Lemon Reef (13 page)

“What about him?” Then Del realized why I was asking. “He doesn't matter.”

“What does matter?”

Del dropped her chin and raised her eyes at me, a slight smile tilting the edges of her lips upward. “You know what matters.” She squeezed my hand.

I felt her touch in every nerve ending, my stomach in tumbles. There had been that night a few weeks before when I had been horrible, tried to suck her after she'd been beaten up. We didn't talk about it again after it happened, but since then I had been leaving it up to Del to initiate anything physical between us. She seemed to know and to feel reassured by it. Now I stared at her lit by the moon, her shiny hair falling against her soft cheeks, her pupils large and encircled in gold. I couldn't resist.

“Come with me.”

I led her to the stairs down to the beach. When our feet touched the sand I kissed her. Del pulled her head back slightly and stared at me; her breath was quick and audible. She seemed flustered by the kiss, and I wasn't sure at first if she had liked it. But then she cast a tender glance at me, and I knew she'd been moved in a way that surprised and pleased her. A wave crashed against the shoreline, reaching halfway to the motel seawall. The foam stretched out even farther and drenched our bare feet. The ocean was icy in the winter, and we did a little dance and leaped back to the motel seawall, where we landed on soft, dry sand and stood looking at each other and laughing.

Suddenly serious, I said, “Happy birthday, Del.” I felt shy about what I was about to do, offered hesitantly, “I have a present for you.” I took a deep breath. “A poem. I wrote you a poem.” Her face opened with anticipation. My heart pounded and my hands shook. I blew out one quick breath. “Okay,” I said more to myself. “Here goes.” I lowered my eyes and steadied my voice:

I watched you sleeping on sun-warmed sand,

I wanted to be the towel upon which you lay,

I wanted to be the sunlight that your skin soaks in.

With you there and me here, I yearned

To mold our bodies like soft clay into one shape

With rounded edges and hollow spaces

In which small things—small treasures

Could safely, easily be concealed.

Like fog rolling in over hilltops in distant lands,

Sea foam covers our tumbled sandcastle,

And you breathe away the minutes,

As if we have forever.

I brought my eyes to hers. She was listening intently, her lips slightly parted, her brows raised with wonder. I said more slowly and confidently now:

When I look at you,

When I really look at you,

I know we do.

Del seemed stunned. There was silence but for the waves. I waited for her to say something—the longer it took, the more foolish I felt. Finally, I just asked, “Do you like it?”

Now Del had a delicate, almost pained expression; her breath was rapid. She nodded while blurting out, “I think I love you.”

It was something neither of us had said before. She kissed me. I could feel the force of her whole body behind it, the intensity and decisiveness of her desire in the strength of her hands on my neck and the eager draw of her lips and press of her tongue against mine. My knees folded; we fell to the sand with her on top of me. She slid her hand down the front of my sweats and watched my face as she stroked my clit, entered me, stroked, entered, stroked, until I was chasing my breath and shaking under her.

“I love you,” she whispered, her finger sliding on me, our gazes affixed as I came.

Afterward we sat with our backs pressed against the seawall. I was holding her hand, studying her gnawed fingernails.

“There's something I've been meaning to tell you.” I glanced at her and then away. “I still feel bad about what I did. You know, that night a few weeks ago. I'm not apologizing,” I added quickly. We both laughed a little. “I just want you to know I won't do anything like that again.”

“It sucks that you had to see that the other night.”

“It sucks that you have to go through that. Have you ever told anyone, a teacher or anybody?”

She shook her head. “I just have to keep the family together until my father comes back. My mom's really different when he's around. I think she's just so hurt right now because she still loves him.” Del pressed my fingers. “You can't tell anyone. Okay?”

I nodded. “What you said before, that you love me. As a friend?”

She laughed. “Yeah, I finger-fuck all my friends.” Then she said, “It's more than that. You get to me.” Del touched my hair and then rested her hand on my shoulder. I was looking away now but could feel her watching me, my heart pulsing blood like a jellyfish jetting in a tide, my stomach undulating. Then she said, “Your poem…It's beautiful, Jen.” She recited slowly, “One shape with rounded edges and hollow spaces in which small things, small treasures could safely, easily be concealed.” I looked at her amazed. She'd heard it
once
. Then she said sweetly, “Like a baby.”

