“Goin’ south to the Galápagos ’cause I’m so stinkin’ funny. With all your stinkin’ money. Go Galápagos!”
I finish with the traditional jumping jack in the air and a graceless thud to the ground. The crowd (Pritchett) goes wild.
I work a boring shift for most of the day. The weather is so nice I wander around outside looking for a reason to be out on the pier. I show tourists the best place to wade in the water. I take a few pictures for families. There’s a little excitement when a couple gets their boat stuck in the channel and no other boats can get out. I call a few people to help and get yelled at by frustrated boaters, and eventually everything goes back to boring.
Ranger Bobbie comes in off the desert at lunchtime. “Four-wheelers!” she says, and slams her door. I see Pete while I’m cleaning a picnic table. He says, “Tourists!” and storms off.
When my shift is over, the sun is still high in the sky. I know I should go home and take care of my brothers while my parents finish their backyard fiasco, but I sit at the picnic table watching the birds. The gulls are everywhere, looping in the sky, diving for food. I pull out my notebook. I’m just three weeks away from reaching my goal of a thousand dollars. My pencil-box bank is getting full. Driving the smaller car and skipping lunch have helped. With any luck I’ll get a few bucks for my birthday too.
I feel hands cover my face. I jump away.
“Somebody’s edgy,” says Pete.
“Self-preservation instincts,” I say.
“Nice to know you’re using them these days. You logged out yet?”
“Yep, on my way home.”
“Want to take a spin on my sailboat?”
“Don’t you have to work?”
“This is work. We’re having a mini regatta for the yacht club tomorrow morning and some of the buoys aren’t where they’re supposed to be. I could use a hand.”
All the weirdness of the last few days since Ms. Miller told me about Erik’s complaint runs through my head. I can tell by the edge in Pete’s voice that he knows what we aren’t talking about. And he doesn’t care. That’s why Pete is Pete. He doesn’t care. That’s why he can go to the Galápagos Islands or hitchhike to South America.
I look out over the shimmering water. It’s a gorgeous day. And I want to go sailing with a pirate.
“Sounds fun,” I say.
My phone rings. It’s my house. I don’t pick up.
Pete shouts out the names of a dozen different ropes for me to pull and tie as we leave the dock. Who knew that sailing was so complicated? I bounce from side to side of the small boat, trying to get the hang of tacking first, which is basically moving the tail of the sail into alignment as we’re “coming about” or turning into the wind. Then I work on jibing, which mainly involves throwing ropes and scampering across the front of the boat and not getting clocked by the mast. As we pick up speed, a hundred pounds of home blows off my shoulders.
We get to the buoys in twenty minutes and have the problem fixed in thirty. It was hard, but I don’t think Pete needed my help at all.
“Where to now?” I say.
“We’ll hoist the spinnaker if we get a little more wind, but let’s just relax for a minute.” We drop the anchor and Pete pulls out his pack. He tosses me a sandwich and a can of soda. “Sea rations.”
I sit at the front of the boat and let the sun warm my skin. The salty wind opens my lungs up. I smell the brine and salt beneath me. “Tell me more about living down there,” I say.
He lies back, eating his sandwich while he looks up at the sky. He doesn’t answer for a few minutes. “In the morning when the sun comes up over Isabela Island, the sky lights up with red-streaked clouds. Sometimes there will be a gold flare coming from behind the island’s dark silhouette. The gulls and sea lions circle the boat looking for food. The waves lap up on the anchored boat. Drying clothes flap in the wind. Everything smells like the ocean until someone starts to cook and the frying food reminds me I’m starving. But I don’t want to go in with the team, because then the day will start, and before I know it, it will be over. The trick is to hold on to each day as long as I can, and then once it starts, I go till dark. Turns out there’s a lot of daylight at the equator.”
“Every day is like that?”
“Not at all. Some days it’s so hot you sweat in the water, and other days it rains and the water is so rough we can’t dive or eat or even drink, which is saying something.”
“I keep thinking about that quote you read from Darwin’s journal, about not knowing what you should be looking at until it’s gone. What don’t I see?”
“That’s easy.” He hitches up half his mouth. “How amazing you are.”
I love that Pete is almost flirting with me, but once I stop being giddy, I think about what he’s saying. And he’s right. I look up at the same sky Pete does, but I don’t see the same thing.
Pete keeps talking. “You also don’t see where you are. You want to go to the Galápagos because it’s not here. And you should. But there’s plenty here to blow your mind if you’d stop trying to please everyone all the time.”
“You sound just like my sister.”
“Smart girl.”
“Yeah, she’s a genius. So smart she got pregnant before she married the guy and then dropped out of school and lost her scholarship.”
“And that’s why you’re trying to please everyone?”
“I’ve always tried to please everyone. I’m just not very good at it anymore.”
Pete rolls in the anchor. “Let’s go find another place to park.”
With a quick wind we curl around to Antelope Island in forty minutes. I try not to wonder what the phone call from home was about. I comfort myself by knowing that if it were a big deal, they would have called me a half dozen more times.
