The Great Offshore Grounds

by Vanessa Veselka

  Once out of the bank, Livy tried to call her mother but was sent to voice mail. She texted, Turn your ringer on. Kirsten texted back a picture of the apartment’s courtyard, its lake-like puddles, its defunct fountain clotted with rotting leaves. Cheyenne’s coming tomorrow, wrote Kirsten. I’ll be home soon, Livy wrote. Follow your heart, wrote Kirsten. But Livy couldn’t.

  Wandering back to the appointed meeting place several hours later, she tried to run the options in her head and found none. She felt Raleigh behind her and turned but it was only a day trader, or someone dressed like one—respectfully sketchy with a racing heartbeat—well maybe she was a day trader too.

  When she got to the bar, Sarah and Marne were at a table in the corner, already drunk.

  Sarah had her elbows on the table and was holding her head.

  “Two years,” she said. “I wasted two years of my life.”

  “What happened?”

  “We shouldn’t talk about it,” said Marne.

  “I don’t care.” Sarah threw her head back. “Arrest me. Maybe I’ll meet some real activists in jail.”

  It took Livy a few minutes to get the full story. The exploratory well was not where it was supposed to be, and they could not get to where it was.

  “Why can’t you try again another time?” said Livy.

  “The coalition blew up,” said Sarah. “Half the crew that was going to do the work left.”

  “People got spooked because the information was bad,” said Marne.

  Sarah pushed the last of her scotch toward Livy, who drank it and tried to flag a waiter.

  Sarah grabbed her wrist. “It was so fucking simple. Get the coalition crew to the Neva. Get the Neva to the boat. Get the boat to the well.” Sarah let go of Livy’s wrist and stared at the room, letting her eyes go to soft focus.

  “Try not to look so happy,” said Sarah. Her voice cracked with bitterness and despair.

  “I told you,” said Livy quietly, “I’m not political.”

  Sarah put her hand up. “Show some respect for those of us who are.” She looked with bleary eyes at the room. “It should have been easy.” Sarah groaned. “I just wanted to stop that well for one day. I used to think if something wasn’t permanent, it wasn’t worth it. Now I feel just the opposite. I’m getting old.” Sarah got up. “I want cigarettes. Do they sell them here? They must.”

  Livy looked to Marne.

  “Our information was wrong. The well is much farther out than we thought,” she said.

  “What time’s the bus?” asked Livy.

  “We already missed it. I got us a room at a place down the street,” said Marne.

  “Want to see where the fucking thing is? Give me my phone,” said Sarah.

  Taking it, she typed in a set of numbers she’d written on her arm, which turned out to be longitude and latitude, and handed the phone to Livy.

  “All I see is blue,” said Livy.

  “Zoom in.”

  Livy zoomed in. “I just see blue.”

  “Right, because that’s where it is. Now zoom out.”

  Livy backed out until land appeared. On one side, she saw the Marquesas and on the other the coast of South America. Somewhere in the 4,500 miles of open sea between these two points was the new PRAJNA well. Joy filled Livy’s chest. Sarah wasn’t going anywhere.

  She relaxed like she hadn’t in months. Sarah wandered off for cigarettes, swaying badly.

  She returned and held up a pack of Gauloises.

  “You don’t smoke, do you?” said Livy.

  “Neither of us do,” Sarah said. She tore the cellophane off the pack. “Fuck this year,” she said.

  “Fuck this year,” Marne said.

  Yeah, fuck this year. But looking at Sarah, Livy couldn’t say that. Sarah lit a cigarette from the oil lamp on the table. Marne did the same, took a few drags, then blew out smoke.

  “It doesn’t feel like it used to,” she said.

  “It will,” said Sarah. “You just have to keep smoking.”

  “Are you going to stay on the Neva?” Livy asked Marne.

  “I hate that ship. If I get on a tall ship it’ll be the Columbia replica. I like barques. The real Columbia is fully rigged and lives in Disneyland. And guess what? I don’t care. I’m sick of other people’s fantasies about the past.”

