Jessie learned to row.
Her boat wasn’t the fastest, and she wasn’t anywhere near the best rower on the team, but she held her own. She loved the feeling of pulling as one, the rhythm created when all eight crewmates worked together, gliding down the Raritan River at high speed, competing with other schools at the collegiate level. After her freshman year, Jessie’s love for rowing went from being a passion to an obsession, albeit a healthy one. Rowing got her in the best shape of her life (despite having to adjust to the bulky new muscles developed in parts of her body that were, traditionally, lean) and an awkward summer tan, bronze skin emphasizing the pale patches of the team uniform sunglasses and tank top, something she was keen on evening out. But the sunshine and exercise made her dark eyes dance with a vibrant energy, and her sun-bleached blonde hair smell like a mountain river.
Jessie stayed near school for the summer, moving into an apartment off campus she’d been talked into leasing with two other girls: Annie, one of her teammates, and her dorm roommate Blake, the first student she’d met in her new, pseudo-adult world.
Blake was a funny, whip-smart young woman who quickly became not only Jessie’s best friend, but the sister she’d never had.
Right up to the day she died.
“YOU GUYS ARE GONNA LOVE it.”
They’d been on the road over an hour, Jessie in the backseat with Blake, both of them on their phones, scrolling—Jessie through images on her crew team’s social media page, Blake the university’s job postings.
“Find anything?” Jessie asks.
Blake shakes her head, blows out a frustrated breath. “If I don’t find something the week we get back, I’m screwed.”
Jessie nods. She knows she’s fortunate to have a stipend from her parents, one that covers her rent and groceries, at least. But Blake is on her own. Beautiful and confident, most people assume Blake to be just another pampered, well-to-do college coed, when nothing could be further from the truth.
When Blake was sixteen, her parents were killed in a Los Angeles earthquake while away visiting family. Having had the terrible misfortune of being present for The Big One, the hotel they’d stayed at partially collapsed in the middle of the night, burying them beneath tons of concrete and steel. Blake once confided that she was sure her parents never knew what happened, that they never woke to the horror of the world disappearing beneath their feet, the walls falling away like a magic trick. Jessie doubted this was the case but left her friend with whatever small comfort she could find in the face of unfathomable tragedy. In Jessie’s mind, Blake’s mom and dad likely woke once the building started to shake, felt gravity pull them down, screamed while the floor cracked and gave way, devouring them like a mouth.
“I’ll help you look,” Jessie says. “I’ll need to get something, too. Unless I want to eat ramen every night and have no social life.”
“You guys okay back there?”
Both girls look up from their phones. “Fine,” Blake says cheerfully. “Thanks again for this.”
The driver, Brad, nods and smiles into the rearview mirror. Jessie catches the reflection of his grin, a shining row of too-white teeth. “No problem,” he says. “You guys will dig the place, I promise.”
Jessie stares at the back of Brad’s black-haired head for a moment, then shifts her eyes to the ballcap in the passenger seat. Tom.
It had been Tom who first approached them at the bar. His baseball cap turned backward in standard frat-boy fashion, his smile easy, relaxed by whatever alcohol he’d been putting down that evening. He wore Levi’s and a weathered flannel over a white tee-shirt. Jessie recalls wondering if all boys that age dressed the same way because they’d seen it in movies, or if it was just the “I don’t give a shit” comfort they wore like a badge of honor; a badge most young women didn’t have the luxury to own.
“You guys mind if me and my buddy join you?” he’d said, with just enough charm to keep himself in the game a few precious moments longer while Jessie and Blake eyed one another for an unspoken vote of ‘yay’ or ‘nay’.
Due more to Jessie’s recent breakup with her high school sweetheart, and Blake being easily bored, they’d agreed. Tom’s friend, Brad (who’d sauntered over, as if on cue), wore an intriguing combination of beige slacks and black T-shirt that showed off his obviously regular gym visits. Despite herself, Jessie couldn’t help staring at the cords of muscle in his arms, the taut chest, the dark hair and darker eyes.
