Forewarned: A Daphne Ann Post Novel

Chapter 1

A Monotone Song

Carlson, Indiana; June 4, 1976: Daphne Ann Post

“Who’s gonna see the lake first?” My mom sang the monotone song ending on a mystery note with a minor third. It conjured the kind of anticipation and excitement I felt watching scary movies. And this time it triggered a new dark melody. I heard it in the sinister thrum of the car’s engine and in the wind roaring through the windows.

Nothing seemed to have changed along East Lake Shore Drive. The winding narrow road that led to Nana’s cottage in Carlson, Indiana was treelined on the lakeside, farmland on the other. Lush greenery and sprouting corn grew beneath cloud-specked Indiana sky as far as the eye could see. On the breeze, faint smells of cornflowers, manure from nearby farmland, and lakeweed.

Wind from the open car window blew my short haircut, styled like the Olympic ice skater Dorothy Hammill, in every direction. I searched between the trees for the telltale reflection of the sun on the lake. I wanted something happy to cheer me up. Today was my fifteenth birthday.

“Who’s gonna see the lake first?” my mom repeated.

“It’s right there, Marianne.” I’d been calling my mom by her first name since she divorced my dad last year.

“I saw it!” announced my younger brother Brandon. “I saw the lake first!” Brandon was nine and a half. He was born when I was five, and from the moment he could walk, Marianne and Dad expected me to help look after him. Most days it took all three of us to keep track of him.

“Why are you still calling me that, Daphne?” Marianne asked.

I shrugged. The only way I knew how to deal with my rage about the recent divorce was to disassociate from her. To pretend she was just a friend. To call her Marianne.

Despite knowing I’d be expected to babysit my brother and two younger cousins, I usually felt excited about our yearly summer trip. But this year, I resented Marianne for pulling me away. I wanted to celebrate my birthday with Dad. I wanted to start driver’s ed. I wanted to be with my friends.

Who was I kidding? I didn’t have any friends. Not after Ruth turned everyone against me.

Icy dread laced with a sense of danger crept up my arms. Not my typical reaction to approaching the lake for the summer. I loved to water-ski, and I was good at it. I loved to lie on the dock and listen to the water lap against the pillars. I loved the musty, mildewy smell of the cottage. I loved searching for fossils and beads in the clear shallow water.

This chill skittering from my elbows to my hairline evoked a sense of déjà vu. It reminded me of the day my best friend Ruth stopped being my friend.

It’s all your fault, Ruth had said.I’d believed it.My stomach flipped and I wanted to throw up. Ruth made me feel so guilty.

Marianne said, “When we get there, I need help unloading the car before you can play with your cousins.” She glanced in the rearview mirror at Brandon in the back seat. After the divorce, my mom changed her look and started dating again. Today she wore a paisley lace-up top and bell-bottom jeans. Her new shag haircut showed off bright green eyes and long hoop earrings accentuated her high cheekbones.

I looked nothing like my mother.

Between the trees the lake glittered as if sprinkled with shards of broken glass. Lavish summer homes with three- and four-car garages lined the shore. Some, newly remodeled, towered above the rest with third-story additions. Others behind the trees were unpretentious cabins, blending in with the forested shore. An adjacent golf course with green carpet-covered hills smelled like fresh-mowed grass.

Trespassing on the golf course was forbidden. I imagined what it would be like to run on the soft grassy hills in bare feet. I wanted to sit in the gazebo high on the hill on the far side of the fairway. Though I’d never been there, I imagined it had a wonderful view of the lake.

As we drew closer to our cottage, the prickles had fled my arms to reside in my scalp. I tried to ignore the sensation and the feeling of dread. The last time I had feelings like this, my friend Ruth almost died. It happened when I touched her. She had welcomed me into her house, and she’d hugged me. The warning had become so clear in my mind—like the developing image of a Polaroid picture—that I had to tell Ruth. I pleaded with her and tried to stop her from skating on the ice.

Now I wished I’d never said anything. Because maybe then it never would have happened. Maybe if I hadn’t told Ruth, we would still be friends. My cheeks heated with shame and embarrassment, and I turned my face to the open window.

Weirdo. Freak. It was all my fault.

