Weeping Underwater Looks a Lot Like Laughter

by Michael J. White

  Expecting at any moment to be caught, I quickly stuffed the T-shirts back in the box, saving my folding efforts for those at the top of each stack. I nimbly loped to the top floor, knowing it was unlikely that Emily would hide in Katie’s room, but inspired by my last discovery and struck by a perverse curiosity to know what Mrs. Schell had done with the space. I stepped as lightly as possible along the upstairs hallway—figuring now that Emily was hiding in the kids’ bathroom and might be on to me, but deciding to check Katie’s room anyway—expecting to find it converted into either an office or a small exercise studio. But on turning the door handle and gently pushing my way inside, I found it looking exactly as it did when Katie was still alive. It was as though someone had come in to dust and empty the trash, but hadn’t touched anything else. There were movie and animal posters still covering the walls, a bottle of water half full on the nightstand, a desk cluttered with little notebooks decorated with stickers, CD jewel cases, and a fancy coin bank with a combination lock. Even the bed was still unmade.

  Without pausing to think about it, I launched into an immediate hunt for her diary, for common snooping purposes, but also bowing to a resurgent compulsion toward uncovering a hint of the location of her time capsule. I searched drawer after drawer, scanning through notebooks and sketchbooks, pausing on cartoon drawings of Columbus and Magellan, a few indecipherable margin notes, several half-finished haikus. The only real clue I came up with was a telephone book-sized edition of America’s Best Colleges whose underlined sentences served to illuminate the subtle hues of Katie’s future plans, her markings highlighting her interest in such campus offerings as “a proud history of political influence,” “tremendous rates of food service satisfaction,” and “options for triple majors.” I was flat on my stomach poking around under the bed when Emily’s voice broke through and I quickly turned the volume down to avoid giving up my position.

  “You aren’t in Katie’s room, are you?”

  “None of your business,” I whispered.

  “I’m not in Katie’s room, okay? Over.”

  I crawled out from under the bed and exited as carefully as I’d entered, twisting the handle to mute the sound of the lock clicking against the plate. Next I checked the linen closet, then the bathroom, where I braced myself for a shock if Emily decided to jump out from behind the shower curtain. But she didn’t, so I proceeded down the hallway to her parents’ bedroom, cupping my hand over the receiver and whispering, hoping for a tip-off before my next intrusion.

  “I’m on your trail,” I said. I could tell by Emily’s voice that she was cupping the receiver just the same as me.

  “How long are you planning on taking to find me?”

  “I planned to find you ten minutes ago.”

  “I have a feeling you’re really cold, George.”

  The Schells’ bedroom looked like a fake set for a furniture catalog. There was a smooth, king-sized canopy bed, a perfectly polished armoire, his and hers reading lamps, and chairs at each window. The whole sense of the room oozed suspicions that someone had just wiped it clean of blood and fingerprints. I started off searching the closet, a long walk-in with cedar panels, rows of suits and oxford cloth shirts along one side, plastic-covered dresses and blouses along the other, all those shoulders swaying lifelike as I reached between them to cover every possible hiding space. Next I crossed over to the bathroom, where I burst through the door fast and brave, immediately switching on the lights to find myself confronted with a dozen reflections in three mirrors, each version of myself assuming the role of the creep in a commercial for burglar alarms. Certain that Emily was somewhere else, but feeling the game ought to last a while longer, I turned back into the bedroom to peruse the armoire, its swinging double doors revealing a wide variety of compartments seemingly designed for distinct secreting purposes. In little time I discovered a treasure trove of items in a drawer that on the surface provided housing for nothing more than baby blue boxer shorts and thin black socks with gold toes (an undergarment that ever since I’ve considered creepily effeminate). With some courage I felt my way beneath the pile, where I soon removed an official Major League baseball encased in a hard plastic cube signed TO MY PAL RICH, BEST WISHES FROM WILLIE MAYS. Other items included a gold watch with a cracked face, a yellowed leaflet missal from midnight Mass at the Vatican Basilica dated December 25, 1943, a laminated wallet-sized copy of the Serenity Prayer, and a battered paperback edition of Shane by Jack Schaefer. I replaced the items as I found them, then crept my way from the room, returning ever so quietly to the basement where I immediately spotted Emily’s bare legs dangling over the edge of the leather couch. I stepped around it with one hand out like a pistol, only to find Emily shaking her head, looking bored in a Santa Claus hat, a Jake the Chili King T-shirt, and plain white panties.

