Fractured Tide

by Leslie Lutz

  “Let’s cancel everything and just leave.”

  Mom stopped glaring at Phil, who’d plopped into the captain’s chair with his back to her. “No way. You’re getting on Matt’s charter. I do not want you talking to the cops.” Mom glanced at the two divers still eavesdropping at the cooler and switched to Greek. “Tasia, I could lose the business if the police find out someone underage was leading Marshall and Colette into the Andrews.”

  “You want me to lie to the police?”

  She paused, pressed her lips together as if biting back a sharp word. “No, you’re not going to talk to them at all. Your job is to take these ten divers—”

  “Nine. Mr. Marshall is dead.”

  “—to the Haystacks with Matt and show them a good time. Don’t tell Dad either when you see him on Saturday. He’ll think I’m heartless.”

  “Imagine that.”

  Mom drew back like I’d slapped her. “Tasia, that’s not fair.”

  “Our divers all saw me lead Mr. Marshall inside the ship. Did you tell them what to say to the police too?”

  She looked at the two divers at the water cooler and then glanced up at the roof where the others had gathered. “They’ll all be going back to their hotels and then flying home in a day or so. The police in the Keys are slow. People forget details over time.”

  I wanted to remind her that they weren’t slow when they arrested you, but I kept my mouth shut. So I grabbed some equipment and started breaking it down, letting muscle memory take over. I disconnected a hose on a BC before I realized it was Mr. Marshall’s. I almost dropped it, and then turned it upside down instead. A trickle of the Atlantic came out. I wondered if there were bits of it in the water. The phosphorescence, bleeding all around the wreck, worming into the seals of the BC. And now pooling under my bare feet.

  I told myself Mom was probably right about me being narced. None of what I saw was real. I stepped out of the puddle anyway.

  Phil passed by me then, carelessly brushing the edge of the tarp. A corner flipped over to reveal a pale white hand, palm up. The glint of a wedding ring. Captain Phil glanced at me, and the oppressive wave pushed me under again, the same feeling I’d had down below while inside the ship compartment where I’d hid. His barbed stare slipped away and the feeling was gone.

  A motor buzz sounded to the east. I would have to take over for Mom soon, as always, and lead a bunch of divers into the deep whether I wanted to or not. On autopilot, I reached into my dry bag and grabbed my phone to check the conditions over in the Haystacks. The rhinestone case I’d picked up for free at Goodwill sparkled in the sunlight. I powered her up and the screen came to life. Then my icons melted down the screen.

  I shut it down, swearing, and powered it back up again. Awesome. My OS had picked today to crap out on me.

  A vessel appeared on the horizon. Mom squinted into the sun, unwrapped a stick of spearmint gum. She handed it to me, and I waved it off. I knew she was trying to be nice, but I wasn’t in the mood to accept anything from her, even gum.

  “Matt’s charter.” She nudged me until I met her gaze. “Don’t talk to anyone about what happened.” She broke eye contact and popped the gum into her mouth, although she grimaced as if it tasted bitter. “Let me handle everything.”

  ENTRY 4

  WHEN THE RUBY PELICAN finally arrived, the first thing that struck me was that it was bursting with teenagers. There were at least twenty of them on the boat, yelling and laughing, sprawled across a deck as long as a school bus. A gaggle of girls on the roof had hiked their T-shirts up under their bras and leaned back on the lounge chairs like reality TV stars, faces tilted to the sun. Reggae music blared from the speakers. I exchanged a horrified look with Mom.

  Matt had responded to our distress call by bringing us a floating kegger.

  The boat roared and churned the water as it pulled alongside. The scent of engine oil and tanning lotion blew past me. Up on the roof deck, Felix leaned over the railing, his dark hair wet and stuck to his forehead, his smile wide. He waved when he saw me. I waved back, coming up with a good lie for when he asked about the man-shaped lump under the tarp. Which he would, crazy little Sherlock elf he was.

  Someone I didn’t recognize threw the bowline to me. Mom and I tied the two boats together, and I got a better look at the partiers. They were younger than I’d thought, and most of them had science books and lab manuals. Not a beer in sight. Apparently, they were high on life, or science, or boat fumes. Whatever it was, I didn’t know how we were going to fit more sardines in that can.

