Knox
“Do you need to change?” Sylvie asks as she exits the van, the beachy ersatz coconut of sunscreen wafting around her.
“In many different ways, I’m sure,” I say.
“I mean clothes.”
“No.”
“You don’t want to swim? Water’s nice.”
“I very much want to but—” I hold up my cast.
Sylvie face-palms. “Right. Yes. Hi. Maybe let’s don’t wreck your brand-new cast.”
“I wouldn’t mind wading out a little ways with you, though.”
“Wading it is. Did you put on sunscreen?”
“No. Should I?”
“If you don’t want cancer when you’re fifty. Come on.” She motions for me to take off my shirt.
I do and extend my palm. “Hit me.”
Sylvie’s about to squirt some sunscreen in my hand but stops. “Here, it’ll be easier if I do it for you. It’s hard to put on sunscreen with one hand. You mind?”
“Not one bit.” I try to say it in a way that makes me sound jokey excited as a way to cover my real excitement. I don’t think it worked.
Sylvie squirts out a dollop and starts slowly and methodically rubbing it into my chest and arms. She seems to linger over my heart as though gauging for herself my level of stimulation over this whole affair.
And I know my heart is betraying my attempts to play it cool.
Am I imagining it, or is she taking her time with her hands on my stomach?
“Look at you with the six-pack,” Sylvie murmurs. “Who knew you were such a gym rat.”
“Never been in a gym. It’s that my family didn’t always eat a whole lot.”
Sylvie suddenly looks worried.
“No, I mean we weren’t starving or anything. But we definitely just scraped by sometimes. And hey, free six-pack. Wanna hear something funny though?”
“Has anyone told you you have a long torso? You do. You’re built like a cat.”
“Uh, no.”
“Turn around so I can get your back. Sorry, yes, I want to hear something funny.”
I turn around. “My family didn’t believe in using sunscreen. They thought that’s what caused skin cancer.”
“Stop.”
“Dead serious.”
“Wow. Was there, like, any science they could point to?” Sylvie says, warm hands on my back.
“None. Ever. There were even some members of my family who believed in sungazing.”
“Please tell me that’s not exactly what it sounds like, which is just staring into the sun, letting it burn your retinas.”
“Nailed it.”
Sylvie lets out a deep sigh. “Tell me they drew the line at repeatedly bonking their heads against a brick wall to, I don’t know, improve brain function.”
“Yeah, but if you tried hard, you could convince them.”
“God. Turn back around. Let’s get your face.”
I turn to Sylvie and close my eyes. Well, mostly. I peek at her through a 99 percent closed eye. Her breath caresses my eyelids as she massages cool sunscreen into my cheekbones and forehead. She takes her time and I’m glad.
“There you go,” she says. “All done. But if I catch you staring at the sun, we’re leaving.”
We walk toward the water, Winslow pulling and straining at his leash with keen whines until Sylvie looses him and he bounds toward the water like a rubber band shot from a thumb, past the families sunbathing. He splashes into the waves.
“Yeah, not super dignified,” Sylvie says, laughing.
“He doesn’t disappoint,” I say, laughing too.
We drop our things on a vacant patch of beach. Sylvie peels off her button-down shirt and I try not to stare as we follow Winslow in, stepping carefully to maintain balance. I keep the hand of my cast arm fixed to the top of my head.
The afternoon is sun-hazed and warm on our backs, the water cool around our legs and waists.
Sylvie sighs. “I love this so much.”
“Being in water?”
“Being in water. Summer afternoons. Winslow living his best life.” She pauses for a second. “Making new friends.”
My heart judders at that and robs me of words. “Yeah. I love all that stuff . . . too.”
“Will you be sad or jealous if I swim a little for real?”
“Not as long as we can still talk.”
“I solemnly swear to only engage in swimming conducive to conversation.” Sylvie turns over and floats on her back.
For a second I’m jealous of the blue sky, the way she looks at it like it’s too beautiful to bear. “I feel like I don’t know you well enough. I want to know more about you.”
Sylvie splashes back to her feet and pushes her wet hair back from her face. “Ask me anything. I may not answer anything, but you can ask.”
I suddenly feel stupid. “Uh. What’s your favorite food.”
“How dare, sir. How dare.”
We laugh. “I don’t know. Don’t you think someone’s favorite food is very telling?” I say.
“Sometimes,” Sylvie says. “Mine might be.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Avocados.” Sylvie has an expectant set to her face. Like she’s ready to play defense.
Thing is, I’ve known people whose favorite food is sprouts. I nod.
“Nothing?” Sylvie says.
“I think that’s a respectable favorite food.”
“You’d deny me the pleasure of defending avocados?”
“Sorry. How about: Avocados?! You can’t be serious. You’re a monster.”
“Thank you. Avocados. They’re the perfect food. Eating them is like eating green butter, but healthy for you.”
“So, like butter made from Yoda milk.”
“Knox!”
“What?”
“Yoda milk?!”
“What?”
“First of all, I’m surprised you’ve seen Star Wars.”
I shrug. “Well. I was little.”
“Secondly . . . I don’t know where to start. Okay, we see no evidence in any of the Star Warses that Yodas even produce milk.”
“I haven’t seen them all. But I believe you.”
“Like, they live in a swamp and have croaky voices. They’re frog people basically.”
“The way the Avatar guys are cat people?”
“Exactly. And frogs famously do not produce milk.”
“No, for sure.”
“But even if they did, there’s no reason it would be green. Like brown cows do not produce brown milk.” Sylvie looks at me. “Don’t look at me skeptically. Didn’t you say you’d milked a goat before?”
“I didn’t say that but I have.”
“There you go. And was the milk goat-colored?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?!”
“It was a white goat.”
“I hate you.”
“Wanna know what I’ve done in addition to milking goats?”
“Not sure I do wanna know.” Sylvie ducks under the water and comes back up, smoothing her hair back and wiping droplets from her eyes.
“Picked avocados. Like for a job.”
Sylvie slaps my chest. “Stop.”
I’m fairly sure she could have just said stop without touching my chest and I like that she seized upon the excuse. “In California, for a season.”
“What was that like?”
I shrug. “Paid okay. Kinda fun sometimes. We’d go up in a basket in this cherry picker–type thing and handpick them. You had to be really careful.”
“You’ve had a pretty interesting life, haven’t you.” The sun shines in Sylvie’s face and her eyes catch the light and luminesce like prisms.
I look away from her, out over the lake toward the horizon, feeling wistful suddenly. “In some ways.”