  “Not sure how I missed you the first time,” I said.

  “You weren’t looking close enough. What were you doing up there? Trying on my mom’s dinner dresses?”

  “Just the black one with the sequins. It didn’t fit me.”

  “I’m surprised,” she said. “You’ve got such dainty hips. By the way, did you shower this morning? Your hair is looking pretty scruffy and I think I like it.”

  “Thanks for noticing. I didn’t shower yesterday, either. Did I see a set of double showerheads in your parents’ bathroom? Do they really shower together?”

  “They didn’t choose the double showerheads. This was a model home,” she said, pinning one foot over the other, curling her toes together. “They don’t even sleep together. My dad’s on the floor now. He says it’s better for his back. Anyway, are you gonna help me inaugurate this new leather couch or what?”

  “You sure we have enough time?” I asked, sitting down next to her and running a hand along each leg. She was already peeling my shirt off.

  “The party doesn’t even start for another hour. They’re probably still out running errands.”

  I leaned over to kiss her, still trying to figure out where she’d hidden herself. I doubt another minute passed before we were watching ourselves having sex in the reflection of the big-screen TV. Emily kept laughing whenever I’d suddenly pop my head over the couch, thinking I’d heard footsteps. These fears distracted me enough that on our first round I lasted fifteen or twenty minutes. Each time after that Emily orgasmed well before me. I didn’t let up, taking her on the carpet, over the pool table, propped up on the cool marble counter where we could watch ourselves in the mirrors over the bar. Between couplings I chased, tickled, and pinned her down, every once in a while slapping my chest and growling as though gearing up for a back alley brawl. As afternoon passed into evening I remember feeling so purely concentrated that there was no question I’d fully sated myself, that one more touch would only prove my greed and intent at personal sabotage. But Emily kept insisting I stay another five or ten minutes. The whole downstairs reeked of sex by the time we finally got dressed and headed upstairs, ducking under all the windows on our way to the kitchen. We were eating an oven pizza on the floor with the lights off when Emily started talking about buying a rope ladder so I could sneak though her window in the middle of the night whenever I wanted. In the clearheaded aftermath of our binge I recognized all we were putting at risk, and wasn’t nearly as enthralled by the idea as Emily.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t test them so much,” I said, imagining Mrs. Schell asking Emily how she’d eaten a whole pizza by herself. I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t already left.

  “They’re playing their games, and we’re playing ours,” she said, like she’d thought it all out. “You know, George, the only reason they didn’t toss me in the car and drive me straight back to Chicago was because I caught them in a lie. I never called them to say I was coming home because I was convinced that if I gave them more time to think about it, somehow the news would hit them much worse. I wanted to show up and tell them I couldn’t take it anymore, to just cry and act like a baby, then go to bed and worry about e
verything else later. But when I showed up, it was obvious they’d been living in complete ignorance of each other ever since I left. I know that’s the reason why we went to Tennessee at the last minute for Thanksgiving. They didn’t have the energy to fix up the house so that it might appear a married couple was actually living there. The whole house was divided up, almost as bad as the idiots down the hall from me who actually taped a line across the room and vowed never to cross it. You should’ve seen the downstairs. A little sleeping bag spread out on a cot, half of the couch covered in all my dad’s favorite books and magazines. Even his socks and underwear were stacked up along the bar. He was living down there! He gave her the whole rest of the house!”

