She dropped into the back of the kayak, placing a leg on either side of Grandma, and used the blade of the paddle to shove off the floor of the cement ramp, and just like that, they were adrift in the harbor. She paddled hard, and damned if a half-moon didn’t rise over the hills just as she cleared the breakwater. It’d been plenty bright even without the moonlight, but now she could see perfectly well, maybe too well, because others might be able to spot them from shore too. But there was no turning back. She couldn’t quite predict what her sister would do. She’d be crazy irate, and so it was possible she’d go full bore for a murder charge. But no, she definitely wouldn’t want that publicity. One way or another, though, somehow someone would have to account for the missing person. Then again, maybe not. People died all the time and folks didn’t ask for specifics on body disposal. The neighbors would just express their condolences.
The strong bay currents carried the kayak with its two passengers, the dead one resting against the stomach and chest of the living one, swiftly away from shore. The moonlight sparkled on the crests of the wavelets as a fresh breeze whipped up. Kaylie tugged the blade through the thick black water, but with the wind and the currents, her efforts seemed to have no effect at all. She looked over her shoulder at the Golden Gate where even stronger currents swept out to the Pacific Ocean.
She’d hoped to get under the pier, where she’d gently ease her grandma into a beloved last resting place. She’d imagined a quiet decorous ritual, a peaceful slip into the salty depths. But she didn’t have the strength to fight the forces of nature, these strong bay currents. So she rested the paddle across her thighs and allowed the westward drift.
The Jimi Hendrix riff danced against her breast where she’d shoved her phone into her jacket’s inside pocket. She reached in, grabbed the phone, and threw it as far as she could, the splash much too tiny to feel satisfying. Maybe they’d think she drowned. She could move to another part of the country, somewhere entirely unexpected, like North Dakota, and become a different person altogether.
The idea of disappearing, of faking her own death, reminded Kaylie that she did in fact have a life, a fairly nice one — sure, no girlfriend yet, but a decent job, a place to live. Funny how a person can keep functioning even when they think they can’t. Life goes on. Hers would anyway. With its devastating disappointments. Its small joys. The occasional ecstasy. She didn’t want to move to North Dakota. She wanted to stay here. Her grandma’s death felt like obliteration, like suffocation, like too deep a hole to ever emerge from, but she would emerge. Kaylie knew that.
When a dark shape, like a colossal slug, surfaced alongside the kayak, Kaylie startled. The wet mammal was joined by another, and then another. Kaylie’s brain quivered like a jellyfish, the fear squishing thought, until, all at once, she realized how much Grandma would love this. How somehow, in the midst of her confusion and grief, she’d taken all the exact right actions. There was only one left, and it would be brutal, clumsy, horrific. But she had no choice at all, and even if she did have a choice, this would be the one she’d make. She imagined Grandma’s grin if she could see herself now, dead in the front of a small plastic kayak, cruising along a speedy San Francisco Bay current at night, a pod of sea lions swimming alongside, their snorts prehistoric, their smell as rank as rotten oysters, as they chaperoned her into the next life.
For courage, Kaylie gazed out at the Berkeley Pier, a thin black line in the distance, a horizon itself, splitting the moon-sparkled water from the pale gray sky. Then she laid the paddle along the length of the kayak; it wouldn’t do to lose it now. Nor would flipping the entire boat be a good idea. She’d have to muster superhuman strength, and also be swift.
Kaylie shoved her arms under her grandma’s shoulders and clasped her ribs. One, two, three, heave.
The kayak rocked to the side, nearly capsizing, but the body remained on board. Already Kaylie was sweating.
Ambulating on her hands and feet, she crawled over Grandma’s body to the other end of the kayak, again nearly capsizing. Once there, she rested a moment, steadying her heart and mind, and then swung her grandma’s stiffening legs into the water.
That’s when the head of one sea lion rose up, the beast making eye contact with Kaylie. Maybe it smiled. Maybe its yellow teeth and deep maw gave Kaylie a shot of adrenaline. She pitched her grandma’s body into the water with a single shove. The splash was modest, and the old woman sank instantly. Several dark hides mounded out of the water before diving after the body.
Kaylie paddled away with all her might, hoping for a tide change that would sweep her toward shore, toward her house and modest life, her decent job and the possibility of a girlfriend one day, maybe even Officer Marta Ramirez. You never knew. What she did know was that she wanted to live awhile longer. She wanted to be around when the pier reopened, if it ever did, and wondered if Duong and Tham Nguyen, Pamela Roberts, Shelly the librarian, James and Frank, the lone rich dude, all their friends, whether they’d come back, or if there’d be a whole new crowd. Maybe they’d gentrify the pier, bring in food trucks and artists tables. Kaylie didn’t know. But she paddled as if her life depended on it, which it did.
Twin Flames
by Mara Faye Lethem
Southside
Final interview with Núria Callas Perales, September 12 and 13, 2018, Barcelona, Spain. Transcribed and edited by Montse Àrcadia Sala, amanuensis of the Gumshoe Division of the Church of Núria, Berkeley, California. Translated by Mara Faye Lethem.
“You want to know the difference between good and evil?” Dramatic pause. “Tea is good, and coffee is evil.” It’s one of those jokes that depends a lot on the delivery. And who’s doing the delivering. Louise was the only person I could imagine ever really pulling it off. I’m sure you’ve read that I was “in her orbit” or “under her spell” or whatever. I just wanted to get close to her. From the very first day I met her, at that highly unorthodox job interview, when she told me she was hoping to find someone who could “continue her work.” Maybe it’s because English is my third language, but I never thought that could mean what the tabloid press said it meant.
I could describe Louise Slade in many ways. The term “force of nature” comes to mind. She was a little, shining nugget of a woman, in a purple silk shirt, her white hair whisked up into a thin bun, with a lovely sheen of high-SPF sunscreen and nice, bony fingers. A mix of noblesse oblige and ecclesiastical shabby chic. I’ve always had a thing for older women. Be careful what you wish for, they say. I did get close to her. And, yeah, she did, somehow, get under my skin.
I was never really in favor of the defense that I was under her spell or, as your lawyers worked up, “temporary insanity due to soul transference,” but I have to admit there are parts of it that make sense. I mean, in the context of the episodes of lost time and mental disorientation associated with walk-ins. That said, I do remember a lot of details, although I’m aware that there are those who believe they form part of a shift in memories, or a link via the silver cord. Louise often spoke wistfully of her identical sister Cordelia, and their days as cheesecake reporters after graduating with twin master’s degrees from Yale at the age of seventeen. “We had the first painted toenails in Atlanta,” I recall. “Bloodred.” Louise had a number of stock rhetorical questions, one that haunts me is: “What’s a spinster...? A woman who spins. A woman with a job.”