Red Water: A Novel

by Kristen Mae

  “The law program here might have had something to do with it as well.” He winks and inches a little closer. He smells so fresh and minty and…confident. Does confidence give off an aroma? “So,” he says, “earlier you said you wanted to get out of the shithole you grew up in. What made it a shithole?”

  Jesus, his breath is so goddamn delightful. “My parents. I mean, my dad. He was an asshole.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  I laugh, but it’s a strangled, out-of-place laugh—self-conscious, uncomfortable. I’m telling him too much. I need to stop talking. “It’s not a big deal. Everyone has issues with their parents, right?”

  “That’s true,” he says, nodding and pursing his lips. “No one has a perfect relationship with their parents.”

  “And you? What’s your story?”

  He stares down at the amphitheater stage long enough that I almost apologize for prying, but then he says, “My father was out of the picture since before I can remember. I’m very close with my mother, but she’s sick.”

  I frown. “What kind of sick?”

  “Lupus. In bed a lot, and they keep giving her prednisone. It makes her all puffy.”

  “That sounds terrible.” Now I feel silly for thinking my own problems were even worth mentioning. At least I had a father. At least my mother had been more or less healthy, before…

  “My mother is a fighter. Very strong.”

  “Sounds like you care a lot about her.”

  “She’s my mother, of course I do. Are you on good terms with your mom? You said your dad was an asshole, but…”

  I chew the inside of my cheek for a second. There’s a lump in my throat. “She’s…not alive.”

  “I’m sorry.” He studies my face.

  “It’s been two years. I’m okay. Getting there, anyway.” I smile to reassure him, but I hate this stupid pity dance that happens every time I tell someone my mother’s dead. I focus on the pile of dry leaves at my feet, gritting my teeth until the lump in my throat recedes.

  He reaches up and touches the side of my face with his index knuckle, and my heart does a stupid flip-flop in my chest. “I was right,” he says.

  “Uh…about?”

  “Something in your eyes. You’ve got so much soul. Your eyes are like a well where, if I accidentally fell in, I would never stop falling.” It is an obnoxiously poetic thing to say, but the tone of his voice makes it work somehow, or maybe it’s his confidence again—like he believes that whatever he says will be acceptable, even welcome. Like he has no fear of rejection.

  His finger is still brushing my cheek, sending little currents of electricity buzzing under the surface of my skin. How can he just reach out and touch me like that? How can he be so sure I won’t push him away? He’s right, though. I don’t want him to stop touching me. I don’t want to push him away.

  But I have to, because if I look into his eyes, if I let him look into mine, if I let him do that cheesy falling-down-the-well thing and he says more weird, poetic things to me, I know what will happen: I’ll crash into bed with him and never get out again. I’ll stick my tongue in his dimple and it will snap shut like a Venus fly trap. I’ll give up on studying and practicing and getting away from my stupid shitty life, and that beautiful cello will never be mine. Garrett is not some random dude you fuck in a coatroom and forget. I could lose myself in this man. I am already losing myself. Jesus.

  I stand up fast, almost falling when a pile of leaves shifts beneath my feet. “I can’t do this,” I blurt out, breathing too hard, putting my fingers to my temples as if coming to my senses has been a major exertion. And it has been.

  He looks up at me from the cement step. “Pardon?”

  “This. I don’t have time for…relationships.”

  He smiles, but through pursed lips, like he’s biting back a laugh. “We just met, Malory. I think you’re incredibly interesting, but that doesn’t mean I want a relationship with you.”

  I blush for what seems like the hundredth time tonight. I should have some kind of snappy, irreverent comeback, but I don’t.

  He stands up and sinks his hands into his pockets, leans in close like he’s about to tell me a secret, his mouth too near my ear: “Maybe I just want to fuck you.”

  I suck in a breath, stunned. “I—you—”

  He laughs, touches my elbow with his fingertips. “I’m teasing, Malory. I really do like you. But I don’t want to interfere with your studies, with your music. And the other thing I mentioned…well, that’s entirely up to you, isn’t it?”

