Surfacing

by Nora Raleigh Baskin

  “Maggie, I like you. I think I like you more than anyone I’ve ever been with.”

  The words “been with” stuck like an unexpected thorn. It hadn’t occurred to Maggie that Nathan might have been with anyone before.

  Nathan seemed more flustered. “I mean, I just thought we should . . . take it slow. I mean, not that I don’t want to. And I know you say it’s safe and all, but I wasn’t thinking . . . I wasn’t —”

  Maggie opened her mouth so that air rushed in and made it sound like she was about to say something. Nathan stopped and waited, but Maggie was silent. It felt like a rejection and yet it didn’t. It felt bad, and it felt like a relief. A lucid dream that was not working so lucidly. She woke up.

  “I really like you, Maggie,” he said again.

  Funny she hadn’t taken Nathan’s feelings into consideration, or her own for that matter. It wasn’t part of her plan, but now it was being offered. What had seemed clear was now, in this room, in this moment, in the space between two living human beings, suddenly understandable. Like the sun that crawls over the horizon and begins to light up a world that only moments earlier had been dark.

  “I’m sorry. I mean, I don’t know —” Maggie began.

  She felt huge, too big for the bed, too exposed in the sunlight, and without enough air. She sat up and gripped her shirt where the top button had come undone.

  Nathan swung his legs off the bed, hunching his shoulders. He looked uncomfortable, but he turned to her. “I’m the one that’s sorry,” he said. “I mean — that didn’t come out right.”

  Maggie lifted her eyes to his and found him smiling, and then they were both laughing. “No, that didn’t come out right,” she said. She felt better. Laughing was good. “So do you want to eat something now?”

  Nathan nodded. “Yeah, I’m starving.”

  If going to school was more bearable — besides seeing Julie in math class and at lunch and of course at practice, there, somewhere in the hall, might be Nathan. Every passing period, every excursion to the bathroom, could bring a sighting, and a sighting meant a smile, maybe a touch of the hand, maybe a kiss if no one was around — it also made being at home more bearable. Maggie owned something outside of her home life. Something that was secret, was hers, and was good.

  She could still feel the arguments reverberate, even if her parents were long gone from the house: her dad at the gym, her mom and the boys out shopping.

  Maybe it was all those porous surfaces, the wooden countertop, the paper towels that captured and held anger like a smell. But the kitchen especially held on to this morning’s fight about the credit-card bill. I told you to keep your receipts. How can you not know what this charge is? You did it. You did it. You did it.

  It was Saturday again. Swim practice was over, and Maggie had the house to herself — again. She was alone in the house — only she felt less alone than she had in a long time.

  Julie’s call trilled a Justin Bieber riff. It was an inside joke. It took Maggie a while to find her phone under a pile of clothing, and still-wet swim stuff is not a good place for a cell phone, but somehow it was still working.

  “Whaja doing?” Julie asked.

  “Nothing. Just hanging here.”

  “You sound happy. What’s wrong?”

  Maggie laughed. “I love you, too, Jules.”

  “I love you more. That’s why I care,” Julie said. “It’s that just-some-boy, isn’t it?”

  It was, wasn’t it?

  Liking somebody who sounded happy when you called, who clearly dropped everything to pay attention to you, was actually a nice thing. Someone that you didn’t have to pretend to bump into but was actually waiting around to see if you’d show up. It was really nice.

  Julie never tolerated silence very well. “Maggie, why you are keeping this from me? You just don’t want me to be all over it, do you? Because I was so anti-Matthew-the-shithead? Well, I can’t help it.”

  What was wrong with feeling good? Nathan made her feel good. Made her feel that she was good.

  “Yeah,” Maggie whispered into her phone, though no one was home to hear her confession. “I like him, OK? You’re right. I like Nathan. I like him a lot.”

  Grandpa Joel and Grandma Bunny are over, but I am in my room in a time-out and I hear them talking about me through the door. Sometimes the past, present, and future are all a jumble. And sometimes I think I hate my little sister and I think that things were better before she was born, even though my mother says I can’t possibly remember anything from when I was that young. But I can. I remember everything. It’s all the same. It’s happening right now.

