A Possibility of Whales

by Karen Rivers

  The water was cold and chemical-scented. Nat dove deep and kept her eyes open to watch the bubbles rising away from her. She sat cross-legged on the tile floor and ran her fingers along the paths made by the grout. She counted to two hundred, but then she lost count. Sunbeams broke through the surface of the water, and she let her hands fan out in the beams of light. She couldn’t hear anything except her own heartbeat, and everything looked blue and peaceful and perfect.

  Nat watched Harry’s feet kicking, churning up water as he motored from one side of the pool to the other. Her lungs started to hurt and burn but she counted to ten one more time before she surfaced, dolphin kicking to the far end of the pool, away from Harry. She dangled her arms over the infinity edge and looked out to sea.

  Harry swam up next to her, breathing hard, and spit over the side.

  “Gross,” she told him.

  Harry burped.

  The water had slicked his hair away from his face. His eyelashes were as long as spider legs. He blinked, and water droplets fell from them in a tiny rain shower. It was pretty in a way that he would hate, if he knew she was thinking it.

  Pickleflitz, she thought. Her eyes drifted down to his chest. It was perfectly flat. Not even the smallest bump showed under his swim shirt.

  “How do you do that?” she wanted to ask. But she knew she couldn’t. That was more private than private. It was bigger than any secret.

  Harry leaned closer to her.

  Nat panicked.

  She let go of the edge of the pool and let herself sink down to the bottom again. She swam low along the tiles, blowing out bubbles. When she surfaced, Harry’s back was to her still.

  “I’m getting out,” she called.

  “Already?” he called back. “Don’t you want to have races?”

  “I said I was getting out!”

  “You can change your mind!”

  “One race,” she relented.

  “OK,” he said. He dog paddled over to the end of the pool where she was standing. “ONYOURMARKS, GETSETGO!” he said, all blurred together like that, and then he was swimming before she’d even taken a breath.

  “No fair!” she yelled, but he couldn’t hear her, he was already at the other end of the pool.

  “Loser!” he called.

  “Takes one to know one.”

  She dove back under the water and swam along the bottom. The sunlight was making sparkles on the tiles that reminded her of Harry’s downstairs bathroom floor, which made her think of the magazine.

  She kept her eyes open wide and corkscrewed around and around under the water. When she looked up at the surface, she could see Harry’s face, all distorted and wobbly. Finally, when she felt like she might pass out, she let herself float to the top with her eyes open, limply.

  “Are you dead?”

  She shook her head no.

  Then she sprayed the water she’d been holding in her mouth right into his face. “Hey!” he said, but he was laughing.

  “Now I’m getting out,” she said.

  On The Roof

  That night, Harry and Nat decided to sleep outside on the rooftop deck. They took the bedspreads from their beds to use as blankets. It was plenty warm enough on the lounge chairs up there. Nat’s dad lit the fire pit for them and gave them a bag of marshmallows.

  “I’m going to go downstairs and watch some movies now,” he said. “I trust you guys. No funny business, OK?”

  “DAD!” said Nat.

  “And don’t eat ALL them marshmallows,” he said. “Some is good, more is better, but all of them? Well, that’s the best.” He winked.

  “Dad,” she pleaded.

  “I’m going to watch Star Blazers 6,” he said. “Seems like maybe we should make 7 now, don’t you think?”

  Nat rolled her eyes. Her dad had been talking about making Star Blazers 7 for her whole life. Star Blazers 6 was a cult classic. That meant that nerdy people watched it religiously, memorized the lines, and lined up for hours for XAN GALLAGHER’s signature at comic cons every year.

  “Can I watch it with you?” said Harry, hopefully.

  Nat’s dad looked at Harry. “Nope,” he said. “Some things a man just has to do alone, you know what I mean?”

  Harry nodded, even though Nat could tell that he didn’t have a clue.

  I’m on a roof in Mexico with a cute boy and a fire and marshmallows, she thought. I have boobs. Everything is different.

