“He isn’t one, though,” points out Henry. “He can’t do anything.” Henry has been water-skiing since he could stand.
There really should be a second person in the powerboat so that one person can look ahead and make sure they don’t collide with a dock, another boat or a swimmer while the other person keeps track of the water skier. But safety is boring and these two do not look boring.
Downriver, the tip of an oil barge appears, coming around the bend. The Connecticut River is navigable for many miles inland, but there isn’t much commercial use of the river anymore. Fear of oil spills has cut it down. It takes fifty-five truckloads of oil to equal one barge, so Miranda feels it’s more efficient to use barges, but most people feel that barges are too dangerous for the river. They’re winning. Miranda will be so sorry when the last tug pushes the last barge upriver from Long Island Sound.
She swings the scope toward the barge, waiting for the tug to be visible. The tugs are red and blocky and sturdy. They have girls’ names, like Bridget or Mary Claire, and are mostly from Staten Island, and someday Miranda plans to go to Staten Island and see if she can get a job.
The Connecticut River is wide and shallow, full of sandbars that catch the debris from storms. The channel itself is narrow, and not in the center, but quite close to the Allerdon side. Barges usually come upriver at high tide, when water from the Atlantic Ocean rushes inland for fifty miles, and the tug won’t have to fight the river.
The high red tower of the tug appears behind the barge. A barge is roughly the size of half a football field and the captain has to be up very high to see over it. Even so, he cannot see the water directly in front of the massive barge; he can only see where he is going.
Miranda likes to wave at the captains, who always toot back, so she leaves the porch, the little boys chewing waffles and her parents silent over coffee and weekend thoughts, and runs outside on the grass.
The tug whistles. It’s the Janet Anne.
Miranda jumps up and down like a little kid. In fact, she is little; five feet two compared to her sister’s elegant, slim five feet ten.
Lander follows her outside. “He’s not whistling at you,” says Lander. “He’s warning those water-ski guys. They’re right in the channel.” Handing the binoculars to Miranda, Lander races down the steep steps to their narrow dock, screaming at the guys in the water. There must be too much engine noise for them to hear her words of warning, because they just wave.
The boy driving the boat circles back. The boy in the water reaches for the towline.
The tug’s whistles are longer now—shrill and disturbing. But the sounds do not disturb the water-ski pair.
Miranda’s father is now standing at the edge of the bluff waving his arms, semaphore style. “You don’t have time for that!” he shouts. “Pick him up! Get him in the boat! Get out of the channel!”
Forty feet below, on the dock, Lander picks up a big striped beach towel and flaps it to attract attention. “Forget the skis! Get in the boat!”
Miranda cannot believe that the two young men don’t react. Perhaps the screaming tug whistle, the clanking barge and the racket of their own engine have deafened them. Or perhaps they know exactly what is happening, and are betting they can outrun the tug; that it will make a wonderful video—the great black wall of the massive barge bearing down; the water skier mastering the skill at the last possible second.
Playing chicken with an oil barge is insane.
The Janet Anne is no longer whistling. A terrifying Klaxon begins, which in all these years summering on the river Miranda has never heard.
The tug reverses engines. The water churns. But the barge does not slow down. There are no brakes on a barge. A barge needs two miles to stop.
Miranda’s mother is holding the two little boys by their pajama tops, for fear that Henry and Hayden will dive-bomb into the river and swim out to save the water skier.
The Paid at Last does not pick up the water skier. The boy in the water takes the tow handle, signals that he is ready, and the Paid at Last sets off again. The lime-green tow rope grows taut and the boy in the water rises perfectly. Miranda’s heart is racing. He’s got to stay up this time. And the Paid at Last must leave the channel—no problem for a small boat like this; it doesn’t need depth—and get out of the way.
Miranda focuses the binoculars on the driver.
He is looking upriver, not back at the skier he’s towing.
Miranda is watching his arms and hands. She sees him cut back on the throttle.
The tow rope immediately goes slack.
