The Edge of the Water

  She shot to the surface. She lost her regulator and took in a mouthful of pool water. She coughed and sputtered and when she could talk, she yelled, “What the hell! You pulled off my mask!”

  Having surfaced next to her, Chad nodded placidly. “Yep.”

  “What the hell’d you do that for?”

  “To see what you’d do. What you did was panic.”

  “What d’you expect, Bozo? How’d you like it if I did it to you?”

  “Calm down,” he said. “You panic, you drown. You panic, you shoot to the top like you just did. You panic, you don’t decompress. In three feet of water? No problem. In fifty? You get the bends.”

  “That wasn’t fair.”

  “Stuff happens underwater, Aqua—”

  “My name is Jenn!” she shrieked.

  • • •

  IT TOOK FOUR tries before Chad was satisfied that Jenn could lose her face mask underwater without panicking and that she could also lose her regulator, get it back into her mouth, and remember to blow out to clear it instead of desperately inhaling and getting a mouthful of water. They went on from that to learning how to enter the water with fins on. The entire lesson lasted more than three hours. By the end of it, Jenn was exhausted.

  Annie had long since showered and returned to the pool. She said to Chad, “How’d she do?”

  “Aside from her tendency to panic, which’ll probably kill her, she did okay,” he said.

  Annie followed Jenn back to the locker room. She said, “Have a shower. It’ll make you feel better. You did fine, by the way, no matter what he said. For your first lesson? You did great.” She stood there, arms crossed. Jenn waited for her to take herself back to the pool or out to the car or whatever, but Annie leaned against one of the lockers as if waiting for Jenn to strip. Jenn knew it was nothing, just a we’re-all-girls-here sort of thing. Still she wanted to say “D’you mind?” at the same time as she also didn’t want to say “D’you mind?” Well, they were friends, weren’t they? She decided they were. She peeled off her bathing suit. “Nice bod,” Annie said.

  “If you like boards,” Jenn retorted.

  “Don’t put yourself down.” Annie gave her a playful slap on the butt as Jenn passed by, on her way to the shower. Then she left her alone, saying she would help Chad load gear into his pickup outside.

  That was what she was just finishing doing when Jenn rejoined her. Daylight had finally arrived, always late in the Pacific Northwest at this time of year, and at one side of the parking lot, a dented white van with a Bondo-repaired door was idling, sending out a plume of white exhaust. There was someone leaning into the driver’s window, Jenn saw. Crap, it was that scumbag Dylan Cooper.

  He was someone she wanted to avoid on the general principle of his being so disgusting, but the white van was not far from Annie’s car, and Annie was waving a good-bye to Chad and coming her way with a cheerful callout of, “Let’s get a latte and a pastry, Beauty.”

  Dylan looked around from whatever he was doing at the van. He caught sight of Jenn, got a glimpse of Annie, said something to the van’s driver, and slouched Jenn’s way. He said, “This the place you lesbos hook up?”

  She said, “What’re you doing here? Scoring or selling? Never mind. I already know.”

  “She’s hot, lesbo.” He cocked his thumb at Annie. “Wouldn’t’ve thought she’d want to do it with you.” He waggled his tongue suggestively at her. “Good for you?” he asked, and she wanted to slug him.

  “You’re so pathetic,” she told him. “You’re like a freaking piano that only plays one key.”

  “Har har. Saying you aren’t one? Maybe I should ask her.” He gave a shout to Annie, “Hey! What was it like? Is she a moaner?”

  “Drop dead,” Jenn snarled at him and she swung around to face Annie.

  But Annie had already gotten into her Honda and fired it up. Thankfully, she hadn’t heard a word.

  • • •

  “JUST A BUTTHEAD from school,” was how Jenn explained Dylan Cooper to Annie when she asked about him. “I know his brother. End of story.”

  “What was he shouting? Was he talking to me? Because—”

  “We should stop at Bayview Corner,” Jenn announced firmly. “They’ve got coffee there, and we c’n get a bagel or a muffin or something. And Eddie Beddoe works across the street. Have you talked to him about the trailer rent yet?”

