Black Water (2 page)

For
at such moments time accelerates. Near the point of impact, time accelerates to
the speed of light.

Patches of amnesia like white paint
spilling into her brain.

She heard, as the
toyota
smashed into a guard-
rail that, rusted to lacework,
appeared to give way without retarding the car's speed at all, The Senator's
single startled expletive—"Hey!"

And then the water out of nowhere
flooding over them.
Over
the hood of the car.
Over the cracked windshield.
Churning in roiling waves as if alive, and angry.

At brown university, where she had
graduated
summa
cum laude with a bachelor's degree in American Studies, Kelly Kelleher,
baptismal name Elizabeth Anne Kelleher, had written her ninety-page senior
honor's thesis on The Senator.

Its subtitle was "Jeffersonian
Idealism and 'New Deal' Pragmatism: Liberal Strategies in Crisis."

She had worked very hard: researching
The Senator's three campaigns for the Senate, his career in the Senate, his
influence within the Democratic Party and the likelihood of his being nominated
as his party's candidate for president,
and
for her effort she had received a grade of
A...
Kelly Kelleher's undergraduate grades in her major were usually
A's
...
and nearly a page of handwritten
commentary and praise from her advisor.

This
had been five years ago.
When she'd been young.

Meeting
The Senator that afternoon, her small-boned hand so vigorously shaken in his
big gregarious hand, Kelly instructed herself,
Do
not
bring the subject up.

And
so she had not.
Until much later.

When,
things having developed
so
rapidly as they had, it
would have been to no purpose
not
to.

Scorpio for the
month of July, she, Buffy, and Stacey had read giggling in the new
Glamour
the night before:
Too much caution in
revealing your impulses and desires to others! For once demand YOUR wishes and
get YOUR own way! Your stars are wildly romantic now, Scorpio, after a period
of disappointment—
GO
FOR IT!

Poor
Scorpio, so easily bruised.
So easily dissuaded.

That
sullen haughty look that so annoyed Artie Kelleher, the father: that
inward-gnawing look that so worried Madelyn Kelleher, the mother.
Yes I love you please will you let me alone?

Poor
Scorpio, twenty-six years eight months old, yet susceptible, still, to
adolescent skin problems!
The ignominy of it, the rage.
Her thin fair skin that was too thin, too fair.
Those
mysterious hives, rashes.
Allergies inflaming her
eyes.
Yes and acne, near-invisible but gritty little pimples at her
hairline...

When
her lover had loved her she'd been beautiful. When she'd been beautiful her
lover had loved her. It was a simple proposition, a seemingly tautological
proposition, yet it resisted full comprehension.

So,
she would not try to comprehend it. She would embark upon a new life a new
adventure a wildly romantic adventure, reckless Scorpio.

Kelly kelleher had tactfully suggested
that
The Senator
turn on the Toyota's headlights, and now as they made their way deeper into the
marshland following what appeared to be an abandoned secondary road the headlights
bounced and careened with the car's speed since The Senator, impatient,
muttering under his breath, was driving erratically swinging the car along the
bumpy road not minding how the remains of his vodka-and-tonic splashed over the
rim of the plastic cup, onto the seat and onto Kelly Kelleher's thigh, the
cotton-knit fabric of her new summer shift. The Senator was what is
known
as an aggressive driver and his adversary was the road, the gathering dusk, the
distance between himself and his destination, and the rapidly shrinking
quantity of time he had to get to that destination, pressing down hard and
petulant on the gas pedal bringing the car's speed up to forty miles an hour,
and then hitting the brakes going into a turn, and then pressing down hard on the
gas pedal again so that the car's tires protested faintly spinning before
taking hold in the sandy glutinous soil, and then hitting the brakes again. The
giddy rocking motion of the car was like hiccups, or copulation.

The
way, Kelly uneasily recalled
,
her father had sometimes
driven after one of his and her mother's mysterious disagreements the more
mysterious and the more disturbing in Kelly's memory for being wordless.

Don't
ask. Sit up straight. It's fine. It's all right. You know you're someone's little
girl don't you?

They
would have a late dinner at the motel.
Room service—of
course.
Impossible to risk the dining room.
Any restaurant in Boothbay Harbor at the height of the tourist
season.

She
was not apprehensive, and she did not
think,
when the
time came, she would be frightened. But she was alert. Sober.
Memorizing the adventure.

How
the headlights in wild drunken swings illuminated the road that was scarcely
wide enough for a single car and illuminated with a beauty that made her stare
the swamp water in sheets outspread for miles on every side like bright shards
of mirror amid the tangled vegetation.

At
dusk, inland, darkness rose from the earth even as the sky retained light. There
was a pale-glowering moon flat as a coin. Dyed-looking shreds of reddened cloud
in the western sky and in the east at the ocean's horizon
a
sky
shading subtly to night, bruised as an overripe plum.

Thinking,
Lost.

Thinking,
An adventure.

Thinking
coolly even as her teeth rattled in her head as the man beside her braked the
car, accelerated, braked, braked harder and accelerated harder, that she was
not frightened, what she felt was excitement: that adrenaline-charge: as, on
the beach, earlier that day, she'd felt the urgency of a man's desire, and
vowed to herself, No I will
not.

Even
as that sly tickle of a thought ran through her head, Yes
why
not?

Poor Scorpio.
Cunning Scorpio.

Thinking
of how it had been chance, this Fourth of July on Grayling Island. She'd had
other invitations. She hadn't been desperate for invitations for the long
weekend. But she had decided to accept Buffy's invitation, and now she was
here, now she was
here
, seated close beside The Senator on
this wild
wild
ride to the ferry at Brockden's
Landing, unsure where
here
was as night came on.

You're
an American
girl,
you deserve to make YOUR wishes
known and to have YOUR own way once in a while.

Just
before the car flew off the road Kelly Kelleher wrinkled her nose smelling...
was it raw sewage?

Just
before the car flew off the road Kelly Kelleher saw that she was gripping the
strap at her shoulder so hard, her knuckles had gone white.

Just
before the car flew off the road Kelly Kelleher at last said, as tactfully as
possible, raising her voice without seeming to raise it—for The Senator seemed
slightly hard of hearing in his right ear, "I think we're lost,
Senator."

As
a little girl Kelly had once spoken loudly to an uncle of hers when the family
was seated at Thanksgiving dinner, and though Uncle Babcock was forever asking
others to repeat themselves, and was forever complaining of people mumbling,
he'd taken offense at Kelly's raised voice. Staring coldly at her saying,
"Miss, you don't need to shout:
I'm
not deaf."

So
too perhaps she had offended The Senator, who did not reply, sipping clumsily
from his plastic cup and wiping his mouth on the back of his
sunburnt
hand and peering straight ahead, as if, unlike
Kelly Kelleher, he could see through the shadowy swamp-thicket to the ocean
that could not possibly be more than a few miles away.

And
then The Senator
said,
a chuckle deep in his throat
like phlegm, "This is a shortcut, Kelly. There's only one direction and we
can't be lost."

"Yes,"
said Kelly, very carefully very tactfully, licking her lips which were parched,
staring ahead too but seeing nothing except the headlights illuminating the
tunnel of road, vegetation, mirror-shards glittering out of the shadows,
"—but the road is so poor."

"Because it's a shortcut, Kelly.
I'm sure."

Kelly!
—her
heart tripped absurdly, her face went hot, hearing her name, that name given
her by schoolgirl friends, on this man's lips. So casually so intimately on
this man's lips
as if he knows me, feels affection for me.

Just before the car flew off the road.