Landlocked (A water witch novel) (22 page)

-Jaron

I tried not to smile at his April showers bringing May flowers observation but it was hard not to. I huffed. Why couldn’t I fall for a nice stable guy who’s every move I could predict?

“Why don’t you look happy?” Sylvia asked.

“I just…” I tried to decide if I should tell her or not. “Jaron is just confusing. Sometimes I think he is the man of my dreams and I’m the girl of is, and other times, I don’t know… how can I really mean anything to him if he doesn’t open up to me, you know?”

Sylvia put a hand on my shoulder. “Men are different than women. They don’t like talking about things that are unpleasant. Having a conversation about something that is bothering them is like saying they're weak.” She shook her head. “The male mind is so unreasonable.”

“I don’t know. I like Jaron, but he worries me sometimes. I don’t like secrets,” Clarissa said.

Neither did I.

“All relationships start with secrets, and when you come from a life of hardships like him, or like you, Mari, it’s hard to know how or when to reveal your secrets. He‘s interested in you and you him, just let time take care of the rest. You may fall together, you may fall apart, just don’t over think anything,” Sylvia said, giving me a reassuring look before going back to work on Clarissa’s dress.

Sylvia didn’t get it. Over thinking wasn’t my problem. I was more worried about under thinking things with Jaron. It would be all too easy not to over think the situation and just dive in, that felt natural. But the rational part of me begged the rest not to go completely head over heels for a guy who wouldn’t be completely open with me.

I looked at the beautiful flowers, wondering how he could choose my favorite without me telling him. Pulling out my cell phone, I start a text.

Are you ok? You seemed kind of out of it after lunch.

My thumb hovered over the send button, I shook my head, erased the message, and started over.

Why did you walk away from me after lunch? Do you know how crazy it makes me that you won’t—

I sighed and deleted that text too.

Thanks for the flowers. They are my favorite.

I sent that one off, wondering if I'd chosen the right message.

The doorbell rang again and Sylvia sighed. “We are popular today!” She set down her pins.

“I’ll get it,” I said, running out of the room. I pulled the door open.

A stranger in a blue suit smiled at me.

“Hello, is Clarissa Anderson here?” he asked.

“Um, yes. Clarissa!” I yelled. She came out of the room, still trying to not move very much in her dress. “There’s someone here for you.”

“Hello, Miss Anderson. Your father sent me with a gift and his apologies for his absence on your birthday.”

“All right… where is it?” she asked, looking at his empty arms.

He lifted his jacket and pulled a key ring out of his inside pocket and handed them to her.

“No way!” she shouted, no longer being careful in her pinned up dress she jumped up and down.

“What?” I asked.

She held up the emblem hanging off the key ring along with a single key. “Do you know what this is?”

“No,” I said.

She ran out of the house and I followed, trying to keep her dress off of the ground. She stopped when she reached the edge of the porch. Parked in the drive was a shining silver car. It was sleek, gorgeous, and oddly familiar. After a moment I realized that I’d seen the car in a movie. “Is that…”

“Yes! It’s an Aston Martin. I told Daddy I wanted to drive James Bond’s car but that was last year. I can’t believe…”

“It is the new Vanquish. I assure you there is no finer car in the world,” the man said. “V-twelve engine, zero to sixty in four point one seconds… enjoy.” He turned and got into a truck with Clarissa’s father’s company logo.

I ushered her inside before she did any damage to the dress. She talked endlessly about the car’s specs for the next twenty minutes, and I was happy that her father could reach out even half the world away, although I was sure she would have been happy with a box of chocolates or a puppy. When Sylvia was finished pinning, she sent us out so she could start sewing.

Clarissa stopped talking about the car for a moment and gazed at me. “I don’t know if Sylvia gave you good advice,” Clarissa said awkwardly as I walk her out.

“I don’t know if she did either,” I admit. “Why do you think that?”

She pulled her green jacket off of a hook in the entry closet and shrugged it on. “I just get the feeling that he is hiding a lot of skeletons. I’m not saying he is a bad guy or anything—”

“No he isn’t a bad guy. I know he isn’t. I feel it in my gut. But he does have skeletons. He told me his life was messed up himself.”

She pulled her new keys out of her purse. “Well, if he’s being upfront about the fact that he has bad things in his life that he doesn’t want to talk about, you can’t get upset when he doesn’t… if you want to be with him anyway. Does the good about him outweigh the bad?”

“Yes, sometimes I think he isn’t real because he is so good. But, I don’t really know the bad about him. Right now the only thing that is bothering me is his constant tight lipery.”

“Tight lipery?” she asked with a laugh. “I don’ know, I got an eye full of you seeming to enjoy his lipery.”

“Get out of here, nerd! I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’m ditching school. I can’t go on my birthday,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, that would be like un-American or something,” she said with a grin.

“Yes I remember something about that in the Bill of Rights.”

“Thou shalt not attend school on your birthday,” she said in a throaty voice.

“I said the Bill of Rights, that sounded more like one of the Ten Commandments.” I laughed. She really didn‘t pay attention in government.

“Whatever gets me out of it. See you tomorrow… Oh, I’ll have someone come and get my old car. I’ve got to see if this baby really goes zero to sixty that fast.” Clarissa bounded out into the rain and pulled her jacket over her head, screaming something about her hair.

