Miss Adventure

by Geralyn Corcillo

  Jack just nods. “Let’s fill the pockets.”

  The pockets are in weird places on the suit—the forearm, the outside of the upper arm, the outside of the thigh.

  I especially hate the thigh pockets. When filled, my quads look as monstrously invincible as Godzilla’s.

  And I don’t even know what they’re filled with.

  The only things I recognized that Jack handed me were power bars and some kind of gun. I hope not the kind with bullets. Unless it’s for the sharks.

  I don’t ask though. I don’t want to know.

  In a few minutes, we’re ready.

  “Let’s go.” Jack opens the kitchen door to the garage.

  My stomach lurches. Oh God. OhGodohGodohGodohGod. “I really like your shower curtain!” I shreik. “The one with umbrellas.”

  “Really?” he asks, big smile. “I have little towels that match.”

  “Really?”

  “No.” His smile disappears as he swipes the duffle off the table. “Let’s go.”

  “You know,” I say, looking out the glass doors of the kitchen, “this is an awesome view. Do you own that mountain?” I gesture to the steep incline starting about two hundred feet from his back patio.

  Jack turns to face me. “No, Lisa. I don’t own the mountain. My property ends where the grass stops and the scrub starts.”

  I scrunch up my nose. “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “I just expected a guy like you to own a ranch or a mountain or a lake or something like that, since you’re so into nature and the outdoors and everything.”

  “I don’t have to own it to love it.”

  “So,” I continue, “you just tramp around the globe, conquering nature wherever you find it?”

  “I don’t conquer it,” he tells me. “I try to understand it. At least to the point that it doesn't conquer me.”

  He stands on the other side of the garage door threshold. It’s as if he’s daring me to cross over.

  If I don’t do this, I’m a failure.

  I step into the garage.

  “Lisa? Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” I answer lickety-split. “This just feels weird. I don’t usually wear my clothes so tight.”

  It takes me three tries to get myself into his truck, and then we’re off.

  We drive from Glendale down to rainy Santa Monica, heading toward the beach. The ocean gets closer with every block, making the lining of my stomach feel electrified.

  I hate this so much. I think about what a lucky girl I was just yesterday before I had to put on a wetsuit and dive into the ocean during a storm.

  Jack turns south, instead of heading west toward the Pacific. He pulls into a parking lot.

  “What are we doing at the airport?” Even to my own ears, my voice sounds unnaturally tinny. Please just let him need a map of tides or something.

  “We’re taking a helicopter,” he explains as he parks. Then he gets out of the truck.

  I fly out after him, stumbling awkwardly on the pavement. I try to get my panic under control.

  “Taking one where?”

  “About a mile or so out.”

  “Out over the ocean?” I squeal. “We’re jumping in from a helicopter? From how high? Is it safe? What if the wind blows me into the propeller?”

  “Regular rules of gravity apply,” he says, opening the tailgate. “When you jump, you’ll head straight down and hit the water. Promise. Here, take this.” He shoves the vest thing at me.

  “Why do I need a bullet-proof vest?”

  “It’s a buoyancy compensator,” he says. “Put it on.”

  “So it’ll make me float?”

  I try to look graceful as I struggle into the thing, but it has lots of straps and buckles like one of those monster backpacks teenagers take to Europe.

  “Or submerge,” he says. “It does both.”

  “Submerge? How far? I’ve never done deep sea diving. Will I get the bends?”

  “Today,” he says, slamming the tailgate, “we’re just going to float.”

  Jack adjusts my straps and gets the vest ready, and I have to say, it looks pretty complicated. “Couldn’t I just wear a life vest or something simple?”

  “This covers more of your body,” he explains. “I want to test the accessibility of the pockets and a BCD is the greatest hindrance to the ease of use.”

  Oh.

  Carrying our flippers, we walk through the rain toward a chopper. Holy . It’s tiny. Like a metal chestnut with an angry wasp stuck to one end. And it HAS NO DOORS.

