Chapter 30
30
Monday, July 21
42 Days Left at the Lake
“Well, look at this,” Nan says, holding her newspaper’s arts section aloft when I shuffle out of the bedroom the next morning. “It’s an ad for your show.”
It’s a full-page ad . It must have cost Elyse a fortune. Nan lays it flat on the table, taking a photo with her iPad.
I didn’t sleep under the stars with Charlie last night. He asked whether I wanted to stay or if I’d prefer him to walk me back to the cottage. I chose option B. It felt like the right ending to what will go down as the most epic make-out session of my life. The stars can wait.
Now those hours kissing him in the tree house feel like a lifetime ago, as if they really did happen when I was a teenager. I fell asleep with a smile on my face, but I’ve woken to reality.
I look at the paper over Nan’s shoulder, feeling dizzy at seeing my name listed with the others.
My dread rises. How am I ever going to back out now? Taking a stand with Willa was one thing, but disappointing Elyse is another. Her opinion of me matters. Our friendship matters. I should have told her weeks ago I was thinking of dropping out.
I haven’t finished my coffee when I get a string of texts from Heather.
Nan sent me the ad! LOOK AT YOU!
I’m so excited!
Can you come back a day early so we can go shopping?
You’re giving a toast, right? You can practice with me!
I watch the messages flash on my screen, then turn my phone face down on the table.
Later, after we finish the curtains for Nan’s bedroom and she heads out on a walk, I take my camera and the binoculars down to the water. It’s humid, almost sticky. The sun is hidden by a fortress of clouds. I want to leave my city problems behind for a little while, so I text Charlie.
Me: Thought I’d do a little bird-watching. But I haven’t spotted any interesting species.
Charlie: No peacocks?
Me: Unfortunately not.
A minute later, I peer at him through the binoculars as he walks down the hill and then out to the end of his dock. He sets his phone on a small, round table, and I can see the smirk clear on his face as he raises his arms and peels off his T-shirt, and then, so fast I almost miss it, he does a flawlessly executed backflip off the end of the dock. I laugh to myself as he climbs out of the water and gives his head a shake.
Me: Found one. Definitely male. Loves showing off.
I watch Charlie read the text and grin.
Me: Come over here. I want to tell you something.
The thrill of watching Charlie hop into his boat and travel across the bay to me makes me giddy. I shoot a few frames. I want to save this feeling.
But by the time Charlie pulls up to the end of the dock, apprehension is written on every tense line of his face. He asked me twice on the walk home yesterday whether I was okay.
“Help me in?” I ask.
Charlie reaches out his hand, and I take it to step onto the back seat. He stares at me, green eyes fastened to mine.
“Last night was the most fun I’ve had all year,” I say. “I don’t regret it.”
He nods once, then lifts me onto the floor of the boat. “Let’s go for a ride.”
We go fast. Faster than I’ve ever gone. I let my hair down and smile into the wind as we soar toward the vast open end of Kamaniskeg. I photograph Charlie’s hand, casually gripping the wheel. I shoot his bare feet. I capture the expression he gives me when he says, “Feet, really?”
There’s a group of kids at the top of the rock, waiting to jump, and as we pass them, I lean over Charlie and press the horn.
Aaaah-whoooo-gaaaaah!
His fingers tangle in my hair, holding it out of our faces. I have the urge to kiss him, though I’m not sure if we kiss in the light of day. Last night awakened a hunger in me that we didn’t come close to sating, but Charlie’s not his usual flirty, quippy self.
“You have a bathing suit on under that, right?” he says, eyeing my caftan as we return to his dock.
“Of course. Do you have plans for my bathing suit?”
He doesn’t look up from the rope in his hands. He seems heavy. “I’m going to teach you how to do a backflip. Number eight.”
He knows that list better than I do.
“Not a somersault?”
“A backflip is slightly easier.”
