by Edward Hogan
Lexi was lying on her back in the reeds when I found her, eyes open, her face somehow submerged in the water. Her skin was pale, and her hair fanned out like a pool of black blood. When she saw me, she blinked and rose. “Daniel!” she said.
“You can’t just do that, you know,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Run away. You ran away. You didn’t give me any reasons, and you didn’t say good-bye.”
“Danny boy,” she said. Her voice sounded frail. “I was late. I had to go.”
“Late for what? I don’t know anything about your life. Was your carriage going to turn into a pumpkin?”
“Daniel,” she said, climbing out of the water. “You don’t understand. I told you there were things about me that I couldn’t tell you. Trust me, I had to go. It had nothing to do with you.”
“That’s what they all say. But it has to do with me. If someone leaves me, it has to do with me.”
“I’m here now, aren’t I? God, I only — What’s this really about?”
She came toward me, but I backed off. “Stay away,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Look at me!” I said. “I’m falling apart.”
I showed her my hands, my ankle, the gash down my leg. “You’ve given me your disease,” I said.
She stared at each wound, her eyes widening. Clearly, she knew what was going on.
“What is it? What’s happening to me?” I asked. “A minute ago a woman passed out just from touching me.”
“Where did you get these marks?” Lexi asked. “Did you fall?”
“No! You know I didn’t fall. You know what’s happening. I woke up with these wounds, and they are getting worse, not better. Just like yours.”
“Oh, Jesus,” she said.
“It’s contagious, isn’t it? It’s one of those flesh-eating viruses.”
“No, Daniel. It’s not a virus. It’s . . . I can’t . . .” She started crying, but I was so tightly wound, I didn’t even care.
“Why won’t anyone ever tell me what’s going on?” I said.
She was crying freely now. “You have to go, Daniel. You have to stay away from me. I’m no good for you. This is all my fault.”
“Shut up!” I shouted. “This time it’s my turn to leave. You’re nothing but trouble, anyway. I could tell people about you. I could tell them what you’re doing here. That you lie and steal.”
She looked at my hands again and then covered her face and sobbed.
I pointed at her. “So why don’t you stay away from me,” I said.
I sprinted off toward the Dome, trying hard to deal with the pain in my ankle, and the pain in my soul, the fury. The biggest part of me wanted to turn back, but sometimes, when you think someone’s going to walk away from you, there’s only one thing to do: walk away first.
In the pre-pool shower, a man was staring at my leg. I knew he was about to say something, but I gave him such a scowl that he thought better of it. The disinfectant foot wash stung the cuts on my ankle.
I desperately needed clear head space. I needed to reach that place in my mind where the world slowed down, stopped, and then disappeared. I needed to swim.
Ryan was trying to make eye contact with me, but I was afraid he would try to throw me out of the pool when he saw the gash on my leg, and, besides, I didn’t want to speak to anyone. The wave machine was on, but I didn’t care. I waded through the lapping shallows, then sank and glided beyond the fighting kids, the bobbing mothers with their paddling babies. I slipped beneath the bright red rubber rings and the purple rafts. I cut through the man-made current, the plumes of air billowing out of me like smoke from a ship on fire. I kept going deeper, let the air out and the water in. I let the world go dark before coming up to breathe. And I began to count. One. And. Two. And.
The world, thank God, fell away for a while, and I was back in that gap, feeling nothing but the relentless clockwork of my limbs. I was down for a long time, and when the gap in my thoughts began to close again, I saw images of Lexi, as she had been in the reeds. I saw the things I hadn’t seen when I was there. The things I had been too angry to see and didn’t want to see now: the swelling around her flickering eyelids, the coppery stain of watery blood across her cheek. I had my wounds, but she was in a far worse state than me.
Forget her, I told myself as I rose up through the layers of silence and back to the screeching surface.
