Swim to Me

by Betsy Carter

  “No, I guess I’m just tired is all,” he answered.

  “Well, soon we’ll get out of this rathole and you can give those pretty li’l pecs of yours a workout. Buck up,” she said, giving his arm a little punch. She walked off, swaying her hips in a way that seemed odd to Roy for this hour of the morning.

  News from the television said that the storm was dying down and moving out to the Gulf of Mexico. Hanratty stood up, still in his jacket and hat, and banged a spoon on a glass again. “Decorum. Please, can we have some decorum? We can leave here now, but please be careful when returning to your quarters. Also, keep the animals tied up or caged at all times until the sounds are less extreme and we are sure they will not be startled and try and break away. You’ve been very cooperative, and I appreciate your patience.” Hanratty always spoke to them as if he was addressing a group of tax lawyers. Nonetheless, his words brought them to their feet. They hooted and hollered and bolted out the door as fast as they could, except for Roy who stayed seated at his table.

  When the room was clear, Rex came over. “What a mess,” he said, looking at the dirty dishes on and under the tables. There was lemon meringue everywhere, and there were puddles of coffee from the spitting contest. “It looks as if the humans were caged and Lucy and her family took over the place.”

  “Yeah, it really is a mess,” said Roy, looking around for the first time. “Tell you what, Rex, I’ll help you clean the place up if you’ll give me some advice.”

  “Sounds like a fair trade to me,” said Rex, pulling up a chair next to Roy. Rex might as well have been sitting on a toadstool. His knees nearly covered his face, and he had to hunch over to listen to what Roy had to say.

  Roy told him everything: about how bad things had been at home and how he’d felt he’d go crazy if he stayed; how he left his wife and two kids; how he drove south and now was starting all over. He told him about seeing Delores on television the night before and how he saw, for the first time, that they had some connection. A physical connection was how he saw it. He would have done the same thing—swum against a riptide—if he’d had to. She had his strength; or maybe he had hers. He wondered if he should try to get in touch with her.

  “I haven’t contacted her or anyone in my family in more than two years,” he said. “Now, to come out of the blue just like that because suddenly she’s on TV. I don’t know. It seems wrong. Like I’m trying to use her or something. Besides, what . . . lemme see, how old is she now?” Roy started counting backwards on his fingers. “What seventeen-year-old girl whose father walked out on the family would even want to see him again? No, never mind, it’s not even a question. I’m going to leave it alone. That’s that. Okay, Rex, let’s clean this pigsty up. And I’d really appreciate it if we could leave this conversation between us.” Roy stood up.

  Rex put his hand on Roy’s arm and pushed him back into his seat. “Whoa, hang on there one minute. What you did was very human. Heartless maybe, but human. Still, your child will always be your child. If you are lucky enough to have someone in this world that is of your blood . . .” Rex turned away without finishing that sentence. “You let her get away one time. Maybe that was a mistake and maybe she won’t forgive you for it. But whoever’s watching over you clearly wanted you to meet up with her a second time. I’m expecting there won’t be a third chance. I guess that’s all I have to say.”

  The two men stood and started cleaning the walls and floor in silence. When Roy was finished, he went over and shook Rex’s hand.

  “Thanks, pal,” he said. “I’ll let you know what happens.” Rex smiled his shy, broad smile. “Roy Taurus, aay?”

  THE PREVIOUS DAY, Thelma Foote had been at her desk paying bills. The constant downpour had begun to make everything soggy. Even the invoices felt heavy and damp. As she studied the bills, she realized that although Delores was drawing more crowds to the park than they’d had in recent years, they were barely turning a profit: the pump needed replacing, the carpet in the theater was getting mildewed. It was always something at a place like this.

  Weeki Wachee was small, and it relied on real live people for its entertainment. Maybe that was starting to be a problem. Over in Orlando, the Disney people were packing them in, using all the technical gizmos and wizardry known to man. And they had already bought up nearly forty-three square miles of cattle-grazing country—twice the size of Manhattan, or so she’d heard. How could little Weeki Wachee begin to compete? Not thinking clearly, she wrote out a check to the Florida Power and Light Company calling it the “Florida Lower and Plight Company.” Funny slip, she thought, as she crumpled up the check and tossed it across the room into the trash can. Damn, missed. She used to be an ace shooter—and not bad at kickball or baseball either.

  She thought about the land that Disney was chewing up. That used to be land that couldn’t be measured in miles. The pine forests and swamps had gone on and on, without anyone laying claim to them. It had been hard to imagine that it would ever be different until perfect concrete squares started replacing those familiar patches of land, and then shopping malls with more rug stores and discount shoe outlets than anyone could possibly need started sprouting up everywhere. But because she was used to being the oldest person around, Thelma tried to not tell stories that began, “When I was younger . . .”

  No one can say I’m not modern, she thought, as she wrote out checks to Cosmopolitan and Mademoiselle, renewing the girls’ subscriptions for another year. Lord knows, she’d relaxed her views on sex, telling herself what do you expect when you put a bunch of young women in provocative outfits and have them waggle their tails underwater? She could always pretty much tell which of her girls were having sex and which were not. She knew that Blonde Sheila and the preacher were doing it like bunnies every chance they had, but what could she do? Unless one of her girls got pregnant, it was really not her business.