  She was so nervous. But Harry wasn’t her boyfriend. She didn’t know if Harry like-liked girls. Maybe he hadn’t decided yet. They were only twelve.

  Well, thirteen in two days, for her. But his birthday wasn’t until April.

  “Well,” said her dad. “Night night, happy dreams, fun tomorrow.”

  Nat blushed. “DAD,” she said. “Good night, OK?”

  “What?” he said.

  “Go!” she yelled.

  Harry made that strange snort-laughing sound that he did when he was trying not to laugh. Nat’s dad gave them a big, cheery wave and headed back down the stairs, whistling.

  “Have a marshmallow,” Nat told Harry, tossing him the bag.

  “Thanks.”

  Nat stared into the fire. It was blue, not orange, at the bottom of the flame. Right above the blue, it was see-through, like it wasn’t there at all. But that was an illusion. She stuck a marshmallow onto her stick and poked it into the invisible part. It ignited right away. The part you couldn’t see was the hottest part of the flame.

  She knocked the marshmallow off her stick and let it disappear into the coals.

  “The burnt ones are the best ones,” said Harry. “What a waste!” He lit his on purpose. In the flare of the flame, she could see his face.

  Do not think about how cute he is! she thought.

  “No way,” she said. “Golden brown is the only way to go.” She took her time making the next one perfect, but then she threw it on the coals anyway. She didn’t really like marshmallows, but she did like roasting them.

  After they had cooked the whole bag, they leaned back in their chairs and looked up at the sky. There was something about how quiet the night was and how many stars were up there and the fire and the marshmallows that made her want to tell Harry everything. But she didn’t know what to say. They were quiet for a long time.

  “Harry?” she whispered, finally. “Are you awake?”

  “Yeah,” he said, in his normal voice. “I was looking at the stars and thinking about how everyone says they feel so tiny compared to the stars. You know what’s dumb? Not only are those stars tiny, but most of them are already burnt out. It just takes forever for us to see that.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “You sound funny. Are you OK?”

  “I guess I feel sick from the sugar,” she said. “I don’t like sugar.” She had only eaten one marshmallow, but still, that was a lot for her.

  “Oh, I forgot,” he said.

  They were quiet again for a few minutes. Nat cleared her throat. “Harry?” she said. “You know we move pretty much every year, right?”

  “I know,” he said. “Where are you going next year?”

  “France, Dad says. He’s doing a movie there.”

  “Cool.”

  “I guess. I think my mom is French.”

  “But.” Harry sat up. “I don’t get it.” He frowned.

  “I don’t know who she is,” Nat admitted. “My dad has never talked about it and I’ve never looked it up or anything.”

  “You’ve never looked?” He sounded incredulous. “How can you never look?”

  Nat felt funny. Mad, again. Definitely defensive. “I just didn’t, OK? I never wanted to.”

  “That’s super weird!”

  “Forget I brought it up.”

  “I can’t! It’s too big a thi
ng to forget.”

  The night wrapped itself over them, slipping coolly against their skin. Nat shivered. She willed herself not to cry.

  “Are you tired?” he said.

  “Not really,” she said. “The thing is that I do want to know, but I don’t want to know. She didn’t want to know me. Why would I want to know her?”

  “Yeah,” said Harry. “Makes sense.”

  “Do you get it?” she said.

  “Dude.” Harry reached over to her. “Where are you?” he said. “I can’t see you.”

  “I’m right here,” she said. She reached her hand out toward him, and then her hand was in his hand. He squeezed it.

  Then he dropped it like a hot potato.

  Her heart made a sound like an orca, a whistling song.

  She put her hand on her forehead. It felt warm.

  “My dad wants to send me to boarding school next year,” he said. Harry’s voice sounded small and prickly.

  “Oh. Wow. Really? That sounds . . .” She let her voice trail off. She didn’t know how to finish it. “Lonely” was the word she wanted to use.

  “In Vancouver,” he said.

  “I love Vancouver!”

