My best friend at the lake was a girl named Sara Berman. The Bermans were lake old-timers. Their house was rustic and cabin-like, its tiny windows propped open by two by fours. Pine needles littered the front lawn. A faded wooden sign above the mailbox read “Bermans’ Bunkhouse.” My dad once told Mr. Berman that his place would be worth a fortune if they improved the house, maybe updated the dock. Mr. Berman replied that he wanted nothing to do with impressing the nouveau riche.
Sara was a year older than me and almost a head taller. Her voice was loud and she never seemed embarrassed or afraid. Never folded her arms in front of herself when she walked around in a bathing suit. At the start of each season, while her parents were still pulling the oars out of the shed and airing out the orange life jackets, Sara would march straight down to the dock and do a backflip into the cold Memorial Day water. She was an acrobatic water skier, jumping wakes one handed and carving deep from side to side while her older brothers cut a curvy course across the lake. She spoke freely of everything—her parents’ noisy bickering, a gigantic pimple on her nose. She could announce to a room full of boys that she had cut herself while shaving. She once walked all the way to Weis to steal nail polish—just to have the experience of pocketing something. She left the nail polish unopened on her dresser at the