still grasped in my left hand. I punch it,
the B.C. bloats up—bobs me in the water.
He flips my reg over, and it’s a calm, docile
friend again.
“Calm, down, babe. Trust me.”
I can’t.
“Please, babe.”
I can’t.
“Please, babe.”
“No!”
I don’t meet his eyes as he loosens my B.C. straps,
holds it while I writhe free, and dumps my weights.
“Please, Leese. Try again.”
I so, so can’t.
I can run for the locker room. I can strip off
that stinking wetsuit and shower
and blow dry and make up and
wonder if he’ll ever call me, “babe,” again.
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #10
DIVE BUDDY: Leesie
DATE: 11/05
DIVE #: 2
LOCATION: Salt Lake
DIVE SITE: Blue Divers training pool
WEATHER CONDITION: colder
WATER CONDITION: placid
DEPTH: 10’
VISIBILITY: getting dark
WATER TEMP.: 78
BOTTOM TIME: 10 minutes
COMMENTS:
I go back down and blow bubbles. I’m all geared up—paid for the pool and the tank, but it gets boring fast. I only stay under about ten minutes.
I change, rinse the gear, pack it up, chat with the guy in the office about booking pool time for Saturday. This pool is busy. He gives me the number of a couple of hotel pools that might let us have some time early in the morning when guests are snoozing.
Leesie walks out at last, her hair loose down her back. Bone dry. She stalks through the pool area and out the exit. I pick up both gear bags, nod to the guy in the office, and head out into the crisp fall day. The sun is gone. Clouds build overhead. Leesie waits by the Rav4. She walks towards me. “I’m sorry.” She tries to take one of the gear bags. “Guess I’m an expensive flop.”
I walk past her, still carrying both bags. “All you had to do was go down again. Common to panic the first time. It goes away.”
She’s on my heels. “Are you nuts? I was a basket-case.”
“Next time I’m not going to let you give up.” I swing open the hatch door and throw the gear in. “I’ll book another pool for Saturday.”
She takes a hold of my arm, bows her forehead into my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I was so scared.”
I put my arms around her and kiss her forehead. “A lot of people panic the first time. Next time—”
“Please don’t make me.”
“What about our deal?”
She’s quiet a minute. “Do I get equal time?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, then.” She pulls out her cell and gets it dialing. “Can you get me the number for the BYU Elders? Yeah, I’ll wait.” She sticks her tongue out at me. “Great, thanks, Rox.”
Leesie gets the missionaries on the line. “My boyfriend wants to take the discussions.”
Kind of a blatant lie—that one. I shake my head, and she nods back at me. “How soon?” A pause. “You guys are that busy?” She turns around and lowers her voice. “You can’t see him before Thanksgiving? No, No. We’ll take it. November 29th. No problem.” She hangs up.
I get an awesome idea. “Thanksgiving, right. You get time off. Perfect. Do you think Roxi and Dayla would like to go with us down to Cozumel? You’ll be ready for open water dives by then.”
Leesie tries to look normal, but her eyes fill up. She gives in and sniffs.
“What? You’ll be ready for open water soon.”
“I miss my dad.” She falls apart into my shoulder. “Will you take me home?”
Chapter 18
REPLAY
LEESIE’S MOST PRIVATE CHAPBOOK
POEM # 61, TAKING IT SLOW
I perch on the edge of a cushy lounge chair,
wonder how much it cost him to get this
marble wrapped pool for two hours, braid my hair,
and watch the black streak swimming
under water toward me.
He bought me a wetsuit—sexy
sleeveless style, black with yellow—
soaked it in an entire bottle of sweet
banana mango shampoo
before he gave it to me.
“Aromatherapy. No skills today. Only us
and the water.”
I inhale the scent, breathing
in cycles like he taught, trying
to stay calm, trying to forget
my nightmarish last attempt.
Michael pulling his wetsuit
wrapped body out of the pool
doesn’t help.
He bought himself a “shorty.”
I can’t take my eyes off his legs.
Even his knees overheat me.
“Slow breaths, Leese. Take it easy.”
I color and grumble. “Impossible with
you in the vicinity.”
He smiles and picks me up
like here comes the bride on her wedding night
and walks down the marble shallow end steps
into the water. Does he hear the sizzle
as the cool water reacts to
the steam he started?
I play with the curls on the back of his neck.
“You do this with all your students?”
“Only the ones I want to marry.”
His lips caressing mine
scatter my fear into a thousand tiny drops.
“We’ll take it slow today.” Kiss.
