The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners

by Luanne Rice

  Lyra sat on the settee, arms wrapped around drawn-up knees. Ten years of being alone, not having the day-to-day guardianship of her children, and right now she was so scared she couldn’t breathe.

  The damp grew so thick, moisture dripped from the leaves. Lyra thought of Pell, dressed for a sunny day, wondered if she was getting chilled. The brass telescope stood on its tripod, anchored to the stone parapet. Lyra unfolded herself to move it inside. She turned on some lights in the living room, used a cloth to wipe it off. Her stomach flipped; she was taking care of a “thing” again, when what she really wanted was to be holding her daughter.

  She thought back to the week before Pell arrived. She’d busied herself, cleaning and polishing, making the house as perfect as possible. She’d planted window boxes for the guest room, polished the silver tea set. Max had laughed at her—he didn’t think she knew, but she’d realized immediately what he was thinking. Who cared about the house, about objects? It was people who mattered.

  Her daughters.

  She drifted toward a large painting, three feet square, hanging on the wall. Abstract, soft pastel, it showed three rounded green shapes—one large, two small. The green was a shade of mint, rain-washed, the shapes smudged around the edges. They might have been hills.

  Christina had painted it for Lyra the year before she died. She’d been losing ground, forgetting words, everyone’s name, even Max’s. But during that time, her art had deepened. It was as if without clear thoughts and language, nothing blocked the true spirit welling up from inside.

  “What a beautiful landscape,” Lyra had said when Christina presented her with the painting. And it really was: three defined hillocks in the foreground—the larger flanked by two smaller ones—overlooking a vast sea of blue. “The ocean, and three hills.”

  “No, girls,” Christina had said, correcting her.

  Lyra had smiled; her friend often mixed up words. But Christina pointed, starting with the shape in the middle. “Lyra,” she’d said. “And her daughters.”

  Immediately Lyra saw. “Pell,” she’d said, touching one hill, “and Lucy,” the other.

  “Yes,” Christina had nodded. “Lyra and her children.”

  Lyra gazed at the painting now. It captured the way one flowed into another, whether hills or people. Separate, independent, yet necessary to the landscape, to the larger composition.

  The phone rang, and Lyra ran for it.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Mom, it’s Lucy.”

  “Hi, Lucy,” she said. “Have you heard from Pell?”

  “Not a word, and that’s so weird. It’s not like her. Mom, I’m on my way.”

  Had Lyra misheard her?

  “On your way?” she asked.

  “Yes. I know it’s last-minute and all, but you don’t have to worry about getting things ready or anything. I’ll sleep on the floor. It’s okay. The main thing is, I want to be there for Pell. And you too.”

  “Lucy,” Lyra said. She stared at the painting. “You shouldn’t have to come all this way just to check on your sister. I’m supposed to be taking care of her. I want to see you—I’ve had it in mind to call and ask you to come. Why didn’t I do that? And why have things gone so wrong with Pell?”

  “How could it be easy?” Lucy asked. “We love you so much. All this time and distance between us is what’s hard.”

  “You’re only fourteen, and you know that?”

  “Of course I know it. Pell’s my older sister.” The words were simple, direct, enough said. The girls’ sense of each other was so intense, one sister knew when the other needed her.

  “When do you land?” Lyra asked. “I’ll make arrangements to have you met at the airport.”

  “Thank you, Mom,” Lucy said, and gave her the flight details. Lyra wrote them down. “I’m bringing someone with me,” Lucy continued. “Travis Shaw. Pell’s boyfriend.”

  “Lucy, I’m not sure,” Lyra began.

  “Mom,” Lucy said. “You don’t know how it is. This is the way we do things. Travis is part of our lives.”

  “Okay” Lyra said. “He’s welcome, of course. And I can’t wait to see you.”

  They said goodbye.

  Lyra heard footsteps on the terrace. She turned, saw two people through the tall windows: Pell and Rafe. It had started to rain, and they were dripping wet. Lyra had ten seconds to feel relief before worry took over. Pell looked miserable, and walked straight through the living room, past Lyra, toward her bedroom.

