The Great Offshore Grounds

by Vanessa Veselka

  “I’m having sweet-and-sour chicken. You can have some of that.”

  “Chicken candy doughnut,” she said.

  Essex smiled. “That’s about right.”

  Cheyenne glanced sheepishly at the napkin dispenser. “I didn’t make it up. A friend did.”

  “See what I mean? You aren’t a liar. You don’t take credit that isn’t yours. What the hell are you doing?”

  The server came. They ordered. Essex was quiet for a minute; he put his finger on the center of his knife and spun it like a dial.

  “Kirsten said you had her car,” he said.

  “I got caught in a tornado in Texas and had to pull the plates and leave it. The whole thing was,” her mouth twitched, “wild. Mostly in a bad way but also in a now-you-know-your-universal-address way.”

  She looked out the window. Her eyes were shining but on closer examination Essex realized it wasn’t tears, only a reflection of passing taillights from a car in the parking lot.

  “You don’t have to worry about it. I bought Kirsten a car when I went back.”

  She couldn’t imagine him buying someone a car.

  “She gave me the title in case you needed to sell the Toyota,” he said. “Obviously not applicable.”

  “How was she? When you saw her.”

  Essex shrugged. “Seemed fine. She thought she was getting the flu but she wasn’t super down about anything. She said she’s only gotten a postcard from you.”

  The server brought egg drop soup and lukewarm jasmine tea.

  Cheyenne watched a new car pull into the parking lot, dump trash in the restaurant dumpster, and leave.

  “What’s it like being a marine?” she asked.

  “I’ll tell you when I feel like one.” Essex poured tea into the plastic cups.

  Cheyenne jittered her legs under the table.

  “What do you think of Justine?” she asked. “You should read her letters. She’s awake in a way most people aren’t. She really doesn’t give a fuck what other people think.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “Of course it’s a good thing.”

  Essex was no longer sure that was true.

  “I wanted to talk in case we don’t get to talk later,” he said. “We should both be realistic about what might happen. I know you would feel like shit if I died and our last conversation was you being an asshole to me so I decided to come here and save you from yourself.”

  “I go into silent retreat in a few days. Justine says silent retreats were the place she really learned not to care about everyone’s opinions.”

  Essex rolled his eyes.

  “What?” she said.

  “It’s just hard to imagine you in a silent retreat.”

  “Well I am. For a month. There’s a smaller yurt not far from Justine’s. I go there, they bring me food, and I come for dhamma talks.”

  “I kind of like to think of you in a shed out back not talking.” He smiled and she made a grossed-out face.

  “Marry me,” said Essex.

  She laughed.

  “I’m not joking. Put everything I’ve ever said about us aside. This isn’t that. This is about money and security. Someone should have the benefits I have now. There’s health care, there’s everything. If you marry me, you get it. They’ll take care of you.”

  “You have to be kidding.”

  Essex shook his head.

  “You should ask Livy.”

  “I did,” said Essex. “Apparently even a fake heterosexual marriage is unbearable.”

  “Well, finally we know what wins the war between cheap and gay,” said Cheyenne.

  “She said she’d rather peel her own eyeballs. Look, for real. They have all sorts of things you can get.” He opened his mouth and pointed to a molar. “I got a crown and they didn’t charge me a thing.”

  “My teeth are fine.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Jackson had dental insurance.”

  “That was, what, five years ago?” he said.

  “Teeth don’t go bad after you’re a kid.”

  “Did you make that up? Please. This is a chance for at least two of us to have something. If you get sick, you’ll be taken care of, and if I get killed—”

  “Spare me the drama.”

  “If I get killed at least it’s something. There’d be money for you.”

  “Livy really said no?”

  Their food came and the subject of marriage was dropped. Several times he caught her staring at him. When he didn’t think she saw him, he glanced at his watch and the clock on the wall. The simple thought of Essex having to be somewhere on someone else’s schedule was eerie. She was seeing someone else in her brother’s body. The alarm went off. Wake up! Like Kirsten with a job, like Livy refusing to talk to her, like Justine having no real relation to Cheyenne at all—something is wrong, something’s wrong, something is terribly wrong.

  The waiter cleared the plates and brought fortune cookies with the bill.

  Essex slid a couple of twenty-dollar bills to the edge of the table.

  “All they need is a driver’s license and something with your social security number on it. Tax returns, W-2s, anything,” he said.

  “I lost my social security card years ago. I’d never get a replacement in time.”

  Essex laid his hand on her wrist. “Life is about choices, Cheyenne,” he said in his best psyche-nurse voice. “You can actually choose to shut up any time you want. You don’t have to wait on anybody else.”

  She pushed his hand away. “I’d have to talk it over with Justine,” she said.

  “If you have to, but I may not be here in a month.”

  “What’s it like taking orders?”

  “Honestly I don’t mind letting someone decide things for me for a while.”

  “That’s pathetic.”

  “You’re the one who thinks you have to ask permission to marry.”

  “Advice isn’t the same as permission.”

