“Assholes!” yelled a freshman from the back. Emma pulled her knees up against her chest. Amanda Hastingswasan asshole.
Across the aisle, Laura Brentwood sputtered in disgust. “The speed limit is twenty. And it’s illegal to pass a bus.”
Emma thought the strict community speed limit was a joke. But it was a jerk move of Amanda’s, who lived a couple of houses up from Emma, by the clubhouse and tennis courts. Emma wondered what they were all doing. Probably sneaking Mr. Hastings’s beers from the pool house fridge and hanging out at the pool. Not that Amanda had ever invited her. Emma had only seen the sprawling setup last summer when the Hastings family hosted a neighborhood BBQ. Back when they were little, the two girls had been somewhat friendly, riding bikes with other kids on the road. But these days Amanda kept to a tight circle of upperclassmen who clogged the hallway around her locker, and sat at a head table with the football and lacrosse players in the cafeteria. Her parents always seemed to be traveling, and Amanda made good use of their absences by throwing keg parties, though that was something Emma learned of after the fact through the rumor mill. To be honest, Emma didn’t care what Amanda Hastings did. But she couldn’t help but wonder about Sully.
Sully McMahon was also a sophomore, and he sat in front of her in geometry. Emma had spent the better part of the school year staring at the soft dark curls at the nape of his neck. On the rare occasion he turned around to pass back a paper, or borrow a pencil, her cheeks burned. Other than that, Emma was sure he had no idea who she was. As the BMW sped out of sight, she slumped back in her bus seat. Why would he?
As soon as the bus dropped her off, she walked up the circular driveway and punched in the keypad code. Her mother would be at her office for another hour at least, and her father wouldn’t be back until dinner. She was used to being home alone. As long as she had her book, she preferred it that way. What she didn’t like was surprises, and just as she was reaching for the door handle it opened.
“How was school?” Her mother held the door ajar. Emma forced a smile. She was pretty sure Amanda Hastings’s mother wasn’t greeting her at the door.
“Good.”
She dumped her backpack in the marble foyer and kicked off her tennis shoes.
“Just good?”
“Pretty much,” she said, pausing at the kitchen island to grab a plum from the fruit bowl. “Just end-of-the-year boring stuff.” She was eager to get down to the dock, where she could dip her toes in the water and hunker down with her book.
“I got an email from your band teacher today about the spring concert. I’m planning to come, and I forwarded it to Daddy, too.”
“He won’t make it.”
Her mother sighed. “It’s his firm’s busy season with summer concerts, honey, but I know he wants to. Maybe it will work out.”
“Sure.” It never did. Her father was always working, whichhe liked to remind them allowed them to live the way they did. It wasn’t that Emma didn’t appreciate their nice house or their gated community. She liked both. She knew other kids at school thought she was lucky; her family had money. She could buy whatever she wanted at Abercrombie & Fitch or Hollister. Her parents had taken her in to see Broadway shows even as a child.” They ate out at nice restaurants. They had a boat. Not just any boat, but the boat her father had longed for since childhood: his Chris-Craft. Which he had finally bought last summer, and they’d maybe used all of three times since. But there were vacations: they skied in Utah, scuba dived on St. John’s, rented a house on the Vineyard every summer. All nice. But the thing was, Emma didn’t really care about those things. Except for the lake. It was her escape.
“What about a snack? I can make cheese and crackers or something,” her mother called after her as Emma slipped through the patio doors barefoot.
“Not hungry.” Free at last, she trotted across the backyard and down the steps to the lake, two at a time. Weekday afternoons on the dock were sacred. It wasn’t just the lake, which was serene in a way it never was on weekends. It wasn’t just the warm weather, or the sun that dappled the shore in molten gold. Nor was it the fact that she could swing her legs over the edge of the dock and drag her toes through the water, a sensation she longed for all winter. It was that she had the lake to herself. And once there, she could curl up on the sun-warmed wooden boards with her book and be alone. The same dock that her father had painstakingly stained that spring in preparation for the summer he would barely enjoy. But he’d be darned sure it would be in pristine condition. Emma didn’t understand it. Her father worked so hard to afford things he never even got to use.
