Dolphin Girl

by Shel Delisle

  “Why?” I know I’ve gotten off track on the whole Sea World story, but this is important to me.

  He rubs his chin, but the smile never leaves his face. “They seem happy. Not fake happy, but genuinely happy.”

  He gets it.

  “Exactly,” I say with a hefty grin. “So, after the show we went underneath the tank to this viewing area, where we could watch them swimming around. That part was a lot cooler than the show.” I pause, a little afraid to tell this next part. “Well, I just think they’re beautiful. I put my hand on the viewing wall, wanting to touch them. When I did, they all swam directly at me — one after another. They’d swim right at me. Sometimes they’d come from the bottom of the tank, skimming the side and almost touching my hand.”

  Sam holds his tongue against his tooth, thinking.

  “At first I thought, ‘Maybe it just looks like they’re swimming at me because the tank is round. Maybe everyone else thinks they’re swimming at them too.’ But they didn’t. Because when I looked around to see what other people were doing, they weren’t watching the dolphins. They were all staring at me.”

  I let out a big sigh. It’s not that the story is a big deal or anything, but I haven’t really talked about it with anyone other than Lexie.

  “So why do you like them?” Sam asks.

  I don’t have a quick answer and take my time to respond. “What you said, but that’s only part of it. I think it’s, it’s… unconditional love?” That wasn’t what I expected to come out and if I’d known it ahead of time, I might have kept that to myself. It sounded kinda corny out loud.

  Sam raises an eyebrow.

  “Anyway,” I continue, “I want to swim with them. I don’t know what’ll happen, but I really want to and I’m going to. I just don’t know when. Wanna come?”

  “Sure. You bet. I wouldn’t want to miss watching Dolphin Girl.”

  Dolphin Girl. That’s me, and Sam had figured it out.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sam surprises me when he waits for me after English to walk to Bio.

  It’s the first time he’s done this. Usually, he travels halfway with Ashley and then picks up Travis in the main hall. I’m normally four or five steps behind all of them.

  Between classes, the pods ebb and flow. They aren’t as well-defined or as large as they are before school. When Sam and I pass the bulletin board, Karen Perry says to me, “Today we’re finishing all the cobwebs.”

  Sam gives me a funny look and I explain we’re working on decorations for The Monster Mash.

  “Cool. So are they gonna be good?”

  “Yeah, they’re good — I think — but I won’t get to see how they all look together.”

  “Why not?”

  “Grounded. No cha-cha for me.” I say this jokingly, but it bums me beyond belief.

  Mrs. Clavell stands in the hall, guarding the Bio lab. The bell rings as we squeeze past her, and she closes the door behind us.

  Sam leans close and whispers into my ear, “You’re grounded?”

  My brain goes mushy from his breath against my neck.

  “Mr. Rojas. Class has begun.” Clavell waits for me to scurry to a lab table, and Sam ends up sitting next to me. This is new too. Usually he’s on the other side of the room with Travis.

  While I try to get oriented — not too easy considering my brain is on total overload — Clavell drones on and on about DNA and Francis Crick’s contributions. I pretend I’m taking notes until Sam puts his hand on top of mine and then hands me a slip of paper.

  Are you kidding about not going to the dance?

  Not anymore. Every day at lunch Sam and I talk up all sorts of randomness. A part of me has been hoping he’d bring up the dance and another part thought it would just be a bitter disappointment. There’s no way my mom will relent. Besides the crime has been worth the time. Totally.

  No, I write. I mean I was going, but now I’m not. I’m on an Alcatraz version of house arrest.

  I’m about to hand the note back when there’s a rap on the door. Clavell cruises between our lab tables to answer it. It’s Mr. Higginbottom, the chemistry teacher from next door.

  Clavell purses her lips, prim and proper. “Please read chapter two in your text,” and then she follows Higginbottom out.

  For exactly three seconds there’s no sound. And then the room erupts.

  Travis Thomlinson jumps up, puts on Clavell’s lab coat and a pair of safety goggles, playing with the equipment like he’s the Nutty Professor or a mad scientist or something. A lot of the kids think he’s funny.

