Dockside at Willow Lake

“Sorry,” she said, tossing back her thick dark hair. “It’s mine. I saw it first.” Wink or no wink, she wasn’t backing down.

He laughed, his voice like melted chocolate. “I like a girl who knows what she wants.”

She beamed at him. He liked her. He’d said so aloud. “I’m Nina,” she said.

“Greg. So are you a visitor?” He studied her as though she was the only person in the crowded dining hall.

“That’s right.” It wasn’t a lie. She simply omitted the information that she was the underage daughter of the camp cook. Fleetingly she wondered if that would change his opinion of her. Of course it would, she admitted to herself. It was the whole reason such things as “social class” existed right here in the good old US of A. At Camp Kioga, the lines were sharply drawn: the nobs versus the slobs.

But if she stayed anonymous, the lines went away.

She could feel a keen interest in the touch of Greg’s gaze, and it made her stand up straighter. Nina had always looked older than her age, a combination of dark, vivid features and early development. Though she flaunted this fact with pride, her confidence was merely a cover for the fact that she had always felt slightly different. Not radically so, but just a little, because she was a year older than the rest of the kids in her grade.

The reason for her being behind in school was humiliating. It wasn’t because she was a slow learner or had flunked an early grade. It was because her mother had forgotten to enroll her in kindergarten at the proper age. Forgotten. People smiled and nodded their heads when they heard the story of how Vicki Romano had neglected to send her middle child to school. It was completely understandable. The woman had nine kids, and had given birth to the final two—undersized, sickly twin boys—just a few weeks before Nina was to start kindergarten. The entire family was focused on the fact that the tiny twin boys were fighting for their lives while Vicki battled a postpartum infection. The last thing on anyone’s mind was quiet, well-behaved, five-year-old Nina. No one remembered that she was supposed to be in school until it was too late to catch up. She had to wait until the following year.

The anecdote was a family favorite, with an all’s-well-that-ends-well conclusion. The tiny twins—Donny and Vincent—were rowdy Little League players now and Nina was in the same class as her best friend. It had all worked out for the best.

Except the experience had a more profound effect on Nina than anyone could know. She always felt slightly out of step, off-kilter. She also transformed herself from the quiet, undemanding middle child into someone who figured out what she wanted and then went for it, every time.

Mr. Blue-Eyes Bellamy was still holding on to the edge of the plate. Her plate of cherry pie.

“So you gonna let go?” she challenged.

“Let’s split it.” Without waiting for permission, he tugged it from her grasp. He neatly divided the piece of pie into two portions, put one on a clean plate and offered it to her.

“Gee, thanks,” she said, but didn’t take the plate.

“You’re welcome.” He either missed or ignored her irony. He was a Bellamy, she reminded herself. He had a stunning sense of droit du seigneur, a term she knew from the historical romance novels she was addicted to.

“You’re used to getting your way,” she commented, taking the divided pie from him. She felt a little thrill as she talked to him. Flirting had always come naturally to her—unlike school.

Because she was older than everyone else in her grade, Nina had the dubious honor of being the first at a lot of things. She’d been the first to grow boobs and get her period. The first to turn boy-crazy. It had hit her like a speeding train last year. Before her very eyes, boys—other than her brothers—had turned from loud, smelly, supremely annoying creatures into objects of strange and compelling urges. The boys in her grade still acted like children, but those a few years older seemed to share the same urges that bothered and distracted Nina. At the end of the school year, she sneaked into a high school dance and made out with Shane Gilmore, a junior, until one of her uncles—a biology teacher and chaperone—had noticed her and sent her home to be grounded for weeks.

It was easy to give her parents the slip, and she did so at will. Sometimes she even drove her older sister’s ancient Grand Marquis. She had taken it to the drive-in movie at Coxsackie, where she’d let Byron Johnson, a senior, feel her up. Unfortunately, her brother Carmine had spotted her. He hadn’t told on her, of course, but he beat the crap out of Byron and promised to break his kneecaps if he ever came near her again.

Now, with Greg Bellamy, Nina forgot all those other flirtations. This was the guy. The prize. The one she knew she’d write about in her diary and dream about at night. The one who made her want to go further than second base. A lot further.

