Weeping Underwater Looks a Lot Like Laughter

by Michael J. White

  “Right,” she said, after pulling up next to a phone booth at the Kum & Go station. “I believe she was a member of the tabernacle choir. Wait a minute while I buy us some time.”

  She shifted into park, grabbed a few quarters from the dash, and hopped out. I flipped through her CDs, struck by an uneasy desire upon sighting the two or three albums I could only associate with our make-out sessions before school. I couldn’t figure out if Emily was content to see me, or just playing it cool to avoid a conversation about why she hadn’t called in so long. I played Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. Emily stepped inside and turned the volume up. When we reached the river she followed the signs to I-235 and then I-80 heading back west. I had a feeling she’d already decided on our destination and was having a good time leaving me guessing. I didn’t say anything, even when we were well west of the city, passing exits for Van Meter and Earlham. Again I found myself digging deep for a conversation, which seemed silly once I realized it was her birthday the next day.

  “I suppose you’ve got a few checks coming your way, huh?”

  “I suppose so,” she said, flashing me a pleased little smirk. “But the real question is if you were planning on buying me a present or just letting it pass like any other day.”

  “You don’t think I’d even get you a card?”

  “Don’t dodge the question,” she said, letting off the gas and turning to me. “And don’t look so scared. I’m not trying to trick you.”

  “I’m not scared. I’m just wondering why I haven’t heard from you in so long. I was waiting for a call, and then after that I was planning on buying your present.”

  “So if I didn’t call or happen to run into you, I wouldn’t have gotten anything?”

  “Not from me, anyway.”

  “Damn,” she said. “And I suppose you never considered calling me? I mean, not to be insensitive about the trickiness of that sort of thing, but did you ever think about throwing your voice? You might’ve called and said you were Alfred Watson from the admissions office at Yale.”

  “Yeah, like your mom wouldn’t be listening in on the other line, or nailing you with fifty questions the second you hung up.”

  “I would’ve told her it was some creepy student with a work-study job in the admissions office. I’d say he saw my photo and called to tell me how he’d really tried to convince the board of my qualifications, and even though it didn’t work out, if I didn’t have any plans over the summer, maybe I’d like to keep him company in that big empty dorm overlooking the quad.”

  “So you’re going to Northwestern?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I always thought you’d be better off in Chicago.”

  “Me, too,” she said, more optimistically than I knew how to interpret. We kept to ourselves for the next few miles. I tried to guess the cost of regular visits back and forth to Chicago. Emily cut the music off, mumbling something about folk singers being a bunch of sour-pusses. When we finally exited we were halfway to Omaha in a town called Brayton, home of the “world famous Barrel City Barbecue & Brewery.” It didn’t take long to figure out what she’d gotten us into when we passed a tray stand loaded with enough meat to reconstruct an original carcass. A sign on the wall informed us that Barrel City was a family-style restaurant, and that it was our responsibility to make room for ourselves at whichever table we could. We ended up scooting in next to a family of five who were joyously forking at each other’s neck, shoulder, and loin cuts, dripping the checkered tablecloth with every flavor of barbecue sauce in the house.

  “Hog Heaven!” Emily shouted, perusing the menu and winning the laughter of the youngster next to her. “I’ll take the Pork Challenge Number Three. Five Alarm Sauce, if you don’t mind.”

  “To drink?” the waitress asked.

  “Homebrew,” she said. “A pitcher. I’m turning twenty-two tomorrow.”

  “Got ID?” she said.

  “Nope. My husband’s driving. He’s paying, too. When it comes to birthdays, I try to stretch it out for at least a week. At the very least.”

  The waitress patted me on the shoulder, as though to say, Hang in there, pal, it’ll all be over in another couple of days. I ordered the pulled pork. Soon enough we were pouring beers for our fellow diners, taste testing each other’s pilsners and lagers, and sharing in kettle-sized servings of coleslaw and potato salad.

  “You all from Des Moines?” the wife asked. Her name was Sherri. She had marshmallowy arms and legs but a small, pointy face.

  “He’s from Des Moines,” Emily said. “And he comes from money. Old blueblood money that’s been stashed up for a century in one of those big mansions south of Grand.”

