by Megan Hart
But it was all Kelsey could think about now, the rise and fall of the waves against the boat and the wind pushing them faster and faster along the water. She’d wanted to go to the Caribbean, where the water would’ve been smooth and clear, nothing like the Atlantic Ocean with its gray-green water and whitecaps. The boat skipped along it as Tyler and Jeremy did things with the sails, and it tipped from side to side as they hooted and hollered.
She would not be sick. No. She would not be sick. She refused. Kelsey swallowed hard and repeatedly to tamp down the nausea.
She would. Not. Be. Sick.
19
Hey, fatty.
Hey, girl.
Kathy doesn’t want to turn and look, but there’s no way she can keep avoiding her. She will just keep going until she gets what she wants. So, clutching her towel around her as best she can, though it barely covers her, Kathy turns.
“Where’s your robe? Why are you in the hall without a robe? You know how I feel about that.”
“My robe’s too small.”
As soon as the words come out of Kathy’s mouth, she knows she should’ve kept quiet. It’s true, the robe is too small and has been for months. It’s not Kathy’s fault that she only just now noticed.
“Too small? Too small, eh? It’s because you spent too much time stuffing your fat face, isn’t that right, piggy? Isn’t that right, pig-girl?”
Kathy wants to scream. The robe got too short in the hem, then in the arms. She had it since she was a little kid, and she’s twelve now. She grew four inches in the past year. She can’t help it if she grows, can she?
“Come here.”
Reluctantly, bare damp feet dragging on the worn hall carpet, Kathy does as told. The old woman’s gnarled, scraping fingers claw at her. They yank the towel, and though Kathy does her best to clutch it tight, Grandma is stronger. She slaps Kathy’s belly and thighs and butt, each blow stinging more in humiliation than actual pain. But it’s worse when she doesn’t hit, because then she just…touches.
“You giant lump. You huge, gross slob. You’re a whale, you know that? Look at yourself. I said look!”
Fighting tears, Kathy looks at her body. She’s growing hair. Her breasts have started to feel tender and swell. The book the teacher gave them in school says that’s all normal, but Kathy doesn’t want it to happen to her. She doesn’t want to get bigger. She’s big enough already.
“Turn around. Bend over.”
The bath water was barely hot, but the winter air is chilly in here. That’s why she shivers, Kathy tells herself, knowing it’s a lie. She bends to touch her toes. The fingers pry her open. Invade. Kathy takes short, shallow breaths to keep herself from screaming.
“You repulsive, fat cow. You make me want to vomit. You hear me? I’m going to vomit!”
“No, Grandma, don’t do that.”
Grandma slaps her on the butt again. Tells her to turn around. Kathy reaches for the towel, but Grandma snatches it away.
“You’re such a glutton, I’m surprised you don’t puke, yourself.”
Tonight for dinner, Grandma made meatloaf. Mashed potatoes. Boiled red beets, string beans with cheese and fried onions on top, macaroni-and-cheese. Dinner rolls. Salad with bleu cheese dressing. For dessert, cherry pie with ice cream. Grandma loads Kathy’s plate, and Kathy must eat what’s put on it, every crumb, every speck. Grandpa doesn’t have to, but then Grandpa can only eat what Grandma cuts up to feed him in tiny bites, like a baby.
If Grandma also eats the food she’s put on the table, Kathy knows she will be okay. But there are plenty of nights Grandma will pass up the meat, the vegetables, maybe nibbling on a saltine cracker and sipping her diet cola. Those are the nights Kathy knows to risk a beating or other punishments rather than filling her belly with whatever Grandma’s made, because chances are good it’s been spiced with something other than love.
Tonight, Grandma had eaten some of everything, nowhere near as much as she made Kathy eat, but still. She ate it. Now she makes coughing, gagging noises and bends over her chair like she really will puke. Then she sits up straight.
“Go get me the bucket.”
Kathy shakes her head, and Grandma is quick to slap her face.
“Get. The. Bucket.”
