The Last True Poets of the Sea

by Julia Drake

  “You might be interested to know that Rus left town,” she said. “Hopefully he’ll get eaten by a shark.”

  “Ha. Um—thanks. Really. For that night. Calling Toby.”

  “It was nothing. Seriously. I’ve seen some shit at that bar.”

  “Well, I promise it won’t happen again,” I said.

  She swirled simple syrup into her lemonade. “What are you, doll, eighteen?”

  “Sixteen,” I said, but I felt even younger as I answered.

  “Huh. I bet people tell you you look pretty grown-up.”

  “Yes,” I said, though grown-up hadn’t been what they’d said, exactly. On Broadway, Mrs. Darling had looked me up and down and told me with a body like mine, I could really do some damage. I didn’t understand what she meant until weeks later.

  “They used to say that to me, too,” Frieda said. She considered me for a second, then checked over both her shoulders and turned back, her voice low, eyes fixed on me. The room tunneled around us, and the intensity of her gaze made my blood rush. A lump formed in my throat. Leave, I thought, leave, leave, leave.

  “I’m going to keep this real short because you and I don’t really know each other. Just because you look grown-up doesn’t mean you are, okay?”

  “I know,” I said.

  “That’s my whole point. Don’t know it yet. Don’t know anything. You’re a kid. Be lost. Ask questions. Be safe but stupid. Listen.”

  I tried to swallow and failed. She made it sound so easy. Like I could be the kind of teenager who horsed around in shopping carts with their friends, or sneaked onto the roofs of buildings. The kind of teenager who got into hijinks and mischief, rather than bars and danger.

  “I think…” I paused to gulp some air, and before I could stop myself, my voice curled to a squeaky question: “I think it might be too late for me?”

  Frieda shook her head softly and spoke too kindly. “Hardly, doll.”

  I nodded, not because I believed her, but because if I spoke, I’d cry.

  “Here’s a secret, too,” she said. “Most adults don’t grow up all the way either. Only the best ones, like your uncle, figure how to make that look good. Thanks for the lemonade.”

  She tipped me twenty bucks.

  Toby emerged forty-five minutes later and told me, kindly, that I was fired.

  “Great,” I said. After my conversation with Frieda, I was desperate to get out of the Mola Mola. I threw my wreck research into my bag and headed for the door.

  “Hey, kid,” Toby called. “Seriously, thank you. You might try the library for the wreck. Strongest Wi-Fi round these parts.” He rattled the tip jar at me. “Don’t forget these.”

  Outside, the day was ludicrously picturesque, the sky cobalt blue and cloudless. The slow days at the aquarium had led me to believe that Lyric was a dead zone, but there were lots of people here, Main Street busy with some cheery July Fourth pop-up fair. People ambled amid sidewalk sales and face painters, a bicycle-decorating contest and information about tomorrow’s fireworks, and I felt rickety and cold, detached from it all. What had even happened back there?

  A young white guy in butter-yellow shorts came toward me, phone extended, and said, “Excuse me, miss, would you take our picture?”

  “Um,” I said, and he pressed his phone into my hand before I could say no. He arranged his arm about his eagle-faced wife, who was holding a grumpy-looking baby. Someone had slapped a red-and-blue hairband with a grosgrain rosette on their baby’s head—so the whole world would know the baby was a girl, I guessed.

  “Say ‘cheese,’” the husband instructed his family. That hairband was so gross. They smiled plastic smiles and the baby shrieked mid-photograph, which made me feel a little tinge of pride. Less than a year old, and she was already working her sabotage muscles.

  To get to the library and away from the crowds, I cut through an alley to the side streets, where the shops were sparser and a little more run-down. There was Lyric Records & Video, long since boarded up; Mona’s Hardware; Lyric Yarn and Craft, which I now considered might be a front for drugs. I couldn’t get Frieda out of my head. Hardly, doll. I wanted to believe her, but I felt like I’d lived a thousand lifetimes already, none of them particularly kid-friendly.

