The Color of Water in July by Nora Carroll Read Free Book Online

come in with a good offer and accept the renovations sight unseen . . . we’d be willing to talk to them. We need to settle this as soon as possible and get back to New York.”
    Jess was intrigued to see Russ, obviously so much in his element, dealing with the real-estate agent. He had taken on a vaguely proprietary air that she had never noticed before. She was exhausted and felt the beginnings of a migraine coming on. Russ had his arm around her and he kept saying “we.” It was such a relief not to have to deal with Toni Barnes. After a while, Jess picked up one of Russ’s magazines and went out on the porch. She let Russ do all the talking.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    J ESS , AGE SEVENTEEN
    “The Millers are here,” Mamie said, not looking up from her mending. Her pale-blue glasses were perched on her nose. She was sitting on the porch swing, rocking slightly as she sat. “The David Millers.”
    “Are they?” Jess said without much interest. This was a summer ritual, Mamie telling her the comings and goings of the cottagers. Few stayed all summer as they did. Most came for two or three weeks at a time and then left, replaced by another batch of cottagers, each group barely distinguishable from the last. “I thought the Sam Millers were still here,” Jess said, knowing as she said it that she had no idea who was in the Miller cottage.
    “Left on Friday,” Mamie said.
    Jess pulled the faded floral bolster under her head and flopped over in the hammock. She was starting to hate summer, even to miss her crazy mother with her oddball journalist friends. Before this, she had always loved Wequetona—the easy summer alliances, fast friendships that formed and faded just like summer tans, soon forgotten but leaving behind a reminder of the season’s warmth. But this summer was different. She kept running into people’s mothers who peppered her with news. Oh, Kristen misses seeing you. She stayed home to work this summer. David’s not coming up this year. Summer school. Jess was picking at the strings of the hammock where it was starting to fray. Staring out at the lake, feeling drowsy from boredom.
    “The Miller girl. Isn’t she a friend of yours?” Mamie asked.
    Jess rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. The Miller girl? There were five sons in the Miller family, all of whom shared the cottage. They had some complicated time-share system. Besides, they all kind of looked alike—angular, bucktoothed, and blond. Nobody could ever keep the Miller family straight.
    “Do you think it’s Toni Miller?” Jess felt a little wave of dismay. They were around the same age, and people always expected them to be friends. They often ended up hanging around together, but they had never been close.
    “Is that David Miller’s daughter? The pretty blond one?” Mamie said. “Yes, I think that’s the one.”

    It was 5:30. Jess knew because her grandmother had gone into her dressing room to change for dinner. Mamie still dressed for dinner every night, even though now it was just the two of them sitting down to simple meals at the kitchen table in the add-on kitchen in the back. She never said anything to Jess, didn’t suggest that she change out of her jeans. The clubhouse had been closed for—oh, it must have been almost ten years, but Jess knew that Mamie still imagined that she heard the clubhouse bell, precisely at six, and could stroll down the walk like they used to. They gathered around the Tretheway table, in the drafty old wooden clubhouse with the linen-covered tables and worn wooden floors. The Club still held Vespers there on Sunday evenings; some of the older folk still went, including Mamie, of course. But for years it had been Mamie and Jess alone at the dinner table, Mamie dressed, with fresh makeup. Every night, they unfolded a fresh linen tablecloth and spread it out over the table, even though neither of them cooked much: they ate frozen dinners or canned chicken noodle soup.
    “We didn’t even have a