  She even understood the commercial value of what Sommers was trying to do. Weather was a safe story involving no controversy. These days, with the whole Watergate shebang going on, it was one of the few things you could talk about without getting into a fight. Sure, having a young girl in a bathtub wearing a scanty costume was tawdry, but crassness seemed to be in vogue. Besides, it got people’s minds off the really cynical stuff that was going on in Washington. She doubted that anyone gave her credit for understanding all that.

  Damn, she was in a cross mood today. Clearly she wasn’t the only one. Why else would the DJ on the radio station she was listening to have played “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” at five in the afternoon?

  The next song he put on was one that she really liked: Janis Joplin, singing “Piece of My Heart.” Thelma knew all the lyrics and belted them out along with the radio. She felt she had an affinity with Janis, maybe because she seemed like someone whom the world judged from the outside, never giving her inner self much of a chance. Thelma had taken it very hard when Janis died at twenty-seven.

  When Thelma finished singing along, she checked her watch. Five fifty-eight—time for the six o’clock news. She switched off the radio and turned on the television, continuing with her check writing. As soon as she heard the teaser, “Live, from Belleair Beach, our weathergirl, Delores Taurus, will bring you the latest on Hurricane Claudia,” she put down her pen. Now he’s gone too far, she thought, dialing up Sommers on his private line.

  “What the hell are you doing, sending her out on a story like that?” she shouted.

  Sommers had Doug Perry, the producer, on the other line and was trying to have two conversations at once.

  “It’s a huge story,” he said. “She was the perfect choice. Doug—the trees, the wind. Please!”

  “She’s not a reporter, Mr. S. She’s not even a weathergirl.”

  “You’re overreacting. No, not you, Doug. Mess the hair a little more.”

  “You can’t go putting people at risk like this.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, she’ll be fine. She’s not as dumb as she looks.�
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  Thelma was still on the line when Delores dropped her microphone and jumped into the ocean. “Oh Christ. You are a jackass!” she screamed down the phone at him. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Come in on her as close as you can,” Sommers said to Doug. Then, to Thelma: “You wouldn’t know a hot news story if it came up and licked you in the face, would you, Miss F.? Doug, where the hell is the kid? Find the kid!”

  There was something frantic in his voice that made Thelma even more furious.

  “I don’t care if you get higher ratings than All in the Family. If one hair on that child’s body is harmed, I promise you I will sue you and that ridiculous organization that calls itself a television station for every penny you’re probably not worth.”

  “I don’t see her,” said Sommers, his voice getting small. “Where the hell is she? Oh my God, Miss F., I don’t see her, do you?”

  They both sat silently, staring at the blank screen. Sommers was the first to spot her. “Oh thank God, there she is.” Then he shouted to Doug: “That’s it! Keep it on the girl and on the kid. Come on in with them. That’s it! That’s it!”

  Thelma watched as Delores and the boy came onto the screen. Just as the camera remained focused on Delores and the boy, so would she. She would stare at Delores until she was safely back to shore, holding the phone in one hand while pressing her other hand to the television screen.

  She could hear Sommers breathing on the other end of the line—heavy, uneven huffs. They were both quiet as Delores swam her last strokes and stumbled to shore. Only when Armando wrapped the blanket around them did Sommers speak again. “How about that? Nice work, Doug.”

  “All I can say is, thank heaven they’re all right,” said Thelma.

  “I’ll be honest, I was sweating bullets over here,” said Sommers. “Sometimes I think I really am a jackass. But it worked out okay.”

  “What if it hadn’t?”

  “A bridge we don’t have to cross,” he said. “Now our problem is that we have a gold mine on our hands. Do you understand that? I’m talking bigger than Mark Spitz.”

  “Mark Spitz?” Thelma said, walking around in tiny circles.

  “Yes, I’m telling you, she is going to be huge.”

  WEEKI WACHEE AT NIGHT looks as if the light of imagination has been switched off. Without the sun, the red bougainvilleas and lavender water hyacinths go mute. The amphitheater and outdoor pavilions are mere shadows, and even the clear, bottomless Springs can be overlooked as a puddle; a pond, maybe. Only the lamp in Thelma’s office was visible from the highway, and, with all the rain falling that night, it appeared as a dim twinkle at best. Unless you knew it was there, right after the stoplight, you’d just keep driving down the road.

  Sommers had said that Delores and Armando were heading back to the park. Thelma worried that Armando would miss the turn, that he’d get lost and panic, and was there anything worse than a frightened young boy driving around in a downpour like this? She’d best put on her rain boots and poncho and wait outside for them. It was the sensible thing to do.

  For the next half hour, Thelma stood in front of the park, the wind blowing so hard that occasionally she had to hold on to a telephone pole to right herself. Rain seeped through her clothes and soaked her to the skin. The water in her boots was almost at her ankles. She thought of emptying them, but why bother? They would fill right up again, anyway.

