Skinny Dip
Thirsty Work — Chapter 2: little girl lost
Two young women from California travel to New Orleans in search of redemption after the death of their mother. Carolee thinks she will show her little sister the world, but what they find in the barrooms of the French Quarter at Mardi Gras is more than she knows how to handle, or could have imagined back home. This is the second chapter of the novel Thirsty Work.
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Cathy said with exasperation. She was standing at the vanity, brushing her long blonde hair, her slender white fingers gripped tightly around a black plastic brush. I lay on the bed in the opposite corner, watching her back.
“Why not, Cathy?” I asked innocently. “Don’t you think it would be fun? Wouldn’t you like to get away from here?”
“No.” She clipped her hair back with a heavy silver barrette; leaned closer to the mirror to apply black mascara to her light brown lashes.
Her curt reply filled the space between us. I considered my options. Decided to press. “Just think, you’ll be out of school soon. You don’t have to get a job right away. We could use some of the money Mom left us, just a little, to take a vacation together. We could go anywhere! To Canada or Mexico. We could go visit Aunt Viv in New Orleans or Uncle Bernie in DC. We could just hit the road and decide where to go from there. It would be an adventure!”
Cathy stopped putting on make up and made a face in the mirror: half irritated, half perplexed. “Why do you want me to go on your adventure?” she asked aggressively. “You never wanted me to go anywhere with you before.” She was putting on her lipstick now, outlining thin lips in pale pink with a delicate paintbrush. Her shoulder muscles bunched.
This bedroom was dim, even though we’d removed the cover from the light fixture on the ceiling, giving three impotent light bulbs their best chance to shine. Candace had redecorated this room ten years ago in a burst of pre-teen rebellion, and we’d each lived in it since. The wallpaper ranged in artificial greens from avocado to chartreuse, depicting an alien jungle. The curtains, drooping around a few missing fasteners, were butter yellow. The sparse brown carpet had a hole worn in front of the closet, revealing the gray concrete floor underneath. The four poster bed I lay on was a legacy from our grandfather, who had come to our house to die, bringing his own bed to do it in. It’s rich, dark mahogany was made tawdry by its surroundings, like fine china on a splintered picnic table.
Outside, it was dark and windy. It was close to 8 p.m. on a Saturday night. The camellia bush in front of the window scraped its hard, waxy leaves against the glass, seeking a passageway in. I felt sick.
“I guess I’m just lonesome,” I said pathetically. I didn’t mind trying for sympathy; I genuinely wanted some. “I don’t want to go alone.”
Cathy turned from the mirror to face me, her voice softer now. “Well, Carolee, even if I wanted to go, I don’t think Rick would let me.”
I detected some pride in her resignation. Frustration immediately expanded my chest. I forgot my strategy of gentle persuasion. “Let you?” I didn’t disguise the disapproval.
“Yes!” Her fury was instant. “What’s a matter with that? You think he’s supposed to be happy to see me traipsing around the country with my sister, a couple of girls on the loose? Or you think maybe he shouldn’t care about it? Maybe he shouldn’t care if I go? Because he can always get a better girlfriend. It’s just Cathy — no big loss.” Her cheeks were bright red now, underneath too much blusher. Her dangly bead earrings glinted in the light. Her too-tight blouse outlined her girlish breasts and her ridiculously tiny ribcage.
“I didn’t mean that,” I said helplessly, retreating. “It’s just I don’t see why he should have that kind of power over you. You aren’t his daughter. You aren’t a baby. You’re practically a grown up! Why should you let him tell you what to do?”
“Because I want to, that’s why! At least he cares about me. He cares where I am and what I’m doing. All the time. Which is a helluva lot more than I can say for anybody here!”
“That’s not fair!” I shouted. “I care about you Cathy. I’ve always cared about you. You’ve just never been able to see that. Why can’t you see that?”
“Oh, now it’s my fault! I guess I’m just too stupid to know how you feel!”
“Yes, you are stupid!” All the frustration from the past week welled up in me. All the tiptoeing around Cathy’s delicate sensitivities, all the failed efforts to subtly lead her where I wanted her to go. “You’re stupid to be yelling at me when I’m trying to invite you on a trip! You’re stupid to think that jerk cares more about you than your own sister! You’re stupid to think he has anything to offer you! He’s not good enough for you Cathy!”
“So now the truth comes out. You don’t like Rick. You never liked him! You think I’m too stupid to run my own life. You just want to take me on a trip to get me away from him! Well, I sure the hell don’t need you to tell me what to do! I know what I’m doing. Just butt out of my life!”
As if on cue, Rick’s loud, beat up Camaro — the muffler deliberately removed — pulled around the corner and stopped in front of the house. He honked the horn, kept the motor running, shouted, “Hey Cathy! Let’s party!” His cronies laughed in the back seat. It sounded like there were three or four of them, in addition to Rick. It sounded like they were all drunk. Rick turned up the music and revved the engine. Cathy whirled toward the bedroom door, her hair etched an angry arc.
