Wish You Were Here (45 page)

The elevator jostled to a stop, making people laugh, like it would be funny if they all died, and for a second Ella thought that if the boat sank and she had to choose between people to save, she was sorry but it would be Sarah. She would pull her to the rocks and give her the breath of life, and when Sarah realized what Ella had done, they'd kiss. It was like a movie in her mind; it was that stupid. The boat would never sink. They'd go back home and after a while Sarah would forget to answer her letters. It was the same thing that happened at camp with Laurie Burgwin, except they'd just been friends.

She followed Sam, aware of Sarah behind her and of how dumb she looked in her poncho.

“Stay together,” her father was saying, even though they were the last ones out and there was nowhere to go but through the door and along the concrete walk between the green railings.

The sky was bright after being inside, and the rain was coming down harder, or maybe it was just the spray, fogging her glasses, making her squint. A metal net hung above them like a cage, dotted with rocks and soggy paper garbage. Across the water, the falls pounded like an engine. The boat was already docked and letting people off. It looked smaller against the cliffs, and the possibility that it could sink suddenly seemed real.

The walk sloped sharply as they passed the tourists coming up from the dock, totally soaked, grinning and wringing their sleeves. For no reason, they annoyed her—because they weren't in love. Most of them were too old, married already, or kids who were too young. They were lucky in a way—they couldn't be hurt. They didn't spend every minute worrying, not knowing what to do, and still she wouldn't trade places with them for anything. She couldn't believe she'd really been like that, average and untouched, walking around like a zombie with no idea why she was alive. It seemed so long ago, when it had just been last week. She couldn't imagine her life then, before Sarah. It was like she was flying above them, lifted into another world where everything was connected to her, and it all meant something—her clothes, the weather, songs on the radio. Even now it didn't seem completely real.

She was lucky, she knew. She needed to be careful. All she had to do was turn to Sarah and raise a hand to her face, lay a palm on her cool cheek, and all of this would disappear. But Sarah knew—she had to know. Sometimes Ella pictured her feelings glowing around her like an aura, a bright force field, impossible to miss. She'd never had to keep a secret this big. She couldn't even lie to her mother about blowing off her homework or not eating all of her lunch.

They bunched up at the gate, waiting for the last passengers to come ashore. Sarah watched the falls, her hands resting on the top of the fence. Taking the spot beside her, Ella could see the dolphin ring Mark had given her, proof that she was fooling herself, and for a moment she was helpless before her own hopes. Her father had his little camera out, being the big photographer. Three days wasn't enough.

“You've heard of people going over the falls in a barrel,” Grandma was telling Sam and Justin. “When I was a little girl, a boy no older than you somehow lost his way in a canoe and ended up going over with nothing but a paddle. The
Maid of the Mist
here fished him out. He's the only one who's ever done it and lived. Imagine having to explain
that
one to your mom and dad.”

“What happened to the canoe?” Justin asked.

“Who cares?” Sam said.

“I imagine it broke up on the rocks.”

“How come he wasn't killed?” Justin asked.

“Well that's the thing, isn't it? It's a mystery. People in specially designed barrels died, and this little boy with nothing but a paddle and the clothes on his back lived.”

“We should ask about it at the Ripley's Museum,” Aunt Margaret said. “I bet they have something on it.”

“There's an idea,” Grandma said.

“Oh boy,” Sarah said so no one but Ella could hear, and it was enough to keep her dreaming. Lately she was amazed at how little it took to tip her one way or the other. The terrible thing was there was nothing she could do about it. It was like she was being controlled by something bigger than herself, but sometimes she liked it.

Finally they let them on, making everyone wear an orange life jacket that snapped in front. She couldn't believe how stupid she looked. You could sit inside or stand outside, and the inside filled up quick. It was hot and smelled like wet socks. There were still some seats in the middle you couldn't see anything from, and her mother and Grandma and Aunt Arlene and Aunt Margaret took them. Sam and Justin wanted to be outside, so her father went with them. Ella thought inside would be nicer, but Sarah pulled the drawstrings of her hood tight and tied a bow under her chin and led her out into the wind.