The road wound down a steep hill. At the bottom on the left, our sky-blue Victorian cottage, with its peaked roof and scroll details, was the oldest home on the lake. White window trim popped against the pale blue siding and dark gray shingles. Mowed grass full of pink clover and rows of orange and yellow lilies blooming along the sidewalk led to the familiar screened porch. Gabled windows and a spire on the crest of the roof gave it charm like no other house on the lake.

Duke, our half golden retriever, half collie mutt, knew this road as well as we did. He stuck his long nose out the back window of the Volkswagen bus and the wind blew back his floppy ears. When he snorted into the wind, Brandon cried out, “Gross. Duke blew snot all over my face.” He wiped his face on his shirt sleeve.

“Look, your cousins are already here.” Marianne pulled into the carport, where Auntie Beth and my cousins were unloading their station wagon.

We piled out of the VW bus, and Duke led the way.

“I’m going to play with Sammy,” Brandon said.

“No, you’re not. You need to help unload the car first,” Marianne said.

Brandon opened a white-painted wrought iron gate leading to the yard and ran to Sammy. The two boys body-slammed each other in a frenetic hug, Brandon’s wild blond hair contrasting with Sammy’s neat brown military cut. They chattered and ran toward the lake with Duke at their heels.

“Brandon, what did I say?” Marianne called.

“Happy fifteenth birthday, Daphne.” Auntie Beth pulled a suitcase from the back seat and set it on the driveway. A brown-leather barrette held back her long red hair. She wore a light-orange flower-print T-shirt and overalls. She gave me a warm hug.

“Thanks,” I said. She reminded me that I’d rather be with my dad.

 “You’ve grown six inches since I saw you.” Auntie Beth was exaggerating but not by much. I’d grown taller than Marianne this spring. Now I could see the top of my aunt’s head too.

“She’s growing up before our eyes.” Marianne sparkled with something like pride. I chose to ignore it.

My aunt picked up a laundry basket full of bedding and headed toward the house. “Aubenaubee Lodge is open, so come on inside.” Years ago, Nana had named the house after Aubenaubee Creek that ran beside it and into the lake.

“Happy birthday.” Margot, who was twelve, brushed a lock of straight, walnut-brown hair away from her face. “It never feels like summer until we get here.” Her awkward, open-mouth smile revealed a flash of silver from the metal in her mouth.

“You got braces!” I said, “let me see.”

Margot showed them off with a grin more like a grimace. “They hurt and I have headgear.”

“Look what I got.” I tossed my head and pointed to two new, gold-post earrings. Marianne had finally let me pierce my ears.

“I know everyone does it, but I don’t want mine pierced.” Margot held a small gray-blue suitcase. “Did you bring your Breyer horses? Misty of Chincoteague and her foal?”

“Yeah. The two you like best.” I smiled.

“Dad got me a new Breyer horse. She’s a bay with a long mane and tail. I can’t wait to show you.” Margot was on the cusp of putting childish games away, but for some reason she wasn’t quite ready to.

Marianne opened the tailgate of the VW bus and handed me my suitcase. “The house is unlocked. Take your things up to your room and come help with the rest, please. I’ve no doubt the boys aren’t coming back.”

“Okay.” I longed to see the familiar cottage. It reminded me of happier days when my parents still loved each other. Days filled with summer sports and sunshine. Lately, the only activity that gave me joy was playing the piano. “Did Nana tune the piano this spring?”

 “I asked Nana about it,” Marianne said. “That old console has seen better days. The technician said it needs too much work.”

My hopes to improve the Chopin Étude crumbled. “How will I practice?”

“There will be other things to do, Daph. You’ll be so busy you won’t even miss it.”

“You don’t know anything!” I pushed open the wrought iron gate and slammed it. This summer was quickly becoming the worst ever. It was Marianne’s fault. No Dad, no friends, and now, no piano. Life sucked.

I passed the little house attached to the back of the carport on the way to our big Victorian cottage and looked over my left shoulder. The neighbor’s house was still dark. The summer renters hadn’t arrived yet. But from the black windows, in the quiet stillness, I heard whispered warnings, and I knew, I just knew, someone in that house would die this summer.

