by Noir, Roxie
“This is starting to sound like one of those logic puzzles you do in elementary school to teach rational thinking or something,” he says. “If Ben has a red ball and Dave is late for class on Tuesday, which student likes dinosaurs the best?”
“I always liked those,” I admit as Caleb looks over the side of the rowboat and carefully plunges the oar into the water, a lily pad sinking beneath it. “My favorite second grade teacher had a whole book of them for when I’d finish worksheets and quizzes early.”
“They’re satisfying,” he agrees, glancing over his shoulder at the dark frame of the sea monster, looming over us. “You had a favorite second grade teacher?”
It takes me a moment to understand what he’s asking.
“We moved twice that year,” I explain. “I had Mrs. Ferguson for a month, then Mrs. Gonzalez for six, then Miss Clampett for two.”
“Army brat?” he asks, both his hands clenched around the wooden oar, his muscles tightening as he draws it back, facing me.
For a moment, I’m rendered completely dumb at nothing more than an attractive man rowing a boat. In the moonlight and the cast-off neon from the Thai pavilion, the yellow and red and white all catching the curves of his muscles, his arms, his shoulders, his smile and all at once, something deep inside me awakens and yawns.
Suddenly, I understand why lust is so dangerous. I want to reach out and touch him, kiss him, climb on top of him and the sheer force of the wanting is so strong that I have to hold onto my seat with both hands to keep myself back.
I’ve thought I was in lust before. When I was thirteen and kissed a boy for the first time, then wanted to do it again. When I was seventeen and let my high school boyfriend touch my breasts underneath my bra for the first time. Last year, when I got to third base with a guy I was seeing.
Growing up very Catholic can do that to you, make you think that every little desire is lust.
They weren’t. This is.
“Navy,” I finally say, two oar strokes later, remembering that we were having a conversation and what it was about. I clear my throat, press my knees together, tear my eyes from his body. “We got stationed somewhere new every time my dad got promoted.”
“Was it hard?” he asks, glancing over my shoulder.
I turn. The monster is there, looming, unlit, jaw hanging at a strange angle.
“Yes and no,” I say, gazing up. “It meant that if I didn’t like somewhere, we wouldn’t stay too long, but same if we were somewhere I liked. I usually adapted all right. I think my younger brother actually preferred getting to start over fresh again and again.”
I stop short, not sure how much to say, how much to put off for later dates.
I’m oddly certain there will be later dates, the knowledge a warm, fuzzy comfort in my chest instead of the spiky panic that usually lives there during an outing with the opposite sex.
“But?” Caleb prompts. He’s stopped rowing and now the boat is gliding, gently, right past the monster’s gaping, ragged jaw. I glance in as we drift past, silent, and can see the splintered edges of the broken beam inside.
“But I think it was hard on my older brother,” I finish, still looking into the maw. “Javier…”
Wanted nothing more than to finally get my father’s approval?
Sometimes fell in too easily with the wrong crowd?
Lived under the shadow of my father’s expectations?
“…my older brother needed structure,” I finally say. “Consistency. Stability. More than Bastien or I did, I guess.”
The sea monster is perched on a concrete slab, out in the middle of the pond, and Caleb kneels in the boat, then grasps the edge of the slab and leans in, carefully, his head now in the monster’s mouth.
Even though I know the power to the monster is cut — even though I know that it’s not a real monster, that there are no real monsters — a shard of anxiety works its way into my chest at the sight.
"I lived in the same house from the time I was born until the time I went to college,” Caleb says. “My mom still lives there. I went to the same schools as all my brothers. Had most of the same teachers. Vivian Atwell is far from the first person to call me by the incorrect name.”
I laugh and he reaches out, runs his fingers along the fractured wood.
“It was a rural school in a rural county and I guess we do all look a little bit alike,” he says, then turns back to me. “I’m gonna see if I can’t rotate this head so I can crawl in there a little better, but you should hold on because it’s likely to rock the boat.”
I move my hands from the bench to the sides, knees still firmly together — half because I don’t want him to see my underwear, half in the hopes that it’ll quell the fire rising inside me.
“Is all more than two?”
Caleb pulls back, kneels on the bottom of the rowboat, takes the jaw in his outstretched hands, muscles bunching and knotting, light playing over them.
I press my knees together even harder.
“Brothers?” he asks, then shakes the head. The boat rocks.
“Yeah.”
“All with respect to brothers is four. All older.”
Rock, rock, rock. I hold on.
“You have four older brothers? How are you alive? I barely survived one,” I say.
Do they all look like you? Lord have mercy if they do.
“I’m very resilient,” he says easily, pulling and pushing and rocking one more time, the monster’s head slowly turning. “To their credit, they were never cruel on purpose. Only by accident. Mostly.”
“I had two and I sometimes thought they’d do me in,” I say, my eyes still glued to his arms, his hands, the power and gentleness he’s putting into this, all at once. “And only one was older. I could beat Bastien up until he hit puberty.”
The monster’s head is sideways, upper and lower jaws resting on the concrete, and Caleb lets it go, leans inside, his head briefly disappearing into the monster’s mouth.