  Sherri’s husband reeked of cigarette butts. He nudged my elbow and waved a rib bone in Emily’s direction. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a real firecracker over here.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, raising my glass, feeling like some sort of minor celebrity. We drank. Soon enough Emily was telling them all about the fortune my family made bringing cable TV to Iowa. I added flourishes here and there, particularly in concern to our Vegas wedding that took place in a big ballroom with a few hundred other couples, some of whom had met their betrothed for the first time that very day. By the time I paid the bill we were more than buzzed. We shuffled into the parking lot holding our stomachs. Emily wiped my hands and face with half a dozen moist towelettes. (My last girlfriend discovered one of these while digging through a desk drawer for a pair of scissors, setting into motion a chain of events that ultimately placed me, at a dinner celebrating her dad’s retirement, at the very same table where Emily and I had eaten.) We fell up against the car.

  “Happy birthday,” I said, stroking her hair and gently pinching her right earlobe. “I suppose you wouldn’t have cleaned me up if you weren’t looking for a kiss.”

  “We’d better find something to do to sober up.”

  We kissed. It was a long clumsy kiss, but we didn’t care, even when it came to the disapproving glares of the exiting customers, whose sudden turns of attitude reminded me of I-Cubs fans after a botched save. Eventually Emily pulled the car around to the rear lot. She climbed into the backseat and I followed her and we continued making out. I kissed her neck and buried my head in her breasts. She pulled her sundress up around her stomach, then undid my zipper and began stroking me while she stroked herself at the same time. Her hand rattled between her legs. Her hips thrust out and her hair grew thorny and static as her head grinded against the upholstery. I had the feeling I wasn’t the only one abusing myself over the previous few months, which made it seem even more essential that I pull her on top of me and seal the deal on our reunion, even if it meant losing my virginity in the back lot of a barbecue restaurant. But Emily was in too deep to be distracted. I held back, saving myself for a main act that was never to be. Emily moaned and stretching stiff-legged with her head pressed to the door. This proved too much and I came a few seconds later as she cried out and kicked the back of the seat. We crashed into each other, sweaty-faced and cotton-mouthed, suddenly bursting with laughter, like we’d just come to the screeching end of a roller coaster, and we hadn’t died after all, and we were doing the right thing, and in fact if we raced back to Des Moines that very instant we’d find that nothing at all had changed since graduation, that in fact we were just a normal pair of decommissioned high schoolers chumming along from one year to the next.

  Twenty-eight

  I awoke an hour later to the sound of Emily’s pager vibrating across the floor mat. Emily was just waking up. Her hair and sundress were crumpled, her arms and legs gone languid in the hormone-drenched humidity. She climbed barefoot to the driver’s seat and turned the pager off. We rolled the windows down and drove across the road to gas up and buy drinks. Emily reached for my hand as we pulled onto the highway heading west to Omaha. We’d been talking about escapist road trips since the beginning of our friendship. In a sense we’d been preparing ourselves for the better part of our junior an
d senior years while listlessly circumnavigating the city. A series of muscular pickup trucks roared past. We made small talk as we skirted Omaha, randomly guessing at Nebraska’s official state birds and flowers and trees. There was intermittent rain and highway construction. Horizons looped. Flood plains gave way to western Nebraskan wind farms, more wheat fields, distant hills that I mistook for mountains. I knew sooner or later we’d come around to the topic of Katie. It didn’t happen until well past dark, when I was starting to question the decision to flee.

  “She was supposed to go to wilderness camp,” Emily said. “One of the counselors called last week when she didn’t show up. I know it’s strange, but I kept imagining being the kid sleeping under the bunk with the name Katie Schell on it. You know, like the counselor pulling me aside to say, Sorry dear, but Katie’s not going to make it this year. She had some bad luck out at Saylorville Lake. Would you like to switch bunks? ”

  “I doubt they would tell the kids what happened,” I said, turning my attention to the mile markers glinting and shuttering past, projecting my prodigal son return onto dynamite-sculptured cliffs lining the eastern Colorado highway.

  “She’s got friends from all over the state that she only sees in the summers. A lot of them probably didn’t hear anything. You think they’d play dumb? Tell the kids she moved to another state or something?”

