A Possibility of Whales

by Karen Rivers

  “Oh, that was you! I heard about that,” said the girl. “Boy, you must have a really weird life.”

  “It’s pretty weird,” said Nat. “But that was extra bad. And then I got my period!” She was crying so hard now, she could hardly get the words out.

  “What?” said the cashier. “You need to calm down, girl. Your dad is XAN GALLAGHER? He was so amazing in that earthquake movie.”

  Nat nodded and shrugged at the same time. She couldn’t answer, because she was crying. She tried hard to swallow. Of course the cashier loved her dad. Everyone loved her dad. But she didn’t want to talk about her dad.

  She needed help. She wanted the girl to help her.

  “Help,” she whispered. “Ayúdeme.”

  “What?” said the girl. “Hang on.” She had picked up her phone. She was texting someone. Nat knew she was probably texting her friends about XAN GALLAGHER. She wiped her nose on her arm. That was gross, because her T-shirt didn’t have long sleeves. She hid her arm behind her back. She tried to take a deep breath, to get control of herself. When that didn’t work, she tried holding her breath instead. She knew she could hold her breath for at least two hundred and seventy seconds. She started to count.

  The cashier kept typing.

  By the time Nat got to two hundred and six, she had stopped needing to cry so much. She stood up straighter. “I’ve got my period,” she said.

  The girl looked up. “So?” she said.

  “It’s my first one and I don’t have anything. I need to buy something. I need . . .” She stopped. She had almost said, “I need my mom,” which was also true.

  The girl stared at her. She tapped her perfect nails on the cash register. “Oh,” she said. She shrugged her shoulders, like she was giving up on something, and put down her phone. “First time, huh.”

  “First time,” said Nat.

  “We have stuff,” said the cashier. “I can show you. Are you by yourself?”

  Nat nodded.

  “Aw,” said the girl.

  “My dad is in the car,” said Nat, just so the girl didn’t feel sorry for her.

  Nat had to swallow again. The lump in her throat felt permanent.

  “Come with me,” said the girl. “I’ll show you. I’m María, by the way.”

  “Nat,” said Nat. “Natalia.”

  “Nice to meet you, Natalia,” said María. She reached out and shook Nat’s hand. “How old are you, anyway?”

  “I’m thirteen,” said Nat. “I’m a late bloomer.”

  María laughed. “I was fourteen!” she said. “You aren’t late. Everyone is different. Maybe those other people are just too early. Where’s your mama? Why isn’t she helping you?”

  “Oh,” said Nat. “I don’t really have one.”

  “Ah, I think I read about that somewhere! Your dad got full custody of you because Melina Martinez, well, everyone knows that she’s—”

  “Don’t tell me!” Nat held up her hand.

  Melina Martinez?

  Melina Martinez was an actress.

  She was not French.

  She was not a makeup artist.

  She was the woman in the magazine. Nat closed her eyes, and she could still see the image. The black hair. The sunglasses. Duh, she thought.

  Something inside Nat collapsed, like a sand castle being disintegrated by a rising tide. She held on to her stomach, just to have something to hold on to. She bent over. The tears were leaking again. “I don’t know her,” she managed.

  “Are you OK? Do you have cramps?”

  “I guess,” said Nat.

  “Cramps are the worst. You need a hot water bottle. You need to go lie down.”

  “I will,” said Nat, still bending over.

  “How can you not know your own mother?” said María.

  “I just don’t,” said Nat. “Everyone is different. Some people have mothers. I have a dad.”

  “You have XAN GALLAGHER! You are SO lucky.”

  “I’m lucky,” said Nat. “He’s great.” She thought about Harry’s parents. “Maybe everyone gets one good parent.”

  “My parents are OK,” María said. “Both of them.”

  “Maybe you’re just super lucky?”

  “Yeah, maybe.” María had stopped walking. They were in aisle seven. There were rows and rows of deodorant and razors. There were shelves of “feminine hygiene products.” There were so many of them. Nat felt light-headed.

  María reached up to the shelf and she got down a package. It had little flowers all over it and it was pink. She rolled her eyes. “I know, right? Nothing says ‘bleeding from your uterus’ like a few pink flowers, right? So dumb. Probably designed by a man.” She laughed.

  Nat tried to smile. The packaging looked the same as the ones Nat had seen at home. She was relieved. She didn’t think she wanted to deal with vintage period supplies. Vintage cereal was one thing, but vintage maxi pads? No, thanks. She had read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. All of that sounded terrible, with pins and belts.

  Thank goodness for technology, she thought.

  “Are you OK?” said María.

  “Not really. Sort of. My stomach hurts,” confessed Nat.

  “It’s not really so much fun,” said María. She smiled. “But you’re a woman now!” She handed Nat the package of pads. “Go into the bathroom here, OK? You just stick it in your underwear. It’s easy.”

  “I can figure it out,” said Nat. “Thanks.”

  Nat went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Then she clicked the lock into place. In the mirror, she was herself, but pale, or at least her version of pale. She never really got pale-pale. Still, her freckles were standing out like constellations. Her hair was a mess.

