So I continue my one-armed paddling and numb kicking and tugging of what I’m now certain is a corpse. I keep at it until the boat is ten feet away.
Then nine.
Then eight.
Beside me, the woman’s body suddenly spasms. A shocking jolt. This time, I do let go, my arm recoiling in surprise.
The woman’s eyes snap open.
She coughs—a series of long, loud, gurgling hacks. A spout of water flies from her mouth and trickles down her chin while a line of snot runs from her left nostril to her cheek. She wipes it all away and stares at me, confused, breathless, and terrified.
“What just happened?”
“Don’t freak out,” I say, recalling her blue lips, her ice-cold skin, her utter, unnerving stillness. “But I think you almost drowned.”
Neither one of us speaks again until we’re both safely in the boat. There wasn’t time for words as I clawed, kicked, and climbed my way up the side until I was able to flop onto the boat floor like a recently caught fish. Getting the woman on board was even harder, seeing how her near-death experience had sapped all her energy. It took so much tugging and lifting on my part that, once she was in the boat, I was too exhausted to move, let alone speak.
But now, after a few minutes of panting, we’ve pulled ourselves into seats. The woman and I face each other, shell-shocked by the whole situation and all too happy to rest a few minutes while we regroup.
“You said I almost drowned,” the woman says.
She’s wrapped in a plaid blanket I found stowed under one of the boat’s seats, which gives her the look of a kitten rescued from a storm drain. Battered and vulnerable and grateful.
“Yes,” I say as I wring water from my flannel shirt. Because there’s only one blanket on board, I remain soaked and chilly. I don’t mind. I’m not the one who needed rescue.
“Define almost.”
“Honestly? I thought you were dead.”
Beneath the blanket, the woman shudders. “Jesus.”
“But I was wrong,” I add, trying to soothe her obvious shock. “Clearly. You came back on your own. I did nothing.”
The woman shifts in her seat, revealing a flash of bright bathing suit deep within the blanket. Teal. So tropical. And so inappropriate for autumn in Vermont it makes me wonder how she even ended up here. If she told me aliens had zapped her to Lake Greene from a white-sand beach in the Seychelles, I’d almost believe it.
“Still, I’m sure I would have died if you hadn’t seen me,” she says. “So thank you for coming to my rescue. I should have said that sooner. Like, immediately.”
I respond with a modest shrug. “I won’t hold a grudge.”
The woman laughs, and in the process comes alive in a way that banishes all traces of the person I’d found floating in the water. Color has returned to her face—a peachy blush that highlights her high cheekbones, full lips, pencil-line brows. Her gray-green eyes are wide and expressive, and her nose is slightly crooked, a flaw that comes off as charming amid all that perfection. She’s gorgeous, even huddled under a blanket and dripping lake water.
She catches me staring and says, “I’m Katherine, by the way.”
It’s only then that I realize I know this woman. Not personally. We’ve never met, as far as I can remember. But I recognize her just the same.
Katherine Royce.
Former supermodel.
Current philanthropist.
And, with her husband, owner of the house directly across the lake. It had been vacant the last time I was here, on the market for north of five million dollars. It made headlines when it sold over the winter, not just because of who bought the house but because of where it was located.
Lake Greene.
The Vermont hideaway of beloved musical theater icon Lolly Fletcher.
And the place where troubled actress Casey Fletcher’s husband tragically drowned.
Not the first time those adjectives have been used to describe my mother and me. They’ve been employed so often they might as well be our first names. Beloved Lolly Fletcher and Troubled Casey Fletcher. A mother-daughter duo for the ages.
“I’m Casey,” I say.
“Oh, I know,” Katherine says. “Tom—that’s my husband—and I meant to stop by and say hello when we arrived last night. We’re both big fans.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Your lights were on,” Katherine says, pointing to the lake house that’s been in my family for generations.
The house isn’t the biggest on Lake Greene—that honor goes to Katherine’s new home—but it’s the oldest. Built by my great-great-grandfather in 1878 and renovated and expanded every fifty years or so. From the water, the lake house looks lovely. Perched close to shore, tall and solid behind a retaining wall of mountain stone, it’s almost a parody of New England quaintness. Two pristinely white stories of gables, latticework, and gingerbread trim. Half the house runs parallel to the water’s edge, so close that the wraparound porch practically overhangs the lake itself.