Dive

by Stacey Donovan

  “That’s what I love best about you. Can we meet in the morning and go to the pond?”

  “Sure,” my voice says, my lips crooked as I talk. How does she think these things?

  “Meet me at ten. End of your driveway.”

  As I look in the mirror, I do look like my father. The flesh strains at the edges of my mouth, the shadows beneath my eyes. I know I’ve thought before if he dies I’ll die too, but I’m scared. His eyes look so unbelievably hollow now, as if they can’t focus on anything outside, no, only on what’s inside, and it looks dark in there. It scares me. I didn’t say that to Jane. Or that my heart beats so much now I can hear it all the time. It keeps reminding me that I’m alive. I don’t want to die.

  | | | | | |

  In the morning I feel unnaturally calm, like there’s a version of me in the back of my head watching the rest of me. It’s not the floating, anxious me. It’s me, but detached from myself, like pieces of metal, maybe car parts. This is a new one. V, the busted muffler. Oh, delight. As we sit by the pond, I wonder about this, how many versions of themselves a person can become before the face in the mirror is unrecognizable. Until those uneven eyebrows or crooked lips are so distant they turn into a memory, even while they’re being looked at.

  | | |

  “It doesn’t make sense that I’ll die,” I say.

  Jane pretends to check for a fever, hand on my forehead. “You’re not dead yet.”

  “Maybe I am.”

  “You mean I’m talking to a ghost?”

  “See you at my funeral. Will you come?” I say.

  “When do I RSVP?”

  “And for a eulogy you would say what?”

  “I don’t know you well enough,” Jane says. “Eileen should do it, I think, but you two are on the outs or something, is that it?”

  Eileen. She would only run away.

  We’re lying inches apart, in the grass by the edge of the water. The grass is swaying in the mild breeze.

  “Look at the ducks,” I say, pointing across the pond, wanting to push Eileen from my mind. There’s a small bunch standing along the shoreline across the water. They’re so still, their beaks lowered, they look almost as if they’re praying. It’s unusual that they’re all on land, not a solitary one skimming circles in the water. The pond is also still, just an occasional lap of water disappearing into the sand.

  It begins to feel unusual that Jane is lying so close to me. And then I have an even more unusual thought. I want her to lie closer. Inside me would be good. If only we could get rid of these clumsy bodies and dissolve into each other. The way water disappears into sand.

  | | |

  I don’t know if I’ve ever felt anything more strongly than the feeling that we belong together. It comes in a rush that swerves in a welcome hurry through my arms and legs. It’s so strong I feel connected to the ground, as if a hushed, wet hand of wind has slipped along and slid inside me. I’m so full and the feeling is so strong I think that if I move, I’ll burst. I want to look at Jane, to see if she can feel what’s happening. That’s when she kisses me. Her entire body and everything I wonder about in her seems to roll onto my lips as she kisses me. Then she kisses me again. It’s beyond dissolving.

  Just by Being There

  I don’t know the name for the feeling that’s crawling inside me, but I know what it is. It was very strong with Grant Sullivan, who I didn’t always hate the way I do now. The truth is, I used to like him. Much more than I want to admit. But the truth is so important now, and I don’t know why that is either. I have to tell it. I feel like if I don’t tell the truth about everything, I’ll die. If I can’t make somebody understand what I feel, I’ll disintegrate into the air. My eyes will close. My mouth will shut. My life will vanish. I’m too young to die.

  The truth can sometimes wake somebody. Earlier than the birds, I am awake. It’s Sunday morning. I get up and wander into the kitchen. I see Edward through the window, his head under the hood of the Plymouth. I walk outside.

  “It’s me,” I say to the visible part of his ponytail.

  “Is it you?” he replies.

  “Can’t sleep.”

  “I could have told you that.” He lifts his head to look at me. “You look like shit,” he says.