Chapter 2

When You’re Not a Jet: Daphne

The cottage smelled like summer, mildew, and memories. Margot and I took to our familiar bedroom at the top of the stairs, my bed closest to the door and Margot’s next to the closet. Though I’d never say so to my younger cousin, I hated that creepy cedar closet. When I brought my suitcases upstairs, goosebumps rose on my arms again.

I kept repeating to myself, “There’s nothing to be afraid of. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

I had to peek into the closet to be sure no one hid inside. I had to reassure myself that no ghosts would jump out at me. Because it always seemed like someone—a soldier—was there. Though I never saw him, I’d been afraid of that closet since I was little.

I peered at the smelly dark clothes hanging there. Mold and faded perfume mixed with the fruity cedar fragrance and tickled my nose. Dirty curtains and musty-smelling pillows lay in a pile atop an old trunk on the floor of the closet. Opaque zippered clothing bags hung from hangers and contained men’s suits and smoking jackets—I’d opened them last summer. In the corner, an old set of curtain rods leaned into one another, sharing their misery and rejection. I rattled the rusty lock on the mildewed trunk and a parade of invisible ants marched up my spine, daring me to be afraid.

I sprung the trunk lid open in one swift movement and it clattered against the curtain rods. The sudden noise set my heart racing as I glanced down at folded blankets and moth-eaten linen. I quickly closed the trunk and straightened everything. In my mind, I saw a man in a faded green uniform with badges on the upper left of his jacket. A folded rectangular hat on his head. Gold stripes on his cuffs. I imagined he was sadly watching years pass.

I shut the door. Stiff hinges resisted as if fighting back, so I threw my hip into it, securely closing it.

The prickles on my arms subsided.

“Checking the closet again? You do that every year.” Margot set her hairbrush and headgear out on the dresser.

“So. I don’t like it.” I unzipped my suitcase. When I saw the book of Chopin Études on top, a wave of sadness came over me. As soon as I unpacked, I’d play something. I needed to see for myself what shape the piano was in. More than anything, I longed to play music. To escape through Chopin or Ravel, or Debussy.

Stairs creaked outside the room, and I peered out. Following Auntie Beth, Marianne carried the laundry basket full of bedding through the library across the hall to the sleeping porch.

Auntie Beth went into her bedroom at the bend in the hallway. “House cleaners came last week,” she said. “They told Mother there were mice in the sleeping porch again.” The name sleeping porch came from the old days when homes like this had no air conditioning. People made their beds outside to cool off on the very hot summer nights. “The mice chewed up bags of snack food in the dresser drawers. I think the boys left them there.”

“I thought we cleaned up before we left.” Marianne brought sheets into my room.

Downstairs the one and only phone rang. Marianne flew down the carpeted stairs, passing beneath a taxidermized stag head. Curious, I followed, unable to keep my gaze from the stag’s glass eyes. We didn’t often get phone calls here.

The yellow phone was ringing on a small table behind the swinging door between the kitchen and the living room. Marianne swung the door to the kitchen closed and lifted the receiver.

“Hello, Aubenaubee Lodge.” Marianne stretched the phone cord and leaned against the sofa. “Hello, Mother. The house is fine. We just got here and we’re unloading the cars now. Yes, Beth told me about the mice in the sleeping porch. When are you coming?”

In the living room near Marianne, I pulled the chain on a dusty lamp perched on top of the painted console piano. It illuminated traces of past summers—cigarette burns, rings from sweaty drink glasses, and melted wax. I sat on the cracked leather piano bench. Grasping the rusty knobs, I jiggled open the rollaway key cover. Dirty white keys were chipped and split. The white ivory had peeled off the bass G key, exposing bare wood. Another burn mark scarred the highest C, as if someone forgot their cigarette while singing a tune.

I dragged my fingers across the keys without playing a sound. When I finally pressed down A440, the A above middle C, my fingers flew along an ugly, discordant chromatic scale.

Marianne waved at me. “Can you stop? I can’t hear Mother.”

I wanted to ask Nana to send a piano tuner out. She and Dad were the only family members who understood my deep connection with music. Nana loved her community theater productions and musicals and, though she didn’t sing anymore, she’d once starred in a Broadway show.