  Twice, cars pulled over to the side of the road. The first time, a man who was riding with a tiny dog in his lap asked her, “Little lady, are you in some kind of trouble?” When she said, “Oh no, I’m perfectly fine,” he had answered: “Standing out here on a night like this don’t seem so fine to me. Unless you is looking to get yourself killed.” The second time, a woman with two identical girls in the backseat wanted to know if she needed a lift. “No, thank you,” said Thelma. “I’m just waiting for someone.” The woman didn’t seem to hear her. “There’s room for one more—where do you need to get?” she asked. Four eyes, round and bright as soup-can lids, shone at her from behind the woman. “That’s okay,” Thelma spoke louder. “I’m just waiting for someone.” The woman shouted back, “Suit yourself, then,” and drove away, the four eyes peering out the back window.

  When Thelma finally spotted the WGUP van lumbering down the highway, she began waving her arms and ran onto the shoulder of the road. She even thought to take the hood down on her poncho so that Delores and Armando would recognize her. The van slowed down. She saw Armando’s scared, tired face, and it struck her that maybe Florida shouldn’t issue driver’s licenses to anyone this young. She ran ahead of them into the parking lot to make sure that he found his way. When Delores got out of the car, barefoot and with salt caked on her face, Thelma had the unaccustomed notion to reach out and hug her.

  She didn’t, of course. “You need to go sit in the hot room and get the chill out of your bones,” she said to Delores. “And you, young man,” she said, shouting through the wind. “There’s no way you’re driving back to Tampa in this mess. You’ll stay the night here. I’ll put you up on the couch in my office.” As they ran into the administration building, she noticed the thin frame on the boy and thought how easily he’d fit into one of her T-shirts and a pair of sweatpants. “I’ll get a blanket and some sheets,” she said, when they got inside. “Now get out of those soaking clothes before you catch your death of a cold.” Giving orders had restored Thelma’s sense of order and authority. She understood those feelings.

  Later that night, Thelma lay awake listening to the haranguing sounds of Hurricane Claudia. She thought about all that had happened that day and how frightened she had been. She thought she had constructed her life in such a way as to seal off fright. She wiggled her toes against the soft, clean sheets and luxuriated in the warmth and dryness of her flannel pajamas. She thought about Delores and all of her girls safe and asleep under this one roof. From some place inside her, she couldn’t say where, she heard a familiar raspy voice. “Take it,” it said. “Take another little piece of my heart.”

  Seventeen

  Delores barely had the energy to wash the salt off her face and brush her teeth. Even then, as she crawled under her blankets, she was engulfed by the taste and smell of the ocean, and by the time she fell into sleep, wrestling with her sheets, she was back in the water, fighting the currents.

  Often when Delores swam in the Springs, a dolphin or two would shoot by her. Usually they came close enough so she could see a round black eye appraising her. Once, her fingers brushed up against one of the dolphins, and though it was only for a moment, she never forgot how strong and smooth it felt, like marble. There was life in that dolphin’s eye and a hint of humor in its upturned smile line. If an animal can be said to be taunting, even flirtatious, then that dolphin was up there as one of nature’s biggest teases. Delores often fantasized about what it would be like to grab hold of a dolphin’s dorsal fin and hitch a ride. There was one dolphin that she thought she recognized as a regular, and she felt that it wasn’t beyond reason to think that, one day, he’d just sidle up next to her and wait for her to hop on.

  That night, as she bucked the waves in her sleep, she was visited by a gentler dream. She was on the back of a dolphin, the one she thought she knew. She was holding on to his dorsal fin and they were flying through the water faster than the birds overhead. They were heading up the coast to New York to find Westie. She was aware of being propelled through the water by a force that wasn’t her own. It felt like the tumbling-into-nowhere sensation that often accompanies dreams. It made her woozy, yet she gave herself up to it with relief and joy. She wished it would never stop, but abruptly it did. The dolphin disappeared, and when she went in search of him, all she found in the muck and tangle of seaweed was a small fish that glimmered like tinsel. She scooped it into her hands and held it to her chest. The fish wriggled and shimmied but she managed to keep it close. Eventually, the fish got smaller and smaller until there was nothing left of it but some drops o
f water. She kept trying to conjure up the dolphin again, but all her subconscious would deliver was a few grains of wet sand. When she woke up the next morning, she felt sad, but couldn’t put a finger on the source of it. “You had quite a tussle going on there last night,” Molly said to her. “What were you dreaming about?”

  Delores shrugged. “You know. The usual water stuff.”

  By breakfast that morning, everyone knew about Delores’s rescue of the boy. Someone had taped the front page of the Tampa Tribune on the door to the dining room. The headline, “Local Weather Girl in Heroic Rescue,” was circled in red magic marker. The cook, a bulbous man named Curtis Braunschweiger, usually served grits and potatoes for breakfast. On this morning, he went out of his way to whip up a batch of pancakes with blueberry syrup to honor the occasion. Just before she was to sit down to breakfast, Delores got called into Thelma’s office. Her mother was on the phone.

  This time, her “hello” wasn’t as bouncy as usual. “I just read about you in the Daily News,” her mother said. “There’s a picture and everything, although it’s hard to tell if it’s really you.”