“How long will you be there?”
“Long enough to unload and gas up. Maybe two hours, tops.”
Mary hopped onto the deck.
“Hit it, captain.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
L.A. faded into the background like a corrupt memory filed for deletion.
Mary stood on the deck, leaning against the rail, looking out at the deep blue water. It was beautiful, but she hated it. She hated the cold. She hated the depth. She hated the cool indifference it offered.
She hated that her parents had died here.
Well, not here exactly. But ‘out here’ in the water, cold and alone except for each other.
Mary wondered if they’d talked. Of if they’d already been dead by the time they hit the water. She shook her head. Why was she always so macabre? She knew better. Knew there weren’t any answers. If there were, they would have made themselves known a long time ago. She made a mental note: be happier. Be positive. Walk on the goddamn sunny side of the street.
“Wind is bad,” the old man said behind her. “May take us an extra ten minutes or so.”
Mary turned. He stood by the wheel, on the right side of the boat. A can of Coke in his hand.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Mungons. Greg. But everyone calls me Mungo.”
“Mungo. It’s catchy. So how long you been doing this, Mungo?” Mary said.
“1959,” he said. “Sad, isn’t it? So much life going on either back there,” he gestured toward L.A. proper. “Or there,” he nodded toward Catalina. “I always felt like while life was going on I was either on the way to it or on the way from it. Know what I mean?”
“It’s like being in the middle of a shit sandwich,” Mary said. “I think Thoreau said that.”
“Not to mention the gas prices are killing me,” he said.
“How’s your 401(K) doing?” she said.
“That’s funny. You’re standing on my 401(k).” He took a drink of his Coke. “So how’d you end up with Kenum? You don’t seem his type.”
“What’s his type?”
“Trashy.”
“Well thanks for the compliment.”
“My advice?” the guy said.
“Yeah?”
“Get rid of it,” he said, nodding toward her belly, like he was telling someone to lose a moustache. Or throw out yesterday’s newspaper. “Nothing good will come from you having that baby. More people should do it.”
“We could do it right here,” Mary said. “Just bring over that bait bucket and some fishing tackle…”
“Look, I didn’t mean any offense,” the old guy said.
“Plenty taken,” Mary said, acting hurt. She’d heard pregnant women could be pretty moody. She moved to the back of the boat, pretending to be nursing her wounded spirit.
Mary watched L.A. recede into the distance. It looked so harmless from the water. Not like the sinful, lecherous community it often was. Although it had its decent moments and its unique attributes, too. Like the Getty. Mary loved to go there. They’d even recently had a Jackson Pollock…
Lights exploded over L.A. and for a brief moment Mary wondered if there was some kind of fireworks show going on. But then blackness crept over her eyes and a horrible, all-consuming pain rocketed down her spine and then she was pretty sure she was screaming. The last thing she felt were hands on her legs and a sudden sense of airiness.
“Splish Splash I was takin’ a bath…” she heard a voice say.
And then a feeling of floating. Just before the cold wash of water enveloped her.
What…? Mary wondered, before she simultaneously sank into unconsciousness and the Pacific Ocean.
Chapter Forty-Eight
It was the first lungful of water that woke her up. She gagged underwater, heard the sound of the motor racing away and opened her eyes.
A thick wave of kelp was ten feet ahead of her. Her lungs were on fire and she had a mouth full of sea water but she made it to the kelp before she surfaced.
She spewed a mixture of air and water at the surface, and saw the back of the Diver Down, too far away now, but close enough that she could see a man looking back toward where she’d gone into the water.
Mary treaded water and tried to clear her head. She could see Catalina in the distance, but there was no way she could swim that far. She gagged again and felt her stomach heave. Fear gripped her insides and she nearly panicked, her mind filled with images of her drowning and sharks ripping her apart. In an instant’s flash, she saw her balcony with her view of the Pacific and her head cleared.
She had one option. To wait. It was a relatively busy area, with sailboats and speedboats and the occasional ferry.
But she was afraid how long she could last in the cold water. Sharks were known to be out this far.
She swam farther into the kelp. Look on the bright side, she thought. People pay top dollar for this. Probably at least $500 for a kelp bath at LeMerigot spa.
“There’s the positive spirit, Mary,” she said. “Hey, look on the bright side. Sharks generally don’t attack in the middle of the kelp. People drown all the time getting tangled in kelp, but sharks don’t attack.”
Mary put a hand up against the side of her head. It came away pinkish. She hoped that meant there wasn’t much blood there.
“Stupid,” she said. Someone had been hiding down below in the cabin. She’d been able to see the old man at the wheel out of the corner of her eye just before the attack. So someone else had slipped out of the sleeping quarters, came up behind her, bonked her, and tossed her overboard.
Mary thought of the Discovery channel, of how seals would roll themselves up in kelp to keep them afloat and then nap.
Cold began to seep into her body. Not enough for hypothermia, but enough to give her a summer cold, and those are the worst, Mary thought.
So she waited. She was enveloped by cold. Her teeth chattered, and she was getting tired from treading water. Once, she felt something slick and rubbery scrape against her leg and she nearly screamed.
Just when she thought she couldn’t last any longer and would have to try swimming the rest of the way to the island, she heard the sound of a motor.
It was a high-pitched whine, rather than the deep rumble of a boat. Mary peeled herself out of the kelp and swam toward the open ocean. Far off, she saw two jet skis on their way to Catalina.
She swam as fast as she could for ten minutes, as the jet skis came closer. Finally, when she thought she could get their attention, she surged out of the water and waved her arms up over her head. Survival water ballet.
There were two of them, and it was an awful moment when they seemed totally oblivious to her. Mary gathered herself and launched her body out of the water, waving her arms over her head. It was the second rider who finally spotted her. He zoomed out past the leader, and herded him over toward Mary.
Minutes later, they pulled up next to her. They were covered in tattoos and had more piercings than Aunt Alice’s pin cushion. And they were the most beautiful people she had ever seen.
“Dude, what happened?” the lead guy asked, displaying a tongue stud.
“What, you’ve never seen a mermaid before?” she said. She reached out and got ahold of the jet ski’s side.
“Lift me up and I’ll show you my tail,” she said.
“Cool, man!” the guy said and reached out for her.
It was a little tricky, but between Mary hoisting herself up, and the guy lifting, she was able to swing onto the back of the machine.