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WELCOME TO THE LILY PAD , or A Brief Introduction to Power Jam

Touchstone warned us a thousand times that the cabin was not very nice. It was old, for one thing, and not terribly spacious, for another. Persistently damp, with sluggish plumbing and a total lack of insulation, though hopefully that would be less of a problem in the summer. There was also the matter of his uncle’s 1 unusual taste, plus the temperamental oven—cakes came out soupy in the middle, roasted vegetables blackened. Sometimes, for seemingly no reason at all, the house would lose power for a few days, and everything would have to be done by candlelight.

“Sounds like hell on earth,” said Ros on the drive up there. “I’m so glad I agreed to come.”

“It’s romantic,” I insisted. What did I care about an oven? I was about to spend the summer with my two best friends, just us, and while I enjoyed an occasional bake, I was fairly confident I could survive eleven weeks without making a pie.

“One year, my mom pulled a sock out of the dryer, and it turned out to be a bat,” Touchstone said, leaning between the two of us like a back-seat gargoyle.

We were nearly there by that point—I was driving down a bumpy, pitted, dead-end road that I wouldn’t have trusted as an actual thoroughfare had Touchstone not promised me it was. We were only two and a half hours from home, though the drive had felt longer, the roads through the forested hills twisty and slow going. And the drive seemed even longer now that Touchstone had launched into great detail about the length and girth of the needle required for a rabies shot.

“This is up your alley, Celia! Disaster preparedness!”

“I know, but please don’t say girth ,” I said.

“Or anything else vaguely phallic,” Ros said.

“Or anything else to make us regret coming,” I said.

“Look, I’m just trying to manage expectations,” said Touchstone. “I don’t want anyone thinking we’re going somewhere fancy and magical . I don’t want anyone thinking this is some kind of charming picnic or enchanted wonderland . I don’t want anyone thinking—oh, look, we’re here.”

My jaw full-on dropped. Ros snatched me by the forearm before I’d put the car in park.

“Holy shit,” they said.

“It’s a fairy tale,” I agreed.

“What did I just say ?” said Touch—but Ros and I were already out of the car.

The cabin was a darkly shingled A-frame cottage with an overgrown lawn and cinder-block steps, a twisted tree in the front yard with a hollow big enough to hide in.

Ros and I barreled past Touch as he unlocked the front door.

A full tour might’ve taken a normal person three minutes; Ros and I, hopped up on independence and gas-station snacks, saw the whole place in thirty-five seconds flat.

Downstairs, a living room with a picture window that went all the way to the ceiling, with a view of the river; a potbellied pellet stove; a kitchenette.

A bathroom and what would be our room, Ros’s and mine, a single tiny room off the kitchenette with matching army cots, the space between the beds narrow enough that our knees would touch if we sat on our beds at the same time.

The place was furiously green, houseplants stashed in every corner, some even taller than we were, some so small they could fit on a fingertip.

We squealed like pigs.

We jumped up and down.

We could hardly believe our luck.

Up the stairs—a spiral staircase, a death trap, especially if you took the stairs two at a time, as we did now—

was Touchstone’s room, which was really more like a sleeping nook in a grown-up, rococo tree house than a true bedroom, with a bedspread that looked like Persian rugs and a deep blue velvet headboard and pillows, endless pillows, so many that Ros and I each snatched one for our beds downstairs and there were still enough to build a pillow fort that was more like a castle.

In the kitchenette, Touchstone called his uncle-who-was-not-his-uncle—

Hi, Henry, it’s Andrew, we made it, yup, we’ve found the plant-care dossier —while Ros and I made faces at him and tried our feverish best to remember how his uncle-who-was-not-his-uncle was related to him, which had become our favorite game since we’d found out we’d be staying at the cabin.

“Okay—the cabin belongs to Henry, and Henry isn’t related to Touchstone.…”

“Henry is cousins with Freddie!” said Ros.

“No, he was married to Freddie,” I said.

“And Freddie was Touchstone’s second cousin?”