Auntie Beth rounded the corner from the stairway and opened the extra wide double doors and secured them with heavy iron doorstops. A breeze blew in from the flagstone patio near the lakeshore, clearing out the musty, mildewy smells. “Is Mother worried about the damage from the mice? Tell her it’s hardly noticeable.”

Marianne relayed the message as Auntie Beth busied herself with opening windows. She left through the kitchen door.

While Marianne talked, my fingers made the motions of playing E major scale without actually pushing the keys down. I longed to play a sonata or an étude and imagined the pure melodies cheering me up and chasing the whispered warnings from my mind.

Nana’s voice droned from the phone like the teacher on the Charlie Brown specials. Unintelligible and scolding. Nana had helped finance Dad’s deli, The Asparagus Sandwich, in Indianapolis. She’d given him money and expected to be paid back. When the divorce was finalized, she also helped Marianne buy another house. It was a lot of money, and Marianne couldn’t afford much now that she was single. The way my mom shopped with coupons and looked for sale specials, I worried that someday she wouldn’t have any money left.

“—loaned him. He will pay you back, Mother.” Tension poured off Marianne like vapor from dry ice. “Before you hang up, Daphne wants to know about the piano. Can we have it tuned?” Marianne made eye contact with me and shook her head.

“Oh. You bought a new piano? I’ll let her know.”

I threw up my hands in a cheer. “Yes!” This changed everything.

“They’re shipping it next week,” Marianne told me as she hung up.

I played a happy chord progression that fell flat. Notes that should have been cheerful and uplifting made sour discordant sounds.

Beneath the sturdy maple tree, hordes of gnats swarmed in the warm rays where Margot and I settled in for a morning of play. There was nothing better to do until the piano arrived. One week? Waiting was torture. Margot laid towels over the damp grass between the neighbor’s house and the Victorian cottage. I spread out the horses and toys and waved gnats away from my face and mouth.

I gazed across the lake while Margot dressed the toy horses in blankets and saddles.

Last night we celebrated my birthday. If I could describe the day with music, it would have been like Chopin’s “Revolutionary Étude” with those long descending minor arpeggios and big thunderous chords. I really wished Dad could have been here. It was the first birthday I’d ever celebrated without him. Around dinnertime, he’d called. I didn’t tell him how much I missed him or how sad I was. I hadn’t told anyone.

After dinner, the family sang “Happy Birthday.” I opened a few more presents from Margot and Auntie Beth. Marianne finally came through and gave me the bikini I’d tried on while shopping with Dad. It made me feel so grown up. I don’t know how she knew which one, but it was perfect.

Margot pushed away a long lock of hair that fell across her thick glasses and focused on fastening the saddle on her Breyer horse. She picked up a short length of string and began tying it in a double loop. Since a very young age, she’d been riding and competing in horse shows. “Can you put Misty’s halter on?”

“I don’t know how.” I’d ridden horses a few times at a dude ranch in Wyoming, but never learned anything about the tack.

“Like this.” Margot demonstrated, but my mind was elsewhere. My gaze locked on the calm surface of the lake beyond the buoys.

I tried tying a halter on Misty of Chincoteague as Margot had shown me. “Is your dad coming this weekend?”

“I don’t know.” Margot pranced Beauty in the grass.

“How can you not know? If my dad was coming, I’d be so excited.” I plucked a clover from the yard. “He’s coming to visit later this month.”

“How often do you get to see him?”

“Every weekend. Except . . . now that we’re in Carlson for the summer, I won’t see him for a while. He’s too busy with his deli.” The Asparagus Sandwich took most of his time these days. I mindlessly trotted Misty over a stick in the grass. “You’re so lucky.”

Margot looked up. Her glasses fogged near the bridge of her nose. “Why?”

“Your dad comes home every night to hug you and tell you stories.” I longed for those days.

Margot turned toward the lake and seemed lost in thought. “It’s not like that. It’s not what you think.”

“What do you mean? Your dad loves you and Sammy. He still loves your mom. They don’t fight all the time like my parents do.” I only knew that I never liked Uncle Chuck. Whenever he hugged me, I got the creeps.

“You don’t know, do you? Sometimes I wish he wouldn’t come home at all.”

I tried to recall something, any reason why Margot should feel that way. Could it be that I didn’t know Margot at all? And we were practically sisters.

