Susan Wiggs - Summer at Willow Lake

“It’s been closed as a camp for the past eight—no, nine—years. A property management company looks after the place. Some of the family come for vacations and get-togethers every once in a while.” Olivia had been invited to the occasional family gathering, but she never went. The place held too many bad associations for her. “In the winter,” she added, “my uncle Clyde brings his family up for cross-country skiing and snowshoe hiking.”

“Crazy,” Freddy murmured. “Almost makes me want a normal family.”

She glanced over at him. “Well, if what you see today doesn’t send you screaming back to New York City, you’ll have a tribe of Bellamys all summer long.”

“Works for me. And, ah, did I mention the situation with my apartment?”

“Oh, Freddy.”

“You got it. Jobless and homeless. I’m a real prize.”

“You’re working with me this summer, and you’re living at Camp Kioga.” He was her best friend. What else could she say?

She slowed down as she saw the white flicker of a deer’s tail from the corner of her eye. A moment later, a doe and a fawn appeared, and Freddy was so excited, he nearly dropped his camera.

In the shuttle van years ago, camp regulars used to call out landmarks along the way, each sighting greeted with mounting excitement as they drew closer and closer to their destination.

“There’s Lookout Rock,” someone would announce, pointing and bouncing up and down in the seat. “I saw it first.”

Others would be named in quick succession—Moss Creek, Watch Hill, Sentry Rock, Saddle Mountain, Sunrise Mountain and, finally, Treaty Oak, a tree so old that it was said Chief Jesse Lyon himself had planted it to commemorate the treaty he signed with Peter Stuyvesant, the colonial governor.

Her twelfth summer, Olivia had ridden in silence. With each passing landmark, her stomach sank a little lower and dread became a physical sensation of cold, dead weight inside. And outside, she reflected. The weight she gained represented the stress of her quietly warring parents, the demands of school, her own unexpressed fears.

They passed a glass art studio with a whimsical sign by the road and then a stretch of riverside land, where the meadows were almost preternaturally green and the forest deep and mysterious. High in a sunny glade sat, of all things, a small Airstream travel trailer with a black-and-chrome Harley parked outside.

“Interesting place,” Freddy commented.

“There are still a lot of counterculture types around here,” Olivia said. “Woodstock’s not that far away.”

Passing Windy Ridge Farm, with yet another whimsical sign, they came around the last curve in the road, turned onto a gravel drive marked Private Property—No Trespassing, which wound through woods that grew thicker with every mile. Finally, there it was, a hand-built timber arch looming over the road—the entrance sign to the property. Built on massive tree trunks, it was the signature trademark of the camp. A sketch of the rustic archway bordered the stationery kids used for their weekly letters home. Across the arch itself was Camp Kioga. Est’d 1932 in Adirondack-style twig lettering.

On the bus, kids would hold their breath, refusing to take another until they passed beneath the arch. Once they were inside the boundaries of the camp, there was a loud, collective exhalation, followed by war whoops of excitement. We’re here.

“You all right?” Freddy asked.

“Fine,” Olivia said tightly. She slowed down as the dry, sharp gravel crackled under the tires. As they drove along the ancient road, shadowed by arching maple and oak, she had the strangest sensation of stepping back through time, to a place that was not safe for her.

The pitted drive was overgrown, branches swiping at the lumbering SUV. She parked in front of the main hall and let Barkis out. The dog skittered around in an ecstasy of discovery, determined to sniff every blade of grass.

The hundred-acre property was mostly wilderness, with Willow Lake as the centerpiece. There were rustic buildings, meadows and sports courts, cabins and bungalows lining the placid, pristine lake. Olivia pointed out the archery range, the tennis and pickleball courts, the amphitheater and hiking trails that were now completely overgrown. Already, she was making mental notes, assessing what it would take to restore the camp.

The main pavilion housed the dining hall. Its deck projected out over the lakeside, where dancing and nightly entertainment used to take place. The lower part of the building housed the kitchen, rec room and camp offices. Now everything had a neglected air, from the weed-infested drive to a patch of rosebushes around the three bare flagpoles. Astonishingly, the roses had survived, growing in riotous profusion on leggy, thorny branches.

As he surveyed the main pavilion and some of the cabins, Freddy said, “I had no idea a place like this still existed. It’s so Dirty Dancing.”

“It’s a ghost town now,” she said, though her imagination populated it with kids in regulation athletic gray T-shirts with the Kioga logo. Up until the early 1960s, there was dancing every night. There was even live music.”

“Right here in the middle of nowhere?”

“My grandparents claimed the players weren’t half-bad. You could always find talent because of the New York musicians and actors looking to do summer stock. After the camp converted to kids only, there were sing-alongs and dancing lessons here.” She shuddered at the memory. She was always picked last and usually ended up with another girl, a cousin or a boy who mugged for his friends, his face expressing disgust at finding himself with Lolly, “the tub of lard,” as she was known back in those days.

“Let’s open up the main pavilion, and I’ll show you the dining hall,” she said.

Using the key her grandmother had given her, she unlocked the place, and they opened the heavy double doors. In the foyer, glass display cases were draped in dustcovers, and the walls were hung with glass-eyed trophy heads——moose, bear, deer, cougar.

“That’s disturbing,” Freddy said.

Barkis appeared to agree. He stayed close, casting suspicious glances at the animals’ staring eyes and artificially bared teeth.

“We used to give them names,” Olivia said, “and steal each other’s underwear and hang it from the antlers.”

“That’s even more disturbing.”

She led the way into the dining hall. Timbered cathedral ceilings soared overhead. There were enormous river-rock fireplaces at either end, long wooden tables and benches, tall glass doors leading out to the deck and another railed gallery around a loft. A faint odor of burnt wood still lingered in the air.

“It’s a wreck,” she said.

Freddy appeared to be struck silent by the magnitude of the project. His eyes were wide as he turned in a slow circle, taking it all in.

“Listen,” she said, “if you don’t think we should take this on, you need to tell me now. We could probably subcontract it out—”

“Get out of town,” he said, walking toward the long wall of French doors facing the lake. “I am never leaving here.”

Olivia couldn’t help smiling at his enchantment. It took some of the sting out of her own memories.

As if in a trance, he went to the glass doors that faced the lake, cranked the lock and stepped outside onto the vast deck. “My God,” he said, his voice soft with wonder. “My God, Livvy.”

Together, they stood for a long time, gazing at the lake. Edged by gracefully arching willows, it resembled a golden mirror, reflecting a ring of forested mountains. It really was beautiful. Magical, even. She didn’t remember that about this place. No surprise there. When your life was completely unraveling, you tended not to notice the charm of your surroundings.