Up Through the Water

by Darcey Steinke

  Birdflower put his head down. “Not for you.”

  “You think I'm a baby.” Lila raised her voice. “You think you're great,” she said. “All your long hair and stupid stories.”

  “What do you want?” Birdflower said.

  She placed a stray hand on her hip. “Weed,” she said.

  “Get out of here, Lila,” the bartender yelled.

  Birdflower rocked back on his chair. “Go play,” he said.

  She ran out with her hands over her face. He saw the backs of her tan legs—thin and spindly as a colt's. “If I were a couple years younger.” Birdflower turned back toward the table. “She'd be trouble.”

  * * *

  With a full moon behind the cedars, Lila walked along the sand street and saw the family graveyards to one side, old stones and new ones in plots no bigger than a modest front yard. She touched the white fence surrounding her family's plot. “I know things,” she said out loud.

  She'd been off the island a dozen times, to Hatteras, Nags Head, once on a class trip to Washington, D.C., which was lush, not the weathered beige of everything on the island. All the way up the coast, rows of tobacco plants spread out as straight as lines on paper. Every few miles, there was a trailer or shack, and women in pastel-flowered housedresses sitting in lawn chairs, flesh jiggling on their upper arms. It went on forever. Lila always imagined them driving off the island, riding underwater, seeing big fish, the car's headlights shining on pink seaweed and purple coral. Washington was like another planet, with those marble buildings as straight and white as space stations and the artifacts in them, carefully chosen and numbered. Lila thought if the world ended it wouldn't matter, because like the flood in the Bible, there would be at least two of everything left. Best of all, she liked the long dark hallway of tall and stately first ladies. Everyone in evening gowns of sequins, taffeta, or silk. The young ones were her favorites, because she could see herself among them, a tanless woman, mannequinthin, with a built-in sophistication. On the way home, she'd fallen asleep against the back seat and dreamed of ladies, swirling elegantly, moving their slender arms and necks slowly in time with the waltz. There was one in a green dress—tiny metallic-looking beads sewn close together like scales—who was dancing with Lila, holding her in her arms, her simple movements telling Lila everything. But when Lila looked up, it was into gluey fish eyes and the woman was a slippery sea trout with its gills winged out frantically.

  Something stirred in the low branches over the graveyard. Lila shivered. She saw her grandmother's gravestone and the row of plastic violets she put there herself in April. “There's a disease called Island Fever,” her grandmother once said as she and Lila walked along the beach, bending occasionally to pick up striped scallop shells. “I read once how cows get loose and run into the ocean.” Lila had seen a few of the wild ponies knee-deep, looking out over the water, but they always seemed to come back. She dragged her toe along the packed sand road and imagined whole herds of cows swimming underwater, galloping in slow motion over starfish and sand dollars, their moos bubbling up to the surface.

  “Birdflower,” she said, then sang it in different melodies and at various speeds all the way to her house. She said it so many times it lost all meaning and became only sounds. The bedroom door banged behind her. Lila flopped across her flowered bedspread. With a little of his weed she would forget everything: the ugly trailers by the coast guard station, the raggedy string of T-shirt shacks, and the pony, that queasy bone that had poked her underwater. Yes. With his pot she would float up, look down on all this, and laugh.

  In the morning, Lila watched Birdflower hosing off with the spigot in back of the Trolley Stop. He undid his hair, tips hanging nearly to his waist. He wet it, then sprayed water down his pants and under his armpits, and then sat in the sun and braided his hair back up.

  Lila poured six large Cokes into striped cups, the last overflowing.

  “Quit your dreaming,” the owner shouted. “And get those up here.”

  Lila stuck out her tongue and rolled her eyes.

  Dripping, Birdflower came in and reached for the mayo and ketchup tubs in the refrigerator.

  Lila counted out loud all the jars of green pickles shelved above her. “A lifetime supply,” she said, brushing Birdflower and stepping around the puddle by his feet.

  He tipped his chin. “Why did you do that yesterday?” he said.

  “What's the big deal?”

  The grill began to sizzle. It smelled like grease. Birdflower scraped it with a spatula.

