Drowning Lessons

by Rachel Neuburger Reynolds

  Walter put his arm around Josh. “I am really very sorry Josh. I tried to think of a way to save you from this, but I just couldn’t think of one…I have to do this.”

  Josh carefully replied, “You know that there is undisputedly nothing that we wouldn’t do to just go back to shore. You know we wouldn’t say anything to anyone. You know you can trust me. You’ve always known that.”

  “Do you really think he has to go?” Walter asked Max, nixing me from the possibility of retrial.

  She gave Josh an assessing stare. “Yes,” was her simple answer.

  Max moved over to me and untied my ankles, unrolling the dingy gauze bandages. She looked at the cut as if it had offended her in some way and bent down to look at it, before taking a sharp small stone and reopening the wound.

  It was a searing pain and a strange choice of deadly assault.

  Walter then held Josh’s arm rigid, while Max took the same stone and cut the inside of Josh’s arm open, incising a decent sized wound. Josh gritted his teeth but did not utter a word.

  She started ruffling through a backpack. “You’ve watched a lot of TV, haven’t you, you little smasher? You’re looking for a bit of a Scooby Doo explanation, am I right? About you crazy meddling kids…”

  “Was Becky always part of the plan?”

  “Don’t be stupid. Yes, she was. I want my money. I went through enough for that money. Believe me. Walter gets his business back. We’re free of Nico’s terrible ways. He was a bad man. Full stop. It doesn’t run deeper.”

  Bad man? Pot. Kettle. Black.

  She pulled out the vial of golden frog poison and smiled.

  I knew it wasn’t the actual poison and wouldn’t kill me, but I did repeatedly note to myself that I was in the middle of the ocean and no good could come of that.

  “But good on you for figuring out the Colombian frog. Of course, you know how it works?” She illustrated as if presenting on a cooking show.

  I nodded. “So Walter gets his business, you get the money, plus the satisfaction that no one would know that Nico left you for a good woman?”

  She ignored me and handed a needleless syringe to Walter. “I’m really sorry, Josh,” he frowned. He jabbed the needle directly into the fresh wound.

  Josh howled with pain and every muscle in his body appeared to go rigid. Paolo had said that the poison bottle was 100% sterile, but it now seemed almost improbable that there would be no trace matter. It was the same haggard Victorian bottle marked Peppermint, probably too old and broken to not be porous.

  Even if it was, sterile the fact that it was only alcohol and sea salts didn’t make me feel that we’d been saved.

  “Don’t you think,” I pleaded, “it’s going to look like more than a crazy coincidence that we go missing, or wash up dead?”

  Max smiled as she prepared the second syringe. “You left the party happily locking lips together, leading to what clearly was to become an anonymous shag in a stolen boat. Anything could have happened. It’s been a terrible week for tragedy.”

  “Sorry, again. It’s just circumstance,” Walter said, as he dragged Josh’s pain-stricken body to the short swim deck at the back of the boat before tossing his body overboard.

  Through the darkness, I couldn’t see Josh’s body at all.

  Max kneeled down in front of me again and jabbed the syringe into my ankle. The pain was so intense, so raw, so like nothing I’d ever felt.

  “You see, poison in an open wound. No needle marks. Should they find your body washed up somewhere, you’ll just look all mucked up.”

  The sting was cold and overwhelming my body.

  “Cause of death? Drowning. The poison is just a bonus for you figuring it out.”

  Bonus for her that even if Dr. Nolan looked, there’d no longer be any trace of poison at all.

  “She’s the one who can’t swim, right?”

  Without a word, Walter tossed me to my fate. The motor was ignited, and the boat slowly headed north.

  Have you ever screamed underwater?

  I pushed out most of my oxygen but held my mouth closed while I sank and made my way up to the surface, spitting out salt water and trying to tread enough to get some breath.

  Knocked down again and again, it was adrenaline and surprise survival tactics that let me rise again. Everything seemed purple underwater, above water, when I closed my eyes. Was Josh around?

