The First Time She Drowned (17 page)

ZOEY IS GONE
when I finally return to my dorm room with two bags of books that I have no interest in reading. Still, every time I consider saying screw it, I think of the way Liz looked at me with admiration and I am determined to at least try not to screw up. Not that I really care what she thinks, but generally speaking, it’s been a long time since an adult believed in me.

At the top of one of my bags is a postcard from James that I retrieved from the mail. It’s a hand-drawn cartoon of a guy on a desert island far, far away from his family, who is sketched in at the opposite end of the page. In the middle is a doctor in a rowboat calling, “Good news! Your crazy has gone into remission!”

It takes me a second to get the joke and then I laugh out loud. On the flip side it says, “Can you believe they’re letting me out of here soon? Miss you. Maybe I’ll come for a visit.”

The thought of seeing James again inspires me further to try to stay in school. I want to show him that I’m doing okay, that it really is possible to survive on the outside.

Within an hour, I am half a pack of cigarettes and two chapters into a French textbook, and kicking myself for skipping so many classes.

“Cassie?” Zoey calls, bursting suddenly into the room. She
pretends she can’t see me through the smoke of my cigarette despite the fact that I have both the windows open. She squints and coughs and thrusts her arms about blindly. “Cassie, where are you?”

She carries on in this dramatic fashion for some time, culminating in the Stop, Drop and Roll, which lands her smiling up at me from the floor at the base of my bed.

“I’m in gay Paree and considering a jump off the Eiffel Tower,” I say dryly.

She props herself up on her elbows, registers the book in my hand. “Holy shit, are you
studying
?”

“I’m staring at words—is that the same thing?” I close the book and sigh. “Can you please explain to me why I’m supposed to care whether Pierre buys a croissant or a coffee at the café?”

“Because you want to stay here.” She stands up, hands me a cookie wrapped in a napkin that she has stolen from the dining hall. “You do care about your future, right?” She sounds just like one of my high school teachers.

“What future?” I laugh. The next breath seems enough to manage at the moment.

“There’s your problem. No vision.” She takes the cookie back, splits off half for herself and wolfs it down before I can protest. “And speaking of your future,” she says as she gets up and moves to her bed, “your future husband called to confirm your date.” She smiles extra broadly, pleased as punch to be delivering this news.

“I hope you canceled for me.”

“
Au contraire.
I have assured him you will be there with bells on.”

“
Mais je ne want to go pas
,” I say, pulling the covers up over myself. “I have nothing to wear.”

“Of course you do. You’re just scared because you loooove him.”

“Why does it have to be a daytime date, though? Such terrible lighting!”

“You are pathologically vain. Has anyone ever suggested psychiatric help?”

“Nope,” I say brightly. “Never.”

“Curious,” she says, and I hurl a pillow at her.

She climbs under the covers, rests her head on the pillow I’ve just thrown at her, turns off the light next to her bed and flips on the TV. I turn off my own light and lie in the dark, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.

“Seriously, Zo,” I say finally. “Is there any way I can get out of this date? I don’t think I can do it.”

I look over and find her already fast asleep. I lie awake most of the night, afraid to dream.

DESPITE MY WILLING
it not to, Sunday comes anyway. Chris is picking me up for our date at noon.

It’s 11:59.

I pace and sit and stand and pace while Zoey alternates between watching me panic and watching the cartoons playing on the small television on her bookshelf.

I am wearing the new pencil skirt, blouse and heels, although Zoey has delicately hinted they might be too much for a daytime date. I know she is right, but when I look at myself in this outfit that my mother picked out and bought, I feel like an actress playing a version of myself in which I am pretty and together and best of all, untouchable. After all, no one can reject the real me if the real me doesn’t show up, right? Even still, I feel a familiar panic creep in.

“I think I’m getting sick,” I say, sitting back down again. I cough into my hand. “Maybe I shouldn’t go.”

Zoey ignores me.

“Seriously, feel my forehead. I’m feverish.”

“You’re ridiculous. Live a little,” she says, like that’s the easiest thing in the world to do. “Geez, you’d think you’d never been on a date before.”

I laugh as if that’s absurd, stand up and start pacing again.

I can tell that Zoey thinks I’m being silly, and it makes me
feel like there’s something wrong with me for being so nervous.

There is a sudden knock and I quickly estimate the likely success rate of leaping out our two-story window without breaking any bones. I’m pretty sure I could do it, even in heels. Zoey opens the door and there is Chris, freshly scrubbed, hair still wet at the tips, looking slightly embarrassed and so adorable that my heart actually feels squeezed.

