The Golden Sister

When you think of a water rescue, you probably think of brave, muscular men (admit it: in your imagination, they’re men) pulling an exhausted, panting mess of a person out of the roiling sea, in the dark of night, while rain pelts down on them and lightning electrifies the swirling sky at ever-more-frequent intervals.

What you probably don’t think of is the middle of a placid, if somewhat murky, great lake in the middle of a gorgeous, sunny morning. But here we are. No more boat, too far to swim back to shore – I can’t even see the shore – so Coast Guard rescue it is.

My biggest concern right now is the god-awful sunburn I’m bound to incur under this gleaming, cloudless sky. That and boredom. I’m wearing a life jacket even though Carrie mocked me relentlessly when I began packing myself into it. “We were practically raised out on the lake!” she laughed.

She was right, as always. Now I don’t even have treading water to busy myself with.

Occasionally, a light breeze blows, creating tiny waves that remind me of meringue that's just starting to stiffen.

“Remember when we used to make angel food cake with Aunt Chrissy?” Carrie asks. Even without a life jacket, she makes keeping her head above water look effortless.

Growing up, Carrie used to take such glee in her ability to guess what I was thinking. I, on the other hand, found it quite disquieting – even more so now.

“Yeah,” I reply. “I’d help her the whole time, get my hands all gross and slimy cracking all those eggs and then sit there with the mixer for ages while you’d watch TV in the living room. But you’d always swoop in and help for the last, like, two minutes and somehow you were the one who got to lick the bowl.”

That’s pretty representative of the dynamic between us since the day Carrie was born – exactly two years and one day after me.

One of my birthdays, I can’t remember which, after the cake was devoured and my last present opened, my dad made the mistake of saying, “Well, that was a lovely preview of coming attractions. It’ll be your day tomorrow, Carrie.”

My mortified mom quickly shushed him, but it was too late. Oh, Mom. As if I didn’t already know that I was the trailer you sit through while you make sure your phone is silenced and Carrie was the feature film, the reason you’d packed your pockets full of Reese’s Pieces and schlepped all the way to the movie theater in the first place.

Carrie was the generous one, always wanting to put a dollar bill in the street musician’s case when we went into the city.

Carrie was the kind one, volunteering at the animal shelter and leading our high school Service Club’s most successful coat drive ever. She was also the smart one, the funny one and, naturally, the pretty one.

It’s bad enough when it’s an illustrious older sibling who goes before you, paving a path that you’re bound to trip and fall on. Now imagine that the person in whose shadow you’re doomed to dwell is, in fact, your pesky little sister.

It would be unfair to say it was entirely Carrie’s fault. But I think there may have been a part of her, deep down, that knew the world smiled upon her when it could barely spare a thought for me. It’s because of this that I’d always kept her at a distance.

So Carrie was understandably surprised when I called her this morning to invite her on this boat trip.

“Mom and Dad didn’t say anything about taking the boat out this weekend,” she said. She sounded chipper, like she’d been up for hours, even though it was only 7:30 in the morning. It had been a while since we’d lived together, so I didn’t actually know her routine, but I imagined she got up at dawn every morning to do yoga or Pilates to maintain her lithe figure.

Or not. She probably didn’t have to do anything to maintain her lithe figure. For all I knew, she ate a family-sized bag of Lay’s a day.

“I know,” I said. “I thought it could be just me and you.”

If I thought she sounded chipper before, she sounded downright manic when she replied, “Really? That’s awesome. I can be ready in half an hour.”

When I pulled into the driveway of her adorable cottage, complete with a front garden that was somehow both whimsical and meticulously organized, Carrie came bounding down the front stairs like a little kid instead of the 27-year-old she was. She was wearing a green polka-dotted two-piece with a white chiffon cover-up, along with a wide-brimmed hat and big sunglasses. She looked like she belonged on the cover of a tourism brochure, like she’d been planning her outfit for weeks instead of 30 minutes.