  The ache of rubbing alcohol running through my veins made my limbs heavy with excruciating pain. But I wasn’t going to die.

  “Josh?! Josh!” I choked on water. My treading water skills were on the verge of useless. “Over here, Josh!” He too was treading. “Josh, take the bathrobe off. It’s weighing you down.”

  My sore muscles struggled with my own double-knotted robe and I wiggled out of it. I turned on my back, remembering that I could float. The harsh current still knocked me down. Josh had been right about that.

  “Lexie, I can’t get to you. The current is against me and keeps knocking me back. I’m not far. You’re going to have to swim with me. Remember you know how to do this.” His voice seemed so distant. “Ride the wave when you can. Let it take you.”

  I couldn’t tell how far away he was, and I was feeling enormously sick with the amount of salt water I was ingesting. Finally, I could see him, and soon I could touch him.

  “I can’t do this,” he said, defeated by the time he was barely in my reach. “I’m going to drown. Leave me.”

  “You are not going to drown. It’s not far. There are islets. And we can find one. We can walk on coral reefs. The water is warmer here. Like you told me, reefs can’t be deep. I can help you.”

  I put one arm under him, trying to keep him afloat for the few moments I could. We tread water again.

  “Josh. You’re going to have to help. We are not going to die. I don’t want to die.”

  We followed our swimming routine for what seemed like days, but it could have been minutes; he would swim ahead just a little, I would doggy paddle in dog years out to him, and he would pull me for just a bit.

  My body felt bruised between the alcohol and salt injection and being banged about by a fierce current. I was crying and sucking in more salt water, but we moved on, slowly and surely.

  As soon as my toes could hit sand, I dragged him on to the shore of the tiny islet, just large enough for two people to expire. We could see the land of Isla Bastimentos, not too far, but impossible at the moment.

  After a fair amount of hyperventilation, I vomited and vomited until nothing was left and I passed out. Before I faded away, Josh took my hand in his. It was finally safe to go to sleep.

  DAY SIX

  Chapter 41: But What About Love?

  Sand flies and a sore neck welcomed me as I sat up, exhausted but firmly awake at the break of dawn. Signs of the storm had disappeared. Our islet was tiny, with gentle waves just about rolling up to the tip of my toes. It was warm and the world was calm. The rising sun would burn off the mist in a few hours, but for the moment all was beautiful.

  Josh was still sleeping, curled up on his side, hair matted with sand and sea salt. I felt a fondness for him and kneeled down beside him.

  Though scared, I ran my finger down his arm, whispering in his ear like a familiar lover, “Wake up, Josh. It’s time to move.”

  He opened his eyes, staring up at the solitary palm tree on our island. “I’m so sore,” he said, not meeting my eyes, fixed gaze on the slightly swaying tree.

  We were closer to land than I had thought, and the water never rose above my knees. Josh followed me, copying my path as I successfully avoided jagged rocks. I was in last night’s terrible red underwear with ten pounds of extra stomach weight, but it didn’t matter. Josh’s black boxer briefs were of little consequence. We both could have been naked, and neither would have noticed or cared.

  Once on the beach, he walked ahead of me and I struggled to keep up with his speed, sand grinding into my wound.

  “Stop,” I said, in a g
ravelly dehydrated voice. He kept walking, so I gathered all the energy I could to catch up with him and grab his arm. “I said stop, Josh.”

  “Ok, I’ve stopped,” he said, pursing his lips.

  “I feel sick enough and I really can’t handle the silent treatment. What is wrong, Josh? I’ve been wracking my brain since I woke up alone yesterday, and for the life of me, I cannot understand what I’ve done to get this wall of ice from you.”

  “I just can’t do this, Lexie. Look, I like you. A lot. I could be crazy about you, but I just… I can’t do whatever was going on with us,” he scratched the stubble on his chin and walked away.

  “Do what?”

  “I mean your three nights of swimming lessons. I just can’t do it. I can’t be your rebound. I just don’t have it in me. I don’t want to deal with the awkwardness of running into you at parties around town, at friends’ weddings, etc. etc. because it happens. I just don’t. Want. To do it.”

