Chapter Three
Avery
Avery’s grandmother, Mimi, used to say lost things had a way of resurfacing exactly where she’d left them.
Forty-some hours had passed since the incident on the dock.
She’d moved into the loft apartment above the lodge, done three Peloton rides, and reoriented herself with Montressa’s sprawling campus of guest cabins.
The entire time, her mind kept replaying the conversation with Miles, arriving at the same conclusion again and again.
Dredging up a past they couldn’t change was pointless.
He’d let her drive it once, but she enjoyed being his passenger more.
Because it had been used to deliver mail, the steering wheel was on the right, enabling the postal carrier to reach mailboxes.
Originally, there hadn’t been a passenger seat, but Miles added one in high school.
The passenger sat on the left, normally the driver’s side.
That change in perspective had felt the way he made her feel: off kilter, in a good way.
Every time he shifted into reverse, he looped his hand behind her headrest as he looked out the back window.
That simple, protective gesture never failed to send a flutter through her.
When he turned to face forward and shift out of reverse, they often locked eyes and leaned in for a kiss.
That summer, she’d craved any excuse to go in reverse.
There would be no going backward this summer.
She shook her head, walked into the lodge, and distracted herself with work. Everyone was concerned about Sam. Concentrating on lodge business could ease their worries a little and might push Miles out of her every thought.
Montressa had passed down from Cooper to Cooper ever since it opened in 1926.
Over time, the Cooper family bought the surrounding land and Montressa now sat on ninety-nine acres, with twenty-two cabins sprinkled through the property.
The centerpiece was the lodge, which housed the front desk, office, lobby, dining room, and six hotel-style lodge rooms. Avery was staying in the loft, a small apartment above the office with its own set of outside steps.
At the end of last summer, Sam retired, and his son Nate took over running the resort.
Each Cooper updated the resort to fit their generation and Avery expected Nate to do the same.
He’d planned a staff meeting tomorrow via Zoom, and she didn’t want to join in without having made herself useful, especially since Miles was working so hard on the waterfront.
Early this morning, from the loft window, she’d noticed a neat row of freshly washed kayaks down at the marina beach.
She spent the morning getting familiar with the front desk and office.
The L-shaped front desk sat in one corner of Montressa’s spacious rectangular lobby.
There were two doors: the driveway door which opened to the back of the property, and the lakeside door.
The front desk faced a sitting area with couches, a coffee and tea station, and the puzzle table, a guest favorite that saw heavy use all summer.
A large stone fireplace climbed up one wall.
A hallway behind the front desk led back to two offices.
Nate’s office, which had General Manager painted on the door, looked out over the glimmering lake.
The other office belonged to Nate’s mother, Laurie, who still managed reservations.
Lily would join Montressa’s staff as activities manager once school ended.
She was waiting a couple of years to decide whether she wanted to keep teaching or join Nate in the office year-round.
Avery knew of nothing more aggravating than someone rearranging your office and vowed not to meddle with Laurie’s system unless necessary.
She decided to work from the front desk, which had a counter for serving guests and a lower, more functional seated workspace.
It was more fun to work from the lobby anyway, given its view of the waterfront and proximity to the fireplace.
Someone, probably Miles, had left a maple-blueberry donut by the phone.
He’d always bought two. One for his post-run breakfast, the other for her. She set it aside. Time to work.
No thinking about Miles.
As Lily promised, everything was pretty much the same except for a new laptop.
A sticky note pasted to the top cover said, “no password.” That wasn’t very secure.
On the wall, the giant chalkboard still held Montressa’s famous handmade reservation chart.
Dates ran across the top and the names of each cabin down the left side, leaving a square for each day of the summer.
At some point, someone had switched from chalk to Post-its to block off each reservation.
On the board, sticky notes contained the names of some of the longtime families who came every year: the Schwartzes, the Longneckers, the Lipscombs.
The Michaelsons still reserved half the resort for their family reunion week, which staff used referred to as “Hell Week”. Avery laughed at the memory.
