In Too Deep (3 page)

Mom ran back in, clutching the phone against her chest. “They’re on their way.”

Again, the cycle. And again. Finally, Josh coughed. He spit up water, and I turned his head to the side so that he wouldn’t choke on it. He coughed again, spit up, and pushed himself slowly to his hands and knees.

My mom rushed over to Josh and put her hand on his shoulder as if assuring herself that he was actually alive there.

She moved to me, but I was too exhausted to stand up, so she just huddled over me while I panted. “My god, Annie, I don’t even know what to say.”

She looked from Josh to me, and then she leaned against the wall and slid down. We stayed like that for a while, the three of us saying nothing, listening only to the whining rumble of the pump.

Josh lolled his head toward me. “Did you slip me the tongue?”

I slapped him on the shoulder hard enough to leave a red handprint on his skin. “I should have let you die.”

I
f this had been a movie, Josh would have felt a sense of gratitude so profound that he’d have begged me to ride in the ambulance with him, to hold his hand and assure him that he would be okay. Though his energy was weak, he would have found the strength to brush a strand of hair from my forehead as we held each other’s gaze, the wail of the siren blending into the background. We would have known—
known
—that no matter what happened from that point forward, we would always be linked together.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t a movie. After the paramedics did the whole vital signs check—blood pressure, blood oxygen level, heart and lung check with the stethoscope—they stuck a little electrode on Josh’s chest and hooked him up to a portable monitor. He made a big stink about it, but they loaded him onto a stretcher and wheeled him from the pool room into the shop.

My adrenaline rush ebbed slowly, robbing me of the ability to control my legs like a normal person, so I had to stay seated against the wall. My stomach hurt, my head pounded, and my fingers shook so badly that I stuck my hands under my arms so they wouldn’t freak me out.

Gracia had called again to check up on me, and when she heard the news she had her driver bring her right over. We hadn’t been able to get in touch with Josh’s mom, but her assistant, Violet, was adamant that we not let Josh go anywhere.

“I don’t think that’s up to me,” my mom said icily.

The paramedics were a medical odd couple: one tall and bald, the other short with a belly and a black mustache. While they monitored Josh over near the wetsuits, I mustered up the energy to change into shorts and a T-shirt. Physically, I was better, but now that the action was over, my mind was filled with thoughts of what could have happened. Josh dead. My parents sued. The shop gone. Me responsible.

“Did you really save him?” Gracia said, enveloping me in her Southern embrace as I came out of the small dressing room. “As in, mouth-to-mouth?”

“We call it cardiopulmonary resuscitation,” I said with a wink. At least she’d gotten me to joke about it.

“So you put your lips to his
and
pumped his chest? You vixen!”

It’s not like I’m the kind of girl who needs her best friend by her at all times, but it was nice to have Gracia there.

The paramedics were just about to wheel Josh out of the shop when the door buzzed, and in stepped a short man in a shiny, expensive-looking suit. His hair was a blond, slicked-back number, and he was talking into a headset.

“Yeah, I’m here now,” he said, pressing a button on his earpiece. He scanned the room quickly and took a decisive step toward my mom. “Larry Schuster,” he said, extending his hand. My mom shook it warily, but Larry moved to Josh’s side before she could say anything.

My mom shot me a worried glance, and I knew what she was thinking: lawyer.

“You okay, buddy?” Larry said, putting an awkward hand under Josh’s chin.

Josh just nodded and turned away. “Hi, Larry.”

“He looks good, right?” Larry said to the paramedics. “Real good. Nothing to worry about, right? Thanks for your help.”

The paramedics seemed confused. “We’ve got to take him for observation,” the bald one said.

“Observation.” Larry tilted his head back and laughed at the absurdity of it all. “I’m observing him right now. Looks fine.” Then he motioned for the paramedics to join him over by the ladies’ wetsuit rack, where the three men engaged in a discussion straight out of a silent movie. Nodding, shrugging, lots of fast hand gestures from Larry.

Gracia looked at me all bug-eyed. “Say something,” she mouthed.

“Is that your dad?” I said.

Josh’s laugh was as unexpected as it was genuine. He winced as he pulled the electrode from his chest, and the heart line on the monitor went flat. He swung his legs around and dangled them off the side of the stretcher. I waited for the paramedics to tell him to stop. But if they noticed, they didn’t say anything.

“Is he a lawyer?”

“Don’t you know? That man right there is Jessica Rebstock’s agent.” Josh hopped off the stretcher and rolled his head from side to side. He bent over as if loosening up his back or his hamstrings.

“Are you late for a track meet?” Gracia said.

