When they got into lake country Christopher craned his neck to see better and said, “It’s ocean, look. Ocean.”

Allie turned around smiling. She looked pretty with her hair hanging loose around her shoulders. “No, Pooh, that’s a lake. We’re going swimming in it.”

“That’s a lake.” Mrs. Donovan kissed her boy on the back of his head. Leo took Allie’s hand in front and squeezed. He rested his driving elbow out in the warm wind that smelled like pine and somebody’s barbecue charcoals and he took a deep breath because, man, this all fit so good; better than a sixteen-penny nail in a toe plate, more like the sweet Harp of the Blues in his hands, but most, like him inside Allie—’cause from that comes this: him and her sitting up front, their own little boy and girl in back, the four of them heading for sunshine and mountain waters, a chicken Allie’d cooked, and a picnic ground crowded with other happy families.

Leo swam to the raft anchored out in deep water. There was a four-foot-tall diving platform built on one side of it and three boys about twelve or thirteen years old were taking turns trying jackknife dives. Leo stayed in the lake and held on to the corner of the raft to watch. One of the boys was real thin, and his dives were the worst. When his head hit the water he was still touching his toes, and Leo could see a whole network of blue veins all the way down his thin legs. Farther out in the lake a speedboat cut its way through the water. Two water skiers, a man and a woman, skidded a swath behind it, and the man had muscles like Chick Donovan’s.

Leo looked back at the shore and saw Allie wading into the lake in her cut-off jeans and a white T-shirt. She waved to him and was about to dive in when somebody called her name and she turned around to two boys wearing shorts and no shirts. It was GP and some kid named Logan who was on the football team with him but played first string instead of second. Their hair was so short they almost seemed bald. But something else was stranger than that. Leo didn’t know what it was at first, then he did; GP didn’t have a belly anymore. His stomach was about as flat and hard-looking as Logan’s. Allie turned and pointed to the raft. Both boys looked out at it, then ran and dove into the water. Allie waded in and followed them stroke for stroke.

Leo climbed up and sat on the hot boards. He clasped his hands around one raised knee and tried to look as disinterested as he could. The thin boy’s friends started back for shore and Leo watched the kid do a flying cannonball, leaving hardly any splash at all. Logan made it to the raft first. He pulled himself up the ladder, walked past Leo to the platform, and dove in, his knees bent, his feet spread apart.