The House on Sunset Lake (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

David Wyatt had taken a pragmatic approach to his daughter’s unemployment and a deal had been struck. He would support the idea of her making a documentary and would continue to pay her the allowance he had given her whilst she was at college. He had emphasised that it was only a temporary arrangement; in fact he had given her a deadline of the end of the summer, at which point Jennifer had to do something with her creative body of work: use it to find a job in the media, or submit it to film festivals to gauge whether it – and by implication, she – had any artistic merit.

The summer suddenly felt full of promise, and Jim Johnson had offered to help with the filming. It made sense to turn down Jeanne’s offer of a room in her apartment and instead Jennifer started seeing her Lake House neighbour every day. Once Connor had left Savannah for New York, Jennifer had felt a little guilty about seeing so much of her new friend, but two heads were better than one, and Jim had a lot of good ideas. Sometimes they made their creative brainstorms sociable; she’d had her first crack at a shooting script over ice cream and soda after they had been to see a matinee performance of
Forrest Gump
.

She’d started videoing her friends almost immediately after Connor had bought her the camera, and had been surprised how many people were keen to get involved, confirming Jim’s view that everybody liked the opportunity to talk about themselves.

Today she was at the Lake House with Jim, watching the tapes of everything she had filmed so far. It was a particularly hot and sticky afternoon, the sort of day when she loved to go sailing, but with the clock ticking, it made more sense to stay out of the sun and do some work.

Bryn Johnson came into the main house smoking a cigar. According to Jim, his father usually worked in the boathouse at the end of the pontoon, but he was clearly taking a break. He had grown a stubbly beard since the last time Jennifer had seen him and reminded her of Ernest Hemingway, which was almost certainly the look he was after.

‘Where’s your mother?’ he asked.

‘Gone swimming,’ said Jim from his reclined position on the floor, not even looking up from the television.

Bryn paused and watched what they were doing.

‘What’s this then?’ he said, pointing at the screen.

‘Jen’s documentary,’ replied Jim. There was a note of pride in his voice that made Jennifer feel more confident in front of his celebrated father.

Bryn perched on the end of the wicker sofa and blew a smoke ring as Jennifer resisted the urge to cough.

‘Elizabeth mentioned you’d been filming. Let’s have a look, then.’

‘Dad, please.’

Jennifer was glad that Jim had picked up on her embarrassment. ‘They’re just video interviews,’ she said, both horrified and secretly thrilled at the idea that an author, a famous author, would want to have a look at her work.

‘Come on, don’t be shy. I know what that feels like.’

‘Yeah, right,’ replied Jim under his breath.

‘I do. Creativity of any description is deeply personal. The only person to see my book before it goes to my editor is my agent, Saul, and even then he has to prise it from my fingertips.’

They sat in silence as they watched Connor’s friend Randy Chubb speak of his place at Harvard Law School and his plans to make partner on a Wall Street firm by thirty.

‘Let me guess,’ said Bryn, stubbing his cigar out on a saucer. ‘His father is a prominent Savannah attorney.’

‘How did you know?’ asked Jennifer with surprise.

Bryn dismissed her question and looked thoughtful.

‘So what’s your narrative then?’ he asked, making himself comfortable in a chair.

‘It’s a documentary, not a movie, Dad,’ replied Jim, sitting up straighter.

‘I worked on
World in Action
for six months in my twenties. Fantastic training for novel writing. You’re still telling a story, you still need themes, a
point
, otherwise you’ll spend twelve months in the editing suite, sifting through the rubble, wondering why a few dozen interviews with a bunch of twenty-year-olds doesn’t make ten minutes of compelling television.’

‘Dad, I thought you had a book to write.’ Jim obviously wanted to get rid of his father.

‘What’s it called, this documentary?’

‘
Friends
,’ replied Jennifer. ‘Although I read there’s a sitcom coming out with that name, so maybe I’ll have to change it.’

Bryn grunted as if the title didn’t meet with his approval.

‘How about
Hopes and Dreams
?’ he said dramatically, sweeping his hand in front of his face as if he were imagining the name made up in lights. ‘Why do we do what we do?’ he continued expansively. ‘To what degree is free will involved in our adolescent career choices, or are we in fact obligated or influenced to make certain professional decisions because of our parents?’

Jennifer nodded thoughtfully as Jim spoke up.

‘So what are you saying? We need to get back to everyone we’ve interviewed and ask to speak to their parents?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying,’ said Bryn as he ambled back towards the open porch doors.

