25

When A.Z. closes her eyes, she’s drowning. There’s saltwater on her face and skin, in her mouth, in her throat. But it isn’t saltwater. It’s freshwater. Then it isn’t water at all. It’s ashes.

She’s running with her eyes closed. She’s hyperventilating. She’s running with her eyes open. She’s on Nell’s road, pulling her bike from the ditch, riding shakily and sobbing so hard she can’t see anyway. It doesn’t matter if she sees or not. There’s nothing in the world.

But also, there are sirens. She can hear them—not the mythical sirens that call sailors to the sea rocks but fire truck sirens—like the day the trash barrel exploded. She turns onto the highway, riding fast down the other side as a fire truck races past, its lights flashing, those sirens blaring backward through her mind.

Kristoff is saying—a million years ago, earlier this summer—Anything can be art. If someone says a paperclip is art, then it is.

But he lied to her. He lied to her about everything. She can’t say the Sea is salty when it’s not. She can’t say she’s an oceanographer when she’s a fucking void.

She’s at the intersection of Shell and the highway. She’s waiting to cross, or waiting to stop existing, when an old white Mustang with a dented hood pulls over.

“Hey,” Larsley says, leaning across the seat and blowing a bubble with her gum, pressing it flat with her hand the way she always does.

A.Z. doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t exist. Neither does Larsley. Or her car.

“Did you hear about the alligator? I bet Greg can’t wait to make you alligator jerky.” Larsley smiles, but A.Z. can tell she’s been crying, too. Her eyes are puffy, and she’s wearing way too much makeup. “I’m going to the beach. You can stick your bike out of the trunk; it doesn’t really close anyway because of that stupid telephone pole I hit last night.”

The inside of the car is big and dimmer than should be possible on such a sunny day. The seats are shiny burgundy leather and smell like furniture polish, like someone’s grandmother’s car. A.Z. finds it strangely comforting in the way that apparently nonexistent things can be comforting. She looks out across the long hood and listens to Larsley humming along to the Violent Femmes. She’s driving fast, one hand on the wheel because she’s pressing the other one against another bubble.

“My dad says I can’t drive because I got into another wreck this morning,” Larsley says. “But they both got called to this fire out on Nell’s land, so I left. I’m not going to sit around the house like a prisoner.” She glances over at A.Z. “What are you crying about?”

“Nothing,” A.Z. says. She wants to ask about the fire but she doesn’t. She doesn’t know why she’s gotten into the car with Larsley. She doesn’t know why anything is anything.

“Men suck,” Larsley says, blowing another bubble and then spitting the gum out the window, like she’s trying to spit out the whole idea of men.

The beach is crowded—a sea of people blocking the real Sea—everyone holding up cameras and binoculars, and putting their kids on their shoulders, and shielding their eyes to scan the waves. Sahara is waving a sign about stopping alligator genocide. Greg is standing by the lifeguard stand, getting his picture taken.

“He probably aimed at his foot,” Larsley says.

A.Z. wonders why Larsley is here. She wonders why she’s here. She follows Larsley down the beach, where Larsley stops to talk to Liz and Tammy. A.Z. sort of listens, but she listens more to the roaring coming closer and then farther on the water. She feels like her nerves are on the wrong side of her skin.

“Sy’s having a party tonight to celebrate,” Liz is saying somewhere far away, where people say words to each other and people listen and care. “I know he’s gross, but they’re getting a keg. He has a hot tub, too. I think it’s at his uncle’s place or something.”

“Cool,” Larsley says. “I can drive us. Hey, did you hear the Gordings’ woods are on fire? Apparently Sahara was trying to burn the woods down to save the alligator.”

“Wow,” Liz says.

“That doesn’t make sense—” A.Z. starts to say, but then she catches herself. Nothing makes sense. She can’t let Sahara get arrested, but also, what other people think isn’t her fault.

When Liz and Tammy walk away, Larsley puts her hand up to shield her eyes, scanning the beach. “There’s your dad,” she says. “Down by the water.”

A.Z. should have thought about this. She doesn’t want to see her dad. She doesn’t want to see anyone.

But her dad has already seen them. He’s walking toward her.

“Sy thinks the body might wash up here any minute,” he says. “It was such an amazing shot. A synchronous shot. Greg says he was inspired by taking the ASVAB. I want to interview him, but there’s a fire over by Nell’s, and she says she saw a girl climbing the fence to start it, but Sahara has an alibi. An alligator alibi. She was at my office dropping off information about the original owner.” Her dad is talking really fast. He’s holding four Bic pens as if he’s going to write a bunch of different stories at once.

A.Z. really wishes everyone would stop saying “fire,” stop saying anything at all. She sees Kristoff curled on the ground, the flames maybe spreading out toward him, like a tide, but not like a tide. Like fire.

“Cool,” Larsley says. “Sy is having people over later to celebrate. A.Z. and I are going.”

“What?” A.Z. tries to say. But she doesn’t get the word out fast enough.