I took a tentative step toward him. “Maybe you should—”

Larry Schuster slapped the round paramedic on his back. He retrieved a pen from within his suit coat and scrawled a signature on some kind of form. And just like that, the meeting was over. The paramedics shrugged one last time, nodded at each other, and moved back to Josh. They reminded him to take it easy, then they packed up their stretcher and left.

“Nice work, young lady,” the bald one said to me on the way out.

Larry went to my mom. “We’re going to get him checked out by our guy. Thanks for everything you’ve done.”

My mom nodded like a robot, clearly just as lost as I was, and Larry put his hand on Josh’s shoulder. “Your mom will see you at home. Okay, bud?”

“Okay, Larry,” Josh said without making eye contact. He wandered toward the fins and sat on the old yellow surfboard we use as a bench. He put his elbows on his knees and drooped his head forward.

Larry Schuster took out his phone and dialed as he turned back to me. “We’ve already made sure the police will keep the whole thing out of the blogs and the tabloids, so you won’t get any recognition for saving him, I’m sorry, but if there’s anything you need—anything at all—please let me know.”

He shook my hand once, quickly and firmly, before pressing a button on his headset. “Yeah, I’m back.”

The buzzer sounded, and he was gone.

Josh stood up but quickly staggered back, knocking into the surfboard bench. A masked mannequin was the only reason he didn’t crash all the way to the floor.

“You should probably take it easy,” Gracia said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Even though—”

“I’m fine,” he said—barked would be more accurate—while looking at the floor. One arm was wrapped around the mannequin’s neck, and the other was held out to us as if stopping traffic. When he spoke next, I could hardly hear him. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

Gracia and I said nothing more. Josh was silent as he stepped tentatively across the room. He paused at the front door as if gathering himself, and then he was gone.

“Thanks for saving my life, Annie,” Gracia said. “Now go to hell.”

It was my turn to sit on the surfboard bench. “Spring break in Cozumel. Should be a blast.”

T
he wheels yelped at landing, and the plane fishtailed for a moment before the brakes engaged and we began to slow. I’d hardly peeked out the window as we approached—choosing to ignore the turquoise water, the beaches, and the inevitable dive boats just offshore, drifting gently with the current.

“Mmm, those peanuts were sure something,” Katy said, smiling at me. “I don’t even need dinner.”

We’d taken a commercial flight because my parents had balked at a trip on Josh’s mom’s private jet, and the whole way down, Katy had offered variations on the theme:
Who knew a layover in Houston could be so much
fun? The seats on United are
much
more comfortable than
on a Gulfstream. I love flying with so many people!
And on and on.

That morning, my parents had walked in on me at the exact moment that I was tucking my dive mask and regulator into my suitcase. My enthusiasm about the trip had been dampened, to say the least, by the knowledge that the only other people going were doing so against their will. I’d been at least hoping to squeeze in a dive or two.

“This isn’t a vacation,” Dad said.

“Just in case?” I said meekly, though I knew it was no use.

“It’s a chance for you to broaden your horizons, to experience the world through the eyes of others. Your friends might have these kinds of opportunities all the time, but you don’t. It’s important for you to take advantage. No messing around.”

“What he means, Annie,” my mom had said as she removed the regulator from my suitcase and draped it over her shoulder, “is that we want you to stay focused on what matters.”

Now, on the plane, I snagged the brochure from the seat pocket in front of me. Borders Unlimited was a volunteer relief organization geared specifically toward high school students, with offices in Asia, Africa, and all over Latin America. The brochure’s propaganda included stats on college acceptances and quotations from former volunteers about how meaningful their experiences had been.
I thought I would be coming down to help these people,
said one
, but what I learned from them was far more than
I could offer. Thanks, Borders Unlimited!

A gust of humid air blew through the cabin when the airplane door opened. I gathered my stuff and waited for the passengers in front of us to deplane, avoiding Katy’s “I can’t believe I’m flying commercial” smirk as much as I could. I followed Josh down the aisle to the doorway, where there were stairs instead of a ramp. I’d never gotten off a plane that way before.

Josh stepped out onto the top landing and waved to an imaginary crowd like a visiting dignitary. “I do that every time,” he said, winking at me over his shoulder.

I had no idea where I stood with him. It was as though the whole saving-his-life incident had never happened. He wasn’t unfriendly; he just never brought any of it up. And because I wasn’t going to bring it up, either, it was just
there
. Uncomfortable for me, but maybe not for him. Maybe my saving his life was just another in a long line of serendipitous things that happened to him all the time, as momentous as a sunny day or a good parking space.

I looked out over the island. The sun sat low in the sky, the humidity making it seem bigger, more orange even than what we see on smog-alert days in Los Angeles. A low canopy of trees lined the horizon. I’d always wanted to come to Cozumel, but not like this. Not with the incredible dive sites I’d heard so much about—Palancar Gardens, Santa Rosa Wall, Punta Sur—close enough to smell, and me not being able to take advantage of them.