  “All right,” I said, hoping a piece of intelligent advice would miraculously follow. But I only sat there staring at the kitchen tiles, guessing at the appropriate steps for a couple working their way back from such a devastating fall. While I was convinced that Mr. Schell was still in love with Mrs. Schell, I questioned if she was still in love with him. Then, in the face of Emily’s swift bitterness that seemed to erase whatever victory we’d just accomplished, I wondered if the question of love even made a difference. (The threat of divorce was so thickly insinuated that I half expected Emily to hand me a letter from James Dickerson Divorce containing the details of her parents’ “one-two-three and you’re free” separation.)

  “Now it’s just the silent treatment,” she said. “Neither of them likes to raise their voice, so instead of fighting, she just goes her way, and he goes his. Personally, I think they’d be better off punching each other’s lights out than moping around all week like deaf-mutes.”

  “The holidays are supposed to be the hardest. Maybe they just need more time.”

  Emily patted my arm, clearly finding my advice as platitudinal and worthless as I did. She picked up another piece of pizza, even though she hadn’t eaten much of her first piece. She waved it around as she spoke. “You know, the more I look back, the more I think this sort of thing has been going on behind the scenes for years. I can’t remember the last time they took a vacation alone together, and now it suddenly seems very curious the way my dad spent so much time out at Stacy Setnicker’s after her house got flooded. I mean, he had other employees dealing with the same situation.”

  “The girl who runs the front of the shop?”

  “She’s a manager. She’s the first person he ever trusted to run the place besides himself.”

  “Are you serious about this?” I asked, smirking, but quickly adjusting the expression to reflect discomfort and shock. “Your dad doesn’t seem like the tomcat type to me. Besides, I doubt your mom would stick around with someone who was cheating on her.”

  “How do you figure that, George? Where would she go? She doesn’t have a college degree, you know.” She tossed the unbitten pizza slice back onto the plate. “All I’m saying is it would explain a few things.”

  I shrugged. Instinct told me that she was jumping to conclusions, but I knew very little of her parents’ relationship and couldn’t make an assured argument either way. We sat for a while listening to the soft hum of the refrigerator.

  “How would you feel about a double date with Zach and Rachel?” I asked, standing up to clean my plate, considering if I should take the pizza box and remains along with me. A pair of headlights panned across the living room windows and I dropped to the floor.

  “Go!” Emily shouted, with a hint of glee. She lifted onto one knee, chopping her right arm in the direction of the front hallway. “Go go go go go!”

  I ducked down and raced to the front door. Emily chased after me, clipping the radio onto my belt as I bent over for my boots. “Your coat!” she shouted, laughing now (“We’re invincible!”) as she dashed up the stairs. I didn’t wait. At the sound of the garage door cranking up I escaped onto the porch, shoving into my boots and sprint ing for the neighbor’s backyard, jumping their wrought-iron fence, nearly stumbling into their empty pool and trying not to think about my tracks in the snow as I made my frantic way out of sight.

  Forty

  On Christmas Eve in the middle of the night I woke with a start as the radio sparked into sound under the covers next to me. Before going to bed I’d been reading Fyodor Sologub’s Petty Demon and first interpreted the strange voice calling out to me as the demon berserker himself, hissing assurances that we’d all fallen foolishly victim to a classic disappearing act, which Katie Schell had obviously mastered with the help of her Wiccan Book of Shadows.

  “Still awake?” Emily whispered. “Over.”

  “I’m here.”

  “Do you see Rudolph’s red nose flying through the sky yet?”

  “Not yet. What did you ask for this year? Over.”

  “Nothing. I told them not to give me anything. I insisted. How about you?”

  “An electric razor. Over.”

  “Well, it’s late, so I’ll keep this short, but I’m sitting in my backyard now with a lighter and a bag of Doritos.”

  “I’m listening,” I said. “What are you doing?”

