So I did the most instinctive thing—I took off behind him. I raced down the lawn and then thirty feet of white-painted dock, and when I got to the end of it, I cannonballed into the water. Just do it, right?
I smacked bottom first into the lake, came back up, and started stroking behind Brendan, who was headed toward a channel marker about fifty or sixty yards out. I raced to win. But Brendan was a very good swimmer, and to his credit, he beat my pants off.
He grinned. “So who’s a rotten egg, you rotten egg!”
The two of us hung on to the buoy bobbing in the wake of a particularly noisy motorboat zipping around the lake. I squinted through wet eyelashes at Brendan. I’m a pretty good swimmer, but the recent smoking hadn’t helped my time, and Brendan’s freestyle was awesome.
“You could have let me win,” I said. “Or get a little closer.”
He shrugged. “Winning is overrated in this country. It was a great swim, though.”
“I think you’re right,” I said. “And mornings at the lake are underrated.” The temperature of the water was just about perfect, and the sun was warm on my face and shoulders.
“I’m starting toreallyremember you now, Scout. You were stuck-up and totally impressed with yourself.”
No kidding? I must’ve had him fooled back in the day. “Still am,” I told him, splashing water in his face. “Hey,” I said, grinning up into his eyes. “I think I’ve got an idea.”
Brendan looked momentarily confused. “For another column?”
Thirty
“DO YOU WANTto go sailing?” I asked.
“You? Sailing?Aren’t you swamped with work?”
“Actually, I just wrote one of my better pieces in a while.”
“Champagne!” Brendan cried.
“One step at a time.”
Now here’s what I was beginning to discover about Brendan. He’d grown up to be a really nice person—interesting, fun, and not self-involved, as far as I could tell. Not only did he encourage me to talk about Sam as much as I needed to, he was thoughtful in other ways. For instance, he made the sandwiches for our impromptu outing and brought me a long-billed cap to wear so that I wouldn’t get burned. Pretty sweet, actually.
Right off, I could tell that the years Brendan had spent landlocked in Indiana hadn’t compromised his skill as a sailor. He rigged his uncle’s scow in ten minutes flat and got the boat away from the dock on the first try.
Scows are top-heavy, flat-bottomed sailboats, fast and unstable, as I well knew from all the summers I’d spent racing up and down the seven-mile-long lake in my grandfather’s sixteen-footer. Brendan manned the mainsail while I dropped the centerboard into the well and took charge of the jib, our movements meshing as if we’d been sailing together for a while.
It was such a tremendous day to be out on the water. A cooling breeze gusted under a hazy sun, and the air was a perfect seventy-five degrees.
Brendan commented on the beautiful, historic homes lining the lakeshore. He hadn’t seen them for so long, he felt as though he were seeing them for the first time. The pleasant thoughts were cut off abruptly by the roar of a Jet Ski as a pair of teenagers rode circles around us, swamping our boat. I reached for the jib line, and Brendan scrambled to the high side—but it was too late.
The boat capsized, dumping the two of us into the drink.
“You okay?” I heard as I sputtered to the surface.
“Fine. You?”
“Yep. Don’t worry. I got the little bastard’s plate number.”
I laughed as Brendan righted the scow and helped me back in. Soon we were sailing again, soaking wet but otherwise okay. The rest of the afternoon was a very nice blur. We sailed through the Narrows, passing the Lake Geneva Country Club and Black Point, an eccentric-looking, thirteen-bedroom summer “cottage” built at the end of the nineteenth century. When our faces were stiff from sun and wind, we sailed back to Knollwood Road—to change our clothes.
Brendan had asked me out to dinner.
And I had accepted.
Thirty-one
I HAD JUSTthe right dress hanging in my closet: a simple black shift that set off my sun-pinked skin.This isn’t a date,I told myself as I put on makeup, but not too much.It’s a reunion. A chat between old friends.