  I get excited when I know my grandparents are coming. I am an excitable girl, my dad tells me. So maybe I was too rough with Maggie and I might have punched her in the stomach by mistake while we were playing.

  “She needs to learn to control herself,” my mom is telling Grandma Bunny. “A little time in her room isn’t going to kill her.”

  Grandma Bunny talks loud, like she wants me to hear her while I am stuck in my room. Maggie is crying, first about the punch in the stomach and then about me getting punished. You think she’d be happy about that, but she’s not.

  Grandpa Joel talks now. “Sweetheart, we came all this way. You can discipline Leah all you want after we leave. C’mon, Gail, she’s a little girl. She has the rest of her life to learn control; right now your mother wants to spoil her a little. We have presents for the girls.”

  I like that.

  When the footsteps come near my door, I leap back up onto my bed and dive right into my pillow to hide my face. I don’t want them to see my big wide smile. I feel my mother’s hand on my back.

  “OK, Leah, you can come out. Grandma Bunny and Grandpa Joel want to see you. We can talk about what happened later, OK?”

  I take in a big gulp of air and answer into the pillow. “OK, Mom.”

  We walk out into the living room together, where everyone is waiting, and their eyes make me uncomfortable.

  Grandma Bunny and Grandpa Joel brought us gifts, toys, like it’s Christmas or our birthday, even though it’s not. Not even close. They always do that, bring presents, every time they visit.

  “Well, do you like it?” Grandma Bunny is asking me. I am surrounded by wrapping paper. Maggie has her paper folded into a little pile, which our mom loves, so she can reuse the wrapping. Sometimes I know I hate Maggie.

  She seems to be very happy, hugging her new Flower Fairy doll. Maggie collects them, and this time she got Jasmine, who is kind of blue and green, with wings like tree branches, and she’s wearing sandals.

  I got a fashion studio art kit sort of thing. It has the designer’s table that lights up, so you can trace your model and then put clothes on her and color them in all different ways you want. They know I like to draw and make up fashions. I wanted this so badly, for so long, since I saw it on TV. I want to be happy. I want to like it. I want to make Grandma Bunny and Grandpa Joel happy like they are happy with Maggie. But I know I should really be back in my room being punished. I shouldn’t be getting any presents at all.

  I shrug my shoulders because I don’t want to cry. “It’s OK,” I tell my grandma. “I guess I like it.”

  My mom is so mad at me now. I can see it in her face, and I don’t even have to look at her. Now she really thinks I am bad. Now, in this present time (get it?), she knows it.

  “I have a scar on my chest,” Nathan told her.

  It was two weeks past the PSATs. But for Maggie, in many ways it felt like a new lifetime. Being at Nathan’s house, in his room, was already familiar. How had that happened so quickly?

  Nathan moved to unbutton his shirt but stopped. “All down my chest and under my arm.”

  Should she make him aware, level the playing field, let him in on her secret before it was too late?

  “You do?”

  Nathan nodded. “When I was little, I was standing on a chair at the stove. I wanted to make real oatmeal. So I reached over and
stuck a wooden spoon into the pot to see if the water was ready. I tipped it right over. It spilled all over me and soaked my pajamas. That was the worst part — that it kept burning because my pajamas got wet and stuck to my skin.”

  She didn’t look away, but Maggie was quiet.

  Nathan’s parents were downstairs, but maybe with so many children, they weren’t that interested in what any particular one was doing at any particular time, especially if he was a teenage boy and he was home safe and not out driving. In any case, Maggie and Nathan lay on his bed, the blankets rumpled from their kissing and the sheet twisted at the bottom from not having been made for most likely several days. Their clothing stayed on, only their mouths exploring what was inside, what was hidden and so tantalizing that Maggie’s whole body shook. Nathan’s older brother and his friend, footsteps in the hall and a bouncing ball and a quick argument about last night’s game, had interrupted them. They sat up.

  “I was in the hospital for two weeks. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever felt. And ever felt since. Burn scars are different than other scars, you know. They are ugly.”