Larsley smiles her sweet, convincing smile she uses when she’s trying to get something—the smile A.Z.’s mom never trusted. “I’ll drive her home in the morning. I got a car.”

“Nice,” A.Z.’s dad says, writing with one pen with the other ones still sticking out at weird angles from his hand. “Amazing aim. Astounding assassination.”

“I’m not going to the party,” A.Z. says when they get back up to the parking lot. She’s pissed, not only that Larsley told her dad about the party but that Larsley and her dad have decided she’s going without even asking her. She’s not celebrating anything ever.

“Parents like to feel informed,” Larsley says, starting the engine. “And if you admit where you’re going, they assume it can’t be a real party with a keg and stuff. It’s reverse psychology. It’s way better than that dumb thing we used to say about Jacques Cousteau.”

A.Z. always thought their Jacques Cousteau story was pretty smart, and she feels kind of hurt even though she doesn’t care. “Whatever,” she says. “You can drop me off.”

“Fine,” Larsley says. She’s leaning across and rummaging in the glove compartment. She’s not going that fast though, because there’s a lot of traffic. “I just thought it would be fun. Like old times. God, we were so young back then.”

A.Z. still isn’t going to the party. She’s just hanging out at Larsley’s house for a couple of hours. Then she’s going to sit in her room and stare at her speckled trout and cry for the rest of her life. But she can’t quite figure out how to start the process of leaving. She’s sitting on the blue carpet in Larsley’s room, and it’s like she’s sunk into water. Warm, fuzzy water she can’t step out of. Larsley turns on MTV and goes downstairs to her parents’ liquor cabinet and comes back with a bottle of rum.

“It prevents scurvy,” she says. “That’s why pirates drink it.”

A.Z. knows that vitamin C prevents scurvy and rum probably doesn’t contain any, but Larsley is already pouring two glasses. “Yo-ho, yo-ho,” she says. She drinks her whole glass in one gulp. “Do you still think about going out on the Sea?”

“No,” A.Z. says. “The Sea sucks.” She looks at the rum she’s holding; it’s a weird blue color because of the blue plastic glass. Sort of like pool water but darker. She drinks it.

“Yeah,” Larsley says. “This town is lame.” She lies on the carpet by A.Z., and they watch a dumb giveaway contest for tickets to see the Bangles, and then “Eternal Flame” comes on, and A.Z. has to bite her lip really hard to not start bawling.

Finally, she gets up and goes to the bathroom and leans against the counter, breathing hard, forcing herself to breathe. And when she comes back out, “Express Yourself” is on, and Larsley has poured more rum, and A.Z. drinks it and sits there, feeling sort of safe, like the rest of the world is on some other island really far away and all she has to face is the muffled carpet and smell of microwave food and air freshener.

The hot tub isn’t really a hot tub. It’s one of those big plastic jet tubs in the bathroom. And A.Z. doesn’t have a swimsuit, so she’s wearing her T-shirt and jean shorts. Larsley said she should just wear her bra and underwear, but A.Z. isn’t going to.

“It’s like a bikini,” Larsley said. “Bikini bingo.”

Larsley is saying random stuff because she’s drunk. Earlier, she called Scotty a “dickheaded cock,” which Liz and Tammy thought was really funny. A.Z. has lost her sense of humor, but it doesn’t matter. She’s sitting with her eyes closed, and the hot chlorine is swirling around her and making her dizzy, and she isn’t really in her body at all. Larsley is probably right; it doesn’t matter what she’s wearing. It doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. She’s saying this to herself. She hasn’t told her mother where she is. She’s going to be grounded for the rest of her life, or maybe longer, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

Greg has been telling everyone about the alligator surfacing. It was right by the boat, and he saw its eyes, just barely above the water, watching him.

“We locked eyes,” Greg says, “and then I pulled the trigger, and boom, he was gone, right into the water. He’s one dead gator.”

It strikes A.Z. again that until the body is found, no one will know for sure if Greg shot the alligator. And it doesn’t matter.

“Right there,” Greg is saying. “And there was blood in the water.” He points between his own eyes. “Boom.”

“He must have had a death wish,” someone says. Someone else says, “Or he thought Greg couldn’t hit him.” And someone else says, “Can’t wait ’til they drag it out.”

There are a lot of someones standing around the hot tub. It’s popular because it’s full of girls in their bras and underwear, or at least five girls, all of whom except A.Z. are in their bras and underwear. Not that this is super visible because the water is swirling and steaming and chloriney, and the lights are on underwater, making everything smoky, topazy grey-gold. And there are plastic cups of beer, which keep appearing—keep getting handed in by someone or taken away by someone—and A.Z. is dizzy and should sit up on the edge, but she’d be really visible there and really wet, and Sy is climbing into the hot tub in his boxers and orange John Deere cap, and everyone jostles closer, so Larsley is beside A.Z. with her eyes closed.

Sy is saying, “This is my kind of bath,” and someone is laughing, and someone else has a gun—a hunting rifle. And he’s walking through the room with it up on his shoulder like a military salute.

