It is about ten PM when we pull into the driveway of the lake house. Venice is awake next to me, but she might as well be asleep, she's so exhausted. As the car parks, she blinks repeatedly, looking straight ahead, and I can't help but smile at her confused expression. "We're here," I whisper. Kelly opens the shotgun door and jumps out, going around to the back of the truck and helping out her brother as she grabs their bags and walks with the rest of the tired family into the lake house. Venice sits in silence next to me as I watch the whole family file into the house. I know they will all immediately file into their usual bedrooms, leaving one open for me and a guest-the loft. "Venice," I whisper, somehow feeling it to be a necessity to talk in hushed tones. "Yea?"
"We're here. We have to get out now." Venice blinks and looks at me. "Oh." I smile and open my door. She looks at me and I go around to her door and take her hand, pulling her slowly out of the car. I hand her bag to her and grab mine as we head into the lake house, walking towards the stairs that lead to the loft.
"What smells so good?" Venice asks with a smile as she walks down the stairs, heading toward the kitchen where the majority of the family is either eating drowsily at the dining room table or making themselves breakfast. "Mom made pancakes," I say with a smile, glancing over at my mother as she douses Kenny's Mickey Mouse pancakes in syrup. She smiles at Venice and asks politely, "Would you like some?" Venice smiles widely, "That sounds delicious! Thank you!" She walks into the kitchen and smiles at me as she sits down next to me and glances around at my huge family. "Dad, Jameson, and Stefan went out to the lake already to get the boat ready for us," I tell Venice with a smile. She smiles widely, "A boat? Cool! Will everyone fit?" I laugh, "Not quite. The little ones are gonna stay on the beach with the adults for the first half of the day, and all us 'teens' will go out. Then we'll switch off later in the day." Venice nodded, "Sounds great. Wow, a boat, I haven't been on a boat in forever. What kind of boat is it?" I smile at her excitement, "It's a speed boat. You can water ski or inter tube, all that jazz." Venice practically jumps in excitement, "Oh my gosh, this is gonna be sooo fun!" I laugh and take a bite of my pancakes.
Amber and a camera makes walking to the lake take much longer than it should. She insists on taking pictures of everything-our lake house and the ones next to it, our shadows on the road, (which most of us refused to stop and pose for. I would have, too, if Venice didn't seem to find this whole let's-stop-and-take-a-picture thing almost as much fun as Amber did,) the mountains, the valley... once we finally reach the dried-up part of the lake, which we would have to walk through to get to the part with our dock, it starts to become a real problem. She stops to take a picture of some of a random bench on the top of the hill, and then some of us walking on a dock that is sitting on the dried up field, and the pictures just don't stop. "This is so cool!" Venice says excitedly as we attempt to cross the sink-mud without sinking completely, "I've never been in a dried-up lake before!"
"It's awesome, right?" Amber replies, bouncing with glee. The giddy-sisters hurry ahead of the rest of us as they take pictures of the mud, their legs with mud on them, a trash can in the middle of the field, and pretty much everything else. "I don't see how you two are best friends," Stacy says to Grayson after we've all walked in silence behind Amber and Venice for a while. "You're so quiet, and she's so hyper." Grayson laughs, "Yea, it does seem strange that we're friends. But Amber is so nice, and...I don't know. I just feel comfortable talking to her, in a way I know I would never feel if I was talking to another shy person." We all glance over at Grayson, shocked by this speech, and she widens her eyes, presses her lips together, and blushes.
I'm not sure there's any feeling quite as freeing as being on a boat, flying through the water so that the water splashes over you like a mist. "This is beautiful," Venice says breathily, looking out over the water. I smile at her, her hair dark whipping out behind her in the wind and a pair of black aviators hiding her eyes, which match the lake in color. Her lips are spread into a wide smile, and mine reflects hers as I stand up and move to her side of the boat, "You want to ski?"
"Me?"
"Sure."
"I don't know..." I catch a slight smile as she contemplates it, "I haven't done it in a long time."
"No time like now to change that," I reply with a smile. "Yea, Venice, you should do it, it's really fun!" Amber says, excited. Venice smiles at her and then glances back at me. "Ok. I'll try it. But it's gonna take me a while to be able to stand."
