In Too Deep (16 page)

I
flailed my arms behind my neck, reaching for my tank valve, but I couldn’t reach it, and my fingers weren’t working enough to unclip the front of my BC.

I needed more air.

A cloud of silt surrounded me. I wanted no part of that little sliver in the rock. That opening. I couldn’t go in. Who knew what waited in the darkness? What if Wayo was in there?

I felt hands on my shoulders and screamed. The explosion of bubbles from my regulator blinded me.

But it was Josh. He shook me once, gently, and motioned for me to calm down. The silt around us began to settle, and I could see more clearly. Josh brought his hands up to his chest and pushed down. Repeated the movement slowly.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

He reached for my dive slate and wrote:
I am here.

I nodded. The terror had subsided, only to be replaced by the inevitable shame that Josh had seen me that way.

Are u ok?

I nodded. One more deep breath, and I knew we had to get moving. I clipped the reel onto my D-ring and motioned for Josh to come around behind me. I pointed to my ankles and made a motion with my hands, like “grab on hard.” He did, and I engaged the scooter and pointed it toward the opening. As soon as we went inside, darkness overcame us, and I fought another wave of panic. I held the scooter handle with one hand and the flashlight with the other. Josh was a presence behind me, his hands gripping my ankles with more force than I’d planned for.

I decided to be grateful that it was dark; had Josh been able to see me from this position, Gracia’s bikini gift would not have left much to the imagination. As it was, I knew he couldn’t see anything, and given the strength of his grip, he was probably too nervous to fantasize about anything other than making it out of this cavern alive. Probably.

With the scooter pulling the two of us, we went more slowly, which gave me the chance to shine my light across the cavern walls. It must have been a lava tube; the walls were jagged with pockets like craters from popped bubbles. The width of the tube varied wildly. At times it was no wider than a hallway, but occasionally it opened up into rooms so big I could hardly see the sides. We turned so many times I lost count, but I could tell that the bottom followed a gentle slope upward. We were ascending.

I shined my light quickly down onto the reel—the twine was halfway gone. We were about a hundred feet from the opening.

When I pointed the light forward again, directly in front of me was a solid white wall. I couldn’t see through it. Flashes of silver. I yelped, instinctively releasing the scooter’s trigger. Robbed of our forward momentum, we began to sink. Josh squeezed so hard I thought my feet were going to fall off.

I passed my light back and forth in front of me, and what had been a solid wall became a living thing. Expanding and contracting, as if breathing. Pulsating back and forth. Darting.

A wall of tiny fish.

I hit the trigger again, and the scooter nearly leaped out of my hand, and we jolted forward, the fish parting at the last second, my flashlight like high beams through a snowstorm.

A heart-stopping ten seconds later, the cloud parted, and the tube became wider. The walls were slightly visible even where I wasn’t shining my flashlight, and up ahead, in the distance, there was literally a light at the end of the tunnel.

I kept my finger securely on the DPV’s throttle, and soon the bottom of the cavern floor pitched up at a steeper incline. The light was above us now, shimmering on the other side of the water’s surface.

I bent my legs and reached behind me for Josh’s hand. He came around the front, and we kicked up together. We broke the surface, and I motioned for him to keep the regulator in his mouth, but when I saw a shaft of light from a cleft in the ceiling about twenty feet overhead, I figured that the air was okay to breathe.

“Congratulations,” I said. “You’ve just satisfied the requirements for your totally insane, scooter-propelled, cave dive certification.”

Josh spat his regulator out. “I don’t think I can feel my fingers.”

“And thanks,” I said, looking away. It didn’t seem right to ignore the part about me freaking out, no matter how much I wanted to. “For the—”

“Stop,” he said, waving me away. “I’m just glad I faked it well enough for you to trust me.”

I hefted the DPV out of the water and laid it gently on the flat expanse of coarse rock that passed for a shore. We climbed out and removed our gear. The light from above made it almost like dusk inside the room, so my flashlight was helpful but not essential. The trickle of running water came from somewhere.