The deck was wet, and the rocking of the boat made walking hard. She kept her arms stretched out to her sides. Justin had fallen down and his jeans were wet. Her father crouched down to console him, holding his hand. She and Sarah found a spot by the bow, away from everyone, hunched together for warmth, and that made her happy. Watching the falls, she could pretend they were alone, that this was romantic.

The wind rattled her hood, and rain dripped off her chin. There was garbage in the water, Pepsi cans and gray newspapers. All along the rail hung white life preservers with
MAID OF THE MIST
stenciled on them, and Ella wondered how often they had to use them. She'd heard of people killing themselves that way, taking off all their clothes on Goat Island and swimming out into the river, letting the current sweep them over. She thought of what the view from the edge must be like, the water suddenly becoming air, the tiny white boat far below, the noise.

Before they cast off, a woman's voice came on the P.A. and asked them to please listen carefully to the following safety instructions. The
woman recited her memorized lines without feeling, like the guys who ran the roller coasters at Nantasket Beach. Ella couldn't think of anything more boring, just turning in circles all day long, going nowhere.

And there, like a dare, was Sarah's hand on the railing, waiting for hers to cover it, and her face, turned to the constant roar, ready for Ella's lips. She could see it happening in slow motion, like an accident, like the dream she'd had. But it couldn't be an accident, it wasn't a dream. She would have to do it herself, risk it and accept whatever happened.

She thought about the kid in the canoe. There must have been a moment when he realized he'd gone too far, that he was headed over the edge and there was nothing he could do. Did he just quit then, give up, or did he paddle as fast as he could, knowing it wouldn't help? And did it make any difference?

To him, she thought, maybe. Not to the falls. Not to the water.

When Arlene was fourteen and headed off to Miss Porter's, her grandmother McElheny had sat her down in her grave, antimacassared parlor, the rosy-cheeked Gilbert Stuart portrait of her great-grandfather glaring down from between the gaslights above the mantel. Here, in what passed for respectable splendor, she imparted the one nugget of wisdom her travels had instilled in her: that no matter where one happened to be in the world, one should always bring a book. Arlene loved to quote this adage to her students, proud to arm them with such timeless advice, and here she'd forgotten it herself, sat surrounded by restless children and their weary parents with nothing to read but a foldout map of the falls, the encroaching border of which advertised gruesome wax museums and steak-andegg honeymoon brunches for a dollar ninetynine.

Why anyone would choose to celebrate their marriage here escaped her, and yet millions did. When she first heard that Henry would be taking Emily she'd been jealous, not so much of the place as the standard of happiness it was meant to represent, and which their family urged her at every turn to secure, setting her up with the grown sons of their closest friends until there were none left.

“What are you looking for?” her mother once asked her, and Arlene had honestly said, “Nothing.”

She could not say there was nothing she regretted, but who her age truly could? She had had more children than any of her friends, and been loved and respected, fawned over and feared. She'd taught thousands of young people to read and think, and they had gone on to change the world and would continue to long after she was dust. She did not expect them to remember her, and often she could not recall them herself, had to refer to her scrapbook of class photos and grade sheets when she came upon a name in the paper. She was not surprised to find she'd given the newly indicted district attorney a solid fence of check marks for not following instructions. The directions one's life might take were determined early.

She was not sorry for the choices she'd made. She'd never needed a man, even the one she could admit she'd loved. Maybe she was too aware of how others judged her, how easily her self-sufficiency could be misconstrued as emptiness, her high spirits merely a cheerful exterior. She had thought, as the years passed, that society would retire the idea of the spinster, the dried-up old maid, and yet daily, roaming the grocery store with a plastic handbasket or taking lunch alone in a restaurant, she felt an unspoken pity directed towards her.

