Summer on Lake Tulaby

By S.T. Underdahl

Lake Tulaby is a a quiet Minnesota retreat not generally known for scandal. It's become the summer haven of bachelor Ansel Landers, the reluctant new manager of the Lake Tulaby Inn; Joe Lesmeister, a freshly-retired security officer living next door to the Inn with his wife and demanding mother-in-law; and Twyla Stokes, an aging Minnesota beauty who has returned to Lake Tulaby determined to rekindle the affections of her now-married high school boyfriend, Sandy Sanders.

As May gives way to June, a series of developments ripple the usually smooth surface of Lake Tulaby, culminating in a discovery during the annual Fourth of July Boat Parade that threatens to change the lives of the Lake's inhabitants forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463402020

S.T. Underdahl

S. T. (Susan Thompson) Underdahl is the author of Remember This and No Man's Land. In addition to writing, Underdahl is a clinical neuropsychologist specializing in the evaluation and treatment of individuals suffering from brain injury or dementia. She is also a clinical supervisor of graduate students at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, where she lives with her family.

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Summer On

Lake Tulaby

S.T. Underdahl

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© 2011 by S.T. Underdahl. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

First published by AuthorHouse 05/10/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0175-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0201-3 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-0202-0 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011906931

Printed in the United States of America

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Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Dedication

To summers and lakes and clouds with their silver linings.

Best Lake Tulaby Map.jpg

Contents

MAY

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

JUNE

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

JULY

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

AUGUSt

Chapter Sixty-One

Chapter Sixty-Two

Chapter Sixty-Three

Chapter Sixty-Four

Chapter Sixty-Five

Chapter Sixty-Six

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Chapter Seventy

Chapter Seventy-One

Chapter Seventy-Two

Chapter Seventy-Three

SEPTEMBER

Chapter Seventy-Four

Chapter Seventy-Five

Chapter Seventy-Six

Acknowledgments

Author’s Biography

Illustrator’s Biography

MAY

Chapter One

May 10th

When the newspaper that had been covering the windows of the Lake Tulaby Inn disappeared overnight, the buzz that flew around the lake sent the loons clamoring noisily into the early May sky.

Looks like there’s some activity over at the Inn, commented Joe Lesmeister to his wife, Helen, over breakfast. After his retirement from the U of M security force earlier that spring, he and Helen had moved to Lake Tulaby permanently. They were sharing the cottage of Joe’s mother-in-law, Aggie, and while no one said it out loud, Aggie was pushing 80 and had a bad ticker. Everyone knew it couldn’t be that much longer before she passed on, or bought the pine condo as Joe sometimes thought of it. When that day came, the cabin would finally belong to Joe and Helen, and Joe would be able to spend the rest of his days on Lake Tulaby in a perpetual quest to snag the big-mouthed bass and silvery walleye that swam invitingly beneath the cool, blue Minnesota waters.

Until then, however, he seemed destined to spend his days as Aggie’s personal handyman. Good morning, Joe dear, Aggie would greet him sweetly when he came down for breakfast in the morning.

’Morning, Aggie, Joe would mutter, reaching for the cereal bowls and steeling himself for the inevitable.

Aggie had yet to disappoint him. Would you be an angel today, Joe, and trim those tree limbs hanging over the driveway? she would say in a voice that had taken on a subtle quaver in the last few years. If it wasn’t trimming trees it was reinforcing the front steps, or sanding the rough spots out of the deck, or climbing up on the roof to clean out the gutters. Joe was beginning to think that he’d retired from one full-time job to work another one for his mother-in-law.

No problem, Aggie, Joe would respond through clenched teeth, picturing the service revolver he’d handed in when he retired from the university force. I don’t know what happened, Officer, he’d have told the Naytauwash police when they arrived, I could’ve sworn the safety was on…

She’s an elderly woman, Joe, Helen would remind him unsympathetically, whenever Joe complained. And besides, why should Mother pay someone to do these things for her when you’re living right here under the same roof, with all this time on your hands?

Isn’t that why I retired? Joe would grumble under his breath, So that I could have ‘all this time on my hands’? He didn’t say it loudly, though. Thirty-nine years of marriage had taught him the limits of Helen’s auditory threshold, and he seldom misjudged it.