  Very slowly Maggie reached over, put her hands where Nathan’s were, and began to unbutton the top of his shirt. His collar opened, and she let her fingers drop to the next button. She slipped it outside its hole and made her way down his shirt without saying a word.

  She spread the fabric of his shirt and exposed his skin to the bath of yellow light.

  “It’s not so bad,” she said.

  “I know it is.”

  It wasn’t. The skin was taut and red in streaks, like anger. It was smoother than his other skin, without hair or pores, and twisted in places it shouldn’t twist, but it wasn’t ugly at all.

  “Can I touch it?” Maggie asked. “Does it hurt?”

  “No. It was a long time ago; it’s healed,” Nathan said. “I mean, yes, you can touch it.”

  Maggie let her fingers spread across Nathan’s chest, his ribs, his skin, across the damage that boiling water had done. He wasn’t big, like a football player, nothing like Matthew, but Nathan’s body felt different from hers. Slight but solid, male. The surface of his scar was bumpy, hard and soft at the same time. Maggie let her head nestle in that spot just under Nathan’s shoulder and just inside his arm, where she fit perfectly, and where for the first time that she could remember, she allowed the weight of her body to be supported and the weight of her mind to rest.

  The girls were shivering on the bulkhead, listening to Coach Mac give out the upcoming holiday-break practice schedule: basically, there would be no break for the swim team.

  “OK, ladies. Hit the showers. Eat a big dinner; get your protein. Get your eight hours of Z’s, and be here at six a.m. tomorrow. Oh, and if anyone is late — anyone — the whole team does IM drills. Fifteen hundred meters.”

  There were appropriate groans and the patter of wet rubber pool shoes slapping the floor, heading to the locker room, the swell of weekend conversations. It was Friday. Even with the practice schedule, it was still vacation, and the excitement was palpable.

  Maggie and Nathan had been meeting from time to time: at a football game and then heading off to walk the cross-county trails behind the school; at the Landmark Diner for swim-season-forbidden fries. Wherever they ended up, they ended up kissing, touching, looking closely at the other’s face and body.

  And yet it was Thanksgiving vacation. Maggie had planned so long for this break.

  “What are you doing this weekend?” Julie asked as she leaned to the side and yanked at a knot in her wet hair. Julie’s hair was curly, thick, and if she didn’t comb it out right away it would dry into Medusa-like coils.

  “Nothing,” Maggie said. “How about you?”

  “The usual. My grandparents are eating with us tonight. Wanna come for dinner? You know they love you, and it would take the focus off me.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” Maggie stuffed her school clothes into her bag, sat down, and waited for Julie to finish.

  “Oh, I see. You’re waiting to see if Nathan boy is available?” Julie smiled.

  “Not exactly,” Maggie answered. Sometimes she understood why girls cut themselves. What seemed so stupid, so obvious and pathetic even, made sense. The pain is real, and even if it doesn’t feel good, it feels right. She had wanted Matthew for so long. How would she ever know if she didn’t at least try?

  Julie stopped brushing, righted herself, and held her comb like a gun at her hip.

  “What, Maggie? What are you thinking? Please tell me it’s not about Matthew. Oh, please, you’re kidding.”

  “Well —”

  Julie sat down on the bench beside her friend. The steam from the showers remained separated from the cold air in the locker room and settled like fog.

  “Matthew is a big ass,” Julie said. “I am truly sorry to be the one to tell you. But this Nathan seems nice, and the fact that he’s actually into you is a real bonus, don’t you think?”

  Was he? Surely as soon as Nathan really got to know her, he’d figure out she wasn’t worth the trouble.

  It was all so ridiculous. She could hardly remember why she liked Matthew in the first place, but the sense of anxiety didn’t go away. It was like a riding a train that was going in two directions — one toward the unknown and the other straight into a stone wall. Wasn’t it better to crash on your own volition than sink slowly against your will?

  It was hilarious, really.

  “What’s so funny?” Julie asked.

