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.“You must have hit the wrong number,” I explained.“This is Erin Edwards, the event coordinator for your birthday party.”“I know!” she barked.“And you said”—she sniffed, sounding defiant—“that if there was anything I wanted for the party, you would handle it.I want Justin there.”I felt my brow knit involuntarily.I got stupid requests all the time, but this one took the cake.“But I don’t know what I can possibly do about that.It sounds like you two need to have a talk or something, maybe straighten out a misunderstanding…?”“What I understand is that he’s an asshole.”“Oh.” Problem solved.“Then it’s good he’s not coming, right?”“But I love him!” She took a wavering breath.“And he has to be at my party.”“Why would you want him there if he’s an a—”“I just do!”Inspiration struck me.“You know who you should talk to about this? Jeremy Rambaur.Let me give you his number.”“He just gave me yours!”I’d kill him.This was becoming more of a pain by the second.“Anyway, a man wouldn’t understand,” she went on, as if she and I had mind-melded.“You get it, don’t you?”“Well—”“So let me give you Justin’s number and you can just give him a call and get all the bullshit sorted out.He has to come to my party.He just has to.If he doesn’t, the whole thing will be ruined!”I looked longingly at the film crew.Five minutes ago, I had thought nothing could be worse than being interviewed on film.Now I’d revised my opinion.This was far, far worse.And it was about to reach new, lower levels of misery.We specialize in making dreams come true.What a stupid thing for me to say when I knew full well I was dealing with crazy people.Well played, Universe.Well played.“This isn’t really a good time,” I said to Roxanne.Then, hoping to appeal to her vanity by mentioning the TV stuff, I added, “I’m doing some preproduction stuff for your show.”Hope dissolved when she said, “Are you ready? It’s two-four-oh—”“Hang on,” I said.“Let me find a pen.”I had experience calling estranged boyfriends, obviously, but it wasn’t something I ever wanted to do again.Particularly for someone like Roxanne.This was ridiculous.And yet, in some way, it felt like the universe was trying to tell me something.But whether it was saying I needed to contact Nate and resolve a few things, like Jordan had suggested, or that the whole idea of teenage romance and drama was ridiculous, I didn’t know.But maybe Jordan was right.Maybe I needed to find out.Or maybe—God, I hated thinking about this crap after so long—but maybe I needed to clear up the truth for him once and for all.To let him know, after all these years, that I truly hadn’t done what he thought I’d done to him.That I’d truly loved him.Chapter 7August 1986They picked their way down the wooded path to the lake, Erin, Nate, Theresa, and Theresa’s latest boy, JP, in the deep golden light of a late summer afternoon.They carried two six-packs of Champale, a drink pretending to be a cross between champagne and beer yet failing miserably on both counts, crossing creeks and stepping over branches to get to the lake in Potomac Falls.Finally, the bramble cleared and the lake was there, stretching out for two or three acres in front of them, the sun dancing across the surface.There was a bigger stretch of woods across the way and to the right, and manicured lawns rolled out to the left.“Let’s sit,” Erin suggested as Nate came to her side.“Um, I think we’re going to keep going a little farther,” Theresa said with a giggle.“Here.” Erin handed her one of the sixes of Champale.She was glad they’d be alone.She’d been with Theresa and guys before and it always tended to be a make-out fest for them, and a conversation for her and Nate that made her feel like they were as old and prudish as her grandparents.“Thanks!” Theresa and JP stumbled off down the path, on their way to who-knew-what secretive action.Erin didn’t care.She and Nate sat down side by side on the dirt.She brushed some broken twigs aside and moved closer to him.The heat had been oppressive all day but as the sun went down and the wind picked up slightly, it was finally beginning to cool.“We used to ride horses here when I was little,” she said.“I loved to ride them into the lake and swim, but they were always losing their shoes in the mud right there”—she pointed to the bank—“and my mother got so mad because we had to keep having the blacksmith out to replace them.”“You swam on horses?”“Well, we’d ride them into the lake, and they’d start to swim and we’d just sort of float along with them.It was great.”“I never thought about horses swimming,” he said.“But I guess it makes sense.Like the ponies swimming from Assateague to Chincoteague.”“Exactly.” She leaned against him.“Their bellies make them float like barrels.” She yawned.“I want a horse again someday.”“Then you’ll get one.”“That was easy.” She tossed a rock in the lake while he pulled the tops off of two Champales.“So is this like Michigan?” she asked, knowing that every summer he went to his widowed grandfather’s house in Michigan and did a bunch of boating and fishing and nature stuff.He laughed.“No.”“No?”“This is a pond.”“This is a lake!”“Around here, this is a lake,” he said.“Anywhere else, this is a pond.”“Oh.” She took the Champale he handed her.“Thanks.So what’s it like at your granddad’s?”“Isolated.” He took a sip from his bottle.“Quiet.The quiet is nice, though.You can go for a walk at night and if someone is having a party three miles down the shore, you can hear them.Water conducts sound really well.”“Three miles? There’s that much water?” She looked at the small lake in front of them.No wonder he called it a pond.“That’s almost like an ocean!”A smile flickered across his face.“It looks like the ocean a little.But no waves.More like the bay
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