Diving In (22 page)

He swallowed. “I don’t know,” he said under his breath, ducking his head. He stared at his hands so she could try it on without him staring, a mercy to himself as much as to her.

After a minute she said, “Forget it,” and he looked up just as she flung the wet suit aside. “I’ll feel like a mummy in that thing. I need to be able to move. And besides, it’s kind of gross, all wet and slimy. God knows what’s living in that fabric. Not that I’m a germaphobe.”

“You’re young,” he said.

“Still time, you mean?”

“Exactly,” he said. “Besides, with the vest, a wet suit is overkill.”

Nicki pointed at him. “Don’t mention death.”

“Sorry.”

She put the life vest on, which would help him keep his gaze above her neck. The legs, though—man, they killed him.

Death again. Her mood was contagious.

The boat stopped near a cluster of other boats, some much smaller, and dropped anchor. Within five minutes, the people were jumping out with their flippers and snorkels, laughing and shouting to one another. Nicki stood at the outskirts of the crowd queuing for the ladder down into the water, her lips in a hard line.

“I wish I could give you a drink,” Ansel said.

She turned suddenly, blinking at him as if she’d just remembered he was there. Her gaze dropped to his mouth and she said something too quiet to hear.

“Excuse me?” he asked, heart pounding. He leaned closer.

“Kiss me,” she said. “For good luck.”

Heat exploded inside him.
Oh, my pleasure
.

No, no, no. She was too vulnerable. He’d never be able to stop. He’d promised he wouldn’t hit on her.

But she’d asked.

“Sure,” he said, stretching his face into a smile, as if it was all a joke, just fun, nothing really. He moved his face to within an inch of hers, close enough to smell her sunscreen. At the last second, he dropped the smile and brushed his lips across hers.
 

Blood roaring in his ears, he turned away, grabbed the railing of the ladder, and dunked his mask in the freshwater bucket they kept on hand for rinsing. “I’ll get in first so you can grab on to me if you want to.” He didn’t look back at her, just plunged into the water he hoped would cool him down.

Chapter 16

N
ICKI
HAD
FELT
A
LITTLE
stupid for asking for the kiss, but if anything was going to distract her from the suffocating tension closing her throat, it would be the feel of his lips. Preemptive mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

It did help. She had a dumb smile on her face as she watched him jump into the water with the others, his swim trunks slung low enough for her to check out the dimples again. He didn’t seem so scary when all she looked at was his butt.

She tested the buckles on her life vest and waddled to the ladder.

“We’ll be right here,” the captain said. “You’ll be fine.”

“I’ll be fine,” Nicki said, lifting a flipper over the edge. The life jacket flattened her breasts. All this gear just to get into the water. To be fair, it had taken eons of evolution to get her ancestors out of the sea, so perhaps it made sense.

People in the water began shouting at each other, waving, splashing around, then disappearing under the surface.

“Turtle,” the captain guessed.

“Oh, good,” Nicki said, sitting on the top rung of the ladder.

“Would you like the board?” he asked. “You can look through the window.”

Facing the Membrane of Terror, she barely heard him.
Just push through. There’s a turtle.

She didn’t give a rat’s ass about turtles. But Ansel was down there, swimming close to the boat, though the current kept pushing him away. She couldn’t see his face under the mask, snorkel, and waves, but she knew he had to be smiling that goofy grin of his. Her life had so many drama queens in it—students, fellow teachers, herself—it was great to be with an easygoing, fun-loving person who knew how to enjoy life.

She crept down another rung, felt cold water fill her flippers, chill her toes. Not cold like San Francisco cold, but cold enough. Everyone else was floating facedown or submerged under the surface. The crew member otherwise known as Spike was busy setting up something called Snuba for a couple in their sixties who kept groping each other over the neoprene. Honeymooners, apparently.

She turned around to climb down another two rungs. The boat bobbed up, down, up—and then a wave caught her thighs, and she just let go and let God.

Or Neptune. Whatever.

Well, good news. She wasn’t dead. The life jacket kept her face out of the water, although she was on her back, facing the sky.