  Matt appeared from under the sunshade on the other boat, his Orioles cap on backward and his surf shorts hanging low on his hips. He gave Mom a lopsided smile that looked like an apology.

  Mom finished tying off the two boats with a half-hitch. “Matt, my friend,” she said, shouting over the slosh of the waves. “Not what I had in mind.”

  Matt spread his arms broadly, like a ringmaster in a circus. “Welcome to the annual Key Largo high school science club summer fun party. Yeah, and it’s as fun as it sounds.”

  The group of girls sunning themselves on the charter’s roof all slid their sunglasses down at the same moment to look at him. Each of them wore “Come and Take It” T-shirts, and at first I thought they were NRA or something. Then I saw the microscope silhouette above the words. As usual, after three years of homeschooling, I’m light-years behind on every trend.

  Matt stepped up on the gunwale, balanced himself as a wave rocked his boat, and leapt to the Last Chance with all the grace of a drunken sailor. “Well, hello there, Miss Gianopoulos. “

  “Hi, Matt,” I said, smiling. Matt never called me by my first name, no matter how many times I asked him to. I, therefore, refused to call him by anything but Matt, which I think secretly bothered a southern boy like him.

  “You ready to get off this rust bucket and ride on a real boat?”

  “No way you’ll fit us all,” I said. “You’ll have to bungee the big ones to the side.”

  Matt shrugged and smiled in that way he always does, everything’s gonna be alright, Bob Marley-style. “Your mommy said to come. Here I am.” He counted the divers on our boat with one finger, his lips moving silently.

  Mom checked her watch and squinted. “Lousy cheap Casio.” She tapped it a few times. “There it is. Pamé, sweetheart. Let’s get a move on.” She glanced at me meaningfully. I pretended to be absorbed in repacking my gear. The police; that’s why she was in a hurry. I told myself again everything was an accident. Mom was right. It was best I didn’t talk to them.

  The diver transfer was easy; Phil and I passed the scuba equipment, piece by piece, from the Last Chance to the Ruby Pelican, and some helpful science geek with two water PH kits strapped across his chest like nerdy bandoliers helped Mom with the tanks. One of the divers on our boat told me with the saddest voice ever not to bother with hers. She’d lost her taste for diving. Two others asked Mom if they could get their money back. The rest of our divers climbed aboard Matt’s charter and started assembling their stuff. I guess Mom was right. Life goes on. At least for some.

  By the time we’d handed the science cowboy the last tank, a silence had fallen over the newcomers. Wave song filled the void, stuffing my ears, slapping against the boat. From the looks on everyone’s faces, word of the accident had spread. A few of the girls on Matt’s roof deck craned their necks to get a glimpse. More than a few of them stared at me, the accusation as clear as a knife’s edge in the sunlight.

  Murderer.

  The word came to me suddenly. I guess it had been there all along, standing behind a half-open door. I wasn’t, and I knew I wasn’t. But I felt like one anyway. And it was horrible. For a moment I was back in court with you when you took the stand, and I was listening to the hollow sound of your voice. It was an accident, you said. You were drunk. Out of control. Angry. You’d never done anything like that before, and you’d never do it again. And just when I thought the whole courtroom was swayed by the raw hone
sty in your voice, the dead man’s brother stood up and called you a murderer.

  Before I could imagine what Mr. Marshall’s wife, waiting for her husband back on the docks, would say to me, I distracted myself troubleshooting my phone, trying again to pull an accurate report of the Haystacks out of a suddenly nonexistent internet. The bars are never great that far offshore, but still.

  I finally threw the phone back into my dry bag and helped Mom put together some gear for the divers.

  We talked about the dive plan for the group. Matt would help me get the gear ashore afterward. The stares from the other boat followed me. I wondered if someone told Felix what his big sister had done. That I wasn’t paying attention and that Marshall died because of it. I tightly coiled a hose in my hands, thinking about the strange glow I’d seen in the wreck. What if Mom was wrong about me being narced down there? And if I said nothing, there would be more accidents.

