Girl at Sea (36 page)

“A sponge diver,” Jonathan said, flushing a bit. “You would think someone might have mentioned that there were naked men leaping about.”

The nakedness did not bother Marguerite in the slightest.

She understood its function at once. It was to make the descent quick. That was what the stone was for too. How else did you get what you wanted from the bottom of the sea? You had to drag yourself there.

In that moment, everything fell into place for Marguerite.

Everything that she had ever wondered about was under the sea.

Maybe even the Marguerite stone itself.

She started the very moment they arrived home in Italy.

Marguerite was an exceptionally strong swimmer for a woman, but the traditional swim outfit was holding her back. So the first thing to go was the baggy, heavily skirted swimsuit she was supposed to wear. She had her dressmaker design a special one-piece suit that bared her legs, which meant she had to practice carefully, where she couldn’t be seen.

The other thing that she needed came from a stonemason in 314

town. She had him make what she had seen in Greece—a
skandalopetra
, the bell-shaped stone with the hole for rope.

The first time she landed on the seafloor, Marguerite knew she was in love. She had no mask to protect her eyes, no fins to help her swim. Her lungs burned painfully. But she was ecstatic—a woman standing on the bottom of the ocean, where there was an entire world waiting to be explored.

It was so stunning that she almost forgot to keep her count until the panic of airlessness racked her body. She gave the rope a firm pull, grabbed the diving stone hard, and felt herself rising.

She was rising slowly, but she was rising. She exhaled slowly.

Marguerite was feeling like she could go no longer when the sunlight appeared through the surface of the water, She kicked for it, and then she broke the surface, gasping and giddy. A massive cheer erupted from the boat.

There was no going back.

315

The Worst Summer of My Life

Three days later, four members of the group sat in the airport in Rome. Checking in had been easy. None of them had any suitcases, which raised an eyebrow or two. They had only whatever they had picked up to wear in the last few days.

Clio caught sight of herself in a reflective surface. She’d had to make do with the slim offerings in the local tourist shops, so her outfit was a pair of sweatpants with the word
Italy
written down the leg in big red, green, and white letters and a T-shirt that said,
Ciao!

At least people won’t ask me where I’ve been,
she thought.

Aidan had made out slightly better in the pants department, with a long pair of surf shorts. His shirt was worse, though. It had a picture of Michelangelo’s David on it holding a tiny Italian flag. Elsa’s clothes hadn’t been soaked in seawater and messed up in an escape attempt, so she had washed them.

Martin was given a clean bill of health but a warning to be 316

more careful and to avoid strenuous activity. He was resting at the hotel. Julia had remained on in Rome once she heard everyone was safe, and was battling through the many layers of red tape to have the stone released back into their custody.

With nowhere to stay, and so many ends to tie up, it only made sense for Aidan and Elsa to go. Clio’s mom had yet to be told the full story, but she knew that something had happened.

So Clio was going as well. The group was split up as quickly as it had been thrown together.

Elsa’s flight to Stockholm was the first to leave. After hugging everyone good-bye, she hooked her arm through Clio’s.

“Walk with me to security?” she asked.

“Sure,” Clio said.

They walked in silence for a moment, dodging the luggage carts and people running for planes.

“We should talk,” Elsa said. “I want things between us to be settled.”

“Me too,” Clio said.

“I was upset,” Elsa said. “It wasn’t what you did. I could see what was happening between the two of you. You’re good together. It’s just that you didn’t tell me the truth. If you had just told me, I wouldn’t have gone after him like that.”

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but I didn’t know I liked him then,” Clio said. “I swear.”

“I know,” Elsa said. “I’m still sorry I wrecked your drawing crayons.”

“You
bought
them, too,” Clio said.

“True, but it’s no excuse.”

“So,” Clio said, “you don’t want to stay here? Go to Rome?”

317

“No,” Elsa answered. “My mom is tied up now in work. I might as well go and see my dad and his family. I like Stockholm.”

“You won’t try to contact Alex, will you?”

“Ah,” Elsa said. “Now, there is good news on that front. I don’t think I’ve shown you this.”

She held up her phone and showed Clio a picture in a text message. It was of the sailor from the dock making a kissing face. There was some Italian written under it.

“No way,” Clio said.

“He’s coast guard,” she said with a little giggle. “He gets time off, just like a normal job. He’s going to come up to Sweden to see me in two weeks. He already bought a ticket. Alex is going to die when he hears that my new boyfriend is an Italian sailor.

I can’t wait to walk him around the football pitch someday while Alex is playing. It’ll
kill
him!”

Elsa took the phone back.

“Not that I even care,” she added quickly, shutting it. “But there’s always a silver lining.”

“You can come visit me,” Clio said. “My house is kind of a serious violation of most safety codes, but it’s really big. It’s easy to get to Philadelphia. And you’d love my cat. You always have a place to stay.”

“Maybe I will,” Elsa said.

There was an announcement in Italian.

“That’s me,” she said. She wrapped Clio in one more hug, squeezing hard.

“Keep the boy,” she said. “He needs you.”

And with that, she was gone. She left much like she’d 318

appeared—head held high, smiling no matter what happened to her. Still every inch the goddess, drawing looks from about half the people she passed.

