Taken by Storm Read online

  back tears that signal another victory

  for the dark side.

  laughter rolls forward, annihilating me,

  as I crumple into michael’s

  seat. He startles

  awake, appraises with gray eyes

  that turn silver in the afternoon rays.

  His baseball cap tilts toward me—

  You okay?

  No big deal, I lie until the bus rolls to a stop

  and the doors bang open.

  I maintain glacial when troy’s leering face

  blockades my escape and sprays,

  Ooh, did I piss off the Mormon Ice Queen?

  all over my vintage fringe.

  I consider kneeing him hard,

  but michael, tall and solid, lanky

  to the rescue, rises to steady my elbow.

  Let her go.

  Gonna make me?

  Let her go.

  I long to lean into his strength,

  let him shelter me with the steel in his voice.

  Kids push and holler from behind.

  as I watch troy swallowed in their midst,

  I remember ninth grade, before the ice,

  when his nasty hand dropped Hot tamales into mine

  and I strayed into spiced breath hot in my ear—

  Lunch, downtown, lost in the bushes . . .

  the words oozing down my neck,

  making me as red as his candy-stained tongue.

  yes, I wanted to follow incredible blue eyes down the hill,

  let that hand twine in mine, disappear into cinnamon lips—

  But I had Thou Shalt Not ringing in my ears.

  thou shalt Not be alone with a boy.

  thou shalt Not date until you’re sixteen.

  thou shalt Not make out in the bushes

  with troy the boy toy Hot tamale candy.

  thou shalt remember who you are and the promises you’ve

  made.

  thou shalt dream of your perfect prince,

  short hair and white pressed shirt,

  well-worn scriptures tucked under his arm,

  a scuffed Ctr ring on his pinky,

  who will cup thy face in his hands,

  kiss thee softly,

  and adore thee for eternity.

  thou shalt let the spirit move through thee and say,

  Gotta finish my algebra,

  and walk away.

  Hot tamale temptation descended,

  day after day, cruder and crueler,

  until I stopped feeling Yes,

  stopped perspiring, stopped blushing,

  and all I could say or think or be was No.

  Hard and cold and oh, so determined.

  I polished my temple photo and planned my escape,

  worked and saved and studied—

  so close now to BYU’S beacon

  beaming from Provo.

  But now,

  here is an aching soul standing beside me,

  brave and strong and noble—

  and something sweet and warm and beautiful

  makes me want to whisper a soft yes into his ear.

  Where did he come from? Why is he here?

  and what, lord, am I supposed to do with this

  temptation?

  LEESIE HUNT / CHATSPOT LOG / 10/2 11:13 P.M.

  LEESIE HUNT/CHATSPOT LOG/10/2 11:39 P.M.

  LEESIE HUNT/CHATSPOT LOG/ 10/3 12:16 A.M.

  chapter 9

  MUCK

  MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8

  i’m ready by 2:30, prowl through Gram’s tiny house, check the clock—2:31. i ate today. Not a good idea. Hurling is a definite possibility. i stalk Gram’s desk in the living room. The framed snapshots of me and my parents that litter the desk threaten to pounce. Puking in Gram’s pink bathroom sounds better and better. There’s some unopened mail—bills and crap. i shuffle through it looking for something interesting. Gram’s junk mail is lame. Polident variety.

  Something noisy pulls into the driveway. “That’s her,” Gram calls from the kitchen.

  Great. i bolt into the bathroom. i look like i walked out of a zombie flick. i turn on the water so Gram doesn’t hear me puking.

  She pounds on the door. “Michael, she’s waiting.”

  Why am i doing this? Yesterday on the bus, i felt massively strong facing down Troy for this girl. i don’t think that’s what Stan meant with his pep talk, but it was a good change from massively destroyed. But whoa, do i want to spend time with her? It was easy online. No eyes. No faces. No feelings. i don’t know. Maybe if she shows up in that jacket.

  i turn my back on Gram’s safe pink bathroom and follow her out the door.

  Leesie jumps down from a white pickup. Loose hair, leather jacket. Good start.

  “So what’s defuddled? You promised.” She’s speeding her truck down a country highway, and i figure the awkward silence has gone on long enough. i take the crumpled lunch bag that she gave me with her e-mail written on it out of my pocket and hold it out to her. There’s lists of words and short lines scribbled all over it.

  “Defuddled? Opposite of befuddled.” The corners of her mouth turn up a bit, but she doesn’t look at me. “Isn’t that obvious? I’m writing a poem—”

  “Is there an assignment i missed?”

  “No.” Still eyes front.

  “You write poems for fun?”

  “I like words—trying to fit them to what I see and feel.” Now the glance. “Weird, I know.”

  i stare out the window. “i’ve been writing a lot lately.”

  “I’ve seen you at school. I like your black binder. Nice size. Eight by eleven is so bulky. And it even zips.” Then she realizes she basically just fessed up to stalking me. Pink cheeks, eyes glued to the road.

  “That’s my dive log. Waterproof. Easy to pack.”