It’s Gus—Sy and Greg’s cousin who runs the Ark Park. He’s aiming at the ceiling and yelling, “I’m gonna get you, gator.” And someone is cheering.

And A.Z. says before she hears herself saying it, “Is it loaded?”

And Sy says, “Yeah, but Gus is good with guns. He has to shoot the sick animals.”

A.Z. feels really anxious—not so dizzy anymore—but like her whole body is super awake, guarding against whatever is going to happen. Like she knows that something terrible is going to happen, and it’s probably in one of her mom’s stories, although maybe it isn’t. Maybe she’s outside all of her mom’s stories. Maybe she’s vanished into other stories where people drink Bud Light in hot tub bathtubs and aim guns at the ceiling, which is that bumpy white stuff they use in cheap houses, which would feel terrible if you were lying on it, although of course why would you be lying on the ceiling?

Apparently she’s said some part of this out loud because Larsley is singing “Dancing on the Ceiling” and laughing. She’s still got her eyes closed and has floated closer to Sy, who is grinning from under his cap. A.Z. should pull Larsley back because of course Larsley doesn’t want to be close to Sy, but she doesn’t.

Tammy is saying, “My uncle took me hunting when I was ten, and I almost shot a deer.”

“A doe?” Sy says.

“Yeah,” Tammy says. “But it got away right when I fired.”

“Then you didn’t almost get it,” Greg says. He’s barefoot, and apparently his foot is healed because the bullet wound, which looks like a dark red scar, isn’t bandaged or anything. He’s climbing into the hot tub in his jeans and T-shirt, which is kind of weird and kind of exactly what A.Z. has done.

“You want some alligator jerky?” It’s the first thing he’s said to her all night because he’s been busy telling his story about locking eyes with the alligator and watching it slip away in the bloody waves. She doesn’t answer because of course it isn’t a real question; it’s pretty much just like saying hi.

“I’m gonna get you,” Gus yells. And then he throws his beer cup into the hot tub and spins around like he’s going to shoot something behind him.

A.Z. wants to get out but she doesn’t know where she’d go; she’s too far away to walk home, and she’s kind of drunk, so she has to wait for Larsley to leave, which isn’t going to happen because Larsley is drunk, too. Besides, she’s probably safer sitting really still like that guy in her mom’s story with the rattlesnake on his chest, only not like that—like a girl in a hot tub bathtub in a room full of hick guys, one of whom has a gun.

“We’re not returning the boat rental ’til we find the gator’s body,” Greg says to her. “I could take you out in it if you want.”

“What?” A.Z. says, even though she’s heard him. Gus’s beer cup is floating in the hot tub, and no one else seems worried about the gun, which Gus is swiveling at the air just over their heads now. “Are you sure he isn’t going to shoot someone?”

“Ah, Gus,” Greg says. “Probably not.” He calls to Gus, “You oughtta go look for alligators outside, Gus. I think there’s some in the bushes.”

Gus staggers to the door.

“He’s gonna go pass out,” Greg says. “He always does that.”

Larsley has her eyes open now and she’s sitting in Sy’s lap. Greg is sitting next to A.Z., leaning back against the tub. He smells like Skoal up close, disgusting and fungusy and wintergreeny, and also weirdly nice—like moss, and wet woods, and the swimming dock.

“I’m not supposed to take anyone out, but I know you like boats and stuff.”

“Sort of,” A.Z. says. “Where were you when you killed the alligator?”

“Way out there,” Greg says. “By these rocks. You know, sort of this island.”

“An island?” A.Z. says. She should be feeling calmer now that Gus has gone, but she still feels really anxious, like a clock is wound up tight inside her and is ticking toward something.

“You still hanging out with that tall guy?” Greg says.

“No,” A.Z. says. “He’s gone.” She doesn’t mean to say this.

“Gone?” Greg says. He grins. “Like the alligator.” Then he says to Sy, “You shoulda seen it, that gator was a goner.”

But Sy doesn’t answer because he’s kissing Larsley, which should not be happening, and A.Z. therefore pretends isn’t because there isn’t room in her mind, which is crowded and swirling and no bigger than this hot tub that is probably made for four people and has seven in it.

“I finished this big case for the gator,” Greg says. “It’s gonna be in the museum right next to that old boat.”

“Yeah?” A.Z. says. Greg’s knee is against her knee—wet denim against her skin, and maybe because she’s also wearing wet jean shorts, she somehow feels as if she knows what it feels like for Greg to be sitting there in those jeans, and she imagines Greg out on the boat in the middle of the Sea. “I can’t believe you’ve been out on the Sea,” she says.

“Yeah,” Greg says. “You should go out with me.” He grins at her, and it’s nothing like Kristoff’s grin. She doesn’t even think he’s cute, not really. Disgusting Greg with his Skoal-breath and his pale blue eyes, too pale to be ocean water, like early morning sky. And if she existed. If this mattered. If she were still herself. She would not have kissed him.