“So, Nina, are you busy tonight?” Greg asked her.

“Depends,” she said playfully. “What did you have in mind?”

He stared straight at her mouth when he said, “Everything.”

She felt as though she’d caught on fire from the inside out. “Sounds good to me.”

“Excuse me.” Something very tall and very shapely sidled up to Greg. It was another camp counselor, looking like a Bond girl in camp clothes. “Oh, good,” she said, helping herself to Greg’s plate of pie. “You saved me a piece.” She aimed a dazzling smile straight at him. “Thank you, Greggy. I owe you one.”

Greggy? thought Nina. Greggy? Okay, I’m going to barf.

“Binkie, this is Nina,” he said.

The towering bombshell turned, offering the kind of smile that could freeze an enemy at twenty paces. “Nina. Now, where have I heard that name before? Oh, yes. You must be Mrs. Romano’s little girl.”

Nina was watching Greg, not Binkie. It was kind of amazing to see her image being dismantled before her very eyes.

“You know, Mrs. Romano,” Binkie reminded him. “The camp cook.”

In the space of a few seconds, Greg went from flirting and making a date with Nina to staring at her as though she had sprouted horns and a tail.

“Right,” he said, turning red to the tips of his ears. “I need to get back to work.” He glared at Nina. “See you around, kid.”

Binkie offered a chilly smile. “Nice to meet you, honey.”

Nina stood unmoving, having been put in her place so decisively that she felt as though she’d been rooted to the spot forever. Everything was boiling inside her—thwarted lust, resentment, yearning, shame and injured pride.

“You coming?” Jenny asked, returning from what had probably been a more age-appropriate conversation with Rourke and Joey. She seemed oblivious to Nina’s turmoil. “Gramp’s ready to head back to town.”

“Sure,” Nina heard herself say. She thought Greg Bellamy might be watching her as she left the dining hall. She refused to look back, though. He was a mistake she was only too happy to leave behind.

As she was beating a retreat, she was horrified to feel the hot press of tears threatening to spill. Fighting back, she paused, pretending to study the bulletin board, a patchwork of announcements for the camp staff. Someone had lost a pair of sunglasses. Someone else had two tickets to the new hit musical Miss Saigon, for sale. Everything was a blur, but then a bright yellow flier resolved itself before her eyes. Welcome Cadets! Community Mixer at Avalon Meadows Country Club. Each year, the new crop of West Point cadets was treated to a pre-enlistment party, their final hurrah before stepping into the rarified world of rigors that was the United States Military Academy. 18 and Over Required.

At the bottom of the flier was a fringe of phone numbers for the RSVP. Nina already knew one appointee—Laurence Jeffries, from Kingston. She’d flirted with him at football and baseball games, and he had no clue how old she was. He’d be the one to get her into the country club. She defiantly ripped off an RSVP number and stuck it in her pocket.

She glanced over her shoulder at Greg Bellamy. If he’d been nicer to her, she’d still be in the dining hall, eating pie. So really, if she got in trouble, it would all be Greg’s fault.

Nina never had any trouble passing herself off as an eighteen-year-old. She and her sisters all looked alike. At church and catechism, people always mixed them up. On any given Sunday, Nina had been called Loretta, Giuliana, Maria and even Vicki—their mother. Nina had learned everything she knew from her pretty, popular sisters. She eavesdropped on their giggling conversations about boys and sex. She’d sat with them late at night, listening to them dissect their dates, moment by moment. Thanks to her sisters, Nina knew how to crash a party, how to flirt with a boy, how to French kiss and what safe sex was.

The West Point reception was scheduled for a Sunday night. Nina planned to wait until Maria was in the shower. Then she would go to her sister’s wallet and help herself to the driver’s license.

That morning, as everyone was running around, getting ready for church, she told her parents the usual story—her friend Jenny was having a sleepover—though she probably didn’t need to bother. Everyone was preoccupied, and her father was organizing yet another fund-raiser for a candidate.

“Isn’t it frustrating to see Pop raise all that money for someone else?” Nina asked her mother as they all tumbled out of the van at St. Mary’s. Pop had leaped out first to join a group of local businessmen in front of the church. Carmine was left to play parking valet with the lumbering van, which had once been an airport shuttle. Their dad had bought it for a song. It was the only car that fit them all.

