While You're Away

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

Half a beer and four mini gyros later, Dave had shucked off Heatherly, but that was only to talk to Olivia.

            What I needed was some quiet to recharge. Some dark sounded good, too, where I didn’t have to watch Dave work the crowd. If I happened to run into Will, well, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

            Breaking away from the party, I started down the lawn toward the shore. Haze drifted over the river, creeping onto land. It swirled along the banks and against the Victorian strangeness of the Pattens’ boathouse.

            I’d never explored the grounds at Tricia’s house. First of all, being at a house that had “grounds” made me itchy. My family wasn’t poor. We had a tri-level with a cute backyard, next to another one just like it.

            The electronics plant in town had jumped the Internet gap. No one needed to move closer to a city to get by. That meant that everybody lived in the suburbs, and my house sat in the quaintest, most tree-lined part of it. It was middle class. The definition of nice.

            Unlike Tricia’s family, who owned the aforementioned plant. The most historical piece of land in the county was their home. The house was a renovated saltbox, artful gray wood and pristine white shutters. It cast an austere shadow over the pool and the guesthouse.

            With its long, symmetrical windows and identical shutters, it seemed to gaze ruefully at the party. As if it accepted that most of the senior class needed to do keg stands, but it didn’t really approve.

            Tricia’s was a serious business kind of house. But down the sloping lawn, resting on the shores of the river, was the boathouse. And it was amazing. The Pattens had their pictures taken there every year for the company Christmas card. The ugly-charming sweaters changed, but the fairy-tale boathouse never did.

            A bit of 1920s whimsy that practically screamed for shimmy skirts and flasks of hooch, the boathouse had pillars made of whole trees. Twisted branches framed the dock, all whitened and weathered. And to match the mist coming off the water, a thin trail of smoke swirled from the boathouse’s stone chimney.

            I followed the sharp, alluring scent. It meant somebody was down there and I suspected it was just the person I wanted to see.

            Caught by the water’s chill, I hurried into the boathouse. Stacked rowboats filled the middle of the floor. They tilted, threatening to topple. It was too early in the season for them to rest in their berths. But a few bobbers and buoys did. They thumped lazily against the wood dock. The sound echoed, pulsing like a heartbeat.

            I called out as I oriented myself. “Hello?”

            “Hey, Athena,” Will called back.

            At first, I hesitated. I’d hoped to hear his voice, but now that I had, I was unprepared. I felt the ghostly trace of his finger across my shoulders again. Trying to shrug it off, I ducked beneath a string of floats.

            Damp clung to the air. A high-tinged scent surrounded me, old wood cut with smoke. When I rose on the other side, heat swept over me. Orange flames danced in the stone fireplace, and a silhouette stood in front of it.

            Still shirtless, Will raised a bottle to me. “You get lost?”

            I didn’t think he’d understand needing a breather. I was angry at Dave, not to mention exhausted from the press of so many bodies near mine.