  “All I want is some of your stuff,” she said flatly.

  Birdflower looked at the faint circles like crescent moons under her eyes.

  “And back here we could talk,” Lila said, pointing to the dumpsters. “During breaks we could smoke out there.”

  Birdflower held out his hand. “I don't know anything,” he said.

  The lights blinked. “Goddamnit!” the owner said from the front. “Those underwater lines aren't worth crap.” Everything went dead. The fans slowly wound down and the grill crackled lightly. “Break,” the owner said, shaking his head.

  Lila followed Birdflower behind the dumpster. The sky was ultravox blue. Cats weaved around their feet and dived to the weeds from the top edge of the dumpster. He pulled a joint out of his T-shirt pocket, lit it, and breathed in. “First puff of the day,” he said, eyes closing from the morning glare.

  “Just one drag,” Lila said. She reached and picked up a scrawny cat; its back legs hung loose under her arm.

  “You'll burn yourself,” Birdflower said.

  Lila dropped the cat. “Blow smoke in my mouth then.”

  He breathed in, his hand held backward and his lips tight together. Birdflower motioned with his head for her to come closer. Lila made her mouth a slack, choirboy oval.

  Birdflower put his lips inches away and blew blue-gray smoke into her mouth. She held it, forced it down, and pictured it spreading in her lungs like smoke in a white room. “Again,” she said. He took a drag, leaned closer this time so their lips just barely did not touch. Lila closed her eyes. “All I want to know is how far you have to go before you can come back.” Birdflower pulled back and listened for the sound of water moving out on the point. When he passed her the joint, their fingers touched.

  The owner yelled, “Electricity's on.”

  FIVE

  FISH MARKET

  Before noon on Sunday, Emily left the house and the outer arc of dappling leaf light and headed toward town to meet Eddie. She had on khaki shorts, washed soft as skin, and a blouse that gathered around the neck with a green ribbon. Her sunglasses hid the bluish bruise around her left eye and reached over half of one of the larger scabs on her forehead.

  Emily's street was the only complete sand one; all the rest that crisscrossed over the island were either gravel or cement. And the sloppy roads on the soundside were often marked with boards. In the winter the population dwindled to less than six hundred, but now there were two thousand or more, counting tourists and summer residents. The island itself was shaped like a thermometer. The Texaco, Trolley, and Paolo's were along the fourteen miles of highway that led to Silver Lake. The town horseshoed around that inlet. On the northwest tip was the coast guard station, then the tourist docks, post office, community store, and the old Victorian houses. These were inhabited by captains’ widows who, some people said, still smoked opium as they had earlier while waiting for their husbands to return from the sea. A dozen long docks radiated into Silver Lake, and the commercial fishing boats and shrimpers docked there alongside locals’ rowboats and tourist sailboats. On the northernmost point stood the lighthouse, and near it a storybook Pentecostal church. Emily had been there once, and she remembered the snapdragons in milk glass vases on the altar.

  Her sandals flipped sand against the back of her bare legs, and she rested for a moment on the gate of one of the small family cemeteries. The stones were granite, most with simple crosses, names, and dates. Above her, a sparrow
landed on a low cedar branch. She remembered her father and how in sermons he would use her and her sister Sarah as examples of naturally sinful children, telling things to the whole congregation—never smiling or looking down to where his family sat in the front pew.

  It was Easter sunrise she liked to think about in detail. There was always a huge cross twisted with forsythia and braced with gold cord. The altar guild ladies brought lilies in their cars. The big trumpet blossoms pressed against the glass. Around five-thirty the light diffused. A piano arrived in the back of a pickup truck. Her father's cape arched out from his shoulders. Fifty or so members sat in folding chairs and there were another twenty like Emily and her mother in cars. The organist banged out the Alleluia and it was then that she always felt herself dissolving. Only the sight of her father, his blond hair backlit by the sun, anchored her.

  Emily came out of the tunneled trees and crossed the main street to the post office. She was a few minutes early, so she sat down on the sidewalk curb and squinted across the parking lot.

