The Girl at the Deep End of the Lake

by Sam Lee Jackson

  By seven-thirty I had taken a long, time-killing shower and was tired of waiting. I pulled on a black tee shirt and a pair of jeans and started down the pier to the Moneypenny. The marina was coming to life and a line of boats was at the ramp waiting for their turn. I reached the Moneypenney just as Romy was pulling the curtains aside. She unlocked the sliding door and opened it.

  “Good morning,” I said. “I thought I’d check on your guest.”

  Romy smiled, “Come on in. I just checked her, she’s still sleeping.” I followed her inside. She was wearing one of those beige chic blouses that has a half collar that rose halfway up her neck. She had on faded pink shorts and I admired her slim rear and long tan legs as she led me to the galley.

  “I have coffee on,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Thanks,” I said, climbing up on one of the four stools that sat along the teakwood counter that separated the galley area from the lounge.

  “Cream and sugar?”

  “Sure, thanks.”

  I watched her fix the coffees with a minimum of effort and movement. She placed mine in front of me and moved around the counter and took the stool one removed from mine. She suppressed a yawn, covering it with the back of her hand.

  “Short night,” I said.

  She nodded, taking a small sip of the coffee, then blowing across the top to cool it. Holding her cup, she looked across at me. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Last night you asked me why I didn’t call the police and I was so busy explaining why I didn’t that it wasn’t until after you left that I thought what about you. Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “Fair enough,” I said, sipping the coffee. I shrugged. “I guess I’m not much of a police guy. I try to handle my own problems.”

  “That’s not much of an explanation.”

  “Well, how about this. When I was a kid I read every book I could on King Arthur and his knights. I want to be a Lancelot, or a Gawain, riding around saving damsels and righting wrongs. Chasing windmills with a swayback horse and tarnished armor.”

  She was smiling at me, “Still not much of an explanation.”

  “There’s an old Chinese saying that if you save someone’s life, you owe him yours for the rest of your life. I didn’t want to turn her over to strangers.”

  She laughed, “We are strangers.”

  “No I’m the rusty knight that pulled her out of the water, and you are the queen of sanctuary. That makes us family.”

  “Sir Jackson, saver of damsels.”

  “Has a nice ring, don’t you think.”

  She laughed again and I liked the sound of it. She finished her coffee.

  “Besides, Miss Romy, you gave me enough of a reason not to call the police.”

  “Would you like a refill?” she said, sliding off her stool.

  I stood up. “No, I’ve had some earlier. I’m coffee’d up. I thought I’d run into town and pick her up some clothes. What size do you think she wears?”

  She set her refilled cup on the counter and coolly studied me, “Why would you do that?”

  My turn to study her. I could sense a small cool flavor of suspicion. “Well to be honest, I’m reading you as the kind of person that is going to be willing to help her out, which means she may be here until she figures out what she’s going to do. Maybe she’s the one that will call the police. At any rate, she’s going to need some clothes other than what she had on last night.”

  “I would say a size zero in women’s or a large in a child’s.”

  “I’m just thinking a pair of jeans and shorts and some tees and underwear and flip-flops. Basics.”

  “Get some small Tampax. She’s on her period. That won’t embarrass you will it?”

  “When I was a boy I used to spray paint them red and pretend they were sticks of dynamite.”

  She guffawed. “Oh my God, boys!”

  “At any rate I think I can handle it.” She followed me out to the bow, still chuckling.

  I stepped onto the pier, “I’ll be back in a while, if it’s okay.”

  “That’s fine,” she said cocking her head, studying me again.

  When I reached the end of the pier and opened the gate, I looked back and she was still there watching me. I gave her a small wave and she waved back, then turned and went back inside.

  4

  I think I’d rather be at the dentist than go shopping. Wearing my articulated foot, I pulled the dust cover from my ’06 Mustang GT, wadded it up and stuck it in the trunk, then drove out to the highway across east to I-17 and took it south to Happy Valley Road. I knew of a huge shopping complex there. Another glass and concrete monstrosity in the middle of waterless desert lands. The droppings of a giant dragon of commerce and corporate profits and greed, with enough taxes and lobby to cause usually honest council members to look the other way. I pulled into the vast and filled parking lot and parked farther away than I needed to. I locked the car out of habit and walked across the expanse of asphalt. It was already hot and a million acres of city created an inversion that kept the city from ever cooling. I went into one of the huge superstores past the octogenarian greeter and walked around until I found a clerk about the same size as the girl. From then on it was easy. I was back at the marina before noon.

  When I stepped onto the bow of the Moneypenny, the curtains were closed. I had two full bags of stuff and I set one down and was about to rap on the glass when Romy peered out at me. A moment later, the curtains pulled back and she unlocked and opened the door. As I stepped inside, I caught a movement down the hallway.

