by Julia Drake
“I usually do.”
Singing wouldn’t fix Sam. Neither would finding the Lyric, nor would my saying the right thing. No one thing could fix us, because no one thing was wrong. The fixing would be in keeping going, in trying. Survival was its own quest: we needed to choose to survive over and over again. We had to wash up on shore, and we had to choose to keep washing up every single day. We had to let the survival accrue, pebble after pebble, building a beach from a million tiny moments until suddenly we stopped, looked around, and thought, on a Saturday in Maine, I’m glad we’re here.
“I’m glad we’re here, Sam. And I love you.”
“Me too,” he said.
Sam taught me to put thick blades of grass between our thumbs and whistle, so that we sputtered until we were dizzy and light-headed. The sun got low in the sky. We strained our eyes looking for sea life against the remaining wisps of fog, convincing ourselves that we’d seen a whale cresting out of the corner of our eyes. Surely, something was down there, if only we looked hard enough. Surely there was life, if we just kept searching.
“Hey,” Sam said, “if you squint, doesn’t that rock out there look like a whale?”
AFTER ALL THAT…
“No way,” Orion said.
We’d gathered on the beach, sans Felix and Mariah, who’d volunteered to cook us dinner, and Orion was peering out across the bay through the opera specs. Sam stood over his shoulder, jittery with excitement. A breeze had picked up since we’d hiked down from the lookout.
Sam snatched the binoculars and passed them to me. There it was, far off the beach, rising from the water: a rock shaped like a whale’s tail, waves breaking around it, sending spray skyward, then crashing to thick foam. I understood that the whale-shaped rock was one of many boulders in a string, and together, these rocks formed a jagged barrier far off our beach. The rocks were a reverse moat, almost, dividing the calm waters of our bay from open ocean.
“If you were over there by that rock, you’d be able to see the bluffs perfectly,” Sam said. “The blinding wall of white.”
“The currents are certainly moving the right way,” Orion said. “Whatever debris from over there would wind up here.”
I passed Liv the specs. I could hardly believe what I was about to say.
“I think we may have found it.”
Liv sucked in her breath. She looked so good with binoculars. “We may have found it, indeed.”
Beside me, Sam hopped with excitement. “Can we go right now?”
“Past those rocks, in Orion’s boat?” Liv shot him a glance. “No offense. It’s great for river rides, but…”
“None taken,” said Orion. “It’s a dinghy. Not meant for the open ocean.”
“But it has a motor! And isn’t that what we came here for?” Sam said. “To find the Lyric? Violet?”
I bit my lip. The waves looked pretty big. The water there must have been deep and treacherous, if it had hidden a ship for nearly a century.
“Orion? Tell me what you think. It’s your boat.”
He shook his head. “We’d be like an eyelash out there. Especially if this wind picks up.”
“But…we’re still going to go,” Sam said, his voice full of disbelief. “That’s the whole point. That’s why we’re here. Violet?”
I looked at the three people standing beside me. A brother, a beloved, and a friend. The whole point wasn’t the wreck. The whole point had been getting here, and what we were, now.
“Orion’s right.”
My brother’s face fell. “But…why?”
“Because first of all, it’s too dangerous, and second of all, we don’t need a wreck. You know that.” Sam didn’t need an adventure. He needed dinner. He needed our parents. They needed us.
“But I came all this way.” Sam’s voice ached with disappointment.
“Remember the quest? Cousteau?”
“You untangled the knot, Sam. You found it,” Liv said. “You did what we couldn’t.”
His face crumpled in that familiar way, and I saw a tantrum unfold—and then he pulled his hands into his sleeves, and said, “This sucks.”
“Indeed,” said Liv.
“It’s still an adventure,” I said. He was okay. He really was.
“I’m going to help Felix and Mariah with dinner,” he mumbled.
“I’ll go with you,” Orion said.
They shuffled off, leaving Liv and me behind.
“Are you okay?” Liv said, watching them go. “Is he?”
“We talked. It was really, really good. He’s not okay okay, and I’m not either, but we will be, I think.”
