Breathing Water (10 page)

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Authors: T. Greenwood

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“Good,” my mother said. “Yari just got promoted to principal.”

“How's her asthma?” Gussy asked.

“Terrible. She's seen three doctors now, and there's nothing they can do for her. Weak lungs.” She shrugged.

“She should come home where the air is clean,” Gussy said, frowning.

“She should quit
smoking,”
I said.

The last thing in the world I needed right now was my frail-breathed, protÃ©gÃ© sister coming to visit. Colette is only two years older than me, but she has always been old. Even when we were little, she was always giving advice, always condescending. The last time we spoke she told me that I should consider going into advertising. I wasn't dancing for the New York City Ballet. I wasn't writing books or painting canvases. I wasn't living my life like a movie.
You have such a way with words,
she said, breathing into her inhaler.
What else are you going
to
do with an English degree?

“It'll be nice to see her,” I said, though I knew that it wouldn't.

My father burned the steaks and undercooked the hamburger, but Gussy's deviled eggs, German potato salad, and baked beans melted like butter in my mouth. I pushed the charred T-bone around my plate. I was anxious to be alone again. I was tired from all the conversation. My father noticed that I wasn't eating my steak.

“So Effie, you don't eat anymore? Is that the new hip thing in Seattle?”

“I ate,” I whined. Every time I am around my parents I find myself behaving like a child.

“You can't weigh more than a hundred pounds,” he said.

I shrugged.

“She was always picky.” My mother nodded. “That's all it is. Remember when she wouldn't eat strawberries or bananas?”

“I wasn't being picky. They gave me hives,” I said. “God.”

“What?” she asked, looking hurt.

“I'm not picky. I'm just not hungry,” I said and grabbed my plate. I stood up, the greasy paper plate flimsy in my hand, and threw the plate into the trash barrel by the door.

“Effie,” my father said, reprimanding me. He wasn't smiling anymore.

“I feel sick,” I said.

Gussy stood up and put her hand on my shoulder. “It's okay, honey.”

I felt like I was going to cry. I kept walking back toward the camp. I walked up the stairs to the loft, and I could hear Gussy talking softly to my mother. I pulled the covers over my head to block out the hushed whispers. The soft cotton of the quilt reminded me how tired I was. I couldn't have slept more than a couple of hours in the tree house. I feigned sleep when my mother came up the stairs to check on me.

“Effie?” I heard her whisper. “We're going home now. Call if you need anything. I hope you feel better.”

When I heard the door close, and the sounds of their departure, I started to sob. I sobbed until my hair was wet around my face and the pillowcase was soggy. I pulled myself out of bed and walked down the stairs. The clock said 3:45, but it felt later. The kitchen didn't look as though anyone had been there. The coals on the grill had turned to dust. I felt suddenly, horribly, guilty. I thought about calling my mother, my father, Gussy, and apologizing.

Instead, I decided to drive to Hudson's and buy a six-pack of beer. I was overcome with a sense of purpose. I gathered change from the nightstand and pockets. I found my keys and slipped on my sandals. When I turned the ignition, the gauge didn't move, but there was gas. It was running. Whoever returned the car to me must have put in enough gas to drive it into town.

There were a lot of cars on the road. Kids with fishing poles, teenagers giggling and holding hands. I swerved to stay clear of a group of cyclists. There were no parking spaces at Hudson's.

I grabbed a six-pack, a bag of ice, a pack of cigarettes, and a box of sparklers. The man behind the counter was Billy Moffett's father. I looked at the stuff I was buying and hoped he didn't recognize me. Luckily, he was too busy to notice that I was not a summer person but rather the girl who accused his son of breaking her nose. He was operating two cash registers and the MegaBucks machine for the line of people that curled all the way back to the freezers.

Back at the camp, I changed into my bathing suit. I filled a cooler with ice and beer and dragged and old lawn chair out to Gussy's dock. I opened a beer and watched a group of people at the Foresters' pile into a big motorboat and take off with a water skier in tow. I pulled off my T-shirt and ran my fingers over my ribs. My skin was so pale it was nearly blue. It was a strange contrast to the skin of my arms and legs, which was dark from days of painting. My bones were sharp, my stomach sunken. After a few minutes, I covered my body up again so I wouldn't have to look at it.

I went back inside and checked to see if anything had started to grow in the terra-cotta planters. Not yet. I checked on all of my gifts and then felt hungry. There was a platter of food in the refrigerator, intended for me, I supposed. I sat down in the breakfast nook and ate as if I hadn't eaten in days. Potato salad with thick red potato skins, sweet white corn cold and salty. Cold steak, sweet and red inside. When the food was gone I sat back, leaning against the cool hard wood of the bench seat and peered out the window at the cotton candy sky. There were still boats out on the water. Everyone was trying to squeeze another drop of sunlight from the day. I smelled barbecue, burning cedar and meat. I imagined my parents linked arm and arm at the faculty picnic. My mother's lips stained with faculty wine. My father's hands strongly shaking faculty hands. I imagined they'd carefully forgotten my small illness by now.

Warm and slightly dizzy with the beer and sun, I picked up the phone and dialed information.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” I said. “Maggie?”

“Yeh?”

“This is Effie,” I said.

I heard rustling and then the heavy clunk of plastic on Iinoleum. “Alice, leave the cat alone! Hello?”

“Maggie? It's Effie. Effie Greer.”