“Slow.” Kiss. “Slow.” Kiss. “Slow.”
We swim together like a dance—holding hands,
embracing, under the water, on it—he blows
magic dust around me and I am a fish, a dolphin,
a mythical tailed woman moving with joy
and ease through safe still water,
always in the circle of his arms.
He leaves me a moment, gears up while I float,
brings my scuba stuff into the water, wraps
the vest around me with achingly tender hands.
He lets me breathe with the reg on the surface until my heart
stops trying to break out of my chest and my brain
stops screaming, “Get out! Get out! Get out!”
“Just two minutes downstairs, okay?”
His hands clamp on the front of my vest.
(Not an issue since I don’t fill it out.)
His strong eyes invade my mask.
“One, two, three.”
Slow, slow, slow
we drift to the bottom—just over our heads.
Slow, slow, slow we lie still,
breathe as one.
Slow, slow, slow we drift
to the surface.
Ever so slow, he takes off my mask,
rinses my face, and kisses his praise.
That kiss is worth every second of terror,
every panicked heart beat,
every murky dream packed with slimy creatures
grasping my legs, entangling me with
scratchy appendages of unknown origin.
I panic the next time.
“Have you had enough?”
I shake my head,
keep my eyes open,
block out the fear with the image
of his face.
I breathe his rhythm,
he leads me, guides me,
deeper and deeper
into his world.
Terror pulses in my fingertips.
I fight it off, cling to Michael, and breathe
until the frightened haze floats away
in our entwined bubbles.
He brings me to the surface.
We tangle together in a clash of
scuba gear, his sexy knees, and my
black wrapped legs.
Lips and regulators.
My
long braid.
I laugh. And kiss him.
Then we do it again.
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #10
DIVE BUDDY: Leesie
DATE: 11/12
DIVE #:—
LOCATION: Provo
DIVE SITE: BYU
WEATHER CONDITION: cloudy
WATER CONDITION: waves
DEPTH: over my head
VISIBILITY: too clear
WATER TEMP.: cooling off
BOTTOM TIME: couple hours
COMMENTS:
Freak, Leesie’s tenacious. I’m not giving her much choice, but she’s sticking out the scuba stuff. Aced the written test yesterday. We’re going back to that hotel up in Salt Lake on Saturday. She did well there. I was freaking ready to rent a room by the time we were done last time. Crass but true. The thing is, I’ve never felt so much love for someone—even when we were supposedly making it. Every time she closed her eyes and let me pull her under, every time she matched her breathing to mine, every time her terrorized eyes locked on mine, I loved her more and more. It’s not like I’m going to attack her or anything, but this is killing me.
Next we’ll try some mask skills. Buddy breathing. Easy stuff. I’ve almost got her totally indoctrinated. She hasn’t started on me yet.
Speaking of rooms, she doesn’t like the hotel I’m in.
“You can’t stay in the Courtyard for the entire six weeks.”
“It’s nice enough.”
“Too nice.”
I let her drag me to the big building on campus with the bookstore and giant food court where we had breakfast last week. Downstairs there’s a massive board plastered with uniform white cards. People are selling everything from guitars to pickup trucks. “Cool.” I point to an ad for a black truck. “Think I’ll buy this truck. It costs less than my rental.”
“I doubt it has an engine.”
There’s a big section of used wedding dresses—lots of size four’s. I point to those. “Why don’t you get one of these?”
She scowls. “A used wedding dress? That’s ultimate tacky. Everyone rents these days.”
“A rental? Isn’t that really used?”
“It’s not the same. The dresses are a lot nicer.”
“You’ve been looking?”
She gets beet red and studies the area for guys who need roommates. “Shoot. This is all for next semester. Long shot to find someone selling their contract this late. Maybe we should check online.”
Next to the tacky used wedding dresses is a huge section of used wedding rings. I point to them. “Now, that’s tacky.”
“Yeah.” She examines an ad. “Practical, though.”
“I can’t believe how many there are.”
“BYU is the engagement capitol of the world.”
I raise my eyebrows and give her a thumbs up.
She waves her hand in front of the ring ads. “Lots of those engagements don’t last. Premature.”
“Hormones.”
She grins and takes my hand. “You’re catching on.” We find a corner that isn’t jammed with students and sit on the floor. Leesie gets out her laptop and Googles hotels in Provo—gets a plethora of shiny new Marriott relatives. There’s one of everything they make here. Most cost about what I’m paying.
She clicks on a Super 8.
I screw up my face. “Forget that. I’m not staying there.”