  His speech was too similar to Olivia’s talk with me yesterday to be a coincidence.

  “We’re adults, Josh.” Regardless of the adrenaline butterflies in my stomach, I wasn’t going to lose any self-respect. “Deal with me like I’m an adult. If you can’t…” There was nothing more for me to say. I turned and walked north, every step shooting daggers through my leg.

  We walked for an hour, possibly two, Josh finally doing the chasing, and I was the one who wouldn’t stop.

  He called after me, “Adult, you said? Lexie, we’re both children. There’s a reason that we’re both Left Behind. We’re both children and no good for each other. Probably no good for anyone. We’ve been through a lot together in a very short period. We should just finish it out and be on our way. This is way too intense for my boring life.”

  He isn’t right.

  With a dramatic turn on my good ankle, I sternly replied, “No. I don’t accept that. I was not Left Behind. This week has confirmed that everything that I wrote was wrong.

  “We weren’t Left Behind. We are not weird. What I hope is that we are unique and simply hopeless romantics, who just might not give up searching, who have an underlying faith that what is right is worth waiting for. You are hurtful and mean and just please don’t lay your insecurities on me. It’s all wrong until it’s right.”

  I waited for a response that never came and we walked. Navigating around a particularly difficult mangrove, a welcoming lodge on a hillside appeared like a desperate oasis. We made our way up the steep hill and collapsed on the porch of the chocolate farm hotel.

  Predictably, there were no phones or electricity in sight, but the proprietor helped us as best she could with cups of cocoa, coffee, and bathrobes. After she made the round trip to her house further up the hill, she handed over an ancient cellular phone.

  I finally remembered a phone number that wasn’t Salty’s - that of Detective LaGuardia. I’d dialed it enough times in the last five days, after all. His phone was finally diverted to an exhausted operator who said she’d try to track him down. He returned the call a half-hour later, and I spilled every last detail.

  All there was to do was to wait to be eventually picked up. Josh had passed out on a lounge chair on the deck, part of a pair with red cushions facing the sun. The innkeeper noticed my disdain and escorted me to an empty room, where I lay down on the bed and drifted off immediately.

  A trio of concerned individuals woke me up at some point late in the morning. Ryan sat at the foot of the bed, LaGuardia behind him with an eyebrow raised, and Dr. Nolan looking far too pleased to be a part of the most intriguing crime to happen on the island in years.

  “Looking good. I mean, considering,” the doctor noted, slipping my arm into a blood pressure monitor. “Murder most foul, case closed.”

  LaGuardia filled me in on the events of the last six hours. While I had been tossing and turning, they’d been stuck in a high society nightmare. They’d tracked down Walter, having breakfast in bed with Olivia, and now he was locked again in a Bocas Town jail cell awaiting transport to Panama City.

  “So,” LaGuardia said, “so there is good news and there is bad news. I’ve been told by the night watchman at the marina that someone matching Max’s photo motored up at the break of dawn in a speedboat. A half-hour later a sixty-foot power yacht showed up and was out of there quicker than you can say…well, it was quick.”

  And she is gone.

  “Don’t worry. You look worried. I’m a good detective, but my guess is you’ll never see her again, and my jurisdiction ends at the airport. Panama City knows, but…”

  “It’s a thousand miles to Aruba,” I randomly thought of how long it would take for her to reach the closest Caribbean island. It was harder than I thought to speak. How far was it to St. Barts? Was she cocky enough to show up to the wintertime haunt of the rich and famous?

  The doctor cautiously pulled back my comforter and frowned. “That’s a pretty nasty wound. There are some unusual strains of marine bacteria around here, so let’s get you to the hospital and on to some antibiotics to stave off what I can. Necrotizing fasciitis is a nasty infection.”

  Twenty percent fatality rate, I remembered. Would I be lucky enough to be one of four out of five that survived?

