One Golden Summer(15)

Networking is crucial in my profession, where survival comes down to relationships. Cocktail parties and opening night receptions. Show my face. Stay relevant. Manage more sophisticated small talk than a singular whoa. I flat iron my hair, pull it into a low ponytail, put on something black and chic. Minimal makeup, except for red lips and nails. I usually wear contacts, but I’ll opt for my tortoiseshell glasses. It’s a brand. A stylish, tasteful suit of armor. I get nervous before events, and I have to fake smile my way through a lot of small talk. I can’t stand the posturing—the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways people signal their success or attempt to interrogate mine. The armor helps.

Slowing down, I navigate around a small island across from a cliff in a narrow neck of the lake. If my memory can be trusted, this is the spot where Nan took us to jump into the water. Luca and Lavinia scurried up with a couple of older kids, and they dropped off the edge like two tin soldiers. I wanted to do it, too, but I chickened out.

We picnicked on the island that day, but now it’s tricky to find a place to tie the boat. I hop out into the shallows and guide it toward a stump that I can loop the rope around. There’s a fire pit and a couple of empty beer cans that I’ll gather up before I leave, and a rock under the shade of poplars that I spread my towel on.

I bite into an apple as a pair of Jet Skis stop in front of the cliff, two people riding on each. They drop anchors, strip off their life jackets, jump into the water, and swim to shore. I can tell from their voices that they’re in that in-between stage, not kids anymore but not quite adults, either. Seventeen or eighteen, maybe. Two boys, two girls. They climb to the top and throw themselves over the edge, laughing when their heads bob back up.

I watch them do it again and again, climbing and then jumping, one after another, with a pang in my chest. It’s sadder than longing, softer than envy.

I think about the girl I was at seventeen. Untamed hair. Baggy dresses that swallowed me up. Painfully shy.

It didn’t help that I had a bombshell of an older sister. Heather and I shared a room, and I’d study her as she zipped herself into clothes that showed off her curves, applied glitter to her eyelids, and slicked on lip gloss that made her mouth shine like vinyl. She was so much more adult than me. She was having sex. Teenage Alice had never been kissed. I couldn’t even manage a smile in my crush’s direction. When I discovered Joyce’s stash of Harlequins at the cottage, I read the naughty bits over and over. But it was the fantasy of being irresistible that hooked me.

Back then, I felt like I could disappear and no one would notice. Not my dad, who was in the early days of starting his own firm and rarely at home. Or my mom, who was left to handle the chaos on her own. She’d fly around the house, arguing with Heather about the length of her skirts, stopping the twins from pummeling each other. Some nights she made three dinners—one for the twins, another for Heather and me, and something special for her and Dad. She called me her “good girl” and always passed me with a quick kiss on the head. But I missed her, even when we were in the same room. I miss her even more now.

It wasn’t until university, when I met Oz and a group of arty, weird, and ambitious photography students, that I felt like I belonged.

Now, one of the girls on the cliff notices me and shouts, “Hello,” and I wave back.

“Wanna come hang out?” she yells over.

I laugh, though it’s tempting. Teenage me would have been thrilled at the invitation.

“Thanks,” I call back. “But I’m good.”

And then it strikes me with an electric-bright bolt of clarity.

I’m almost thirty-three, and I still don’t have my life figured out. I’m standing in the ashes of a four-year relationship that I poured my heart into, and my love of photography is slipping under a torrent of deadlines and compromises. But I don’t have to reckon with any of that here. It will all be waiting for me in September. I think about what Nan asked me yesterday—about what I was going to do with my summer, and how I didn’t have much of an answer. But I know exactly how I’d spend it if I were seventeen again.

The kids jump three more times before climbing back on the Jet Skis and taking off. The wakes crash against the shore, and then it’s quiet.

I stare at the cliff. The thought of jumping off it makes my stomach plunge, but it’s not that high. I could do it. I could do more than that.

I pull out my notebook, thinking of all the things, big and little and silly and fun, I would do if I were seventeen. I think of the photo hanging on the fridge at the cottage, the three kids I watched with awe. The boys, who somersaulted off the raft and went wakeboarding and waterskiing. The girl, who wore a gold bikini and swam across the lake. I think of how cool Heather was, how bold she’s always been. Chewing on my bottom lip, I turn to a blank page and write.

         Jump off the rock



     Wear a skimpy bathing suit



     Read a smutty book



     Throw myself a birthday party



     Kiss a cute guy



     Take one good photo



     But also make a bunch of bad art



     Learn how to do a backflip off the dock??? Front flip? A more elegant dive?