Dockside at Willow Lake

He laid his blazer on the deck of the gazebo and they sank down together, spellbound, intoxicated, consumed by urgency. He paused to grope in his pocket, coming up with a condom, which made Nina weak with relief. Thank goodness he’d spared her the embarrassment.

So this was it, then. Here and now, in the shadowy gazebo with the sprinkler system hissing all around them, the veil of secrecy was swept aside. She wrapped her arms around him and dropped her head back, opening herself to him, and then they kissed and fit themselves together, and it was more incredible than she ever could have imagined. More uncomfortable and awkward, too, but with a sweetness that brought tears to her eyes. And quicker. Laurence almost instantly made a surprised, strangled sound, and then shuddered, covering her like a blanket. Then they both lay still, their hearts beating as one, their bodies still joined together.

After a while, he drew back. “You all right?” he whispered.

She was intrigued, feeling as though she teetered on the edge of something big. “I’m all right.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Hush. I wanted to. Maybe we can have another go at it.”

“I only brought one condom and—oh, shit.”

He wasn’t as experienced as he seemed. Somehow, the condom hadn’t gone where it was supposed to go. “Damn,” he said. “I’m sorry. I swear, I don’t have a disease or anything—”

“Me neither.” Suddenly embarrassed, Nina jumped up and struggled into her wet clothes. The issue of the failed condom put an end to the evening’s romance.

Laurence must have felt the same way as he shook out his clothes and put them on. “Hey, I feel bad,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Nothing’s hurt, but I’d better go,” she said, suddenly eager to get away. “My car’s at the far end of the parking lot.” Another lie. She’d brought her bike.

Carrying their shoes in their hands, they crossed the parking lot. “Tell me your phone number,” Laurence said. “I’ll call you.”

She was tempted, but only momentarily. The kind of lies she was telling tonight couldn’t be sustained for long. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re probably right.” Relief rang clearly in his voice.

“And you’re awfully quick to agree with me.” She was only half teasing.

“Look, I think you’re really something, but I got to think of the future. I’m a kid from the projects. If this doesn’t work out for me, well, let’s just say the options aren’t good. I better stick with the academy. As soon as I start, I take an oath of honor.”

“And I’m, like, this huge stain on your oath.”

“No, but—”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m not going to cause any trouble for you, and that’s a promise.”

“You’re no trouble, girl.”

Just then, a shadow loomed over them.

She stopped walking and looked up. Uh-oh. Maybe Laurence had spoken too soon. “Greg Bellamy,” she said with forced brightness. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Greg stood over the fallen cadet, wondering if he’d broken anything. It had all happened so fast. One minute he was getting a sweater from the car for his sister. The next, he was driving his fist into some cadet’s jaw. The guy was gigantic, but Greg had the element of surprise. Shock was more like it. Shock had cut off the oxygen to his brain, causing him to lose the ability to judge whether or not he was right to clean the guy’s clock.

One thing he knew for certain, he definitely had a problem with a West Point cadet banging Mrs. Romano’s underage daughter. Greg had met her that one time up at the camp, but he couldn’t remember her name. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was still a kid. Yet there was no mistaking that just-got-laid look of these two—the damp clothes buttoned crooked, grass in their hair, the sheepish, sated expressions on both their faces.

The girl’s face changed instantly, sharpening with accusation as she glared at Greg. “He’s hurt,” she said. “You had no right—”

“I had no right?” Now, that pissed him off. He gave a disgusted laugh.

On the ground, the cadet moved his jaw from side to side. Okay, thought Greg, so at least he hadn’t done anything permanent to the guy. He wasn’t sure he was relieved by that or not. He nudged the guy with the toe of his shoe. “Get up,” he said.

The guy frowned, blinked in confusion until he spotted the girl. “Nina? What’s going on? Who the hell is this?”

Greg made a mental note of the girl’s name. Then, treating the guy like a recalcitrant camper, he said, “Party’s over, pal. So get your ass up and go back inside.”

“Laurence, I’m really sorry,” the girl—Nina—said in a small, horrified voice.

She was sorry. Sorry. Greg rounded on her. “Do you have a ride home?” he demanded.

She hung her head, turned away from Laurence and mumbled, “I rode my bike.”

He almost laughed. A bike. She’d ridden a damn bike to the country club to get laid. “It’s pitch-black outside,” he said. “Were you planning to find your way home by radar?”

The guy called Laurence climbed to his feet. Damn, he was tall. And still a little dazed. Or drunk. Or both. “Nina?” he asked again.