Emily had wandered off to gawk at the view, and Arlene spread out on the bench. She wanted a cigarette, but of course the cabin was no smoking, and immediately she calculated how much of the tour was left, then tacked on the elevator ride back to the surface. They'd wasted most of the day waiting. By the time they got home it would be dinnertime, and tomorrow was already Thursday.

She worried that her forgotten book was a sign of slippage. One of her real fears was her mind slowly deteriorating, having to give up her apartment and submit to one of those assisted-living places, her money draining away month by month. That possibility was years off, she figured,
but once you noticed yourself going, it was supposed to happen fast. One day Emily would come to pick her up and find her sitting in her underthings, her refrigerator stinking of rotten hamburger and liquefied vegetables. Or she would swing by and find Emily the same way.

The tour guide was droning on over the speakers, regaling them with salient facts and points of interest. Barrels, gallons, kilowatts—the same drab litany Arlene had been feeding her kids since the fifties, all the glories of democracy and progress. In 1970–something, so-and-so was the first to cross from the American to the Canadian side by walking a tightrope. It took him so many minutes and in the middle he stopped to do something.

“Absolutely fascinating,” Margaret said, and Arlene smiled back at her and thought of their talk in the garage, the tenuous bond between them, a bridge built of cigarettes.

She would have liked to have had a daughter (yes, even Margaret, troubled as she was), but that was not a regret, more of an idle wish, stillborn, not serious. The time for that had passed—like so much of her life—quietly.

The guide directed their attention to the starboard side of the ship, blah-blah, blah-blah-blah.

“Having fun?” Margaret asked.

“Always,” she said.

When they got too close to the falls, Justin thought, something would go wrong with the rudder. The captain with the white mustache and the fancy hat wouldn't be able to steer, and the current would draw them in. “We'll all be killed!” he'd shout.

People would be screaming and diving off the sides, and then the water would hit them and drive the boat under, smashing it in half with his mother still inside, and Justin would be in the water and it would be
cold like the other day at the lake, and someone would grab his legs and try to drag him down. He'd kick at them, except it might be Sarah, and he'd stop. There would be broken boards everywhere, but the life savers would be floating away, everyone swimming after them down the river, and then they'd start going around in a circle because the whirlpool would be sucking them under. He'd be caught in it, and he'd see Sarah on the other side, both of them spinning around. All they'd have to do was reach each other and hold hands and they'd be free.

“Come on,” Sarah would say, “you can do it!” the way she rooted at his games (but he never did it then, he always struck out and his teammates hated him for it), but this time he would, and the whirlpool would stop and they'd be okay, they'd be safe. His father would see it all on TV and call them to say they could stay with him, and they'd go to his mother's funeral together, one on each side of him, and drive away in the same limousine.

His hands were cold but he didn't let go of the railing. The water was full of brown suds. He wondered if fish ever went over and got killed. When he looked up, rain landed on his face. Above them, a helicopter circled. It was funny, Justin couldn't hear it.

“So,” Uncle Ken asked, “now that you've seen them both, which do you like better?”

“Canadian!” Sam said first, stealing his answer, and Justin had to change his.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Justin whispered, hunching and squeezing his crotch with his whole hand, as if Meg could conjure up a men's room on the spot.

“You should have told me when we were on the boat. I don't think there's one down here. Can you wait till we get up top?”

“I guess so.”

“The elevator should be here any second. I'm sure there's one up by the line.”

He was bouncing, rocking foot to foot. All the water wasn't helping, but she didn't dare make a joke. He was already embarrassed that he'd fallen down, according to Ken. She'd rolled her eyes to let Ken know it was typical of Justin, making the littlest thing into a big drama, but then Ken had been sensitive as a kid too, using tears on their mother to get attention.

She hoped that Justin would toughen up—and she'd told him this—otherwise he would have one tough row to hoe (the country phrase straight from her citified mother, applied to her own future too many times), but when she looked at Ken and how he'd turned out, she thought she would just have to get used to Justin being timid and picked on. There were worse things than being quiet and shy. God knew she knew that.