The Speed of Souls Page 11

  ~

  She was diving for golf balls. Some of the people who owned houses on the lake would buy buckets of cheap golf balls and hit them into the lake. Every once in a while, Morgan and I would strap on our goggles and go golf ball hunting.

  The lake is the second deepest lake in the United States—1,600 feet deep in some places—but in South Lake, the water is shallow going out a hundred yards. Even two hundred yards out, where the boats are tied to the white floating mooring balls, it’s only eight or ten feet deep.

  Not finding any golf balls in the shallows, Morgan continued out farther and farther to where the water was twelve feet deep.

  That’s where Morgan drowned.

  ~

  I didn’t eat solid food for two weeks. My mom was lucky to get me to drink a couple of Carnation shakes each day. We went back to Oregon three weeks early and I started to see a therapist.

  When winter break came, I refused to go to Tahoe, so for the first time in six years, we didn’t ski and we celebrated Christmas in Oregon. The following summer, I stayed with my dad in Oregon, then I stayed with my Aunt Joan when my dad would make the trip to South Lake every other weekend.

  It would take me three years before I would go back in the lake.

  Morgan’s death destroyed her parents’ marriage. They divorced a few years later. Her mother moved to Mexico and her dad drank himself to death. Their house was bought and sold a few times. Paddleboarder Pete lives there now.

  Ten years later, on June 18, 2001, I’d just finished my second year of college at Oregon State and I was working a summer job washing windows.

  I would not think about our time capsule once.

  ~

  The area where I’m positive Morgan and I buried our time capsule is pockmarked with holes. In the three years I’ve been back in Tahoe, I’ve dug over thirty holes, but I’ve yet to find it.

  Cassie sticks her head into various holes, sniffing and inspecting them, before choosing one to make a little deeper. Soon half her body is submerged in a hole and she’s kicking up waves of dirt behind her.

  I find the shovel that I’ve hidden in a thicket of bushes, then choose a spot and begin digging. The earth is soft from the rain and it only takes me fifteen minutes to dig down three feet.

  All I find are worms.

  Chapter 12

  “4TH OF JULY”

  Jerry

  Each year, over 100,000 tourists flock to the beaches of Lake Tahoe to celebrate America’s independence. The most notable party is at a beach five miles into Nevada called Zephyr Cove. Hundreds of boats tie up together in the water, and the half-mile of sandy beach is overrun with thousands of revelers partaking in Spring Break-like debauchery. My first year in Tahoe, I rode my bike to Zephyr Cove to witness the madness, but by the time I arrived, the police were in the process of shutting things down. Apparently, the seventh time the ambulance is called, it’s the last time.

  The biggest party on the California side takes place at Timber Cove and currently there are people packed like sardines at the usually quiet beach tucked behind the Beach Retreat & Lodge.

  A stage has been set up and a guy with a man bun pumps out music at five million decibels. Girls in matching red thongs—I recognize a few as go-go dancers from Opal Lounge in Montbleu casino—thrust, grind, and twerk under the rainbow of floodlights on stage.

  Alex and I are standing in a small buffer between the outer edge of the scrum of dancing and the thicket of tents and gazebos set up in the sand. A few police officers chat in a group near the Timber Cove pier, which juts out over the rippling blue water.

  The police officers keep a lazy eye on the burgeoning party, but for the most part, things are still tame. But, then again, it’s only 5:00 p.m. and the world-class fireworks won’t go off for another four and a half hours. That being said, if last year was any indication, there will be plenty of action for the police officers in the hours to come.

  Two young women, girls really, both well-endowed, and both clad in red, white, and blue bikinis emerge from the crowd of dancers and head in our direction. When they are steps away, Alex—who is wearing short lime-green swim trunks that hug his massive thighs, the waistband nearly invisible under his protruding (and hairy) belly—tips his beer can at the girls and says, “God Bless America.”

  The two girls exchange a quick glance, then scurry by, disappearing into the throng of tents behind us.

  “Will you stop doing that?” I protest.

  “What?” Alex grins, his handlebar mustache twitching. “It’s bound to work eventually.”

  We’ve been at the beach for all of twenty minutes and this is already the fifth or sixth time Alex has said this line.

  I shake my head at him, knowing nothing I say will prevent him from his onslaught. My only hope is to numb my senses until his advances no longer make me cringe with discomfort.

  I slug down the last of my first beer, then lean down and grab two more from our cheap styrofoam cooler. I hand one to Alex, his fourth by my count, and he takes it with a belch. “Thanks, mate.”