I heard the front door slam, the car door slam a few seconds later, the raucous greetings of the gang, “Hey baby! You’re looking good tonight!” before the car roared away, fast, leaving its ugly echo like an insult on our quiet, suburban street.
“Good job,” I told myself sarcastically as the sound receded, taking Cathy out of my reach. The house was empty now, silent, deserted. The three light bulbs on the ceiling cast a lonely glow in the green room. I felt a sob rising in my chest. It was an dull sob, though. Tired. Lusterless. Defeated. Too familiar to be taken seriously. Not even loud enough to muffle the camellia’s relentless scrape.
Cathy settled into the thick black vinyl of the front seat as the car sped away from the curb. Carolee’s such a fucking asshole, she thought as she reached for the six pack on the floor, pulled a still-cold beer from its plastic ring. She held the cold can to her face. Her cheeks were burning hot. She thinks she knows everything. She thinks she knows how I feel. Cathy put the can between her thighs and popped the top.
Rick pulled up at the first stop sign, veered close to the curb. “Where do you want to go, baby?” He turned his face toward her, expectantly. His big hands hung loosely on the steering wheel. His biceps strained at the fabric of his white T-shirt. The cars passing on Pershing Avenue lit him up rhythmically, like a blinking Budweiser sign. He grinned.
“There’s a party at Greg’s house,” Bobby offered from the back seat.
“Let’s party!” Kuyper hooted his usual refrain. “I know for a fact that he’s got a lid of good Colombian; I helped him sample it. His parents are out of town and his sweet sister is in.” Pammy, sitting uncomfortably on the hump between the two boys in back, giggled inanely. Then burped loudly. Then giggled again.
Everybody in the car looked expectantly at Cathy. “That sounds good,” she said dully. She took a long suck.
Cathy pictured Carolee lying on the bed back home. She’s probably crying again. She almost choked. She replayed the silvery tone of her sister’s invitation. “It would be an adventure!” What was she trying to pull? A car roared by on Pershing. A man with long, stringy hair hung his head out a window, honked three times and waved.
Cathy was startled to realize that they were still sitting at the stop sign. Everyone in the car was looking at her. Her whole body clenched. “What’s the matter with you guys? Why aren’t we going anywhere?”
“You don’t seem all that enthusiastic about the party,” Rick said slowly, a playful undertone in his voice. He reached over, retrieved the beer from between her legs and took a proprietary sip. “Want to go to Woodbridge instead?” he asked as he replaced the can snugly, letting his fingers lightly trace her thigh.
Pammy squealed from the back. “It’s too cold to go swimming! You’re crazy!”
Bobby started to protest too. “Come on, Rick. Let’s go to the party. I want to smoke some pot…” But Rick cut him off with a look.
“Whaddya say baby?” his eyes returned to Cathy, slipped slowly from her face to her chest. “You up for some skinny dipping?”
Cathy gave an indifferent shrug. “I guess.”
Rick peeled away from the curb and turned left on Pershing. When they passed straight through the first stop sign, she knew they were headed out of town.
Outside the city limits, Thornton Road cut a narrow swath through loamy acres of crops and cows. The sky was blacker out here, the stars brighter, the earth lonelier than in town. The occasional home, with its one porch light pressing against the vast sky, only emphasized the solitude. Rick’s headlights bore two holes in the black night. The air smelled of peat dirt, tomato plants broken off at the stem, and cow dung. Rick’s loud car made a rude impression on the quiet landscape. Cathy didn’t care. She smoked her cigarette in silence, careful to flick her ashes in the ashtray before they flew out the window and straight into Kuyper’s face in the seat behind her, or fell on her newly-washed jeans. Kuyper, ever cheerful, gulped his beer and sang along with the radio, sometimes making up his own words. Pammy seemed to be dozing. Bobby stared out the window in silence, annoyed because he was overruled about going to the party. No one spoke.
Rick turned off the radio and slowed the car to veer off on the dirt road beside the Mokelumne river. Pammy woke up at the first big bump. “Oh, Jesus. What are we doing here? This isn’t the party.”
“Rick wants to go swimming,” Bobby said churlishly.
“No, I don’t think so,” Kuyper teased good-naturedly. “I think Rick wants to see Pammy go swimming!” He fingered Pammy in the ribs, which, because of her elevated position on the seat hump, were about level with his. She laughed delightedly.
Rick turned off the headlights and coasted to a stop a good 20 feet from a large valley oak that sheltered the bank. “We’re here,” he said softly, reaching down to grab what remained of the six pack on the floor. Cathy opened the door and climbed out of the car into the cool night air. Kuyper stumbled out after her, howling briefly at the full moon before the others turned in unison to shush him: “Kuyper, shut up! Do you want us to get chased out of here?!” Their eyes turned to the big, dilapidated farm house in the distance. But no lights suddenly switched on. No angry man slammed onto the porch with a shotgun. They hadn’t inadvertently sounded the “trespassing teenager” alarm. Pammy and Bobby started picking their way carefully down the bank.
