“Are you sure?” he said.
“How can you ask?”
“I had to, it’s in the student rulebook.”
He put his hands around the elastic waist of the pants she was wearing and pulled her pants and underpants down. She gasped and worried about a million stupid things, the unsexy cotton underwear she was wearing, her unshaved legs, the soft mound of her belly, the way she smelled down there. He pulled his shirt over his head. His chest was broad and muscled, with a tuft of coarse brown hair in the middle. She stopped thinking about her own body and kissed one of his nipples. He groaned and unzipped his pants. She pulled slightly away.
“I’m a virgin,” she said.
“I know,” he answered.
“Is it obvious?”
“Yes. No. Don’t worry. You are perfect in every way.”
Miranda smiled. “Hyperbole will get you every where.”
Afterward, she wasn’t sure how she felt. Relieved to have it done, that was for sure. Slightly disappointed, but she had expected that—she didn’t have a single friend who’d found the first time completely pleasurable. What disappointed her was how quickly it was over. It wasn’t that he hadn’t lasted long enough, he’d been courtly in that way, asking if she was ready. She’d acquiesced out of cluelessness: Ready for what? Now that it was over, she wanted to go back and examine every thing, to understand what it had all meant, but already the memory was slipping away from her.
“It’s always strange at first,” he said into her hair.
“So they say.”
“You’re not regretting it, are you?”
“God, no,” she reassured him. “I want to do it again and again.”
He laughed and put a hand on her breast. “We will.” He turned suddenly serious. “Are you really okay?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “Life does go on. You think it’s not going to. The first morning you wake up, you go to brush your teeth and you think, How can I brush my teeth while Helen’s in the hospital fighting for her life? But if you don’t brush your teeth and your breath stinks and the bacteria grow and your teeth rot out, how has that actually helped your sister? You’ve just fulfilled some kind of narcissistic need to dramatize your pain.”
“I guess that’s why the Jews don’t cut their beards for thirty days when they’re in mourning.”
Miranda raised her head to look at him, surprised he would know that. “Do you know a lot of Jews?”
“My mother. Me. Matrilineally.”
Miranda held her breath, waiting for more.
“She was a bush pilot and an ob-gyn in Anchorage. When women in remote villages needed an abortion, my mother would get in her plane and go to them. In Alaska in the winter, there are no roads.”
“A hero.” Miranda was impressed.
“Not every body thought so. She was always getting death threats from the anti-abortion kooks. One morning I went outside to play and there was a fetus in a plastic salad container on our front porch. I thought it was a bird.”
“How awful.”
“They slashed the tires on my dad’s truck, they spray-painted the side of our house with red paint. A kid at school asked me why my mom killed babies for a living. My dad begged her to stop, but she wouldn’t.”
Miranda could feel his breathing get shorter as he spoke. “Then one day, she went up in the plane and never came home. My dad believes it was sabotage. He maintained the plane, so he knew there was nothing wrong with it and she was a very careful pilot. If there was bad weather, she always stayed home.”
“What did the police say?” Miranda could feel something wet between her legs. She wondered if it was blood but didn’t want to look down in the middle of his story.
“The wreckage was on the side of a mountain too remote to access. My dad hired one of the best mountain guides in the state to retrieve her body. He tried three times but every time he went up, bad weather sent him back. Finally, we decided to leave her up there. They say the permafrost at that level will preserve things forever. We used to fly by the site every year on her birthday.”
“How old were you?” she asked.
“Nine. After that, my dad quit his job—he was a lawyer representing indigent clients for Legal Aid—and we moved to the bush. It’s weird because both my parents had been really liberal do-gooders, but after my mom died, my dad turned into an off-the-gridder. He went from ‘It’s my duty to help people ’ to ‘People are responsible for themselves. If you’re too stupid to take care of yourself, tough shit. You’re on your own.’ There’s a lot of people in Alaska like that, so he wasn’t alone, but none of his old friends could understand how he changed. Eventually, they stopped talking to him. Now he cuts down old-growth trees for a living and represents the occasional Inuit against drunk-driving charges, which is actually great, because they pay him in Chinook salmon, the best in the world.”
