Girl Underwater (13 page)

C
olin.

The memory of him—or maybe just the loss of him—pulls me back to reality. Old Gruder is driving like a maniac, his eyes wild with lust and abandon. My dress is hiked up to the hem of my underwear, way past where it should be.

As my vision clears, I turn my head to take in the sight of Gruder's brother. I hate him. I hate the booze, the keg stand, the goddamn kidnapping—but worst of all, I hate the way he brought me back to that place. To the lake, the bear, the terror.

Riding this wave of uninhibited rage, I yank on the steering wheel and pull hard to the right. Old Gruder yells like a little girl. He scrambles for the wheel as the headlights swerve into the darkness, the sights and sounds of South Boston rushing past. One of the windows sinks down of its own accord, and January's first breath hits me like a splash of cold water. I inhale, savoring the taste of freedom.

The tires skid on black ice, round and round and round, until the car simply spins itself out. It comes to rest on faded yellow lines, one of the tires jammed in a pothole. The exhaust pipe coughs once, as if to confirm the fun is over. Old Gruder peels his hands off the wheel, pitches forward, and vomits a chunky mixture of beer and Chinese food. I give the car door a healthy shove. It opens easily now, as if the outside world is finally ready to have me.

A light snow has begun to fall, melting in the folds of my hands. I walk toward a row of subdued houses, some illuminated by the eerie glow of televisions, others completely dark. A diner sits on the corner, languishing in yellow streetlights, its
E
burned out so it reads
DINER—HOT ATS 24/7
. A few old men are inside, gripping white mugs.

The peel of tires on a potholed road echoes somewhere behind me, then vanishes into the night. That, too, is already starting to feel like a memory. The keg, the almost kiss, the slam of a car door that shook my eardrums. Old Gruder's jowly face recedes into my subconscious like a wisp of smoke.

The door jingles as I enter. A solid-bodied waitress barks a greeting and points at one of the booths along the window. The menu quickly follows.

“Whatcha want?” She pours me a cup of coffee as she asks me this.

“Um . . .” The words are blurred, but the crackling of the fryer makes the menu irrelevant. I want eggs. Maybe some pancakes.

“Well?”

“Two eggs, over medium . . .” I say from memory; diner waitresses hate when you read the menu. Not knowing what you want makes you look like an amateur. “And a short stack of pancakes.”

She stomps off, her stark black uniform contrasting with the diner's warm interior. The red booths have that lived-in, lovingly used feel, like a grandparent's living room. The floors are recently swept, and the silverware sparkles. The air of cleanliness and efficiency conveys a proud establishment, owned by someone who cares.

The coffee is a dream: hot and fresh, brewed by the diner gods. As I'm wrestling with both sleeves to get them over my wrists, it occurs to me why it's such a struggle to get the thing off: I'm wearing my dad's coat.

This realization comes to me in slow motion, like trying to put together a simple puzzle. I'm staring at the buttons when the waitress comes by again.

“This yours?” She holds up a cell phone.

“No.”

“You sure? 'Cause I found it right under your table.”
Un-dah. You-ah.
Her accent reminds me of every gritty mob movie ever set in this town. In a subtle yet more immediate way, it reminds me of Colin.

She puts the cell phone on the place setting across from me and continues her coffee rounds. The home screen display looks familiar—a picture of me, actually. Suntanned and smiling but caught unawares; the kind of photo that means something to someone.

I scroll through the list of contacts. Teammates, Coach, Gruder . . . there are about a hundred missed calls in the last hour alone. Odd.

I sip my coffee. The old-school clock on the wall ticks past one o'clock.

Oh no.

It's
Lee's
phone. I fumble through the missed calls—all sent from
my
phone. Of course. He must have my coat and, therefore, my phone. And wallet. And everything else.

Not good.

My fingers slide down a menu of hundreds of names. Girls with strange descriptors (Rita Gap Teeth, Marie Tongue Ring, Elise Religious . . .). Guys who go by their initials. Then the difficult-to-categorize: Coach Evil, Doober . . .

Shea.

Selecting the number opens up a text message. It all seems very benign—a blank screen, nothing else, with no anxious waiting period or awkward silences. Much less personal than a phone call, but more casual than an e-mail. Plus I'm drunk, so everything feels like a good idea right now. I ignore the forty-eight missed calls and type in a message.

Are you awake?