It’s under the sink in the bathroom, stinking of the blood that leaks out from the cloth pads Grandma uses when it’s her period. Kathy hasn’t started hers yet; she hopes she never does, because all the other girls in school and the teacher and the book the teacher gave them on puberty says there are maxi pads and tampons made of cotton that you throw away…not these cloth pad Grandma soaks in the bucket under the sink and washes to use again and again. The bucket has an inch or so of bloody, stinking water in it. Kathy dumps it, but it still stinks.
Still naked, she brings the bucket to Grandma and holds it out to her.
“Here.”
Grandma holds up a small bottle. She opens the top. She hands it to Kathy.
“Drink a mouthful of that.”
“What is it?”
“You never mind, pig-girl. You drink it. Just a mouthful. Or more, what do I care?”
Grandma’s laugh is sharp. It cuts. Kathy reads the bottle. The label says IPECAC.
From the living room comes the sound of Grandpa farting and crying out. He’s probably pooped in his pants again. Grandma will clean him up, cursing and making fun of him while he says nothing. He might cry. Kathy hates it when he cries.
“You drink it. I’ll be back in a bit. You do not go anywhere. And God help you if you put that towel back on. And Kathy…you use that bucket.”
The ipecac is sickly sweet but goes down hard, making her gag until the taste fades. Kathy wants to go to her room, or at least put her towel on, but if she does, Grandma will punch or kick her. She might cut Kathy’s hair again, and it’s only finally growing out to look at least a little bit cute.
The feeling, when it comes, is familiar. A boiling upward. Hot liquid, chunky and thick, chokes her and she opens her mouth to spew it into the bucket. Stuff splashes on her face, and Kathy can’t even catch her breath to cry out. She can’t breathe. She pukes, again and again.
Oh, God, oh, no, she’s going to fill the bucket. It’s going to fill and overflow. It will spill.
Desperately, she tries to hold back, but her entire dinner shoots out of her. The sound of it hitting the mess already in the bucket triggers another wave of nausea; she can’t stop herself. She pukes again, holding her stomach. Naked, her wet hair hanging in her eyes, Kathy crouches on the cold floor and sicks up everything she’s ever eaten.
A shadow falls over her. Grandma. Kathy cringes, waiting for a kick or a punch, but Grandma only laughs.
“Nobody will ever love you like I do,” Grandma says.
Kathy can only hope that nobody ever does.
20
Sheila had been pretty sure Kelsey was going to blow chunks by the way she’d gone so pale beneath that ridiculous tan she had going on, but apparently the girl could rally. Probably had a lot of practice, she thought. Didn’t people who binged and purged develop some sort of super control over their vomit reflex, or something?
As soon as she thought it, Sheila felt bad. Kelsey’d never done anything mean to her. It wasn’t Kelsey’s fault that Sheila found everything about her ridiculous, from her fake blonde hair to her eyelash extensions and her gel-tipped nails and that God-awful tan. Not only ridiculous, but frankly, sort of insulting to women. Kelsey was the sort of useless woman Sheila had avoided all through college and continued to avoid as best she could — well, when they weren’t dating her boyfriend’s best friend, anyway. Sheila had been with Duane for four years. In that time, she’d met no fewer than seven women Tyler had “dated,” a term he used pretty loosely, sometimes as shorthand for “met at a party and banged a couple times.” Kelsey had been around the longest of any of them, probably because she was the prettiest, had the biggest boobs and also, Sheila thought as she watched the other woman stroke suntan
lotion over her tan, owned the least self confidence.
“Are there sharks out here, do you think?”
“Just great whites, but only if you’re Roy Scheider.” Sheila waited, but Kelsey gave her a blank look. “Jaws?”
“Oh.” Kelsey leaned to look over the side of the boat. “I wonder if we’ll see any.”
“I hope not. That shit scares me.” Sheila gestured toward the back of the boat, where Tyler and Duane were whooping and shouting. “They want to find some of those wrecks or something. Go scuba diving.”
Kelsey looked at her. “Oh. Do you want to do that?”
Sheila shrugged. “Sort of. What about you?”
“Oh, I think it would be really neat.”
