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MICHAEL LIBLING SITTERS * "Sitters" marks Michael Libling's second sale to F&SF, but it is his first appearance in the magazine. Why are we publishing the second before the first? Well, because we're saving the first for our annual baseball issue in a few months. * For nearly twenty years, Michael has made his living by writing nonfiction, promotion, and advertising copy. His first fiction sale was to a British anthology. * A bout the story, he writes, "As patents, my wife and I always tended to hold our daughters' hands a little tighter whenever we would see [the posters of missing children that appear in test stops along the Interstates]. And then one day, I began to wonder: with seemingly so many missing children reported, what if some of these disappearances had no earthy rationale?" Some things you need to keep to yourself. Sometimes, it is wiser just to go with the flow. It is certainly safer. "Daddy," she said, "there's a clicking in my head. Click, click. Click, click." The way the kid was flailing about in the water, shrieking and carrying on, our first thought was shark attack. That's what most everybody else seemed to think, too, because anyone who had been in the water was now on shore, gaping, pointing and cataloguing revolting details to pass on to friends and relatives. We stashed our tuna sandwiches and cranberry sodas back in the cooler, dipped celery sticks into the cheese dip to tide us over, and trotted up to join the crowd to watch the girl get eaten by the shark. Usually, I would wonder how anyone could wade, let alone swim, in these frigid Maine waters, but this day the waves wrapped themselves easily round my ankles and withered warmly between my toes. Perhaps something had pushed the Gulf Stream waters off course. There were no reports of approaching hurricanes; then again, you never know. "Her name is Annie," said Rachel, between crunches of her celery. "We were playing Frisbee together." Kath and I held our daughter's hands a little tighter. A woman, panicking as only a mother might, splashed into the surf, heels kicking, arms stroking the air, reaching for a dive that was taking too long to come. A lifeguard caught her chest-high loverly eager, I thought), and his partner helped drag the woman back to safety. Her screeching alternated with her daughter's, filling any stray patches of silence the ocean failed to claim. The combination reminded me of gulls wrestling over fries and battered shrimp tails at the canteen trash can. It was then I realized there were no gulls about, save for a trio hovering quietly in an almost wait-and-see mode at the far end of the beach where the new cottages begin, right above Paul Blankenship's, as a matter of fact. "I think if it were a shark, she would've been gone by now," said the lifeguard with the better tan. The other lifeguard agreed. "Don't see any dorsal fin or blood in the water neither." "I say we go then," said the first. "Yup," said the second. But they did not budge. They stood staring along with everyone else. I thought of taking action, but it did not go beyond that. Then Rachel said, "Look, there's Mommy." And the next thing I know, my wife and the girl's mother have grabbed a rubber dinghy and bounded into the surf. Before I could summon enough wind to call Kath back, they were off and rowing. As luck would have it, an outgoing wave shot them right to their quarry, almost knocking the poor kid over, but she managed to keep her balance as she stumbled to deeper waters, armpit-high now. Kath extended her oar and the girl grabbed on. A short struggle, a couple of heaves, and they hoisted her aboard. The crowd applauded. The lifeguards frowned. Kath rowed frantically as the surf reluctantly tossed them back to shore. The lifeguards tried to restrain the crowd as the two women carried the girl onto the beach. The girl and her mother wore the same rainbow-striped bathing suits. "Give her air," the tanned lifeguard shouted. "Somebody call for an ambulance." "I'll begin the CPR," said the other. But the girl's mother blocked their way. "Touch her, and I'll scratch your eyes out," she warned. "Or worse," added Kath, brandishing an oar. "But we have authority here," the lifeguards blustered with no trace of authority. Kath was on her knees, smoothing the girl's dark brown hair. Her head was propped upon Kath's thighs, her body rigid, eyes open but frozen dead-ahead, her chin tucked into the hollow of her neck. Rachel and I sidled closer, sheepish, the way people tend to be when they have an inside connection to the center of attention, proud, yet embarrassed. "Is she very badly bitten?" I asked quietly. Kath did not take my lead. She spoke for all to hear. "From what I can see, there are no bites. I don't think there ever was a shark." The disappointment in the crowd was evident. Both Kath and I winced. "Then what was all the commotion about?" I asked, my voice still low. Kath shrugged. The girl's mother moved her hands to her hips. Her voice shook. "You weren't playing wolf again, were you, Annie? You wouldn't put me through --" Annie shook her head. "No, mommy," she sobbed, and pointed to her stomach. "What is it, honey?" "It's still there," she cried, the tears intensifying. The woman knelt beside her daughter, apprehension rising as she peeked under the swimsuit. The crowd stepped back. "My god!" she said, covering her mouth. "Annie! Poor Annie." "What is it?" Kath gulped, leaning lower for a better view. "What is it?" I echoed, not certain I really wanted to know. The woman slipped the straps of the swimsuit from her daughter's shoulders and gingerly peeled