Marge and Ben were invited, along with neighbors, and some of Jake’s colleagues from the Audubon Nature Center. Childhood friends popped in with their own young families or partners. Olivia was introduced to so many people her head spun, and that was before she’d even had a glass of champagne.
Exhausted by the festivities, she wanted nothing more than to take a nap in the hammock over by the cedar trees. But Luci hadother ideas. She wagged her head. “Pleeeeease! Emma is here. I want to go on the boat.”
Olivia glanced across the yard at Emma, who was making her way toward them. Jake adored her and was always going on to Olivia about what a bookworm she was, what a levelheaded kid. Luci had taken quite a shine to her. There were several times Olivia could almost feel Luci start to say something to Emma, so much so that she saw the words forming on her daughter’s lips. And then Luci would catch herself, and say nothing. It was something she’d not done with anyone new, and Olivia wanted to encourage it. Spending more time with Emma could be good for her.
“You haven’t been out on that boat before,” Olivia reminded her. By then Emma had reached them. She held up a purple life vest.
“I think this one will fit her,” Emma said. “That is, if you’re okay with her going.”
Olivia smiled. “You’re reading my mind. But still…”
Luci pressed her lips against Olivia’s ear insistently. “Please.”
Behind Emma, Jake hollered from the dock, “You want to come, too, baby?”
Olivia did. But not at that moment. She was having her first ever real conversation with Amelia and Jane, and she really wanted to get to know them better. The shade was nice and cool. And the glass of wine was perfectly crisp.
“Jake is an excellent boater,” Jane said. “You don’t have to worry.” She tipped her face toward the sun, contentedly. “The lake is in his blood.”
In that moment, Olivia felt her earth shift on its axis. She wanted that contented air Jane Goodwin possessed. Her family surrounding her. A beautiful home on the lake. And the knowledge that everyone who mattered to her was right here, right now.
“Okay,” Olivia said to them all. “Luci can go.” Then, “Be careful!”
Luci pressed her lips to her mother’s and giggled. Then she darted off with Emma, hand in hand down to the dock. Olivia watched as Jake helped Luci into the boat, then checked her purple life vest. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“We’re all set!” he called up to her.
The engine purred, and Olivia stood to wave goodbye. “Be careful!” she called back. “You’ve got…”
“I know,” Jake said, finishing her sentence. “Precious cargo.” As if on cue, Luci turned and waved goodbye.
Olivia watched them back slowly away from the dock, then turn out toward open water. Her stomach rose to her throat as the boat grew distant and Luci’s purple life vest grew faint. She would have to get used to this. They were going to live here. They were going to be lake people, like the Goodwins.
When she sat back down, Olivia pushed her sunglasses higher up on the bridge of her nose and sipped the last of her wine.
Jane turned to her. “See? You look like you were born here.”
Olivia’s insides fluttered. From across the table Amelia smiled in agreement, and poured them each another glass of wine.
Perry
Jake wanted to take Perry’s boat out. His glorious still-new Chris-Craft 230 Sport Deck. That Perry himself had taken out only four times since purchasing it. It was parked at the northern point of his parents’ dock like a promise of summer, and all through the party Perry had been approached by so many guests who’d admired it and inquired about it that he’d barely had time to tip back a juicy clam, let alone finish his meal.
“Come on. Let’s let her stretch her legs,” Jake said. Boat talk for heading out into open water.
Perry had imagined this moment with his little brother for a long time. Years, perhaps. Jake wanted what he had.
It wasn’t that Perry wanted to show off. Well, maybe, just a little. It was that he wanted a moment on the water with his family that washis. All his life he’d driven Phoebe and her friends around, towed Jake as he water-skied with reckless abandon, listened to his father comment on his brother’s athletic prowess. How his little brother owned the lake. How, as his mother said, the lake was in his blood. Now Perry was the one with the house and the powerboat on the water. He had a beautiful family, a successful career. It was his turn to take a spin on the lake and take them all with him inhisboat. That was his plan for the afternoon.
But now, lounging on the patio, his Wayfarer sunglasses hiding the weary expression in his eyes, Perry could not bring himself to stand up and leave. He was overcome by the lavish late-day sun and too engrossed listening to Olivia talk with his wife and mother. About growing up in the restaurant in New York. About her temperamental and fiercely loving father, and the food he made for the people he loved. About what it felt like to sculpt: to stand before a cold earthen square of clay and set the palms of your hands against it, letting the clay choose its form. The lilt of Olivia’s voice was an intoxicating accompaniment to the sun on his skin and the wine in his veins. Perry was entranced. Immobilized. And deeply ashamed.
When Jake had found him on the patio and asked if he could take Emma and Luci out on the water, Perry’s impulse had been to stand up and shout, “No! I will take them. I will take all of you.” But the thing was, Perry was already taken. Down a path he’d had no intention of treading and yet could not deviate from. As long as Olivia Cossette kept talking, he was helpless to stop listening.
“Here.” Before he could second-guess himself, he handed Jake the keys. “Be careful.”
As he stretched his limbs and listened to the women talk, he thought,I should really try to follow my own advice.
Emma