Okay, so maybe the other woman wasn’t as ridiculous and useless as she’d thought. One of the women Tyler had brought along on one of these vacations had gone willingly enough into the ocean, not on a rented sailboat, but a chartered stingray snorkeling expedition. She’d listened to the guide explain what would happen and watched the video along with the rest of them. But when she got in the water and the rays started swarming, coming in to feed from the frozen squid the guide had passed out to everyone, she began screaming and crying. Not just wincing or getting out of the water like any normal adult would, but screaming and sobbing in terror, clinging to Tyler’s neck and refusing to put her feet down. He’d not only had to carry her to the boat, but sit out with her for the rest of the tour. Sheila had no use for women like that. She’d assumed Kelsey was more of the same, but so far, despite the perfect hair, nails, makeup and bikini bod, the other woman hadn’t done any of the normal “stupid-girl” tricks Sheila had grown accustomed to seeing with Tyler’s girlfriends.
“Have you done a lot of sailing?” Kelsey asked.
Sheila closed her eyes and stretched out on the bench, wiggling her toes against the sun-heated deck. “Yeah. Some.”
“With Duane?”
“Sure. And Tyler and Jeremy too.”
“You’ve been with Duane for a long time, huh?”
Kelsey sounded wistful, and Sheila cracked an eye open to look over at her. “We’ve been dating for four years. I knew them in college before that.”
“All of them?”
“Yeah.” Sheila looked toward the back of the boat where Duane and Tyler appeared to be cracking open some beers from the cooler the boat’s owner had stocked while Jeremy did something with the sail.
“What was he like in school?”
“Tyler?” Sheila shrugged. “A lot like he is now, I guess. But younger.”
Obviously that wasn’t what Kelsey meant, but Sheila had no false sense of loyalty toward the other woman just because they both had vaginas. Chances were good the next trip she and Duane took with Tyler, there’d be a different cute blonde with big tits asking her questions about Tyler’s past, anyway. She shielded her eyes with her hand for a moment as she caught sight of something behind the boat, but the sun was too bright even with her sunglasses on.
“Was he always so generous?”
Now that was a question Sheila’d never had to answer. She turned toward Kelsey. “What do you mean?”
“I know he grew up with money. I’ve been to his parents’ house.”
Interesting, Sheila thought. Kelsey must be a little more special than the others. “Up in Maine?”
Kelsey nodded. She pointed her perfectly painted toes, one foot and the other. Like a ballerina, though she didn’t have the grace of a dancer, or the body. Too big in the hips and thighs. “Yes. For Christmas.”
“Wow.” It was an involuntary exclamation, and Sheila didn’t miss how Kelsey’s eyes narrowed. “I mean, that’s nice. His parents sound nice. I’ve never met them. But yeah, he grew up with money.”
“He’s never really…wanted…anything, has he? I mean that he didn’t get.”
Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would’ve said. Sheila studied Kelsey, ignoring for the first time the hair, the boobs, the tan. “Not really, no. Not in all the time I’ve known him, anyway. Tyler usually gets what he wants.”
“And his brother?”
Sheila looked again to the back of the boat, where Jeremy had lifted his own beer. The three men laughed, joking about something she suspected she’d find annoying. Separately, they were all sweethearts. Put them together, they were a pack of hyenas.
“Jeremy’s a good guy.”
“Different than his brother, though.”
“Well…sure. I guess so.” Sheila shrugged. “Why would he be the same? Are you the same as your brother? Or sister?”
“No. Nothing. Never mind.” Kelsey shook her head so the blonde hair fell artfully over her shoulders, then bent to her bag and pulled out an elastic hair tie. She twisted her hair on top of her head in a messy bun with practiced fingers. She looked toward the men. “They’re close, though. Tyler and Jeremy.”
“I think so. Tyler hired Jeremy to work for him in his company, right?”
Kelsey looked briefly startled. “He did?”
Sheila had overheard Duane talking about it on the phone, that was the only reason she knew, but apparently it was still more than Kelsey did. “Yeah. He’s going to start when we get back from this trip.”
“He never said anything about it.”
