Louise stood and stretched, allowing her shirt to rise up on her waist, and walked into the kitchen.
T.J. was right next to the sink and she did not move when Louise approached.
“I should get some too,” said Louise. She let cool water run into her cup, then let it run over. Her side was next to T.J.’s side. She turned and leaned against the counter also, too close to T.J. to pretend their proximity was accidental. Their flanks and arms were touching.
“Louise,” said T.J. She shook her head, looking down at the floor.
“What?”
Between them was an electrical current, a buzzing sensation making its way back and forth between their bodies. Louise could feel it. She was certain without knowing why that T.J. could feel it too. They were animals, Louise thought—and it almost made her laugh. Humans were animals. They had the same instincts, the same ability to communicate beneath and apart from language.
Louise turned her body so she was looking at T.J.’s profile. She put one hand very gently on the small of her back. It was the first gesture she made that left no room for doubt.
“I employ you,” said T.J. “I am your employer.”
Louise said nothing.
Abruptly, T.J. moved away from the counter and walked down the hallway. She poked her head into her father’s room, checking on him, and then she continued, and closed the door to her own bedroom. The lights went off.
• • •
Louise lay on the sofa, watching the last flames of the fire die out. She closed her eyes tightly. She was trying not to cry. If she was lucky, T.J. would let her forget how foolish she had been.
There were only embers left behind the grate now.
Soon the room would be full dark. Then it would be morning.
Louise
1950s | 1961 | Winter 1973 | June 1975 | July 1975 | August 1975
T.J. never spoke of that night again.
They spent the rest of the week together, letting Louise’s face heal, and then Louise returned to the Garnet Hill Lodge. In midspring she would get a phone call from T.J., requesting confirmation of her participation in that summer’s camp session, which she was happy to provide. The only difference from then on would be that T.J. would invite her in for talks in the Director’s Cabin, from time to time.
Whatever crush Louise had on her diminished in some ways and in others grew stronger. In T.J., she sensed two dueling forces: anger, and the power to control it. Against her better judgment, she found them equally attractive.
When she was not vigilant, her mind drifted at times toward the thought of a life with T.J. Running the camp alongside her. Caring, when asked to, for her dad. There were two women in Shattuck like this, Louise thought: two former professors from downstate who’d set up a home just outside the town. One wore her hair in two long gray braids; Louise saw her sometimes at the grocery store. No one asked them many questions. No one talked about them either.
But any fantasies Louise had about this life were short-lived.
Because coming in from dinner one day at the lodge, two weeks after the incident with John Paul, Louise was handed an envelope by the man who staffed the reception desk.
She waited until she was back in her little room to open it. There, she sat on her hard twin bed and read through a letter she’d known was from John Paul the moment she’d seen it.
In it, he begged her forgiveness.
I haven’t had a drink since that night, he said. I can’t believe what I did. My mother would be so ashamed of me. I want to do better.
He ended by asking if he could see her to apologize in person. He understood if she never wanted to speak to him again. But he had to ask the question, at least, he said.
At the bottom of the page, he’d drawn an arrow. She turned the letter over. P.S., he wrote. Don’t worry—I didn’t tell anyone anything.
Louise put the letter down on the bed.
She wouldn’t respond. Hopefully that would be the end of it.
• • •
One evening later that week, someone knocked at her door. She found one of the ski instructors on the other side. A little smirk was on her face.
“You’ve got a visitor,” she said. “He’s waiting in the staff lounge for you.”
John Paul was alone when she entered. He was sitting at the round table next to the coffee percolator. He was bent forward, elbows on knees, one leg vibrating with nerves. When Louise entered, he sat straight up.
He looked terrible. Worse than she did. Two weeks after the incident, her face had mostly healed. Her ribs and back no longer hurt, though one large bruise still lingered on her flank, light purple now. John Paul, on the other hand, had dark circles under his eyes. His hair was a mess.
“Oh, God,” he said, upon seeing her. He put his face in his hands. The action reminded her of her brother Jesse, when he was trying not to cry. And sure enough: when John Paul removed his hands, tears were running openly down his cheeks. He took his glasses off. Wiped his face.
He stood up and Louise flinched, positioned herself behind a chair. She had left the door open intentionally. She glanced back over her shoulder, wondering how loud she’d have to yell to get anyone to come running.
But John Paul, perhaps sensing her fear, sat back down slowly.
“Can we go somewhere private?” he asked.
“No,” said Louise.
“Can we sit down, at least?”
