The Last House on Needless Street(14)

‘Your parents?’

‘And my little sister.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Six,’ Dee said. She didn’t want to talk about her family any more. ‘Where do you go to school?’

‘UW,’ he said.

‘Cool.’ So he was in college. ‘I go to Pacific,’ she said. It was nearly true.

‘Cool,’ he said, and she saw the interest warm his eyes. Guys liked ballerinas, she had discovered. They were feminine and mysterious. ‘You want to go get some ice cream?’ Trevor said.

Dee considered, shrugged, got up and dusted the sand off.

Trevor got up too then said, ‘Um, you have a thing on you. On the back of your shorts.’

Dee twisted her head round to look. There was a dark stain on the white denim. Dee said, ‘Oh, I must have sat on something.’ She took her T-shirt off and tied it round her waist. ‘You go ahead. I’ll meet you there.’

She hurried to the women’s restrooms, where there was a queue. People were taking their little kids into the stall with them, sometimes three at a time, and then they all had to go. It was taking a really long time. Dee could feel everything getting worse as she waited. She felt a snail of blood crawl down her inner thigh. She pulled out fistfuls of paper towel and swabbed at it. Eventually she said to the big, sweating woman in front of her, ‘Um, do you by any chance have a sanitary pad?’

The woman stared at her. ‘There’s a machine,’ she said. ‘Right there on the wall.’

Dee left her place in line and went to the machine. It only took quarters. She had a dollar and some dimes. ‘Does anyone have change for a dollar?’

A woman with a red-faced baby on her shoulder said, ‘Where’s your mom? She should be taking care of you.’

‘Does anyone here have change, please?’ Dee made her tone sarcastic and a little angry, so that they wouldn’t see that she was literally about to cry.

A lady with a blonde bob gave her four quarters. But the machine was broken and the quarters tinkled back into the slot again and again. Blinking back tears, Dee returned them to the lady.

She cleaned herself up as best she could. The women in line watched as Dee rinsed her shorts in the sink. Jesus, she was just in her bathing suit like everyone else. She kept the T-shirt round her waist. It hid everything, so that was OK. She joined the line again and waited.

When she got to the ice-cream place Trevor wasn’t there. She gave it a few minutes, but she knew he wasn’t coming. Maybe she took too long in the restroom and he gave up. But probably he didn’t want to buy ice cream for a girl who didn’t even know when her period was coming.

She left the T-shirt on the shore and waded out, past the toddlers in water wings, knee-deep, then to her thighs, then her waist. She felt safer right away – hidden. In the heat of the day the cool lake water was like a sudden plummet, a shock that sent pinpricks up her spine. She trailed her fingertips on the broken mirrored surface, the skin of the water. The lake moved about her like a slow beast. She went deeper until the water lapped her chin and the gentle swell threatened to lift her feet from the stony bottom. Her cramps were almost pleasurable, now, with the cold water and the sunshine and the distant roar of the summer crowd on the shore, the sound travelling eerie across the water. It didn’t matter, suddenly, that the boy hadn’t come back. Her body seemed like enough company. Lately its moods fascinated her. It behaved in new and surprising ways, like a friend she didn’t know well yet. Pain and pleasure both had new faces. She was a story being told each minute. Dee closed her eyes under the lake’s cold caress. Everything was happening now.

Something smooth glanced against her cheek. Again, again, like a playful push. Dee opened her eyes. Dark grey and black scales filled her vision, flowing. She held her breath. The snake’s body was sunk a little beneath the surface but it held its head up, somewhat above the water, like a swan. The snake circled her slowly and curiously. It brushed her arm once as it swam. It was probably attracted to her body heat. What kind was it? Dee forced her juddering brain to think. It looked like a cottonmouth but surely you didn’t get them around here. Another idea kept trying to slide into her mind and she had to work very hard to keep it out. Rattlesnake. It was then she realised there were two more heads periscoping out of the water to her left, then three or four. They were a group, a family perhaps. Several juveniles, young mature snakes and a large adult with its ancient head, its broad lipless smile. Exactly how many there were she could not say – her heart had stopped. A blunt head swooped gracefully towards her face. Dee closed her eyes and thought, This is it, the end. She waited for the needle fangs, the poison, for the carrion mouth to close on her. She thought she felt the feather kiss of a tongue on her jaw. Her life was thunder in her ears. She tried to hold herself still against the swell of the water, to be nothing alive, to be stone. Something brushed against her shoulder in a long caress.

Dee didn’t know how long she stood there, time had expanded and collapsed. When at last she opened her eyes the water was smooth and empty. Maybe they were gone. But maybe they were writhing about her arms and legs out of sight, under the water. She seemed to feel their touch all over her body. She began to shiver uncontrollably, head baking in the bright day. Her legs buckled and she sank and gasped, mouth filling with tin. She turned and waded for the shore, water grabbing her, slowing her to a deathly pace. She could still feel them garlanding her limbs.