A minute later, Pammy’s giggling wafted up. Cathy stood at the crest and watched as Pammy pulled her shirt over her head and threw it on the sandy shore. The moonlight bounced off her enormous white breasts, spilling out of the top of her bra like two big, doughy loaves. “Last one in is a rotten egg!” Pammy shout-whispered. Every eye was upon her as she bent over to wiggle out of her jeans, then half ran, half fell into the water. For a moment, all was silent as she slipped under the surface. Then her head broke through in a white rush. “Whoa! It’s freezing in here!” she warned the others. But Bobby and Kuyper were already fumbling with their pant buttons, racing to join her.
Rick and Cathy stood at the top of the embankment, watching. “What about you baby?” Rick said under his breath, pulling her close. “You going to take your clothes off so everybody can see your boobies, too?”
“Maybe.” The heat rose in Cathy’s cheeks as she tried playfully to push him away. But his grip on her arm only tightened. “Aren’t you going swimming?” she tried a diversion tactic. “You’re the one who wanted to come here.”
“I might,” he said. “I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking about taking a swing on that rope,” he nodded his head toward the old oak that stretched its heavy, rough-carved branches over the water. It had four or five thin planks of wood nailed to its trunk as a ladder. Halfway up the tree, and halfway out over the river, a thick rope dangled, not quite touching the water. If you climbed the planks to the cleft of the broad trunk, then shimmied out along the branch to retrieve the rope, you could put your feet on the big knot at the bottom and launch, swinging out over the water like Tarzan. Or Jane.
“You don’t want to do that,” Cathy said. “You might slip off the branch and hurt yourself.”
“I wouldn’t slip,” he said confidently. But his attention was already drifting elsewhere, to the churning point in the water where Pammy made the apex of a triangle with her two burbling admirers, somehow managing to keep them both at arm’s length. “I’m going to go test the water,” Rick said suddenly, releasing Cathy’s arm. “Get my feet wet.”
Now the beer Cathy had drunk on the ride here was calling for another. “Don’t take that with you,” she said, pulling the rest of the six-pack from his hand. Rick didn’t notice the loss. Cathy sat down in the dirt and pulled another Budweiser off its plastic ring as Rick moved away from her. The plump red and white can felt friendly and comfortable in her palm, kept her company as she watched Rick pick his way down the embankment to join the gang.
When the can was empty, Cathy opened another. Rick was dangling his feet in the cold water now. He had positioned himself on a tree root near the shoreline, where he could get a better view of Pammy’s tits. Kuyper and Bobby bounced around her like couple of puppies, shadowing her every move. Pammy laughed gaily, arched her neck and flung her hair, growing in grace and stature with the attention, ducking and swimming away under the water, and only occasionally emerging enough to reveal the shadowy crevice between her luminous breasts, where tiny rivulets flowed and collected. What am I doing here? Cathy couldn’t help thinking, despite the three beers. They don’t even know I’m here.
On the bank above them, distanced from the erotic dance in the water, Cathy glumly regarded the last remaining beer. She didn’t consciously make a decision to stand and leave it in the dust. She didn’t know why she was walking toward the old oak. But as she got farther from the commotion, an old unhappiness sprouted in her chest. She pushed it down and focused on the oak, with its one, gnarled branch that was reaching toward her, crooking up at the tip like a beckoning finger. When she reached the base of the tree, she slipped off her sandals, unbuttoned her pants, slid out of them easily and laid them on the dirt. The air bit her skin and raised goose pimples as she pulled her shirt over her head, unbuckled her heavy silver barrette and loosed her white hair.
The planks of the makeshift ladder pressed into her tender feet, cut into her soft, suburban hands, as she ascended. When she reached the top of the ladder, where the broad trunk sent out its thick branches, she stood in the dark palm of the oak and looked at the cold, distant moon, the spiteful stars, the gleeful party of indifferent friends. Then she lay her belly against the rough bark of the biggest branch, stretching almost horizontally over the river. Carefully, carefully, not wanting to lose her balance and fall in the water too soon, she inched out over the river to retrieve the rope. When she reached the place where it was tied to the branch, she hauled it up hand over hand, finally grasping the thick knot at the bottom like a precious prize. Then backward she shimmied, inch by careful inch, gripping the branch with her tender inner thighs and underarms.
Safe back in the tree’s cleft with her prize, she held the heavy rope in her hands. Still the moon sneered from her superior height. Still the stars cruelly sparkled. Still the friends frolicked foolishly in the distance. Still the unhappiness bloomed in her chest. In all the wide world, only the old oak seemed to notice her small triumph, cradling her now, shielding her, in its dark, hidden palm.
An image of her mother bending to examine her scraped belly stole silently into her chest. Quickly, quickly, before it overtook her senses, she gripped the rope with both hands, stepped onto the thick knot, and swung out over the cold, black water. The wind rushed through her hair, rushed over her chest, rushed through her legs; exhilarating her, making her aware of unacknowledged powers, pushing the vision of her mother out through her back with a clean, sharp pop.
At the peak of the wide arc, the rope paused in mid-air for a millisecond, suspending her in time and space. She saw her black silhouette against the sky as if from a distance, elevated above the slowly whirling planet.
Then she dropped off.
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