“It must have been terrible, losing your mom.”
“It was.” He picked up a handful of her hair, held it to his nose, and inhaled deeply. “But it’s like you said, you get over it. Unless you don’t want to. The first time I went through a whole day without thinking about my mother, it was like learning to walk again after being paralyzed. I was so happy, I told my dad about it, thinking he’d be pleased, but he looked at me like I’d taken a dump on her grave. He didn’t want to move on, and he hasn’t.”
Miranda reached a hand down between her legs. She tried to make the gesture look casual, as if she had an itch. When she looked down at the wetness on her fingers it was clear, like water, but sticky. She wondered if it was him or her but couldn’t bring herself to ask.
“What made you decide to tell me this now?” she asked.
“I always tell girls the story right after I deflower them. It’s a tradition in our family.”
He moved a hand in between her legs. She tensed. Was it too wet down there? Was that normal?
“Seriously”—he moved his hand away—“I know what it’s like to have something terrible happen to you out of the blue. I wanted you to know that.” She closed her eyes to cool the sting of gathering tears, then put her hand between her leg.
“Is this me or you?” She held her hand in front of his face.
He took her hand and licked it. She shivered with repulsion and desire. Sex, she saw, was like a different country. A place where things that would usually gross you out—saliva, sperm, body odor—became parts of desire. She took her fingers out of his mouth and put them in her own.
“It’s us,” he answered.
17
joe Fisher pulled up in his van just as Harry was finishing his morning swim. “Hey there, pard’ner,” he said, “you ready to unload these babies?”
“I need to get dressed,” Harry grumbled. Pard’ner? Babies?
Fisher frowned.
“What?” Harry asked.
“It’s just these kids have been in these cans a while…”
Harry climbed into the van and peered in. The water swarmed with fish. “Oh, all right,” he said.
“Excellent!” Fisher rubbed his hands together. It was, Harry reflected, as if the man had cobbled together a personality from an instruction manual. Be agreeable. Be enthusiastic.
Together, they dragged a can to the edge of the pool and lowered it into the water. “These are the pleckies,” Joe said. A childlike expression of joy glazed his face as he watched the fish wriggle out to the aqua depths of the swimming pool. After so many hours swimming its length, Harry had come to feel he and the pool were one. Man. Water. Water. Man. But watching the platinum grace of the fish, he saw his delusions. He was a lumbering bear. Not even. The other night he’d watched a nature documentary and been surprised by the fluid beauty of a bear in the water.
Beside him, Joe was making noises like a new father. “Let’s get the flying foxes in there before the pleckies feel like they own the place. When I got my first aquarium, I didn’t know any better and mixed angelfish with monkey fish after the a
ngels had lived in the aquarium for a few weeks. The next morning, I went to feed them and it was, like, fish massacre. Fish My Lai. Fish Shiloh. Fish Antietam. Fish—”
“Okay,” Harry stopped him. Be smart. Impress people with random historical allusions.
“The next day, I went back to the fish store and I was, like, ‘What the fuck? You said these fish get along,’ and the guy was, like, ‘Did you add them at the same time?’ and I went, ‘No,’ and he was, like, ‘Dude, fish are like gangs. You put the angels in first and they’re, like, ‘This is angel territory.’ It’s all trial and error. That’s how I found out the pleckies and the flying foxes get along. I’ve got the two living in a tank right now and it’s totally harmonious. Fish Switzerland.”
In the water, the pleckies and the flying foxes circled each other, wiggling their tails and bumping noses, as if courting.
“I’ve written out some instructions for care.” Joe reached into his back pocket. “You want to feed them twice a day, but only as much as they will eat within two to three minutes.”
Harry was startled. Somehow, he’d imagined the fish would feed themselves. Just like in the ocean. “What if I miss a feeding?” he asked.
