Updrift (4 page)

Gabe, Maya, and Kate attended grade school together that first autumn, and their families formed a loose sub-community filling their free time throughout the year. In warmer weather, they were often as not at the beach in front of the Blake home, although interestingly, they never seemed to do much swimming. Or rather, the Blakes didn’t. Cooler weather drew everyone inland, either inside one of their houses for dinner or around a fire in someone’s back yard. Regardless of where the families were, the conversation was always lively, the company interesting, and the meals thoughtfully prepared.

In school, the trio formed their own discrete social club, which remained intact throughout their elementary grades. Kate saw Maya excel all around as an exemplary student who also made good in almost every sport she tried. Kate herself was an unadulterated bookworm with her cooking and gardening hobbies playing sidekick.

Gabe was harder for Kate to categorize because he was unlike anyone else she knew. Lanky, skinny, and eventually wearing the trademark Blake eyeglasses, he dominated academically and was quickly pegged by their peers as a brainy geek, which did not tell the whole story, as he was also athletically capable. But despite his abilities, Gabe didn’t gravitate toward any extracurricular activities, and particularly when it came to sports, this struck Kate as odd. He was so quick and agile; he was a natural in virtually every P.E. activity at school. He was often the first person picked when it came to team sports, with good reason. Not only was he fast and strong, but he kept his head when the competition was heated, and more than once, this meant his team won.

But when it came to formal sports endeavors, Gabe did not participate. He was courted by classmates to join Little League and play organized soccer and football but he always declined. In what was to Kate the most interesting of these refusals, she saw Gabe say ‘no’ to the school swim team.

“Gabe, you love to swim,” Kate admonished, “and I know it’s been a while but we swam for hours when we were five—you were super-fast and could hold your breath forever. You’d probably start winning titles left and right.”

Gabe guffawed. “Well, yeah. That’s where I’d
really
be a freak, Kate.” He shuffled his feet. “The chlorine irritates my skin and I spend enough time in the water as it is. I don’t need any more swimming practice.” And that was pretty much the end of it. Despite gentle encouragement from the coach and a few teachers, Gabe remained steadfastly unaffiliated—with the swim team or any other team the school offered.

Sometimes Kate thought about how, other than that first time they’d been together, none of the Blakes actually swam when she was at their house, even when they were in their swimsuits on the beach. Her curiosity drove her to bring this up one afternoon when the families were together. They picnicked by the water with Michael, Carmen, Gabe, Anna, and all of the Wilkes family. Kate put her sandwich down at one point. “Why don’t we ever swim when we’re here?”

The Blakes all stopped chewing and there was a pregnant pause as Carmen and Michael exchanged speaking glances. Gabe studied the blanket they sat on. Michael cleared his throat. “Well, you know, I’ve never really thought about it. It seems to me we’ve been swimming with you often enough. Weren’t you just in earlier today with your mother?”

“Yeah, but you and Carmen and Gabe don’t ever go in with us.”

Carmen
tsk-ed
her. “Of course we do, Kate!” Anna rose suddenly, saying it was late and she had to get home for dinner. Michael stood behind Kate, resting his hands on her shoulders and her conviction the families never swam together faded. In fact, she developed the vague impression Michael was completely right, they had, of course, been swimming together often with the Blakes, although she couldn’t recall specific occasions.

“You know, we swam so much in the early days, and then it can be kind of a pain to dry off all the time,” Carmen said. “Maybe we don’t go out as much as we used to.” She winked at Kate and asked her mother about her lettuces, which were wilting no matter how often she watered. Cara stated they were probably bolting but she’d be happy to take a peek. The families began packing up.

And that was the end of Kate’s ability to inquire after the Blake family’s swimming habits. If Gabe was in the water all the time, she’d have to take his word for it, because she never saw him.

* * * *

Kate recalled one other swim with Gabe when they were younger, but unlike the vivid memories she had of their first adventure, she discounted their second one as soon as it was over.