  Sarah set her glass down on the table too hard.

  “For fuck sake. We have the location of the well. Why can’t we just find a bigger boat?”

  “It would have to be a tanker to carry the fuel we’d need.” Marne kicked back and began to count off on her hand all the things in the way. “After the fuel there’s the time it would take to get out there. Keeping a secret for a few days is one thing. For a month? Someone would start talking. They’d find the boat long before it got there. Radar when they knew where to look. The navigational system. Trust me. They’d find it.”

  “Yeah,” said Livy. “What you two need is some kind of magic ship that requires no fuel and a crew that can navigate without electronics.”

  Sarah sat bolt upright. “Wait! That’s us.”

  “Pull the radar block and the reflectors—we’re not big enough to register and the Neva has a wood hull. Out of sight, we’re invisible,” said Livy.

  Marne laughed. “Nah, everyone would see us leave.”

  “How would you deal with the captain?” asked Livy.

  “Wait until he and the first mate hit the bars then send someone to say Russian mob guys are on the Neva waiting for him. Tell him we’ll find him when they’re gone. He’ll be hiding in a hotel for days.”

  “Is anyone really after that guy?” asked Livy.

  “Only his own alcoholic imagination.”

  Livy smiled. She wanted the alcohol to take her. Because this was the kind of thing she loved. A theoretical problem in a world free of consequence, unclouded by emotion. Her love was with her and they were all together.

  “Think about it,” said Livy. “What makes the Neva the Neva?”

  “Shape, class, deck length, how she sits in the water,” said Marne.

  “That’s what we see,” said Livy. “Most people see a tall ship with a stripe. From far away they just see sails. Change the sails. Rerig her. Make her a barque. Lower the yards on the mizzen, or cockbill them to look like gaffs from a distance. Cut the sails to string them fore and aft. Paint over the stripe.”

  “True,” said Marne. “I guess the mizzen wouldn’t have to draw. It’s a downwind run in the southeasterly trades. But you’d need a week and decent sailmakers.”

  “Two days for a really shitty job. Tell the captain and first mate someone wants to charter the Neva for a couple of days and pay in cash. They’ll be hiding out, thinking they really need the cash. Pick one of the islands with other little islands around. Come in flying as many sails as you can, drop anchor in the main harbor of the biggest island, run up flags, shoot off a few cannon blanks, let everyone know the Neva is there. Work the first day anchored in the harbor in plain sight then find a quieter cove with no one around to finish.”

  “And when we’re not back in two days?” asked Sarah.

  “Tell the captain the rich people want another day,” said Livy. “Then it’s just Captain Marne.”

  “No, you would be the captain because captain’s a cunt and you’re way more of a cunt than me,” said Marne. “You are fishy to the spine.”

  “I speak shark,” said Livy, louder than she meant.

  “Can it work?” Sarah asked.

  “Definitely not,” said Livy. “We’d all die. It’s thousands of miles of open sea.”

  “Shittier sailors than us have made it around the world in worse boats,” said Marne.

  “They had to.”

  “We could pretend we have to,” said Sarah.

  “It’s
a shit-talk, honey. I don’t mean anything by it,” said Livy.

  Marne got up to go to the bathroom.

  “I hate this day on so many fronts,” said Sarah.

  “It’s not so bad.” Livy took her hand. “I have a joke. What’s the difference between fate and destiny? A six-pack of beer.”

  67 Above, the Fire

  KIRSTEN’S APARTMENT was cleaner than Cheyenne had ever seen it. Members of the coven had been taking turns coming over. There was no dust, no dirty towels, dishes glinted in the rack, and the freezer was full of untouched food.

  In a recliner in the living room, covered in blankets, was Kirsten. Her hair was still long.

  Cheyenne had expected it to be gone. She expected to find her mother in a colorful bandanna, a charm around her neck signifying the eternal, looking worse than she did but in a temporary way, a stick image of survival.

  Margaret greeted them, briefly obscuring Kirsten to give Cheyenne a second to adjust.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said.