  “Thanks, Wadface. I can always rely on you for the facts.” My blunt brother. Well, it’s not a bad quality. It doesn’t leave any room for confusion, at least. “I’m worried,” I say. That’s the truth.

  “I know.” He’s serious.

  I look directly into my brother’s eyes. They are still clear.

  “Gonna have to glue up,” he says, backing away from the engine. “Stick around.”

  “Sure.” ‘Glue up’? What was this new language? He drops the rag he’s holding and grabs a cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket.

  “It’s pretty obvious Dad’s not long,” he mumbles, cigarette dangling from his lips.

  I hear a grunt. It’s me, trying to say something. We haven’t said anything out loud about my dad until now. Edward just takes a long drag off his cigarette and waits.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” I say. It’s so vague but it’s true, and my eyes are blurring with tears.

  I don’t know what to say.

  Edward grabs me in a quick hug. “The thing is,” he says, “I want you to know . . . is that, soon as I’m eighteen, I’m gone too.” He won’t look at me, reaches instead for the rag and twists the cap off a bottle of 5W-30.

  “What are you talking about?” Is he telling me he’s sick?

  Did he hug me?

  “I’m going into the army; I’m all joined up. Going to study engines, but nobody knows. I want to keep it that way for now, because there’s enough going on around here, don’t you think?” When Edward grins, his ears redden.

  “You?” is all I manage, spluttering now, like the oil as it oozes into the casing beneath the hood.

  “Like I said. So it looks like everything around here is going to be fallin’ on you.” The grin vanishes.

  “But Edward, the army? What’s falling?” The sky? My life into pieces?

  “You know what I mean . . . Mom will be a wreck.”

  I don’t know who’s more surprised when I say, “But you can’t leave. I mean, what will I do without you?”

  “You’ll be okay. You’re tougher than she is.”

  I look at him. “That’s not what I mean—anyone’s tougher than she is—she’s already a wreck, don’t you know that?”

  He watches me. “Maybe. But you, you can do anything you want to with all those brains.” He’s so serious I can’t stand it.

  I shake my head. “Edward, I want to ask you something.” He just nods.

  “Did you quit taking drugs?” He nods again.

  “How come?”

  “Mind over matter—you can figure that one out.”

  I try to wipe the tears away from my eyes, but when I do, more surface. “Oh, no,” I say.

  “What?”

  “They’ll cut off all your hair.”

  “That was the hardest part about deciding to join.” How horrible it is to try to grow up. We can’t stop laughing. And then I hug him. He whispers, “Make sure you take care of Baby Teeth, okay?”

  Eventually, I walk back into the house, my head spinning. But there’s Lucky—tilting, limping miracle dog, tail wagging at the door. I grab him and kiss him all over his delighted head. I tell him next week his cast is coming off and we’ll parade around town. I tell him, don’t worry, I’ll find that miserable green VW. I tell him I love him. Lucky’s not going anywhere.

  | | | | | |

  Jane is standing at the end of my driveway. It’s still morning and I’m strolling around the yard with Lucky, and there she is. Standing on one of the big white rocks that surround the place. She smiles that smile when she sees me and lifts her arms like she’s going to bow. Like it’s a performance.

  “What are you doing here?” I say, noticing the burning feeli
ng start inside.

  “I wanted to see you,” she answers.

  “You could’ve called. I can’t believe you’re here.” I don’t know why I’m being so mean.

  “I know I could’ve called,” she says. I’ve never seen the way her lower lip juts out when her feelings get hurt.

  “Well, I guess we can go for a walk,” I finally manage, not able to look at her again. “Wait, let me get him inside.”

  “He’s adorable. Can I meet him?”

  I ignore her. “I’ll be right back.”

  We start walking. I can’t say anything. Just seeing her feet next to mine is too much. If she brushes against me the way she always does, I think I’ll break. We walk in silence before she finally says, “Virginia, tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I don’t know.” That’s true. All I know is that if I look at her the tears that are holding on to my eyes will burst out, and the wind is back, but rushing through me now in a cold and dreadful way. I am stuck, but stuck inside myself. What is the feeling? What terrible thing is gnawing at me? Then something happens.

