Diving Deep

by Megyn Ward

  I hold both palms out to her, before pointing at my dive partner, totally throwing her under the bus.

  Even from behind her mask and regulator, I can tell she doesn’t believe me. I pull away from her and point at my dive partner again. Not willing to take any chances, she grabs us both and tugs us toward the surface. At fifteen feet, she stops us, unwinds an inflatable orange sausage and fills it with air from her BC. It’ll alert the boat to come to this spot and pick up divers.

  She gives us a signal to wait three minutes for our safety stop before heading to the surface. Before she starts her descent she studies me. Through her mask and mine, I see the brilliant blue of her eyes. I expect to see a raging furnace of temper. Instead, she seems to be concerned.

  It almost makes me wish I was the one who’d gotten sick. I could use some sympathy right now.

  Maybe that was her job as dive master, but something about her look makes me think this was less about her job and more about me, personally.

  Lexi never looked at you like that. Like she cared.

  Before I even have time to process the thought and why having it feels like a betrayal, the cute blonde gives me one last look and swims away.

  Chapter 5

  Kylie

  It would be best for a dive master to ascend with a distressed diver, but I have no time to figure out which of the Hangover Twins has been blowing chunks all over my dive.

  I have eight other divers down there. I need to get back to them.

  I should hate this guy. A lot. First, he stiffed me out of $65 plus tip, then he more than likely puked on my dive, but the truth is, I don’t. Looking into his eyes I’d felt something. Something I haven’t felt in a long time.

  Be honest, Kylie. You’ve never felt the way you did, looking into his eyes. Like you were falling and flying. Drowning and diving—all at once.

  Shit.

  Maybe horny and stupid are the same thing.

  I return to the group but keep an eye on him. I should be glad to get him off my hands for the rest of the dive. So why did I want to climb aboard with him and make sure he was okay?

  Quit being ridiculous. Ritchie Rich is just fine. So is his girlfriend.

  Yeah, dumbass. His girlfriend.

  I gather the other divers and we continue. Dadbod, Vacant Mom and their kids rush ahead. The honeymooners hold hands and seem more interested in taking selfies than actually experiencing the dive. Pudge and Fake don’t seem to care if they lost half of their group, too involved with each other to take notice. I know where we can find some typical sights and we start on our way.

  I’ve been working for Mike at Dive Love for nearly a year. He’d been reluctant to hire someone so young and even though he didn’t say so, I knew he was skeptical a girl could handle the responsibility. But I haven’t had an incident since I started, and he’s come around slowly from letting me be the junior dive master on bigger boats, to taking out my own groups in the smaller boats.

  As much as I love diving and making my living as a dive master was a dream come true, it isn’t why I’d come to Cayman.

  I have a very specific reason for locating here. A job to do. One I’ve been putting it off because I not sure how to go about getting started. But I need to make a plan. The rich four assholes reminded me of why I came to the island in the first place. Time is ticking by and instead of getting busy with my mission, I’m lolly-gagging (Mom’s favorite term) around on the ocean, diving every day.

  I clank the brass ring on my tank, the tapping carrying through the water to alert the divers.

  The Pudge and Fake gather close. They spot the green moray eel, his snout poking from the coral, mouth opening and closing in a menacing way. I float a few feet away and count. The newlyweds who swam while holding hands, hover above the eel. The family group from New York had already blasted by the eel and now turn around. The overweight dad in the lead, the anorexic mother behind and two kids. Two kids? I only saw one.

  Damn. The littlest one wasn’t with them. What about buddy diving did these people not get? And now, Dadbod in his state-of-the-art fins and Vacant Mom in her 5 mil wetsuit with hood and gloves, had let one of their precious slip away. This was not the fucking playground in Happy Park!

  Goddamn it. If the kid wandered off he could be anywhere. Coral formations and mounds of sand with waving fans could easily hide a youngster no bigger than a St. Bernard. The current wasn’t strong but an absent-minded kid could let it carry him away from the group in short order.

