Girl Underwater (8 page)

I
always wanted a brother,” Tim says to me. He wraps his fingers around a flat stone and tosses it into the lake. He's trying to skip it, but it lands with a heavy plunk.

“Here, try it this way,” I say, curling his fingers around the edges of another stone. “Throw kind of sideways if you can.”

He tries again, flinging his arm outward with the same result. “Like in your story,” he says, plunking two more stones into the water. “The ones who played Aqua-Ball. Ophelia was lucky.”

“Well, it's nice to have someone to look up to, but it doesn't have to be a big brother. It could be your . . .” My mind flashes to the man with the iPad, fair-skinned and green-eyed. In thirty years, Tim would look just like him. “It could be anyone.”

“How about you?” he asks. “Who do you look up to?”

“You,” I say.

He cuts off a throw midway through his arc. “Me?”

“The boys do, too. You're like a big brother to them.”

Tim looks back at the lean-to, where Liam and Aayu are “helping” Colin sort the dried clothes. “I'm glad you're here,” he says, and goes quiet.

We manage to toss a dozen more stones before clouds eclipse the setting sun, casting the valley in shadow. Tim shivers but otherwise seems not to notice. He's still plunking pebbles in the water when snow starts to fall. Tiny flakes settle on his shoulders.

“Okay, Tim. Throw your last stone.”

He doesn't protest, but he takes his time finding the perfect stone. When he finally settles on one, he hands it to me.

“I'll count the skips,” he says.

“Are you sure you don't want to try again?”

“Yes.” He curls my fingers around the stone. “I want to see you skip it all the way across.”

I laugh, but his expression is achingly serious. The stone is, indeed, perfect for skipping: smooth, rounded edges, with two small grooves for my fingers. It fits snugly in my palm.

“Ready?” he asks.

I back up a few steps and angle my body sideways.
Power comes from the hips.
Edward's words come back to me in a rush, the memory so sharp it burns.

It's a good throw, maybe the best I've ever had, but the stone disappears at a decidedly human distance. I start to apologize to Tim, but his eyes gawk with wonder.

“Wow,” he says. “You almost hit that cabin!”

“Cabin?” The word sounds almost foreign. “What cabin?”

“Over there.”

He points at the tree line on the opposite shore of the lake, a haze of shadow and pine in the twilight. There are no obvious gaps in the woods, no prominent structures that my eye can see. Tim keeps pointing.

“Right there,” he says.

“Where?”

“See that big tree?”

“They all look pretty big—”

“The biggest one.”

I find it, but it takes me a second. Tim waits until I've identified it, then he shifts his finger two inches to the left. “See it? It's close to the big tree but back a little bit.”

“Back where?”

“In the woods.” He sighs, his impatience mounting.

Then
I see it. A square, diminutive structure, with the haunted look of an abandoned outhouse. It blends in with the surrounding trees, as if consumed by them. In another hour, darkness will swallow it whole.

The
what-ifs
start next.
What if someone
lives there
, or at least knows about it?
What if the Park Service keeps a radio in there? What if it has
heat
?

The questions become more fantastical as they tumble over in my mind. A cabin—a tiny, deserted cabin. If someone lived there, he or she would have seen and heard the plane go down. We would have been rescued by now.

But food, or supplies, or a radio?
Those things are still possible.

Those things could save us.

“How far is it?” Tim asks.

“Too far to make it there now,” I say, but I've already done the calculations: a mile and a half across the lake, at least six to hike there. The swim would kill me, but the hike will take all day. We don't have any gear for a backcountry trek, especially with three little kids . . .

Forget about it.

“Maybe tomorrow?” he asks.

“Maybe.” I know what Colin will say:
Don't even think about swimming there.
This time, I won't argue with him.

When daylight breathes its last, we make our way back to the lean-to. Tim drags his feet, reluctant to let the cabin out of his sight. We both seem to sense that going inside means conceding hope for rescue, at least until tomorrow. I glance forlornly at the meager pile of ash on the shore. With snow on its way, we will have to go without a fire.

