Plunge

by Brittany McIntyre

  Now, Helen and her family lived by one of the little coal towns that was pretty isolated. The closest real town nearby was probably Fayetteville, but even that was a distance. Sometimes, her daddy and her uncles would travel to get supplies they needed for home or for other things that Helen wasn’t sure about. While they were gone, her mama would have to do labor that she didn’t normally need to do, like gathering the firewood. Helen would carry it up onto the porch so that it would stay dry and safe, but during her work she’d picture her daddy and family and imagine them safe. She thought that traveling through the hills meant that they had a doorway that allowed them safe passage inside the mountains. That just like when he was in the mine, Daddy could move through a dry, warm space. Even while she was getting chilled carrying wood, Helen was glad she didn’t have to worry about her daddy. She knew that the hills would protect him and carry him back safely.

  During one particular trip, Helen’s daddy travelled almost right up until her birthday and she was just sick thinking he wouldn’t make it home to see her turn ten. The day before her birthday, though, she was awakened to the sound of heavy boots on the wood floor and a voice bellowing up the stairs.

  “Helen Grace?” Daddy called up to her. “Where are your manners? When I got home this morning, there was a fine lady sitting on our porch in satin. Imagine my surprise when she told me my own daughter had kept her waiting!”

  Helen sat upright in her bed and got herself together as quickly as she could. She didn’t want to leave the fine lady waiting any longer than she had to, but she wasn’t going to be rude and greet her in her nightshirt and bare feet, either.

  Finally, Helen made it down the stairs and out onto the porch. For a moment, her eyes didn’t register what she saw because they were too preoccupied with trying to find the lady, but then she understood: Daddy had brought her home a doll. A real porcelain doll, with smooth, glass cheeks and curled brown hair like her own. The doll had a silken hat and silken gown and was every bit the lady Daddy had said she’d be. Scooping up the doll, Helen pulled its tiny body to her chest in delight before throwing herself into her daddy’s arms.

  Like Little House on the Prairie or any of the other old-fashioned entertainment I knew about, Dad’s story charmed me because it was felt so strange and foreign that people lived like that once. I remember asking why Helen’s daddy didn’t just get in his car and drive to the store and I thought my jaw would unhinge when Dad explained that poor families in the 1920s didn’t have cars and that there wasn’t just a Kroger right down the street. That people had to do more of the work of finding their own paths if they wanted to be happy with where they ended up.

  As I thought about my own path down over a dusty hill and into the woods, I thought about my bridge that didn’t lead me anywhere but to a patch of hillside. A bridge that always guided me to a sense of calm that I couldn’t explain. I thought about how many times it had brought me peace when I’d cried to myself, waiting for my own daddy to come home. And now he had and, while it wasn’t in the same saccharin sweet way Helen’s daddy had come home to her, while maybe not as wrapped up in such a neat little present of a homecoming, it was still more than I’d been able to dream of. Maybe for me, that bridge was just my very own course: a safe place to wait that kept me in one spot. Now I just needed to be there for Dad as he forged his way forward, whether that path was like mine and just through the woods or like Helen’s Dad’s and just through the hills.

  Hannah: Today

  We stand together at the top of the cliff, fingers clasped just like last time. The humidity is so thick that the air feels like a latte, sticky and hot against my skin. I take a step forward and look over the edge. I thought knowing what I was in for would make it easier this time, but it doesn’t; in some ways, remembering the sting of water against the tender skin of my belly as I land makes the anticipation even worse.

  “One,” Lennox counts softly, her face so close to mine that I can feel her breath against my ear. She looks so gorgeous on that cliff in her tank top and swim trunks, her lean, well-defined body turning pink under the heat of the July sun.

  “Three!” I respond before she can finish counting down and without thinking any more about it, I run forward, pulling her along with me. Our hands stay connected as our feet leave the edge, but quickly pull apart and I lose her as we hit the water. This time there is no biting cold, but rather the pleasant, refreshing feeling of diving into a swimming pool. I take my time doggy paddling to the shore, enjoying the way the rays feel as they hit the back of my head. She is there waiting for me as I make into onto the shore, sand snaking its way in curls around her muscular calves, her arms outstretched to grab me into a tight hug.

