Lifeguard

by Deborah Blumenthal

  But off in the distance, I make out a yellow haze. Very slowly it becomes brighter. The glow of headlights, I realize, as a car approaches slowly and cautiously. It looks like it’s going to pass us, but it stops. The window on the passenger side rolls down.

  “Get in, I’ll give you a ride.”

  Does he patrol the beach by car when he’s not on duty?

  Without hesitating, I pull open the door and get into the front seat. Will bolts into my lap. The side window closes and the air inside the car becomes as heated and heavy as the night air in Houston.

  I inhale his sweet smell of jasmine, citrus and coconut —it must be in his blood by now. Water drips from my hair, soaking the seat. Will shakes his whole body, showering both of us, and nervous laughter bursts out of me uncontrollably. I feel wired, my pulsating blood buzzing in my head.

  “Are you sure you want us in your car like this?

  His face breaks into a half smile. “I’m not afraid of water.” He reaches into the back seat and hands me a towel and I begin to dry my hair, He glances over at me once, then a second time. I watch him back with the odd feeling that drying my hair has assumed some greater meaning and significance.

  “So what do you do when you’re not saving people?” I say to fill the awkwardness.

  “That’s…more than a full-time job.”

  “Thanks for picking us up. I thought we’d have to swim home.” I start to laugh again for no reason. If he thinks I’m insanely crazy, he doesn’t show it. To do something with my hands, I take the towel and blot the water off the front seat.

  I steal glances at him as he drives, his left hand on the wheel, the right lightly resting on the worn jeans covering his thigh, fingers spread slightly apart. Like a video camera, my eyes record every last detail and imprint it all on my brain’s hard drive. I absorb every bit of information I can from studying him, as if seeing him up close will let me understand who he is and what’s in his head.

  Every part of him is impossibly perfect. The strong shoulders. The swell of his biceps, half hidden by the soft edge of his white T-shirt. The lean forearms lightly covered with blond hair. Long, slender fingers. Smooth, even nails cut short and rounded. I fight the urge to reach out and feel his skin.

  The car stops suddenly, the engine dies. Where are we? I look up surprised as if I’m being awakened from a dream. In front of Aunt Ellie’s. Already?

  I don’t want to leave.

  We sit for a moment without talking, mesmerized by the deafening downpour. Will’s wet, doggy smell competes with the coconut and jasmine, like reality at odds with fantasy. In the warm, moist space of the car my senses feel overloaded.

  He leans his head back and stares at the windshield. “Like being inside the car wash,” he says.

  It’s almost impossible to see out. I drop my eyes to the idiotic orange poop bag wrapped around the handle of the leash, like a scarf around the strap of a designer bag. The rain pounds like hail on the roof of the car. Everything ordinary now vibrates with extrasensory significance—what it must be like to be high on acid. What is it about being next to him that does that? Every breath I take feels super-saturated with energy and oxygen, making me jittery and on edge. Does that happen to everyone around him, or is it just me?

  “Do you want to come in for a soda or something?” I come up with, breaking the silence. “Just to get out of this?” It’s lame, I can’t help it.

  He smiles. “I have to take off, but thanks.”

  “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Stay safe,” he says.

  We dash from the car and his eyes are on me—I can feel them. And then for the first time, it occurs to me.

  I don’t even know his name.

  Will and I race into the house and I go upstairs to change, slipping into a dry T-shirt and shorts. I sit on the edge of my bed and replay what just happened.

  There’s no way he would have come in. No way. What was I thinking, that he’d want milk and cookies and we’d hang out and watch TV or play video games like sixth graders?

  I shouldn’t have asked him. I should have just shut up and acted cool. Now I feel stupid.

  What else is new?

  We have soup for dinner. Aunt Ellie’s pot of clam chowder could feed twenty. After we eat I go upstairs and turn on the TV. She never watches so she doesn’t have the cable stations we have at home. For lack of anything better, I sit through a rerun of Friends. My head is back on the pillow and my eyelids start to flutter.

  That’s when I begin to hear them.

  Strange sounds. At first I think they’re part of my dreams.

  Only they’re not.

  I sit up totally awake now, but they don’t stop. They’re eerie. Not animal, not human, moaning and then a disturbing higher frequency whistling. It sounds like the howling the wind makes when there’s a tropical storm so fierce the window frames whine and you can feel the vibrations in your bones, like scratching on a blackboard.

  Only now it’s not the wind.

  It’s something supernatural and less benign.

  Only what?

  I lean forward and turn down the TV. The sounds seem to stop. I ease the volume back up and it starts again. Will is next to me on the bed. I can swear he’s lifting his ears up straight as though he hears it too. Then I spot Nina, the most docile of Aunt Ellie’s cats. She’s curled up in the corner, eyes wide and shocked, shining like glass marbles. Is it my imagination, or does she look spooked too?

  I hold my breath. Is someone or something playing with me? Or does it just feel safer, protected, when other house sounds muffle it?

  “It’s freaky, right, Will?”