Katy cleared her throat, so I sped down the stairs, hustling to catch up with Josh, and followed the other passengers along a white line painted on the asphalt.

I hadn’t expected instant poverty, but the airport was surprisingly modern for an island supposedly in need of disaster relief. Three orderly lines at the passport check led to a spacious baggage area. Everything was concrete and recently painted, with huge color posters on every wall: divers emerging from a coral cavern; a close-up of a brilliant queen angelfish nibbling at a sea sponge; an aerial view of the island, complete with turquoise water and a sandy beach. Good thing I hadn’t looked out the window on the way in.

We waited at the carousel with the other passengers. I barely heard Katy say, “I just
love
public baggage claim,” because as each bag of dive gear passed by on the conveyor belt, I felt more and more like the one little kid at lunch whose parents packed a dessert of carrots and celery while everyone else got cupcakes.

Josh put his arm around me like a buddy, and for a moment I forgot everything except the warmth of his forearm against the side of my neck. “This must be killing you.”

A pasty balding guy with a baggy muscle shirt and a tattoo of a shark on his right calf grabbed a mesh equipment bag and high-fived his doughy companion. “Maracaibo Reef, here we come!” he said. Then he actually whooped.

“At least I don’t have to be in the water with that guy,” I said.

As soon as we passed through customs and onto the sidewalk, we were accosted by offers of taxi rides to the
centro
, tours of the island, hotels, diving, and more. “Cheaper than Walmart!” one guy said, pointing to a poorly laminated picture of an ocean-side villa.

Mr. Alvarez shook his head at the offers and pointed to a driver holding a piece of paper with
ALVAREZ
scrawled on it. The taxi drivers and tour operators backed away from us, only to converge on the shark-tattoo guy behind us. “Tay-nay-mos hotel!” he screamed, waving his finger at them like an angry kindergarten teacher.

Our driver, clad in flip-flops, shorts, and an old orange tank top, motioned around the corner to a beat-up Datsun pickup truck. Alvarez sat in the front cab while the rest of us followed our bags into the bed of the truck.

“The best thing about being out of LA?” Josh said as he hopped over the side. “No paparazzi here to take pictures.”

Katy’s brother, Nate, turned to me. “I’m sure he hates the attention.”

A two-lane highway took us parallel to the ocean and into San Miguel, past condos and hotels and the occasional mega-resort. Cruise ships dotted the horizon like giant bath toys.

“Have you ever been on a cruise?” Josh asked me.

I shook my head. “What’s it like?”

“We did a show on the
Carnival Conquest
in the Bahamas last summer,” Katy said. She stood with her hands on the roof of the truck, letting the wind blow through her hair. “Two performances a night, six nights a week. We basically vegged out by the pool the rest of the time. Trust me, cruises are nothing special.”

The sun was almost at the horizon when we pulled to a stop in front of a small brick building with a sign out front that read,
TANGO DIVERS! WE ARE YOUR DIVE SHOP!

How awesome for me. As if a diveless trip to Cozumel wasn’t enough, we had to stop at a freaking dive shop.

A short man with a penguin shuffle appeared from around the corner of the building. He waved at us and increased the speed of his waddle.

Alvarez jumped out of the cab and threw up his hands. “Eduardo!”

“¡Amigo!”
the man said, grabbing Alvarez in a warm embrace.
“¿C
ó
mo estás, mi cuate? ¿C
ó
mo fue el viaje?”

“Trip was good,” Alvarez said. “You look great.”

Eduardo rubbed his belly. The thin wisp of black hair sprouting from the top of his head danced in the breeze. “I think am now just a little bigger.”

Alvarez stepped aside and motioned to us, making the introductions. Eduardo had a pleasant way about him; the crow’s-feet that clawed at his eyes seemed to reveal a friendly wisdom. “Come, come. I am so happy to see you,
amigos
. We very much look forward to have you here.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Eduardo,” I said as I hopped onto the concrete.

“Please,” he said, waving his hand at me, “call me Wayo. Is the
sobrenombre
for Eduardo, the nickname.”

Katy elbowed her brother. “Like Nate for Nathaniel.”

“Exactamente!”

We unloaded one by one, following Wayo along a cracked sidewalk. “You are staying at the hotel there,” he said, pointing to a sign hanging out over the street a block away. “My friend, he owns the place. But first, I will show you Tango Divers.”

Josh glanced at the hotel and shrugged. “It ain’t the Presidente.”

“The what?”

“The Presidente InterContinental,” he said. “Down the road a couple of miles. It’s the best hotel on the island by far.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“My mom shot a commercial for Spectacle Shampoo a couple of years ago, so she brought down the whole family. We got to snorkel right off the dock. It was great. Housekeeping made little swans out of the hand towels and put them on our beds.”

