The House on the Lake

The Summer we lost our innocence, and the car keys.

[ An excerpt from the highly anticipated memoir by Harper Wong-Goldman-Echevarria-Smythe III.]

Father turned the chestnut brown, ’79 Chevy Malibu family station wagon off of Rte 507 North onto the gravel-covered driveway, marked by the dogwoods uncle Joe planted by way of apology to Aunt Mini. They stood thin and tall, much like the breadsticks at a very good Italian Restaurant, the kind that has cloth napkins and doesn’t serve pizza—well maybe the individual pan pizza, but not slices, slices are tacky.

Us kids named the car “The Behemoth” after that Polish death metal band from Gdańsk. It was a classic—sharp, clean-cut styling, a 170hp, 350-cu.in. V-8 small-block engine, and “wood paneling” on the sides—a faux wood that resembled oak, or was it knotty pine— it comfortably seated the six of us and had first-rate brakes, a necessity considering father’s driving habits.

He would get into a trance on the highway and “lock-in” once he reached 65 MPH, passing Exit after Exit, oblivious to the protestations from the backseat. Mother finally started reminding him two miles before the desired Exit, raising her voice every half mile, and ultimately hitting him in the back of the head with a rolled-up copy of last month’s Cosmopolitan at the last minute—hence the need for proper breaks.

The car’s interior smelled of a mix of Old Spice, vinyl seats, and you might be surprised to learn, Chinese food—a consequence of Father’s side job as a “delivery boy” for Uncle Chang’s Golden Panda Jade Garden Dragon on the weekends.

The “Dragon,” as it was informally known around town, was a Chinese take out place not far from our home. Its owner, “Chang” Sutherland, can best be thought of like a no so serene, “cranky Buddha” in an ill-fitting polo shirt. His wife, Mei Wong Chang, was the neighborhood’s “woman of mystery,” with sleek, jet black, shoulder length hair, diamond-shaped dark eyes, and lips as red goji berries. She exuded all the erotic mystery of the East, which for us Hoosiers was Chinatown in NYC. Despite spending her days engulfed in air infused with Wok oil, she always smelled of orange blossoms. Father might have been delivering more than egg rolls.

With the custom tortoise shell steering wheel firmly in hand, Father expertly navigated down the anaconda-like winding driveway toward the lake, slowly as to avoid another “incident,” like the one that ruined Mother’s Summer wardrobe several seasons ago. The comforting crunch the all-weather tires, with minimal tread wear, made as they slowly rolled over the gravel reminded me of stepping on the Cheerios my baby sister, Charlene, spilled that morning at breakfast all over the Terrazzo tiled floor of Mother’s newly renovated kitchen.

The renovation was a  difficult one, not unlike Charlene, with false starts, delays, disappearing workman (we dubbed one “St. Nick” because he only showed up once a year), and, as is common in this part of the country, the wrong cabinets.

The whole experience created much tension in our otherwise happy home, with Father saying things like, “You had to have a fancy kitchen. A paint job and new linoleum were good enough for my mother, but oh no, Mr.s Vanderbilt over here had to have it all custom made.”

Mother would answer by telling him to “Stuff it” as she drank from her signature bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

But I digress…eventually we turned the corner where Uncle Joe was last seen, and there it was, the object of our anticipation, The Family Lake House!!!

It was a small two-story bungalow right on the lake. Grandpa had it built with the insurance money he got from his “accident.” It had clapboards painted white, green shutters on its many windows and a porch that wrapped itself around the house the way Mother would wrap herself around father on the nights before their anniversary.

Grandmother with her alabaster skin, silver hair tied neatly in a bun, and a glass eye, we could never remember which eye it was, waited for us on the porch holding one of her famous Mince pies. She was also known for her sour apple, boysenberry, and curry goat pies, they were like no one else—but Mince Pie, with its distinctive flavor, was our favorite.

We later learned that her “secret ingredient” was never washing her hands.