Lies That Bind Us(30)

The boat’s engine rumbled, blew out a puff of brown smoke, and came to life. Archimedes cast off and we began chugging out of the harbor. I caught Marcus watching me and gave him a brave smile over Simon’s shoulder as he walked me through my equipment and helped fasten the air tank to my back. It felt clumsy, doubly so with the ridiculous fins on my feet, and I felt both absurd and scared. Melissa and Brad were, predictably, as much in their element as Simon, trading stories of wreck dives and shark sightings in Mexico and Costa Rica. Kristen looked wary but game, and Marcus, apart from his concern for me, seemed happy to at least try. The only person who looked as uncomfortable as I felt was Gretchen, and I found myself warming to her a little.

“You OK?” I asked.

“Not much of a swimmer,” she said under her breath, thumbing absently through a homemade picture book of the creatures we might see that Archimedes had given her. “Or sailor,” she added.

“Oh,” I said, making a sympathetic face. We had barely left the dock, and she already looked a little green and was sitting very still, as if refusing to move at all would compensate for the bouncing of the boat’s nose on the water.

“I’ll stay close,” I said.

She managed a smile.

“Thanks,” she said. “Do you do this a lot?”

“First time,” I said, resisting the impulse to lie and then, as her smile stalled, wishing I hadn’t.

“You think it’s safe?” she said. “I’m not sure I should really be trying this in the ocean. Shouldn’t we have training first? In a pool?”

“Simon knows what he’s doing,” I said.

She nodded, watching him, but murmured, half to herself, like it was a mantra, “I’m really not a strong swimmer.”

“It’s just kicking,” I said. “You don’t have to work to keep yourself afloat. The gear gives you a kind of neutral buoyancy, so you just pick the direction and go.”

“I thought you didn’t know anything about this stuff?” she said. Her nervousness gave the remark a sharpness and her eyes were faintly accusatory, as if I had misled her on purpose.

“My sister does it,” I said. “Loves it. She’s always trying to talk me into joining her.”

“Family Thanksgiving under the sea,” said Gretchen mirthlessly.

“Oh, I won’t be seeing her this year,” I said. “She lives in Portland. We don’t connect much.”

“Had a falling out?” said Gretchen, pleased by the idea of something else to talk about. Or by someone else’s unhappiness.

“You could say that.”

“Over what?”

I looked away.

“Go on,” said Gretchen with a pleading smile. “Take my mind off being about to drown.”

I smirked at her, then shrugged.

“Nothing exciting,” I said. “What sisters always fight over, I expect. Our parents. Who loves whom most. Who’s doing the other person’s share of the work, the care, the worry. The usual.”

“What line of work is she in?”

“Software development for movies,” I said. “CGI and such.”

“Ooh, fun,” said Gretchen, managing a real smile for the first time since the boat hit open water.

“You’d think,” I said. “She spends most of her time talking about how companies are constantly shopping for cheaper labor. The people who actually do the work don’t get to stamp the finished product with their name and face like actors do, so it’s hard for them to demand what they’re worth when less-skilled companies elsewhere are prepared to do the job for less. And then the studios are constantly adding work to the contract—more scenes, more edits—and expect not to have to pay extra. CGI takes time so the work starts early, but then the script changes or the director goes in a different direction, and all the digital work that was already done is useless and has to be scrapped, but the contracts are structured so that the studios don’t have to pay for anything but finished product. It’s a mess.”

“Sounds like you know a lot about it,” said Gretchen, impressed.

“About as much as I do about scuba diving,” I said. “I can tell you what Gabby—my sister—bitches about, but ask me to add a troll to a battle scene, and I’d be drawing on the film with a Magic Marker. Let’s hope my diving is better.”

“Stay close to me,” said Gretchen. “We’ll drown together.”

“Terrific.”



Archimedes doubled as gear tech as well as captain, and we spent twenty minutes or more being poked and scrutinized once the boat came to a halt. He was a big guy, a decade older than the rest of us, broad shouldered, strong, and tanned to the color of tea. His black hair was silvering at the temples and he was developing a gut. He smelled, not unpleasantly, of sea and sweat and oil. As he tightened the straps around my tank, he managed to be careful not to brush against my body while still giving me a mischievous look that reminded me of the awkwardness of being so close to a strange man while wearing very few clothes.

“Now this,” he said, giving me the mask Simon had already shown me. He guided it over my face and inspected the seal. “Breathe OK?” he asked.

I tried, feeling hot and claustrophobic, my peripheral vision lost, and nodded.