Lifeguard Read online

  I lecture myself as I decompress.

  Push emotion aside, Sirena. Go for cold logic and clear reason. He’s a reclusive cat with a monstrous ego. Anyone can see it in the way he carries himself, in the way his eyes X-rayed my head, my heart. Poseidon, Greek god of the sea, shaker of the earth, drawing women with his power and allure.

  Welcome to my B movie.

  It’s infantile to play games, I decide right then. I want nothing more to do with him. Why would I sign on for a summer of hero-worship and disappointment?

  You’d have to be crazy.

  six

  Do you have a boyfriend?”

  Aunt Ellie smiles slightly and tilts her head left and then right, like half yes, half no.

  Yes, Mark is a boy, actually a man. He’s even hot for forty-five or so. And he’s her friend. In my mind that equals boy-friend. He lives in the next town and owns a seafood restaurant where everyone goes for the lobsters and fried clams packed into cardboard containers like Chinese food. Aunt Ellie is such a fan of the food, she says, that Mark joked he’d have to either make her a partner or start taking her out.

  “Mark moved to Rhode Island after his wife died,” she says. “He lived on Cape Cod before, so Rhode Island wasn’t a big change, just a change, and he needed to be someplace else.”

  Maybe I identify with that.

  Right away I feel for him and like him. Mondays the restaurant is closed so Mark comes over. He drives a red vintage pickup truck with the fish logo of the restaurant on the door. He walks in carrying fish wrapped in brown paper.

  I remember seeing a real fish for the first time in the grocery store. “MAAAA, IT HAS EYES,” I shrieked. My mom just laughed. But how was I supposed to know? We didn’t live near the water.

  Mark heads for the kitchen to cook dinner. “Without work,” he says, with a smile, “I’m like a fish out of water.”

  Aunt Ellie is happy to give him the job. She opens white wine and washes a bunch of spinach as big as a bouquet. Mark does everything else. It’s like a Food Channel ballet the way he moves, first reaching for the lemon juice, the soy sauce, then chopping the garlic and the ginger with short, precise strokes using his own knife. Without raising his head, he glances up and watches me watching him. He enjoys the audience, I think, but he’s cool. He doesn’t say anything.

  Mark doesn’t use measuring spoons like my mom; he just seems to know how long to shake each of the bottles lined up on the counter. I remember one of my vocab words—intuitive. You just know things, it means.

  Even when he isn’t smiling, Mark’s face looks amused. His dark mustache curls around the corners of his mouth and his brown eyes are surrounded by squint lines, probably because he uses his eyes so much when he smiles. He wears jeans and a blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled up. On the breast pocket in red stitching it says, “The Shack.” If he didn’t own a restaurant, Mark would be a fireman, I think. If someone was in trouble, he’s the type who would be there to help.

  Which makes me think of the ghosts again. Did Aunt Ellie ever talk to him about them? I could imagine both of them going upstairs with a flashlight like amateur detectives. I don’t bring that up though because they’d laugh at me for being spooked.

  When he finishes mixing everything together just right, he pours it over the fish and covers the container. He flips it over so both sides get equal time in the saucy bath. He sets it aside to soak, then turns to me.

  “So you like it here?”

  “I like it…It’s just so different from Texas.”

  “I was there once,” Mark says. “Saw a rodeo, ate barbecue. We even drove down to Padre Island and went to the beach.” He grins. “It’s a lot hotter than Rhode Island.”

  Something in my face must tell him what I’m thinking. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans across the kitchen counter toward me

  “Life changes, Sirena,” he says, his husky voice almost hoarse, “and you can’t help it. But your life isn’t over when your parents divorce.”

  I shrug.

  He tilts his head to the side. “How old are you?”

  “Almost seventeen.”

  “You’ll be moving out in a year or so when you go to college.”

  I nod.

  “And what they’re going through doesn’t change the fact that they love you. In fact, they’ll both need you more.”

  I try to stop my eyes from tearing up. “I know.” It comes out haltingly, breathy. I can’t help it. It’s easier to let your feelings out with some people more than others, and Mark listens with his heart.

