Open Water

by Maria Flook

  The nurse told her that the water was on the other side of the building.

  “Are you sure that’s not the water out there? I don’t have my cheaters,” Rennie said, her voice gurgling. “I thought I saw a Coast Guard dory go out from Castle Hill. It’s not a good sight to see. The crew in their storm skins. It could be the Christy and Roland in trouble.”

  The nurse said, “That over there?” The nurse looked out the window, searching the tended lawns. “That’s just the sky.”

  After a few minutes, a doctor came into the room and listened to Rennie’s breathing with a stethoscope. He tugged the stethoscope out of his ears and shoved the rubber tubing into his breast pocket. He palpated Rennie’s stomach and under her rib cage where the liver was distended with knotty masses. Next, he pressed his fingertip up and down Rennie’s forearm, watching the indentations and wells it left in her bloated muscle. She was swelling up like a ripe papaya. The nurse wheeled a tray of instruments wrapped in sterile towels and parked it beside the bed. The doctor unfolded a towel and found what he wanted. He inserted a long needle into Rennie’s thorax to tap fluid from her lungs. He attached the needle to a tube that led to a plastic bag fastened beneath the bed. Immediately, rosy fluid started to dribble. “This will make a little difference for you,” he said.

  “I’m waterlogged?”

  “So to speak, yes.”

  “That happens to the ancient fleet, doesn’t it?” Rennie said.

  The doctor agreed. He didn’t waste reassurances. Rennie rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. She was distressed by the smell of urine on her fingers. She had been pinching her wet bedsheet. The mild trace of urine acted like smelling salts, and Rennie suddenly recognized what was happening: her body was shutting down all of its mechanical stations—diesel, Heister, VHF. Then she sank away from the certainty of her recognition. She fell into a half-sleep that was not restful sleep. Such a half-sleep only nourished the transformation that was occurring.

  Chapter Twenty

  Fritz had the Chihuahua puppy on his lap, its tiny claws scratched white lines across his Levis. He wasn’t pleased with the plan Willis told him. They were giving the dog away. “I paid for that Invisible Fence and now I ain’t got a dog.”

  “Get yourself a new one.”

  “I like this one.”

  “Look. This is something I have to do.”

  “Shit, Willis, stop trying to save the world.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You’re going crazy,” Fritz said.

  “For you it was a short journey, a shortcut. A hop, skip, and a jump.”

  Willis steered into the cul-de-sac where his high school classmate Sheila lived. He parked the car in her driveway. Every window shade was drawn, as if they expected an air raid. The shrouded windows made a strong image; it was the last little bit of inspiration Willis needed in order to take the dog away from Fritz, tugging it back and forth for a moment of grief until Fritz let go. Willis walked up the path. He waited at the pastel front door and sneaked a look through the sidelight. Sheila came down the hallway and opened the door.

  “Willis Pratt? Hey, I haven’t seen you for years. What happened to your arm?” She tapped his cast with her tapered fingernail.

  She was dressed in blue jeans and a ruby-red sweater. She had hunks of cotton between her toes where she’d been painting her toenails.

  She looked on the way to recovery.

  “Sheila. I was sorry.”

  “Yes. Everybody’s been so nice.”

  “You haven’t had a funeral yet.”

  “No, we haven’t got him back from North Carolina.”

  “That medical school still has your baby?”

  “What’s the hurry, anyway,” she said.

  Willis saw her point.

  “This puppy wants a home,” he told her.

  “You’re kidding? You bringing me that dog?”

  “It’s pedigree.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know.”

  “It’s tiny. Won’t eat you out of the house like those Labrador retrievers.”

  “I can’t have a dog.”

  “Please take it. Take it. From me. Please, Sheila.” Willis looked at the young mother. She was a mother, once and again, despite the premature outcome. This realization humbled him even further. He kept his eyes on her.

  She seemed to recognize his immensity of feeling, even if she didn’t understand its nature. He was making amends for private reasons, who was she to prohibit him from trying?