‘Thanks,’ shouted Jennifer after him.

Bryn lifted his hand languorously and waved without even turning back.

Jennifer switched off the VHS machine and took out her tape.

‘I should go home.’

It was almost five o’clock and her mother would be back from the country club. Sylvia was always in a spiky mood when she came back from the club, especially if she had lost her tennis match. Jennifer would much rather hang out at the Lake House with Jim, but she knew that her mother would start asking too many questions if she did.

‘I’ll walk you home,’ said Jim.

The afternoon was hot and sultry. There was a complete absence of breeze – even the birds seemed to have stopped singing and had retired for quiet siestas in the treetops – and it made the short walk from the Lake House back to Casa D’Or exhausting.

‘Do you ever use your pool?’ asked Jim as they skirted the edge of the lake.

She smiled and knew what he was hinting at.

‘We don’t use it much. I think my mother finds it vulgar.’

‘I thought she was playing tennis.’

‘I’m not sure she’ll appreciate coming back to find you dive-bombing in the deep end.’

‘You don’t get on, do you?’

Jennifer’s smile was more regretful this time.

‘I’m not sure my mother wanted children,’ she said honestly.

She looked at him and wanted to take back what she had just said. It felt traitorous to discuss it, but it was a thought that had gnawed away at her for years, and it was good to finally share it with someone she trusted. There had to be some reason for her mother’s remoteness, her complete lack of interest. Jennifer remembered bringing home Christmas decorations that she had made at school, stars crayoned in violet, red and blue that had been quietly thrown away rather than put on the tree, presumably because they did not fit in with Sylvia’s silver and Tiffany-blue colour scheme. The sailing competitions that Jennifer had entered but Sylvia had not bothered to turn up to. She could hear her mother’s voice now – ‘Sailing is not very feminine, now is it?’ – even when she won trophies and medals and everyone was cheering her name.

Jennifer hadn’t ever been sure what her mother wanted from her, and certainly not now.

‘Don’t be daft,’ said Jim reassuringly.

Jennifer looked at him unconvinced.

‘You know what you should do,’ suggested Jim as they approached the house.

‘What?’ she asked, knowing that whatever came out of his mouth was generally good.

‘You should interview yourself for the documentary. I’ll do it. And then you can interview your mum. Maybe that way you’ll find out what makes her tick.’

Jennifer wasn’t sure about the idea of capturing herself on celluloid, but she had to admit it was an interesting suggestion.

‘Your father’s great,’ she said, wanting to divert the conversation away from her mother. ‘It must be wonderful growing up in such a creative house.’

‘His ego is bigger than China.’ He smiled back.

‘That’s not entirely unexpected. How’s his book going?’

Jim gave a snort. ‘He’s in that boathouse a lot, but we’re not exactly sure how much he’s getting done. One minute he says he’s writing the definitive tome about the history of slavery, the next it’s a deconstruction of the American Dream. Personally I think he should write a schlocky airport thriller and be done with it.’

He grinned at her, and at that exact moment Jennifer felt a gust of something warm and joyful and good, even though the air was still.

‘So how’s Emma?’ She suddenly wanted to know.

‘I don’t know,’ said Jim with a shrug.

‘You don’t know?’ said Jennifer, feeling oddly excited at this news.

‘I’ll see her in September. If she hasn’t moved on, if I haven’t . . . well, we’ll take it from there.’

‘I wonder if Connor is talking about me like that,’ she smiled.

‘I doubt it. When are you seeing him next?’

‘I’m flying to New York tomorrow.’

‘Oh.’

She looked at his expression for any sign of disappointment but she could see none.

‘Do you think it’s going to work? This long-distance thing?’

‘I’m quite looking forward to it. I like the idea of being able to write letters.’

‘Love letters,’ he teased.

She blushed. ‘I’m not sure Connor will be into the idea of it, though.’

‘I see him as more of a fax man,’ agreed Jim, smiling. ‘But you’re right. Letters are good,’ he said softly. ‘You can send me some when I’m back in London.’

She looked up and could see Sylvia on the terrace. She was wearing her tennis dress and was shielding her eyes as she looked across the lake, as if she was tracking them.

‘You don’t have to come in,’ she said, with gentle warning.

‘No pool, then?’

‘We’ve got a lake right here,’ she grinned.

‘All right,’ he said as he began to pull off his T-shirt and jeans.

‘What are you doing?’ she shouted.

