Despite Daniela’s teasing, Cadie took comfort in the vision of living on lake water and blueberries.
They stopped rowing and let the boat drift.
Wind shushed through the billowy evergreen branches around her. The breeze from the woods carried the pithy smell of the underside of rotting logs, the breakdown of life into dirt where new life grew. Cadie loved hunting down mushrooms and monitoring the decay of fallen trees in the woods. She sometimes thrust her hands into the rotting wood and rubbed the damp, decomposing pulp between her palms, squeezing it like dough and scattering the crumbs to feed the forest.
The familiar aroma of her woods and lake comforted her. But the longer they drifted, the more unfamiliar the world began to feel.
“What if we sell these berries?” Daniela said. “That guy parks his truck out by the library and sells them for a dollar a box every morning. I’ve seen Angie buying them for the diner. What if we sell them cheaper and deliver them right to her?”
“I could use the money,” Cadie said as she scanned the shoreline. She imagined her boat loaded down with buckets of berries. “I want to buy a new bike seat. The plastic on mine is cracked and it hurts my butt.”
“Let’s start tomorrow and take them straight to Angie.” Daniela bit her lip as she manipulated the rope. “We can say we picked them in the woods so no one finds out about the boat.”
“If we ever get out of here,” Cadie said. If she didn’t call her parents at noon, the designated check-in time, they would worry. They would come home. And Cadie wouldn’t be there. They might think she drowned. Or got kidnapped. Or worse, she would get caught with the boat. Her stolen boat. Cadie wrapped the curled end of one braid around her finger, watching as the tip turned purple.
She leaned back on her elbows and chewed on a strand of hair, studying the shore as if she were mapping the cove.
“I don’t think it’s stealing if no one else is going to pick the berries anyway,” Cadie said.
“We’re poaching, not stealing,” Daniela said.
“What’s the difference?”
“Nothing. It just sounds better.”
Cadie pulled her sketch pad and a pencil out of her backpack and drew outlines of the shore, the islands, and the rocks surrounding the drifting yellow boat. Daniela watched, her head resting on her arms. Cadie turned the page and started a list:
Never kill spiders.
Keep one foot in the water.
Never take all the berries from a single bush.
Never tell where we pick the berries.
“If we’re going to poach berries, we should have rules,” Cadie said. “The Poachers’ Code.”
“What happens if we break the rules?” Daniela said.
“Terrible, terrible things.” Cadie tried to make her voice sound spooky.
“God, you’re so weird.” Daniela laughed in a way that assured Cadie her new friend would honor the rules.
The boat drifted toward the opening of a smaller cove. If they couldn’t find their way out of the cove, they could spend the night on one of the islands, build a shelter out of branches.
The sun emerged from behind a tree and blinded Cadie for a few seconds.
“East! The sun’s in the east. We came from the north. We are at the north side of the lake. Right? Go that way.” Cadie pointed. Her muscles relaxed, but her hands shook as she paddled. She looked over her shoulder at the blueberry-saturated shore, almost regretting she had discovered a way out.
Cadie longed to be found, but even more, she ached to be lost.
The coves inside of coves twisted and contorted, but by aiming in the right direction, they found the opening where the wide swath of the lake greeted them. A soft rhythm of chirps, flutters, and clicks wound its way in and out of the trees, rising and swooping on the breeze as she rowed, humming in harmony with the forest and the lapping of water against her boat. She inhaled the airy particles glittering in the shafts of light until her lungs felt ready to burst.
The rush of discovery dwarfed her residual panic. As they emerged from the cove, she couldn’t contain a triumphant laugh, which burst out in a hiccup and made Daniela laugh, a melodic ripple Cadie grew to cherish that complicated summer.
“Do you want to spend the night?” Daniela asked.
“Sure.” Cadie sank her paddle deep, every muscle in her shoulders and back tightening as she drew it through the water. She absorbed the momentum of Daniela behind her and tried to coordinate their strokes in the same rhythm. Her oar cut through towers of light littered with dancing, iridescent particles. The boat—her boat—moved at her will. The lake felt endless. The boat sailed through sky and clouds reflected deep in the rippling water.
They were flying.
* * *
Cadie skipped the entire quarter-mile path through the woods from her house to Daniela’s, her sleeping bag and a backpack bouncing against her back. She balanced with sure feet over the log bridge spanning the creek separating her family’s property and Daniela’s.
A spicy aroma wafting through the woods prompted Cadie to sprint the last few yards. The smell grew stronger as she climbed the porch stairs. Through the open kitchen window, she watched Daniela and her mother dancing with wooden spoons as pretend microphones. They sang along to the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” playing on a boom box on the counter.
Daniela sang a line, her mother sang the next, and back to Daniela. Dolores Garcia danced in place, flipping something on the stove, turning sideways every few seconds to smile at her daughter as they sang. She wore jeans and a polo shirt with the Garcia’s Hardware logo. From behind, she looked like she could be a teenager.
Daniela’s father, Raúl Garcia, saw Cadie looking in through the window. Cadie knew him from the hardware store. He smiled and twirled his finger at his temple to indicate his wife and daughter had lost their minds. He waved Cadie inside and greeted her by handing her a wooden spoon to sing into.
“You like the Beatles?” She accepted the spoon from him.
“Doesn’t everyone?” His eyes crinkled in the corners as he smiled.
Pockets of stuffed dough sizzled on the stove, filling the room with the elusive sensation of Christmas morning. Cadie’s stomach churned at the earthy, savory aroma. A prickly eagerness stirred in her feet.
Cadie knew the words, but her feet remained glued to the floor as Daniela and her mother danced. Raúl took Cadie’s hand and spun her around and around until she felt dizzy and her body forgot she didn’t know how to dance. Waning light outside made everything in the small kitchen glow with a golden sheen. Sunlight glinted off a set of rosary beads dangling from the curtain rod in front of the sink.
Cadie sang loudly, not caring her voice was off-key. She danced with flailing arms, although she knew how uncoordinated she looked. Daniela laughed at Cadie, so Cadie sang louder and Daniela smiled in approval.
Daniela dropped to her knees and leaned back like a rock star as she belted out the final I want to hold your ha-a-a-a-a-and. Daniela pulled Cadie’s arm so she fell next to her on the linoleum. Sweat plastered Daniela’s hair to her face as she panted to catch her breath.
“Are you hungry?” Daniela asked.
“I am now.”
“Can we have some?” Daniela looked up at her mother and batted her eyes with her lower lip pouting out.