  Rafe stood just outside the door, in the rain.

  “Where were you?” Lyra asked. “Where did you take her?”

  “To Il Faraglioni,” he said.

  “I swear to God, Rafe,” Lyra said. “If she’s not okay …”

  The young man stared at her. His eyes seemed clear, alert, but darkness hung on him like his wet clothes.

  “Go check on her,” he said. “She’s pretty upset.”

  “I can see that,” Lyra said. “What happened?”

  “I made a mistake,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  And he walked off the terrace, back into the steady rain.

  Another boy’s arms around me.

  His lips on mine.

  And I’d leaned into him, wanting everything to go away losing myself in his kiss for ten, thirty, sixty seconds.

  I couldn’t tell myself it was just a quick peck, that he tried something and I instantly turned away. Because that’s not what happened.

  The boathouse, so spare and clean, the changing weather sweeping through the two small windows, that first gust of wind, and the breath of rain. I’d wanted mist, damp, cool rain, and here it came.

  Rafe’s arms strong and lean, and the danger so sexy, the knowledge that he’d stepped off the path and made it back alive. Kissing me, hot and wet, pulling me down on the narrow bed, and I’d let him.

  Thinking everything in my life had been a lie, the word everything starting and ending with my dad. Because that’s what he’d been to me, nothing less. Running home from school, there’d been one person I wanted to see: him. Having a bad dream, there’d been only one who could give me comfort: him. His goodness had erased all the dread and badness of my mother’s leaving.

  So what am I saying? My mother’s bombshell, the disillusioning news that my father had been one factor in why/how she’d left us, had thrown me into crazy disarray. The Pell I’d always been disappeared in that moment. Steady, helpful, loving, caring, responsible me—gone.

  Don’t think I haven’t known how people saw me. After my mother left, once we got through the first horrendous year, Dr. Robertson’s help enabled me to find my center, realize what was important, know that Lucy needed me, that I had to be the best older sister possible. At the age of seven, I pulled myself together. I remember it so clearly—I saw the alternatives: be good, be there like my dad, or be a wreck, be gone like my mom. I elected to be like him.

  All through my life, and I do mean all through, up until today, I’ve been hyper-responsible. Walk my sister to school, help her with her homework, make sure she gets to bed on time. When our dad was sick, I acted as a nurse. I filled a basin with warm water, used a washcloth to wash his face, helped him shave. Once he stopped being able to work, he was home all the time. His illness took him down over the course of a year; sometimes he’d go to the hospital—when he got pneumonia, then a staph infection, two surgeries to relieve pressure on his brain.

  I insisted on knowing the details. His doctors had instructions to tell me the truth; my dad trusted me and my strength that much. So at the end, when he came home after surgery to remove infected parts of his skull—”debriding the bone,” it was called—and a nurse would come to our house to clean out the wound—I would stand right there, holding his hand, while she swept the crater in his head with hydrogen peroxide on a Q-tip. I was thirteen; other kids were at after-school sports, at the library, with their friends. I was with my dad.

  “You’re the strongest girl I’ve ever known,”
he said.

  “Thanks, Dad,” I said. “It’s easy, I love you.”

  We’d beam at each other, even as he was turning into a skeleton, losing so much weight he barely weighed more than I. We were there for each other—I couldn’t forget what he’d done for me and Lucy. Other dads might have brought someone else in to care for the kids—like a nanny, or a governess, or a girlfriend. Not him. He let us know how much we mattered to him.

  He neither pushed us nor forbade us to talk about or call our mother. But the feeling became, it was easier without her. When we did talk to her on the phone, we were all left feeling so empty. She should be here, she shouldn’t be here, we didn’t know. That might have been the time my father could have told us the whole truth. He could have let himself be a little more of the bad guy, to save her from being completely, one hundred percent wrong.

  Now, in my room at my mother’s house, I heard the rain pouring down outside, pattering on the roof and leaves. My mother’s voice at my closed door. “Pell,” she said. “Please, let’s talk. Will you come out?”

