I Knew You'd Be Lovely (11 page)

At night, it only got worse. Dad bought us a tent that summer and set it up on the pine needles between our cottage and the lake so we could sleep in our own front yard but feel as if we were camping. We loved that tent—a Coleman Deluxe All-Weather Two-Man. But with Lindsay, it was three. Sarah and I did our best to ignore her as we discussed the important innovations Zack and James Zimmerman had been introducing us to. Most recently, it was spin the bottle.

“Are you supposed to stay for more than a minute?” Sarah said.

“Only stay for as long as you feel like,” I said. “Personally, I wouldn't give James more than two seconds. One, two—you're out!” I sliced the air with my hand, and we both laughed. Zack and James were fraternal twins, fourteen, and handsome. They were handsome, we'd decided, not cute. They tanned faster than we did, skipped rocks farther, and water-skied better—they could slalom, and jump the wake. Once they bought us candy necklaces at the Old Country Store and then tried to bite off the candy while they were around our necks.

I crawled forward so our foreheads were almost touching. “Zack stuck his tongue in my mouth,” I said.

“He
did
?” I couldn't tell if she was delighted or repulsed. I nodded gravely. When it happened, I wasn't sure if I was delighted or repulsed myself. But in retrospect, I'd decided I liked it. It seemed the mature thing to do. Besides, I liked Zack, sort of. I mean, it was strange that he and James were twins; they were so different. Zack was the more attractive one, with bold hazel eyes and long, elegant fingers. His mother loved to tell the story of how when he was born, the obstetrician had said: “This boy has the hands of a surgeon or a pianist.” And his father had added: “Or a pickpocket.”

James, with pale auburn curls, was the sweet one. “Are you sure you want to?” he'd asked both Sarah and me before we started. Zack had gone looking for an empty bottle on the other side of the island, where older teenagers made campfires. “We can always go for a boat ride, or do something else.” He spoke in a low voice, as if afraid Zack might hear him.

“We're sure,” I said quickly, worried that any hesitation would make us look bad.

“Well, just remember,” he said, but then he stopped.

“What?” His expression was so contorted, I laughed.

“Nothing,” he said. He started to walk away. “Meg,” he began, turning around, but before he could get to the rest Zack came bounding out of the woods, brandishing an empty glass bottle with curvy white lettering.

“Got it!” he said. Then he winked and handed the bottle to me.

Sarah still couldn't believe the part about the tongue.

“Did you … like it?” she asked. Her gaze passed back and forth between my eyes and my mouth, as if my lips could answer for me. I cracked a smile, and we both burst out laughing.

“What do kisses taste like?” Lindsay's voice from the corner of the tent came as a surprise. She'd been so quiet, we'd almost forgotten she was there.

“This doesn't concern you, Thumb,” I said. I swung the flashlight toward her. “And don't you dare say one word to Mom.”

Of course, camping was only a camouflage. As soon as Lindsay fell asleep, Sarah and I bypassed the noisy zippers and pulled ourselves out of our sleeping bags like snakes shedding skins. We hurried along the dirt road, crickets chirping and a full moon overhead. The Zimmermans lived ten houses away, and Zack and James had arranged to sleep out in their boathouse. I pinged my finger against the screen. James materialized first.

“Sorry we're late,” I said.

“No worries,” he said. “It's not like we had somewhere else to be.” Behind him, Zack was putting something in a cooler. We heard a loud noise that sounded as if it came from the house, and everybody froze. Zack put his finger to his lips, and I rolled my eyes—as if we didn't know. We remained motionless for another few seconds, then Zack brushed past, tapping my elbow.

“Now or never,” he said.

The Zimmermans had a white and silver Sea Ray with cushioned seats and a chrome steering wheel. It was a sleek boat, perfect for water-skiing behind during the day. But tonight we had something else in mind. Zack knelt in
the bow and paddled us away from the dock—we didn't dare start the motor this close to the house—while James spread out a blanket so the rest of us could lie down. Once we'd reached a safe distance, Zack turned the ignition key, and we began speeding through the dark water.

