“Oh, fine,” Warren said. “Good, really. Heading to Penn in the fall, spending the summer doing some reading.” Henry nodded politely, not seeming to realize that Warren was just getting started. “Like, right now I’ve been reading up on the history of veterinary sciences. And it’s really fascinating stuff. For instance, did you know that—”
“Warren,” I interrupted. He looked over at me and I smiled at him, all the while trying to convey with my thoughts that he should really stop talking, or better yet, leave.
“Yes?” he asked, apparently not understanding any of these mental messages.
“Didn’t you, um, have to help Dad? Inside?” Warren just frowned at me for a moment, causing me to question, not for the first time that summer, if my brother really was as brilliant as everyone seemed to think.
“Oh,” he said, after a too-long pause. “Right. Sure.” He waggled his eyebrows at me in what was a very un-Warren, but incredibly annoying, way before he turned to go. He’d only taken about two steps when he pivoted back around to face Henry. “Actually, about that tent on your lawn—” he started.
“Warren,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Right,” he said quickly. He gave Henry a quick wave, then turned and headed up the grassy slope toward the house.
“Sorry to bother you,” Henry said as he walked up to where I was sitting on the dock, dropping his towel next to mine. “I didn’t realize you guys were out here.”
“Oh, no,” I said, and could hear how high my voice sounded. It was as if I’d suddenly become part Muppet. I was suddenly very aware that, in my bikini, I wasn’t really wearing all that much. “It’s fine. Totally, totally… fine.”
Henry spread out his towel and sat on it, stretching his long legs out in front of him. I was conscious that there was not a lot of space between us, and couldn’t help thinking back to that moment in the woods, his hands on my back, the only thing separating his skin from mine the thin fabric of my T-shirt.
“Your brother doesn’t like the tent?” he asked, bringing me back to the present moment.
“It’s not that,” I said. “He just… wondered what was going on with it. He was worried that you were taking in hobos or something.”
Henry smiled at that, a smile that crinkled the corners of his green eyes and made me smile back, almost like a reflex. “Not hobos,” he said. “But close. Davy’s living in it.”
“Oh,” I said, then paused, waiting for more of an explanation. When Henry just leaned back on his elbows, and looked out at the water, I asked, “And why is Davy living in it?”
“He’s been on this whole wilderness kick for a few years now. He’d sleep in the woods if my dad would let him. This was their compromise. And he’s only allowed to sleep in it in the summers.”
Thinking of the occasional weekends we once used to spend up here in the winters, and how frigid cold they could be, I nodded. “Did he get it from you?”
“Get what from me?” Henry turned to face me, eyebrows raised.
“The whole in-the-woods thing,” I said. Henry continued to look at me, and the directness of his gaze was enough to make me look away and concentrate on smoothing out the wrinkles in my towel. “You were always trying to get me to come with you and look at different bugs. You used to love that stuff.”
He smiled at that. “I guess I still do. I just like that there’s a system in the woods, an order to things, if you know how to see it. I always find myself in the woods when I need to think something out.”
Silence fell between us, and I realized that this was the first time, since our initial meeting on this dock, that it had been just the two of us—no little brothers or customers or blond girlfriends. But it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence—it was companionable, like the silences we used to have when we’d spend rainy days in the tree-house, or hours lying out on the raft. I looked over at him and saw that he was already looking at me, which surprised me, but I didn’t let myself look away. I took a breath to say something—I had no idea what; in my head I hadn’t gotten any further than his name—when he stood abruptly.
“I think I’m going to go for a swim,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. “Okay, have—” But I lost whatever I was going to say next, because that’s when Henry took off his shirt. Dear God. I swallowed hard and looked away but then, remembering my sunglasses perched on top of my head, I lowered them as casually as possible so that I could look at him and not have it be totally obvious that I was staring. And I don’t know if Henry had been lifting sacks of sugar or flour at the bakery, but his shoulders were broad, and his arms were muscular, and his stomach muscles were defined….
It suddenly seemed much warmer on the dock than it had just a moment before, and when Henry nodded at me before diving into the water, I tried to wave back casually. I watched him swimming—the stroke I recognized, the one we’d both been taught by our long-ago swim team instructors—until I couldn’t see him any longer, then pulled on my shorts and T-shirt, picked up my towel, and headed inside.