  Dr. Nolan saw that it was way too early to be joking, “Kidding. Maybe I don’t get out enough…”

  The motion sickness was kicking my ass. I sat with my head between my knees on the boat back to Bocas Town, Ryan’s arm around me. He had gallantly scooped me up in his more than capable arms and had carried me onto the boat. The town came into view and he coaxed me up and took my hands.

  “I know this is not the right time, Lexie, but this could be the last time I get the chance to talk to you. I’ll be honest in saying that I hadn’t thought of you in quite some time, but seeing you here, well, I just need to understand. Water under the bridge and all those kinds of words, but what did I do in high school to make you dislike me so much?”

  Earnestly looking into his eyes, I asked, “What did I do? What did you do? What do you think happened? You broke my heart without a word and fell in love with my best friend. She was head over heels so I never told her. That’s what friends do.”

  “Didn’t know? Of course she knew. She came up to me at the dance you couldn’t make. You wanted out. Big time. That’s what she said.”

  The events of my last three years of high school suddenly added up. As a sophomore, it was as simple as that to take something personally and then part ways for good. Back then, if you dated someone for two weeks, they were considered a boyfriend.

  I only had two weeks with him. How different would life have been?

  He brushed my bangs out of my face, softly smiling. “It was always you, Lexie. You were always the one.”

  Chapter 42: See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya…

  A Spanish soap opera played on the twenty-year-old TV attached to a rusting arm jutting out from the ceiling in the antiquated hospital. There were no subtitles, and though I couldn’t understand anything except, “Lo siento,” I could get the gist of the plot.

  Someone had broken someone’s heart. The story never gets old.

  Dr. Nolan had given me twelve stitches and some apple juice and then left for the beach. Hours went by slowly. The Bocas del Toro airport would be fully functioning, and the guests would be landing in Panama City soon, where they’d scatter to get their transferring flights. New friends would soon be forgotten. Everyone would dine out on the story for a few weeks, and then it would fade away as a footnote.

  As the sun began to set, a giant bouquet of flowers entered the room, followed by Olivia, almost as if she was sending them as a reconnaissance mission. The rosy filter that I had looked at her through my entire life had lifted and I saw her clearly. She stood stark in the fluorescent light from the hall, all warts on show.

  I doubted that she knew how to give an earnest apology. She sat in a chair in the corner; smiling, hurt and broken. We were silent for a long time.

  She s
oftly said, “Looks like you were right, huh? Boy, were you right.”

  What was the point in bringing up thirty years of questions and hurt now, when she’d soon be out of my life forever? I had read somewhere that it was infinitely harder to break up with a dear old friend than a serious boyfriend, and I now understood.

  “He tried to kill me, Olivia. You get that, right?” I searched her face for something genuine. I did think it was in there.

  “It’s crazy, right?” she asked, as casually as if I said that I had walked in on Marianna having a threesome in a wedding cabana.

  “Olivia, I will always love you in my way, but I don’t think you are a good person. That’s what I’ve learned on this trip. Repeatedly. I think that there is a good person somewhere inside of you, and I hope you find her. One day.”

  Yesterday, she wouldn’t have put up with it. But it wasn’t yesterday.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. I do believe that her concern was real.

  “I will be.” I looked out the window and we sat until the sun went down, then Olivia arose to meet her beloved night.

  “When words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain. That was Shakespeare.”

  “I know—Goodbye, Olivia.”

  She looked like a scared child. “I’m not going to say goodbye. I am going to say, ‘See you later’.”

  “I am going to say goodbye.”

  I don’t know if she believed it. She looked at me fondly and eventually left.

  The nightmare was over.

  EPILOGUE: Fall seven times and stand up eight (Japanese Proverb)

  My ankle got a lot worse before it got better, but I thankfully didn’t have any flesh-eating disease.

  I stayed Mariposa del Mar for the next few days after being released from the hospital, mostly sitting on my deck; foot raised, sun shining, enjoying the dolphins. Regardless of what I perceived as their lack of smarts, they were doing something right. It was wonderfully quiet and would be until the next day when the weekend crowd arrived.