I was already sweating when I dumped the grout into the rubber boots, carefully mixing in lake water that I scooped up with a green glass jar from Carey’s studio kitchen. The sunglasses dared to fall down my nose, but I pushed them back up, over and over, with a single finger. Once the grout was the right consistency—I used a wooden paint stirrer—I carefully put one foot, ankles taped with bubble wrap, into one boot, and then the other, the grout sucking between my toes. The volume rose up inches below the tops of the boots, but the cameras couldn’t see how it dried. They were too far away.

Ten minutes is a long time to stand still and look at a lake. I cycled through a lot of feelings—fear and trepidation, but mostly regret—and wondered how on earth Carey managed to maintain her composure. After three minutes, it was so hot that I slid the leopard coat from my shoulders and let it crumple to the wet sand. My dress was eclipsed by moons of sweat: a sweet crescent on my low back, wide ellipses beneath my arms, dripping down my thighs and into the boots.

By the time I walked into the water, I was burning up, ready for the cold, and it took a great deal of self-control not to dive—to walk forward, ramrod-straight—until I disappeared under the surface.

*  *  *

I’m still not a strong swimmer. I had to move quite far underwater to get out of the shot, and I had to do it in a dress and rubber boots without disturbing the surface. Every step was fraught with a biological urge to swim to save myself. The grout in the boots weighed me down, but I could have kicked out of it if I wanted to. I kept telling myself that it was a game, over and over, hoping that I could convince myself. My arms trembled, preparing themselves to move, to pump up and down involuntarily, like they’d done on that first day I floated drunk on the lake. Sooner or later, my body was going to take over.

Had I calculated correctly?

The sky above me became only a faint pink light. Water crept into my nose, through my sinuses, dripped down the back of my throat, and I began to panic—but then I pushed forward, staying on the bottom of the lake for ten more feet, until I reached the bicycle tube weighted on a neon yellow rope to a seventy-nine-cent brick. The check valve barely opened in my shaking grip; I had to bite my hand to hold it down, but when it opened—when it did, I could breathe. As I sucked in, greedily, the sunglasses tipped off my nose and sank to the bottom.