Dead Letters(67)

16


Patiently picking my way through the jagged zebra-mussel minefield of the shallow water, I emerge from the lake as clumsily as I entered it, quivering and exceptionally waterlogged. Marlon is still propped up on the bank, and he looks in my direction only when I stumble across the rough gravel. I flop down next to him, just close enough that I can feel how warm his skin is, and how chilled mine is. I drip-dry on the warmed stones, wringing out my hair like it’s a dishrag. Marlon has cracked open a second bottle, and I pour a solid slug into my plastic cup. We are companionably silent. I stretch out on the rocks, replicating the pose of submission to the sun that I had taken in the water, arms over my head, belly stretched, chin upturned. Soon the sun will begin to set in earnest, but now it is still early, just days after the solstice.

I lie back and consider my options. What if I just left? Maybe I could simply go back to Paris, book a flight tomorrow afternoon and leave here. Marlon and Opal could deal with the funeral. Or not. I’m not sure I feel like indulging Zelda with a festive celebration. The morning after next I could be taking a taxi from the airport and sliding into bed next to Nico. The memory of Nico makes me cringe in sudden guilt, and I jettison the feeling immediately, shying away from it.

I can’t just leave, though. Zelda has sucked me in, and I want to get to the end of her alphabet. I have to know what she’s been up to, and why. I need to know the ending. Have I solved P already? Police, Paris, passport. Promiscuity, I think with a vaguely contemptuous snort. Prude. Are we moving on to Q? What on earth will she dredge up for Q? Beneath my questions is the sinister reminder of the body; someone died in that fire, and it’s only a matter of time before someone else realizes it wasn’t Zelda. Why would she risk that? And, perhaps most important: Whose bones are in the ashes of our barn?

I flop over onto my belly and slurp a mouthful of warm white wine, nestling the plastic cup into the rocks. I let my eyes close, feeling the sun on my back. I remember long days on this beach, all four of us. If I squint into the sun, I can almost see me and Zelda there on the dock, tawny-limbed and ten. Our eyes are bloodshot and our shoulders a dangerous russet-pink, our black hair snarled and matted and curled moistly around our necks, plastered to the swath of freckles that erupt like rashes across the bridge of our noses whenever we spend time in the sun.

—

“Daddy, come play with us!” I watch as my ten-year-old self moans plaintively, fending off a new assault from Zelda as she shoves at my shoulder. “Daddy, please!” I beg—begged—as Marlon cracks open his eyes and sits up in his lounge chair, the muscles of his abdomen neatly folded. He’s wearing sunglasses, a panama hat, and his bathing suit. He looks at home in the sunlight, his Florida childhood glistening in the reflection of sweat on his temples. He sets down his drink. Nadine, ever the pale-skinned aristocrat, is shielded by an umbrella and a redundant sun hat.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Zelda chants, chanted, has always chanted, euphorically, affirming everything. We both shriek in hysterical giddiness as Marlon pauses dramatically, then tosses his sunglasses and hat aside and races over to the dock on the balls of his feet, his arms outstretched, lowering his center of gravity in preparation. Zelda and I dance to the end of the dock on excited tiptoes, screeching. Marlon collides with us, each of his arms snatching up a twin while he bellows something wordless and primal. We are both airborne, arcing messily into the water with a splash. I am laughing helplessly, and snort water into my nose as I attempt to resurface. I splutter back up, partly panicked and partly delirious. Marlon, still up on the dock, thumps loudly on his chest and makes King Kong noises of conquest.

“I say foul, sir!” Zelda chastises loudly, already heading back to the dock, making good time with her hybrid paddle that is both doggy and breaststroke. She refuses to practice the official strokes; during our dawn swimming lessons at the Watkins Glen pool, she started cackling when our instructor demonstrated the butterfly, and from that moment she has stolidly eschewed any formal tuition in swimming. I have worked every summer to perfect the choppy speed of the crawl, the self-protecting calmness of the backstroke, the unflagging breaststroke, even the splashy and impractical butterfly. I am the youngest girl (person, in fact) in the advanced swim level, and I have been promised a job as an instructor when I turn thirteen. I cling to this assured future. My dives are picture-perfect, whereas Zelda flings herself recklessly off the diving board, not caring whether her skin smacks painfully into the water as a result of imperfect form. I’m too afraid of the slapping sting to experiment and rigidly repeat my method every time: right hand over left, chin tucked, belly back toward spine, big toes pointed and in contact with each other.

“I feel that’s quite enough screeching,” Nadine says from her beachfront perch. She doesn’t have to raise her voice for us to hear her clearly. The three of us are all perfectly tuned to her frequency, listening for any hints or indications of whether an eruption is imminent. The peak of her umbrella is a glowering, ominous Pompeii, lurking on the periphery of our sun-drenched city.

We quiet down momentarily, and Nadine flips through the glossy pages of her architecture and design magazine, staring at beautiful homes and wondering absently when (whether? No, when) her own home will appear amid these paragons of bourgeois achievement. She sighs and sips daintily from her oversized gin and tonic, already worrying about what will happen when it is depleted below the halfway mark. It is early in the day, and she doesn’t yet drink the way she will after Marlon leaves. For now, the pretense of a healthy relationship with alcohol is still intact.