I laid my BC and tank gently on the ground but left the reel connected; there was less than a half-inch of twine left. “We’re about a hundred and fifty feet from the entrance.”

The floor was rough and sharp in places—all the tiny holes reminded me of a dried sponge—but it was slick, too, so while our booties protected our feet from the sharp rock, the rubber soles made it more slippery. We had to take short, gentle steps.

“When do you think was the last time someone was in here?” Josh said.

“I bet the locals know all about this place. The question is, when was the last time someone was in here with the same goal as us?”

“That wooden stake at the entrance?”

“It could have been an anchor for a line like—”

And that’s when we saw it. On the floor toward the rear of the cavern, away from the water, was a pickax.

“No way,” I said.

A metal spike and a small sledgehammer lay next to a pile of jagged stone. I shined my light in the corner, hoping that the shadow on the wall was just a shadow, but I knew better.

The cavern wall was gouged, with a pile of rock on the floor beneath. The damage to the wall was extensive; I could have wedged myself inside. I bent down and sifted through the pile of stones below; some were brittle, flat, and thin, like shards of broken glass. I noticed carvings on one side. I found a big-enough piece, and the design was unmistakable: a two-headed bird from the neck up. The crest of Cortés.

I grabbed the pickax and swung it as hard as I could against the ground. My hands went instantly numb as the vibrations rattled up the handle, and I screamed, as much from frustration as from pain. In a room of solid rock, the sound built upon itself, growing exponentially.

My chest heaved as the sound lingered before silence came to the cavern once more. I wobbled, unsteady on my feet.

“Did you think it was going to be easy?” Josh said gently. “That we’d just hop a private jet down to Hawaii over the weekend and be back with a hundred million dollars’ worth of treasure by Monday?”

Of course not. Okay, yes. Maybe.

It was stupid, I know, but everything came so easy to him that maybe I hoped it would rub off on me somehow. Even being in Hawaii with him in the first place—the jet, the resort, the diving—seemed more like fantasy than reality. What was a little treasure on top of all that?

I grabbed one of my fins and laid it on the rough lava right next to the water and sat down on it, sticking my feet in the water up to my calves.

“I don’t know what I thought,” I said.

Josh came over and sat on the jagged ground next to me. “Do you see anything in here that looks like the other side of the disk?”

I looked back at the rock pile. The space that had been hacked out was large, about the size of a refrigerator, but nowhere deep enough to have hidden a twice-life-sized statue of any animal bigger than a ferret.

“So it wasn’t the Jaguar,” I said. “Another clue maybe, but not the Jaguar.”

Josh gave me a crooked smile and put his fists on top of each other and swung once, imitating my pickax maneuver. “I love it when you get all feisty.”

My heart was thrashing—the excitement of the dive, the disappointment, the Josh.

“Besides, at least we know something was here.” He gave me a wink and said, “Not to mention we pretty much disproved the whole James-Cook-discovered-Hawaii nonsense.”

I wasn’t exactly feeling what you’d call sexy, not after coming up short yet again. But in the dim light of the cave, my lack of tan wasn’t as noticeable as it was outside. Josh reached a tentative hand out and patted my thigh—Did he leave it there a fraction longer than gentle and reassuring?

My fingertips trembled. I made fists.

“Sorry if I held on too hard,” he said.

My god. It was going to happen. Here. It was my new swimsuit; Gracia was a miracle worker. It suddenly felt way too stuffy in the cavern, and I glanced up behind me to make sure that nothing was blocking the opening above.

“I’d never swum through a minnow cloud before,” I said.

“That was pretty awesome.”

Did he just scoot toward me, or was he in pain and shifting his weight because he’d made the mistake of not sitting on a fin?

I became more nervous than my body knew what to do with. This was a guy who had dated princesses. This was a guy who’d walked the red carpet, who had profiles written about him in magazines. What if really rich people went to kissing school or had hook-up tutors? How far behind the curve was I going to be?

Shut up, self. Stop it. We are alone. Nobody is peeking
through the keyhole.