  I bang on my tank again and make the motion with my hands to buddy up. Everyone stares at me through their masks. The newlyweds already have each other’s hands. The two dipshits huddle close. Vacant Mom grabs her kid’s hand.

  All buddied. Except Dadbod.

  He whips his head around. Then up, down, back to me. I see the panic in his face.

  Right, fucker. You lost your kid.

  He kicks his legs and starts swimming back the direction he’d just come. I scissor my legs and, despite his fancy equipment, overtake him quickly. I include the rest of the group when I make the hand motion for them to ascend to their safety stop at 15 feet, then go to the surface. Dadbod shakes his head, determined to search for his son. That would be a real cluster.

  I emphatically motion for him to join his family and head up. I don’t have time to argue with this asshole. His son is missing and I need to find him. I can’t take the risk this asshole will get lost, too. He must have understood my urgency because he swims back to Vacant Mom and the other boy.

  I swim off, trying to stay calm. He couldn’t be missing more than a couple of minutes. Hopefully the little guy isn’t aware he’s alone. Maybe he’s studying a tiny rock shrimp or got fascinated by a slow-swimming turtle. I’d watched the little guy for most of the thirty minutes we’d been underwater. He has a much quieter manner than the rest of his blustering family who all seem to be in a rush. This guy mostly lagged behind them, focusing on the small coral worms that look like flowers but slurp inside their shell if a finger got too close.

  I glance over my shoulder and do a quick count of the bodies hovering on their safety stop. With the addition of Scruff-face and his girlfriend on the boat, all accounted for, thank god. I check my dive computer. With more than half a tank of air, I could be down here for another hour.

  If the little guy discovers he’s alone and panics, he’ll use up more air. He might be a quick breather anyway. The ocean is a big place and one little boy could be hard to find. He’s alone out there and I know that being alone when you’re little is the worst thing in the world.

  Chapter 6

  Kylie

  I strain to hear anything beyond the whoosh-gurgle of my breath through the regulator. Sounds don’t carry underwater so unless the little guy has a brass ring or something else to tap on his steel air tank, there probably isn’t any sound I’d hear from him. Thank god the visibility is nearly perfect, with a sunny sky. We aren’t any deeper than 25 feet. I’d chosen this site to dive today because the light would make the colors of the coral vibrant. Bright shallows would showcase the deep purple of the coral fans up against the electric orange of the sponges and neon green tube coral. On any day, these sights would fill me with wonder. There’s nothing I love more than scuba diving.

  Even though I’d come to Grand Cayman several months ago bent on a mission, the time I’ve spent underwater have been some the best moments of my life.

  But the beauty and wonder of the deep vanished, leaving the sinister danger of the ocean. Finding one little boy in this vastness will take luck. I haven’t been the luckiest girl in the world. I pray the boy’s luck was better.

  A school of sergeant-majors, their black and yellow stripes vivid, scurries ahead of me. A silvery grouper the size of a rural mailbox swims beside me. The hills of coral stretch along the sandy channel, like islands of color. I swing my head back and forth, my heart thudding harder and faster with each moment that passed. He could be swimming in any direction and I hav
e no idea where to look.

  I check my computer. It’s only been five minutes since I sent the other divers to the surface. I glance back to see Dadbod floating on the surface with his face down. At least he has his eyes down, helping me look.

  A figure splashes into the water next to Dadbod and I recognize Blake distinctive split fins. He descends rapidly and I turn back to my search, glad to have his help. Beyond a coral cluster a few yards to my left I see a thin trail of bubbles heading toward the surface. I focus, squinting to make out the shape. A large sea turtle floated, slowly gaining altitude. His wide flippers barely moved, giving him the look of a serene, if awkward, bird sailing on a thermal. I scissor my legs, digging my thigh muscles against the water. My dive computer flows behind me, wavering in the current I’m creating.

  I swim up the coral hill. Below me the masked face turns up and his hand rises, finger pointing at the turtle. He waves his arm in his excitement to show me—the big, important dive master—his thrill at spotting the turtle.

