EQMM, December 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  He stuck out his hand. “Name's Mike."

  She hesitated. “Justine,” she said.

  "Enchanté, y'all.” He grinned.

  His last name was Godchaux—"Godshaw,” he pronounced it. He was island-hopping his way down to South America. He was starting work as an oil-company geologist in Baton Rouge in May, his first job out of college. He told her this on the way up the stairs to his room, which, like hers, was on the second floor but in the back.

  "How about you?” he asked, fitting the big, rusted skeleton key to the door.

  "Me?"

  "What do you do?"

  "I'm a publicist at Bertram."

  "Bertram?"

  "The publishing house?” Unintentionally, her answer came out with a sharp upward inflection, as if she could not conceive of anyone not being familiar with such a well-known name.

  "Oh well, I'm not much of a reader, I guess. Y'all prob'ly from New York, then."

  "Yes,” she muttered, feeling a little shamed by the humility of his response.

  He opened the door. His room was considerably smaller than hers. It was dim and stuffy. Leaning against one wall was an enormous frame backpack. He knelt down and unzipped a pouch near the bottom and pulled out a small packet of clothing. On the outside, folded so the logo was visible, was another LSU sweatshirt. Unwrapping it on the bed, he spread out the contents: a pair of denim cutoffs, bleached and frayed. A lime-green tube top. A white cotton sundress. Three bikini panties. And a navy-blue maillot swimsuit, the stretchy kind competitive swimmers wear.

  "I really don't think I could—"

  "Y'all might as well use ‘em."

  Eyeing the clothes, she attempted an appreciative smile, which came out tight and condescending. To wear a sweatshirt identical to his ... well, that felt uncomfortably like the first step toward a relationship that she definitely did not want to encourage. The cutoffs looked like they'd be tight in the hips, a struggle to zip up. The tube top was certainly not her style. The thought of putting on someone else's underwear was vaguely nauseating. And the sundress was far too cutesy. The swimsuit might be okay, if it fit. She should never have allowed him to talk her into coming up and taking a look.

  And yet, she wanted desperately to swim. To throw herself into the perfect blue water of the bay. To wash away the defeats and frustrations of the day.

  Suddenly, spasmodically, she gathered up the clothes spread over the bed. “Thanks,” she said, retreating immediately toward the door.

  He shrugged and smiled. “Hey, no problem. Y'know, if y'all can stand getting up early tomorrow morning, we're going out past the reef for a little fishing. Bébé's always got extra room on the boat."

  "Thanks again, but I don't know the first thing about spear fishing."

  "You don't have to fish. You can just paddle around. It's pretty."

  She forced a smile. “Thanks."

  "Well, hey, if you change your mind, let me know tonight. I'll be around the hotel somewhere."

  * * * *

  Geri felt the eyes of the desk clerk on her as she came down the stairs to the lobby wearing the swimsuit and carrying a white, slightly threadbare hotel towel that was too small to wrap around her waist.

  "Mademoiselle—"

  She raised a hand, not wanting to discuss the theft further. “I'll be back in a while. We can talk then."

  She scuttled across the road, the asphalt burning hot under her bare feet, and onto the powdery soft sand of the beach. It was empty, even now in the late afternoon when the sun-wary generally ventured out, and as she looked down the curving scimitar of sand and the perfectly tilted palms she wondered why. But rather than dwell on it, she dropped her towel and strode directly into the water.

  It was warm and clear and the sand beneath it was as white as the beach. It looked clean, beautifully clean, in fact, and alive with small schools of tiny bright fish that darted away from her footfalls. The fish were perfectly visible, for there were no waves, nothing more than ripplets. A half-mile distant was the reason why: The feathery line of surf where the big swells of the open Atlantic crashed against the barrier reef.

  Her heart lifting, she began to splash ahead, running now, running as fast as she could, ready to throw herself into the water, ready to swim as long and hard as she could, as far as the barrier reef, if necessary, if that was what it would take to work the awful, airless, self-conscious paralysis out of her life.

