“Really?”
“Really.”
He didn’t need to talk to “a few people.” He only needed to talk to one, and he did it after he hung up with Blair. If the cabin in question hadn’t been renovated, it would be perfect.
He wondered if she would even take his call. They had fallen out of touch, and that was entirely on him. Allie tried. Or she used to. Enough years of shouting into the void had no doubt caused her to give up. She did send him a Christmas card every year, and he’d watched her daughter go from baby to tween with truefondness—but apparently not enough fondness to pick up the phone until he wanted something.
“Hey, Allie, it’s Jack Branksome.”
“Jack! Long time no see! How are you?”
She didn’t sound like she hated him, so that was something. “I’m OK. I know it’s strange that I’m calling you out of the blue when I’ve been so bad about keeping in touch.”
“Yeah, hard to believe we used to be literal pen pals.”
He was terrible. “I’m sorry.”
“Jack. We were friends when we were kids. It’s OK. I’m too busy to have nursed a grudge all these years.”
“I do really appreciate your Christmas cards.”
“Sure you do. What can I do for you?”
“Does your dad still have the lake place?”
“Dad died four years ago.”
Jack sucked in a breath. It was a punch to the gut. Ed Jensen had been a fixture of Jack’s childhood summers. Almost a third parent, though, like Jack’s dad, Mr. Jensen had employed a fairly hands-off approach to parenting. But he’d been around, in the background. He was the one who’d taken the fishhook out of Jack’s forearm after a casting mishap from Allie’s dock. He was the one who’d helped them roast hot dogs over the fire he built by the lake most nights.
Jack wanted to ask why Allie hadn’t told him. But he had the answer, didn’t he? She’d been dealing with the grief and administrivia that had no doubt accompanied the death of her only parent, and he thought she should have made a point of reaching out to a “friend” who’d been missing in action for so long?
The real question was why Jack’s dad hadn’t told him. Allie’s dad had been a single father, something Jack’s dad had identified with, though Mr. Jensen had been a widower and therefore a full-time custodial parent. To the extent that Jack and his dad ever socialized together, it had been with Allie and Mr. Jensen.
If Jack had known, he would have sent condolences. “Allie. I’m so sorry. I have…” He had to clear his throat. “He meant a lot to me. He was good to me.”
“Thank you.” Her voice sounded a little shaky, too. “It was cancer, but it was one of those quick ones—diagnosis to death in a couple months, which of course sucked but was in retrospect a blessing.
“Anyway, I still have the cabin. We don’t get up there much these days.” Allie had gone to college in the Twin Cities and had settled there after graduation. “My daughter is so tied to town, with activities and friends and stuff.”
“This is going to sound odd,” Jack said, “but I have a friend who is a movie producer, and she’s looking for a cabin in Minnesota for a project. When she described what she wanted, it sounded a lot like how I remember your place. Any interest in letting her take a look at it?”
There was a long pause. “Are you talking about Blair Kellermoon?”
“How did you know that?”
“Oh my God, of course Blair Kellermoon can look at the cabin! I am such a fan of hers!”
“How did you know I was talking about Blair Kellermoon?”
“Because I read about what a dickbag you were to her.”
One of the things Jack had always appreciated about Allie was that she didn’t pull punches. She never had, even as a girl.
“I’m trying to make up for it,” he said.
“I was always partial to her as an actress. Now I read every book she recommends. And when you pulled your little stunt with her, it made me wish I hadn’t already read yours. I would have not read it on principle.”
He winced. “Noted.”