  Murderer.

  “Mom, I need a favor,” I said as I finished stuffing the last of the regulators into a mesh bag.

  “All right,” she answered, caution in her tone.

  “Will you at least wait a while to dive the USS Andrews again?”

  “You were narced, honey. Here, don’t forget defog for the masks.”

  I took the spray bottle from her and shoved it inside the bag. “Just wait a week or so. Out of respect for Mr. Marshall.”

  Phil stopped ogling the girls on the roof of the other boat and glanced my way. I got the feeling from his expression he thought I was acting overly sentimental.

  Mom picked up another BC and worked a hose stuck in its socket, her face twisting with the effort. “The sea waits for no one.”

  “This is the wrong time to quote some stupid beat poet.”

  “Hey, it’s what the homeschooling parenting books say to do,” Mom said, pulling the hose loose with a snap. “You know, weave it into the day.”

  “Yes, I’m sure using me as cheap labor is all a part of the homeschooling plan you file with the state.”

  “Tasia, I would never call you cheap labor. Free labor, maybe.”

  Phil passed by me on the way to the stern and gave me a creepy tap on the shoulder. “Best kind.”

  I edged away from him. “Mom, I can’t believe you’re making jokes after what just happened.”

  She had the grace to look guilty, and we fell into silence for a while, assembling gear, checking gauges, and making sure we had an extra set of everything.

  Mom nodded for me to cross over to the other boat, which was sitting pretty low in the water now that it had gained nine scuba divers and a lot of equipment. “Go on, now.” She kissed me on the forehead and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. I was so surprised I pulled back. The last time she’d acted like that, I was getting ready for my first day of high school, back when I went to an actual school. “See you at home for dinner.”

  I nodded, my throat knotting up. She was going to stay and clean up my mess. Lie to the police. To protect the business, she had told me. But the kiss on the forehead told me the truth. This was all about protecting me.

  I climbed onto Matt’s charter and got settled on a small space of bow cushion. Matt patted me on the back on his way to the captain’s chair, as if he’d already been let in on the secret. I flushed. For the first time in my life, I was sick of being out on the ocean. I was ready to go home. I wrapped the beach towel around my waist like a sarong, leaned back, and shut my eyes, letting the rock of the waves lull the stress from my body, and waited for the roar and purr of the engine.

  The click of Matt’s key in the ignition drew me out of my thoughts. Click. One whir. He tried to turn it over again. It caught. Then it died.

  ENTRY 5

  IF THERE’S ONE THING you understand better than I do, it’s what happens to people when you cram them together and take away their choices. No space. No privacy. No control over whether you get a meal today, or if the state will spring for air conditioning. You’ve never talked much about what happens in Pine Key Pen, and I’m guessing it’s a lot worse than being stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of sweaty science nerds and a dead body.

  We didn’t realize what was happening at first. When Matt’s boat wouldn’t start, everyone climbed off the Ruby Pelican and piled onto the Last Chance.

  And then Captain Phil turned the key.

  Click.

  Two shocked seconds of silence broke into a wave of everyone talking at once. I couldn’t make out much. Some of them acted like a ride at Disney World had just broken down. Others threw F-bombs into the wind. Felix hid on the roof deck, the sound of his crying rising over the panic down below, along with Mom’s voice as she tried to soothe him.

  Matt told everyone to “stay calm, stay calm.” This accomplished absolutely nothing. He tried to call the Coast Guard. The radio didn’t work. A girl took out her phone and found it was dead. And then everyone reached for their phones and discovered the same thing—black screens. Even the flashlights were useless. One girl—I never did learn her name—made a Bermuda Triangle joke, and the whole lot of us broke into nervous laughter.

  Mom spent another five minutes transferring some of the passengers back to the Ruby Pelican—a really awkward game of musical boats—and Captain Phil and I poked around the engine. I put on a rash guard over my bikini top so he’d stop staring at my boobs. Felix climbed down from the roof and watched us fiddle with wires and fuel lines. Little circles of conversations started up behind me, mostly about whether we knew what we were doing. I was pretty sure we didn’t. Neither did Matt, apparently. The only thing louder than the clank of his tools as he chucked them onto the deck was the sound of his cursing.