The last time I saw Uncle Chuck, it was Easter at Nana’s house. He’d taken Marianne outside to have a talk with her. He pointed his finger, making accusations at her. She was red-faced and crying. Auntie Beth just stood there. Silent. She didn’t defend her sister from him, and that struck a minor chord in my heart.

The entire day replayed in my mind like an episode of All in the Family. Only Uncle Chuck never apologized at the end of the day as Archie Bunker would have. And Marianne went home in tears. Uncle Chuck never would have behaved that way if Dad had been there. Dad would have stood up to him. He would have stood up for his wife.

After Margot played silently for a few minutes, I asked, “Did something happen?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted the answer.

Margot focused on her horses. “Forget it. Forget I said anything.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose and lowered her gaze to her Breyer horse. She adjusted the bridal and saddle, then pretended to groom her with a small brush.

Movement in the neighbor’s yard caught my eye. Just over the stone wall that abutted the neighbor’s yard, two boys were carrying a pair of water skis and vests toward the lake. The blond boy looked close to my age and the other was a taller, darker, more mature version of the blond one. The younger boy, with a smile as big and bright as the sun, wore wire-rimmed aviator sunglasses. The older one shook his tousled shoulder-length brown hair.

The two boys walked so confidently, with their broad shoulders set and heads held high. They moved like dancers on stage. Physical. Athletic. I wanted to meet them. They looked like movie stars. Like the cool kids in the musicals Nana took me to see last year. The music from West Side Story—“When you’re a Jet”—drifted through my mind. I wanted to follow them wherever they went.

They turned their gazes toward us, and the younger boy nodded a hello. A weird sense of déjà vu coursed through me, as if I’d seen him before.

The dark-haired one said, “Babies. Look at them.”

Mortification warmed my cheeks. Did they think I was a little kid? The boys continued walking to their dock and removed the cover on their speedboat.

“What are you looking at?” Margot held out the saddle for Misty. “Can you put this on?”

A sense of doom like a dark storm cloud spread across the lawn. I didn’t want to play anymore.

Chapter 3

I’m Going to be an Actress: Lara

“We need to stock up the fridge. I’m not driving back and forth to The Pig every time you run out of Honeycomb cereal.” Mother hated grocery shopping. She rarely cooked as it was.

Lara thought menial tasks like shopping for food and vacuuming only reminded her mother that after marrying Father she’d traded in her dream of becoming a lawyer for being the wife of a prosecutor. Her mother’s family had money, lots of it. But she’d married for love. Lara almost choked whenever she heard that story. It usually ended with her mother saying she should have gone back to school. Followed her dream. Because being a housewife, raising three kids and answering Father’s beck and call like some fifties sitcom wife had made her bitter.

“I can drive,” Lara said.

Mother peered at her through the rearview mirror. “Good. I have a busy schedule this summer.”

This summer was already going wrong. Lounging against the car door of her mother’s Lincoln Continental, Lara Vaughan straightened her legs on the roomy back seat and tuned out the staticky oldies radio station. Mother insisted they all spend the summer in Carlson, Indiana because Phillip, Lara’s older brother, got a job at Carlson Academy. Camp counselor or something. And Mother had friends who summered there. She could spend her days playing bridge and tennis and who knows what-all with a gimlet in one hand and an Eve cigarette in the other.

Lara had no one to confide in but Phillip. She missed him since he went to college. He used to call every weekend and tell her all the fun things he was doing there. She envied him for his parties and independence and longed for the days when she could finally be on her own.

“Bacon for BLTs, Wonder Bread, Coke, Colby cheese, Doritos . . .” In the front seat, Lara’s younger brother Lewis was rattling off all the food he wanted from The Pig.

She gazed out the car window and thought someday she’d move away from all the cornfields and hicks in this backward state.

Someday I’ll escape.

Since she was twelve, Lara wanted to be a fashion model for one of the big magazines. She subscribed to Glamour, Vogue, Mademoiselle, and Teen. Finally last summer, for her sweet sixteen, Lara’s parents took her to New York to get a modeling portfolio.