  “Jack.” I stop on the tarmac and put my hand on his arm. “Should we really be taking a chopper? I mean, how many rookie divers are going to be dropped down from a helicopter?”

  “Very few, probably.” He shrugs. “Most would be dropped off by a boat, but this is faster and much more manageable.”

  “So, what happens? The pilot drops us off then picks us up later?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “How much later? What if he can’t find us?”

  “The pilot is a she, and she’ll find us. I’ve got a transmitter on me.”

  Once I’m seated in the helicopter, I notice the pilot’s graying hair curls up at the ends and her rosy cheeks dimple when she smiles. Honestly, she looks more like a country grandma than a sadistic harbinger of death. As the blades begin to pump, I wonder whether Jack hired her on purpose to relax me. As if. A helicopter with doors would have been better.

  We begin to move.

  Our Father, who art in heaven…

  No. Not heaven. It’s way too close to the sky.

  Strapped in, headphones in place, microphone I can use to communicate with Jack right near my mouth, I shut my eyes tight and stiffen my entire body. I hang on to the edge of my seat with the grip of a snapping turtle.

  Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.

  My stomach dips and rolls anyway. Oh, God.

  Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think.

  Tears squeeze out from under my closed eyelids. Then I feel Jack’s hand on my arm.

  Bam!

  Just like that, my eyes pop open. I jerk up straight, sitting high in my seat. I can’t let Jack think I’m a coward.

  I can’t be a coward. Not anymore.

  This is my chance to change, to prove myself worthy to live my life. I look at open sky through the windshield in front of me and tell my brain to just stop working.

  The tears continue to fall, but I keep my eyes wide open and focused straight ahead. The pilot doesn’t seem concerned about flying so high up with no doors, and neither does Jack, so that gives my sanity something to hold on to.

  I think Jack is trying to talk to me quietly through the headphones, but I don’t care. The ocean stretches out before and below me, so I’m concentrating on feeling courageous.

  “Jesus,” I hear him say more loudly. “I knew this was a big mistake.”

  “Oh, God!” I scream. “We’re crashing!”

  “We are NOT crashing.”

  “We’re not?”

  “Damn! I knew you were all wrong for this.”

  “All wrong? No, I’m not!” I stiffen my spine, making myself as tall as I can. “This is my first time in a hel—”

  “It’s not the helicopter,” Jack says. “It’s you. You’re just—never mind.”

  “What?! Tell me! I can do this! I AM doing this!”

  “I better just take you home.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. You said this was what you wanted, but you clearly don’t want to be here.”

  “Yes I do! I can do this and I will.”

  “Okay.” In a flash, he rips off his headphones and mine, snaps open his seatbelt and mine, and pulls me against him as he stands.

  “Hey!”

  Jack turns me around and wraps his arms just under my ribcage. I figure out what he’s doing just as the helicopter banks sharply.

  Out we go, tumbling backwards through space
.

  “AAAAAAAAHHHH!”

  We fall and fall and fall and fall and fall and—

  Shoom!

  We hit the water and IT’S COLD IT’S COLD IT’S COLD!

  We're under water and I'm confused but then we surface.

  He lets me go.

  I flop around, slapping at the water like a Labrador puppy.

  Jack unhooks a pair of flippers from a Batman-like utility belt and slips them on. He unhooks a second pair.

  Grabbing my feet one at a time, he fits a flipper snugly onto each foot. I’m bobbing up and down, batted around by the choppy waves. I’m in the middle of the ocean. I can’t get my bearings or hear anything but the chopper and the churning water.

  Jack swims right up to my face. “Are you okay?”

  My heart is beating so fast. I can’t catch my breath. Shouting is impossible. I give him a thumbs up instead.

  “Answer me!” He raises both hands out of the water, palms facing me, pulsing toward me gently.

  Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.

  “I’m good!” I finally shout, and Jack beams.

  I think it’s a real smile.

  The first one I’ve ever seen from Jack.

  Oh God! I must be dying! I must have landed wrong!