  The sky is clear and the sun pulsates overhead. According to my phone, the temperature is only eighty-four degrees, but at 6,300 feet, the sun’s rays pack a wallop. It isn’t uncommon to overhear a roasted tourist utter, “I was only in the sun for like twenty minutes.”

  I pull off my shirt and throw it to the ground. Compared to Alex, I appear malnourished, but I’m soft around the edges and my frighteningly pale love handles muffin-top above my blue swim trucks. I lather my front, my arms, my legs, then I pull off my sunglasses and massage the lotion onto my face and into the thinning hair on my forehead.

  When I’m finished, I hold out the bottle to Alex and say, “Will you do my back?”

  “No way,” he says with a shake of his curly hair. “Ask one of them.” He nods at a group of twenty-something girls huddled beneath a white tent a few yards behind us.

  “Come on, man. You know I’m not gonna go ask them.” I hold out the bottle. “Please?”

  He takes the bottle with a huff, moves behind me, then proceeds to squirt half—maybe even two-thirds—of the bottle onto my back.

  “You asshole,” I mutter, knowing my back must look like I was just dipped in Elmer’s Glue.

  “Ask and you shall receive,” he bellows, then instead of using his hands, he disperses the lotion using the bottom of his beer can.

  Needless to say, my second beer goes down much faster than my first.

  Cassie

  I know Jerry is going to be gone for a while because he turns on the TV with the volume up high. On the screen, a yellow square with big eyes dances underwater. Jerry calls them “cartoons.” Hugo loved them, the drawings on the screen. But not me. I prefer the real thing, like the channel with all the animals. My favorite is “Shark Week.” Jerry, Hugo, and I would curl up on the couch and watch hours of these big fish swimming around in the water. I would always look for them when we went to the lake, but they must hang out in the deeper water.

  Still, I curl up on the couch and watch the TV for a little while, but it’s too loud. It hurts my ears. Jerry should know better.

  I jump down from the couch and I go get a drink of water.

  Lap, lap, lap.

  The house is warm and I spread out on the floor in the kitchen, which is nice and cool.

  I pant.

  I’m always panting in the summer. Even when my fur falls off onto the couch and the floor and the bed, I still pant. I like summer, but I could do without all the panting.

  I lie there for a while. A tiny black spider runs across the floor in front of me. I lean forward and give him a sniff. He doesn’t smell like much of anything. I leave him to do his spider stuff and walk to the fridge.

  I nose the refrigerator open. There’s a big container of blueberries and I bite the lid open. I slurp up two of the blueberries and bite into them. They are amazing. They are the best blueberries I’ve ever had
.

  I eat two more. Then two more. Then I bite the container closed.

  I pad into the bedroom.

  I wonder how long Jerry has been gone.

  I sniff the air.

  Two hours. There is two hours less Jerry in the air.

  I miss Jerry.

  I find my teddy, a green alligator, near the bed and pick it up in my teeth. (My alligators—Jerry always buys me the exact same one—didn’t survive very long when Hugo was around. Hugo would always tear them apart and pull all the stuffing and squeaker out.) I nose the sliding door of the closet open and sniff around Jerry’s dirty clothes.

  Now that’s the stuff!

  I fluff up his clothes for a few seconds, then lie down. Then I tuck my alligator under my chin and fall asleep.

  Jerry

  “Are you ready yet?” asks Alex.

  “One more beer.”

  “You said that two beers ago.”

  “Come on,” he pleads. “They’re just waiting for us to go talk to them.”

  An hour earlier, three girls set up camp a few feet to our left. Real estate on the beach is scarce and the girls are only a few steps away, close enough that we can overhear them conversing. Alex said he heard one of the girls say I was cute, which is odd because the threesome isn’t speaking English.

  According to Alex, the girls are J-1’s. (Alex hooked up with a J-1 a few years back, so he knows all the ins and outs.) J-1s are university students from overseas who are in America on work visas (the work visa is called a J-1, hence the name). In the winter months, the students are from South America—which is their summer break—and they work at the different ski resorts. In the summer, the J-1’s are from Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine—or in the case of the girl Alex bedded, Romania—and they work at the many hotels, casinos, and a few other seasonal jobs.

  Our best guess is that the threesome next to us are Russian, a conjecture based loosely on as Alex put it, they look “sturdy” and that they are drinking from a large bottle of vodka.