  God, I didn’t know whether I wanted to hug him or swat him, but I totally understood how the ocean, with its delights, could smack you upside the head and make you forget everything. I swim to his side and make the signal for buddy. His eyes fly open and he casts around me, for the first time noticing he’s alone. I’d pegged him about ten-years-old, just at the cut-off for Dive Love to allow him on a trip. I remember my first dives and the magic that sank so deeply into my bones I couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything else.

  It looks like he’d been bitten by the same rock crab as me and would be obsessed with diving for the rest of his life. I understood, but understanding didn’t make my heart beat any easier or calm my adrenaline-laced blood.

  I take hold of his hand and together we retrace my path. I unclip my second inflatable orange sausage from my vest and let it out. It floats to the surface to alert the boat of our location. They know where we are but it’s protocol and I usually followed the rules to the letter. We ascend slowly before dangling at the fifteen-foot safety stop, where we’d hang for three minutes to let nitrogen off-load from our blood system.

  Dadbod takes hold of the air release tube of his dive vest and raised his hand above his head. He pushes the button and air left his vest so he could descend to us. When he made it to our level, he grabs the kid’s hand from mine, anger visible in his eyes behind his mask. I can’t tell if he was mad at me or the kid. He ought to save all that blame for himself. It’s his kid and his buddy. That meant his responsibility.

  Blake hasn’t gone too far on his search and spotted us. He starts his ascent.

  With the kid hanging on to his dad, my fear washes away with the gentle sway of the ocean. This is the last dive of the day for me. We’ll hit the dock about 2:30 and I’ll have to help clean and stow the equipment. With any luck I’ll be out of there by 4 o’clock. That would give me almost four hours before I start my shift at the Green Frog.

  I love Cayman. I love the beach and the diving. The tropical smells, jerk chicken, reggae, the whole bit. But I don’t like rich American tourists with their loud mouths, demands, and attitude of royalty.

  If I ever… strike that. When I get enough money, I won’t treat people like shit. I’ll remember what it’s like to be without and treat everyone with respect. That’s what Mom taught me. She never had anything and she got kicked around a lot. But she was always nice to people. She’d be disappointed in me if I ever treated people as if they were inferior.

  When Blake joins me, I only have another minute to go. I grin at him, not easy with a regulator in my mouth. I expect to get an okay or thumbs up from him. We found the kid, no harm, no foul. I’ll give the kid a firm lecture when we get on the boat and Dadbod will probably yell at him to bring the point home.

  Blake doesn’t look at all relieved. I get no hand signal from him. I’m not bad at reading people but put a diving mask and regulator on someone and it makes it more of a challenge. Even so, he looks worried.

  Dadbod cut the safety stop short and drags the kid to the surface. I come after them, rolling up my inflatable sausage as I go. My head pops above the surface at the back of the boat.

  Scruff-face has hold of the little guy and hauls him aboard. Despite feeling as awful as he must feel, Scruff-face grins at him and says something that makes the kid laugh.

  Vacant Mom rallies and throws her arms around the kid. The only thing keeping her from sending the kid back into the ocean is Richard’s firm grasp on the handle at the top of the kid’s vest. With a shove and lift, Richard maneuvers the kid to sit on the bench seat along the edge of the boat. He immediately goes to work unbuckling the vest and jerking the kid loose.

  Meanwhile, I swim behind Dadbod and help him climb aboard. The whole boat rocks as he hefts his weight inside. By the time it was my turn to clamber on, Blake surfaces.

  He spits his regulator out. “What’s our story?” he whispers while we hold to the side of the boat and dangle in the water.

  “Story?”

  “Yeah.” He leans closer, our heads below the side of the boat. He spits out salt water. “We’re gonna get blamed for losing a diver. We have to have a good reason.”

  I push my mask up on my forehead. “We didn’t lose a diver. And you weren’t down there. Don’t worry about it.” I put my other hand on the side of the boat, ready to climb in.

  He pulls my hand away and keeps with his urgent whisper. “Do you know who that is? He’s not going to let this go. Mike is gonna have to do something.”