They had stayed in a Manhattan high-rise with Father’s friend, an heiress—the daughter of some millionaire—and her lover. Lara had a photo shoot with a photographer from Elle magazine. She’d posed in a doorway as a girl-next-door type with bright pink lipstick, then lounging on a chaise as a sultry vixen, in a low-cut black beaded number. In Lara’s favorite photos she wore a burgundy hat tilted over one blue eye.

She could be whoever they wanted. Hadn’t she proven that?

She wanted to move to California, or New York, or Paris. She wanted to be a model or an actress and imagined her name on a movie poster.

Besides, Mother’s money secured Lara’s future. The Elle photographer said she was too old for the runways. Maybe she’d get a job modeling for some clothing catalog. Or—if she couldn’t become a fashion model—she wanted to go to California and become an actress. When they read Desire Under the Elms in English, Mr. Trotter chose Lara to read Abbie’s lines out loud.

I was good as Abbie. She could see herself in a blockbuster movie, a bigger star than Jodie Foster or Sissy Spacek. God knows I’m prettier than both of them.

In New York, Mother and the heiress smoked their cigarettes and pot when they thought no one was looking. They mixed cocktails for breakfast and sipped champagne in the afternoon. The heiress’s lover poured champagne for Lara too. Lara fondly remembered him, and the giddy feeling of the champagne.

Lara watched out the window as they passed small houses in the small town of Carlson. Next year when she graduated from high school, she’d get away from Hickville. It couldn’t come soon enough. She didn’t want what Mother wanted—to go to Sarah Lawrence or Vassar for her obligatory degree. She didn’t have patience for four years of school. For what? To learn how to be the wife of a wealthy man?

Like Mother? God!

If she’d grown up anyplace but godforsaken Indiana, she’d already be famous. She planned to go to the West Coast where she’d meet a rich young producer. Then she’d become an actress and host parties for the rich and famous, have luncheons with Hollywood actresses and politicians’ wives.

In the front seat, her younger brother Lewis rolled down his window. The stench of manure forced Lara to cover her mouth and nose. She inhaled the perfume from her wrist, Opium by Yves Saint Laurent.

“Close that, Lewis,” Mother said. “My hair.” Mother’s perfect hair. She’d used half a can of Aqua Net to make it stiff as a paper doll’s.

“Sorry, Mother. The smell.” Lewis slowly rolled the window up with his nose to the wind.

“It will go away.” Mother could ignore the most obnoxious intrusion.

Lewis turned to look at Lara and she scowled at him, mocking their mother in silent protest. She mouthed the words it will go away.

Lewis smiled. “Father’s looking for a job for me this summer.”

“Since when?” Mother said, keeping her gaze on the road. Lara wondered too. Lewis was only fifteen.

“I told him I want to be a lawyer someday. He’s asking around the courthouse if anyone needs an assistant.”

No wonder Father favored him, Lara thought. So compliant. So predictable. Jealousy seeped out as she glared at the back of his head.

“That’s silly,” Mother said. “You’re spending the summer in Carlson. You can golf and water-ski. You don’t need a job. You’re not one of those people.”

“Those people, Mother?” Lara asked. “Like Phillip? He’s working.”

“He’s in college.” Mother scratched the back of her neck.

Neither of their parents supported Phillips’s choice. He’d won a hockey scholarship and wanted to ice-skate for the rest of his life. Lara didn’t get it either.

“What difference does that make?” Lara asked. But she knew. Phillip had refused to fall in line with Father’s wishes. Once Phillip had gone away to college on a sports scholarship, Father refused to support him. Phillip was following his dream. Lara respected him for that.

“Phillip is on his own.”

Lara twirled her long blond hair. “Isn’t that the truth.”

“That’s not the point, Lara,” Mother said, catching Lara’s eye in the rearview mirror as she pulled into the grocery store parking lot.

“Why can’t I stay in Indianapolis with Father this summer?” Lewis asked.

“Why can’t I stay in Indianapolis with Father,” Lara said to mimic her younger brother.

“Shut up, Lara. You’re just jealous because Father likes me.”

“He likes me too!” Lara reached over the headrest and pulled Lewis’s hair.

“He loves you both. Now stop it.” Mother parked the car.

“Lara pulled my hair.”

“Don’t whine, Lewis. It’s not becoming.”

Baby. And now Lara was stuck with him for the whole summer.