Portion of the Sea

by Christine Lemmon

  I hated drinking my soda so fast. I hated watching my father slowly sip his while I sat there with an empty glass. And I hated reading about Ava and that boy, especially now that none of the boys at school would be interested in me. I was mad. It was she in the first place who inspired me to act like a wild, raging deviant of nature, and now I didn’t ever want to return to school, where everyone would be talking about me as if I were some rabid creature. I could never go back there with my head held high again.

  I suddenly questioned everything about Ava, even whether she felt under the weather at all that morning in bed, or did she feign it as a way of getting out of Monday chores? Hmmm, she really stumped everyone with her lie about feeling poor, and it got me to thinking, if that lie got her out of chores, than maybe it might get me out of school, which I used to like, but now, after my outburst, I didn’t feel like returning to on Tuesday.

  “Get me home, Father,” I moaned, holding my hand over my mouth. “I’m sick.”

  Lloyd set his bank documents down and looked at me. “What is it? Too much chocolate?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “Chocolate doesn’t make a person sick.” And then, being a horrible actor, I slinked off my stool and dropped onto the floor. To make up for that poor acting, I then pulled my knees up to my chest and started rocking. “I’m sick,” I moaned again. “It has nothing to do with chocolate.”

  “Should I call for an ambulance?” he asked, scooping me into his arms and examining me with alarming eyes. “What’s going on, baby? Are you okay?”

  “No ambulance,” I said. “Just take me home.” And then I recalled the words Ava spoke that morning in bed as she dreaded her day of chores. “I’m fretful, my body aches and I feel fraught with tension,” I said. “I hope it’s not … It must be …”

  “What?” he asked desperately. “It must be what?”

  “Polio,” I answered. “It must be Polio.”

  My father carried me to my bed and then gave orders to all the housekeepers and nannies and chefs that were on duty. Within minutes, I had cold cloths on my forehead, tea by my side, someone massaging my toes, and a burst of cool air coming through an opened window in my room.

  I enjoyed all the fuss, but what I really wanted was to be alone, so I could read more of Ava’s journal. I quickly closed my eyes and pretended to snore, louder than I ever snored before and when everyone left the room, I pulled her journal out from my school bag and began to read:

  SANIBEL ISLAND

  A couple of nights later

  Ava

  There is nothing wrong with being out after dark, I told myself as I briskly walked in the direction of the shack that Jaden had told me about. Birds migrate by night, and moths fly, and besides there was nothing dark about tonight.

  Thanks to the moon, the ground in front of me was well-lit, and I wondered if this were the reason God created and placed the moon up there in the first place, so girls like me could effortlessly sneak out in the midst of night, or maybe so their fathers might catch them. I didn’t want my daddy catching me, and I prayed that God put the moon up there for the first reason and not the second.

  As I stood outside the dilapidated shack on Jaden’s property at around one o’clock in the morning, I could hear boisterous shouting and laughing from inside, and I wondered whether my parents might be right. Maybe there were places that a lady ought not go.

  The mosquitoes and sand flies were attacking my neck and hands, and I was smacking them with a vengeance. “You’re here as a writer, Ava, not as a lady,” I uttered under my breath as I crawled over to the window and peeked up just enough to catch a glimpse inside.

  There was a group of boys standing in a large circle, shouting like fools, and I remembered a girl’s number one right—to change her mind. I turned and crept away from the window, wanting to return safely to my own bed, but then, I felt something slithering around my ankle and it could only be a snake. I hated them more than boys.

  As it twisted tightly up my leg, I charged through the door of the shack screaming my head off. I raced in circles like a lunatic until a couple of boys tackled me to the ground. There I stayed as two held my arms.

  “Red and yellow could kill a fellow,” said a laid-back voice that sounded like Jaden’s. “Red and black, venom lack.”

  “What’s he saying?” I cried to the boy holding my arm.

  “That if the snake’s stripes were in the order of red, yellow, then black, it could kill you.”

  I looked up, first at the snake. I saw red, black, yellow, but I was trembling and couldn’t tell the order. I then looked at the boy that was carefully untwisting it from my leg. It was Jaden.

