The Color of Water in July (6 page)

The time spent around the campfire passed in a warm blur. Jess couldn’t remember how many people were there. Or what they ate. Or how many bottles Phelps Whitmire produced. For a while, everyone had been talking, and then the talking had died down. A group of kids left in somebody’s motorboat, so just the four of them were left: Jess, Toni, Phelps, and the boy, whose name was Daniel. Now, they sat around the fire, hearing the pop and spit of the burning wood.

Jess felt soft and relaxed from the fire. The skin of her face was warm from the heat of the flames. She was staring through the orange licks of the fire at the face of the boy on the other side. She thought he was staring at her too, but maybe that was just a trick of the light. She felt like she knew him from somewhere
.
But that was impossible. She had never seen him before, except that one day at the sinking sand—still, there was something about him that she recognized.

Slowly, they edged toward each other. Finally, his shoulder touched a small patch of her bare arm, and she felt her skin light up like a runway at night, tracks of light in the darkness. She leaned into him, felt the bulk of his shoulder, smelled for the first time the scent of his body, a mix of clean laundry and something like fertile soil. They hadn’t spoken directly to each other yet, were barely touching. Jess felt a heat at the base of her neck flushing outward. Her toes curled into the cold, damp sand.

“Hey, it’s getting late, guys,” Toni said, breaking the silence. “Jess, want to swim back with me?”

Jess looked out across the water. Wequetona, she knew, was just across the cove. Not more than half a mile. You’d think you’d be able to see porch lights but none were visible. She could see some points of yellow light in the darkness, but they looked farther away than they should have.

Toni threw her clothes off and started walking toward the water.

“Count me out,” Phelps said. “I’ve got the boat.”

“You’re too drunk to drive your boat,” Toni said.

Daniel pulled off his white T-shirt. Jess could follow the shirt’s faint white arc through the air when he tossed it. Shirtless, he was almost invisible until he came into the light of the fire.

“Wait here, Jess. I’ll be back soon,” he said to Jess. “I’ll go with Toni and get the canoe.” The sound of his voice speaking her name made her flash hot, quick as a leaping flame.

“Unless you wanna swim with us?” he said.

Jess looked past Daniel out toward the water, feeling her heart beat faster and her throat get tight.

“I’d rather stay,” she said.

“Only the crazy ones gonna swim,” Phelps said, flopping his heavy arm on her shoulder. His speech was slightly slurred.

“Wait for me,” Daniel said, looking at Jess. “I have to get the canoe.”

She understood. It wouldn’t be smart to get into the boat with Phelps in this state.

With yelps as they hit the cold water, Toni and Daniel took off swimming. Within seconds, they had disappeared entirely from sight.

The moment they were gone, Jess became aware that Phelps was now holding her uncomfortably tight. When she tried to back away, he threw his other arm around her and drew her in close.

“No, I . . . ” she said, confused, trying to pull away from his unexpected embrace. His breath was hot, sour with booze; she could feel it coming fast on her cheeks and neck. He pressed the full length of his body against her, the bulge of his belt buckle biting into the soft skin of her belly where her T-shirt was pushed up.

“Lay off,” she said, a little loud, now aware that there was no one around to hear.

Jess could feel her heart beating rapidly; she could feel bile rising up the back of her throat. She could smell him, the sharp stench of perspiration cutting through the soapy smell of Coppertone.

“Let go,” she said, breaking free. He stumbled a little, fell down on one knee. She ran down to the water’s edge, pulling off her T-shirt and dropping it onto the sand. “I’m going to swim.”

“Come on, baby. I’m sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry.

Jess backed away from him, until she could feel the icy water lapping at her ankles.

“Come on . . . ,” Phelps said, his voice suddenly crooning. She crept backward, wincing as the sharp rocks cut into the soles of her feet. The water was lapping up around her calves now—the slope was not gradual off Hemingway Point. She edged back another step, tapping her foot behind her along the silty ground to feel for the drop-off.

Turning, she strained her eyes trying to see across the dark lake: the water was blacker than black. The far shore looked distant and indistinct . . . She could just barely make out the gables of Journey’s End, the yellow light that shone through in a square in the third-floor window. Or was it? Was she even facing in the right direction? Straight across to Wequetona wasn’t far, but a miscalculation and she’d be heading out into open water . . .

Cutting into the silence, a motorboat ripped across the lake, its headlight making a jagged, bobbing path across the water.

Phelps was just standing there, not moving, harmless probably. Jess hesitated, fixing her eyes on the pinprick of light that seemed to be telescoping farther and farther away. Her toes were going numb; the water was frigid. Feeling her resolve wilt, she stepped back toward the shore.