  I release the breath I just sucked in, every square inch of my skin hosting its own little bonfire. I feel like I’m on a merry-go-round, spinning too fast and about to puke. Why would I start yammering about relationships out of the blue? And where the fuck are all my snarky responses? “I just—I mean, I came here on a mission. Maybe I’m a little too focused. Maybe I’m a little…culture shocked.”

  But I’m not culture shocked because of school. It’s Garrett. He feels like a foreign land. He speaks a language I don’t know, follows a set of rules I can’t see. I’m a stranger here.

  He tips his chin in the direction of my dorm. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

  “I said something stupid, right?” Jesus Christ, I need to stop talking immediately.

  “Not at all. I was just thinking you probably have studying or practicing to do.”

  We walk back in silence, him relaxed in his hands-in-pockets way and me stiff and quaking under the crushing weight of my own stupidity.

  It’s fully dark now. The glow of the streetlights shines through the branches of the old oaks towering over the campus walkways, scattering leafy patterns across the sidewalks. The crickets have begun to sing, and their chorus seems extra loud, magnified by our silence. My shoulders are hunched up, still tensed in mortification. I don’t have time for relationships. God, I’m an idiot.

  It takes me three tries to swipe my key card so I can open the door to the dorm. “Thanks for the walk,” I tell him, the words coming out crackly and breathy like I can’t decide if I want to whisper or speak.

  “Yep. I’ll see you around.” His voice is perfectly clear. With his hands still in his pockets, he bounds down the steps and across the lawn like he can hardly wait to get away from me.

  * * *

  I play again for Yarvik on Monday, the Popper etudes and the Elgar, and the way she drills me, with no pauses to take a breath, makes me feel like a machine—but in a good way. She’s training me to perform on demand, without thinking about my body, without even thinking of the notes. My hands just move, and music comes out.

  Bethany and I have agreed to meet every morning at eight o’clock to practice. Starting Tuesday, we set up in practice rooms opposite each other, breaking every half hour to stretch our fingers and backs, only leaving the practice room hallway to attend class and grab lunch. She performs scale after scale for me, and though she shakes and reddens at first, she gradually gains confidence. She actually has a lovely, pure tone when she’s not vibrating with anxiety.

  “Now do a few push-ups,” I tell her, “to get your heart rate up like it would be if you were nervous. And then play it again.” She struggles through the push-ups, and I regret suggesting it because she’s on the heavy side and I don’t want her to think I’m surreptitiously trying to get her to exercise. But then she’s up and back on the cello and I’m hulking over her trying to be intimidating while she concentrates on releasing her muscles and letting the music flow.

  “You’re just as good as Yarvik,” she tells me when we’re packing up, and I say, “No, I’m trying to mimic her.”

  On Thursday I lose track of time practicing and arrive at my Twentieth-Century Europe class late. Professor Hart is writing something on the white board but turns to glare at me as I hurry for my seat. Creepy Elevator Guy is slouched in the front row and doesn’t look up. I’ve missed a few points but manage to figure them out from what is written on the board, and during
the break I stay in my seat and study my notes, pages and pages of them. I’ve never taken so many notes in a class before.

  I perform my first Popper etude in studio class on Thursday, and Bethany, more and more my friend, rolls her eyes at me with faux envy. She does a scale, shaking a little less, playing mostly in tune, and gives me a high five as she passes on her way back to her seat.

  Garrett doesn’t call, but that’s okay. Music Theory, Orchestra, Ear Training, Geology, Statistics, Macroeconomics…my days rush by in a blur as if I’m in a spaceship going at light speed. By Friday, everyone in the music school recognizes the last two rooms in the practice room hallway as Bethany’s and mine. We even use the rooms for studying, which we weave in between long practice sessions and short bursts of ear training exercises with the in-room pianos.

  No one practices as much as Bethany and I do, but a few other undergrad musicians take up similar residence in the hallway, and inevitably we find ourselves spread out on the floor between the rooms, with music, books, and Styrofoam coffee cups littered about. Two weeks into college and I’ve never felt more at home in my life. The only thing missing is Liza.

