Chapter 26
26
Saturday, July 19
44 Days Left at the Lake
A week passes. Mid-July threatens to turn into late July. Charlie and Nan go to euchre night together and return with stories about how they trampled their competition. I throw myself into my editing backlog and preparing for Bennett’s visit. In three days, Heather will drop her off for the week. I have big plans to make it a summer vacation she won’t forget. Arts and crafts. Dinner at the Tavern. Cozy evenings watching movies with Nan. Boat rides.
Charlie wants to take us all out on the water. He said if Nan isn’t ready to walk down to the lake, he’ll carry her himself. What he doesn’t know is that Nan has been practicing. She’s made it all the way down and back up more than once, though the effort leaves her winded.
“Not everyone has a chance to spend time with their great-granddaughter at the lake,” Charlie tells her over afternoon tea. Percy and Sam have returned to the city, but he’s still here every day.
“All right, Charlie,” Nan tells him. “If you must carry me, then you must.” She winks at me when he’s not looking.
He stays for the whole evening. The weather is wet and cool, so Charlie lights a fire while I put a chicken in the oven for dinner. We eat it with a warm bread and tomato salad, and after Charlie and I wash the dishes, we drink scotch by the fireplace with Rod Stewart on the CD player.
I photograph everything.
It’s not the summer I envisioned when we arrived in June—it’s so much better. I feel as though I’ve been wearing a heavy coat and am now finally able to take it off. I feel lighter .
I can’t deny that Charlie is a big part of the reason. I like who I am with him. I laugh until tears stain my cheeks. I say what I think, and when he senses I’m holding something in, he tells me to spit it out. I don’t have to be a perfectly edited version of myself—it’s okay to have a few bumps. And I don’t have to try . I’ve never felt this comfortable with a man. I’m not sure I’ve felt this kind of ease with anyone.
I also can’t deny the way my stomach swoops when our legs slide against each other while we’re swimming, or when I catch Charlie looking at me in a way that has me picturing how he lifted me off the floor the night we almost kissed. But just friends works . Just friends is all either of us is prepared to give.
Tonight he’s wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. His feet are bare, and so are mine. But I’ve already changed into pajamas, a pretty striped nightshirt that hits me above the knee. When Nan has a piece of her chocolate and excuses herself for bed, Charlie grabs the bar and sits down on the couch beside me.
“Let’s do some low-key drugs.”
“You want to get high?”
“Only if you do.” Charlie examines the package. “I don’t think a piece of this will have much of an impact on me. It’s a mild dose. Won’t kick in for a bit.”
“Sure,” I say. “I can’t let Nan have all the fun. But will you stay with me? I don’t want to go on some kind of trip alone.”
He laughs. “You’re not going to trip, but yeah, I was planning to stick around, if you’ll have me.”
If you’ll have me.
We each break off a piece, grinning, and cheers them together.
“I don’t know if I’m high yet,” I say to Charlie forty-five minutes later. We decided to start a puzzle—a unicorn drinking from a river that I found at Stedmans—and are working on it on the floor by the fire.
“No?” Charlie’s lying on his side, his head propped on his hand. “You’ve been staring at that piece in your hand for ages.”
“Oh my god, I hadn’t noticed.” I start giggling. “Charlie, I might be a little high.”
“You might be,” he says, dimples winking.
“But I don’t feel high high.”
“How do you feel?”
I look into the flames.
“Alice?”
“Pardon?” I turn back to Charlie.
“You okay?”
“I’m just thinking. I think I feel…kind of light and floaty? And warm, which is probably because I’m sitting in front of an actual fire. But also, just like, less sharp, you know?”
He looks at me with a soft, melting gaze. “Yeah, I know.”
The firelight flickers over Charlie’s face, making his hair more golden. His smile is deep. I reach out and press my finger into one of his dimples, and he arches a brow.
“Sorry,” I say. “It was beckoning to me.”
He laughs. “You are high.” I move my finger to the other one. He lifts his brows again, amused. He looks so young.
“You remind me of when you were a boy.”
“You didn’t know me when I was a boy.”
“But I can imagine it when you’re like this.”
“Like what?”
Sometimes I catch Charlie looking at me, or staring at the water, or studying his hands, and he seems so mournful, my entire body aches. He’s experienced such profound loss. But he brushes it off whenever I ask what’s bothering him.
“Happy,” I tell him. “You look happy.”
His grin falls. The dimples disappear.
“Don’t do that.” I move my fingers to either side of his mouth, trying to pull the edges back up. “Be happy.”
My efforts are rewarded with a gentle smile.
“I like how your skin is smooth, but your stubble is prickly, and your jaw is so strong. And I like how you like my grandmother.” I know how I sound, but I feel like human glitter, shimmering effervescence. Like nothing is wrong, like nothing could go wrong under this roof with Charlie. I run my finger over the bow of his top lip. “I like your mouth, too. These two mountaintops.”
