Georgie, All Along (46)

“I’m doing it,” I tell her, because last night, lying in the probably three million thread count sheets of Bel’s guest room bed, my lower back aching from my unexpected shift, staying on top of the list had felt . . . insistent. I had a win at The Shoreline, whatever my lingering misgivings about Levi had been, and I needed to stay focused, stay confident. I’d do Buzzard’s Neck, and then I’d be ready to go back to my parents’ place. Fully set back on my new path of no-more-blankness, with absolutely no distractions.

Bel’s quiet beside me, and I think she’s given up on trying to talk me out of it. But then she says, “Teenagers probably don’t think about brain-eating amoebas.”

“What?”

“You know, the . . . amoebas. That get into people’s brains, from water.”

“From this water?”

Bel shrugs. “I don’t see why not this water.”

“You built a house on this water!”

She chews her lip. “This water is different, though.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m not going to be in there long. Hand me the Sharpie.”

She hesitates. “I think amoebas move fast.”

“Oh my God, Bel.”

“I’m only saying.”

I breathe through an unexpectedly sharp pulse of annoyance, vague memories nudging at the edge of my brain. Why was it that we never got around to doing Buzzard’s Neck back then? Was it stuff like this, worries over microscopic brain eaters? Was it Bel having too much homework, or Bel not wanting to lie to her mom?

I hold out my hand, palm up, making a curt give it over gesture. She sighs and takes the Sharpie out of her purse.

“Okay,” she says, her voice softer as she passes it to me, and I can tell she’s chastened. “What was this one all about, then?”

I take a breath, hoping that gunky smell isn’t amoebas. “Magic, maybe?” I know I’m not quite capturing it. “Taking a risk for something I wanted, maybe, even if it was something silly.”

Bel nods. “Okay. So, wish on your arm, and then you jump in, yeah?”

“Yep.” I tap the Sharpie against my wrist. I’m thinking about what I’ll write when she speaks again.

“Don’t be mad.”

I look over at her. She’s shifting her weight back and forth between her feet, and I know what’s coming.

“I’m not going to be mad,” I say, resigned.

“I have to pee.”

I groan.

“I’m sorry! It’s the sound! All this water, you know?”

I heave another sigh, tucking the marker into the pocket of my shorts. “All right. We’ll go back home.”

She looks affronted. “Are you kidding? I won’t make it back home.” She gestures back toward the copse of trees, near where Harry’s parked. “I’ll go over there.”

“Bel, you cannot pee in the woods! How are you going to lecture me about brain-eating amoebas and then drop trou in the woods?”

She shrugs. “My bladder doesn’t listen to arguments; it has no fear! My bladder is a teenager.”

“Fine, go pee.” I take out the marker again, uncap it. “I’ll think of what to write.”

“Do not jump in there before I get back. Georgie, I swear, do not.”

“I won’t.” I’m a strong swimmer, and none of the water around here is all that deep, but now I’m also nervous about amoebas, not that Bel’s going to be able to do anything about those.

Soon enough, she’s gone the way of Harry, and I wonder if on her way to pee she’ll stop and give him a married-people look through the windshield. I move farther down the dock, toward the edge of where I’ll eventually jump, and hook my left arm, turning it so the pale, lightly freckled expanse of my forearm faces up. I hold the Sharpie poised over the surface, but I’m stumped. For kids, the point of this tradition wasn’t to wish for the big, important things; no one came to Buzzard’s Neck to write “WORLD PEACE” on their arm before plunging in. People wrote things like “Making cheer team” or “New F-150 for my 16th.” It’s not difficult to think of what I would’ve written back then—it definitely would’ve had to do with Evan, who I’ll probably be serving food alongside sometime this week, and who I have no wishes for other than a new hiring strategy for his family’s restaurant.

I consider doing a wish for Bel’s baby, something about climate change or universal health care, but that’s world peace adjacent, and anyway, it’s not a wish about me. I need the grown-up equivalent of wishing for a specific date to prom.

Annoyingly, I think of Levi. That dark beard and that quirk in his cheek when he smiles. The way he looks at me, at least when I haven’t just kissed him. The fic I could write about that look alone . . .

I close my eyes, trying to shut out the thought.

“Hey!”

At first I think I might be having some kind of auditory hallucination brought on by thoughts of him, or maybe by a brain-eating amoeba that got to me through the air. But then I hear it again, a sharp, urgent, “Hey!” and I know I’m not hallucinating that.

“Levi?” I say, opening my eyes and seeing him in the near distance—him and Hank—in a small johnboat that’s the same olive-green color as Levi’s ball cap. I’m surprised enough that I forget for a second all about my embarrassment. I smile and raise my hand to wave enthusiastically, wholly delighted by the coincidence of finding them here.