Phelps shoved her onto the ground so fast she didn’t even see it coming. The fall knocked the wind out of her, sickened her. She gulped for breath. His hands grabbed at the button fly of her jeans. Scratching at him, she pushed, flailed. He was stronger than she was; the bulk of his body pinned her down.

This is happ
e
ning,
she thought stupidly.

Everything ached, especially her head. Knowing she was awake, she lay with her eyes closed, afraid to open them, and listened. No wind, just silence and lapping water. She realized that her cheek rested not on the ground but on something smooth, something that felt like polished wood. She opened her eyes slowly, completely disoriented, and saw that her cheek was on some kind of step. All was quiet and dark. She was half sitting, half lying on a rough, mildew-smelling blanket.

She saw a round yellow light that she suddenly realized was a flashlight and, behind the light, a dark male outline.

Abruptly, scared, Jess sat bolt upright and could feel herself rocking back and forth, the ground underneath her not ground at all but something vertiginously choppy. She reached out to steady herself and felt the fiberglass gunwale. She was in a canoe.

“Jess,” came the voice, low, urgent, tender as a caress. “Jess, are you okay?” Now, the flashlight moved so that the speaker’s face was illuminated, and Jess could see tears streaking down his cheeks.

Jess sat stock-still and perfectly silent, until a shudder, both cold and fear, racked her thin shoulders.

With memory returning, she looked down, embarrassed, at her pants, to see if they were still down around her knees. But they weren’t, they were pulled up into place, although Jess could feel that they were unbuttoned. Her feet were sandy and bare.

“I’m sorry,” Daniel said softly. “I didn’t know what you wanted me to do . . . You were out for a couple of minutes. I thought I should get you to the hospital . . . Are you okay?”

He picked up another rough blanket from behind him, wrapped it around Jess’s shoulders. Without realizing she was crying, Jess felt her cheeks turn cold from the wetness of tears.

“I really think you should let me look at your head,” Daniel said.

“I think I’m okay.”

“Let me just look.” Jess did not protest and Daniel shone the flashlight around her head, touching her hair, here and there, ever so tentatively with his hand.

“Ow.” Jess winced when he touched the back of her head, reaching up with her own hand to feel the lump on her head.

“I thought I could stop him by cracking him on the head with the paddle, but I think I ended up whacking you too. I’m so unbelievably sorry . . . I feel terrible . . . ”

“No, really . . . I’m okay . . . ” Jess wasn’t sure what to say. “Where’s Toni?” She suddenly remembered. It would have taken them a while to swim across. It seemed like a lot of time had gone by.

“She didn’t really swim across, just swam over to Lauder’s and took Whitmire’s boat. She was trying to do him a favor. She knew he was too drunk to drive it. I came back right away. I didn’t think . . . ”

“How long was I out? Long enough for . . . ?”

Oh God
. Jess crossed her hands over her chest tightly and closed her eyes. She didn’t remember exactly what had happened.

“Don’t worry. He didn’t . . . ” Daniel paused, his voice hesitant. “I got to you before . . . ”

Jess wanted to think of something grateful to say, but she didn’t quite have the energy to put the words together. The canoe was rocking, her head ached, and she was trembling in little violent bursts.

“Can’t you just take me home?” she said. “Row me, or whatever you were going to do?”

“I’ll paddle over to where my truck is parked,” he said.

Jess stayed quiet during the short ride home in the truck. She could feel her heartbeat slowing to normal. Daniel was looking straight ahead, out at the dirt road. She was struck by the way his hands rested on the steering wheel, relaxed yet firm.

But as soon as the back of the cottage came into view, she felt the equanimity slip away from her. She slumped against the pickup’s door and started sobbing, completely silent, but her body racked by shudders and her face awash with a flood of tears.

Daniel didn’t move. Through her tears, Jess could see the way his hands were gripped tight around the steering wheel now. Then, he reached over and put his hand on her chin, gently cupping it, turning her face toward his.

“Jess, I’m going in to talk to your grandmother.” She was surprised, both that Daniel knew she lived with her grandmother, and that he seemed to realize, without being told, that she couldn’t possibly see Mamie until she changed her clothes and washed the sand out of her hair.

Jess nodded in assent. Daniel slid off the truck’s red-vinyl seat and headed down toward the cottage, cutting around to the front.

In the morning, when Jess came downstairs, every muscle in her body was stiff and sore. She found Mamie sitting at the kitchen table, ankles crossed, with her cup of Ovaltine in front of her, doing the crossword puzzle in the
Chicago Tribune
.