Dolphin Girl

by Shel Delisle

  This astounds me more than anything so far.

  “I don’t know how to start.” Mom looks beyond my ceiling for help. “You know about my miscarriages. But you might not know they were hard on me. Especially the second one. After that one, I didn’t get out of bed for a month.”

  Mom’s so busy, busy all the time. I can’t imagine her just lying in bed. “How far along were you?”

  “For two of them. I was barely pregnant. But on the second one, I was five months.” Mom rounds her hands in front of her.

  It’s the stage Desiree was at when she married John. A tear slips onto my cheek.

  “Going through that really changed me. Do you know what I mean?”

  I manage a nod.

  “I used to be freer. Never artistic like you, but not so… controlling.” Mom heaves a huge sigh.

  I wipe at the tears streaming down my face.

  “And you’re very sensitive, you know, Jane?”

  “I’ll work on it,” I tell her, crying.

  Mom purses her lips, and tears return to her eyes. “No, don’t change. It’s a nice quality. It’s what makes you Jane.” She pats her own chest hard. “Now me, I’m good at organizing. That’s how I cope. That’s all. If I can keep things organized, I feel in control. When life throws chaos at me, it helps me to believe I can count on something.”

  I never thought of it that way. I always thought it was something she was doing to us, not something for her.

  “I always want to fix things for you.” Mom takes a deep breath and plunges ahead. “When John got married and was going to have a baby, well, that turned my world upside down.” Mom is crying now. “I didn’t know what to think or do. Then you moved out and I thought I’d lost you. And I couldn’t fix that either.” Mom sobs so hard she can’t speak.

  I reach out and hold her, patting her back. Comforting her. Like she’s done for me so many, many times.

  “It’s okay,” I murmur in rhythm with each pat. “The baby’s fine. John’s fine. Desiree’s fine. We’re fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sam towers over the water fountain on Monday morning after the Scavenger Hunt. My face cracks into a grin and I hurry to him, not caring that I’ve lost any chance to appear aloof. He bends and gives me a peck on my cheek.

  Lexie’s brought the trophy to school. She directs the stream of water from the fountain into it and we pass it from person to person. After Sam drinks, he grabs my hand and pulls me through the main hall. At first I think he’s taking me to the trophy case, but we cruise by. Alana’s got her back to us and doesn’t bother to look when Ashley whispers in her ear.

  I have no idea where Sam’s headed. We pass the science lab crowd. I wave at Brenden/Brandon — will I ever remember his name? As we breeze through the exit, we pass the courtyard crowd, and Nigel salutes.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “Almost there.”

  On Sunday I hoped Sam would call and explain what had happened when he talked with Alana. I so didn’t love the suspense. But he never did. To distract me, I played with the daisy for my mobile. He loves me. He loves me not.

  I couldn’t remember my odds on this, so I pulled up the bookmark on daisies and this time read the entry on Fibonacci numbers. It’s a mathematical sequence where you add every number to the prior one so it goes like this 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13. It’s a cool pattern, but that’s not the amazing part. This is: in nature, in everything really, this sequence is pleasing to people. It’s in pineapples and turtles and trees and music and art and — daisies.

  I don’t understand why they don’t teach this kind of math instead of the quadratic formula. There’s order in the universe. Not organization created by us, like Mom and her lists, but an underlying plan. Isn’t that important to know?

  So I try to let this reassure me as Sam guides me to a spot under the big tree in front of the school. He plops his backpack onto the ground and sits, resting against it. I do the same.

  “Time to talk about everything,” Sam says.

  Oh, God, no. I can’t believe he’s going to do this now. Couldn’t he have just said everything he needed to say on the phone?

  Then I think three random thoughts:

  The dolphins are in my pod.

  He’s not a trophy.

  Order in the universe.

  These thoughts fill me with courage. I take a deep breath. “All right.”

  Sam takes a deep breath too and plunges ahead. “When I first met you, I thought you were a little — don’t take this in the wrong way — different.”

  I yank grass from the ground.