  “Help me, Lord!” I moaned, tossing my head back onto the hard floor.

  “Relax,” he said in a voice that could tame a rabid raccoon. “This snake is red, black, then yellow. You’re fine, but it’s a good thing I’m a gentleman and got it before it slithered any higher than your knee.”

  I would have normally hit a boy for a comment like that, but he had saved my life; so, instead, I let my eyes follow him as he carried the reptile outside. The boys holding onto my arms lifted me up off the floor. “Jaden didn’t think you’d ever show up,” said one.

  “I did, and now I’m curious about what you boys do with your spare time. I’ve had it up to here with household chores. They give me no time whatsoever to pursue what I really want to do and that’s to write.” My ankles were wobbly, and my legs were shaking but I didn’t want them to know.

  “Here,” a boy said, handing me a large gold goblet. “Everyone that shows up at the shack must drink from this cup.”

  “What is it?” I asked, taking it.

  “The sacred Casine, or ‘Black Drink.’ It was drunk three hundred years ago by the French explorer, Rene de Laudonnier, and one hundred years later by the shipwrecked sailor, Jonathan Dickinson,” he said. “Swig, then hand it off. It sets all of our bets in stone; so, whoever doesn’t carry out their bet, is cursed.”

  “What bets?”

  “Jaden will explain that. Take your sip so we can pass it on.”

  I touched my lips to the drink. “Gin!” I declared. “It’s only gin.”

  “You have any friends you could bring along next time?” another boy asked me.

  “No,” I said blankly. “I don’t. I’m too busy for friends. I told you all I have time for are chores.”

  I stared at them, wondering whether I should tell them how different I am from most girls, that I’m stronger, and more brave, except when it comes to snakes, and that I know the world better than any men, having led my family here all the way from Kentucky.

  “Hey, doll face,” Jaden said as he walked up beside me and touched my cheek softly. “I had a talk with that snake out there. I told him it’s not nice crawling up a girl’s leg like that, but I thanked him for not biting you.”

  I blushed, for I was stuck on “doll face.” I had never been called “doll face” before. I didn’t know whether I liked it. I had never seen an ugly doll, so I guess he meant it as a compliment, but I wasn’t used to such verbal niceness from a boy. Usually I just got their silent stares and gawks.

  “If you hadn’t pulled it off my leg,” I said to Jaden, “I would have run myself right into a swamp. Snakes are my only weakness. I’m sorry you all had to see me like that tonight.”

  “No need to thank me,” Jaden said. “I did what any boy would do and that’s going after a snake that is going up a lady’s leg.”

  “You make me want to slap you,” I said. And then I felt my opinion of him softening. “But you’re my hero for the night, one night only, so I’ll thank you, instead.”

  The boys were forming a circle again, and Jaden took my hand and pulled me over to the corner to a bucket filled with crabs. “Pick one,” he said. “Hurry up. They’re waiting on us.”

  “Crabs,” I said, slowly reaching down into the bucket. “Crabs pinch, don’t they?”

  “Sometimes,” he said. “B
ut I could pry it off your lips like I did that snake off your leg,” he added with a cocky smile. “Or you can just point to one, and I’ll pick it up for you.”

  “That one.”

  “Good choice. What do you want to name it? According to our rules, it’s got to be a name from Florida’s history.”

  I hadn’t been to school in over a year, so my mind was rough, but a name came to me, and when I saw that the boys were impatiently eyeing us from the circle, I announced, “Queen Isabella.”

  Jaden picked up a brush, dipped it in ink, and wrote, “Queen Isabella” on its hard shell. He then placed it under the bowl in the center of the circle. He waved me over, so I went and joined him on the circle.

  “I stand here as a reminder that we boys will repeat the heroic acts of men who came before us while vowing never to repeat the atrocities of the ill-hearted,” a boy in the center announced, then took a sip from the gold goblet. “Everyone that drank the drink, know that your bets are etched in stone and you will face the consequences if you don’t carry them out.”

