Imaginary Girls(93)

Alone with Ruby.

I took a step closer to the water. I was always hesitant at first, careful. There were the hands that might make a grab for me, and I knew how strong the people were down at the bottom, how their weight got doubled by the water, but how fast they still were, faster than you’d think.

All it took was one tug.

Then you’d fall.

Imagine tumbling through a dark tunnel, its walls made of mud and nothing to hold on to, nowhere to climb. Imagine distance was measured in cupfuls, and someone just poured in a whole lagoon. Imagine being so drenched, your bones got soggy. Imagine the cold.

It’d be wet like nothing I’d ever felt before, not even that time our mom left me too long in the bath and Ruby came home to find me pruned and greased up with soap, splashing a tidal wave over the bath mat.

Falling would last a day and a night and part of the day after that—the reservoir was deeper than anyone who dug it in 1914 even knew. And when I hit bottom, I’d look up and up, and there’d be muck in the way—leaves and scum and tire goo, and junk like old sneakers and bottles people threw in—and that’s all I’d see of sky from then on.

All that, Ruby used to tell me.

Now, I stood at the edge. I didn’t call her name; I wasn’t deranged, not like people said. She wouldn’t have been able to hear me if I did, not with all the water in the way.

I thought about what happened. She’d tried to save me—twice. The first time, when I almost drowned, she reached out to find someone to give instead and it only happened to be London. But the second time, the worst and final time, she jumped in herself to take my place. I would have gone instead, if only I’d known.

If she could hear me, that’s what I’d tell her.

I climbed out to a rock I often sat on, the one that jutted past the others, half-submerged. I felt like one of those kids with a relative in prison, counting off their sentence until the day they got out. A wall of glass separated them, and armed guards were always watching. No touching, not ever. They could bring gifts if allowed: magazines, and pictures to paste on cell walls, but everything would have to be searched first. And once they left, they couldn’t send texts.

I was luckier. I didn’t have to wait for visiting days—I could come anytime, though that didn’t mean I’d get to see her. And I could stay all night if I wanted to. I lived with my mother, reluctantly, and even though she was sober again she wouldn’t care how late I was out, even on a school night. Maybe she knew who I came to see.

I fanned out the magazines and laid out some strawberry candies from Cumby’s. I put out one cigarette—just the one; because once she was back, she could have one and then she was officially quitting—and her naked hula-lady lighter. I was careful not to get any of it wet. I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen in winter, when the reservoir froze over. We didn’t have enough time together as it was.

Then I waited.

Sometimes the time passed quickly, and before I knew it the alarm was going off on my cell phone to let me know I should drive back home, since I had school the next morning. But, other nights, time felt light-years long, like how a star spied through a telescope on Earth is really a sun that could have died already, years ago, and it took that long for its light to reach our eyes down here.

That could have been the way with sound in Olive, too. How I could call for her one Thursday night in November, and three Novembers from now she’d finally hear me. I hoped it wasn’t, but I worried it was.

If you want something badly enough, it can come true—you just have to make it that way. By believing. I think she told me this once.

This was what I believed: That one night, it would happen. She’d see me on this rock, see me waiting for her, and she’d swim up.

Maybe she’d make a play for my ankles, get me to shriek. Or she’d try to catch my attention first, like I’d find her in the beam of my flashlight out in the middle of the reservoir, there where the light could hardly reach. But more likely she’d just walk out as if she’d been lounging about down there, wishing for a tan all this time. She’d keep it casual; she wouldn’t want to upset me.

She’d climb up on the rock. She’d look the same as always, except her hair would be longer, swirling past her waist. Once up at the surface, she’d be cold, surely; I should remember to bring a sweater. Other than that, she wouldn’t look any different—just paler. But if I put a hand to her chest, I wouldn’t feel air filling her lungs, now that she’d grown the gills.