Some wingman, she’d thought, almost giggling at the odd reversal of the usual bait-and-switch, when the handsome rogue runs vanguard before inviting over his goofball sidekick.
The four of them hung out most of that night, and it had been shockingly perfect. The boys weren’t gross, or weird. They kept their hands to themselves. They didn’t mansplain how to throw darts, or push for extra drinks, or do any of the other million things a guy does when he thinks he’s being subtle about trying to get a girl to sleep with him. They were … nice. By the end of the night, it was obvious to Jessie that Blake had taken an interest in Brad. And while that would normally be awkward, given that she had absolutely zero interest in Tom, it surprisingly hadn’t bothered her. Tom was so self-effacing (and borderline nerdy) that she found herself relaxed in his company, as if they’d been childhood friends instead of strangers.
When the bar shut down, they all exchanged numbers. A couple nights later, “the boys” (as Jessie had begun to think of them) called up and invited them to a Yankees game.
And so it went for the next few weeks of the summer. Nothing romantic, nothing dramatic. Every few nights they’d meet up and do something fun, silly, distracting. They became friends, and whatever amorous leanings Blake might have had toward Brad, or vice versa, was left to the side like a dessert brought to the table early, something sweet to think about during the meal.
Having settled in as friends, it hadn’t raised any red flags when Brad mentioned his place in the Catskills. Both girls thought no more of it than if he’d mentioned a matinee of the newest superhero film, or a concert in the park.
“It’s my family’s summer home,” he’d said. “A big property with trails to walk, one very quiet two-lane road, and a funky little town a few miles away where we can get a beer and pizza while people-watching the eccentric locals. It even has a private lake.”
When Jessie’d looked at him, wide-eyed with excitement, he nearly blushed. “Well, okay, more of a pond. But big enough to fish in, or swim in. Big enough to hike around, stuff like that. There’s even some wildlife. Deer, badgers … but no bears, I promise.”
“Yeah, the house is sick,” Tom added, half-listening and half-watching the Yankees game on the bar’s widescreen television. “Like, huge.”
“Wait, are you rich as shit and just now telling us?” Blake teased, and Brad blushed again. Jessie thought how strange—how endearing—that blush looked on his classically handsome, rugged features.
“Depends what you mean by rich. My dad’s a professor. Teaches bioanthropology to grad students. Mom’s an archeologist. Always flying off to some third world country to dig up a fossil or whatever. So yeah, they make okay money, but it’s my grandparents that were actually wealthy. They were into some weird stuff back in the day. Real esoteric shit. Anyway, yeah, the house is big, that’s true. But it’s not modern. It’s probably a hundred years old. Maybe more. The property’s been private for at least that long, and since it’s a few hundred acres ….”
Jessie sat up, slapped her hand on the table dotted with life preserver water rings from beers past. “A few hundred acres?”
“Well, yeah,” Brad said, ignoring Tom snickering beside him. “But I mean, it’s the Catskills, you guys. It’s the middle of nowhere. All that land is just … I don’t know … empty. Fields and hills. But my family bought it all up so no one develops it. The last thing my folks want is a McDonald’s to pop up on the old road, or some other eyesore they have to look at every day from their bedroom window.”
“It sounds amazing,” Blake had said, and Jessie agreed. She loved the idea of taking off for a few days. Hiking through long grass on a cool morning, drinking wine on a deck overlooking a small private lake.
At no point had she been worried.
At no point had she been afraid.
“So, you’re in?” Brad had said, flashing his movie-star smile. “Next week? You won’t need to bring a thing other than clothes, bathroom stuff, and a couple good books. We’ll buy groceries in town, and all the guest rooms have bedding, towels, you name it. It’s practically a hotel.”
And just like that, it was settled. Blake asked for a few days off from her part-time waitress gig, and both girls agreed to go.
At the time, Jessie had simply thought: Why not?