  “She’s up,” Romy said. “Let me get her. She’s a little skittish.”

  I set the bags by the couch, then sat down trying to look as non- threatening as possible.

  I could hear Romy’s voice. Speaking softly to the girl then, she came out of the guest stateroom with the girl behind. Romy came into the living room, but the girl stopped by the galley counter, her large brown eyes darting from me to the outside and back again. Her hair was long and stringy, still damp from a shower. Her skin was pale, almost translucent. There were dark smudges under her eyes. She was trembling. She reminded me of a dog I had once that would quiver at the sound of thunder.

  Romy looked at the girl. “This is Jackson. He is the one that pulled you out of the water.”

  The solemn eyes took me in.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  The girl ducked her head and mumbled something that sounded like Lucinda.

  “This is Lucinda,” Romy said with a big smile, taking the girl’s arm.

  “Pleased to meet you, Lucinda,” I said.

  “I don’t remember any of that,” she said. “You got a cigarette?” Her voice was soft and young with a slight accent I couldn’t identify.

  “No, I’m sorry I don’t.” I looked at Romy and she shook her head. “What do you remember?”

  “You with the cops?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why should I tell you anything?”

  “Maybe I can help.”

  “What the fuck are you, a social worker?”

  “That’s some mouth for a little girl.”

  “I ain’t a little girl. I can take care of myself.”

  “Like last night,” I said. “Why don’t you tell us what happened. I think you can tell we are just trying to help.”

  She shrugged, “It don’t matter, does it?”

  “I don’t know. Until I know who did this and why they did it. Then maybe it will matter.” I watched her. “Tell you what, tell us why a fourteen or fifteen year old girl was stoned on whatever you stuck in your arm and was wrapped up in plastic and dumped in the lake by two gangbangers and I’ll get you some cigarettes.”

  “I’m sixteen,” she said.

  “You look twelve,” Romy said.

  “Roland likes me to look young. Did you see them? The ones you say threw me in the water. What did they look like? I don’t think I believe
you.”

  “Roland your pimp?”

  “He’s not a pimp. He takes care of me.”

  “Like last night?”

  “I don’t remember last night. Can you get me the cigarettes?” then she leaned over and threw up on the floor. Romy jumped up and hustled her into the bathroom. I found some dishtowels in a drawer in the galley and started cleaning up the mess. Not much to clean up. Nothing in her stomach but lake water.

  Romy came back out into the lounge. “She’s lying down again. God, I feel like I’m the one that needs a cigarette.”

  “You smoke?”

  “Not for years.”

  “Still time to call someone.”

  She moved to the couch and sat on the edge, elbows on knees and hands clasped together. “No, I told you about that.”

  “Maybe we could get her in a shelter?”

  She shook her head, “No, she’s fine here. I was getting bored sitting around this big old boat anyway.”

  I stood there watching her. She looked up and I could see the resolve in her eyes. I picked up the sacks I had brought in and moved to the galley counter. I emptied the contents on the countertop and she came over to stand beside me. She sorted through the clothes and held each one up as only a woman can do. She made little noises of approval. She looked at me with a smile.

  “How in the world would a man your age know what to pick for a teenager?”

  I laughed, “Simple really. I found a clerk that was a teenage girl the same size and had her pick it out.”

  She opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of scissors and started snipping the tags off. She stopped at a pair of blue jean cutoffs. “Yes,” she said. “I can see a teenage girl picking these, but there is just not enough material here. Way too much skin showing.”

  “Do you have children, teenagers?”

  Her turn to laugh. “No, we don’t have kids. I don’t think either one of us are real kid kind of people.”

  “You seem to be a nurturer.”

  She looked at me and I noticed the gold flecks in her brown eyes. “I told you, I’m just a little bored.” She bundled up the clothes in her arms, “Let me take these to the back. There’s nothing us girls like better than trying on new clothes. Why don’t you come back for dinner tonight? I’ll let you fix that marvelous martini you were bragging about.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll bring cigarettes to bribe her with.”

  She chuckled, “I don’t know why but that sounds awful. Around six okay?”

  “Sure.”

  5

  I made my way back to the Tiger Lily, my articulated foot working perfectly. I hadn’t had this one for long, and marveled at how the technology had improved over the last few years. I changed into a worn, soft, old tee shirt and a pair of worn swimming trunks. I turned on the Sony receiver, found the streaming Sinatra channel on the radio, and moved the dials until it was pushing through the Bose speakers. I had grown up listening to my father’s music and still liked it. I pulled the Shakespeare rod out of the locker and rigged it with a piece of shad I had in the freezer, hooked a dropshot ten feet above the hook and dropped the weight and bait over the stern. I placed that handle in the holder I had mounted beside the ladder. It would hold any fish up to fifty pounds without coming out. I clipped a bell on the rod, went in, drank a glass of tomato juice and unstrapped my foot. I stretched out on the oversized yellow couch.