We swim out to the floating raft, where the water is deeper. Charlie stands with his hands on his hips, explaining how dangerous flips are and all the things not to do. I feel like I’m in school. He’s distant. There’s no teasing, no flirting. He demonstrates how to do a backward dive into the water, and we practice until I can launch myself away from the raft with enough momentum that when I hit the water, my arch continues under the surface. When Charlie finally shows me how to flip into the water, tucking his knees to his chest, I flinch, worried he’s going to hit his head.
“I’m not going to do that,” I say when he surfaces.
“Okay.”
He swims back to the ladder and climbs up, standing a few feet away from me, arms folded and frowning. I think about the boy from my photo. How sunny he seemed. How perfect I thought his life must be. How easy. How golden.
“Sorry for wasting your time,” I say.
Water runs down his nose and neck, along his torso. “You’re not a waste of time, Alice.”
I chew on my cheek.
“What is it?” he asks.
I want to ask about last night, but I chicken out.
“Sometimes I don’t get why you want to hang out with me. We’re so different.”
“Are we?”
“You’re this trader dude with an overpriced car that you drive too fast. You live in Yorkville . It doesn’t make sense why you’d want to do all the things on my silly list.”
“That’s not who I am. That’s my job, my car, my home. That’s not me . I’m just a guy on a raft, trying to figure out his shit like everyone else.”
I study him for a moment, the tension in his shoulders, and whisper, “Do you regret last night?”
“Of course not.”
“Okay.” I release the breath I was holding. “Good. You seem kind of off.”
“I’m sorry. This summer…” He rubs the back of his neck, squints into the sun. “It’s been hard for me.”
“And not because of your troublesome neighbor?”
He gives me a weak smile. “No, not because of that. My dad died when he was my age. In the spring. He didn’t make it to summer.”
I remember how resigned Charlie sounded when he told me he was thirty-five. “Every year we get is precious,” he’d said that day.
I set my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else there is to say, but I’m here. And so are you. Healthy. Alive.”
His gaze darkens, and he looks like he’s about to say something.
“Charlie?”
I don’t think he hears me, so I stand beside him, and together, we stare out at the lake.
“I’ve been thinking about him a lot,” he says eventually. “Being back here, in his house. Driving his boat, standing on the raft he built. Sometimes, the wind will ripple across the lake in a certain way, and just for a second, I can hear him calling out to Sam and me, telling us to get our life jackets on.” He peers down at me. “It’s hard to believe that he’s gone—that they’re both gone—and now I’m thirty-five. At my age, my dad had a wife, two kids, a business he was proud of. What would I leave behind?”
“Hey. Don’t talk like that. You’re not going anywhere.”
“I could.” He swallows again. “Any of us could.”
“Is that what the tree house is about?”
“My legacy?” He scratches his eyebrow. “I didn’t think of it like that, but yeah, it’s probably that. So fucking arrogant.”
“Stop. Of course this is a hard year for you. But the tree house is an amazing thing—don’t twist it out of shape.”
“I’m sorry.” He links his fingers behind his neck and looks up at the sky.
I don’t like seeing him like this. “Everything is okay.” I wrap an arm around his middle and squeeze. “We’re here. On this beautiful lake. Together.” I feel him take a deep breath.
“Can I help you take your mind off it?” I ask.
“I think you probably can.”
I tilt my chin and catch the quickest glint of a smile before Charlie scoops me up and chucks me in the water. He jumps in beside me before I even come up for air. It starts as a water fight, splashing and wrestling and laughing, and ends with me kissing Charlie beneath the surface. When we come up for air, he gestures to the ladder. “Up.”
Which is how I find myself making out with the boy across the bay on a raft on Kamaniskeg Lake. Just two people, figuring out their shit, kissing each other like there’s nothing better in this world than just kissing. My tongue is buried deep in his mouth when I hear a loud clanging. I pause, smiling at the sight of Charlie’s swollen lips. “What was that?”
“I think—”
He’s cut off by the same ding of metal hitting metal.
“I think that’s your dinner bell.”
We turn our heads toward the cottage as Nan waves from across the bay.