  “But I’m really glad we got put into the freshman lunch hour, because otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten to know you.”

  Just like I thought. Taking a blade of grass, I tear it down the middle.

  “I looked forward to our lunches. I liked that you were different than the girls I usually hang around. You’re not so into clothes, shopping and yourself.”

  Blades of grass are piling up in front of me from all the tugging. A weird thought runs through my head, Desiree would disapprove of me killing all this grass.

  “I’d told Travis I wanted to ask you to the Snow Ball, but Chase was trying to convince me to ask Alana because that’s what Ashley wanted.”

  I can’t believe he was going to ask me. I can’t believe my intuition was right. “So what happened that day in the parking lot?”

  “I still don’t know.” Sam throws his hands in the air. “I guess Alana and Ashley set it up. Then, after I fixed you up with Travis, I couldn’t believe he changed the plans.”

  I stop uprooting grass and rest my elbows on my knees, my fists propping my chin. “Maybe he was feeling that everyone liked you better. He said something about that to me.”

  “He did?” Understanding dawns Sam’s eyes. “I never realized.”

  Suddenly I get how Travis feels. Yeah, he might be a dawg. And annoying. A complete a-hole at times. But it’s hard to always feel inferior to a friend. Look at me and Alana. And she’s an ex-bestie. “Maybe he felt like you’d forced him to take me. I mean, he wanted to be with Alana, right?”

  “Maybe — but I was trying to help him be with Alana and when we didn’t go to the same restaurant, when I heard you hooked up with Travis, I…” Sam stops.

  I want to fill in the emptiness with questions. Felt confused? Felt relief?

  He fills in. “Got pissed.”

  Oh yeah. That’s right.

  “So, I started dating Alana. And you know the rest.”

  I remind myself about the swim. About the feeling with the dolphins. Having half of what you want is better than having nothing. “So, go ahead,” I say. “What’s the rest?”

  Sam’s perplexed. “You were right. I stayed with Alana because, because it’s what everyone else wanted. It was easier. I broke up with her after The Hunt.”

  My eyes open so wide I think they must they must resemble Irwin’s, magnified behind his smudged glasses.

  “I like someone else.” Sam rests his hand on my knee. “I like this girl who draws and paints, likes corny jokes and thinks she’s reincarnated from a dolphin.” Sam leans forward, so close he’s an inch from my face. “Can I buy you a tuna sandwich at lunch?” he asks.

  I giggle. “Yes.”

  He doesn’t back away. “Will you take me to the preserve after school?”

  I stop giggling and look at his mouth. He’s got his tongue against the chipped tooth again, waiting for my answer. I look into his deep brown eyes. “Plan on it.”

  ~~~

  Sam’s hand engulfs mine as we walk three blocks to the preserve in silence. In my case, it’s anticipation. I’ve wanted to take him to the preserve forever. But Sam’s not usually quiet, and I don’t know why all of a sudden today he is. Maybe he’s run out of things to say?

  Finally I ask, “Did you see Alana today?”

  “I talked to her in the hall for a minute.” />
  I don’t want to ask a follow-up question so I just peek at Sam’s profile.

  “I don’t know. She’s still acting mad, but to be honest, I think she’s pretending a little. I don’t think it bothered her much.”

  I always thought she liked the idea of Sam — the right guy, the right group — more than she actually liked him. But I still wondered what he meant.

  “She said, ‘It’s good I broke up with you and I hope you don’t do something pathetically stupid, like picking a rebound chick, especially one outside of our crowd. That would make you look totally desperate.’”

  “What’d you say?”

  “I reminded her we broke up because she felt I was cheating, so why did she care? Also, I told her it wouldn’t bother me if she found another guy right away. That I hoped she’d find the right person for her.”

  Alana and I will never be good friends again, but I do hope she finds the right guy. “For Travis to care about any one girl is so different, but he does.”

  “I know, and she doesn’t plan on sitting at home. That’s why I don’t think she’s too upset.”

  “Are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Upset.”

  “Well it wasn’t fun to break up with her, but I’m glad that’s behind me.”

  When we get close to the entrance, I notice the parking lot, which is really only five or six spaces for visitors. It’s empty, and it hits me — Sam and I are alone. Totally alone. We’ve never been alone before.

  Oh sure, we’ve come close, like lunches together. Except there are about three-hundred kids around us in the café. Or when we danced at the Winter Ball, I felt like I was alone with him, but still we were surrounded by classmates. Even the time when we studied Romeo and Juliet, John and Desiree were in the next room.

  Sam’s thinking is in sync with mine because he says, “There’s no one else here.”

  “It’s so peaceful. That’s why I love it.”

  I steer Sam over the wooden walkways, raised above the water and saw grass, to my favorite spot at the edge of the dock. We sit in the shade of a small roof and dangle our legs above the water, watching fairy tale ducks swim around.

  You’d think being alone with Sam, I’d feel anxious, but I don’t. Not in the least. I rest my head on his shoulder and he puts his hand on the ground behind my back, letting me use his arm for support.

  “Sometimes I imagine that dolphins would swim up to me.” I point to a spot in front of us. “Right there.”

  Sam kisses me on the temple, hitting the same spot he did when we rehearsed Romeo and Juliet. I love it when he does this, but I want a real one.

  I turn my head toward him and bite my lower lip.

  Sam gets the hint. He looks in my eyes and lowers his head. I catch my breath. There’s an enormous lump in my throat. His fingertips graze my cheeks. His lips are soft and warm. I kiss him back and then I’m floating, drifting away on the current of Sam.