  But then there was a strange thing. She ran fifty feet and the water deepened only slightly, up to the middle of her calf. Another fifty feet and it was up to her knee. Another fifty feet and it was actually shallower. And around her she began to see patches of sea plants, dark brown against the white sand bottom. She found herself in a shallow sand-bottomed channel through what was now an expanse of sea vegetation.

  Perspiring heavily, with the heat of the sun reflecting off the water rising up thickly around her, she made her way down the channel. It began to deepen and she felt a wild sense of relief. Then, without warning, the channel ended and her left foot fell in the midst of the slithery, clinging bottom grass. Shuddering with disgust, she pulled her foot out and staggered back. She laced her fingers together for an eyeshade and looked around her.

  She was maybe two hundred yards from the shore and the perfect crescent of the beach, and the tilting perfectly spaced palm trees, and the perfect white jumble of the town with the emerald mountain rising behind. In the other direction, five or six hundred yards away, was the reef, the surf just barely audible now, a sandpapery rasping sound. She was all alone in the midst of the perfect turquoise bay.

  All alone because everybody but her knew it was unswimmable.

  She began to laugh and, letting her legs give way, sat down with a splash in the shallow water. Sat like a child with her bottom on the sand and her legs crooked in front of her. Laughing, then crying, hanging her head down and watching through blurry eyes as the tears dripped into the warm, clear water.

  * * * *

  Skipping dinner, she went out on the narrow wood veranda outside her room and tried to write postcards.

  Dear Gang, Scribbling at you from a beautiful turquoise hotel on a beautiful turquoise bay. Unswimmable, but beautiful. Had a near car wreck, luggage was stolen, but lunch was good. Tomorrow I move on, in search of love, adventure, and a decent beach! Missing you all but not missing work...

  Keep it light and tight, that was the trick. But somehow, when she was done, she had trouble making herself sign it. “Dear Gang"—as if she were writing a houseful of sorority sisters instead of the three women, one of whom she disliked intensely. “Missing you"—in truth, she did not miss them at all, not even Beth, with whom she had once been friends. The only verity in what she had written was about work. After eleven years in publishing, she was at a small, stale dead end: in a marketing group for a house that hadn't had a hit in years.

  Dear Verna, Traveling again, this time in the Caribbean...

  Verna was the only one of her three sisters she kept in touch with. She lived in Columbus, Ohio, in a condominium she shared with her companion, Darlene. For years, her literal and her sister's figurative distance from the mainstream Midwest had united them, but of late Geri had felt the bond dissolving as Verna and Darlene made plans to adopt a child and settled into a relationship and a lifestyle that, the issue of sexual orientation aside, was more stiflingly conventional than that of their own parents.

  "Traveling again, this time in the Caribbean"—and the time before in the Yucatan, and the time before in Prague, and the time before in Spain, and the time before she was not sure, either Peru or Argentina. Traveling again...

  She set the pen down and looked out over the bay, black now, the distant breakers invisible, the water indistinguishable from the sky except for the stars, thick and bright and unbearably distant. Feeling her eyes grow wet—would she never stop crying this day?—she fled the room. On the way down the stairs, she ran into Mike Godchaux.

  "You coming with us to
morrow?” he asked.

  His breath was sweetish. She realized he'd been drinking. “I don't think I can."

  "Why not?"

  He looked her up and down, very slowly, very frankly. “You look like you're a good swimmer. Good shoulders. Strong legs. If you can swim, you can come."

  She felt herself flush. “I don't know—"

  "What, are you gonna spend the day wading in that damn puddle out there? All by yourself? What kinda vacation is that?"

  She stiffened. “Thank you for the invitation,” she said, coolly. She turned away and added, “And thank you for the clothes."

  "'Thank you for the invitation,'” he mimicked, holding his chin up high, “'And thank you for the clothes.’”

  Her head snapped back. “What did you say?"

  A slow, satisfied smile spread across his face. “I knew there was a human being in there."

  She glared at him, furious, but unable to think of anything to say. Finally, she turned and walked down the remainder of the stairs.

