Danny brought the boat to a stop in the middle of Mill Pond. The sun was low in the pink sky, and the water was so smooth that it reflected the cottages and boathouses along the shore. Danny dropped anchor, but didn’t hit bottom. “Shit, it’s deep here,” he said. “This is thirty feet of line.”

Curtis stood next to Danny. Sherri had always believed that everyone should be drawn to a certain type. It amazed her that Val could take an interest in two men who were so unalike. Curtis was as dark, deep, and unfathomable as the lake, while Danny was as light as the sky. “You don’t need an anchor,” Curtis said. “There’s no wind.” Curtis’s tone was intended to make other people feel small—he wasn’t even speaking to Sherri and even she felt diminished. Danny bristled, pretending not to hear him. He set the anchor down heavily on the floor of the boat, just missing Curtis’s foot.

Sherri looked over at Val, expecting her to be worried, but instead she seemed amused at the prospect of having the men fighting over her. Jerry, trying his best to be one of the guys, cracked open a beer, leaned on the railing, and regaled the men with history. “Used to be a gristmill on this lake. It must go down sixty, seventy feet. In the thirties, this is where gangsters dumped their slot machines during police raids.”

“There are a million lakes in this whole damn state, and everyone thinks their lake had a gangster on it,” Curtis said, skeptical.

“Ours really did,” Jerry said. “They pulled up a suitcase with a skeleton tied to it by a chain a few years ago. Saw it with my own eyes.”

Sherri needed to shake loose. She climbed the ladder to the top of the boat and hesitated for a moment before diving in. The first swim of the season was always special. It felt like getting reacquainted with a friend she hadn’t seen in a while. The water was bracing, icy cold and crystal clear. When she emerged, she felt like she was awake for the first time in her life. Somewhere in the distance she could hear a bullfrog, and a small plane flew overhead. The cabins around the lake were mostly dark, the windows like closed eyes that would soon open wide when the season kicked into gear. She’d never been anyplace better.

Val jumped out and joined her. “I didn’t want Curtis to come. He showed up just as I was leaving and overheard us talking about the party. What could I do?”

“Poor Da—”

“Shhh,” Val said, concerned, even though they couldn’t be heard over the sound of the guys competing to make the biggest cannonball splashes after jumping off the top deck. What was it about men that made everything a competition?