  “I’m just saying. I’m tired. You must be too. Marry me. Take the benefits. Use everything you can. They’re just going to sit there if you don’t.”

  Cheyenne considered. “How long would it take—if I did have proof of my social?”

  “Instant. We go to the Jacksonville courthouse, one day. I file all the papers with the corps the next. Done.”

  She nodded. “Hand me your phone.”

  Cheyenne dialed Kirsten’s number. She hadn’t spoken to her since she’d driven away six weeks earlier.

  Kirsten answered. “Essex?”

  “No, it’s me,” said Cheyenne.

  Kirsten cleared the gravel from her throat. “Are you with Essex?”

  “Yes, but we’re in a restaurant so I can’t talk long. I need you to look for something. You know those collection notices I get? The ones for my student loans? They’re usually yellow or bright pink. I need you to send me one of those notices. You’ll have to overnight it.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s just paperwork.”

  Kirsten started to say something but Cheyenne cut her off.

  “I’m in a restaurant. I’ll call again soon.”

  51 Everything You Do

  KIRSTEN OVERNIGHTED the paperwork to Essex. After, she changed her sheets and cleaned out the fridge, which had several things rotting in it because she didn’t eat like she used to. A call came in but it was from an unknown number so she let it go to voice mail. It was many hours before she remembered to check the message.

  She set the phone on the kitchen counter and played the message on speaker while she sorted the bills. Sarah’s voice filled the room. It was soft, shaking, and relentless. Kirsten put the bills down and watched the phone while Sarah spoke. When it was done, she picked it u
p slowly and hit Play again. She held it to her ear like a conch shell but there was no ocean, only the quiet static of a bad connection cut through by Sarah’s voice. Halfway through the message she called the number back but it went to voice mail. She hung up and called again. On the third time she left a message. She had no idea what she said. When she was done she set the phone facedown on the counter. She never wanted to touch it or turn it over again. She stepped back and looked around the room.

  Every fucking thing you do. Every fucking thing you teach. Every candle lit for the safe passage of girlhood through this world—and what’s the fucking point? If none of it was ever going to matter, what’s the fucking point? Kirsten kicked over the coffee table and trashed the living room like a rock star. She smashed one plate after another in the kitchen. She called a friend in the coven to practice saying it. She howled until she could say it then said it until she could whisper it, Some asshole raped my daughter, some asshole raped my daughter, my beautiful little girl.

  52 The Neva

  THE SECOND NIGHT the Neva was in port sailors from the other watch filled the apartment. They were just as chatty as the starboard watch had been but drunker. This time Sarah got drunk with them and Livy drank too. She watched Sarah move around the room, aware that every time Sarah looked at her, she was already looking at Sarah. By 1:00 a.m. Livy was solidly drunk like everyone else. Sarah invited her to stay in her bedroom again.

  “You can sleep on the mattress and I can sleep on the floor if you want,” she said.

  “That’s ridiculous, it’s your bed. Are you leaving? With them when they go? You said they were your ride.”

  Sarah shook her head. “We’re going to meet up somewhere down south. I have things to tie up here first.”

  Livy nodded. “I know him.”

  “You know who?”

  Livy crossed to a wall where a list of names appeared on butcher paper.

  “I know him.” She tapped the fourth name down. “He’s an asshole. He’s married to a teenager—well she’s probably not technically a teenager—he’s rich and prefers Tibetans.”

  Sarah gaped. “How? Do you have his address?”

  Livy laughed. Sarah’s cheeks flushed. A patch of red blossomed across her collarbone and her lips turned faintly purple. Livy dropped her hand from the paper.

  “What?” said Sarah.

  “What you look like when you’re really excited. It’s how I thought you would look.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “I’m drunk, never mind,” said Livy. “This name—” She rubbed it a little hard putting a tear in the paper. “This name, Cyril. I know him. You don’t need to know him. He won’t help you do anything. He’s just the classic Allfather with too much power and— Hold on. Make fun of you? You’re beautiful and smart and—why would I ever make fun of you? I wouldn’t. Not for anything.”

  The room spun slightly. Livy turned back to the wall.

  “A jerk of sky-god proportions who lives in Singapore and has no daughters.” She slapped the name Cyril.

  Sarah looked confused.

  “Don’t worry. Never mind. I’m just talking trash,” said Livy.

  Sarah came close, so close that Livy knew if she closed her eyes she would still know exactly where every part of Sarah’s body was.

  Livy leaned back against the wall pulling Sarah with her and kissed her, but right when it was getting good Livy started crying.

  “Fuck. I’m drunk. It’s not you. Sorry. Kiss me again,” said Livy.

  “I have to tell you something,” said Sarah.

  “I don’t want to know anything.”

  She put her hands lightly on Sarah’s shoulders.

  “It’s important. I did something bad. I thought it was good but it was bad.”

  “Nope,” said Livy, shaking her head. “I still don’t want to know.”

  “I called your mother.”

  Livy became still. All the small movements of her body, the swaying and shifting stopped. There was only her breath.