  But I wouldn’t. I went into the bathroom, tried to scrub Rafe’s kiss off my lips. The feeling of his hands off my arms and shoulders. What I couldn’t erase was the excitement I’d felt. I did it all myself—kissed him, turned myself inside out lying on that bed in the boathouse, wanted him with everything I had. My mother’s voice kept going outside the locked door, saying Lucy and Travis were on the way.

  I already knew. I’d listened to my voicemail.

  “Pell, Lucy’s worried about you. We’re flying to Italy tonight. I can’t wait to see you,” he said.

  Travis, my boy.

  Threw him away, didn’t I?

  Responsible me. The girl I used to be, let’s go back to her for a minute. Even after my father died, and we moved to Newport, and started school there … even then, I was steady and reliable. I didn’t see the point in breaking rules. Life handed me certain opportunities, and I accepted them, respected the boundaries along the way.

  There were few exceptions to that. I’ll give you an example of one, and show you how ignoring the boundary, the rules, made me feel bad. Guilty, if you will—not in a religious sense, but in a moral, ordered one. Stepping outside the lines seemed, at that time, an unnecessary risk. I could have been expelled, and where would that have left Lucy?

  Here’s what happened. Last winter:

  Travis and I had been getting closer, had started going out just before Christmas. Our relationship had bloomed slowly. He’d arrived at school just that fall, fresh from Ohio, where he’d had a longtime girlfriend. They’d broken up. I wasn’t the reason, but I wanted him to be sure. I’d felt the wild, amazing attraction to him—not just physically, but emotionally, in my heart and every other part of myself. And when he’d reached for me, I’d slowed it all down. Not to drive us more crazy than we already were, but to give him time to get over Ally.

  Christmas came—that’s when I first realized I wanted to travel here, to Italy, to connect with my mother, stay with her, bring her back. Being with Travis, seeing the closeness he had with his mom and sisters, realizing their family had been broken and had come back together—that’s what started me thinking. I’d even considered Capri for Christmas, but realized two things: it wouldn’t give me enough time to really get to know her, and also it would take me away from Travis, just when we were getting started.

  Walks on the winter beach, coffee in a candlelit café on the wharf, kisses in the far stacks of our boarding school library in grand, gilded, haunted Blackstone Hall. Travis and I fell in love. Then, right after the holidays, a trustee of Newport Academy decided to reward the football team for a winning season. He funded a trip to Toronto during February break.

  Impossible! Travis going away for five days. He didn’t want to leave, but the team had just voted him captain for senior year. I couldn’t bear to part with him because I was head over heels. A whole lifetime of doing the right thing suddenly felt like the biggest obstacle ever. All I could think about was stowing away in his duffel bag.

  My friends came to the rescue. Logan Moore had a car—a Range Rover, to be precise. Her mother is Ridley Moore, the film star, and I’m pretty sure the phrase “spoiled Hollywood brat” was invented for Logan—I say that with adoration and sympathy, because she is a sponge for love. Cordelia St. Onge, of the Boston St. Onges, her father the head of neurosurgery at Bay State General, came along.

  We told school that we were heading to Logan’s mom’s film set. Ditto the St. Onges. We told Logan’s mom that we were going to South Beach. She gave us George Clooney’s number, said he was shooting a movie there with Robert Pattinson, said they’d be happy to take us out for mojitos. The fact we are nowhere near twenty-one didn’t faze her. The only people who knew where we were really headed were Lucy and Beck, and they cheered us all the way.

  The drive to Toronto took all day, into the night. The team was staying at the King Edward Hotel, downtown. Lovely and old, it was graceful and centrally located for the boys to visit the alum’s office—he owned businesses, a minor-league hockey team, and was trying to start an American football program for Canadian youth.

  Logan, Cord, and I checked in to the King Edward. We had to take care not to be seen by the coach or chaperones, one of whom was Stephen Campbell, our math teacher and Lucy’s guardian.

