One Golden Summer(37)

“You must have seen us,” Charlie says. A dog with a bone. “We would have been on the water from dawn till dusk, and we weren’t quiet. Why didn’t you say hi?”

I can feel his gaze on me, but I don’t look. I feel each firework in my chest.

“I was shy,” I tell him. “I could have said hello, but I wouldn’t have known what to say next.”

“I can’t picture you as shy.”

I snort.

“Why is that funny?”

I turn my head to the side, and my breath catches. Charlie has his arms behind his head, one ankle crossed over the other, the picture of ease, but he’s studying me with sharp intensity.

“It’s funny because I’m the turtle.”

Charlie looks appropriately confused.

“I have three siblings,” I explain. “Heather is two years older. Luca and Lavinia are twenty-four.” I can’t remember when or why we came up with the animal thing, but it’s fundamental to being an Everly child. “Heather is the lion, Lavinia is the flamingo, and Luca is the monkey.”

“And you’re the turtle.”

“Right. My family is full of big personalities. Aside from my mom, they’re all loud and opinionated and…I don’t know…brighter than me? I’m the quiet one, the level head,” I tell him. “And I’m still shy.”

Charlie frowns and we both fall silent. I look back to the display of red and white fizzling above us.

“You’re not quiet around me,” he says slowly, a minute later, as if he’s been thinking it over.

“No.” I turn to him. There’s something about Charlie that calms the part of my brain that constantly worries about saying the wrong thing. “But I would have been shy…back then, I mean.”

But I wonder if that’s true, or if I would have found him easy to be around when I was seventeen.

“I guess we’ll never know.”

“Did you have a nickname when you were younger?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “My actual name is Charles. But my dad always called me Charlie.”

“What were you like?” I ask.

Charlie shifts, propping himself on one elbow, facing me. “Terrible.”

I laugh. “So basically the same?”

“See, that’s why I like you.”

“Because I make fun of you?”

“Because you’re honest. And, for the record, I think you’re very bright.”

“It’s the glitter,” I tell him.

Charlie’s gaze roams my face slowly. “It’s definitely the glitter.”





20


Wednesday, July 2

61 Days Left at the Lake

I arrive at the Florek house the next morning bearing leftover chocolate cake. It’s a lovely home, white with black trim and gabled windows on the second floor. There’s a large porch and a detached garage with a basketball net hanging over the door. It’s not cottagey like John and Joyce’s place—the bush has been cut back around it, making way for lawns and gardens.

I knock on the door, assuming everyone is awake—the hammering started an hour ago. Percy answers in nothing but an orange bikini.

“Alice, hi.”

“I brought cake.”

“You are a dream.” She gestures to her body. “Sorry about this. I wasn’t expecting you, and it’s too hot for real clothes.”

I begin to stammer out an apology, but Percy takes the plate in one hand and my arm in another, and drags me into the house, padding toward the kitchen in bare feet, her dark brown hair tumbling down her back in loose waves. Mine is pulled into a bun at the nape of my neck. I’m dressed in black—pressed shorts, a thin belt, a sleeveless blouse, and leather sandals—and I feel stiff in comparison.

“Coffee?” she asks over her shoulder. “The boys are out bashing two-by-fours as if they know what they’re doing.”

“Sure.”

I lean against the counter as Percy grinds fresh beans.

“You brought a camera,” she says before I’ve had a chance to explain why I have my Sony slung over my shoulder.

“I’m a photographer.”

She offers me a big smile. “I know. It’s one of the few things I’ve managed to get out of Charlie. You’ve shot for my magazine before.”

I raise my brows, surprised. “Where do you work?”

“I’m the editor of Shelter. You did an incredible shoot for us last year.”

“Up in Muskoka.” I remember. It was for a feature on the woman who modernized her family’s resort while preserving its history. “The subject hated having her photograph taken.”

“My art director mentioned that, but I couldn’t tell from the shots,” Percy says. “You must have loosened her up.”

Her fiancé had stopped by when we were setting up, and her face brightened. After he left, I asked how they met, and she transformed into the person she probably is when she doesn’t have a camera shoved in front of her face.

It was a good shoot. The art director was lovely. She and I drove up to Muskoka together and spent the night there. We took a canoe out in the morning so I could get some shots from the water and ended up chatting for a solid hour. I meant to reach out to her and see if we could work together more regularly, but I got too busy with other assignments.