Vicious Deep (3 page)

“Oh.” Nurse Christine grabs my wrist with her gentle fingers and then pulls at the white tabs with one swift movement. It doesn't exactly hurt, but it's like peeling off tape all at once.

“Tristan,” Mom says in her
Did-you-hear-me-or-what?
tone. “Bathroom. Clothes. Now. Please.”

I stand too quickly before realizing there is no back to my hospital gown. Not that my mother didn't give birth to me, and not that Layla hasn't seen me in nothing but a banana hammock from the swim team's uniform, and one time the team decided it'd be a good idea to skinny-dip for Valentine's Day. But this is a
tad
invasive.

Layla and my mother giggle behind their hands while I try to hold the back of my gown together and walk backward into the bathroom.

“You wouldn't think it's so funny after you've just escaped the hands of
death
,” I shout at them once I've closed the door. I sit on the toilet to inspect my body for any more grime they missed. The sand is mostly gone, but I wish I had a life-sized scratch post to rub my entire body against until the itch goes away. I scratch at my chest and wince at the burn. In the mirror I notice thin red scratches that are still scabbing.
What happened to me?

I put on my navy-blue canvas shorts and a white V-neck that's almost worn thin from salt water and detergent. I run the faucet and splash cold water on my face. I could have died. I could have drowned. I've been missing for three days, and I don't remember any of it. I want to throw up, but all I do is dry heave into the sink.

I rinse out my mouth, examine myself in the mirror. The skin on my cheekbones and over my nose is slightly red and peeling. My lips are dry and flaky. I have some bruises on my forearms and bumps on either side of my neck like a rash. But all in all, nothing that'll scar my face and put me on active duty in the school's bell tower.

When I walk back into the room, Nurse Christine stops at the door when she sees me. She smiles again, really smiles. Her teeth are a little big for her tiny round face, but it's still a pretty effect. She ducks out of room without saying anything else but, “It was nice to meet you.”

Layla rolls her eyes and takes a manila folder my mom hands her. She's stuck the mangled daisy behind her ear. She stuffs the folder in a canvas bag so old that one of the straps has ripped and been replaced with a red leather belt I got as a white-elephant gift a few grades ago from a person who forgot to buy a unisex gift. I remember Layla's gift being a Han Solo action figure, and we traded.

“Are those my records?”

Mom and Layla shrug.

I shake my head. “So you're in on this too?”

Layla looks at me with her honey hazel eyes and nods. The flower is already drooping, missing its water bed. It isn't staying in place, so she takes it and throws it in the wastebasket by the door. “The doctor was talking about keeping you here for ‘extended observation.' There is no way you should've survived, but you did. So just shut up and listen.” She pokes her finger on my chest where the scratches are.

“Stop hitting me.
Mom
.”

“You two stop that,” Mom says, holding on to a huge bouquet of orchids and some strange wildflowers I've never seen before. She loves orchids. “How do you feel?”

I know when I'm being overruled. “I feel good. Sore, obviously. Nothing some Tylenol won't fix.” Oh, and the giant black spot where a memory of the last three days ought to be, but surely nothing to worry about.

“Now, you listen to me. I don't want you ending up in a government lab experiment, because that's what's going to happen.” She looks through the little glass window on the door and sticks her head out. I'm used to my mom being—
eccentric
is what the other mothers call her—but this is different. It's like she's actually scared for me. She has to stop watching those conspiracy shows.

Layla leans in close to whisper, “Your mom's been acting a little crazy, but don't argue. You don't know what it's been like for her.”

I pull a yellow petal from her hair. “Just for her?”

But she doesn't answer me, because Mom goes, “Okay, just follow me.” And she's out the door, leaving us to follow her trail of red hair.

The hospital is a mess of white and blue coats and stethoscopes.

Everyone walks like a windup toy, forward and side to side, but never backward. Nurses push trays; doctors walk in and out of rooms. I wonder if Nurse Christine will get in any trouble because of me.

My train of thought is broken when an old lady in a wheelchair
harrumphs
loudly as she gets in the elevator with us, as if our closeness offends her. She's got a pink pamphlet in her hand, folded like a little accordion. She's fanning herself lightly with it. She's humming a melody that I've heard somewhere but can't remember where. When she looks up at me, she purses her lips and lifts her fan higher to cover everything except her eyes.

I lean back against the elevator wall between my mom and Layla, who hold their flower pots as they stare at the descending numbers lighting up. A phone rings, and Layla reaches into her pocket. I wonder who it is.

The old woman looks back up at me, but this time the face isn't her own. Her eyes are the color of pearl with dilated irises. Her skin is translucent, like it's pulled too tightly over bone.

I feel my heart jump in my throat. I stumble backward and hit the wall. I close my eyes hard, the way I used to when I thought something was hiding in my room behind the window curtains. I count to three, just like I did back then, and when I open them, the old woman is the old woman again. My mom and Layla stare at me as if to say,
Have
you
lost
your
mind?