Joe blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if I’m out for the night and forget?” That was never going to happen. He never left the house anymore. But he didn’t want Joe Fisher to know that.
“I can’t believe anyone could forget to feed their fish. I mean, you don’t forget to feed your kids.”
“I don’t have kids.”
“Fish are a responsibility.”
“What happened to, ‘Fish are low maintenance?’”
“They are! I have three golden labs. I have to run them for thirty minutes, twice a day, off leash. Their hair needs to be brushed daily. When I think they haven’t got enough antioxidants in their diet, I make them vegetables in chicken broth. Fish are low maintenance, but they’re not ‘no maintenance.’”
Harry said nothing.
“I’ve disconnected the light and the pool heater,” Fisher went on, less heartily.
“Why?” Harry asked, peeved.
“These fish live in waters warmed by the Gulf Stream, but until they’re acclimated, cold is best. You know, a lot of my clients don’t use their heaters this time of year.”
Harry knew it cost a fortune to heat the pool. Catherine was always making snide comments about it. “It’s like swimming in someone’s old bath water,” she complained. But Harry loved the warm water. Being rich hadn’t been nearly as much fun as he thought it would be. Once you got used to the upgrade in your creature comforts—the softer sheets, the faster car, the fresher food, the flatter TV—every thing felt pretty much the same. His mother, who never owned anything of value, had somehow been right on this point. “It’s not what you have,” she used to say, “it’s what you’re used to.” But the one thing that exceeded his expectations was the plea sure he got from a warm pool, so if Joe Fisher thought he was going to give that up to keep some fish happy, he was wrong. As soon as he left, Harry turned the heat in the pool back up to 85 degrees.
Harry was mid-nap—a new post-job habit that suited him surprisingly well—when a set of high-pitched screams roused him from his sleep. At first he thought they were part of a bad dream, a psychic aftershock from the accident, but as the fog of sleep lifted, it seemed clear that the sounds were real, coming from the direction of the pool and made by children. He sat up, pulled on his pants, and went outside without bothering to put on a shirt. Over the past two months those doughy little dollops of flesh that used to hang over his belt had disappeared with the swimming, why not flaunt it?
Next to the pool, three young boys in bathing suits were flapping their hands in distress, like sea lions at feeding time. Harry thought they looked familiar, but all children had a way of looking alike to him.
“What the fuck, Harry?” his wife screamed.
“Catherine!” a lemon-faced woman in a gingham sundress remonstrated her.
“She said the F-word!” the boys hooted with joy.
Harry recognized the woman’s long eyelashes and protuberant bottom lip. She was the wife of one of Catherine’s brothers. The children must be hers.
Catherine breathed in deeply through her nose. “What. Are. These?” She pointed to the fish-filled pool.
Harry looked at the fish. They were spread out more evenly now between the shallow and deep end. That seemed like a good sign. “They’re some pleckies mixed in with some Thai flying fish.”
“Don’t get cute with me, buster.”
Buster? When Catherine was in the grip of an emotion that she could not control, she reverted to strangely anachronistic words like buster, golly, gee, or his favorite, gosh.
“What. Are. They. Doing. In. Our. Pool?”
“Eating algae.”
The sister-in-law moved closer. Harry remembered her better now. Once, at a Christmas dinner, glass of merlot in hand, her foot had pressed against his under the table. He hadn’t pressed back but neither had he moved it. As a rule, women made carnal by alcohol reminded him too much of his mother, but he hadn’t wanted to offend and he had guessed, rightly, that she hadn’t the guts to follow through.
“Tell me this is some kind of a joke,” Catherine begged. Harry looked at the woman. In the sunlight and sober, she had a warm, maternal charm that was sending some kind of chemical messengers to his groin. Was there any way to get the woman alone? It had been ages since he and Catherine had touched. Probably not. Even if he could ditch the wife, there were children to be considered.
“It’s the next big thing,” Harry said. “Pools without chemicals. If the fish eat the algae, we won’t need all that poison in the water anymore.”
