“What about the sheriff?” Jonathon asked.

“I don’t see him doing anything to stop us,” Stimpy said, and again looked at Heil.

Heil mumbled, “That’s true.”

“Any objections?” Stimpy asked.

“No, no,” the crowd of men muttered. Jonathon raised his arms, surrendering. The women in the crowd looked away. Jo stared at the beer in her hand.

“All right then.” Stimpy picked up the large snapper by its tail, managing to keep the turtle’s mouth away from his body. It looked to weigh close to fifty pounds. “Let’s do this,” he said, and walked out.

In another minute the crowd dispersed. Some left the bar, while others bellied up for a night of drinking to try to forget what they had just agreed to.

“Maybe I should talk to the little girl’s mother,” Jo said.

Kevin turned on the stool to face her head on. “What could you possibly say to help?”

“I’m not sure, but someone should say something. Don’t you think?”

“Why should it be you?”

“Why not?” she asked, and looked at Eddie, who tossed his hands up as a way of saying he was staying out of it and made his way down to the other end of the bar.

“I don’t know,” Kevin said, and lowered his voice. “It might sound like you know something about how she feels. Like maybe you’re still pining away for someone.”

She glared at him. Why did he always do that, say things to see how she would react? He was always testing her. “Take that back, Kevin.”

“Why?” he muttered.

“Take it back,” she said sharply.

“Okay, okay.” He put his hand on the back of her neck and squeezed maybe harder than he should. “Relax. I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to say. I didn’t mean it.”

She stared at him a second more. “Yeah, okay,” she said, and he let her go. She sensed people watching them.

He turned back to the bar and picked up his beer. She peeled the label off her bottle. The fact that she had been Billy’s girl first was something Kevin couldn’t, or wouldn’t, forget.

They had been sitting on a pile of rocks stacked around a fire pit behind Hawkes’ cabin. Billy was perched on the rock where Jo had painted their initials, J+B, three years earlier when they had been just thirteen years old. They were sixteen now, and Billy had his arm wrapped firmly around her waist. Eddie and Sheila were sharing a joint and whispering to each other. Kevin sat alone, strumming his guitar. He was humming a song, which song Jo couldn’t remember. The flames flickered across his face as though they were dancing in tune. His fingers gently plucked the strings, and his foot tapped the ground with the beat. His singular focus on the guitar, the music, the serenity on his face as he gave himself over to the sound, stirred something deep inside her. There was so much more to him than she ever suspected, this boy who had somehow gotten lost in Billy’s shadow.

She had talked to Sheila about it later when the guys were out on the lake for a late-night swim. They had been sitting on the floating pier, legs dangling over the side.

“Why do you think Kevin doesn’t have a girl?” she asked.

“Oh, he does, but she’s spoken for,” Sheila said.

“What do you mean? Who?”

Sheila looked at her as though she were dense. “Who do you think?”

“I have no idea.”

“You, silly. Don’t you notice the way he looks at you? How he follows you around like a lost puppy? How he hangs on your every word?”

“No,” she said. She didn’t notice, although even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. She did notice the way he looked at her. She’d catch him staring and once, they had locked eyes, and it was as though he was seeing her as she truly was. She was left feeling raw, exposed, seen for the first time as the woman she would become, and it had frightened her.

Her feelings for Kevin that summer ran as deep as her love had been for Billy the last three summers. Her love for both was real. It was just that it was a different kind of love for each. Billy was a childhood love, a familiar love, one that had roots, strong and lasting. But her feelings for Kevin felt more grown-up somehow, more physical, more filled with lust and desire.

*   *   *

Tonight they continued sitting side by side at the bar for a little more than an hour, not talking, although she was aware, hyperaware, of the close proximity of his body next to hers. It wasn’t until there were voices outside, echoing across the lake that they looked at each other. In an instant they were on their feet, rushing down the stairs and racing toward the beach.

Stimpy and two other men in a small fishing boat were calling that they had found something. Another fishing boat used a spotlight to light up the area not far from the floating pier in the middle of the lake. Underwater recovery had long since gone once darkness fell and it had become too dangerous for the divers to search at night.

“Kevin.” She grabbed his arm.

He covered her hand without a saying a word.

The crowd from the bar gathered on the beach. All eyes were focused on the fishing boats. No one talked. The only sounds were the murmurs of the men on the lake and the splashing of the grappling hooks hitting the water.

“What’s going on?” a woman asked. “Did they find my Sara?” She pushed through the crowd. “Sara.” She stopped at the edge of the water.

No one on the beach approached Sara’s mother to comfort her or show their support. Perhaps they believed if they got too close, the tragedy would somehow feel more real or that it would somehow become contagious. It was as though an invisible force field surrounded the woman, pushing them away. After all, she was a newcomer to the lake and therefore not one of them.

People liked to believe they were immune to tragic accidents. This sort of thing happened to those who weren’t paying attention, who were careless, who didn’t take the signs posted along the fence seriously—SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK.

The fishermen continued tossing grappling hooks and dragging the bottom where the snappers were congregating, feasting. Minutes passed. The waiting was excruciating, more than Jo could bear. She had to warn Sara’s mother, prepare her for what she might see when they brought her little girl to shore. It had to be her because there was no one else.

“I’m going to talk with her,” she said to Kevin, and slowly made her way across the beach to the lone woman standing at the water’s edge.

Kevin called for Jo to come back, but she knew he wouldn’t chase after her. He stopped chasing after her a long time ago.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The ballpark was the place to be after dinner since the Pavilion remained closed. Clusters of kids and their parents organized an impromptu baseball game. Most everyone’s mother came to watch, setting up beach chairs along the first and third baselines. It was, after all, a recreational field for the lake community and not a regulation ballpark where bleachers might have been erected. Families brought their own bats and balls and mitts. The Needlemeyer twins brought the bases.

Megan sat next to her mother, close to one of the dugouts. Side by side you could see the resemblance between the two. Both wore their blond hair parted straight down the middle. Their skin was pink from the sun. Their eyelids were covered in the same blue eye shadow that made Caroline cringe. Their nails were painted pink. Mr. Roberts’s dark complexion and hairy arms were a sharp contrast in comparison. He stepped forward. “I’ll be the umpire.”

Some of the other fathers took up positions as first- and third-base coaches. Johnny was made captain of one of the teams, and Chris the other. Johnny played baseball for the varsity team in high school back home, although he rarely talked about the game or bragged about how good he was with lake friends. “It isn’t cool,” he said to Caroline once when she asked him why.