Tell Me One Good Thing
He looked through the close branches to the bleak little island lying on the lake like someone’s mother practicing the backfloat. He had been to out to it once, in winter, over the ice. From the beach a strong four-iron would carry the water.
The beach was inhabited mainly by responsible women weary of good habits, sitting on blankets, reading paperbacks. A few men stretched out on towels. The men embarrassed him working on their tans that way.
Tina and Greta had put their towels together and were playing cards. Anna and Lisa lay on their bellies with the strings of their tops undone. Janie sat, digging her toes into the sand then leaning forward to brush them off.
The Richards’ boat lay in the grass at the side of the beach. Dick had given him the lock key, but walking across the sand in his long pants was impossible. He imagined himself coming out of the trees and not off the footpath, and Janie watching him trudge. He heard people on the Bluffs at sunset talking about the Nevins boy.
At sunset the entire community went up to the Bluffs to watch the day end across the lake. Women in their shawls, men in windbreakers; the girls in the long jeans and white sweaters they put on after dinner. Bill and Tom went to see the girls in their white sweaters.
He would go with Claire because she liked the Bluffs but wasn’t allowed there alone. A little sister was sometimes useful: he could hang with Bill and Tom while Claire stood in front of Janie to have her hair braided. Maybe Janie would say, Hi Dan. Janie was nice: she would say, Hi Dan. He never knew what it meant. He never knew if anything meant anything.
On the Bluffs at sunset everyone got a glimpse of how the end of the world might be very sad and very beautiful. If you didn’t get a glimpse of the end of the world from the Bluffs as the sun dropped into the water at the far edge of the lake, then at least you got a glimpse of the end of the summer. The end of the world was not an embraceable prospect. The end of summer was something you could taste every night in the air coming off the lake. It was the saddest thing he knew.