Never mind, the dock would be well used by her, she thought as she set down her blanket and book. Voices carried from up the shoreline. Emma groaned. She’d hoped to steal at least one afternoon of peace. The voices grew closer, coming through the grove of pine trees that separated her house and the neighbor’s. Everyone on the lake side of the street had sweeping backyards edged by woods, for privacy. Small beach paths wound through them to the water. Her father liked to remind her that when he was a kid, the paths were simple dirt trails worn down by bare feet and flip-flops. Nowadays those paths were handsomely crafted wooden stairs that angled down to the water, like her own. Some were fussy stone steps and pavers set by masons; others had contemporary posts and metal railings. She liked her own, which was more rustic.
Now Emma glanced up the lake as the voices grew louder. Two docks north of hers, a group of people emerged at the waterline and began walking down the pier. Amanda Hastings and crew.
Emma squinted in their direction, shielding her eyes. Sully and another boy held a large red cooler between them. Amanda, who’d changed into a white bikini and cutoff shorts, stepped out on the dock first. Emma watched as she moved around the boat, unsnapping the cover and rolling it back. Eventually everyone hopped into it, and Amanda settled herself behind the wheel. The purr of the engine carried across the water, and Emma watched them reverse away from the dock. Everyone had taken a seat, except for one of the girls. The boat idled briefly and then Amanda took off, causing the girl to tumble backward onto the seats. Everyone whooped and laughed as they sped off into deeper water.
For about an hour Emma tried to ignore them. The engine whined in the distance as they cut across the lake in large arcs. For a while, they took turns waterskiing. Then they cut the engineand floated. Probably drinking or getting stoned, Emma thought. She wondered what they talked about. She wondered if Sully and Amanda were a thing.
By that hour, the sun had moved to the western edge of the sky. Soon a shadow fell across her reading spot, and Emma stretched, rubbing her eyes. Her mother was right—she was getting kind of hungry. She had just begun gathering up her towel and book when she heard a sharp voice. Up the shore, to her right, Mr. Hastings stood at the edge of his dock, hands on his hips. He stared at the ropes strewn about the floorboards and threw his hands up.Thiswas interesting.
He pulled his phone from his back pocket and began barking into it. Moments later came the purr of a boat engine from her left. Emma watched the Hastings boat taxi around the rocky peninsula, this time at a much slower speed than when it had left. Impatiently, Mr. Hastings waved it in.
As they neared her dock, Emma cracked her book open again, and stared into her lap. There was no reason for them to hug the shoreline so close to her, but they were. Emma glanced right toward the Hastings’s dock, then left toward the approaching boat. Amanda stared straight ahead, her mouth fixed in a thin line as she navigated the water and kept her father in sight. It was the boy leaning over the side of the boat who caught Emma’s attention. Was he waving at her?
Emma drew her knees up as the boat nosed its way closer. “Hey!” Sully McMahon was dragging one hand in the water, but his eyes were on her. Emma watched in disbelief as the boat drew up sharply alongside her dock. Amanda didn’t even glance her way, but Sully was definitely trying to communicate something. She narrowed her eyes.
Just as they pulled up, Sully lifted his hand from the water. Heheld out a brown bottle.
“Take it!” he hissed. The boat drew up so sharply, so close, she feared it might hit. In slow motion it glided past, mere inches away. Emma sucked in her breath, and Sully thrust the bottle in her direction.
Suddenly Emma found herself reaching. As he glided by, Sully pressed the bottle into her hands, their fingers bumping together. She looked up and Sully smiled. “Good girl.” And then they were gone, taxiing up the lake toward Mr. Hastings, who was now pacing.
Emma clutched the wet bottle to her chest, watching as they tied off the boat and disembarked. Amanda was waving her hands in explanation, talking loudly to her father. The others scurried past them, eyes down. Emma watched in disbelief as Sully stopped and offered Mr. Hastings a handshake. For a beat, it seemed to break the tension. She was even more surprised when Mr. Hastings actually took it.
Quickly, she stood and gathered her things, keeping the bottle concealed in her blanket. Amanda Hastings was in trouble, and as much as she loathed her, Emma actually felt a pang of sympathy when her father resumed his vocal chastising. She wondered if he’d seen them hand off the bottle to her. At the bottom of the stairs she risked a last look in their direction. From across the way Sully McMahon hesitated at the edge of the dock. He glanced back at her, before he, too, disappeared into the thicket of woods.
It wasn’t until she was halfway up the stairs that Emma paused and looked down at the sloshing bottle in the folds of her blanket. Wild Turkey. A lake breeze stirred the leaves in the treetops; Emma shoved the bottle of Wild Turkey behind a thick bush, snagging her fingertip on a pricker, and then ran the rest of the way up to the house.