“You look pretty,” he says, taking me in before he even notices Zoey standing beside him. Realizing his impoliteness, he turns to her, gives her a big hug. She hugs him back with abandon, and I wonder how people do that with such ease, allow someone to get that close.

I smile, grab my bag and make my way toward him. If I speak, I’m afraid I’ll throw up. He tries to let me exit first at the same time I’m trying to let him go first and it ends up being all weird and awkward and I wonder why people do this shit and why you don’t hear more about first-date-induced heart attacks.

Zoey waves and smiles as we leave, and calls out merrily, “Have fun!”

The outside air is a relief, dilutes the electric aura of anxiety around me. Chris’s car is parked just out front, stuffed with surfboards and boy crap and sand on the seats. He opens my door for me and apologizes for the mess as I climb in. He gets into the driver’s seat, glances over at me.

“Hi,” he says again, all goofy and happy. He puts his hand on my arm and instinctively, I lean away. He does not tell me where we are going, only that it’s a surprise.

I hate surprises.

A loud wind swirls around us as we slip out onto the highway, and I am grateful for the way it drowns out my internal rattle. Too soon, we arrive at the end of a dead-end beach street and Chris puts the car in park.

“I’ve always wanted to go to a deserted parking lot,” I say, looking around as he leaps out of the car and moves toward the back. “Is this where you dump the bodies?” I turn just as he grabs the two surfboards, hoists one up and smiles.

“Secret surf spot,” he says, pointing in the direction of the ocean. “You said you wanted to learn.”

Oh no.

“Actually, I think I said something along the lines of being afraid of sharks.” Though, really, sharks seem like the least of my concerns right now.

He laughs. “They won’t bother you. They don’t like how you taste.”

“Tell that to the Discovery Channel. Anyway, I’m not exactly dressed right.”

Thank God.

“Two steps ahead of you,” he says, so pleased with himself that his shoulders go back and his chest expands. He pulls out two black wetsuits and smiles like a little boy. “Murph works at the surf shop. I got a small and a medium because I wasn’t sure.”

I look between the two suits. “How about I just watch?”

His arms fall slowly, the suits drooping beneath his hands. “I thought you’d be excited.”

“You thought wrong,” I say, and then think,
Jesus, I sound like my mother.

“Oh,” he says, and his eyes drop for just a second before he looks back up and smiles. “Okay. Well, we can do something else.”

The quick recovery of his disappointment stabs at me. He is trying so hard. He stuffs the boards back in the car, shoulders sagging just slightly, and for a split second I forget myself and all the reasons why there is no way I can do this.

“No,” I say. “Let’s do it.”

Chris turns. “You sure?”

I nod and he smiles.

“You’re going to love it,” he says. “I swear.”

We walk down a winding dirt path lined with bramble that opens onto a small cove, intimate and unpopulated.

“The waves are small so it’s a perfect day for learning,” Chris says. He is carrying the surfboards, the wetsuits and the towels.

“Terrific,” I say, carrying the dread.

Already I’m thinking of how I can get out of this, the roil of panic so great that I’m sure I’m going to throw up. Everything about this will expose me. My hair will get wet. My makeup will wash off. The clothes my mother said made me look pretty will be on the beach while I squeeze myself into some horrid-looking wetsuit. Worst of all, I’m going to fail at this thing I don’t know how to do. Chris will see the real me and I will see the reflection of my own worthlessness in his eyes, and the familiarity of that look will kill me.

The ocean is calm and lapping, the sky a wash of vivid blue. I observe it as if from a great distance from myself, intellectualizing the beauty. I try to stay present, but I can feel that my mind has left
the premises, is back in my room under the covers.

Chris points to where I can change behind a small concrete building with no windows. I stand in the high grass there and sneak a cigarette, suddenly very tired. In the distance I can see the area of the beach where I almost drowned that first day, the bench where the homeless guys sat now empty.

I stay behind the building so long, I’m sure Chris wonders if I’m walking down the side of the highway with my thumb out. Finally I look at the two wetsuits, step into the thick skin of the smaller one and pray it fits.

It doesn’t.

I sigh, stick my feet into the second one and tug it to my waist. The suit smells of neoprene and summer and baked-in sunlight, and when I pull it around my shoulders, the weight of it on my body grounds me, provides a cozy layer of protection that I like. I decide I will paddle halfway out and pretend to see a shark.

