Page 75 of The Lodge

Julie has one of those smiles that lights up her entire face. She looks different here than she does when she’s working—more relaxed. Her shiny dark hair is loose, framing her face instead of being knotted in a bun at the nape of her neck, and she’s dressed casually in a faded concert T-shirt and stylishly ripped jeans.

“So sorry, but Justin isn’t able to join us tonight,” Julie says. “He’s helping the kitchens prep for the Yeti.”

Justin is Julie’s husband, I learned on the walk over. They met at Brown and had already been dating for over a year when Julie got the call that changed her life, informing her that she and Riverhad inherited Black Maple Lodge decades earlier than anyone anticipated. River was tied up with band obligations at the time, so Julie took on the entire weight of the resort alone.

“Thanks for having us,” I say, following her into the palatial living room.

The view from the massive panoramic window is similar to the one from our building—it overlooks Black Maple Mountain, but from a higher vantage point and an even more postcard-perfect angle. It’s twilight: all the lanterns and string lights in the village reflect in the shimmering ice of the skating rink.

“Riv should be here any minute,” Julie tells us. “Can I make you a drink?”

She pours me a large glass of red wine, a cabernet sauvignon from somewhere near Sonoma; Tyler takes a whiskey on the rocks.

“How’s the storm prep going?” he asks.

“We’re fully stocked up for at least the next week and a half,” she replies. “Now I’m just hoping the power doesn’t go out for too long.”

“They’ve got backup generators,” Tyler tells me, probably because he sees the look of panic on my face—I knew power outages were a real possibility with the Yeti, but I hadn’t considered how bad it would be if all the kitchens’ refrigerators suffered a power failure.

“The kitchens will be fine,” Julie explains. “But the concierge desk? Total nightmare. Last time we had a storm, we had an essential-use-only policy for the generators so they wouldn’t get overloaded—the lines at my desk were endless, people wondering about our laundry service and when the water heaters would be up so they could take hot showers again.”

“She hardly got a break for twelve hours that time,” someone says behind me, and I whip around to see that River Wu has slipped in to join us, an unopened bottle of white wine in hand.

“Alix, River—River, Alix,” Tyler says, heading straight over to River for a bro hug.

When they’re done, River turns his full attention to me.

“So great to finally meet you,” he says, eyes sparkling like only a former pop star’s can.

River is polite and charming, with a quiet confidence that effortlessly communicates his celebrity status—unlike Sebastian, whose affect feels a bit forced, or Tyler, who’s gone to great lengths to conceal his fame. His dark hair is short on the sides and swoops up in the front, and while his outfit is simple—slim-cut navy chinos and a white button-down, sleeves rolled up to expose his forearms, with a pair of suede loafers—it probably cost more than an entire month’s rent on my apartment.

“Likewise,” I reply. “And thanks for the new laptop, by the way—I’m sure Tyler’s glad to have his back.”

Tyler pulls me in for a side hug and kisses my temple. “Yeah, man,” he tells River, “thanks again.”

“Glad you can put it to use,” River says, grinning.

River asks Julie what smells so good—roast chicken and veggies, apparently—and then they move on to talking about the Yeti, and the lodge, and all the logistics that go into prepping for a storm like this.

I smile and nod at all the right times, but inside, I’m sizing up the dynamics here—sizing up River for any indication that he might not have Tyler’s best interests at heart. Clearly, he and Julie have kept Tyler’s secret this well for this long; he could have told Sebastian the truth years ago if he’d wanted to.

Maybe, like me, River doesn’t feel it’s his secret to tell.

But eight years is a long time to keep a secret like that. I can’t help but wonder if, deep down, River wants someone to find out.

If that’s the case, you’d never know by the way he’s smiling andlaughing—they could all be siblings, family. Of course, I know as well as anyone that siblings can harbor all sorts of hidden feelings long before you ever find out about them. That’s how it was with my brother: I’d been writing entertainment articles for more than three years when I overheard him telling our parents how disappointed he was in me, how he thought I should beso much furtherin my career, wondering out loud when I would ever get a “real job.”

Things never quite recovered between us after that.

At dinner, the conversation is lively and fun—River’s filling me in on the trip he took to Europe that inadvertently blew up his social media and turned him into an influencer.

“I was invited to speak at this conference in Switzerland,” he says between bites of roasted chicken, “and I was told the audience would be full of ‘rising stars’?”—he exaggerates his air quotes—“of the luxury travel industry.”

“I’m sensing a but,” Tyler says.

“But,” River goes on, and we all laugh, “as soon as I got to the resort, in the elevator, a lady whipped out an old True North poster and a Sharpie and asked me to sign it for her. And as soon as I got off the elevator, there were four more people who asked for autographs and selfies. Women, men, the cleaning staff—pretty much everyone I ran into the entire week asked me to dosomethingfor them.”

“And did you?” I ask, most of the way through my first glass of wine.

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