While Colin fortifies the walls for the final time, I gather up the clothes that have been drying onshore all day. Some of the heavier articles are still wet, but they will have to do. I round up the boys and tuck them into as many layers as they can stand: pants, shirts, hoodies, coats. As long as it's dry, it's fair game.

What's left goes to me and Colin. He's still pounding away at slabs of metal when the snow really starts coming down. “Colin,” Liam sobs, pressing on the roof with his small but sturdy hands. “Colin's outside.”

Colin must hear him because he comes in moments later, drenched in sweat. While he was gone, I found an array of trinkets to keep us hydrated: three mugs, four sippy cups, and a few punctured water bottles. I hand him a cup of lake water, which he downs in three swift gulps. I refill it twice before he stops to take a breath. He's working too hard. With his injuries, he should be lying down, keeping warm. Resting. Instead, he's out there moving metal and carrying debris, determined to provide for four other people. He doesn't seem to understand that he may need all that energy to fight an infection.

“You're overdoing it,” I say.

“Nah.” His eyes glisten in the waning light. “You'll know when I've overdone it.”

“You mean when you collapse?”

He sips on his lake water. The contrast of the dainty little curlicues on the cup and his hulking frame makes him look awkwardly domesticated. “That won't happen.”

“Colin, look at you. Your leg's a mess. You haven't slept. You've barely eaten.” I try to keep my voice down for the sake of the boys, but Tim keeps tugging on his hat like he's trying to free his ears. “I'm worried about you,” I admit, and it sounds strangely tender.

Colin stares into his cup, as if searching for the answer in its shallow depths. I exchange his cup for one of the mugs. He drinks it slowly this time, holding my gaze over the brim.

“Thanks,” he says.

“You're welcome.” I sigh.

He studies the new mug, this one proclaiming
WORLD'S NUMBER 1 DAD
in plump red letters. The irony isn't lost on either of us.

“So,” he says, depositing the mug somewhere behind him as he sits down, “I thought you were going to Hawaii for Thanksgiving.”

“Who told you that?”

He shrugs. “Lee.”

“Lee told you? When?”

“About a month ago.”

“You talk to Lee?”

He gives me a look that makes me regret asking the question. “We spend four hours a day together, Avery. Sometimes we exchange a few words.”

“I'm sorry, I just—”

“Didn't think I talked to anyone?”

“That's not what I said.” I shake my head, warding off some troublesome emotion. “Anyway, yes, I was supposed to go to Hawaii for break. I'm sorry I didn't.”

I regret the comment as soon as it's out there, but Colin lets it go. He rubs the stubble on his jaw, a sandy blond that complements his olive skin. It makes him look rugged, a little wild. Nothing like the clean-shaven junior who keeps to himself at meets.

“Why don't you shave when everyone else does?” I ask. “You've been bald since summer.”

“That's a weird question,” he says, forcing a smile.

“Not for a swimmer.”

Secrets. They share the space between us, louder than the wind hammering the trees.

“Lee's a good guy,” he says. “I like him.”

“Who's Lee?” Tim interrupts.

“A friend,” I say, the half-truth just kind of slipping out. “We share a lot of the same interests.”

“Swimming . . .” Colin lets the word dangle.

“Isn't that enough? Swimming takes up most of my time.”

“True.”

“It's hard to explain.”

“Damn. 'Cause I've got a bus to catch in, like, two minutes . . .”

Tim looks confused. “He's being sarcastic, Tim.” Still confused. “He's teasing.”

“Oh.” Tim ponders this for a moment. “So why aren't you laughing?”

Because I'm trying not to. Because it feels wrong. Because Colin isn't supposed to be funny; he's supposed to be the enemy.
“My lips are frozen, I guess.”

Tim smiles, but Colin seems . . . I don't know. Hurt? He reaches for his mug, even though the water is long gone.

“So,” Colin says to me. “Ophelia has three older brothers in Mermaidia. That true for you, too?”

“Mmm-hmm. You?”

“Three little sisters.”

“Wow. What was that like?”

