“Sher, listen to yourself. You don’t have to impress these people.”

Nobody at the party knew Sherri better than Roberta did. Sherri knew this, and it terrified her, because she didn’t want to be that Sherri anymore. “Maybe you don’t know me that well.”

Roberta’s laugh was indignant. “You know what? I know you better than you know yourself.”

“Then you must not like me much, because you pretty much ignored me our whole senior year.”

“I was going through stuff. I was changing, Sherri.”

This sounded like an invitation for Sherri to ask Roberta what she’d been going through, but there was too much happening. “Well I can change, too. I have changed. And I don’t need you to tell me—”

Ginger, team captain that she was, interrupted their conversation by rushing Sherri, grabbing her by the arm and leading her to the water before Sherri could say more. It was hard to go from Roberta’s scowl to the group of smiling friends waiting obediently at the shore station, like switching channels on the television from Masterpiece Theater to Three’s Company. Danny was already straining at the wheel to lower it to the water. Sherri looked back at Roberta and saw her standing with her arms crossed hard over her chest. Even though Sherri was upset with her, she wished she could return to their conversation, make things right, tell her she loved her.

Jerry hauled over a cooler filled with beer and set it down on the boat.

“The circle is complete,” Ginger said to Sherri under her breath. “Now the boat has a barnacle.”

All of her resort friends packed into the pontoon. Danny was perfectly at ease as the driver, pushing a button on the lever to put the gearshift in neutral before pumping the engine. He backed it away from the pier without incident, leaving the rowboat on the other slip with the oars crossed like arms across a sleeping chest. Arthur waved from the shore. “Is that guy your boyfriend?” Danny asked. There was no way Arthur could hear him over the sound of the motor.

That guy? Suddenly she looked at Arthur differently, trying to see through Danny’s eyes. “What do you think of him?”

“He’s nice. Different. Deep.” His pause made Sherri uncomfortable.

“Deep how so?”

“When he was showing me his house, I told him my place was always a mess, and he started talking about this philosopher named Carl Jung, and said that’s a good thing not to worry about my physical environment because it means I have a ‘life of the mind.’ I wanted to tell him that all I think about is sex, but yeah, OK, sure.”