“Fascinating.” The sister-in-law smiled at him.
“No, it’s not fascinating, it’s idiotic,” Catherine answered. “Who wants to swim with fish?”
“What do you do in the ocean?” Harry asked. Before the accident, Harry was pretty certain Catherine would have shared his enthusiasm for the project. Wasn’t she the one who was always writing checks to eco-terrorism groups or clucking her tongue disapprovingly whenever a Hummer passed them on the road?
“Harry,” she said, “I want those fish out of the pool. Now.”
The sister-in-law began to wrestle her boys into shirts. Disappointment made their limbs unwieldy. Plus, they sensed an adult fight brewing and didn’t want to miss a word.
“It’s okay,” the sister-in-law said. “We’ll come another time.”
Harry watched the woman’s thighs strain against the fabric of her dress as she squatted. There was an appealing, unexercised quality to her flesh that one didn’t see often in Los Angeles. He imagined her body would be soft and comforting, a place of solace.
“Why don’t they try swimming?” Harry asked.
The sister-in-law swiveled her hips toward him. Through the dark shadow of a V-shaped tunnel of leg, he could just make out a triangle of white cotton underwear. The boys looked from their mother to Harry. “Yeah!” They jumped up and down. “Let’s swim with the fishies!”
The mother looked at Catherine uncertainly. “Is it okay?” she asked.
“I don’t think it’s very sanitary.”
“The filter is on. What could happen?” Harry asked.
“How should I know?” Catherine responded. “I’m not a fish expert.”
“We’re going to swim with the fishies!” the boys chanted, bouncing up and down on their toes.
Harry began to remember her name. Rhonda? Rachel? He was certain it began with an R.
“If you want to risk it, Ruth, that’s up to you.”
That was it. Ruth. From Philadelphia. A Vassar graduate with a degree in landscape architecture. It was all coming back to him. She’d married Catherine’s overbearing older brother, an allergist with bad breath, after he’d identified her toxic reaction to foam rubber. She’d been to eight specialists before she found him.<
br />
“I was so grateful,” she’d explained to Harry, “I had to marry him.” She’d looked Harry right in the eye when she’d said the word. Grateful. Not love. Or lust. Gratitude.
“I guess there are worse reasons to get married,” Harry had answered.
“Mmmm,” she’d answered, finishing off another glass of wine.
The boys flung their shirts off, ran to the edge of the pool, lifted their knees to their chins, and hurled themselves into the water, cannonball style. So much water splashed out, a few fish landed on the stone surrounding the pool. Harry used the side of his foot to gently nudge them back in the water.
Ruth smiled at Harry in that “Aren’t my kids cute?” way. Harry’s ardor flagged. Why do all parents assume their brats are charming? Harry never would have had the confidence to plunge himself so recklessly into a pool like those children. He’d been too busy worrying about his mother. Only children who never doubted the hands that fed them could enjoy themselves so wholeheartedly. Watching them, Harry felt the pain of his missed childhood throb like a scar on a damp day. His thoughts were interrupted by a loud “Ow!” coming from what looked like the youngest boy, a pale blond child with a wide gap between his front teeth. “Something bit me!” He pumped his legs in the water like a mixer on high.
The other boys stopped swimming and watched as their brother began to cry. “Mommmeee!” he shouted.
“Angus,” Ruth said, “get out of there.”
The boy launched into a furious dog paddle and pulled himself out of the pool. He was shaking and shivering. Ruth squatted and wrapped a towel around him. “What happened, goose?”
“Something bit me on my leg,” he said in between hysterical gulping.
His brothers watched from the pool, torn between being afraid and wanting to stay in the water.
“Show me where,” his mother asked.
The boy turned his leg out like a ballet dancer and looked down. The adults gathered round.
“I don’t see anything,” Harry said.
Sensing skepticism, the boy began to look. “There,” he pointed to two tiny red marks just emerging on his calf.
And Sometimes Why Page 16