“Alice,” Charlie says, sitting up, so that we’re facing each other, legs crossed. He stares at me intensely, but it doesn’t bother me that he might be able to peer into my soul. It makes me feel brave.
“Can I show you something?” I’ve been waiting for the right time to do it.
He frowns but says, “Of course.”
I get up, jelly-legged, and dig the photo out of the kitchen drawer.
“Promise not to freak out?” I ask, holding it to my chest as I return to the floor. Charlie puts a hand on my bobbing knee.
“Not much freaks me out.” He takes his hand away when I go still.
I pass him the photo, and a hurricane of emotions crashes across his face. Confusion. Disbelief. Shock.
Finally, he lifts wonder-filled eyes to mine. “I can’t believe it was you.”
I blink at him. “What?”
Charlie bends closer to the photo. “Of course it was you,” he says to himself. “It makes sense. I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out.”
“Charlie?”
“You took this.” He fixes his gaze on me, piercing and bright. Fresh as new spring leaves.
“The summer I stayed here,” I confirm.
He shakes his head, and then suddenly, he grabs his phone, thumbing through his photos. When he finds what he’s looking for, he passes it to me. It’s a picture of my photo, this photo, displayed on a wall in a black frame.
“It hangs in a boardroom of a bank where my buddy works,” Charlie explains. “He thought it looked like me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It’s me, it’s us.”
It’s the print I sold back when I was a student. I blew it up more than I should have, making it slightly grainy. But I liked that. I thought it added a sense of nostalgia.
I peel my eyes away from the phone, stunned.
“You, Sam, and Percy?” I assumed it was them the night we watched the fireworks, but I want to be sure.
“Yeah.” Charlie rubs his forehead. “It was so wild. My friend sent it a few years ago. It was right after Percy and Sam had gotten back together. It felt like a message from the universe or fate or some shit. Like things were as they were supposed to be.” He searches my face. “You really took this?”
I stare into Charlie’s eyes, and for a moment I’m entranced. Green grapes. Kiwi fruit. Lime juice. Bands of impossibly bright light rippling across a black sky.
“Yeah, I really took it.
“This photo means a lot to me,” I say softly as we study it together. “It made me think I might be good one day. It helped me get into photography school. It was the first shot I ever sold.” I pause. “It changed my life.”
Charlie turns to face me. “I’ve gone to see it,” he says. “And I tried to find you, but there was no signature. I wanted to buy a print. I wanted to remember us like this, when things were simple.”
“I think that’s one of the reasons I feel so connected to it now,” I say. “When I look at it, I feel like I’m seventeen again.”
“So you do remember us?” Charlie puts his hand on my leg when it starts vibrating again, but this time it stays there.
“I remember you,” I whisper.
His eyes travel across my face so slowly. I don’t recognize the feeling in my chest, full yet weightless. Like there’s a hot-air balloon about to set sail beneath my sternum.
“You should have said hi,” Charlie says, voice low.
Time ticks by slowly. My perception shrinks to the space between us.
“I should have,” I murmur. “I wish I could have, but I was so shy. I’ve always wanted to be someone different, someone who could talk to cute boys and race around in a yellow boat.”
“I like the person you are. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“No edits?”
“Not a single one.”
I become aware of three things at once: My nightshirt is made from the thinnest of cotton, the hem has shifted up my thighs, and Charlie’s hand is still on my leg.
“I can’t believe it was you all this time,” Charlie says. “And now you’re here.”
We both watch as goose bumps dapple my skin. His thumb smooths over my knee, and the touch zags through me like lightning. A whoosh of air leaves my lungs. His gaze shoots to mine.
Kiss me , I think.
I hold my breath as Charlie lifts his hand to my face. He traces my jaw. “I want…” he says. His eyes move to my lips, and his fingers follow, skimming the corner of my mouth. “But I shouldn’t.”
“You shouldn’t what?” I whisper.
“Want,” he says, his gaze still fastened on my lips.
“I strongly disagree.” I take a breath. “I think you should.”
A groan rumbles in his chest, and he brings his eyes to mine. He cups the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. He pulls me closer, until our foreheads meet.
The heat of his skin, his smell, the way my blood races to the apex of my legs—it’s too much to look at him. My eyelids flutter closed. We breathe each other in. Charlie’s nose nudges mine, and even that innocent touch reverberates through my body.
I want to kiss him like nothing I’ve wanted before. I want to know how his lips feel against mine, and I want to know what he tastes like. Kissing someone for the first time is like learning a new dance, and I want to master Charlie’s choreography.
“Kiss me,” I whisper.
Charlie’s lips coast over mine.
“Because you want to cross off number five?”
For a second, I have no idea what he’s talking about. I shake my head when I remember.
“Kiss me because I want you to.”
I tilt forward to close the shred of oxygen that separates us. But instead of kissing me, he leans away and I fall into his chest.
I scramble to my feet, mortified, and make a beeline for my room.