No turtles. Nice birds, though.

“How you doing, Nicki?” the captain called out. She’d told him she was a new swimmer and might need a little extra attention, like an airlift.

“Great!” Floating on her back, she decided she was having fun, lots of fun, so much fun.

“The fish are the other way,” Ansel said, paddling closer. “Turn over.”

“I love swimming.” She couldn’t move. How long could she float before something ate her? Perhaps she’d focused too much on drowning as the sole danger. Now her mind raced through the other threats in the sea—vast and ancient, big and small. There were sharks, sure, but what about eels? Weren’t there tiny stinging things than could put you into cardiac arrest?

Oddly, the sensation of living creatures below her in the mighty depths wasn’t so bad. It was the water itself that terrified her.

She continued to float on her back. How far would she get if she didn’t move? The waves seemed to be pushing her away from the boat, parallel to the shoreline, which was just close enough to recognize the hair color of the people on the beach. Was it like flying around the moon and some kind of rebound would bring her back? Or would her remains float to one of the continents along the Pacific Rim?

Ansel put a hand on her arm, brought his face close to hers. “I can pull you back to the boat.”

“Not from Seattle,” she said, watching the gulls. She wondered if some birds had malfunctioning brain chemistry that made them afraid of flying. Lifting her head, she scanned the distant beach for little white blobs pacing the sand, imagining one of them was just like her, fretting about his problem, comfortable eating bugs on the beach but knowing there were better snacks if he could just fly like the other birds…

“I’ll pull you in. Hold on to my shoulder if you can.” Ansel’s grip on her arm tightened, waves rolled over them.

“No, I’m fine.” She peeled his fingers off. “I was just getting used to the water. I’m totally fine.” Kicking herself upright, she blew the water out of the snorkel, sucked in a breath, and plopped her face in.

Cloudy green water sparkling with yellow fish. Coral about five feet below her. The sandy bottom around the coral, only about ten feet deep, maybe less. In the distance, the bodies of her fellow tourists, most of them kicking below the water, bubbles rising from their snorkels.

She lifted her face out of the water, spat out the mouthpiece, and smiled at Ansel, who was treading water, watching her.
 

“What’s the matter?” She had to shout over the sound of the wind, the water in her ears.

Finally, he smiled. “Nothing. Can you see anything? The water’s a little cloudy.”

“I’m fine. I can totally see those little yellow fish.” She replaced her snorkel, breathed, reminded herself she was encased in a life vest, and put her face in the water again. The other people were swimming down to the coral, where she assumed most of the action was. Even without fear, she couldn’t go any deeper without better swimming skills.

She lifted her face back out and said to Ansel, “Go ahead—go down there. I’ll watch you.”

“I’ve seen it before. Don’t worry about it.”

“I want you to. Please? You can tell me what’s going on. What are those people looking at over there?” She pointed to the southeast. “Look under the water. Everyone’s clustered around something.”

“It’s probably a turtle.”

“Go find out. I’ll stay near the boat.”

He glanced behind them. “You’re not near the boat anymore. The wind has picked up.”

Perhaps it was only adrenaline, but she wasn’t worried. “I’m fine! I’ve broken through the membrane, you know?” She laughed. “Be my eyes and ears. I’m stuck up here on the surface. Please.”

“You’re sure?”

They had drifted about halfway between the largest group of snorkelers and the boat. Now that she had time to adjust, she could admit the water here was no deeper than the pool she’d been in all week. She could see faces on the beach, so it couldn’t be very far. “Yes! Find out what they’re looking at and come back and describe it to me.”

He looked around. “We’re getting kind of far from the boat.”

“You can rescue me when you come back,” she said. “The sooner you go, the less rescuing you’ll have to do.”

His gray eyes smiled behind his mask. “Okay. If you’re sure. Only for a minute.” He swam closer and patted her life jacket before emptying out his snorkel, shoving it in his mouth, and diving down.

