Summer Breeze by Nancy Thayer

plump wrist, the fat fist, the straight handle and curved bowl of the spoon.
    She worked swiftly, but still, two hours had passed when she finally stopped, discovering the nape of her neck and the back of her knees moist with sweat. It remained cool in the mornings so she didn’t need the air conditioner and she didn’t want to use mechanical air if she didn’t have to, but by noon the heat had intensified, and even in her shorts and tank top she was uncomfortably warm. She had to take a break. She wasn’t hungry for lunch yet. She needed to move . As she went through the house, opening all the windows wider, hoping a breeze would sweep through, she caught sight of the lake, glistening in an inviting span of blue.
    She didn’t possess a bathing suit. It had been years since she’d gone swimming. She wasn’t a very strong swimmer, anyway, but right now every molecule in her body wanted to immerse in that cool water. She stepped out of the kitchen onto the deck and looked around. After the still closeness of her studio, the world blossomed around her, an explosion of warmth, fragrance, birdsong, and light. She took a quick peek toward Bella’s house. Bella was at the shop today, she knew, but was Louise out on the deck? No. Good. Sometimes—well, probably more than was good for her—Natalie craved solitude. When she’d been painting, she needed time to emerge from her solitary state and rejoin the normal world. Walking to the end of the deck, she peered around at the O’Keefes’ house. Both cars, Josh’s Cadillac and Morgan’s Toyota SUV, were gone.
    Lovely . The lake was empty, except for someone in a canoe in the distance. It was, after all, a weekday, when most people were at work.
    So no one would see her, and she couldn’t wait any longer. She hurried down to her beach, kicked off her sandals, and waded into the lake in her shorts and tank top. The water temperature was heavenly, warm at the top from the touch of the sun, with a teasing coolness the deeper and farther out she walked. She couldn’t resist. It was so inviting, especially after two hours of intense mental concentration. She threw herself into the water and began to swim in her own pathetic uncoordinated way.
    After a while, she flipped over on her back and floated, letting her arms drift out to the side, kicking her feet a bit, soaking in thehealing power of the warm sun on her face and the cool water supporting her back. Each finger drooped downward as the water caressed it, and her neck, stiff from working, loosened as her head fell back, her chin lifting toward the sky. Ripples of water combed the curls of her hair with delicate swirls. Oh, this was bliss.
    She didn’t think. She couldn’t think. Finally, after all the months of worrying about the move to the lake, and packing up the New York apartment and saying good-bye and making the trip, after wondering if she were just a phony with no talent who would find at the end of the year all she’d done was nothing worthwhile, after worrying that she’d meet only people who carried rifles and ate deer, rabbits, or bears (which was pretty much like the neighborhood she’d grown up in), after all that, and after deciding to do the still life and setting up the silver with apples and working on it, working on it and getting twisted in the gut with the instinctive suspicion that it wasn’t right and nothing she could do could fix it, after waking up in the middle of the night and stalking into her studio and inspecting the still life and realizing it really was awful, after seeing Petey on the beach and getting that massive hit of urgency, that need to paint him as he was at that moment—after all that, suddenly she was relaxing.
    Because she knew her sketch was good. It was going to be extraordinary.
    Flipping her feet lightly, she let herself be carried by the water. By the universe. She was eased to the point of sleep, eyes closed, heart slowed, tension melting out of her muscles into