Pete drops anchor in Farmington Bay. He pulls out his binoculars to share, and we quickly spot mergansers, scaups, green-winged teals, canvasbacks and redheads, egrets, and grebes, all winging around, chirping and diving. It’s a bird frenzy.
“Every year this lake has five million feathery visitors and two hundred species. And the lake effect ...”
“You told us ...” I say.
“Do you know that without this bay and the other stopover habitats that this lake provides, the ecosystem of the earth would change?”
“Should I be taking notes or taking a nap?”
“Cut the attitude. This lake is beautiful and important. And most people think it’s a sewer.”
“What did you bring me out here for, Pete?”
“Most people don’t want to grow and change and discover new things, Myra, not really. But you do. Be a student right now. See your life.”
He sits next to me and takes my hand, looking off into the water at the heron that is coasting on the air above us. There’s no wind, but I feel like I’m sailing again, and I could pitch off into the water at any time. And I love it.
“You’re beautiful and important.”
“You’re just saying that because I scraped the mold off your office.”
“No. I was fine with the mold. It gave the office a little personality. I’m saying this because I find you beautiful and important.”
I look up at his face. His hair is deep red in the sunlight. His eyes are pinched in a smile. In my head I know getting attached to Pete could cause us both a lot of problems. Plus he likes mold. But somewhere deeper than my head, I feel like Pete is nothing if not honest, and this is only wrong if I make it that way.
I hold my face up to his and he kisses me as softly as the sun.
34
Sluicing:
Shooting a bird off the water.
Dad is sitting by the front room window. The kids are watching the TV up close so they can hear it on low volume. They all five look up but nobody talks.
I say, “What’s wrong?”
They all keep looking at me. The sunshine of my afternoon empties out of me. “Where’s Melyssa?”
“She’s
in her room,” Dad says. “Don’t go in. She’s asleep.”
Mom walks past us into the kitchen and I follow her.
She turns to me. “Where were you when we called?”
“What’s going on?”
“Answer your mother’s question,” says Dad, sandwiching me between them.
I sit down at the table to get some breathing room. “I was out on the lake.”
He sits down next to me. “On the lake? Like on a boat?”
“I was with Pete,” I say. I don’t feel like hiding the mess under the rug anymore, but it’s one of those moments you can’t take back.
Dad’s voice lowers. “Pete who?”
The amount of information I haven’t shared with my parents hits me like a flying filing cabinet. “Pete Tree. He’s kind of my boss but not really. . . .” I think I’ll skip the part about kissing him this afternoon. . . . “We were having lunch.” Too much. Always better to shut up when you don’t have a grip on your story.
“Just how old is your kind-of boss?”
I say, “Can you tell me what’s going on with Melyssa before we get into this?”
“No, we cannot,” says Dad. He jabs the kitchen table with his finger.
Mom says, “Why don’t you start by telling me what you and Melyssa are up to?”
“Up to?” I say. “She told you?” So like Melyssa.
“She didn’t tell us anything. But we’d like you to start explaining right now.”
“I’m sorry, what are we talking about? Did I do something?”
Mom drops into a chair too. “This is no time to hide things. Your sister got very sick this afternoon. We took her to the doctor and he said she has preeclampsia. Do you know what that is?”
I shake my head. “Is she going to be okay?”
“We think so.” Mom tilts her head toward me but is looking someplace I can’t see. “She has to be on bedrest until the baby’s lungs get developed enough to deliver. The most important thing is that she doesn’t get more toxemic. If she loses the baby she does, but we aren’t losing her.” Mom is so calm it terrifies me.
“How long does she need?” I say.
She says, “At least another month. Some babies get by with a lot less, but some don’t.”
“A month. We can do that.”
“We can,” says Dad, “if one of us is with her at all times, which means one of us needs to be here after school until I get home. Andrew isn’t old enough to drive, so it’s not safe to leave him in charge.”
“Okay. That means I need to be here at four, right? I can be here by four. But I need to keep working.”
Dad says, “Why? What’s going on with you, Myra? What’s the money really for?”
Mom goes to the loose paper file by the phone and brings back the application information that Melyssa and I were working on last night. I remember now I left the papers sitting right on her dresser. “And what do you know about this? Why is Melyssa applying to go to South America with a new baby?”
“She isn’t,” I say.
Mom’s voice drops. “Then who is?”
“I am.”
“You!” says Mom. “Really?”
“I’m applying for that scholarship to the Galápagos Islands with the University of Utah.”
“The Galápa-what-the-hell Islands?” says Dad. He leans so hard on the table it jiggles under his weight.
My brain stumbles. “Ecuador. Darwin’s—”
“Yeah, I know where they are, honey. What I don’t get is why you think you’re going there? I thought you were going to dental hygiene school.”
“I told Mom about it, but she said it was a stupid idea.”
“We talked about this?” says Mom.
“It’s a great opportunity, but I have to raise a thousand dollars. And submit one of the two best proposals. We’re down to five applicants from three schools.”
“A thousand dollars? Absolutely not,” says Mom.
“It’s less money than the dental assisting school,” I say.