Two teenage boys were only a few body lengths away, shouting to each other as they came up for breath. She watched them, splashing and racing, diving down, popping back up, impressed by their energy and reckless happiness. It was only June but she already missed her students back home. These boys would’ve been in her class two or three years earlier; they weren’t much older than freshmen. She was always amazed how big they got within a year or two of leaving her class. The little boys turned into men. On the outside, anyway.

While Nicki practiced her kicking and paddling to stay within range of the boat, one of the boys swam away to join the larger group, leaving the second one alone under the water. She put her face in to look for him, finding him directly below her, kicking his way deeper. Finally, he shot back up to the surface for air only two feet away from where she floated.

“Jake, did you see—”

He cut himself off when he saw it was her, not the other boy, in the water next to him. He was panting for breath, his shoulders low in the water. He didn’t look energetic anymore.

“What did you see?” she asked him, knowing from experience that a teenage boy wouldn’t admit if he were having trouble.

“Eel. Where”—he took a breath—“my cousin. Was here.”

Shoving the thought of eels out of her mind—they hid under coral, far, far, far from the surface, right?—she kicked closer to him and pointed. “He swam that way. Should we join him?”

He shoved the mask up on his forehead and squinted, looking behind her. “Where’s the boat?”

She twisted around. “That’s it.”

His eyes widened. “That can’t be it.” He began blinking quickly. “It’s too far.”

It
was
getting far. The waves seemed higher, the boat rocking more from side to side—or whatever boat people called that. Aft to Starbucks? “The captain sees us. He’s on the deck. Hold on to me. I’ll wave to him and somebody can help—”

“No!” The boy took the mask and snorkel off his head completely. “I just need to breathe. I can swim. I’m fine. I just need to breathe.”

She’d recognized a kindred spirit immediately, and now she saw the fearful tyrant in his mind, so much like hers, taking over. “Of course you’re fine. You just need to catch your breath.”

To her horror, he hurled the mask and snorkel over her head. “Stupid thing. Can’t breathe.” The whites of his eyes matched his protective swim shirt.

“Float on your back and catch your breath,” she said, trying to reach for the snorkel, but it was gone.

“I don’t float. I sink!” He tilted his head back, gulped air.
 

She could feel his panic rising as if it were her own—her own throat closing, her own limbs freezing. Waving at the boat, she called as loudly as she could, “Help! We”—she corrected herself—“I need help!”

“No!” The boy grabbed her shoulders. He was bigger than Ansel, but with a baby face, blue-lipped and terrified. “I just can’t breathe! Stupid snorkel! I knew it was a bad one! Jake got the good one! Jake! Jake!” He sank up to his lips. Water flooded his mouth.

She had that feeling that her brain was recording every detail of everything that happened, giving her a moment that would haunt her for the rest of her life. “I float. You take this.” She unbuckled the top buckle of the vest.

“No! I don’t need it!” His voice cracked. “Jake!” He punched the water and let himself float away from her, too far for him to hold on to her and the life vest.

She unfastened the next buckle. She would float. She’d been floating in the pool all week. She just had to keep calm, take deep breaths, and wait for the crew or Ansel to come for them.

They were now twice as far from the boat as they’d been when the boy had thrown his snorkel, and the gap was growing, accelerating.

“What’s your name?” She kicked and joined him. Before she could change her mind, she wriggled out of the vest and held it between them as she loosened the straps. If he had any trouble getting it on, it might set him off, push him further into panic.
 

He was openly crying now, no longer staring at the boat but at the sky, letting the current take him.
 

Her body felt naked without the vest. “Hey, you’re doing great. You just need to breathe… Jake? Did you say your name is Jake?”

“Jared,” he gasped.

“Hey, Jared. I’m Nicki. Please hold this for me for a second.” Putting a hand on his shoulder, trying not to dig her nails into his skin in her haste, she moved the vest against his chest where he’d have to grab it.

“I don’t need anything!” Jared pounded the water with his fist, but he had his arm on the floating vest. “Leave me alone! Jake!”

I can float, I can float
, she told herself. Being too close to Jared was fueling his panic by making him feel trapped. And if he lashed out at her or grabbed her shoulders again, now that she didn’t have the life vest…

Better to float away.

Chapter 17