let me know before you leave if youâre planning to walk to China and back!â
Charley, hungry, soaked with sweat, and limping more than usual, holds out a plastic grocery bag, heavy with blackberries. The berries cool Saritaâs temper, but Charley canât decide what made her so madâwhether she was worried about Charley or only about what Paul Morgan would say if something happened to his daughter when she was being paid to watch her.
Later, when they are eating the blackberry muffins Sarita has made, she tells Charley she was so worried that she gave up working on her puzzle. âI was picturing you at the bottom of a cliff someplace, smashed to pieces. Or drowned.â
âDonât worry about me drowning,â Charley says. âI donât go in the lake.â
Sarita slathers butter on a muffin. âIâve been meaning to mention what a waste that is, girl. Here you are living on a lake with three swim docks and the cleanest water in the county. Swimmingâs good exercise.â
âI donât see you swimming Eagle Lake every day,â Charley says.
âYou wonât, eitherâall those snakes and snapping turtles.â
Charley nods. After two years of Amyâs pool, the clear blue water with nothing in it you canât see, it gives her the creeps, too, to think what would be swimming with her in the lake. But that wasnât always true.
Charley learned to swim in Eagle Lake. She knows perfectly well that the turtles and the shy brown water snakes that sometimes zigzag across the surface want no more to do with a swimmer than the swimmer wants to do with them. She and her mother and her father used to swimâall three of them togetherâevery evening when her father got home from work. He didnât used to go back to the office after dinner, which in good weather they mostly ate outside on the terrace. The dock box is still full of swim noodles and fins and goggles and inflatable toys. She and her father donât use them anymore. Maybe, Charley thinks. Maybe someday.
16
The Pine Grove
S arita comes in from her drive up to the mailboxes and hands Charley a letter from Amy. Charley can feel Saritaâs eyes on her back as she starts for the kitchen to throw it away. She can imagine the look on Saritaâs faceâthe same look she gets when Charley refuses an invitation to hang out with the kids from school. Sarita probably thinks, like Charleyâs father does, that she shouldnât be alone so much, that she should be going out with friends, having them over to the house.
But Charley doesnât want to leave Coyoteânot yetâand she certainly doesnât want a bunch of kids coming around and scaring him into the woods. Besides, thereâs something else, something almost magical happening this summer that she canât explain, even to herself. It isnât something she wants to share.
Still aware of Sarita watching, Charley doesnât drop Amyâs letter in the trash this time. She goes to her room instead, sticks the letter, unopened, in the frame of her mirror, and flops onto her bed. It is July 18. The red number on the calendar today is 39. The summer is more than half gone. One month from today, school starts again. Amy will come home from up north, and Charley will have to go back to school. What will happen then?
She doesnât want to think about it. Doesnât want to think about Amy. Amyâs probably only writing because she feels guilty. She ought to feel guilty, going away andâ
Charley stops in the middle of the thought. It is just a habit, she realizes, grumping about Amy and Becky Sue, Lake George and tennis. She is surprised to find that she isnât angry anymore. Whatever Amy is doing this summer, there is no wild dog in it. Whatever Amy is doing, Charley is having a better summer. She grins and gets up. She will take some biscuits outside for the dogs.
The next morning Coyote
Charley, hungry, soaked with sweat, and limping more than usual, holds out a plastic grocery bag, heavy with blackberries. The berries cool Saritaâs temper, but Charley canât decide what made her so madâwhether she was worried about Charley or only about what Paul Morgan would say if something happened to his daughter when she was being paid to watch her.
Later, when they are eating the blackberry muffins Sarita has made, she tells Charley she was so worried that she gave up working on her puzzle. âI was picturing you at the bottom of a cliff someplace, smashed to pieces. Or drowned.â
âDonât worry about me drowning,â Charley says. âI donât go in the lake.â
Sarita slathers butter on a muffin. âIâve been meaning to mention what a waste that is, girl. Here you are living on a lake with three swim docks and the cleanest water in the county. Swimmingâs good exercise.â
âI donât see you swimming Eagle Lake every day,â Charley says.
âYou wonât, eitherâall those snakes and snapping turtles.â
Charley nods. After two years of Amyâs pool, the clear blue water with nothing in it you canât see, it gives her the creeps, too, to think what would be swimming with her in the lake. But that wasnât always true.
Charley learned to swim in Eagle Lake. She knows perfectly well that the turtles and the shy brown water snakes that sometimes zigzag across the surface want no more to do with a swimmer than the swimmer wants to do with them. She and her mother and her father used to swimâall three of them togetherâevery evening when her father got home from work. He didnât used to go back to the office after dinner, which in good weather they mostly ate outside on the terrace. The dock box is still full of swim noodles and fins and goggles and inflatable toys. She and her father donât use them anymore. Maybe, Charley thinks. Maybe someday.
16
The Pine Grove
S arita comes in from her drive up to the mailboxes and hands Charley a letter from Amy. Charley can feel Saritaâs eyes on her back as she starts for the kitchen to throw it away. She can imagine the look on Saritaâs faceâthe same look she gets when Charley refuses an invitation to hang out with the kids from school. Sarita probably thinks, like Charleyâs father does, that she shouldnât be alone so much, that she should be going out with friends, having them over to the house.
But Charley doesnât want to leave Coyoteânot yetâand she certainly doesnât want a bunch of kids coming around and scaring him into the woods. Besides, thereâs something else, something almost magical happening this summer that she canât explain, even to herself. It isnât something she wants to share.
Still aware of Sarita watching, Charley doesnât drop Amyâs letter in the trash this time. She goes to her room instead, sticks the letter, unopened, in the frame of her mirror, and flops onto her bed. It is July 18. The red number on the calendar today is 39. The summer is more than half gone. One month from today, school starts again. Amy will come home from up north, and Charley will have to go back to school. What will happen then?
She doesnât want to think about it. Doesnât want to think about Amy. Amyâs probably only writing because she feels guilty. She ought to feel guilty, going away andâ
Charley stops in the middle of the thought. It is just a habit, she realizes, grumping about Amy and Becky Sue, Lake George and tennis. She is surprised to find that she isnât angry anymore. Whatever Amy is doing this summer, there is no wild dog in it. Whatever Amy is doing, Charley is having a better summer. She grins and gets up. She will take some biscuits outside for the dogs.
The next morning Coyote
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