The driver has intentionally dumped his friend in the path of the barge.
She swings the binoculars. The skier is bobbing in the water. Too late, he seems aware that seven hundred thousand gallons of diesel fuel are about to crush him. How terrifying the vast bow of the barge must look. He kicks away the skis and strips off his flotation device so that it won’t slow him down.
Upriver, the Paid at Last makes a long leisurely circle. It is now safely out of the channel, puttering along Miranda’s side of the river. There is no longer time to pick up the boy in the water. Through the magnification of her binoculars, Miranda sees no expression of horror on the driver’s face. He seems placid.
He is murdering his friend, thinks Miranda. The barge will suck his friend under and hold him under for a long time.
It’s a perfect murder. He’ll claim he was stupid and unthinking and he’s ever so sorry. And it will go down as a tragic accident.
When she looks back, the water skier is gone.
Miranda prays that he has dived; that he is swimming faster than the fastest fish; that he will pop up safely out of the channel.
But almost certainly he has not dived.
The river is full of currents; it flows down to the sea no matter which direction the tide is going, and with the tide coming in, those two forces roil and whirl. The displacement of all that water by the barge creates a third force, against which his body is as fragile as a leaf. No matter how big a breath he takes, the air will not last long enough. He will be held on the muddy bottom as if by an alligator. Or chopped by the massive propellers of the tug like cabbage in a blender.
Miranda runs down the cliff stairs to join Lander on the dock. “Lanny, he did it on purpose. I saw him. He slowed down on purpose so his friend would fall in the water and be killed.”
Lander hates being called Lanny. “That’s ridiculous!” she snaps. “Of course he didn’t do that. And how could you tell anyway? That’s a horrible thing to say. The poor man is thoughtless and inexperienced and now he’s going to find himself responsible for a death—but it’s an accident, Rimmie!”
Miranda hates being called Rimmie. “Lander, I saw his hand on the throttle. I saw him let the tow rope go slack.”
Her sister fixes her with a glare so hostile that Miranda flinches. “This is not a video, Rimmie. This is not television. This is some poor young man drowning and the poor friend who will carry his bad judgment with him forever. Don’t make it worse with some vicious exaggeration.”
The barge and tug pass by.
Miranda’s father is getting into their Zodiac. He will try to find the body. Miranda’s mother has come down the stairs to join Miranda and Lander. Incredibly, she is holding a mug of coffee that she has prepared for the boy in the boat. “He’ll be in shock,” she says. “Signal him, Lander. I’ve called nine-one-one, they’re on the way, but water rescues are slow.”
Lander yells at the Paid at Last. The driver nods and slowly approaches the Allerdon dock. Miranda finds this as shocking as the murder. The driver should be searching the water, along with the pleasure boats that have cut their engines and are hoping to spot the skier. High up on the tug and barge, the crew stands in horror, looking down, helpless to do a thing. And yet the driver of the boat just tootles up to the nearest dock.
Miranda says, “Where are Henry and Hayden?”
“I sent them home,” says her mother. “I don
’t want them to see what will happen next.”
What will happen next is they will find a damaged dead body. Miranda doesn’t want to see it either. She wants the swimmer to pop up smiling. “Mom,” she says, and she finds breathing hard, as if she too were underwater, “Mom, the driver of that powerboat—he—”
Lander interrupts. “Rimmie. Don’t lie. Don’t exaggerate. Don’t, don’t, don’t repeat that nonsense. Do you want to ruin a second life?”
There is some basis to this ferocity. Miranda in childhood always doubled or tripled any event. If she stubbed her toe, she described a broken ankle and a hospital visit. If her mother slammed on the brakes while driving, Miranda cried out that her ribs were broken and her seat belt torn away. When she returned from playdates, she talked about a sight-seeing helicopter flight instead of her failure to make a helicopter out of a Lego kit.
She hasn’t exaggerated (her parents’ word) or lied (Lander’s) in years, but in Lander’s mind, the little sister hasn’t grown up and hasn’t grown better.