  Mike ran a safe business, the best equipment, always maintained, trips that ran on time, friendly service. He doesn’t put up with mischief from his dive masters or staff. “I don’t give a shit who he is,” I whisper back. “It was his buddy, his kid, his responsibility.”

  I pull myself up and look back at Blake. He shakes his head as if I was nuts but doesn’t say anything else.

  Chapter 7

  Kylie

  When I get on the boat, Vacant Mom has lost all her vagueness and is clinging to the little boy, whom I discover they called Chip. He looks annoyed with her hugs and kisses and tears. Dadbod clamps Chip on the shoulder and purses his lips tight, as if holding back tears.

  I shrug out of my BC and pry off my fins.

  When I look up, Dadbod is blocking my way. He glowers down at me. “What the hell was that?”

  You mean you losing track of your kid? As gently as possible I let him know it was his fault. “Chip must’ve got distracted by the turtle and you didn’t notice he wasn’t keeping up with you.”

  “Do you lose divers often?” He narrows his eyes. “Is that how this operation works?”

  Blake and Richard are busy in the stern. I can’t expect them to intervene but it would be nice to have some backup.

  Scruff-face stands up. “Hey, no need to attack her, everyone is fine.”

  I hadn’t expected help from that front.

  Dadbod looks like he wants to shove Scruff-face overboard.

  I use my most reasonable tone. “We adhere to the buddy system, which is standard safety procedure with any dive. My job is to keep an eye on everyone but each diver has a specific responsibility to his or her buddy.”

  Dadbod raises his voice. “But you didn’t do your job, did you?”

  I didn’t mean to, but I spare a glance at Scruff-face and the paler than pale girl huddled on the bench behind him.

  “That’s my fault.” He doesn’t hesitate to jump in. “My friend got sick and Kylie had to help out.” He shoots me a quick look that might be an apology before pressing on. “But you lost track of your kid. Kylie found him. You should be thanking her.”

  The boat sways and Dadbod stumbles, which seems to make him even madder. “Kylie?” He nods his head like my name is a key piece of evidence in my prosecution. “On a first name basis, are we?” He looks at me, eyes narrowed. “My family put their lives in your hands and you treat today’s dive like an opportunity to flirt. You’re not being paid to participate in a
dating service.”

  Scruff-face scoffs. “See, now that’s just you trying to make excuses for losing your kid.”

  I’m so angry I could launch from the deck straight at Dadbod’s throat. Exercising every ounce of control I’ve learned from years of dealing with self-absorbed assholes, I manage a smile. “My concern is for everyone’s safety. Everyone is on the boat and safe. This is an unfortunate incident but it turned out fine. I’m sure Chip learned a valuable lesson about staying aware of his surroundings.”

  “How dare you try to pin this lapse of judgment on my son.” Dadbod points his finger at my chest. “That’s what’s wrong with your generation. No one is accountable for their own actions. How about admitting you fucked up.”

  Vacant Mom gasps at his cursing. Fake, and Pudge snicker, as if they think I was getting my just desserts. The honeymooners huddle in the front of the boat pretending they aren’t listening. Scruff-face tries to step between me and Dadbod but I eased him back.

  I lost the last bit of restraint and open my mouth to tell Dadbod what I think of personal accountability in regards to the buddy system and his parenting. Richard fires up the engine just as the first syllable slips from my lips. And it was a great one, too.

  The motor roars and we jerk forward. Dadbod stumbles into me and I right him, not so gently, and back him to sit on the bench. For the next 15 minutes we zoom toward the dock, bouncing hard on the waves, the scream of the motor too loud for conversation. I busy myself collecting weights and belts and stowing equipment. Every time I glance at Dadbod, he holds me in the bullseye of his angry sites.

  Scruff-face watches Dadbod like a dog guarding sheep. I get the impression that if Dadbod made any more comments, Scruff-face would lay him out cold.

  Scruff-face had been the only one to stand up for me. Of course, if it hadn’t been for him and his green girlfriend, Dadbod wouldn’t have any reason to blame me for losing Chip, in the first place.