I focus on Bambi, running back and forth where the waves kiss the beach, woofing and howling and carrying on. When I’m shallow enough to put my feet down and tug my hand free of the boy’s, she comes paddling out to swim happy circles around me. As soon as I’m clear of the surf, she takes off, jaunting down the beach, probably in search of her ball now that I’m available to throw it again.
I drag myself to the place where I left my camera and sweatshirt. My muscles are weak and my mouth tastes brackish. Years ago, my brother dumped table salt in my apple juice, just to see how I’d react; I threw up, which is exactly what I want to do now. I’m tired deep in my bones, and residually horrified. I’ve never been so close to dying.
How would Mom get by without me?
I shake off a torrent of sadness and turn to look for Bambi, to call her back so we can go home, where I’ll shower off the salt and crawl into bed, where I’ll sleep the day away beneath my soft patchwork quilt.
When I wake, this morning will be a distant memory.
I turn to find Bambi, but instead I find the boy—the idiot boy who wandered into the ocean fully clothed. He’s an arm’s length away, towering over me, water dripping from his coal-black hair, wildfire eyes searching my face.
I look at him, and I can’t look away.
MATI
She is beautiful like shattered glass— sharp, asymmetrical, unique.
She is soaked in seawater, and smells of salt.
She is shades of pomegranate and peach.
She struggles to breathe,
as if the air is mud-thick,
too viscous to inhale.
I know the feeling.
She is exhausted, because of me.
My swim-gone-wrong.
My naiveté, my foolishness.
She falls, falls, falls to the ground, nestling into the sand like a seashell.
She peers up at me, eyes hard, expression hostile.
She wants me to go.
Instead, I sink down to sit beside her.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” she rasps.
“You could have drowned!”
She could have drowned, and I would have been responsible.
She wrings the ocean from her long ponytail, then pulls her shirt, drenched and transparent, from where it clings.
I am tired and I am troubled,
but I am mesmerized by her movements— I am mesmerized by her.
She glares, flagrant, and I shrink into myself.
I avert my gaze; my face sizzles with shame.
A dog bounds over—her dog.
It is discordantly cheerful,
covered in wet, wheat-colored curls.
It licks salty water from her face.
She gives its head an amiable pat, while scowling at me.
Finally, she snaps, “You’re welcome.”
As if I have thanked her.
I should. I should say something.
Instead, I shiver against harsh wind, and commit her features to memory.
She is a heart-shaped mouth.
She is slick caramel hair.
She is bottomless brown eyes.
Even in anger, she is dazzling.
elise
I throw my sweatshirt over my wet tank top (my white, see-through, no-wonder-he’s-staring, thank-God-I’m-wearing-a-sports-bra tank top), clip Bambi’s leash to her collar, shoulder my camera, and literally pound sand.
He never says a word.
At home, I give Bambi a once-over with an old beach towel, then stand in the shower under a blast of hot water until my skin’s no longer gooseflesh. I throw on jeans and a T-shirt that bears a growling tiger, my old high school’s mascot, then twist my hair into a knot at the crown of my head. Racked by a lingering chill, I shuffle into the kitchen for coffee. My mom’s made a pot, a vanilla blend that’s still steaming. I retrieve my favorite mug from the cupboard, a lumpy, oversize atrocity my brother spun in his high school pottery class. I pour coffee and sweeten it before wrapping my cold hands around the warm ceramic.
“Elise?” Mom, from down the hall.
I make my way to the tiny space that branches off her bedroom, the one she insists on referring to as her library because she’s pretentious that way. She’s not a writer or even an author—she’s a novelist. Our dog is a companion. The many multicolored book spines that line her shelves are a mélange.
She’s sitting at her desk, a refinished secretary littered with file folders and pens and research materials. She writes pantie-melting romances set on the western frontier and, bizarre as it sounds, she’s a household name within her literary niche. Over her desk there’s a wall-spanning collage of her book jackets, matted and framed, images of ladies with barrel-curled hair and bustled dresses posing with rugged men who’ve lost their shirts but managed to retain their cowboy hats. She hung those jackets the night we moved in, inspiration for her latest manuscript, one she sold on proposal, the first in more than three years.
“How was your walk?” she asks, swiveling around to face me.
“Eventful.” I sink into the overstuffed reading chair that occupies one corner of the room and smile at the sight of Bambi, passed out on her flannel doggy pillow.
“How so?”
I sip coffee, gauging how much I can divulge without instigating an anxiety attack. “There was this guy at the beach. He went into the water.”
Mom’s brow crinkles. “He was swimming?”
“I guess? He was wearing his clothes, which was weird. The surf was crazy. He might’ve gotten into trouble if I hadn’t…”
Her eyes have gone Frisbee wide. “If you hadn’t what?”
I fidget. I swallow more coffee. In a minuscule voice I say, “If I hadn’t helped him.”
“Elise Parker, tell me you didn’t go into the ocean.”
“I didn’t go into the ocean,” I say obediently.
She glances at Bambi, who raises her head as if to counter with, Oh, she did.
Mom looks back at me. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“But I’m a good swimmer.” It’s true. The summer before I went into third grade, Nick and I spent hours at the pool in our neighborhood, where he taught me the crawl stroke, how to dive, and how to tread water. I’m practically a mermaid.
“Doesn’t matter. Nobody’s a good swimmer in those currents. Who was this guy?”
“No idea. I didn’t stay to chat. He was … odd.”
She pushes her reading glasses up her nose. “Maybe I should walk Bambi with you from now on.”
“I’m fine, Mom. Besides, mornings are your writing time.” It was the move to Cypress Beach that reignited her fire. She’s not only writing in the mornings; she’s been working all day, well into the night, sometimes. Now that she’s under contract again, she seems almost happy. “And anyway, you’ve been bugging me to get out and meet new people. That’s what I did.”
“Still, you shouldn’t be wandering around on your own.”
“Please. Cypress Beach: Where Old, Rich People Come to Die. That slogan’s carved into the welcome sign—surprised you didn’t notice when we cruised past. Besides, I’ve got my vicious guard dog to keep me safe.”
Mom heaves a sigh, but her mouth turns up in a slight smile. “Promise you’ll stay on the beach and out of the water?”
“But what if my life’s calling is to save foolish people who wander into the ocean?”
She meets my gaze, solemn now. “What if you get hurt? What if…?”
What if I die? Like my brother.
“I can’t do it again, Lissy,” she says, her voice soft, quavering a little. “Losing Nick is the worst I’ve been through. If something happened to you…”
“I know,” I say, and I do. Nick died at twenty, tragically young. I was fourteen. Janie, his daughter, was a wrinkly-faced newborn; he’d only seen pictures of her, sent as email attachments by Audrey. My mom isn’t over his death—I’m not sure any of us ever will be—though she’s doing better. She adores Janie, and she’s gathered Audrey neatly into the Parker family fold. But she still worries. She still what-ifs.
“Please stay out of the water, Elise.”
“I will.” To seal my promise, I lean forward, passing her my half-full mug.
She sips, then, thankfully, changes the subject. “What are you up to later?”
“Hanging out with my slew of friends, obviously.”
She frowns. She looks tired and older. I feel bad for making her worry.
“And by friends,” I amend, “I mean Janie and Audrey. We’re going to the park on Raspberry Street. Want to come?”