“Or Freddie’s mom was Touchstone’s second cousin?” I said.

“ Yes —the mom—but there’s a divorce in there somewhere!”

“We can’t forget the divorce!”

“Can you two shut up ?” Touchstone hissed.

We cackled and continued to run around gleefully, now noticing details we hadn’t before: the outrageously opulent stained-glass chandelier; the heavy leather high-backed chairs; the antique trunk full of plush blankets we draped around our shoulders like cloaks worn by royalty; the crowded art, the sepia-painted wooded landscapes and prints of peacocks and a quail; and an actual stuffed pheasant standing on a little ledge built into the wall.

“Let’s name him,” I said.

“Angelo,” Ros declared, and it was so.

At some point we started noticing the frogs. Here was a tiny pewter one sharing the ledge with Angelo; here was a pair of brass lamps in the shape of two elongated frogs with twisted legs; here were frog-patterned hand towels in the bathroom, and frog salt-and-pepper shakers on the table, a frog pattern on Ros’s blanket turned robe. By the time Touchstone had ended his phone call, we’d christened the cabin the Lily Pad. Who cared about the dampness? It was ours for the summer, and it was perfect. It may not have been an actual fairy tale, but it was close enough.

We left our stuff in the car, texted our parents we’d made it, and walked down to the water, a five-minute trek that was slightly steeper than expected and hot , exposed to the sun.

The grassy hill gave way to a sandy, flat beach that was cupped in the palm of the woods, and we stood marveling for a moment, our arms around one another’s shoulders.

Straight ahead, the far side of the river met the road and then turned quickly into forest.

To our right, an old bridge spanned the river, once copper but now weathered the perfect teal green—we could walk that bridge to cross into town, according to Touchstone.

To our left, the river continued and then bent, disappearing behind a rise in the land.

Ros pulled off their heavy lace-ups and yanked off their mismatched socks—one pea-green ankle sock, one thicker hiking sock, a sartorial choice I simply could not support no matter how much I loved them—and waded into the water.

The river lapped at their ankles, and I nearly felt the coolness on my own feet, delicious, chilling.

“Can we swim here?” I half spoke, half called, half to Touchstone, half to Ros, who continued to walk deeper into the water. “Ros?”

The water had risen over their ankles by now, their unshaven calves, and then their spiky knees, where it darkened the gray of their cutoffs.

I thought maybe they’d stop there—I yelled their name, but they just kept walking—but the water was up to their ribs now, soaking the baggy forest-green sweater vest they’d found in the men’s department of our thrift store, cashmere for ten bucks, with a slight Mr.

Rogers vibe that Ros made cool, though the vest itself was no doubt ruined now with river water—and then the water was up around their ears and their unruly, unwashed hair, and then they were gone, swallowed whole by the water.

Touchstone did an impression of me later that would make my sides split.

He captured my panic perfectly: my bulging eyes, my shrieking voice, like some horrible seabird’s.

Ros! Ros! Ros! But what was I supposed to do? I was worried.

We didn’t know anything about currents or local sea monsters, and somewhere I’d heard that river otters were highly territorial and a pack of them could work together to drown a human if they perceived them as a threat.

Ros had had a horrible year, and they could be reckless.

Once, at one of our swim meets, they’d gotten out of the pool and they were bleeding; they’d hit the flip turn so hard they’d sliced open their foot, but they kept swimming anyway.

Our meet was canceled, and they’d tracked blood all over the tile; the two of us, me in my bathing suit and Touchstone in his swim-team managerial role, had chased after their bloody prints with our towels, mopping them up.

When Ros popped back up, they were halfway across the river.

Their hair was slicked back, reminding me of a seal—it was only ever tame when wet—and even in the distance I could tell their golden eyes were sparkling.

