“You’re here as a wedding guest,” she protested. “Wendela
wouldn’t expect you to work tonight.”
“What, driving a boat is suddenly work? Since when?”
“You have a point. What is it with guys and boats?”
“There are some things that cannot be resisted.” He slipped off
his bow tie and opened the collar of his tuxedo shirt, his Adam’s apple rippling
as he sighed with relief.
Good Lord, had he been working out? She didn’t ask, because
everyone knew that was just code for “I think you’re hot.”
And she didn’t. How could she? He was Zach—as familiar as a
lifelong friend, yet suddenly…exotic.
“I shouldn’t have done those Jell-O shots,” she murmured.
Pulling her attention elsewhere, she stood on the dock and looked out at the
moon-silvered water. The sight of the lake never failed to ignite a rush of
memories. She had been here before, many times through the years.
During her junior high and high school years, when Camp Kioga
had been closed down, she and Zach used to sneak onto the premises with their
friends on hot summer days, swimming and reliving the glory days of the resort,
which dated back to the 1920s. And every once in a while, the two of them would
slip into the boathouse and pretend to be smugglers or pirates or stuntmen in
the circus. Sometimes, even as youngsters, they would fall so deep into the
fantasy that they’d lose track of time. She remembered talking with him for
hours, seemingly about nothing, but managing to encompass everything important.
When she was with Zach, it never felt strange that she didn’t have a dad, or
that she was biracial, or that her mom had to work all the time to make ends
meet. When she was with Zach, she just felt…like herself. Maybe that was why
their friendship felt so sturdy, even when they almost never saw each other.
An owl hooted from a secret place in the darkness, startling
Sonnet from her thoughts. “It’s getting late,” she said softly. “I’m
leaving.”
He gently closed his hand around her wrist. “Come with me.”
A shiver coursed through her, and she didn’t resist when he
drew her close, slipping his arm around her waist and edging her toward the boat
moored at the end of the dock. It was a vintage Chris-Craft runabout, its wooden
hull and brass fittings polished to a sheen so bright it seemed to glow in the
moonlight. The old boat had been used in the wedding, mostly for a photo shoot
but also, and most romantically, to transport the bride and groom to the
floatplane dock, where they’d been whisked away to their honeymoon at Mohonk
Mountain House. A Just Married sign was tied to the stern.
“Hang on to me,” Zach whispered. “I don’t want you falling
in.”
“I won’t fall—whoa.” She clung to him as the boat listed
beneath her weight. The open cabin smelled of the lake, and the flowers that had
been used to decorate it, and the fresh scent made her dizzy. The second wave of
champagne was kicking in.
“Take my jacket,” he said, wrapping it around her shoulders.
“Chilly tonight.”
She took a seat in the cockpit, feeling the peculiar intimacy
of his body heat lingering in the folds of the jacket. She reveled in the
slickness of the satin lining, which smelled faintly of men’s cologne and sweat.
Oh boy, she thought.
There was an open bottle of champagne in the cubby by her
knees, so she grabbed it and took a long, thirsty swig. Why not? she thought.
Her official duties for the wedding were done, and it was time to relax.
Zach untied the boat and shoved off. He turned on the running
lights and motor, handling the Chris-Craft with expert smoothness. He’d always
been good with his hands, whether handling a vintage motorboat or a complicated
video camera. As they motored across the placid water toward the rustic wooden
boathouse, Sonnet admitted to herself that although she loved living in New York
City, there were things she missed about the remote Catskills area where she’d
grown up—the moon on the water, the fresh feeling of the wind in her face, the
quiet and the darkness of the wilderness, the familiarity of a friend who knew
her so well they didn’t really have to talk.
She had another drink of champagne, feeling a keen exuberance
as she watched loose flower petals fluttering through the night air, into the
wake of the boat.
She offered the bottle to Zach.
“No thanks,” he said. “Not until I moor the boat.”
She sat back and enjoyed the short crossing to the boathouse,
which was bathed in the soft golden glow of lights along the dock.
Over the buzz of the engine, he pointed out the constellations.
“See that group up there? It’s called Coma Berenices—Berenice’s hair. It was
named for an Egyptian queen who cut off all her hair in exchange for some
goddess to keep her husband safe in battle. The goddess liked the hair so much,
she took it to the heavens and turned it into a cluster of stars.”