Sheila could’ve pointed out that Tyler wasn’t under any obligation to share the intimate details of his business with Kelsey, but that would’ve been cunty considering she was sure he’d shared the intimate details of his cock with her. Even if Sheila had soothed it by admitting that the only times she ever learned anything about Duane’s part in the business was when she listened in doorways, which she was not about to admit to anyone, ever, it would still have been unnecessarily shitty, and if there was one thing Sheila was not, it was bitchy for no reason.
They’d have had no time to commiserate anyway, because before Sheila had time to say a word, the boat rocked hard enough to toss Kelsey onto the floor. Sheila kept herself on the bench only because she grabbed at the railing fast enough, but two of her nails bent back with an excruciating stab of pain so full-on and fierce she couldn’t even cry out. The boat rocked again, harder this time, and she ended up next to Kelsey.
“What’s going on?”
Sheila didn’t have the breath to scream, much less answer. She cradled her hand to her chest, checking the damage. If she’d had acrylic tips, she thought stupidly as a few beads of blood welled up on middle finger, the worst damaged, she’d have been okay. Kelsey hadn’t lost a nail, but her knees would probably bruise, but who the hell cared when she spent so much time on them already —
“Sheila!” Kelsey shook her. “Are you okay? You look like you’re going to pass out.”
“My fingers.” Sheila groaned when Kelsey took her hand.
Kelsey looked sympathetic. “Ouch. I’ve had that done to me a few times, it’s agonizing. Let’s get some ice.”
Kelsey stood. Sheila didn’t bother. She didn’t want to move, not even to shift herself into a more comfortable position. Her fingers throbbed, the sharp and instant pain being rapidly replaced by a stronger, grinding ache.
Kelsey patted her shoulder and moved past her toward the back of the boat. Sheila closed her eyes and pressed her head to the bench cushion. Blood dripped more steadily from her middle and ring fingers, staining the deck.
And then Kelsey screamed.
21
Jeremy was finishing his beer when the ocean swelled around the boat, rocking it sharply. The water slapped the sides. About a hundred yards away, in the middle of an otherwise clear sky and sea, a whirling spout of water formed within seconds. Gray-white against the backdrop of brilliant blue, it twisted and writhed, still far enough away that the spray hadn’t yet hit them…but it was coming closer.
Kelsey screamed, pointing. She looked embarrassed in a second, her cry cutting off abruptly though her hand stayed raised. She caught his eye, hers wide, but her mouth clamped tight shut.
“What the hell?” Ty tu
rned, hands on his hips. “Seriously?”
So much like his big brother to think even nature had made him so important the world would create a storm just to fuck with his pleasure. Beside Ty, Duane had frozen with his beer at his lips. Jeremy looked back at the funnel as Kelsey made her way around the cabin to stand between him and Ty.
“What is that? No. No way, I didn’t order that,” Ty said belligerently, like it was an overdone steak he could send back to the chef.
“It’s a funnel cloud? A water tornado?” Kelsey spoke quietly, her words a question though obviously she already knew the answer.
She was talking to Ty, which pissed off Jeremy because his brother was kind of a foron, and also because she never pulled that dumb blonde routine when she talked to Jeremy. Ty put out an arm without looking at her, and she went right to him. Bitch.
“Holy shit.” Duane tossed the bottle into the cooler. “We need to get out of here.”
“Easier said than done.” Jeremy pointed at the funnel, which was shifting slightly to the left, the tiniest bit to the right, but always, always moving forward. “It’s coming pretty much right for us.”
Duane turned. “Where’s Sheila?”
“Oh, she hurt her hand —” Duane moved toward the front of the boat before Kelsey could finish. She followed him with her gaze, then looked up at Ty, still focused on the funnel. Finally, she looked at Jeremy. “We should at least try to get out of the way. Can’t we?”
“Yeah. Ty, c’mon, let’s get this bucket moving.”
Ty didn’t move at first, and when he did, he was distracted. “Sure. Right.”
There was a big problem though. No wind. While the funnel roared and hissed, getting closer, the wind that had brought them all the way out here seemed to have died. The sail hung limp.
“The motor,” Kelsey said. “If you start the motor…”
God, she was so much smarter than anyone would’ve ever thought, Jeremy thought. “Yeah, the motor. Shit. C’mon, Ty, move.”