Surface Tension

by Brent Runyon

  There's a basket of fresh strawberries on the front step of the cottage. I look around and I see Sophie sitting at a picnic table in her front yard. She's reading a book and looking up at me every few seconds.

  I want to call out to her, but I don't. I don't because I feel stupid. I've never talked to her before. We've never wanted to be friends with the Vizquels. I don't know why we're like that.

  I raise my hand to wave to her, and Sophie looks up from her book and waves back to me. Both my parents look surprised that I just did that. I smile at her, and she smiles at me and then goes back to reading her book.

  That was so easy. I've got this smile on my face that I can't get rid of. It's just a little thing, but it feels so good. I could go over and talk to her, but I don't. I could, though. At least now I could go over there and say hi if I wanted to.

  I go into the bedroom, lie down on the bottom bunk, and close my eyes.

  I look at the clock. It's ten-thirty-seven. I can't believe I slept all day. But I can't sleep anymore. I'm too hot. I have to get out of here. I can't breathe in here, it's so hot tonight. My lungs feel hot. I open my door, go down the hall, and see Roger and Kay asleep on the pullout couch. Shit, I forgot they were here.

  I go back to my room, unhook the eyehole latch on my window, and push out the screen into the grass below. That was a little loud. I stop for a second and listen for my mom's voice, but I don't hear anything. I sit on the sill, swing my legs out into the night air, and step down onto the spongy grass outside the window.

  The Richardsons' house is totally dark and there's no car in the driveway. I turn left at the old pine tree and walk past the woodpile and the new stone wall. The moon is out and the trees cast long blue shadows across the Richardsons' lawn and onto what's left of the minister's house. I can smell the burned mattresses and carpet from here.

  I walk up to the edge of the caution tape and try to look in. Only the outside walls are left. There's nothing but black on the inside. I know I was in there, but I can't really remember the feeling of being in there, of being in the middle of all that fire. The only thing I remember is Amelie in her tiny pink nightgown and how when I picked her up, she felt as light as a blanket. She could have died in there. I feel sick. I need to go for a swim. I turn around and see the Richardsons' house. Mr. Richardson's bedroom window faces the minister's house. How could he not have known that the house was on fire? Why the fuck did it take him so long to get his glasses and talk to the 911 operator?

  I look back at the minister's house. Why did he leave that little girl home alone all the time? Where was he? Why did it have to fucking turn out like this?

  Nothing will ever be the same. I walk away from the houses and head down to the water.

  Oh shit, there's a person sitting on the rocks over at the edge of the lake. Who is that? Mr. Richardson? It couldn't be.

  No, it's a girl. It's Claire. She's looking out at the lake. I walk closer and come around from the side. She's wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled way over so I can't see her face. Her knees are pulled up inside and they're sticking out the neck. She's tapping her toes in the water.

  I walk over. “Hey, Claire.”

  She looks up at me and says, in a voice so quiet I can barely hear her, “Hi, Luke. I'm glad you're okay.”

  “Me too.”

  She opens her mouth like she's about to say something else, but she stops and looks away. I sit down on the rocks about six feet away from her. I understand why she doesn't want to look at me. It's because I gave her shit for being a virgin and because of all the rest of the crap I pulled over the years. I feel bad about all the times I tortured her. I don't know what my problem was. I wish I could start over with her.

  We stare out at the water, without saying anything, for ten thousand years.

  I can't stand it any longer. “Claire?” My voice fills up the night. She doesn't answer.

  “Hey, I'm sorry.” She doesn't say anything back. “I'm really sorry about the way I treated you. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right, and it's not an excuse, but my girlfriend was in the process of dumping me, and I think I sort of went a little crazy. So, I'm sorry and I really hope that you can forgive me, because I didn't mean to be such an asshole. And I know I was one.” I stop and look over at her. She's got her head down on her knees. “So, anyway, yeah, I'm sorry.”

  The night takes up the silence. I hear a plane engine far away and I look up at the sky. There's a flashing red dot traveling across the stars. I wonder if that's a plane, or a UFO, or maybe a satellite.

  I look back at Claire. She hasn't moved. Okay. Here goes. “I also want to apologize for all the other times I messed with you when you were playing solitaire. And also for all the times I called you a mini-parent.” I'm not getting any response, so I go on. “Claire, I'm also sorry that I hit you in the head with that chestnut when we were six. And I know I was mean to you when we were playing on the same T-ball team, and I'm sorry about that too.” She's still not looking at me, but I think she's starting to smile.

  “I'm also sorry that I said ‘Shut up' in your yard that time. And for the flood in my room that you got partially blamed for. Also, I'd like to say I'm sorry for the time that I told you to lie down in the road and then tried to jump my bike over you. And I'm sorry that I punched you after you told on me for killing the minnows.” She's really trying not to laugh. I keep going.