I hit send. No hesitation—not even a blip of nerves. It comes naturally, like something I've done a hundred times before.

The waitress returns bearing a steaming plate of food, which she practically hurls onto the tabletop. At first, I think she's angry with me, but no, this is just her style. The clatter of plates is this place's elevator music.

“Thanks.”

She grunts in response and turns back toward the kitchen. I look down at the phone. The light is blinking with a new message.

Is this Avery?

I sent three little words from Lee's phone—
How could Colin possibly know it was me?
Maybe guys don't ask each other if they're awake on New Year's. Or maybe they do. I don't know.

I'm at the diner on

I actually have no idea where I am. I flip open a spare menu perched between the saltshakers. The Wheelhouse. I delete the previous message and type in its place:

I'm at the Wheelhouse.

Send.

Ten seconds pass.

Are you okay?

I ignore the purple bruises marring my forearm and push the thought away. I'm so tired of people asking me that question:
Are you okay? Are you sure?

I send a reply:
I'm fine.

Nothing for a while. Then:

Okay.

The phone rings two more times—both from “Aves”—before I can type in a reply. I dismiss both of them and stare at the blinking cursor.

Come?

Send.

A shorter pause.

Be there in ten.

I close my eyes, processing what I've just done. Colin is coming. In ten minutes. Because I asked him to.

I could undo it. I could call him and tell him never to text me, talk to me, or interact with me in any way ever again. And he would honor those requests because he respects the choices I've made, no matter how selfish or ill-informed.

I pound out a second message, this one to “Aves”/Lee:

I'm fine. Crashing at a friend's house.

Two more missed calls. The little blue light on the display blinks with a new message:

PICK UP THE PHONE.

Another missed call. I'm tempted to turn it off, but Lee's next call will probably be to the Boston PD. I hit the callback number and wait for his diatribe. After a single ring, he picks up—but it isn't rage I hear on the other line. It's fear.

“Aves!” He exhales like he's been holding his breath for hours. “Where the hell are you?”

“At a friend's house.”

“Which friend?”

“Uh . . .”

He cuts me off. “Someone saw you leave with Gruder's creepy-ass brother. Are you sure you're okay? I got a real bad read on him—”

“Yeah. I ditched him. Don't worry about it.”

I hear Gruder's muffled voice, then Lee telling him to shut up. His voice is quieter when he comes back on the line, as if all his bluster has suddenly left him. “You can't just say that to me, Aves.” His next breath catches in his throat. “You can't.”

“Lee, I'm sorry. I'm okay. I swear to you.”

I hear him sit down, and the rest is easy to visualize: one hand rubbing his neck, the other gripping the phone like a lifeline. Before the crash, our relationship was so breezy—the good times were great and the bad times were nonexistent. Our biggest fights were about which cafeteria to go to for lunch, or which party to hit up first on a Saturday night. We're both products of charmed childhoods. Two-parent families. Stable incomes. No real tragedies except the death of the family pet.

But things are different now. The process of putting things back together when the pieces don't fit anymore is becoming a reality not just for me but also for him. For us. He talks to me like I'm encased in glass. He holds my hand as if it might, at any moment, disintegrate. When he looks at me, he seems to be searching for my very soul.

“Lee?”

He sighs, letting the distant sound of music float through the silence. “I need to know you're okay. That's all I'm asking.”

“I am. I promise.”

“Put your friend on the line.”

“My friend?” My voice is a squeak.

“The one you're staying with. Put her on.”

The front door's jingling bell alerts me to the entry of a new customer. It all feels so preordained, in a way. The timing of a question, the jingling of a bell. The seat assignment on an airplane. The failure of an engine that had worked a thousand times before, only to give out while we were flying over some of the most savage terrain in the United States. These are all things that brought me here, to this moment, like a scripted play. These are the moments that make the world turn on its axis. This is why I'm here. Alive.

Colin.

He found me.

I
brush the snow off their bodies and herd the boys back inside.

“Where is Colin?” Liam asks. Aayu starts to cry.

Tim says nothing, but his somber mood mirrors my own. When he thinks I'm not looking, he glances at the door, willing it to open.

We settle down in a tight huddle, maximizing body heat. A cold wind slinks through the cracks in the fuselage, mocking me for every millimeter of skin that isn't covered. At least the boys are bundled up. Liam and Aayu finally doze off, but Tim continues to sniffle as he picks at the threads of his ski mask. I told him to take it off for a while because it was so wet, and now he holds it in his lap like a consolation prize.

