handling a vintage motorboat or a complicated video camera. As they motored across the placid water toward the rustic wooden boathouse, Sonnet admitted to herself that although she loved living in New York City, there were things she missed about the remote Catskills area where she’d grown up—the moon on the water, the fresh feeling of the wind in her face, the quiet and the darkness of the wilderness, the familiarity of a friend who knew her so well they didn’t really have to talk.
She had another drink of champagne, feeling a keen exuberance as she watched loose flower petals fluttering through the night air, into the wake of the boat.
She offered the bottle to Zach.
“No thanks,” he said. “Not until I moor the boat.”
She sat back and enjoyed the short crossing to the boathouse, which was bathed in the soft golden glow of lights along the dock.
Over the buzz of the engine, he pointed out the constellations. “See that group up there? It’s called Coma Berenices—Berenice’s hair. It was named for an Egyptian queen who cut off all her hair in exchange for some goddess to keep her husband safe in battle. The goddess liked the hair so much, she took it to the heavens and turned it into a cluster of stars.”
“Talk about a good hair day.” She was beyond pleasantly tipsy now. “I’d never cut off my hair. Took me years to get it this long.”
“Not even to keep your husband safe in battle?”
“I don’t have a husband. So I’ll be keeping my fabled locks, thank you very much. Berenice’s hair. I swear, your mind is a lint trap for stuff like this. Where do you learn it?”
“The internet. Yeah, I like geeking out over trivia on the internet, so sue me.”
“I’m not going to sue you. Whatever floats your boat, ha ha.”
“You can find out anything online. Ever watch that video of the Naga fireballs?”
“I haven’t had the pleasure.”
“Too busy overachieving?”
“Since when is that a crime?”
“Never said it was.” Zach guided the boat inside, cutting the engine to let it nudge its way into the moorage, gently bumping against the rubber fenders.
“There,” he said, taking the champagne from her, “I’ve done my good deed for the day. Here’s looking at you, kid.”
“Too dark in here to see,” she pointed out. “Oh, right. That’s a movie reference. I forgot, you’re a walking movie encyclopedia.”
“And you’re movie illiterate.”
“No wonder we bicker all the time. We have nothing in common.”
He handed back the bottle and rummaged around the console of the cockpit. Then a match flared and he lit a couple of votive candles left over from the photo shoot. Taking the bottle again, he said, “Now here’s looking at you.”
She looked right back at him, unsettled by feelings she didn’t understand, feelings that had nothing to do with the amount of champagne she’d consumed. Like Willow Lake, and the town of Avalon itself, he was both deeply familiar and, at the moment, unaccountably strange. There had been a time, many times, when they had truly been best friends, but after high school, their lives had diverged. These days, they saw each other infrequently and when they did, their visits were rushed, or they were busy, or one of them had a train to catch, or work, or…
Not tonight, though. Tonight, neither of them had anywhere they had to be, except right here in the moment.
She fiddled with a dial on the boat’s dashboard. “Is there a radio?”
“It’s a stereo.” Leaning forward, he hit a switch. Sonnet recognized an old tune from the days of her grandparents—“What a Wonderful World.”
“What’s this?” She pointed out a small screen.
“A fish finder. Want to turn it on and see where the fishies are?”
“That’s okay. And this?” She indicated a small cube-shaped object mounted in the center.
“A GoPro. It’s a camcorder, mostly used for sports.” He turned up the music. “You didn’t dance with me at the reception,” Zach said.
“You didn’t ask me.” She feigned a wounded look.
“Dance with me now.”
“That’s not asking.”
He heaved an exaggerated sigh and offered her his hand, palm up. “Okay. Will you dance with me? Please?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” She stood up and the boat rocked a little.
“Careful there. Maybe ease up on the champagne.”
He drew her up to the dock next to him. She was a full head shorter than he was. It hadn’t always been that way. She remembered the year of his growth spurt—junior year of high school. They’d gone from seeing each other eye to eye to her getting a crick in her neck from looking up at him. He’d been skinny as a barge pole, and she’d taken to calling him Beanstalk.
He wasn’t a beanstalk anymore. As her mother had pointed out, he’d finally grown into his looks. In the candlelight, he looked magical to her, Prince Charming with a boyish smile. She kept the surprising thought to herself, knowing instinctively she didn’t want to go there.
He held her lightly at the waist and they swayed to the music, their movements simple and in sync. At the wedding reception, she had danced with a few guys but dancing had never felt like this before.
“You’ve been wanting to do this ever since our glory days in seventh grade,” he said softly.
“Oh, please. You were short and obnoxious, and I had a mouthful of metal.”
“I know. But I remember wanting to stick my tongue in there several times.”
She shoved him away. “I’m glad you never told me that. It would have meant the end of a beautiful friendship. You’re still obnoxious. And I wouldn’t have let you, anyway. I’m sure you would have been a terrible kisser.”
“You don’t know what you missed out on, metal mouth. I was good. I am good. Let’s hope you’ve honed your skills.”
“Oh, I have mad skills,” she assured him, then realized that she was flirting, and whom she was flirting with. Extricating herself from his embrace, she said, “I want to get back to the pavilion. I missed out on wedding cake.”
“You’re in luck.” He reached down into the boat’s hull and took a large domed platter from under the dash. The music changed to “Muskrat Love,” a tuneless horror from the seventies.
“Zachary Lee Alger. You didn’t.”
“Hey, it was going to go to waste. A cake from the Sky River Bakery. That would be a federal crime.” He picked up a hunk with his fingers and crammed it in his mouth. “Oh, man. I just died a little.”
He held out another piece and she couldn’t resist. The chocolate slid like silk across her tongue. She closed her eyes, savoring it along with the bits of hazelnut that had been kneaded into the buttercream icing. “Oh, my. Are you sure this is legal?”
“Would you care if it wasn’t?”
“Nope.” She helped herself to another bite. “And how cool is it that the Sky River Bakery did the cake?”
The old-fashioned family bakery had been a town institution for generations. It was also the place where Zach had worked all through high school, dragging himself to town before dawn to mix the dough and operate the proofing machines and ovens.
“You used to bring me a pastry in the morning,” she reminisced.
“I spoiled you rotten.”