  My legs, which are still miraculously walking, moving along like they aren’t connected to me, moving as heavily and clumsily as if they are tree stumps, trip. Trip over a blade of grass, and I fall, tumbling forward as though the world has just tipped over. I trip with my arms like clock hands careening around a clockface with time going so impossibly fast that days pass before my eyes as I fall. And then I’m on the ground.

  Jane is next to me before I know it, and all I can do is laugh. Suddenly, the ground, the sidewalk, the stricken look on Jane’s face are all indescribably funny. She looks at me, wondering, I imagine, if I have lost my mind. Then she catches it. She’s laughing, and we can’t stop at all, not if someone threatened to shoot us, our voices filling the morning air. She holds me just as tightly as I hold her as we reel in the grip of this new spell we’re under. The laughter, like wind, finally stops.

  | | |

  “You look just like you did the first time I saw you,” she says.

  “When was that?”

  “The day I registered at school—it was in the hall.”

  “You saw me that day?”

  “Of course I did, V. Didn’t you see me?”

  “Yes.” Of course I did, but I didn’t know she’d seen me. “What did I look like?” I ask.

  “Like a lost kid at a parade.”

  Then she tells me she’s supposed to be at the Dairy Barn, getting a quart of milk. We don’t say good-bye. We just look at each other. Why not? Why? I’m standing on the empty road.

  There are too many questions. The crawling feeling is back. At this moment it’s fear that crawls through me. It shakes my hands from the inside out. I have a certain feeling about Jane. It seems it’s one I’ve always had, only I never knew it. Who cares if it’s possible, it’s true. What’s the feeling? I’m still standing on the road.

  After yesterday at the pond with Jane, after making out with Jane, I wanted to run away. Last night, as I lay in bed, all I could do was feel her mouth on mine. It’s the same feeling I have when I see her sweep her head of beautiful hair through the air or watch that undulating walk of hers.

  Except it’s part of me now, as I stand on the road. It’s on my mouth and I can taste it. The most amazing feeling I’ve ever had. If there was anything that didn’t exist when she was kissing me, when I was kissing her, because we got so tangled up together, it was time. We kissed forever. The last thing I wanted to do was stop. And then we did stop, I guess, but I don’t know when. And then we looked at each other. It was hard to look into her eyes, but it was even harder to tear my eyes from her as we said good-bye. I couldn’t stop feeling the feeling.

  But when I saw her today, the last place I wanted to be was near her. I don’t know why. When something broke in me and I kept laughing even when the laughing was over so she wouldn’t take her arms away, the hands that reached so instantly for me when I fell. I wished she would kiss me again, even though we were in the middle of the road.

  I didn’t care that the entire world could’ve seen. Nothing else mattered. And what was all the other stuff about? The anger, I mean. Why was I acting so mean when I first saw her on my driveway? Why did I feel that she was asking something impossible of me just by being there? Is it because I’m afraid she’ll leave too? I’m afraid to ask myself one question in particular, but I know I have to, because it’s digging a hole inside me. Do I love her? I mean, do I love her?

  When the Wave Comes

  Like everybody else in the world, it seemed, we had headed toward the ocean. It was at least five years ago, during a dry, sweltering August. Ours and a million other cars inched by the BEACH signs along the highway. The car was packed with sand chairs, beach umbrellas, and fishing poles.

  | | |

  Wadbreath was sprawled out on the backseat, and my sister and I were all the way in the back of the old red station wagon. I was searching for the bag that held the hard-boiled eggs and giving Baby Teeth a bird lecture.

  “There are at least ninety species of sparrows recorded in North America. You can look at them and wonder how they stay alive, they’re so small. But sparrows are able to live in places where other birds find it hard to survive. Isn’t that great?” I loved knowing stuff like this. My dad had told me about the birds, in just this way. That’s how I remembered, why I said it this way. “Do you know how many ninety is?”

