Chapter 6
6
It’s zipping across the water, leaving a stripe of foaming white in its wake. My heart races as it gets closer. There’s only one person inside, but all I can make out is that it’s a man with light brown hair. As he passes the dock, he lifts his hand. It’s the universal greeting on the lake, not because he knows me. I wave back and then jump at the sound of its horn.
Aaaah-whoooo-gaaaaah!
It’s the most absurd sound, and I know it. I heard it dozens of times when I was seventeen.
The boat cuts across the bay and slows in front of the white house with the floating raft. The engine stops. The man ties it to the dock and climbs out, but it’s too dim to tell if he’s one of the boys from my photo. I lose his shape as he heads up the hill. If it were morning, when the sun hits the shore, I know I’d be able to see him more clearly. I remember how that house glowed like a beacon in the early hours of the day.
I stay there for a moment, and then I dart up to the cottage two steps at a time. I fling my towel over the clothesline that’s strung between two white pines, throw on my caftan, and race inside.
I’m not sure why I packed the photo except that I wanted it with me. I find it tucked in the pages of my notebook.
And there it is—the same boat, sixteen summers ago, when three teens formed its crew. It’s not just the shade of yellow that makes it distinctive. It’s old—it would have been vintage even when I took the photo—with brown vinyl seats and a bow curved like a duck bill.
I stare at the three passengers, the sun glowing on their cheeks and shoulders. The girl faces the wind, one hand in her wet hair, trying to hold it out of her face. There’s a towel around her torso, gold bathing suit straps peeking out of the top.
The younger of the boys is cute, gangly in the way of quick-growing adolescents. He wears a T-shirt and is staring at the girl like no one else in the world exists. I spent enough time watching them to know the older boy is his brother. He’s gorgeous and tan and is looking at his sibling with a happy, satisfied smirk. I liked to imagine having a boyfriend like him.
It was a fluke I got the shot. An unlikely combination of luck and timing. I’d been shooting Luca and Lavinia as they played in the water. I’d heard the motor and looked up through my lens just as they zoomed by.
I immediately checked the camera screen to see what I’d captured. As soon as I saw the photo, I was hit with a sense of purpose I’d never experienced before. I was meant to be a photographer.
I called it One Golden Summer .
It was the standout in my portfolio when I applied to my photography program. Elyse was one of my instructors, and years later, she told me it was the reason I’d been accepted—that it showed I had promise, an eye for emotion, a knack for drawing the viewer into an image. Maybe it’s because I wanted to be in that boat with those kids so badly.
The eight weeks I spent in Barry’s Bay were a turning point. I often felt invisible as a teenager, but behind a lens, invisibility became my superpower. With a camera, I discovered a place in the world where I thrived. I’m a better photographer now, but the way I shot back then, standing on the edge of the dock, had a purity I’ll never recapture. I was doing something just for myself.
Maybe this summer could be a turning point, too.
I grab my laptop and lie stomach down on the bed, scrolling through the two versions of the swimsuit photos. I flick back and forth between the ones with the smoother thighs and stomachs, and the more honest version.
Sixteen years ago, I sat on this very bed, dreaming about being friends with the kids across the bay, hoping they’d notice me and say hello. I waited all summer for an invitation that never came. But I’m not seventeen anymore—I’m days away from my thirty-third birthday.
I think of how I’ve spent my entire career saying yes.
I think of all the beautiful, intelligent women in my life I’ve heard complain about everything from their thighs to their eyelashes.
I think of all the times in my life when I’ve stayed quiet because it was more comfortable than speaking up.
And I do something new.
I submit the photos I like.
After the email swoosh es away, I jump off the bed and head to the kitchen, bringing the yellow boat photo with me. I tack it to the fridge next to Charlie’s note.
It’s a reminder of where it all started. No editing. No artificial lighting. No compromises. One moment of joy, captured for all time.
My eyes drift to Charlie’s letter. I pull it from its Live, Laugh, Lake magnet and read it for the fourth time today, stymied by his self-satisfaction, his extreme thoughtfulness, and the last bullet point on his list.
How impressed are you right now? Text me a picture of your face.
I feel like I’ve been thrown into a game I don’t know the rules to. Is he flirting via to-do list? He sounded roughly my age on the phone, and cocky. Does he want my photo, or is he joking? I know there’s a breezy, quippy middle ground between purely platonic and the melding of souls , but it’s not familiar turf. I’m a soul melder through and through. I’ve never been good at flirting—and I’ve never gone for cocky.
As I pin the note back on the fridge, I catch my reflection in the window. I’ve let my hair air-dry after the swim, and now it’s a cacophony, tumbling over my shoulders in an outrageous collection of swirls and curves and bends. I wear it straight so often that I barely recognize the woman who stares back at me in the glass. It’s not that all this unruly auburn is unattractive—it just doesn’t feel like me. I’m a homebody at heart, a classic Cancer. But my hair is fire, sucking up attention like oxygen.
Maybe it’s because I’m still energized from filing the photos to Willa that I take out my phone and do something I never do. I lift my chin to the light, stick out my tongue, and snap a selfie. I send it to Charlie. A minute later, I swear I hear a deep laugh drifting across the lake on a warm breeze.
My phone lights with a text just as I’ve lain down in bed.
Charlie: I assume you found the keys.
Me: And a family of raccoons.
Charlie: I was expecting a thank you for my hard work and kindness.
Me: Thank you.
Charlie: Say it like you mean it.
Me: Are you always this infuriating?
Charlie: No.
Charlie: Usually I’m worse.
I fall asleep fighting back the smile pulling on my lips.