  “I should have told you,” said Sarah.

  Livy lifted her hands from Sarah’s shoulders and lowered her arms.

  “I pulled her number from the emergency contact sheet at the center and called.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “You weren’t going to do anything about the captain. I’m leaving and I don’t want to be the only one who knows what’s going on with you.”

  Livy moved off the wall and sat down where she’d slept the night before.

  She couldn’t think of Kirsten. She hadn’t been able to for weeks. Because when she did think of her, Livy was little again, afraid of trees at night, afraid of being reincarnated as a mouse and not seeing the owl, all those strange untranslatable fears from the dawn of memory.

  “I need to sleep,” she said.

  Livy crawled under a blanket. Sarah lay down on the mattress and blew out the candle. The room was dark and silent but for breath and rain.

  * * *

  —

  The next morning Livy found Marne on the docks. They had spoken several times on the night Marne had stayed at Sarah’s and Livy was pretty sure if any of the sailors were in charge of anything, it was her.

  “I need to leave Juneau,” Livy told her. “I have experience at sea. Do you have a job?”

  Marne said nothing.

  “I’m good at knots,” said Livy.

  “Round turn and two half hitches is all I’d let you do—and anyone can do that,” said Marne.

  “I don’t really care what you make me do.”

  Marne shrugged and took her below to meet the captain. An hour later Livy had signed papers waiving all liability and was assigned a canvas seabag with a number on it and a hammock inside.

  “You’re going to need a rig.” Marne tapped the knife and marlinspike on her belt.

  “I lost my marlinspike.”

  “I’ve got an extra. I’ll make you a knife when we’re under way. Just find a belt.”

  “What kind of gloves do I need?”

  Marne smiled. “We don’t use gloves.”

  * * *

  —

  Livy spent her last afternoon in Juneau walking around downtown looking at jewelry in windows. Even the smallest pendants were more money than she had. After a while, she found herself in the makeup aisle of a drugstore staring at gaudy necklaces.

  On a plastic arm between necklaces with saucer-sized peace signs or dollar bills or bells, she saw a charm bracelet with three charms, one of which was a captain’s wheel. She slipped the bracelet off the rack and dropped it into her inside pocket.

  At a coffee shop she took the bracelet apart, then used a pen to work open the stitches in her pocket and fish out the necklace she’d stashed there. She slipped the jade pendant off Cheyenne’s necklace and replaced it with the captain’s wheel. Whatever she left Sarah, she wanted it to come from her alone. Or at least as much as possible. She put Cheyenne’s jade pendant in her coat lining. Taking a flier from the wall that advertised a show long over, she wrote Sarah a letter on the back in case she didn’t see her before she left. She thanked her and apologized. Then she folded it around the necklace with the captain’s wheel and borrowed tape from the barista to seal it shut. Sarah was home when she got there, though, so when she wasn’t looking, Livy left the envelope in the key drawer.

  Sarah wasn’t surprised when Livy told her she was leaving.

  “I have a belt. It’s leather. You can have it,” she said. “I got it for free. It has a buckle with a Big Dipper stamped into it but I guess that doesn’t matter.”

  Livy put the belt on but pulled her shirt down over it.

  They stood on the porch.

  “My mom would like you,” said Livy.

  “She left me a message saying I should
be banned from ever working in a domestic violence shelter.”

  “You should.”

  “And that she was going to call and get me blacklisted.”

  “She will,” said Livy.

  “She did. Yesterday.”

  Livy smiled. “How did she sound?”

  “Angry. It was just a message. I didn’t call back.”

  Sarah crossed her arms and shivered. She’d stepped out onto the porch without her jacket.

  “She thanked me too,” she said.

  “That also sounds like her.”

  Sarah fixed her eyes on the rain glinting under the streetlamp. She forced a smile. “I’d like to stay in touch.”

  Livy stepped into the field of Sarah’s radiant body heat, kissed her, and stepped back.

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” she said and left.

  The Neva got under way the following morning. They took up the shore power and water. The dock lines were singled and taken, fenders pulled and stowed; they motored out into the current.

  53 Jacksonville

  THE STUDENT LOAN collection notice that Kirsten had overnighted to Cheyenne was hot pink and written in ALL CAPS using whatever font they use on drunk-driving billboards.

  “That is your paperwork with your social security number on it?” said Essex when he picked her up.

  Cheyenne laughed out loud. The idea that this might be the piece of paper that would finally serve as her ticket into the lower-middle-class lifestyle was too much. Or it was perfect. She couldn’t tell.

  “I got rings,” he said and dug two plain bands from his pocket. “I got silver so they wouldn’t look like wedding rings unless we were together. They’re real sterling.” He handed her one. “See if it fits. I got a third one, too, that’s a little bigger if it doesn’t.”

  She put it on and held out her hand.

  He smiled. “You like it.”

  “Yeah, they’re pretty. If I was going to have a wedding ring, I’d like one like this.”

  But of course she’d had a wedding ring and it wasn’t like this, so that was a dead end.

  She took it off and handed it back.