  ~~~

  I don’t know how long we kissed, only that the sun had moved enough we no longer were shaded by the roof.

  Kissing Sam is nothing like kissing Travis. Travis had lots of moves that would have earned him extra points for technical difficulty if he was a diver. A reverse, double-twisting pike, that sort of thing. Sam’s kisses are simple, but I feel each from my lips to the tips of my pinky toes.

  “I guess we’d better go,” I say, my eyes only half open.

  Sam kisses me one more time and stands, offering his hand to help me up. “C’mon, Dolphin Girl.”

  He holds my backpack for me to slip my arms through, and I hand his to him. This is exactly what I had in mind last December, before the parking lot trap. It’s strange how months after I’d planned, it happened almost like I’d dreamed with one big difference. Kissing Sam was even better than I’d imagined.

  EPILOGUE

  I complete the pink baby bottle for my mobile, the last trinket to fasten to it. Desiree quipped I should have done a breast, since she doesn’t advocate bottle-feeding. But I explained the bottle only symbolizes the baby, not her preferred feeding method.

  Standing on my desk chair, I hang the mobile and softly tap each item: a mini-sized Dolphin Girl costume, a daisy, an ice skate, a peanut, William Shakespeare’s head, a large piece of seaweed, a mini scavenger hunt trophy and the baby bottle.

  This has been an eventful year.

  Back in October I yearned for freedom, only to realize, it all comes down to one word, one thought.

  Choice.

  And I’d been making choices, some good and some not, all year long.

  Choosing when to rebel and who to befriend. Choosing to date and kiss a boy I didn’t even like. Choosing to run away, to come home, to forgive.

  What have I picked for today?

  To finish my mobile, and paint the garden mural in Lily’s nursery, and go to the movies with Sam tonight. And help Mom around the house.

  Things are not perfect between Mom and I, but nothing ever is. I’ve stopped worrying about the ideal — my version of a perfect mom or being her perfect daughter.

  Mom’s trying to be more relaxed and I’m trying to be more organized. Because life is a combination of chaos and order. In a way, it’s like dolphins. Above the surface there might be heart-stopping excitement with energetic leaps, but underneath there’s quiet beauty and grace.

  Maybe I was a dolphin in a previous life, or maybe I’ll be one in the future, but in this one — the one that counts — I’m human. I’ve realized God does not make mistakes, like I once thought.

  Everyone else does. Sam, John, Desiree, even Mom. They all make mistakes.

  And because I’m human, so do I.