She couldn’t even accurately place the event in time but it was during her second or third summer in Childress. She went with her mother, as she often did, to the beach by the Blakes’ home, with the Wilkes and the Blakes—including cousins—all present as usual. They’d spent several hours lounging in the sun and wading in the water, and all exhibited the fuzzy behavior of extreme relaxation. From the corner of her eye Kate saw something leap out on the water. The others did as well, registering the flash of turquoise and yellow breaching and submerging too quickly for identification. Everyone’s heads swiveled to the same point on the water. Carmen and her cousins seemed to materialize—one second they were several yards away, and the next they were not—beside them all, touching everyone on their backs or arms.

For Kate, time stilled as she and everyone else drooped into the same, semi-awake condition. But Carmen’s hand lost touch when she pleaded with Michael, “Go! Get them!” During this brief moment of freedom Kate bolted toward Gabe. Gabe encouraged her, gleefully, to run and hurry into the surf with him.

Carmen stayed with the others but Kate could tell she worried most for her and Gabe. Michael answered his wife’s panicked expression with the promise, “It’s okay. I’ll fix it.” He dove into the ocean and disappeared.

With Gabe holding her hand, Kate relaxed into the same dreamlike state she’d felt with Carmen a few moments before. Gabe lost no time executing their get-away; he told Kate to take a breath and pulled her into the nearest wave.

When Kate next thought to check, they were far enough out for the people on the beach to appear miniaturized. She thought she and Gabe were near the spot the strange fish had breached. “I’ll be right back,” Gabe promised before diving beneath them. She felt his hand on her foot. She was not the least bit afraid.

In fact, she felt blissful and calm, as if she couldn’t wait to wake up to tell Gabe and Maya about this wonderful dream she was having. The ocean was an intense, cobalt blue and she floated on the big, gentle swells like a baby being lulled. When she peered down she could see three long fish below her, one of which idly reminded her of Michael. Eventually, the two smaller fish and the Michael fish swam toward the shore. Gabe surfaced.

His expression was savage and bright. “Isn’t it fun?”

Kate nodded. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so content. In her dream, the subtle sheen of Gabe’s skin was more pronounced, his eyes silvery and piercing. She thought of him as a freer, wilder version of the boy she knew, one who was less reserved, more buoyant, uninhibited, and also more himself.

“We’ll take the long way back,” he told her, and his excitement was infectious. “Take a big breath, Kate.” She did, and they slid under the waves again.

They swam at a leisurely pace this time, meandering without urgency around whatever interested them. Although they couldn’t literally talk under the water, they could communicate just as well.

Let’s go to the cave by the reef
, Gabe suggested.

Will we see a shark? I’m afraid of sharks
, Kate replied.

No, they only hunt here at night, and they won’t bother us, anyway
.

Schools of colorful fish swam through shifting rays of sunlight penetrating the water around them. When they skimmed the surface of the reef, Gabe pointed out objects he found noteworthy or pretty. Every once in a while, they went to the surface so Kate could breathe.

You could hold your breath longer if we practiced this
, he advised at one point.

Kate’s reverie changed when a blue-tinged Carmen swam up alongside them, smiling and wagging her finger at her son. Gabe’s grin was unapologetic.

My mom came to get us, so I guess we’re done
.

The next thing Kate knew, she awoke on the beach. She and her mother sat up and yawned. At the same time, the Wilkes family also roused from an impromptu nap, blinking and disoriented.

Cara stretched. “My goodness! I didn’t realize I was tired.”

Alicia and Jeremy also apologized for falling asleep. “Wow.” Jeremy studied the sun’s position on the horizon. “The afternoon’s already gone. We’d better get home.”

Kate went to sit by Gabe and Michael as Carmen and Cara gathered their things. She rushed to tell her story before she had to leave. “I dreamt you were a fish,” she told Michael. She addressed Gabe. “And you and I had the best time by the reef. But your skin was different. You were different.” She became thoughtful.

Michael’s smile was enigmatic as he placed his hand at the back of Kate’s neck, his eyes focused on some point behind her. As Kate recounted the whole of her experience, the story became more and more firmly unrealistic, any hint of actuality dissipating as soon as the words left her mouth. “The dream felt so real,” she finished, feeling as though she’d lost something important and like she might cry.

