“Mom said you’re in big trouble, young man!” Summer scolded. “You know you are not allowed up here!”
Obi shrugged. “Oh, Summer—keep your pants on.”
I laughed. “How old are you both?”
“Four,” Obi said.
“And I’m six,” Summer replied.
“Well, Summer and Obi, how about I walk you back to your mom, so you don’t get in too much trouble?”
Obi used his legs to skate along the ground, pushing his bike around to face home. He took off, curls bouncing, legs pedaling manically. He made it about twenty feet and jammed the brakes on. The bike came to a halt, skidding on the gravel. Dust swirled into my field of vision, choking my lungs like a cloud of smoke.
“Oh, Obi, stop it,” Summer growled, scowling.
He turned, his pint-sized teeth flashing, and he swung back toward home and took off again.
Summer walked beside me, reaching across to take my hand in hers. She began to chatter about everything and anything: how many dolls she had and their names, her mom and dad’s names—which I found out were Luke and Cindy Toronto, where she lived, the grade she was in, and on and on and on. I’d yet tosee their mother, but I had waved to Luke as I drove past once. He was lean and tall, with jet black hair and tanned skin.
“I see you met the kids,” Albert Miller, my other neighbor, called out from his porch chair. Smoke drifted up from an ashtray, like a dark shadow. Albert gave an amused, knowing smile as we walked past.
The children’s mother came out as we got there. She was short and curvy, with ringlets of almost snow-white curls bouncing wildly as she rushed down the stairs.
“I’m so sorry,” Cindy said, wiping dough caked hands on her apron.
“It’s fine. They can come up anytime.”
“Obi, what have I told you!” She scolded, placing a hand on her hip.
Obi shrugged, and jumped off his bike, leaning it up by the house. “See-ya later, Amy,” he sang out, disappearing inside.
“There are cookies inside I just made, Summer. Go and grab one—Dad will be home soon,” Cindy said.
“Bye, Amy,” Summer said brightly, her denim skirt fluttering as she ran up the stairs.
“I’m Cindy,” she introduced herself, wiping the remnants of the cookie dough off her hand down her jeans and holding it out for me to shake.
I took it. “Amy.”
“I hear you work at the bar and for Bob at the bookstore.”
I chuckled. “News travels fast around here—I haven’t even started at the bookstore.”
She smiled. “It does. It took me a while to get used to it too.”
“Where are you from?”
“New York.”
“That’s quite the change.”
“We only come for a few months a year, and I love it, but that’s enough. Luke would live here full time, but I would go mad with boredom. How are you finding the bar?”
“Good. I worked in a bar back home, and they’re pretty much all the same.”
Cindy nodded and looked across the lake, watching an eagle soar on the other side as it searched for something to eat. It tilted its head to a forty-five-degree angle and held it fixed, as if it had zeroed in on something. In less than a heartbeat, its wings folded in, and it dropped, splitting the sky, as silent as a spirit. When it came up, I grimaced, it held a small furry animal beneath its claws.
“Please just be a little careful, Amy.” She regarded me with what looked like concern. “This place gives you the illusion of safety, but not everything is always what it seems.”
