Breathing Underwater

by Sarah Allen

  “She’s okay,” I say.

  “Yeah,” says Mom.

  “Hey,” I say. “Remember those murals in Las Cruces? When we were on the drive to Knoxville?”

  “Murals?”

  “At that park, remember?”

  “Oh, right! You guys took, like, five hundred pictures. What were the…”

  “They were murals of roadrunners,” I say. “Dad kept saying meep meep.”

  Mom laughs. “Oh yeah! I remember.”

  I remember how every time Dad made that sound, Ruth laughed. One time she laughed until she snorted. When we took pictures, I remember her lifting her arms way up high in the air like she was flying.

  I check again to make sure Ruth’s earbuds are in and she can’t hear me. “That move was … the drive was happy for … for all of us, right? I remember it being happy.”

  I hear Mom inhale. “I remember Ruth hoping it would be a good move. Hoping really hard. You helped her with that.”

  So much effort went into that Treasure Hunt, and I think Mom is right about Ruth. Signs of really bad days had recently started popping up like Bobbitt worms, and maybe Ruth was hoping that a move across the country would wipe them away from the start. We were both hoping.

  We talk for a few more minutes, about Dad stressing out about his new client, like he always does. About when they’re going to be flying out to meet us, about her lecture. She tells me she’s keeping up-to-date on my “travelgram” and I tell her I know, because I’ve seen all her comments.

  I try to imagine exactly what my mom is seeing as she’s talking to me on the phone. Maybe the scratches on her desk? Dishes in the sink? That might be a cool photo project one day—take two relatives, show the different things they see, far away, nearby. I wonder if there’s a chance they’d ever be seeing the same thing.

  “Tell Ruth I love her,” Mom says. “And tell Olivia I love her, too.”

  “Very funny, Mom,” I say.

  After I hang up, Ruth asks about making a pit stop, and I’m relieved that she’s speaking, if only to ask to pee in a toilet that isn’t moving. When we stop and all get out of the RV, Ruth doesn’t immediately follow, which worries me, but as I get into the service station, I look back through the glass doors and see her stepping down out of the RV.

  This service station is a fancy one. It’s got a big lot spread with a handful of eighteen-wheelers and even a fountain out front. They have a whole row of vending machines with much more variety than earlier ones. They have a spinner full of postcards.

  Ruth walks into the restroom and I grab a couple of fruit leathers. After I use the bathroom, I get my camera from the RV and look around the parking lot for potential Instagram pictures. The closer we get to New Orleans, the more excited I am about the Something New pictures I’m going to take.

  The sun makes me squint. In front of the RV is an oil stain that’s shimmering in rainbows. I pull my camera out of its sling and aim it at the spot. The sun is way too bright for a perfect shot, but I play around with the settings and see if I can get the white balance to work. I take a couple practice shots, but they go between bleached-looking and muddy. I’m fiddling with the settings again when Ruth’s reflection appears in the oil puddle. I hurry and click before she can move. One more for the “Sisters” folder.

  “Why are you taking pictures of the asphalt?”

  I open my mouth to tell her that there was a cool rainbow, that she had shimmering colors across her reflection, that I was just experimenting and practicing and I knew it wasn’t going to be, like, the greatest photo ever or anything. But when I see her raised eyebrow and wrinkled nose, I don’t know what to say, and she rolls her eyes and heads back to the RV.

  Eddie walks out of the station with bananas and sunflower seeds. He comes over to where I am and looks at the puddle I’m looking at.

  “Oh hey, that reflection’s kind of cool,” he says.

  “Yeah? I mean, I was taking pictures, but it’s weird…”

  He tears open the corner of his sunflower-seed bag. “If you think it’s cool enough to take pictures of, that’s what matters, right?”

  “Ruth thinks I’m weird.” The words blurt out of me. I’m not sure exactly why I wanted to say it, but somehow saying those words out loud to Eddie feels like a relief. Like I’m unloading something I’ve been trying to carry by myself.

  Eddie looks at me carefully. “One person’s weird is another person’s Vincent van Gogh, and where would we be without our Vincents?”

