A House at the Bottom of a Lake

29

Stocking the shelves at Darlene’s, Amelia knew better than to try and push the house out of her mind. There was no use fighting it. She was obsessed, and if there was one thing her mother had taught her about obsession it was, Even when you don’t you do.

In the week since they left the third lake, Amelia did. She did think about the cool water lapping against the wood of the raft. She did think about how good it felt to be on that raft, James’s eyes traveling up and down her body like the flowery fountain in the front of the Chinese restaurant in town. Up and down. Over and over. His interest recycled with every revolution. She missed it. She missed the logs beneath her bare feet, the superhero feeling of slipping into the wet suit for the first time each day, the shine of the mountains framing the third lake. She missed the sun, the sounds, the sensations.

But most of all, she missed the house.

Marcy spoke over the grocery store’s loudspeaker:

“There’s been a spill of boogers in aisle three. Amelia? Can you take care of that?”

Amelia tried to smile. It was hard. The store was empty and Marcy was trying to help. She knew Amelia was going through something, but she didn’t know exactly what.

Even now, crestfallen, scared, confused, Amelia didn’t talk about the house.

Or the noise upstairs.

A week.

A week without smoke could drive a smoker mad. A week without family could change a man.

Amelia felt changed. Different. Afraid.

“Amelia?”

Stocking rice in aisle three, Amelia turned to see Marcy, twirling the ends of her hair until she’d made two handlebars extending far from her head. She chomped her gum like a dog.

“Do I look like one big mustache?”

Amelia tried to smile. It was hard.

Seeing Marcy’s hair unnaturally fanned out like that made her think of her own in the mirrors of the house.

“Are you really okay, Amelia?”

Amelia looked down to her hands and saw she was holding a box of cereal. In the rice aisle. How’d that get here?

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve been in this aisle for close to ten minutes. And you’re stocking wrong.”

The cereal doesn’t belong here, Amelia. And you don’t belong in the house.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’ll get it together, Marcy.”

“Is it because you’re in love?”

At the mention of the word, Amelia could see James, mid-flight, diving into the water above the roof.

“Just a bit tired,” she said.

“Nu-uh,” Marcy said, shaking her head no.

Amelia saw the bottom of James’s bare feet as he was swallowed by the darkness of the lake.

“Come on, Marcy. I’m fine.”

“Okay. But if you spend another ten minutes in here, I’m calling the heartbreak police.”

Amelia tried to smile. It was hard.

Marcy left her.

Amelia crouched and set the cereal on the floor beside the box of rice. She thought of James’s sperm, fanning out, a slo-mo explosion, how cool it looked, how amazing everything was up until then… up until exactly then.

Amelia opened the box of rice and heard Marcy goofing off in the next aisle. It sounded like she was… squishing something. Wringing out a rag. Something wet.

Has she ever lost everything? Amelia thought. Everything all at once?

It sounded like Marcy dropped something. A wet plopping sound. It had the unmistakable tone of a friend sneaking up on you.

“Careful, Marcy,” she called.

A second plop. This one louder. Sounded to Amelia like wet shoes.

“Marcy?”

Sometimes, after you’d come back in from taking out the trash, your shoes squeaked on the grocery store’s linoleum floor. It was a joke among the co-workers. Watch out for slime out by the dumpster. It likes you. It’s gonna follow you back in.

Another squish from the aisle over and Amelia felt the first real wave of fear. It did come like that, in a wave, not from her mind to her body, but rather like the unseen waves beneath the surface of the third lake: It attacked your face and front first, then wrapped itself around the rest of you.

“Marcy?”

Another slow wet step. As if the person wearing the wet shoes didn’t know exactly how to walk.

Or like they haven’t walked on dry land in a long, long time, Amelia.

“Marcy?”

Tears started to blur the bottom of Amelia’s eyes. She looked up, slowly, to the round security mirror hanging from the grocery store ceiling.

Was there something in the aisle over? Was there?

“Amelia! What’s wrong with you today?”

Marcy. Behind her. At the end of the aisle.

Another wet step. Approaching the far end of the aisle over.

“What is that sound, Marcy?” Amelia asked, her eyes bright and afraid.

“What sound?”

Amelia got up. She looked to the opposite end of the aisle, where whoever walked on the other side would no doubt show, would no doubt come sloshing for Amelia.

“Oh Jesus, Marcy. I have to go.”

“Go? Are you crazy, Amelia?”

Amelia backed up to Marcy, felt her behind her, but didn’t take her eyes off the end of the aisle.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice shaking. “I have to go. I have to go. Now.”

“Amelia, you can’t—”

Amelia gasped as a woman passed the end of the aisle. She was wearing a green tank top and bright orange shorts. Sunglasses and a visor. She carried a snorkel she’d just taken from the aisle over, and her flip-flops made squishy sounds as she passed.

Amelia looked at Marcy.

Then she broke out laughing. It wasn’t hard to do.

“Amelia, what the hell?”

Then, Amelia’s name again, this time spoken from the end of the aisle where the woman just passed.

“Amelia.”

A boy’s voice.

Before turning to face him, Amelia knew who it was. How could she not? She’d replayed his voice a thousand times over the last week.

“James.”

James stood shamefaced at the end of the aisle.

No, Amelia thought. Not shame. Fear.

“I’m sorry I came to your work,” he said. “But it came to my house last night.”

Amelia didn’t respond. Not directly.

“Marcy,” she said, still staring at James. Her voice was firm, the firmest it’d been in a week. “Can you leave us alone for a minute?”

“Sure thing.”

Then Marcy slipped out of the aisle behind her and Amelia and James faced each other in silence.

It came to my house last night.

And no response from Amelia. As if she wasn’t surprised.

We left the lake, they both thought, in their own words. But the lake wants us back.

One week.

One week apart.

Amelia rushed to him.

She hugged him hard. All of her warring emotions found room to breathe and she cried. But she smiled, too. James gently held the back of her head and pulled her close, closer, until it felt like nothing could pull her from his grip again. Not even waves.

“James,” she said. “James, are we going crazy?”

“We need a third party,” he said. “We need to tell someone.”

“No,” Amelia said. “Not that.”

James looked deep into her eyes. Were he and Amelia at the same place with this? Or was Amelia somewhere deeper?

“Then what? What do we do?”

“Hear me out,” she said, pulling her head from his chest. Facing him.

“Okay. What?”

She paused. She breathed deep. And she told him.

“We need to go back.”

“Amelia…”

“We need to introduce ourselves, James. We need to say hello.”

James held her. He’d come to Darlene’s with a mind to do whatever it was Amelia thought they should do. But he couldn’t hold on to the word hello and it slipped from between his fingers and splattered, wet, to the grocery store floor.

“Okay,” he said, loving her, in love with her, wanting her to be happy. “Okay.”

But as she hugged him he understood that he wasn’t just doing what Amelia wanted to do. The moment he said okay he’d felt a relief he hadn’t known in seven days.

No, Amelia wasn’t in any deeper than James was. She’d just figured out a reason to do exactly what he wanted so badly to do.

To go back.

Back to the house.

We should introduce ourselves. We need to say hello.

“Do you think it will welcome us?” he asked, horror and relief somehow mingling in his blood.

Amelia nodded.

“We live there, too, James. We live there, too.”