“Did you ever want to kiss anyone?”
“Not really,” Tink said.
“Never?”
Tink remembered sitting in a circle in the schoolyard as Piper Larson insisted they share their crushes, one at a time. It was nothing but this terrible recipe for hurt feelings, just so Piper Larson and David Rudy could announce a dumb crush that was already obvious. It was that way with all the kids who paired off. Obvious. Meaning it required no formal announcement in a dumb circle. Then all the proud pairs were boyfriend and girlfriend for what felt like two solid minutes before there was this weird string of dramatic breakups that secretly made Tink smile.
She remembered how red her face was, how she looked around the circle, trying to find some kid who didn’t make fun of how short or chicken-legged she was. She settled on Chris Chilton, whose claim to fame was flipping both his eyelids up, so the red showed, looking like a zombie while all the girls shouted their ewwwws. She remembered how no one reacted to her announcement, not even Chris, who later took a pass, which she wished she would have done. She remembered thirty kids picking at the brown, sticky grass, mumbling who they like-liked, and not one of them said her name.
“I dunno,” Tink finally answered. “Maybe someday I’ll like someone enough to kiss them. But I’ve got better things to do than choke on someone’s saliva for twenty minutes at the arcade.”
Kimmy was quiet after that, and Tink didn’t even worry if it hurt her feelings, what with the way Kimmy had ruined their summer with this dumb crush consuming every moment of every day.
They used to sit at night and watch the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and talk about anything and everything but Len. Now it was all there was.
Tink curled up and hugged her pillow, missing the old teddy she left at home because the stuffing was spilling out, and she was afraid it’d fall apart for good.
Tink heard the slam of a car door. Coop’s car, probably. Alexis would be coming home from Tawny’s. She popped up, listening. For what, she didn’t even know. All she heard was pattering across the wraparound deck, then the screen door shutting closed.
She pushed the covers away and left Kimmy behind, opening the squeaky door and creeping across the second-floor hallway, which was like a balcony overlooking the rest of the house. They had rented the same home every summer for years, and it never changed. She loved the fishing nets propped up against the wall, the framed fly-fishing feathers, and the yellowing periodic table unfolded like a map and tacked to the wall.
She knew that the woman who owned the house traveled to Costa Rica every summer. Books were her thing. She had a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that spilled over into untidy stacks. That’s where Alexis slept, in a creaking foldable cot that sat tucked between all the dusty hardcovers.
Tink loved the old, mildewed smell of books. Every year, she tried to convince Kimmy to stay in that room, but Kimmy only crinkled her nose and called it creepy.
She rounded the corner and appeared at the doorway just as Alexis pushed the door closed. Instead of leaving, Tink took a deep breath and knocked, hoping that Alexis was in a good mood.
Alexis opened the door with one hand, ripping a sock off with the other, hopping around on one foot. “What are you doing up?”
Tink groaned. “Kimmy.”
“Snoring?”
“Blabbing about Len.”
“That’s still going on?” Alexis laughed.
Tink nodded.
Alexis shook her head and settled on her two feet. She had this far-off smile, like she wasn’t in the room but wherever she was earlier, at Tawny’s, with Coop.
“Come on,” Alexis demanded. Then she grabbed Tink’s hand, and before Tink could even ask where they were going, they were battering down the stairs.
“Where you taking me?” Tink wondered.
Alexis shushed her, dragging her out the screen door and onto the porch.
The air was cool, and it felt like there were a million stars in the sky.
“We’re going swimming,” Alexis said, like it was nothing. Like it was natural to escape the house in the middle of the night and swim in the dark.
“I don’t have my bathing suit,” said Tink.
Alexis laughed. “Who needs a bathing suit?” Then she took off, barefoot, down the porch steps toward the dunes.
Tink wanted to feel whatever it was Alexis felt. A pull toward something. Anything.
She took a deep breath and followed, holding steadily to the railing, slipping her bare feet into the cold sand. The breeze ran through the thin nightgown that Kimmy had teased her for wearing on the first day of their vacation. Kimmy had boasted some new black tank and shorts set with peering cat eyes. Tink looked down at her own ruffled nightgown and tried to shrug like she didn’t care.
The supermoon and the stars gave off the only light. It guided her across the sand to where Alexis stood at the ocean.
The sand grew wetter and colder, and Tink wrapped her arms around her chest as she approached. “It’s cold,” she said, quiet.
“Don’t worry. The water’s warm.”
Tink grabbed on to Alexis’s outstretched hand.
Before she knew it, Tink was waist-deep, her nightgown floating up around her like an inner tube. Alexis dipped her long hair back into the water, arms out. “I love it here.”
Tink wanted to feel that way, too, the way she used to feel in Barnes Bluff. But she didn’t. “It’s not the same.” She hesitated. “Without you.”
Alexis laughed. “I’m right here.”
Tink shook her head. “It’s not the same. I’m so far behind.”
Tink expected Alexis to ignore her, dismiss her, like she was a sad little puppy dog begging for treats. Instead, she stood up. “Being twelve stinks.”
Tink smirked and repeated it. “Twelve stinks.”
Alexis laughed. “It does. But then you grow up and move on and you’re free of it.”