Chris is getting the boards waxed up when I come out from behind the building, embarrassed and shy. He looks up and sees me walking stiffly toward him. He wears the widest grin I have ever seen.

He checks the back of my wetsuit to make sure it’s zipped tight and then bends down and wraps the surfboard leash around my ankle with a gentle, caring touch. My stomach flips and my face burns and my legs tense with the urge to pull away, to stop my body from feeling these strange, out-of-control things it’s feeling.

He stands and hands me my board, which is pink and large, dented and browning in several places, clearly a rental from the surf shop. On its nose are two fish swimming in opposite
directions, as if one is swimming toward life, the other away.

“Ready?” he says, and whips off his shirt, revealing a glimpse of tan chest before I have the chance to avert my eyes.

I am not remotely ready. Not at all.

He gives me instructions as we walk to the edge of the sand and I try to listen over the roar of anxiety. The wind tugs at the board under my arm, and I worry that I’m going to drop it. Or worse, that I’ll lose it out in the water, and once again get pulled into the undertow, nothing to hold on to.

The instant we hit water, the sea marshals me into the present, the first shock of cold so demanding of my attention. We push the boards flat at our waists as we wade out. A small wave rushes toward us, icy water leaping at my chest like a playful dog, making me laugh giddily almost against my will. Chris smiles at me as if he understands completely.

He tries to help me onto my board, but I tell him I’m fine and can do it myself. Instantly I start wobbling, feel myself make stupid faces as I try to get my balance, let out a small unintentional scream when I almost capsize.

“I can’t,” I say, just as the board steadies.

“You are,” he says.

He climbs onto his own board and we begin to paddle. The water is buttery and pliable as I push my arms through it, the board gliding effortlessly. The sun overhead is warm on my back and head. Small waves of white water crash toward me, narrowing my concentration. The whole thing becomes focus and glide, and
every once in a while I realize that I am forgetting to be nervous and self-conscious and sick.

We arrive on the other side of the breakers, and I think again of my latest near drowning, how calm the ocean is now, how things change from day to day, how life moves despite our greatest efforts at resistance, how much it can surprise us.

We rest there for a while, the water rocking us lightly, making small knocking sounds against the boards. Everything is calm and lulling. Then Chris sees something in the distance.

“When I give the word, start paddling,” he says. “As soon as you feel the wave beneath you, jump to your feet. You’re going to fall. Everybody does their first time. Just try to fall feet first, because the tide is low and it’s pretty shallow on the inside.”

“Okay,” I say. But I am not everybody and I can’t let myself fall. Especially not now, in front of another person. My adrenaline moves into overdrive, firing off malfunctioning flight signals, telling me that if I fall one more time in my life, I’ll never get back up.

“Here’s one,” Chris says, and the small harmless wave coming toward me becomes a charging monstrous thing in my mind. Before I can abandon ship and swim for home, Chris gives my board a slight push. “Now paddle!” he shouts.

With no other choice, I start paddling, too hard, too fast. The water slaps my face, cold and hard as a hand.

“Easy, easy,” Chris calls, and I slow my arms, try to match the pulse of the ocean moving beneath me until I am in sync with the wave, traveling as one with it, catching the sea.

“Stand up! Stand up!” Chris shouts across the water. And so I do. Automatically and bewilderingly, I jump to my feet and the
ocean opens wide to receive me. The sun is low over the cliffs and shimmers pale golden light, and I am soaring on top of the Atlantic, Chris behind me shouting, “Go! Go!” as I do exactly that.

Three seconds later I turn to see Chris throw his arms high into the air in victory, his smile wide with unabashed pride. At just that moment, I lose my balance completely and in the most graceless way possible, plunge into the ocean. I manage to land feet first and am surprised to see that despite my wipeout, Chris is still cheering. I scramble for the board, and as I do, I notice that I am smiling from such a deep place that my smile is just there on my face without my having to put it there. It feels like a discovery, this smile, as if I’ve pulled it up from the bottom of the seafloor like a piece of smoothed glass or a perfect white shell—something old and forgotten underneath all that water.

Suddenly I don’t even care that I fell, because of that brief moment when I stood, and I wonder if this is what other people seem to have that I do not—this courage to fall because they have the memory of standing.

Then I look toward Chris, climb back on my board and do the thing I don’t believe I know how to do: I paddle back out.