  “What?” my sister said. She had wanted to sit in the front with my mother and, for spite, pretended she couldn’t hear me. But when Baby Teeth pretended in this way, she wanted everyone to know. “WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?”

  “Stop it,” my mother said. I assumed my mother was talking to my sister, whose dreadful attitude was, to my mother’s mind, I’m sure, infecting the whole gang. My mother didn’t like it when we were finally all together and everybody didn’t pretend to be overjoyed. I have to remind myself that this was five years ago.

  “Only some sparrows are good singers. A canary is a sparrow; did you know that? Canaries have terrific voices.” I could still smell the eggs, but I couldn’t find them.

  “Virginia, did you hear me?”

  “We’re almost there,” my father called, to no one in particular, but happily. He was always in a good mood when we were in the car going somewhere. When we really traveled, to places we’d never been, like zoos or lakes, we always got lost.

  My father refused to look at a map, though my mother’s hands always held one during those journeys. She’d point out that he’d inevitably taken a wrong turn, and he’d ignore her. It was like he was driving in a dream, making up the directions as he went along. Eventually his smile would fade, unable, I guess, to sustain itself against my mother’s complaints.

  “Will you stop ruining the trip before we even get there?” he’d say, and finally grab the map.

  “I just don’t want to get there tomorrow,” she’d answer, head turned smugly to the window.

  It was my opinion that he wanted to get lost.

  At least he knew the way to the beach. After parking in one of the numbered “fields,” each holding hundreds of cars, it seemed to take forever to walk to the shore. Especially weighed down with beach stuff. Everybody squinted against the immense summer sun. It was ninety-eight degrees and not even noon. A real scorcher, that’s what the deep voice on the radio had said while we drove. I never found the eggs. That’s because Wadnod, who later confessed, had secretly eaten them all.

  A storm was expected later that day, and the ocean confirmed the voice on the radio. The waves were impossibly huge and wild. The water was not blue that day, but white. White with the whipping sea spray and breaking waves.

  Baby Teeth begged my father to put her down as they stood at the edge of the water. Her tears made it clear that she was afraid. I was scared too. But I was also drawn to it, in the same way I was pulled toward sleep when I closed my eyes. The embracing waves, the floating surrender. The problem with the ocean was that
it was just too big. It could swallow somebody.

  Because I knew that in the ocean were tremendous monsters with vicious teeth. Just looking at the water, I felt the feeling that washed over me as I lay in bed at night, when I could still think but my thoughts were dunking and floating at the same time. When life was bobbing behind my eyes in a haphazard, sprawling way. The spray of the surf as it flew through the scorching air was a cool relief against my skin. But when I looked out at the ocean and was struck by how dangerous it was, everything inside me seemed to clatter, like breaking shells. My dad finally put Baby Teeth down. She dropped her tube into the sand. “Not me,” she said, and ran as fast as her petrified three-year-old legs would carry her.

  “Do you want to go in with me?” he asked, his grinning face looming above me.

  “I don’t know.” The surf was so cool, but the waves were so big.

  “Just hold my hand,” he offered, “and when the wave comes, we dive under. Just hold on to my hand.”

  Though I couldn’t tell him, I knew that he knew I was scared. He kept smiling and nodding at me the way I’d seen people look at babies. But I couldn’t say anything. I wanted to go, even though I was scared. Just me and my dad. When I finally reached out my hand for his, I think I stopped breathing. I had just seen Moby Dick, and Gregory Peck had died a brutal death in that movie, strapped to the back of the whale. I knew how to swim, that much I knew, but not in a wild ocean. Not in an ululating sea like this.

  A lot of whooping noises and splashing usually followed my father as he went into the water. “Getting acquainted,” he called it. But not today. Today we stood as still as telephone poles.