  Melina Martinez, she mouthed to herself. Melina Martinez is my mother.

  Of course, she knew that.

  She already knew that.

  She must have recognized her from the picture. Melina was recognizable.

  Nat had even met her once at a party at the director’s house the year before. She remembered it because Melina had called her dad “Alex.”

  No one called her dad “Alex” except for Grandma Gallagher. Nat’s heart made a solid click of recognition, with the certainty of a padlock snapping shut. “Melina Martinez is my mother,” she repeated out loud.

  She tried to figure out what she was feeling, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t even a feeling without an English word. It was just no feeling at all.

  She felt nothing.

  Melina seemed like an OK sort of normal person.

  But she obviously wasn’t a normal person.

  She was a person who left her baby with XAN GALLAGHER.

  She was a person who could later be at a party with that very baby and not say to that baby, “I am your mother.”

  Or, “I’m sorry.”

  Or anything.

  Nothing that Nat could remember, anyway.

  Nat looked in the mirror again, then she slowly raised her middle finger. That was for Melina Martinez.

  Nat opened the package of pads and replaced the toilet tissue with a real pad. It had wings that she folded down over the sides of her underwear. When she pulled her pants up again, it felt fine. The pad was so thin, like paper. It was thinner than the wad of toilet paper.

  Then Nat realized she had forgotten to bring money.

  She’d have to go to the car and ask her dad. She hoped María didn’t think she was trying to steal the pads. Maybe she should just leave the rest of the package behind.

  But she’d need them.

  “Duh,” she said out loud.

  She went back out to the front of the store. “I just have to get money from my dad. He’s in the car,” she told María.

  María smiled. She seemed so much nicer now than she�
��d seemed before. “Nah, it’s a present from me to you. OK? I also want to give you this.” She handed Nat a box of tea and a huge bar of chocolate. The tea was peppermint.

  “What’s this for?” Nat said.

  “I just like peppermint tea for my cramps,” she said. “And chocolate. Well, chocolate is always good, right?”

  “Right,” said Nat. “Thank you.” She couldn’t explain about the sugar and how she didn’t like it. Maybe it would be OK this time. With the peppermint tea, it might almost be like mint chocolate chip ice cream.

  María walked around the counter and gave Nat an awkward hug. “I am happy for you,” she said. “Congratulations.”

  “I don’t think I’m happy for me. But thanks. Thanks for being nice to me.”

  “Why not?” asked María. “Why aren’t you happy?”

  “I’m just . . . I don’t know. I just don’t feel like . . . I can’t explain.” Nat swallowed. She didn’t want to cry again. “Anyway, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” said María. “Tell your boyfriend hi.” She winked. “Tell him that cereal isn’t old—the packaging is just different because of marketing. It’s different in different countries.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend!” said Nat. She thought about explaining but it seemed too complicated. Or maybe it wasn’t complicated at all. “He’s my best friend, actually.”

  “Good. It is good to have cute boys as best friends. You have your period now. Your dad is XAN GALLAGHER. You have a cute boy friend. You have lots to be happy about, right?”

  Nat shrugged. “Saudade,” she mouthed.

  “What?” said María. “I didn’t hear you.”

  Nat really wanted to tell María.

  To explain it to someone.

  Anyone. So that it would make sense to her, too.

  But it was hard. “I sort of feel like I’m not really . . . ready,” Nat whispered, finally. She couldn’t understand why she was still standing there. Her arms were covered with goose bumps. It was really cold in the store. The car would be warm. Her dad would understand all of this better than this stranger in a grocery store! But she kept standing there.

  “Ready for what?”

  Nat looked down at her feet. They were bare.

  “Ready to be, you know, a woman.”

  “Why do you have bare feet?” said María.

  “Oh, um, I lost my shoes. Yesterday. When . . .” She made a gesture with her hand that she hoped meant “a whale sank the boat,” because the words had left her.

  María laughed. “You need shoes!” She went over to a rack near the postcards at the front of the store. It was covered in flip-flops. “These are all the same size,” she said. “Stupid. Too big for you, but you can have them, OK?”

  “Thanks,” said Nat. She took the flip-flops from María and tried to pull them apart. They were attached with a plastic tag. María reached over and snipped it with scissors.

  Nat put the flip-flops on. They were huge and silver. She smiled.

  María patted the counter next to her. “Sit,” she said.

  Nat hoisted herself up and sat, holding the flip-flops on her feet by curling her toes. María sat next to her. Their backs were to the door. Nat could see a whole pile of books under the counter. María must read a lot.

  “You’re thirteen, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK, here is the thing, Natalia. In Mexico, we have a celebration, it is called quinceañera. Do you know what that is?”

  Nat shook her head. “No.”

  “It is when you turn fifteen years old. You go to church and there is a big Mass, and then there is a huge party. You get to wear an amazing dress. People spend so much money on their quinceañera dress! It is as big as a piñata! It is crazy, but also it is so much fun. Anyway, this party, this quinceañera, it is to celebrate when you go from being a niña, like a child, to being a señorita! Which is a woman, but like a young woman. You have two whole years more of being a niña!” She looked seriously at Nat. “Do you think you’ll be ready in two years to be a señorita?”