  “Don’t spend time feeling sorry for yourself,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. He stares into the distance as though thoughts of his own life tug at him. Abruptly he turns back to me. “Think about the good things ahead of you.”

  “Like what?”

  He opens a white box on the counter and slides it over to me. Inside there’s a chocolate cake with a red candy lobster on top. He scoops chocolate frosting onto his finger and dabs it on the tip of my nose.

  “Like dessert.”

  seven

  My mom calls every other day. “Hi baby, how are you doing?”

  I avoid feelings and go with activities: Drawing, walking, eating. I tell her about Mark and his cooking, his restaurant. Lobster, clams, good things.

  “Does Ellie like him?”

  Where is she heading with this? “I don’t know, Mom.” I exhale hard.

  “I mean, you know, as a boyfriend.”

  “They’re friends…I can’t tell. God, what’s the difference?”

  That gets me thinking about my mom and other men. Are there any others? I never met any. There was only my dad until now. Would she start going out again?

  Is there anything grosser than thinking of your mom or dad in bed with someone else? I remember asking Marissa.

  “What about them doing it with each other?” She laughed. “That isn’t gross?

  Only my parents probably weren’t doing it—with each other anyway. I stop my head from going there. Too raw.

  Anyway, I refuse to meet their new girlfriends or boyfriends. I won’t be home if they bring them over. I’ll sleep someplace else, even the back of the car if I have to.

  New subject. “What’s happening with the house?”

  “I think we finally found a buyer,” she says, “but we haven’t closed yet. It’ll take a couple of months.”

  “Months?”

  “It’s a long process.”

  “And then?”

  “We’re both looking at places. Prices are crazy…it’s going to be a while.”

  Silence. We’re both just holding on, breathing on the life line between us.

  “I’m glad you’re in a prettier place,” she says, finally.

  The beach or my state of mind?

  “I miss you,” she adds.

  “I miss you, too,” I say, finally.

  “Are you all right up there?”

  Is she going to cry? “I’m fine,” I say, the parent reassuring the nervous child.

  Aunt Ellie goes to the grocery store for dinner, so Will and I walk to the beach. There’s a leash law, at least that’s what the rusted metal sign on the fence says, among other things.

  No alcohol

  No loud radios

  No spitting

  No glass bottles

  No ball playing

  Dogs on leashes

  I’ve seen other dogs running on their own so I let Will off the leash and he bolts. I have a whistle in my pocket that Aunt Ellie says brings him back if he goes too far. Will is in better shape than I am and he races along like a thoroughbred. He’s having the time of his life running free in the powdery sand, digging holes and then skipping back and forth in and out of the water, as if he’s in tune with its power and mystery on his special dog frequency. After a few minutes of trying to keep up with him, I slow to a walk.

  Somewhere behind me a whistle blows. I look out to see if a swimmer went out too fa
r, but I don’t see anyone. It blows again. Will pivots and starts running back toward me. To him it’s a command.

  “Good boy, Will,” I call out. I raise my hand and wave to show him where I am, Only when he gets closer, he doesn’t run up to me. He heads up toward—no.

  The lifeguard.

  Obediently he kneels at his feet, head raised.

  WILL! How could you do this to me? This is the last time I am ever letting you off the leash.

  I suck in all the oxygen I can hold and head over to get him. I glance at the lifeguard and then look away. “Sorry,” I blurt out. That seems to be the operative word around him.

  He stands there silently, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. His eyes embarrass me, that unswerving gaze. Does he even blink?

  “C’mere Will.” I fumble, suddenly totally uncoordinated, trying to attach the stubborn clip of the leash to the ring on his collar as he edges away to avoid it. Coordination 101 and I’m failing. No chance of a genius grant.

  “What?” I shoot back. He’s still staring.

  I look away, and then glance up at him again after I manage to pry the clip open. I won’t bring up what happened. What would be the point?