  Eddie had gone at low tide to clam. She'd offered to help but he'd refused, saying they would meet later near the market to pick out a fish for dinner. He had insisted on coming, she knew, because he loved the mackerel and bluefish lined on ice, the delicate filleting knives and the loose scales that stuck to everything.

  Though he'd asked several times, she still hadn't told him why John Berry had thrown the bottle. She figured he understood, but he seemed to want her to say something about her lovers and Emily was unsure if she could.

  She felt a damp hand grab the back of her neck, and Eddie sat down, slung the net bag of clams between his legs, and laid the rake next to him.

  “You got all those by yourself?” Emily said.

  “Yeah. Let's go get the fish.” He seemed oddly anxious.

  Emily heard a rustle behind her and turned to see the branches of a bush near the P.O. shake. Under the white blossoms and leaves were a girl's bare legs in a pair of wet tennis shoes.

  “Who's that?” Emily asked.

  “Lila,” he said. “She wanted to see you up close.”

  Lila walked a step behind Emily and Eddie across the gravel parking lot, up the wooden stairs, and into the small room. There was hardly enough space for the three of them to stand in front of the rows of fish on ice. The place was deserted and Lila felt a little creepy under the silent surveillance of so many dead eyes.

  Eddie stood a few yards away and kicked at a muddy box near the far wall. Lila fingered the fish, grabbed the tails, and twisted them, checking for firmness with her index finger. She could tell from the way Emily stayed near the door and folded her arms heavily in front of her that she didn't like the headless fish, or even the shimmering whole ones.

  Lila stared at her and Emily seemed to sense it; she straightened her shoulders, tipped up her chin, and let her eyes become distant. A few months ago Lila had seen Emily shopping at the community store, barefoot and in tattered jeans; she bought only four things—a gallon of red wine, a tall white candle, bath bubbles, and some condoms.

  Emily read the cardboard price list and commented on how shrimp were particularly cheap this week. “I've heard you were the fastest header on the island,” she said to Lila.

  “I didn't know that,” Eddie said.

  Lila could tell by the eager tone in his voice that this impressed him.

  She blushed; it was a fact she'd always been proud of, but picturing herself among the other island women, hair up, sitting on her milking stool, and twisting handfuls of shrimp heads off until her fingers were raw, seemed embarrassing to her now.

  “Pruitt's usually in the back,” Lila said, and she walked past Emily out the screen door and around to where he was slicing a shark into steaks. The sun was hot. Emily had probably meant to be flattering, but Lila felt uncomfortable because she couldn't be sure. Pruitt's white apron was bloody, and there were even specks of blood in his hair. She watched him cut through the spine, then into the softer muscle of the fish. “You got customers,” Lila told him.

  “First ones,” Pruitt said. “Thought I might get to sit around all day till my dad started me on this.”

  He motioned to the sprawl of silver skin and wet bones. She watched the white shrimper Last Chance sway in the water near the market. While he hosed off his hands, she counted the shark heads in a brown bag, then pressed a finger into a puddle of blood on the filleting board. Lila smelled the blood and then wiped it off on the wood boards. She remembered how her grandmother had told her that drinking the blood of animals passed their powers on to you. She watched Pruitt dry his hands on some newspaper. He was her age, but because he was so silent and lanky, Lila thought of him as younger.

  She followed him through the maze of packing coolers in the back way. “Pruitt was gutting a shark in the back,” Lila said. She paused to see if they would grimace or cringe. Emily concentrated on the fish, pretending not to hear, but Eddie scowled at her and averted his eyes, and Lila felt guilty for trying to shock them.

  Emily pointed, “How about that one?”

  Pruitt picked the trout up, weighed it, and threw it on the butcher block. He asked if she wanted it cleaned. Emily shook her head. He slid the trout into a clear bag, so its face pressed against the plastic.

  Emily paid, and there was something in the gentle way she took the bag with both hands that gave Lila the feeling she wasn't going to cook the trout at all.