  Annie looked as if she was about to say something more about Dylan Cooper, but instead she shrugged and after a moment said, “Good idea about Eddie. Coffee first, though.”

  After they’d had their coffee and bagels, they walked across Marsh Road where Eddie Beddoe had long ago converted one of the defunct island gas stations into a car mechanics shop. The place was a pit of grime, and Eddie Beddoe was the last person on earth that Jenn would trust an engine to, but he made a decent living at the place and they found him adjusting the idle on a Toyota Land Cruiser.

  He looked up from the engine when Jenn said his name. He said, “Jenn McDaniels. How’s that dad of yours? Any new brews? I got some rent due at the start of the month and you tell him I don’t want it paid to me in beer.”

  “Here’s who’s paying that rent,” Jenn announced. “This’s Annie Taylor and you’re overcharging her.”

  Eddie adjusted his baseball cap as if he needed to do this to get a better look at Annie. He said, “Far ’s I know, rent’s whatever the market will bear.”

  “Yeah? Well, a look at the Record’s going to show you what the market is. Annie’s looked and she’s here to tell you—”

  “She don’t speak?” Eddie asked. “Now that’s awful strange, Jenn, ’cause I recall talking to her least one time by phone. That’d be right when we agreed on the rent. What’re you doing around here anyway on a Saturday morning?”

  “Just having a diving lesson, Mr. Beddoe,” Annie said. “I’ve looked at rents on the island and I know you’re cheating me.”

  “Diving lesson? Who’s taking a diving lesson? Why’s anyone taking a diving lesson?”

  Like it’s any of your business? was what Jenn wanted to say. But she stopped herself because he’d ceased his working on the Land Cruiser engine and he was wiping his hands on a rag with a lot of industry. His brow was furrowed.

  Annie was the one to respond. She said, “Jenn’s taking lessons, Mr. Beddoe. She’ll be diving with me.”

  “What sort of diving?”

  “Marine studies, okay?”

  “On what?”

  “Look,” Jenn cut in, “we’re here about the rent. You’re trying to get us onto another topic and don’t think we don’t see that because we do.”

  Annie put a hand on her arm to stop her. “There was an oil spill,” she said. “A long time ago. I’m making a case for—”

  “A lawsuit?” Eddie scoffed. “That’ll be the day.”

  “—genetic mutations in sea life. It’s for my dissertation. And frankly, Mr. Beddoe, it would help me a lot if you and I could renegotiate the rent before it comes due.”

  “We made an agreement.”

  “Come on,” Jenn said, “you’re taking her and you know it.”

  Eddie yawned. He removed his baseball cap and scratched his head.

  Worm, Jenn thought. Slug. Banana slug. She said, “Okay. Forget it. Looks like that Possession Shores cabin’s your only option, Annie. It’s not as close as Possession Point, but it’s not bad. Close enough, don’t you think?”

  Annie’s lips curved. “It’ll be fine. Good thing the owners—”

  “You’re not pulling one over on me,” Eddie told them. “But I think we c’n come to an agreement anyways.”

  “What kind of agreement?” Jenn asked shrewdly.

  “A diving agreement.”

  “What about it?” Annie asked.

  Eddie pointed vaguely in the direction
of Saratoga Passage to the east and miles away. “Find my boat,” he said. “Get me proof that you found it and your stay in that trailer is f-r-e-e for as long as you want. Don’t find it, and the rent stays what it is.”

  “How’s she supposed to find that damn boat?” Jenn demanded.

  “Not a clue,” Eddie replied. “I was her, though, I’d get someone to help, someone with a boat has all the bells and whistles. That’s what I’d do. It’s up to her.”

  “With all of Saratoga Passage to look at?” Jenn said dismissively. “No way, Eddie.”