I sat on the edge of one of the loungers and felt the hot, dry air against my skin. I didn’t bother putting my T-shirt on because I didn’t care who saw me. In my mind, I dared people to make a remark. The way I was feeling, I would have torn them to shreds.
When the group of boys who had taunted me on Friday made a move toward my lounger, I thought I was going to have to put my violent thoughts into action.
“All right, mate,” the tall one said.
I didn’t reply.
“I said all right, mate,” he said again.
“What do you want?” I said.
“Steady on,” he said. “We just wanted to talk to you.”
“Yeah, right. Two days ago, you wanted to feel me up,” I said.
The tall boy laughed. “That was just Thorpey. He’s a queer.”
“Shut up, Jack, you tosser,” said a lad with a crew cut and long red shorts.
Jack laughed. “Saw you swimming, that’s all. Lewis swims for the county,” he said, pointing to the third boy, who folded his powerful arms. “He reckons you’re quite fast.”
“Yeah, well. I’m not racing anyone, if that’s what this is about,” I said.
“Race me?” Lewis said. “What a joke. You wouldn’t get near me.”
“I wouldn’t want to get near you. You’ve got piss dribble all over your shorts.”
He looked down, just for a second, which was enough to make Thorpey and Jack laugh. Lewis went for me, but the others held him back. “You fat —”
“Easy, Lewis, easy,” Jack said. “It’s just a bit of banter. Nothing wrong with a bit of banter. He’s all right.”
Jack turned to me. “What’s your name, mate?” he said.
“Dan,” I said.
“Nasty scrape you’ve got there,” he said, pointing at my leg.
“It’s nothing,” I said.
They sat down on the other loungers, Thorpey and Lewis on one side, Jack on the other. “Was that your dad causing a riot yesterday, grabbing you, by the pool?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“He’s funny, mate. Your dad. The way he flipped out the other day. Crazy.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Our folks are playing bingo all afternoon,” Thorpey said.
“Is bingo a sport?” I said. They laughed.
“You wouldn’t get them two’s mums playing real sports,” Thorpey said, pointing to Jack and Lewis. “Eighty-eight. Two fat ladies.”
They laughed again.
The adrenaline charge of my anger was starting to fade. Goose bumps rose from my skin, along with the smell of chlorine and sweat. This wasn’t the sort of atmosphere in which I thrived. All of the school counselors would have agreed on that. Doesn’t do well in groups. Easily intimidated. But I was doing OK so far. Maybe I wasn’t such a freak, after all. Maybe I didn’t need to hang out with people like Lexi.
“So, Dan. You like this place?” asked Jack. “Leisure World, I mean.”
“Bit boring,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “It was better the other day. There was some tarts here. Nice bodies.”
“The one I did was amazing,” Thorpey said.
I stared at the bright-blue water as Thorpey went on. “She was filthy,” he said. “She’d do anything. You could do anything to her.”
“Yeah, she was disgusting,” said Lewis. “They all were. Proper slags. They’ve gone home now, though.”
I had seen those girls. They had looked fairly normal to me. But what did I know about girls?
“Now that they’ve left, this pla
ce is dull,” Jack said. “I thought there was going to be loads of girls because of the school holidays, but they’re all dogs.”
He took out a mobile phone from the pocket of his shorts, pressed a few buttons, and looked around secretively. Ryan was over at the other side of the pool, kneeling in front of a little girl who had bumped her head on the edge of the water slide.
“Check this out, Dan,” Jack said.
He showed me a video clip. It was pornography. I won’t describe it. And I won’t lie: I like to see a naked woman just as much as the next man, but this was different. Those women didn’t want to be there; it was like an attack. I felt mixed up. I wondered if these lads had sisters. Mothers. Well, their mothers were at bingo.
If I saw that video now, I’d probably be sick. But I was numb then. All I could feel was the distant throb of how angry I had been with Lexi. I wanted to get back at her. “What do you think?” asked Jack. “Nasty, eh?”
“Yeah,” I said. As if it was nothing. As if I saw that kind of video every day.