“Talk about a good hair day.” She was beyond pleasantly tipsy
now. “I’d never cut off my hair. Took me years to get it this long.”
“Not even to keep your husband safe in battle?”
“I don’t have a husband. So I’ll be keeping my fabled locks,
thank you very much. Berenice’s hair. I swear, your mind is a lint trap for
stuff like this. Where do you learn it?”
“The internet. Yeah, I like geeking out over trivia on the
internet, so sue me.”
“I’m not going to sue you. Whatever floats your boat, ha
ha.”
“You can find out anything online. Ever watch that video of the
Naga fireballs?”
“I haven’t had the pleasure.”
“Too busy overachieving?”
“Since when is that a crime?”
“Never said it was.” Zach guided the boat inside, cutting the
engine to let it nudge its way into the moorage, gently bumping against the
rubber fenders.
“There,” he said, taking the champagne from her, “I’ve done my
good deed for the day. Here’s looking at you, kid.”
“Too dark in here to see,” she pointed out. “Oh, right. That’s
a movie reference. I forgot, you’re a walking movie encyclopedia.”
“And you’re movie illiterate.”
“No wonder we bicker all the time. We have nothing in
common.”
He handed back the bottle and rummaged around the console of
the cockpit. Then a match flared and he lit a couple of votive candles left over
from the photo shoot. Taking the bottle again, he said, “
Now
here’s looking at you.”
She looked right back at him, unsettled by feelings she didn’t
understand, feelings that had nothing to do with the amount of champagne she’d
consumed. Like Willow Lake, and the town of Avalon itself, he was both deeply
familiar and, at the moment, unaccountably strange. There had been a time, many
times, when they had truly been best friends, but after high school, their lives
had diverged. These days, they saw each other infrequently and when they did,
their visits were rushed, or they were busy, or one of them had a train to
catch, or work, or…
Not tonight, though. Tonight, neither of them had anywhere they
had to be, except right here in the moment.
She fiddled with a dial on the boat’s dashboard. “Is there a
radio?”
“It’s a stereo.” Leaning forward, he hit a switch. Sonnet
recognized an old tune from the days of her grandparents—“What a Wonderful
World.”
“What’s this?” She pointed out a small screen.
“A fish finder. Want to turn it on and see where the fishies
are?”
“That’s okay. And this?” She indicated a small cube-shaped
object mounted in the center.
“A GoPro. It’s a camcorder, mostly used for sports.” He turned
up the music. “You didn’t dance with me at the reception,” Zach said.
“You didn’t ask me.” She feigned a wounded look.
“Dance with me now.”
“That’s not asking.”
He heaved an exaggerated sigh and offered her his hand, palm
up. “Okay. Will you dance with me? Please?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” She stood up and the boat rocked a
little.
“Careful there. Maybe ease up on the champagne.”
He drew her up to the dock next to him. She was a full head
shorter than he was. It hadn’t always been that way. She remembered the year of
his growth spurt—junior year of high school. They’d gone from seeing each other
eye to eye to her getting a crick in her neck from looking up at him. He’d been
skinny as a barge pole, and she’d taken to calling him Beanstalk.
He wasn’t a beanstalk anymore. As her mother had pointed out,
he’d finally grown into his looks. In the candlelight, he looked magical to her,
Prince Charming with a boyish smile. She kept the surprising thought to herself,
knowing instinctively she didn’t want to go there.
He held her lightly at the waist and they swayed to the music,
their movements simple and in sync. At the wedding reception, she had danced
with a few guys but dancing had never felt like this before.
“You’ve been wanting to do this ever since our glory days in
seventh grade,” he said softly.
“Oh, please. You were short and obnoxious, and I had a mouthful
of metal.”
“I know. But I remember wanting to stick my tongue in there
several times.”
She shoved him away. “I’m glad you never told me that. It would
have meant the end of a beautiful friendship. You’re still obnoxious. And I
wouldn’t have let you, anyway. I’m sure you would have been a terrible
kisser.”
“You don’t know what you missed out on, metal mouth. I was
good. I
am
good. Let’s hope you’ve honed your
skills.”
