The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

by Joshilyn Jackson

  “Not true,” Thalia said.

  “You said you’d help, but you’re making fun.”

  “Great timing on the nervous breakdown, Jesus Bug. Really,” Thalia said, finally facing Laurel. “The short version is, you sleepwalk. With your eyes open. I’ve seen it. I brought the board because I thought pretending to talk to one of your little mystic essencey friends would let your subconscious tell you what that shadow was you saw moving in the yard. What or who. I brought it to help, and meanwhile, your potential perv has already passed the house. You want me to go after him, or you want to stand here and fuss about the Ooh-ja?”

  Laurel wavered and said, “Go.”

  Thalia opened the door and slipped through it. “Call Missy Coe,” she said, and closed the door after herself before Laurel could get out the words “It’s Mindy.”

  Laurel started to walk away but then reached out and twisted the deadbolt closed with a little more force than was strictly needed. She ran lightly back through the dining room to the swinging door that led into the kitchen. It opened beside the small built-in desk. She snatched the cordless phone off its charger and hurried back toward the window. The Ouija board lay where she had left it, the dark letters standing out, stark and black; the all- seeing eyes at the bottom corners seemed to be looking at her. She flipped the box over and left it where it lay. For now.

  She knelt in front of the window again, down low. Thalia was already out of view; she would sprint to the corner and back. Laurel was going to call Mindy while she waited, but when she hit the on button, she heard the broken dial tone that reminded her she had messages waiting. Probably quite a few: She’d been avoiding the phone.

  The automated voice-mail robot told her she had six. The first three were concerned messages from Mindy Coe and Edie and another friend from church. The next was from a reporter with the Pensacola News Journal. Laurel deleted it after the first sentence.

  Through her wide window, she could see a long piece of her street. Thalia came into view from the right. She was moving along at a good clip.

  The phone was playing the fifth message. Laurel recognized Trish Deerbold’s voice saying, “Oh! Laurellll . . .” She hit delete before Trish had gotten through the long pity-filled L.

  Stan Webelow appeared, running around the curve that led back past her house from Chapel Circle’s cul-de-sac end.

  The last message was Mindy again. Laurel listened while she watched Thalia and Stan Webelow running toward each other on a collision course, down the wide white strip of sidewalk.

  “Sweetie, please call me back,” Mindy was saying. “Anything I can do, you name it. I wanted to let you know that they’ve set Molly’s viewing. Day after tomorrow, at Fernwood, from seven to nine. They’ll have the funeral there the next morning at ten.”

  Laurel jogged those same sidewalks three or four times a week in fall and winter. Weather like this, she used the treadmill up in the rec room. But she knew the etiquette. Stan Webelow would go onto the grass when they met. Men moved for women, always, and younger women moved onto the grass for older ones. Thalia and Stan were going to meet right in front of the house, it looked like. Both of them were sweating so hard Laurel could see their skin gleaming through the sheers.

  On the phone, Mindy was still talking. Laurel had only been half listening, watching her sister jogging inexorably toward Stan Webelow, who was now lifting one hand in a polite wave as he prepped to move to the side.

  But then Mindy said something so odd, it jerked Laurel’s attention back.

  “No one is blaming you,” Mindy Coe’s recorded voice said. “No one. Not even the Dufresnes. In fact, I think Bun—Barb, I mean, would especially like to have Shelby at the viewing. No one is blaming you at all, Laurel.”

  It hadn’t occurred to her that people might be blaming her. Why would they? She hit save and looked back out at the street just as Thalia and Stan Webelow came together on the sidewalk. As expected, Stan moved onto the grass. He hadn’t slowed, and neither had Thalia. Before he could pass, Thalia tangled her feet together and pitched forward and sideways, directly at him. Her hands and face smashed into his chest. Laurel found herself on her feet, before common sense told her Thalia was doing this on purpose. Stan Webelow was falling, and Thalia was falling, too, sliding down the slick length of his sweaty body.

  He landed on his back in the grass, and she landed half on him, her face pressed into his belly just above the waistband of his tiny shorts. She’d caught herself with her hands—Thalia had practiced all kinds of safe falls for theater—but her elbows remained bent so that her throat and collarbone rested against his crotch. Stan Webelow froze, then scuttled backward on his feet and hands like a startled maiden crab. Thalia sat up.