  “I'm also sorry about making fun of how your dog had one eye that was blue and one eye that was brown. That was actually a really cool thing about that dog, and I think I was just jealous.” She laughs out loud. “And I'm sorry that I made fun of the way your mom makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

  She stops laughing, holds up her hand like she wants me to stop, and says, “Wait, you made fun of the way my mom makes peanut butter and jelly?”

  “Yeah, I don't like the way she puts butter on the bread before the peanut butter.”

  “Really? I love that. It's so good.”

  Now we're both laughing in the dark and looking out at the lake and the billion stars reflecting off the black water. I glance over at her. “So, what do you think? Can you forgive me?”

  “Yeah, I think I can manage a little bit of forgiveness.”

  “Really? For everything?”

  “Not for everything. I'm still mad about that chestnut. My mom had to cut it out of my hair.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “And also, you used to make fun of my retainer. That was really shitty.”

  I laugh because it's funny to hear her swear. “Oh yeah, I called you Coin, because you looked like you were sucking on a coin. I forgot about that. I'm a jerk. I'm sorry.”

  “It's okay. Apology accepted. Really and truly.”

  “Thank you. Really and truly.” We look at each other for just a second, and I feel good for the first time on this trip.

  I lean over and pick up a perfect skipping stone sitting right there in front of me. I stand up and fling it nice and easy and it skips like a whisper across the water. The moon is so bright I can see every time it hits the water.

  She says, “Oh, I have something for you.” She reaches into her pocket, pulls out something small, and holds it up. I reach down and take it out of her hand. I can tell right away what it is. It's a luckystone about as big as a quarter. “I found it when you were in the hospital. I figured it was meant for you.”

  I close my hand around it. “Thank you, Claire. I've been looking for one of these for a long time.”

  The wind pushes the upper limbs above us, and a dog yelps across the creek and pulls against its chain.

  I say, “Hey, do you want to do something?”

  “What, like something bad?”

  I laugh. “No. Do you want to take the canoe out?”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah, now. Come on, there's enough light to see by.”

  She looks up at the night sky, then back at the cottage. “But if my parents wake up and I'm not here, th
ey'll be worried.”

  “We'll be back way before they wake up.”

  “Then yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “I said yes.”

  I put the luckystone in my pocket and offer her my hand. She takes it and I pull her up to her feet. We go up the beach and each grab an end of the canoe, flip it over, and drag it down the rocks into the water. The wood rubs and scrapes against all the stones. It's really loud. It's a good thing the Richardsons aren't here.

  She gets in the front and gets the paddle out. I push off the stones and hop into the back, and we glide out into the silent water. Her blond hair takes the color of the moonlight, and she pushes up the sleeves of her sweatshirt like she's about to do some really serious work. She's got such skinny wrists. I never noticed that before. I could touch my thumb and my pinkie around those wrists.

  She paddles on the left side. I paddle on the right and we head straight out, toward the twinkling lights on the other side of the lake. I watch her paddle push the water into little whirlpool spirals, like bathwater draining. We keep going and going until we get all the way out into the middle of the lake, until it's just us in our boat surrounded by water.

  We stop and rest the paddles on our knees and drift. We're both out of breath. I look way down the lake at the smokestacks, like two fingers pointing toward heaven, and up the lake to the places I've never been to. I realize I don't even know what's up there. I turn the bow so that I can see our little cove.

  I don't know if it's the night or the moon or how far away we are, but our cottage and the other cottages all the way up and down the lake, they all look pretty much the same. The only thing that makes me sure which cove is ours is the Confederate flag at the end of the minister's dock. The breeze picks up for a moment and the flag catches it like a sail, but the water stays still.

  Claire puts her paddle back in the water. I put mine in too and we paddle slowly back toward shore, watching the cottages getting farther apart the closer we get.

  I look back over my shoulder. The lake has turned into black glass with silver ribbons where the moonlight catches the ripples we leave behind.

  Nothing stays the same. And maybe that's okay. Maybe that's the way it should be.

  Acknowledgments

  Christina Egloff was my collaborator on this book from first page to last. She has the rarest talent—to take whatever she touches and spin it into something better. She's an artist Rumpelstiltskin.

  Brent Runyon is the author of the highly acclaimed memoir The Burn Journals and the novel Maybe. He is a regular contributor to public radio, including This American Life.

  Brent Runyon lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Copyright © 2009 by Brent Runyon

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Runyon, Brent.

  Surface tension : a novel in four summers / Brent Runyon. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: During the summer vacations of his thirteenth through his sixteenth year at the family's lake cottage, Luke realizes that although some things stay the same over the years, many more change.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89168-7

  [1. Vacations—Fiction. 2. Family life—New York (State)—Fiction. 3. Change—Fiction. 4. New York (State)—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7. R888298Su 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2008009193

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