Undertow (9 page)

A cauldron boiled inside her and threatened to bubble over. She picked at her jeans, squeezing the fabric which covered her knees. When the train finally arrived at her stop, she lurched forward, grabbing the bar on the seat in front of her to pull herself upright. The two girls stared at her wide-eyed and giggling. Marissa envied them;
if ignorance was bliss, stupidity must be total ecstasy
. She exited and dashed across the street before the light changed.

Powell’s on Burnside was huge—an entire city block full of books. Easily the biggest bookstore in the world, if what she needed wasn’t here, somewhere in this huge inventory of books, she doubted she could find it anywhere else. A true book heaven. The city library was her backup plan, but Marissa would only go there a last resort. All those homeless teens hanging out on the steps of the huge marble building made her feel guilty and sad. But if Powell’s didn’t pan out, the library was next. She had to know the truth.

Today.

Unlike the passengers on the train, none of the customers in Powell’s paid her any notice, though the aisles were already dotted with people. She fished in her bag for a loose five dollar bill and bought herself a peppermint latte. Might as well be in the holiday spirit; this could be her last Christmas. On land.

The coffee cup began to burn her hands, so she set it next to the kiosk. She rubbed her hands together like Aladdin and his magic lamp and keyed in the search terms: 
Merman. Agnete. Underwater cities.
Dozens of titles popped up; she scratched down a few of the call numbers and was about to start hunting for the books when a clerk approached. Cropped black hair, nose ring, tattoos on her neck; the clerk’s own personal fashion statement was like a walking poster for the city’s motto:
Keep Portland Weird
. She approached Marissa like a co-conspirator of the avant-garde.

“Wow. That’s a long list. Mermaids, huh? You need any help finding all those?”

Marissa clutched the list to her chest. Shaking her head no, she darted away.

“Wait! You left your drink,” the girl called after her.

Turning back to claim the cup, Marissa peered at the clerk under her lashes. There was something about the way the clerk looked at her, like she knew Marissa’s secret. She scrambled off and bumped into another employee before she made it to the first aisle.

“What can I help you find?”

This time she tried the niece routine she had rehearsed on the drive to the Max station. “Do you have any books for little girls? About mermaids? My niece is done with princesses and stuff, and I need to find something for her before they get in town tonight.”

And it worked. He pointed to the children’s section, and seemed as relieved to see her go as she was to leave.

Her arms were loaded with as many books as they could hold before she quit. She couldn’t afford them all, so she wandered around until locating a stool in one of the canyons between the rows of ceiling-high bookshelves.

She piled the volumes on the floor at her feet and examined the title of the book on the top of the stack:
Agnete
. An intense buzzing like a synthesized bass began inside her chest and spread to her limbs.

George’s stories weren’t his own fabrication, she confirmed.
Agnete and the Merman
was an actual Danish tale which Hans Christian Anderson embellished into his
Little Mermaid
. In the pile underneath that text, several other books recounted the tale, children’s books about mermaids, scholarly treatises on the history of such legends. Plus a book about sea caves in the Bahamas called blue holes.

Marissa leafed through the pages. Too bad there was no way to get them home. She gathered up all of the books and stashed them on the lowest shelf before going to the center of the store and seizing a bound journal from the stationary display. On its cover was a picture of dolphins arching over turquoise waters. Perfect. She’d just pay for it on her way out; who would care?
She returned to her aisle and sunk to the floor, retrieving the books from their hiding place.

Driven by Jim’s impending arrival, she tore into the volumes, occasionally scowling up at customers who glared at her for blocking their way. She discovered a bit of evidence in one text and jotted down the passage, tossing the book on the floor as she grabbed another and searched it for more pieces to the puzzle.

Marissa reached for her coffee and knocked it over. The milky fluid spilled and formed a small puddle on the floor, missing the nearest book by less than an inch.

The accident yanked her into the present and Marissa surveyed the scene: a half dozen books open beside her; the notebook, gripped in her left hand; the knuckles on her right hand white from grasping the pen so tightly. Her wrist throbbed. She shuffled through the journal. It was like a stranger had filled the thing with quotes, references, and questions; circles and arrows connected scribbled notes to others. Had she written all that?

She checked the time on her phone. The morning had disappeared; it was now already past one. Pulling herself to her feet, she nearly collapsed as blood rushed through the pins and needles in her legs. Marissa hid the notebook under her arm until she got to the counter.

“You wrote in it already?” The cashier sounded like a librarian who’d caught her in the act of dog-earing a book.

She grunted and handed over a couple of ones and a handful of change. As if she cared what he thought, what any of them thought; now the truth was hers.

The proof was in her hands.

Leaving the receipt on the counter, she strolled through the crowd and out the door. Everyone gawked at her like she was an alien; she ignored their stares and forced down her compulsion to make faces at them as she walked by. So what if they all stared at her, she told herself. She’d never see these people again.

Soon, she’d never see anyone again.