“Shut up,” Greg snapped, ready to be done with the whole drama, and eager to send the guy on his way before he decided to fight back. “Get back inside, now, and pray I don’t report you. I’m taking her home.”

“Are not,” Nina snapped back, then grabbed Laurence’s hand. “He’s not taking me anywhere.”

Greg ignored her and glared at Laurence. “She’s fourteen, you moron. What the hell were you thinking?”

Laurence dropped her hand as though it was a red-hot coal. He even stepped back, hands up, palms facing out, as though Greg had a gun pointed at him. “Shit—”

“Fifteen,” she said defiantly. “I just turned fifteen last month.”

The guy’s panic was genuine. He truly hadn’t known, the same as Greg hadn’t known that day in the dining hall. Until someone had clued him in, Greg, too, had been fooled by her impossibly curvy body, her smoldering eyes that pretended to know things she had no clue about, her full lips that made reckless promises to morons like this one.

“Go back inside,” he repeated. “Like I said, the party’s over.”

The guy took a step back. “I’m sorry,” he told Nina. “I didn’t know, I—Girl, you should have been straight with me.”

“I said,” Greg reminded him, “it’s over.”

“Laurence, no,” Nina protested. “This … this person has no idea what he’s talking about.”

The cadet offered a wordless look of helpless regret, then turned and hurried back to the clubhouse. Nina started after him. Greg grabbed her arm and held her back.

“Let go of me,” she said. “I have five brothers, and I know how to defend myself.”

Greg relinquished her. “How many of those brothers would approve of what you’re doing here?”

“None of your business.” She began to stomp toward the clubhouse, which was still bubbling over with golden light and music, as though nothing had happened.

“You go after that kid now,” Greg called to her, “and you’ll end his chances at West Point before he even starts.”

She was young, but she was far from stupid. She stopped walking and turned to him, and he could see the understanding rise in her eyes. An incident like this—fraternizing with an underage girl—was more than enough to get a guy dismissed or worse. Reluctant acceptance softened her face for a moment. Then, with a haughty sniff, she marched past him, grabbing a bicycle from a rack at the edge of the parking lot. The thing didn’t even have a light, just a cracked reflector on the rear fender.

“Hey,” he said, “you’re not riding that home.”

“Watch me.” She threw her dancing shoes into the basket and expertly pushed off, swinging her leg up and over the back. The skirts of her party dress fluttered around her bare legs.

Being a camp counselor had taught Greg a few things about catching kids who were trying to escape. He charged, grabbing the back of the seat, pulling her to a halt. She stood on the pedals, putting up a fierce resistance, but to no avail. Greg refused to let go of the bike until she surrendered to him with a surly glare.

“I’m driving you home,” he told her.

“The hell you are,” she shot back.

He saw her weighing her options and making a silent calculation, balancing her need for defiance and rebellion against the consequences he promised. Greg recognized the struggle. Just a few years older than her, he vividly recalled the raging clash of urges in a teenager. Hell, he still had those urges himself.

“You do not want to know how bad this can get,” he warned her.

He could tell the moment she resigned herself to common sense. Her shoulders slumped in defeat as she dismounted the bike. Greg let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He didn’t want her to see how relieved he felt. He hadn’t been eager to get her in trouble. He just wanted her home, safe. And, okay, when he thought about the fact that someone had been banging her, he also felt an undertone of envy, which shamed him. This girl was trouble. He didn’t know why he felt so protective of her. It was just that she was so young, so foolish. Somebody had to look out for her.

Now he had a dilemma, though. Driving her back to town could take ten minutes; returning to the country club—another ten. His parents were going to wonder where the heck he’d gone. He could tell Nina to wait right here while he went inside to explain, but he knew she’d seize the chance to bolt. He’d have to risk his parents’ displeasure, because the idea of keeping this underage pretty-baby from pedaling home through the dark night was more compelling.

He slung her bike into the trunk of his car and held open the passenger-side door. “Get in.”

“I’ll get the seat wet. It might ruin the upholstery.”

“Don’t worry about the seat, just get in.”

Nina gave an elaborate shrug. “I guess you Bellamys don’t worry about ruining things.”

Greg was startled by the resentment in her voice. “Us Bellamys? So I take it you’re acquainted with my family.”

She sniffed. “I know your type. Spoiled. Bossy. Interfering. Who needs you?”

He wondered why she had such a chip on her shoulder about his family. She probably just had a chip on her shoulder, period. Unconcerned, he got behind the wheel and peeled out, the trunk lid banging on the bike.

“You could have broken his jaw. Why are you so mad? Are you some kind of racist who can’t handle seeing him with a white girl?”