Not what I was thinking when I wrote it, but it seemed right. I brought her hand to my cheek, kissed it, said playfully, “I
wish
I could have a baby with you.”

She laughed lovingly, leaned into me. “Maybe it'll be possible someday.”

*

I was staring at the photo of Del and Khila when a face hooked around the door frame. “There you are,” Ida said. She entered the room, her red hair brightening the gloomy space. I startled, quickly recognizing the reaction as one I'd had many times in response to such barging in by the other kids, when Del and I wanted privacy in a house and a family that afforded none. I recalled then how Andre and Pascale allowed Del to lock her bedroom door because it was the only way to keep her sisters out. It worked well for us, not only to keep Nicole and Ida from bugging us during the day, but also to allow us to have sex at night without having to worry about getting caught. If either Andre or Pascale found Del's door locked, they would think nothing of it, and we would have time to get our clothes on.

Recovering from the intrusion, I handed Ida the picture.

“When was this taken?”

“Maybe a year ago, I think.” She shrugged, looked at me thoughtfully, and then handed it back.

She was taller than me now, her stick figure clad in tight blue jeans, three-inch heels, and a red tube top. Ida twisted back her thick, red hair and brought her dark eyes level with mine. Soft, well-defined features, a long neck, and bony shoulders all contributed to an appearance of fragility that in a different class frame might easily have been taken for exquisiteness.

“That's Khila?” Ida nodded. “Pascale wants me to help her get custody.”

Ida laughed a little. “Yeah, well, hope that works out better for Khila than it did for me.”

I had forgotten Ida was Del's cousin; she had come to live with Pascale when she was seven, after her mother died in a car accident. Pascale and Andre had intended to adopt Ida, but their marriage ended before they completed the process, so Ida grew up with Pascale as her legal guardian. It made no difference to Del. She insisted Ida was her sister and refused to refer to her in any other way. We would talk about it at night sometimes, how sad Ida had been when she came to live there, and how Del, who was only eleven years old, had tried to console Ida by saying she had a new family.

Ida slept with Del for the first year before she finally moved into her own bed in a room she shared with Nicole and, later, Sid. But it remained complicated with Ida, her wish to be what she believed was a legitimate part of the family constantly frustrated and undermined by increasing financial pressures and then Pascale and Andre's divorce. In fact, it was Ida who Pascale resolved to put into foster care after Andre left and she could no longer afford to take care of all four kids. Although she never told me this, I know part of the reason Del moved out at sixteen and began working for Ben Reed was so Ida wouldn't have to go.

“Del still bites her fingernails, huh?” I was noticing her hands in the picture.

“Hella short,” Ida said. “Just last week when I was hanging out with her, I was thinking that it hurts just to look at them.” Sadly, she offered, “I'm glad you're here. It's comforting. I don't know why.”

I hugged her as if she belonged to me. She leaned her head into me; I kissed the top of it. “I'm sorry that I've been out of touch for so long.”

“I understand,” she said firmly. “You did what you had to do. Things sure have come undone around here, huh?”

Nicole popped in and pushed a cold bottle of beer at me. “Here, my mom said you can put this on your face to stop the bruising. Be glad it's not ‘duck' tape.” I put the bottle to my cheek and laughed, remembering how Pascale fixed everything with duct tape: cars, windows, sports equipment, furniture—injuries. To Ida, Nicole said, “You'll never believe who just called. Tar Baby.”

Ida said, for my benefit, “He's an old friend of Sid's.”

“He wants to talk to us.” Nicole looked first at Ida and then at me. I had the feeling that as far as Nicole was concerned, any us now included me. “He wants to meet us at the tunnel.”

“Seems kind of out-of-the-way,” I said.

Nicole was moving toward the door. “Tar Baby works the concession stand at the pier. He's off in an hour. He said he has news about Del.”

