When was the last time Hope wasn’t on someone else’s schedule?
Then she remembered where she was. The breeze gently blew the curtains into the bedroom she’d selected. There were two more, but this was the largest and the only one with the window facing the water.
She sat up and looked outside. What time was it?
Hope realized she wasn’t late for anything currently.
She was here to hide for a day or two and then figure out the rest of her life. Ha, no pressure.
It was going to be a good day, weather-wise. The sun was bright in the blue sky.
The idea of laying out flashed into her mind.
In her teens, baby oil, lemon juice, and no care in the world about sunscreen marked her days here on Lake Manitou.
Her grandparents’ farm was long sold. They used to rent a cottage similar to this one for the Fourth. All the family would come. The Bentons didn’t have Libby Quinn’s pedigree or property, but they too had a history here.
Her father had moved to Ohio out of high school, but he let her come to Lake Manitou every summer. As long as she got a summer job here, she was allowed to stay on her grandparents’ farm all summer.
Of course, she worked the farmstand when she was too young to work anywhere else. That was how she met Libby. Libby had ridden her bike over and filled a brown bag full of peaches.
They hit it off right away.
Growing up, she worked all over the Irish Hills. One summer, she was a beer cart girl at the golf course. Another summer, she scooped ice cream at Tut’s, and her last summer here, she worked as a line cook for the breakfast shift at the old Lakeside Hotel.
That was the best one, the last one. That’s where she’d made up her mind about her future.
Ha, that hadn’t gone to plan.
They were all part-time jobs. When she wasn’t working, it was Sandbar Sister time. They’d laid out on the sandbar or on the pontoon for literally six hours at a stretch. They didn’t know that time was the luxury, not a boat or a house. Time to spend with each other just being was the luxury they had as kids.
Alright, that’s it, Hope thought.
The last time she swam in this lake, she didn’t know she wouldn’t do it again for thirty years. She hadn’t brought a swimsuit to Vegas. That was a work trip. But here she was on a gorgeous June morning at the lake of her youth.
Hope has rocked a bikini back in her younger days but hadn’t worn one since the girls were born. The flat stomach of her eighteen-year-old self had gotten so stretched out during her first pregnancy that purple lines traveled across her abdomen like little road maps.
No amount of Windsor Pilates, which she loved back in the day, removed stretch marks. Hope had taken to hiding them after Archie had teased her about them.
No, no more two pieces for her.
Though, here, who would see?
Hope’s sports bra and underwear would have to do. She grabbed a beach towel from the linen closet. Libby and J.J. had thoughtfully provided so many things here. The cottage was worn down, but it was clean, and thanks to her friends’ attention to detail, any basic Hope needed, she found.
She walked down to the dock. The wood planks of the dock were hot, even though it was still morning. She should have brought flip-flops.
Well, the solution was easy. She put the towel on the edge of the dock and sat down. She’d gotten her feet wet yesterday, she wanted more today.
Hope took a quick look around. Was there anyone close enough to this dock and stretch of water to see and be traumatized by her naked stomach or lack of a proper swimsuit?
There was a cottage a few yards away, but no one was there that she could see. It felt pretty private, and it was early still. She realized no one cared, and nor was anyone on the lookout for a fifty-year-old woman’s stretch marks.
Oh heck, what are you waiting for, Hope?
She stood up and stepped back a few feet, and took off at a run, straight into the air. She cannonballed into the lake with an ostentatious splash.
Her body sank into the cool water. She felt the heat of Vegas, the sweat of learning about Archie, the travel funk, all of it, wash away in the cool water.