  I was petting a black Lab tethered outside the copy-and-print shop, when two tan girls skipped by me in a fit of giggles. One was in lime-green shorts; the other one had streaks of fake red in her hair and was bouncing a fuchsia ball flecked with glitter. They might’ve been sisters or they might’ve been friends, I wasn’t sure. They didn’t look alike, but they had that same summer carelessness about them—peeling sunburns, salt-dried hair, mosquito-bitten legs.

  “Quickly, quickly, quickly!” shrieked Lime-Green Shorts. What could possibly be so important? They were going in the opposite direction of the library, but that was fine. I wasn’t in a hurry, and I wanted to see what they were after. It sounded important. Illicit, even.

  They crossed a bridge over a river, then followed some old train tracks through a field to some woods, where they shimmied through a gap in a chain-link fence. We were drawing close, I knew, and I needed to see what they were after.

  We came to a creek where a rope swing dangled over the water, and they waded in without hesitation. They overturned rocks and splashed each other; Lime-Green Shorts found a salamander and watched it skitter up her arm. I waited to see what they’d come for. Was someone meeting them, or—? But they just lollygagged in the creek, took turns on the rope swing, wading up and down, and then, slowly, finally it dawned on me. They hadn’t been going anywhere at all.

  I watched them play for a while longer, hoping they’d teach me something crucial I’d missed.

  I made it to the library eventually, bramble-scratched and bug-bitten, and found some kind of rummage sale happening in the parking lot. Beneath pop-up tents, people ferreted through racks of clothes and pawed over electronics. One woman held a radio to her ear like a seashell. I skirted a tent’s edge and made for the library’s door, but as I watched a woman try on a pair of red cowboy boots, I felt a tug of jealousy. I’d liked the savage fluorescence of that little girl’s shorts, too, and I had to admit I was getting tired of my Hanes tees. The day was still early. Ten minutes, I promised myself, then wreck research.

  I was considering a royal-blue shirt that said RICHARD LI’S ORTHODONTICS, when I heard, “That’s good. You can do better, though.”

  It was Mariah, in a poppy-colored sundress and look-at-me chandelier earrings that grazed her shoulders—the kind I used to wear. I was relieved to see a friendly face that wasn’t Frieda’s, plus Mariah’d been so nice to me the night we’d met. Now she greeted me with a warm, easy hug, like we’d been friends for years.

  “Did Orion bring you?” she said.

  I shook my head. “He’s here?”

  “Inside. Something about compost. Dude, I’m impressed you found the Missing Piece on your own. Lyric’s finest fashion with the most unpredictable hours,” she said. “Like, you obviously need this.”

  From the racks, she pulled loose an appallingly ugly patchwork vest embroidered with animals from Noah’s Ark. The animals were tumorous and the sun had a stitched-on smiley face.

  “Four dollars?” I cried, laughing out loud. “They’d charge eighty for that in New York.”

  “Some fool would buy it, too. You looking for something specific?” she asked, hanging the vest back up.

  “Just…color.”

  “That’s a task I can handle. We’ll find you something downright kaleidoscopic,” she said, and began to tick quickly, methodically through the hangers. I fell in beside her and watched rumpled T-shirts fly by, thrilled that, apparently, we were hanging out now. Mariah put me at ease.

  “I met your mom,” I said.

  “That’s right, Liv said you came by—and that you’re, like, a truthing convert now. How was Mama C? Did she force you into some social media thing?”

  “Yes, but she was super nice about it
. And the museum was packed.”

  “It’s so weird how much she loves that place.” Mariah sighed.

  “Has she worked there a long time?”

  “Almost ten years now. We were in Boston till I was eight, but she’s got a curatorial degree, and like four jobs exist in that field. There was cheaper rent here. My sister and I had our own rooms. Plus, my parents thought Indian kids in Maine was a pretty good hook for college.”

  I slithered halfheartedly into a denim jacket she’d selected for me. “Seriously?”

  She shot me a pitying look. “I’m kidding, Violet. Liv told me you had a sense of humor.” She held up a pair of blue zebra-print leggings. “If these weren’t so threadbare in the knees…”

  She shoved them back onto the rack. I envied her, how quickly she made decisions. I took a Lyric High School Hockey sweatshirt from the racks, the R missing so that it read LYRIC B EAKERS.

