“Do you need me to do anything?” she asked nervously.
I straightened and looked at her over the telescope. “Nope. You’re perfect. We’re almost done. One last thing.”
I took another deep breath. I can do this.
You can do this.
I can do this, I said again.
If not, you can always ask Rosy.
Will you focus! I snapped.
“Is he giving you a hard time?” Christy asked.
“Yeah.”
“Tell him to behave. We’ll take care of him soon.”
I joined her on the boulder and slid past her. She turned to face me as I knelt with my back to the lake. I reached for the backpack. My fingers trembled, but I controlled them and opened the zipper. Christy watched curiously and didn’t suspect a thing.
“I thought you might like a souvenir,” I said. I turned the bedpost and tore off the construction paper. My heart raced, but I reminded myself that she couldn’t see the carved inscription. I removed the last of the tape, wadded it with the paper, and dropped it into the open backpack.
“Hold the post for me,” I asked politely.
She did, although her brows knitted in confusion when I reached into the backpack and pulled out the blue silk pillow. I covered the ring with my thumb. Then I smiled up at her as I tied the ribbon around the post.
“You got me a bedpost?” she asked uncertainly.
“Not just any bedpost. This is a special one.”
“Special how?”
I swallowed hard.
C’mon, you can do this! Faint heart never won fair lady.
She grinned. “What did he say?”
“Faint heart never won fair lady.”
“What?” she laughed. “Why would he—?” Her expression went slack when she realized I was down on one knee. Her eyes flicked to the lake and then the waterfall behind me. She looked down at the post. Then she closed her mouth and swallowed hard.
“This is a special bedpost.” I cleared my throat and continued in a stronger voice, “It belongs to PDH, but that’s crossed out. The new owner is CMH.”
“CMH?” she said uncertainly.
“Uh-huh. And there’s a line below that, with a single notch. Yours.”
I turned it and showed her the inscription, although her eyes immediately went to the little pillow and her grandmother’s ring.
I’d rehearsed something eloquent, something poetic, but I couldn’t remember a single word of it. I said the first thing that came to mind.
“Will you marry me?”
Her eyes filled with happy tears. She nodded enthusiastically but then laughed. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“In that case…” She smiled and paused, just long enough to remind me how long I’d made her wait. Then she said the word I’d been waiting a lifetime to hear.
“Yes.”
Epilogue
Part 1: Aug 1984 – Jul 1990
Christy and I spent the rest of the afternoon at the quarry. I only teased her once, when I realized she was admiring the ring over my shoulder while we were having sex. Then she turned it into a game—could we find a position where she couldn’t see it if she tried hard enough? I stopped complaining at that point, especially when she got creative.
We eventually returned to the Retreat and celebrated with our friends. The girls oohed and aahed over the ring, while the guys shook my hand and congratulated me. Christy and I were a little worn out from a full day of sex, but we still had fun with the others. We went to bed well after midnight, completely drained.
The next day we said goodbye to Erin, Leah, Mark, and our families. Erin and my parents had to spend a few days packing before she moved to Gainesville and the University of Florida. I felt a little guilty that I wouldn’t be there to help, but the three of them wanted to do it alone. My parents were alumni, so the trip was a kind of homecoming for them.
Leah and Mark were moving to New York City. She was going to Columbia, while he planned to spend a year at City College before he applied for a transfer. He was incredibly laid-back about it. He didn’t even know what he wanted to study, although I was sure he’d do well wherever he ended up. We promised to keep in touch.
A couple of days later, Christy and I drove Brooke to the Charlotte airport. She’d found her niche with us and seemed to be a full-fledged member of the group. She was already making plans to meet us over the Christmas break and then to join us for a couple of weeks the following summer.
On Monday I went back to work with Granville, and we continued our meetings twice a week for the rest of the summer. We never had another session like the one where we’d worked the whole time, but he was helpful in his own way. He also kept tabs with his crony in the Building and Zoning office. Our cabin permits were on schedule to be approved, and Trip had the crews already lined up to begin construction in the fall.
We submitted permit applications the week before we left. We needed them for the clubhouse, convenience store, and RV mini-clubhouse. The house renovations were extensive enough to need permits as well, so we applied for them too.
When I wasn’t drafting or working with Granville, I helped Trip finish the cabin demolition and cleanup. We also fixed a bunch of little things around camp that were code violations, fire hazards, or both. Finally, we drained the pool and made sure the empty bungalows were ready for the winter.
We had a long business meeting with Susan—a real one, not the “I need an update, wink, wink” kind—where we submitted our final invoices, discussed the schedule for the next year, and made plans for site visits when the crews began work on the new cabins.
Then we packed our belongings. We had far more than I’d realized—clothes, food, alcohol, hand tools, power tools, drafting tools, the computer, a printer, and everything else we’d used over the course of the summer. We loaded both cars and barely had room to sit, but we managed to pack it all for the trip back to Knoxville.
Finally, on a cool morning in September, we closed and locked the last two bungalows and the clubhouse. Susan drove up to say goodbye. She wore jeans and a faded Navy sweatshirt in deference to the weather.
“I already have ads in several papers for an assistant,” she said to Wren. “You’ll be a hard act to follow.”
“Thank you. It was a pleasure to work with you. I learned a lot.”
“Likewise,” Susan said graciously. “The boys have offered to help. And then there’s Granville.” She compressed her lips to show what she thought of that.
He’d made a similar offer to me, to stop by the camp and check on progress. He was still looking for a legacy.
“We’ll see,” Susan said. She wasn’t one for long goodbyes, so she hugged each of us in turn. “Drive safely,” she added, “and do well in school. Good luck with the restaurant and your job search,” she added to Wren. “I’ve already started writing a letter of recommendation. I’ll mail it to you.”
“Wow, thanks!”
She turned to me. “See you in a month.”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s the plan.”
“Well, then… I’d better let you get on the road.”
* * *
The Building and Zoning office approved the cabin permits, and the construction crews arrived right on schedule. The foreman on site knew his business, and I didn’t have any problems working with him. We encountered the usual minor setbacks and delays over the next few months, but we kept things on track.
Susan ran into her own problems that started in early 1985, but we didn’t find out about them until later, when they became our problems too. The events played out over many months, but it all started when the new sheriff came to town. Literally.