James took off his sweatshirt and handed it to me. “Your lips are turning blue,” he said. Sarah and I hadn't thought to wear more than cotton shorts and T-shirts. I was so grateful that in my happiness I shared it with Sarah, draping it across both our legs.

When we reached the middle of the bay, Zack cut the motor and let the boat ghost across the lake's glassy surface. Everything was still; only a few loons wailed in the distance. It sounded as if they were mother loons calling for their children, and I began to think about my mom. About how lately she'd cry at nothing, and how she seemed anxious all the time. In my dreams she was tiny, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, and I would cup my fingers around her and rescue her from stampeding herds and fiery buildings.

The boat swayed as small waves lapped at its sides. James put a cassette in the tape deck, and a ballad by Journey started to play. Zack tossed back another blanket he found in the bow, where he was rummaging around with the cooler. Sarah, James, and I lay under the blanket and stared up at the sky. The black silhouettes of pine trees put a jagged frame around its glittering endlessness. My uncle had been teaching me about photography, and I wondered if it would ever be possible to do justice to this simple sight. Something about the water all around
and the sky all above gave me a real sense of being on the planet.

“We're on planet Earth,” I said.

Zack let out a long whistle from the bow. “Are you high?” asked his disembodied voice.

James turned to me. “There are so many stars, but at the same time, it's all so … precise. You know? As if each star is necessary. As if everything happens the way it's supposed to happen,” he said.

That's not true
, I thought.
My mother isn't supposed to be so unhappy, and everything isn't meant to be so broken
. I kept quiet, though, because I wanted him to say more. But James was silent. Then I remembered his other silence, the one on the island, and I was about to ask him what he was going to tell me that day, before Zack came bounding out of the woods, but I couldn't, I couldn't ask him anything, because a second later the silhouette of his head blocked the stars, and I could feel him breathe, and then he kissed me—a real kiss. It wasn't like spin the bottle at all. It was different—sad or something. Sad but great.

After he lay back down I turned to him, but he kept his eyes pinned to the sky. He reached over and took my hand. To this day, I can't explain what made that night seem so magical, or why I felt such a stab of affection when James Zimmerman took my hand. Maybe if I could, I'd be able to explain why on the way home, once Sarah and I were alone on the dirt road, I began to cry. I wept softly, wiping my nose with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

“Everything's going to be okay,” Sarah said, which
only made me cry more. We walked the rest of the way without speaking. When we got back to the tent, Lindsay was gone.

We ran into the house, checked the bunk beds, the bathroom, the kitchen, the porch. Panic rose in our throats. It was 2:30
A.M.
I hovered outside the door to our parents' bedroom, feeling sick to my stomach, finally nerving myself to go in.

“Mom,” I said, rocking her shoulder. “Wake up. We can't find Lindsay.”

She didn't understand at first, but once she did, she didn't linger long enough to get mad. Immediately she began searching through rooms, halting in doorways, flipping on lights. When had we last seen her? How had this happened? She called our father's name, and he appeared.

“Lindsay's gone missing,” she said.

“What? How?”

She ignored him. While she looked under the beds, I told Dad what had happened. Then she headed outside.

“Elizabeth. Wait,” he said. He grabbed her arm, but she yanked it away. He turned to me. “Call the Beckers; ask if they've seen her.” But I couldn't move. My limbs were lead; my mind was stupefied. Instead, I watched as my mother headed into the lake.

This was the shape of my mother's courage: a zigzag path, cut through deeper and deeper water, as she walked in lines parallel with the shore, waiting for the blunt feel of flesh that would be the body of her youngest child. I stood in the doorway and stared; there was nothing I could do. Sarah was in the woods behind the house, calling Lindsay's name—now a hollow, ghostly sound. Dad
was on the dirt road in his slippers, shining a flashlight into the trees.

Two hours passed. Or maybe it was twenty minutes. Mrs. Becker had appeared and was standing on the beach, hugging her ribs. “Liz, be careful,” she kept saying. The water was up to my mother's collarbones. Mrs. Becker took me aside. “Go inside and call the police,” she said, adding: “What in the name of God were you girls thinking?”

I couldn't breathe. What would I possibly say to the police? “I did it, officer. I lost her, I drowned her, I hit her with a car. And all she ever wanted—” Wait a minute.

