The Day at the Lake

an early chapter from the same novel project by Jule Heyen

‘Days in summer are apt to linger.’ I remember that line. Oscar Wilde, as I learned much later. There were quite a few days that fit that description. Me and my sister as children playing, unbothered by the changing times around us; not knowing or caring about any problems more pressing than what we’d have for dinner. Laughing with my parents, in one of the rare moments they weren’t fighting. Back then, before my father started working more and more, until we barely saw him anymore. And Lucy, again and again. Swimming in the lake, sneaking out at night to watch the stars, riding our bikes through the forest. Lying on the grass in the garden, just talking and talking for hours, without a care in the world. Most of my happy memories were moments with Lucy. It made looking back quite painful after she left. It seemed as if she’d taken a big part of my childhood and teenage years with her. There was now a gaping hole where she and her smiles and her secrets used to live.

One particular day always came back to me. Although the season had turned to autumn, the memories of warmer days were still close enough that we missed it every day. For me, it didn’t really matter that much. Summer or winter, sunny or rainy, warm and pleasant or cold and harsh. What I missed was how vibrant Lucy seemed in the sun, how she seemed to come alive when the wind was warm and the fields green. Lucy was never as happy as on endless summer days, the sun competing with her smile for who could shine brighter. Something always seemed to pull her outside, to run around as if we were still children, laughing under the endless blue sky. Once the days turned shorter, you could almost see her withering, like a flower without water. She always took longer than most to let summer go and prepare for autumn.

‘Let’s go outside.’

‘What?’

‘Let’s go outside. To the lake.’ I smiled up at Lucy sitting on my bed from where I was sitting on the floor. ‘It’s much too nice a day to sit inside and stitch.’

‘What are you talking about? It’s raining cats and dogs.’ She cast a miserable glance at the window, where it was, indeed, raining.

‘Exactly. Just lovely, isn’t it?’

‘Sometimes you confuse me.’

‘We can be confused outside,’ I responded. She smiled at me at that, and although we didn’t go outside, I felt like I had reached my goal. It was a mad idea, I suppose. Even though autumn had barely begun, the air was already colder and the wind freezing. But my mother had gone to one of her friend’s houses for tea, and my father never came home from work before it was dark. Even the maid had left to go to the market. Lucy and I were all alone, and that always brought out a kind of restlessness in me. A recklessness, almost, though it was hard to tell the difference in the moment. And yet, we silently continued with our embroidery until Lucy interrupted the silence.

‘Why do you always insist we go out in the rain?’

‘Always?’

‘Yes, every time. Summer is over and it’s all dark and grey and cold and ugly…’ She stopped herself. ‘And you want to go out in the rain.’ She sounded almost accusing.

‘I guess I…’ I didn’t really have a response to that. ‘I guess I just don’t want summer to end.’

‘You don’t even like summer all that much. Not more than any other season at least.’ But you do, I wanted to respond.

‘No particular reason,’ I quickly said instead and broke eye contact. I desperately tried to focus on my stitches. Lucy, being Lucy, didn’t relent and kept looking at me. After a while she laid down on her belly and took my embroidery hoop, ripping the needle right out of my hand.

‘Hey!’

‘You can have it back after answering my question.’

‘Lucy!’ I climbed onto the bed and tried to get my materials back. Lucy just turned onto her stomach, hiding them under her body.

‘You’ll stab yourself with the needle if you aren’t careful!’

‘Then you better tell me, before I do and bleed out.’ She started weeping dramatically. ‘It’d be your fault, yours alone.’

I couldn’t stay serious with the sound of her over-exaggerated crying in my ears and fell on top of her, laughing. In just that moment, she turned onto her back to look at me. We both froze at the same time, suddenly realising how close we were. Just looking at each other, as if time had stopped for a moment.

‘Sophie…’ I could feel her breath on my face as she said my name, our noses almost touching. I didn’t dare move, afraid of what exactly I would do if I did. Many seconds passed like that, Lucy, too, seemingly trapped in the same trance that had overcome me.