  Cheyenne went to hug Kirsten but Kirsten flinched so Cheyenne paused. Every touch had the potential to injure; even this kind of love has violence in it now. Cheyenne leaned down to kiss her instead.

  Margaret offered Essex her spot on the couch. Trying to slide in between the couch and the coffee table he knocked it and, spilling a cold cup of tea, tried to reverse direction to go get a rag, but Margaret motioned for him to sit. He settled, an arm’s length from Kirsten, his knees jammed up against the coffee table, unsure of what to say.

  Cheyenne, who was still standing by Kirsten’s chair with her hand resting lightly on her mother’s head, let it slide to her shoulder before taking it away. Cheyenne sat on the floor beside Kirsten with her feet tucked under her.

  “You could have just told me Justine was a sociopath.”

  Kirsten smiled. “I try not to label people.”

  Margaret laughed abruptly.

  “I could never figure out if Justine was born that way or if something happened to her to make her like that,” said Kirsten. “You could only catch it in certain light.”

  Kirsten’s gaze drifted to the door.

  “She wasn’t a good person. Isn’t,” said Cheyenne.

  Kirsten shrugged. “Some people measure themselves by the distance they’ve traveled and others by how far they have to go. She was definitely a distance-traveled type.”

  There was a sound at the mail slot as envelopes were pushed through and landed on the carpet, fanned. Margaret gathered them and set them on a desk with others, also unsorted and unopened.

  “I’m sorry you have cancer,” said Essex. He cleared his throat. Cheyenne glared at him. He ignored her and scooted closer to Kirsten, knocking the table, spilling more tea.

  “Me too,” said Kirsten.

  Tears in Kirsten’s eyes, tears in Essex’s and Margaret’s eyes too.

  “Can we not go there yet,” said Cheyenne to the room, then turning on Kirsten, “Why the hell didn’t you let us know? How long have you known? Since summer? That was why you were working at that stupid parking garage. How many months did you wait before going to a doctor? What the fuck were you thinking? What did you think you were doing?”

  “Hey, hey,” Essex said in quiet tones. “Let’s dial back and deal with where we are.”

  “You’re one to talk,” said Kirsten, rallied in her anger. “All of you. None of you gets to say anything to me. None of you. Livy gets raped. She doesn’t tell me. You get nearly killed in Texas. You don’t tell me. Essex shoots his oldest friend—”

  “He didn’t shoot him!” yelled Cheyenne. “He just has a guilt complex.”

  “Stop immediately.” Margaret’s voice rang with thirty years of kicking people out of birthing rooms.

  Outside, a pack of kids ran down the stairs chasing one another. Then someone bit it and there was crying and more running feet.

  “It was a mistake,” Kirsten said. “I thought I had time to decide. To see a doctor. I didn’t want to end up talking to collection agencies the rest of my life.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”

  Cheyenne had never seen honest guilt in her mother. Cheyenne felt her insides seize. Kirsten turned to her.

  “I’m so sorry, baby,” she said.

  Kirsten sat forward, moving a pillow into place at the small of her back and got herself comfortable again. It was a labored gesture, but not undoable. Cheyenne’s panic was premature. There was time. She began to breathe easier.

  “Did Justine answer your question?”

  “That woman is nobody’s mother.”

  Cheyenne glanced at Margaret to see if she had told Kirsten she knew, but nowhere in Margaret’s face could she find evidence of that. It wasn’t hiding, it was the opposite. Margaret’s expression held all possibilities equally; all truths existed in her face at all times.

  Kirsten reached out without warning and brushed her hand across her daughter’s forehead as if checking a child for a temperature. Cheyenne set her teeth because the tears when they came would not end.

  “It’s hot, isn’t it,” said Kirsten. “You’re all overheated. I can turn the heater down.”

  “That’s all right. It’s a nice break from the rain,” said Essex.

  Kirsten straightened her blanket. “I don’t even think I had real I Ching coins when Justine and I threw it. I probably used quarters or pennies. Keeping still, the mountain. And above, the fire. Pregnancy is a lot like a temporary prison in some ways.” She laughed. “As opposed to parenting, which is more like work release.”

