By
The Plaid Adder
Comments:plaidadder@gmail.com
Copyright 1991
The last
mystery, the question left after all the reporters had gone home, was why the
dolphin chose Rockproof Cove in the first place. Dolphins were common enough
off that part of the
Tourists and natives alike preferred to wrestle with crowds
rather than face the cove. They had all watched those north Atlantic waves from
other rockbound shores--wall after massy wall of malachite water welling up
from the ocean, each hanging a moment in suspended perfection, its liquid heart
lit like an emerald, strands of seaweed standing out like veins against the
bright core. They had seen them quiver as their crests crumbled into foam, seen
them shatter in the granite jaws, seen white splinters fume toward leaden skies
and the ocean suck the froth hissing back through its stone teeth. If they
could think about anything with that spectacle battering their senses, it was
only to imagine their tender bodies being ground into soggy clay in that black
maw. So Rockproof warned swimmers away. The cove was deserted.
Or not quite deserted, because although it was too rocky to
be comfortable, it was really not dangerous. The peninsulas that formed it
curved sharply and almost touched, so that while waves beat against the outer
edges of the arms, inside them the water in the cove was almost calm. Now and
then someone would discover this, and Rockproof Cove would become a private
swimming hole. But the charm of seclusion would dwindle as the inconvenience of
the location became more of a problem, and the new explorers would abandon
their terrain.
There were exceptions, of course. Melanie and Amy were
faithful. They had found it, years before the dolphin came, when they were
scaling the stone outcroppings that formed most of the coast, linking one beach
to the next.
Melanie saw it first. She perched on the highest available
boulder on the north arm, shoving back her wispy brown hair and squinting down
at the water. The day had been overcast, but the clouds were lifting, and the
surface glittered hard and blue in the sudden sunlight, bright, flashing,
cutglass-sharp. She shaded her eyes.
At ten years old, Melanie was taller than her friends, even
Fred and Andy. They would all catch up later. Her hair was long, because she
still wanted to be able to sit on her braid someday, and hung loose. In the
summer the salt water bleached it and it felt like straw. She was stretched
thin on a frame too large for her. The too-evident bone structure of her face
made it look older than the rest of her. Her blue eyes reflected flat and
metallic, seemed to be keeping a lid on something. Perhaps because of this,
Melanie always led.
Amy was always a few paces behind Melanie, though the
She and Melanie were friends because they lived on the same
street; the only thing they had in common was the ocean. Melanie didn't have
the patience to read much. She liked stories, though, especially Amy's
distilled and transmuted retellings of the books she had read. Telling the
stories to Melanie quieted the
"Look." Melanie pointed. "A secret bay."
Amy nodded. "We've discovered it. They'll name it after
us."
"Let's not tell anyone. We'll name it ourselves, and
it'll be our secret hideout and only we will ever come here." She was
already planning. Melanie always made up the best games. Amy suggested details
and situations but it took Melanie to make them come alive as something you
could get inside.
Andy and Fred found them. Andy had skinned his knee but
declined to admit it, screwing up his freckled face in furious concentration as
he ignored the stinging. Fred was puffing a little. They had their own
suggestions.
"Smuggler's Notch," Fred said.
"That's a restaurant, bonehead," Andy sneered.
"Pirates' Lair?"
Andy nodded. "Or how about Rocky Death?"
"No pirates," Melanie said.
"Xanadu," Amy said.
Fred and Andy stared at her. "What?"
"I like the word," she said.
"Zannadoo is a stupid name," Andy pronounced.
"Is not!" Melanie said.
"Is too. Sounds like an ice cream flavor. I like
Widowmaker."
"Yeah!" Fred shouted.
"Why?" Melanie said.
"Cause there must've been shipwrecks on those rocks. So
it made all the captains' wives widows. See?"
Melanie crossed her arms. "I like Zanadoo better."
"Your tough. Two against one." He and Fred ran
down to the shore chanting "Widow-maker! Widow-maker!"
Melanie watched them strip down to their shorts and splash
into the water. Her throat felt dry and tight. "I liked Zanadoo."
"You could have made them," Amy said. "You
always do."
Melanie shook her head. Maybe her steel irises hid the
knowledge that this was the last summer of its kind. Maybe they saw the opening
of the gulf that would split their group neatly down the middle. But all
Melanie knew she knew was that she was losing her place. "Widowmaker's
better than Smuggler's Notch."
Amy made a face. "It's still wrong."
They sat together on a boulder. "We should have brought
our suits," Melanie said.
"Hey!" Andy called. "Tomorrow let's come back
and play Marco Polo!"
Melanie hugged her knees, disappointed. She had been about
to suggest it herself. "All right."
An argument between Fred and Andy over whether you could
play Marco Polo with only two people degenerated into a splashing fight. The
sun's vanishing light froze each splash into bright flying glass. Amy thought
about how much she hated Marco Polo, how she couldn't find her way through air,
let alone water, with her eyes closed, how she had never been able to follow
underwater sounds to their source like Melanie could. Melanie wondered why they
had insisted on Widowmaker, why she hadn't argued harder, if it would have made
a difference.
Fred's voice floated up to them. "Marco!"
"Polo!" Andy's answered. They heard the splash as
both dove. A little later, both resurfaced, much farther apart.
"Fred sucks at this game," Melanie said.
"So does Andy." The boys' trebles resonated clear
and hollow over the wind and waves. In Amy's inner ear, the calls of
"Marco!" "Polo!" underscored, like flute music, the
cyclical repetition of, "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome
decree and Alph the sacred river ran through caverns measureless to man down to
a sunless sea in Xanadu did Kubla Khan..."
"He's getting better," Melanie said.
"No," Amy said. "You just never tag
him."
Melanie rubbed her knees. "He's such a crybaby. He
always says I didn't get him. He always wants to be a pain. It's not worth
it."
The August evening sunlight burnished the smooth surface of
Rockproof Cove, except for the ring of choppy waves and intersecting ripples
that surrounded Fred and Andy's game. Tomorrow they would all play. And Amy
would be it most of the time. She looked at Melanie, who heard the mute
question.
"I don't want him to ruin the game."
Even in August the water in
Melanie stood. "Let's go."
"Few more minutes." The regular wave pattern was
absorbing the turbulence, smoothing the wrinkles they had left behind, slowly
resuming its regular pulse...and Alph the sacred river ran through caverns
measureless to man the river ran did Kubla Khan the river ran...
Melanie shook her hair back from her face. "Let's go
now."
Andy and Fred were heading up the coast as Amy followed
Melanie over the spine of the peninsula to shore.
I.
The dolphin
came five years later, on a Saturday afternoon in July when the sky was a damp
gray blanket and the wind promised a storm. Melanie and Amy sat on a boulder on
the north arm, the same boulder they had walked out to most weekends since they
first found Rockproof Cove. They had learned long ago that it had been called
that since before they were born. Fred and Andy eventually stopped going.
Melanie didn't, although she wasn't sure why. She had thought at first that she
was humoring Amy, but when Amy turned fourteen, came out of her quiet phase,
made other friends and stopped asking her to go, Melanie realized that she
missed it. She could never get her other friends to go; they complained that
there was no beach and no guys. So Melanie began, for the first time in their
history, courting Amy's friendship; and at fifteen Melanie spent her Saturday
afternoons on a boulder in this salty, pointed place, listening to Amy tell
stories.
Amy had untied her hair, which had gotten darker and wavier
as she got older and which streamed behind her as she turned her face to the
wind. She closed her eyes for a moment. Melanie said, "You look like a
perfume ad."
Amy laughed and started gathering it back into a ponytail.
"No, don't," Melanie said. "You should wear it down, it looks
better that way. How come you always pull it back?"
Amy let her hands drop into her lap and raised her head.
"It gets in my face. And my food when I eat. So I keep it back out of the
way."
"Why don't you just cut it?"
Amy shrugged. "I like it."
Melanie had liked hers too. But it was so straight and limp
and looked so boring that she had cut most of it off and permed the rest.
Everyone said it looked great. She ran a hand through it wistfully. No matter
what shampoo she used, it always felt slightly stiff and coarse.
Amy's face was pale except for a scattering of freckles
across the bridge of her nose. The lashes of the closed eyelids were long and
dark, and her small, pink-peach mouth had settled into the half-smile that Amy
wore when she was with her friends. Melanie found herself thinking that with a
little base to smooth out her complexion, and something to highlight the mouth
and put color in the cheeks, she could be pretty.
"Why don't you wear makeup?"
Amy opened her eyes and jerked one hand through her hair.
She turned away. "Because I don't like it." There was a short, tense
silence. "Stop asking me that."
"I'm sorry," Melanie said, surprised.
Amy dismissed her anger. "Sorry. I just get sick of
answering those questions. When people should really ask things like, `Why do
you put that stuff on your face? Why do you drink stuff that makes you feel
sick? Why are you dating Andy?'"
"I'm not dating Andy."
"Well, you're thinking about it," Amy said.
"And I don't see why."
"Don't you like him?"
"I guess so. Except I don't like how he never talks to
me unless I'm with you."
"He never sees you any more unless you're with
me."
"That's another thing," she laughed. Melanie hated
it when Amy laughed at things that weren't funny. It made her feel like
something was wrong and only Amy knew what it was, but she wouldn't tell anyone
and was just laughing to make it seem all right.
"He's nice."
"Sometimes."
"He's funny."
"I don't know. My sense of humor is warped."
"I think he's funny."
"Well if you think so, then he is."
"And he's cute," Melanie plunged on.
"I'm sure he is," Amy answered.
Melanie was getting angry. Amy knew something. She knew what
it was about Andy that made Melanie hang back even after all the signals had
been made, all the responses, after everything had been set up and everyone was
waiting for the natural conclusion. Amy knew why Melanie was hesitating before
the last step, reluctant to make real what everyone, including her, already
assumed was a done deal. She would make Amy tell.
"You have eyes, you see him, don't you think he's
cute?"
Both girls called up Andy's image. Melanie dwelt on the
sunburned face, the broad, if sparely-muscled shoulders, the short, thick, soft
brown hair, the robin-eggshell eyes. She imagined how the back of his neck
would feel, warm and dry, downy with fine, light hair. She didn't recall his
hands. She hoped he had good hands.
She looked at Amy's expression of melancholy puzzlement.
"I have eyes," Amy said, refocusing hers on Melanie. "But
apparently I have no taste. Remember, I walked out of that stupid Tom Cruise
movie."
This time her laugh sounded better. Melanie laughed too, and
her anger began to fade. Maybe Amy didn't know the reason. Maybe there wasn't
one. Melanie asked her question before Amy could settle back into her guarded
silence.
"So why shouldn't I? You've known him as long as I
have. What could be wrong with him?"
Amy snapped her head up. "Yes. I've known him as long
as you have. I've known him as long as I've known you. We went to nursery
school together. And I don't know him at all. See?"
Amy had told her the reason, the only reason. And now she
knew it, she knew it wouldn't be enough to hold her back.
"But I'll get to know him if I go out with him, won't
I?"
Amy paused, as if considering an idea that had never
occurred to her. "Maybe you will."
"You mean maybe I won't."
The waves outside the cove were higher now, chipped into
white points by the strengthening wind. "Amy, why do I feel wrong about
this?"
"What do you mean, wrong? Do--look! Did you see
that?"
"See what?"
Amy stared at the mouth of the cove. "I could have
sworn I saw something jump."
"Fish?"
"I wouldn't have seen a fish, that far away."
"Seal, then."
"Probably."
"It's going to rain, isn't it?" Melanie said
quietly, looking at the breakers.
"Probably."
Melanie got to her feet slowly. She felt strange, tense,
tightly strung. The gray cloudmass pressed down on her, the air around her
hummed in anticipation. The waves lurched more and more fitfully, the noise of
the wind rose slowly, the light went gray-green. She was fixed on the rock,
pinned by a need to wait. She wanted the rain, wanted it with such a sudden
sharp pang that she felt like crying.
"Should we go?" Amy's question came from the
bottom of a well, and echoed against the heldback thunder, quivering like the air.
The waves lurched higher, the cloudmass darkened; a light dew of spray blew out
to them from the ocean. Melanie's damp skin tingled. Her breath caught. A few
tears pricked into the corners of her eyes.
"Melanie, what's the matter?"
The acoustical tricks of wind, rock and water kept the voice
distant, but the concern in it reached her. "I hate this. I want it to
break." She blinked the blurriness back and looked at Amy's pale, serious
face, which like her own had beads of spray on the lips, the eyelashes.
"Will you stay here with me till it rains?"
Amy nodded. There was a crash close by them.
When Melanie turned her head, she just caught a flicker of
white. A puff of spray hung above the water before the wind scattered it.
"Something jumped." Amy ran to the edge.
"Something big."
Melanie wrapped her arms around herself. A light drizzle had
begun, filming them with a cold sweat of rain but not relieving Melanie's
straining nerves. "Where?"
As Amy pointed, the waters parted, and a gray shape burst from
them nose first. Melanie saw it in preternaturally sharp focus, the dull sheen
of its wet skin, the clear drops scattering from its dorsal fin and flying from
its tail. It shot cleanly over the surface, suspended and silent, then plunged
back into the cove. A circular splash leapt and fell as the storm broke.
The surface was pitted with raindrops. Amy's hair stuck to
her face and neck. Melanie shivered as the rain stung her skin and plastered
her thin shirt to her back.
"I've never seen a dolphin that close," she said.
"It was beautiful."
The patter of rain on water washed away the last of the
tension. Melanie felt weak with relief. "Let's go home."
Amy was still watching the spot where the dolphin had
disappeared. The rain bled into the ocean and a thin layer of mist blurred the
surface. "Dolphins never come in that far. I doubt we'll see anything like
that ever again." They picked their way carefully down the glistening
rocks. "He must be lost."
II.
"Hello,
Melanie?"
She was pretty sure it was Andy, but she didn't want to do
anything embarrassing. "Yes?"
"It's Andy." She couldn't hear whether he was
nervous.
"Oh hi, how are you?" Even her own voice sounded
foreign.
"Fine." A deadly pause. "Listen, are you
doing anything tonight?"
She felt her body go on alert. "Not really."
"Would you want to see a movie with me?"
The words were flat; perhaps flattened by the telephone.
Melanie knew what her answer would be, but hesitated. The disembodied voice
stirred up all her doubts. She closed her eyes. An image of the dolphin in
flight flickered on her lids. "Melanie?"
"What? I mean yes. Yes, I would. What movie?"
She should have asked what movie first. But since both of
them knew what was going on it was stupid to have to pretend, stupid to have to
spend six bucks apiece on a movie. But, she learned, she had already committed
herself to seeing Batman.
"Oh!"
"What?"
"I just remembered--I told Amy I'd do something with
her tonight."
"I thought you said you weren't doing anything."
"I'm not. I--we were just going to--well, just hang
out. Look...can she come too?"
Another pause. "Sure, I guess, but..."
"What? If you really don't want her to come, I can tell
her." As she said it, she realized that she didn't actually want to have
to tell Amy she couldn't come over.
"No, no, she can come, it's just...I only have money
for two tickets."
"Don't be stupid, she'll pay for herself." He must
have known that. Maybe he just wanted Melanie to be sure it was still a date.
"All right then."
Melanie kneaded her stomach with one hand as Andy said
goodbye, then took a deep breath and called Amy.
Melanie followed Andy out to his car. His shorts hung just
right and she could see the contours of his back through his rugby shirt. She
thought about the back of his neck again. Andy had just gotten his license and
she wondered if she ought to put on her seatbelt, but thought he might take
offense.
"It's supposed to be awesome," he said.
Melanie's heart sank. It was going to be like their
telephone conversation. "Amy said so too."
He nodded. "I guess she oughta know."
"Why?"
"She probably read all the reviews. That's one thing I
remember about her, she was always reading. Is she still weird?"
His eyes were on the road and his face expressionless.
Melanie answered cautiously, "Depends. She talks more now."
"That's another thing I remember. She was always
weird."
They pulled into Amy's driveway. "Well, for God's sake
don't tell her that."
He laughed. "I won't."
Amy climbed into the back seat. "Hi. Let's go. I'm
psyched. I used to love the TV show."
Andy shot Melanie a knowing look that made her suddenly and
viciously hate him.
But Andy was surprised, because the whole way to Biddeford
Amy chattered with unusual ease and a kind of spontaneous humor that Melanie
rarely saw in her. She started talking about Batman the TV show, and took the
conversation through so many queer turns and unexpected channels that all Andy
and Melanie could do was laugh, at what Amy said and at Batman and finally at
the ridiculous reserve that had sprung up between them since the phone call.
When they reached the Cine-Plex they were talking to each other, and Amy was
lying on her back trying to remember whether the moon rose in the east and if
so what direction they were heading. Andy opened the door for Melanie, and took
her hand to help her out. Amy tumbled out of the back seat with a flushed face
and glittering eyes.
Batman was not a romantic movie, but conveniently it was
very dark, and Amy's attention was riveted on the screen from the credits
onward. Melanie cast a glance towards her; she sat still, the moth-light from the
screen fluttering over her fixed white features. She knew Amy's eyes wouldn't
be wandering, any more than a marble statue's could.
Melanie leaned her head on Andy's shoulder and felt his arm
slide around her. He had large hands, with prominent veins. They were warm and
dry.
For a moment, as she realized why he was turning his head,
she panicked, wondering how this worked, trying to picture what it looked like
in the movies. She felt his lips on hers, moist and cool, but tasteless. Trying
to somehow respond to their motion, she thought that it was ridiculous for her
to have expected a taste, but still...then it was over, and she couldn't
remember what it had been like.