  For a moment I wonder if he means I’m the Vincent or Ruth is, and then Eddie’s eyes wrinkle into their usual grin and I realize he probably means both. I also realize I’m going to have that “Vincent” song by Don McLean stuck in my head now for the rest of the day. I wonder if Ruth has it on her iPod. I bet she does.

  Eddie’s looking up at the sky, his mind on a tangent. “That’s what’s so great about the Impressionists and the Postimpressionists,” he mutters. “They’re painting an experience, not just visual likeness.”

  I look up at the sky where Eddie’s looking. I wonder what he’s really seeing, and if photography can paint an experience too.

  Eddie sighs, looks back at me, and smiles. “Hey,” he says, “let’s see how many sunflower seeds I can catch in my mouth at once.”

  He pours at least a third of the bag of seeds into his palm, then chucks them high into the air. He doesn’t even look around first to see if anyone is watching. The seeds clatter down around us like hail and despite his wide-open and upturned mouth, he catches precisely zero.

  We step into the RV together, laughing.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I’ve never seen a city as colorful as New Orleans. I made a wish when we crossed the Louisiana border, like I did at the Alabama and Mississippi borders. I make the same wish every time, and the brightness of New Orleans almost feels like the universe working to make my wish come true. Neon signs flash in the shop windows. Orange buildings are window-draped with hanging green plants, and white carriages with red roofs pull families of tourists. We pass buildings painted yellow and blue, and cafés with pink banners flapping. We drive through a street of redbrick apartments and pear-colored palm bushes.

  There are going to be lots of chances for Something New pictures here; we’ve driven past lots of murals already, and lots of spray-painted and chalked art along the walls and sides of buildings. Shouldn’t be hard at all to find the name of the city sprayed in big, bold letters somewhere, right? A Something New sign just like last time, only New Orleans style. It doesn’t even have to be the same kind of jumping picture, just a picture of Ruth standing under a new New, similar enough that when Ruth sees it, she’ll remember.

  And it’s okay that Ruth’s not making a new playlist, because I remember the songs, even if she doesn’t have them downloaded.

  The first thing we’re doing (Ellie has had this planned for weeks) is going to Café du Monde for beignets. Not the very first thing, I guess, since before we do that, we have to fit the RV into its slot among hundreds of other RVs on the asphalt plateau by the river. The forest of motor homes is almost beautiful.

  I take some pictures of it, of course. No good photos of street art here, though.

  We walk to the edge of this mobile city and call an Uber. The driver is a bald man with a friendly gap between his front teeth. I have to pay attention to understand what he’s saying, because his Louisiana drawl is so thick. He’s trying to tell us about a better place for beignets, but it doesn’t matter because Ellie is determined to get the specific Café du Monde experience.

  And so we pull up to the café. The noise of the crowd erupts as we open the car doors, but we get out and the driver flashes his gap grin and drives off.

  The café is a short pale building, but its main feature is a large green-and-white-striped awning jutting out like a circus tent. The awning is rimmed with glowing bulbs that make me think of vintage movie theaters. The air is thick with the kind of sugary, buttery smell you clo
se your eyes for.

  My camera is out and up almost instinctually. I take wide-frame shots of the whole café, then try zooming in close on the awning and the glowing yellow bulbs. The crowd outside is a rainbow of motion.

  It’s not new street art, but Café du Monde is still new for us, right? Something here could work, maybe. I’ll keep my photographer’s eye open.

  I follow Ellie inside to what appears to be the back of the line. When we stop, she slides her hand into her husband’s and they look at each other like they know each other so well they don’t even have to try hard to know what the other is thinking.

  For a quick moment, I wish Mom and Dad were here. They’d both love this place. Dad would have loved the art on the walls, the whole vibe. Mom would have loved the history.

  We step forward in line and Ellie leans toward me. “Hey, show me the pictures you just took.”

  My camera is already out, and I click to the shots I took outside, of the awning and round light bulbs. I’m getting more used to showing her and Eddie my pictures without feeling so awkward about it.