  “That boat went down off Sandy Point,” he said. “I’d start there. But she can do what she wants.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Dating Courtney Baker was heady stuff for Derric. She was smart and committed to more things than anyone Derric had ever known. But what he liked most about her was that there was a private side to her. She had her demons just like everyone else, and since Derric had his own demons, it was a relief to be with her.

  She told him things: what it was like to be Courtney beyond what it seemed like to be Courtney. Sometimes, for example, she completely hated her sister. She knew that she was supposed to love her but she didn’t and she thought she never would. Sometimes she hated her parents, too. She tried to stay true to the childhood principles she’d grown up with, but often she blew it. She wanted to live a bigger life and a fuller life than Whidbey Island afforded her. But she wanted the protected life of the island as well, and she didn’t really know what this meant. Plus, she wanted Derric. Big Time All the Time, was how she put it. But she’d always thought that she’d be saving herself for one man only and what did it mean, she asked, if instead she did with Derric what she wanted to do? More, what did it mean that she really, truly, and actually wanted to do it? God, they were only sixteen years old! Shouldn’t they have more on their minds than getting into each other’s pants?

  Derric tried to tell himself that he did have more on his mind, and most of the time this was true. He got reminded of it every time Courtney opened the old Star Wars lunch box he’d given to her. He’d gotten rid of it from his parents’ house by filling it with candy, a scented candle, two jazz CDs, and an I-love-you note for Valentine’s Day, but that idea had sprung to his head when his mom found the lunch box beneath his bed and asked what he wanted “this old thing for.” He’d had to come up with something fast, and Courtney was it. Now, however, Courtney carried it around like a vintage purse and she’d even started a fad among some of the girls at school, who were doing the same thing. But when Derric saw that stupid lunch box, what he thought of was what had been hidden within it. This led him almost daily to thinking of his sister. Thinking of his sister led to thinking of Becca. But he and Becca were through and that was how he wanted it.

  He’d changed his Facebook page to reflect this at the beginning of March. Becca had never liked her picture on it anyway—she was weird like that about a lot of things—so he was happy enough to remove the three Christmas shots of them and replace them with pictures that he and Courtney took of themselves and of each other. On Facebook, they were at Double Bluff Beach building amazing driftwood structures with her family. They were sitting in the stands at a basketball game. They were at a party in Clinton and in line for a movie at the Clyde Theater. They were arm in arm, they were getting it on with a serious lip lock, they were posing in their finery on the way to a dance. Not all their shots made it onto Facebook, naturally, since some were way racy and didn’t belong there. Only the ones fit for public viewing were posted. The others . . . ? Those pictures showed how hot things had really become between them.

  Both of them knew it was only a matter of time. Derric had taken to being prepared. He carried condoms with him 24/7, and he waited for Courtney to give him the word. So far the word had been no. Sometimes it had been Derric, we can’t. Once it had been I think it’s just that I’m scared for some reason. But it always came down to the same ending for him: badly sore in all the wrong places and struggling to get his jeans back on.

  What made it worse was that his mom absolutely knew what was going on. Every time he got back from a date with Courtney, she was waiting for him. She didn’t ask where they’d been, and she didn’t ask what they’d been doing. What she did do was say, “Talk to him, Dave,” to his father.

  “Rhonda, he knows what he’s doing,” was his father’s reply.

  Well, he did and he didn’t know what he was doing. Sure, it had been drummed into his head from the time he’d started looking at girls that whatever happened, he had to use a condom. What hadn’t been addressed was the pull and the push that went along with being with Courtney and wondering when and if and how and where. Everyone thought they were doing it, anyway. Guys at school said, “So . . . ?” and leered, waiting to hear what it was like with her naked. Girls at school smiled knowingly when they walked by. They said, “Hi, Derric. Hey, Courtney,” and the tone they used was as good as asking, “Where’re you two actually doing it? His house? Her house? The back of her car?”

  “We might as well,” was what Derric said to her.

  What Courtney said was, “I feel like a hypocrite.”