  “I just remembered Katie telling me about the easy way to make a campfire. Apparently her camp used to have a contest about which group could get their campfire going the fastest, without any newspaper or lighter fluid or anything like that. Katie said she always won because she figured out that Doritos are flammable. So, my question to you is, do you think she was telling the truth? Do you think you could start a campfire with Doritos? Over.”

  “Sounds like a tall tale to me,” I said. “How could you sell flammable snacks? Over.”

  “Guess we’ll see. But you’ll have to wait a minute, ’cause I need both hands. I’m going to put the lighter to the chip right now. So wait, okay? Over.”

  I sat up on the edge of the bed, my shoulders sinking and turning inward at the thought of Emily out in the cold on Christmas Eve. I pictured Mrs. Schell alone under a king-sized canopy, Mr. Schell on his basement couch watching It’s a Wonderful Life. I was scratching at the frost on the window when the radio cut in again.

  “You wouldn’t believe it!” she said. “I’ve got a Dorito fire going and the flames are green and blue! It’s burning perfectly from one chip to the next, right on top of the snow! How the hell did she figure that out?”

  “She’s Katie Schell,” I said. “Over.”

  “She was right, George!”

  “I wish I could see it. I wish I was there with you right now.”

  “Me, too. It’s really pretty amazing. Okay, well, Merry Christmas, George. Good night. Over and out.”

  “Merry Christmas,” I said.

  Forty-one

  Our decision not to attend Nat Fry’s New Year’s Eve party mostly resulted from a mutual wariness of rumors that Emily had blamed me for what happened to Katie, and sworn never to speak with me again, and even sought a restraining order against me, just in case. But after luring us into their cars, our old gang conspired against us, admitting our true destination along with the excuse that we couldn’t possibly skip a party hosted by the richest kid in our class and one of the richest families in Des Moines. It was guys in one car and girls in another as we cruised down Grand Avenue, strangely delighted when we arrived to the sight of a squad car parked in front of the Fry mansion, which led us to assume that a minor had already alcohol-poisoned herself and there’d be a big public lawsuit against Nat’s parents. It was somewhat anticlimactic to find out that Mrs. Fry had hired a security guard to ensure that all Nat’s guests returned home with a sober driver. (I should mention that Hads was now shockingly wattle-jowled and unwieldy, while Tino was still wagging his head with each sentence and throwing his shoulders back so that he appeared to be strutting even when he was standing still.) We parked and then trudged up the long, arching driveway to the front door, where Mrs. Fry was greeting a fiftyish couple in a tuxedo and long satin gown. She gave us the same warm smile as she did her more formal guests, then instructed us to follow the brick path to join our classmates in t
he tent around back.

  Ashley started complaining before Mrs. Fry had even shut the door. “It’s fifteen degrees, lady. Perhaps we’ll join the inside guests.”

  “Maybe they’ve got a pool house with a heated pool,” Hads said.

  “Did you bring swimsuits?” Smitty asked, suddenly worried.

  “If they have a heated pool,” Tino said, “I don’t see why they wouldn’t provide us swimsuits and our own personal Swedish lifeguards to swim alongside us.”

  “That makes a ton of sense,” Lauren said, as we turned the corner to find ourselves confronted with an enormous white tent with plastic windows and multiple canopy peaks. As soon as we stepped inside, we were welcomed by patches of applause, goofy smiles, and waves. The tent was packed with former classmates and various acquaintances of Nat’s older brother, almost all of them dressed up and lounging around white table-clothed tables under the orange glow of heat lamps. As Emily hung her coat up she was swarmed by all the gal pals she hadn’t seen since the summer, each one of them flipping out in sequence over her radiant noir hairstyle and low-cut blouse and expertly managed cleavage, the sight of which forced me to question if she’d been as duped about our destination as I had. They kissed cheeks and complimented one another. I turned to face the crowd, immediately realizing I wasn’t the only one clocking Emily’s every move.