  “Cool.” Her eyes dart in my direction again. “I’d like to read your stuff.”

  Dream on. “So your poem—”

  “Right. One of the lines is no longer befuddled.” Her voice softens. “Don’t you think just defuddled sounds better?”

  “But it isn’t a word.”

  She pulls a cute scowl. “Doesn’t matter in a poem.”

  “So who’s no longer unfuddled? You?”

  “De-fuddled.” Her eyes flick over my way again and then back to the road. “My grandmother.” She swallows hard. “She died last spring.”

  “Hey, i’m sorry.” i feel like a creep for prying and razzing.

  “We nursed her at our house for three years. I watched her suffer, and all I could do was hold a straw to her lips and smooth Vaseline on them when they got dry. She passed away quietly one night while my mother and I held her hands. Peaceful. Beautiful. Not scary like I thought her death would be. I thought I loved my grandmother before she got sick, but now I love her more than ever. I know it was a release, but it didn’t make letting her go any easier.”

  i stare out my window at cement grain elevator towers. The hilly fields behind them are bare. Dad always said he loved the ocean because he grew up here where the wind made waves with soil. Maybe when they are full of wheat, it’s nice, but now? I don’t see it. Can’t dive in dirt. Even the blazing color of the leaves means they are all just dying.

  The awkward silence replays. i set her old lunch bag on the seat.

  Leesie clears her throat. “That heavy, sad feeling—”

  i nod like she’s got me in a trance.

  “It’s not as intense now, like—”

  Me. She doesn’t have to say it.

  “It waxes and wanes. I don’t think it will ever go away. I don’t think I want it to.”

  What does she know about it? Her grandmother? Please. Take me home, chick, i don’t care how damn good you smell, how great you look when you smile, how soft those lips might be, how those jeans make your butt amazing. i grunt, “What happened to pity free?”

  “That was stupid.” She keeps her eyes on the road. “Sorry to intrude.”
Her hand leaves the steering wheel. She reaches toward me like she’s going to touch my arm, stops, lets her hand drop to the seat, keeps driving with her left hand at the top of the wheel.

  i look back at her scribbles. “i don’t get the line about silver eyes. Your grandmother’s eyes were ‘silver in the sunlight’?”

  She flushes again, pushes her hair back out of her face with her free hand. “That line must be about the salmon.”

  “That’s some freaky fish.” My eyes are gray. Silver is pushing it.

  She snatches the bag from the seat and stuffs it in her pocket.

  Leesie drives through the Coeur d’Alene reservation past plywood shanties with CIGS painted in red across the front, empty fireworks stands, and stacks of dead trees at a sawmill. It gets warm in the cab of the pickup, and her leather and tropical fruit smell fills me up. i actually doze—the first real rest I’ve had in a while. i wake when the pickup bumps onto a dirt lane that switches back and forth, down through a forest to the lake. She rolls down her window.

  “Smell the pines.” She inhales, deep. Some of her pines are orange and dead looking. The pickup brushes by a fat green branch overhanging the road. i close my eyes and breathe. The fresh clean of it washes through me.

  She parks the pickup on a strip of grass. “There’s a toilet in the shed. You have to dump a bucket of water down it to make it flush.” That reminds me of the heads on the first live-aboard we tried. Mom was ready to leave after day one. Dad and i teased her the whole week, but she stuck it out. Always did. No matter how hard we pushed her. That sad, paralyzing feeling engulfs me again.

  “This way.” Leesie scrambles down a bluff about six feet high to a narrow strip of sand fifty feet long. “How do you like our beach? This is the only stretch of sand on all of Windy Bay.” i mime impressed.

  “It washes away in the winter, but Dad hauls up a fresh load every spring.”

  i stand on her sand and stare at her lake. Midnight blue. Calling me.

  “Pretty, huh?”

  i don’t answer—can’t answer. i bend down and touch the water. Maybe 40 degrees F. Way too cold—even with my seven mil.

  Leesie leaves, returns with an armload of dry driftwood. “Still lukewarm? You—not the lake. Coeur d’Alene never warms up.”

  The wood clatters when she drops it. i don’t look around. i’m entranced by the soft, pulsing water. “So what do you do here?”

  She walks over to me. “You up for marshmallows?”

  i shake my head.

  She squats down and digs a flat rock out of the sand. “We used to have a sailboat, but Dad sold it a couple of years ago to fix the tractor.”

  “Swim much?”

  “Not anymore. I used to be a fish.” She brushes the sand off the rock and hands it to me. “My baby sister, Stephie, is like that now. Totally fearless. When I was eight, I got tangled up in a bunch of seaweed—”

  “This is a lake.”

  “Lakeweed, then. I couldn’t get free. Kicked. Thrashed. I swear something pulled me under. I couldn’t get back to the surface. Dad got me out. I had this nasty rash on my legs. I canoe these days. Anything touches me in the water and I kind of lose it.”

  “That’s too bad.” i chuck the stone. It doesn’t skip. “Anything to see down there? Wrecks? Cool fish?”