The disappointment was as surprising as it was instantaneous. I guess I’d been hoping—as unromantic as volunteer work was bound to be—that we’d at least share the experience together. But he already had a memory of this place, and I doubted that hurricane relief could compare to little swan towels in a fancy hotel room.

The day before, I’d found Gracia down in her basement, sitting at the edge of a deep brown leather recliner and yelling at a TV that stretched at least five feet across. I plopped on the couch behind her and let out a sigh.

“Island vacay tomorrow,” she’d said without looking at me. Her fingers hammered the buttons of a video game controller, and she wore a headset with one ear covered by a headphone and a microphone coming out to the side. A werewolf-looking thing exploded on-screen, the furry head rolling away in slow motion. “Are you excited? I’m thinking sundresses. Guys love that. You let the light shine through the fabric so they can see the shadows of your legs—damn, reload, reload!—so you’re showing them some leg without actually doing it. It’s very Puritan.”

“You’re better at those kinds of games than I am.”

She flipped the microphone so it was pointing straight up like an antenna. “Elaborate, please.”

“You put too much effort into pretending,” I said. “NoobKilla321—”

“Indeed, I am a noob killa!” She leaned to the side, holding the game controller above her head, her fingers working the buttons furiously.

“Down here in the basement like you have something to hide.”

“There’s nothing wrong with presenting an illusion of myself. So I let guys think they know everything about me—so what? If one of them ever cared, I might let him in on the rest of the iceberg, eventually. But it’s just too much trouble if a guy feels insecure around you. Then you have to deal with all his issues.” Another explosion on the screen. This time a life-size zombie head melted to gold sludge.

“What about Baldwin Forneau? Does he feel insecure around you?”

Gracia hesitated, and the screen flashed red as one of the zombies took a bite out of her arm. The life-force level at the top-right corner started to dwindle. “You know about that?”

“Seriously?” I said. “You think I don’t notice the furtive glances? The wistful yearnings of hot nerd-on-nerd action?”

“Your lips are sealed, Annie. There’s nothing there yet. And there won’t be if you tell him I’m NoobKilla.”

“You could find a guy who isn’t so insecure.”

“I’m going to go after college graduates now? We’re in high school.
Nobody
isn’t so insecure.” She glanced over at me and must have noticed something in my eyes, because she took off her headset, hit a button to kill the monitor, and hopped over the chair. “Look at you! Except for Josh, right? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

“No,” I said, glancing away, which wasn’t exactly the most convincing maneuver of my life. “It’s just that—”

“I love it. I
love
it! You spend all week playing it cool, pretending there’s nothing going on between you even though you
saved his life
—”

“There is nothing going on—”

“Not yet, at least.” She clasped me by the shoulders and gave me a gentle shake. “Get back to me after a week in the warm Caribbean sun.”

But now, as I watched Josh roll his bag through the low doorway of Wayo’s shop, it became clear that we wouldn’t be having our moment together after all, whether I’d saved his life or not.

“You know, his last girlfriend was a princess.” Katy had appeared behind me like a ghost. Her voice was pleasant—even helpful. “A real one, from Monaco or something. They met last summer.”

I pretended not to hear. “Huh?”

“I’m just saying. I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Katy brushed past me. “Of course you do.”

Tango Divers was about half the size of our shop’s front room. One side held a desk with a map of the island underneath a glass surface, a small refrigerator, and a wide paper calendar. Well-used wetsuits and BCs covered the entire back wall.

Wayo shepherded us toward a small round table in a corner of the shop and lifted plastic chairs from a stack near the wall. A bowl of tortilla chips sat on the table next to a pile of paper plates. The legs of our chairs rubbed against the linoleum as we pulled them up to the table. Wayo emerged from behind the refrigerator door with a large ceramic bowl, which he placed next to the chips.

“Conch ceviche,” he said as he sat down. “Is pull fresh from the sea this morning.”

“Isn’t the island a protected national park?” I said.

Nate rolled his eyes. “As if on cue.”

“From here to the south, yes. But very few people dive the northern reefs. The current is too strong for most. If one minute you lose your concentration, you are halfway to Cuba.” He smiled and made a zooming motion with his hand.

Alvarez came through the door holding a huge plate piled high with steaming tamales in one hand and a bowl of black beans in the other. “Don’t believe anything he says about me. Or about anything, really.”

Wayo thumbed at Alvarez. “The crew called him El Payaso, because he jokes like a clown.”

“What crew was that?” Josh said.

Alvarez pulled up a chair and helped himself to a tamale. “You might say we used to search for ships that had become lost.” He gave me a knowing smile. I couldn’t tell if he meant it or if he was just messing with me.