Venice falls about eighteen times before she's finally able to stand, but eventually she gets it, and I can't help but laugh as she finally gets the hang of it. When we pull her back in, we pull the boat to a stop by a small island in the lake, tying the boat to a large rock and setting up our towels so we can relax on the beach for a while. "That was amazing," Venice says with a smile as she lays down next to me on her towel. I laugh, "I knew you'd like it." Venice smiles and sits up, and we watch Amber as she snaps pictures of the island. "How about inter tubing? You want to try that next?" I ask her, smiling. She nods, "Definitely! You wanna do it with me?"
I blink. I wasn't expecting that. "Sure," I say, smiling as I glance over at her. She jumps up and runs down to the water, joining Amber. I laugh as they splash each other and dive under the water over and over.
Venice lays next to me on the inter tube and I have to put my hand on the small of her back to make her stop bouncing, she's so excited. "Calm down!" I scream with a laugh. She laughs with me, "Sorry! This is just really fun!"
"We haven't even started yet!"
"No, I meant this whole trip!" I shake my head and laugh again, and as Justin starts up the boat, and I wrap my arm around her waist, I catch a glimpse of Amber snapping a picture of us before my vision is blurred by sprays of lake water.
At 3, we head back to the dock and switch places with the adults and the babies, laying out on the beach and watching as they speed off in the boat. "I could get used to this," Venice says with a sigh as she leans on her elbows, moving a clump of her wet hair off her face. I smile, "I know. I love this place." Venice smiles and closes her eyes, and I watch as she basks in the sun's rays, water droplets dripping down her face.
After about a half an hour of sitting on the beach, Amber gets bored. "Let's explore!" she says, jumping up and pulling Grayson off her towel. "Explore?" Stacy asks, glancing at her quizzically. She takes her sunglasses from the top of her head and puts them on, "Explore
what?"
"The beach! There's usually some really cool stuff around here!" We all glance over at Amber, but eventually I shrug. Because really, what else do we have to do? "Might as well," I say, standing up and brushing sand off of my shorts. Amber claps her hands together and watches patiently as everyone else stands up. Then she turns on her heels and skips off into the distance, and we follow close behind.
Turns out Amber wasn't lying. At first, it seemed like all we would be seeing was mud, water, and trees. Eventually, though, we stumble across an old washed up boat, sitting on the shore. Amber takes a picture and Justin looks inside to see if there is anything interesting in it while Ryan pretends to be a sailor. There isn't anything inside. But it's still pretty cool to find. Then, after more wandering, we find a skeleton. As Amber takes pictures, we debate what it is from. After a while, we decide that it is most likely a sheep. How a sheep got there, we don't know, but it's definitely a sheep skeleton. By the time we arrive back at our towels, the adults are already on the beach, wondering where we have gone.
"So, did you kids have fun today?" Dad asks as we sit around the dinner table, talking loudly and passing around bowls of food. "Definitely!" Amber replies with a smile, "The lake was just the right temperature today. And I got some really cool pictures!" Stacy rolls her eyes, "Yea, you better have gotten some good ones, seeing as you made us stop whatever we were doing every five seconds so you could take a snapshot." Amber rolls her eyes back and continues talking to Dad about the day. "Do you wanna go for a walk with me?" I ask Venice quietly as she smiles at the family conversation and eats the steak Dad grilled on the barbecue. "Sure!" she replies with a smile.
It's cold out, so Venice and I both grab our jackets before we walk down the street, passing the quiet houses and listening to the crickets chirp. "What time are we leaving tomorrow?" Venice asks, looking up at the stars. "One o'clock. Gotta beat the traffic." Venice sighs, "So soon. I wish we could stay longer. It feels like summer again." I smile at her as she stares at the stars. "Yea. Well, we should probably head back now." She nods and looks down again, walking back to the house.
When we walk up to the house, we hear noise coming from the backyard and wander through the house to find the family sitting in the yard, laughing around a bonfire as they roast marshmallows. Venice claps her hands and laughs, "S'mores! Yum!" I laugh too and we both grab metal sticks, stabbing marshmallows on them and holding them over the fire until they're burnt perfectly.
Venice and I sit on our beds in the loft as I tell her about past experiences at the lake house, and she laughs and responds with stories she's reminded of from my stories. "Do you miss Britain?" she asks as we finally lay down to sleep on top of the covers, because the loft is so stuffy. I sigh, "Yea. But I love America, too." She nods, "Yea, I do too." With that, she nods off, her breathing slowing down as she stops talking. I glance over at her, laying on her bed, facing me, her hair sweeping over her shoulders and partially covering her face. I smile at her and lay on my back, closing my eyes and immediately finding sleep.
© 2010
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