She watched him, afraid that she had done it wrong. It was
supposed to be the last step and first step. The kiss meant that they were
going out, that they were going to be in love, and it had happened, but she
seemed to have missed it.
Andy leaned toward her again. Melanie met his lips
unhappily. Apparently she was doing everything right, because it lasted longer,
but she felt hollow, and there was a lump in her throat. They were going out.
He had kissed her. And she didn't feel any different.
The movie was almost over before she noticed that Amy's seat
was empty. She wanted to look for her, but couldn't leave in the middle of the
final chase scene. Andy squeezed her hand reassuringly. Melanie had been too
distracted to follow the plot, and now she was too preoccupied with her own
silent misery to be afraid for Batman.
Andy had his arm around her waist when they came out.
Melanie was stroking the back of his neck and feeling a little better. She did
like the feel of that soft, clean skin. Amy was sitting in the lobby, her back
to one of the walls, sucking on the straw of an empty soda cup.
She got stiffly to her feet when she saw them. Melanie saw
the pallor and the widened pupils, but before she could say anything Andy
called, "Didn't you like the movie?"
Amy tugged at her hair and laughed the wrong laugh.
"No, I'm sorry, I didn't. I forgot how I don't like scary movies."
She faltered toward them. "I hope you liked it?"
Amy's hands fluttered toward her a moment as if to pat her
reassuringly. Melanie saw, with a rush of wonder and affection, that Amy really
meant it.
"It was great," Andy said. "You should've
stayed."
"It was kind of hard to follow," Melanie said. Amy
nodded.
"Would you mind dropping me off first?" Amy asked
as the car hurtled over the bumpy roads. "I don't feel real well."
"Are you sick?" Melanie remembered that Amy got
carsick.
"No, just sort of tired. I'll be fine tomorrow."
She wrapped her arms around her stomach and closed her eyes.
She looked a little better when she was standing in her
driveway waving goodbye. "She is different now," Andy said as they
pulled out. "But sort of the same."
"Yeah."
"How come you two don't hang out in school?"
"My friends don't like her, and hers don't like
me."
The car was parked in her driveway now, its motor and lights
turned off. She wondered whether she was supposed to get out, or stay, or what.
There was another long pause, during which Andy's hand
reached into her lap and took hers. She looked down, unsure what to do with it.
"Did you have a good time?"
His voice sounded plaintive, a little frightened. A wave of
empathy swept her melancholy away, and the alien hand became as dear to her as
her own. She kissed it, then looked up at him.
His eyes widened in surprise, or maybe relief. He stroked
her hair with a new, odd timidity. The child she had known showed through the
features of the face, its skinny frame appearing under the uncertain muscles.
He was afraid too, afraid of her, and in his halting caress she felt a touching
gratitude.
"Can I see you tomorrow after work?"
"Call me. I'll ask my mom."
"I will." In the silence the few inches of
darkness between them seemed to grow infinite and impassable. He moved toward
her abruptly.
Now that she knew what was coming, knew what to do, now
maybe this one, the kiss goodnight, would make the difference...but afterwards
she was standing in her driveway watching his headlights retreat into the
darkness, and still felt nothing but a dry pricking in her throat. Her mouth
was dry, too. She went into the kitchen for a drink of water.
III.
"Why
didn't you like the movie?"
Amy tugged another lock of hair into place. When she braided
her hair she devoted her entire attention to it, muttering curses as it got
tangled, and sometimes Melanie could get something out of her if she was
careful. This kind of conversation was a challenge she enjoyed.
"What movie?"
"Batman."
"Oh." She pulled too tight, and winced. "I
just--I didn't like it. I hated the Joker."
"You're supposed to hate him."
"That's not what I mean." She had found a rhythm
now and the strands of hair twisted easily and regularly. "I mean, I
didn't like having to watch him." She wound the ponytail holder around the
end and dropped it.
"I still don't--"
"See, I--" She looked out at the waves. "I
didn't like his jokes."
"He wasn't very funny."
"No, I laughed--I just didn't like them. I-" She
shuddered, then scratched her shoulder blade with absentminded irritation.
"I saw where they came from, and laughed at them, and I didn't like
that."
"Where was it from?" Melanie pressed.
But Amy was paying attention now. "Twisted things. I
dunno. The point is I could relate to him. He was part of me enlarged and
isolated and given its own brain. And I didn't like him."
The flat light that struggled through the clouds and turned
the cove into a sheet of pewter gave Amy's drawn face a lusterless gray
radiance. Melanie understood. "You mean your wrong laugh. You don't like
your wrong laugh."
Melanie thought she saw recognition in Amy's face. "I
don't like it either," Melanie added.
"I'm glad you don't like it," Amy rasped. She
stared at her until Melanie felt like crying herself. But before she could, Amy
settled back and said, "Why didn't you like the movie?"
Melanie looked out at the sullen slaty ocean. "I wasn't
paying attention."
"Oh."
She wanted Amy to make her tell the story, but she knew that
Amy had decided that that part was off-limits to her. That was Amy's whole
problem; she excluded herself from the wrong places for the wrong reasons.
Amy grabbed Melanie's arm and pointed to a spot in the
middle of the cove. Melanie saw, beneath the thin silver layer of transparent
reflection, a streamlined gray back shooting by. A round forehead emerged,
rolling forward and down as the blowhole broke the surface, exhaling a wraith
of vapor, and the dolphin merged with the water.
"What's he doing still here?" Amy said.
"Can he live?" They had both rushed to the edge of
the outcropping. "In this much water?"
"They live all right in aquariums," Amy answered.
"And there must be fish in the cove. They eat fish. I'll bet he can live
here."
The slight swell that meant the dolphin's underwater
presence circled a few times. Finally its head came up, and stayed poking out
of the water, facing them. It squeaked and chattered, its head nodding in
response to the churning of its tail.
"Do you think it wants fish?" Amy remarked.
"In the aquarium, they do that when they want to be fed."
"Don't be stupid. He knows we don't have any
fish." Melanie squatted and reached out, but she was of course too far
away to reach the dolphin's head.
"Careful," Amy warned as Melanie tried to edge
closer to the water. "You'll fall in."
"I won't." The dolphin's head bobbed nearer, but
she still was nowhere near reaching it. She could see its eyes. "Can he
see us?"
"I don't think they can see very far. Maybe it heard us
or saw our shadows or something."
"What shadows?" It was useless; the dolphin
couldn't swim in any closer to the rock she was standing on. "It's
overcast." Melanie stood up reluctantly; the dolphin, apparently tired of
treading water, subsided into the cove.
"Dammit." Melanie began taking off her shoes.
"You're not going in, are you? You'll scare him
away."
"I don't think so. He must be lonely, all by
himself."
"Maybe, but I'd think another dolphin would be the
answer for--"
"I'm going in. You coming?"
Amy shook her head. Melanie scrambled down the slope until
she reached the water, lowered herself in and pushed off.
It was cold, of course. She trod water for a while until she
stopped gasping. Now that she was level with the surface and couldn't see the
swell, she had no idea where the dolphin was. She dog paddled toward the
center, glancing around for any sign of him. Amy stood at the edge of the
outcropping, the fingers of one hand stuck into her braid. "Can you see
him?" Melanie shouted.
"No. He must be underwater. Or gone." Melanie
dove.
She realized that if the dolphin was more than six feet away
from her he would be invisible. She closed her eyes.
Her ears barely detected the crash of water on water from
the waves at the mouth of the cove, a low tympanic rumble that sent sluggish
underwater echoes rippling through the cove. She felt the undulations that
meant the dolphin was swimming somewhere off to her right. She struck blindly
that way, changing course as the pulse changed direction, and finally rose for
air.
Amy was much further away, waving her arms. Melanie waved
back, treading water while she regained her breath. She had been under for
longer than she thought, and gone out towards the mouth of the cove. The
dolphin was still nowhere to be seen.
She curled into a ball and let herself sink. The water
closed over her head, blotting out Amy's shouting. A slight wave from somewhere
behind her rocked her sideways. As she propelled herself around with her arms,
a muted crash from the same direction sent out shock waves. When she opened her
eyes, she saw a white column of air bubbles extending from the shimmering
surface to the dark shape that was now making toward her.
She lay prone underwater. Its nose was about a foot away
from hers. Its fins waved slowly as its mouth opened.
The note was clear, high with a warbling vibrato. The water
rippled against her face as the pitch changed. A slow stream of notes enveloped
her in a pool of liquid, palpable music. She closed her eyes, moving her arms
and legs just enough to hold her position as the melody pulsed around her. It
was a clean sound, hollow like the high notes of a clarinet, piping through the
rumble of the waves.
The dolphin sang. Melanie floated suspended inside its song,
until she felt her chest burning. She expected to break the surface after a
second or two, but didn't. She clawed faster, jerking her legs as she saw a
large air bubble escape her mouth. Before she had time to wonder what that
meant her head broke the surface.
It took her a few seconds to get the air going regularly in
and out of her lungs again, and a few more to spin around and locate Amy, now a
small black figure gesticulating frantically atop a boulder.
Melanie stroked slowly shoreward. When she reached the shore
Amy's face was even paler than usual and she wobbled a bit as she crouched down
to talk to her. "You were underwater a really long time."
"I know. But I found him."
"I saw him jump out near where you went under. What was
it like?"
"I don't know." She felt tired suddenly. Her arms
and legs were numbed and a bit bluish. "Let me get out first."
She waded out and collapsed on a boulder. Her wet clothes
stuck to her. The thought of the long walk home made her miserable. Amy hurried
over with her shoes and socks.
"You must be freezing."
"It was really strange." She started putting the
socks on. "He just sort of sat there looking at me. And then he...do
dolphins sing?"
"I don't know." Amy shrugged. "Whales sing. I
guess maybe that squeaking he was making would sound like singing
underwater...?"
"Well, anyway, it sounded like he was singing."
She shivered. "I should have worn my bathing suit. Wear yours next
time."
"How do you know he'll be here?"
"Why should he leave?"
"You got me." They began the walk back. "You
shouldn't have stayed under so long. I was afraid you wouldn't come back
up." Melanie waved dismissively and coughed. "Well, you were out
really far. If you'd been in trouble I might not have got there in time."
"I know enough not to drown."
Amy didn't answer. Melanie shivered. She tried to remember
the melody, but it was gone. She couldn't even describe the sound. She would
have to go back there with Amy. Amy would remember the song. She remembered
everything.
They faced each other across the table for the fortieth
time, and Melanie panicked. She couldn't think of anything and his eyes looked
pretty blank. Every other time, one of them had come up with something, a
comment on the food, a piece of gossip, something about the movie the night
before, and kept it afloat for a little while, but it always ended with them
absorbed in their food. Then they would look up and have to try again.
She looked straight into his eyes this time, and kept
staring. Eventually he would have to do something. His eyes were clear blue,
with dark rings at the edges of the irises and almost white rims around the
pupils. They made her think of glacier ice. She looked for her reflection in
the pupils and waited.
"You blinked," he said.
"You win." She was about to turn back to her food
when he added, "You have neat eyes. Kind of like metal."
"Thanks," Melanie answered. "Your eyes are
pretty too."
He laughed. "Pretty?"
"Well they are!"
"Pretty?"
"OK, fine, they're not pretty. Forget it." She
munched a french fry silently. Let him come up with something else to say if he
was going to be like that.
"Melanie?" He sounded nervous. She waited before
looking up.
"What?"
"What's the matter?"
"With what?"
"With--" He twisted his napkin. She watched the
paper rip and thought, with me, with him, with this.
"I don't know." She pushed her plate away.
"Let's go somewhere."
"Where?"
"I don't care. Let's go outside. I'm not hungry any
more and I hate these stupid buzzing lights."
He looked up at the fluorescent tubes. "All
right." He crumpled up the napkin, tossed it away, and turned the check
over.
The lighted street made Melanie shrink. The last thing she
wanted was to run into a bunch of her friends. She headed toward the car.
"Where do you want to go?" Andy asked as he opened
the door.
"I don't know. Where do you want to go?"
"What about Kirby's Beach?"
"Will there be a lot of people?"
"Shouldn't be."
"All right."
The car felt even stuffier than the restaurant. Melanie
closed her eyes and tried to judge by the rocking of the car where they were
going. When she opened them he was pulling up to the sidewalk that ran along
the edge of the beach.
Under the moon she could see the first few ranks of the
waves, and then the light broke up into shifting points of white until the
black ocean blurred into the sky. Footprints and beer bottles in the light gray
sand indicated that earlier that night someone else had had the same idea. They
descended the steps hand in hand and looked for a place to sit.
Andy spread his jeans jacket over a patch of sand in front of
a rock and they sat on it. Melanie leaned her head on his shoulder, listening
to the water as he stroked her hair.
"It looks different at night, doesn't it?" Andy
said, his voice a little too loud.
"Yes." It was high tide; white foam hissed in and
out a few yards away from them. She wondered how boats or planes could steer in
all that black. It didn't seem like those little blinking lights would help
much. Probably the boats couldn't see any horizon at all, nothing except a line
of tiny lights on the shore and a few yellow flecks of light floating on
darkness. She wondered if dolphins slept.
"I've never been here when it's been this quiet,"
Andy went on, a little more subdued.
"Me neither." Melanie nestled closer. "It's
kind of freaky."
"You want to leave?"
"No."
After a minute, he said, "It is, kind of. But cool. It
reminds me of when I was little."
"Why?"
"My mom used to take us for walks after dinner when we
lived near the beach."
"I remember seeing you once."
"Yeah. You were driving somewhere--"
"School play rehearsal."
"Right. You were a lobster or something."
"Mermaid."
"I sort of remember seeing that at the assembly."
"Did you like it?"
"I thought it was pretty boring."
"I mean the walks."
"Oh. No. I didn't like the beach when I was little. I
was really scared of jellyfish." He laughed. "I'd seen like one in my
entire life and I was totally freaked. I was a wimp."
"But jellyfish are scary."
He held her tighter. "They are, kind of." A car's
headlights swept by behind them. "But I like the beach now."
"Remember that time you and Fred and me and Amy
discovered Rockproof Cove?"
He laughed. "Yeah, I remember. Amy wanted to name it
something really stupid."
"Zanadoo."
"Right! I remember now. Discovered it. Like it had been
sitting there all this time and no one had ever found it before."
"Well, we had never found it before."
"I guess. The water was too cold."
"It is."
"You still go there?"
She hesitated. "Sometimes. With Amy."
"What for?"
"Amy likes it." She felt him shrug.
"Whatever." He kissed the top of her head.
His eyes were black and white now, gleaming in the shadows
of his gray face. She reached an arm around him, stroked the nape of his neck
as they kissed. She concentrated on the warmth at her fingertips as she opened
her mouth and felt his tongue push into it. It was rough, and jerked
erratically from one part of her mouth to another. As he drew back, she smiled,
thinking that it had flopped around a little like a landed fish. He smiled too,
but differently.
This time the motion was less abrupt and random. His hands
moved down her back and untucked her blouse. They were warmer than before,
shook a little.
The kiss seemed to be taking forever. His hands were now
traveling up her back under her blouse. She wasn't sure what to do with her
arms and her neck hurt from twisting in his direction for so long. She had an
uncomfortable feeling that she wasn't supposed to be thinking about things like
that. She was supposed to be swept along. She ran her hands lightly over his
back and tried to stop thinking. She couldn't. Her mouth felt slimy and she
realized she was drooling. She tried pulling back gently but his mouth followed
hers. She heard a soft snick and felt her bra go loose.
Before she realized what she was doing, she drew back,
brought her arms behind her and began fumbling with the hooks. When she looked
up, Andy was staring at her, stunned. She felt sick.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I'm really,
really sorry. I didn't mean--I don't want--I--"
"No, I'm sorry," Andy answered, his voice shaking.
"I shouldn't have-"
He looked so miserable. "It--I mean--" She racked
her brain for a plausible explanation. "It was a reflex. I just--I don't
know why I did that. I was just kind of surprised. It had nothing to do with
anything. Honest."
"Really?"
"It's okay."
They sat still for a minute. Melanie found herself wondering
what time it was. "I'm sorry...it's just..." he began.
"What?"
"It's just...I really like you."
"Thank you," Melanie answered. "I like you
too."
He kissed her again. She shut her eyes and tried to remember
the dolphin's song.
IV.
"But we
were just out there."
"I want to see if he's still there. Wear your
suit."
Amy hesitated. "All right," she answered.
"I'll come to your house. Should I bring a towel?"
"Good idea."
"Is Andy coming?"
Melanie paused. "No, of course not. Why should
he?"
"I don't know. I'll be over in a minute."
"Why did you ask if Andy was coming?" Melanie
repeated as they walked.
"I thought you might want to show him. I mean, he's
your boyfriend and everything."
It had never occurred to her. "Yeah, but I don't think
he'd care."
"Maybe not. He'd want to name him Jaws or something
else awful."
"What are we going to name him?"
"Do we know it's a him?"
"Why shouldn't he be?"
"I don't know."
"He's a he."
"Then let's call him Bob."
"You're kidding."
"All right--Poseidon."
"Who's that?"
"The Greek god of the sea. And a nuclear sub, I
think."
"We're not calling him Poseidon."
"Posy for short."
"NO!"
They laughed as they walked onto the strip of sand and began
taking off their shirts and shorts. "Well, what do you want to call him?
Alfred? Ralph? Hubert?"
"You're being ridiculous."
"Of course I am." They waded into the water.
"You know, I'd forgotten how cold this stuff is. I'm going back out."
"You are not. Come on, you do this every day."
"Only when they make me, and only because they pay me
for it."
"Once you get used to it it's okay."
"Yeah, once you lose the feeling in your limbs it's
just fine." Grimacing, she waded further in.
"It occurs to me," Amy mentioned as they dog
paddled out into the middle, "that we haven't seen him yet, and we could
be giving ourselves pneumonia for nothing."
"You won't get pneumonia," Melanie replied. She
turned in a circle. "Dolllllllll-phin!"
"Try it underwater, like Aquaman."
"That's actually a good idea." She folded her arms
and sank.
She heard Amy's legs churning, and saw the bubbles that her
waving arms carried with them along the surface. She turned away and tried
calling. The sound came out thick and rippled, and she had to shut her mouth
quickly before the rest of her air went with it. She couldn't believe that
weak, garbled cry could travel very far. She bobbed back to the surface.
"I don't think it'll work," Melanie gasped.
"We'll have to wait for him to find us."
She heard a close rushing sound and something exploded from
the water on her right. She had a fleeting, terrified view of a massive form
sailing above her and then there was a crash as the dolphin hit the water on
her left. The splash caught her squarely in the face and choked her.
Amy was paddling over in alarm when the dolphin's head poked
out in front of her. It snorted a cloud from its blowhole and began bobbing and
chattering. Melanie was almost sure it was laughing.
"That," she shouted at it, "was not
funny!" She smacked her arm into the water and sent a splash towards him.
The dolphin ducked, blinked, and disappeared.
"What--" Amy began, but stopped. The dolphin was
swimming around Melanie, brushing slightly against her bare legs. Its skin felt
sleek and cool. She kept herself up with her arms and let her legs float. He
circled her a few times, then reappeared in front of them.
"I think," Melanie said quietly, "he's
apologizing."
"He does look vaguely contrite."
Melanie reached toward him, and as he did not draw back she
stroked his nose. "Feel his skin." Amy bobbed closer to him and
stroked the back of his head. "It's smooth."
"It is."
"I'd have thought it would be scaly."
"But dolphins are mammals."
"I know that."
"So they have skin, not scales."
Melanie stroked his forehead. "I know. I just didn't
expect it to feel like this." She tried to slip her arms around his neck,
but the dolphin sank back into the water. "Go under, quick. Maybe he'll
sing." Amy squeezed her eyes shut and sank. Melanie followed.
The dolphin hung like a shadow in front of her, and she
could see Amy off to one side, drifting in the wrong direction. Melanie grabbed
her wrist and towed her back to the dolphin.
The dolphin was already singing when they got back in place.
Melanie wondered how he could sound so clear when her voice had been so
useless. But there it was, not loud but strong and undiluted, a high note with
a slight tremolo, punctuated by rhythmic clicks. She pulled Amy into the stream
of the song.
As the pitch changed, she felt Amy's wrist jerk.
Instinctively she tightened her grip. She sloshed up and down as Amy struggled,
then finally she let go. A percussive thrashing drowned the song as Amy burst
through the surface. The dolphin's image wavered in the churning water. Melanie
rose.
"What did you do that for?" Amy was slicking her
hair back from her face and taking deep, shuddering breaths. "You made him
stop."
"I got scared," Amy gasped.
"Of what?"
"I just got scared." She started paddling inland.
"Are you leaving?"
"I'm tired."
"Wait!" Melanie followed in her wake. "What's
your problem?"
Amy stopped when she could stand on the bottom and turned
around. "I don't like being underwater. I get scared I won't get back
out."
"You're a lifeguard, for Christ's sake."
"So I should know about drowning, shouldn't I?"
"But didn't you like it? Being under there with
him?"
"Well--I mean yeah, but it..."
"What's there to be scared of?"
"Liking it too much."
Melanie swam closer. "You know, you're really
weird."
Amy's face collapsed, and she turned away.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."
"But you're right," Amy answered in a smothered
voice. "I am weird."
"But who cares? I just meant, I don't get it. Why don't
you like him?"
"I do like him. Look, there's a difference between
being afraid of something and not liking it."
Amy stood up to the neck in water, her teeth chattering and
her lips pressed thin. Wet black coils of hair stuck to her head, their ends
floating loose. Drops of salt water beaded like tears on her lashes. She rubbed
her nose with a wet, wrinkled hand.
"Come back out with me? You don't have to go under if
you don't want to. Just come out and pet him with me. He won't hurt you."
Amy looked past her at the ripples on the cove. "All
right," she finally said. "But we have to go in soon. It's
cold."
Melanie stroked back out toward the puff of vapor that was
scattering above the center of the cove. Amy followed in her wake, humming in a
nervous, wavering tone.
The dolphin poked his head out, and nuzzled Amy gently. Amy
stroked its back. "Nice dolphin," she murmured. "Good dolphin.
Dolphin knows Amy's not a sea creature. Dolphin doesn't mind if Amy keeps her
head above water."
"Dolphin minds being talked to like he's brain
dead."
"Oh, be quiet." Amy patted his head. "Dolphin
can't tell." The dolphin maneuvered over to Melanie.
"You can tell, can't you?" Melanie said, stroking
his broad forehead. "You can hear what we're saying." The dolphin's
head bobbed. "See? He knows."
"He always bobs his head like that."
"But still." She looked into the eye that was
facing her. "I think he has some idea."
"He likes you better than me," Amy said.
"He does not."
"He does. Look." The dolphin was circling Melanie
again. She felt a gentle pressure, but her legs were too numb now to sense
texture. It was too bad, she thought as she watched it slip underneath her
moving legs and pop out in front, wagging its head. It rolled forward, flipped
its tail, and vanished.
"Will you come down just once?" Melanie asked.
Amy thought. "If you promise not to hold on to me like
that."
Melanie nodded. They both sank.
They rode the crest of a slight swell as the dolphin swam
beneath them. Stretched out, arms and legs waving, Melanie waited.
One note welled up from the shifting darkness beneath them,
made the water tremble against Melanie's face. The rest of her had stopped
feeling the cold, or even the water. The same note repeated. Amy rose. Melanie
waited for the rest.
Faint, but still distinct, she heard the notes spill faster
and faster, from further and further below. That black blur fading into the
shadows there might be him, or might not. Melanie had to go back to the
surface.
When she saw Amy's pale, glistening face, she understood.
The dolphin knew Amy was frightened of him. He had waited until Melanie was
alone.
"Let's go in," Melanie said.
Amy struck gratefully toward the shore. Melanie backstroked
in. Amy was drying herself off when Melanie stepped out.
"Did you hear him?"
"I heard something," Amy answered.
"Wasn't it beautiful?"
"It was so high-pitched."
Melanie started rubbing the feeling back into her limbs.
"So you didn't like it?"
"It hurt my ears."
"Where do you think he comes from?"
"I don't know. Maybe he escaped from an aquarium and
that's why he's so friendly."
"How could he escape from an aquarium?"
"Dolphins are very intelligent animals."
"But if he liked people, why would he escape?"
Amy forced her wet head through the neck of her shirt.
"Love."
"Love?!"
"Love."
Melanie pulled her shorts on. "Love for who?"
"Who, indeed?" They set off up the rocky
shoreline.
"Well, who?"
"I'll tell you next time," Amy answered.
She was OK. The ground was dipping a little, but not too
much. Her feet worked fine if she concentrated. She was cold in her tank top
but she would make it back before it got too bad. If she concentrated. A foot
slipped off the black edge of the asphalt into the loam at the shoulder. She
wobbled, carefully reestablished her balance.
"Melanie!"
He was far away. Maybe he would give up. It was a very long
hilly street and there were no lights. He might not be sure she was there.
"Melanie, wait!"
She sped up, but then her feet went wild, coming down wide
of the mark, slipping off the crumbling blacktop border. It seemed important to
stay near the edge. She tripped. Her hands burned on the asphalt before she
pushed herself up and started again, slow, concentrating.
The heels of her hands throbbed as they swung at her sides.
She knew she would start to feel queasy soon. It was still ten, maybe fifteen
minutes to home.
That must be him thudding down the street behind her. If she
ran, she would fall. He was faster anyway. She had seen him run track.
He pulled up beside her, hardly panting.
"Melanie..."
"What?"
"What do you mean, what?"
Not even buzzed. It wasn't fair. Maybe he was hiding it.
"I mean, what do you want?"
"What do you think? What the hell! Why'd you
leave?"
"I wanna go home."
"So I'll take you home. You don't have to run
off."
"I walked."
"You didn't say anything! Just disappeared. I thought
you were having a good time."
"Wrong." Her stomach was getting worse.
"Was it what Chaps said?"
Shaking her head threw her off balance. He caught her elbow
to steady her. She stopped, planted her feet wider apart, took slow breaths.
"I don't care what anyone says."
"Yes you do." He was breathing too loud; his mouth
hung slightly open. Maybe he was buzzed.
"I don't." She started walking.
"Well what was it then?"
"What you said."
"What'd I say?"
"Nothing."
"No! What'd I say?"
"You said...you didn't say anything."
"Well then--"
"You just--you looked at me--like you did--"
"Like how?"
"Like, like, `Yeah, here she is, guys, take a good
look.'"
"I did not!"
"And they were all staring at me--"
"They were not!"
"-and you had your stupid arm clamped on me all
night-"
"Melanie!"
"--I don't mind that, normally I don't care, just it
felt like you were attached to me and I felt really weird so I just left."
"I still don't see what--"
"I don't know what it was. I just wanted to go home. So
I left."
"You don't want me putting my arm around you in front
of people?"
"It wasn't that, it was the way you did it. I--"
She pressed down on her stomach to hold it still. "I don't wanna talk any
more."
"Of course not! Just mess with my head and run away.
End of discussion. What the fuck. I mean--what the fuck!"
He turned her to face him. She stumbled as she stopped. She
felt weak and she couldn't focus her eyes properly.
"I've tried and I don't get it! How am I supposed to
figure this out? I never know what you think. How do I know whether you want my
arm around you? When do you ever tell me that kind of shit?"
"I'm sorry..."
"It's not like I'm an idiot, like I'm brain-dead, it's
not like if you were being normal this would be such a problem. You didn't used
to be like this!"
"I have stuff on my mind, I'm sorry..."
"Well, like what stuff? How come I never know?"
All she could think of as an answer to his hurt, baffled
stare was, "It's a secret."
"What is?"
"What's on my mind."
"Why can't you tell me?"
"Because...you'd think it was weird."
"And this isn't weird?"
"Forget it." She began walking, with difficulty,
breathing hard. Her legs didn't feel quite there.
"I want to know what's happening," Andy repeated,
keeping pace.
"You wouldn't understand it even if you saw..."
"Saw what?"
"Even if you saw, cause no one else can hear it, even
Amy said.."
His voice froze. "Amy?"
"Yes, she was there..."
"Where?"
She met his eyes, but it was an effort. "The cove. Amy
was there."
"What are you talking about?"
"Never mind..."
"Amy knows? That fuckin' weird--"
"She's not weird! And it has nothing to do with
her!"
The words rang in her head and on the asphalt. She must have
shouted really loud. She saw Kerry's house's lights through the trees and
wondered if he could have heard. No, he'd still be at the party. That must be
his mother waiting up.
Andy put an arm around her shoulders. She did not resist.
"You OK?"
"Amy isn't weird. Everyone thinks she's weird but she's
really not. She's not even weird-looking really. She's beautiful, you just
don't know, that's all."
"All right. She isn't weird. Jesus. I'm sorry."
They walked on. "You look sick."
"I'll be all right." She saw the street lamp and
the corner of the intersection with her street. A couple blocks now.
"Let me walk you home."
They passed Amy's house, sleeping under the glare of the
streetlight. Maybe Amy was awake. Her window was on the backyard. It really
wasn't very late. She stayed up reading a lot.
"Are you sure you're going to be all right?"
"Yeah. I just need to go to sleep."
"Melanie..."
"What?"
"What is it you won't tell me?"
Braced in her own front doorway, she felt steadier. She
said, almost evenly, "Nothing very important."
He hesitated. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. it's nothing about you and me. It's just I
promised Amy I wouldn't tell."
"Why?"
"It's nothing. I promise it's nothing. Nothing wrong
with you."
He stuck his hands into his pockets and hunched his
shoulders. "Promise?"
Promise? Like they were six and she had told him she'd be
his best friend. Promise. "Yes, I promise."
"OK then. Will you tell me someday?"
"As soon as Amy says I can."
"All right." He kissed her, watched as she opened
the door and got inside. Then he left while she moved carefully up the unlit
staircase.
She was surprised to find after lying in bed for half an
hour that she couldn't fall asleep. Her stomach still ached and she felt
dried-out and tired, but she couldn't sleep. Drinking water didn't help. When
she got back from the bathroom she realized she didn't even really want to lie
down. She wanted to go somewhere else. Her parents had already heard her come
in and probably gone to sleep again. Amy might still be awake.
She put her clothes back on, took her jacket and went out
the back door. The grass stretched in a pale white band between the row of
evenly spaced houses and the border of the woods, barred with pointed shadows.
Her own shadow, when she stepped out of the black oblong her house cast,
stretched thin ahead of her. There were four little grass squares and four box
houses between her backyard and Amy's. There was a fence between the
Shufflebergs' and the Hansons but it wasn't very tall. It did not occur to her
to go by the street.
The fence was taller than it looked. She jumped up and
grabbed two of the picket points in her hands, scrabbled with her feet against
the palings. Her palms burned and she had to let go. The ground was cold
underneath the grass she fell on. Almost fall, really. August is practically
fall. She wiped her hands on the grass and tried again. She had enough momentum
to get one leg hooked over the points, swung the other one painfully over, and
dropped.
Her palms still burned and her knee hurt. She stopped behind
Amy's house. Her room light was still on. Melanie couldn't see her, but she
knew she was in there reading. "Amy!"
Amy didn't hear the stage whisper. Melanie went around and
got some gravel from the driveway. When she finally hit the window the sound
startled her. Amy's head appeared, silhouetted.
"Amy!"
"Is that you?"
"Let me in!"
"What are you doing here?"
"Let me in!"
"I thought you were at the party with--"
"I left. Will you get down here and let me in?"
"Hang on."
She came out the back door, blue bathrobe clutched around
her, shifting from one bare foot to the other, hair in her eyes. "C'mon.
Hurry up, it's cold."
Melanie ran inside. Amy shut the door. "Let's go up to
your room."
"What are you here for?" Amy asked as they climbed
the steps.
"I couldn't sleep."
"So you assume I couldn't either?"
"Your light was on."
"Yeah, it was. Oh well." She shut the bedroom door
and took off her bathrobe. "I don't mind anyway." She pushed a book
off the bed and climbed back in. Melanie sat on the balled-up comforter at her
feet.
"So tell me the story."
"What story?"
"The story. About how the dolphin got there. And love.
You said he was in love. Tell me."
"Melanie, it's 1 a.m."
"You were awake. I saw your light."
"Do your parents know you're here?"
"They're asleep. Tell me the story."
Amy rubbed her eyes. In the yellow light of the reading lamp
Melanie's face was sallow with dark shadows under the eyebrows, nose and
cheekbones. Her hair was still damp with sweat. "What happened at the
party?"
"He was being a jerk so I left. But it's okay now. Tell
me the story."
"Are you drunk?"
"Kind of. I'm OK. I want to hear the story. Tell me the
story and then I'll go home."
"What story?"
"About how the dolphin got here."
"I don't know how he got here."
"So make it up!"
"Shhhhhhhhhh!" Amy nodded toward the wall behind
the head of her bed.
"So make it up," Melanie whispered.
Amy smoothed the covers out over her lap. Melanie tucked her
legs into a sitting position and watched from the foot of the bed.
"Not a lot of people know this," she began,
folding her hands on the sheet, "but unicorns were sea animals,
originally."
"But they're horses."
"That was later. They used to be sea mammals, kind of a
cross between a manatee and a seahorse with one long horn growing out of their
foreheads. Eventually they evolved and left the ocean, but that's how they
started out."
"So what does this have to do with anything?"
"I'm getting to it. Early unicorns were sort of
funny-looking, but the only real differences were instead of white hair they
were covered with light gray skin, and instead of hooves they had web feet, and
instead of hind legs they had these really powerful tails. They could tread
water for hours, and swim really fast. People would go out to the beaches at
night to see if they could spot one. Sometimes a whole school of them would be
out there, rearing up out of the water. It was best at high tide. But anyway,
at that time, there were a lot of kings and queens in
"Why a lot?"
"Because it was a really wild country and what with the
problems with the Wee Folk and everything one king could only control so much
of it. So there were good kings and okay kings and really bad kings, and a lot
of kings that didn't pay much attention to their kingdoms and just went hunting
a lot. But the point is, King Conor had a castle on a cliff by the sea. There
was a tower in it that you could look out of right onto the ocean, and you
could see for miles. He had had it built for his wife so she could see him
coming home from the wars, which they were always having with other coastal
kingdoms. They weren't large wars and they didn't tend to last very long, but
they were dangerous and Queen Deirdre was a very nervous woman."
Melanie yawned. "You're stalling."
"This is local color. Shut up and wait for me to think
of a plot."
"Do it quick." She stretched out and closed her
eyes.
"After a while Deirdre had her first child, and as
often happened back before the development of obstetrics and gynecology, she
died doing it. Conor was very sad, more so because he knew that she had always
been afraid of having children. So he dug a grave for her under one of the sand
dunes because she had always loved the sea and buried half of his treasure with
her and put a cross on it to mark the spot, a big stone cross. His neighbors
were really angry, because they hadn't converted to Christianity yet, so he had
to fight a few wars but after a while the word got around that you didn't mess
with Conor's cross, and they left it alone."
"Cut to the chase."
"The point is, Deirdre junior, as soon as she could
walk, used to walk down the cliff path and visit the cross every day, because
Conor talked so much about her mother that she missed her, and thought that if
she saw how much she missed her she might come back. She probably met the
unicorn one evening while she was visiting the cross. No one really knows.
Anyway, eventually the unicorn started coming every day too.
"She knew it was always the same one, because even
though unicorns could never talk they used to be able to communicate. No one
was quite sure how, not even Deirdre. But she'd come out to the edge of the
beach and sing, and the unicorn would come up out of the water and listen. He
never made any noise, but she knew he liked her, and he was sorry she was so
lonely in the castle with only her father and her governess and her dolls, and
he would have come out of the ocean to play with her if he had had feet. He
mostly sat there and listened to her sing, which was good because she really
had no one else to talk to, with Conor being so involved in wars and grief.
"When she turned thirteen, Conor sent the governess
away and moved her from the nursery to the room her mother used to live in, the
one that looked out over the ocean. Deirdre had never really liked her
governess much, but she was still lonely without her. But when she looked out
of the window at night when there was a moon she could see the unicorns playing
in the water.
"One night, when the moon was full, after they had
played for a while leaping and splashing, they stopped and formed two circles
in the ocean, one inside the other, around the reflection of the moon on the
water. They started leaping again, but this time it was a dance, and it ended
with a pairing up between the unicorns in the outer circle and the ones in the
inner circle, and then they all disappeared. But her unicorn was dead center
the whole time, the point the circles revolved around. When the other unicorns
disappeared, he reared up, covered with water and moonlight, looked at the
light in Deirdre's window, and then disappeared.
"She asked him about this the next day when she sang.
But she didn't really understand his answer. The dance was about children and
love; that much she had figured. But when she asked why he was in the center,
he said something about having chosen, and disappeared. She never asked him
about it again."
"Chosen what?"
"He didn't say. A few years later, the old king of one
of Conor's neighboring kingdoms died, and his eighteen-year-old son succeeded
him. He had heard about Conor's cross, but what really interested him was the
rumor that Conor had buried half his treasure there. So he and a few of his men
set out for the grave, planning to wait in the cover on top of the cliff until
nightfall and then go down, rob the grave, and sail away in the ship they had
anchored just out of sight up the coast.
"Of course, while they were waiting and watching on top
of the cliff, Deirdre came out to visit the grave, and suddenly he didn't so
much care about the treasure any more. Then she started to sing, and he forgot
about the treasure completely. He waited on the hill while the unicorn
appeared.
"He thought briefly of trying to get her hand in
marriage, but one look at her and the unicorn filled him with such rage and
jealousy that he scrambled down the cliff with his men after him, gave the
signal to his captain, and dragged her onto their ship when it came around the
cliff and set sail.
"They had picked the wrong day to sail, however,
because the winds were high and the clouds were thick. He had taken a young and
inexperienced captain because his father's captain had refused to have anything
to do with the project. The result was, they got turned around, and instead of
going back up the coast they headed out to sea.
"Conor immediately armed his ships and set sail but had
to turn back because, as his captain said, `God may help them that don't know
what they do, but only devils and madmen sail knowingly into hell.' Conor said,
`Her mother can follow her where I cannot; she will protect her.' And they turned
back."
"What assholes!"
"Well, Conor had no provisions."
"Neither did they."
"They did though, because the young king had been
planning on hiding out in the wild for a bit if necessary. And about halfway
across the
"That was quick."
"It was a small boat and unicorns are really strong
swimmers."
"Still."
"If you have a problem, you can just make the end up
yourself. I'm doing the best I can."
"No, no, keep going."
"Unfortunately, they landed on what was eventually going
to be the coast of
"What was this king doing in the meantime?"
"At first, he was too busy trying to stay alive to give
much thought to Deirdre, but once things were settled he started to think about
her again. He didn't want to force himself upon her, because she was the
daughter of a king; but his attempts at persuasion were met very coldly.
Finally he began to lose his temper.
"He said one night, `Deirdre, I know why you reject me.
You are in love with that creature that comes to you from the sea. You are
lying with him instead of me.'"
"What does `lying with' mean?"
"Having sex."
"Gross!"
"That's what she said. `Do you think I am a mermaid or
a siren, that I can breathe underwater? I reject you because I hate you. It
shouldn't surprise you.' `But if the unicorn were gone, you would learn to hate
me less.' `I would learn to hate life more.' `I'll kill the unicorn.' `You'll
never catch him.' `No, but you will.'
"She turned very white and asked, `What do you mean?'
He said, `The unicorn will come when you call him. And my men will be waiting
to kill him.' `I will never call him again,' she said. `Yes you will,' he
answered. `Or I will make you scream, and he will come then too.' `I will tell
him not to come. I will tell him that I will kill myself if he comes.' `He'll
come anyway. It's a spell. He can't stay away from you. It's like that with unicorns.
When a unicorn once loves a virgin, he is bound to her forever.'
"She remembered the legends she had read, and she knew
it was true. But she also remembered something else. And so she said, proudly,
`I am the daughter of Conor, king of the proud Red Branch kings, and you shall
never touch me.' `So be it,' the young king said. `Take her back to her cabin,'
he told the guard, and he did."
"Who are the Red Branch kings?"
"I have no idea. Anyway, as they reached the door of
her cabin, Deirdre turned to the guard, who was really only seventeen and very
frightened and miserable at being marooned in a wilderness with his
temperamental king, and said, `Do you know that you have beautiful eyes?'"
"What?!"
"That's just what he said. `What?!'
"`Well, they are beautiful,' she answered. `Come
inside.'
"`But why does the daughter of a king offer me what she
denies my lord?'"
"Which is what?"
"Melanie, what do you think?"
"That's awful!"
"She said, `Because I hate your lord, and if I am still
a virgin tomorrow, someone I love will die. You look gentle. Come inside.'
"He understood at once, because he had read all the
legends. `But then he will never come back.' She said, `Then he will never
die.' `But it will break your heart.' `My heart is broken already.'
"When he heard this, the young man took her hand, and
kissed it, and said, `He will not die. It is the king who will never see the
sun.' And he took his sword out of its scabbard and walked up the beach.
"No one knows exactly what happened, but at sunrise the
boy was nowhere to be found. Deirdre hoped that he had escaped, but at any rate
the king was still alive, though limping. The king bound Deirdre and put her on
a rock and told her to sing.
"She was silent. He struck her, but she wouldn't
scream. As he let go to strike again, she leapt off the rock and into the sea.
"The king was wearing armor, so he had to take it off
before he could jump in to save her. By that time, Deirdre had drowned, without
saying a word."
"No!"
"Yes."
"How could you!"
"That's what happened."
"Well, what happened to the king?"
"He jumped in finally, and towed her body to shore. As
he was untying her hands and feet, he saw the unicorn appear out at sea. He had
come because he knew that something was wrong because she hadn't called. The
king shouted, `She's dead! And she died for you!' and grabbed his sword and
charged into the water.
"The unicorn ran him through with his horn on the first
blow."
"Good!"
"`She died for you,' the king repeated as he staggered
ashore. `Look.' The unicorn saw Deirdre's body bound and cold. As the king died
on the shore, the unicorn dove down into the ocean, and beat his head on a rock
until his horn broke off. He took the horn in his teeth and swam back, lifting
his bloody head out of the water and nodding at the shore.
"What he meant was that the horn of a unicorn, ground
into powder and sprinkled over an uncorrupted dead body, will revive it. But
Deirdre was not there to understand him, and the boy who knew the legends was
gone, and the king saw, but had not the strength to tell his handful of men
what to do. So they stood around the king, trying to stanch the bleeding, while
the unicorn bobbed in the ocean, doing everything he could to get them to come
out and take the horn. He stayed there for a day, until he knew it was
hopeless, and then he went back into the water and buried the horn under the
stones of the ocean floor.
"He never went back to
Melanie sat quiet. Amy plucked at the sheet on her lap.
"Say something, Mel."
"Is that true?"
"Of course not!"
"I mean about unicorns and virgins."
"Well, if you believe the legends, yeah. You can only
catch a unicorn using a virgin as bait."
"I don't see why Deirdre had to die."
"I had to explain how he got to be a dolphin instead of
a unicorn."
"Why'd you make him a unicorn in the first place?"
"I don't know. It seemed appropriate for some
reason."
"Her mother didn't protect her."
"Well, she did sort of. The king never got what he
wanted."
"But she died."
"But she went to heaven. In the story there's
heaven."
"Oh." Melanie opened her eyes. They wanted to stay
shut. The room was warm and her house was far away. Amy's face was drawn and
worried.
"Are you all right? I'm sorry it was a sad story. I was
reading a sad book when you came in. I can tell you a happy one if you
want."
"No, I liked it. I'm just really tired." She
stretched herself out next to Amy. "I don't want to go home. I want to
stay here."
"What about your parents?"
"I'll go home early in the morning. Wake me up at
seven. OK?"
"If you're sure they won't care."
"They won't know."
"At least take your shoes off."
Melanie untied them and dropped them on the floor. She
dragged the comforter over her and curled up in it. Amy shifted to the other
side of the bed, careful not to touch her. She set her alarm and turned the
lamp off. In the dark her breath sounded loud.
"Amy?"
"What?"
"Did the nice guy have to die too?"
"He only had to not kill the king. So maybe he ran
away. That's why I never said what happened to him."
"That was nice of you," she murmured. "You're
so nice."
"Thanks."
"I mean it."
"I believe you."
"G'night."
V.
It was too bright. It was too bright, and she was thirsty.
And she was not in her own bed.
The glare in front of her refined itself into window panes.
The curtains and ruffles were translucent. A girl's room at least. Melanie
turned on her side to escape the light. That was Amy's comforter. Amy's room.
Right. She'd slept over.
Melanie turned her head. The clock said it was 6:30. Plenty
of time to get home before they were up. Where the hell was Amy?
She closed her eyes. She had had a fight with Andy on the
road in the dark. About the party but then about the dolphin. Had she told him?
Probably not. The fight was OK but she had promised him something. She hoped it
was nothing important. Then she hadn't been able to sleep. Then Amy had told
her a story and then they had fallen asleep.
She draped an arm across her eyes. The princess had died but
the unicorn lived. Amy should have pulled the shade. Unicorn. The unicorn was
the dolphin now. Aha. And the nice guy might have escaped. Where was Amy,
anyway? The sheets were all rumpled. She was there when they fell asleep.
The dolphin killed the evil king with his horn. No. The
unicorn killed the king. But the unicorn was the dolphin now. He had broken off
his horn to save the princess.
Amy had definitely been there when they fell asleep. Ah.
That was her voice in the hall. Talking to herself. No, singing.
Amy wandered in, wrapped in a green towel and wearing a
shower cap. She passed the bed without noticing that Melanie was awake and
opened a dresser drawer.
The tune was slow and regular, moving between the same four
or five notes without much change in rhythm or volume. Sometimes she stopped
and repeated parts slower and louder as she rummaged for minutes before she
finally finding underwear and matching socks. After another strain, she found a
bra. The tune stretched, going lethargic as she drifted toward the window.
The tune died as she sat down in a chair facing the window,
her back to Melanie. It was a while before she moved. It was still too bright.
Amy sighed, took off the shower cap, and succumbed to inertia. The squares of
light were still blurry at the edges, and Amy's silhouette had a hazy,
shimmering outline. As she slowly drew on her socks, Amy began a new tune. This
one had words.
Melanie closed her eyes. "I went into the hazel wood
because a fire was in my head..." More energetic now, and the notes more
uneven. Melanie heard the towel plump to the floor and the soft elastic sounds
that meant Amy was struggling into her bra. Her feet padded across the rug; a
drawer opened. Melanie opened her eyes.
The sunlight fell on Amy's bare back as she bent over the
drawer. Two white planes separated by a stripe of shadow. Shadow rippling
around her shoulder blades as she sorted through the shirts. "...I dropped
the berry in the stream..." She found one and straightened up. Her hair
fell over her shoulders, blotting out the play of light and dark. Melanie
wanted her to move it out of the way. "...and caught a little silver
trout..."
Amy drew her shirt on, muffling the next few words, then
began poking through yet another drawer. "...and something called my by my
name. It had become a glimmering girl..." Absorbed in her song, she seemed
to have forgotten what she was looking for. Then she woke up, found and put on
her shorts, and walked toward the window.
The song swelled, modulating higher and higher. "Though
I am old with wandering through hollow lands and hilly lands..." She threw
her arms toward the window with an absurdly dramatic gesture. "I will find
out where she has gone, and kiss her lips, and take her hands..." She
dropped her arms and tossed her head back as the song slipped faster from her
throat. "...and pluck till time and times are done, the silver apples of
the mooooooooon..." Melanie gritted her teeth as the held note wavered.
"The golden apples of the sun."
Amy stopped singing and drew back the curtains. Melanie
whimpered.
"Finally. It's almost seven. You'd better get
going."
Melanie rolled out of bed. She was dressed except for her
shoes. "Are your parents awake?"
"Dad's out running. Mom's still asleep. Your shoes are
under the bed. You feel all right?"
Bending down to get them gave her a headache, but it
disappeared as she straightened up to face Amy. "All right. Not good, but
all right." Amy's face practically shone, it was so bright. Her cheeks,
her forehead, even the slope of her T-shirt over her chest reflected white.
"Thanks for humoring me. I must have been beautiful."
"You weren't nasty or anything." They started down
the stairs. "It was kind of cute. You made me tell you a bedtime
story."
"I remember." You can only catch a unicorn with a
virgin. "Did you make it up yourself?"
"Half made-up, half recycled. Did you like it?"
"I think so." The unicorn had broken his horn for
the princess. Now he was the dolphin. "I remember it, so it must have made
an impression on me. Can I have a drink of water?"
Amy stretched to get a tall glass from the cupboard shelf.
She looked better with her hair down like that, soft over her shoulders. Better
not tell her that again. "Thanks." She drained the glass. Amy
laughed. "So?"
"Do you have a headache too?"
"As a matter of fact, yes. So what?"
"Nothing. it's just...I've never seen a hangover before,
and it's just like it is in the books."
"I didn't think I'd gotten that drunk. Oh, right. I was
hammered at the party. I got better before I came here." Amy looked at her
hands. "You've never seen me drunk before, have you?"
"Not really."
"Do you--" Looking at Amy's melancholy face, she
couldn't think how to say what she wanted to say. Did it shock you? Was I
really bad? No, that wasn't what she meant. Does it change things? Closer. Will
you see me differently? Am I different?
"Do I what?" She looked at Melanie's hands, then
at her face. "I don't care. I know everyone does."
Melanie turned her hands over. She had forgotten about the
scrapes. Amy grabbed her wrist and took a closer look. "God! Doesn't that
hurt? Come here." Melanie let Amy drag her toward the sink. "How'd
you do that?"
"Climbing the Shufflebergs' fence."
"Why the--"
"To get here."
"Other hand. Why didn't you just go by the
street?"
Melanie shrugged. "They're just scratched."
Amy got some bandaids and Bactine out of the cupboard,
ignoring Melanie's protestations, and began swabbing the scrapes.
"Anything can get infected. Make sure you keep the bandaids on. Your
knee's messed up too."
"You should never have learned first aid."
"You'll thank me for it. Those open scrapes like that
take forever to heal if you don't keep them covered. Use the street on your way
home."
"Good plan." Melanie followed Amy through the
hall. "What are you doing today?"
"Library first, then lifeguarding till five."
"After that?"
"Nothing."
"You want to do something maybe?"
"Call if you want. I'll be here."
Melanie stepped onto the walk. The flagstones leading to the
street sparked in the sun. She couldn't stand to look at the white-painted
stones that bordered the lawns. She turned to look at Amy standing in the
shadow of the doorway, shading her eyes.
Melanie didn't want to leave, to face the glinting car
fenders or the piercing glare of the white clapboard houses. But it was almost
too late. Amy waved. Melanie hurried up the asphalt, keeping close to the edge.
When she woke
up this time, she was in her own bed. It must be afternoon; the strip of light
between the shade and the windowsill was less stabbing and insistent. 1:37.
About eight hours, total. Enough sleep.
In the shower, she found herself singing Amy's tune. She
liked the way it echoed off the tiles, how it didn't go too high or too low for
her, how it felt good to sing it, to open her throat and hold the notes as long
and as loud as she wanted. She wished she remembered the words.
Rummaging automatically through her sock drawer, she found
her bathing suit. She put it on.
It was still sunny as she started for the cove, but her eyes
were better. It felt strange going alone. The walk seemed longer. Once or twice
she thought she had gone the wrong way, even though she knew it was the way
they had always gone.
She reached the public beach. It was high tide and a nice
day, so the strip of burning sand was covered with blankets, beach bags and
chairs. Carole and Jamie and the Jennifers were there in their bikinis.
Probably one of the last days they'd get to use them. Melanie skirted the crowd
and started climbing the rocks.
By now she didn't even have to use her hands to steady
herself. She and Amy knew the best route: up the ledge, down diagonal to the
left, across the spit, up the big rock near the point of the next ridge...when
she slipped and caught herself her hand stung. She had forgotten about the
bandaids. They'd probably come off in the water.
And up the last ridge. Rockproof cove spread out below her
in the same flashing blue beauty that it had worn the day she first saw it.
Even then she had known that it had a secret...had she known about the dolphin
all along? Had she been drawn to the jeweled surface by the silver fish beneath
it?
She watched for him as she reached the beach. Had he been
there even then? The surface was still. There, a puff of white by the mouth of
the cove. Why are you waving, you idiot, he can't see that far. But there, in
the center, coming closer. She took off her shirt and shoes.
He must have been there, he's been there for hundreds of
years. In the story. What a weird story. She made the whole thing up anyway.
Still.
Her knee hurt. Of course, the salt water. Great. But it was
getting better; the cold was numbing it. Her hands were worse, particularly
after the bandaids floated away, but she ground her teeth and swam out.
He appeared without warning from the smooth surface in front
of her, black eyes twinkling on either side of his bottle nose, dorsal fin
dipping in and out as he bobbed. His head was shaped a little like a horse's,
if you thought about it.
"Hi, dolphin." She stroked the side of its head.
He closed his eyes. "You like that, don't you." He rolled gently
over, white belly flashing for a moment before he righted himself again and
clicked. "I bet you do." Melanie bobbed to stroke the other side.
"Yes, you're loving this, aren't you?" His back rolled forward under
her hand as he dove, then reappeared in the same spot. "Do you play like
this all the time, or just for me?" The dolphin flipped his tail and began
circling her. "Where are your friends? Are they really all in
The sensation was far away, blunted by the cold. The same
sequence, fin, back, belly, back, fin...a slight touch, hardly felt. Through
the reflection, mottled by the filtered sunlight, distorted by the ripples, his
trembling image did not correspond to the faint but confident tracing and
retracing of the pattern...back, belly, back, fin, back...Finally his belly
shone below her as he slipped between her legs upside-down, then popped out
facing her.
Melanie put her arms as far around his neck as they would
go. "You're a very strange animal." The dolphin stared impassively
back. "I wish you talked. Or Amy were here to make up your answers. she's
better at making things up than I am. She told this really strange story about
you--" The dolphin ducked out of her embrace and dove.
Of course. He does talk. Melanie sank.
Silence, except for the rumbling from the mouth of the cove.
Then the note. She didn't know how she knew it was the same note as last time.
It repeated. Come on, come on, Amy's not here, and I'm not afraid. Go on.
It swelled, dipped, rose, fell, wavered. New notes overlapped
the dying pulses of the old ones. It came from all sides, advancing,
retreating, weaving, unraveling, slipping in and out of patterns.
She opened her eyes. His tail flukes waved in front of her.
She took one in each hand.
Her head cleared the water in an instant, plunged back into
it. Water streamed past her nose, across her closed eyes. Her body shook with
the force of his tail as she streaked below the surface. She felt her pulse
throbbing in her ears. The humming water trembled against her skin. A jerk of
his tail flung her above the surface. She realized she was out of breath. She
let go.
Her heart was beating too fast. It seemed too quiet. The
dolphin, unconcerned, squeaked at her almost conversationally. The air burned
her lungs. "I've always wanted to do that. How did you know?" That
clicking could almost be laughter. He nuzzled her shoulder and lifted his head.
"How long have you been here? Forever?" The eye
winked. "How did you get here?" He gently subsided.
He was silent down there, waiting. Her turn. Melanie tried
humming Amy's song.
The dolphin's answer came instantly, spilling out almost
impatiently from further below. It was Amy's tune.
Melanie dove. The notes shuddered against her face, high and
wild and jumping from pitch to pitch before she could catch them. She chased
the song further down.
Still higher, still faster. A ringing in her head, a
pressure in her chest. Her legs and arms felt disconnected. Deeper...dizziness,
pain inside her ears. Through the ringing and pain, the song. This is my song.
Amy's song is my song.
Her hands found a fin and automatically clutched it. It tore
her up through the water.
Sunlight and air exploded on her. The dolphin's back
disappeared while she struggled for equilibrium. Amy's song is my song. Why was
that in her head? At the bottom she had thought it first. Amy's song is my
song. No, the dolphin's song. Amy's song is...
The cries of a lone gull began to penetrate the buzzing in
her ears. The dolphin must have said it somehow. Way at the bottom, he could
talk. Far underwater. Amy's song is my song.
She could hardly move her arms to stroke toward shore. She
hoped her legs were still moving; she couldn't feel them. Amy's song is my
song. The story was right. That's what he must have meant. She waded out.
But Amy had made it up. The buzzing was almost gone. No. She
thinks she made it up. But she was under there with him. He told her what to
say, she just doesn't know it. How could she have made all that up, she said
herself she didn't know why she said some of those things. He told her.
She shivered and put on her clothes and watch. Her cuts were
beginning to sting. 4:16. By the time she got back, if she walked slow, Amy
might be home.
The last sunbathers were packing up as she arrived at the
main beach. Carol and the others were gone. She walked along the border of sand
and water, sometimes remembering to step sideways to avoid the waves and
sometimes forgetting. Streaks of thin cloud had crystallized above the ocean.
Amy said clouds that were feathery like that meant the weather was changing.
Except the weather was always changing.
"Melanie?"
Andy sat on the wall that ran along the sidewalk. Melanie
was conscious of how horrible she looked with her hair wet and tangled and her
shirt wet from the suit underneath it. He always looked good. It wasn't fair.
"What are you doing here?"
"Swimming."
"Thanks. Where?"
"In the cove."
"Where's Amy?"
"Lifeguarding at Kirby's."
"You came all the way out here to swim by
yourself?"
"Yeah."
"You said you'd tell me about the cove."
Shit. It had been important. "Later."
"Melanie--"
"I don't feel like getting into it."
"You promised!"
"I was drunk."
"But--"
She shouldn't have looked at his face. Promise. You promised
you'd be my best friend. Never look at his face when you argue with him, it's
the little boy that gets you.
"Walk home with me."
He fell into step beside her. "So?"
"It's not that big a deal. It's just--a while ago--me
and Amy--we were at the cove--"
"What?"
"We...we thought we saw a dolphin maybe."
"So?"
"So...we go back sometimes to see if we can see him
again."
"Has he come back?"
"We haven't seen him."
The afternoons were getting colder. It was stupid to have
come out without a towel. She shivered. Andy put an arm around her. "And
that's all?"
She flinched at the sound of his voice. His arm had been
gentle. "Well...I like dolphins...besides, I...when you've seen something,
you want to know if it's real...so we go and watch." Andy didn't answer.
Melanie added, without a reason, "I'd hate to think I had imagined
it."
"Maybe he really was there but he hasn't come
back."
"Oh, I know...but..."
"And Amy saw it too, right?"
"Yeah, but..."
"So what are you worried about?"
"I'm--nothing. Never mind."
"You always say that."
"Well you always say, `So what are you worried
about?'"
"What are you worried about?"
"Everything!" Andy stopped. "I mean...I'm
afraid there's something wrong with--"
"With us?"
The tremor was slight but she felt it. So that was what
scared him.
"No, with me."
He laughed. "Like what?"
"Like..." If he could laugh like that, he must not
have noticed anything. "I don't know."
"There's nothing wrong with you."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Because you should know, right? So if you think there
isn't, I'm OK, right?"
"Right."
"What about last night?"
"Everyone loses it sometimes when they're drunk. I
shouldn't have yelled at you like that." He took her hand and they started
again. "Were you afraid I'd think you were weird?"
"Yeah."
He laughed. "I don't think you're weird."
"Do you think Amy's weird?"
"Yeah."
"Andy!"
"I'm not going to lie."
At least then he had meant it about her being all right. And
why shouldn't she be? Amy had been there too. Most of the time.
"Let's go somewhere tonight."
She shrugged. "Where?"
"The beach?"
"It's getting too cold for that."
"Gitano's?"
"I don't feel like going back there."
"You want to see Ghostbusters II?"
"No."
"Well then what?"
"I don't know."
"Look--"
"Let's just go somewhere. I don't care. Just let's be
inside because it's cold."
"Well, where? My dad is actually home, this
weekend."
"I know."
"What about Amy's parents?"
"What?"
"What if we went to Amy's house?"
"You don't like Amy."
"I don't not like her, I just think she's weird."
"You want to hang out with Amy?"
"I don't mind. And her house is inside, and her parents
won't bother us, will they?"
"Her parents'll probably be gone. They go out most
weekends."
"And they leave her alone?"
"Why not? She never does anything."
He shook his head. "Well, ask if we can come
over."
"If you really want to."
"I really do." They turned onto her street.
"It is getting cold. And my car is too small."
Melanie didn't really hear. She was looking at the white
stones, wondering how they could have been so bright a few hours ago. Amy was
probably home by now. "Then I'll ask her. But you have to not be mean to
her."
"Melanie!"
"Like don't call her weird."
"I won't!"
"All right then."
She stood still on her front lawn while he kissed her
goodbye. He walked off, his step bouncing slightly, singing under his breath
the lyrics to some Guns 'n' Roses song. He was looking forward to it.
Melanie looked at her house, its impassive white clapboard
front, the curtained window in the top gable. She always left the light on in
her room when she went out so she would see it waiting for her. She hated
walking into dark rooms. She took a step toward her window, then changed her
mind.
"Is Amy home?"
Her mother was surprised, but seemed pleased. "Yes, she
is. Come on in." Melanie wiped her feet on the mat and ran her fingers
through her hair. It didn't make much difference. Amy's mother went to the foot
of the stairs. "Amy, you have a visitor."
Amy's house was better. It was the same size and shape and
everything as hers, mostly, but it looked better. Things were cleaner. No. More
orderly. Better arranged. Chosen better.
The sound of feet thudding on carpet preceded Amy down the
stairs. She was surprised too. "Hi. C'mon upstairs. Were you at the
beach?"
"I went to the cove."
"Again?"
"I wanted to see him."
They flopped down on Amy's bed. Her room was neat, an
unusual phenomenon. Maybe they had company coming. Amy leaned against the wall,
her hands in her lap and her hair falling into her eyes. The half-smile had the
slightest ironic twist. "And how was he?"
She had to tell her everything. But Amy had to say the right
words or there was no way she could start the story. She couldn't start right
out with a talking dolphin.
"What?"
"Was the dolphin there?"
Still not yet. "Yeah."
"D'you swim with him?"
"Yeah."
"And?"
"And what?"
"And something happened or you wouldn't be here."
Amy was great. "I hung onto his tail and we went for a
ride."
Amy leaned forward. "Really? What was it like?"
"It was...it was great. He must be really strong. He
went really fast."
"It's easier to tow weight through water,
because--"
"I know but still, this was...really fast. Like water
skiing on your stomach."
"Ouch."
"Well, not that fast. Like--like--I don't know. Like
sharks must feel when they're zooming along right before they attack."
"Beautiful."
"I'm telling it all wrong! It was great. It was really
cool. It was--you should have been there."
"No I shouldn't have."
"Why not?"
"He wouldn't have given me a ride. He likes you
better."
"He does not. He likes you too."
"Oh, right."
"He does. He sings your song."
"What song?"
"That song...you know..." She hummed the
beginning. Amy tensed and the smile disappeared. "How do you know that?
Where did you hear it?"
Amy, insanely, was getting mad at her. "I...this
morning...when you got out of the shower..."
She settled back, exhaling an annoyed sigh. "Oh. Well.
I thought you were asleep."
"I like the tune."
"Thanks."
"Did you write the words too?"
"No." Amy turned her head. "You weren't
supposed to hear it."
"I'm sorry."
"Oh, it's all right...don't look at me like that."
Amy laughed, wrong. "It's no big deal. What about the dolphin?"
"He sang your song."
Amy waited. "No way."
"Yes. It was different, a little, but it was the same
tune."
"That's impossible."
"It's true."
"You're out of your mind."
"I am not!"
"Easy. I didn't mean it literally."
"Well, it's true! He repeated it a lot. I...think he
was trying to tell me something."
"Like?"
"Like that maybe you didn't just make it up. Maybe you
got it from him. Maybe you got the story from him too, that time you were under
there with me."
Amy said, quietly, "What do you mean I got the story
from him?"
"Maybe he told it to you. So you could tell it to me.
Maybe."
"Melanie, I'm telling you, I made that story up."
"I don't believe you."
"How can you not believe me?"
"But he said it was his story!"
She had passed the line. Amy knew it too. She spoke slowly.
"He said?"
"He...he meant that."
"How do you know?"
"He sang it. Way underwater. Way far down. I followed
him deeper than I had before and he...told me."
"He talked to you?"
"No, he didn't talk to me! But he told me." Amy
didn't move. "You don't believe me."
"I believe you," Amy finally said. "I believe
you, and it scares the shit out of me."
"How can you believe me, I don't even know what I
mean."
"That's why. Mel..." Melanie knew that, though
there were tears in the voice, her eyes would be dry. "Mel, this is very
bad."
"Why?"
"We're talking about dolphins telling people things and
neither one of us is saying the other one is crazy. That's very bad."
"But if we both believe it it's true!"
"No...it just means...we have the same disease."
"Crazy isn't contagious."
"I don't mean it like that. Mel..." Unreal; there
were actual tears now. "I told you, I told you at the beginning I was
scared."
"It's not scary." And she was surprised to realize
that it wasn't.
"Of course not." It was a different kind of wrong
laugh, sad instead of bitter. "And there's nothing I can say to make you
scared."
"I don't want to be scared! Why should you make me
scared?"
"Because it's dangerous!" Amy burst out.
"Why are you scared of him? He wouldn't hurt a fly.
Look at how good he was to what's her name."
"To who?" Before Melanie could answer, she
realized. "Mel--"
"You said you believed me."
"I do."
"Then you have to believe that the story's right."
Amy shivered. Her eyes were glittering and the knuckles of
the hand that clutched her bedspread were white. "I can't. If I believe
that it's all over."
"It wasn't a lie! He said so!"
"He said?"
"He meant."
"Mel...I believe you believe it, all right? I'm not
going any further than that."
"You mean you believe I'm crazy."
"No! I mean..." Amy looked straight at her.
Melanie fidgeted. "I believe what you're telling me. I believe in what you
felt like when you were down there with him. I even believe that in some way
you can communicate. Why not. Dolphins are the smartest animals on the planet,
except maybe for us. I believe all that."
"So then you have to believe he told me the
truth!"
"Melanie!"
It was a cry, a plea, a command. A warning, don't push me,
don't make me go an inch farther, let go here before something happens that
can't be taken back. A stitch ripped.
"Well, fine. But I still believe it."
Amy's hand relaxed. "Fair enough."
"You really don't think I'm crazy?"
Amy sighed, drained. "No, Mel. I just think
you're...you're in very, very deep." A dry bark of laughter. "No pun
intended."
Melanie laughed. "I guess. Don't worry so much about
it! Just because you don't like being underwater."
"I keep telling you..."
"What?"
"Nothing. Someday you might not like it either."
"Why?"
"I don't know. Just be careful? Please?"
"I'm always careful." Amy believed her. She was
okay. Melanie jumped off the bed. "I have to go home and get cleaned up
before dinner." Amy nodded and watched Melanie as she paused,
uncomfortable. "I ran into Andy on the way home. He wants to do something
tonight."
"Oh, that's all right," Amy tossed off, waving a
hand.
"No, no I mean with you too." Amy stared. "Is
it all right if we come hang out at your house?"
It was awkward, and they both knew it. Turning to the
window, Amy hid whatever she understood or resented. "Sure."
Melanie was vaguely angry, at Andy, at this sudden weird
restraint. "Thanks. Can we come at nine?"
Amy was looking out the window. "Hm? Oh, yeah,
yeah...listen, you're not going to expect much in the way of entertainment or
refreshments, are you?"
"We just want to hang out."
"All right. Nine. See ya."
She turned back to the window. She was still sitting like
that when Melanie closed the door behind her and clattered downstairs with
unexpected energy. The light was just bright enough now. Everything was going
to be all right.
Melanie was glad to get out of the car. She didn't like
being stuck with him under such a low roof. She wondered about that as they
crossed Amy's lawn. She didn't mind being close to him, except in the car.
Andy stood on the doorstep with his hands in his pockets,
sizing up the front door. He smiled. "I haven't been here in a long
time."
"Hurry up and knock. It's cold."
"Hey! Amy!" he called, knocking furiously. What
was he laughing for? Melanie put her own hands in her pockets and tried to look
separate from him.
Amy finally opened the door. "I hear you already."
She glanced from Andy to Melanie for a moment, then said, "Come on
in."
Andy took her hand and pulled her through the doorway. When
they got inside he kissed her, right in front of Amy. Amy pretended to be
concentrating on relocking the door, but Melanie knew she was embarrassed.
Idiot. He should know better. And he didn't have to keep that death grip on her
hand, either. "What do you want to do?" Amy asked Melanie.
"Where's your TV?" Andy said.
"The basement. We can go down there if you want."
Amy opened the basement door as Andy finally let go of her hand in order to
snake his arm around her waist. The steps were narrow and hard to negotiate
paired, but he showed no sign of releasing her. She could only see Amy's back,
but she was sure it looked unhappy.
Her basement was a recreation room, carpeted, well-lit and
containing her father's duck decoys and dartboard, her mother's needlepoint
basket and magazine rack, a stereo and TV with strategically positioned couch.
Amy switched on the set. "What channel do you want?"
Andy found the remote and they settled onto the couch, Andy
with one arm draped over Melanie's shoulders and the other clicking the
channels. "Your dad hunt?"
It took Amy a second to realize he was speaking to her. When
she turned to answer him he hugged Melanie slightly closer to him. "No. He
collects decoys. I don't know why. He fishes though."
She turned back to the TV. Melanie could tell she wasn't
really watching. She didn't even like this show. But she sat with her hands in
her lap, face faintly blue in the light from the screen, staring doggedly ahead
of her. Andy nuzzled Melanie's neck. "Andy!" she whispered.
"What?"
"Stop it!"
"Why?"
"You know why!"
"I have to go to the bathroom, I'll be right
back," Amy said.
"Now look what you've done," Melanie said as soon
as Amy was upstairs.
"What?"
"Don't give me that."
"If she can't deal with it it's her problem."
"Why do you have to embarrass her like that?"
"I just like to hold you."
"You're doing it on purpose. I can tell."
"I am not! Don't I always do this?"
She knew he was right, but she also knew he was wrong.
"Yeah, but--"
"She better get used to it before we all go back to
school and she has to see us all the time."
Melanie felt cold. She put the feeling away. "It's
mean. We're in her house and you're being a jerk to her."
"I'm not doing anything. If she can't handle it she's
just weird." Melanie couldn't think of an answer. "Besides, I like
holding your hand and stuff. Don't you?"
"Yeah, but--"
"So but what?" She started to protest. "If
it'll make you feel better, I'll move away from you the minute the door opens.
C'mere."
He put an arm like a towel over her shoulders. Neither moved
for a while. Then she felt his lips against her ear. She laughed. He laughed
too, and her arms uncrossed. He turned her face to his. "I can't help
it." She smiled, nervous. He did have pretty eyes. As the sofa cushions
rustled, her hand slipped quickly around his neck to find the patch of soft,
warm clean skin.
She wished someone had turned off the TV, but it was too
late now. He seemed not to hear the voices. It wasn't the voices, though, so
much as the high-pitched electric whine from the screen that distracted her as
his mouth moved down the V neck of her cotton sweater. His hands pressed into
her shoulder blades as he laid her on the couch. Her chest suddenly felt tight.
He was resting his whole weight on her.
She drew a shallow breath to tell him to move but the
pressure disappeared for a moment, then resettled as he pushed forward to kiss
her mouth. It was worse this time. She tried to lift him off her chest by
arching her back, but this only sunk her deeper into the cushions and let him
move his hands further down. He was pressing closer now, kissing harder. His
hipbone dug into her thigh. His closed eyes and blank forehead filled her
vision field. She shut her eyes again. She was afraid that her mouth would not
obey her, that he would keep squeezing the breath out of her, oblivious, while
it refused to interrupt the kiss for the cry. A desperate little whimper
shuddered in her lungs. Andy lifted his head.
"You're squashing me," Melanie finally gasped.
"God! I'm sorry." He supported himself on his
elbows. Melanie took a deep breath and opened her eyes. His face was all
concern. "I'm sorry. You should've said."
He was scared too. She closed her eyes for a minute,
breathed slowly, and forced a smile. "It's okay. I was just a little
squashed. Can we sit up now?"
"Of course." They sat up. The credits were
scrolling up the screen. The whine was getting to her. Amy's TV was bad that
way. It must be older than hers. The old ones whined more.
"Amy's been gone for a while."
"Yeah." The basement door opened.
"You guys want some popcorn?" Amy called from the
top of the steps.
"Yeah!" They jumped off the couch and raced for
the steps. Melanie felt light and strange, laughed because it seemed the
easiest thing to do. She beat him up the steps and into the kitchen.
"Why's she going back down--" Andy began, but
stopped when he saw. The lights in the kitchen were down, and there was a white
tablecloth over the butcherblock table. A burning red candle stood in a Pepsi
bottle in the middle, next to a Mott's apple juice bottle containing some wild
sea roses and a sprig of Queen Anne's lace. Amy had taken three of the five
chairs somewhere else and two glasses and two bowls faced each other in front
of the two remaining chairs. Andy went straight to the huge bowl of popcorn.
"It's buttery," he announced, munching. "It's
good." He poured some into each bowl.
"Unbelievable," Melanie murmured.
"Your chair, ma'am." Andy pulled out one of the
chairs and motioned toward it.
Melanie sat in it. Her stomach was still twisting. Amy was
down there watching TV alone. She had been setting all this up while they were
on the couch. Andy opened the bottle of Sprite that was also on the table.
"Mel? Yo Mel. You want some?"
She nodded. He filled her glass. Amy did popcorn just right.
Melanie could never get the butter spread evenly and it always collected in a
puddle in the bottom of the bowl. She stared at the candle flame.
"Great popcorn."
He didn't seem the least bit bothered by it. If anything, he
seemed much more at ease now than he had before. He munched another handful.
"I don't really want mine."
"Are you okay?"
Basically. Her only problem was that she wanted to be
downstairs with Amy and not up here eating popcorn she had cooked and watching
her candle burn and thinking what a jerk Andy was for not knowing anything
about anything. "Yeah. I'm fine."
He raised his glass of Sprite. "To us." Melanie
drank hers. She wished she had a beer instead. Or several. She knew that it was
crazy to be so irritated by the sound of Andy crunching the popcorn, but she couldn't
stand it. And she couldn't leave. She wasn't supposed to want to. Besides, Amy
had spent all that time setting it up.
Something brushed against her leg. She shook it off but it
came back. He was playing footsie. Miserably, she kicked off her shoes and
responded. It's not his fault. He doesn't know her any more. He thinks...he
thinks the wrong things. He doesn't know he can't do this to her.
"Melanie?"
"What?"
"Let's go upstairs."
"What?"
"Let's go upstairs. I haven't been here in so long, I
want to see if it looks the same."
"But Amy's still downstairs."
"She won't mind."
"Yes she..."
"Look, I'll ask her." He got up and opened the
basement door. "Amy? You mind if we take a look upstairs?" There was
a pause during which she heard Amy's indistinct voice. "Yeah, of course
not." Another pause. "Thanks. We'll be down in a minute." He
padded back. "She says it's okay as long as we don't go into her parents'
room."
Melanie sighed and stood up. She knew Amy didn't want them
to go upstairs, that she had said yes because she thought Melanie wanted
to...he led her up the stairs. No one had turned the lights on. She ran her free
hand along the wall. Andy opened a door. "Which room is this?"
"Amy's." She followed him in.
The curtains were tied back. Pale light from the houses
across the backyard fell through the window. A square reflection of each pane
glowed faintly on the bedspread. The half-light scattered into the dark
corners, brushing the edges of things. The white shelves of her bookcase, sharp
silver folds in the heap of laundry, the outline of the open closet
door...lines and planes barely limned in the grainy fog of gray and black,
foreign and out of context. From the vague depths of the rocking chair, button
eyes glinted in the pale moon face of a battered Raggedy Ann. A wide wedge of
white neck shone between the fraying edges of its yellowed undershirt. A stray
beam outlined one pallid mitten-hand. Melanie could just make out a dark line
that she knew was the edge of the drawn-on heart under the shirt.
His arms went around her waist. When she turned his eyes too
were shining. She had to say something. He spoke first.
"It's nice like this."
"Like how?"
"Just you and me, in our own little room."
"It's Amy's."
"It's nice of her to let us have it. She wants us to
have a chance to be alone..." His eyes looked watery in the floating
light. His smile was a slight white gleam in his pearl gray face. "I'm
sorry now I was mean to her."
"You see," Melanie repeated, "you see what I
meant... she's wonderful."
"You are," he said.
She slipped her arms around his neck as his face swam toward
her. It seemed far away from her, his hands, the skin at her fingertips, the
touch of his lips. She wanted to get back inside. The sensation eluded her. And
the memory melted into the darkness as they drew apart. Nothing. The whole
thing...nothing.
"I love you."
"I love you too," she answered automatically. And
then it was too late to take it back.
He watched her with a wide smile, obviously unaware that she
was sinking. Melanie was afraid she might cry if she tried to exhale. He
waited. Through the darkness, from below the window, she heard Amy's voice.
"What--" began Andy.
"Shhhh!" Melanie went to the window and carefully
raised it. Amy's head was visible below, a dark circle edged in light, her arms
swinging by her sides, her back to the house. She was singing quietly, but the
notes rose clear through the cold August air.
"...I went into the liquid cold because a fire was in
my head..."
"What the hell is she doing?"
"Shhhhhh!" Amy paused.
"You went into the liquid cold because a fire was in
your head..." She trailed off. "I went into the liquid cold because a
fish was in my head..." Amy laughed.
"She's wacked."
"Shhhh!"
"She went into the liquid cold because a fish was in
her head...no berry and no hazel wand, she put herself upon the thread..."
"Melanie..."
"Shut up! I'm trying to hear."
"...and which of us is Aengus and which of us is the
silver fish..."
It was the same tune, the same rhythm; but she knew the
words were different. They changed. She went back over the same line three,
four times, moved on, backed up, altered...sometimes the pitch dipped and the
tune dropped a key but it was always the same, regular and slow.
"Though I am old with wandering, I cannot catch the
silver fish, and I may find the glimmering girl but she is not my honest
wish..."
Melanie wished Andy would go away. He wasn't supposed to
hear. Neither was she, she remembered. Amy wouldn't mind...but if she knew Andy
was listening.
"Oh, do not love the silver fish, for not till time and
times are done will silver fishes breathe the air..." The pitch wavered.
Andy gritted his teeth. "...or see the moon...swim in the sun? Or see the
moon..."
"Mel--"
Melanie dropped the sash. The song disappeared behind the
glass. She leaned her forehead against it. She could feel the cold taking the
warmth from her skin, hear the small, muffled tones from far below. The
blackness misted over. She stood up.
"Andy, I--"
"What is it?"
He was gentler now. Oh, right. He loved her. "I'm
scared."
"Of what?"
"I'm..." She didn't know. "I don't want her
parents to come home."
"Okay." He tugged her hand. "We'll go soon.
Just sit with me for a little while. I just want to stay with you as long as I
can."
They sat on the bed. He rested his head on her shoulder and
closed his eyes. She could still make out the Raggedy Ann in the gray opposite
her. She tried to see the words inside the painted heart. She knew the
undershirt covered them but still, sometimes, her imagination drew the red capitals
on the gray. I LOVE YOU.
VI.
"You're up early, Mellie."
"Couldn't sleep." Melanie poured more milk into
her cereal. Her father opened the fridge. "Did you and Amy have a good
time last night?"
"Yeah, it was fun. We ate popcorn and watched TV."
He laughed. "Sounds great. What are you up to
today?"
"I dunno. I don't make plans that far ahead."
"That's a switch." He picked up his rod and put
the glass in the sink. "I remember listening to you and Carol plan out
your wardrobes a week in advance."
"That was for the Trident Homecoming Dance. It was
important."
"Oh, I see." He smiled. "Have a good day.
I'll see you at dinner tonight. Bye bye, sweetie."
Melanie took a couple of spoonfuls of her Captain Crunch. It
was too soggy now. She poured the whole mess down the sink, washed the bowl
out, and scribbled a note for her mother. "Gone to beach. Back this
afternoon. I'll do the ironing before I go out tonight." Then the screen
door clanged shut behind her.
The clouds were very wet and low. If she hurried, there
might still be fog. She tried to remember where the short cut was. Off
Boothby--or else Bayberry--there was a path through the trees and thinning
scrub that eventually opened out onto the shore of the cove. They didn't take
it in the summer because the prickerbushes snatched at their bare legs, and
besides, the other way was prettier. Melanie stopped at the intersection with
Bayberry. She looked around until a certain angle triggered a memory. Down
about a hundred yards and over the crumbling stone wall by the raspberry bush.
No one else used the path; the bushes had taken advantage of
the hiatus to grow even thicker across it. Melanie tried to peel them back
carefully, but after the first few scratches gave up and blundered through. It
thinned out into low bushes, then knolls of marsh grass and stands of wild
sea-rose bushes pushing up from the shallow rocky dirt. She could already see
vanishing tails of mist curling between the islands of vegetation; after that
the gray suspended rainclouds blurred and finally erased the rest of the hill.
It was a sodden, heavy gray, not the luminous fog that is only a veil. It would
be a long time before this burned off.
Water beaded on the thorns and leaves of the sea rose
bushes. Most of the blossoms had fallen or been blown away, leaving the red
round rose hips embedded in the tangle of green briar, wet and shiny slick. A
few late roses held onto their two or three rings of wrinkled petals. They
fluttered in the mist-soaked breeze, pink and white dulled by the colorless
blur that snaked around and over them. Melanie knew their stems were covered
with tiny spines that stung, but she wanted a white one. She snapped one off
and stuck it into her hair.
She brushed through clumps of long wet marsh grass, the
water on them somewhat soothing her scratches. A shallow slope of rock
crumbling into pebbles led to the coarse sand and the mist gliding across the
surface of the cove. It really does roll in, she thought, watching the fog curl
and twist into wreaths blown tumbling over the water by the breeze that lifted
Melanie's damp bangs. Her hair was getting scratchy again. Too much swimming.
"Dollllllllphinnnnnn!" The fog absorbed the sound.
The waves at the mouth of the cove were hushed, a barely disconcerting rumor
from behind the gray curtain. Nothing moved on the surface she could see or in
the fog. She took off her shoes and called again.
Nothing. The subtly troubled silence, the endlessly weaving
and unweaving mist wreaths. Her third cry had an edge of panic in it. Still the
veiled and muffled nothing.
He had never had to be called more than twice before. He had
to come up for air, after all. Maybe he was too far out to be seen through the
fog. But he must know, he must know she couldn't see that far. Why wasn't he in
closer? By now he should be expecting her. She had felt, the last few times,
that he had been.
What was the matter with him? Droplets of mist beaded on her
lashes and eyebrows. Amy said
She called again. Without waiting she stripped to her suit
and plunged into the water. "DOLPHIN!" The shock hit her and she
stood neck-deep, gasping and shuddering. It was getting too cold. Maybe she
could borrow Amy's father's wetsuit. He only used it over vacation for
windsurfing. But he would ask why she wanted it...besides, you could get used
to it, no matter how cold it was. You went numb and then it didn't matter.
It was early...maybe he was asleep. Fish don't sleep, they
can't close their eyes. Dolphins are mammals. Are not. They might breathe air
but they're more like fish. Silvery and wet and flashing. He must be mad. Why
would he be mad? She took a deep breath and dunked herself. As the cold stung
her face and neck, she knew.
"DOLPHIN!" she screamed. From her level the mist
seemed to be rising from the ocean. "Come back! Nothing happened! I only
said it!" Not even a swell. "I didn't mean it, I only said it cause
that's what you say when someone says I love you! I didn't--I mean--maybe--no I
didn't really. DOLPHIN!" She smacked the surface with her arm.
"Nothing happened! You can still come back, can't you? I thought it was
just--DOLPHIN!!"
The cry tore her throat and seemed to tear the mist as well.
And in the blur ahead of her, she could just see a darker shade of gray gliding
across the indistinct border between water and vapor. She stroked toward it.
The shore disappeared.
"You can come back, can't you?" Something brushed
her numbed legs. The bottle nose and black eyes appeared before her, clucking.
Melanie laughed.
"Jerk!" She reached for him. He bobbed further
away. "I'm sorry. Look, if it's about Andy--" His head glided away
from her as she approached it, maddeningly smoothly. She thought of Amy's story
about the guy who had been stuck in the river that sank when he bent to drink
from it. He was laughing at her...she hoped. "Look! It's not a
problem." She pushed forward and reached him. "I promise I won't make
you go away."
His nose dove. She watched the arc of his back as the tail
flukes rolled from the water. A moment later the nose reappeared. "You
like those somersaults. I can do it too." She turned one. "See?"
The dolphin clicked excitedly and dove, waving his flukes in
the air for several seconds before resurfacing. Melanie copied him, holding
herself upside down as she kicked her legs. The dolphin chattered and bobbed,
disappeared. He resurfaced a few feet away, cutting the horizon between sea and
mist with a series of flying leaps. Melanie tried to approximate it with an
adapted butterfly. This time she was sure he was laughing at her.
"You be quiet!" she said, swimming toward him. She
stretched her neck up to rub noses with him. He backed away, puzzled, then held
still. "I wasn't born a fish. Give me time."
His eyes were all pupil, large and liquid. With his head
tilted like that, he seemed to be appraising her.
"After all, you weren't born a fish either." She
stroked the top of his head near the blowhole. "It's healed now, I guess,
but it must have hurt." It wasn't a very large hole, but there was
something raw and tender-looking about it with its flap of nervous skin
half-occluding the passage. The flap disappeared as spray burst from it. It was
unexpectedly warm. She laughed. "Bless you." His head bobbed.
The fog lifted, slowly. Melanie and the dolphin swam circles
around each other, played tag, dove and resurfaced. The breeze died. The rising
mist bared the mirror surface beneath which Melanie heard the song again, felt
the pulse in her ears and the burn in her lungs that she was getting used to.
Amy's song is my song. Someday he would show her where he had buried the horn.
Sunlight burned through the dissolving veil. New light flashed in the whorled
white pattern of splash and foam. Melanie's laughter began to echo from the
rocks. The shoreline materialized.
"I'm freezing, but I don't want to leave..." She
rubbed her cheek against his neck as she floated beside him. Even her face was
getting numb. "I'll come back. I promise. Don't worry about Andy.
I..." The dark eyes questioned her. "I want you to always be able to
come back. Don't leave. OK?" That peculiar tilt of his head meant that he
understood. "I have to go in now."
The sun was strong when she collapsed on the sand. She lay
on her back, her skin hardly registering the tiny pebbles pressing into her
legs and arms, the back of her head. She spread her hair out in a fan around
her head and wished it were longer. Deirdre must have had long hair, Melanie
thought, closing her eyes. Long blond hair. Or red. Red hair and freckles. No,
no freckles. Smooth pale skin. They all had skin like snow and hair like spun
gold, or raven-black tresses or something like that. Deirdre's hair would have
been red as...blood? Get real. Tomatoes? Fire trucks? She was no good at this.
She'd ask Amy.
She crossed her arms over her chest and drew her legs
together. As long as the sun was shining on her, it would be warm. After a
while she would be dry, except for her hair and bathing suit. She imagined what
the scene looked like, the deserted cove with the girl lying on the beach like
Sleeping Beauty and the hidden unicorn standing guard. If anyone went looking
for her, they would never find her. Feeling secure for the first time in days,
she fell asleep.
"Jesus, Mel!"
Pebbles grated in Melanie's ear as she turned on her side
and squinted up at the dark silhouette of Amy's head. A million little stones
were digging into her. "What the hell?"
"Exactly!" Melanie realized that she had woken up.
She scrambled to reconstruct the dream she had been having. She was left with a
memory of having remembered it and a few stray unconnected images. "What
the hell are you doing here?"
"Swimming," Melanie grimaced, sitting up
painfully. The backs of her arms were pitted with round red dimples from the
sand. "And taking a nap."
"On the wet sand in your wet hair and suit. Are you
actively trying to give yourself pneumonia or is this an unconscious
thing?"
"I'm not going to get pneumonia." She stood up.
Amy had been in the dream, except she had been sword-fighting with something.
She didn't remember who won. "I had the weirdest dream."
"Well, that'll teach you to sleep on the hard
sand." Melanie looked at her arms. "No wonder. You shouldn't pull
shit like that."
"I was just taking a nap. How can you get pneumonia by
taking a nap? And what's pneumonia anyway?"
"It's a lung disease that used to kill people. But
think about it. I got up, called your house, your mom said you were at the
beach so I went. Then I realized you must be here instead so I climb over the
ridge and what do I see? Your clothes in a little heap and no Melanie head
sticking out of the water. So I run down onto the beach, nearly impaling myself
on the rocks--"
"I didn't know--"
"And then I find you here all spread out on the
sand--taking a nap!" Amy swore, loudly. Melanie was so shocked that she
felt as if it really was her fault.
"How was I supposed to know you'd come looking for me?
I can't even take a nap without warning you? What's your problem?"
"I'm just saying--"
"And who asked you to come looking for me anyway? Maybe
I just wanted to take a nap all by myself without my fucking shadow!"
She had never seen anyone's face actually go pale before. It
was amazing. The color just disappeared, leaving it white under the beige
freckles. She wondered if the color was draining out of her own face, she felt
as if it should be. Had she meant that?
"I'm sorry," Amy answered, barely audibly.
"I'll leave you two alone now." She turned around. Her steps across
the sand were too fast.
"Amy!"
She kept walking. Melanie grabbed her clothes. "Stop,
dammit!" She struggled into them, getting tangled up in her T-shirt and
fumbling with the sneaker laces. Amy slipped on the rocky ridge, caught
herself, and held on for a moment before slowly pulling herself to the summit.
She disappeared as Melanie finally stood up. "AMY!"
The echo was empty. It rang tinny over the low rumble of the
ocean beyond the mouth of the cove. The dolphin was invisible. Something on the
inside of things had gone very wrong. Then she realized. This empty beach, this
terrified isolation, this invisible wall at her back. It was a scene from her
dream.
She ran over the sand, up the rocks, until she had to slow
down to climb. She saw Amy scaling the other ridge. Eventually they would be
out of it together. Amy would forgive her in five minutes once they got back to
the street. She always did. Her heart was double-pumping. She took her time
descending the ridge, always keeping Amy in sight.
She caught up with her. Amy wouldn't turn around but she
didn't hurry either. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. All right?" Amy
kept walking. "I had a bad dream. I'm always cranky when I wake up. I
didn't mean it."
"Yes you did," Amy said. "People say what
they really mean when they're not thinking."
"That's not true! I don't--I didn't mean it! I'd have
asked you to come but it was too early and besides--"
"You wanted to be alone with him."
"I can't believe you're jealous of a dolphin!"
"Why not?"
"You don't mind Andy! I mean you do, but you never
said--"
"You don't get it."
"Well then tell me what's bothering you!"
Something clicked in her throat. She took a loud breath.
"You looked like she did."
"Like who?"
"Like Deirdre. In the story. I saw some of the scenes
when I was telling it to you. That was one of them."
"Really?"
"Melanie!"
"What?"
"That's not a good thing!"
"Why not? I like your story."
They were on Boothby now, a ribbon of cracking asphalt winding
through the trees that took over the terrain as soon as you got a little bit
inland. Melanie remembered fighting with Andy on this road. Not a good road.
"Mel, forget the story."
"Why should I? You know you tell the best
stories."
"Isn't it enough I have bad dreams without your trying
to make them come true?"
"But it's true. I mean it was."
"Because he told you that. Jesus, Mel!"
"And even if it's not, what harm does it do to
pretend?"
Amy swallowed. A car engine hummed in the distance. They drew
back onto the shoulder and watched it careen past. "Lots."
"I don't see how."
"Because it's the things you know aren't real that are
dangerous. It's the stuff that doesn't have to obey the rules that messes up
your mind. Andy can't be anything but Andy so he's harmless. The dolphin can be
anything you want it to be or anything I told you it was."
"Andy isn't harmless."
"All right--mostly harmless."
"No, he isn't. He's just as dangerous. He's more
dangerous."
"What can he do?"
"You know."
"He wouldn't do it unless you said it was okay."
"How do you know? How do you know I always tell him
when it's not okay?"
"Well, if you don't, whose fault is that?"
"It's not about whose fault it is! I'm just saying the
dolphin couldn't hurt me. He couldn't hurt anyone."
Amy sighed. "It isn't the dolphin you have to look out
for. It's you."
"Me?"
"Yeah. You're in charge of your own mind. You're
supposed to concentrate on the right things. Everyone has distractions, but
everyone doesn't make a life out of them..."
"What?"
"If you get too wrapped up in this, it'll be your
fault. Or mine for telling the stupid story in the first place."
"It's not a stupid story!"
"Yes it--"
"Oh, you don't understand anything!"
Amy's answer was dead steady and confident this time.
"Yes I do. I used to like swimming underwater."
"No, you don't. You have to hear him. You have to hear
him to know what it's like."
"I have heard the mermaids singing."
"Mermaids?"
"Quote. Forget it."
"What from?"
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Never mind."
"What's it about?"
"It's not about much of anything. It's a poem."
"How does it go?"
Amy sighed, then laughed and tossed her hair back from her
face. "Let us go then, you and I, while the evening is spread out against
the sky--"
"That's from `Project X.'"
"From where?"
"That movie we saw. With Matthew Broderick? The guy in
the red suit says it when he's leading the chimpanzee off to the--"
"Oh, oh right. But this is where it came from
first."
"Well, go on." Amy began to protest. "You
know I know you know the rest. Go on."
Melanie laughed. Laughing too, Amy looked at Melanie from
the corner of her eye, threw her arms out and declaimed, "--like a patient
etherized upon a table. Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, the
muttering retreats..."
The sky was already clouding, but Melanie was warm enough.
It was all right. It was all she needed, the trees, the smell of dying summer
grass, even the buzzing cicada, and Amy gesturing as if Melanie was an
auditorium full of people as they walked home together. If she had been Andy
she would have held her hand.
"...till human voices wake us, and we drown." Amy
dropped her arms. "And here comes one now," she said, as Andy rounded
the bend ahead of them.
She said it without resentment, and with a smile of almost
affection. Melanie too was surprised by what she felt as she watched him
approach. She hurried to meet him. Amy lagged behind.
"You've just made my day," he said. His face was
absolutely sincere. She ran her hand through his hair. He was a sweet boy.
"Mine too." She kissed him. The surprise he showed
touched her. She slipped her arms around his neck. He swallowed. So it could
mean so much, one spontaneous gesture. She was unprepared for the tenderness
she found herself awash in. She dropped her arms to loop his waist and drew him
closer.
It was the warmth, mostly, the warmth of his arms across her
back, of his stomach against hers. She pressed him tighter. Warmth surrounded her,
closed her eyes, lulled her mind. She did not feel hands, lips, thighs, only
heat caressing her neck, sliding down her spine, spreading from the inside out,
cradling her, blotting out the cooling world, weakening her knees, honey
melting warmth cut with a shivering thrill. Dry grass tips scratched at her
calves. They had somehow got off the road. Her hips pushed against his, their
bodies swaying on their legs. She tottered sideways, almost toppling them. Andy
planted his feet more firmly, squeezed her closer once, drew back. It hurt her
to look at the vulnerable bliss shining from his face, know it was pent-up in
his chest, straining to burst into something. She laid her head in the hollow
where his neck met his shoulder and listened to her own breath. It was slowing
down.
"I love you."
"I love you too," she answered. Twice now. Three's
a charm.
Suddenly she straightened up and twisted around. The road
was empty. "Amy's gone."
"Of course she is." He took her hand, smiling, and
walked into the field.
"But Amy--"
"She knew we wanted to be alone. She's all right."
"Where are you going?"
"To the hideout."
"What hideout?"
He laughed. "You've never been back here, have
you?" He led her through the marsh grass away from the road. "We used
to come out here all the time. We were exploring the river when we found
it."
"Is that what that is." There was a narrow, almost
overgrown path through the marsh grass. She had actually been down it. Before
they found the cove, she and Amy had played there, but left because of the
bugs. The marsh grass was full of tiny bugs that made an incredibly loud
buzzing sound. Melanie had been glad to abandon it.
They had rounded a hill now, and were out of sight of the
road, though she could see the roofs of some of the Boothby houses over the
edge of the next one.
"It's the same river that the bridge in town crosses,
only by the time it gets all the way out here it's just a trickle. Me and Fred
tried to follow it to its source. We ended up downtown. I think it eventually
runs into the ocean."
It was in front of them now, a stretch of brown swirling
water maybe ten feet wide and probably a few feet deep. In one of the curves it
cut stood a stand of trees whose tops were visible from the road. The trees
stood around, and shaded, what Melanie now realized must have once been a stone
house. Amy had said that the waist-high stone walls were the ruins of a
monastery. Melanie saw, clearly, seven-year-old Amy running down to the river,
her windbreaker thrown over her head for a hood, waving a tree branch, shouting
and laughing. There had been a game for this place. The ruin itself was
unchanged; the broken lines still half-marked the outlines of rooms and
doorways, loose rubble still sank into the pitted marsh ground, grass still pushed
up from the shallow ditches that outlined the surviving wall fragments. But it
was smaller, and...not flatter, Melanie realized, but more open. It was so
obvious now. That tall pile at the back was the chimney, of course. What else
could it ever have been? And even Amy knew now that there had never been any
medieval monks in Maine.
They sat down on the wall nearest the river. Andy opened his
knapsack and pulled out a bottle and some sandwiches in Saran Wrap.
"A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou," he
said, handing her one of the sandwiches. "I have Wheat Thins, too, if you
want some."
"You were expecting me?"
"Well, no, I came out alone, but I brought too much
food. You like grapes? I have grapes in here."
"What are you doing here in the first place?"
"It's my day off," he said, pulling a bunch of
seedless grapes out of one of the pockets. "And it isn't anyone else's,
and I got bored of the beach." He unwrapped a sandwich. "This was our
secret hideout. I was the pirate king and Fred was my first mate. And sometimes
Greg was the sheriff and sometimes it was Alan. Everyone else switched off
being pirates and cops."
"How old were you?"
"I dunno. Third grade."
"You never told us."
"It was a secret."
"But all those other--"
"I mean from everyone else. From like girls."
"Oh."
"You wouldn't have liked it anyway," he assured
her. "You'd've had to get kidnapped all the time."
"Who did you kidnap if it was secret from girls?"
"Fred, mostly. But then he got mad, so we took turns.
Everyone probably got kidnapped a couple times."
"Weird game."
"We were stupid. We didn't even know enough to play
runners and coast guard instead of pirates and cops." He munched his
sandwich. "What did you and Amy used to play?"
"Everything."
"Everything?"
"Yeah. She knows everything."
"Do you like it here?"
He was proud of his place. This stretch of muck and salt
water and marsh grass. The cove was much nicer, but she had never been king of
it. She had been Aphrodite though, and Aphrodite was a goddess, which Amy said
was better than a king because you could do anything you wanted. Amy was always
naming and renaming the cove, the rocks, the periwinkles that lived in the tide
pools. It had been Melanie's job to make the periwinkles fall in love and Amy's
job to put them in different tide pools or otherwise create obstacles. There
had only been one game for this place.
"Yes, it's nice."
"We hid all our treasure in this hollow tree. It's not
really hollow, but who cares."
"We never played pirates. I would've liked being a
pirate probably." There had been a monster in the game. Melanie would
watch for it, standing on the wall. Then she would call the other monks, in the
person of Amy, and together they would run after it, chanting a spell whose
words she had made up. Sometimes it would run away, but sometimes it would keep
coming and they would have to chase it away with tree branches, whacking the
water and splashing themselves with mud.
"Getting kidnapped is a pain. You get rope burns."
"I would have been a pirate. The only girl pirate. I
would have been twice as bloodthirsty as you and anyone who tried to kidnap me
would have had to walk the plank." Amy would have made a good pirate, too.
Amy was always saying that they really laughed too much to be playing
monastery, but pirates were one of the few things Amy knew nothing about.
"They wouldn't have let you join."
"I guess not."
"It's still sort of a secret. I never told anyone about
it. All the guys have probably forgotten."
"Why did you show me then?"
He put his arms around her. "This is what I was saving
it for. So I could take you here."
"Me?"
"Someone. I thought it might be you."
She tried to see the layout of the monastery. Once she had
known what all the rooms were. The chimney pile had been the stove--or the
watchtower? The monastery had disappeared. The walls only gave up the plan for
a small stone house. Melanie stared at the river, but seven-year-old Amy was
gone too. It was all lost. She knew it had happened once because she could
still tell herself the story. But the real memory had flickered for a moment in
her first look at the ruin and gone out. She knew that now she would remember
this place because she had come there with him.
He kissed her. The warmth rose again, but she was thinking
now. How long had he been planning this? Saving it for her? Now was she
supposed to show him the cove? She couldn't. The dolphin would leave, and he
would be right. If Andy saw it it would all be over. He would wipe out even the
memory. Besides it was different. She and Amy hadn't been saving the cove for
anything. They were still using it.
But at least now she felt something. She really did like
him, then. Or maybe it meant she loved him. She was supposed to love him. Amy
said a lot of people compared being in love with indigestion, and the
excitement in her stomach did make her sort of queasy. Maybe it was working.
Maybe she was getting normal.
So she should show him the cove. Maybe at night when the
dolphin was asleep. But he didn't sleep. And he never left. And if he saw her
there with Andy he would get mad. And then it would all disappear.
He was holding her at an arm's length now, looking at her
face. "You're so beautiful."
She felt she was blushing. "My hair is a mess."
"I mean it."
"I'm sure you do."
He laughed, though she didn't see why. "I like the way
you talk."
"What?"
"You come out with these things--I dunno. You know how
with Carol you know what she's going to say before she says it?"
"Kind of."
"Well, you're different." She stirred uneasily.
"I mean in a good way. Like today, running into you..." He sighed,
ludicrously. "Your eyes are great. They make me wonder what you're
thinking. What are you thinking?"
She was thinking that he had certainly gotten a lot more
confident in the past couple of days. "Oh, nothing much, just looking at
you."
"You must be thinking something."
"I was thinking how weird love is."
"What's weird about it?"
"How you never know whether you're in it or not. Till
it happens, I mean."
He smiled. "I guess. But we know now."
She kissed him.
"Has your dolphin ever shown up?"
"Dolphin?"
"That you went to the cove to look for."
"No, no, we've stopped going. Amy says it's really rare
for them to stay in one place."
"Amy says a lot of things."
"To me."
"How come you and her are so tight?"
"Childhood."
"Yeah, but I mean."
"I like her, she likes me, so we hang out together. No
real reason."
"You know," he began, then seemed to change his
mind.
"What?"
"I used to think she was a real weirdo. But she's all
right."
"Did you like her when we were little?"
"I didn't really think much about her."
"Oh."
"What are you doing tonight?"
"Nothing. Why?"
"My Dad's going to be away. I'm having a party."
"When?"
"Starting around ten. Fred and Greg are coming early to
set up, if you want to help that'd be great."
"I'll be there." He smiled. "But I have to go
home like now because I have to do all my chore stuff." She kissed him
hurriedly. "You stay here and have a fun day off. I'll see you
tonight."
"Thanks. Bye." She rustled through the marsh
grass. He called out "I love you" as she left but with the rustling
and the distance and her own thoughts she could easily not have heard him.
VII.
Amy turned off the bathroom light. Her pupils dilated in the
mirror. She brushed her hair back from her face. Half her face was lit by the
window, half merged into shadow. Her reflection was deanimated, flat. It copied
her but it wasn't her. It was reversed. An evil twin. Not evil, no. Just not
the same. It wasn't her, and it said it was.
If her reflection was wrong, what did she look like? She
turned the light on again. Her pupils shrank. Her white face leapt out of the
shadow of her hair. Different, but still not her.
She wished she could draw her own portrait. Jane Eyre had
done that. It had helped her. She was going to need that kind of help soon. She
needed to make her own reflection and look at it and know what she was and what
she could hope for. Otherwise when the break came she might not withstand it
very well.
She had tried drawing herself, but it never looked like her.
There must be other ways of making your own image.
She could describe herself, bit by bit. Then a picture would
emerge. She would know what she was like even if she didn't know what she
looked like. And that was the point anyway.
Okay, she thought, looking into the mirror face. I am
fifteen.
I am an assistant lifeguard but I'm scared of the
underwater.
I don't know what I look like. I might be beautiful but
probably I'm not. I like my hair. I like popcorn. I hate television.
I read too much.
I'm not unhappy. I'm not happy. I like to be alone. I am
alone even when I don't want to be. I don't expect this to change.
I used to be lost.
I like living here. I like my friends. I don't want to be
lost again. I know Melanie has never been lost. I know she will be.
I make up stories. I know that I have made them up but
sometimes I believe them anyway. I know that if I keep doing this I will get
lost again. I don't want to stop making up stories. I want to stop believing
them.
I hated being lost.
I know that if I believe my story about the dolphin I will
be lost again. I don't really believe it but I do.
I don't swim underwater any more.
I am easily distracted.
I believe in God but I don't believe in mermaids.
I have never been in love. I don't not like Andy. I know
that Melanie doesn't like him as much as he likes her. I know this is mostly
because of the dolphin. I am glad she isn't in love with him. I know that is
wrong. I know that people who are not in love with anyone get lost easier.
I want the dolphin to stay. I know that without the dolphin
I will lose her to Andy. If I do not lose her to Andy I will lose her to the
dolphin but that will take longer.
I am too close to Melanie.
With the bathroom door shut, she thought. She had a twelve
o'clock curfew but still there was plenty of time. What could she say?
That the dolphin would leave? Don't be ridiculous. You can
get out of it somehow. Other girls do. Amy says half the couples everyone
thinks are doing it really aren't. She says even the guys are scared to do it
and they should be.
Amy wants to stay a virgin till she's married. You can't
trust her judgment.
You can still get out of it. No one does it the first time
they're asked. There's other things you can do. Blech.
Who says he's even thinking about it? He didn't say
anything. You've been at his house before. Yes, but you know it's different
now. You said you love him anyway. Now what's your excuse?
I'll say I don't want to get pregnant. Which is true. But
what if he has a condom. I'll say--
But even if I get out of it tonight, I have to do it sometime.
Unless I break up with him. I can't break up with him. He'd cry. And I like
him. I do. But I have to do it sometime. And then he'll go away.
She leaned over and buried her head in her hands. Sometime
it'll happen. I'll lose him. But not before.
Not before what?
Not before it's time. Not before he tells me everything. Not
before he shows it to me.
Shows what?
There is something he will show me. He must have told me
that. Maybe he wants me to be a mermaid. He changed for Deirdre, now he wants
me to change for him. Can mermaids live on land? The little mermaid did. But
Amy said the book version had a terrible ending. I'll ask Amy.
"Andy's having a party tonight."
"Oh." Amy turned over on her stomach and picked at
the bedspread.
"Are you coming?"
"Why should I?"
"It'll be fun."
"I won't know anyone there except for you and you'll be
with Andy the whole time."
"No I won't!"
"I hate being a third wheel, Melanie."
Amy said it calmly, without resentment, stating a fact. But
Melanie felt attacked. "You aren't a third wheel! You're my best
friend."
"But Andy's your boyfriend. He wants you there, not me.
I'm not going."
"But I want you there."
"Why?"
Melanie stopped to think of an answer. Because Amy would
stop it. As long as she held onto Amy the dolphin wouldn't leave. As long as
she balanced Andy and Amy she was all right. It couldn't happen if Amy was
there. Amy might think Andy was harmless but if she saw it starting to happen
she would stop it. Amy knew the dolphin was more important. She knew even if
she kept saying none of it was true, she knew. The dolphin's story was her
story.
"Because I'm scared."
"Of what?"
"I think he wants to do it with me."
"Of course he does. But he won't if you don't want him
to."
"But..." What if the warmth came back? What if she
made a mistake and then it was too late to take it back?
"Mel, I'm not going to chaperone you."
"But what about the dolphin?" she cried.
Amy's voice went quiet. "What about him?"
"You don't want him to go away, do you?"
Amy sat up and crossed her legs, slowly. She blinked.
Carefully, she said, "Yes. I do."
"Why?"
"He's not good for you."
"What the hell?"
"He's taking you away."
"I'm still here."
Amy shook her head. "When was the last time we talked
about something besides that stupid fish?"
"He's not a fish! And you know that!"
"You see?"
"Are you coming tonight or not?"
Amy's jaw clenched shut. "Maybe."
"Yes or no, Amy."
"I have to go to the bathroom." Amy walked too
fast down the hall and slammed the door.
Melanie exhaled and paced. Sooner or later Amy would come
out of there and Melanie would convince her. She sat down on the chair by the
window. The binding of a spiral notebook bit her. Melanie jumped up and picked
it up.
The blue cover had "ENGLISH 10" written in pointy,
medieval pencil letters on the front. Melanie opened it.
None of the notes made any sense. Amy had made up her own
version of shorthand, apparently, which seemed to consist mostly of leaving all
the vowels out of words. The legible parts were almost always quotes from the
books; Melanie vaguely remembered some of them being mentioned in class. There
was still no sign of life from the bathroom.
"Remember thee? Ay, thou poor ghost, whl memory hlds a
st in this distracted globe--ghost's memry wipes out othrs + frm this book I'll
raze all other..." "4 lgs good 2 lgs baaad--sheep are pretty
stupid..." "Ralph joins roast pork orgy--connection btwn Piggy &
pigs? Why pigs? Uncln animals? Go Simon & the phosphorescent canonization..."
"Savage quotes Tempest--someone should say `Tis new to thee' to the poor
bastard..." "People are basically two things, greedy &
cruel--bullshit this book sucks big red onions..." "The more corrupt
you are the more I love you--I hate this unit can't we read something less
nasty?..." "Things fall apart, the cntr cannot hld--the ceremony of
innocence is drowned." This was underlined and had stars drawn next to it.
Underneath it was "Also Song of the Wndring Aengus, p. 7l2."
On the back of the page was a drawing of Deirdre on the
rocks. Her hair, which looked about four feet long, was blowing around her and
her dress was ripped and splotchy. The nose had been erased and redrawn three
times so the middle of her face was blurry. The king wore a suit of armor and
his face looked almost exactly like Deirdre's except he had stubble. On the
next page, Deirdre was lying on the beach with her hair spread around her and
her eyes closed. Half a king was lying near her but Amy had crossed him out,
probably because he was out of proportion. At the bottom of the page was a
sketch of the unicorn halfway to being a dolphin with a mermaid looking on from
the margins.
She snapped the notebook shut and replaced as the toilet
flushed. Amy came back.
"Please come, Amy. I'm scared."
Amy scratched her nose and swallowed. "All right,"
she finally said. "But I'm not staying for the whole thing."
"Thanks." Once Amy was there Melanie could get her
to stay. She was safe. "I have to go, I'm not done with the ironing yet.
Mom'll kill me. See you at nine." She ran down the stairs. It was all
right.
VIII.
"Where are you? Show yourself!"
The surface remained smooth, as she had expected. Amy sat on
the lowest ledge, her shoes almost dipping in the water. That might be a puff
of spray out by the mouth. Breath and spray looked exactly the same, it was
hard to tell. She hoped he was gone, knew he was still there.
"Come here! If I made you up, obey me. Come here!"
Nothing. Good. Amy stood and turned to climb back up. As she reached the top of
the ridge, she heard behind her the hiss of his blowhole.
The swell that meant him was streaking toward the mouth. A
mocking puff of mist drifted near where he had been. "All right," she
said, and headed for the point of the ridge.
As the ridge tapered the rocks got sharper and narrower,
with bigger gaps between them. It was impossible to walk over them; she climbed
with her whole body, spread-eagled and hugging the side of a point, throwing
her arms around the crag ahead of her, pressing her stomach into a plateau
while her feet searched for niches, sliding down slopes on her butt. Strands of
hair worked loose from the elastic and tickled her face. Their shadows floated
around the shadow of her head, waving like Medusa's snakes. Brushing against a
spur left a set of parallel scratches on one calf. The points dug through the
soles of her sneakers and into her soft stomach. She was thirsty but there was
nothing she could do about that. Water water everywhere. She had to place her
hands carefully or the thin jagged slabs could cut them. People had fallen
doing this, fallen and hit their heads and drowned. But her mom had been saying
that for years and even when she was little and always hurting herself she had
been climbing on rocks and never once really fallen. Rocks scared her enough to
make her pay attention.
She sat down on the flat top of the last human-sized hulk.
The churning green water and its scrurry of foam and seaweed battered the
blades of granite below her. Amy imagined the beaches on the other side of the
Atlantic, suffering the same way. How could it be the same on all sides? She
had asked her physics teacher and looked the subject up in every book he
suggested but she didn't believe any of it. It wasn't just water sloshing
around in a basin. Something had to be at the center. Something that never got
tired of pounding miles and miles of rock.
And the spirit of God moved across the waters. Maybe that
was it, the Holy Spirit. But that had all been long ago, when the whole world
was water with darkness above it and the Holy Spirit rushed flaming between
them with a noise like a million wings. The Holy Spirit was back in heaven now,
hovering in a dove or a drop of flame between the Father and the Son. Something
else moved the ocean now. Inside it, not across it. Something churning in the
high green heart of the sea. The sea creatures knew it and worshipped it. The
land creatures didn't, because they had God. Which was why it liked fish better
than people.
"Well, you got me out here. Come out! If you liked the
story so much, come on up and thank me." Nothing. The dolphin knew it was
the wrong story. He knew she had patched the thing together, just like the
first medievalists had patched the unicorn together from obscure references in
ancient texts and some narwhal horns washed up on the beach. He knew he was
just a dolphin.
"I thought so. Listen, she doesn't want to know.
Otherwise she wouldn't hear it wrong, she wouldn't like my story better than
yours. Even if you get her out there where you want her she'll never hear
it." That could be the swell or part of the wave pattern. The currents at
the mouth made the surface buckle and burst in crazy ways. But there he was,
leaping between the points, turning in the air, puncturing the seam, plashing
in and out of the whitecaps and valleys. The liquid shiver of his flying gray
form, the cleanness of his nose-first slip into the water, the careless perfect
arcing of his tail made her throat tight. He was liquid and solid. Flesh made
of water. This movement belonged to him as the spirit of the ocean, born out of
its fluid freezing center, the still silent heart inside the battering and the
spray. Its opacity, its refractions, its blue cold, its green terror, its
physics.
"I see it," Amy shouted. "But she doesn't.
She thinks you can teach her how."
The dolphin changed trajectory and began leaping back
towards her. He disappeared, then his head popped from the water below. With
that open mouth he did look as if he might be laughing. "I don't know what
you think'll happen. She's not going to grow gills."
His tail flipped and he disappeared. Then nose-first he shot
straight up, bulleting toward the sky before turning a perfect half-somersault
and plunging back with hardly a splash. His laughing head reappeared.
"I know better," Amy shouted. "I don't reach
it. I can stay under as long as I want, I'm still not part of it. I'm not
coming in."
His dorsal fin shaved two clear streams as it scudded
through the water. The rhythm of dip and rise sped. The dolphin's back pumped
under a rippling transparent film. Amy took a breath and held it. Faster,
cleaner, smoother under the watershed, under the crystal, under the rolling
skin, under the watershine extreme and scatt'ring bright under the stream under
the face of the waters was this seamless sweatless breathless motion and closer
closer to the surface until it broke into air and scattered scattered
scatt'ring bright drops around him flying back into the water and Amy finally
turned away.
"I'm not," Amy said. "I'm not coming, I'm not
coming in." She repeated it until the words stopped meaning and she felt
steadier. "I'm not." She looked up. "I'm not."
The head still bobbed. "You took the wrong one. I know
she's beautiful but she's the wrong one. She doesn't know." She got to her
feet; her knees hurt. She swayed, falling toward the toothed whirlpool before
catching herself, dizzy and weak but planted on the rock. She was really
thirsty now. She turned her back on the dolphin. Careful not to look back, she
groped toward shore.
Melanie scrubbed off her lipstick for the fourth time. Her
hands were fine one moment, and then as soon as she brought the lipstick to her
mouth they started in again. She tried again. Her hand trembled before it even
got close. She threw the lipstick at the mirror. It rolled into the sink.
Melanie fled to her bedroom.
She could go without it. Andy didn't seem to mind when she
didn't wear makeup. Did the dolphin? What a stupid thought. How could he even
tell? And besides Deirdre couldn't have worn makeup. Neither did Amy.
She lay face down on her bed, breathing in the cottony smell
of her comforter. This was beyond nervous. Something bad was wrong.
Amy would be there. But Amy seemed to be making a habit of
disappearing at the crucial moment. She could make something up. Say she had
her period. Say she didn't want to get pregnant. Say...say she didn't want to.
That would be enough.
Someday it wouldn't. He'd want an explanation. Then he'd
fall in love with someone else. Someone who didn't have a dolphin. Amy maybe.
No, not Amy. Amy would always have the dolphin. That was the way she was.
I'm getting more like Amy, she thought. I haven't seen Carol
or Jaime in how long? They'll be at the party. It'll be good to see them. They
must think I've been spending all my time with Andy. They'll give me shit about
that. Or will they be mad? And I don't talk as much any more, when I'm with
them. Just with Amy. Or the dolphin. I'm getting like her, I'll have to start
hanging out with those strange people. I'll get all pale and quiet. Like
Deirdre.
I'll always have the dolphin.
But then I can't date Andy.
I like Andy. I like the feel of him, warm and soft. I like
his brown hair. I like his smile. He has really good cheekbones too. And good
shoulders, and good hands. I want to keep Andy. I love him, I said twice. Three
times makes it true.
Who told me that?
Maybe the dolphin.
But saying something doesn't make it true.
Amy said the story, and it's true.
But that just works for the dolphin then, nothing else.
Maybe it works for love.
And if I do love him then I'll sleep with him someday and
the dolphin will have to leave. Amy will always have him and I won't. It's not
fair. She doesn't even want him.
I wouldn't mind being Amy. I like Amy.
And I like the dolphin. And if I were Amy, I'd be able to
see Deirdre and what color her hair is instead of having to ask Amy all the
time. Amy never answers my questions anyway.
I can't turn into Amy. Not forever. For a little while. For
a year and a day. I can't. But I can stay close to her so she rubs off and I
can keep the dolphin. But she won't listen to the song. I have to get the whole
song and remember it so Amy can tell me what it means. I don't have any time
left. I'll say it for the third time soon.
I can't go there now. By the time I go and come back and
wash and dry my hair and get dressed again...I could go if I didn't swim. I
could just go and call him and tell him I'll wait a little while if he promises
to tell me the whole song. I'll promise him a month. Maybe two. More.
It's still light out. I could take the shortcut.
The sun had already set, but the light was still strong at
the sky, only beginning to darken at the center. Melanie forced her way through
the sea-rose bushes, not noticing the changes, the way the clouds were massing
above the sinking orange glow at the horizon, the livid green cast of the light
that remained. She ignored the scratches and the stones that cut through the
soles of her flats. The cove shore finally glowed before her, bisected by a
woman's silhouette.
Melanie froze, still too far away to distinguish much
detail. A gust of wind blew the hair out like a dark banner and a skirt
flapped. Silent now. Don't scare her away.
Melanie advanced, trying to muffle the sound of each step.
She stopped when she heard the singing.
The voice, low and clear, repeated one refrain. The words were
uncatchable. Soft consonants, long sliding vowels. She went nearer.
The hair was still dark; the skirt was green. Her back was
to Melanie, her arms wrapped around her body as if she was cold. The song
continued, louder. She recognized one word.
"Deirdre," Melanie said.
The figure shrieked and spun around. She was wearing a
cotton sweater.
"Don't do that," Amy said.
"Who were you talking to?"
"Nobody. I was just singing."
"What are you doing out here?"
"Looking for you."
"Bullshit."
"I am. I knew you'd come here before you went."
"What were you singing?"
"A song."
"What does it mean?"
"Let's go to the party, Melanie."
Amy's eyes were too big. She brushed the hair from her face
impatiently. Melanie looked at her own hands. They were still.
"Why did you say Deirdre in it?"
The wind was rising. All but the band ringing the horizon
was spreading into purple. It would get a lot colder. Amy seemed fragile
suddenly, hunching her shoulders against the coming fall.
"You were talking to Deirdre."
"I was telling her to go home!" Amy's arms sprung
wide as she turned back and forth, searching for someplace to look. "I was
telling her to go away and leave us alone. And to take the dolphin with her,
she was the one who wanted him in the first place."
"No!" Melanie ran to the water's edge.
"DOLPHIN!"
Silence. "You made him leave! You--"
"Stop," Amy said, leaden. She sat right on the
sand, letting her arms fall into her lap. "He's still there. Don't worry.
I knew it wouldn't work. I was just trying."
"Why do you want Deirdre to go away?"
"She drowned herself," Amy answered dully.
"She threw herself into the water for a unicorn. I made her do that. If I
made her do it then I thought it was good."
"But it's the dolphin's story."
"If I made her do that it means I think it's romantic.
It means I think it's better to drown yourself."
"But she did it herself. you just heard the story from
him. It's not your fault."
"It means I think it's romantic to die a virgin."
"It was romantic, but you didn't--"
"It means I'll get lost again. This is how you get
lost. So I came out here to tell her to go to hell and leave me alone."
"Amy."
Amy looked up, miserably. "Amy, get up. you're scaring
me."
Amy stood. "I don't want to scare you. That's why I
came out here. I thought if I could stop scaring myself--"
"Amy." Amy rubbed her nose. She turned her head
and opened her mouth, but said nothing. Melanie ran out of words. In one step
she reached Amy and put her arms around her.
Amy was crying, but Melanie only knew because she felt the
shoulder of her blouse get damp. "Let's go, Mel. Let's go to the party and
not come back here for a long time. Let's not come back until we're too old for
it. We're already too old for it."
"No we're not."
"I'm too old to be making up people who drown
themselves for love. I'm too old to want to die a virgin. Let's go. This is the
wrong place."
"What are you talking about?"
"This place is dangerous. Let's go."
Over Amy's head, by the purpling line at the mouth of the
cove, the breakers flashed in the last light. Three stars were emerging from
the midnight blue above it.
"I don't know what's scaring you," Melanie said, stroking her hair, "but it won't hurt you as long as we're