Joe’s sole measure of comfort was the knowledge that the cabin would someday belong to him and Helen, meaning that in essence any repairs that he did were all for the good. Still, there were those moments when he wondered whether it was all worth it: the moments when the bottoms of his feet were aching from half a day spent standing on the rungs of Aggie’s rusty old ladder, his hands full of gutter muck, moments when he would suddenly glance up to see the mid-afternoon sun dancing invitingly across the miniature white caps of Lake Tulaby. In those moments, Joe would admit to himself that, in all honesty, seventy-nine years of age wasn’t even considered ‘old’ these days. Why, Helen herself had commented that several of Aggie’s friends at the Mahnomen County Senior Citizen’s Center were in their early nineties, and two were nearing 100. That meant that ten or even fifteen years from now, Joe might still be spending his days taking marching orders from Aggie. It was almost too much to think about.

It wasn’t that Joe disliked his mother-in-law; not at all, in fact. He and Aggie shared an entirely pleasant, almost polite, relationship, with the usual striped sweater and fresh batch of white socks tagged For Joe, Love, Mother under every year’s Christmas tree. Joe knew Aggie probably liked him just fine, but he had a nagging suspicion that Aggie still wished Helen had married her high-school boyfriend, Ted Halvorson, who had gone on to become the owner of a successful chain of dry-cleaning businesses in Detroit Lakes.

Helen, did you hear that ‘Your Ted’ was named ‘Martinizer of the Year’ again? Aggie would announce, seemingly oblivious to Joe’s sour expression at the mention of Helen’s old boyfriend. Your Ted was how Aggie invariably referred to Ted Halvorson when she was regaling Helen with Ted’s latest accomplishment, a subtle designation that never failed to annoy Joe.

It’s been a long time since he was ‘my Ted’, Mother, she would say mildly, glancing at Joe, who was further irked by the fact that the look on Helen’s face was vaguely guilty. Exactly what did that mean?

He and Helen had been married for nearly thirty-five years, but Joe still didn’t enjoy thinking about what might have gone on between his wife and Ted Halvorson back in the days of letterman jackets and class rings and late summer evenings making out in the back seat of Ted’s ’68 Charger on Varsity Hill. Of course, Joe didn’t know for a fact that Ted drove a ’68 Charger (he’d never actually worked up the nerve to ask Helen), but it was the car Joe had most wished for as a teenage boy, and he was fairly certain that Ted Halvorson would’ve been the kind of guy who had everything that Joe wanted.

Helen had dated Ted all through high school, and he had been her ‘first’, that much Helen had told him. When Joe had finally met Helen during his senior year at the U of M, she and Ted were on a break, and Helen was disillusioned with the whole idea of marriage to Ted or anyone else, for that matter. Within a couple months, however, she was pregnant with Michael, and the rest was history. When they’d come home from school to announce their engagement, Helen’s father, Zeb, was grimly accepting, but Aggie had made no secret of her feelings. It was clear she’d assumed that Helen was only sowing the last of her wild oats with Joe and would eventually come to her senses, at which time she’d marry her Ted and live happily ever after as everyone expected. When she heard about the baby, Joe had watched as the color drained from Aggie’s face, and her lips compressed into a tight, white line. She’d politely congratulated them and made excuses about needing to take out some steaks to defrost, but not before they had all seen the tears welling in her eyes. Years later, Helen had confessed to Joe that later, as Aggie washed the dinner dishes and Helen dried, her mother had suggested delicately but firmly to her daughter that there were ‘alternatives’ for a woman in Helen’s situation.

In spite of this, Helen and Joe were married a few weeks later by a JP at the courthouse in Duluth. Zeb and Aggie didn’t attend the ceremony on the pretense of a previously-scheduled trip, but Joe knew Helen had been hurt by their absence just the same. All had been forgiven, however, once Michael arrived, followed closely over the next three years by Emily and, much later, by David. Joe and Helen’s children were the apples of their grandmother’s eye, no more so than during summers spent playing on the sandy shores of Lake Tulaby. Joe and Helen had gone on to make a good life together, and he figured Helen would be of the same opinion, if he were to ask her.