“Mom!” I said, running for the dock, dizzy from the sudden rush of hope. I got to the boat, pulled back the tarp, and there, asleep, with her thumb in her mouth, was Lindsay—
alive
—with her life jacket on. “I found her,” I tried to say, but the words caught in my throat, came spilling out my eyes.
Mom. Come here. I found her
.

Today, Lindsay is sunbathing on a chaise longue that's older than she is. Its plastic mesh is faded and fraying like straw. It's late August, and she's wearing a brand-new bikini whose borders don't quite reach the high-tide mark left by its predecessor. One tanned leg is extended the length of the chaise; the other is bent at the knee. Her hair, a deep honey blond now, is piled on top of her head, and she's wearing those oversize sunglasses, the kind movie stars wear. Lindsay is seventeen.

I went away for a few years, packed all my belongings in a duffel bag, sneaked out in the middle of the night,
the whole deal. But now I'm back, and Lindsay and I are trying to get along. Everyone acts as if I've changed, but I haven't. Or rather: We've all changed. That summer was my first taste of wanting something more, of believing there was something out in the world for me. So I did it. I made my escape. I wasn't trying to hurt anyone else; I was only trying to save myself. Still, when I returned—out of money and out of options—Lindsay acted as if I had abandoned her personally.

My eyes are on the low range of mountains across the lake. Lindsay's head is tilted toward the sun. She makes the
come here
gesture with her hand.

“Give it to me,” she says.

“Pusillanimous.”

“Oh, man,” she sighs. The P's are her weak spot. “Give me a hint.”

“When your animus needs a poos.”

She bolts upright. “Is this another one of your sex words?” she laughs. “ 'Cause I don't know what the SAT was like back in your day. But it's rated G now.” She pats my shoulder. “I'm going to go make a sandwich. Want anything?”

“No, thanks,” I say, and she walks away, the balls of her feet leaving swirled pivots in the sand.

While she's gone, I stare at the old house. It looks deserted. The wood is gray-black, and in many places, it's falling apart. After the divorce, Mom always said there wasn't enough money to fix anything, but it seemed as if there was more to it than that. During the school year, when he's not giving lectures or presenting papers at a foreign university, we still see Dad every other Sunday,
and he's still his same quiet, bespectacled self. But this place feels like an abandoned set where we once filmed some scenes, an artifact from some other life, made even stranger by its eerie familiarity.

Sarah is studying in Barcelona for the summer, drinking sangria and mastering the language. In her postcards, her handwriting has become curvier. “Barcelona is an extremely humid city,” she writes. “The pickpocket capital of the world.”

I twist my finger around a thread at the bottom of my cut-off shorts and snap it off. I'm wearing sunblock, plus a baseball cap. Lindsay is the only one in our family who tans. Sometimes, when I'm on an outdoor shoot, I'll slather on so much SPF 45 that the other assistants tease me. “Step aside, Meg, you're a secondary source of light.” Or: “Watch out, she'll cast a shadow.” Especially Ed—he likes to rib me the most. “You glow,” he says. I refuse to go out with him. Mostly I ignore them all and try to focus on adjusting the backdrop and prepping the subject. I have to admit, I like what I do. There's something about being on the hidden side of the camera that suits me.

I hear the screen door slap, and Lindsay walks over with a BLT on a paper plate. The smell of bacon takes me by surprise.

“You know,” she says, settling back into her chair, “Winnipesaukee means ‘Smile of the Great Spirit.' ” Her sandwich is cut in half, and she hands one piece to me.

“I know,” I say, giving it back to her. “But that won't be on your test.” She bites off a corner, rests the plate on her stomach, stretches out, and chews.

“Perspicacious,”
I say, a few minutes later. Lindsay sits up and grins.

“I know that one,” she says. “That means you have to come sailing with me.”

“No, it doesn't,” I say. “I thought you were serious about getting these down.” I don't particularly care whether Lindsay studies or not; I just don't feel like getting up.

But she's already fetching the Sunfish from the side of the house. “I need a break,” she says. “You need a break. Besides, it'll be fun. I can give you another lesson. Remember how you almost capsized us?”