CHAPTER THREE
Battening Down
The weather service upgraded its early watch to something considerably more serious by the end of that week, and Denny came stomping into the farmhouse kitchen Thursday morning with his hat still dusted white from a light dusting that had fallen overnight, shaking his head at the whole business with the specific grim satisfaction of a man who liked being right about bad news considerably less than he liked being prepared for it.
"They're calling for something real now," he announced, helping himself to coffee without waiting to be asked, a privilege he'd earned through more years of loyal service than anybody bothered counting anymore.
"Not just a good hard frost. A proper system, cold air dropping down out of Canada and running smack into whatever's still hanging wet off the coast. Could be a real mess, if the two of them meet up the way the models are starting to suggest."
"How bad are we talking?" I asked, setting my own mug down, and Denny shrugged, honest in the way I'd always appreciated about him.
"Hard to say yet. Could fizzle. Could be the worst thing this county's seen in a decade. Either way, I'd rather spend today getting ready for the worst of it and be pleasantly surprised, than spend today assuming the best of it and get caught flat footed."
Gil, arriving a few minutes later with his own coat still dusted with the last of the overnight snow, nodded along with unusual solemnity for a man who rarely let anything dampen his good humor for long.
"I already dragged the storm shutters down from the equipment barn," he said.
"And I checked the generator twice, which I want it noted for the record, since Denny usually accuses me of forgetting that particular chore until somebody's already lost power. "
"I do usually have to remind you," Denny said, mild.
"Not this year. I'm a changed man, ahead of the weather for once in my natural life."
We spent that full day in the certain brisk, focused rhythm of a place preparing seriously for a piece of it it couldn't quite predict yet, Denny and Gil working the grounds with practiced efficiency, hauling in loose equipment, securing anything that might catch a hard wind, checking the generator's fuel levels twice over despite Gil's earlier boast, while Dad and I made the rounds of the occupied sites, letting each camper know what the forecast was suggesting and what our own preparations looked like in case the worst version of it came calling.
Everett Boyle took the news with his usual quiet composure, thanking me for the warning and assuring me he'd weathered plenty of hard winters in his younger years and didn't intend to let one more spook him now, though something in the careful, deliberate way he said it made me wonder, not for the first time, whether there was more sitting behind his easy manner than he ever let show.
Otis Rowe barely looked up from whatever he was reading, murmuring something about hoping the historical society's archive stayed dry, and Deloris Vance received the news with a short nod and a question about whether the campground had reliable cell service during storms, a question I couldn't answer with much confidence and which she took, predictably, without much grace.
It was midafternoon, the sky already going that flat, bruised gray that always seemed to arrive a full day ahead of actual weather, when a new camper pulled up the drive that I hadn't expected, a cheerful, slightly battered little travel trailer towed behind an equally cheerful, slightly battered pickup, and out climbed a woman somewhere in her sixties with a wide, easy smile and the specific unhurried confidence of someone who had long since stopped worrying what anybody thought of her.
"Sylvie Marchetti," she said, striding up to the office with her hand already extended.
"I know, I know, terrible timing, showing up right as everybody's boarding up for a storm, but I've been on the road two weeks now and I'm tired of my own company, and your reviews online said this was the friendliest lake in the state, so here I am, hoping that's not false advertising. "
"It's usually pretty friendly," I told her, laughing, already liking her considerably. "Though I should warn you, we might be about to get considerably more crowded than usual if this weather turns out the way they're predicting."
"Crowded's fine by me. I like people. It's the empty highway rest stops that get old after a while.
" She glanced around the office, taking in the campground map on the wall, the little display of Marion's honey jars by the register, with open, cheerful interest. "Widow, three years now, if you're wondering about the trailer and the solo traveling.
Decided I wasn't going to spend my remaining good years sitting in an empty house waiting for some part of it interesting to happen to me.
Figured I'd go find the interesting things myself instead. "
It was Gil, coming through the office door a few minutes later to report on the woodpile's readiness, who ended up on the receiving end of Sylvie's particular brand of charm first, and I watched the whole exchange unfold with no small amount of delight.
"You must be the one keeping this complete operation running," Sylvie said, looking him over with unmistakable, unhurried appraisal. "I could tell the moment I pulled in. Place has that specific look of somebody competent running the show behind the scenes."