‘Do you…’ Lucy finally broke the silence. She didn’t finish her sentence. If I moved, just a little, I could… As if waking up from a dream I abruptly moved back and off the bed, retreating to a safe distance on the carpet. Lucy sat up, too, my embroidery still in her hand. For once, she seemed to be out of words to say.

‘If you don’t give it back, we’ll just have to go to the lake.’ I tried to change the subject, make her laugh, anything. It sounded forced even to my own ears. Nevertheless, she handed me my hoop, looking to catch my eye. I desperately tried to avoid hers, instead focusing on detangling the tablecloth that got wrapped around itself in our scuffle.

‘Maybe if it stops raining,’ she responded finally, ‘if it’s meant to happen, it will.’ She looked out the window, where the raindrops were still racing down the glass. The atmosphere felt charged. Something had changed, and we could both tell, even though I, at least, couldn’t quite put into words what exactly it was.

We kept up with our embroidery after that – or at least I did; Lucy kept looking out of the window, unusually quiet – and I soon finished my second flower. Lucy was still on her first, so I started up another one. I had almost convinced myself that it was just because that would mean an earlier lunch for both of us and not because I’d do anything to help Lucy.

‘It’s okay, you know. Whatever you want to tell me.’ Lucy was still staring out of the window. She bit her lip as if deeply lost in thought. My breath suddenly came irregularly, my thoughts swirling in my head so quickly I felt dizzy. But before I could think of something to say, she continued.

‘I mean, I also don’t tell you everything, even if I want to. I think we might…’ She shook her head, breaking out of the strange mood that had overcome her and quickly turned towards me with a laugh.

‘Oh, never mind. It’s also okay if you don’t. Tell me, that is.’

I wanted to say something, anything, but at the same time, I was glad she seemed to move on. Putting this – putting everything – into words felt almost dangerous. Like standing on a cliff, knowing that the ground under my feet would fall away at any second. Expecting the drop, not knowing if something would catch me or whether I would keep falling forever. I let out a deep breath. After a while, Lucy went back to her embroidery, but she barely got two stitches in before her thread ripped. She groaned and threw her hoop away.

‘I don’t know how you stand this.’

Relieved everything seemed to be back to normal, I looked up at her.

‘It’s calming.’

‘Infuriating, that’s what it is. I wish your mother would finally arrive in the twentieth century…’ She glanced at the window again, before quickly turning towards me with a smile.

‘Well, would you look at that? Maybe it’ll be a lovely day after all.’ In a stroke of luck – or fate, Lucy always believed in fate – it had stopped raining. We packed the remaining biscuits and our stitching – no matter how unlikely it was that we’d actually finish it today – into a picnic basket, packed a blanket, and snuck out of the backdoor. We didn’t really need to sneak – no one was home after all – but at this point, it was second nature for us to watch our every step. The sky was still grey and we spent the way to the lake in almost complete silence. Lucy seemed once again lost in her thoughts.

‘What’s up with the sombre mood?’ I asked her, glancing at her from the corner of my eye.

Lucy just rolled her eyes at me. ‘Just thinking.’

‘About what?’

 She turned to me, the usual glint returning to her eyes. ‘How I could convince you to go for a swim with me.’

‘Oh dear, you’ve completely lost it now.’ She laughed and I wanted to drown in the sound. ‘Completely gone. Fallen to her madness, may she rest in peace.’ As she glared at me again, I couldn’t keep serious anymore and started giggling.

‘Hey!’ She bumped her shoulder into mine in mock offence. ‘You were the one who wanted to go out in the rain! Are you suddenly afraid of water?’

She bumped into me again and again, still laughing, until I fell off the path and had to cling to her to avoid slipping down into the muddy trench. Like that – pushing each other, clinging together, giggling – we finally arrived at the lake. We spread out our blanket on the still wet grass, taking off our shoes to avoid getting mud all over it. Despite how grey the sky had been all day, a few rays of sun had broken through the clouds. I sat and took out the tablecloth to continue embroidering it, but before I could even start, Lucy once again stole my needle.