  It seemed like I had just blinked when I awoke to the bell tinkling. I swung my legs over and hopped to the stern. The tip of the rod was bouncing, and I pulled the rod clear and unclipped the bell, at the same time setting the hook. I could feel the weight and the movement on the line and felt the same rush I always felt. I leaned back against the rail so I wouldn’t have to put my stub down and I reeled carefully, holding the tip as far from the side as I could. I didn’t want the fish to go under the boat and snap the line. After a moment I could feel the movement of the fish to be slow and sluggish and I knew I didn’t have a bass or even a channel cat. Sure enough it finally rolled to the surface to reveal the ugly mud-sucking snout of a carp. I grabbed the world’s largest dip net. I leaned against the corner and finally got the creature in. He had to go eight to ten pounds. I know some people consider these a delicacy, but I don’t. I got him untangled, unhooked and let him back over the side. Have a good life down there, sucking up whatever you suck up. One fish’s mud is another fish’s candy.

  I put the rod back in the locker and made my way back to my foot and looked at it, then decided to shower before my dinner engagement. Forty minutes later, foot in place, I was at the marina store paying the young teenaged clerk for a pack of cigarettes. He gave me my change, the pack and a book of matches with the Paradise Harbor logo on it. Again, I marveled at the cost of these damned things. I had smoked enough of them in my youth and my first two tours but had finally decided that watching my uncle die, shrunk down to under a hundred pounds and coughing his life out should be enough warning and I quit cold turkey. It wasn’t that hard. Not as hard as the training I had gone through. You just say”done” then you do it.

  I didn’t know what brand the girl would like, so I picked the girly looking ones. Turned out to be a mistake.

  The drapes to the lounge on the Moneypenny were open, but I didn’t see anyone inside when a voice came from above.

  “We’re up here.”

  I looked up and Romy was peering down at me.

  “You can take the stairs on the port side.”

  I lifted the bottle of wine I had brought and the pack of cigarettes, “Geeks bearing gifts,” I said.

  “Geeks?”

  “A joke,” I said. “Helen of Troy. Greeks.”

  She looked at me seriously, then said, “You might leave the little package down there for right now.”

  I waved the cigarettes and she nodded. I set them on the small round table that was on the bow and found my way to the spiral, wrought iron staircase that was halfway down the outside walkway. It wound its way to the top. Fancy, fancy.

  The top of the boat was set up like a lounge deck outfitted with round tables and cushioned chairs and loungers. At the bow there was an above-deck cockpit with two captain’s chairs. There was a portable bar on wheels to the side.

  Romy was seated at a table, a drink with a lime in it in front of her. The girl was on a lounge chair wearing one of her new pairs of shorts and a shirt she had pulled up and knotted above her navel. She wore a floppy maroon hat and an oversized pair of sunglasses that had to be Romy’s. She was reading a fashion magazine.

  “Fix yourself a drink,” Romy said. “Maybe one of those fabulous martinis you were bragging about.”

  “No brag, just fact, ma’am,” I said moving to the bar. “How about you?”

  “Sure.”

  “I want one,” the girl said.

  “Not on my watch,” Romy said.

  The girl looked at her over the top of the sunglasses. “I’m a lot older than you think I am.”

  “You said you were sixteen,” I said pouring the Gray Goose into the shaker.

  “That’s just a number.”

  “That’s what we are working with,” I said. I looked into the cooler attached to the bar. Romy lived well. “How about a Coke or an Orange?”

  “You got Dr. Pepper?”

  “There should be some,” Romy said. I dug around in the ice and fished one out. I popped the top on the opener that was attached to the side and handed it to the girl. She took it without a word.

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  “I ain’t Martha Stewart,” she said her accent softly slurring the S.

  “Your momma taught you better.”

  “My mother taught me shit.”

  I looked at Romy and she imperceptibly shrugged her shoulders. I finished the martinis and carried them over to Romy. I placed hers in front of her and took the seat where I could face them both. She sipped her drink.

  “Very good.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I
sipped mine and damn she was right. It was good. Probably the quality of the vodka but I’m going to take the credit.

  I had a very small and slim little camera that I have used from time to time and I pulled it from my pocket. I took a picture of Lucinda and her head snapped around.

  “What are you doing?” she glowered.

  “Please take your hat and glasses off.”

  “Why should I?”

  “He just wants your picture, dear,” Romy said.

  “Why,” she said again.

  “I need something to hang on my wall so I can have wonderful dreams at night.”

  “Screw you.”

  I looked at her for a moment. Defiant and sullen and probably scared to death.