  “Oh my goodness, that’s gorgeous!” she says. “I’m so glad you’re documenting all this.”

  Eddie leans in too. “Hey, that’s awesome! I love the cool shadows you got.”

  “Thanks,” I say. There’s still part of me that feels squirmy about getting their compliments, but honestly it feels really good to show them pictures I’m proud of.

  We are surrounded by clattering and chattering and bursts of deep, full laughter. Eddie and Ellie read a plaque about the history of the café and bask in the glow of vintage bulbs and well-fed people. Ruth is on her phone, maybe checking her e-mail or Instagram.

  I take a few deep breaths. Time for some interior shots, and I could do with more practice with this camera to figure out how to do one of those cool dim-light motion-blur crowd shots that would be awesome in a place like this. But then I think to myself, that would be an obvious shot. Look for the not obvious. The unique. The mundane that’s not really mundane at all.

  The new.

  The line moves forward faster than I expect, and soon we are at the counter by the arched windows. Ellie orders two big plates of beignets and we wriggle through the crowd toward the edge of the awning. Eddie sees a group of people getting ready to leave and pounces on the empty table.

  We have to find an unused chair, but soon we are all seated. My back is against the gate, a perfect vantage point for crowd watching.

  After a short wait, a girl brings two platters piled high with steaming brown beignets. They are hot enough to warm cold hands and piled so high with powdered sugar I don’t know where to pick them up. It seems like we’re all having the same hesitation, but in a moment we all—even Ruth—reach for the plates and take a pastry, causing powdered sugar to sprinkle over all of us like snow. Before I’ve taken my first bite, I’ve got a sprinkling of white on my collar and Eddie has to wipe sugar dust from his glasses.

  We all take a bite of the perfectly shaped, perfectly fried beignets and I see Ellie close her eyes and smile like a kid.

  “So worth it,” she says.

  Eddie leans toward me so I can hear. He gestures at Ellie. “That happy face is worth however many hours of driving,” he says.

  I look over at Ruth and catch her almost smiling, the angry furrow gone from her brow, and I think I know what Eddie’s talking about. I’d fly to China for dumplings if it would get that smile.

  Maybe beignets are a good sign. Maybe there really is such a thing as magic, only now we call it baking. Ruth’s iPod is in her pocket and her hand is cupped under her chin, trying to catch powdered-sugar avalanches before they tumble into her lap. I hurry and wipe my fingers on my pants and aim my camera lens at Ruth and click while she’s got a sticky hand raised in the air and is trying to lick sugar off the tip of her nose. I don’t think she even notices. A perfect photo for the “Sisters” folder.

  Ruth looks around and mumbles something about napkins. There are none.

  All of us are dusted somewhere with sugar. Ruth is licking white off her fingertips and Ellie brushes crumbs off Eddie’s chin. I wipe my palms on my jeans again and try to dust the sugar from the front of my shirt.

  Maybe it’s the sugar, but I have a weird idea. I wipe my hands clean the best I can and, while the others seem distracted by their own messy fingers, duck under the table with my camera.

  “Whatcha doing down there?” Ellie asks.

  So much for trying to be subtle.

  “Nothing,” I say. But it’s too late. Ruth’s face pops under the rim of the table, one eyebrow raised in annoyance.

  “Get up,” she says. “You’re being embarrassing.”

  I’m about to zip up my camera bag and crawl back into my chair, but then I stop. I want this picture, even if it’s weird. Maybe I can best capture my experience of this place from under the table, and if so, it’s worth being a little strange. Photography is about looking at things from different angles, isn’t it? I think about what Eddie said about Vincent van Gogh. It’s already too late to stop Ruth from rolling her eyes at me, but maybe she’ll see the picture on my Instagram and see what I was going for. See how fun this shot could be. Maybe.

  So I clear my throat and hold tight to the leather strap of my camera bag. “I will in a second,” I say.

  Ruth groans and goes back to her beignet.

  I match my camera’s settings to the dim café light. Then I spin around, looking at all the shoes and feet jostling and tapping in the crowd around me.

