He didn’t understand that, but then English hadn’t been his favorite subject.
Selma was sitting at the picnic table behind Bulahdeen. She was giving herself a manicure. Jack stepped back a little, hoping she wouldn’t see him. He’d known Selma for thirty years, and he still couldn’t figure out whether or not she was serious with her flirtations. This seemed to amuse her. He always tried to avoid her. But that had been easier to do when there had been more men around.
They weren’t talking, so he didn’t know where the voices were coming from. Then he saw a tall young woman in a short floral sundress and flip-flops walking toward the house. There was a little girl with her, wearing a tutu and a pink bicycle helmet. She was talking loudly as she ran circles around the young woman. The little girl looked over at Bulahdeen and Selma, then asked her mother something. The young woman nodded, and the little girl ran over and sat by Bulahdeen.
It took Jack a moment to realize the young woman was still heading this way, that she was actually going to come into the house.
He ran back to his table and sat down.
Jack was not a social man.
Coming from an old family of dynamic Richmond southerners, he should have been. He had three older brothers—a lawyer, a television news anchor, and a horse breeder. He’d grown up overwhelmed by the noise of their booming voices. Sometimes, all Jack had wanted to do was cover his ears. He would slink around, looking for quiet corners. His parents had simply shaken their heads, figuring three confident sons were enough. Oh, he knew his parents had loved him fiercely, and even his brothers had had their share of bruises from defending him from kids who had made fun of him at school. But they hadn’t expected much of him. He hadn’t known what to expect of himself. He’d been an exceptional student, but when the time came for him to leave for college, he’d been paralyzed with indecision. He’d had no idea what to do with his life. He’d expressed this fear to his mother, who had kissed him on the cheek in his dorm room the first day of his freshman year and had said with a laugh, “Since you don’t like looking people in the eye, why not focus on their feet?”
So he became a podiatrist.
It was the honest truth, but he found that when he told people that story, most laughed. It was his go-to joke when he absolutely had to attend a party or function.
He first came to Lost Lake when an older doctor at his practice in Richmond asked him to join him and his wife on their summer vacation. He had obviously felt sorry for Jack, who had alienated the nurses and staff in those early years because he’d been so bad at personal interaction. He’d gotten better, but it had taken years. The old doctor soon retired and moved away, but every summer Jack kept coming back to Lost Lake. He liked the quiet here. He liked how removed it was. He liked that, after a while, the summer regulars got to know him and didn’t judge him for his shy nature and the way his eyes could never quite meet theirs. Most of all, he liked the quiet woman in the kitchen.
He had never known how silent a person could be. Lisette’s presence was a comfort, and he spent most of his time in the dining room, near the kitchen door, near her. Sometimes when she cooked, she would bring him out little samples of summer borscht or smoked salmon tea sandwiches. She would set the food on the table in front of him, smile, then go back to the kitchen. One time she even reached out and touched his hair, but that seemed to shock her, and she never did it again.
Being around her was unlike anything he’d ever known. Wherever he went, everyone talked. Even at the ballet—where he went specifically to have the comfort of people around but not have to hear them—there were still words, buzzing around in whispers. Lisette not only didn’t talk, she barely even made noise when she moved. Sometimes he wished the whole world was like Lisette. But it wasn’t. That was something his mother always made sure he knew. The world was not like him and was not going to change for him. The trick to getting through life, she’d told him, is not to resent it when it isn’t exactly how you think it should be.
When Eby had called him to cancel his reservation, to tell him she was selling Lost Lake, she had said to him, “But Lisette is still here and will be for the summer, in case there’s something you want to tell her.”
It didn’t hit him at first. He’d been too focused on how his plans for the summer had changed. What was he going to do now? Where was he going to go? But that night he’d woken from a dream about a girl on a bridge, and realized it had been Lisette on that bridge, and if she jumped, he would never see her again. He’d always known where to find her, but after this summer, he wouldn’t. Eby wanted him to tell Lisette something. He didn’t know what that was. Was it something that would make her stay? He hated being unprepared for anything, but he still packed and left the next day.
That morning, his first morning at the lake, he’d woken up and gone for a jog, as he’d always done. When he’d seen the light flick on in the dining room, he’d gone inside. He’d sat by the kitchen door, waiting for Lisette to come out. When she hadn’t—which was odd because she always seemed to sense his presence—he’d gone back to his cabin to shower and change. When he’d come back, breakfast had been set out for the guests, but still no Lisette.
Eby had asked him last night to take Lisette into town for groceries today, and he’d happily agreed. He was curious what it would be like to shop with her. Would it be like walking around in a pocket of quiet while the rest of the noisy world bounced off of them? He was sure he would enjoy that. When he had asked Eby that morning when Lisette would be ready to go, Eby didn’t know. Eby had left, saying she had inventory to do in the cabins, so Jack had sat there in the dining room the better part of the morning, at attention, waiting.
He heard the front door open, and the young woman he’d seen outside came in with a tray of empty dishes. She smiled at him as she walked to the kitchen. She had wide interesting features and a quiet way of walking that Jack appreciated. She tapped on the kitchen door, then tried to push it open. But it was locked.
Jack thought that was strange. Lisette never locked the kitchen door. Was she all right?
“Lisette, it’s me, Kate. I’m on my way out. I brought back the dishes from breakfast,” the woman called. While she waited for Lisette to come to the door, the woman turned to him. “You must be Jack. I’m Kate, Eby’s great-niece.”
He nodded, his eyes down. “Nice to meet you.”
At that moment, a note was pushed under the door from the kitchen.
Kate looked at it, surprised. It was just touching her toes. She balanced the tray in one hand and bent to pick up the note with the other. She read it, then said, “Hmm.”
Jack wanted to ask her what the note said, but he didn’t.
Kate walked over to the buffet table and set the tray down, then she set the note beside it.
“It was nice to meet you too, Jack,” she said as she walked back out.
When the front door closed, Jack stood and went to the buffet table. The note, in Lisette’s pretty, spidery handwriting said, Please leave the things on the table. I will get them later.
She was obviously busy in there. He didn’t want to bother her. But maybe she didn’t know he was here. Maybe she had been waiting for him to knock on the door and call to her, like Kate had done. It was such a natural thing to do for most people.
Jack walked to the door and tapped on it. “Lisette? It’s me, Jack. Jack Humphry. I got in last night. Eby told me you needed someone to take you to the grocery store. I just wanted you to know that I’ll be out here, whenever you’re ready.”