  His ears shoot straight up again on high alert, but he hasn’t processed what it is. He cocks his head slightly as if he’s picking up something curious out of human range. I leave the TV on and edge toward the staircase. Will bolts after me.

  “Aunt Ellie?” I break into a run down to her office, yelling out to fill the air with the reassuring sound of my own normal voice and presence.

  She looks up, concerned. “What is it, Sirena?”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  She leans back in her chair and swivels around to face me. “Shoot.”

  “I’m hearing these…sounds… from upstairs.”

  She reaches a hand up to the side of her jaw and rubs it, nodding.

  “Do you know what…”

  She nods knowingly again.

  “Are they always the same?”

  She takes her glasses off. “Not always, why?”

  “Do you think the ghost is trying to tell us something?”

  Her face softens. “I don’t know if it’s true or not, but there a story about a woman who lived in this house. Her husband had a fishing boat, I heard. Supposedly one day he went out to sea and never came back. Nobody ever found him or the boat so the story people started telling was that the voice was his wife’s and she was crying out for him. They said she’d never stop until she found him.”

  “When do you hear it?”

  “When the weather’s bad…They say he left when there was a bad storm approaching.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I can’t not believe it, even though I’d be hard-pressed to find concrete evidence.”

  I feel an icy draft on my neck at that moment. But how is that possible? The house isn’t air conditioned and it’s hot outside. Is it my imagination? Tiny goose bumps suddenly rise up and dot my arms. Aunt Ellie watches as I rub my hands up and down my arms to warm myself. “Is it cold in here?”

  She shakes her head. “That happens to me sometimes, too.”

  “Omigod.”

  The chill finally passes and I try to take a deep breath. “Have you ever seen…it?”

  She makes a face as if to say, hmmm, that’s a hard one. “I haven’t actually seen what comic books show you ghosts look like, but once or twice at night, when it was raining hard, I thought I saw a white light, or something like that scoot down t
he hallway.”

  “Did it scare you?”

  “The first time, a little, but now, no…I feel sorry for her in a way, so I’m glad I can share my house with her—or that she lets me share her house.”

  “You’re so cool about it. If my mom were here she’d run from the house screaming.”

  “I’ve come to accept that there are things about this world that we’ll never nail down…never know about for certain. And in some ways I enjoy the mysteries—and the possibilities. But I do believe there are different kinds of life and spirits or ghosts, or whatever you want to call them. But—” She stops and her face softens, “fortunately we seem to share our little universe with gentle ghosts, so no, I don’t worry about it too much.”

  I hold that thought as Will and I climb back upstairs. I can’t help thinking of a story I read in the local paper, just before Halloween, about a real haunted house that was supposedly built on the site of an old cemetery. There was a place in the backyard where the owners of the house insisted that their dog refused to go. One day when the police came to the house to investigate, they brought cadaver dogs. They immediately went to that exact spot and stood right there like they knew bodies were buried below. And inside the house, all kinds of creepy, unexplained things used to happen. Lights went on by themselves, so did the TV and the water faucets. Upstairs, doors shut when no one was there. And even though the owners’ dog wasn’t white, there were white dog hairs around the house. A white dog had lived in the house, but it was many years before.

  The scariest thing of all, though, was the picture of the upstairs bathroom the local newspaper took and used with the story. If you looked at it closely, you could actually make out the evil-looking face of a man with dark, piercing eyes.

  Only the bathroom wall was bare. There were no picture of any kind on it, and no one at all could identify the mysterious image that appeared for the world to see.

  “Do you decorate your house with spooky lights or decorations for Halloween?” the reporter jokingly asked the owners.

  “No,” they said. “To us it isn’t funny.”

  The wife took pictures in the house and when she looked at them she could see little white disks she called orbs, floating in the air. They resembled tiny flying saucers.

  I open my bureau drawer and take out my camera. I snap pictures of one part of my room and then the other.

  Click. Click. Click. Click.

  Then I look at the pictures, examining them carefully.

  Nothing.

  I exhale, relieved, and toss the camera aside. I lay in bed studying the pictures. A few minutes later, I pick up the camera again and shoot more pictures.

  Click. Click. Click. Click.

  I walk to the edge of the bed and turn on the other lamp. I sit down and study the pictures again in the brightness.

  And that’s when I see them.

  The faint, white circles.

  They’re everywhere.

  nine

  There are ghosts in the house here,” I whisper into the phone to my dad.

  “What?”

  “GHOSTS.”

  Ghosts?” he says, a smile in his voice. “Okaaaay.”

  He thinks I’m teasing. “I’m not kidding, dad.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because when it rains or storms they come out, they come out in the attic, where I have my bed.”

  Silence.

  My dad is now weirded out. He doesn’t know what to say. He’s not the kind of guy who believes in ghosts, and even if he did I don’t think he’d be spooked by them, at least at first. Reality is more than enough for him to cope with. But even if there were ghosts where he slept, he’d probably fall dead asleep so fast that he’d be oblivious to them if they came out—either that, or his snoring would scare them off.

  “Ghosts like Casper or what?” he blurts out.

  “White, weird, shadowy, I don’t know exactly.”

  “Did you tell Aunt Ellie?”