  Friday evening, I’m taking a break from practicing, flipping through some notes for my geology class, when I get a text from her: Is it fun? Is it way better than here?

  I can sense the sadness in her typed words, and just like that my heart is a hunk of chalk in my chest, crumbling apart.

  I text back: People are complaining the beds are uncomfortable. It makes me laugh.

  She replies: I just finished Great Expectations. You’re Pip.

  I am? How so?

  With your cello benefactor and your scholarships and your promise of a better life.

  But I have no Estella, I text. Who am I trying to prove myself to?

  Yourself, of course. You’ve always been your own Estella.

  Chapter Seven

  On Saturday I’m leaving my dorm on my way downtown to busk, cello strapped to my back, when I see Garrett. He’s standing beneath the big oak out front, waving at me.

  I walk to him and shrug my cello case off my back. The heat is punishing today; it’s much cooler here in the shade with him. “What are you, uh…”

  He grins, the corners of his eyes getting all crinkly and friendly. And, of course, there’s the dimple. Unreasonably good-looking, this guy. “Thought I’d come by and see if you were around.”

  “I was about to go play downtown…” I fiddle with my cello strap.

  He shakes his head, still smiling. “It’s okay. I was hoping we could go for another walk, but I see you’ve got plans, so I’ll—”

  “Were you going to spend the entire Saturday under this tree on the off chance I might appear? You could have just messaged me.” My words sound pushy and impertinent to me, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  “I wanted to surprise you. Besides, I brought some studying.” He holds up a notebook. “It’s not like I was just going to stare into space and waste the whole day. Although, spending a day waiting for you…not sure I’d consider that a waste.” He shrugs and arches an eyebrow at me.

  I envision chucking my cello in the bushes and straddling him right there under the tree. “Um—”

  “Is it okay if I message you later?”

  “Duh.” My face flames. I cannot believe I just said that. “I mean, sorry, yeah, of course.” Holy fuck, I’m stupid.

  “I’ll message you in the morning.” He nudges my arm with the back of his hand, a barely-there touch that makes me shiver in spite of myself. “I want to take you someplace I think you’ll like.”

  “Where?” I rub my arms to brush away the shivers. There’s still a smile in his eyes, a teasing look—he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.

  “It’s a secret. A surprise.”

  “How very mysterious.”

  “I’m very mysterious.”

  “Well, call me Nancy Drew, then.”

  He throws his head back and laughs, loud and throaty. Ha. I finally said something awesome. I catch a whiff of his breath again, still that same clean, wintergreen scent. Does he never eat? Have his saliva glands been replaced by tiny mint factories? I wonder about his breath in the morning. Then I picture myself waking in bed with him after spending the entire night together, and my knees turn to soup.

  * * *

  I make eighty dollars Saturday afternoon after only a couple of hours, nearly double my usual take. Later that night Daphne goes out while I stay home to study, reading through as much of my twentieth-century Europe material as I can. Then I complete several pages of statistics homework, analyze a Beethoven piano sonata for my music theory class, and watch YouTube videos of the cello repertoire I’m studying.

  Early the next morning while Daphne sleeps off her hangover, I go to the school of music and practice for three hours without break, drilling scales, two Popper etudes, the Elgar Concerto, and the Sixth Cello Suite. I use the metronome like a whip, cracking my internal rhythm into smaller and smaller subdivisions, imagining that the insistent click has the power to force me to repeat and repeat and repeat whenever my rhythm is the tiniest bit off. I drill with a pitch drone, too, tuning each note I play to its interminable hum. I play slowly, methodically, mercilessly. I allow no time to rest, no time to ponder, no time to lament my lack of precision. I will train the imperfection out of myself if I have to make myself bleed.

  In the blazing heat of early afternoon, I meet Garrett outside my dorm under the old oak, per the text he sent me that morning. He’s wearing a T-shirt and gym shorts with running shoes and has a sporty backpack slung over one shoulder. I’m in my standard uniform of tattered denim shorts, one of those tank-tops with the built-in bra, and flip-flops, with only lip gloss for makeup. My hair is still damp from showering. Garrett’s eyes assess my body impersonally, a thin crease appearing between his eyebrows, giving me the sense I’ve blundered somehow.