“That’s the sort of thing that would liven up Leisure World,” Jack said.
A darkness came over me. “I know where there’s a girl you might like the look of,” I said.
“Oh, yeah?” Jack said.
“Yeah. Well. I mean, you probably wouldn’t be bothered,” I said, instantly regretting what I’d said.
“No, mate. I’m interested,” Jack said. “We’re interested, aren’t we, boys?”
“Nah,” I said. “She probably wouldn’t be up for anything. She’s not really . . .”
“There’s nothing wrong with asking, though, is there?” Jack said. “Come on, Dan, spill the beans. Don’t try and protect your lady friend, now. You’ve got to share. Mates share.”
I leaned away from Jack, but the two other boys had closed in, too. They were alert, defiant. “You should introduce us,” Lewis said.
I was scared and tried to justify it to myself. She had hurt me. Besides, it was just a peep. They were all talk. Nothing would happen. We’d have a quick look as she got out of the water and then go.
“OK,” I said.
As we were leaving, I saw that Ryan was back on his lifeguard’s chair. He looked at me with his eyebrows raised and the corners of his mouth turned down.
They’d been complaining about the length of the walk for ten minutes. “Where you taking us, Dan?” Jack said.
“Fat camp, probably,” Lewis said.
You get used to biking at Leisure World, but we were on foot now, and it did seem to take an age. Soon, however, we passed the tree where Lexi had carved her initials and the two sets of numbers. The sun was dropping, and shadows of the branches threw us into creeping darkness. “We’re getting closer,” I said.
“She better be good, Dan,” said Thorpey. “I’ll want to see some skin for this kind of travel.”
The atmosphere had changed. I was under suspicion. Under pressure. “I know where she gets changed,” I said.
“That’s more like it,” Jack said.
“But I think it’s best if we hide. If we go and confront her, she’ll just run off.”
I hushed them and chose a stand of trees a safe distance from the clearing. Her clothes were not on the bank.
“Where is she, then, this girl?” said Jack.
“She’ll be here,” I said. “She’s always here.”
We waited. After a while they started to get restless, started to whisper to each other. Jack spit through his teeth onto the dry ground. I needed her now.
“Clearly, she’s not here,” Jack said.
“Maybe if we wait a little bit longer,” I said.
“I don’t think so, Dan,” Jack said.
“You’ve made her up, fat boy,” Thorpey said. “You’ve dragged us into this stinking forest to look at an imaginary girlfriend.”
“No. Listen, I can show you she’s been here. I can prove it.”
I walked out from behind the trees into the clearing, looking for her footprints, for any sign of her. There was nothing. Just the dark hollow of the cooking pit, covered over with dry earth and sand. “Look,” I said. “This is where she cooks her meals.”
“What the —?” Thorpey said.
“Are you for real?” asked Jack. “You bring us all the way out here, and the only tits we get to see are yours?”
Lewis laughed. Jack slapped at my chest. I parried his blows, but then I felt a sharp chop to the back of my calf. It was Thorpey. I went down onto my knees, and Lewis kicked me in the stomach. “Not talking about my shorts anymore, are you, fatty? Where’s your banter now?”
I was winded by the kick and couldn’t speak.
“Let’s roll this lying tub of lard into the lake,” Jack said.
“He’ll float,” Lewis said. “We could ride him to the other side, like a dinghy.”
Jack cuffed me around the head, and the three of them pushed me down the slope toward the edge of the water. I could smell the lake, the silty dirt in there. The sun was white.
“Right, grab his arms,” Jack said. He moved around me. I watched his feet, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw something moving, a little ripple on the lake. Then, suddenly, a hand came out of the water, took him by the ankle, and dragged him down. He gave a raucous scream.
The others jumped back. “Where did he go?” Lewis said.
Jack screamed again, as he rose back to the surface. The water splashed everywhere and was welcome on my face.