“I'll find him, Tim.” I take his hand and squeeze it. His gloves are red and blue, emblazoned with the Patriots' mascot. I can barely feel his fingers through the plump material.

“He stopped whistling.”

“He must've had a reason.”

He yanks on one of the threads until it comes loose. “What if there are more bears?”

“Well, they live here. How would you feel if a bear broke into your house and slept on the floor?”

“I'd be mad.”

“Me, too. But what if the bear explained to you that he was lost, and he needed a place to stay for a while?”

“Bears can't talk.”

“That's right, they can't.” Tim's logic makes me smile; ten bucks says this kid loves going to school every morning. “But we can still communicate. Like with the bear we just met—we don't speak the same language, but we both got our points across.”

“How?”

“Well, for one thing, your radio really annoyed him.”

The glow in his green eyes warms my heart. “It did?”

“Big-time.”

“One of the suitcases had batteries.” He folds his hands in his lap, and in that moment, he looks like the first grader he probably is. “That's all I did.”

“Well, you did a lot, Tim. We'll keep it on so he stays away.”

“What if he doesn't?”

“He will.”

“Why?”

“Because I told him to.”

“You're the boss?”

I nod, even though the last thing I felt like back there was the boss. I felt like bear meat.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“How about Colin? Will they bother him?” He tugs his hat past his runny nose, his quivering chin. He waits for my answer with unfailing patience, and the feeling it stirs in me isn't just an ache; it's a burn.

“Avery?”

“No,” I say. “They won't bother him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Tim scoots a little closer. I pull his hood up again and tie it around his chin. The generous size makes him look like a miniature Eskimo. The fur lining just enhances the effect.

“My mom and dad are dead,” he says after a while. The flat, resigned way he says it makes my stomach clench. “Is Colin dead, too?”

I cup his face in my hands. “No,” I say. “He's not dead.”

“Are you sure?”

This time, I don't hesitate. This time, the trace of doubt in my voice is gone.

“Positive.”

•

The boys sleep in a state of oblivion, but I spend the next hour watching the storm cycle through various phases of its natural life. A blowing, gusting snow; the occasional gasps of wind; the silence that follows. In these moments, I find the time and space to think.

Colin would not have made the swim without calculating it from every angle. He would have tried to minimize distance and, therefore, effort. He went at dawn so he would still have time to hike back if it came to that. But the whistles tell me he never even made it into the water.

They sounded close,
too
close. But why signal to us at all? If, in fact, it was a signal. In which case he may be injured, or even lost.

I can't leave these boys for an entire day, but I have to do something. Colin would look for me if the situation were reversed. He wouldn't hesitate. The only difference is, he'd carry all three boys in his arms. I can barely manage one.

I nudge Tim awake.

He finds me holding a toiletry case, its contents stuffed with what remains of our nutrition. In this case, it's a bag of Werther's and a Fruit Roll-Up, which we found stuffed in a slipper. He glances at the Werther's, then back up at me. “Are you leaving?” He looks at me like I've just murdered a puppy.

“I'm going to look for Colin.”

“Oh. Well that's okay. Can I come?”

I shuffle over to him. He looks strangely pale, his forehead clammy. “Are you okay, Tim?”

“Yeah,” he says.
Would a six-year-old lie to me?
I feel the skin there: It's warm, but not feverish—not quite yet, anyway.

“You sure?”

“Yes,” he says, a little disgruntled. I peel my hand away, his sweat clinging to my fingertips. He doesn't look right, but then again, none of us are in prime condition. Maybe he's just cold.

I tuck another scarf around his neck. “Tim, I need you to stay here.”

He nods like he expected this. “You need me to watch Liam and Aayu.”

“Yes.”

“What if they don't listen to me?”

“They will.” I zip his coat up to his chin. “They look up to you.”

He glances over his shoulder, uncertain.

“Remember what I said. You're the fort master now.”

Not sure how I came up with
fort master
, but Tim seems to like it. He gives me a very serious, stern look. I almost smile, but to do so would wound his pride. Instead, I hand him the Fruit Roll-Up and Werther's and tell him he's in charge.

“Don't give any of the Werther's to Aayu, though. I think he's too small. And keep the transceiver on.” I squeeze Tim's hand. “I'll be back in one hour. I promise.”

“Are you sure?”