  Laurel found herself looking around to see if any other neighbors were watching, and when she looked back at the two of them, she was surprised to see Stan doing exactly what she had done: darting his head around, looking to see if anyone had seen them. It struck Laurel as an odd reaction; she was looking around because she knew Thalia had done it on purpose. But why was he? Then he spotted her and boggled at her, while Thalia stood up and leaned down, offering him a hand.

  “Crap!” Laurel said, and dropped the phone.

  It went clattering to the floor. She dove after it, getting her head below the sill on all fours, feeling ridiculous, a poor man’s secret squirrel. Stan had already seen her.

  “You fixing to run, too?” Bet Clemmens said behind her, and Laurel screamed. She scrambled sideways, out of the window, and didn’t get up until she was safely through the archway that led to the foyer.

  She got to her feet and turned around to look at Bet, who had come through the swinging door from the kitchen in her sock feet. Now Bet scooted silently forward across the hardwood, heading toward the window.

  “Come here,” Laurel said, her voice urgent.

  “You was stretching?” Bet said, looking doubtfully at Laurel’s linen slacks and sandals.

  “Come on, over here,” Laurel said.

  Bet took one more dubious glance out the window and then joined Laurel in the foyer, saying, “Shelby sent me to come ast, could we have Cokes?”

  “Yes,” Laurel said, her mind racing. What would a person who had witnessed the fall be doing? A person who happened to see it, not one who was spying?

  “That’s him in the yard, huh?” Bet asked, her eyes dark and serious. “That one what had Molly in his house?”

  Laurel blinked so long it was more like closing her eyes. The person, she concluded, would be going outside to check on the sister she’d seen take a tumble.

  “Don’t say anything about this, okay? Not to Shelby,” Laurel said. “Not to anyone.”

  “Okay,” Bet said, and shrugged.

  “Go get Cokes,” Laurel said, shooing at Bet, and then opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch.

  Thalia and Stan Webelow were standing on the grass, talking. Thalia was too close, easing her hips forward, well inside his personal space.

  “Are you okay?” Laurel called, and Stan and Thalia both turned toward her. Laurel saw a flash of exasperation on Thalia’s face before she smoothed it away. Stan Webelow was red-faced, but that may have been only the heat. The moment he saw Laurel, he began jogging in place.

  “We’re fine! Mostly,” he called. “Can you come give your sister a hand? I think she’s hurt her ankle. I’d help her, but here you are, and my heart rate is dropping . . .” He smiled the even white smile that Edie thought was so damn charming, and Laurel had to force her curling lips into a return smile.

  She walked across the lawn toward Thalia as Stan Webelow got back on the sidewalk and took off like a rabbit down Chapel Circle.

  “Dumbass!” Thalia mouthed at her.

  Laurel pulled Thalia’s arm around her and walked toward the house. “He saw me at the window,” she whispered. “It would have looked weird if I hadn’t come out.”

  “Shit. We’re nowhere,” Thalia said. Together they b
egan crossing the yard slowly, Thalia pretending to limp in case Stan Webelow looked back. “I didn’t have enough time. A gay guy probably would have found it funny, me face-planting practically in his crotch, but he was all weird and guilty. More like a married man, but . . . he’s not. It was truly odd. Those are some shorts, though, huh? Satin piping.”

  “Now what?” Laurel said.

  Thalia shook her head. “I was hoping to rule him out today, but all I can tell you is that I don’t think he’s gay. Gary would know better. You want me to call him over and let him take a whack at it? So to speak?”

  “God, no,” Laurel said, aghast.

  Thalia grinned. “I don’t think Gary wants to do you a solid anyway, Bug.”

  They had reached the porch. Thalia tried to move past Laurel, but Laurel stopped her. “Stay out here a sec. Bet Clemmens is skating around the hardwood spooky-quiet with her shoes off.”

  Thalia nodded, stopping by the steps. She dropped her arm off Laurel’s shoulder and took a step back. “Did you call your friend?” she asked, and when Laurel nodded, she asked, “So are you allowed to come to the funeral?”