  After dinner, when the team returned to the hotel, I was hiding in the lobby. Well, I was in plain sight, but shielding my face with the Globe and Mail. The guys didn’t notice me; the coach and teachers headed into the bar. I saw Travis, Ty and Chris hesitate outside the bar’s entrance; maybe they thought they’d head in, have a soda or something. That’s when I made my move. I lowered the newspaper.

  Travis and I have antennae for each other. He must have felt the tingle I was giving off, because he turned and saw me. Didn’t even say a word to his friends, just walked straight over.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Don’t you know?” I asked.

  He must have been shocked by my behavior. I was a little stunned myself: me, perfect girl, rule follower, the one who’d kept him at arm’s length all through the fall, so he could get over Ally, had driven to Canada to be with him.

  Travis took my hand. Instead of taking the elevator, easier to be seen there, we climbed the stairs. He was sharing a room with Chris, so that was out. I led him instead to my floor, and we let ourselves into my room.

  The maid had been by—turndown service. The heavy silk curtains drawn tight over the windows, radio playing low, one lamp casting a warm glow, queen bed neatly turned down, chocolates on the pillows. We stuck the Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob.

  We lay down together.

  Kissed, so slowly but with everything we had. Alone in a hotel room. He tasted so good, the boy I had been falling in love with all year. All my good behavior, my holding myself back, afraid to give myself, so fearful of being hurt or left or of letting someone down, it all dissolved. We were together, Travis and I.

  Our hands unbuttoned our shirts, slid off our jeans. I’d never felt like this, my skin against a boy’s skin. The air was cool, our bodies were hot. We scrambled under the covers, and we kissed more deeply, he was hard and I was soft, the down quilt held our heat beneath it and we warmed up fast. We said each other’s names over and over, because we wanted to be sure we knew what was going on.

  Travis, Travis.

  See, we loved each other. Our bodies were proving it, showing it. This was a new way. Words didn’t say what we had to tell each other, we had to find a new language. His eyes never left mine.

  We fell asleep, held each other all night long. My legs were wrapped in his, his arms were around me, our mouths kept finding each other. Soon gray light spilled through the narrow space between the curtains. Day had come.

  “I don’t want to go downstairs,” he said. “I want us to stay together all day.”

  “Okay” I said.

  We didn’t laugh; i
t wasn’t a joke. What else in life mattered but this? I came alive that night-into-day. I swear, I did. I’d been a good little grownup for so long, always doing my best, anticipating what was expected of me, for the difficult situation otherwise known as life, but not then—then, with Travis, I lived without thinking. I just let my heart pull me along. The tide had me, and I couldn’t fight it.

  Of course we got in trouble.

  Logan got drunk. No George Clooney/Robert Pattinson mojitos, but she got some guy to buy drinks for her and Cord, and Stephen Campbell caught them both the next morning, hungover out of their minds, Logan so sick she threw up right in the lobby.

  Questions were asked, my name was spilled, the front desk consulted, and soon the phone in my room began to ring.

  I answered—vestiges of my vigilance, worried that maybe Lucy needed me—and heard the solemn voice of my dad’s old friend, and our math teacher, Stephen. Only at that moment he was Mr. Campbell.

  I tried to protect Travis—not let on that he was with me. But he took the phone, wouldn’t let me be in trouble alone. When we returned to school the next week, Ted Shannon, our headmaster, gave us a stern talking-to. He said that strictly speaking we hadn’t broken any school rules—if we had, we’d be expelled.

  But Stephen said we’d used poor judgment. Travis was about to be football captain; I was a shining star, daughter of his dear friend Taylor. He mentioned Lucy, how much she looked up to me.

  He put us on unofficial probation—which basically meant that we were off the hook, as long as we didn’t get in trouble for the rest of junior year. We didn’t.

  Because that’s Travis and me—in spite of the passion we have for each other, the desire to be together, we are ultimately who we are, Travis Shaw and Pell Davis: good kids. We can’t help ourselves.

  I would have sworn that was true, until earlier tonight.

  Kissing Rafe, as if there were no Travis. That’s all it had been, a kiss—but a long one, a minute. And the way I’d felt. Animalistic. All need. Plus, in there somehow, a crashing thrill of being bad. Like, take this, universe.