“You are so stuck up.” She turns her back to me and huddles over her laptop so I can’t dis her fleabag schemes. Scribbles a list. “Let’s check these out. They might be—”
“Too nice?”
We turn in and park in front of the first place—long flat red brick buildings that scream seventies. Probably seventies beds, too. “This is too far away from you.”
“You have a car. Look at how cheap it is.”
Anything less than $40 bucks a night is way off my list. Yep. I’m so stuck up.
Leesie walks in with me—pretends not to notice the place stinks like old puke and dirty toilets. She won’t go up to the front desk. “Awkward. That guy will think we’re going to—that it’s for us.”
“Why do you care?”
She gets pink around the edges and walks over to a lobby sitting area and sits on a fuzzy couch across from a candy machine.
I ask the guy if I can see a room.
“What size? We’ve got suites with king beds and regular rooms with two queens.”
“Babe,” I yell over my shoulder. “Do we want one bed or two?”
She stalks out of there. I leave the clerk to follow her to the car. “Sorry. That was just too perfect. You should have seen your face.”
“Cross that one off the list.” A couple of guys with long beards and stringy hair, dirty jeans and faces walk out behind us. She gets in the passenger side and locks her door. “It creeps me out anyway.”
I open my door and stick my head in. “Wait here. I’ll go check out the room.” I grin. “Maybe Tawni will take pity on me and come stay with me.”
Hugely wrong thing to say. Leesie gives me a scorching look. “Take me home. I need to study.”
“But we haven’t found me a new room.”
“Stay where you are then.”
“Don’t be mad.” I slide into the car. “I was just trying to lighten things up.”
“Don’t.”
“I can’t tease you?”
“Not about that. Especially Tawni.” Her eyes get tight. “It reminds me of DeeDee—you and her.”
I look away from her. “Low blow.” I start the Rav4.
She frowns. “And joking about Tawni was—?”
“Insane.” I reach over and touch her face. “Sorry.”
“I need to study.”
Chapter 19
CULTURAL AWARENESS
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #10
DIVE BUDDY: Leesie
DATE: 11/14
DIVE #: 3 w/Leesie
LOCATION: Salt Lake City
DIVE SITE: hotel pool
WEATHER CONDITION: sleet
WATER CONDITION: rippled
DEPTH: 10’
VISIBILITY: 10’
WATER TEMP.: not as warm as last time
BOTTOM TIME: lost track
COMMENTS:
This time there’s a mom reading magazines and kids splashing in the shallow end. Leesie’s all business. She’s still kind of mad at me. Works hard on the skills. The kids invade. Ask a thousand questions. Leesie’s cool with them. Gets all the answers right.
If we got married, we could have one of those, like in a year. Not big enough to swim and talk, but that could be cool. She’s got all this school, though. How could she be a mom, too? I could do the Mr. Mom thing. Me and babies? Freak, that would be strange. I don’t know if I’ve ever even held one. Wonder if Leesie would want them right away. I don’t know if birth control is against the rules. Guess I need to ask.
Leesie gets it right in the water, too. One more session, and she’ll be ready for open water.
After our pool dive, she wants me take her to Temple Square—not far from the hotel, right smack in the middle of Salt Lake City—before we drive an hour back down to Provo.
“Sure. Anything you want. You were excellent today.”
She unleashes that full smile that makes her so beautiful. “Really?”
I nod and reach for her hand. Our fingers twist, and she lets me kiss her before we get in the car.
Leesie didn’t tell me Temple Square is like the capitol of Mormon-anity. Gardens. Old buildings. Newer places she calls “visitors’ centers.” She drags me through all the stuff. Kind of a blur. Books of Mormon. Forever families. Stuff like that. There is a concert going on inside the elliptical domed building.
“That’s the tabernacle. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings there. Maybe that’s them practicing.” She points across the street at a massive new building. “We hold conferences in that now. This got too small.” I don’t know what conferences are, but they must
be a big deal around here.
There’s another temple here, too. This one is old—rectangular. Kind of like a cathedral. Gray stone. Spires everywhere. Same gold guy on top. Can’t go in this one, either. Leesie wipes her eyes in front of a statue of Joseph Smith.
The last place we go in she makes me take a tour. The girl guiding is a missionary. Chicks are missionaries, too. She shows us all these big oil paintings of Bible stuff—life of Christ—and then we take a spiraling ramp up to the next floor. There’s a big room with deep blue carpet, mostly glass walls, and a giant white replica of the Christus statue.
The missionary girl gets choked up. Leesie squeezes my hand and cries, and—I’m sorry—but I got nada.