Helen’s father, Zeb Milner, had passed away by the time David was in the first grade, but his pension had left Aggie reasonably well-fixed, so that she had no financial worries to speak of. When she turned sixty-eight, Aggie sold her house in Duluth and came to live in the cabin on Lake Tulaby year-round. She’d seemed happy enough, but as Joe neared retirement, Aggie began to make plaintive noises about how a four-bedroom cabin was too much for an old lady to manage herself. The place had plenty of room for Helen and Joe, she pointed out. By this time all their own children had left home: Michael was in the seminary in Wisconsin, Emily was a nursing assistant at a retirement home in Minneapolis, and David had moved to St. Cloud where he was working as a public defender.

I really hate the idea of Mother living out there at the lake all alone, Helen had sighed one evening before bed, as she rubbed night cream into her hands. Joe didn’t respond immediately; in the dim light and without her makeup Helen bore a resemblance to Aggie that was unnerving.

She’s managed fine up until now, he said finally, as Helen finished with the night cream and screwed the cover back on the little glass pot.

I know, Joe, but I was thinking… , Helen said, and six months later they had their own house on the market and were moving to Lake Tulaby.

Helen’s two older sisters conveniently lived several states away years ago, and this meant that after Aggie moved to Tulaby, Helen had always been the one she called upon to accompany her to important doctor appointments, or to perform the endless other errands that Aggie required. Joe’s job at the University had mostly relieved him of these responsibilities, so it came as a genuine surprise the first morning he awoke at the cabin anticipating a fine day of fishing, only to find that Aggie had already drawn up a lengthy to-do list for him.

It had been that way ever since; at breakfast it would invariably be Joe, would you be a lamb… ? followed by a day-long list of chores, and by the time Joe was finished the prime fishing hours would be gone. He’d thought it would end eventually, but after several months Aggie showed no signs of running out of things for him to do, and Joe was starting to suspect that she’d spent her earlier years on Lake Tulaby compiling an endless roster of tasks with which to ruin his retirement.

Over the years, Joe had discovered that the Lake Tulaby Inn was a perfect place for him to gain a half hour or so of time to himself during a family visit to Aggie’s place, time during which he could sit, have a cold beer, and shoot the breeze with Gus Harstad, the owner. A century in existence, the Inn had once been a collection of quaint cabins, but time and generations of new owners had brought change, and by now the term Inn was a rather grandiose misnomer. Most of the cabins had been gradually eroded by forces of man or nature, and bit-by-bit the land had been sold off to neighbors looking to enlarge their own properties, leaving only a third of an acre of land stretching down to the lake on which remained one smallish cabin covered with aging pink stucco, and the Inn itself. The Inn itself had also evolved over the years, and was now both a convenience store and a tiny bar that sold 3:2 beer and set-ups.

Activity on Lake Tulaby seldom slowed; summer regulars and newcomers fished, boated, and swam in Tulaby’s clear blue waters from June through August, ATV-riders and hunters flocked to the area in the fall, and ice-fishermen and snowmobiling enthusiasts overflowed the place in the winter. Spring tended to be a quieter season, a brief respite when the year-rounders had the lake mostly to themselves.

Having bought the Inn from his own mother-in-law several years earlier, Gus knew all about mother-in-laws and didn’t mind expressing his opinions, something which Joe found extremely refreshing. The first time Joe dropped by the Inn after he and Helen moved in with Aggie, however, he was disappointed to find the door locked and the windows covered over. Gus Harstad sold the place last winter, Aggie had informed him when he’d asked. Kind of sudden. I suspect there was some sort of trouble, she added meaningfully. With the IRS."

Joe momentarily entertained a fleeting fantasy of what it might have been like to buy the Inn himself, imagining pleasant hours spent behind the tap, refilling glasses and visiting with other Tulaby residents. Who would want to take that on? Helen commented, throwing cold water on his hopes. I’m so glad we’re finally retired. She smiled warmly at Joe, and he’d answered with a weak grin.

Still, Joe was dejected to hear that Gus was gone, knowing that now he’d never enjoy another satisfying commiseration with Gus while condensation ran off their frosted mugs and pooled on the knotty pine bar. After the snow melted, he’d watched the Inn’s tin sign sway gently in the cool spring breezes as he worked around Aggie’s place, storing away the shovels and raking up decomposing piles of dead leaves and branches that had been hiding under the last stubborn vestiges of snow. Vigilant as he was, he never saw any new owners around the place. What he did see were plenty of annoyed customers who pulled up in front of the Inn, intending to fill up with gas or buy some snacks for the road. They climbed out of their cars eagerly, only to climb back in, disgruntled, once they realized it was closed, their tires grumbling discontent against the heavy gravel as they drove away.