  “What? Am I dressed wrong?”

  “We’re going for a walk, so you might want better foot protection than that.”

  “Walk…where?” I narrow my eyes.

  “Sneakers would be good.”

  When I return with my Adidas on, he says, “That’s better. You know, I was presumptuous before. Are you okay with going for a walk? A kind of…long walk?”

  “Sure. I like walking.” But I’m thinking, What does he consider ‘long’?

  “You don’t mind the heat?”

  I think of how, when I’m busking, beads of sweat roll down my back and stick my shirt to me. How I have to dry my hands on my shorts again and again so my bow doesn’t slip from my fingers. How my cello slips out of tune and I have to keep adjusting the pegs. It’s a pain in the ass. “No, doesn’t bother me.” I say. “I like it hot.”

  He snickers. “Fantastic.”

  “The weather. The temperature, I mean. I mean I don’t like being cold.”

  “Sure, sure.” His blue eyes are dancing.

  Awesome, Malory. Walked right into it. I follow him across the street toward the neighborhood where I assume he lives. Just like on campus, tall, old oaks stretch their limbs out over the street, offering much-needed shade from the punishing Florida sun. “Are we going to your house?”

  “Nope.”

  “Around the neighborhood?”

  “Just follow me.”

  I fall silent and let him lead. After a few minutes, the asphalt disappears and gives way to a faint path leading into a bank of trees. He glances meaningfully at my now properly clad feet. “Watch out for snakes.”

  The hairs on my arms stand up. “Where are you taking me?”

  “You’ll see.” He smiles. “And it’s unlikely we’ll see snakes. I’m only warning you as a precaution.”

  “Are you taking me into the woods to murder me?”

  He winks. “And miss out on all the fun I’m going to have getting to know you? Hardly.”

  We walk for some time, not talking, just quiet in each other’s presence as we take in the sou
nds of the woods: cicada song, bird calls, and the occasional rustle of some small animal skittering from the crunch of our approach. The path is faint but obvious enough that we can’t accidentally stray from it and lose ourselves, though the further we push into the wild, the more I feel the weight of our aloneness.

  After an hour or so, my tank top is soaked through with sweat and my feet have begun to ache. Garrett and I have not said a word to each other since we entered the forest.

  A tiny, unreasonable part of my brain chides me for following a guy I barely know into the woods; but the relaxed slope of Garrett’s shoulders, the easy way he moves, the light smile that stays on his lips, they reassure me. I’ve got to stop being so distrusting.

  “Do you walk here a lot?” I finally ask. My voice is jarring, garish against the muted backdrop of nature.

  “No,” he says, softer, his voice more suited to our environment than mine. “Normally I run here.”

  “Here, you run?” Lower now, more aware of the forest’s acoustics, but I can’t hide the shock in my voice. “You don’t worry about…animals?”

  “Animals are afraid of people. Even a gator would prefer not to tangle with a fully grown human.”

  I look around warily as we rustle through the brush.

  “Although,” he says, peeking back at me, “you might be small enough to make a tasty snack.”

  “Ha ha,” I say, but the hairs on my arms are standing up again.

  “We’re almost there. Are you hungry?”

  I skipped lunch and I’m starving. “A little.”

  We walk for another minute or so before he says, “Okay, this is it.”

  I lift my eyes from the path, where I have been on constant watch for anything that could kill or maim me, and look ahead.

  Whoa.

  Spread before us—below us, really—is the wide bend of a creek, with an embankment that drops some ten or fifteen feet to the water. Somehow, without my realizing it, we’ve been hiking at a slight incline the entire way, rising above the usual sea level Florida terrain. The water here is a rich, shining brown, hinting at teeming life beneath the surface. Mangroves border the edge of the waterway, their bold roots rising up out of the murk like knotty human knees. A massive pine has fallen across one section of the water, and four turtles have lined up on its trunk to sun themselves in the patch of sunlight bursting through a break in the treetops.