My brother and Orion disappeared through the pines.
“Well,” Liv said, “what should we do now?”
It was almost dark enough that we were hidden. There was a rise in the dunes. We kissed and my heart turned into a wave and my edges eroded. We kissed and we were salmon flashing upstream.
“There’s still all this shit we don’t know, like about S, and Fidelia….”
“Violet, shut up.”
She was great at kissing my neck.
“It doesn’t bug you, though? That no one wants to turn the rock over?”
“No. You’re bugging me, right now.”
Her hair smelled smoky.
We were lying down.
Our bed was kelp pods.
“We should stop,” I said.
“No we shouldn’t,” she said.
Her weight on top of me, her hands, reaching—
“Liv?”
Mariah’s small voice.
Liv and I were apart. Mariah was right there, her arms full of kindling.
There was much more sunlight than we said there was, I realized now.
“I’m sorry—I wouldn’t have—the kayakers were staring over here. I thought they’d like—seen a moose or—sorry. Should I go? I’m going to—?”
“Don’t go,” said Liv, and she grabbed my hand to say Don’t go either.
Mariah didn’t move, and I loved her for it.
“Livvy,” Mariah said finally, “you know I don’t care who you kiss.”
“I would have told you, only, this just happened, literally, last night, don’t tell anyone, please….”
“Why don’t we sit,” Mariah said evenly.
We sat, the three of us on the sand, touching knee to knee to knee, like witches, or little girls pretending to be witches. Liv had my hand in a death grip.
“Livvy, what if I’d been Orion? He’d be crushed.”
“No, we talked. He and I. He’s not interested in me anymore. I swear.”
“So why not just tell him?”
“What would I say?”
“That you’re…”
“I don’t know what I am! That’s the problem!”
“Okay…so just…tell him about…”
Mariah gestured between the two of us. Liv tipped her head back; a dry reed was tangled in her hair and I pulled it loose.
“I know I should,” she said. “And I know that intellectually, I know what I’m about to say is ridiculous. Intellectually, I realize this. I’m a smart person.”
“We’ll give you a pass on this one, Professor Stone,” Mariah said.
“But—what if I tell Orion and he doesn’t like me anymore?” Her voice was the smallest it’d ever been.
“Oh, Liv,” Mariah breathed.
“What if the possibility that we might date is the only reason he’s still around? He was a minor meathead! Will was a minor meathead and he didn’t care, probably, but it’s more like…”
“Will knew?”
“I think so,” said Liv.
Mariah broke our knee circle then to hug Liv. It was a long hug. I counted 256 grains of sand, and I lost count a few times. Liv pulled away and wiped at her face with the back of her hand and took my hand with the other.
“What did you say to him?” Mariah asked.
“It was so dumb. There was this stupid reality show we liked with thi
s really pretty girl on it and then one day point-blank he was like, Liv, would you make out with her, in that way of his and I was just like, yeah, but I was also thirteen! That was all we said, so maybe he didn’t really know….”
“Liv. It sounds like he knew and loved you.”
Liv’s mouth squirmed on her face.
“You know Orion would, too,” Mariah said.
I thought about all the times I could have told him. Had I wanted him to think I was straight? I’d loved the attention so much, his attention. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to like me less: it was that I didn’t want him to like me differently. I’d wanted to keep his affection the same, unchanging, like summertime jars of blueberry preserves.
“What if you’re wrong, though?” said Liv. “Orion—I know it doesn’t make any sense, but what…what if I lose him, too? What if my parents lose him? And don’t even get me started on Tom and Ann, when Felix came out they just kept talking about how hard it must be for his parents, and Ann will hate me, she has no idea…”
“Ann would never hate you,” said Mariah.
Liv shook her head. “And then there’s Felix, he had this all figured out when he was ten, and had to go through all that shit, but, like, maybe I’ll date a guy next, who cares, but, like, right now I just like Violet but I’m still an absolute morass!”
“Is that like a moron-ass hybrid?” I asked.