  “Nothing. I know you’re right. It’s just that I was so crazy about him last year, and that’s not really that long ago. I never really gave Matthew a chance.”

  “A chance? A chance for what, Maggie? He’s got a girlfriend. And besides, he’s a dick.”

  “Nothing. You’re right. I don’t care. I won’t even think about him again.”

  “So c’mon.” Julie bent over and resumed working on her hair. When she stood up again, she said, “Look, you’re coming to my house tonight. Period.”

  Julie’s parents were larger than life. They fought out loud; they laughed even louder. They kissed each other frequently, sometimes smack on the lips. The whole family ate with zeal and left the dishes in the sink for the next morning if the conversation was good. No subject seemed to be off-limits at the dinner table. It was nothing like her own home, and Maggie loved it there.

  Everyone talked over everyone else, loudly, excitedly. Confessions and accusations were common. Exaggerations, enhancements, and contradictions flew across the table, knocking over the salt and pepper shakers, rattling the candlesticks, especially when Mrs. Bensimon’s parents were visiting. The Bensimons were Jewish, and tonight was Friday night, Shabbat dinner at Julie’s house.

  “Oh, Ma, for Christ’s sake, we have company.” Mrs. Bensimon was referring to Maggie, who had been sitting quietly through the entire argument, enjoying every minute.

  Julie’s grandma Bobbie, Mrs. Bensimon’s mother, turned her attention to Maggie. “She’s not company. Maggie’s family here. What’s the matter with you, Deborah?”

  “Of course, Ma, but not everybody’s interested in the functioning of your alimentary track, especially not at the dinner table. Speaking of which, have you been taking that supplement I gave you?”

  Julie’s mother was a dietician.

  “What supplement?”

  “Ma, I brought home all those free samples. I put them right on your kitchen counter, remember? Last week? When Dad had his car serviced?”

  “Last week?” Grandpa Bob didn’t look up from his chicken when he spoke. “I didn’t have my car serviced last week.”

  “Yes, you did, Dad.”

  “I think I would remember if I had my car serviced, sweetie.”

  “You never give me free samples.”

  “Ma, I did. They’ll keep you regular.”

  “I haven’t been regular since the Korean War,” Grandma Bobbie said. Their real names were Robert and Barbara, Bob and Bobbie. Grandma Bob
bie and Grandpa Bob.

  “I lost my cell phone again,” Julie’s older brother, Jason, chimed in. He probably didn’t want to hear about the success rate of his grandmother’s morning rituals much either.

  Mr. Bensimon, Julie’s dad, walked in from the kitchen. “Again, Jason? How many times is this?”

  “We have insurance, don’t we?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Third time,” Julie offered.

  “It still costs fifty dollars.”

  “And it’s just irresponsible. It’s time you learned the value of something.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Bensimon traded admonishments, none of which seemed to bother Julie’s brother in the least. Doing something wrong didn’t make you wrong in this family. It just added to the color and drama of the conversation.

  “I’ve never lost my cell phone,” Julie added. “Doesn’t that mean I should get fifty dollars?”

  “Did you check the lost-and-found at school?” Maggie managed to slip a tiny remark into the mix. She didn’t realize her question would cause the whole family to start giggling.

  “What?” Maggie asked, smiling.

  “Well”— Grandma Bobbie prepared to launch like a liftoff at NASA —“when Grandpa Bob and I were first married”— she looked right at Maggie —“and you can consider him your grandpa, too,” she went on, “we didn’t have a pot to piss in.”

  “Ma —”

  “We weren’t that poor, Deborah,” Grandpa Bob interrupted.

  “Oh, really, Mr. Big Shot —”

  “Just get to the story, Grandma.”

  Everyone had a comment, and that carried on during the whole story. Not a sentence or two went uninterrupted, unchallenged, or unembellished, and by the time Mrs. Bensimon’s mother got to the end, everyone was exhausted from laughing, including Maggie. The gist of it was that Grandma Bobbie needed a pair of gloves, and, not being able to afford a nice pair, she walked into some fancy department store with her husband, headed straight up to lost-and-found and explained that she had lost a pair of leather gloves.