  “How much money did you bring?” Jaden asked.

  “None. Why?”

  “You’ve got to place a bet. Everyone who races must place a bet.”

  “I’ve never bet before.”

  He took hold of my hand and pulled me close and said, “It’s okay. I’ll set the bet for you.”

  Just then the boy who gave the speech said, “So in the name of exploration and adventure they’re off !” He bent down and pulled the bowl off the ground and out came the crabs, climbing over each other and racing outwards toward the circle line.

  Jaden got down on his hands and knees and pulled me down beside him. “If my crab, Juan Ortiz, is the champion,” he said into my ear. “I kiss you … on the lips.”

  My mouth dropped, and I wanted to slap him, but he must have read my mind.

  “If yours wins,” he continued, “you punch me as hard as you like and wherever on my body that you like.”

  “Look at them hauling shell!” A boy next to me also dropped to the ground hollering at his crab. “Go Juan Ponce de Leon! It’s not like this is your first voyage!”

  “Is your crab any good?” I asked Jaden.

  “Juan Ortiz? My God—champion six rounds in a row, a real motivated racing crab that I’ve been training personally now for six weeks.”

  “You didn’t just pick him from the bucket like I did mine?”

  “Juan Ortiz,” shouted Jaden. “Come on, hero! This is why I’ve been working you so hard. This is it!”

  As I stood there cheering my crab on, I could think of nothing worse than kissing a boy and nothing better than punching one. I hadn’t ever kissed any before, and my hands and feet felt tingly at the thought of it, as if I had just been attacked by some jellyfish. At least Jaden wasn’t ugly. And I had to believe he was a gentleman, not in the way his eyes grabbed and pulled me close, nor in the way his mouth spoke of kissing me, but in the way he was doctor to that injured pelican and personal trainer to a crustacean and a hero that saved me from the snake.

  He was special; so, maybe it might not be so bad if I had to kiss him before night’s end. Then again I’d also probably enjoy giving him a good punch. Either way, I’d turn out a winner, I decided. But I preferred a punch.

  The crabs were nearing the outer circle. “Go, Queen Isabella!” I shouted louder than I had ever shouted anything before, and I’m sure my shout made it all the way to Spain and spanned the centuries after that.

  XII

  LYDIA

  I DIDN’T WANT TO stop reading, but when I heard my father talking to the doctor in the hallway, I knew I had just seconds left to skim ahead and find out whether she kissed or punched that boy. But as I turned the page, I found nothing but blankness through to the end of the journal. It wasn’t fair that Ava would so abruptly end her writing, and if I didn’t feel sick before, I did now.

  I wanted to read more, to find out what happened that night at the shack and with the rest of her life. I wanted her to tell me what to do next, but that was all she wrote. I was disappointed as I slid the journal under my pillow. It wasn’t like I could walk to the local library and check out the sequel.

  When the doctor approached my bed, I knew there was only one thing to do. I had to look as sick as possible, for tomorrow was Tuesday, and that meant 4H after school; and then would come Wednesday, glee club; and Thursday, honor society meeting; and Friday, piano lessons; and then back to Monday again. I couldn’t stand to think of how the boys and girls had gossiped about me after my outburst, and I didn’t ever want to show my face at school again.

  “I’ve got a headache, I’m fatigued, and I’ve got pain in my extremities,” I said to both my father and the doctor.

  “Lydia,” Doctor Conroy said. “Those are textbook symptoms for polio. But I don’t think that it’s polio. Let me check your pulse and listen to your heart.”

  “Hmmm, I’m perplexed,” he said to my father moments later. “Everything looks fine. Why don’t we let her rest, and you and I can talk more,” he continued, signaling for my father to follow him out the door.

  I hopped out of bed and listened as they walked down the hall and into Lloyd’s study. When they closed the door, I quickly tiptoed outside the door and stopped. It was my health they were talking about, so I had a right to hear.

  “I’m concerned about her,” Lloyd said. “I told you on the phone what her school said to me, that unhappy girls are a potential threat to national security. They’re as bad as sissy boys, according to the principal. I’m just trying to figure out why she’s so unhappy. I’ve given her everything.”