Fifteen

M
aybe taking Kelly up on her offer to drive out to the airport was a mistake. Now she was stuck listening to her incessant chatter.

“It’s none of my business,” Kelly said when she called yesterday to apologize. “Whatever happened with you and Drake—it’s between you guys.”

So leave it there,
she thought
.
Except Kelly wasn’t actually sorry. For her, everything was black and white. No shades of gray in any situation, especially not one involving Marissa’s love life, always a huge concern of hers. Long ago, Kelly turned herself into her coach in all things involving boys. Now that Marissa’s world no longer included Drake, Kelly was bound to focus on Jim. It would be hard work to keep from giving away too much. God knew what a mess she could make of things.

“What’s Johnny up to lately?” she said, trying to keep Kelly’s mind on her own boyfriend and away from hers. Worth a shot, anyway.

Kelly perked up at the mention of Johnny. “Amazing, as always!” She turned her head toward Marissa, and the car swerved sharply to the right.

“Geez, keep your eyes on the road. You’re going to get us killed if you drive like that.”

“Oh, please. Are you my driving teacher?” She laughed and pushed the blond tendrils hanging in her eyes out of the way.

“Driving teacher? Are you sure you had one of those? You’re doing about eighty miles an hour!”

It felt good to joke around, to be normal again. Marissa calculated how long it had been since she felt normal. Almost five months. Since the day she left Drake. She wasn’t even sure what normal was anymore.

“Hey, these are my wheels, and as long as I’m playing chauffer, you get to sit there and shut up about my driving,” Kelly said, grinning.

“Okay, okay. So do you plan to tell me why he’s amazing?”

“You mean, besides the fact that he’s Johnny?”

“Umm, yeah. There’s lots of Johnnies in the world.”

“None like mine!”

“Right. So what’s he done now that’s so amazing?” Marissa was less than thrilled about the prospect of playing audience for a dissertation regarding the greatness of Johnny. Scratch the hypothesis about their breakup, she thought. Kels must have chopped her hair for some other weird reason.

“D.C., as in Washington, Capitol Hill, where the Pres. lives and all that.”

“What’s Johnny got to do with D.C.? He’s going to save the city from itself or something?”

“You got it!” She laughed. “D.C. first—the whole world next. His application won!”

“Sorry, you lost me. What application?”

Her question earned her an eye roll and exaggerated sigh. Apparently, Marissa had forgotten some part of an earlier conversation.

“For the internship, remember?”

Flicking through the files in her brain which contained bits of Kelly-related data, she came up blank.

As though speaking to a dimwit, Kelly said, “Johnny applied for an
internship
at the
Washington office
of the
Ocean Protection Society
. I
told
you about the essay he wrote.”

Marissa nodded. It was the safest strategy at this point; she had no clue about the essay, the internship, or the Ocean Protection Society, but she did know that Kels totally freaked out at such memory lapses. Like it revealed how much she valued their friendship or something. “Wow. They must have been impressed.”

“You think? It was
amazing
! He researched for weeks and weeks before he wrote it, then wrote forever, like the whole semester. Of course they were impressed.”

“Sounds like a ton of work.” Hopefully, she would give some hint of Johnny’s thesis pretty soon; she was getting sick of the mystery show.

“Yeah, especially since he’s
way
more interested in politics than oceans. He had to find an angle.”

 “Okay, I give. Why did he want to go work with the Ocean Protectors or whatever it’s called if he didn’t give a crap about the ocean?”

“God, Issa, give me a break. This guy is brilliant, you know?
Brilliant
. He wants to be in Washington,” she said. “This is just a first step. Next—Congress! He plans to intern with some politician or something. This gets him in the door and schmoozing with the suits as a lobbyist. He’s shooting for Senator someday!”

Johnny now dropped a rung from Marissa’s not-her-type-but-okay-for-Kels category to conniving-guy-with-no-principles. She fiddled with her iPod, shuffling to get a new mix. Then curiosity grabbed her. “What’s his angle?”

“Dead zones,” Kelly shot her a sly smile.

“Dead zones?”

“Haven’t you seen the news at
all
this year? You been too busy with the new boy?”

She ignored the jab.
“Guess not. So what do dead zones have to do with Johnny?”

“They’re getting his butt to D.C., that’s what.” Kelly winked, including her in the conspiracy. “So, he writes this essay about the dead zones and global warming, and how we’re killing the oceans and everything. Goes on like he’s all fired up about the issue. They bought it!”

Proof positive the guy’s a jerk, Marissa decided. She tamped down her disdain. “So what did he say about it?”

Clearly stoked for the opportunity to gloat about her boyfriend’s brilliance, Kelly said, “He wrote that the dead zones showing up every summer now, killing everything in the water closest to the beach, are caused by increases in the average temps.” She glanced at Marissa before sighing again. “To break it down: global warming is killing the oceans, not sewage or fertilizer runoff like everybody thinks.”