“No, it’s a mess. A bog. A wetland.”
“My mistake. If you’re a bog, then be a bog. ‘Are you gay?’ ‘Nah, I’m more like a bog.’”
Liv considered this. “I’d rather be a fen,” she said finally. “They’re less acidic.”
“How ’bout we’re all just people?” Mariah said. “And I’d like to add, first and foremost, that Felix does not have it all figured out. Remember how he thought Allyson Wilson was Mata Hari reincarnated and he used to make me go buy movie tickets from her because he ‘couldn’t handle her beauty’?”
Liv choke-cry-laughed.
“Second of all, I get that Ann and Tom are, like, delicate. But, like…”
“You’re their kid,” I said, thinking of Frieda, of Fidelia.
“Yeah,” Mariah said. “Third of all, and you already know this, but Orion won’t care. I think the smoke and mirrors will make him more upset than anything else.” Mariah bit her lip. “Also…not sure if this makes a difference, but, uh, I’m pretty sure he’s into Violet now?”
“Confirmed, unfortunately,” I said.
“I’ll fight him,” Liv said.
“He’s a pacifist,” said Mariah.
“I was joking,” said Liv.
“Violet,” Mariah said, turning now to me, “I, for one, am not interested in you, though I’m in awe of your sex magic. Especially given that you’ve been wearing that sweatshirt since literally the day you bought it.”
“I’ll give you sex-magic lessons,” I said.
“Not in that sweatshirt, you won’t.”
“In Toby’s windbreaker, then.”
“Surely that windbreaker has the reverse effect.”
“Liv, is this working?” I asked. “Are you feeling better?”
“Not really,” she said.
“Okay. How ’bout this?” said Mariah. “I’m not going anywhere. Neither, apparently, is this weirdo.”
“I don’t know what to, like, do now,” Liv said. “I just…don’t want tonight to be about this. Or this weekend to be about this.”
“What would you like it to be about, Liv?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just want it to be normal. I know that word is meaningless, and that’s what I want. Stupid shit that doesn’t mean anything.”
I held my hands out to both of them and they stared at the fact of my palms.
“Did you two ever play energy?” I said.
“Oh my God, yes!” said Mariah.
“Is that like pulse?” Liv asked.
They both knew how to play slightly different versions of the same game. We figured out our own set of rules and squeezed a pulse around our circle until we saw our friends lugging a rowboat to the water.
That was how the six of us found ourselves pushing Orion’s dinghy into the summer-warmed waters of Aguecheek Bay as the sun set. We opted for oars over the motor. We weren’t trying to find the shipwreck of my great-great-great-grandmother. We weren’t journeying across the sea. We just wanted to swim.
Our motley crew consisted of two childhood friends, two lovers, two musical soul mates, two long-lost siblings, an amateur psychic, and a really good friend. The memory of a brother and a best friend, of a great-great-great-grandmother and a great-great-great-grandfather. There were secrets between us, and stories we didn’t fully understand. But in the water our wires weren’t tangled. They were knit.
Orion and I stood calf-deep in the shallow water, holding the boat steady for Sam and Liv as they climbed aboard. The water turned orange, then pink, then gold.
“Push on three,” Orion said. “One, two…”
We pushed. Sam rowed my beloved out to sea in my friend’s boat. Felix threw himself beneath the waves and popped up, seal-like, beside the boat. Mariah burst out laughing.
“Ooh,” he cried. “Refreshing!”
Mariah, Orion, and I swam after them, Mariah and I still in our clothes, for now, paddling around the boat in a ring, dolphin-like. Beyond the stone whale the waters were churning and dangerous, but here, in this bay, they were safe. I swam underwater alongside the boat for as long as I could hold my breath, amazed at how good the ocean felt. How had I not swum yet this summer?
I surfaced. A set of hands hooked under my arms and pulled me over the lip of the boat. Orion cannonballed off the side; Sam followed, Mariah was in the boat, then out. I could hardly tell who was where, it was all happening so fast. The boat tipped and everyone was fine.