  “How was your trip to Florida?”

  “We had to leave early and that upset her. That may be why she’s acting out.”

  “You think she’s doing all of this as a means of getting your attention?”

  “I don’t know, but she’s got it. I took the entire afternoon off work for her.”

  “One afternoon isn’t enough,” said the doctor, clearing his voice. “Lloyd, I’ve known you for years. I was at your wedding. I saw how you loved her, but has it occurred to you that maybe you did get remarried—that you’re married to your work? I don’t want to be too direct. My God, it’s impressive how far you’ve gone at that bank, but you’re also raising a daughter by yourself.”

  “Not by myself,” he replied. “I’ve got so many nannies I don’t know them all by name. I thought that was a good thing, but the school is telling me different. They’re suggesting that Lydia is too pampered, that she has to start doing domestic stuff on her own. They’re afraid she might not understand her female role in life.”

  “They may have a point,” said Dr. Conroy. “What if you were to take Lydia away from the pampered life for awhile, take time off, a leave of absenceso the two of you can get away from it all?”

  “Maybe, but it’ll have to wait. This is probably the most detrimental time in my career. With my partner in the hospital, I’ve got to stick around. A man can’t up and leave when there’s about to be a changing of the guards. I’ll consider taking time off once things settle.”

  “If you don’t,” said Dr. Conroy, “it’s going to be you in the hospital next.”

  “I won’t let that happen. I’ll give myself a break before I reach that point. I’ll take another vacation, a longer one.”

  When I could hear them no more, I climbed back into my bed and let the underground river of tears break through. I didn’t know how I’d ever survive returning to school tomorrow. There were only a couple of weeks left, and I’d be done with tenth grade, but next year would come eleventh, and the year after that, twelfth. Everyone would be talking about me as if I were a headline in today’s news:

  GIRL TURNS REBEL IN A SINGLE DAY

  I felt as if my life had once again reached its end, even more so than the day I was forced into piracy, leaving the island with Marlena’s historical treasure. But then I remembered what Ava had said and my tears stoppe
d abruptly. I reached deep down into my innermost being, past the surface debris, and into the dark private depths, and there I pulled out a branch of an idea.

  The newspaper.

  DESPITE ODDS GIRL PURSUES DREAM OF BECOMING A JOURNALIST

  I was starting young. I still had a couple of weeks, plus two years left of high school. And I would do whatever was necessary. I would subscribe today and become entrenched in current affairs. And the issues at school and in my own little world involving me would become miniscule in comparison to those I was reading about in the real world.

  AVA WITHERTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNLADYLIKE CLUB, RESIGNS AFTER KISSING A BOY. NEW AMBITIOUS PRESIDENT STEPS UP TO FILL HER SHOES.

  It was a personal story, and it affected me deeply. There were so many details left unsaid. I could only assume that Ava allegedly kissed the boy, later married him, and then went on to Monday being laundry day. I didn’t want to smear her name any further, for I liked Ava, and I had dirty laundry of my own. I was still a thief—a troubled one. Parts of the treasure I had stolen were missing. I examined its pages once more and discovered jaggedness near its spine, as if pages had been torn out. Foul play, maybe.

  But Who? What? When? Where? And why?

  XIII

  SANIBEL ISLAND

  1955

  THREE YEARS LATER

  Lydia

  LIKE GUSTS OF WIND, those five questions blew through my mind for the next two years. And they had been the driving force that pushed me to the Windy City Press that very summer, where I landed a job as errand girl. When school started again in the fall, I switched to after-school hours, and I remained working there until graduation.

  At first, Lloyd didn’t like my working at all. He tried getting me to quit, but I gave him a silent treatment so strong it felt as if an Iron Curtain had descended between us, and he eased up a bit. I reassured him I was doing mostly secretarial-like things, as well as making coffee. But really, I was twig-by-twig building my nest, where one day I would sit comfortably as a successful journalist, and just as an osprey never hides its nest, I would no longer have to hide my success.