  He shoved the dog to her. She took it from him.

  “It doesn’t weigh anything. Like a toy,” she said, twisting it around until she was face-to-face with its squished mug.

  “Yeah, but it’s got its own power pack.”

  “You really giving this thing to me?”

  Willis started to walk away before she handed it back. He wanted her to take it from him, his kernel of misery. Maybe that little four-legged thing could disperse it evenly between them. He sat down in the car and shoved it in reverse.

  Sheila followed him down the flagstone path and waved goodbye. She rested the dog on the walk and it sniffed the air, then it nipped the lacquered cotton puffs between her toes. She controlled it with the heel of her foot. The dog rolled over.

  “Look at that,” Willis told Fritz. “Isn’t that good? Love at first sight.”

  The elm-lined street didn’t have a single parking spot. Showalter’s mini-book swap ’n’ sell luncheon was going full tilt; some members had drifted onto the side porch and Willis surveyed the pointy-head, teensy-print population as he rolled the car along, looking for a space. They parked two blocks up the street and walked back to the front stoop. Fritz touched a lighted finger-pad that fired a jangle of chimes. No one came to answer the door. They walked into the house and joined the hustle-bustle around the buffet table. Willis saw the blond chorine, Miss Ingersoll. She looked back at him and wrinkled her nose like a coked-up Doris Day. He was surprised to see a man wearing a collar scooping ham salad onto a plate. Next to the priest, a sister was twisting a carrot stick in a bowl of sour-cream dip. Willis couldn’t take his eyes off members of the clergy when they were engaged in ordinary domestic routine: buttering rolls and smearing mustard on corned beef. He didn’t like thinking of all that food masticated and digested, going in and coming out of God’s holy servants, same as it did everyone.

  “I didn’t think priests would go for these tiny books,” Willis told Fritz.

  “There’s a hundred midget bibles in Showalter’s book-case. Tiny psalms. They can fit the Ten Commandments on a page the size of your fingernail.”

  “Is that a fact? The Ten Commandments on your fingernail,” Willis sounded it out. He was looking for Showalter. Showalter saw him from across the room and signaled to Willis to pick up a plate. Willis took a china plate and stabbed at a slice of smoked turkey. He was suddenly overtaken by hunger or hunger’s remembered role, and the table of food was too much to resist. He filled his plate with meats and macaroni salad, fruit ambrosia, little wheels of pumpernickel bread. Fritz followed after him, scooping a hunk of rice pudding onto the rim of his laden plate. The pudding jiggled onto the floor. Fritz took another hunk of pudding.

  Willis stood against the wall and forked the food into his mouth. People came in and out of the room, making agreeable conversation. Willis nodded to strangers who tried to edge past him, directing their polite apologies so he would let them through to graze the huge table. He flattened his back against the wall when a man told him, “Can I squeeze in?”

  “No problem,” he said. The man wedged himself beside Willis, and they ate standing elbow to elbow. The stranger balanced his heavy plate on the palm of his hand. He noticed Willis’s cast and said, “Can I help you?”

  Willis wondered what this fellow wanted to do, spoon feed him? Play airplane? Willis declined any help. He pinched the gold edge of his huge dinner plate in his bandaged hand and levered it with acute accuracy. He shoveled the remaining fo
od into his mouth. He rested the empty plate on the mantel beside another Reddi Kilowatt sculpture. The stranger shared his appreciation for the artwork and looked at Willis.

  “Yeah, that’s a masterpiece,” Willis said. He rubbed his hands on his jeans.

  He walked over to Showalter who was flipping through a tiny volume while a priest waited, grinning.

  “This is the one,” Showalter was saying, “that started it all.”

  The priest said, “My collection has room for that one if you ever want to part with it.”

  “I don’t believe I could ever let it go, even for an old friend.”

  Willis interrupted, “Thanks for the food, but I’m on a tight schedule.”

  “You can wait a while.”

  “We need to talk. We need to have our powwow.”

  “It takes two to have a powwow, and I’m in the middle of my luncheon.”