“What’s happening?” Thorpey shouted. They went toward the edge.
“Something got me!” Jack screamed. “It just —” He went under again.
“He just disappeared!” Lewis said. “Did you see that? Before he even —”
I turned to watch as Thorpey stepped cautiously toward the edge of the lake. I could hear thrashing in the water. Then Jack rose up again, pulling in huge gasps of air.
“There’s something down there,” Jack said, and he began to splash toward the bank. I saw Lexi behind him, her head and chest above the surface. I wondered why the other two boys didn’t go after her.
Then it became clear to me. They couldn’t see her. None of them could.
“Lexi,” I said.
Lewis turned around and kicked me in the stomach again. “Shut up, you,” he said. I folded up with the pain. Jack got to his feet in the shallow water but then tripped over again.
“This is too messed up,” Thorpey said. He started to run toward the path, and Lewis followed him. They didn’t wait for Jack.
“Where are you going?” Jack called. “Help me, for God’s sake!
I looked at Lexi. She shook her head at me. I thought she was going to grab Jack again, but she didn’t. He scrambled onto the bank and ran past me, shivering and moaning. “Wait up!” he called after his friends. “Don’t leave me!”
After a few moments, he disappeared into the forest, and I could no longer hear the noise of his frantic breathing or his wails for help.
“Lexi,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
But she just shook her head again and plunged back under the water. I saw her rise once, way out in the middle of the lake, and then she was gone. I put my fingers to the cut by my eye and winced. I looked at my hand. There were no longer any grazes on my knuckles. I looked down at my leg. The long bloody gash had completely disappeared, and my ankle was no longer swollen. I held my ribs, in the place where Lewis had kicked me. That still hurt, but nothing stung worse than my regret.
I stumbled back through the forest. It seemed to be getting bigger, thicker. The coming darkness was like a gas swirling through the trees, filling my lungs. I thought of Lexi’s hand reaching out of the water, wrapping itself around Jack’s calf, and pulling him down. She had saved me. I thought of her shaking her head. The disappointment. The bruise around her eye had darkened even since the morning.
But why couldn’t the boys see her? At certain points it seemed like they couldn’t even see Jack.
I realized that I was limpin
g, although I didn’t have to. My ankle was healed. I missed the wounds now. They seemed somehow to have connected me to Lexi. It did not take much time to fall in love, but it took even less to ruin it. Exhaustion overwhelmed me, and I sat down by a wide beech tree.
A few meters from the tree stood five little gravestones, roughly made. Dotty, Jacko, Rex, Tigger, and Ranger. A pet cemetery. In the distance I could see the house that had once been home to some rich family and was now an Italian restaurant. The dogs must have belonged to the people who used to live there. I stared at one of the gravestones.
My tired mind began to race back through the last few days, making connections. I thought back to eating fish with Lexi, her favorite dinner. I thought of her mother, defying festive tradition for Lexi’s sake, serving fish and corn on the cob for the family Christmas dinner. Her birthday. December twenty-fifth. 12-25.
I thought back to the numbers carved into the pine tree. The first number. 122593.
12-25-93
Her birth date. It had to be. AHC. Alexandria H. Cocker.
But if that was her date of birth, I had to accept what the second number must be. 10-31-10. The last day of October, two years ago.
I walked back, past the golf driving range and the all-weather soccer fields, where the ball made a tinny squeak as it bounced high off the red sandy surface. Night had fallen, and as I neared the cabins, I saw families riding their bikes out toward the restaurants, their lights visible first, like star clusters in the tunnels of dark between the trees.
I hated Leisure World, and I wanted to be home. I was scared and shaken, confused. But I knew I had work to do tomorrow. I owed Lexi, big-time, and I was getting closer to understanding her mysteries, strange as they were. Maybe if I could understand her, I could help.
The cabin was busy when I got back. Dad was laughing, listening to a man with pointed sideburns tell a story. There were other people there, too, sitting around the table in the dining area.