wandering back to my room, and if I remembered to put my things in all of their strategic spots. Summer (for me, at least) is about self-defense and preservation as much as it is about offensive strikes. Minimizing vulnerabilities. Making my attack zone smaller. I’m not sure when I started thinking like a Navy SEAL.
I try to mentally walk through everything on my dresser and remember what I left out, but I can’t visualize it. Instead, I focus on what I have lined up for Sidney this summer. I spend more time during the year than I’d like to admit thinking about these eight weeks of vacation. And this year in particular, it was basically all I could think about for the last six months. Senioritis was strong with me.
Could I do something more productive with my time this summer? Obviously. I could sit down and write that letter to Mr. Ockler. The one Dad has been on me about for months. A letter, not e-mail, because anything important comes in print, my dad says. All it takes is one letter, Ash. A quick note to show how passionate you are about financial planning. One letter, and in Dad’s eyes, I’ll be set for life. I’ll have an apprenticeship to work through college, and the second I graduate I’ll be ready to start building my own office. Walking door-to-door, telling people how I can help them enjoy their retirements. Just like Dad. All I have to do is write that letter—but thinking about pranking Sidney is so much more interesting.
I have a whole box of supplies, and to prevent it all from falling into enemy hands—Sidney’s hands—I have it stashed in the boathouse storage area under her cabin. With Sidney, it’s all about psychological warfare. She overthinks things more than anyone I’ve ever met. So when I need something I plan to stroll right into the boathouse in broad daylight, when she’s no more than twenty feet away. It’s sure to throw her off the scent—she’ll never believe I would hide anything that obviously.
Her first instinct will be to check, but then she’ll convince herself I’m just trying to distract her, or lure her into something, and she’ll decide not to go down there. Plus, it’s spider city in the boathouse; I can’t imagine her actually digging through the crap in there to get to my box without having a major bug-induced meltdown. And that would be its own kind of victory. A win for me, either way.
Sidney
My room—clad in dark wood paneling—is a little musty when I walk in. Probably it’s always a little musty, but I only notice it the day we arrive each summer, before the scent takes up permanent residence in my nose and becomes my new normal. I don’t notice it again until I get home and unzip my bag, greeted by the damp earthiness of my vacation clothes. It’s not a bad smell; it’s almost comforting, the way it reminds me that for the next two months I can forget about test scores and papers, and focus on nothing but what my body can do when it’s racing through the water. And this summer, training will be my middle name. Because in ten short weeks I’ll be a collegiate swimmer. And I’ve been promising my mom for years now that I’m going to break her 1,650-yard freestyle record. The record that’s held for almost twenty-five years now. I’ll never have more time to train than I do this summer. Watch out, Mom, I’m coming for you.
I haul up my giant duffel bag, slamming it onto the squeaky bed that bounces like it’s a trampoline. The mossy-green comforter is the same one that’s been on this bed since I was twelve. Since that first summer we arrived at Five Pines Resort and Lake House A. I shove the wooden window open, letting the mid-June air, hot and wet, drift into my room. At home I’d die without air-conditioning—would murder and maim for it—but the heat isn’t the same here. We’re four hours north, in a little beach town that feels too small to exist outside of the months of June, July, and August. It’s always a little cooler here in Riverton—the breeze slides across the lake, like there’s some sort of spell over it, working in our favor as we lie out in the sun, draping ourselves over rafts and plastic chairs.
I abandon my bag—I should have unpacked last night when we got in, but