  But then Jack signals up to the chopper and it flies away. He probably wouldn’t have done that if I were dying.

  He takes my hand and pulls me along. We start swimming side by side like Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah at the end of Splash. Waves keep whapping me in the face, but this doesn’t really slow us down. I’m surprised at how much the flippers propel me. But not enough to outswim a shark.

  I saw that movie where the couple gets left in the middle of the ocean. Just like I am now. Sharks come and eat them. Eat them! What the hell kind of movie ending is that?

  We stop swimming and float, facing each other. I try try try not to think of my legs dangling in the water beneath me.

  “What now?” I’ve always been a loud shouter, and every time I yell over to Jack a few feet away, I feel better.

  “Get me the flare gun out of your left shoulder pocket!”

  I dig at my shoulder frantically. “Oh, my God! Are we in trouble!?”

  “We’re just testing the pockets!”

  Oh. Right. That’s why I’m here.

  And that’s how it goes. He has me swim around and dunk under, then asks me to get something out of a pocket.

  The pockets are harder to get at in the water than I thought they would be, and more than one power bar or piece of equipment floats to the bottom, however far down that is. The ones I successfully retrieve he then makes me put back. And I keep having to rest. Just being in the choppy water is taking its toll.

  Finally the helicopter flies back into sight and my already frozen bones double-freeze up all over again. The dread reaches all the way into the muscles of my jaw.

  The chopper has a ladder dangling from it.

  A LADDER.

  My stomach sinks to the unfathomable bottom of the sea. I’m pretty sure I’m going to faint. I didn’t think about how we’d get back into the chopper. But a ladder?

  I’m scared to climb up or down ladders when they’re leaning against something, let alone dangling.

  The flimsy thing is swaying all over the place. How am I supposed to climb that? And when I reach the top, how will I let go of the ladder to haul myself in?

  Before the chopper gets too close, Jack swims right up to me and shouts in my ear. “I’ll go first. Once I start climbing, grab the ladder to anchor it. Once I’m up, we’ll haul you in. All you’ll have to do is hang on.”

  “Okay!” I shout, and then get a choking mouthful of water.

  While I’m trying to catch my breath, Jack grabs my feet, takes my flippers, and hooks them to his belt with his. Then he’s climbing up the ladder like a monkey. I grab the ladder and hang on.

  This is the worst worst worst part.

  I’m almost safe, but a shark or squid could still get me. I’m in the ocean, the middle of the ocean, all by myself.

  Why can’t Jack climb faster? I thought he was supposed to be good at this kind of stuff. I get my feet into the ladder rungs and climb up so I’m just above the dangerous water.

  I look around. Grey turbulent sky, grey turbulent sea. It’s amazing. And beautiful. And sublime. At this one moment, it poses no danger to me, and I think I love it.

  But I want to be the person who loves it even with the danger. That’s why I’m here.

  Because moments like this, moments suspended above the danger, almost never happen in life.

  I feel the ladder start to pull me up. Jack is safely inside the chopper a million miles above me.

  I let go of the ladder.

  As I Nestea plunge back into the ocean, it’s just about the greatest feeling I’ve ever made happen in my life.

  I give a whoop of joy and dive back under, face first, butt in the air. When my vest brings me right back up, I look up to the chopper to give Jack a thumbs up so he doesn’t think I’m in trouble.

  This is my moment.

  I swim and splash and kick. Then I get calm and still. I look around as the waves beat at me. Life is good.

  * * * * *

  But it’s too bad life isn’t quite as good as it is in made-for-TV movies. If it were, my Helicopter-Ocean Adventure would have cured my wimpiness forever and made me a brave person.

  But it didn’t.

  If it had, I wouldn’t be back in the hospital.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  No, Jack Hawkins, I do not want to tell you what happened. You were there, you moron. “Why don’t you tell me what happened instead,” I suggest. “How long have I been here?”

  “A few hours. You had an anxiety attack at the airport, passed out, hit your head. Not hard. But, with your recent medical history, I wasn’t taking any chances.”