Ida shrugged at me. “Wanna come?”

“Might as well. I'm here anyway.” My tone was casual, but privately I was overjoyed to be invited into their clan again. Also, I was curious about what news this person had about Del.

*

Before we left to meet this Tar person, I read the autopsy report, again expressing surprise over how quickly it had been completed. Ida said reports were routinely produced within twenty-four hours on the less complicated cases. The idea that Del's death was being considered uncomplicated caused Nicole to be agitated all over again, but I focused on the findings.

Del's death had been attributed to a cardiac arrest. In general the findings were unremarkable. There were no bruises, no indications of sexual assault, and no drugs in her system with the exception of tobacco. Her skin was a bright pinkish color, and she had elevated levels of carbon monoxide in her blood. Her heart failure had been attributed to a carbon monoxide effect considered notable at around 20 percent, which the medical examiner speculated might have been brought about by heavy smoking in a closed cabin prior to diving, compounded by anemia, the result of a low-grade apparently chronic condition of anorexia nervosa.

Her bent hands had clawed the water. Debris in her mouth and throat suggested gasping while submerged, and the presence of foam in her throat and nostrils together with a watery substance exuding from her lungs upon sectioning all pointed to nonpassive water entry. The medical examiner was certain, on the basis of these details, Del had been alive when she went into the water. Based on the crime-scene analysis, she had been under only about twenty minutes before she died. The air in her tank was free of any contamination.

The report concluded Del had been in insufficient health to dive, and the air compression had stressed her already oxygen-and-otherwise-depleted system to the point of lethality. The medical examiner was satisfied that Del had died of natural causes. Her remains were scheduled to be released to the cemetery of her family's choosing within the routine forty-eight hours. I completed the report, stared at the page, the words written on it a momentary blur. One detail jumped out at me: the weight belt. When Del was found, the report said, she was still wearing a weight belt. Del was an experienced diver. If she had gotten into trouble, the belt would have been the first thing she dropped. Still, the report was conclusive and, to my eye, convincing. Del had died of natural causes.

“It's bullshit,” Nicole said. “Who dies of a heart attack at thirty-one?”

“Someone with anemia and anorexia who smokes before they dive, I guess.”

Nicole moved from foot to foot, shifted her eyes rapidly, grimaced angrily. “It was murder.”

I knew from the small amount of criminal law I had done that family members always suspect wrongdoing around an unexpected death. The way I understood it, rage was easier to stand than grief. Still, the weight belt bothered me, as did the news Del had been planning to leave Talon. Leaving or trying to is when most women get killed. Also, there were the disturbing things Katie had said about Del's behavior these past months. And then there was this other troubling detail about Talon, if true. He had arranged for a kid's brutal murder and framed Sid.

With all this in mind, I decided I would fax the report to my friend, Doug Andrews, for his opinion. Doug was senior forensic biologist at the FBI's crime lab in Northern California. The first time I met him, he was testifying as an expert witness in a criminal case. I was in my second year of law school and an intern with the public defender's office, and this was the first major trial I had been involved in. Most professionals in the criminal law world ran the other way when they saw an intern coming. Doug, this tall, roundish man in his mid-forties, with a conservative haircut belied by a discreet few-strand-braided tail, was warm, welcoming, helpful, and we became good friends.

Standing in Del's living room, surrounded by the people I grew up with, I drew comfort from my connection with Doug. Like Madison, Doug was part of the life I'd made for myself since leaving Florida. That I could speed-dial him on my cell phone, a person of his stature and influence, allowed me to feel the distance I'd traveled and to experience myself as the capable person I'd become. Back then, there were no adults in our lives who could help us. Now there was someone who could take action. Me.

It was close to seven p.m. when the five of us stood in the gravel drive outside Pascale's house debating who among us should go meet Tar Baby. Both Ida and Nicole wanted to go. And I wanted to go. I wanted to see Haulover Beach again and, in particular, the Sand Dollar Motel. Katie and Gail began to beg off going and then remembered Norma's charge to look out for me; they ultimately opted to come along as well.