"That'd be me, mostly," Gil said, visibly pleased and doing a poor job hiding it. "Though I share credit generously, when credit's actually due."
"How generous?"
"Extremely generous. I've been known to credit an entire team for work I did almost single handedly, purely out of the goodness of my heart."
"That's either admirable humility or shameless self promotion dressed up as humility," Sylvie said, "and I haven't decided yet which, though I find I'm inclined to stick around long enough to find out."
"I'd encourage that," Gil said, totally too quickly, and I caught Sam's eye across the office, both of us biting back a laugh at the sight of Gil Barrett, a man who had spent as long as I'd known him treating flirtation as a kind of competitive sport played mostly for its own entertainment, looking, for possibly the first time in recent memory, genuinely flustered by someone flirting right back at him with equal skill.
"I'll show you to your site personally," Gil offered, "seeing as the storm's coming and I wouldn't want you getting lost trying to find it in the dark."
"How thoughtful," Sylvie said, dry as anything, though she was already gathering her things with the specific unhurried satisfaction of a woman who had clearly gotten precisely the reception she'd been hoping for.
I watched them head out together, Gil talking a mile a minute about the campground's history in the specific overeager way he only did when he was nervous, and turned to Sam, grinning. "I don't think I've ever seen him like that."
"Neither have I," Sam admitted, amused. "I don't think Gil's had a proper match for his own energy in a long while. Might do him good."
We spent the rest of that day finishing preparations, Denny running one last check on the generator as the light began to fail, the sky gone the color of an old bruise by late afternoon, thick and low and pressing down over the lake in a way that made the whole flat gray water look uneasy, restless, like it knew something the rest of us were only beginning to guess at.
Theo appeared at my elbow sometime near dusk, notebook in hand, watching the sky with the same serious attention Denny had been giving it all day.
"Mr. Kowalski says it might be a big one after all," he informed me, solemn.
"Might be," I agreed. "You ready for that?"
"I've got extra batteries for my flashlight and a entire fresh notebook," he said, with tremendous confidence, "in case anything happens worth investigating."
I laughed, and ruffled his hair, and thought, looking out at that bruised, restless sky, that I hoped very much nothing worth investigating happened at all, that this particular storm would turn out to be nothing more than a hard, inconvenient stretch of cold and snow that gave us all a good story to tell later and nothing worse, though some small, uneasy part of me, the same part that had learned across four winters at Wren Lake never quite to trust a still season all the way through, wasn't entirely convinced that was how this one intended to go.
Marion caught me on my way back inside, a basket of clothespins balanced on one hip, half the laundry line already gone slack in the rising wind.
"Your father's got me pulling the last of the sheets in early," she said, cheerful despite the cold reddening her cheeks.
"Says he'd rather do it now than chase them across the county tomorrow.
I told him that's the most romantic thing he's said to me all week, and he looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "
"That does sound like something he'd say."
"He means well. He's just decided, somewhere along the way, that keeping this whole place running smoothly is his own certain love language, and honestly, four years into knowing the man, I've stopped arguing with it.
" She tugged the last sheet free and folded it against her chest, the wind snapping at its corners.
"How's the letter situation? Sam still chasing his own tail with it? "
"Slowly. He says it'll come when it comes." I helped her gather the rest of the pins into the basket, the metal already cold enough to sting a little through my gloves. "I keep wondering what Idella would think, watching us still picking at this a year later."
"I expect she'd be glad somebody at last cared enough to keep at it," Marion said, gentle, "whatever it costs the two of you in patience along the way.
" She glanced toward the barn, where Denny and Gil's voices carried faint over the wind, still arguing companionably about the woodpile.
"Come on. Let's get this inside before it starts snowing on us truly instead of just threatening to. "
We walked back together, the wind picking up in short testing gusts that rattled the last dry leaves loose from the oaks along the drive, and I found myself thinking, not for the first time that week, how much of ordinary life at Wren Lake was built out of exactly this kind of small, unremarkable preparation, sheets pulled in early, biscuits made in bulk, a generator checked twice over out of habit more than necessity, the full quiet architecture of people who had learned, across a great many winters, that the surest way through hard weather was simply getting ready for it together, well before it ever arrived.