  I didn’t say anything. I started packing an empty McDonald’s sack with plastic Coke bottles, candy bar wrappers, and gas receipts. Emily looked over and shrugged, like she didn’t know why I was bothering but wouldn’t stop me if I was in the mood.

  “Anyway, so the call from camp came on a Sunday. Then on Monday morning, my mom decides she’s ready to start cleaning Katie’s room. She’s not sure she’s going to move any furniture or anything, but she’s already sniffed the pillows and bedsheets until there’s nothing left to smell, so now she thinks she’ll vacuum a little and dust, maybe take out the trash. She ends up spending the whole day in there, and eventually finds a load of trashy romance novels hidden in shoe boxes. Ever heard of Celeste Elston?”

  “I’ve heard of her,” I said, growing jealous thinking of Mrs. Schell already on the trail of Katie’s time capsule.

  “It’s pretty smutty stuff. She also found a Wiccan Book of Shadows, which gives all sorts of practical advice in witchcraft.”

  “We should call your parents,” I said, wanting to hear more but feeling sick, like this information wasn’t meant for me and was tarnishing my relationship with Katie. “They probably think I kidnapped you at gunpoint. They’ve probably got the cops after us.”

  Emily found this hilarious. “We’re adults,” she chuckled. “And we didn’t break any laws. The cops can’t do a thing.”

  “That’s not the point,” I said, for the first time asking myself why I cared so much what her parents thought. But there was no avoiding that I did care, even with Emily at my side primed to run away with me. I couldn’t believe she was as unconcerned as she was acting. I told myself that she’d adopted a pose of Katie Schell bravado that would eventually wear off.

  “Pull over at the next exit,” I said. “If you won’t call them, I will.”

  Emily checked the rear- and side-view mirrors. She tugged idly at her seat-belt strap and continued driving, as though I hadn’t said a thing. But a few exits later she flipped her turn signal and veered into the right lane. “If you absolutely can’t relax,” she said, not exactly thrilled, but deciding to be impressed that I was willing to make the call myself. “Just don’t tell them where we are, okay?”

  “We don’t know where we are.”

  “Good point,” she said, happily, which made me think she was only pulling over to call my bluff. We parked at one of the more impressive truck stops I’ve ever seen. There were dozens of shower rooms, pool tables, extra-wide phone booths with massage seats. Emily cruised the trinket aisles while I dialed her parents, having rehearsed my monologue enough to decide that the more I rehearsed, the less likely I was to make the call. Mrs. Schell answered like an eager attendant at a corporate calling center.

  “Schell residence, may I ask who’s speaking?” I gripped the mouthpiece with both hands, recognizing her doom and desperation that needn’t be mocked by half-truths. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. “Hello?” she said. “Is that you? Emily?” Her voice cracked on the word Emily. She took a long, controlled breath. “We’re just sitting here. We’re at the kitchen table, wondering where you’ve gone, and trying not to panic. No one’s going anywhere, and we don’t want you to go anywhere, either. You’ve got rehearsal tomorrow and we just want to know where you are. Please would you tell me where you are?”

  I waited, feeling more trapped as I prepared my statement. It was too late to hang up and now Mrs. Schell was waiting, probably suspecting that the sound of her own voice was enough to drive Emily further on. “Everything will be all right,” I thought, rehearsing again. “I promise. Everything’s fine. Emily will be back in a few days, full of clean mountain air and hope and a whole new attitude. Just two or three days and Emily will be sitting right next to you, ready to talk about things you couldn’t talk about in the past.” But before I actually said any of those things, a series of derelict breaths huffed through the receiver, the kind that don’t exist without tears. Mrs. Schell had been trying her hand at sensitivity, caution, carefully avoiding the shrill soprano of frightened, overbearing mothers. Being worn out from the road didn’t help and I started crying, too. I covered my mouth, but a whimper escaped like a pup’s first hungry moan. I coughed to cover myself. Within seconds Mrs. Schell had already hung up.

  When I stopped crying I went to the bathroom and washed my face, careful to erase all traces of tears. For extra measure I perused the trinket aisles. I returned to the car to find Emily fingering a Colorado atlas and listening to a collection of heehaw country hits I’d seen advertised for three bucks on a rack by the register. She was angry I’d gone through with the call, but trying not to show it. “So?” she said, neatly folding her atlas. “How are things?”

