“I’m about to drive down to Troy for a short meeting. If you’ve got guests
coming in by train, I can pick them up and bring them back.”
The Rensselaer train station stop on the Amtrak line that ran from New York
City to Montreal was ten minutes from where she was going to be.
“I hate to ask you to do that. I imagine you must be busy.”
Dev sensed her hesitation and was embarrassed that Eileen Harris felt
uncomfortable accepting a simple favor from her. Eileen’s reserve was probably
due to the fact that Dev had avoided Eileen and her husband since her arrival.
Dev hoped she could make up for the rudeness now. “It’s right on my way.
Really.”
“Well,” Eileen said, clearly still torn. She glanced once at the truck, then smiled
gratefully at Dev. “That would be great. My daughter’s coming in from New
York City, and I hate for her to wait there or ? nd some other way up.”
“Your daughter.” Dev heard her voice and it sounded normal, but she felt like
she was hearing it underwater.
“Yes. Leslie. She’s an attorney in Manhattan, and she called unexpectedly. Just
this morning. It’s been a while since she’s been here, and I…”
• 31 •
RADCLY fFE
Dev was trying to follow the slightly disjointed conversation but she didn’t seem
to be catching all the words. Leslie. Coming here.
She looked past Eileen down the grassy slope to the lake and the boathouse. It
looked exactly the same as it had ? fteen years before. She could actually hear
the music.
The party at the Harrises’ boathouse was in full swing when Dev arrived
close to midnight. The parking lot was jammed with dusty pickup trucks, old
sedans, and even a few shiny new graduation cars here and there. She rode her
motorcycle onto the grass under some trees and sauntered down the slope
toward the music and the swell of voices.
Every teenager in the area would be there, including those who were only living
at the lake for the summer while they worked at the area restaurants and resorts.
It was the last big bash of the summer before half of the kids there left for
college.
Dev wouldn’t be leaving just yet. She’d missed the age cutoff for starting
kindergarten with most of the kids close to her age by a month, so she still had a
year before she graduated. She looked eighteen, although she had six months to
go, but she never got carded when she bought beer or tried to get into the
Painted Pony, a local drinking hangout.
The fake ID she’d gotten mail order from a place in New York City didn’t hurt,
either. Fortunately, there were so many kids in Lake George during the summer,
it was all the cops could do to keep the really young ones under control. She
never got stopped on her motorcycle, and no one bothered about what went on
at private parties.
Dev strode through the crowd that had spilled out onto the grass in front of the
boathouse, looking straight ahead and ignoring the few people who stared in her
direction. She knew she looked nothing like the pretty girls in their shorts and
pastel blouses or even the boys who stood with their arms around those same
girls, nuzzling their necks and casually brushing their ? ngers under the curve of
their breasts, arrogant with their male privilege. Knowing she didn’t ? t and
knowing why, Dev wore her tight jeans smeared with engine grease, her heavy
motorcycle boots, and her frayed white T-shirt with angry pride. Her hair was
shaggy and dark with sweat. She ignored even the few who greeted her; she
had only one thing on her mind.
The boathouse, extending out over the water on three sides, was as big as a
basketball court and sweltering, the air thick with sweat and smoke and the
sexual energy of a hundred teenagers in the last throes
• 32 •
WHEN DREAMS TREMBLE
of innocence. Huge speakers in the back corners blasted Aerosmith, and
writhing bodies ? lled every inch of the room. Most of the lights were off and
the cavernous space was so dim she could barely make out anyone’s features
until she was almost in their face, but she knew she’d ? nd her. She always did.
It was like they were connected. Except only she felt it.
She grabbed a beer from a row of coolers below one of the open windows,
popped the top, and guzzled half of it. It was her fourth in two hours, but she
didn’t feel it. The adrenaline rush of riding her bike at high speeds along the
curving roads bordering the lake had burned off a lot of the alcohol. She loved
the way the wind felt blasting against her face at sixty miles an hour, like another
body molded to hers. The rush of speed and the engine throbbing and the pulse
pulse pulse of the pressure against her body was enough to make her come
sometimes.
The pleasure was enough to make her forget for a little while that she was alone.
She drank the beer and tossed the can into the corner. Leslie was perched in
one of the open windows, her face turned toward the water, her hair blowing
ever so lightly in the breeze. Moonlight highlighted her slim form, the curve of her
breasts and the arch of her bent legs so beautiful it was like a pain in Dev’s
heart. On the far side of the room, Leslie’s boyfriend Mike was standing with a
group of boys shooting pool, his legs spread wide, posturing with the cue stick
angled against his crotch like a phallic extension.
Dev snagged two more beers and eased her way along the wall in the near dark
until she was next to Leslie at the window. She placed a cold, sweating beer can
against the outside of Leslie’s thigh and laughed softly when Leslie jumped with
a small sound of surprise.
“Want another beer?”
“Dev!” Leslie smiled and took the beer. “I thought you said you weren’t
coming.”
Dev shrugged and leaned her shoulder against the window frame.
The big rectangular window swung out on hinges and canted over the water, the
glass re? ecting the shine of moonlight on the black surface of the lake.
“Changed my mind.”
“Yeah?” Leslie sipped the Budweiser, trying not to grimace. It was the guys’
favorite, so that was what they had at the parties. “How come?”
“Just thought I’d hang out here for a while.”
• 33 •
RADCLY fFE
“I’m glad you came by.”
“You leaving this weekend?” Dev knew she was, but somehow she kept hoping
to hear Leslie say, No, Dev. I changed my mind. I don’t really want to go
three hundred miles away from home. From you.
