mac asked, coming alongside her parents and taking her mother’s free hand. “I want my toys!”

“In about two hours,” Drew said.

“So that gives us plenty of time to check the place out,” Amy said, leading Mac towards the house.

As they neared the front porch—complete with a porch swing that looked like it might collapse if a fly landed on it—Mac gasped. She clapped her hands together and started cheering. Joe was curious as to what had made her so happy, but then she pointed towards the back of the house and he saw it.

To the right of the house, snaking out from the back porch, was a thin dirt track bordered by stones. It wound down a slight hill where it then disappeared. Beyond this drop in the ground, Joe saw the lake glimmering through the trees. A small floating dock sat at the edge of the property on a tiny crescent of beach.