  “It’s a girls’ boarding school.” Harry’s voice crinkled like tinfoil. Nat wondered if he was crying, but she didn’t want to look. “They think they can fix me.”

  “Fix you?” Nat repeated. She blinked. The stars blurred and then reformed again. “Harry?” she said. “What?”

  “Are you saying ‘what’ because you didn’t hear me or because you think it doesn’t make sense?”

  “The second one,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense! It doesn’t. It really doesn’t. It’s just . . . It’s crazy. I’m sorry, Harry.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”

  From far away, Nat heard something that might have been a dog howling, or maybe a coyote.

  “Harry?” she said. His breathing was loud and even, like sleep-breathing.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “I wish that everything wasn’t so complicated.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Me, too, dude.”

  She really wished he would stop saying dude.

  They lay there for a really long time without talking. The surf crashed against the beach. They heard doors opening and closing. Music drifted up from downstairs.

  “I wonder if my dad watched Star Blazers 6 with your dad,” Harry said.

  Nat laughed. “‘Hippies!’” she mimicked. There were a lot of people in Star Blazers 6 who Harry’s dad wouldn’t like, she knew that.

  People who were different.

  People who made choices he would hate.

  But maybe she just mouthed it or maybe Harry was asleep, because he didn’t answer. Nat looked up at the sky. A star shot across the horizon.

  She closed her eyes.

  She made a wish.

  Not that she believed in that kind of thing, but she also didn’t not.

  Just in case, she thought. You never know.

  Thirteen

  In the morning, Nat’s thirteenth birthday morning, she tried to call the Bird again. The phone rang and rang and rang.

  “Something is wrong,” she said out loud. “Something has happened.”

  But she didn’t know who to tell.

  She didn’t know who would be able to help.

  She didn’t even know the Bird’s real name. Or where she lived.

  She didn’t know anything.

  Today was supposed to be a good day. She had a bad feeling that it wasn’t going to be.

  The bad feeling prickled on the back of her neck, like a spider crawling up into her hair.

  • • •

  Downstairs, she heard the doorbell ring. She got up from her bed to see who it was, but her dad was already opening the door. She watched from the landing. A boy from a car rental agency wearing a red golf shirt and khakis was standing at the front door. “Dropping off a car for Mr. Brasch,” he said. He sounded bored. He actually sounded like someone who was trying to sound bored to audition for the part of someone who sounded bored. It was as if even being bored was an effort for him.

  “OK,” boomed Nat’s dad. “That’s GREAT!”

  Only my dad, Nat thought, could get that excited about a car rental drop-off.

  “Whoa, are you . . . like, um, XAN GALLAGHER?” the kid asked, suddenly standing up straighter. His eyes widened. People always did that to her dad’s name, half shouted it so it sounded like they were speaking in ALL CAPS.

  Nat’s dad slowly raised one eyebrow.

  “Holy cow. Oh my gosh. Can I take a picture of you?” Now he was tripping over his own words, each one overlapping the other one just enough that it sounded like the whole sentence was one word.

  “Are you American?” Nat’s dad asked him.

  “Yeah,” said the kid. “Totally. I mean, I grew up in Ohio?”

  “Then no, I’m not XAN GALLAGHER. Are you kidding? I wish! I’m his stunt double. I heard that XAN THE MAN is in Thailand filming Star Blazers 7.”

  “They’re making another Star Blazers? No WAY! I love those movies.”

  “Me too! I watched 6 again last night.”

  “Can I take a picture with you? I gotta. You gotta let me. Man. Please.”

  “Why?” said XAN GALLAGHER. “I’m not XAN GALLAGHER. Between you and me, I’m pretty mad they didn’t ask me to do SB7. I did all the other Star Blazers! I’m the man! Just not XAN THE MAN. I’m the Other Man.” He flexed his bicep. He’d obviously just worked out. His veins were bulging like yarn all over his arm.

  “Cooooool.” The kid’s eyes looked like they were going to pop right out of his head. He scratched his head. He had long, dirty-looking blond hair.