She dove forward into the water and took off.
Tink lowered herself into the water. She moved in the slippery, cool breath of ocean to where Alexis popped her head up. They both floated on their backs together, looking up into the star-soaked sky.
“Are you in love with Coop?” Tink asked.
“In love?” Alexis paused. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“It’s possible? Not to know?” she asked.
“Of course.”
Tink wondered if she would know, when the time came. Or if she would have to sit in a circle and announce it, the way she had to with Chris Chilton. Chris Chilton. Why, of all names, did she pick that one? “Does Coop write you poetry?” Tink asked.
Alexis shook her head. “He writes his own. It’s not for me.”
“Is it any good?”
“Sure.” Tink could hear the shrug in Alexis’s voice. “He said you two chatted at the park.”
“I wouldn’t call it a chat, really.”
Alexis laughed softly. “What did you think of him?”
“He’s…” She searched for the right word. “Soulful.”
“Soulful,” Alexis repeated. “I like that. You both are.”
Tink couldn’t help it. She liked being connected to Coop in some way. Soulful. Was she? She wasn’t even sure she knew exactly what it meant. She imagined it was always being deep in thought. And she was. So deep, sometimes, she didn’t know how to get out.
She felt the ocean beneath her. She felt weightless above it. She tried to quiet her thoughts and shed the jumble of feelings inside her. She tried being free of herself, for just a little bit.
“It’s okay.” Alexis broke the silence.
“What is?”
“It’s okay that things aren’t the same. That you’re behind. It’s a good thing. You’re just catching up on your own time.”
Catching up.
“Someday you’ll catch up to everyone. To me. And you’ll go so far beyond us. Just wait. You’ll see.” She flipped over and dove into the water again.
Tink stayed put, her fingers resting like feathers against the soft, rocking water.
I am folded inside the same darkness as Tink. But the cool water doesn’t rest below me. I rest inside of it. My arms and legs spread out in the darkest, deepest part of the ocean.
I try to move. I try to breathe.
I can’t.
I’m still and cold and alone.
Then I wake up. The breeze from the window slips across my bedroom, and I open my eyes.
After school, I pedal fast, then rise from my bike seat and soar. It’s drizzling on and off, but I like riding in the rain. I like sifting through it, proving nothing can stop me. I do my best thinking in an end-of-summer rain.
And I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.
Because I can’t decide if the dreams are like Tanvi said: just my dream world and my real world colliding in twists of mind and memory. Or a real-life thing that happened once. Dreams are messy, strange. I fall into them, headfirst, each night, but then they’re the ones that end up passing through me. I can’t decide if they stop when I open my eyes or if they live on, outside of where I am.
I can’t decide what’s possible.
I remember Tink again, weightless, resting against the water’s easy flow. I remember myself, trapped in the deepest part of the ocean. I felt the water like it was my own memory.
But, then, maybe it was.
First, I pedal in circles, then I soar in one straight, steady line, to the marsh, to the canoe, to the place of my dreams, and I hear the sweet sucking sound of my shoes in the muck.
The skies darken, the trees toss their leaves, and with my breath heaving, my hair matted to my neck, I look out at a woman with a dress hoisted to her waist, rubber boots disappearing into dark pools of water.
Turtle Lady.
She eyes me with a shake of her head. “Can’t leave well enough alone, huh?”
I find my voice. “Who is she?”
Turtle Lady sighs.
I stay where I am. Up close, Turtle Lady is wrinkly and doughy, and her breath is all wheezy.
“Nosing around again. You and that boy, what’s his name?”
“Jeremiah,” I whisper.
“Throwing pickles at my window.” She grunts, and her hands go to her hips. Her dress falls to the water and sets it rippling.
“You hosed me,” I say.
“Sure did.” She laughs, and her dull eyes dance a little.
“Who is she?” I ask again.
“Who’s who?”
“Tink.”
“Tink?” She lifts her dress again and leans into the sand.
This time, I move closer. The water rises up to my ankles. It soaks the cuffs of my jeans, which nag tight at my calves.
It’s weird to be near her. It’s like being let in on a secret.
She points to the wet sand, and I lean over, staring into the pools of water and muck.
It’s a nest of eggs.
“What are they?” I ask.
“Diamondback terrapins.”
“Turtles.”
“Mmm,” she murmurs. Then she looks up at me and winks. “How I get my namesake around these parts.”
“You know?” I ask.
She laughs low and long. “Indeed.”
“What are they doing here?”
“What do you think they’re doing here?”
“I dunno.”
“Getting ready to hatch. It’s September.”
“What are you doing here?”
“We’re not careful. We don’t take care. Diamondbacks are on their way out. Spent my life studying terrapins. All around the world.” She laughs. It’s a small hiccup before she’s stern again. “Turns out, the one thing I was looking for? Playing out right here in Barnes Bluff. In my own backyard. So I been keeping an eye. Before I go.”
“Go?”
She grunts. “Answering the siren call, I guess.”
I’m not sure what she means, but, then, not much of Turtle Lady makes sense.
“It’s a small thing—terrapins,” she continues. “A small thing in a big world. But. You keep your corner of it. Best you can.”