  EXTRAS

  Under Jane’s bed, in the bottom of her duffle bag are three lists. Two are from the day she ran away from home: the list of what’s wrong with her life and the list her mom had already hung on the fridge. The third is the official list for The Hunt.

  I think what Jane would tell us about these lists, is that in photography when you zoom in on something, that’s when you can pick out seemingly insignificant differences.

  Life isn’t like that.

  Being close makes it harder.

  If you compare Jane’s list and her mom’s list to the one from The Hunt, you’ll see how her life had shifted. It might not have been a seismic shift, but as it turned out that didn’t matter.

  To Do Today 02/11

  Weed the planters at the back of the house. Be sure to do a good job around the base of the hedges.

  Dust blinds and ceiling fans (both sides!!!!!)

  Scrub upstairs bathroom. Mop the floor twice – fresh water on the second mop! Also, I bought a new mop it’s in the laundry room. Please use it. Vacuum area rugs and stairs.

  Enchiladas 350 degree oven @ 5:10 pm

  Fold clothes in dryer. Wash a load of bath towels

  Thanks, Honey! XO, Mom

  My life:

  Bye-bye dolphin swim.

  Can’t hang out with Lexie.

  Travis took me to Rodeo Bob’s.

  Then lied about the beach.

  And I kissed him.

  Sam and Alana are a couple.

  Irwin’s not speaking to me.

  I never see John any more.

  Mom doesn’t want me to be the Godmother.

  Mom’s lists make me nutty.

  1st Annual WEHS Scavenger Hunt

  The hunt will begin in the Western Everglades High School parking lot at 2 pm sharp. You are expected to check in with the judge at the times and locations below.

  First check-in: The Mall – south entrance 3:30pm

  Second check-in: Coldstone 5:00 pm

  Final check in: Western Everglades High 7:00 pm

  The items included on this list require different skills: intelligence, physical prowess, creativity, organization and humor. This will ensure that the talents of all teams are used.

  You have five hours to complete this contest. Proof of items
can be sent via cell phone or digitally recorded or brought to the judges. DO NOT BREAK THE LAW OR HARM ANYONE OR THEIR PROPERTY!!!!!! Have Fun.

  Get an eye exam and ask for extra credit. (30 pts.)

  Do “something” for a Klondike Bar. (10-50 pts. based on originality)

  Post ‘Wanted” posters of a heinous criminal around town. (5 pts./per poster)

  Find someone who can lick their elbow. (50 pts.)

  Locate Area 51. (51 pts.)

  Purchase condoms in every color of the rainbow. (10 pts./color)

  Do something wild and out of control. (15 pts.)

  Have an “Herbal Essence Experience” using peanut butter. (15 pts.)

  Bribe a judge. (pts. vary)

  Lose your innocence. (10 pts.)

  Re-locate your lost innocence. (30 pts.)

  Dress in a costume and run through the mall. (30 pts.)

  Collect pens, stationery or other free giveaways from local businesses. (10pts. for each unique item, max 100 pts.)

  Ask information to connect you to the Dalai Lama. (10 pts.)

  Find a functioning 8-track player. (50 pts.)

  Purchase exactly $.50 of gasoline. (20 pts. Proof of purchase required.)

  Put your foot in your mouth. (15 pts.)

  Scare the crap out of someone. (5pts. Bonus for same thing literally 100 pts.)

  Capture a Shriner and bring him to HQ. (100 pts.)

  Calculate the most cost effective way of purchasing 10,000 calories at McDonalds and buy it. (25 pts. consume it – 75 pts.)

  Have a team member wear excessive make-up. (10 pts. Bonus if member is male 20 pts.)

  Have a hair-raising experience. (with mousse or gel 10 pts, without styling aids 40 pts.)

  Pet a cow. (50 pts.)

  Fight “Corporate America” (50 to 100 pts. Judge’s discretion.)

  Find a Rubik’s Cube. (10 pts. Solve it in front of the judge 40 pts.)

  Call a phone number from a bathroom wall. (10 pts. Bonus 10 pts. for each minute of conversation, max 50 pts.)