“Brutal,” he says, laughing. “Still is. Their favorite decorative item is a glittery sign that says,
NO BOYS ALLOWED
. Which means me, seeing as I'm their only brother.”

So Colin has three younger siblings—maybe that explains why he's so good with kids. I look at the boys leaning all over him, and the picture starts to come together.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I say, realizing too late my lips have thawed and I'm actually smiling. “So who taught you to swim?”

“Bug.”

Tim giggles. “Bug?”

Colin nods, smiling at the memory. “Bug is a friend of mine from Southie. Huge guy, built like a linebacker. If you put me on a boat with a hundred people, I'd peg him as the first to drown.” He laughs, remembering. “But Bug could swim.
Man,
could he swim. He'd put on a bit of weight and years by the time we met at the Dorchester pool, but he still had a beautiful stroke. My mom asked him to teach me, and he did.”

“Wow,” I say, trying to picture such a thing. Colin has never been one to say much about his upbringing, but the rumor mill still finds him. After blowing off the biggest meet of the season, gossip swirled, and grew, and curdled into something ugly.
Colin has legal problems. Colin's dad murdered someone. Colin's mom's in a psych ward.
It wasn't nice, or even fair, but by choosing himself over the team, Colin had turned everyone against him.

“Bug came to one of my meets last year,” he says. “Big guy, Sox hat, sat in the top row?”

I shake my head. The only spectators worthy of my attention were my friends, whose presence I used to gauge my own popularity. Three or four of them would always come to home meets. Over time, they came to be known as “Avery Delacorte's entourage.” To humor them, I would actually sign autographs as a joke. Colin must have watched this display and gagged.

“Well, he's coming again this year. To Nationals—if I qualify, that is.”

“You'll qualify.” Colin is as close to a sure thing as you can get; his freshman year, he qualified in six events. Seven his sophomore year. Earlier this fall, after missing two straight weeks of practice, he beat Beau Jennings, one of our co-captains and an Olympic medalist. Not a good moment for Beau—but even worse for Colin, as it turned out. The next week, Colin missed the meet, and his declining popularity bottomed out.

“I want you guys to teach me,” Tim says.

“Anytime,” Colin says, which makes Tim grin.

“All right,” I say, pulling Tim's hat over his ears. “Time for bed.”

“But I'm not tired.”

“Colin will tell you a story, then.”

“Well,” Colin says, laughing as the boys clamor for space in his lap, “don't expect much after Mermaidia.”

“Please!” they beg.

“Okay, okay,” he teases.

As the boys settle in, he describes a Thanksgiving feast that sounds more like memory than fiction: an overcooked Turkey doused in gravy, enough stuffing to feed a herd of horses, cranberry sauce from the can and pies from the local grocery. He clearly doesn't come from a line of culinary geniuses, but the descriptions are vivid enough to make my mouth water. By the end, I can almost taste the lush sweetness of home-cooked apple pie. Or, rather, store-bought apple pie with Dixie Cup ice cream.

“. . . And then everyone has a beer and dozes off in front of the TV. The end.”

I'm the only one awake to enjoy the abrupt but fitting ending, and I show my approval with a polite golf clap. “A lovely complement to the mer-people,” I say.

“I'm just glad he didn't ask me to sing him a lullaby.”

“Maybe next time.”

“Hopefully not. Trust me.”

“Well, good,” I say teasingly. “It's nice to know you're bad at something.”

He looks at me like I'm speaking in tongues. “Avery, I'm bad at most things.”

“Name a few.”

“Gladly. Well, let's see. There's spelling—never quite got my mind around that one. Technically I'm dyslexic.”

“Really?” It just slips out; I didn't expect this from a guy who maintains a 3.9 GPA. Not that he advertises this fact, but everyone in those brutal engineering classes knows who sets the curve. Another strike against Colin's popularity.

“My mom got me through it,” he says. “Bought me all the classics and had me read to her growing up. I'm still an embarrassingly slow reader, but I actually enjoy it now.”

“I didn't know that about you.”

“Engineering majors don't have to read much. Anyway,” he says with a smirk, “can I continue with the list?”