When We Believed in Mermaids(38)
“No. I’m sure.”
He touches my arm. “Will you listen again sometime?”
That swirling thing expands, engulfs us, and we’re enclosed in a world of our own. His thumb rests on my inner arm, and I see that his irises are not as dark as they first seemed but lit with amber. “Yes,” I say quietly, sure I don’t mean it.
“Good.”
We make one last departure when the ferry stops at Rangitoto. Ordinarily it would just be a pickup, but another ferry has been waylaid, and this one is going to do double duty. We have to wait for an hour for everyone to come off the mountain. “You’re welcome to disembark and explore a bit, if y’like,” the steward says over the loudspeaker. “Be warned we’ll be leaving at sixteen hundred hours.”
Rather than sit in the hot sun, we opt to explore. I’m wearing walking sandals, and Javier is in jeans and good shoes, so we don’t go far, just up to the visitors’ center and a small lagoon where birds hop and twitter and gather. I hear long, fluid whistles and a squished little squawk, and around us are plants I’ve never seen. My mother would love it, and she’d probably be able to identify many of them. I’m drawn down a path shaded by tree ferns and land ferns and a pretty flowering tree. A bird overhead seems to be engaged in a long whistling conversation, and I grin, looking up to see if I can find him, but there are only more ferns and leaves and tropical-looking things.
My heart suddenly turns over. How remarkable that I’m standing here in this place. “It’s amazing!”
The rustle of wings alerts us, and Javier touches my arm, pointing to the bird who’s been making so much noise, black with a thick brown saddle over its shoulder. I admire it in wonder, mouthing Wow to Javier, who nods.
We wander back to the main dock area, where people, dusty and sunburned as they come down from hiking, are gathering for the trip back to the city. “Do you like to hike?” I ask Javier.
His lips turn down. “I don’t know. I do like walking. Do you hike?”
“I love it. Being outside like that, all day, just the trail and the birds and the trees. I live by the redwoods. They’re incredible trees.”
“Mm. Would you want to hike to that peak?” He points to the top of the volcano. It’s not an actual invitation but a query on preference.
I look to the top, shrug. “It would be fantastic.”
He nods, measures the height. “I might not care for that.”
And for the first time, there is something I’m not sure I like about him. No surfing, no hiking. I’m used to more vigorous men.
Then I remember the way he swam, with sure, strong strokes, and realize he’s fit enough. Perhaps people in Madrid are not as interested in climbing mountains and challenging waves as those in California.
We walk toward the pier and lean on the railing there. A gaggle of teenage boys, all part of some tour group, are jumping off tall concrete pilings to the water below, egging on the others.
“Did you see the trees across the street from the high-rise?” he asks.
“No.” It’s hard to look away from the boys and their dangerous game. I wonder who’s in charge, but it doesn’t really seem as if anyone is.
Chill, I tell my inner ER doc. Not everything is a disaster.
Javier, following me as I edge farther up the pier, says, “I walked there yesterday. It’s a little park or something, and the trees are old and full of character. As if they might walk around when no one is watching.”
I look over at him, snared by the fairy-tale image. “Really?”
Two boys are shouting, drawing our attention, and we watch as they scramble to a higher piling and leap off, yelling. I’m tapping my index finger on the railing that separates us from the water. Below us, the boys surface and laugh, and others are scrambling to the higher piling. Tourists and hikers laze against the railing, taking sips of water from bottles, smearing on sunscreen, eating.
A very tall boy with messy black hair dripping on his back gets to the top of the piling, joking and laughing with some of the others.
I see it before I see it—his foot sliding out from under him on the wet concrete, his body tilting, shifting, arms flying out—
And his head hits the edge of the concrete, visibly splitting right in front of me.
“Get out of the way!” I yell, and I’m kicking off my shoes and shedding my dress practically before the boy hits the water with an excruciating splat. I run to the end of the dock and dive toward the place he went in. The water is cold and murky, but late-afternoon sun illuminates the shape of his body. Another body is in the water with me, and we meet and yank, both of us swimming toward the surface. Blood from his head pours out in a dark cloud.
We break the surface. The other rescuer is another boy from the group, a strong swimmer. “Head for shore!” I yell, and we swim together, dragging the deadweight of the body between us toward the seawall, where others meet us and haul the injured boy upward.
“Help me up!” I cry. “I’m a doctor.”
And there are hands hauling me too, and I’m beside the boy, giving him mouth-to-mouth until he chokes and expels a gutful of water, but that doesn’t raise him to consciousness. His head is bleeding heavily. “Give me your shirt,” I order the other boy, and he tugs it off and hands it to me. Squeezing out the excess water, I press it to the cut, holding it there as I check his vitals and his pupils, but his eyes are so black it’s hard to tell. He needs a hospital, fast.