“Alice, wait.”
Charlie sticks his foot in the threshold just as I’m shutting the door. I glare at him, but he slips inside and closes it gently behind him.
“Let’s talk about this.”
I don’t like confrontation, but I’m sick of smothering my feelings all the time. “Why?” I ask. “So you can tell me we should stay friends ? Believe me, I’ve got the message now. It won’t happen again.”
He shakes his head. “Because I care about you. You believe me, right?”
There’s so much pleading in his eyes. “I believe you,” I say quietly, and then we sit together on the edge of the bed.
“I didn’t misread things, did I?” I ask, staring at our legs. “You were touching me, and then talking like you wanted something to happen. We were so close to kissing, right?”
“We were very close to kissing,” Charlie admits.
“And the other time, we almost…” I stop short of saying kissed , because it doesn’t capture where things were heading. I was seconds away from tearing off his clothes while my grandmother was in the next room.
“We almost,” he agrees.
I watch him from the corner of my eye. “So what happened?”
“It seems I’ve developed self-control in my midthirties,” he says.
I wait as he looks at me, his gaze roaming my face like he’s memorizing each feature, lingering on my lips. He’s still except for the rise and fall of his chest.
“I want you,” he rasps. His stare makes me feel like it’s an effort not to touch me, and I know he’s telling the truth. “And I think we both know that if we start something now, it’s not going to end with a kiss.”
“That’s presumptuous,” I say, but my voice is hoarse.
I’m very aware that we are on a bed, that all that stands between us is a few inches of space and layers of fabric.
“Am I wrong?”
He’s right. If I get my mouth on his, it’s not going to stop there. I don’t want it to. Our almost-kiss was mind-blowing. I can’t imagine how good the real thing would be. But before I admit it, Charlie tucks a tendril of hair behind my ear.
“I don’t want to jeopardize our friendship, Alice,” he says. “Not even for sex.”
“What about for great sex?”
He shakes his head, a smile tugging on his lips. “Not for that, either.”
“What are you doing on the couch?”
My eyelids flutter open to find Nan standing over me. I’m disoriented until I remember the chocolate and the unicorn puzzle and collapsing face down on the sofa after I walked Charlie to the door.
“I must have passed out.”
“Good night?”
I think of Charlie’s thumb brushing my knee and asking him to kiss me.
“We got into your chocolate.”
“Delightful, isn’t it? Really loosens you up.”
“It loosened my tongue, that’s for sure.”
I fix Nan her toast and my eggs, and we eat at the table together. She’s quiet as we begin sewing a tablecloth, not sullen, but contemplative. I’m not much chattier. I’ve been thinking about what Charlie said last night about risking our friendship, and I don’t think I agree with him. I’ve never been able to untangle sex from romance, but Charlie isn’t a stranger. I’m attracted to him, and neither of us wants a relationship. It could be the first step to a whole new Alice—my hookup training wheels. Nothing complicated. No expectations. Just a fling with the boy across the bay until the end of summer.
I’m finishing the hem when Nan says, “Your grandfather was my closest friend, aside from Joyce.”
“I know,” I tell her. “I remember how you were together. You were always laughing when Grandpa was around.”
Her eyes glisten. “I knew I’d never fall in love again, but I do miss the connection we had. I miss having him here to laugh with.”
“You can laugh with me.”
She puts her hand over mine. “And I’m grateful for that. Having grandchildren is a truly special thing, but it’s not the same, of course.”
I nod, and she studies me. “When I see you and Charlie together, it reminds me of myself and your grandfather.”
“Because we laugh?” I ask quietly.
“ You laugh, Alice. You laugh that big, beautiful laugh of yours. And you’re more like yourself when you’re together. You’re always so busy taking care of everyone and making people happy, but you’re different around Charlie. There’s a lightness to you I haven’t seen in a long time—like you have the freedom to just be when you’re with him.”
“That’s just because I’m on vacation.”
Nan slants her head. “No, it’s because when you speak, he listens. When you smile, he smiles. When you need something, he offers help. When you give him something, he thanks you. You’re peas and carrots—I think you’ve found yourself a lifelong friend.”
My mouth goes dry. The connection Charlie and I have seems special, but hearing Nan say it solidifies what I’ve been feeling. I’m not sure what’s going to happen between us, but it’s real.
“What if I wanted more than friendship? But something more…” I’ve confided in Nan about so many things—hopes, fears, secrets, dreams. But I’ve never talked to her about sex. “Something more casual than a relationship?”
Her blue eyes meet mine over her glasses. “I can see your wheels spinning, but try not to worry about it too much, Alice. You never know—it might turn into a great romance.”
“You’re just saying that because you like him so much.”
“I like Charlie a great deal, but I’m saying that because I see you together, and it reminds me of what it felt like to fall in love.”
I swallow, and Nan pats my hand. “Just see where the sun takes you. And don’t forget: Good things happen at the lake.”