  I waited awhile, staring across the parking lot at a pink neon sign for FOOT-HIGH PIES. “She’s trying. She was trying to be understanding.”

  Emily pulled her hair in a bun. She crossed one leg over her knee and starting flicking her fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t need to know what she said. I’ll trust you if you tell me we have no choice but to turn around, but just don’t tell me what she said. Was it so bad that we absolutely have to go back?”

  I turned the stereo down and thought about it. I thought about my own parents and the decision I’d made hours ago not to betray our escape by calling them and reducing my individual risk. I considered whether the Schells would ever know how I’d placed their priorities over my own, and if we turned back whether Emily would bother seeing me again before she left for college. The call of love on the run was as electrifying and fear-provoking as a new, life-altering drug. In one moment I was ardent, in the next numb and hesitant. “Did you find anything on that atlas?” I asked.

  “I found Rocky Mountain National Park.” She opened the atlas to give it another glance. “If we keep on keeping on, we’ll be there when the sun comes up.”

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you. Last week I was high most days by ten in the morning, which I think means I’m becoming a pothead.”

  Emily turned sideways to face me, waiting for her smirk to wear off enough that I’d receive her question sincerely. “Are you carrying pot on you right now?”

  I pulled the film canister from my pocket and handed it to her. She opened it and took a deep whiff. “All right,” she said, nodding and pursing her lips, like this revelation was unexpected and significant, but one of those things that happen that we simply have to handle the best we can. “I haven’t been driving more than ten or so over the limit, which I can easily correct. We’re not exactly in a hurry, right?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay. I’ve seen at le
ast one of our highway neighbors passing a joint,and they looked like completely normal, responsible, nine-to-five kinds of people. Besides, maybe it will be nice for you to get high while I tell you about my dreams. They’re epic these days. They go on and on for so long that I feel like I’m sleeping when I’m awake, and really living when I’m asleep. It’s like my dreams are where the real action takes place. Is there anything else I should know about you?”

  “I don’t like being ignored for long periods of time when I’m upset, especially when I know that you’re upset, too.”

  “Understood. I can’t explain it, but I didn’t like it, either.”

  “And if I take my shirt off, so I can feel the wind blowing on my chest, I don’t want any trouble about it.”

  “I can handle that,” she said. “Everyone gets a little jealous of hillbillies driving around with their shirts off.”

  “Davenport people aren’t hillbillies. They’re just regular people.”

  “I know, George. I didn’t say that. But ten o’clock sounds a little early to get stoned, even for a hillbilly. Anyway, this subject relates perfectly to one of my dreams. About a week ago I dreamt I was singing Jesus Christ Superstar with a bunch of skinny hillbillies in tap shoes. I believe we were panhandling on a subway train. And everyone else on the train was wearing tuxedos and evening dresses. I’ve never been on a subway in my life.”

  “I don’t have any interest in riding a subway. It’s humiliating being forced underground like that.”

  “It’s cowardly,” she said, buckling up again and starting the engine. On the entrance ramp, when Emily reached for the stereo, I leaned over and kissed her lips. The tires hummed over gravel as we drifted onto the shoulder. “Thank you,” she said, swerving back onto the road.

  I packed the one-hitter I’d been sucking on like a pacifier all summer. It was a giddy and lackadaisical high with the windows down and Emily rattling on about dreams, then dreamlike directors like Bergman and Kieslowski and Lynch, which eventually led to a lesson on the sordid history of old Hollywood. My stomach hadn’t completely settled since the phone call, but I was feeling better. I’d even convinced myself that our escape really would benefit Emily’s parents, that it would wake them up to the reality of being on the verge of losing the one daughter they had left. Emily and I made bets on how many bridges we’d cross before reaching Rocky Mountain National Park. We mused on techniques for avalanche self-defense, the existence of carnivorous plants, the probability of simultaneous cougar and bear attacks. We stopped at more rest stops than we needed to and bought travel toothbrushes with toothpaste loaded in the handles. We took our time on the road to the lower Rocky Mountains, those squat sumo wrestlers with poker-faced peaks, the sunrise bright across their stone blue bellies.