  Oh, my God.

  “This happened at the airport? You mean the helicopter and the ocean and the shark—it was all a dream? I have to do it again?”

  “It happened at the airport when we got back,” he assures me. “The helicopter ride and the ocean were real, all right. I’m not too sure about the shark.”

  “I felt it,” I insist. “It rubbed against my foot. I swear. You had my flippers, remember? My feet were bare, and I felt it. That’s why I jumped back onto the ladder so fast.”

  “It was probably seaweed.”

  “It was moving.”

  “Seaweed moves in the water.”

  “It was cold and slimy like a fish,” I say. “A great fish.”

  The great fish moved silently through the night water…

  “Seaweed is cold and slimy,” Jack says.

  “And it was scratchy,” I add. “I’ve watched Shark Week. I know shark skin is scratchy.”

  “If you rub it one way,” he concedes. “You rub it the other way, it’s smooth like…like a wet pair of galoshes. But if you rub it the wrong way, it’s not just scratchy. It’ll make you bleed.”

  I stare at him, clenching my teeth.

  “Your foot’s not bleeding,” he says quietly.

  I can feel angry tears burn behind my eyes. Could I really have been terrorized by seaweed AGAIN? In the middle of my Nestea plunge? I look away from Jack, down at my hospital gown. Still naked underneath. “Did they have to cut the wetsuit off me?”

  Dear God, don’t let him make me do it again in a different suit.

  “No,” he says. “It’s right over there.” He points to the thing lying like a selkie’s skin on one of those mauve hospital chairs. “They took it off you when they examined you.”

  “How am I going to get home? I’m not squeezing into that thing again. Do you have any cash on you? Can you buy me a pair of scrubs or something?”

  “I brought in some stuff from the truck.” He indicates a pile of clothes folded on the stand next to the bed.

  “You’ll have to ta
ke me back to your house to get my suit,” I say. “It’s one of my favorites.”

  “Not tonight,” he says, dismissing my need for Gucci power gear. “I’m driving you straight home. Tomorrow I can take you back to the Into the Wild to get your car.”

  I jut out my jaw. “But my suit.”

  “You still have my pants. I’ll keep the suit for as long as I damn well please.”

  * * * * *

  Almost two hours later, he drives me home. And the ride is bizarre. Jack talks non-stop. And even weirder, he demands answers of me. Constantly.

  “I don’t know which Hardy Boy dated Nancy Drew!” I tell him for the third time.

  I swear he’s giving me a monster headache. Why does he even care? He thought Linda Carter played Nancy Drew on the TV show, for Pete’s sake.

  “It doesn’t matter, anyway,” I say. “In the books, her favorite date is Ned Nickerson. And in the old books—the real ones—she would never fool around on him.”

  “What’s your middle name?”

  Just like that, he changes the subject, like he has a chamber loaded with questions. “Don’t have one.”

  “Did you ever want one?”

  Good lord. We’ve driven barely three miles and already I’ve heard him say more than I’ve heard him say since I’ve met him.

  “Oh, my God.” I turn to look at him. “I have a concussion, don’t I? And you don’t want me to fall asleep. That’s why you’re talking to me.”

  “Just a precaution.”

  “Great.”

  We sit in silence for a few minutes, staring at the sluggish traffic, then he asks, “Who was your favorite character on The A-Team?”

  “Why does this truck smell like Chinese food?” I demand instead. “I’m starving. Are there some egg rolls under the seat?”

  “It’s the vegetable oil I use for fuel. I get it from a tempura place near my house.”

  I suck in another delicious lungful. “Can you stop at Star Wok on the way home? Or McDonald’s? Or Burger King? Or a pizza place?”

  “I called in an order to Jerry’s Deli when you were getting dressed. We’ll pick it up on the way to your place.”

  “Good.” The mention of Jerry’s Deli makes my mouth actually water, and the promise of such delight to come puts me in an awesome mood, despite my throbbing head. I touch my brow and wince.