Even in the low light I can see the muscles in his back, through his t-shirt.
God. God. God.
“I think I can cobble something together, especially since it’s only gotta last through tonight,” he says, then pulls his head out, sits back in the boat, and looks at me. “Won’t ruin the magic, will it?”
“The magic of a broken art piece?” I tease.
“The magic of believing in sea monsters,” he says, dimples sinking into his cheeks. “Say the word and I’ll leave it broken.”
Chapter Five
Caleb
I’m saying it like a joke, to tease her, but only because I like to hear her laugh. If Thalia said the word I’d row this boat away right now and leave the sculpture dark and broken in the middle of this pond, Vivian’s unhappiness be damned.
“Most people think sea monsters were probably oarfish,” she says.
I select some wood, some nails, a hammer, and bungee cord, tossing them all onto the concrete in front of me.
“Most people?”
“Most people who are interested in figuring out what sailors in the seventeen hundreds were actually seeing when they reported sea monsters,” Thalia amends herself. “Which amounts to… several people.”
“So several people think that sea monsters were actually oarfish,” I say. “Hold on.”
Carefully, I pull myself onto the concrete pad in the middle of the pond, right into the monster’s mouth, its wooden teeth grazing my torso on either side.
Especially in the dark, it’s a little unsettling.
“Several well-respected people,” Thalia says. “Oarfish are these huge, snake-looking fish that get to be thirty feet long, and they mostly live down pretty deep so people never see them on the surface.”
For a moment, I look around and contemplate a thirty-foot snake-looking fish.
I think I might prefer the sea monster.
“I thought you wanted to believe,” I say, carefully opening the jaws wider around myself.
“I wa
nt to believe briefly and reasonably,” Thalia says.
Over the monster’s upper jaw I can see her shift in her seat, hands behind her now, leaning back. Her skirt rides up another half an inch and for a moment, just a moment, that half inch of soft bronze skin is all I can see.
“Saying that I want to believe makes it sound like I’m fixing to picket Area 51 and demand answers,” she goes on, clearly oblivious to the effect she has on me. “I want to believe for a moment, and then I want to know that there’s a perfectly rational explanation for sea monsters and mermaids and ghosts and bigfoot, et cetera.”
I shift again, lift the monster’s head up, then lie down beneath it, bend one knee, and prop it up on that. The monster is designed to shift and glimmer with the wind, and it’s pretty clear that at some point tonight, there was a little too much breeze and it cracked a weak point in the hinge of the jaw.
My plan, as I said, isn’t to fix it forever. Levi could probably manage that, but he also built himself an entire house and all I did was help.
Also? I’m very, very distracted.
“What’s Bigfoot, then?” I ask her, grabbing a length of wood.
“Bears, probably,” she says. “People who have no nature experience go into the forest, see one standing on its hind legs from far away, and think they’ve discovered a new species.”
I lay the new piece of wood alongside the broken one, then try to bend it back. It’s not fully snapped, just splintered, but that’s enough.
“Except that one famous picture,” she calls. “That’s a guy in a costume. He admitted it later. Same with the Loch Ness Monster.”
“Nessie is a guy in a costume?”
“The famous picture was also faked,” she says, laughing.
I get the splintered piece bent back, let it go carefully, then hammer two nails into the new piece of wood.
“My hometown’s also got a lake monster,” I tell her. “Deepwood Dave.”
That gets a long, long pause from Thalia.
“Does it lives in Deepwood Lake or Lake Dave?” she finally asks.
“It lives in Deepwood Lake,” I tell her, getting back under the jaw, lining up the new wood with the old. “And his name is Dave. Or her name, I guess. I’m not sure anyone’s ever asked Dave how they identify. Someone would have to find them first, though my niece spent about a year trying.”
“No sightings?” Thalia asks.
I hook one end of the bungee cable to a nail, pull it tight, and start wrapping it around both pieces.
“None confirmed,” I tell her. “There were several possible sightings but they didn’t stand up to her rigorous scientific standards once she investigated them further.”
“Rigorous standards?” Thalia says, thoughtfully. “I like this kid.”
I finish binding the wood together and hook the cord on the other nail, then gently lift the monster’s jaw. It’s not a great fix, and it shifts slightly as I move, but I think it’ll last a few more hours.
“I think she’s done,” I say, carefully sitting up between the jaws, the wooden teeth scraping my torso again. “Should we go light her up again?”
I hand the remaining wood and tools to Thalia, who puts them into the boat, then carefully lower myself onto the bench seat. She’s sitting upright, rigid, feet apart and knees locked together, hands gripping the sides of the metal rowboat, black hair spilling over her shoulders.
It’s a little off-balance, slightly undone. My gaze drifts to the scratch on her knee, where she stumbled coming out of the window. It’s barely visible in the dark but already I’m thinking of her skin warm and soft beneath my fingers, the fact that I nearly kissed her knee.
I wonder what she’d do if I did that right here, right now. In the boat. On the pond, with no one else here. I wonder if she’d unclench her thighs and let her skirt ride up a little bit higher, whether she’d say no we shouldn’t do this here or simply no.