  “Oh thanks,” said Cheyenne.

  “You’re welcome. You two were a nightmare,” said Kirsten.

  “You’re the one who gambled your youth on a coin toss, so I don’t feel sorry for you.” Cheyenne’s voice had an unintended edge because she did feel sorry for her, so, so sorry. It was one more thing she could do nothing about. “Livy should be here,” she said.

  “Leave her alone. She’s in love.”

  “I don’t care if she’s in space,” said Cheyenne.

  “The I Ching is all about the Man,” Kirsten said. “The Superior Man. The Great Man. What he does and doesn’t do. I read it in my late teens and thought, Who the fuck keeps us alive? Not the Great Man.” She sat up, repositioning pillows. “So you think it all came down to an unlucky throw. Is that how you see it? Ask me. Ask me what hexagram Justine threw that night. The night we decided I would take you both. Ask me what she threw.”

  “Okay, what did she throw?” said Cheyenne.

  Kirsten slapped the arm of the recliner. “I had no idea.” Kirsten glowed with victory, restored to her natural, unapologetic self.

  Margaret’s mouth opened. “You are fucking kidding me.”

  “Ha! There’s the East Coast.” Kirsten pointed. “It comes out when they’re surprised.”

  “You tricked her?” said Cheyenne.

  “Without a second thought,” said Kirsten. “I let her throw the pennies then read her the entry for the Wanderer. ‘The grass on the mountain takes fire. Bright light does not linger but travels on. All prisons are temporary…’ ” Kirsten paused, letting victory slip. “It wasn’t kind,” she said.

  Cheyenne took her mother’s hand: As unfamiliar now as the wing of a fallen sparrow, it curled or splayed without resistance. “I’m glad you did,” she said.

  The room became pressured and airless. They were sea creatures going deep too fast. Kirsten extricated her hand from between Cheyenne’s palms but hooked her daughter’s fingers for a second, moving them back and forth like she had when Cheyenne was a baby.

  “I was afraid that if I knew which of you was mine I might love one of you more. I didn’t want to know.” She pulled her hand back and kicked at her blanket, freeing her feet. “I was afraid of a lot of things. All the looks I used to get, at the DSHS offi
ces and in the grocery stores. Because god forbid I buy you cupcakes with food stamps.” She turned her eyes on Cheyenne. “I didn’t want those looks to land on you two.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Do you know, if you go to an expensive school they will tell you from age five until twenty-two how great you are and how unique what you have inside you is. They’ll make you write essays about your personal journey. You’re always the hero. You always have a destiny to fulfill.” She fell silent for a few seconds then grabbed Cheyenne’s hand again. “I couldn’t send you to expensive schools. I wanted you to have a myth of your own. So I gave you the North Star.”

  Essex looked down at the carpet. Kirsten blinked and let go of her daughter.

  Cheyenne realized her legs were asleep, stood, and stretched.

  Essex looked at Margaret but she was silent. He moved closer to Kirsten.

  “How long do they say you have?” he asked.

  “A month at this point. Maybe a little more.” Kirsten’s eyes filled with quick tears again.

  “How could you let it get to this?” Cheyenne’s voice cracked in anger and disbelief.

  “I’m sorry,” said Kirsten, “I’m so sorry. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t torture yourself,” said Margaret softly. “It might not have made a difference. This kind of cancer is fast.”

  “We need to make a plan for real,” said Cheyenne, shaking off the moment. “Am I on her medical paperwork? I want to talk to her doctors directly. Has she had a second opinion?”

  “It’s not going to change what’s happening,” said Kirsten.

  Cheyenne turned to Margaret.

  “Cheyenne, I am more than happy to get you her doctor’s number and help streamline any paperwork I can. I’ll even call them now and find out if they have weekend hours,” said Margaret.

  “Do,” said Cheyenne.

  Margaret took her jacket off the back of the couch and stepped out onto the landing. Kirsten’s eyes followed her.