I stood in the bowling alley snack bar, in an audience of nine people (including Steve’s mom), thinking this was what drugs must feel like. But you bounced around and pumped your fist. Bending your mouth to my ear, you yelled, “They’re pretty awesome, huh?”
They were ridiculous, Holly. You could have played better with your feet. Your cheeks still glowed pink, though, even out of the cold. When you looked at Tyler, your eyes still shimmered.
I asked, “You like him?”
“No. But kinda.” You buried your face against my shoulder. “But really I just wanted to support him. He quit the marching band this year so he could focus on his real music.”
“I was just gonna say he plays guitar like a guy who’s spent years practicing the tuba.”
“Jane, don’t be like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you always are.”
Jeb decided not to slay the dragon—that’s not what the power of rock ’n’ roll was for. Instead they shared Pixy Stix and closed the show with a duet of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
“So does he like you?” I asked, as they sang against the thunder of bowling balls.
“I don’t know. I mean, yeah, but there’s this other girl he really likes. Amber.”
“But what? She didn’t come tonight?”
“She’s not into music like this.”
“Forget Amber, then.” And what else could I do but jump up into one of the booth seats? “Whoo! Banana Hammocks! Yeah!”
The band looked over, a little startled. Steve’s mom looked over.
“Encore! Banana Hammocks! Hit me again!” Then you joined in. “Tyler! Banana Hammocks! Yay, Tyler!”
The band grabbed their instruments again. They started into something sharp, fast, and just barely holding itself together—the musical equivalent of getting shoved down the stairs. You loved it. You jumped around and hugged my neck.
I yelled into your ear, “If he’s still thinking about Amber after this, we’ll kidnap him and you can have your way with him, yeah?”
“Cool! Can I keep him tied up in your garage?”
“Sure!”
Now, without you, Tyler and me chuckle together, even though I’m mad at him.
“No, you were so into us,” he says. “You were more into us than Holly.”
“What? Whatever. I only made a total fool of myself hoping you’d get up the guts to ask Holly out. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“Don’t lie. We had you revved up.”
“Whatever. I just knew if Holly paid seven dollars to wear ugly bowling shoes and listen to that, she really loved you.”
The word sucks all the air out of the car. Death rots the sweetest memories first, Holly. It hides inside them like a razor blade in an apple.
But you did love him, didn’t you? Even though he was loud-mouthed and filthy-minded, you loved him, and God used your love to draw Tyler to the church. We saw the bigger-than-life rock star choke up and tremble the night he was saved.
I judge people too quickly, Holly, I know. I’m prickly, I don’t give them a chance, Jesus doesn’t want me for a sunbeam, I know, I know. But you know what? Happy little sunbeams don’t rescue their friends’ trapped souls from rivers. The sunbeams—Hanna Marie, Brooke, all of them—they cried for a few days, then moved on. They’re out goofing off and making out with boys. I’m all you’ve got left.
They could move on because they don’t still need you, Holly. But who’s going to keep me from being prickly and judgmental all the time now? Did you even think about that before you went and drowned?
I chew my thumbnail, peeling it away from the stinging quick. Fine, fine, I’ll try to be nicer. I’ll try to be more open. For you.
Along the highway, the sun flashes through the tops of the pines like a school of fish. Then there’s the sign: Bay Hill Marina & Resort. Tyler turns in, steering past the fuel dock and floating restaurant.
“That’s his truck! There.” He jabs me in the shoulder. “You were right. You figured it out.”
“We don’t know if he knows anything about Holly. We haven’t figured anything out yet.” Still, I clasp my hands together for a quick prayer of thanks.
Tyler pulls into the spot beside your pa-paw’s pickup. Down the steep slope, the marina fans out across the water. Boats idle in and out, sending brown diesel clouds scudding across the water. Shirtless, lobster-skinned men yell back and forth, cluttering the docks with coolers, tackle boxes, coiled hoses, radios. Everything is covered in spiderwebs and bird poop.
And there’s that smell, the fetid stink of lake-bottom mud. It’s the smell of afternoons on Dad’s boat. Of swimming lessons. Of thrashing, glittering bass pulled from the water. It’s the smell the monster catfish carried up with it too. It’s the smell of Swallow’s Nest Bluff and the day you drowned. And it’s really the smell of death, isn’t it? It’s fish and plants rotting to black slime down in the drowned forest.
“There he is,” Tyler says, making me whirl around. “Mr. Alton! Hey!”
He’s lying on the dock, skinny butt in the air, beside a houseboat that needs a paint job. Seeing us, he climbs to his feet, pulling a fistful of weeds out of the water in one hand, a steak knife in the other. “Well, hey, Tyler. How are you? And Jane too.” He shoves the dripping mass of plants into a Taco Bell bag already fat with hacked-up stalks. Starting to hug me, he stops because his arms are wet. I hug him instead.
“How’ve you been, Little Bit?” he whispers.
I don’t know how to answer, so I squeeze him tighter. He’s thin, Holly. I can feel his ribs.
“What’s all that?” Tyler asks, pointing to the bag.
“Oh, this milfoil is terrible.” He drops the bag on the houseboat’s deck. Boats on this side of the marina move through thousands of feathery stalks poking out of the water. In some spots, the milfoil has turned the marina into a lawn so lush my dad would kill for it. “It gets tangled in the propellers, gets everywhere. But anyway, can you guys stay? Come aboard, come aboard.”
He offers a hand to help me onto the boat. I ask, “So, when’d you buy a boat?”
“Oh, it belongs to a friend. I’m just borrowing it for a while. Staying at the house was just … hard. I just needed to get away for a while.”
I nod. I can’t imagine what it would be like living there, alone with the silence.
We duck into the cabin, which smells like fast food grease. The houseboat’s furniture is scratched and patched, and there’s a gap under the counter where the mini-fridge used to be. The only things your pa-paw took from the house are one suitcase, his guitar case, and a bulging photo album. The album is open to some snapshots of your dad and mom and you when you were a toddler, pushing a toy lawn mower.
Tyler pulls himself into the swivel-mounted chair overlooking the piloting console. “So you doing any fishing while you’re out here?” he asks.
“Oh, sure. Caught a two-pound crappie yesterday, just off the dock there.” Your pa-paw clears the table, grabbing beer bottles, Taco Bell wrappers, and a plastic fork, balancing them on the teetering stack of garbage rising above the trash can’s rim. I slide into the booth. There’s more photos, all of your me-maw, lined up along the edge of the table so your pa-paw can stare at them while he’s eating. Still talking about the fish he caught, he scoops them up and slips them into the photo album.