Black Water (11 page)

Good
sportsmanship. In some, it's as hard to win gracefully as it is to lose.

But
as game followed game the balance of authority gradually shifted, Lucius with
his bizarre first serves and Stacey's lover with his dogged rushes to the net
and unpredictable backhand wore The Senator and Ray Annick down, the sun too
and the gusty wind and the St. Johns' court that needed repair, Kelly slipped
tactfully away before the final set ended not wanting The Senator to see her
observing, as, smiling in defeat, making a joke of it, he shook his young
opponents' hands, not wanting to hear what the men said to one another, at such
times, as a way of not saying other things.

No:
she was walking along the beach her hair whipping in the wind, the yellow mesh
tunic loose over the white swimsuit and her long legs smooth, strong,
pinkened
by the sun. She was walking along the beach and
beside her was the tall broad-shouldered handsome man, big bearlike man,
gray-grizzled curly hair, a famous face yet a comfortable face, a sunflower
face, a kindly face, an uncle's face—the blue eyes so blue so keenly so
intensely blue a blue like washed glass.

How keen, how intense his interest in
Kelly Kelleher.
How flattering.

Asking
her about her work with Carl Spader, her background, her life; nodding
emphatically saying yes he'd read her article on capital punishment in
Citizens' Inquiry
—he was certain he'd read it.

Curious
too, though he kept his tone casual, with a crinkled avuncular smile, if she
had a boyfriend at the present time?

And
if she'd ever been attracted to working in Washington?

And if she might consider joining his
staff— sometime?

Murmured
Kelly Kelleher, flushed with pleasure, yet level-headed too like any lawyer's
daughter, "That depends, Senator."

Of course.

How
canny The Senator had been at the 1988 Democratic convention, declining Michael
Dukakis's offer of the vice-presidential candidacy. Let Bentsen have the
second-best position, paired with the absurd Quayle, he would have the
presidential nomination, or nothing. Yet
more canny
,
not at that time to have very actively pursued the nomination himself since
he'd understood, as Dukakis had not, that the Democrats' best efforts in that
election year were doomed.

As Kelly Kelleher had not understood.
Those Reagan years, the dismal spiritual debasement, the hypocrisy, cruelty,
lies uttered with a cosmetic smile... surely, the American people would
see.

Yet
it had been Kelly who'd been blind, and what a fool. Laughing about it now on
this Fourth of July years later strolling with a United States senator passing
miniature American flags set in the sand by the children of Buffy's neighbors,
making of her exhaustion and heartbreak an amusing anecdote to tell against
herself
.

But
The Senator did not laugh. He said, vehemently, "Oh Christ. I know.
I
wanted to die, nearly, when Stevenson lost to Eisenhower—I
loved that man."

Kelly
Kelleher was startled to hear such an admission.
A man loving
another man?

Even
in political terms?

The
Senator spoke of Adlai Stevenson and Kelly listened attentively. She had an
imprecise, however respectful, knowledge of Stevenson, for of course she had
studied that era in American history, the Eisenhower years, the Eisenhower
phenomenon her professor had called it, but she did not want to be tested. She
did not want to allude to her father's contempt for the man and she could not
even recall whether there had been a single campaign, or two.
In the early 1950s?

Cautiously
she inquired, "Did you work for him, Senator?"

"The
second time, yes. In nineteen fifty-six. I was a sophomore at Harvard. The
first time— when he might actually have won—I was just a kid."

"And
were you always—political?"

He
bared
his big teeth in a happy smile, for clearly
this was his question.

"'The
state is a creation of nature, and man is a political animal'—by nature."

He
was quoting—was it Aristotle?

Kelly
Kelleher who had been drinking an unaccustomed amount of beer much of the
afternoon laughed happily too. As if this
were a fact
to be celebrated. It was the wind whipping her
hair,
it was the beauty of the island.
Grayling Island.
Maine. The pounding surf like a narcotic, the high-banked beach, pebbly sand
stretching for miles festooned with wild rose and the enormous wind-sculpted
dunes, those curious creases or ripples in them as if a giant rake had been
combed through them with infinite care. How blessed was Kelly Kelleher's life,
to have brought her
here]

It
was unlike her to be so bold, so flirtatious. Asking The Senator archly,
"'Man'—and not woman? Isn't 'woman' a political animal too?"

"Some women.
Sometimes.
We know that. But, most of the time, women
find politics boring.
The power-play of male egos.
Like war. Eh? Boring in its monotony, beneath all the turmoil?"

But
Kelly was not to be led. As if this were a seminar, and Kelly Kelleher one of
the stars, she said, frowning, "Women can't afford to think of politics as
'boring'! Not at this point in history. The Supreme Court, abortion—"

They
were walking much slower now. They were breathless, excited.

The
tender soles of Kelly's feet stung from the heat of the white-glaring sand. Yet
the wind was raising tiny goose bumps on her arms: it must have been
twenty-five degrees cooler here than back in Boston.