I had never had friends before, not like this.
In darkness, we built a fire and warmed our hands. Orion played the harmonica, and Sam and Liv leaned against each other. Felix read Mariah’s palm. (“Career line strong, unbroken—and westward,” he declared. Mariah bit back a satisfied smile.) Liv smoked five cigarettes, drank no beer, and winked at me once, which was enough. I had some whiskey. My brother ate a s’more, then another, and I wiped the marshmallow–graham-cracker goo from his face.
“To the wreck hunters,” Orion said, raising his water bottle. “And whale songs.”
“To truthing,” said Liv.
“To tea leaves,” said Felix.
“To pickup trucks,” said Mariah.
We kept toasting: To Fidelia and Ransome. To the rest of the Lyric passengers whose bones had been picked clean by fish. To adventures. Our voices overlapped and were indistinguishable: To baseball caps, to Patsy Cline. To whiskey and blow jobs and cunnilingus, birth control, treasure, no treasure, sleeping bags, bug spray, headphones, and crosswords.
“To family,” I called.
“Surviving,” said Sam.
“Please can you keep it down!” yelled a voice from inside the kayakers’ tent.
“To angry, reluctant chaperones,” Mariah stage-whispered.
We all collapsed into stifled giggles, then put out the fire and trekked down the beach to stage an impromptu, perfectly imperfect reading of Cousteau! by cell-phone light. Sam had brought the latest printout of the script with him.
That night, it didn’t matter what had come before and what was going to come after. In that moment, we were the last true poets of the sea, and what mattered more than anything else was our quest.
THEFT
“All right, hooligans.”
I woke to a strange, sharp voice, and the darting beam of a flashlight. At the last minute, we’d abandoned the tents and slept outside, and when I opened my eyes, it took me a second to remember where we were. Night was just beginning to lift, the sky above me turning from black to navy. A few stars peeked through the clouds, and the moon’s shine was dull, like the dry rind of an orange.
Ghost Coast, I thought dumbly.
“What the hell did you do with our kayak?”
Orion was stirring, shielding his eyes against the flashlight’s strong glare. “What’s up, man?”
“Our kayak is gone. Don’t make me say it again. We put up with the noise. The shenanigans. The underage drinking, the fire for which—I’m betting—you did not have a permit. We’re not interested in whatever prank war you kids are pulling.”
We’d slept with our heads in the middle. Mariah lay next to me in a sleep mask embroidered with cerulean eyes; Felix was flopped flat on his stomach like a manatee; Orion; then Liv, beautiful Liv, next to me, still sleeping, her braids fuzzy with flyaways.
Only—where—where—?
“To say nothing of the two of you necking on the beach. There wasn’t supposed to be this Girls Gone Wild stuff up here. There was supposed to be solitude! So tell me again: where’s our kayak?”
“Where’s Sam?” I said, to no one and to everyone.
The angry man shone his flashlight in my face. “No,” he said. “Where’s my kayak?”
“Girls Gone Wild?” Orion repeated, shaking himself loose from his sleeping bag.
“Those two! Girls Gone Wild!”
I shook Liv awake. In the moment before she recognized the panic on my face, she looked at me so dreamily, happily, that I wanted to live inside that look forever.
“Sam’s gone,” I said.
“He’s here,” she said automatically, immediately awake. “He must be.”
“No, Liv,” I said. “He’s not. He runs away. This is what he does. He did this in Spain, he ran away from Vermont….”
Felix and Mariah were groggily pulling themselves from sleep by now, grouchy and confused. Orion was trying to calm the man down, but he just would not shut up: “Are you going to help me find our kayak or not?”
I knew where Sam was.
“He’s looking for the wreck,” I said.
Liv scrambled loose from her cocoon and yanked a sweatshirt over her head. “He’s not,” she said. “I’m sure he’s here….”
“He’s out there in the ocean in a kayak. Liv—he’s not okay. I lied to you. My parents don’t even know he’s here. He’s not thinking straight. We’ve got to go after him.”