As Kate and Cara made their way to their car, Kate noticed Gabe’s cousins, Simon and Aiden, playing Frisbee. She tried to remember when they had joined them and realized they must have arrived during everyone’s nap.

Cara dug into running the library, apparently with an enthusiasm the community hadn’t seen in decades. “You’re a wonder,” and “My family loves coming here, now—the place used to put us to sleep,” she heard again and again from her new patrons.

By all reports, the retired librarian she replaced was a straight-laced practitioner who kept everything in impeccable order but didn’t venture outside old-school, traditional library protocols. Cara hurried to add drama and reading programs for little children and teenagers, organize new book clubs and book drives, and refashion the library into something of a meeting hub for the town’s social and professional clubs.

The clubs responded with a cash infusion, raising funds allowing her to completely remake the building’s interior. She transformed what was once a dark and austere space into a light-filled place of comfort and energy with colorful chairs, area rugs, and murals replacing the dark, uniform arrangement of the prior administration. She reorganized the shelves to create semi-enclosed reading areas containing soft, cozy seating options. Outside, she enlisted the local gardening society to replace the lawn completely with flowers. She even tilled the wide boulevard running alongside the building to accommodate a community vegetable garden, an act that cemented her place in the hearts of the townspeople forever.

“It’s like Eve’s garden out there,” a woman commented to Cara one afternoon. “My sister and I come here every single morning with our boys to pick that berry patch clean. You’ve given us a treasure, I kid you not.” Volunteers flocked to help.

Socially, Cara still felt like a loner, mostly owing to the fact she was single and relatively young with everyone else in town her age coupled in long-term relationships. She suffered through several awkward attempts to set her up with a brother or uncle or cousin but nothing ever came of it.

When Kate was in the fourth grade, she questioned why this was. “Do you not like any of these guys, Mom? Don’t you want a boyfriend?”

“Despite how I’ve been acting, I
would
like to meet someone. It’s just not as easy as it was before. I mean, I’ve always been shy, and then when I’m with these guys, all I can think about is what things would be like long-term. And then I come up with a thousand ways I or you or he can be disappointed and stuck and miserable. I can’t even get to the short-term part.

“End of the day, it’s too complicated and I’m too difficult,” she concluded. “But, ugh. I know I’ll never get anywhere thinking like this.” At that point, she began wearing her wedding ring again when she went out, which did nothing to deter the people who knew her but did fool acquaintances who didn’t. The charitable dating set-ups came to a halt.

She found the Blakes a curious exception to the
let’s introduce Cara Sweeting to someone
campaign. Despite the presence of any number of male relatives continuously cycling in and out of their house—and her own company—Carmen and Michael never once tried to orchestrate a romantic encounter. Cara mentioned how she was actually relieved to go somewhere without the nerve-wracking prospect of a potential date showing up, with everyone in town watching on the sidelines.

Part of the challenge with the Blakes, Cara believed, was none of their male company stayed for long. She found all of the Blake men attractive but they were also strangely unforthcoming emotionally, and they were always on their way to somewhere else. At any rate, even Kate acknowledged nothing was going to happen during the three and four days the Blakes had these visitors.

But the summer Kate turned fifteen, Cara surprised them both by responding to someone. She’d brought Kate to the beach by the Blake house in the early evening for one of their typical Sweeting-Wilkes-Blake gatherings around a bonfire. Carmen and Michael also played host that evening to several men who appeared to be relatives.

The air cooled after the sun set, driving her and her daughter to their car for an extra blanket. As they walked back, a crab scuttled at Kate’s feet, startling first her and then Cara, who jumped backward, stumbled, and laughed.

Before she could catch herself, she backed into a man facing the fire. He spun around, bracing them both reflexively before stepping away and placing his hands in his pockets. Cara blushed and laughed out an apology.

His face broke into a lopsided grin. “No problem.” He was obviously a Blake of some sort, evidenced by the wave in his hair, and more obviously, his thick, rectangular glasses. “I’m John Blake, one of Michael’s cousins,” he confirmed.