  "We watched you, y'know,” he called out after her as she crossed the lobby floor. “Bébé and me. Couldn't figure out why you didn't ask us why nobody was out in the water. Then we laid bets about how far you'd walk before you gave up. Gerard said a hundred meters. I said, hell no, she's good for a lot more."

  She stopped just short of the door, unable to let the remark pass unchallenged.

  "What makes you think you know the first thing about me?"

  "What makes you think I don't?” He smiled lazily.

  "We haven't exchanged more than two dozen words."

  "Oh, I think I'd put the count consider'bly higher.” His smile widened. “An’ climbin’ even as we speak."

  "You go to hell!"

  * * * *

  She walked south along the shore road, following the same route she'd driven earlier in the day in her car before reaching the top of the point and turning back. Feeling trapped again, trapped by her own angry exit into a route she had no interest in taking. She clenched her teeth and balled up her fists like a little girl, then she was crying again, and thinking about fragile, stiff things: the yellowing bonsai in the window on the airshaft of her walk-up back in New York; her mother's ormolu music box, and the sad, tinkly Chopin nocturne it played. Then the notes of the nocturne seemed to fall apart and become random and atonal and she realized she was hearing the squeak of bats, swooping in the blackness around her. She brought up her arms around her face and ran.

  She went a little mad that night—that was what you would call it, she supposed with an odd sense of self-distance. She went back to the hotel but she never went to bed; instead she sat out on the veranda under the cold starlight, drifting in and out of sleep, struggling each time she awoke with the sensation that she was falling through space at an enormous speed, a sensation so vivid that she kept looking up at the Big Dipper, certain that its bright stars must have come closer, perhaps even close enough to resolve into suns, orbited by frozen, lifeless planets.

  Sometime later, she had no real idea how long, she heard voices, indistinguishable, and then a laugh which she recognized as Mike Godchaux's. The night had taken away her anger toward him, and the bay, perfect again in the morning light, beckoned once more.

  "Wait!” she cried out from the veranda. “I'm coming along."

  * * * *

  The boat, a long, brightly painted dugout canoe, slid effortlessly across the shallow waters that she had waded in the day before. In the stern, Mike guided their progress, gripping the handle of a small outboard, following the bright sand channels through the dark masses of seaweed. At the last minute, Bébé had backed out, needing to prepare the hotel for a small busload of tourists unexpectedly coming in from the capital. Mike had smeared zinc oxide on his nose and every time she looked back he grinned broadly at her, his teeth the exact bright white shade of the sun protectant.

  He looked a little like Tom Cruise, she decided—when the actor had been younger, of course.

  As the reef neared, and the sound of the surf grew louder and resolved from a constant, low rumble to distinctly separate booms, Geri began to grow nervous.

  "Is there a passage through the reef?"

  Mike, grinning like a Cheshire cat, shook his head. “You wait for the swell,” he explained. “Just before it hits, you gun it. You've got a good three or four feet of water over the coral if you time it right."

  She nodded and bit her lip.

  "Don't worry. I've made this trip a dozen times."

  The reef was less than a hundred yards away now. The big, dark-blue rollers from the open Atlantic pounded the coral, shooting spray dozens of feet up into the air. Mike, from the stern, motioned for her to hold on to the gunwales of the boat. She gripped the worn wood convulsively, regretting that she had agreed to come along.

  A wave loomed, blotting out part of the sky, and smashed before them, drenching Geri's heated skin with spray. The boat slowed, almost stopped, then surged ahead directly into the next building wave. The bow pitched at a frightening angle, and Geri felt herself lifted upward, upward, so steeply she clutched the gunwales as tight as she could for fear of being thrown backward. Then, miraculously, they were on top of the wave and the deep blue Atlantic was spread out before her, all the way to the distant horizon, open water all the way to Africa, and then they were roller-coastering down so fast that Geri's stomach got the fluttery elevator feeling. She shuddered with relief. They had made it past the reef.