“But you’ll have something when you’re done with school. This is a vacation.”
“It’s two months of serious scientific research. We work with professors and get college credit.”
“Two months?” says Mom.
“Really?” says Dad. He looks so hurt I have to think of cabbage to keep from crying.
“Oh come on, Hank. Two months, an eighteen-year-old girl on a boat thousands of miles from home. Over my dead body. Even if Melyssa—”
Dad stands up from the table. “And you’ve been hiding this from us the whole time. Sneaking around, working on something like this without a word? What are your chances of getting it?”
This is so not the way I wanted to tell them. “I’m competing against Erik. And some other super brains. But I have a chance.”
Dad’s eyes get even wider. “Erik? You’re trying to beat Erik out for a scholarship?”
“Don’t act like it’s so impossible!” I say. “Pete says I have a good idea.”
“Pete! Who is Pete? I thought he was your boss at the marina.”
“He’s not really my boss-boss. That’s Ranger Bobbie. Pete’s the harbor master. He’s also the graduate student who’s helping us all write our proposals for the contest.”
“And you’re sailing around the marina having lunch with him?” says Mom. “Oh my gosh, you aren’t ... sleeping with him?”
“No, Mom, no!” I say. “I am not sleeping with him! I’m not even sleeping. I work around the clock to do my homework, make dinner, keep things clean, do my research, work, hang out with Melyssa and the boys.” My eyes burst, but I’m not sad, I’m furious, at everyone, including myself and Melyssa and Pete.
“Keep your voice down, young lady,” says Dad.
“You’re not applying,” says Mom. “Your sister needs you. And it’s ridiculous.”
“Do you think you can beat Erik?” says Dad.
“She isn’t applying!” says Mom. “Two months on a boat in the middle of nowhere with complete strangers? Has everyone lost their minds? This isn’t even about that. It’s about Melyssa’s life, and the baby’s.”
Carson walks in the room rubbing his eyes. He looks at me happily. “If Mom’s yelling at Dad, does that mean we can turn the sound back up on the TV?”
We all three yell, “No!”
Carson runs out of the room.
“So what is it going to be?” says Mom. “Your vacation or your sister?”
“Oh, Marci, don’t exaggerate,” says Dad. “We can find someone to do it.”
“And just who would that be?” says Mom.
Who would it be?
The question wraps around me. My parents both work themselves to death as it is, and neither one exactly calms Melyssa down. Someone has to pick up the kids from school. Someone older than eleven has to be around between four and five-thirty. And a paid nurse? Forget it. Too much money and too many Morgans. I hate Mom for sounding that siren inside of me, but once I hear it I can’t pretend I don’t. Sometimes you just need someone calm to calm you down. Someone you trust. And that can make all the difference.
Later that night, I peek into Melyssa’s bedroom. She’s hunched up in a ball snoring from a cold. I think of the birds and the turtles and the sun. I think of what it would be like, for the first time in my life, to be on a crew that isn’t a cleaning crew. To study something interesting and real, and hang out with people who are from all over the world. I would finally have something that belongs to me, a future. And win or lose, competing in this contest is a victory for me, against Erik, against Doormat Barbie. Then I think about Melyssa. How she lent me her car and her laptop, dared me to apply, and made me mad enough to follow through. In her own seriously irritating way, she has helped me through this breakup with Erik like no one else could. And she’s my sister.
I have a choice.
I choose her.
35
Winged:
When a bird’s been shot but doesn
’t drop dead.
“You can’t quit,” says Pete. “We’re heading into our busy season.”
“Bobbie said she can hire someone else.”
My conversation with Bobbie was cut short by her having to go outside and yell at some unruly boaters. But she said she understood about family coming first.
“She lied. We can’t replace you.”
“Thanks, Pete.” I keep my distance.
“Is this because I kissed you?” he whispers.
I can’t look at him. “That’s not why.”
“Follow me,” he says. He walks out to the picnic tables. Even with the muted sound of Bobbie chewing out the boaters on slip four, it’s beyond beautiful today. The lake is glistening with the light of spring. The wind jostles the masts of the docked boats expectantly. The group being yelled at is just another sign of spring. It won’t be long before summer is here and all the owners of all these boats are crawling over them and taking them back out to open water. Pete has just mowed the lawn around the office and I can smell it everywhere. Inside the office everything is clean and in its place. Outside everything seems blue and white and possible. But it isn’t.
Pete hops up on one of the tables and shakes his head. “Why are you doing this?”
“My sister needs my help.”
“Can’t anyone else help her but you?”
“Not this time.”
“Exactly. This time. The time when you need to make money so you can leave and stop being everyone’s maid.”
“You like me being your maid I’ve noticed.”
He doesn’t laugh. “I don’t want you to be anyone’s maid, especially not mine.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Anyway, this should make the judging easier, though.”
“You’re still going to apply, right?”
“I don’t have all the money.”
“Apply anyway. You can make it up if you win.”
“But that wouldn’t be fair to Dawn and other people who dropped out because they couldn’t get the money.”
Girls Don't Fly Page 17