  I want to spend every day like this, with Lennox’s arms wrapped around me under the glare of the hot July sun. Just as I nuzzle my face into her neck, she jerks away and sneak attacks me with a wave of tickles. I gasp for air as I try to dodge her poky little fingers, but when dodging her doesn’t seem to be working, I tickle back. We end up falling onto our towel like something out of a cheesy commercial, a tangle of limbs as we land side by side. The only thing that redeems us from being an utter cliché of youthful love is that when we land, her nose beaks me right in the eye and I have to hold a Coke from the cooler on it for the next ten minutes to keep it from swelling.

  “I’m so sorry,” Lennox keeps repeating and she takes a turn pressing the can into my socket whenever my arms get tired from holding it. I just laugh and pucker my lips up with an expectant look on my face. She kisses me and after a few short months together, she doesn’t even look around to make sure there aren’t people watching. She is only focused on me and just like it’s been since the day we met, all I notice is her.

  “Get a room,” Jake teases as he and Marley walk up behind us. I never would have imagined they would make it to the summer when Marley decided she liked him; I kind of figured Marley would chew him up and spit him out and then we’d have a new friend group dynamic to negotiate. It hadn’t turned out that way and the two of them kept exchanging sheepish grins as they stood in the sun with their fingers locked together, droplets of water cuddling down their bodies.

  “Us first,” Marley teases him back, with a quick pinch to his hip. He responds to her nipping fingers with tickles and they collapseon the ground in a heap. I roll my eyes, but it makes me happier than I’d admit watching the ease of their relationship. It kind of feels like it was meant to be.

  That night, Lennox drives us back to my house and I pretend not to be terrified of the way people tailgate us as she creeps down the highway. I resist the urge to lecture her about the way she overuses her brakes and stops the car when she should really just slow down. When she pulls into my driveway, I release a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, and she snorts back a laugh.

  “That bad, huh?” she asks, and I try to play it off, but I find myself laughing as I try to fib.

  “You’ll get better,” I say as I weave my fingers between hers.

  We walk over to the park and, without even a plan, gravitate to the bridge where we first met. The sun has set, and the sky is all violets and fuchsias: a perfect summer sky. We lean on our elbows against the bridge’s railing.

  “I wanted to kiss you the first day I met you here,” I confess, much more direct than usual. I don’t see the point in wasting any more time keeping things unsaid.

  For once, hers is the face that’s painted in a soft crimson, but she doesn’t look away from me like she always has. Instead, a little grin crosses her face and she snakes her arm around my waist.

  “Ditto,” she says, and I giggle. “The next time we saw each other here, I’d been waiting for three hours hoping I would see you again.”

  I think back to the way I’d hoped she’d been waiting that day and how I’d played Sherlock Holmes, investigating her cracked hands and pink cheeks like they were clues. How I had been so sure I was wrong about her feelings after she’d made the comment about wanting to make
a friend. I play that off and try to make it seem like I’d seen right through her.

  “I knew it,” I say with what I hope passes for a knowing smile.

  This time she giggles and shakes her head. “No, you didn’t. As much as I did like you, I got a kick out of what a mess you were that day, trying to saunter over to me like a kid playing dress up in her mom’s heels.”

  Embarrassment washes over me, but I shrug it off. What does it matter now? I might’ve looked silly then, but I got the girl, and now here we are full circle from where we started. With a light tug of Lennox’s bangs, I pull her face towards mine. Our lips meet and the warmth that spreads between us radiates through my whole body.

  We haven’t said it before now, but in that moment, it comes out so easily that I don’t give it a second thought: “I love you, Lennox.”

  Her eyes fix onto mine, no staring at the ceiling, no looking at a place behind me. Instead of a smirk, she smiles a wide smile. Her face is against mine again and she’s kissing so hard that she’s breathless when she pulls away and says it back: “I love you, too, Hannah.”

  I think about how it all started between us, how all I wanted the day we met was to disappear into some world where something would happen and how awesome it was that my wish was just granted. How awesome it was that that was the day when everything started to change and my boring, nothing life became so full. My arms certainly were full: full of this strong, intense person that I almost wanted to inhale so that I could just have all of her.

  As if she can read my mind, Lennox tilts her head at me, her arms still wrapped around my waist. “You know what I think?” she asks me. As I shake my head, she goes on, “I think we should make a new list. Things we want to experience and try together.”

  My cheeks feel stiff from smiling and I nod again, scared that I will stumble over the words if I try to form them now. How can I tell her that the list would be one word? Everything. Looking into the eyes of this girl I love, I know there’s not enough paper in the world to list the experiences I want to share with her. Every touch, every kiss, everything that spreads across this world of ours, I want to share it with her.