“Oh, I have mad skills,” she assured him, then realized that
she was flirting, and whom she was flirting with. Extricating herself from his
embrace, she said, “I want to get back to the pavilion. I missed out on wedding
cake.”
“You’re in luck.” He reached down into the boat’s hull and took
a large domed platter from under the dash. The music changed to “Muskrat Love,”
a tuneless horror from the seventies.
“Zachary Lee Alger. You didn’t.”
“Hey, it was going to go to waste. A cake from the Sky River
Bakery. That would be a federal crime.” He picked up a hunk with his fingers and
crammed it in his mouth. “Oh, man. I just died a little.”
He held out another piece and she couldn’t resist. The
chocolate slid like silk across her tongue. She closed her eyes, savoring it
along with the bits of hazelnut that had been kneaded into the buttercream
icing. “Oh, my. Are you sure this is legal?”
“Would you care if it wasn’t?”
“Nope.” She helped herself to another bite. “And how cool is it
that the Sky River Bakery did the cake?”
The old-fashioned family bakery had been a town institution for
generations. It was also the place where Zach had worked all through high
school, dragging himself to town before dawn to mix the dough and operate the
proofing machines and ovens.
“You used to bring me a pastry in the morning,” she
reminisced.
“I spoiled you rotten.”
She washed down a bite of cake with a slug of champagne. “It’s
surprising I didn’t get as big as a house.”
“Not surprising to me. You could never sit still for more than
ten seconds. Are you still that restless?”
She considered this for a moment. “I guess I was really eager
to get going on something.”
“Always the overachiever. Always striving.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is when it takes you away from what’s important.”
She frowned. “Such as…?”
“Well, let’s see. Such as this.” With a gentle tug of his hand,
he pulled her against him, planting a long, hard kiss on her surprised lips. She
wasn’t sure what shocked her more—the kiss itself or the fact that it was coming
from Zach Alger. Equally shocking was the fact that he hadn’t been lying about
his expertise. Holding her with gentle insistence, he softened the kiss and
touched his tongue to a secret, sensitive place that took her breath away. It
struck her that this might be the best kiss she’d had in ages. Maybe ever.
The biggest surprise of all was that she was kissing Zach
Alger—the same Zach Alger whose apple she had stolen from his lunchbox in
kindergarten. The one who had tormented her when she was in the fourth grade.
The boy who had pushed her off the dock into Willow Lake innumerable times, with
whom she’d shared homework answers and after-school snacks, repeat viewings of
Toy Story
and
Family
Guy
, and on whose shoulders she’d cry each time her heart was
broken—and the first one she called with good news, whenever good news came
around: “I got into college. My mom’s getting married. The internship program in
Germany accepted me. My birth father finally wants a relationship with me.
They’re making me a director at UNESCO.…”
Their points of contact over time were innumerable. They’d
shared big moments and small, joy and grief, silliness and seriousness. He was
the friend who had been there through all the moments of her life, yet the
present moment felt entirely different, as if she were meeting him for the first
time. Now she was with him in a way that felt completely new, and the world
seemed to shift on its axis.
Through the years she had known him every way it was possible
to know a guy and yet…and yet… Now there was this. It was some crazy emotion
more intense than she could fathom, brought on by the champagne but by something
else, too—a need, a craving she had no power to resist.
She fought herself free of the intensity and pulled back,
though both of her fists stayed curled into the fabric of his dress shirt. “I
had no idea you had that kind of kiss in you,” she whispered in a shaky
voice.
“I’ve got more than that in me,” he replied, and bent down to
kiss her again, lips searching and tasting, his arms holding her as if she were
something precious.
Lost in sensation, she simply surrendered. She was melting and
it was confusing because this was Zach—she had to keep reminding herself it was
Zach
, the very essence of the boy next door, as
familiar as an old favorite song coming on the radio. But suddenly she was
seeing him in a way she hadn’t noticed before. Particularly when he started
doing what he was doing now—holding her arms above her head and whispering, “You
taste delicious. Kissing you is like eating a fresh peach pie,” which made her
laugh, and then they would start again. Tucked away in the back of her mind was
the knowledge that this was a supremely bad idea that could turn out very badly
for her. But all the standard objections stayed tucked away, hovering at the far
edges of consciousness.