He leaned to me. Stopped. Smiled. I smiled back.

It happened. His lips on mine. Tentatively at first, so gently that I thought I might have been imagining it. Then again, and my nervousness vanished. The slight taste of the ocean. I kissed him right back.

Forget that talk about how things never happen in real life the way they happen in the movies; this was as Hollywood a moment as I was ever going to have.

A high-pitched beep filled the space. Shattering the silence.

Was it my alarm clock? Waking me up from a dream? Was I even here?

“What the hell is that?” Josh said, pulling back. He was startled, almost uncomfortable, as though he’d just been caught cheating on a test.

I faced forward and rested my elbows on my knees, letting my head fall into my open palms. I thought briefly about ignoring the beep, about sacrificing the future for the present. But even if I’d been willing to do that, it wouldn’t have been any use. The moment was ruined.

“That’s my dive computer.” I stood on the jagged rock and walked gingerly to my gear. “Come on.”

“You okay?”

Sure. No problem. Just the double disappointment of being beaten to a treasure site and having to cut short our first make-out session. “We have thirty minutes to get back to the boat before we’re arrested.”

I
leaned on my balcony, observing the dinner setup as the sun cast ribbons of golden light across the bay. An open space just off the beach had been converted to the outdoor dining area. Men in Hawaiian shirts set up instruments on an elevated stage across the polished dance floor from a thatched-roof tiki bar. An animal of some sort was being roasted on a huge spit over an open flame. Waiters arranged circular tables around the dance floor, white tablecloths billowing down.

This phenomenal dinner was only an hour away, and a sense of dread was building inside me with every creeping minute.

After we’d returned to the boat, sliding under the cops’ curfew by no more than five minutes, Josh and I had hardly said a word to each other. I couldn’t tell whether it was disappointment at not finding what we’d come for or regret at having kissed me, but Josh spent the return trip to the hotel sitting near the bow, staring off into the distance. We were tired, and sunbaked, and we’d agreed to see each other at dinner.

Once I’d made sure our research was still in the safe—it was—I’d napped, soaked myself to a raisin in the Jacuzzi-sized bathtub, flipped through the channels on the television I swore I’d never watch, and napped again, but I couldn’t get rid of the knot in the center of my stomach. Did I feel it because of what we hadn’t found? Or because of what we had done?

So there I was, resting my elbows on the balcony railing, contemplating the answers to those questions and watching beautiful women in hula skirts and bikini tops rehearsing with muscular, shirtless men what I could only assume was a traditional Polynesian dance, when I heard a knock at my door.

“Miss Fleet,” Kenny said, sporting his patented smile. He held a cloth garment bag in one hand and a cream-colored envelope in the other. “I have a delivery for you.”

“Why, Mr. Kenny. You shouldn’t have.” I ushered him inside.

“Technically, I didn’t,” he said. “Where would you like me to put it?”

My grin was bordering on cartoonish. “Where do people usually choose?”

He started toward the bedroom, but quickly—though subtly—veered away when he noticed the unmade bed. He draped the garment bag across the back of the couch in the living area, then turned to me and handed me the envelope. “I hope you enjoy the show tonight. Our fire dance is quite something.” He gave me a little bow. “I’ll leave you to it.”

I thanked him, and the door latch echoed through the silent room. My eyes bounced from the envelope in my hand to the garment bag on the couch and back again. I decided to attack the envelope first.

I tore it open to find a handwritten note on Hanauma Serenity Resort stationery:

Dear Annie,


Thanks for not dying today. See you at dinner.


XOXO,


Violet


I crept toward the garment bag and opened it slowly. Something shiny and aquamarine was inside. A dress. What was Violet doing sending me a dress?

I carried it into the bathroom with two hands—cradled it, really, as though it were a sleeping baby. I unfurled the dress and stepped into it instead of putting it over my head, so it wouldn’t bunch and wrinkle, and when I looked up, the only thing I could do was laugh. One quick “Ha!” before I covered my mouth in disbelief.

