“True,” she acknowledged, glancing up. “Have a good spring, then.”
The days gaped open after that. No school, no job, daylight going on and on like it would never quit. I cleaned two perfect northern pike and did the north-forty wood the first day, then I dithered about in the boat for a few more, catching crappie near the beaver dam. I filled the net without trying, sorted all the tackle one morning, took a comb to the dogs and teased out the mats left over from their winter coats. One afternoon I walked the five miles into town and bought toothpaste and toilet paper from the drugstore. My mom gave me a rubberbanded roll of ones for this purpose, and afterward I went to the bank, where I filled out a pink slip at the counter and withdrew two twenty-dollar bills. The woman at the counter asked if that was how I wanted it, and I said yes. At the market, I splurged on a bag of hard green pears for my mom (“Argentina,” the label said) and a jar of Skippy for my dad. Then I went into Bob’s Bait and Tackle, lifting glittering lures from his bins, unhooking them from my sleeves, leaving with nothing. I paused outside in the sun. After a long moment, I pushed open the door of the diner, where I bought a pack of grape Bubble Yum from Santa Anna before I could ask to bum a cigarette. I stuffed gum into my mouth as I started home, chewing until my jaw hurt.
Twilight and more twilight. By then the stars were already doing their summer bit, the Summer Triangle sliding north, as well as Scorpius, with its splay of pincers and curled hook. After dinner I sometimes took the canoe out and lingered until dark—especially on overcast nights, especially after nine, when twilight finally halved, and then halved again, sliding the sky through epochs of orange, then epochs of blue and purple. Then epochs of violet. The days just never seemed to get done. I huddled low in the boat and listened to the water tut at the hull. Sometimes, at last, a lamp would go on inside the Gardner house. I’d see Patra through the window at the counter, Leo with his arm around her, and not much more. With Leo home, Patra went to bed earlier. With Leo home, Paul didn’t spend time anymore on the deck or the dock, though the water had warmed up enough to go swimming.
I tested it out one evening after the Gardners’ lights went dark. I wadded up my T-shirt and jeans and underpants in the boat, then slipped into the water so fast it was like being gulped. Stirred-up rotten algae from the bottom of the lake congealed around my left leg. I kicked away from the canoe and floated, dismally, on my back, my tiny hard nipples pointing up at Scorpius. Scorpius pointed back at me. I was bright white from six months of winter: my chin and nipples and kneecaps all floated atop the water. After a moment, the moon slunk out from under a cloud, sprouted a tail of light across the lake. It wouldn’t have been hard to look out any window in the house and see me. I was right there to be seen.
The mucousy thickness of the water slid beneath me—how many years of summers had I lain on this lake? I felt the exact indentation in the water my body made, skinny girl-print, and after bobbing for a moment on the surface I took a deep breath and dove down. I moved through warmer and cooler columns of water, kicking hard, finding the silky cold mud at the bottom with my hands. I thought of Mr. Grierson in the diner again. I could see Lily with him one minute, but not the next. I could see the black back of her head over the vinyl booth, Mr. Grierson looking across at her. But then it was only Mr. Grierson alone with his book, with his paper napkin and eggs. Outside the diner windows, snow had been falling. The fluorescent lights had been buzzing, the coffee machine clucking away. At the bottom of the lake the water grew colder, and I put Lily in that booth and I made him beg her. Don’t tell, don’t tell. I felt the shiver of air bubbles I’d created, beetling up around my arms and legs. I felt them rising from the roots of my hair. Then, after a dark interval, my body followed.
Teeth chattering in the canoe, I got dressed again. I paddled across the lake, washed the muck from my feet with a splash of well water, climbed the ladder to the loft over my parents’ bedroom, and masturbated, miserably, my wiry pubic hair catching between my fingers. I slept soundly then. By morning, order had come back to the woods. The rising sun had set down predictable shadows, long and straight as bars. All that remained of the night before was the damp underside of my braid, a miniscule fleck of algae on my thigh.
You know how summer goes. You yearn for it and yearn for it, but there’s always something wrong. Everywhere you look, there are insects thickening the air, and birds rifling trees, and enormous, heavy leaves dragging down branches. You want to trammel it, wreck it, smash things down. The afternoons are so fat and long. You want to see if anything you do matters.
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