“Four seven three,” I remember out loud.
“She’s keeping on.” Turtle Lady rises up. “Against the odds.”
I stare at the nest of eggs and ask what I’ve been wondering all these years. “Why are you always hiding?”
“Hiding?” She seems taken aback.
“We never see you.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You’re here, but you’re not, like, anywhere else.”
“People. They aren’t my thing. Thought I’d made that clear.” Then she takes a long look at me, her dark eyes scraping the surface of something. “So who’s this, what’s it…Tink?”
I take a deep breath. “I thought maybe you knew something. About me. About how I ended up here in Barnes Bluff.”
She laughs. “You thought I’d know? How you ended up here? How does anyone end up anywhere?” she continues. “You end up where you end up. You make the best of it.” She points to the eggs. “You find a way to survive.”
My heart sinks. Just like everybody else, she doesn’t know a thing.
The skies break open in rain.
Turtle Lady looks up, rain flattening her bun. “See. You got to worry about flooding.” She looks down at the eggs.
“It’s nice of you to care about them,” I say. “But isn’t that their mother’s job?”
“Mmm,” she grunts. “You’d think.”
“It’s not?”
She wades in the water and breathes all wheezy again. “Just not how it works. That’s all.”
I turn to go. My shoes rake over the gravelly sand and dirt and beach grass, then I climb over the gate to the side of the road, lift my bicycle handle, and sit with the rain battering my shoulders, soaking my hair, thinking of the terrapins, the unhatched eggs, Turtle Lady, after all this time, keeping up after them.
She doesn’t know a thing about Tink. She doesn’t know a thing about me.
No one does.
I soar off into the rain toward the Pitch & Putt.
I bang at the door while the rain beats down. The trees toss their branches in the wind. My hair sticks to the back of my soaked shirt.
Jeremiah slips open the door. “Whatcha doing?” he asks.
I poke my wet head in the hut. “It was locked.” Then I shed my wet backpack to the worn rug of the game room. “Turtle Lady,” I say, breathless. “She’s keeping the terrapins alive.”
“Terrapins?”
“Diamondback terrapins. Turtles. She’s making sure they hatch. That’s all it is. That’s all.”
My sneakers squeak toward the old couch, and I collapse into it, dust puffing out and catching the air, my hair tangled, my heart beating fast and hard.
“It’s silly, isn’t it?” I ask.
Jeremiah leans against the windows, fidgeting his fingers around his fishhooks.
“They’re just dreams, aren’t they? I just wanted them to have something to do with where and who I came from. But of course they don’t. Why’d you let me think they did?”
He’s quiet. The fishhooks ping against one another.
“It’s silly,” I answer for myself.
I catch my breath and let it fill me up as the rain beats down on the hut.
When I get back to our place, the last person I want to see is settled on our low couch. Elder. Lindy’s next to him, all flushed and strange, like I caught her in the middle of something I shouldn’t have.
Lindy stands up, real quick, with a dishrag slung over her shoulder. The air is humid and dense, and I don’t know if I should sit or stand or run away.
I choose to stand. I stay frozen and rooted, feeling like my place on the hairy living room rug is the only place in our home that’s mine.
“You’re soaked,” Lindy says.
“It’s pouring.”
“You should take the bus home when it pours.”
I shrug. “I brought my bike. It’s just water.”
“Mmm.”
Elder sinks further and further into the couch, making a permanent butt mark, all warm and sweaty. I feel like I’ll never be able to sit on the couch again without his imprint.
I want to take the dusty shells and swipe them from the sills and hide them, along with the ocean puzzle, and the faded curtains, because everything suddenly feels too out in the open. I want to scoop it all up in one big armful. I want it to stay ours. Mine and Lindy’s.
“I’ve got homework,” I say, and I don’t look at Elder, who I’m sure is staring at me, waiting for something I can’t give him: approval. And why should I give it? He doesn’t approve of me being around. He already made that clear at the Shaky. He wouldn’t have done what Lindy did if he found me. He’d have left me there, like the terrapins, to fend for myself.
I sling my backpack over my shoulder and try not to imagine them watching me as I cross the rug and climb the stairs. With all the rain, my room is dark, but I don’t turn on the lights. I sit, slumped on the bed, and I look at the space, at the buckets of shells, and my desk, stained with old markers from when I was a kid. The curtains are too pink and too lacy, and I don’t know the last time either one of us washed them. The rug is linty and faded, and everything feels like it has a dusting of sand and salt, because that’s what living on the ocean feels like all the time. I should vacuum it like I’m supposed to. I’m seeing my room the way Elder would, instead of just being in it.
The bed is still unmade. I lean back on it, the backpack bulging behind me. I feel weighted down.
On my shelf sits a row of evidence that suddenly seems pointless, the lady crab shell, the crumple of prize tickets, and the jar of ocean. It’s sandy and murky and heavy with memory. I rise up, wrap my fingers around it, and shake it. I’ve trapped it, but maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I’ve taken the ocean from where it belongs. Maybe I’ve let it sit in the pit of me for too much time, salty and sick at my insides.
A Swirl of Ocean Page 9