The Coast Guard will come, because it’s a water accident. The ambulance will come, because there will be a body. The state police will come. And what will I do? Miranda asks herself. Say nothing? Let it go?
Nobody else saw it. He’ll deny it. My sister will say it’s my lifelong habit to exaggerate. Everybody will despise me for making a bad situation even worse.
Miranda never wears clothing without pockets because she never goes anywhere without her cell phone. Lander is wrong that this is not a video, because Miranda filmed the Paid at Last when it was circling. The driver is very good-looking. It upsets Miranda that she would even notice, under these circumstances.
Lander helps the boy tie up at their narrow dock. Riverine laws do not permit the Allerdons to build a larger dock because the channel here is so close to the shore. One family in their neighborhood has an aluminum dock that is winched up when it is not in use. Some families have waterfront property, but not dock rights. Only one family has land low enough and far enough from the channel for a real dock with a pier.
Lander puts the big striped beach towel around the young man’s shoulders and Miranda takes another picture. Lander and the boy are looking at each other, faces close, and they are both beautiful, with oddly similar profiles. Lander’s sympathetic smile looks like the smile of a coconspirator.
Miranda is sickened by this thought.
Lander is right: the little sister still exaggerates in a hideous cruel way. Miranda drops her cell phone back into her pocket.
The boy takes the mug of coffee from Miranda’s mother. Maybe coffee is a nice idea for helping someboby in shock, but nevertheless, while his friend is drowning, he’s sipping coffee. “It’s my fault,” he says.
Nobody disagrees.
But Lander and Miranda’s mother are thinking that his faulty action led to an accident. Miranda is thinking it is homicide. A murder that takes no time, no effort, no weapon, and will not be found during autopsy.
Behind the barge and tug, young men on Jet Skis have been racing back and forth over the wake, springing up and slapping down on artificial waves, having a great time. They have not seen the tragedy and are shocked when Miranda’s father signals from the Zodiac, tells them what happened, asks them to look.
How many deep breaths has Miranda taken since the poor swimmer was swept underwater? A lot.
The boy is young. Maybe twenty. He will not finish college. He will not have a career or get married or have children or go home for Thanksgiving. He will have a funeral and his mother and father will never get over it.
The ambulance comes down their driveway, but a land-bound rescue crew can do nothing.
The Coast Guard patrols on weekends in a little white boat that looks like a tub toy. They try to keep the speed down among powerboats, prevent racing, check permits, monitor safety regulations, fine people for not using flotation devices. The patrol boat will be on its way, but it could be miles from here.
Supposedly the patrol boat also makes sure nobody is doing drug runs. There are plenty of little inlets and tiny winding streams in wide yellow marshes where a boat could drop off illegal substances. But Miranda has never heard of any druggie or criminal being caught along the river, although she has often thought that their own property is perfect for silent, secret comings and goings.
She glances up the bluff. Their little town has a resident state trooper and he is here.
Do I tell him about the tow rope?
But already the image is not clear.
Neighbors gather. There is a whole line of people on the Allerdon bluff. Henry and Hayden either never left in the first place or are back. Jack, the twelve-year-old, and Geoffrey, the fifteen-year-old, want to jump in the water and help with the search, but Miranda’s father is not letting them.
Out in the water, the Jet Ski men give a shout. They have the body.
Miranda is amazed. The river does not easily give up its dead. The water carries a body out to sea or lodges it in some sunken tree to become fish food.
On the dock, Lander puts her arm around the boat driver to give him comfort.
“He’s alive!” screams the Jet Ski guy.
Lander shrieks with joy. Her face is lit and beautiful.
But the driver is stunned.
Stunned that he has lost his bet? That he has not pulled off a murder?
Or stunned with relief? That his stupidity did not kill his friend after all?
Anyway, Miranda realizes, it can’t have been murder because he couldn’t have planned it. Who could know the exact schedule of a barge? Even the tug doesn’t know. There are too many variables. And what if his friend had learned to ski instantly and was never at risk?
