The Pisces(48)

Do you want to go shopping?

I didn’t mean to be cold, but something about her really scared me now. She’d passed over to the darkness, the edge of nothingness, and she’d done it by trying to access the light, the glitter. Those highs, even if they were fake and we knew that they wouldn’t last forever, felt so real when we were in them. That’s where I was now. I just couldn’t discern the ephemeral nature of what I was experiencing, and didn’t want to. Perhaps what I had with Theo was as synthetic as what Claire had with her men, but it felt so good—how could we ever even care when we were in it?

Craving the fake light was a completely real feeling, even if those around you could see that you were just another junkie. I think this is what was most frightening: me and my Theo haze and Claire and her druglike need were the same thing. I didn’t want to look at it; I didn’t want to look at her. To look at her would be to see the danger that I was facing on the other side of Theo’s visit, the darkness that inevitably fell when you spent too much time basking in the sun of a man. To look at her was to know that I was inevitably the cause of my own darkness, my own nothingness. The more you went for the ephemeral light, the more the void opened on the other side. It was waiting for me right there.



I set my alarm for five. I wanted time to try to look beautiful, even though the wind and salt air always washed away anything I did to my hair or face. Dominic, never an early riser, was still asleep—sprawled in the bed where I had been, one ear above the sheets. I picked him up, carried him to the little white loveseat in the bedroom, and covered him with a blanket. He didn’t stir. Then I changed the sheets on the bed so they would smell clean and not like wet dog. I got in the deep tub and soaked. It was cold out and the hot water felt good to my bones.

I brushed my teeth, then drenched myself in one of my sister’s expensive body oils: something called Exotic Seduction made with jasmine, ylang-ylang, vanilla, and lavender oils. I dabbed two extra drops on my nipples and one in my belly button. I applied spearmint lip gloss and rubbed some honey wax in my hair. Then I put on a knee-length gray cotton sundress and a wool sweater. I brought two large blankets outside and placed them in the wagon, unlocked the gate, and started dragging it across the sand. It was quiet. No one was out. If anyone saw me they would have thought I was using the wagon to carry my beach stuff out for the day. I was simply having a beach day.

I got to the rocks and saw the rosy dawn, the sun rising over the mountains. The rocks were cold and wet, and each wave that came in slapped against them—making its own little crash for a moment, then vanishing. I hadn’t slept much and felt giddy. What the hell was going on? I was out here looking for a merman. Was I crazy? Was I becoming just another Venice lost soul, belongings in a wagon, having insane visions by the ocean? I laughed aloud to myself. I imagined moving onto the beach at the end of the summer when Annika returned. I could sleep under the stars, meeting Theo every night. Then I could go eat breakfast and shower in their multimillion-dollar home. The thought of moving to the water’s edge seemed romantic in that moment. Sappho had always lived by the ocean, imagining love as a luminous divinity rising from the waves. This would be my living thesis.



Then I saw Theo’s head surface, his thick wet hair draped over his left eye.

“Hey!” he said, spitting out water.

“Can you see when you’re underwater?”

“Yes,” he said. “I live there.”

“Well, I’m here to kidnap you,” I said.

“No, I’m willfully coming,” he said. “I’m coming up. Land ho.”

He looked around to see if anyone was coming.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding about a wagon. You are really committed to doing this, I see.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “I think we should at least try, anyway. I will protect you. I just want to be safe with you, no elements, just a soft place to land together, by ourselves.”

“I really want to be with you,” he said.

I shuddered.

He climbed up onto the rocks belly first, then flipped himself over, grunting.

“Need help?” I asked.

“I’m okay.”

I rolled the wagon over to the edge of the rocks and held it steady. As he dragged himself on board, he looked like a paraplegic pulling himself onto a seat. He rolled over just using his arms to rearrange himself and tucked where his knees would be up to his chest. I draped the blanket around his shoulders and let it collect in front of him, covering the bulk of his tail. We were good, it seemed. But hoisting the wagon off the rocks proved more difficult than I thought. I pulled left and right, and the tin axles ground. He tried to push off the rock with his arms, like a man in a wheelchair, face straining. With him pushing, I gave a final tug and the wagon fell onto the beach, toppling over and dumping Theo in the sand.



“Oh my God, are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said. But I noticed he was shaking.

“Would you cover me up with the blanket quickly? Please?”

The wagon and blanket were only a few feet from where he had fallen, but I realized how hard it would be for him to even crawl that far. I wondered if his tail was heavy, what was inside it. Was it human flesh or fish flesh? I covered up his bottom half and he just lay there for a second.