  One of her problems was her prayer group at school. She was the group’s leader. She’d started the group as part of her church’s outreach program. They met once a week in one of the classrooms, and there they prayed for whatever needed praying for. When he’d been in the hospital in the autumn, they’d prayed for him. Before they’d prayed for him, they’d been praying for the family of a South Whidbey High graduate killed by gunfire one night in West Seattle. When they didn’t have something or someone specific to pray for, they prayed for each other and for the strength to uphold the Pledge.

  Courtney hadn’t told him about the Pledge at first. She waited until what they wanted was each other naked and flesh to flesh, and then she explained how she’d thought he wouldn’t want to go out with her if she’d been completely honest with him. When he asked what she meant, she cast her gaze downward and explained that her prayer group had promised chastity. That was the Pledge. Nothing until marriage, she told him. At least, not the real thing.

  He’d said no problem because he’d thought no problem. But that was before the night she’d lifted her sweater and unhooked her bra and said, “I don’t care.” Which was shortly before she said, “We can’t.” Which was a week before she said she was scared.

  So he was turned around. He was inside out. And when she said to him, “Maybe we both should pray,” he went along with the idea because the truth was, by March something had to give.

  He’d never been to a prayer group. He went to church with his parents on some Sundays, but the truth was that they missed the service about as often as they went to the service. Other than knowing his mom’s church had been what had taken her to Uganda in the first place, he had no religious instruction. Spiritual life meant nothing to him. But if going to a prayer group would help him know what to do about Courtney, not to mention with Courtney, then he was willing to give it a try.

  The prayer group met in a classroom at lunch with their brown bags and their Bibles. Derric had neither, so he felt immediately out of place. But he knew the kids and they knew him, and when someone offered him half a sandwich and someone else offered him a Bible, he figured things would be all right.

  At first, they ate their sandwiches and read their Bibles and were completely silent. It was only after they’d finished their lunches that they bowed their heads and got ready to pray. They were sitting in a circle of desks, and each of them reached for the hand of the person sitting next to them. One by one, they began to speak.

  Derric felt a moment of horror. He’d thought prayer group was all about praying in a general sort of way, but these were deeply personal prayers. He had an immediate bad feeling about where the situation was going to head.

  It headed there when Courtney’s turn to speak arrived. “Lord Jesus,” she sa
id quietly, her eyes closed and her head lowered, “you know that Derric and I want to have intercourse. You know that we’ve done everything short of the real thing and I feel . . . I feel bad about that. I’ve wanted to and I haven’t wanted to and I promise myself when I’m with him that I won’t put my hands on his—”

  Derric leaped to his feet. He did it so fast that the kids sitting on either side of him jumped half a foot. Everyone’s head lifted and he looked at each of them and he felt more naked than he’d ever felt when he’d actually been naked. He knew he had to get out of the room.

  • • •

  HE HEARD HER call his name. What made it worse was that Becca King—of all people—was passing by the classroom. She was being trailed by Extra Underpants Schuman who was sneering, “Hey, you said you wanted to be in charge, cow pattie,” to which Becca was saying, “D’you always live in a separate reality or what, Tod?” as angrily as Derric had ever heard her talk. She saw him and turned the color of ketchup. Derric saw her and wanted to run. Meantime, Courtney was out of the room, crying, “I thought you understood what the group is about! Prayer is honest. If it’s not honest, it isn’t prayer.” And what he wanted to do most of all was to sink into the floor and disappear.

  Becca gulped, looked from Derric to Courtney, and rushed off. Tod went after her, declaring, “No way are you getting out of this.” Courtney’s blue eyes filled with tears. Derric said, “Screw it. I need to just think.”

  • • •

  TO MAKE MATTERS worse, that night his dad decided it was time to have the Talk that Rhonda had been insisting upon. Derric was in his bedroom, attempting to work on the Western Civ project he was doing with EmilyJoy Hall, when Dave Mathieson walked in. When he cleared his throat in that I’m-the-Dad way of his, Derric knew what was about to happen.