Lander is correct, as always. Miranda is still given to ghastly exaggeration.
At least I didn’t say it to anybody else, she thinks.
The ambulance crew orders everybody off the dock, up the stairs and onto the bluff so that they can move a stretcher down the treacherous steep steps. Miranda is used to skittering down, but people trying it the first time usually wish for a lot more to hold on to.
The boy is draped over the lap of one rescuer like clothes from a dry cleaner, while the other rescuer holds the head out of the water. They insist he is still breathing. If indeed the victim is alive, he must be in agony from jolting over the wake.
The crew maneuvers the body onto the stretcher and the stretcher up the stairs. Not only are the steps very steep, but the only rail is a loose rope at thigh height on one side. It’s a little scary.
The state trooper talks to the boat driver, who gives his name and spells it. “Jason Firenza.”
Lander’s lips move as she silently repeats the name: Jason Firenza. Miranda remembers Lander saying, That one is mine.
No, no, Lanny. Don’t fall for him. In a month, you’ll have your pick of a whole medical school. Don’t take a killer!
Miranda wipes away this thought. The guy is not a killer, first because the water skier is alive and second because she is making the whole thing up to start with.
The trooper asks for the skier’s name.
“Derry Romaine,” says Jason Firenza. “Derry is a student at Wesleyan. Majoring in history. I have to go with him in the ambulance.” His bare chest is heaving with emotion. It’s a very attractive chest.
“No,” says the trooper. “The crew doesn’t have room for you.”
Barrel is loose again.
Barrel’s owners have either slept through all this or are not in town. More than half the dozen houses here are weekend places and the Nevilles don’t make it every weekend. Miranda grabs Barrel’s collar, hauls him across the yard, through the shrubbery, over the Nevilles’ grass and up to the dog run. Barrel hates his dog run. All those wonderful smells, all this excitement—and he will be in a six-by-thirty-foot cage. He resists.
“I’ll do it,” says Stu, and she is startled, but relieved that he has crossed the street and come to help. Stu is around Lander??
?s age. He seems neither adult nor child to Miranda; he’s always sort of a passerby. He doesn’t play catch, he doesn’t ever bring a friend when he’s going out on the water, he doesn’t wrestle with the dog or help at the grill. He does cut through the Allerdon yard a lot—everybody cuts through the yard a lot—but Stu swerves behind bushes if anybody signals him to come on over.
Miranda has never decided whether Stu is painfully shy or just prefers video games to humans.
“What’s happening?” asks Stu. His thin reddish-blond hair isn’t cut very well. It bumps out over his ears, like little platforms.
“Some poor water skier got dumped in front of the barge.”
“Oh, that’s what it is. I couldn’t see from our house. We might as well live miles into the woods. We really have to get the trees cut down. But my mother loves them. I’d have to do it on the sly.”
A normal person would comment on the skier’s fate rather than the height of shade trees. But Stu is probably too busy with his video life to fathom real life.
Stu manages to knee Barrel into the run and latch the gate.
“The good news,” Miranda tells Stu, “is that the water skier is alive.”
Stu gapes at her. “Alive?”
“I know, it seems impossible. But they started an IV before they shut the ambulance door.” Miranda heads back to the cottage. Stu doesn’t come. There are probably too many real live people around.
The trooper is wrapping up his interview with Jason Firenza. “All right. You can take your boat back to your marina. Then drive to my office. It’s at the rear of town hall.”
Jason’s dark hair ruffles in the wind. He has that need-to-shave look, which definitely works for him. He’s holding a Ziploc bag in which he probably has his car keys, cell phone and wallet, to keep these safe and dry while he’s on the river. It takes a lot of poise to retrieve all that when your friend is drowning and it’s your fault.
“Yes, sir. Thank you,” says Jason Firenza.
Lander goes down the cliff stairs with Jason, probably to see him off. But she does not come back up. A few minutes later, the Paid at Last is visible, headed downstream. There are two people on board.