“I mean,” Nina continued, “he’s raising money to buy radio ads and we can’t even afford to get Anthony’s teeth straightened.”

Ma only smiled when Nina said stuff like that. “This is your dad’s passion. It’s what he believes in.”

“What about what you believe in, Ma? Don’t you believe in getting a new winter coat more than once a decade, or paying the light bill without going into debt?”

“I believe in your father,” Ma said serenely. And boy, did she ever. Giorgio Romano could do no wrong in her eyes. To be fair, Pop was just as crazy about Ma. He went to high mass with her every Sunday and sat there without blinking as she unhesitatingly placed ten percent of their weekly income in the collection basket, because Ma believed in tithing.

At a young age, Nina decided that men who followed their passion were of limited interest to her. She did, however, harbor a passion of her own, and it was for boys. Even in church, she caught herself checking out the boys. The altar boys, for Pete’s sake, who used to look so dorky in their red robes and white surplices. Now they looked impossibly sexy to her, with their Adam’s apples and big, squarish hands, dress shoes peeping out from beneath their robes. Nina had heard the term boy-crazy before; now she understood what it meant. They did make her crazy, in the sense that they totally distracted her from everything but thoughts of making out, all day and all night long.

As everyone lurched forward to kneel after the Lamb of God, she glanced over her shoulder at Jenny, a few rows back with her grandparents. The three of them looked so neat and self-contained, not like the whispering, rustling, unwieldy Romano bunch. But Jenny didn’t notice Nina trying to get her attention. As she often did, Jenny looked as though she was a million miles away.

Nina turned her eyes to the front and tried to keep her mind blank through the Canon of the mass. It was always a great internal debate with her, deciding whether or not to go for communion. Catholics took their communion very seriously. No wonder you were supposed to unload all your sins beforehand. Supposedly, the sacrament was reserved for people whose souls were spotless, who had emerged from the confessional as squeaky clean as an athlete stepping out of a postgame shower.

Nina did go to confession—and often. Only yesterday, in a voice rough with shame, she’d told the ominous presence on the other side of the screen about shirking her chores, lying to Sister Immaculata about her catechism homework, having impure thoughts about altar boys. And even that was a lie, come to think of it. Her thoughts were very pure, indeed. Pure lust.

Sure, she’d done her penance, reciting Our Fathers and Hail Marys until her knees grew numb, but afterward she went right back to her sinful ways. This very moment, she was sitting before God and thinking about how she was going to the party at the country club tonight to find a boy to make out with.

“‘Lord, I am not worthy to receive you,’” she recited along with the congregation, “‘but only say the word, and I shall be healed.’”

This did not help her decide whether or not to partake of communion. She weighed the pros and cons in her mind: If you just sat there like a bump on a pickle, everyone would know for sure you were a sinner and a slacker for failing to do your penance after confession. If you jumped up and went for it, people would figure you were lying or insincere, because no kid was free of sin, except maybe Jenny. Nina wished there was some designation for the in-between people who weren’t perfect but tried to be. Strivers, you could call them. Shouldn’t there be some reward for people who strove to be good, even though they fell short most of the time?

Lines were forming along the aisles in preparation for communion. Nina had resigned herself to staying put, letting friends and family speculate about what heinous stain on her soul was keeping her from Holy Communion. Then she saw that Father Reilly’s right-hand attendant, the boy designated to hold the chalice of hosts, was Grady Fitzgerald. A year ago, Grady Fitzgerald had been scrawny, pimply and dull. Now he was tall and cute, right down to the peach fuzz mustache on his upper lip. And he kept looking at Nina in a certain way. She was sure of it.

This had to be a sign. She was meant to go to communion. She shot to her feet and took her place in line. Each step brought her closer to Grady. When it was her turn, she was supposed to tip back her head and delicately open her mouth as the priest said, “The body of Christ.”

Instead, she kept her eyes open and glued to Grady. “Amen,” she whispered huskily, feeling the insubstantial wafer dissolve on her tongue. She returned to her place, where she was supposed to kneel and contemplate the ecstasy of the miracle. Instead she knelt, closed her eyes and pressed her hands to her forehead, realizing she had hit a new low. She had used the sacrament of communion as a chance to flirt with a cute boy.