  JULY

  In early July the ferry at dusk is never crowded. Most crossers stay in the sleepy comfort of their cars listening to the last hints of Norfolk radio and letting the lurch of the boat lull them. Really it's only lovers on long weekends that go out into the windy confusion to lean against the bow's rail. They listen to the rigging clang and the crack and pull of the flags and watch water heave up in the wake of the ferry. Their sweatshirts puff up like blowfish. Against the darkening foreground they see the tipped wingspans and shiny beaks of the hundreds of gulls that swoop and circle, following the boat in hopes of handfuls of white bread or crackers. Lovers in July look ahead to the lights of the island. Somehow only they know that the power of air is all and they must come wordless into the sing of wind and water.

  SIX

  DEEP SEA FISHING

  Emily Pulled her T-shirt off in one smooth movement, her hair fell back to her shoulders, her bikini-top triangles of rose macramé shook slightly, and the shells tied to the back strings tinkled like wind chimes. The white shirt she held blew out like a flag as the cruiser bumped over the water. Birdflower's clean brown hair was gathered in a ponytail and tucked into a pale lavender T-shirt with maroon mermaids singing on the front. She watched his lips move, but because of the boat's engine, she couldn't make out the words.

  They were sitting on cushions along the far wall of the boat, watching the island melt to water. Before them were the fishing chairs, bolted swivel seats. In the front, Michael steered behind the splattered Plexiglas window of the cabin. Near him, David tipped a beer to his lips; the can touched the rim of his baseball cap. She saw how Birdflower looked at the brass bead held by a leather string around her neck and the smooth sheen of her hair. His eyes lingered on the swell of her breasts. Water spray dotted their faces. He leaned over and cupped a hand to her ear. “I'll catch you something,” he said.

  Emily looked ahead of the boat and imagined the Gulf Stream. “Like the ocean has a light blue racing stripe,” Birdflower had said. She thought it was like a sunbeam, coming up from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, illuminating fish in the sea's dark room.

  The last time she'd been fishing was with Eddie, when he was ten, at sunset; she remembered how excited he'd been, casting, wading out barefoot in his rolled-up jeans. She had sat in a lawn chair on the sand and watched his tanned back moving in the surf. Now he wouldn't want to fish. He was busy with Lila.

  Birdflower got a beer from the cooler near the bait bundles and the longer cooler for fish. The beer popped, fizzed; he took a sip and handed it to Emily
. Michael steered with one hand and pointed. “There's the Gulf,” he said. He wore the thick fisherman sunglasses that wrapped around his face, protecting even his peripheral vision from the sun. The engine kicked and sputtered and the boat made a lazy arc in the water.

  Birdflower moved to help with the anchor. Michael winked at Emily. “You just sit there and look pretty,” he said.

  She smiled. She liked being the only woman among men. It set the curves of her body off like the stems of flowers against a hard wall. The fishing rods bent like willows.

  Birdflower stood near her and slipped a hand to her waist. He had on bright surfing pants that Emily thought were too young for him. The stiff, starched cotton brushed against her thigh.

  Birdflower undid the squid pieces packed in butcher paper. They were purple with white spots and shaped like broccoli stems. He baited her hook, his hands moving as if each finger had a small brain at the tip. Once last season she crept behind the sand dunes. It was strange: water up to Birdflower's thighs, an old onion sack filled with clams over his shoulder. He was mindless, looking up often into the sun, blinking when it flashed in his eyes. The warm water must have aroused him because she saw the way he fiddled with his bathing suit, how he eventually dropped the rake and held himself in both hands. She remembered the angles: flat water to the horizon, thick strip of sky, and his body heaving back in diagonal to them.

  Birdflower leaned against the side of the boat. “I saw you yesterday on the beach road,” he said.

  “Yeah, I've been around.”

  Birdflower kicked one sneaker against the toe of the other. “That's what I've heard.”

  Emily was surprised that he would say that. “Why can't I do what I want?” she said.

  Birdflower looked out over the water. “Women like you will always have trouble in this world,” he said.

  David suddenly gave a banshee cry and did a cannonball off the side of the boat. Michael dove straight and Emily saw him glide for a moment underwater. When he rose, he asked if they were coming in.