“That was supposed to be funny.”
“You’re a very strange person, Genevieve. I mean that affectionately.”
“Sure you do,” she said.
*
In the morning, Claire was wakened by the man in the camper pulling away from his site and out onto the road, and once she could no longer hear his truck, she climbed out of the bed and pulled on fresh clothes under the still-rising sun. She glanced over at the tent pitched a few yards away, but it now appeared that no one was in it. Once she was dressed, she tugged on the blanket that Genevieve had pulled up to her nose and said, “We should hit the road.”
She sat up and stretched, and then held a hand over her eyes. “Look, you can see the lake.”
“Yeah,” Claire said. “It looks pretty bleak out there.”
“We should go for a swim.”
Claire glanced out toward the water.
“I don’t know, Genevieve. I was hoping to make Nebraska today.”
“We can,” she said. “No problem. But when are you gonna have another chance to swim in the Great Salt Lake?”
Claire looked at her and smiled. “You got a swimsuit in that tiny backpack of yours?”
“No, but I have a change of clothes. I can swim in these.”
When they pulled into the parking lot outside the swimming beach, the stench of the lake was powerful, a briny odor overlaid with the smell of sulfur and something rotting, briefly reminiscent of family visits to Lake Michigan when Claire was a child, and she’d find a narrow piece of driftwood to poke at the remains of an alewife. Worse, when they stepped outside the cab, they were set upon by flies. The lake itself seemed flatter than any she’d ever seen, with the distant mountains and the expanses of bleached salt.
“Boy, can’t wait to take a dip in that fresh water,” Claire said.
Genevieve smiled. “Once in a lifetime, Claire. Someday you can tell Lucy about it.” She slapped at the back of her neck and took her hand away, and in the center of her palm was a dead fly. Claire was waving others from her hair.
“This must be what gets people in the water,” she said, and started running toward the beach, Genevieve following.
“Those clothes will be caked in salt!” Genevieve called after her.
“So will yours!”
The water was cooler than she’d anticipated, and so shallow that she stopped running after she was no more than knee-deep. Genevieve caught up to her. There were others at the lake, some walking the edge of the water, a few children scattered among the stones and salt-sand, picking through tiny objects they’d found. Farther out, here and there across the water, people were lying on their backs without swimming, testing the claims they’d heard in elementary school geography. Off to their left, a big man was floating with his belly above the surface.
“Check it out!” Genevieve said.
She was already lying on her back, her clothes loose and floating away from her skin so Claire could see the outline of her body underneath, and it seemed to shift dimensions in the light breeze. She was smiling, and under the sun her teeth looked thin and translucent. Claire sank into the water, the deep cool immediately exhilarating, and before the water reached her chin she could taste its salinity. She lay back and floated with her body parallel to Genevieve’s, the water gently lapping along her legs and arms. She spread them out like she was making a snow angel.
“This is amazing,” Claire said.
She tilted her head up. Mostly submerged as she was, the lake now looked beautiful. There was a rocky island not far off that seemed tinted with rust in the still-early-morning sun, and beyond it were two boats with bright red sails. Away from the flies, the mountains looked bluer and cooler.
“I bet it’s incredible in the winter,” Genevieve said. “There’d be snow on the mountains, and the sky would be deeper blue. And no bugs. Except of course you couldn’t swim.”
As they lay back, a waterbird flew directly over them, its thin, bent legs trailing the slow beating of its wings. Claire followed it on an imaginary line that split the sky as it moved toward some distant clouds in the west already piled high. They seemed suddenly ominous, and a fear took hold of her, and she stood up.
“Gonna get out already?” Genevieve asked.
The big man who had been floating with his belly above the water was wading toward them.
“It’s the guy from the campground,” Claire said.
Genevieve slapped the water as she got to her feet and stood next to her. Their clothes clung to their skin, and Claire could see Genevieve’s narrow hips and small breasts. She knew she was similarly exposed. But as the man walked up to them, he was averting his eyes. His own belly was thrust well over his low-slung swim trunks where a tightly drawn string was digging into the flesh at his sides. He stopped about ten feet away and looked toward the beach.
“Morning, ladies,” he said. “I just wanna say I’m sorry about last night. I shouldn’t’ve come over after dark asking for a fee.”