Lost Girls

much and making remarks about experiences that have passed to a comfortable enough distance that they can now make fun of them, dismiss them even, like first love. So in response they say nothing directly, although the girl mouths ha ha ha at her mother to note that the joke stopped being funny a long time ago.

They pull the aluminum canoe out from under the dense scrub of sweet gale and leather-leaf that marks the end of the property and, sharing a look, throw the life jackets back under. Slide the hull down to the beach and over the narrow stretch of pebbly sand which screeches against the metal. The girl is at the front and the boy at the back (or bow and stern, as the boy's father keeps telling him). This is their usual arrangement. The boy is strong and has a practiced J-stroke, which comes in handy when the girl gets tired and he has to bring them in on his own.

''Kissin' cuzzins!'' shouts the barbecue man, who was not in on the earlier joke. The girl's mother looks back at her husband and states his name with exaggerated severity, shaking her head as if to say He never gets anything!

''What? What?'' the barbecue man asks, shrugging, looking to the other man with a who-can-figure-women? look on his face, and they all laugh again, because for them this is the way men and women are together when things are good.

The girl squeals as her feet sink into the weedy mush that lurks just off from where the sand stops, then steps into her position with two athletic swings of her legs. With a final push the boy kneels in the back and puts fifty feet between the canoe and their parents' laughter in three strokes.

''Wanna go to the island?'' the girl asks. This is the place they usually head for. It has a high granite point rising up out of the tree cover from which you can see almost half of the lake's inlets and jetties. It's also where, at the end of last summer's Labor Day weekend, the two cousins made out for the first time.

''No. Let's go to the beaver dam.''

''That's far.''

''That's far,'' he mimics, which she hates, because he's good at it.

They turn away from the island, which lies a half mile straight ahead of the cottage's beach, and toward the mouth of an unnamed river beyond it.

''I don't want to go home,'' she says without turning.

''What do you mean?''

''I want to stay up here. For the summer not to end.''

''But it does end. It gets cold, the lake freezes over, and there's no TV.''

''I don't care. It just makes me sad that we can do this, now--all this stuff together--and soon I'll be back home and you'll be back home, dealing with all the dickheads at our schools and whatever. It's just shitty, that's all.''

''I know.''

''And I miss you. I mean, I know I'm going to miss you.''

''Yeah, I know.''

''I wish . . .'' she exhales, but doesn't continue. The boy knows what she means, and that she is a girl full of wishes.

As they near the beaver dam she pulls her paddle in and turns around to face the boy. Smiles, tilts her head back to absorb the last heat of the day's sun. The boy studies the galaxy of pale freckles that crosses her chest and clusters in the space above her small breasts. Her hair, red-brown in winter and blond in summer, falls straight back and reaches down almost to the water. She makes a low moaning at the back of her throat and stretches her legs out in front of her, wriggling her toes until he quietly brings his own paddle in and grabs them.

''And these little piggies got barbecued!'' he cackles, and the girl screams, famously ticklish. Then she comes forward and kisses him.

''Kissin' cuzzins,'' she says.

''Wait. Let's get to shore first.''

The boy maneuvers them in the last twenty yards to the river's mouth, into the reeds, tape grass, and coontails. Once he steps out onto the shore he takes the girl's arm and half guides, half lifts her to where he stands. As their feet sink into the softness of the river's edge the smell of rot rises out of the ground, the decomposition of fish and slug and frog.

''Ugh. Stinks like shit!'' the girl shrieks, though the boy knows it isn't that, but the stink of dead things.

''They're getting ready to eat.''

The boy squints back across the water at the miniaturized figures of the adults, who are now ambling up to the picnic table and fetching more drinks. Once they leave the sunny spot by the lake they disappear into the shadows, just as the boy and girl, if you were to look for them from where the adults had sat, are concealed by the lengthening darkness.

''Should we go back?'' the girl asks.

''Are you hungry?''

''No.''

''Then we'll take our time.''

They sludge along the water's edge to where the beaver has blocked a narrow point in the river with twigs, fallen tree limbs, even a found section of hockey stick, all held together by dried mud. The boy walks a few feet out onto the dam and extends his hand for her to follow. Beneath his feet the passing water sucks and gurgles, the meshed-together wood creaking under his weight.

''No! Get off! It's the beaver's house!'' the girl calls to him with a mixture of protest and delight.

''C'mon. Don't worry. It's abandoned. It's gone somewhere else now, so it doesn't matter,'' the boy lies. He knows nothing of beavers or which mushrooms can be eaten in the woods or how to tell compass directions from the stars, but he tells the girl stories about all of these things.

''Really?''

''Yes.''

''Promise?''

''Promise.''

The girl takes his hand and steps up beside him, close enough that he has to circle his arm behind her back to prevent her from falling in. Her breath, sweet smelling and spicy as cinnamon, warms his neck.

''C'mere,'' he whispers, although she can move no closer. Then he lowers his head and kisses her, moves his tongue inside her mouth and his hands to her hips to hold her in place. They have kissed before, but this summer things have been different. They felt different. But one thing that's the same is that when they kiss he keeps his eyes open and she closes hers. He likes this almost more than the smooth invitation of her lips. To watch her eyelids come down like sleep so that he can watch her pleasure without being seen himself.

When they pull apart they hold each other still for a time, each listening to the other's shallow breaths. In the single moment of their silence the dusk has begun its advance. From the blackening trees behind them lights appear, pinpricks of color. Without a word the boy and girl watch them emerge, fireflies flashing through the branches and high grass. Hundreds of flickering communications moving forward from the woods.

''It's like they're talking to each other,'' the girl says.

''It's beautiful. Nice.'' The boy counts to three in his head. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. ''C'mon, let's get back in the canoe. It'll be more comfortable.''

The boy turns and picks his way back from where they have come and when he steps off the dam he wonders if the beaver is out there in the woods, watching them.

''Let's go!'' he shouts back to the girl, and she turns to follow. When she meets him at the canoe she climbs in first and then he pushes them off, his feet making a foul suctioning sound in the mud as they go. Without speaking they slowly paddle around the river's mouth, watching small pike, rock bass, and tadpoles flash through the water at the disturbance of their wake. Then the boy directs them out into the open lake and, once they reach the middle, stops and pulls the paddle in. Watches the perfect stretch of her back, the soft crease of skin at her sunburned neck.

''Hey,'' the boy says, and the girl turns to him, placing her paddle next to his.

''Hey what?''

''Hey, you look amazing. Here, in the light.''