This time, we say it together: “Positive.”

•

The sky is a muted palette of blacks, grays, and whites. I've seen my share of snow as a native New Englander, but nothing like this. Fine white flakes evaporate into nothing, blending with the swath of gray skies. It's a false calm, the eye of the storm. The mottled clouds tell me Mother Nature is just catching her breath.

I'm traveling light: long underwear, two pairs of pants, a coat, two sweaters, three T-shirts, and a pair of boots from a piece of luggage that washed up yesterday. The boots are at least three sizes too big for my feet, and the camouflage-style gloves on my hands and the hat on my head were clearly designed for a lumberjack. It makes the going slow and cumbersome.

I lick my lips and unleash a long whistle. A flock of birds sweeps the sky above me. I whistle two more times, but the only answer is my own echo, bouncing off the mountainsides until it fades to the same maddening silence.

My first instinct is to follow Colin's likely path, but after ten paces into the forest, everything starts to look the same. Even if the sun manages to penetrate the clouds, I won't have the benefit of daylight. The branches are thick and weighted with snow, obscuring my view of the sky. For as long as I'm in those woods, it will feel like the dead of night.

With this thought, I turn around. The snow, the pale sun, the clouds shifting overhead . . . it all feels like mockery, like a cruel, relentless joke. The snow flutters down on top of me, a dainty dance in the wind. I approach the lake, where everything feels somehow clearer, more possible. While scanning the perimeter for signs of color or movement, I whistle until my lips are numb.

A faint, tinny sound drifts into my consciousness, then fades. I listen to it, let it go. The snow kicks up around me, soft as a caress.

I put my hands on my knees and lean forward, dropping my chin to my chest. My vision narrows until all that remains is my own shimmering reflection. My cheeks are a raw, worrisome red; my skin bears the telltale burn of sun and wind. I see my eyes, too. My father's eyes. Edward's eyes. They would find a way to survive out here. They would make it home.

I lose myself in this thought, searching for comfort in the familiar, for memories that might somehow spur me on. But it doesn't come. My only emotion is grief. My only thought, louder than any other, maybe in all my life, is how desperately I want to find Colin.

Tim. Aayu. Liam. The thought of their innocent, windburned faces brings me back again. I can't lose my tenuous grasp on reality, on hope. The boys need me.

Need.
As dangerous as hope, as uncertain as the future. I need Colin Shea, and it's a pure, driving kind of need. I understand this now, and it gives me strength; it pushes me onward.

I turn back toward the woods, wading through snowdrifts to get there. North and east and south all look the same, especially now, after two feet of snow. But the answer is out there; it's close.

Where are you?

The tall tree across the lake looms through the haze. Tim's Tree, as he calls it. The cabin is somewhere nearby, an impossible destination.

Colin would have started at the narrowest distance across, which isn't here. I walk the tree line, just as Colin would have done. The snow is shallower, easier to wade through. Less exposed, and therefore a few degrees warmer, which would have made a difference in preparing for a swim like this.

I spot a small isthmus jutting out into the lake, maybe two hundred yards south of the lean-to. This little strip of land would have saved him fifty meters, a distance Colin can swim in twenty-two seconds on a bad day, but an alpine lake in blizzard conditions isn't an Olympic swimming pool. He would have wanted those twenty-two seconds. He would have fought to conserve them.

Here, too, the cabin is visible—just barely, but part of the roof is exposed. Maybe he saw it, or maybe he didn't. I'm not sure it mattered. He knew it was there.

You shouldn't have done this. It's insane.

I realize this now. The distance is too great, the conditions too poor. Maybe he turned back. Maybe he decided—

There.
I whirl around. The sound is so faint as to be almost inaudible: breathy, with a scratchiness that makes my blood hum. It's coming from the woods.

I inch past the first row of trees, despite every spit of good sense telling me to do otherwise. My boots sink into the softer, shallower snow. Shadows draw me into an uninhabitable nowhere. I start reciting Emily Dickinson's creepy poems about death because they are the only words that come to mind. Hopefully it will be enough to keep the bears at bay.

The trees close on me—above, around, everywhere. Lines of poetry turn to breathless chants, and then I'm screaming.
Colin.

There is no response. No stray sound, no whispers of air. A gust of wind snakes through the trees, and a plume of snow falls at my feet.

I look down at my boots.

And there, half buried in the snow, is Colin's red shirt.