  “We talk now, or I give the padre the Deep Throat slide show,” Willis said.

  The priest straightened up when he heard Willis. Showalter didn’t show alarm. He scolded Willis for intruding, as if it was a matter of upbringing. Showalter said, “Another magnetic performance, Willis.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Just watch your mouth. This is Father McDermott, one of my preferred customers.”

  “No shit?” Willis said. “He partakes of Infrared Nudes?”

  The priest smiled. Willis couldn’t guess what was behind it.

  “Excuse me, John,” Showalter called the priest by his given name and wheeled around to face Willis. “In my office.”

  “Which office? The bat cave?”

  “No, my office.” Showalter led the way to a room on the first floor. Willis recognized the huge leather desk he had seen once before.

  Fritz followed Willis and they stood two abreast to face Showalter. Willis looked focused on a goal, and Showalter sat heavily in his leather chair to hear it.

  Willis said, “I need three thousand for the truck, whether you want it returned or not.”

  “What about the bird?”

  “I fell in love with it. I’m keeping it for myself.”

  Showalter said, “I knew it. You let it escape, you let the fucking thing ride off with the gulls?”

  Willis pulled his pocket inside out. He found the solid breeder’s band that had been on the macaw’s foot and dropped it on the center of the desk. Showalter picked it up and examined the little ring.

  “Worse than I thought,” Showalter said.

  “Yes, and it will get worse.” Willis pocketed the band and sat down on the edge of the desk.

  Fritz took a seat and lit a cigarette. He put the cigarette down in an ashtray. The ashtray held some loose rubber bands and the acrid scent of burning latex drifted up.

  Willis told Showalter, “I’m saying I need cash, maybe we can work something up.”

  Showalter watched Willis with interest, trying to read his face. Willis had a new expression; it showed a hair of experimental tolerance for Showalter, and Showalter was enthused by it.

  “Okay. Beautiful. Let’s say we make arrangements, what’s your idea?” Showalter’s face was suddenly flushed.

  Willis said, “Today’s the day. Time to take a giant step outside your closet.” He smiled at the man. “That’s all you really want out of life, isn’t it?”

  “And you want to sell it.”

  “For three thousand dollars.”

  Showalter stood up. He towered above Willis, who lounged on the desktop. Showalter grabbed Willis by his inky forelock, tugged his head back and lowered his face to just an inch above Willis’s. He twisted the taut curl of hair another notch and centered his lips over Willis’s startled cameo. Willis shoved him off.

  Fritz yelled to Willis in his childlike Italian, “Inna la ponza! Inna la ponza!” In the stomach!

  Willis didn’t bother to strike Showalter.

  He rolled an oyster around in his mouth and spat it on the plush rug.

  He could almost taste Showalter’s cologne, an expensive lemony scent.

  Fritz was heated up. “You don’t kiss this man,” Fritz said. Willis studied his friend and couldn’t come to a ready conclusion. He turned again to Showalter.

  “The fact is,” Willis said, “I need the money. You can buy it from me.”

  “Who says I will?”

  “Oh, you will.

  “Not this very minute.”

  “I need the money now. Three whole ones or thereabouts.”

  “I’ve got the house full of people.”

  “Maybe they can call it a day. Give the creaky collars a doggie bag.”

  “I might be interested in what you’re saying, but I want a real series. You have to agree to let me shoot you in a couple scenes?”

  “More paintball?”

  Showalter laughed in the lowest octave. A rich basso profundo that unnerved Willis. He told Willis, “You’re too good to be true, you know that? Don’t worry. Beautiful. For you, just the ordinary will be top of line. Whatever we want.”

  Whatever we want. There it was again, that plural pronoun. Willis had no intention of meeting his end of it.

  “Tell him, it’s not so bad with your eyes closed, is it, Fritz?” Showalter said. “Fritz can never keep his eyes open.”

  Fritz was sitting behind the big glossy desk, resting his head against his forearm. He looked morally sick by their discussion of a merger.

