Page 6 of The House Across the Lake

“That’s great,” Katherine says, her smile as bright as a sunbeam. “I feel bad about almost ruining that by, you know, drowning.”

“If it’s any consolation, it made for one hell of a first impression.”

She laughs. Thank God. My sense of humor has been described as dry by some, cruel by others. I prefer to think of it as an acquired taste, similar to the olive at the bottom of a martini. You either like it or you don’t.

Katherine seems to like it. Still smiling, she says, “The thing is, I don’t even know how it happened. I’m an excellent swimmer. I know it doesn’t look that way right now, but it’s true, I swear. I guess the water was colder than I thought, and I cramped up.”

“It’s the middle of October. The lake is freezing this time of year.”

“Oh, I love swimming in the cold. Every New Year’s Day, I do the Polar Plunge.”

I nod. Of course she does.

“It’s for charity,” Katherine adds.

I nod again. Of course it is.

I must make a face, because Katherine says, “I’m sorry. That all sounded like a brag, didn’t it?”

“A little,” I admit.

“Ugh. I don’t mean to do it. It just happens. It’s like the opposite of a humblebrag. There should be a word for when you accidentally make yourself sound better than you truly are.”

“A bumblebrag?” I suggest.

“Ooh, I like that,” Katherine coos. “That’s what I am, Casey. An irredeemable bumblebragger.”

My gut instinct is to dislike Katherine Royce. She’s the kind of woman who seems to exist solely to make the rest of us feel inferior. Yet I’m charmed by her. Maybe it’s the strange situation we’re in—the rescued and the rescuer, sitting in a boat on a beautiful autumn afternoon. It’s got a surrealLittle Mermaidvibe to it. Like I’m a prince transfixed by a siren I’ve just plucked from the sea.

There doesn’t seem to be anything fake about Katherine. She’s beautiful, yes, but in a down-to-earth way. More girl-next-door than intimidating bombshell. BettyandVeronica sporting a self-deprecating smile. It served her well during her modeling days. In a world where resting bitch face is the norm, Katherine stood out.

I first became aware of her seven years ago, when I was doing a Broadway play in a theater on 46th Street. Just down the block, in the heart of Times Square, was a giant billboard of Katherine in a wedding dress. Despite the gown, the flowers, the sun-kissed skin, she was no blushing bride. Instead, she was on the run—kicking off her heels and sprinting through emerald green grass as her jilted fiancé and stunned wedding party watched helplessly in the background.

I didn’t know if the ad was for perfume or wedding dresses or vodka. I really didn’t care. What I focused on every time I spotted the billboard was the look on the woman’s face. With her eyes crinkling and her smile wide, she seemed elated, relieved, surprised. A woman overjoyed to be dismantling her entire existence in one fell swoop.

I related to that look.

I still do.

Only after the play closed and I continued seeing the woman’s picture everywhere did I match a name with the face.

Katherine Daniels.

The magazines called her Katie. The designers who made her their muse called her Kat. She walked runways for Yves Saint Laurent andfrolicked on the beach for Calvin Klein and rolled around on silk sheets for Victoria’s Secret.

Then she got married to Thomas Royce, the founder and CEO of a social media company, and the modeling stopped. I remember seeing their wedding photo inPeoplemagazine and being surprised by it. I expected Katherine to look the way she did on that billboard. Freedom personified. Instead, sewn into a Vera Wang gown and clutching her husband’s arm, she sported a smile so clenched I almost didn’t recognize her.

Now she’s here, in my boat, grinning freely, and I feel a weird sense of relief that the woman from that billboard hadn’t vanished entirely.

“Can I ask you a very personal, very nosy question?” I say.

“You just saved my life,” Katherine says. “I’d be a real bitch if I said no right now, don’t you think?”

“It’s about your modeling days.”

Katherine stops me with a raised hand. “You want to know why I quit.”

“Kind of,” I say, adding a guilty shrug. I feel bad about being obvious, not to mention basic. I could have asked her a thousand other things but instead posed the question she clearly gets the most.

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