Handwritten reservations led to double-booking. It had happened the summer she had worked at the front desk, thankfully on a slower week when someone’s reservation could be upgraded.
“Tell me they are not still using that old board,” she muttered to herself as she opened the laptop.
Montressa should’ve modernized once Nate took the helm, but scanning the computer revealed they used it for emailing guests and internet browsing.
She wondered if Nate ever considered purchasing scheduling software to keep track of reservations.
It was easiest to focus on the issues she could fix, such as answering general inquiry emails and clearing Nate’s calendar.
No appointments today, but Tuesday, fix steps showed up on his schedule, shared with Wes DuCharme, Maintenance Director, Montressa Lodge.
Wes had been a cabin steward ten years ago.
He must have stayed on. She dialed his cell, and after they’d caught up on the last ten years and she’d congratulated him on his new job title, Wes confirmed he’d rebuild the rotted steps to the lake tomorrow.
The next item on the calendar was Paulson Carter, no information listed.
A Google search revealed Paulson Carter’s job title as Chief of Emerging Markets at Carter Hotels in New York.
He had graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale the same year as Miles.
She could ask Miles about Paulson, but tracking down an email address and sending a message took less time and avoided another lecture on Dante’s Inferno.
Late afternoon, with nothing left to resolve on the calendar, Avery finally got up from the desk and walked to the window.
Her gaze traveled to the waterfront, where Miles and the maintenance crew were attaching the floating ski dock to the fixed dock.
Avery put her hand to her necklace and ran the charm back and forth along the chain.
Miles had on a baseball cap, jeans, and despite the chill, a faded Yale Track T-shirt.
Every arm muscle tightened as he pulled the rope to bring the floating dock into place.
He lifted the cement anchors as if they were foam and carefully dropped them in the water, avoiding any splash.
One thing hadn’t changed. He still took her breath away.
She wondered what his life was like now.
For ten years, she had avoided all things Miles, never searching for his name or asking Lily about him.
Once Lily and Nate had started seeing each other a couple of years ago, Lily had dropped hints and small bits of news, but Avery never took the bait.
Until he’d called her Pepper. Her curiosity had soared ever since.
There was no sign of it stopping until she answered her questions and moved on.
Ignoring the ping of an incoming message on her phone, she walked back to the desk and typed Miles Magrum in the search bar of the open browser tab.
Two and a half million results. Gulp. The top of his Wikipedia page mentioned him being the founder of CashCache, America’s most downloaded personal debt reduction app.
He’d sold it three years ago to a financial institution for “an undisclosed sum.” The page also had sections for his cameos in Hayes Preston films and mentioned his upcoming thesis, “Die Hard as a Contemporary Romance.” The only thing the page lacked was a personal life section.
Back at the search screen, the images tab presented a Miles Magrum multiverse.
On red carpets, at sporting events, and reading on the subway.
Miles at the Met Gala, in a navy tuxedo so tailored, someone must’ve had to peel it off him later that night.
In the VIP tent at a Hazel Matheson concert.
Avery felt a sour pang of jealousy creep into her throat and promptly swallowed it.
She landed on a photo of him throwing a football in the surf on Montauk.
Fading sunlight bathed every ripple of his abdomen in a golden shimmer.
And what was at the top of his hipbone? She zoomed in and gasped.
A blurry tattoo that resembled a bug in the exact spot where a firefly had landed the day he’d asked her out.
They’d been sunbathing on the floating dock, their pinkies so close, it felt like they were touching.
The sensation had set her insides abuzz.
She’d told him a firefly in daylight was good luck, so he’d tried his luck with her.
He’d asked for her favorite date activities because that Miles only wanted to make her happy.
Until he didn’t.
She zoomed back out, reminding herself that her Miles disappeared that day in the parking lot.
They didn’t know each other anymore. In fact, the more she thought about it, Miles doing anything sweet for her now was irritating.
Nothing could make up for his callous behavior. The less she talked to him, the better.