The doors open and the woman rolls out onto the second floor.

I swallow hard. “Thought I saw a spider by her feet.” And the medal for the manliest man in the hospital goes to…
Tristan
Hart!

When the doors close, Layla slaps my shoulder. “What is wrong with you? She's like one hundred.”

“Me? She was just kind of scary-looking—”

“You're so—”

“Tristan, that was unkind,” my mom interjects, standing in front of the door. Before I can respond, the door opens and we're in the lobby. We get out and a group of women holding shiny blue balloons walks in. One of them stares at me so long that she trips on the girl in front of her and a balloons floats up to the hospital ceiling.

“Is it just me, or does it smell like puke?”

Layla rolls her eyes. I can't remember a time when she found me this irritating. Usually she laughs at my stupid jokes or contributes to them. “It's a
hospital
. You're being weirder than usual,” she says.

How can I tell her that I'm going crazy without her freaking out? Maybe I can drop it into normal dinner conversation.
“Say, Mom and Dad and other people present? I think I'm seeing a monstrous woman's face on the head of an old lady and hearing this incessant humming every now and then. No, nothing to worry about. Just wanted to let you know in case my heart suddenly stops from being scared shitless.”

“Hell-
o?
” Layla snaps her fingers in front of my face. She adjusts the weight of the bouquet against her chest. One of the flowers keeps falling into her face.

“Sorry.” I grab the vase from her and follow her out. Mom is already stepping through the revolving doors with her chin up like we're walking through the mall, and she's glancing at the people around us.

“What are you thinking about?” Layla asks when we step out into the warm, sticky air.

I squint against the bright white-gray sky. “The weather, of course.”

“It's been like this since—you know. The
Brooklyn
Star
is calling it the Perfect Storm. So original, ugh. I'm pretty sure they have all their reporters scavenging the beach, even though they've been told not to.”

I struggle to laugh, but I can't. Either something really wrong is happening here, or I'm just imagining things. Either way, I've decided I'm crazy.

My dad is parked down the block in his 1969 surf-green Mustang. He bought it at the monthly Coney Island Community Auction. It's the only way to keep the buildings from being bought up by developers who want to make Coney Island like Atlantic City. Dad got the car cheap because so much work needed to be done to it. At that point it was the color of rust, and the interior looked like it was a hostel for runaway possums. With the help of my six-year-old self, Dad restored it. He couldn't have put this baby together if I hadn't been his wrench and sandwich gofer. Now it smells like eleven years of worn leather and pine-tree air freshener.

I usually jump over the side of the car and hop into the backseat, but now I have zero energy. I think they notice, but no one says anything as they strap themselves into their seat belts. Maddy is already sitting with the bouquet of daisies on her lap. She's in the middle seat, even though her legs are too long and she'd be better at either window. I suspect she wants to sit next to me, even though I don't see how she can stand being in the same room as me. Why do some girls put themselves in such painful situations?

She gives me a tiny smile, and for a second I feel even more miserable because she's here. It's kind of pathetic. She means well, she does, but she's like a stray that won't take a hint.

“Gave me quite a scare, Finn.” Dad looks at me in the rearview mirror. He hasn't called me that in a long time.

“I'm fine,” I say, but I'm not starting to feel so fine anymore. Something I don't say often, if ever. My stomach hurts, and my head is throbbing. “Just starving. Oh, and Mom's going to get us arrested.”

“Come now, honey. That's absurd.”

Dad laughs. “I've already given them a check for the estimated bill. Good thing you were only there a day.” He pulls into the Brooklyn traffic. With his ash-blond hair and freckly Irish nose, he and I look nothing alike. My hair comes down just to the bottom of my neck in brown waves. It looks curlier when I just get out of water, though. He's five-foot-eight to my six-foot-two-and-still-growing. Dad wears round glasses under his blue-framed Ray-Bans when he drives in the summer. When he was my age, he was a Long Beach surfer who just happened to be a computer whiz in the early '80s. But I think I'm like him in the way that matters. We love the beach, old rock, fried food, and driving my mother crazy.

Mom turns in her seat and pulls down the sun visor. Her red hair blows all over her face. Viking red, she calls it, though we've never met any of her family, not even her parents, to compare.

“You should know that there are going to be a few people acting strangely around you,” Dad adds.

I think of the old lady in the elevator, the white of her eyes, and try to shake it off by staring at other things. There's the Real Taj Mahal restaurant and the DVD store that never has any new releases. And the grocery store with all the expired canned food but with the best illegal fireworks China can make.

“I had to unplug the house phone, because somehow every reporter in New York City has our number.”

“Yeah,” I go. “Layla said the
Brooklyn
Star
is all over it. Maybe we should charge them a dollar every time they call.”

“It's not worth the invasion of privacy,” Dad says.

