Remembered Lake

If I really put my back into it, I might remember the name of that lake. It was one of those long, musical Indian names you get all over the Northeast—Massapequa, Winnipesaukee, Susquehanna, Shawangunk—names I’ve always had a soft spot for, even though I can never spell them and only barely pronounce them. The lake I’m thinking of had a beautiful name, I’m nearly certain, but I’m not sure you should trust me.

I yearn to recall the name, the one that would rise up from the fog of memory if I could only coax it out. But I don’t, and won’t. The memory is too dear. I won’t handle it roughly, won’t pry it open with the forensics of recollection. It might not hold together, and it might not have a point. I’ll just tell you what I remember as it comes.

I wish I could recall the smaller things, too— I remember the scarf she wore, but not the color of his jacket. I can’t quite picture their faces in my mind, but the way they looked at each other that day, the energy between all of us, that remains frozen and vivid.

He was older than me. They both were. It felt like everyone I cared about then was older, as if my own classmates were a species I had nothing in common with. I was too smart in the wrong ways and too obviously Jewish for that place, a boarding school where my last name worked like a kick-me sign. But he treated me as if I belonged beside him, and for a while I considered him my very best friend, whether he realized it or not.

She went to the sister school nearby. She was tall, freckled, with long hair that, when she stepped into any kind of light, seemed to bloom outward in colors I don’t think nature strictly authorized. She was grace made visible, and I adored her with the kind of pure, overheated devotion only the young can manage. They were together, or on their way to being together. Everybody seemed to know it without them having to announce anything.

He and I must have slipped out of school early, before most of the others were awake. My memory of the school remains clear—the tall ceilings, the heavy doors on our rooms. I can see us moving slowly and quietly down that huge Gothic stairway and easing close along the building to where his car was parked. His car was red—I remember that for sure. It seemed sporty to me, low to the ground, with a stick shift between bucket seats and barely any space in the back. We must have picked her up somewhere along the way. I can see her climbing in, the cold air clinging to her but the air inside the car suddenly charged and warmer, made bright by her easy presence.

He drove, she sat beside him, and I sat in the back looking between their shoulders. An hour, maybe an hour and a half—hard to say, given our talking and joking and the pure joy of being there with them, time moving unhurried in a way it hardly ever does. And so, before long, we were turning off the road toward the entrance.

Just as the gate came into view he pulled over. The plan was to hide me in the trunk so we’d only pay for the two of them. He lifted the trunk and I folded myself in, knees drawn up, listening to the muffled snap of the latch closing. The darkness didn’t bother me. I was his kid for the day, her little bear, tucked in and carried along like a body still in the womb.

We went right through the gate and didn’t stop until he pulled over again to liberate me. I climbed back out, the three of us cracking up at our pointless ruse. We pulled back onto the road and made our way up toward the hotel—an old building perched high above the gorge, half-hidden in the morning fog. It had that off-season emptiness I’ve always been drawn to, the kind of peace that comes from being away from the world. And I know some of what I “see” now isn’t from that day at all—every time I recall this story, a scene from Twin Peaks creeps further in, its wood and fog and strangeness diluting what I actually saw.

We wandered inside and found the taproom one level down. The place was dim, all dark wood, with the faint lingering air of cigars and old cologne. There was a long wooden bar as you came in, small round tables scattered near it, and a piano tucked along the opposite wall.

There was no one else around, so we more or less took over the place. We chose one of the tables, and our ring leader went to the bar, where the bartender seemed to wake up from leaning in the shadows. He ordered three drinks. The barkeep didn’t question it—just poured them and set them down. He brought the drinks back to the table, and we toasted our adventure, our escape, our little triumvirate of playacting adults.

We took our time with the drinks and then ordered another round—beer this time, as best I remember. I took mine over to the piano. “Is this okay?” I asked. The man behind the bar gave a small, tired shrug, and I sat down, opened the lid, and began to play. The keys were a little stiff, but they worked well enough. I played whatever came to mind—improvisations, half-remembered scraps of things. I’d never thought of myself as much of a piano player, a bit of a hack really, but there and then it felt elegant, even virtuosic. They sat close together, looking so happy and pleased, even impressed and proud of their little prodigy.

I could have stayed there for hours, the three of us in our own perfect world. But it was time to see the lake.

The fog over the gorge had grown thicker, the trees barely visible. We took the wooden steps partway down, then left them for the steep slope. She was wearing this beautiful scarf made of some luminous fabric, with bands of pastel color, comically long—the sort of thing the Cat in the Hat might wear but far more elegant—and she unraveled it from around her neck as we cautiously descended. By then we’d stepped off the stairs and were picking our way down through the sparse trees along the slope. She held out the scarf, and we each took hold of a section, using it as a lifeline as we made our way down through the mist.

The lake itself didn’t appear so much as arrive. One moment we were making our way through trees and rock, and the next we were on the flat surface of the lake. The fog was so thick we couldn’t see where the shoreline ended. Everything had gone deeply quiet, nearly silent except for the faint sounds of our shoes as we found our footing. We drifted out into the cloud that had settled on the lake, the shoreline receding back into the pale hush. It felt as if the world had been reduced to a small circle around us—white in every direction and smooth, solid ice beneath us.

We moved yet farther out. The light came from nowhere and everywhere at once. Our shoes barely gripped the surface, each step a glide that propelled us silently through the mist. We skated in a circle, the scarf still connecting us. I let go of the scarf, and they twirled with it between them. Then he too let go and veered off into the white.

We were laughing, skating in tangents, veering away from each other in the mist. We lost each other and called to each other and found each other again. He lost his queen, and I found her for him. Then I was lost, lost without my mother, orphaned by one I’d never known. But in the fog that day, my mother was there and I could hear her laughter like a song calling to me. And she was that mother of all grace.

And then I felt him near me, his arm settling on my shoulder. He led me back to her.

I ran off again, then circled back, and found them in an embrace, kissing, and we all giggled. He fades a little into the background and all I see is her and I’m so damn happy. I’m laughing and saying kiss me and she does and we’re laughing. And I even hear him somewhere in the near distance saying yes kiss him. And she does. And we are everywhere and nowhere and the mist is all around us. Again I ask her to kiss me, and she does, and then again and again and she’s still kissing me and I’m still laughing and the world is so small and so perfect and the mist surrounds us and embraces us and she is kissing me still, that endless kiss, and she is still kissing me now, and it never ended and it never will end.