Sara put her hand to her chin, pretending to look like a thoughtful grownup. “Maybe you could ask her if her boobs are real.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You’re right. You can’t. We’ll save that for when I meet her. Why don’t you tell her she has food in her teeth?”
“How about I tell her she has a booger hanging out of her nose?”
“See? That’s the spirit,” Sara laughed, clapping her hand to my shoulder. “You’re gonna be okay.” For a moment, I almost believed her.
***
We were too old that summer to go to the day camp that met at the lake’s community center, and too young to get jobs as counselors or drive around and get drunk in the woods. Instead, we spent our days swimming and sunbathing around my dock, ordering grilled cheeses at the snack bar at the beach, riding bikes, or taking the Bermans’ old aluminum canoe around to some of our favorite spots on the lake. I loved to go to Quiet Island, a little outcropping in the middle of the lake laced with blueberry shrubs. Sara’s favorite spot was the swimming cove on the north end of the lake. The bank there was so steep that there was nowhere to pull our canoe out of the