“You okay?” she asks, and I realize that I’ve been holding the oar in my hands without moving for several seconds, so I smile at her, pretend my thoughts are G-rated.
“You look like you’re ready to hold on through a storm,” I tell her, taking the oar. “Am I that bad of a captain?”
“Who says you’re the captain?” she asks as I push the oar into the water, pull it forward. I’m rowing backwards, but it’s only ten feet to the shore.
“Clearly, I’m the one guiding the ship,” I say.
“Captains don’t row.”
“Captains don’t pilot rowboats in ponds that are three feet deep at most,” I say, and the boat bumps into the shore. Carefully, I get out, pull it parallel to the ground, offer Thalia my hand.
She takes it, disembarks. I don’t let go and neither does she: strong and delicate all at once, long fingers with short nails, neat dark polish on all ten.
Then she holds up our joined hands, pulls them toward her, my forearm stretched out in the low light.
“What is it?” she asks, nodding at the tattoo. “A kite?”
“A constellation,” I tell her.
“A constellation of a kite?”
“A constellation of a sextant,” I say, even though she’s right and it does look a little like a kite, especially in the low light. “It’s a navigational instrument that measures latitude.”
“Can I touch it?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say, though I want to scream it, shout it, beg her with that one single word: yes, yes, yes you can touch me.
Thalia reaches out with her other hand, sinks her four fingers into the four points of the constellation, one over each star, her touch just as heated .
“Is it a tattoo with a story?” she asks, taking all but one finger off, using that one to trace the lines.
“I got it when I turned eighteen,” I say. “All five of us went together. I forget whose idea it was. We all got constellations. My mom’s an astronomer.”
It’s not the whole story, but this is a first date and even though I find myself wanting to unveil myself to her completely, take off my skin and let her see inside, I stop myself.
I don’t say, my brothers wanted to get something for Dad, and I talked them out of it.
I don’t say, I’d just found out the truth.
It wasn’t hard. I pointed out that he was gone and she’d done the work of raising us all for the last nine years and that if we commemorated someone, it should be her.
If we did it again, I’d feel differently. Now, I’d get his tattoo. I’d ink him into the flesh that’s half his. But back then, I couldn’t. Not yet.
“Your mom who’s friends with Vivian?” she asks, still tracing.
“They went to college together, at the VSU satellite campus in Blythe, both in their thirties,” I say. “I think it was a real bonding experience.”
Finally she covers it with her palm, cool against my arm, and her touch sends a shiver through me. The fingers of her other hand are still intertwined with mine, and to an outside observer it probably looks like we’re in the middle of some strange mating dance or ancient ritual.
Maybe we are.
“Do you have any others?” she asks.
“Just this one,” I say, but for the first time ever, I wish I did. I wish fervently, desperately, that I had a reason for her to touch me somewhere else.
“You?” I ask.
Thalia laughs, shaking her head, black hair gleaming in the light of the moon and the neon of the Thai pavilion, swishing over her shoulders. She takes her palm from my forearm and the spot suddenly feels too cool, like something is missing.
“My parents would kill me,” she says.
“I thought your dad was in the Navy.”
We’re still holding hands and she turns toward me, fingers interlaced, bringing our hands to shoulder level, waving them slowly up and down like we’re half-dancing to a waltz that only we can hear.
“He is,” she says.
“He doesn’t even have a Navy tattoo? Most military guys I know have at
least that.”
“He’s very traditional,” she says, raising her eyebrows, her eyes still on our interlocked hands. “Tattoos are for drug addicts, lowlifes, and whores, didn’t you know?”
“Which of those am I?” I tease, and she looks up at me, eyebrows still raised, mouth moving into a smile.
She’s close. So close I think I can feel her body heat, though it’s impossible for me to tell if that’s true or just my imagination.
“That’s a trick question and I’m not answering it,” she says. “They’ve only ever gotten me into trouble.”
“Good trouble or bad trouble?” I ask, shifting closer to her.
She’s looking up at me, dark eyes wide, laughing. I put two fingertips on her bare shoulder and slide them, gently, down her arm.
“All trouble is bad,” she says. “That’s what makes it trouble.”
“You’ve just never gotten into good trouble,” I say, still sliding. My heart feels like it’s in a marching band, blood crackling through my veins.
“But you’re about to offer to show me some?” she says, eyes dancing, head slightly tilted. “Is that your next line?”
“It’s not a line if you’re going to follow through,” I tell her, skating my fingers back up her arm. “But since you don’t seem to want trouble of any kind, I’ll insist we stay on the straight and narrow.”
“I didn’t know we’d gotten off it,” she says, and now her voice is quiet, melodious, musical over the hum of art patrons in the distance. “Unless I’m really wrong, we’re both consenting adults behaving themselves.”
I don’t want to behave myself. Thalia makes me feel wild and untamed in a way I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before.
It’s lust, pure and simple, and I know it’s lust but the knowledge doesn’t make it any easier to bear. It’s beating through my whole body like a timpani drum, vibrating my skin, reverberating through the air between us.
I shift forward, and now we’re touching, and I take my hand off her arm and slide it, slowly, around her waist and she rocks forward almost imperceptibly, but I feel it. I feel everything she does.