  I roll my eyes. “He’s a knob.”

  “He’s all right.” Sam sounds like he’s apologizing.

  I guess it’s nice that he sticks up for his friend, but I still think Travis acts idiotic most of the time.

  Connor and Emily share a chair behind their lab table and make out. They’ve been inseparable since freshman year and don’t care who watches. I look away when Connor reaches for Emily’s shirt.

  “They’re in love,” Sam says, then snorts.

  I’m not sure if it’s love or some sort of DNA gender attraction thing. “Seems like.” I hand him the note.

  He reads it and gets a sad-puppy look on his face. “She grounded you from the dance?”

  “Yeah. Like I was sayin’, I won’t even get to see how the decorations look. It sucks.”

  “That’s for sure.” Sam repositions himself so he’s facing sideways. His feet rest on the base of my stool. Our knees are almost touching.

  This is different. And nice. My heart thumps a little harder. Keep him close. I desperately need to change the subject. If I stay all gloomy, he’ll go hang with Travis. “So, what are you going as?” I act peppy.

  Sam’s face brightens. “I’m thinking about Elvis.”

  “Cool Elvis or Vegas Elvis?”

  “Vegas Elvis is the cool Elvis,” he says. “But some of the guys — Travis and Chase — are trying to get a bunch of us to go as a chain gang. They have five guys now and want me to join. It sounds cool, but we’d have to stick together the whole time.”

  “You couldn’t even dance.”

  “We could. We’d just have to get partners at the same time.”

  I imagine those guys lined up, chained and dancing. I laugh. “I feel sorry for the guy who can’t get a girl. He’ll look kinda silly all by himself.”

  Sam leans in, his knees brushing mine. “If you were going, if you could get your mom to change her mind, would you dance with me so I’m not that guy?”

  “Sure.” I smile, and it’s not my own. It’s flirty and secretive. Mysterious. Like the Mona Lisa.

  “Cool,” Sam says. His foot taps my stool and ends up brushing mine. Was that on purpose? I hope so. He blushes a little and asks, “And what would you be?”

  I hesitate. Because even though there’s a part of me that thinks Sam likes me, there’s another part that thinks if he saw my costume it would mean the end of our lunches. “You’ll think it’s weird.”

  “Tell me,” he begs. “I like weird.”

  Hmm, maybe not this weird; maybe it’s good I’m not going.

  I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. My mom’s not the type to change her mind.”

  “So you’re not going to tell me?” Sam’s grinning.

  “No. No way.” I shake my head like crazy.

  My Mona Lisa smile emerges a second time because I’ve gotten away without telling Sam about Dolphin Girl.

  ~~~

  An ultra-fine brush dipped in off-white paint is what I need to add cobwebs to the furniture, staircase, and chandelier. Dip. Smooth, steady stroke. Repeat. As I glance around the cafeteria, I see the other painters in deep concentration. We only have four days to finish.

  Karen Perry kneels in front of another huge sheet depicting the outside of the haunted house. She’s got both brass-colored and gunmetal off-black paint to give depth to the gargoyle knocker for the front door.

  Adding these cobweb lines is easy, bu
t I can tell already the color is not quite right. Too much contrast.

  “What do you think I need here? Light gray?”

  Karen sucks in her cheeks, making fishy lips as she studies my mural. “Try this.” Her finger hovers over a few spots where I can apply light gray.

  Ah! That’s what it needed.

  As I’ve gotten to know Karen, I’ve learned she’s nothing like I thought. It’s kinda like when I got paired with Nigel. At the beginning of last year, I thought he was a burnout who hung out in the courtyard all day. Mrs. Osario assigned us to be conversation buddies in Spanish. One day, after a couple of months of strange, funny dialogues about horses or butcher shops or bathrooms, and sometimes all three at once, he became just Nigel to me.

  I used to think Karen was a perfectionist. Like Mom. Her clothes and hair have been ironed to the point where she could be featured in an ad for starch or something. But as it turns out, she’s all right, way more relaxed than I thought. She could even fit with my water fountain friends. All this makes me wonder if she looks at me differently than she used to before we knew each other.

  Karen watches me apply the light gray paint the way she suggested. “That looks good.” She pauses. “I have a question for you.”

  I finish the cobwebs on the chandelier and look up. “What?”

  “Do you like photography? I mean, are you good at it?”

  I’ve always been kinda interested, so I say, “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “Well, the reason I asked is that we need another photographer for the yearbook. We only have one. There’s no way he can make it to all the activities.”

  Wow. That’s unexpected. But just because Karen likes me doesn’t mean the other yearbook kids would welcome me with open arms.

  “I probably can’t do it. I can’t even go to the dance.” I rub my hand back and forth on the mural.

  “Why can’t you go?”

  “Grounded.”

  “What? Why?”

  “My mom saw my tattoo and went radioactive.” I wave the paint brush. “Really nuclear. It’s a month long.”

  “A month?” Karen’s mouth hangs open, like she can’t believe the punishment. “That’s practically a lifetime.” She dips her brush into a small plastic tub of khaki-colored paint. “My mom took my sister to get a tattoo. It’s a small rose.”

  “My mom needs to spend some time with your mom.”

  Karen stares at me. “Can you at least ask her? I mean, we really need another one, and yearbook is almost like a class. Maybe she’ll say yes.”

  I don’t know what’s more surprising — Karen’s mom getting her sister a tattoo, or her asking me to be the photographer. Seems like I should at least try. “Okay, I’ll ask.”