  “Of course she knows, it’s her house,” I tell him. “Yeah, sure.” Another pause. “Does it scare you or what?”

  “Yes…and no.”

  “So, switch beds with Ellie when it storms. Ask her to bunk with the damn ghosts.”

  “It’s not that they’re unfriendly or dangerous, it’s just…you know, so weird.”

  “Life is weird, baby. You have to get used to it.”

  ten

  PMS is up there with ghosts in turning you into someone you don’t want to be. I’m stretched out on the living room couch, down and dirty in boxers and a sleep shirt. If I were home on the weekend during the school year, the scene might go:

  My mom: “Sirena, for God’s sake get dressed.”

  Me: “I’m studying for a stupid test. Why do I have to get dressed?” I’d slam the door of my room and go back to studying, Facebook, and ice cream.

  Only not here.

  Aunt Ellie’s had her fill. She plants herself in front of me, hands on hips. “Idea for you.”

  I look up warily.

  “Why don’t you spend a few hours a day volunteering at the hospital?”

  Or not.

  I’m not great with kids, and a job without pay? Why can’t I just veg? Only I don’t talk to Aunt Ellie the way I sometimes talk to my mom—or sometimes, don’t talk to her at all.

  I don’t want to be thrown out, so I don’t talk back, but I exhale, so she gets it. “What could I do there?” I ask, finally.

  “Lots of things,” she says brightly, getting on my nerves. “They need people to read to the kids, bring books to the patients, run errands. I’m sure they’d love to have you.”

  “Probably have to be eighteen. I’m not old enough.”

  “Yes, you are. They use volunteers your age all the time.”

  It’s not something I can explain to Aunt Ellie, but the truth is, bed is at the top of the list of places I want to be right now. And if I do go out, I want to sit by myself at the water after everyone is gone—especially him. I refuse to come off like a pathetic groupie.

  Aunt Ellie is usually cool about things, only she isn’t now. She’s drawn a line in the sand and she stares at me, waiting.

  “I guess I could go.”

  “I’m driving by this afternoon, I’ll drop you.” It’s all settled in her head, but she must read the look on my face because she comes back and sits on the edge of the couch.

  “Sirena, helping other people has a way of making you feel better. Believe it or not, it lets you forget about yourself and your own problems and see things in perspective. You’re not the first girl whose parents are breaking up and you won’t be the last. Life goes on, and you have to live your life. Nothing is inherently good or bad, it’s how you let yourself see it and react to it. Really, it’s in your hands.”

  Did I have a choice?

  She starts to walk out of the living room and then glances back at me.

  “I’m going.”

  How I see things and react to them is in my hands? How could I feel good about my life when I didn’t have one? No summer plans, no parents, no friends around and no real place to live anymore. What did that leave me? A dog friend and a fantasy? I go upstairs, stub my toe on the foot of the bed, and start to sob. I stand in the shower so she can’t hear me.

  eleven

  Aunt Ellie’s outside in the car by the time I’m dressed. We drive through town to the hospital without more talk. The best I can hope for is a flat tire, but it doesn’t happen.

  The double doors at the front of the hospital spring open by themselves as if they’re under some invisible power. To my left is a separate entrance with a red neon sign: Emergency.

  Compared to the hospitals at home, this looks like a small clinic. Only three floors and few people in the lobby. At the information desk there’s a woman in a pale pink jacket with a button: Volunteer. Next to her is a vase of flowers that looks like it was left behind by a patient who didn’t want it.

  “Who do I see about vo
lunteering?”

  Her small, sympathetic smile says she understands more about me than she possibly could. “Have a seat, dear.”

  I land on a hard, blue plastic bench opposite a girl my age engrossed in People. She sits with her skinny legs wound up like a pretzel. That reminds me of Marissa, who right now is kayaking, playing tennis, or rock climbing while I’m waiting to work for no pay. I want to call her and cry, only sleep-away camps pride themselves on not staying connected. No laptops, zero cell service in the mountains, and fewer pay phone privileges than prison inmates. That left writing letters, which arrive about as fast as they did in the 1800s.

  But I look on the bright side.

  No buggy bunks or thin, ancient mattresses for me this summer. No bug juice. No after-camp love handles from carb loading. No bleeding mosquito bites. No gross, bugafied bathrooms...

  “Sirena?”

  A woman in a green hospital jacket stands in front of me, smiling expectantly, and I crash land. At least I’m a celebrity, because the whole town already knows my name. I resist offering my autograph and smile weakly. “I was wondering if you needed a volunteer.”

  “We’re a small hospital,” she says, “but there are always patients who would welcome company, and if you’d like to read to the children or play games with them…”

  “Should I come back tomorrow, then?”

  “You can start today.” She points to the elevator. “Go to Three and ask for Mary Carol, she’s the social worker. She’ll show you around and get you started.”

  I’m given a stack of papers to fill out, and in the time it takes to answer everything, I could have written a term paper. I give it all to Mary Carol and she starts to look it over when her phone rings. “I have to take this,” she mouths. She points to a sign outside: Patients’ library and lounge.