  Ruth’s shoes are the closest to me. They’re an old pair of black Converse, thrashed, a tear in one side, and they’re dusted with a sprinkling of powdered sugar across the toes. It’s a test of my camera’s focus features, but I aim it at that sprinkling of powdered sugar. There are red sandals and blue tennis shoes and fifty other colors in the background, and the lights above reflect in the shine of the floor. The focus works, and I kind of love the framing.

  Click.

  The shoes are not new. The floor isn’t, the place isn’t, not really. But something going through my mind feels new and it takes me a moment to pin it down. Ruth got frustrated with me, snipped at me a little bit, and I did my own thing anyway. That? That’s pretty new.

  I look at the screen, at the picture I just took. It’s weird and I love it. I love it, outside of what anyone else might say or think. If nothing else, when people scroll through the Café du Monde geotag on Instagram, mine won’t be at all what they’re expecting.

  I’ll call it “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes,” Paul Simon, 1986.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ruth’s iPod has become her comforter. This morning I saw her listening to the Interstellar soundtrack. Great soundtrack, but not a good sign.

  I had hoped the beignets and colorful city would help, but maybe they didn’t. Maybe that’s a temporary magic. I wish I knew what would help. What she needs. What she’s thinking. I’ll keep an extra-careful eye on her today.

  Besides, Ellie and Eddie are going out to lunch with some old friends, so it’ll just be the two of us. And I have some ideas of what we can do.

  While Ellie’s changing, I climb down and try to nonchalantly sit on the very edge of Ruth’s bed. She keeps looking at her iPod, but doesn’t tell me to go away or anything.

  “Hey, Ruth,” I say.

  She takes out her earbuds. She’s gone from the Interstellar soundtrack to Far from the Madding Crowd.

  “What if we went for a walk while Ellie and Eddie are gone?” I say.

  She shrugs. That’s a yes.

  Maybe today isn’t going to be so bad after all.

  Ruth flinches and puts a hand on her stomach.

  “Okay?” I ask.

  “I’m fine. Just a stupid battle in my uterus right now.”

  I dash into the mini-bathroom, open the small drawer where the ibuprofen bottle is, and run back out with the bottle. My … well, battle, happened the week before we left, thank goodness. />
  I give the bottle to Ruth, then get a water bottle for her from the fridge. She doesn’t take the water, and dry swallows two little red pills.

  She does say thanks, or mumbles it, then goes back to her iPod. I leave the water bottle on her bed, wanting to remind her to drink, but she’s already back in her music and I don’t want to annoy her more or make things worse. Something feels very satisfying, though, about being able to physically give Ruth something helpful.

  An Uber pulls up to take Ellie and Eddie to their lunch.

  “You guys sure you’re going to be okay?” Ellie asks.

  “Yep!” I say.

  Eddie hands me a couple of twenties. “There’s those restaurants right outside the park when you get hungry,” he says. “Stick together.”

  “We will,” I say.

  “We’ll pick you up in a few hours when it’s concert time!” Eddie says. He kind of jiggles his shoulders in a silly attempt at a dance move and I can’t help but laugh. Ellie shakes her head, but smiles.

  “There’s a Triple D down that way.” Ellie points. “They do corn-bread casserole and a shrimp gumbo that’s apparently to die for.”

  They glance at Ruth and she nods a quick goodbye, then Ellie and Eddie step outside. I stand on the RV’s steps and wave as they drive away. In the humidity, my skin feels oddly like I’ve just poured honey all over myself, and I’m sure my hair looks totally greasy even though I washed it this morning.

  I step back inside. Ruth’s hair looks perfect, as always. Heck, she rolls out of bed with it looking perfect. I guess that’s the advantage of really short hair.

  Now that Ellie and Eddie are gone, Ruth is up, ready, and has her bag hitched over her shoulder.

  “Ready?” she says. “You wanted to go on a walk, right?”

  “Oh, um. Yes.” I try not to use exclamation points in my voice or get overexuberant and risk popping whatever bubble of goodness is happening. “We could go get some food. And I’ll bring my camera in case we find good places for pictures.”

  I hope that sounds nonchalant.