  “Cash up front,” Willis said.

  “I don’t think so,” Showalter said.

  Willis said, “Money on the table.” Willis didn’t recognize the sound of his own voice; his terse clichés, cash up front, money on the table, were rolling ahead of him as his scheme fell apart.

  “It’s Saturday. I can’t do my banking. Vault is closed, so to speak,” Showalter said.

  Willis moved to the window. It had started to rain, glassy pipettes struck the pane and burst into wet shatters. He turned around. “You say you don’t have it?”

  “Not today.”

  “Well, that’s a bitch.” Willis sat down against the radiator. The radiator was hot and he stood up.

  Showalter told him that they could have their appointment the next day. It was business, after all, and spontaneity wasn’t always a plus in these matters. Willis wasn’t listening. He signaled Fritz and they walked out of the office and through pods of the religious and the geeky. Priests, sisters, teensy book designers and dealers, a man dressed in a tartan, Miss Ingersoll, who was cupping a dish of olive pits in the palm of her hand. They found the street. Willis walked into the rain. Its lines felt sharp against his face, it rinsed him of Showalter’s plush interior rooms.

  “Holly might spend her first night in jail.” Willis was genuinely disturbed by the idea of it.

  “Everybody has to,” Fritz said.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Holly’s buttocks felt numb from sitting so long in a hard plastic banana chair at the Newport Police Station. She answered questions from Detective Downey and a rotating entourage. Her probation officer, Dr. Kline, was taking notes. Holly watched her write down her statements, but she wondered how they were paraphrased.

  Detective Downey said, “How many candles are we talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe six.”

  “Those Hanukkah ones, or what?”

  Holly said, “Hurricane candles. What’s the difference? Wax is wax. They sell them at Marine Specialties.”

  The detective was concerned with every specific. She told him she had witnessed two small fires—Jensen’s bed and the momentary blaze that scorched the window. Each was a tiny golden seed and never a torrid harvest. She would have liked to watch both fires bloom beyond their initial stages into total fruition but she didn’t say so.

  An hour into it, Detective Downey told her she might need to arrange bail. Holly wanted to make a phone call. They told her she could make as many phone calls as she wanted. She couldn’t get Willis. Holly tried Robin. The line kept r
inging. She called Jensen at Carvel. She started crying. A detective handed her a quart-size coffee with double sugars from Store 24. She took a gulp and regained her composure. She hung up on Jensen.

  She had started by telling them about her personal life in order to buffer what she couldn’t reveal about the stolen parrot and the truck. She told the detective how many times she had made love to Willis Pratt; it wasn’t an impressive number of times. Detective Downey didn’t question her about drugs and she didn’t have to betray the embarrassing details about Willis and Miss Emma’s back-door visits. Still, Detective Downey gave her the impression he was waiting for a detail that would clinch his suspicions. He lifted his eyebrows when she described her first time with Willis—missionary position. Telling it made her feel cheap. It wasn’t any of his business, but she told him every detail of their first night together: their visits to Sheila Boyd’s Cape-style house, to Babyland and Neptune’s. She told Detective Downey that they ended up in her old apartment on impulse. They had a little fire from candle wax. It wasn’t a copycat fire, as the police were suggesting. Willis put the fire out.

  The detective remained skeptical and she started to doubt herself. For the past hour she had suffered from an audiotape loop in her head, a schoolyard chant and childhood admonition: Liar, liar, pants on fire! The more questions she answered, the faster and faster the rhyme came. She hesitated, then she told them about driving home and finding the two silver words.

  “ ‘Size queen’?”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “Size queen.” The detective was interested. His interest made his eyes look swimmy. He seemed less curious about the vandalism to her duplex and more interested in the realm of desire that the words described.

  “You know what they say,” Detective Downey told her, “it’s not the meat, it’s the motion.”

  “Well, that’s a golden oldie,” she said. Holly guessed he had an itsy wiener of his own.

  “It’s not the meat. It’s the motion,” he told her again, as if he really needed to convince her.