“With you being underage, I don’t care what color he is. He’s got no business messing around with you.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a kid. I know what I’m doing. And FYI, Laurence Jeffries is seventeen. So we’re not that different at all.”

Great, they were both kids. “You’re light years apart. You’re a schoolgirl and he’s about to go into the army.”

“I can quit school at sixteen without parental permission,” she pointed out.

“Good plan. That’ll get you far.”

“I’m just saying.” She sulked a little. “So is your family, like, going to kill you for disappearing?”

Probably. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

“They were all, like, ‘it’s time we talked about your future, son,’ weren’t they?” she persisted. “I bet that’s what they like to do when they take you to the club.” Switching gears, she moved on. “What are your sisters’ names?”

“Ellen and Joyce.”

“And your brother is Philip. He looks a lot older than you.”

“He is. He’s got a wife and kid but they stayed in the city this weekend.”

“You’re an uncle, then,” she said. “Uncle Greg.”

She switched gears yet again with another nosy question. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

He wanted to tell her it was none of her business, but he didn’t. Just the thought of Sophie chafed at an old wound. He and Sophie Lindstrom had met in Econ 101 last September and he’d been a total goner. From her Nordic beauty to her prowess at Scrabble to her startling hunger in bed, she had fascinated and mesmerized him.

“She took a semester abroad,” he told Nina.

“Ha. That means she dumped you.”

She was annoyingly perceptive, he’d give her that. “Where to?” he asked, determined to drop the subject of Sophie.

“Just let me off at the corner of Maple and Vine. And you don’t have to do this, you know. I’ve lived here all my life. I know my way around.”

“If you’re so smart, you wouldn’t be sneaking around with guys who are too old for you.”

“Screw you,” she said.

He decided not to react, since he knew that was exactly what she wanted. Mercifully, she didn’t try to provoke him again, but turned her attention out the window. The road outlined the lakeshore, and it was mostly dark, an unspoiled wilderness. They passed an occasional cottage or cabin with lights winking, but the dwellings were sparse. Most of the lakeshore was a protected wilderness, and no further development would be permitted. The few places along the shore had gone in prior to the 1932 protection agreement.

They drove by the Inn at Willow Lake, somewhat shabby but popular with tourists because of its idyllic location. A quaint roadside sign marked the entrance, and Nina turned her head to stare at it as they passed.

Greg sensed her sinking mood. He wasn’t sure how, but he could feel it dragging at him, pulling all the air out of the car. And he felt responsible for her, in a way, as though he ought to process this with her. “Listen, I probably shouldn’t say anything—”

“Then don’t.”

“—but I’m going to, anyway. There’s no reason for you to be running around with guys who only want one thing from you.”

“Oh, God. I am so not listening to this.”

She was trapped, though. A captive audience. He eased up on the accelerator. “I don’t pretend to know anything about you, but guys like that, well, they’re not real complicated.” In fact, they were all exactly the same, letting a certain male appendage do all their thinking for them. Greg was well aware of this. There was something about women that seemed to suck the brain cells dry, turning a guy into a hopeless life-support system for an erection. And a girl like Nina—well, certain parts of him didn’t care about her age.

Trying to explain all this to her would be futile. There was no way he could tell her these things without sounding completely stupid. Besides, it was hypocritical. Because the only difference between him and the West Point kid was that Greg knew how old she was.

Still, he felt as though he should say something. Because one of these days, she was going to … He didn’t let himself finish the thought.

“So anyway, it’s plain old common sense,” he told her. “You’re better off hanging around people your own age.”

She snapped, “Right. Because boys my age are such delightful company.”

He had no answer for that. Greg had kids that age in his counseling group at Kioga this year, and he certainly couldn’t vouch for their social appeal. “You’re one of them,” he pointed out. “You’re in the same peer group.”

“Yeah, lucky me.” She turned to stare out the window, her party dress pulled over her drawn-up knees. Then he realized her tough-girl demeanor had crumpled. He heard a tragic sniffle, saw her hand sneak up to surreptitiously wipe a tear.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” he said.

“So is that some sort of a bonus, or what?”

There were few things more daunting to Greg than a crying girl. It was with some relief that he pulled over at the corner of Maple and Vine, went around and held the door for her. She sat unmoving, her arms still looped around her knees. A car trolled past. In one of the houses behind him, a porch light switched on.

He felt a surge of panic. This might look bad, Nina Romano getting out of his car. He quickly turned and went to pull her bicycle from the trunk. She got out, but seemed to be in no hurry to go home.

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