“I’ve got your clothes,” Dawn said, snapping me out of this and making me realize I was still staring at Frank’s bare chest.

“Right,” I said, suddenly feeling very warm, despite the fact the water had been cold and I’d been shivering a few minutes ago. We headed up to the deck, where Collins was now standing, a mug in his hand and a satisfied smile on his face.

“I’m going to kill you,” Frank told him matter-of-factly.

“Oh, come on. Admit it, that was much more fun,” Collins said. “The real skinny-dipping experience. You’re all welcome. Now, who wants hot chocolate?”

By the time I pulled into my driveway, it was almost light out. Frank had found clothes for me, since I really didn’t want to attempt to get back into a formal dress after an ocean swim—a soft pair of gray sweatpants, and the academic decathlon shirt he’d worn the first day we’d gone running together. We ended up just sitting around Frank’s kitchen island, drinking the hot chocolate Collins had made, and then finally just eating all the marshmallows, until it was almost five. Then Dawn and I headed home, Collins crashed on Frank’s couch, and Frank waved good night to us from his doorway.

I killed the engine and caught my reflection in the rearview mirror. My hair was in tangles, and the wedding makeup I’d worn was half washed off, half smeared under my eyes. But my cheeks were flushed and even though I looked like a mess, I looked happy. I looked like someone who’d had a night, and had a story to tell about it. Which was, I realized as I collected my dress and heels in my arms and made my way, yawning, to the front door in the cool early light, exactly what had happened.

13

THE BACKLESS DRESS. AND SOMEWHERE TO WEAR IT

“Hello?” I answered my phone without opening my eyes. It was two days after we’d gone skinny-dipping, and far too early to be awake if I wasn’t going to be out running.  And since Frank had gone camping with Collins, I wasn’t running—which meant I should still be sleeping.

“Morning,” Frank said, far too cheerful in the morning as usual, and I rolled onto my side, eyes still closed, holding my phone up to my ear.

“Hey,” I said, smiling. “How’s the camping trip?”

“Uh,” Frank said. “Have you looked outside yet?” I suddenly became aware of a steady, rhythmic sound hitting the window and roof. I opened my eyes and pushed my bedroom curtains aside. The sky was gray and there was rain beating down against my window.

“Oh,” I said, leaning back against my pillows. “So I take it the camping trip is off?” I asked.

“Off,” Frank confirmed. “And Collins is really upset about it, for some reason.”

“Well,” I said, glancing out to the rain again. Even if they put it off for a day, I had a feeling the ground might be too wet to camp successfully. “Maybe you guys can reschedule?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” he said, and even though I couldn’t see him, I was pretty sure he was smiling. “Are you busy tonight?”

“No,” I said slowly, not sure what I would be letting myself in for by admitting this. “Why?”

“I’m going to text you an address,” he said. “And see if Dawn’s free too.”

“Okay,” I said, and waited for some more information, but apparently none was going to be forthcoming. “What is this?” I finally asked.

“You’ll see,” he said, and he was definitely smiling now, I was sure of it. “Be there at nine. And you might want to bring a sleeping bag.”

“You’re sleeping over at Dawn’s again?” my mother asked, blinking at me. She and my father both had the bleary-eyed look of people who had spent too much time in front of their computer screens.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to tell myself that this was only a slight tweaking of the facts. I still didn’t even know what Frank had invited me to, but like the night of the wedding and skinny-dipping, I knew that telling my mother I had a sleepover would at least buy me a late night out, no questions asked. Or so I had thought. “Is that okay?”

“Fine with me,” my dad said, pushing his glasses up on top of his head and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Just make sure you have her over here too, to thank her. Okay?”

I nodded, thrilled that this had been so easy. “Sure,” I said. “Great.”

I started to go when I realized my mother was still looking at me, her head tilted slightly to the side. “When’s Sloane back, Em?”

“Oh,” I said, surprised by the question. “I—I’m not exactly sure.”

“Sloane,” my dad said, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head. “Is she doing okay?”

I looked at him, completely confused by this. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

“She just always seemed a little . . . lost to me,” he said. I was about to take a breath, try and refute this, since it was the opposite of everything I’d ever thought about her, but my dad was putting his glasses back on and squinting at the computer. “Do we really have to have the death scene with the pigeon?” he asked with a sigh.

“You know we do,” my mother said, shaking her head and leaning closer to her own monitor. “I’m as happy about it as you are.”

Normally, I stayed out of my parents’ writing process. They either told me far more than I wanted to know, or got defensive if I asked the simplest questions. But I was not about to let this one slide. “Pigeon?”

My dad was already typing with one hand, and used the other one to point at my mom. “As Tesla was dying,” she started.

“In a hotel room,” my dad interrupted. “Can you think of anything sadder?”

My mom went on. “As he was dying, he kept telling people that he was in love with a pigeon outside his window.”

I just stared at them. “A pigeon.”

She nodded. “He said it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. That it could see into his soul. That it was special.” She started to type again as well, and I knew that I could go now, having secured my permission to go, and that my parents were a few seconds away from not even being able to tell if I was still in the room. But I didn’t think I could leave it like that. “And?” I asked. “Was it? Special, I mean?”

My mother glanced over at me and gave me a sad smile. “No,” she said. “It was just a pigeon.” They both started typing again, their keyboards making a kind of music together. I listened for just a moment before I backed out of the dining room and closed the door quietly behind me.

“Any idea what this is about?” Dawn asked me as we both got out of our cars and walked toward the front door. I had a sleeping bag rolled under my arm, and I saw that Dawn did as well—and that she’d also been smart enough to bring along a pillow, which I now realized I’d forgotten. It had stopped raining an hour or so before, but everything was still chilly and damp, and there was the feeling in the air like the rain could start up again at any moment.

“None,” I said. Frank had texted me an address that hadn’t meant anything to me, but as soon as I’d pulled into the driveway, I’d recognized it. It was the spec house, the one that was sitting empty, the one we’d passed while running.

Frank pulled open the door before we’d even had the chance to knock, and stood on the threshold, smiling at us. “Hey,” he said, holding the door open. “Welcome to indoor camping.”

“Indoor what?” Dawn asked as we stepped inside. I immediately took off my flip-flops and put them next to Frank and Collins’s shoes, and Dawn followed my lead. The walls of the foyer were bright white and the wooden floors were pristine, and the last thing I wanted to do was to track mud all over the place.

“Indoor camping,” Frank repeated. He gave me a look. “Someone once told me that in a well-ordered universe it’s the only way to camp.” He smiled and then led us into the main room, and I saw what he meant. The room—the whole house—was totally empty, no furniture anywhere, not a single decoration or knickknack cluttering up the place. Except, that is, for two round camping tents that had been erected in the middle of the room. There was an entire camp set up in the empty room, including folding chairs and a Coleman lantern. “It seemed like the next best thing.”