She was going to hell for certain.

After Mass, as the congregation filed out of the church, Father Reilly made a beeline for her and she braced herself. This was it, then. The jig was up. He was going to expose her as a liar and a fraud.

“Miss Nina Romano,” he said in full view of her parents. “A word with you.”

“Yes, Father?” Nina’s stomach churned. She was going to barf, right here, right now.

“The way you were at communion today …”

No, don’t say it. I’m sorry. I didn’t meant to—

“It was quite something, that bold look and loud ‘Amen.’”

“Father, I—”

“I wish more young people had your conviction. Your fervor. Well done.”

Oh. Oh. “Thank you, Father.” Nina lifted her chin, squared her shoulders.

As her parents beamed at her with pride, Nina packed away a life lesson. In every situation, people tended to see what they wanted to see.

Five

Nina found herself swimming in a sea of boys, and it wasn’t even a dream. She was surrounded by ninety percent men. She was wide awake, in the ballroom of the Avalon Meadows Country Club, attending the annual salute to West Point’s incoming class of cadets. The founder of the country club was a West Point alum, and the large, lavish party had become a tradition. Some of the appointees drove for hours to get there. The following week, basic training would begin for the cadets, so this was their farewell to fancy food and music, girls and partying and long hair. Soon they would have their heads shaved, their uniforms pressed and their every moment scheduled for them. No wonder they were all acting a little wild.

So many boys, Nina thought, bedazzled, so little time. Maybe she would go to West Point for college. Fat chance, she reminded herself. You had to be a brainiac and have perfect grades and play a sport. Nina had none of the above—not the smarts, not the grades and certainly not the sport. Her only athletic activity was outrunning Sr. Immaculata when cutting class.

Her date was Laurence Jeffries, and she’d walked into the country club on his arm, hiding her terror that any second someone would recognize her and rat her out. But there was almost no chance someone would recognize her at the country club tonight. Carmine didn’t work here anymore, and as far as she knew, no Romano had ever belonged to Avalon Meadows. Golf and tennis and martinis on the patio were for WASPy types who sent their one-point-seven kids to prep school and summer camp. This only made her deception all the more delicious.

When the festivities first started, she thought she’d made a mistake coming here. There were boring tributes to the appointees—”Those who dare to serve our country, blah blah blah …”—and no alcoholic beverages, because the new recruits were all underage, in the seventeen- to nineteen-year-old range. Nina was contemplating finding Laurence Jeffries and slipping away immediately. But everything changed when the adults headed into the cocktail lounge, the lights dimmed and a hired DJ took over. That was when the sea of boys flooded the dance floor, surrounding Nina like a testosterone forest. A bottle of something sticky-sweet appeared, and they passed it around until it was gone. Nina was fairly new to drinking, but she gamely swigged down the strawberry-flavored Ripple. It made everything seem easier and funnier. It made her a better dancer, for sure.

Nina knew some girls would be intimidated by being in the midst of so many guys, especially guys like this—football captains and wrestling champions, the elite from high schools across America. Not Nina, though. She knew the truth about boys. No matter how smart and athletic, they were all just a mass of hormone-driven urges.

She felt like the belle of the ball, dancing with one guy after another. One of them told her that all fifty states were represented in the class.

Laurence was the perfect date, and perfectly clueless about her true age. She’d first met him last fall, when his football team came to town and defeated the Avalon Knights. Most of the town hadn’t taken the loss well, but Nina couldn’t care less. Laurence was the quarterback, he was super-hot and he believed she was a senior, like him. In the spring, she’d been delighted to learn he was the pitcher for his school’s baseball team, and they took up their flirtation again. They’d made out under the bleachers before, so technically, this was their second date.