‘Hey!’

She just laughed.

‘Come on, my mother will be angry if we don’t get it done.’

‘That’s not true. Your mother has never been angry at anyone except your father.’

I tilted my head to the side, admitting she had a point. She grinned.

‘She’ll be disappointed,’ I said, ‘which is worse.’

‘Lighten up a little, would you? She’s not going to kill us for enjoying a nice afternoon outside. Going for a swim…’ She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, a wicked smile on her lips.

‘Have you met her? She absolutely will. It’s not proper.’ I rolled my eyes at the last word.

We did finish the flowers we started after that, albeit, at least on my side, quite a bit less orderly than I would have usually done it. We had our picnic after that, just talking and laughing, the weird mood of the morning long forgotten. I always lost track of time with Lucy, but this afternoon especially I couldn’t tell whether it had been minutes or hours. I was so lost in the conversation that my heart almost jumped out of my chest when the first drop of rain hit me. Then Lucy stripped off her dress and my heart stopped beating entirely instead.

‘What are you doing?’ My voice sounded unnatural even to my own ears, higher than usual, breathless.

‘What does it look like? I’m going for a swim, obviously. Join me if you want.’

Then, with that same wicked smile from earlier on her lips and only wearing her underwear, she turned around and ran off towards the pier. And without a second thought, I, too, stripped and ran after her. When I caught up to her, she was already standing on the edge of the pier, looking out at the gently rippling water of the lake. She turned around with a dazzling smile so bright it took my breath away for a moment. I stood there, shivering when I felt it again. Something I couldn’t – or didn’t dare – put into words. The same charged feeling from this morning returned and I found myself back on that same cliff, looking out into the endless drop below me.

‘What’s stopping you? We’re already wet, might as well go for a swim.’

There was no choice there, of course, and she knew it. If she jumped, I would follow.

As she took my hand and pulled me over the edge, I thought to myself that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Jumping into the cold water, I felt at peace for the first time in months. We stayed in the water for what felt like hours, even though it could only have been minutes until the sound of thunder scared us out. We just about managed to collect our clothes before they were completely muddy and ran for shelter among the nearby trees.

‘See, we shouldn’t have bothered to do it after all’, Lucy said, holding up the soaked table cloth, ‘it’s ruined anyway.’ We looked at each other for a few long seconds and burst out laughing. When we finally fell quiet, my stomach hurt from all the laughter, but my heart was beating more than it had in a long time. I grinned at her. We spread out the blanket again, sitting on half of it and pulling the other half over our heads to protect us from the rain. Lucy had opened her braid and her long curls, now hanging over her shoulders, dripped water onto her skin. I stared, transfixed by the way the raindrops drew patterns on her dark skin. She pulled the blanket further over us. The brown plaid pattern turned the dark grey light into something softer, warmer.

‘We will probably have a cold tomorrow.’

‘I think that’s worth it.’ She grinned at me. ‘And it was your idea, anyway.’

Her eyes were a deep brown, almost black at first glance. I knew I was still staring, but I couldn’t find the strength to look away. Days in summer are apt to linger… I breathed in, and out. She did, too. I felt it on my skin. There, under the protection of the blanket, hidden from the world, I somehow found the courage to move closer. Her breath hitched.

‘What did you mean this morning? What might we both…?’ I asked her.

‘I think you know.’

‘Do I?’

She kept looking at me. I moved even closer.

I said her name, my voice barely more than a whisper, my eyes closing. Lucy moved and finally closed the gap between our lips. When she kissed me, I forgot how to breathe. The last coherent thought I had was that her lips tasted like the lemon filling of the biscuits we had eaten earlier. After one impossibly long, impossibly short second she pulled back. When I came back to myself, she was already looking at me with a strange look in her eyes. I glanced at her lips. She took my cheek in her hand and all I had been holding back came out at once, a tidal wave of suppressed feelings and late-night thoughts, and we were kissing again. I was no longer standing on that cliff. Instead, I was flying.