split apart. Shock, fear, recognition.
So she didn’t answer his question. She stood up and started taking off her dress.
“I’m going in,” she said.
His eyes followed the hem up, over her thighs and her bikini and her stomach and her breasts. When the dress was off and he had gotten to her face, he saw that she was watching him watch her, and he flushed a little. Her chest went as red as her swimsuit, and she dove into the water.
As she swam toward the kids, she heard a splash behind her: Theo jumping in. He surfaced nearer to them than she expected. He surged out of the water in a single fluid movement, water rolling off his shoulders, his dark hair stuck all sideways to his head. Jemima leaped on his back and Oscar paddled frantically to them, clutching at his father’s arm, and the three of them rowed in circles until the kids fell off him laughing.
Kate lowered herself until her mouth and nose were submerged beneath the water. Until she was only a pair of eyes, watching, not even breathing, living off the air stored in her chest. The tingling in the back of her knees when his mouth moved a certain way. The way her heart seemed to beat harder near him, like a fish yanking for its life. Only—someone having their hook in you was dangerous. It hurt when you wiggled against it. It hurt when it was removed.
In the past year, she had learned some limit of herself she wasn’t meant to know. It was as if, in the middle of a ballet, entranced by the dancers whirling and streaming a thousand bright colors, she had glanced the wrong way and seen the area offstage. The aged scaffolding, the curtains pushed to the side. Joy was an illusion, she had learned, held up with masking tape and rusted pulleys. You had to make yourself watch the show. You had to make yourself ignore what was waiting in the wings.
She saw that dark part of herself now, glimmering on the edge of this beautiful day. Shading everything, making the happiness more beautiful and more menacing. She ducked briefly beneath the water, trying to clear her head, then came back up and gasped for air.
“Let’s play Marco Polo,” Jemima said, paddling to her like an eager dog. “Daddy, you be Marco.”
“Marco,” Theo said obediently.
“You have to wait!” Jemima said. “And we all close our eyes!”
Theo smiled and spat an arc of water at Oscar, who giggled. He gestured for Oscar to close his eyes and then swam away from the kids, to Kate.
“Marco,” Theo said. His eyes were still open. Kate gave him a look.
“Polo,” the kids squealed.
She mouthed: Close your eyes! But he didn’t listen. He was close to her now, treading water a couple feet away. If she reached out she could touch him.
“Marco,” he said again.
“Polo!”
He went under. Kate thought he was diving toward the kids. Then she felt a cool pressure on her rib cage and Theo surfaced right in front of her. His hands were on her hips, under the water. She couldn’t breathe. His eyelashes were spiky and his irises were dark. She rested her hands on his shoulders, on the triangular muscle above his collarbone. Her entire body filled with one impossible wish: to be merged with him, to be one person, to never be let go.
“Marco,” he said, looking at her.
“Polo,” the kids shouted, their eyes sealed shut.
She kissed him.
Quickly, on his warm mouth. He tasted like the sun. A quick start ran through his body. Underwater, he tightened his hold on her, his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh just inside her hip bones. She gasped and opened her mouth to him.
She didn’t know which one of them broke the kiss. Letting go of him felt like a loss, felt like switching off the television in the middle of the show. She slipped under the water and backpedaled away from him.
Her boss, her boss, her boss. No. Yes.
They swam for another hour. The people on the other side of the lake were still swinging on the cootie swing, unaware that everything had changed. Her mind replayed the kiss again and again until she had to sink her face into the cold water. She wondered what would happen next, and for once the wondering didn’t feel painful, it felt like being scooped up as you fell, carried aloft by the wind.
Exhausted, the kids scrambled back onto shore and set