Susan Wiggs - Dockside at Willow Lake

Jenny nudged Nina out of her reverie. “Let’s get going,” she said.

Jenny’s grandfather went into the giant industrial kitchen of the camp where Nina’s mother worked. The girls hurried through their chores so they could go exploring. Even though Pop had nothing good to say about summer camp, Nina thought it was beautiful beyond all imagination, a wonderland of lush forests and grassy meadows, rock-strewn streams and the glittering lake. The main pavilion, where the campers were just finishing lunch, was a bare-timbered Adirondack-style lodge that housed a vast dining hall.

“There they are,” Jenny said, scanning the groups of campers from the stairway leading down to the kitchen. The different age groups were seated at long tables, raising a clatter of dishes and utensils, chatter and laughter. Jenny homed right in on the twelve-to-fourteens. “Isn’t he amazing?” she whispered in a smitten voice.

Nina couldn’t speak, although every cell in her body said yes . He was impossibly tall, with perfect posture, sandy hair and a killer smile. He wore navy blue camp shorts and a gray T-shirt stenciled Counselor.

Jenny saw where Nina was looking and gave her an elbow nudge. “Not him, ninny,” she said. “That’s Greg Bellamy. He’s old, like eighteen or something.” She pointed at the younger group. “I meant him.” Her adoring gaze settled on one of the campers, a quiet, lanky boy studying his compass.

“Oh …” Nina said, “him.” She studied the object of Jenny’s enraptured affection, a golden boy named Rourke McKnight. Jenny had first met him two summers ago, and she’d convinced herself that they shared some grand destiny. Destiny, schmestiny, thought Nina.

A smaller dark-haired boy went to sit by Rourke. “Joey Santini,” Jenny said on a fluttering sigh. “They’re best friends. I don’t know which one’s cuter.”

I do, thought Nina. Her gaze kept straying to the older boy. Greg Bellamy. The name played itself over and over in her head with full symphonic sound. Greg Bellamy. First of all, the name Bellamy was a clue that he was special. In these parts, being a Bellamy was like being a Kennedy in Boston. People knew who you were, and who your “people” were. You had this aura of prestige and privilege, whether you’d earned it or not.

“Hey, you two,” Nina’s mom called from the kitchen. “Lunch is just ending. Go on up and grab something to eat.”

Jenny hung shyly back, hovering between the kitchen and dining hall.

“Bashfulness is a waste of time,” Nina murmured. In her family, people got lost if they didn’t speak up and make their preferences known. She grabbed Jenny by the arm and drew her into the dining room. At the buffet, they helped themselves to sandwiches and drinks. Taking care not to slosh the lemonade from the glass on her tray, Nina made a beeline for Greg Bellamy. He was perusing the desserts table, laden with a rich assortment from the Majeskys’ bakery—lemon bars and peach shortcake, walnut brownies and slices of pie. There was one piece of cherry pie left. If there was anything that could make Nina forget a cute boy, it was cherry pie from the Sky River Bakery.

She reached for the plate. At the same moment, so did someone on the other side of the serving table—Greg Bellamy. She looked up and met his eyes. His Bon-Jovi-blue eyes.

He winked at her. “Looks like we’re both after the same thing.”

Usually when a guy winked at a girl it was totally cheesy. Not with Greg Bellamy. When he winked, it nearly made her knees buckle.

“Sorry,” she said, tossing back her thick dark hair. “It’s mine. I saw it first.” Wink or no wink, she wasn’t backing down.

He laughed, his voice like melted chocolate. “I like a girl who knows what she wants.”

She beamed at him. He liked her. He’d said so aloud. “I’m Nina,” she said.

“Greg. So are you a visitor?” He studied her as though she was the only person in the crowded dining hall.

“That’s right.” It wasn’t a lie. She simply omitted the information that she was the underage daughter of the camp cook. Fleetingly she wondered if that would change his opinion of her. Of course it would, she admitted to herself. It was the whole reason such things as “social class” existed right here in the good old US of A. At Camp Kioga, the lines were sharply drawn: the nobs versus the slobs.

But if she stayed anonymous, the lines went away.

She could feel a keen interest in the touch of Greg’s gaze, and it made her stand up straighter. Nina had always looked older than her age, a combination of dark, vivid features and early development. Though she flaunted this fact with pride, her confidence was merely a cover for the fact that she had always felt slightly different. Not radically so, but just a little, because she was a year older than the rest of the kids in her grade.

The reason for her being behind in school was humiliating. It wasn’t because she was a slow learner or had flunked an early grade. It was because her mother had forgotten to enroll her in kindergarten at the proper age. Forgotten . People smiled and nodded their heads when they heard the story of how Vicki Romano had neglected to send her middle child to school. It was completely understandable. The woman had nine kids, and had given birth to the final two—undersized, sickly twin boys—just a few weeks before Nina was to start kindergarten. The entire family was focused on the fact that the tiny twin boys were fighting for their lives while Vicki battled a postpartum infection. The last thing on anyone’s mind was quiet, well-behaved, five-year-old Nina. No one remembered that she was supposed to be in school until it was too late to catch up. She had to wait until the following year.

The anecdote was a family favorite, with an all’s-well-that-ends-well conclusion. The tiny twins—Donny and Vincent—were rowdy Little League players now and Nina was in the same class as her best friend. It had all worked out for the best.

Except the experience had a more profound effect on Nina than anyone could know. She always felt slightly out of step, off-kilter. She also transformed herself from the quiet, undemanding middle child into someone who figured out what she wanted and then went for it, every time.

Mr. Blue-Eyes Bellamy was still holding on to the edge of the plate. Her plate of cherry pie.

“So you gonna let go?” she challenged.

“Let’s split it.” Without waiting for permission, he tugged it from her grasp. He neatly divided the piece of pie into two portions, put one on a clean plate and offered it to her.

“Gee, thanks,” she said, but didn’t take the plate.

“You’re welcome.” He either missed or ignored her irony. He was a Bellamy, she reminded herself. He had a stunning sense of droit du seigneur, a term she knew from the historical romance novels she was addicted to.

“You’re used to getting your way,” she commented, taking the divided pie from him. She felt a little thrill as she talked to him. Flirting had always come naturally to her—unlike school.

Because she was older than everyone else in her grade, Nina had the dubious honor of being the first at a lot of things. She’d been the first to grow boobs and get her period. The first to turn boy-crazy. It had hit her like a speeding train last year. Before her very eyes, boys—other than her brothers—had turned from loud, smelly, supremely annoying creatures into objects of strange and compelling urges. The boys in her grade still acted like children, but those a few years older seemed to share the same urges that bothered and distracted Nina. At the end of the school year, she sneaked into a high school dance and made out with Shane Gilmore, a junior, until one of her uncles—a biology teacher and chaperone—had noticed her and sent her home to be grounded for weeks.