‘Having fun!’ he yelled, running towards the water and diving in.

Jennifer shook her head and started laughing, but she could almost feel a laser beam of frostiness emanating from the terrace. Raising her hand to wave goodbye to her friend, she turned and hurried back to Casa D’Or.

Sylvia had gone into the kitchen by the time she arrived at the house. She was standing by the sink, sipping some water from a tumbler.

‘I got you something from the city,’ she said without any enthusiasm, motioning to a bag from one of Savannah’s smartest boutiques.

Jennifer crossed the room and took out the garment from the folds of tissue paper. A teal-blue silk dress fluttered from her fingertips.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

‘I thought you could take it to New York,’ Sylvia said crisply.

Jennifer looked at her, wondering if it was the right moment to ask her to be interviewed for her documentary, but Sylvia had already put the tumbler on the countertop.

‘I’d better go and have a shower,’ she said, and Jennifer decided to leave her request for another day.

Chapter Twelve

‘So why’s it called Labor Day, if everybody has a holiday?’ asked Jim on the other end of the receiver.

‘We’re celebrating why people work and the contributions they make to the prosperity of our country,’ replied Jennifer, tucking her phone under her chin and staring out of the window towards the Lake House. ‘And it’s sort of the last official day of summer, so I guess it’s reminding some people that they’ve got to go back to work.’

‘Will there be turkey?’

‘You’re thinking of Thanksgiving.’

‘So what happens?’

‘There’ll be beer. Lots of people spend the weekend at the beach.’

‘Is that what you’re doing?’

‘I’ve been invited to Tybee Island on Saturday.’

‘Sounds fun.’

‘You can come if you want.’ She said it as casually as she could, but she felt as if she had just flashed her breasts at him through the window. Other than when she had been in New York or Connor had come down for the weekend, she’d seen Jim most days, but it was the documentary that generally gave them an excuse to be together, and without it, the invitation of just a trip to the beach made her feel eager and exposed, even though she was sure he’d been fishing for an invite. ‘My friend Jeanne is getting a few people together. It will be fun and casual.’

‘Well, I’m all for witnessing great American traditions.’

‘We’re meeting at the beach at two. It’s about an hour’s drive away.’

‘Then how about I pick you up in the truck at one?’

Tybee Island was to the north of the city. Jennifer always thought of it as Savannah’s Coney Island, a bit faded, but with its own retro charm. It had a lighthouse and miles of golden sand, and thousands of ordinary families came here every summer to eat hot dogs and have fun. It was the sort of place that her mother disapproved of, just as Jennifer knew she would disapprove of her spending Labor Day weekend with Jim Johnson.

In the event, David Wyatt had announced that he was taking her mother off for lunch in the city. Their argument a few weeks earlier, when Sylvia had screamed at David and stormed out of the house, had not been mentioned again, but he had been working particularly long hours at the office ever since. Jennifer didn’t blame him for sometimes wanting to keep out of the house, but she had still been pleased when he had told her with a particularly mischievous wink that they were off out, ‘just the two of us’, as if relations between them had thawed.

She’d called Jim after they had gone, and his pickup truck pulled up outside Casa D’Or a few minutes later. Marion was having the entire weekend off to visit her parents in Augusta but had left the fridge stuffed with pies and salads, and marinated catfish that just needed to be griddled. Jennifer liberated some cornbread, cookies and cake from the pantry and smuggled the cool box loaded with beers out of the house.

She’d taken particular care with her appearance, telling herself it was difficult choosing something to wear when the weather might change. She had chosen white shorts and a yellow T-shirt and some leather sandals that she had picked up in the South of France the summer before. A waterproof windcheater was stashed in the straw basket that would get absolutely soaked if it decided to rain.

‘Where’s Connor this weekend?’ asked Jim as she got into the truck.

‘Being macho and volunteering to work. He says it’s very competitive at the firm. Apparently going into the office on Labor Day is going to give him a professional advantage.’

‘Something smells good.’ He grinned, changing the subject.

‘That will be Marion’s coconut cake,’ she said.

‘No, I think it’s your hair.’

‘I thought it was Southern gents who had all the charm.’

He gave her a mischievous glance across the cabin. Not for the first time, she felt a little flutter of something as he looked at her. She wasn’t sure what it was. Excitement. Promise. A frisson of guilt that they were spending so much time together. Whatever it was, Jennifer had become an expert on not dwelling on it. As an about-to-be-twenty-one-year-old woman, she was absolutely capable of having a very good-looking, fun and interesting male friend.