He had wanted to pick her up at her house, but she’d made an elaborate excuse and convinced him to meet her at the club. Now he appeared before her like a pagan god, tall and broad-shouldered, his lean, ebony face beautifully chiseled. Even the reflected light from the revolving fixture on the ceiling seemed to highlight his importance, illuminating him from behind, like a rock star. He was by far the best-looking guy in the room, and the best dancer. Nina happily took him as her partner. Over the gut-deep thump of “Get It Started” by M.C. Hammer, they got to know each other better. He was just seventeen and was leaving home for the first time. She was lying about her age and had sneaked out for probably the hundredth time, but she didn’t tell him this.

They danced closer and closer, until they were touching, and Nina was on fire, as if he was a match striking to life against her. Maybe this was it, she thought. Maybe tonight was the night. And why not? He was the perfect guy to be her first—kind, handsome and honorable. Nina had eavesdropped on her older sisters enough to know these were the sort of qualities you didn’t find every day in a guy. She’d be nuts to turn him down.

After a while, he bent down and said, “Let’s go outside,” and led her by the hand to the terrace overlooking the golf course. She tipped back her head, welcoming the faint breeze over her face and neck.

“It’s so hot tonight,” she murmured, feeling wicked and powerful and filled with a crazy need to touch and be touched.

“Thirsty?” He held out a bottle of Snapple. “It’s spiked with vodka.”

“I’m cool with that.” Boldly she tipped back her head and drank half of it, forcing herself not to gag on the sharp taste.

They walked together down to the darkened golf course and left their shoes at the edge of the eighteenth green. The perfectly groomed grass felt like a cool carpet beneath their bare feet. A hush of luxury and privilege seemed to pervade the atmosphere.

Laurence chuckled appreciatively. “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” he said.

“How do you mean?”

He explained that he grew up in public housing—a hulking project on the south end in a part of town you didn’t see in Hudson Valley tourist brochures. He’d been raised by a single mother who worked for the welfare department. “Demographically speaking, I’m the kid most likely to be doing time by now.”

“And look at you,” she said. “You’re a star. You’re going to West Point. In four years, you’ll be an officer.”

“It doesn’t even seem real.” He grabbed her and kissed her then, and it was an amazing kiss, sweet and sexy at the same time. “You don’t seem real, either,” he said.

“Maybe I’m not,” she said. “Maybe it’s all a dream.” She looked back at the brightly lit clubhouse. The ballroom was dark, flashing with the occasional strobe light. In the opposite wing, the dining room glowed golden, filled with genteel people ordering things Nina had learned about by reading fancy magazines, like Steak Diane and mashed potatoes with truffle oil. She could easily pick out the six members of the Bellamy family, who were known to dine at “the club” every Sunday evening in summer. There were Mr. and Mrs. Bellamy and their four grown kids—Philip was the eldest, followed by two sisters in the middle, and finally there was Greg. Impossibly good-looking in khakis and a crisp Oxford cloth shirt, a tie worn slightly loose at the throat, he exuded an easy charm, looking completely relaxed, as though posing for a country-club brochure.

“… come here often?” Laurence was asking her.

“Sure,” she lied breezily. “We’ve been members for years.”

Holding hands, they strolled to the middle of the fairway, and Nina was consumed by a curious certainty—she was going to go all the way with this boy. They both wanted it. She could tell. The knowledge and the anticipation breathed from their skin.

He turned to her and bent down and kissed her, and she felt herself lighting up with a burning need. She silently reviewed all the information she had from her sisters. Sex was natural, it was fun with the right guy … but a girl should never leave safety up to the guy. Nina had a tri-fold pack of condoms in her purse. She was fully, embarrassingly prepared to whip them out if necessary.

The starlit night surrounded them with magic. Then Nina heard a quiet popping sound, followed by a staccato hiss. A slap of cold water hit them.

“Hey,” she yelled.

“The sprinklers just turned on.” Laurence grabbed her hand and they tried running for cover, but the sprinklers had sprouted everywhere, forming a gauntlet of arching fountains along the fairway. By the time they escaped the spraying water, they were completely drenched. Ducking the sprinklers, they made their way to a gazebo between two fairways.

Nina got the giggles, and couldn’t stop until Laurence kissed her again. These were new kisses, imbued with a searing intimacy, almost a desperation. It was a relief when he stepped back and peeled off her soaking wet dress, spreading it across a privet hedge. She needed this, needed to be close to him, skin-to-skin with nothing between them, nothing at all.