“Effie! Are you up to your Gram's camp?”

“Uh-huh,” I said. My palm was sweating on the phone.

“Well what're you doing for the Fourth?”

“Nothing much,” I said. “I mean, my folks were here earlier, but they're not anymore.”

“I'll be over in ten minutes. I've been dying to get out of this house. I'll drop Alice over to my mother's,” she said.

My hands were still sweating; I could barely hold on to the phone. “Okay,” I said.

“I'll bring some beer. I could use one. Sounds like you could too.” She laughed.

She pulled into the driveway in her station wagon, snubbed out a cigarette, and turned off the ignition. “Hey there.” Maggie's voice sounded like crackling fire. Everything about her suggested a certain smoldering. Her eyes were black but bright, like glowing embers. Even her hair, a mess of willful curls, looked like flames licking her face. She looked more like she had in high school without her waitress uniform on.

“Hi,” I said. I was standing barefoot on the grass. It was already damp with dew, and my feet were cold.

“I never break a promise.” She smiled, reaching into the back of the car and pulling out a brown paper bag. “Hudson's was sold out of the light stuff I usually drink. But you hardly need light beer, do you? And, hell, it's a holiday.”

“Come on in,” I said, motioning awkwardly to the camp door.

“Sure thing,” she said. “This is nice,” she said, peering into the living room.

I took the bag of beer and put it in the fridge. “It's bigger inside than it looks from the outside.”

I grabbed two bottles of beer and handed her one. The sharp cap stung my palm as I tried to twist it off. I covered my hand with my T-shirt and tried again.

“Aren't these a bitch?” she said, shaking her head. “Gimme, I've got calluses.”

I handed her the beer and she easily pried the cap off. A thin cloud of white smoke rose from the bottle.

“I am so glad you called. I was about to tear my hair out with boredom. It's not like I mind sitting around on my ass any other night, but on a holiday? No way. You should be out doing something, dontcha think?”

“Definitely.” I nodded, swallowing a mouthful of bitter beer.

“I mean it's
Independence Day.”
She grinned.“I love the whole idea, you know? Our forefathers breaking out of England. Sure, they were convicts and lunatics, but they were
escaped
convicts and lunatics.” She sat down in the breakfast nook and leafed through a newspaper. She shrugged. “I don't know. I don't mean to get all philosophical or nothin'.”

“I hadn't thought about it too much,” I said. “But you've got a point.”

“So whatcha want to do tonight?” she asked and stood up.

“I don't know,” I said. “Don't they still do fireworks?”

“Yeh, but they suck.” She looked at the ceiling, contemplating the pattern of knots. “Let's go for a hike.”

“A hike?”

“Yeh. We can climb up to the lean-to on Franklin. Start a fire, roast some marshmallows. Tell ghost stories. Shit, I don't know. Get drunk and fall asleep outside?”

“It's already dark,” I said.

“So? You got a flashlight?”

“I can't stay the night,” I said, vaguely remembering my plan to catch the night person. “Last night some kids broke in.”

“Fine then. Let's go up and watch the lame fireworks and then come home.” She was tugging on my arm like a child. “Please?”

If you have ever hiked in the woods at night, you know the strangeness of familiar places in the dark. As we climbed through the cold forest, I held on to the back of Maggie's flannel shirt with one hand and a small disposable flashlight I found in Gussy's closet with the other. Maggie was carrying the good flashlight, casting a narrow yellow beam against the black foliage. We didn't speak for what felt like an hour until we finally arrived at the clearing, where the lean-to was falling with age and the weight of nature.

“Isn't it beautiful?” Maggie cried out in her raspy voice. She flicked off the flashlight, leaving me standing in a shallow pool of murky moonlight. “You could forget all about stuff up here.”

I nodded, but she couldn't see me.

“Let's get a fire going. What time have you got?”

I shined the small flashlight on my watch. “Nine forty-five.”

“Good. The fireworks probably won't start until ten.” She set down the backpack of beer and stale marshmallows I found in one of Gussy's cupboards. “There's some good kindling over there.”

I followed the faint outline of her gesture to a pile of wood left, as if for us, in the lean-to.

“So why did you come back to Gormlaith?” she asked. “You moved all the way out to Seattle, didn't you?”

“Yeh,” I said.

“I can't imagine you missed this place.” She laughed. “There's got to be a hell of a lot more excitement there.”

“Not really,” I said.

“I think about moving every now and then,” she said. “But it's hard, with Alice. I don't want her to grow up in the city. I think it's important for a kid to feel safe. She can play outside without me worrying. Play in the woods, be around animals.”

“I agree.” I nodded.

“So why'd you come back then?”

My heart pounded. “To help Gussy with the camp. My grampa died last year, and it's hard for her to take care of it on her own.” The relief of my excuse made me sigh.

“That's cool.”

“Someone is bringing me presents,” I said. My head was thick with beer.

“Yeah?”

“A robin's egg. Polliwogs. Plants.”

“Who is it?” she asked.

“I don't know. At first I thought it was my neighbor, but now I'm pretty sure it isn't. I'm going to try to catch them tonight.”

“Are you sure they're presents?”

“I think so,” I said and spread out the blanket I had in my own backpack.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I think they're supposed to be presents. I guess they could be accidents.”

“Accidents?”

“Like, something that's not for me. I don't know anybody here. Not anymore anyway. Except for you.” I stumbled as I tried to sit.