The
Senator, noticing the goose bumps, drew a forefinger gently along her arm.
Kelly shivered the more at his touch.

"Are
you cold, dear?—that thing you're wearing is so flimsy."

"No.
No, I'm fine."

"Would
you like to turn back?"

"Of course not."

Touching her arm.
That sudden intimacy.
Standing so close, staring down
at her.

Deliberately,
slowly as if with exaggerated courtesy The Senator gripped Kelly Kelleher's
shoulders, stooped to kiss her, and her eyelids fluttered, she was genuinely
startled, surprised, yes and excited too, for how swiftly this was happening,
how swiftly after all, yet as he kissed her after the first moment she stood
her ground firmly, heels dug into the crusty sand, she leaned to the man taking
the kiss as if it were her due, a natural and inevitable and desired
development of their conversation. And bold too, giddy too, parrying his tongue
with her teeth.

How nice. How nice, really. You can't
deny—how nice.

As the black water filled her lungs,
and she died.

Except: amid blinding lights suddenly
she was
being wheeled on a gurney flat on
her back strapped in place amid lights and strangers' eyes and that harsh hospital
smell they were pumping the black water out of her lungs, the poisonous muck
out of her stomach, her very veins, in a matter of minutes!
seconds
!
the
team of them, an emergency room crew, strangers to
the dying girl yet she was of such enormous concern to them you would have
thought it was one of their own being resuscitated, and how swiftly!
how
without hesitation! she was trying to explain to them
that she was awake, she was conscious, please don't hurt me, how terrifying the
clamps that held her fast on the table and her head gripped firmly by the
gloved hands of someone who stood behind her and the hose forced down her
throat, the thick fat hideous hose that was so long, so long, you would not
believe how long and how much pain scraping the back of her mouth, her throat,
choking her so she wanted to vomit but could not vomit, she wanted to scream
but could not scream and in the midst of a convulsion her heart lurched and
stopped and she died, she was dying but they were ready, of course they were ready,
elated by this challenge they were ready scarcely missing a beat of her
faltering heart they stimulated it with powerful electric jolts. Ah!
yes
!
good
!
again
!
like
that!
again
!
yes
! and the dying girl was revived, the young female corpse
was revived, the heart's pumping restored within five seconds and oxygen
restored to the brain, and by degrees the marmoreal skin took on the flush of
color, of life: the eyes leaked tears: and out of Death there came this life:
hers.

Don't let Lisa die,
dear God don't let her die, don't
don't
she was waiting in the outer room, she and several others,
Oh God please
in that calm of mutual hysteria three or four
of them, girls from the residence hall, and the dorm resident who was only a
few years older, Kelly Kelleher was the one who'd seen Lisa Gardiner collapse
in the bathroom, Kelly Kelleher was the one who'd run screaming to the
resident's suite, now keeping vigil in the waiting room beyond the emergency
room of Bronxville General and the shock of it, the trauma of it, seeing one of
their own carried out on a stretcher unconscious and open-eyed open-mouthed her
tongue convulsing drooling as in an epileptic fit and Kelly Kelleher staring,
knuckles pressed to her mouth, had thought,
Why it isn't Lisa's
life it's simply—life
seeing how it was draining away in her like
water down a sink and perhaps she was already dead and could they restore that
life to her?

Could,
and did.

Later,
they'd learned, and some of them resented it, that Lisa Gardiner and her twin
sister Laura (whom they had never met—Laura went to school at the Concord
Academy in Massachusetts) had tried to kill themselves by taking sleeping pills
in a suicide pact, three years before when they were living at home, and in
eighth grade in a public junior high school in Snyder, New York.

Why
did some of the girls resent this fact?—because the near-death of Lisa had
disturbed them so, churned them up so, there was no subject except Lisa and the
emergency team rushing up the stairs and into the bathroom and carrying Lisa
away and the fact that strictly speaking Lisa had died, her heart had stopped,
and how weird!
how
terrible!
how
amazing! and you grew simply to resent it, all that fuss over Lisa Gardiner who
always had to be the center of attention, and all that fuss over death, and
dying, how exhausting by the end of the term!

When
Lisa returned for a visit, Kelly Kelleher was the one who made a point to be
friendly with her, yes and to talk earnestly with her, the two girls who had not
been particularly close or confiding previously now observed in an intense
conversation in the lounge and what was Lisa Gardiner saying, why was Kelly
Kelleher so fascinated, Lisa with her rather low forehead, her nose too wide at
its tip as if she were continually sniffing in finicky disdain, Kelly with her
peaked, pretty face, her somber mouth—"There isn't that much difference
between people, and there isn't that much
purpose
to
people," Lisa was saying in a flat, nasal, bemused, bullying voice,
"—if you're one-half of a twin set you
know."

No I don't, no I reject that I reject
you, I am not your sister, I am not your twin, I am not you.