the top down to the girl's waist. I turned my head to the side, watching with one eye. I advised Rachel to do the same, but she ignored me, as bold as her mother. Like most, I was expecting a bloody cavity of shredded flesh, but instead, there on the girl's belly, shimmering innocent and silver in the noonday sunshine, mouth resting contentedly in her navel, lay a fish. No more than seven or eight inches in length, it seemed barely alive, gills pulsating ever so slowly. As the realization spread, people began to giggle. Some returned to the water, others to their towels, lunches and tubes of sun-block. "A bloody fish," groaned one of the lifeguards. "How the heck did it get under there? Never seen anything like that." "Could be a baby shark, couldn't it?" "I think it's a herring," a local suggested. The fishing lures in his hat enhanced his credibility. An elderly lady, beer can trembling in left hand, tried to make Annie feel better: "What a pretty girl you are. And a very good fisherman, too. Have your mother fry that up with a little milk and flour, some butter and lemon juice." "Didn't know these waters had herrings," said a woman with sunglasses on her head. "I like herring, especially the tidbits in wine sauce with onions," said somebody else. But the girl's mother was neither swayed nor impressed. "I don't care what it is," she declared, and swatted the fish with the back of her hand. It glanced off my knee and dropped to the sand at my feet. I jumped back. "Jesus!" I said, brushing imaginary scales from my leg. "Hi, Annie." Rachel curled her fingers into a tiny wave. "Want the rest of my celery stick? It's got cheese dip on it." No one bothered to examine the herring. Except for a hungry gull that glided in from nowhere. "There's a click m my head, Daddy," Rachel reported at bedtime. "Again?" "Uh-huh. But more like a clock this time. Tick, tock, tick, tock." "Well, Mommy brought you to the doctor and he said it was nothing. Sometimes things like this happen when we get excited. And this has been an exciting day for you -- for all of us." "Especially Annie." Rachel nodded. I tucked her in, and met Kath on the porch. "Care for a blackberry cooler?" she asked. I smiled. "Make it a double." * * * When we first started coming to Goose Breakers -- six years before, just after Rachel was born-- the closest gym was way up in Portland, so I got into the habit of jogging to Cape Beckon and back each morning after sunrise. (Well, to be honest, I walk more than I jog.) Although a gym finally opened in Cheterbunk, summer before last, I felt the fee for tourists was out of line and stuck with the jogging. Besides, who in their right mind would make time for stair-climbers while on vacation? There was also the daily chat and mug of coffee with Paul Blankenship to consider. Paul was an orthodontist from Buffalo who wrote novels on the side. He had published four, and had given me copies of the last three. Occasionally, he promised to dig out his first for me, but never did, and I made a point of not reminding him. I tried reading each, but after slogging through the early chapters, resorted to skimming and scanning. An alcoholic stockbroker, obsessed with a schizophrenic tollbooth attendant and former nun, discovers he is the bastard great-grandson of post-impressionist painter Paul Gaugin and his life is forever altered. A Mohawk discus thrower and Olympic hopeful, the one-time foster child of a renegade Amish family, becomes infatuated with a Romanian diving coach who, on page 92 of the 564 page opus, learns she has multiple sclerosis -- a crisis which leads to their shared quest to climb Mexico's Popocatepetl and discover the mystic truths that dwell therein. A Buffalo hematologist abandons his career and family to paint urchins in the streets of Cuzco, Peru, eventually losing his way and his sanity in the alleys of Machu Picchu. I supposed he was a good writer; the paperbacks were oversized and overpriced, and looked nothing like a Clancy or a Grisham. Of course, I never told him that his style was beyond me and that Clancy and Grisham were, at least, readable. "I straighten the teeth of people who do not smile and I write books that people do not buy," he once told me. "They're wonderful stories," I lied. "But if the artist is unappreciated, is that his failure or his audience's?" I tended to shrug a lot around Paul. On the other hand, I enjoyed his company and conversation. I often told him he should be narrating documentaries. I also know he looked forward to my two-week stay that usually landed in the middle of his six, especially since his wife and daughters had thrown him out. Last vacation, he had brought along their grounds, a pretty young dental assistant with long black hair and lips in a permanent pucker, but she had since left him, too. It was just as well, she was quite a distraction. As Kath had said, "Laurel doesn't wear clothes, she wears invitations." Every morning as long as it wasn't raining I'd catch Paul on my way up the beach, and wave as I trotted by. It was his cue to put on the coffee. By the time I returned, a hot mug would be waiting for me on the patio, usually with a couple of muffins, if he remembered to pick any up. (When his wife was still with him, they would be homemade. Big dry, unswallowable, brown things that somehow came to life with coffee.) We'd chat till about eight-fifteen, he'd give me a cinnamon candy stick for Rachel, and then I'd head back to the cottage to start breakfast for her and Kath. It was a comforting routine. As I was soon to be reminded, however, routines are easily demolished. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |