Drowning Instinct(39)
Author: Ilsa J. Bick

His back was to me. His voice was hushed. I barely breathed. I waited.

He finally let go of a long, sad sigh. ―Lake Michigan is too cold, too dark, and has too many wrecks. I never got into that kind of diving, never saw the point of gawking at all that death. The only wreck I ever did was in Belize, about a hundred feet down, but only because I wanted to see the continental shelf. I remember looking off to my left and seeing how the white sand bottom went on for a ways and then it just stopped. Like you‘d come to the edge of the world. The ocean beyond wasn‘t even blue. It was black. We were following a guide rope and pretty far back because the currents at the shelf will sweep you away if you‘re not careful. There, you really will fall into the abyss.‖

―It sounds scary,‖ I said.

―It is. Most things worth effort like that are, but what‘s the point of never taking chances? I don‘t know if I could stand living my whole life afraid. I‘ll tell you what did scare me at first, though: night diving. The idea of voluntarily slipping into the dark was really spooky. But it‘s . . . magic. At night, when you swim, the water sparkles with these bright green flashes, like stars, from these bioluminescent organisms. Cold fire, divers call it.‖ His tone turned wistful. ―It‘s like visiting another galaxy.‖

He sounded, I thought, like Alexis. I wanted to tell him that if he missed that and had the money, he should just go. I should‘ve said that he should do what made him happy.

But what came out was: ―You make it sound like something I‘d like to do someday.‖

He turned to stare at me. ―Maybe we will,‖ he said.

e

I don‘t remember what else we talked about. But we sat together in the cold for almost two more hours: him in his sweatshirt, me wrapped in a warm coat that smelled of him. We were out there long enough that when I looked up, the waitress was eyeing us through the restaurant‘s tinted windows.

Like we were the ones in glass rather than the other way around.

31: a

Mr. Anderson dropped me back at the McMansion a little before 7 P.M. The kitchen‘s handset display said I‘d missed two calls, both from numbers I recognized.

First message: Jenna? It’s Evan. I, uh, I got your message and . . . well, I could be wrong, but I’m not aware that we’re doing anything more for Nate. So . . . (Pause.) I don’t know what he’s talking about. Unless he and your mom . . . (Pause.) I’ll give his publicist a call and see what the story is. Just . . . this isn’t worth bothering your mom about. Okay?

Bye, honey.

Second message: Hi, sweetie, it’s your mom. Listen, we’ve decided to come back Saturday night. I know you don’t mind. What teenager wouldn’t kill for a week off from their parents? (Pause.) Anyway, have a good week. Love you.

Click. Dial tone.

Mom was right, too: I didn‘t mind. I didn‘t care.

At. All.

b

I tuned my radio to a station Mr. Anderson liked, the one we‘d listened to in his car.

They were playing a Bach fugue. I thought about how Mr. Anderson might be listening to the same thing at this very moment. So we were kind of enjoying the music together, even if we weren‘t in the same room, and that felt good.

As I listened, I unfolded the papers I‘d palmed from his pocket. He‘d written them in real ink—with a fountain pen, I thought. There was something about the shape of the letters that reminded me of calligraphy and was so different from his familiar scrawl which I‘d seen a hundred times on the blackboard or graded papers. It was somehow intimate and thrilling to imagine him forming each letter with exquisite care. One was obviously a grocery list: eggs, strawberries, milk, flour, everything he‘d need for pancakes. Which meant he‘d been thinking of me when he wrote it. That felt . . . private and special, like this was a note only I would understand.

The other note was very brief: a single letter and then a word.

J.

And: lover.

I read it twice over but knew there was no mistake. You‘d have to be brain-dead not to get it.

I was J. And lover was …

This was about me, Bob.

It was about me.

32: a

By Friday, it felt as if Mr. Anderson and I had been together for months instead of only a few days. We had a routine going: run in the mornings, then a shower and breakfast.

(Mr. Anderson said we should stay away from Adelaide‘s—not because we were doing anything wrong, but who needed the headaches?) I didn‘t mind. Making food together felt homey, like I belonged. He showed me how to make omelets and I showed him bangers and mash. We talked a lot, mainly about him, his family. He didn‘t ask a lot of questions about where I‘d been last year or what Psycho-Dad had meant, and that was good because it was like we had this unspoken agreement. If I wanted to talk, I could. If I didn‘t, fine.

On the other hand, there was stuff about him we didn‘t touch—his marriage, his wife. I really wanted to know and then again, I really didn‘t because, honestly? Talking about her would remind him that he probably didn‘t need a friend like me.

Afterward, we‘d go to a museum and then lunch and then either another museum or maybe we‘d go for a walk and then have coffee and pastries—like they did in Europe, Mr.

Anderson said. When he was a kid, his family went all over, and what he remembered most was how people there took their time and enjoyed life. In between his junior and senior years in college, his father had let him spend an entire summer in Italy, probably to make up for yanking him out of Stanford. Mr. Anderson said the best part of the day was late afternoon when you could sit at a little café in a piazza just about anywhere and have a grappa or cup of coffee and pastry and people-watch, maybe make up stories about them.

Like Mr. Anderson would spot a guy and think that maybe he was waiting for his girlfriend because he kept checking his watch. He said he could tell which couples were going to stay together because of how close they sat and if they ate off each other‘s plate, which he said you only did when you really trusted someone. He really paid attention to things like that.

After coffee, we might go back to his house and walk around the lake, which I really liked because it was so peaceful, like the lake and his house and land were a whole other world for just the two of us. I loved how the landscape changed at dusk, the woods and fields graying out, the air smelling suddenly sharp and wet and cold enough so it was only natural for us to walk closer together, our arms unexpectedly brushing in a way that made it hard to breathe. The world would fade; the chatter of the birds drop away; and the day—and what I was in the light—slide toward night.