  I want to be cool, detached. This is so not a big deal. But it’s impossible to look away. I’m drawn to him as though a magnetic field surrounds him. It isn’t something I can get past and I’m filled with wonder again the way I was the first time I saw him. He must know that. How could he not? Everyone around him has to feel fatally flawed. Could that not go to your head?

  What I want most is to stop and objectively study his face to isolate what it is exactly that makes him so rarified. Two eyes, a nose and a mouth—same as every other member of the entire human race. Only nothing about him adds up logically. He’s got an aesthetic edge. He isn’t like anyone else and it eats at me. I’m surprised he doesn’t walk on water. Instinctively, I resist the power and sway he holds over me.

  He crouches down and scratches Will’s head, then lifts his eyes up to me. “There’s a leash law on the beach, Sirena,” he says, softly.

  How does he know my name?

  “But nobody really follows it, do they?”

  He rises to his feet and lifts his chin slightly. “When I’m on duty they do.”

  “Why can’t Will run free? He isn’t bothering anybody.”

  He shrugs. “Not every dog is as friendly as Ellie’s.”

  “Has there ever been a problem?”

  He shakes his head back and forth slowly. “Not while I’m on duty.”

  I ignore that and start to lead Will away.

  “How’s your face?” he asks, reeling me in.

  I stop and turn back to him. Instinctively, I rub it. “Still bruised.”

  He steps toward me and studies the side of my face, reaching out and slowly running his fingers lightly up and down the side of my jaw, his eyes grazing my lips.

  “Still swollen,” he says, almost to himself.

  A caring gesture, showing concern, nothing more. Only my body registers it as something else entirely. I resist the urge to take the one small step that would close the space between us. I look away momentarily and try to stifle a laugh that’s lodged in my throat because the idea is so absurd and out of the question.

  Does he see what he’s done to me? Feel it?

  How can he not?

  I’m suspended, as transparent and brainless as an undulating jellyfish in its watery skin, reduced to feeling and sensing, floating along without thinking.

  What do I say or do?

  I want to grab Will’s leash and run somewhere quiet to sit alone and collect my thoughts and go over what really happened, what it meant.

  Or didn’t mean.

  All the touchstones of normalcy, familiarity, and sanity have vanished. I’ve lost my center of gravity, sinking into a vortex of helpless longing like a pathetic adolescent with an aching, clichéd crush.

  Does his face say I’m imagining this?

  It’s stoically expressionless, giving nothing away. What did I expect? He isn’t short of breath. He’s ethereally calm, controlled, supremely confident, guarding the intimate thoughts in his head, and I am so totally out of my league with him. His face reveals the mildest curiosity, if anything.

  “What about you?” says some other, sure-of-herself me who magically appears to rise to the challenge. My hand reaches up and strokes the side of his jaw.

  Is he real? I need to touch his perfect skin and find out what he feels like. My fingers lightly caress the spot where I landed on him. His skin isn’t warm, it’s hot, as if the heat of the sun in inside him.

  “Here, right?”

  A corner of his mouth curls up slightly. There’s the slightest flicker in his cool, green eyes. He shakes his head from side to side. “I don’t bruise,” he says, dismissively. His eyes offer a silent challenge to figure him out.

  I cock my head to the side, not understanding. “What do you mean you don’t bruise?”

  He shrugs. “It’s never happened.”

  If he was human he’d have skin and blood and being slammed in the face ruptures blood vessels and causes bleeding and bruising, at least that’s what I learned in biology and I got an A. No one ever said any of that was up for discussion.

  What do I say to that?

  I stand there awkwardly, the silence widening, creating a larger and larger divide between us. Unintentionally, I sigh and look at him questioningly, instantly sorry I’ve given him even a hint of a reaction. He smiles slightly, enjoying putting me on edge, it’s so clear. I hate that. This time he holds my gaze.

  Now he’s determined to win the staring contest.

  Only alpha-dog Will comes to my rescue, breaking the impasse, convincing me he’s not only smart, he’s brilliant. He totally gets it. He jumps up on me and barks. It’s time to take him home and feed him. He knows in his bones when it’s supper time and his animal alarm clock has gone off. I start to lead him away.

