Page 38 of Big & Lily

Lily and I pick up the kayak and clumsily dump out the water sitting on the bottom. I cross my fingers that there isn’t actually a leak, and my sister climbs in as I push the boat into the water, grunting. Then I straddle the top of the boat in front of her, pulling my feet up high enough not to dip them in the cold water, and she hands me the oar. The kayak wobbles and sways.

“I told you, you have terrible balance,” my sister shouts into the back of my life jacket.

“Not now, Lily!”

Finally, the boat stops rocking, and we set off to dig ourselves out of this mess. I paddle, my arms burning, my back and legscramping, icy water dripping off the paddle onto my legs, as Lily yells unnecessary driving instructions. Scanning the horizon for witnesses, I’m relieved not to see anyone in this part of the lake. We might just get away with it.

Lily pokes me in the back. “There it is.”

The boat is bobbing up against a wall of ice. We have almost reached the kayak when I realize I have no working knowledge of this boat’s braking system, and our front end butts my empty boat, sending it shooting off like a cue ball.

“Damn it, Big.”

“Do you want to drive?”

“Fine.” Lily makes a show of starting to switch places with me, but the kayak has other ideas. It rocks wildly back and forth.

“Stop, stop, stop!” I shout and we both freeze as the rippling rings around the boat smooth out and the water is still again. This time I approach slowly and somehow manage to use the oar to bring us to the side of the wayward kayak. Lily sticks her arm out and grabs it. Success! “Now what?” I ask.

“You’re going to have to climb in,” Lily says like it’s easy. “Go slow, I’ll steady the boat. Swing your legs in first.”

I could have waited on the beach where I found Lily until Brick realized that we were missing. Damn my deep need to please, to notbethe problem. “Fine,” I growl. I twist back and hand Lily the oar. I’m suddenly shaking, and it’s not from the cold coming off the iceberg. Slowly, I swivel my legs toward the kayak that is bobbing despite Lily holding onto it. The narrow space between the two boats feels like a chasm.

“I can’t do it.”

“You’re almost there,” says my unexpected cheerleader. “Inch your butt closer. Put your feet in the hole.”

I do as I’m told because I don’t have any better ideas. A vein is throbbing in my throat. I might have a heart attack right here nextto an iceberg. I can’t count on Lily to perform CPR. Or was that something she learned at sleepaway camp too?

Lily presses her hand against my back. “Quit it,” I say as I put one foot into the cavity of the boat. I steady myself, waiting for the rocking to pass, and then move my other leg. Now I’m in the middle of nowhere. Wet feet in one kayak, burning arms on the other, hanging over the water like a terrified crab.

“Just throw yourself forward, I’ll hold the boat. Go!”

There is no momentum that is going to move this body forward. But it’s a moot point. My arms are shaking. My hands are slipping. My strength is all but gone. I hear a scream (my own) and then I plunge into icy darkness. The life jacket brings me to the surface quickly, as I gasp and flail, the cold water already stinging my skin. The empty kayak has shot off again. Treading water, I twirl around and there is Lily, in the boat, laughing.

“Oh my God, you klutz,” she says as she holds her oar out to me. “Grab this.”

This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t tried to save Lily, wasn’t always trying to save Lily. Why do I insist on charging in, Big to the rescue? Why can’t I let go? Look where it’s gotten me: on the receiving end of Lily’s ingratitude and attitude, nearly drowned, and most certainly hypothermic.

Pissed at Lily, or maybe pissed at myself, I reach up to grab the oar like an olive branch, and then, with all the strength I have left, which isn’t much, I jerk it toward me, pulling my sister overboard and into the lake with me.

Chapter Nineteen

The kayak we arrived in is overturned, its flat bottom floating like a dead fish. Lily is gasping and spitting out lake water and every curse she can think of.

“We’re even,” I say through chattering teeth.

“Even for what?” She swims over to the boat that had skittered away but mercifully only a few feet.

“I’ve done nothing since we got here but try to help you. And you’ve done nothing but give me shit.”

“I’ve givenyoushit?” Lily wipes her sopping hair out of her eyes. “That’s a laugh. I’ve been trying to enjoy my vacation, and you’ve done nothing but shut me down.” She reaches out to the boat and places her hands on top of it. “Go to the other side and do this. We’ll have to pull ourselves up at the same time, or you’ll knock me in again.”

I don’t want to follow her orders. Lily doesn’t get to tell me what to do; but she’s right. I don’t need that PhD in aerodynamics and physics from MIT to know we need to balance each other out to keep the boat from flipping.

It takes three or four tries, during which we both slide back into the icy water after each attempt. The good news, if there can be any good news in this godforsaken situation, is that an upside-down kayak is sturdier than an upright one, and somehow, we bothend up on top of the bottom of the boat—Lily straddling it, me flopped on my belly.

The other boat has drifted beyond our sight. The mission to solve our problem without Brick finding out has failed. We are up the creek without a paddle. Literally. I spot our oar banging gently against the iceberg. No way we are trying to retrieve it. That lesson has been learned. Hopefully the current (is there a current in a lake?) will sail us back to where everyone will surely be waiting to have another laugh at the Ackerman sisters.