  “No,” Mariah said, and checked the price tag. “Especially not for eight dollars.”

  “But it’s a good chemistry joke,” I argued.

  “It’s at best a mediocre chemistry joke. And trust me, you wouldn’t support the Lyric Breakers if you met them.”

  “Is your school really that bad?” I asked.

  She ran the sleeve of a green faux-fur jacket through her fingers, considering. I’d look like a yeti in it, but she’d be able to pull it off. I wanted her to give me lessons in how to carry myself.

  “Most people are okay. But the few that aren’t…It’s worse for Felix and my sister than it is for me. She’s in college now, though, and it’s fine. Felix and I try to laugh stuff off but…”

  “Sometimes that makes it worse.”

  “Yes. Exactly.” She dropped the sleeve of the coat and clapped her hands. “Nope. No. No more outerwear. Two more years, and then it’s Hollywood for me.”

  “You want to be an actress?” I said. No wonder I liked her.

  “Writing,” she said. “TV. Comedy, preferably, though I’d settle for soapy doctor drama. As long as I never have to dig my car out of the snow ever again. Okay, normally I’d’ve found twelve thousand things by now, but you’re distracting me. Look: eyes on the prize…we’ll divide and conquer and hunt for each other, okay? I’ll wear anything with sequins. Seriously. I’m a magpie.”

  I drifted through the racks, running fingers over the old T-shirts and reject sweaters, edging my way past other decisive shoppers clutching their finds. How did everyone have it all figured out? Oxford for Liv, California for Mariah. If I couldn’t even decide on a T-shirt, how could I decide on a future? And Sam—what would he do?

  I managed to find a sequined headband and an embroidered bag covered in little bits of mirror. And then—because, why not?—I picked up a long pair of sturdy flippers that I found over by the overcoats. One was dog-gnawed, but they looked otherwise passable.

  Mariah came back with a royal-purple bundle in her arms, which she unrolled like Cleopatra from the rug.

  “The cuffs are a little ratty, but…”

  It was a crewneck sweatshirt that said LYRIC AQUARIUM MARINE MINGLE in white, screen-printed with the silhouettes of three dancing whales. It was, in a word, perfect.

  “I love it,” I said. I yanked it over my head, then hugged myself to myself, the whole of me a tight little ball.

  “Pretty cute,” she agreed. “I love that bag, but I hope those flippers aren’t for me.”

  “Oh—um. Liv and I were talking about…hunting for the wreck?”

  I waited for her to roll her eyes, but she just laughed. Her laugh was big, like my mom’s.

  “You’re even more outrageously hopeful than she is. You know Felix’s family has a porthole that they think is from the Lyric, right? It’s in their store. Treasures of Atlantis?”

  “Felix’s family owns Treasures of Atlantis? I used to steal stuff from there!”

  “Thief,” scolded Mariah. “Yeah. I mean, take everything he says with a grain of salt, but he thinks it’s from the Lyric. Maybe it’ll get you somewhere. We could go look at it right now, if you want? I’m about to go meet Liv.”

  Her offer was tempting, but I’d come here to work, and I’d taken enough detours for the day. Potentially running into Orion wasn’t even appealing at this point. I just wanted to crack the books.

  “Next time,” I said. “Tell her I said hey.”

  “I’m gonna tell her you bought flippers and leave it at that.”

  Thankfully, Orion didn’t appear to be in the library anymore, and double thankfully, there was an entire display devoted to shipwreck literature right where I walked in. Jackpot. I nabbed The Principles of Maritime Archaeology, a doorstop of a book, and then, to balance it out, I grabbed a slim book of poems from the same shelf. I’d recognized Adrienne Rich, the author, from school.

  I picked the kids’ section to read in, all primary colors and smelling of apple juice, even though the sign said under twelve only. Nestled in a waxy yellow beanbag, I heaved Maritime Archaeology into my lap, ready, at long last, to learn the secrets of wreck hunters.