  ~~~

  While walking home after school I end up totally engrossed in an imaginary conversation with my mom, where I’m trying to convince her to let me be a yearbook photographer. Then I hopscotch forward and in my mind, my first assignment is The Monster Mash and I’m dancing with an Elvis-styled Sam while holding a camera.

  A girl can dream, can’t she?

  When I snap out of it, I realize I walked several blocks past my turn and then decide I should detour and go to the Chapel Lakes Preserve. It’s one of my favorite spots for escaping the rules — both my mom’s and the pods’—that govern my life.

  The preserve sits on a piece of land ten maybe fifteen minutes from school in suburban South Florida, protected through an agreement with the Seminole Indians. It’s not large, only a few walkways built above wetlands that look like the Everglades — untamed and wild. Just outside the border there are houses and strip shopping centers and gas stations, which make it a little surreal once you enter.

  I walk through the empty unpaved parking lot and tiny stones crunch under my feet. Off to the side there’s a trailer with a small pickup parked in front. It’s the caretaker’s office. I’ve only seen him once, and since there’s never anyone else here, I can’t imagine what he does all day.

  The floating wooden walkway wobbles, not quite solid, as I step across and wind my way through foliage that looks so different from other places. Everything, and I do mean everything, gets professionally landscaped in South Florida’s ’burbs — a cluster of palms, some low shrubs and a splash of color. It’s so predictable, and you basically can’t leave your house without seeing a truckload of workers making sure the surroundings stay manicured. But at this place, small plants grow wherever they bloom. Vines wind their way around trees. Some plants seed and grow off the trunks of larger trees, not even rooted to the soil. So, while it’s unplanned, it’s exactly as it should be.

  The beauty of it takes my breath away.

  I wander past signs describing colorful plants and animals found here: White Ibis, Black Mangrove and Purple Gallinule. The descriptions over time have become so ingrained that I don’t need to stop and read them anymore. At the edge of the water where the walkway ends, a small roof is elevated by poles. I sit under it, cross-legged, and pull my sketch pad from my backpack.

  A slight breeze swirls, a blessing during this hot, sticky time of year. Through the vegetation, I can see the busy road that runs along the edge of the preserve, but can’t hear any of the car sounds, only the hum of insects and the power lines. The air shimmers at the boundary and it’s like I’m sitting inside this protected bubble, separate from the world. John told me this land was important to the Seminoles. He thought it might be a burial ground.

  I don’t know about that, but it is something sacred.

  And here’s something else that’s a little weird. People always say when you have water in Florida, you have two things — gators and mosquitoes. In all the times I’ve been here, I’ve never seen a gator, and I’ve never had a mosquito bite. I’m not saying they’re not around, but they aren’t in my reality.