I laughed. Jaron was right.

***

Gray water rippled with activity and I felt terrified before realizing that this was a familiar scene. I looked at a small skiff on the turbulent waters of the sea—my painting had come to life. The boat lolled in the waves as Santiago paced the deck wildly. A dorsal fin cut above the water and he snapped his head in its direction.

“No!” he screamed.

My head spun as I recognized Jaron’s voice. His face was pulled down in agony and dark circles ringed his brown eyes. He lifted his spear high in the air and jabbed it into the water just as another fin surfaced on the other side of the boat. He pulled his weapon up quickly and stuck it into the predator. The staff slipped through his wet hands, disappearing with the injured creature.

“Stay away, please stay away,” he begged as he tied his knife to the end of an oar.

Plunging his make-shift spear into the sea over and over again, he fell to one knee in exhaustion. The small boat rocked as one of the beasts ripped at the catch tethered to it. The water ran red. “No, no.” Tears ran down Jaron’s cheeks as he looked over the side. My lifeless eyes stared back at him. My bloodied and torn body was tied to the boat in place of the marlin. Jaron leapt into the water and put a hand to my white cheek. “I failed you,” he cried before being tugged into the depths and out of sight. Blood swirled in the water like a scarlet rose.

I awoke with a start and put a hand to my chest, my heart was trying to jack hammer itself out of my rib cage like it had somewhere else it needed to be. Jumping out of bed, I ran to the mirror hanging on the back of the door and looked myself over. Everything was where it should be. I sighed and put my head in my hands before collapsing back into bed. What was wrong with me? Why would I have such a terrible dream? Sylvia came crashing into my room. The woman had hearing like a bat.

“What’s wrong, darling, another nightmare?” she asked, sitting next to me on my bed.

“Sort of, do you remember my painting of The Old Man and the Sea?”

She nodded slowly.

“Well, I was the marlin.”

Her face fell into a mask of horror as she pictured what I described. “Oh, Maribel,” she said, taking me into her arms and looking me up and down.

“I’m fine. It was just a dream. That wasn’t even the worst part,” I said, thinking of Jaron’s torment.

“What was?” she asked.

I took a deep breath and let it out, trying to calm myself. It was only a dream. “Jaron was trying to fight the sharks off of me but couldn’t, and then they got him too.” My heart convulsed painfully at the thought.

“So it wasn’t like your other nightmare with the hissing, or anything like that creepy guy who followed you last week?”

“Uh, no. Why?” I asked in confusion.

“No reason, so Jaron protected you, or tried to in this dream?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, blinking the sleep from my eyes. “And we both got ‘death by shark’ out of the deal.” I yawned. “I’m going to go take a bath.”

“All right. Is Jaron picking you up again today?” she asked while straightening my comforter.

“Yep.” I opened the double doors leading into my bathroom.

“Good, I still have to finish Clarissa’s gown and take it up to her. I‘ll see you after school.”

I turned the knobs on my claw foot tub until the water was steaming. I usually didn’t take a bath in the morning because I didn’t have time to soak, but I might as well make a good thing out of having a nightmare wake me up at six in the morning.

The tile was cold on my feet as I searched under the sink for the right bubble bath soap. I was feeling like jasmine was what the doctor ordered. Pouring the silky liquid into the water, I watched as the suds rose to the top. The water was so inviting, I didn’t wait for it to be full before I gingerly lowered myself in. It was so hot it stung, but just for a moment. When the water was almost overflowing, I turned the knobs off with my toes and submerged myself. Watching the world from this side of the water was something I had enjoyed since I was a kid, Sylvia would ask me if I’d ‘gone through the looking glass again’ every time I’d resurface from a bath or the pool. She was teasing but it felt like that, like stepping into another world. I popped out of the water, thinking I had heard something, but sound travels funny in water and I couldn’t be sure.

“Maribel!” Sylvia was shouting from the bathroom door.

“What?” I asked, rubbing the water out of my eyes.

“Jaron is here.”

“What! What time is it?” I asked, jumping out of the tub and drowning the tiled floor.

“It’s eight o’clock, Mari, get a move on or you’ll both be late.”

When I heard Sylvia exit my room, I made a mad dash to my closet, towel trailing behind me. After slipping on my underwear, I threw on the first thing within reach and ran back out. I didn’t have time to do anything but brush my teeth and hair. Before I opened my door to go downstairs, I looked at the clock and cringed. It was eight ten. School started in nine minutes. Time always eluded me, nothing new there, but I really didn’t want to make Jaron late.

“I’m here!” I announced, clambering down the stairs two at a time.

“Yes, you are.” Jaron laughed. “No wonder you didn’t mind getting rained on yesterday. Apparently wet hair is a regular style for you.”

I was about to tell him that I thought he liked wet hair since the last time I wore it around him ended in a make-out session, but what with Sylvia and Dylan being right there, I let the witty come back die on my tongue.

“Let’s go!” I sped walked to the door and waved to my aunt and uncle. “Bye!”

“Come home after school. You need to get ready for Clarissa’s,” Sylvia reminded me as I shut the door.