  Nat nodded. “Two years sounds like a long time. Long enough.”

  María smiled. “It is a long time.”

  “I have to go!” Nat said, suddenly. “My dad is in the car!”

  “Go!” said María. “And Natalia?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Oh,” said Nat. “Sorry. I mean, thank you.”

  María picked up her book. She held up her hand. “Bye, niña,” she said.

  “Bye, señorita,” said Nat. She stood by the door, waiting for something more, but María was already reading again, she was already done with Nat.

  “Melina Martinez,” Nat murmured. “Melina Martinez is my mother.” The more she said it out loud, the less strange it seemed.

  “I thought you were leaving,” said María.

  “Bye,” said Nat. “I mean, I am. I’m leaving now. Thank you.”

  “You already said that.”

  “I’m saying it twice,” said Nat, pushing the door. “Three times, even. THANK YOU!” she shouted, over her shoulder.

  “BYE,” said María. “Seriously. Bye.”

  The door closed behind Nat. A wave of heat washed over her. She had the pads clutched in her hand. She sort of wished she’d asked for a bag, but bags killed turtles, so it was better this way. She walked over to the car. Her dad was doing his favorite two-thumbs-up hand gesture, which involved his thumbs and his nostrils in a way he found hysterically funny. He had done it at the end of the movie Hyper Max, a comedy in which he’d had to join a cheerleading squad. It was one of her absolute favorite movies of his, but at the end, when he’d done that, Nat had felt some pretty extreme myötähäpea.

  “Why did you do that?” she’d asked. “You look crazy! My friends might see that!”

  He’d tipped his head back and roared with laughter. “Because it was the end!” he’d said, like that was obvious.

  Maybe this was it, then.

  Maybe this was the end of this movie, the movie that was her life before.

  And the start of the movie that was her life after.

  Harry

  Harry kept looping through what had happened the day before in his head. He couldn’t stop. It just kept starting over. Every time he tried to shake the image from his mind, he could see the whale’s huge eye staring at him again, and then the boat in pieces all around him, and then the baby whale, and then Nat’s face, sinking into the sea, and then the giant orange boat coming to save them.

  He couldn’t believe it had happened.

  He couldn’t believe they didn’t die.

  He mostly couldn’t believe what happened afterward, which was that his dad had hugged him. He had hugged him so hard that Harry thought his ribs might break. He had said, “Harry,” in a muffled but clear-enough way into Harry’s hair.

  Actually, it sounded more like “Hair,” but at least it wasn’t “Harriet.” His dad had stopped before the end.

  Harry didn’t remember his dad hugging him ever before.

  At least, he hadn’t done any hugging since Harry had declared his Harry-ness. Definitely not since then.

  It felt like a miracle.

  All of it.

  The whales.

  The boat.

  Mexico.

  And his dad finally saying his name. (Sort of.)

  For the first time in a very long time, Harry didn’t feel like he should be writing something down. He didn’t feel like he should be explaining something to the whole world. He didn’t feel responsible for that.

  What he felt like doing was learning how to surf.

  He looked out the window and there was Nat’s dad, XAN GALLAGHER himself, playing a ukulele in the hammock, swinging back and forth, singing with h
is whole body. Harry laughed. He had never known anyone like XAN GALLAGHER.

  He felt lucky.

  Quickly, he got changed into his swimsuit. He was going to go down there and ask. He was going to say, “Hey, Xan, what would you say to teaching me how to surf?”

  His dad would let him, he was sure of it. His dad would think that was rad.

  At least, Harry hoped he would.

  The End of the Story

  Up in her room, Nat sat down at the desk for the hundredth time and probably also the last time.

  The trip was ending.

  This was the last day.

  There was a letter that she wanted to write. She just didn’t know how to write it. She didn’t even know why she wanted to write it. She was a postcard person. She wasn’t a letter person. Letters were Solly’s thing.

  Nat thought about the postcard to Solly. It must have gotten ruined, sunk into the sea, along with her jeans that she was wearing the day before. Maybe that was OK.

  Maybe it had been for her, and not for Solly at all.

  Maybe Solly didn’t deserve to know she’d been forgiven. The forgiveness could be a quiet thing that was just for Nat.

  Solly probably didn’t care. She was rich again. She’d have her own paparazzi. She’d have her own story. She wouldn’t need Nat to make herself feel more important.

  Nat took a deep breath. She felt fine. She felt good, even.

  María had been totally right about the peppermint tea.

  Nat opened the desk drawer. There was a lot of paper in there, like the owners of this house had anticipated that their guests would be writers-of-letters. She chose a piece of paper and, using her best writing—which was nowhere near as nice as Solly’s best—she began to write.

  Dear Melina Martinez, she wrote. I forgive you.

  My name is Natalia Rose Baleine Gallagher, and I am your daughter.

  She stopped writing. She wanted to ask about the name Baleine. Why would Melina Martinez, who was American, give her daughter a French name?

  That wasn’t her main question though. The main one was too hard to ask.