He entered the memory like it was a safe room.
Mira hugged her knees and smiled at Ben behind her arm. Ben could hardly look at her, fixing instead on her rounded back, and the bumps of her vertebrae, and the strings on her bikini top with the metal caps on their ends, and wondered if they got hot in the sun, and if they could burn her. The guys were relentless that day, giddy to be at the quarry with the girls, a non-coincidence involving a slip from Eddie. The shoving and besting was at an all-time high, and Francesca was grave and reserved, barely spoke, flat on her towel with her wrist over her eyes. The special care Connie took not to aggravate her exercise-induced anaphylaxis made the hike from the parking lot of Johnny’s take twice as long, and Francesca had barely hidden her irritation. Still, Piggy pressed cold beer cans against her thigh to make her jump, and tried to interest her in videos on his phone. Louis Gentry, in love with love, challenged Ben to dives, over and over again, begging attention from everyone, indiscriminate in his need. Piggy was the last to give up on Francesca, eventually butt-scooting on to Connie, who offered half her towel and a set of earbuds. Unlike Francesca, Connie accepted male attention from any source, even one who wore sweatpants puddled over his sneakers on a ninety-degree day. Usually Francesca’s moods infected Mira, but Mira had been playful, flirting with Ben.
Louis’s chest lifted and fell. He jumped off and spun, heels over head, and tucked his knees, flipping twice before hitting the water with a slap. Mira sat up as Louis entered the water, her hair clinging to the top of her back. Seconds passed. Colors swirled over the spot, silver, blue, purple. Mira made a low whistle.
Francesca rolled onto her stomach and groaned, burying her face in the bend of her elbow. The muscles in her back bunched up. Mira patted her arm absentmindedly, and Connie asked “Everything copacetic, cuz?” for the twentieth time, but they were rote gestures meant to placate, because their eyes were on Louis—Connie gazing over the lip, Mira five steps back—who finally emerged and shook beads of water from his hair, grown long before the August football shave. Louis swam to the side and climbed to the altar as kids on other ledges hooted and clapped. He was tan from roofing, and, Ben noticed with irritation, more ripped every week.
Louis collapsed into the narrow space between Ben and Mira. “That’s what they call throwing down the mic, Benny. Now it’s your turn.”
Mira lifted her hair off her back with one hand and shaded her eyes with the other, fixing Ben with a smile. “What’s your answer to that?”
Piggy murmured in Connie’s ear, and she giggled.
“Impressive,” Ben said, trying for cool. “Too bad it was one somersault away from the three-and-a-half reverse somersault with a tuck, the dive perfected by, oh yeah—me.”
“Fine, fancy man. I’m calling it.” Louis glanced sideways at Mira before cupping his fishy lips and yelling out to anyone who’d listen: “Three-and-a-half reverse somersault with a tuck!”
On other cliffs, heads rose. Mira straightened her back. Ben stood slowly and looked out over the water, then at Mira. She raised her eyebrows. Ben was a good diver, and an even better swimmer, with hollows in front of his broad shoulders and bones like pipes. There was nothing to fear here. He had this.
Ben stepped back and forth like a colt.
Francesca aimed a dark look from under her brows. Connie gazed at Ben too, all wide expectancy, her closed-mouth smile stretching her eyes even farther apart. Piggy aimed his phone at Ben, ready to record. Now everyone was staring at Ben, waiting for him to plunge into the viscous stuff, like he’d done a hundred times before, but the stakes were higher, heightened and dangerous, a violence against him that he felt, an unconscious but palpable wish for him to fail.
Ben took a deep breath and rose on his toes before stepping out. As he lifted his arms over his head, locked his thumbs and pushed off, he heard the shout—
“Francesca!”
—but he was already spinning backward, heels over head, and tucking in, flipping three times. As he hit the water, he felt a vibration to his right, a seismic underwater shove. It spooked Ben, and he fought not to panic, surfacing fast and gasping. A foot away, a sleek black head popped up. Francesca’s eyes bulged as she gulped for air.
“That. Was. Awesome!” Francesca said between pants.
“That was stupid!” Ben said, breathing hard. “You could have killed yourself.”
Francesca struggled with her breath. “I’m not afraid to die.”
“Then you could have killed me. Why would you do that?”
Francesca fixed on him with a look of barely suppressed hate. “I guess I needed to cool off. You guys get me hot and bothered,” Francesca said, mocking, rolling onto her back. Her jawbones formed a perfect heart shape as she pushed away from Ben, arms rising and falling languorously over her head, trying to tame her own breathing so Ben wouldn’t see her struggle. Above, Mira and Louis pointed. The sun was behind them and their faces were blotted out, but Ben thought they were laughing because of the way their shoulders shook.
“You could have killed us both,” Ben faltered, Francesca’s moon face the only thing visible as she glided in her one-piece bathing suit the color of shiny eggplant. He knew he sounded childish; he knew he was angrier than he had a right to be. He treaded water spastically, too awkward for the swimmer he was, and felt his shout linger, pathetic. He wanted to say something cool to patch it over, make it seem like she hadn’t completely freaked him out, but he gave up and swam to the wall. Ahead, Francesca climbed toward Mira, who crouched on her hands and knees at the tip. Ben made out the outline of Piggy, and Connie on a lower ledge, having scrambled down for a better view. Connie couldn’t have done that. Ben bobbed for a few minutes, stalling, though more than anything he wanted to get out of the water. Eventually he climbed, arriving first on Connie alone, leaning on one hip, her legs swept to the side like a mermaid. Ben paused to get ahold of himself before reaching the altar rock. He felt dangerously close to crying. Connie handed him a towel, purple and plush, from a bathroom, characteristically inappropriate.
Ben blotted his face. Connie bit her lip.
Ben peeked over the towel. “You’re mad that I yelled at her. Your ‘blood.’ Well let me tell you something: you would have freaked out, too.”
Connie shook her head, still smiling.
“What then?” Ben snapped.
“I know you care about Francesca. That’s why you were mad she did something so dangerous.” Her eyes filmed over with dopiness. “I understand. We all love her.”
“No, Connie.” He handed back her towel. “I don’t love Francesca.”
“I know. You love Mira. But we’re one. Sangue. You said it yourself.” Connie traced her calf with her finger. “If you love one of us, you love all of us.”
“Connie.”