  After opening the pad to a clean sheet, I look around for something to draw. Over by a peninsula of plants that hangs into the water, an anhinga has spread his wings to dry out after fishing. I sketch his outline in the foreground and begin filling in the details surrounding him. As I work, my mind wanders.

  Mom’s been a lot tenser since John upset things over the summer. I probably wouldn’t have a dolphin tattoo if John hadn’t gotten a job at The Organic Cornucopia. Who woulda thought a tiny sandwich shop could completely change things?

  At first, when John was hired, Mom and Dad were both thrilled. Most of John’s friends hadn’t been able to find summer jobs, and he was working long hours every day.

  “Why do you get home so late?” Dad had asked one morning at breakfast.

  “We do a lot of prep for the next day.” John yawned, swigged the last of his juice and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m gonna go get a shower.”

  When he left, Mom said, “Maybe there’s a girl he likes there.”

  Of course Mom was right. And he asked to bring her to our Fourth of July family cookout. While girls had always flocked to my brother the Trophy-Caser, he’d only brought one home before because Mom’s standards were impossibly high.

  On the day of the cookout, I was so curious about his date that instead of hanging out in my room with Lexie, we staked out a spot in the living room where I could watch out the big arched window. U2 played on my iPod while I doodled flags and apple pies, waiting to check out John’s All-American girl. Lexie buried herself in an armchair with the most recent issue of Rolling Stone.

  John’s Toyota Camry pulled into the driveway and he stepped out followed by a… girl? Or was she a woman? She had wildly curly hair and was dressed in a long, tie-dyed skirt and macramé top. When she opened the back door, a creature bounded out and ran in crazy circles around her feet. I was pretty sure it was a dog but not entirely certain, because if it was, it was the strangest looking one I’d ever seen.

  They say dogs often resemble their owners, but this one didn’t look a bit like John’s date. It had Paris Hilton’s legs with Don King’s hairdo.

  John hadn’t menti
oned the dog, and I knew Mom would freak.

  “They’re here,” I yelled toward the kitchen.

  Mom wiped her hands on a dish towel and peered out the living room window. “What is that?’

  “I think it’s a dog,” I replied as Lexie turned away to laugh.

  John opened the front door.

  His date strolled through and squeezed Mom in a huge bear hug while Mom stood, arms stiff at her sides. “Hi Liz. John’s told me so much about you. I’m Desiree.” Her face was free of makeup, dotted with a smattering of freckles and etched with a few lines around her bright green eyes. She was too old for John.

  As soon as she broke her hold on Mom, the creature charged forward, stuck his snout in Mom’s crotch and then jumped, paws on her chest. He licked her face.

  Mom waved the dishrag to scare him. “No, doggie. No, no.”

  “That’s Bob Dylan,” Desiree said. “He likes you. C’mon, Dylan, that’s enough lovin’. Get down.” Dylan gave Mom one more big slurp and then obeyed by sitting calmly at Desiree’s Birkenstock-clad feet. “I hope you don’t mind that I brought him, but when John told me how late this would go, I couldn’t leave him home alone with the fireworks going off.”

  Oh, yeah. There will be fireworks later. Especially after you’re gone.

  A ball of dog fluff floated near Mom’s feet, and she compulsively reached for it with the dishtowel.

  Desiree looked at me and said, “You must be Jane,” then wrapped her arms around me.

  I liked her even if she was too old.

  After dinner, Lexie and I cleared dishes while Mom fixed dessert for everyone. She held a scoop of vanilla ice cream over a stars and stripes bowl and asked, “Where do you go to school, Desiree?” In typical Mom fashion, she’d waited until John wasn’t around to ask this.

  “Oh, I went to high school in Orlando and then went to college at UF, but I never really got around to finishing. I moved here about four years ago and still take classes every now and then, but when you reach twenty-nine, it’s like, what’s the point?”

  Uh, bombshell.

  Mom’s knuckles grew white as the ice cream plopped onto the counter. Lexie mouthed, twenty-nine to me. Outside, a neighbor set off a bottle rocket.