Stu’s laugh bubbled up like a backwoods creek. “Guess we are,” he said, not seeming nearly perturbed enough about the parental intrusion, Rae thought.
Fordable Francine pulled into the driveway, and from the mud splattered across the faded red paint like pastoral art, it looked like Aaron had taken a few dirt-road detours.
“I’ll go help him unload the groceries,” Ellen said. “I’ll let you two … catch up.” She shot them a devilish look and pranced up to the house, still wearing her life jacket, like it was a prop on a movie set that she was too enchanted by to take off.
By habit, Rae and Stu walked to the dock behind his parents’ house and sat down, legs dangling over the edge, feet skimming the gentle water. The lake was a few miles around, the tiny cottages squished right up next to each other with Midwestern friendliness. American flags flew from the docks, and political flags too, the kind that pricked Rae with indignation but also with an understanding that “those people” weren’t the depraved “other” the way everyone in New York talked about it from their urban echo chambers. They were her neighbors.
A few small motorboats cruised by, laughter louder than the engines. Bullfrogs were beginning their evening serenade in a synchronous chorus.
“Is your sister around too?” Rae asked Stu.
“Nah, she’s married with a baby,” Stu said. “Keeps her crazy busy.”
It hit a nerve with Rae. Stu’s sister was younger than she was, and it made her feel woefully behind. She hadn’t let herself dwell on it recently, but now, back here in the zip code of young marriages and young mothers, her fears had nowhere to hide. Here she was, approaching twenty-seven, definitivelylate twenties, with no husband or fiancé or even the prospect of a boyfriend. Ellen had been right—she’d wasted precious time trying to fix a guy who didn’t want to be fixed, shoving her love at someone who’d shoved it right back.
She ran the marriage math in her head, finding it equal parts soothing and anxiety inducing. She was two years behind her original forecast, which wasn’t ideal, but she could condense the timeline and still be okay. If she met someone soon, she could still date them for two years, skip over the living-together step, then have a six-month engagement and close the marriage deal before her thirtieth birthday to allow enough time to have all her kids before she turned thirty-five.
“Why aren’tyoumarried yet?” Rae asked Stu. A year older than Rae, he was becoming somewhat of an outlier for not having settled down, and she wondered what his story was. He liked his mischief, but he was the commitment type, nothing like those East Coast Peter Pans.
“Ouch. You’ve gotten some big-city manners, haven’t you?” he joked back.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Rae said. “I just meant—I’m sure you’ve had your pick.” Last she’d seen on social media, he’d been going strong with his college sweetheart, but that had been a while ago.
“Yeah, well, I’m sure you have too,” Stu said. “Figured one of them city guys would’ve reeled you in by now.”
“Apparently New York guys prefer catch and release,” Rae said, trying not to remember the unforgettable sensation of being tossedback, unwanted, into the choppy seas. “Metaphorically,” she added quickly.
“Fishing metaphors are the only kind of metaphors I approve of,” Stu said with a grin that reminded Rae of how he always used to tease her about the big stack of books she’d cart along to the lake every summer. “Do I have to kick some guy’s ass?”
Rae liked the feeling of someone having her back like that, but she couldn’t help her protective impulse to shield Dustin from harm. “It’s all in the past now,” she said, trying to believe her own words but also not liking how stark it sounded. “He just wasn’t the right one.”
Stu looked sheepishly pleased about Rae’s unlucky love life. “Well, you’ll find a guy who appreciates you,” he said, in a way that made Rae believe him, even though she wasn’t trying to. “There’s no rush to run to the altar.”
“Easy for you to say,” Rae grumbled. “You don’t have a ticking time bomb in your uterus.”
“What?” Stu asked, visibly squirming at the worduterus.
“Nothing,” Rae said. “I’m just bitter about how guys can have babies as late as they want. Women have to hurry and find a mate before our eggs run out. I mean, how unfair is that?”
“I’ve never heard anyone say it like that,” Stu said, and Rae swallowed a comment about how he probably hadn’t been spending much time with career-driven women. “But it’s kind of good, isn’t it?” he went on. “It’s like God’s way of reminding you to value family and the important stuff before you wake up one day and realize your life has gone way off course. Right the ship before it’s too late.”
Rae felt attacked by this analysis, but she kind of agreed with it too.
“And I don’t think it’s just girls that want to settle down,” Stu said. “I’d like to get married soon—I’m just holding out for the one.”
Rae bit back a smile that tasted like old times. “Who knew little Stu could be such a romantic.”
“Oh come on, don’t you remember the handpicked bouquets I’d deliver you?”
“You mean all those dying gray dandelions?”
“Those are the most romantic ones,” Stu protested. “They’re made for wishing on.”
Rae glanced over at the row of pine trees. They’d filled in over the years, and she couldn’t help but think how much better they’d hide the two of them now. Stu’s sister had spied them kissing and tattled to their parents, and Rae had been so mortified she hadn’t spoken to Stu for the rest of the summer. She’d thought they’d have another couple years at the lake together before college, but that had turned out to be the last one. Her mom couldn’t afford to rent Our Little Yellow House on her own.
That was probably part of the resentment she still held toward her dad—not just how he’d left her mom out in the cold but how he’d cut her own childhood short and forced her to grow up overnight.
“I know what you’re wishing for right now,” Stu said, eyeing the pine trees, too, and obviously thinking he was reading her mind about that kiss. His self-confidence was as infuriating as it was endearing.