  “Of course,” Laurel said. “Mindy was saying she thinks it’s important to Bunny that Shelby go, although I’m not sure how I feel about that. Then Mindy said the strangest thing. She said no one was blaming me.”

  “Shit,” said Thalia, and she sat down hard on the porch steps, her long arms dangling between her legs. Laurel sat, too, one step lower than Thalia.

  “That means something to you?” Laurel asked.

  “Yeah,” Thalia said. “Their kid is dead, Bug, and unless they know damn well it’s their own fault, they are going to blame someone. You’re a good target. It was your pool. They ought to be saying to themselves, why didn’t that bitch wake up, how could she not know this was happening in your own yard?

  “If Bunny isn’t pointing a finger at you, we need to find out which way she’s pointing. If she’s not pointing anywhere, she’s guilty as all hell. Her or Chuck. I was hoping to rule out either your pervo or the family today, but I’ve got dick, and I don’t just mean sticking my face in your creepy neighbor’s limpy. We’ll have to get to Bunny tomorrow.” Thalia paused and then added, “As for tonight, there’s always the mysteries of the Ouija.”

  She said it correctly this time, so it sounded like “Wee-juh.”

  Laurel looked away, her insides cooling, her blood slowing, though it had to be over ninety on the porch. She didn’t believe in submerged memories any more than Thalia believed in ghosts, but Molly Dufresne had already come to Laurel once, uncalled. She wanted to be heard. If Laurel’s moving shadow had been Stan Webelow, this was one way to confirm it.

  “We could try,” Laurel said, and her stomach felt like a small, cold stone, dense and heavy at the very pit of her. “Tonight, after dinner, after everyone else has gone to bed. We could try.”

  “There’s my brave little testicle,” Thalia said, and Laurel turned and knuckle-punched her in the arm, fast and hard, before she could think.

  Thalia chuckled. “Ow! That’s quite a right, Buglet.”

  Laurel wasn’t laughing. She felt sick and trembly and had to fight the urge to hit Thalia again on pure principle. Thalia was right; they might get answers. But Laurel had spent the second half of her childhood rolling away when Marty came, closing her eyes, wiping his footprints from her rug.

  Given a tool, Molly might speak. But Molly had left a door open somewhere when she came, and Mother had used it. Molly Dufresne was not the only ghost in Laurel’s yard.

  CHAPTER 10

  It was going on eleven when Thalia slipped back into the keeping room through the glass door.

  “We’re set up out there. Those candles stink,” she said.

  “They keep the bugs away,” Laurel said from the kitchen. “Anyhow, I like how they smell.” She wiped her damp hands on the dish towel. The kitchen was clean, the dishes were loaded, and the girls had gone to bed. Shelby had asked to sleep on the trundle bed again, so they might well be awake, whispering back and forth. Laurel hoped so. Better if Shelby talked to someone, even if it was only Bet Clemmens. She was certainly not talking to Laurel. She’d hardly spoken at dinner. “Maybe we should wait. Give the girls time to fall asleep.”

  Thalia stared right through Laurel in a way that let Laurel know she saw all the way down to the cowardice at her roots. “Shelby’s in the guest room. That window faces the front yard.”

  Laurel nodded, squaring her shoulders. “I saved one of the brownies out for David.” The rest were packed into a Tupperware for the Dufresnes. She peeled the Saran off the dessert plate. “Let me run this down to him, and I’m ready.” Ready as she would ever be. Though she’d just wiped her hands, her palms felt damp again.

  “David’s home?” Thalia said. “When did that happen?”

  Laurel raised her eyebrows. “A couple of hours ago. While I was making the brownies? You were reading on the sofa. He came through the room and said hello to you.”

  Thalia shook her head slowly back and forth and said, “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” Laurel said. “I’m positive. He’s been working in the basement. I took him his dinner down there.”

  “The invisible husband,” Thalia said.

  Laurel cocked her head to the side and said, “You don’t get it. He’s being nice, Thalia. He’s got a deadline at work, and the last thing he needs is more stress, but I went and got you anyway. He’s making room and not fighting with you. It’s like a present he’s giving me.”

  “Big man, eh?” Thalia said. She cocked her head, too, same angle, mirroring Laurel. “Give me that brownie.”