  She laughs. “There’s a healthy crop of lakeweed.” She stands, walks to the end of their cement dock, and leans against a piling. Her hair catches the setting sun. “We lost some fishing poles last summer. It drops off just past the dock. Gets deep fast.”

  i join her, stare at the space between two log pilings where they used to tie up their sailboat. “How deep is it here?”

  “Comes up to about—” She rotates to face me, draws a line across my chest with the side of her hand. She lets the edge of her hand rest on my chest a few seconds longer than she needs to make her point. i’m pretty sure she’s making another point. Her head tips back, and she’s staring again.

  i try not to flinch.

  The old me would have taken the invitation and stepped right into it, but i stand there with her hand light and small on my chest and all i can do is control the urge to flick it away. i can’t follow up the touch, lean down and kiss her, or even take hold of her hand. Maybe that would be strong, but i just can’t do it.

  She pulls her hand away with a jerk. It’s too awkward to keep looking at her and pretend that didn’t just happen, so i focus on the far shore, clear my throat. “Can we take your canoe out?” If i can’t get in the water, at least i can float on it, caress it with the paddle, force it to obey me.

  “Sure.” She sounds relieved. i thought she’d be mad. Did i misread the whole thing?

  We paddle to the middle of the lake. Leesie steering, me in the front. i’m not so bad with the paddle. She’s great. Stronger than she looks.

  i’m loving it—could stay out here forever.

  Leesie spots some dark clouds in the distance. “Shoot. We should head in.”

  “Not yet.” i trail my fingers in the water. They’re going numb. It feels so good to touch it that i don’t even care. “How deep is it here?”

  “Really deep.” She turns away from the clouds and rests her paddle on her knees.

  “Fifty feet? A hundred feet? What?”

  She frowns and shrugs. “Who knows.”

  i unzip my club jacket and rip off my hoodie. “Want me to find out?” My T-shirt goes next.

  “What are you doing?” She’s freaked.

  i’m fighting my belt buckle. Stupid numb fingers. “i free dive—like pearl divers.”

  “Don’t be crazy.” She holds her paddle in front of her like a weapon. “Stop it. Now!”

  i kick my shoes off, finally get the belt, and slide my jeans off. Leesie’s staring and red-faced. It’s just boxers. She said she has a brother.

  She’s scowling for real now. “The water’s freezing.” She waves her paddle at me.

  “i’ll be right back.” i roll over the side, gasp as needles of cold prick every pore, gulp air.

  “Get in here,” Leesie yells in my face, and grabs at me.

  i push off and dive. i keep my eyes wide open, but all i can see is a blurry smudge. i don’t have any fins and no weights so i have to fight to get down—only make it to about forty. No sign of the bottom. No sign of anything. It’s creepy and black and oh, so empty. No coral. No fish. No sunshine. No parents. Only Isadore lurking deep beneath me. Brooding. Heavy. Crushing.

  i tear to the surface with my lungs screaming for air. i break through twenty feet from the canoe. The sky looks darker already. My body’s numb.

  Leesie paddles over. i even let her help me in. “Thanks for scaring the life out of me.” Her face looks as dark as the sky. She drives her oar blade into the water.

  I’m dripping wet, shivering, and useless. Fresh freezing pain mounts in waves as the air warms me into sensation. i mumble a lame apology through chattering teeth.

  “There’re towels in the shed. I’ll find you one in a minute.”She kicks me a paddle. “So how deep is it?”

  “Pretty deep. i couldn’t see the bottom.”

  “The bottom’s muck. You don’t want to see it.”

  Muck.

  Mangrove toes claw out of soft swamp mud and swirling salt water. i’m not at the lake with Leesie anymore. i stand in the swamp’s silt, gulp air, up to my ankles in muck. The wind and water knock me flat, carry me farther downstream until i hook a mangrove root. i pull myself along the bottom, grasping the twisted toes, find a mature tree, and wrap my arms around her, shivering in the stagnant murk that slaps at my waist. The wind pulls. The water rips. i hold my mangrove buddy tight, start talking to her, willing her to stand against the storm. Dizziness washes over me. i start free-dive vent cycles to fight it off. My stomach churns into an anguished mass of seawater and crab. The pain in my gut is real. i double over, retch.

  “You okay?” Leesie’s quavering voice stops the scene. Her hand is on my shoulder, sha
king me, touching me again.

  i wipe my mouth, shrug away from her grasp. “i need to go home.” i’m freaked, jittery, but not from the cold. i expect the nightmares by now, but this was vivid. There. For real. Totally transported.

  Drops splatter fat on the windshield as Leesie drives up the rough track through the pines. She doesn’t look over at me or try to make small talk. We make the highway before the full storm hits. She pumps the headlights up to bright and leans back into the seat, her arms straight out like a race car driver. Her foot presses heavy on the accelerator. She senses me staring at her. A glance. She’s wearing her Ice Queen face. Our eyes lock and then hers go back to the road. “Feeling better?”