  After thirty minutes of troubleshooting on what seemed to be a perfectly good engine, Phil got up. Once he’d grabbed a silver flask from underneath the captain’s chair, he disappeared up the ladder.

  Felix looked so small standing there in his SpongeBob rash guard and cartoon board shorts, hair sticking out in all directions, as it always does when I wait too long to get him to the barber. Mom works eighty hours a week now. I don’t remember the last time she took either of us anywhere but the docks.

  “T?” Felix asked in a small voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is he coming back?”

  “No, but that’s okay.” I smiled at him and picked up where Captain Phil left off, messing uselessly with the thermostat.

  “Can you fix it?” Felix asked, wringing his skinny little hands.

  I doubted I could do anything, but I didn’t have the heart to tell a seven-year-old that his big sister wasn’t good at everything. “Maybe.”

  While I worked, Felix sat beside me and drew a cartoon shark on his knee. He’d gotten ahold of Mom’s good ballpoint pen—snatched it from her clipboard, little thief that he is.

  Felix started doing that—drawing on himself—after his art teacher told him last year he “has talent.” Mom tries to get him to stop, but as soon as she turns her back, he’s sketching cartoons on his body again. Rainstorms on his calves. Superheroes on the tops of his feet. Whales on his forearms. Mom told me she’s afraid it’s some kind of compulsion. I don’t think so. I get the feeling art for him is like diving for me. Not an anchor, really. More like something that sets him free.

  Felix looked up at the roof deck, where Mom was still trying to calm a hysterical diver. A couple of guys from the science trip were trying to help, and I silently thanked them.

  “You think I’ll get in trouble?” He covered the shark drawing with his hand.

  “Not today.”

  “I don’t know. Mom gets mad at all kinds of things.”

  “Well, she’s under a lot of pressure.”

  On the other boat, Matt led a small group in singing “Three Little Birds.” The second time around Felix mouthed the words. He caught my eye and I returned his smile. But Bob Marley has always been your thing, not mine, so I played a different song in my head, one I’d picked up on the back patio o
f Nick’s Hula Hut. This super cool singer-songwriter had come through town for the Fourth of July—one night only. Felix fell asleep on my shoulder. Fireworks lit up the skies above the docks, and Vanessa Peters played her acoustic guitar, singing her heart out, like she knew what my life was about.

  And I tell myself . . . everything will be okay from now on

  If I just close my eyes . . . and believe it . . .

  One of the guys on the roof deck of the Last Chance joined in, briefly meeting my eyes. I could feel that moment start to fade—I think we both could. We had a long way to go before we got to okay. Then Felix sang “Three Little Birds” louder, his smile widening, and for a second, I actually did believe it. Vanessa Peters and Bob Marley, singing a beautiful chorus in my head.

  The song ended, and the splash of waves against the hull took its place.

  Felix finished putting a remora on the shark and started drawing on the other knee. A manta ray this time. “Someone on the roof said we drifted into the Bermuda Triangle,” he said.

  “We’re nowhere near it.”

  “What happens in the triangle?”

  “Compasses go wacky, but that’s about it.”

  A voice drifted from the captain’s chair. “And it eats planes and boats. It eats everything.”

  I turned to the voice. Teague. I’d heard his name spoken often since the boat breakdown. He’d been holding court over by the scuba tanks, so I guessed him for the science club president. His blond ponytail trailed over one shoulder, half covering the Stanford logo on his shirt. Advertising his bright future to the world. He doodled in a thick spiral notebook balanced on his knee.

  Teague closed the notebook. A sticker across the cover read, The Universe is made of protons, neutrons, electrons & morons. I’m sure he thought being stranded in the middle of nowhere was one grand adventure.

  “You know what’s in the triangle?” He leaned forward on his knees, lecture-style. I sent him a glance that said Shut up in front of my little brother—which he absolutely saw—but he went on anyway. “A hole in the Earth’s electromagnetic field.”