  When they had gone far enough that the sound of the surf was only a murmur, Mike threw a rusted, bowl-shaped anchor overboard. He handed Geri a pair of blue fins and a mask with a snorkel.

  "You're a good swimmer, right?"

  "Pretty good,” she said, cautiously.

  "You ever snorkel before?"

  "Once."

  "Well, it's great here. Whole mess of fish, especially by the reef. We jump in here then swim back."

  "By the reef?” There was no way she was going back anywhere near there.

  "It's calmer under water. If you're a decent swimmer, you'll be okay."

  "No, thanks. I'll just stay here."

  "But you came all the way out—"

  "No,” she said firmly. “I'll be fine here."

  * * * *

  She watched him swim off. The boat rode higher, felt more skittish on the deep ocean swells with him gone. It rose and fell a good twelve feet with each wave. The water was a dazzling deep blue. In the troughs, the water obliterated half the sky. At the crests, the town, the beach, and the emerald mountain were arrayed in the distance more perfectly than ever. Geri took a deep breath, inhaling the fresh salt air. She felt herself loosening up. She felt less afraid. The roller-coaster ride was actually quite exhilarating. At the crest of one particularly big wave, she actually rose up a little way in the boat, still holding on to the gunwales, and let out a little yip of excitement. This was more like it. This was more of what she had gone on vacation for.

  Unfortunately, after a few minutes of riding the swells, she began to get seasick. She was on the verge of vomiting when she remembered hearing somewhere that if you were in the water, motion sickness was not as much of a problem.

  Had she been in a different state of mind, she might have found the trouble she had getting into the water comical. Every time she tried to step over the gunwale, the long, round-hulled boat threatened to capsize—or so it seemed. She tried going over at the bow, but it rose up too high. Same story in the stern, plus the outboard was in the way. There was the water, inches away, and she could not get into it. She clenched her teeth and closed her eyes, feeling the frustration that had dogged her since her arrival in the town. Feeling the hysteria lurking behind it. Wondering why her life seemed to have been diminished by her every choice, separated by each decision from other lives, reduced in momentum to the point where the foot-high side of a wooden boat could stop it cold.

  At the top of the next wave, she pulled the mask down over her face, bit hard on the snorke
l mouthpiece, and threw herself in.

  She went under the surface a bit, then came up, blowing water out of the snorkel. The boat floated lightly next to her. The water was a marvelous temperature, warm but refreshing. Her nausea subsided almost immediately. She scissored her legs and felt the power of the fins push her shoulders out of the water. She bobbed there for a while, riding the swells up and down, feeling herself relax. Then she took a deep breath and put her face in the water.

  It was not like anything she had experienced before.

  She was floating over a field of tall sea grass anchored in a sandy bottom. The grass bent lazily over, each green blade drooping in the same direction. But as she watched, the grass began to straighten. She thought she might touch it, but felt herself being pulled away. Then she was accelerating upward, flying in the astonishingly clear water high above the reaching fingers of the grass. A moment's pause, and she was plunging back down, racing toward the bottom, and the grass was drooping again, changing color as it flattened from a deep green to a silvery gray. Another wave came along and the cycle began all over again.

  A school of small fish came along, silvery, like the flattened grass. They rose with the water, fell with it, hung motionless at the crests, never changing in their positions relative to each other, rigid in space, like some living crystal lattice. Geri kicked her fins and swam near. A simultaneous shiver passed through the fish, and the lattice translated itself—seemingly instantaneously—to a position several feet away. Geri kicked again, approached, and the school shivered out of reach. She kicked again. And again. Never spooking the fish. Never disturbing their precise order. But never getting closer than a constant distance—a little under three feet—either. She wondered if they were all following one fish, or one simultaneous impulse.

  She was exhilarated and mesmerized, simultaneously. She felt something let go deep within herself. She allowed her arms and legs to float free, to go where buoyancy would take them. She felt her breathing slow down, the hollow whooshes of the snorkel tube coming easily now, a rhythm slower than her heart, faster than the waves, but in concert with them all.