  INTRODUCTION

  The quintessence of humanity is curiosity, which ushers us, undeviatingly, toward the liminal. We seek boundaries in an effort to more fully comprehend our being, epistemological and somatic, to elucidate and concretize our existence. At present, we find the last physical manifestation of the liminal in the “wine-dark sea,” that horizon where philosophies and theories of mind gyre maddeningly in the attempt to reconcile…

  Oh. My. God.

  This was the introduction?

  I needed a new brain to find this ship. Sam’s brain, preferably. He read stuff like that and got it, whereas all I understood was wine. I tried the sentences a few more times, then decided I’d read the poems as a warm-up. I’d never minded poetry—at least, I didn’t groan like everyone else when our teacher announced the inevitable unit. Most poems were mercifully short, for one thing, even if you didn’t get them.

  I started the first one:

  Out in this desert, we are testing bombs,

  That’s why we came here

  My nose panged, those lines hit me so hard.

  How was there so much there—loneliness and danger and pain and seeking—in so few words? I read them again. Again. Again, and then I kept going.

  Out in this desert, we are testing bombs,

  That’s why we came here

  Sometimes I feel an underground river

  forcing its way between deformed cliffs

  an acute angle of understanding

  “Miss, children only back here.”

  Orion, right on cue, flopping in the beanbag beside me. I wiped at my eyes surreptitiously and closed the poems into the book of marine archaeology, feeling suddenly protective of them.

  “What’re you reading? That looks like an Andy-level book,” he said. He was wearing a lavender T-shirt that said LILAC FESTIVAL 5K, the words faded from so many washings. I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was even more handsome out of his aquarium shirt, but the color was really good for him.

  I flashed him the cover and he said, “Wow, Liv really converted you to the cause, huh?”

  “Light research,” I said, the teensiest bit embarrassed. I hoped he hadn’t noticed the flippers.

  “Any updates on that front? With Liv? About…”

  “About you?” I said, and now he looked embarrassed. “Yeah. Um. You know. We didn’t get very far.” Also known as Liv made it expressly clear she does not want to date you, and I am stalling.

  “You might even think about broadening your horizons, Orion. I know it’s a small town, slim pickings and all that, but maybe there’s someone else out there for you.”

  “Maybe,” he said cautiously, which I took as further evidence of his undying devotion to Liv. I didn’t blame him. She’d been so nice to me in the lighthouse.

  “I’m glad I ran into you, Violet,” he said. “It was weird not seeing you these past few days, plus with the holiday…”
r />   “Yeah,” I said. “Nice to run into you, too.”

  It seemed for a second like he might hang around—or like he wanted me to ask him to stay—but for once, I held my tongue.

  “Well,” he said finally, “enjoy your reading.”

  I spent another hour alternating between the poems and staggering through the first few pages of Maritime Archaeology. When I stood up to stretch, my first thought was that he’d done it on purpose. Because really, how could he possibly miss it?

  Orion’s black wallet was smack-dab in the center of the beanbag, terribly obvious and just begging to be returned.

  NIVATION HOLLOW BLUES

  The trumpeting began as I was crossing the lawn to his house, coming from a shed in the trees I’d failed to notice. A warm, raspy note bull’s-eyed the bridge of my nose and rocketed through the rest of me.

  Notes burst, then ached; jazzy, slow then fast, slow again, great big surprising gaps around the sound that left me hanging on for the next note. The song was rough around its edges but inviting and sweet underneath, whispering in places. I just listened. This music made everything beautiful: the crabgrass beneath my feet transformed into a lush forest, and the burl in a nearby tree whorled into a new planet.

  In school, there’d been no shortage of boys with guitars and basses, boys who wrote their own music, boys who met on the weekend to jam. Girls, too, like the spurned drummer. And sure, I’d heard trumpets at church on Christmas Eve (one more of Mom’s misguided attempts to “rebuild the family”), but Lord almighty, Orion Lewis was playing music altogether different. I wanted to crawl into the music and live there. He played like he cared.

  When he stopped, my ears filled with a tinny echo, whining for more.

  From inside, Orion yelled “Fuck” so loudly I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  “Hey!” I shouted, approaching the shed. “I’m eavesdropping on your artistic turmoil!”