‘You do realise you’ve only got eleven days left of my sparkling company,’ Jim said as they headed north, music blaring from the cassette machine.

Jennifer stared out of the window and didn’t say anything for a few moments. It seemed as if they had talked about everything that summer: their likes, dislikes, hopes and fears, music, sailing, Boston and London – everything had been up for discussion except the fact that the Johnson family were shortly to fly home.

‘Why are you going back so early?’ she said as casually as she could. ‘You mentioned that you weren’t sure about going Interrailing any more but I thought college didn’t start for another month. Can’t you stay here?’

‘My ticket is non-refundable, non-transferable, non-changeable, which is another way of saying cheap, although not so cheap that my parents can afford to buy me another. Besides, the Sittenfields want their house back.’

She wanted to tell him there was another way. There was plenty of room at Casa D’Or, and a small trust fund kicking in on her twenty-first birthday in ten days’ time meant she would be able to buy him a replacement ticket home. It was the least she could do after all his help on her documentary.

But she was too embarrassed to suggest it.

‘My twenty-first party will have to be your unofficial send-off, then,’ she said, sounding more subdued.

‘You can do me a little speech and everything,’ he teased.

‘Sure. I was even thinking of a shower of confetti coming down from the sky with your name written on every petal.’

‘Very funny. How about you just buy me a drink tonight?’

‘There should be loads of beers at the beach party,’ she said, feeling her cheeks colour.

‘Excellent,’ he replied and turned the tape player up loud.

Jennifer knew that it was supposed to be a fun day, but she couldn’t help feeling out of sorts. Labor Day was always bittersweet, the sense of an ending in the air. Jim played cassette tapes for the rest of the journey, sharing new music he had discovered and liked; bands with names like Pulp, Oasis and Blur, Brits who were giving a kick in the teeth to American grunge, he explained with a note of national pride. He hoped this summer had been worthwhile if for no other reason than to improve her taste in music. She wanted to tell him how amazing it had been, how sad she was that it was almost over, but she stayed quiet.

Her mood picked up by the time they got to the island. Most people were already at the beach, assembled in a knot around a pile of baskets and ice boxes and footballs. There were at least twenty in the group, and at first glance, Jennifer realised she knew about half of them. They were Jeanne’s crowd, not her own; nice people from school, and a few she had met at the party at the start of the summer.

They played volleyball and sunbathed. Jim mixed in easily. Too easily, she noted with annoyance when Tina, a petite curvy blonde and a friend of Jeanne’s new flatmate, asked him to apply some tanning oil to her back, and he readily accepted.

As the light fell out of the sky, they made a makeshift fire pit on the beach and collected driftwood to burn. Everyone cheered as the flames roared into the air and the mauve twilight seemed to gift the night more magic.

‘Time for s’mores,’ someone shouted.

‘What’s a s’more?’ asked Jim, fetching his guitar from their pile of stuff.

‘A campfire tradition,’ replied Tina, getting up to find a jumper and sitting herself down next to Jim when she returned.

‘Grab a prong, my friend,’ said Jeanne, handing him a skewer.

He stabbed his fork into a huge marshmallow and put it into the fire.

‘There’s an art to it,’ continued Jeanne. ‘Some people like them burned and incinerated; some people just want to warm them up a bit, but the best is when you get them golden and roasted.’

‘Just like this,’ said Jim, carefully removing his mallow from the top of the flame. He was about to pop it into his mouth when Tina stopped him.

‘That’s not a s’more,’ she said, moving closer. ‘You need a graham cracker and a piece of chocolate.’ She demonstrated her recipe with the ingredients she had to hand. ‘Then you get your marshmallow and sandwich it together with another cracker, and there you have it. Delicious,’ she said, reaching over and feeding it directly into Jim’s mouth.

Jennifer felt as if she’d been tasered. Her entire body was in shock as she watched Tina lick a remnant of white goo from her hand suggestively. She couldn’t believe how the woman was making a campfire tradition into an artful seduction. She flashed a look over at Jeanne, who registered a faint, resigned disapproval before standing up and waving a bottle of beer in the air.

‘I think it’s time we played a game,’ she announced.

A murmur of unwillingness rippled around the circle until she instructed their school friend Pete to get the shot glasses.

‘In honour of this being our School’s Out Forever summer . . . we should play Most Likely.’

