“What?” She looked over at me, wide-eyed. “For real? I thought she was, like, an urban legend.”
“Mymom?”
She glanced over her shoulder as we pulled across the road. “Heard stories about her all the time, but nobody sees her in the flesh. Like Bigfoot.”
The contrast between my buttoned-up mother and a yeti made me want to laugh. “She’s real, I promise. Not sure why anyone would think otherwise.”
“Probably because she’s stayed away so long.” She slowed as we reached the road, looking both ways. “Around here, if people don’t know something, they just make it up.”
I felt like I had to ask. “So what do they say about her?”
“It varies.” She tucked some hair behind her ear as we pulled across to the driveway. “The family cut her off when she got married. Cat owes the family some big sum of money. She joined a biker gang, then punched Liz out in a bar fight.”
“What?”I said.
“Okay, that last oneImade up.” She smiled. “But you get the idea.”
“Well,” I said, “I sure can’t tell you anything. I didn’t even really know this place existed until yesterday.”
“Seriously?” It was clear I’d shocked her. “Like, at all?”
“You said it yourself,” I told her. “She’s a mystery. Not just here, either.”
“Clearly,” she agreed as we came over a hill. “Oh, man. There he is.”
Sure enough, a brown UPS truck was ahead, one tire stuck in a sizeable hole. A short man in uniform with dark hair stood nearby, wringing his hands.
“Raymond,” Lana said as we pulled up. “Why didn’t you just leave it at the Egg?”
“The package was addressed here directly,” he replied. “I figured it must be important.”
She got out, going around to the truck bed. A moment later, she returned carrying a large piece of cardboard. I watched as she bent down near the trapped wheel, sliding it under for traction. “Try it now,” she said.
Raymond got in the driver’s seat, the engine starting. Seconds later, Lana stepped back, gesturing him toward her ashe carefully reversed, onto the cardboard and out of the hole. “Good, good,” she said. “And… stop.”
“Woo-hoo!” Raymond cheered. “And I’m only down a few minutes.”
“You work way too hard,” she told him. “Give me the package, I’ll bring it up.”
“Bless you.” He bent behind him, pulling out a box. “It’s kind of heavy.”
Her door creaked open and she set it between us before reversing to let Raymond out. Then we started up the driveway again.
“So where are you from?” she asked me.
“Lakeview,” I said.
“Nice.” She maneuvered around a tree root. “How long you down for?”
“A week.”
“That’s just enough,” she said approvingly. “Any less and you’re rushing. More and you’ll get sick of it.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
A moment later, we came out of the trees. At the house, Lana pulled up behind Liz’s minivan and the North Lake Estate Sales SUV, cutting the engine.