The dress was something of a phenomenon. Fancy without being obnoxious, it fit me better than anything in my closet. It was sleeveless, with just the right amount of width at the straps so that my shoulders looked broad but not like a linebacker’s, and it tapered in at the waist and fell just above the knees.

And the fabric. It was light and flowing, pure silk. The color changed depending on which direction I turned; sometimes it was deep blue with hints of silver, other times it took on more of a dark emerald color. The design itself was vaguely ocean-inspired, with the four or five inches above the hem resembling the roiling foam of a wave crashing against the shore and the foam gradually giving way to the solid colors as it moved up toward the waist.

The person standing in the mirror was like the Annie Fleet from an alternate universe.

I’d always liked to think that I’d be the same if my family had money, that I would love the ocean and diving and be friends with the same people. That I would still be me, basically, but with better dive gear. I didn’t
need
all those fancy clothes. I didn’t
need
to go on exotic vacations where the bellmen knew my name before I even got there. But now, seeing myself like this, I had to admit I felt different. Not better, definitely not worse, but different.

I retrieved my pendant from the safe. The scoop of the dress was just low enough that the turtle hung against my skin an inch from the fabric. The only problem was that this outfit screamed for thin-strapped sandals, but all I had in the sandal department were my old black flip-flops.

There was something I definitely needed to do before dinner. I’d been reluctant to send Gracia pictures of my new swimsuit, but this was a whole different story.

I texted a few quick pictures; she called no more than ten seconds later.

“Shut up,” she said.

“I know!”

“Is that Prada?”

“I didn’t see a tag. Maybe? How would I know?”

“Seriously, what the hell?”

I felt drunk, like I had nitrogen narcosis on the surface. I tried to tell Gracia, but it took me a few tries before I was able to stop myself from giggling. The island, the resort, the upcoming dinner with tiki torches and hula band. When I got to the kiss with Josh—leaving out the real purpose of our cavern dive, of course—it was like I was trying to walk through a pounding surf. Every time I got a few steps forward, silly laughter would crash over me, and I’d have to stop, take a deep breath, and start again.

“Annie Fleet,” Gracia said when I’d finally gotten it all out, “you are going to have yourself a magical time tonight. There’s no way around it.”

Contemplating my reflection, it occurred to me that my new dress had the potential to swallow me up. “What do I do about my hair, though? Makeup?”

Gracia
tsk
ed me through the phone. “A dress like that’s going to do all the work for you. Your job is to let it happen. No makeup. Just a little gloss. You have gloss, right?”

“Yes, Gracia. I have gloss.”

“What do I know? Maybe no gloss is part of your eco-chick persona.”

“I don’t have a persona.”

“Everyone has a persona,” she said. “But, whatever. The hair is simple, too. You have amazing natural highlights, Annie. It’s going to be perfect.”

“Dirty-blond qualifies as highlights?”

“Would you stop? You’re active, you’re on the go. Accentuate what you already have. Go with the tousled beachy look.”

“Okay,” I said. “That’s good.”

“You’re not going to go all glamour on us, are you?”

“Nah.” I couldn’t stop checking myself out in the mirror. “But it’s nice to know I have it in me.”

“What do you think we’ve been trying to tell you?”

“There’s a dance floor down there. With tiki torches and a hula band. What do I do?”

“He’ll ask you to dance. But be careful. He’s going to stick his butt out in order to hide his excitement, if you know what I mean.”

“Gross, Gracia.”

“I’m just saying. Be prepared to pretend not to notice. You don’t want to make him more self-conscious than he’ll already be.”

“Any word from Baldwin?” I said, eager to change the subject. Gracia said nothing, but there was something in the nothing that felt like something. “Is he there? Laugh once if he’s there right now.”

“Ha!” she said. “That’s a good one.”

“You little tramp. I bet he’s showing you his hard drive as we speak, isn’t he?”

“Okay, now. Bye-bye.”

“I hope you’re using a surge protector.”

“I said good-bye, Annie.”

We hung up, laughing.