Blue Field(21)

When she quit diving Marilyn ceased to dream her parents alive at a kiosk on the platform of a subway station or in a hospital room engulfed in radiant white. No more second chances. No more dream-kindnesses to offer—a cup of water for her bedridden mother or an I love you! for her father lettered in fastidious script and tucked into his pocket and fondly rummaged for in the seconds before the blast. No more hope of setting in motion again the dead. Of waking crazed with the marvellous feeling of having been—gladly, joyously, with such release—sawn in two.

Finally Leo retrieved her. Marilyn? he said carefully and loudly as if to a child. Let’s get Gerry to take you back to the motel.

Gerry? But she let Leo tuck her under his armpit and roll her like a suitcase onto the path to the base camp and some Gerry or other as advertised—the Tim-guy she’d ridden next to on the way here. Leo cranked open the door to his truck. Here we go now, he said, sidling his hands to her hips.

Wait, she said.

Leo’s pretty face, inches from hers, blanked. Don’t, he told her, his voice very low.

What time is it? she said.

Leo looked as if he might cry. Don’t cry, she thought. Then shouts busted out and she fled.





20


He’d settled on a large rock near the sinkhole. Stripped of his tanks, he shed his muddy hood and unfolded his neck seal, breathing exaggeratedly as if to mime that he could. With each exhalation he appeared smaller—a few more and he might vanish. Unless she stared hard enough, sucked the fact of him in, nothing but him, investigated his every sinew and nerve, cupped him inside her, somehow sheltered and possessed him and him alone.

How could she? Several men were hoisting Jane’s black-clad body from the sink. At the top they slabbed it on the dirt. Marilyn winced and then remembered—she was the one who easily bruised. Someone cut off Jane’s hood and slit her seals. Released, her good skin seemed to pale by the second—no sign of yesterday’s sunburn. Strands of her wan hair curled like seahorses. Jane and not Jane. Not the desperate pregnant woman on a windswept street corner one afternoon thirteen years ago, scared defiant, abandoned by some guy, shouting, Call me you bitch. Abandoned by the very same bitch. Abandoned this morning too when despite Jane’s evident anxiety Marilyn did nothing. Don’t go, she might have said. Keep safe, I mean it. She could have warned Jane about the obsessive pride and rough lessons that bordered too closely on the fatal. Fatal—what did that even mean? The not-Jane here now? Who’d stood in for Marilyn, taken her place in diving. And in death?

Another bleating, euphoric second overcame her—still here, I’m here. And then Rand lurched from his rock and lumbered over and lowered himself to the ground next to Jane. He cradled her face in his palms and his facial scars seemed to distort and worm like living things. He rose and it was Marilyn’s turn. Menace, bitch. She dropped and mashed her lips to cold lips. She slithered her tongue, probing the cool mouth, snagging a chip on the lower front tooth, trying madly to flick the uvula, tiny bell. Calling and calling. You bitch. And shouldn’t someone be applying CPR? Until a doctor arrived and pronounced? She blew and blew, hisses and sparks. Her head whirled like a spangled top. She had sequins for eyes, a terrible glitter.

The spell broke when someone tugged her upright and crooked her to his side. Sorry, Leo said, as if sorry were for him to say.

Sheer f*cked-upness. Perched again on his rock Rand wept. A cop photographer snapped pictures of the body and site. Someone—Rand—would at some point have to retrieve Jane’s equipment from the cave. He’d apparently left it inside to make the recovery easier but her gear would also require documenting and analyzing. From her parents’ deaths, Marilyn knew the after-life as another hell of details. There’d be an autopsy. Maybe an inquest. The photographer clicked and clicked and nearby the two cop divers slouched. These hotshots like to play their games, one of the spitting images said, rubbing the long-weekend stubble on his blunt mug. Yup, said his lookalike, lowering his voice to a fake-sounding baritone as if he were reading a script for a much older and wiser man. And we’re the ones that have to clean up, he said.

Leo tightened his grip on her. She considered yelling, shoving, switching him for Rand. But he was crouched next to his rock, puking for real.

The photographer said, What’re these Lone Rangers trying to prove anyway?

Beats me why some people do what they do, one of the orange glows said.





21


She waited at Rand’s base camp, propped on the workbench under the awning while he gave his statement. She clenched and unclenched her toes—her sneakers felt too small, as if her bones were spreading yolk, as if someone had picked her up and dropped her. She wanted to leave. Leo was holding forth with several guys over by the parked vehicles and she waved experimentally to see if she could catch his attention. Get him to take her away, back, somewhere. After a moment she gave up. The shade under the awning deepened. If only she could vanish—lose herself like some dummy sidekick. Except then she’d feel even more alone. She sank her head to her knees. Within seconds, it seemed, Leo rematerialized, his arm around her shoulders. A mole winked on his neck. His breath on her face was like chicory crossed with carnations, a smell chemical and latent. But at last her wait was over. Into the day’s furnace with her. Then into his white truck which ferried her through the dust and gravel to an enchantment of empty blacktop. He drove fast and silent. An oncoming motorcycle whined by like a mosquito on steroids. A minivan glissed into sight then swept alongside and seemed to hover briefly before passing—Leo thought she was staring across at him. I don’t envy you, he said. Finding out like this.