It wasn’t until the second week of May, when Joe was resealing Aggie’s deck, that a tall, narrow man pulled into the Inn’s lot and climbed out of a car that looked much too small to contain his lanky frame. Joe leaned back on his heels and pulled off the canvas bucket hat that Helen insisted he wear to protect his balding pate from the devious spring sunlight. He fully expected the man to realize the Inn was closed and drive away in disgust like the others, but this fellow ambled around the property, looking uneasy.

Joe watched with mild envy as the man reached up to smooth down his thick shock of hair, which was being ruffled mercilessly by a sudden strong gust of wind off of the lake. This, and the easy way the man moved, placed him somewhere in his early to mid thirties, by Joe’s estimate.

Just as Joe was deciding to go over and see what was what, a second vehicle pulled off the highway and into the lot, prompting the tall man to hurry back. Joe watched him open the door for an older woman who climbed out nimbly in spite of her age, stood up, and stretched as if she’d been driving for awhile. She smiled brightly, then went around to open the sedan’s trunk; at her direction, the tall man retrieved a box of what appeared to be linens, then glumly followed as she led the way down towards the Inn’s lone cabin.

Joe’s spirits rose exponentially. It looked as if the new owners had arrived, and he allowed himself to hope that the Inn might be open again soon. As Joe dipped the brush back into the tub of deck sealant, he made a deal with the Gods of the Water. If I can just have one good hour of fishing a day, and a cold beer at the Inn, Joe bargained, I won’t complain about Aggie’s lists.

At least not out loud, he added as an afterthought, in the interest of honesty to the watchful Gods.

Chapter Two

May 16th

Ansel Landers sighed heavily as he unpacked the last pairs of neatly folded boxer shorts into the dresser drawer, and slid it closed. Lowering his lanky frame down onto the lumpy plaid armchair, Ansel scanned the four pine walls of the cabin, and sighed again.

Ma had been right, he knew, it was time for him to move out on his own. In fact, it was long past the time when most others had gone out into the world to find jobs, buy homes, start families, and do all the other things that grown men were nearly finished doing by the time they were Ansel’s age. And yet…

Thirty-five’s not that old, Ansel scoffed aloud, Besides, Ma appreciated having my help around the place all these years. I know she did.

Or at least she had, until Jeremiah Johnsrud showed up at Christ on the Cross Lutheran Church one Sunday morning, and set his sights on her. To Ansel’s complete surprise, Ma had returned Jeremiah’s admiring gaze with interest, the end result being that four months later she and Jeremiah had up and eloped to Sioux Falls. Ansel might have eventually adjusted to this development, and even the intrusion of Jeremiah sharing the house on Bacon Street with him and Ma, but when they returned from their honeymoon to Mt. Rushmore, Ma had sat Ansel down and told him that she and Jeremiah had decided to move to Duluth, where Jeremiah’s daughter and two grandbabies lived.

Verona could really use my help with Baby Lulu and Little Mitchie, she told him. When she saw the stunned look on Ansel’s face, Ma had added gently, Besides, Son, it’s probably time you got out on your own. You should be out, having fun with other young people, not wasting your life watching The Guiding Light with an old lady like me.

But I am having fun, Ansel had whispered, but Ma had either not heard him or pretended that she didn’t.

We’ll need to sell the house, of course, she told Ansel, whose brain went inert with shock at the sheer volume of new information being dumped on him. Perhaps you could find a nice little apartment? And I’ll help you look through the want ads for a job, if you like…

The next few weeks had been a fast-forward blur of watching Ma pack up everything that was familiar to Ansel, much of which dated back to the time when Ansel was ten and his father had still been alive. For his part, Ansel mostly sat numbly at the kitchen table, staring at the familiar cabbage-rose wallpaper or at the want ads that Ma set pointedly in front of him after she’d circled the most promising ones with a red Sharpie marker.

