I was luckier. I didn’t have to wait for visiting days—I could come anytime, though that didn’t mean I’d get to see her. And I could stay all night if I wanted to. I lived with my mother, reluctantly, and even though she was sober again she wouldn’t care how late I was out, even on a school night. Maybe she knew who I came to see.
I fanned out the magazines and laid out some strawberry candies from Cumby’s. I put out one cigarette—just the one; because once she was back, she could have one and then she was officially quitting—and her naked hula-lady lighter. I was careful not to get any of it wet. I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen in winter, when the reservoir froze over. We didn’t have enough time together as it was.
Then I waited.
Sometimes the time passed quickly, and before I knew it the alarm was going off on my cell phone to let me know I should drive back home, since I had school the next morning. But, other nights, time felt light-years long, like how a star spied through a telescope on Earth is really a sun that could have died already, years ago, and it took that long for its light to reach our eyes down here.
That could have been the way with sound in Olive, too. How I could call for her one Thursday night in November, and three Novembers from now she’d finally hear me. I hoped it wasn’t, but I worried it was.
If you want something badly enough, it can come true—you just have to make it that way. By believing. I think she told me this once.
This was what I believed: That one night, it would happen. She’d see me on this rock, see me waiting for her, and she’d swim up.
Maybe she’d make a play for my ankles, get me to shriek. Or she’d try to catch my attention first, like I’d find her in the beam of my flashlight out in the middle of the reservoir, there where the light could hardly reach. But more likely she’d just walk out as if she’d been lounging about down there, wishing for a tan all this time. She’d keep it casual; she wouldn’t want to upset me.
She’d climb up on the rock. She’d look the same as always, except her hair would be longer, swirling past her waist. Once up at the surface, she’d be cold, surely; I should remember to bring a sweater. Other than that, she wouldn’t look any different—just paler. But if I put a hand to her chest, I wouldn’t feel air filling her lungs, now that she’d grown the gills.
She’d be homesick, she’d have to be. I knew she missed me, but I bet she also missed other things, like dry boys she could keep an eye on, because reservoir boys had to be slippery. And things you could only get up top, like fried foods and red wine, and sunglasses, because it would be too dim down there to need any. I knew she’d miss driving in her car down a long, flat road, the kind she used to speed down with headlights off. I’m sure she’d miss sleeping in a bed with an actual pillow, as algae must get so sticky and clump up your hair. She’d miss things I took for granted: sunshine and rainstorms and horribly catchy pop songs, even if she’d heard them a thousand times before. And stupid things probably, too: like getting an eyelash stuck in her eye, or doing laundry and having to fold it after, or the annoying way nail polish chips and you can’t get it all off unless you buy the special remover. Things like that.
There was so much she couldn’t have down there. She’d want to come back up for good.
It could happen.
All I knew was that she couldn’t be down in Olive this long by choice—they were making her stay, punishment for all the things she did. She got too powerful up here on the surface, she stopped being careful, and the people of Olive just didn’t like that. I knew that if it were up to her, she’d already be up here, with me.