Alex hated to be held accountable, but it was necessary. I spent long hours in the hospital, high on my own authority.
Now, when I visit the clearing, all I see are stumps. I miss my imaginary world, just as I miss my childhood self.
One morning after I give my father his breakfast and morning medication, I find myself wandering the shoreline. Catwood Pond being long and narrow, there is only one other property that is visible from our house. Directly across the water, I can make out the shapes of the now-empty Seavey camp: the two-story boathouse, the vast lawn, the sprawling main house. It all sits, hot and still, as if waiting for something. I place my hand on a tree, thick as an elephant’s leg, and run my fingers over the bulging sap bubbles. Although I know better, Ican’t resist pressing my nail into one that is big as a grape. Its viscous insides burst over my finger and slide down the bark, leaving a lazy trail. I press the tips of my fingers together and indulge in the sticky resistance as I try to pull them apart. A dormant feeling begins to stir. It’s more than a memory; it’s like a portal. Suddenly, I remember exactly what it felt like to be sixteen. My senses have held on to this version of me—the self who thrummed with a chaotic mix of optimism and defiance and fear and brazenness. The self who, one summer, collided with a boy named Seth.
Chapter 10
June 2015
The year I was sixteen, I failed my driver’s test but passed my lifeguard certification. By the time Memorial Day arrived and opened the door to summer, I had secured a job at Lake Locust, which was ten times the size of our pond and bustled with tourists from June through Labor Day. It was only four miles away and an easy enough bike ride to the lake from our house, but I stewed each time I set out, knowing that I could have been driving a car, if only it weren’t for that botched K-turn. And the forgotten turn signal. And the rolling stop. All minor infractions, in my opinion, but enough to leave me bike-bound for the foreseeable future.
On the first real day of summer, I hopped on my rusty Trek, wearing a red one-piece swimsuit, some tattered running shorts, and my green JanSport backpack. As usual, my mother barked at me not to wear Birkenstocks while riding my bike, but I ignored her as I pedaled up our driveway, my toes and heels bare in the breeze.
My route to the big lake took me past the town tennis courts, and as I approached them, I could hear the rhythmic pop of a ball being smacked back and forth. I slowed to see who was playing and sighed with dread as I realized it was Greg Seavey. When he saw me, he caught the ball in his right hand, abruptly halting the rally.
“Cricket Campbell. Nice wheels.”
I rolled my eyes and came to a stop. Obviously, Greg had heard about my failed test, just as I had heard about his new BMW, whichbore a vanity plate that read:BOOYAH. He walked over and looked me up and down through the chain-link fence, channeling his disappointment.
“You don’t have to look so devastated,” I said. “It’s fine. I’ll retake the test when I feel like it.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just…” Greg shook his head regretfully. “You hadall yearto grow boobs.”
Greg loved nothing more than to shine a spotlight on people’s insecurities, and my chest size had been a preoccupation of his since we were twelve years old.
“And you had all year to fix your personality,” I fired back.
Greg’s tennis partner laughed at my quick retort. Only then did I really notice him: cute, a bit taller than Greg, with messy blond hair.
“Hi, I’m Cricket,” I said, with a cautious smile.
“Seth.” He had a relaxed air about him that was very different from Greg’s agitated cockiness. It was what I could only assume was genuine confidence—a rarity in anyone our age.
“He’s my cousin,” Greg interjected, as if this fact somehow ranked Seth below him in the social hierarchy. But Greg was now superfluous to this conversation, and neither Seth nor I turned to look at him.
“Are you here for the summer?” I asked.
Seth nodded. “That’s the plan. Teaching at the tennis camp. You?”
“Yeah. Lifeguarding at the lake.” I checked my watch and realized I was already two minutes late. “Shoot. Gotta go. I’ll see you around?”
“For sure…” Seth began.
“Beers tonight at Sully’s dock,” interrupted Greg. It was more of a command than an invitation. Technically, Greg and I were friends. Or at least, we were tethered by a shared circle of friends who spent every summer here. I didn’t like him much these days, but now that we were in high school, the social dynamics were churning so swiftly that it was better not to write anyone off, even if he was an inveterate ass named Greg Seavey.
“We’ll see,” I said as I pedaled away, suddenly feeling a little off-balance as my sandals slapped against my heels. I knew how to handleGreg. It was the unexpected arrival of Seth that had thrown me for a loop.
A few weeks later, on the night of the solstice, my friends gathered at Greg’s. We knew it was the longest day of the year, but time didn’t mean much to us that summer, when our future spilled out before us like an eager tide that we believed would never ebb. While my family’s camp was an example of Adirondack understatement, the Seaveys’ property was the opposite. It had been one of the great historic camps, once owned by a former president. But when the Seaveys acquired it, they modernized it and depleted it of its original charms. They expanded the two-story boathouse, adding large docks on either side. Their three motorboats and two Jet Skis were always on display, and it was rumored that Mr. Seavey was looking to add a seaplane to his fleet. A stone firepit was built into the hillside and was “architecturally significant,” or so Greg told us. Up the hill, the main house asserted itself as one of the biggest in the area, and the rest of the estate comprised four guest cabins, each one decorated in an over-the-top way that imitated Adirondack charm rather than embodied it: mounted moose heads, cashmere blankets that were over-luxurious, and decorative signs that said things likeLIVING THAT BACKWOODS LIFE.
Pretension aside, the Seaveys’ was a convenient place to party. Greg’s parents were notably permissive, and they encouraged him to host in the hope that it would make him popular, which it did.
I could easily boat to Greg’s from my dock, but that night, I arrived by car with my best friend, Chloe—who had passed her driver’s test and had access to her mom’s SUV—so that we could stop by Deb’s Depot on our way. Deb had no qualms about selling alcohol to minors, as long as those minors had passable fake IDs, and we used ours to buy bright-pink wine and a case of the cheapest beer available.
As we ambled down Greg’s well-kept lawn, I could see there were already at least fifteen kids gathered on the dock. The firepit threw sparks into the air, and a few people stood around an ice-filled coolerby the boathouse. Chloe and I approached to unload our haul, and as I transferred the beers from their box to the cooler, Greg plucked one from my hand to inspect it. He had recently taken up drinking obscure craft beers, so he now scoffed at the humble varieties he had been perfectly happy to guzzle last summer.
“You know why drinking light beer is like having sex in a canoe?” he asked. None of us responded, so he continued with a grin: “Because it’s fucking close to water!”
A few of the boys chortled. I rolled my eyes and tried to smile knowingly. I knew it was just an expression, but the truth was: I had no idea what sex was like, in a canoe or anywhere else.