“Or the government people who'll want to take you away,” Mom says, which makes everyone laugh. Except I think she's really serious.

Maddy runs a hand over the length of her braid, something she does when she feels uncomfortable and awkward, which is pretty much all the time. She's painted her nails black, which is surprising since her mother doesn't even let her own makeup.

“You got lucky,” she says to me, but keeps her eyes on the road ahead. “I don't know how you got so lucky, but someone out there is madly in love with you.”

I want to shrink into my seat at that. That was the last thing she said to me the night before the storm. The night of the bonfire at the beach when she saw me kissing another girl right after she said the words, “Tristan, I am madly in love with you.”

“How does pizza sound?” my dad asks.

“Good,” the three of us say in unison.

The sky rumbles, and the staticky radio station has completely gone into white noise. Dad pulls over in front of Dominick's Pizza on the corner of our street. Lightning crashes in the distance. The streets are uncommonly empty. Layla and Maddy volunteer to get us a table and run inside, even though it doesn't look necessary. I walk a little slower behind them as they whisper hand in hand and turn only once to look at me over their shoulders.
Girls.

There is only one man sitting in the pizzeria at the counter in front of the window. The man's skin is sunburn-leather brown, and he wears a blue cap with the words “Save the Whales” stitched in white. There's something funny about one of his eyes. It's coated with a yellow film. The other one is perfect. He rests his chin on his knuckles. I push the door and it jingles. The men behind the counter are already showering the girls with attention, getting the booth ready for five as if we're the only customers they've seen all day. With the exception of the “Save the Whales” guy.

When the man sees me, he sets his bad eye in my direction and points out the window.

“Can't be long now,” he says.

“For what?” I'm born and raised in Brooklyn. I know better than to engage with the crazies. But his craziness makes me feel less so.

He shakes his head, picks up his paper plate, translucent with pizza grease, rolls it into the cylinder shape of a telescope, and puts his good eye to one opening. He points the other end toward the shore. “No, not too long. Must be quick. Vicious they is.” He smacks his lips like he's still trying to taste the tomato sauce on them.

I'm about to say, “Quicker than who?” but Mom and Dad walk in with a jingle. They hold hands and look from me to the old man. I shrug and stand aside, kind of wanting to hear more of what he has to say but knowing I should really go and sit down.

The man crunches up his telescope into a little ball and throws it over his shoulder onto the floor, the way my mom does with salt. He makes for the exit. There's a heavy thud on the ground when his wooden leg struggles to hold his weight.

He leans in close to me and whispers, “Don't go trustin' them.” He points at his face. “They'll take your eyes out, they will.”

He looks at my mother as if he's surprised to see her standing there, like he knows her. He straightens out his cap and smooths his face where pizza crumbs cluster at the corners of his lips. He bows a little. “My Lady,” he says, and then is down the street as fast as anyone with a wooden leg can hobble.

“Gotta love Brooklyn,” Dad says with a smile. He tucks his Ray-Bans into his shirt, and Mom and I follow him to where Maddy and Layla sit.

After we decide on a meat-lover's pizza and a Hawaiian with extra cheese, Mom takes a sip of her ice water and looks right at me with her mirror turquoise eyes. “I hope you don't mind. We invited some of the other lifeguards and your coach for a little welcome-home celebration tomorrow.”

I'm not really in the mood for people. I'm just glad I'm breathing. I scratch at my throat where I'm breaking out in a rash.

Layla looks over at me. “You need a real good shower,
Finn.
”

“You're not allowed to call me that,” I say. This is good. If I argue with Layla, I'll feel like something is still normal.

“Oh, you love it,” she says.

“Can't you be nice to me for one more hour before you start hating me again? Pretty please?” I grab a garlic knot and put the whole thing into my mouth.

“I do not
hate
you” is her response. I can't see her face, because Maddy is sitting between us. “Maybe a little, but only because you didn't listen to me when I was screaming at you not to go into the water.”

Maddy whispers, “I was screaming that too.” But no one addresses that.

“He's fine,” Mom goes. “That's what matters.”

Two steaming pies are set in front of us. My stomach is making happy noises, and for three whole slices I sit there eating without saying anything.

When the waiter comes around again, he looks at me and claps his hands together. “Man, you're that guy!”

People acting weird around me, Take 1.

“Man, can I take a picture with you?” he asks, grabbing his cell phone from his pocket. “I want to show my girlfriend. She thinks you're like awesome, man.”

“But I didn't
do
anything,” I say. He doesn't hear it, because he shouts toward the kitchen, “'Ey, Dad, it's the Perfect Storm guy!”

A round man in an apron stained with tomato sauce, giving him the look of an all-too-happy butcher, comes out. His thick, smiling mustache reminds me of Super Mario. “Oh, my boy!” He comes around the table, leans over Maddy, and kisses me on both cheeks. “The pizza is on the house! Brave boy.”