I’d deliberately planned to be there before her boyfriend, Jake, was likely to be awake. I’d had a massive crush on him during college – did I mention Carrie decided to go to the same college as me? This is one of the things that made me wonder if she secretly basked in her status as The Golden Sister – so it was always awkward whenever we met up.

Awkward for me, that is. As far as Jake is concerned, the day he met me is the day Carrie introduced him to me as her new boyfriend. Even though we’d been in three classes together and even partnered up in physics lab a couple of times.

“Hey, remember that physics professor? Dr. Mogadore? He was so weird, wasn’t he?”

Once again, Carrie’s voice breaks through my thoughts, and once again, she’s remarkably on-subject. Of course I remember Dr. Mogadore. Even though he wasn’t much older than his students, he was an excellent professor. So excellent that I asked him to be my advisor for my senior thesis.

“He wasn’t so weird that you didn’t date him after you were done with his class,” I say. Of course she waited to turn her charms on him until after she had earned an A in his class, fair and square. And of course they had broken up – amicably (of course) – well before she started dating Jake.

“Touché,” she says. “I couldn’t resist. He was kind of cute, in a nerdy way.”

I believe I’d uttered those words exactly when I told Carrie I’d asked him to be my thesis advisor.

“But I didn’t know you knew about that,” Carrie says.

It’s probably been at least 30 minutes since I called for help, and still, she doesn’t look the least bit bedraggled.

“I came across the texts between you two when you were home for spring break your junior year, when I mistook your phone for mine one time.”

Whose phone is whose is a moot point now, since both have likely made their way to the bottom of the lake by this point, along with the small fishing boat my dad bought from his old co-worker 10 years ago. Other than Carrie, that boat was his pride and joy.

I wonder what the fish make of it all.

Finally, amid the glint and glimmer of the steely gray water, I see an object in the distance. For a moment, I wonder if it’s just my sun-addled mind playing tricks on me. But as it grows closer, I see that it’s the Coast Guard.

As expected, this is not the daring, suspenseful water rescue you see in the movies. Once the occupants make certain that no one is actively drowning, the boat slowly maneuvers so I’m facing its starboard side. A woman in a navy t-shirt and navy pants, who seems more interested in blowing bubbles with her gum than in getting out the hustle to pull stranded boaters out of the lake, retrieves a ladder from somewhere on the deck and tosses it over the side.

She redeems herself slightly by leaning over the railing as I’m climbing and reaching down a hand to help pull me up the rest of the way.

“I assume you’re the one who radioed for help?” she asks.

I nod in response, as much out of an exhaustion I didn’t even realize I felt until now as to avoid making some kind of sarcastic remark like, No, I just happened to be hanging out here in the middle of the lake. Fancy you should stop by.

“Are you injured?” she asks, unfolding a thin white towel and draping it over my shoulders.

“No, just a little bit shook up.”

“So what happened?” the woman asks.

“I think I must have scraped against some driftwood or something and didn’t realize the boat was taking on water until I got out here. I had just enough time to radio you guys for help and get my life jacket on before it sank.”

“So it’s just you out here?” she asks.

“This is fun. We should do this kind of thing more often.”

“I agree. Want to go for a swim?”

“Sure, but I don’t want to get my hair wet.” … “No, don’t dunk me! I told you I want my hair to stay dry.” … “Callie, what are you — ? Stop! Please!” … “Please! No!” … “Cal...”

She puts up a respectable fight. I’d expect nothing less from The Golden Sister. But I’m heavier – of course – and have the element of surprise in my favor.

Soon, stillness.

My calculations are correct, and the boat soon begins its final descent into the gray thanks to the seacock being loosened overnight.

I wait until the boat is almost completely submerged before climbing back on to radio for help. Then, more waiting under the smooth blue of the sky as the rescuers make their way across the lake.

I nod. “Yeah. It’s just me,” I say, pulling the towel tighter around my shoulders like a shroud.