“Manage your torque,” Lee says.
Seton touches another pedal. The helicopter lurches, and I grip the edge of my seat.
“Calm down, you wuss,” Seton says as we level out. “Where do you want to go?”
Down to solid ground, though I manage to say, “I’ve never seen Idlewood from the sky.”
A few moments later, we swoop over the island, the main cabin’s metal roof glimmering in the sun. The boat’s gone from the dock. “No one’s home,” Seton says, hovering over the cove.
A patchwork of water, forests, and lawns extends to the horizon.
“Give us the 360 view,” Lee says. “Use the cyclic stick.”
The helicopter starts to turn in a smooth clockwise motion until we’re facing the foothills to the west. “How much of this land does your family own?” Seton asks me.
“The island,” I say. “And everything around the cove. And the property out to the bunga ... to the house on the street.”
“Good catch there.” Seton jerks a thumb toward the back of the helicopter. “Charlie here lives in an eight-bedroom bungalow. That’s when he’s not staying in the lake house.”
“Shut up,” I say, though it feels good to be teased.
“Invite me over anytime,” Lee says.
Seton checks a gauge on the console. “Watch out for my mother, Charlie,” she says. “She’ll be after you soon enough to put this property in conservation. She tried to convince Jane to do the same thing.”
“Reid won’t agree to that,” I say.
We leave Idlewood and pass over the cove to Burkehaven. From up here, the burned-out house looks small, insignificant, a darkened scar nestled among the trees. “Charlie and I hung out here when we were teenagers,” Seton says to Lee. “We must have tossed back hundreds of cases of beer. Now I’m the one who has to break up the parties.”
“Screwing the mood,” Lee says.
Seton punches his arm, and I swear her eyes spark with attraction as she banks to the right and swoops over the water. “There,” she says, a moment later, moving in over a Bryant 219 anchored in a cove. Two faces look up into the sky, and I recognize Freya and Hadley from under their sun hats, a bottle of wine between them.
Freya’s catching up with an old friend, like she told me she would yesterday. I wonder if Hadley’s told her anything new.
Seton heads inland over Burkehaven Farm, then rises to the summit of the Ridge Trail. She turns the nose of the helicopter to face the lake, hovering above the spot where I witnessed the fire begin.
“I could take us in for a landing right there by the old cabin,” she says.
“That stone shelf is narrow,” Lee says. “Practice landing on flat ground a few more times.”
“Yes, please,” I say. “Practice on flat ground.”
“Now who’s screwing the mood?” Seton says to Lee.
I lean over the seat as, in my mind, I suddenly hear Reid’s voice as he confronted Mrs. Haviland on the dock at Burkehaven.You won’t screw me.
“Take me to Rocky Nook,” I say.
We soar past the shooting range where Freya and I went yesterday, then across the lake to an undeveloped point jutting into the water. Below us, boats have begun to drop anchor for the day, and a single house sits up on a hill, as though standing guard. “Reid mentioned Rocky Nook and a connection to your mother,” I say. “What happened here?”
“It’s still happening,” Seton says. “Some guy from Los Angeles inherited Rocky Nook from his uncle and aunt last year. He’d never been to the lake. He saw dollar signs and went to sell, but there’s no access.” She points to the land rising from the lakeshore. “That’s all conservation land. Thanks to my mother. Reid wanted to bid on the project and was pissed off when it fell through. So was the owner, who’s been filing lawsuits trying to find a way to develop, but nothing’s worked so far.”
“And Reid’s been helping him,” I say.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Seton says.
When we set down at the landing field, I’m grateful to be back on solid ground and ready to head up into the sky all over again.