Did you call Digikey yet? Ma would inquire encouragingly in the moments when she stopped by the kitchen to make a quick cup of tea or retrieve a fresh supply of bubble wrap for fragile items. Have you phoned Vern Weiss over at Arctic Cat? Those jobs go pretty fast, you know. Through his soupy fog of depression, Ansel could hear the bright note of hope she forced into her voice

No, Ma, Ansel would respond gloomily, both perplexed and embarrassed by his torpor. Over the course of weeks, his initial disbelief had gradually transformed into a kind of acceptance, but a small, petulant voice inside Ansel complained bitterly at the unfairness of it all. It was like being buffeted by a series of icy tidal waves, when Ansel had always been one who preferred to wade into the shallows gradually, allowing sufficient time to adjust.

While nothing was more important to Ansel than Ma’s happiness, watching her sort and discard the familiar detritus of their lives gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. In the nearly thirty years (was it really that many?) since Ansel’s father had died, they had drifted along so pleasantly that the possibility of life taking another direction had ceased to occur to him.

When he’d finished high school, Ansel had worked at River Falls Drug for a year or two, managing the till, stocking the shelves, and doing general cleaning. He rather enjoyed caring for the inventory, arranging the dull, squarish containers of talcum powder in orderly pyramids next to the smooth pink bottles of baby lotion, and making sure that the medicinal items with the earliest expiration dates were moved to the front of their displays.

When the big Wal-Mart store with aisle after aisle of glossy drug and beauty items had arrived in Thief River, business at River Falls Drug tapered off until it resembled the pathetic dribble of an old man with an enlarging prostate. Eventually, the store’s owner had regretfully informed Ansel that River Falls Drug would be closing its doors, and Ansel had been left to fill his days bringing in the few pieces of mail he and Ma received, picking up an occasional bag of groceries at the Super Mart, and riding along with Ma to church twice a week. It occurred to him from time to time that he should probably look for another job, but weeks passed, and then months, and years, until finding a job wasn’t something that Ansel even thought about any longer. He and Ma got along fine, really; their needs were few, and the settlement from the freak accident at Arctic Cat Industries that had claimed his father’s life had been plenty to sustain them.

Now, however, Ma had up and married Jeremiah, and Ansel knew that it was only logical that he should find a job and move out on his own. If only he could slow time down enough to allow both his heart and his head to get with the program, maybe he could figure out what he wanted to do.

Fortunately or unfortunately, an opportunity presented itself one day in early May. Say there, Ansel, Jeremiah had greeted him congenially, coming through the back door with a bag of groceries to find Ansel slumped in his usual place at the kitchen table. Ansel couldn’t help thinking glumly that going to the Super Mart for groceries had been something he used to do for Ma.

Did you remember to get caffeine-free soda? he asked Jeremiah a bit more sharply than he meant to, Ma only drinks caffeine-free.

Jeremiah smiled patiently. I got the caffeine-free, he told Ansel. I know about the caffeine-free.

Because she won’t drink it if it’s not caffeine-free, Ansel repeated, unable to stop himself.

Jeremiah set the bag on the countertop and began putting the groceries away without further discussion. Ansel watched as he put a container of skim milk in the refrigerator, which was uncharacteristically empty aside from a carton of eggs, several containers of yogurt (banana-strawberry, Ma and Ansel’s favorite, and peach, which was Jeremiah’s), a tub of butter, and a plate of leftover meatloaf from the night before.

Boy, that woman has really gone to town with the packing! Jeremiah commented, sliding a six pack of caffeine-free root beer onto a shelf beside the eggs. Don’t fall asleep on the couch, or you just may wake up taped inside of a cardboard box labeled ‘Ansel’! Jeremiah turned, grinning, to share the joke with Ansel, who took in Jeremiah’s grizzled beard and the gold cap glinting on one of his front teeth. A beat later, he couldn’t help smiling back, however wanly. Truth was, it was hard not to like Jeremiah Johnsrud, even if he had ruined Ansel’s life beyond redemption.

The moment passed, and Ansel sighed, trying to focus his attention on the latest list of want ads Ma had set in front of him after breakfast that morning. Motivated, outgoing person needed for advertising sales position! Will train, no experience necessary. Inquire at the Thief River Falls Register. Ansel sighed and moved onto the adjacent column, where Ma’s red Sharpie had really gone to town: ’Clerks/stockers for day, evening, and weekend hour’s… Digikey is looking for a part-time customer service representative… ’Plant sanitation, dumping and loading trucks and railcars, some general maintenance… ’Ansel felt malaise beginning to reclaim