‘What? Like a yearbook?’ asked a voice in the growing darkness.

‘Exactly like a yearbook, except with added tequila,’ confirmed Jeanne.

Jim started strumming his guitar softly.

‘How does this work then? We don’t do yearbooks in England.’

‘I think up a category, and then we all have to decide who’s most likely to do that thing. If someone votes for you, you have to drink a shot. I like to think of it as punishment for potential and accomplishment.’

Jim laughed, and Jennifer watched him for a moment. She liked his smile, she always had done. He looked quite beautiful in the twilight, she thought, remembering back to the first night they had met, by the lake. She felt something in her heart, a yearning for something she had not yet had or was ever likely to have.

As her gaze trailed around the circle, she could see Tina looking at him too and wished that Jim would just put the guitar down. He needed no help attracting female attention as it was, and there was something about the way Tina was looking at him that made Jennifer’s back stiffen. The pretty blonde looked tiny and lovely and vulnerable bundled up in her sweater, although to men, Jennifer knew she would look like a sex kitten.

‘Do you want another s’more?’ asked Jennifer, edging towards her friend. She knew that it was not the most tempting offer she could make, but she felt on red alert; that he was in the proximity of a predator and she had to stop him from getting caught.

‘Cheers,’ he smiled.

She toasted a marshmallow until it was brown and crisp, but as she sandwiched it between two graham crackers, the biscuits disintegrated, leaving a crumbled mess.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said as he put his guitar down and took the broken s’more from her.

‘It all tastes the same,’ he said reassuringly, but Jennifer noticed that Tina was looking over triumphantly.

Shot glasses were dispensed and filled up around the circle.

‘Most likely to be President in 2030,’ began Jeanne.

There was a chorus of groans, and everyone decided that the prospect of becoming even the manager of a Gap store seemed depressingly remote right now.

‘OK, OK,’ said Jeanne. ‘I get the message. You want me to spice it up a bit.’

The categories came thick and fast.

‘Most like to have hot monkey sex tonight,’ said Jeanne, getting more and more drunk by the minute. Even when she was not being nominated for a category she took a shot of tequila anyway.

Most people pointed at Rory and Gail, two of Jeanne’s neighbours who had spent half the afternoon making out on the beach.

‘I vote for Jim,’ smiled Tina suggestively.

Jennifer noticed her friend blush. Her own heart was thumping a little harder. Was Tina offering him a invitation? she wondered, hoping that Jim had been looking the other way or not listening. She took a shot of tequila even though she had not been picked by anyone, and prayed for the game to finish.

‘Most likely to get married . . . to one another,’ said Jeanne with a hint of mischief.

Jennifer looked around the circle. She was very drunk now. Having been voted most likely to end up on the
New York Pos
t
’s Page Six and most likely to have a respectable job by Christmas, she’d had way too much tequila, and hadn’t drunk enough water in the heat of the day or eaten enough of the cake or cornbread.

She wondered where to cast her vote.

Jeanne had been coyly flirting with Pete all afternoon and she thought they would make a great couple if only Jeanne would stop playing at being ‘one of the boys’. But she didn’t want to embarrass her friend and in the end chose Rory and Gail, who picked up the entire bottle of tequila and said they were going home to bed.

‘Jim and Jen. That’s who I think are most likely to get married,’ said Jeanne from the other side of the campfire, waving a marshmallow on a stick. ‘You two are so sickeningly cute and gorgeous.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t mind a Green Card,’ said Jim, grinning, then downing his shot.

‘You old romantic,’ Jennifer said, trying to hide her nerves. A flutter of awkwardness passed between them. Spots of rain began to fall.

‘You’re kidding,’ shrieked Jeanne, jumping to her feet and grabbing her blanket.

Within a minute it was raining hard. Everyone sprang into action, collecting their things and running barefoot from the beach, the sand growing colder and wetter under their feet by the second.

There were a few hotels and bars along the boardwalk. People seemed to be heading towards a neon-lit bar across the street, but Jim and Jennifer were right by the truck.

‘Jump in,’ said Jim, hurrying to get the door open as a crack of thunder rumbled through the sky.

They sat in the cabin, dripping wet. There was a strange tension in the air that was making Jennifer nervous.

‘I should probably get back,’ she said finally.

‘Well, I’m not sure I can drive us,’ he confessed. ‘Shouldn’t have won “Most likely to be on the front cover of
Rolling Stone
magazine”. It was a slippery slope after that.’