  “Well, then, you’re more than a lifeguard,” says that voice in me from I don’t know where. “You’re Superman.”

  He shakes his head back and forth slowly. “I can’t fly,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “At least, not yet.”

  I stand there and stare for another moment, and that sets Will off again.

  “He’s jealous,” he says, amused.

  I shrug. “Probably just hungry.”

  He smiles slightly. It doesn’t derail him. Not the least hint that he felt the slight.

  I lead Will away, waving with the tips of my fingers. “Bye, Superman.”

  eight

  Black storm clouds hover over the beach, like dark smudges on a white page, darkening the silvery afternoon sky. Spiky waves crash over the sand where just the day before, bathers sat in the warm sun before a calm ocean.

  Aunt Ellie stays inside working, sipping homemade ginger tea from a red mug she probably made in a pottery class. Her new book is on pterodactyls. I glance over her shoulder at an article she’s reading. Their wing spans ranged from twenty to thirty inches to over forty feet.

  “As big as a plane!”

  She smiles. “And particularly scary because they had sharp eyes.” She points to a picture. “Imagine him swooping down searching for prey.”

  “Are you writing fiction or nonfiction?”

  “I haven’t decided. I have to see where it goes.”

  I read in the living room for most of the afternoon, but Will needs to go out so I volunteer. As we pass the lifeguard’s chair I glance up, half expecting to see him there in spite of the oncoming storm: lord of the beach watching over his domain.

  But the chair is empty.

  I unclip Will’s leash and let him run free.

  What does a lifeguard do on his days off? I don’t see him hunched over Facebook reaching out to friends. He doesn’t seem like the type to have twelve hundred of them—not that he wouldn’t if he posted his picture. I can’t imagine what type he is at all. He isn’t like anyone I’v
e ever met before. I climb up the side of the chair and sit in his seat to view the world from up high. I want to see the world through his eyes, and know what it feels like to be him. I look around. Did he leave anything behind that will give me hints about who he is?

  Nothing.

  And everything.

  A dark blue plastic bottle. Sunblock, SPF 45. I unscrew the top and I’m flooded with his sweet, enticing scent—coconut, citrus, and jasmine. I cup my hand and fill it with the milky lotion, rubbing it into my face and neck.

  Now I’m like Will who rolls on things to absorb their smell. I’m cloaked in his perfume, his essence, so as I stalk my prey I won’t be seen as an outsider. I place the bottle back where I found it and make my way down the side of the chair. His chair.

  I examine the chipped, white weathered wood like a scientist who studies tree rings to learn about past events in history and changes in the climate. Only this chair isn’t parting with its secrets. It’s as inscrutable as he is, high above the ground, confronting the water. It reminds me of a still life about natural forces and isolation. The chair is the only clue of humanity. Like Aunt Ellie’s house, does it have ghosts, spawn by him or his relatives? What kind of stories would they tell?

  Will barks at me. He’s jealous of whatever has stolen my attention. I take a tennis ball out of my pocket and throw it. He runs for it and then races back to me, dropping it at my feet. I toss it again and again. Will never tires of the game. Just to see what he does, I flip over and walk on my hands. I’ve studied gymnastics since kindergarten after my mom took me to the circus. I watched acrobats walking on their hands and doing flips and I came home determined to do it too.

  Will cocks his head to the side.

  “You’re not the first one who doesn’t know what to make of me.” I keep walking on my hands, studying the world turned upside down—the way it feels to me.

  The sky darkens as we start to walk home. I hear distant thunder and walk faster, ready to break into a run. Will inhales something in the wind and then hurries along with me. He senses danger and doesn’t want to get caught either. Moments later there’s a deafening clap of thunder. In minutes the heavens come down and we break into a run. A wall of water washes over me and I look as though I’ve been swimming in my clothes. Will turns into a drowned rat and I look at him and start to laugh. He tries to shake the water off his head so he can see, but he realizes how futile it is. We start to cross the street, but it’s nearly impossible to make out whether any cars are coming because everything is shrouded in fog and my eyes are being washed with rain.