Молли Харпер - And One Last Thing...

Independence. Making the choice to be alone. I only hoped it didn’t make me into a vaguely threatening, brooding psycho.

A few days later, I stood at the end of that same dock, considering my mother’s cautionary tale about Natalie Wood.

I didn’t usually swim after dark, or for that matter, in water not surrounded by concrete. But swimming the lake had been a tradition since we were kids. Also, it was mid-July, the humidity level was somewhere around “sauna,” and I had a window air-conditioning unit from 1978.

I sighed. Screw it. I wasn’t drunk. Christopher Walken was nowhere in sight. I would be fine.

I ran off the end of the dock and slid into the black water headfirst. I sliced the mirror-smooth water soundlessly, with sure strokes. I’d always been a strong swimmer. Despite the fact that Emmett was three years older, I always beat him in our races from the dock. I propelled forward, the water streaming over my skin. My body remembered the distance from the dock to the buoy that marked the boat channel. My hand stretched out and touched the familiar rusted metal. The buoy bell, our traditional victory signal, echoed off the shore.

I laughed and kicked off the buoy, stroking back toward the shore. The night was clear, sending little fire-bursts of reflected stars off the surface of the water. The last time I’d swum here at night was about three years before. I was still trying to improve our sex life and got Mike up to the cabin for a weekend alone. It was Indian summer and still warm. The neighbors had all abandoned their cabins for the season on Labor Day. I thought it would be romantic and spontaneous to swim under the stars.

Of course, when Mike told his friends the story later, I was the one who had to be persuaded to skinny-dip. I was the one who whined about the water being cold. I was the one who objected to having sex on the dock because of the possibility of splinters. I remembered walking onto the Dixons’ back deck at a barbecue the next weekend and overhearing Mike bragging to his buddies, “She couldn’t get enough. I had to do some fasttalking to get Lacey out there, but once I got her in the water, she was begging for it.”

I practically dropped the tray of drinks in Mike’s lap. I slunk back into the house until the blush drained out of my cheeks. I was the one who had to sweet-talk Mike out of those stupid plaid swim trunks. I was the one had to beg and plead for him to do anything different, but he was taking credit for it.

I gritted my teeth at the memory, at the way Mike’s friends smirked at me for weeks afterward. I stripped off my suit and slung it toward the dock. “Screw you, Mike.”

I could do this. I could be unpredictable and bold. I could be naked outside. I was my own woman, my own completely nude woman. I floated on my back, enjoying the way my bare breasts puckered against the soft night air. I raised my hand, blocking out the full moon. I watched the water sluice down my skin. I looked down at the contours and curves of my body, marble white against the moonlight. I’d always had an above-average figure. That was one thing Mike couldn’t blame his wandering for, my letting myself go.

I wasn’t big on mirror time, but Mama had instilled in me a healthy esteem for my looks and the time and attention it took to maintain them. I had slim lines, good cheekbones, and, if Gammy Muldoon’s complexion was any indicator, skin that would remain soft and unlined until I was well into my seventies. I dutifully went to my stylist for a trim and an eyebrow wax every three weeks whether I thought I needed it or not. I slathered on the Oil of Olay before bedtime. The results spoke for themselves. I knew the way Mike’s friends and clients looked at me. And I’d always assumed that was part of my job, to be one half of the smiling all-American blond couple. How was I supposed to know that Mike found that boring?

If I wanted to, I didn’t doubt that I could find another man. Heck, I’d had several offers, also from Mike’s friends and clients - even an uncle of Mike’s that Wynnie considered a saint - but since I’d assumed that my “unspoken agreement” with Mike included not sleeping with other people, I declined. The question was whether I wanted another man. They were such a sackload of trouble, and really, what had I gotten for it? Psychological issues that would require years of therapy and/or vodka-related self-medication.

I backstroked and slid under the surface, swimming underwater until I reached the dock. My breath stretched my lungs, a comfortable cushion against drowning prolonged by years of yoga classes. I plunged to the bottom, remembering the game Emmett and I used to play, sitting on the bottom of the lake and trying to talk underwater, relaying secret messages. Mostly they came out as “burbleburbleburble.”

I was enjoying the quiet, muted world below when a pair escaped mental patients and hockey mask-wearing serial killers, I struck out blind at my attacker, kicking and flailing. He grunted behind me as I glanced my foot off of his chest, grabbing my arms to keep me from swinging back at him. I broke the surface, spluttering and curling my fingers into claws and swinging at nothing. I couldn’t see! A bubble of panic rising in my chest, I sank again, fighting against the instinct to draw water into my lungs.

Terror stretched those moments into an eternity, giving me time to berate myself. How could I have been so stupid? Swimming alone at night in a secluded area? Why didn’t I just send up a “naked unchaperoned woman” flare for every sex predator in the county? Hadn’t I been through enough? Hadn’t my dignity already been smacked all to hell? Now I was going to die in some sort of horrible John Carpenter-esque slaughter. The headlines would read “Divorceés Mistaken for Co-ed by Horny Psychopath.” My father would probably skip my funeral for the annual Phi Rho CM Horseshoe Tournament. Mike would get widower’s sympathy and get everything I owned since I hadn’t changed my will yet.

I would not allow that to happen.

Grunting, I pushed up from the squishy mud bottom with all the strength in my legs. I was not going to die this way. I would survive. I would make it to the cabin and call 911. Okay, it was highly likely I was going to die this way because I could not fight off a full-grown man in a naked underwater wrestling match. But I was going to at least put up a fight. As I rocketed up toward the surface, my head bumped against my attacker’s chin. I gave in to my instinct to curse and swallowed a mouthful of water. As I broke through to air, I swung at where I thought the guy’s eyes were, but I hit his forehead instead.

“Ow!” Wolverine yelled. “Stop! Stop struggling and just let me help you!”

“Help me?!” I wheezed, coughing up water as he wrapped an arm around my chest and towed me toward the dock. “You’re drowning me. What is wrong with you?”

My neighbor clapped a hand on the wood stairs and anchored us there. He was not dressed for a night swim, wearing jeans and an old navy blue T-shirt. I could feel his sneakers bumping against my legs as he treaded water. “Me? What’s wrong with you? What are you doing out here?”

“Swimming! Now would you mind getting your hands off me?” I said, slapping at the protective arm slung around my breasts. He winced and let go, letting me slip under the water again. I considered staying there for a moment, just to prevent the conversation that would follow. But ultimately I bobbed up and got my own grip on the staircase.

“What are you doing swimming at two a.m.?” he grunted, hauling himself out of the water. His jeans dragged low on his hips under the soggy weight of the denim. He plopped down on the dock and slicked his hair out of his face.