  “You a surfer?” said XAN GALLAGHER.

  “Oh yeah. Totally. The surfing here is rad.”

  “OK, then you can take a picture. I surf, too. Put it on Twitter and tag me.”

  “What’s your Twitter handle?”

  “@XANGALLAGHER. Want me to spell it?”

  “Nah, that’s cool. Wait, what? I mean, you use his name? Isn’t that, like, illegal or whatever?”

  “Yep, totally illegal. Don’t tell anyone.”

  The kid blinked in slow motion. “Yeah, no,” he said. “No, yeah.”

  “Yep yep,” said XAN GALLAGHER. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

  XAN GALLAGHER posed with the kid for the photo, raised eyebrow and all, then he laughed his huge, unmistakable laugh and closed the door and winked up at Nat.

  “Let’s see how long it takes him to remember why he came,” he whispered. Nat laughed. She couldn’t stop laughing.

  “Ten,” said her dad. He started to count backward. “Nine, eight, seven, six, five . . .”

  On “one,” the door buzzed again.

  “Yes?” said Nat’s dad. “Can I help you?”

  “Um, yeah, I forgot to drop off the car. It’s for the Brasches?”

  “Let me get them for you,” said Nat’s dad.

  “You totally look like XAN GALLAGHER. Look. I mean, I’m not . . . Are you XAN GALLAGHER? Are you, like, messing with me?”

  “Yeah, I do look like him! I smell like him, too. Wanna sniff?” He raised his arm up.

  The kid sniffed.

  Nat thought she might actually fall over laughing. Tears streamed down her face.

  “Yeah, like, you sort of stink, no offense?”

  “Sorry, man. That’s just what XAN GALLAGHER would’ve done. He’s always getting people to sniff his armpits! Don’t tell anyone that. I probably shouldn’t have said that!”

  “He is? He does? That’s, like, super weird!”

  “Yeah, he’s a weirdo.”

  “Dude. Man. I can’t believe this. Are you g
uys good friends?”

  “Best friends.”

  “That’s so extreme,” said the kid.

  “It sure is. I have to pinch myself sometimes. To make sure it’s not all a dream.” XAN GALLAGHER reached over and took the keys from the kid’s hand. “I’ll give these keys to the Brasches.”

  “But you got to sign for them. I, like, need a credit card and driver’s license.”

  “No problem. Hang on.”

  XAN GALLAGHER disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. Nat made eye contact with the kid, who looked at her sort of funny. “Are you Natalia Rose?” he said.

  “No,” Nat lied. “I just look like her.” She couldn’t do it as well as her dad did. The kid looked kind of mad, not amused or confused. She definitely did not want him to sniff her armpit. She held her arms tight against her sides.

  “I feel like this is one of those prank shows or something. Is it? Tell me,” he said.

  Nat shrugged just as her dad reappeared with his gold card. Nat knew that it was his, that across the bottom it said XAN GALLAGHER. The kid swiped the card and gave it back. Then he got XAN to sign the form. While he copied out the driver’s license information, which also would say XAN GALLAGHER.

  This is the punch line, Nat told the car rental guy telepathically. This is where you get it and when you laugh and then he hugs you and he’s your new best friend!

  “Thanks,” the kid said. “Wow, this has been super trippy. It’s cool that you’ve, like, met XAN GALLAGHER. I’m, like, starstruck. Great to meet you, man. Other Man, I mean. Other XAN THE MAN.” He laughed at his own joke.

  “You, too.” XAN GALLAGHER gave the kid a huge bear hug. “Stay in school!” He stood on the doorstep and waved until the kid was out of sight.

  “Great kid,” he said, coming back inside and seeing Nat. “What? You know how it is! Everyone loves XAN GALLAGHER!” He came up the stairs and sat next to her.

  “Yep yep,” she said. “Me, too.”

  “Yeah, you do,” he said.

  She leaned against his arm. He really did not smell good. “You need a shower, Dad,” she said. She fanned her hand in front of her face.