When Clio got back, Aidan and her dad were hungry. They returned to the restaurant where the whole trip had started.

Without Elsa, they were a bit helpless. Clio’s dad just pointed to a pizza and held up three fingers. The only topic was the stone.

Clio could see that her dad wasn’t ready to talk about Julia yet.

“What time is it?” Aidan said, looking at the spot on his wrist where his watch used to be. “Right. Need a new watch.”

“Probably close to time,” Clio’s dad said. “We’ll pay and walk you over.”

It was time. In fact, it was past time.

“Last call,” Aidan said, looking up at the screen. “I guess I should . . .”

He pointed a thumb at the mass of people at the security checkpoint. Clio’s father nodded and extended his hand for a shake.

“Make sure to keep in touch,” he said. “You have my e-mail.”

“I will, Ben,” he said. “I need to hear how this all ends.”

Aidan turned to Clio. Her stomach bottomed out.

“Dad, could we . . .”

Her father blinked. No comprehension at all. She was going to have to spell it out for him.

“Dad,” she said. “Look at those gorgeous silk ties at that store over there. Don’t you need a tie?”

“A tie? I . . .”

There it was. The look Clio had known would come someday.

He got it.

319

“I’m going to go look at ties,” he said, forcing his face into an overly serious expression. “Aidan, have a good flight.”

With one more shake, he went off and vanished deep into the tie store.

“He’ll probably buy one,” Clio said. “He can’t do anything halfway.”

She felt her eyes starting to fill, so she quickly looked down at the shiny gray tiles on the floor.

“Will you miss Cambridge?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “After England, New Haven weather actually sounds nice. And the food is good. I could really go for a cheeseburger at the Doodle. Did I ever tell you about the Doodle?”

“No,” she said.

“Good cheeseburgers. We should go.”

He looked at her, half smirking. The eyes were still analyzing.

But there was a seriousness about them now.

“Want to make it a date, haircut?” she asked. “As soon as I scrape together the cash for the train ticket?”

“What’s with the ‘haircut,’
kiddo
?” he asked. “I thought we were past that.”

“We’ll
never
be past that,” she said.

“What about Ollie?” he asked.

“Ollie’s a nice guy,” Clio admitted. “But he’s not my boyfriend.”

Aidan tried not to smile.

“Well,” he said, stretching himself long, exposing his stomach as he pulled up his arms in a supremely bored gesture. “I
guess
that’s okay, then. Maybe I’ll even come to Philly. I heard you 320

guys have good cheesesteaks. I’ve always wanted to be in a relationship based on local sandwiches.”

Clio tried not to openly gape at the word
relationship
. She swallowed hard.

“So,” she said. “Does that mean I don’t have a fake boyfriend anymore?”

“Have you drawn my picture?” he said. “That seems to be the sign.”

“Actually . . .”

She pulled out her sketchbook and opened it up to the new sketch that she had worked on in the last few days. This time, he had no reply at all. He just stared at it.

“I’ve never torn anything out of a sketchbook before,” she said. “But if you want it . . .”

“Yeah,” he said. “I want it.”

She squatted down and carefully ripped the page out, pulling it away from the spine. She passed it to him.

He took a step back, then rocked on his heel.

“It’s time,” he said. “I’d better . . .”

He moved so fast, Clio barely saw it coming. He bent down and took her face in his hands and kissed her long and hard. She had to grab onto his sleeve to keep from toppling over.

“See you, rich girl,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Later, snob.”

And then there were two.

When her father emerged from the shop, a full fifteen minutes later, he didn’t have a tie with him. He was shutting his phone.

321

“Good news from Julia,” he said. “The stone is being released back to us. And she’s already been contacted about it. The story is getting out. All of a sudden, everyone’s interested. This thing is getting big already, Clio. The news wires have picked up the story. Everyone wants to know what we’re going to find. And it’s all possible because you are stupidly brave.”

“And you have idiotic ideas,” Clio added.

“Of course,” he said. “What do you think, kiddo? Are you ready to get back into the game? We always made a good story.”

“You never stop, do you?” she asked.

“No,” he admitted. “I guess I don’t. I guess I did it again. Why am I always putting you in danger?”

“You didn’t,” she said. “Jeffrey Fox did.”

He tried to smile, but she could see he was finding it hard.

“You know what?” she said after a moment. “I thought Julia sent those guys. I really did. I thought she wanted the stone for herself. I was about to tell the police that and everything. Aidan stopped me.”

“You thought
Julia
did that?” He laughed. “Can you imagine Julia going to the dock and hiring thugs? In that voice of hers?”

“It made sense at the time,” Clio said weakly. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust her. I guess she’s nice. I’ll try to like her more.”

“Well, I could have introduced her to you under better circumstances,” he said. “Why have we had such a rough time?

Is it me?”

“We’re just interesting people,” Clio said. “We’re both very difficult.”

“Is that it?”

She looked up at the screen of multicolored flight names and 322

times. One of them meant home—not that she wanted to go there as much as she had before.

“You should go, kiddo,” he said. “You know what security is like.”

“Right,” she said with a sigh.

She gave him one final hug, then started on her way toward the throng of people at the gate being checked and frisked and metal-detected. Halfway there, she turned around and walked back to where he was standing, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his new white shorts, another tourist shop purchase.