Kaylie heard voices. The dark lumps at the end of the pier were people. Quietly, she started backing up. She’d heard of rogue youths robbing people out here. One time armed teens forced a couple to jump into the bay where the water is so cold, hypothermia claims a body in about ten minutes. Even if you’re a good swimmer, you don’t have a chance.
Unfortunately, that’s when her phone rang again, Jimi Hendrix joyously making love to his guitar, loud and encompassing, as if he were playing the very night air.
“What the fuck?” a voice at the end of the pier said.
“Shit,” said another. “We got company.”
She heard the crinkle of cellophane bags, the clunk of dropped half-full aluminum cans. A second later, three youths sprinted past her, their bare chests — two white and one brown — skinny as hope. They passed so quickly she didn’t even have time to be scared. She listened to their sneakered feet pound all the way to the end of the pier. She heard the faint clinking of the chain-link fence as they heaved themselves over it. Then she cracked up, laughed out loud: those boys were afraid of her.
Kaylie’s laughter morphed into tears, and she collapsed onto the wooden planks of the pier, stretching out on her back and looking up through the blur of her tears at the few pale stars, the ones bright enough to shine through the city haze of artificial light. She wished she’d brought a fishing rod, longed for the feel of its grip in her hand, the jiggle of a bite, the tug at the beginning of the fish’s resistance, and then the gentle, steady, focused reeling in. No one could clean a fish as expertly as Grandma, slicing through the fish belly with her boning knife, scraping out the guts. Of course the best part was eating the fried fish, usually with a side of chips or nothing else at all. Every single time, after cleaning her plate, Grandma would say the exact same words: “Nothing better than eating fish you caught yourself.” Then she’d grin ear to ear as if it were an original comment or the first time she’d said it. Often after a good fish fry, they went to the grocery store for ice cream, which they brought home and ate straight from the carton. Once Savannah had made one of her rare visits as they were scraping the bottom of a tub of double-fudge caramel swirl, and she’d literally groaned out loud in disgust.
Kaylie wiped her wet face with the bottom of her T-shirt, got to her feet, and walked to the end of the pier. The kids had left half-drunk beers and half-eaten bags of chips. She was sorry she’d scared them away. Stupid kids trying to enjoy a summer night. Kaylie climbed up on the thick railroad tie that formed the bottom of the blockade at the pier’s end. She peered through the vertical pilings at the long stretch of black water. A breeze ruffled the surface.
No, not a breeze. Something was there, in the water. A hard shiver shot through to Kaylie’s core. Yes, it was a body, dark and wet, and apparently alive, as it slithered out of the water and then sank again. Someone was drowning. She grabbed her phone at the same time as she looked down the pier, trying to see if the kids were still nearby. She could call the police with one tap, but despite earlier fantasies, she didn’t actually want to go to prison. The police were much more likely to book her than the kids, since she was here and they were gone, not to mention the dead body in the Pontiac. Anyway, the dark night, the teeming bay, the decaying wood, her jagged hunger, her grief, the crazy tsunamis of grief — these all converged to destroy any brain function she had left. She at least knew enough to not trust her perceptions anymore.
Kaylie pushed her face back through the pilings and studied the surface of the bay. Had she imagined the body? She reached into the bag of Doritos, tossed a handful onto the water, and then screamed as something surged to the surface, opened its whiskered jaws, and swallowed the chips. She tossed in another handful, and the beast was joined by two more, writhing, diving, snorting.
The fright manufactured by her traumatized imagination prevented Kaylie from actually laughing, but she might have at another time. Just sea lions. The fishing community hated them. Their ranks were growing, and they ate more than their share of the bay fish. Also, they’d become bold. Sometimes people fed them scraps, after cleaning their catch, teaching them that people meant food. Recently a sea lion literally boarded a docked fishing boat and bit a woman’s leg. Another had lunged so forcefully out of the water that it had nearly inhaled a guy’s arm as he tried to toss fish heads in the water. A swimmer had been attacked by a sea lion just last year. Kaylie threw them the rest of the chips, and then, what the hell, poured them what was left of the beers too.
Walking back down the pier, she figured she’d better call her sister. She should have much earlier, to ward off the search. To give Kaylie a bit more time.
“Where are you?” Savannah screeched. “I’m at Grandma’s. She’s not here.”
Savannah had always had a sixth sense, maybe full-on telepathy, born of her desperation to ward off the dangers she saw and felt and heard at every turn. Especially the dangers of Kaylie and Grandma and their embarrassing presences in her life. Of course Savannah couldn’t know that Kaylie — and Grandma — were at the Berkeley Pier. And yet, it was very hard for Kaylie to not believe that she did know.
“Answer me, Kaylie. Answer me now. Is Grandma okay?”
“Of course Grandma’s okay. Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Uh, maybe because she has emphysema?”
“I think she said she’s having dinner at the Garcias’ house tonight. Did you try there?”
“Of course I didn’t try there. I have no idea who the Garcias are.”
“Yellow house on the corner.”
“I’m supposed to just go knock on their door?”
“If you want to see Grandma.”
“It’s after ten. She wouldn’t still be there. Plus, she hasn’t been out of bed in days.”
“Can’t help you.” Kaylie tapped off her phone. Naturally, it rang again immediately. She debated the pros and cons of answering, and was not able to conjure logic about either choice, so she went with the pull of a ringing phone and answered.
“I’m calling the police,” Savannah said. “Grandma better not be with you, because if she is, they’ll find you. I can give them your phone number and they can track you.”
“You’re sounding crazy, Van,” Kaylie said, using the nickname she knew her sister hated.
Even now, even with the prospect of their grandma being missing, her sister took the time to correct: “Sa-van-nah.”
Kaylie tapped out of the call again and vowed to not answer until she’d finished. How long until Savannah checked the garage and discovered that the Pontiac was missing?
Back at the car, she realized that getting the kayak and her grandma over the giant craggy boulders would be next to impossible, so she drove quickly to the boat ramp on the other side of the marina. There, it was easy to slide the boat into the water. She gently hefted Grandma out of the backseat and placed her in the front of the kayak. She couldn’t cry now. She just couldn’t.