They whooped, a shriek of pure joy, and there was that smile that I hadn’t seen in months, that smile I’d waited and waited for, that smile with one fanged canine tooth and slight crookedness that—though I’d barely admitted it to myself, let alone anyone else—had started setting my ears on fire a little over a year ago, at the end of tenth grade, when they flashed it at me on a totally regular day in chemistry and my stupid stomach crashed and careened toward my crotch, and I thought, No, please, come on, anyone but them .

“Come on in!” Ros yelled. “Don’t be a wuss, Celia; it feels amazing!”

And so—even with all my reservations about the river, disease-carrying algae blooms, currents, shrieking eels, etc., I followed them into the water while Ros cheered me on. The bank fell away from my feet, and I paddled with my arms and legs, feeling like my dogs at home. My clothes billowed out, ballooning, heavy. I’d never jumped in anywhere in all my clothes, and the river felt cool and amazing inside my overalls, and as I swam toward Ros, I couldn’t believe this was ours for the summer.

“She’s doing it, she’s doing it!” Ros cheered. “Touchstone, now you!”

“No, thank you,” called Touch. “Call me crazy, but I’d rather not get giardia!”

Ros laughed and then swam to meet me. We met in a part of the river where neither of us could touch the bottom, and they wrapped their arms around me in a strange water hug. We both half laughed, half drowned, deliriously happy.

“How deep do you think this is?” I said, paddling to stay afloat.

“Sometimes all you have to know is that it’s too deep to stand,” Ros said, but they humored me. They took a deep breath and plunged down into the green depths.

“Too deep to touch,” they said when they popped back up, and I felt a little flurry of fear. Maybe we would get giardia. Maybe there were snapping turtles or other foes in the water that were waiting for us. Maybe…

“Don’t freak out,” Ros said, noticing the expression on my face. “If some horrible river monster comes to drag you away, I’ll save you. I promise.”

That was all I needed to hear.

Later, Ros washed our clothes (the washing machine was bat-free) and then hung them to dry on the porch railing. We curled up on the outdoor couch, and they collapsed against me in laughter while we made Touchstone do impressions of us and our history teacher, Mr. Greeb, and my big bulldozer black Labs, which I already missed. When the temperature dropped—dramatically, as we started to lose the light—Touchstone pulled on his fleece jacket and made himself comfortable in one of the far chairs, and Ros brought the frog-patterned blanket outside and spread some of it over them and some of it over me too. Even after our showers, we both smelled faintly of river.

“You look so cozy,” Touchstone said, and he snapped a photo of us on his phone.

“Let’s see,” said Ros.

Touchstone passed his phone to Ros, and they held the device between us.

We might have still smelled like river, but we looked, frankly, gorgeous as hell, clean and pink cheeked from our showers with twisty, semidried hair, comfortable in leggings (me) and a soft pair of jeans (Ros), me in my Power Jam T-shirt that Ros had given me for my last birthday, Ros in a navy-blue striped tee that was the exact right amount of loose.

The blanket was draped across us in a perfectly cozy, casual way, and the light from the setting sun made us look resplendent, like Greek gods.

That photo looked like what I’d been envisioning all spring, the sort of image that kept me going through convincing our parents; through the long school days when we’d whisper Lovesick Falls to one another to boost morale, the name alone enough to inspire wild daydreams; through finding our way here on an old road atlas (my parents’ rule for driving was that I needed to know how to read a map).

The long and short of it was, we’d done it: Under my leadership, I’d spirited us away to this wondrous, plucked-from-myth place called Lovesick Falls, and we looked beautiful.

I should’ve felt ecstatic. But what I felt, seeing that photo as the sun went down, was a pang of homesickness.

“What’s wrong?” Ros said. I could feel them looking at me, distressingly close, but I kept my eyes glued on the photo.

“Nothing. I’m fine,” I said. I didn’t want to admit it to them. Homesick on the first night, even though the whole thing had been my idea! My feelings felt like a betrayal. Captain Ahab was never homesick, I thought bitterly. He never told the crew how much he missed life on land: his evening ritual of ice cream in front of the TV with his parents, watching the dogs fall asleep and twitch, chasing rabbits; sleeping in his own bed.