  “No,” Laurel said. She was already walking toward the stairs down to the basement, but Thalia intercepted her, gripping the other side of the plate. Laurel didn’t let go of her side.

  “I can be a big man and give you a present, too.” Thalia tugged gently at the plate, and when Laurel still held on, she stopped tugging and spoke in a voice so subdued she hardly sounded like herself. “I’ve missed you, Bug. Let me make peace.”

  Laurel let go, but as Thalia started down the stairs, Laurel couldn’t help calling after her, “Please be nice.”

  Thalia paused on the top step and said, “I’ll be fluffy as a bunny tail, sweet as cotton candy. Head on out. I won’t be a minute.”

  She went down with the brownie held in front of her in both hands, as if it were a shield or a sacrifice.

  Thalia had said to go on out, but Laurel didn’t want to. Not alone. She crossed the room, intending to close the curtain and wait, but paused with her hand on the cloth, peering out at her yard. She hadn’t set foot in it since the police had escorted her whole family over to the Coes’ house. She hadn’t looked at it, even, since she’d stood by Daddy, staring at that knothole.

  The patio lights were turned off, and the bulb was still out in the light over the gazebo, but Thalia had lit all the citronella candles around its railing. She’d set up the card table in the gazebo, too. It had been Laurel’s idea to do this outside. Out there, it already felt like something gone rotten, and she didn’t want to invite that rot into the house. But she’d meant the patio, not way out in the corner between the knothole and Shelby’s small pet cemetery. The gazebo glowed in the candlelight, and she could feel the presence of the board there like a pull.

  She slid open the glass door and stepped out as gingerly as a cat, as if she weren’t sure that the tile was solid and would hold her. She could feel a wedge of sweltering Florida air shoving its way through the open door into her keeping room. She closed the door behind her.

  The opening in the curtain let a narrow rectangle of yellow light spill onto her patio. The pool lights were out, all of them, but as her eyes adjusted, she could see a faint pale mist rising off the water.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, tight, hands clasping her own shoulders. The night air was thick with heat and moisture, but her skin felt clammy, and gooseflesh broke out down the
backs of her arms.

  She stepped over the low fence, Shelby’s dammit, onto the grass. The board waited for her under the gazebo, and she walked toward it as if she had been beckoned. She could smell chlorine and, under that, the musk of Florida in late summer. It was a green and mossy smell, faint and familiar. The cicadas and frogs and crickets were all talking to one another, a night sound that was such a constant that from inside the house, it was white noise, like the hum of the air conditioner. Out here in the dark, it sounded louder, a buzzing chorus underscoring a larger silence. There were no human noises except her own: her feet bending the grass, the thump of her heart, her own hard breathing.

  She skirted the pool’s high iron fence. The flickering candles perched on the gazebo’s rail made an evenly spaced circle of light. With the card table set up on the wood floor, there was just enough room for Laurel to sit down on the bench and then slide past the corner of the table until she was sitting, her feet under the table, staring down at the Ouija. The planchette rested near the bottom, the dangling needle pointing at the B in “goodbye.”

  Thalia had given her the board back when they were in high school. Laurel had never set it up, never once touched the planchette. She reached out with one hand, her fingertips hovering, and then she set them on the edge of the thing. The plastic felt cool under her fingertips. She felt a tug of energy from it, as if it were drawing heat out of her, an electric current running from her core down into the board. It was an open circuit, and she felt instinctively that another hand on the other side of the planchette would close it. Even incomplete, the energy it took from her was gathering, shaping itself. Something was coming. Or someone. She didn’t know who. She snatched her hand back, then tucked both hands under the table, clenched together in her lap. “This is a bad idea,” she said.

  Thalia wasn’t there to hear, but Laurel could not shake the sense that she was not alone. She started to stand, but light flashed in the corner of her eye. She looked back toward the house. Thalia had thrown the curtain half open and then shoved at the door, sending it shooting down its track. She stepped through and reached for the curtain. She paused there, her long form a silhouette against the gold light, and then she pulled the curtain closed with elaborate gentleness and the light was gone, rendering her invisible. Laurel searched the darkness, but her eyes had to readjust before she could see Thalia prowling across the lawn toward her.