  It’s closing in on 8:00 p.m. and the sun is banking toward the still snowcapped mountains across the lake. I’m sufficiently buzzed, enough so that talking to a girl shouldn’t be terrifying, but I can’t shake the image of the last girl I hit on—the girl at the Farmers’ Market—telling me flatly, “No,” she was not interested in getting coffee with me.

  Also, at thirty-five, Alex and I are on the older end of the age spectrum, and sadly, we look it. Sure, there are forty-somethings, even fifty-somethings, but they are anomalies, and to be honest, when I see them dancing and frolicking about, it makes me sad. I don’t want to end up as one of these pathetic old men.

  But how far away am I, really? Two years? Three at most?

  “I’m going,” Alex spits. “Are you coming or are you going to sit on your thumb here all night?”

  I pick up a beer, slug it down in its entirety, wipe my mouth and say, “Let’s go.”

  Alex takes the three steps to where the girls are swaying to the music and says, “Howdy, ladies.”

  All three smile, happy to be approached by guys, even if it is by two buffoons.

  Alex introduces us, then makes small talk, asking where they’re from (which is Serbia) and where they’re working this summer (which is Safeway).

  “I thought you looked familiar,” I say to the girl closest to me. She has dark hair, angular features, and is the least sturdy of the group. “You bagged my groceries last week.”

  “I bag lot of groceries,” she says. Her English is heavily accented and slow. “You live here?” she asks.

  “Yeah, I do. But I grew up in Oregon?”

  “Oregon.” She pronounces it Orey-GAIN. “Where is this?”

  “It’s right above California.” I show her on an invisible map with my hands.

  “Why you come here?”

  “Oh. It’s complicated. I was living in San Francisco and I was engaged to a girl and she broke up with me for this rich tech guy and I had to get away. My parents have a summer house here and I’ve been living there for the past few years. Hey, do you read much science fiction?”

  She glances at one of her friends, I’m guessing looking for a lifeline (who could blame her), but before she gets any help, I ask, “So you’re from Serbia?”

  She turns back toward me. “Yes.”

  “Wow, that’s so cool. I didn’t know anyone really lived up there. It’s so cold. Right? Super cold?”

  She glares at me. “Not that cold.”

  “Really? I thought Serbia was freezing.”

  Her eyebrows cross and she asks, “Where you think Serbia is?”

  “Above Russia. Near the Arctic Circle. Right?”

  “This Siberia!” She turns to her two friends and shouts, “He think us from Siberia!”

  I try to laugh with them, but its quickly evident that I’m being laughed at. Your average guy could probably shake this off, but I can’t. I tuck tail. “I’m gonna go use the bathroom,” I call to Alex as I retreat.

  He gives me a half shrug, then continues to enthrall one of the Serbians with a story.

  I weave my way through the crowd and behind the stage to the beach parking lot and the Porta-Pottys. There are easily eight people to a line behind each of the ten stalls. While I wait in line, a teenager is dragged past me by a cop. The cop gives him a light push and tells him to go home. The kid has some departing words, and I watch as the cop fights the urge to throw him in cuffs.

  I glance around the line and notice it’s almost entirely kids. College kids and high schoolers. All drunk or stoned. Or whatever else.

  I don’t belong here. I belong on my couch with Cassie watching Netflix. Or at the movies…with a girlfriend.

  The line moves a notch closer and I pull out my cell phone. I load Tinder and start swiping. There are lots of cute girls in town because of the 4th, but I don’t match with any of them.

  I go to settings and look at my age bracket. I have it set to 18-35. I once again glance around at the barrage of eighteen-year-olds. Why would I ever want to date an eighteen-year-old? Or even a twenty-one-year-old? What could we possibly have in common?

  I move the bottom bracket from 18 to 27. I move the top bracket from 35 to 40, then with a light shrug, I slide it up to 45.

  A forty-five-year-old? I let out a light laugh. Maybe that’s exactly what I need.

  I swipe for another ten minutes, then finally it’s my turn in the Porta-Potty. As I’m coming out, I see Alex striding toward me.

  “How’d it go with the Serbs?” I ask.

  “They all have to work tomorrow at six in the morning. They’re going home right after the fireworks.”

  “Did they ask about me?”

  “They did not ask about you,” he says flatly. He nods at the line to the bathrooms and says, “You wait in this line?”

  I nod.

  He scoffs. Then he walks behind the wall of stalls, where I’m guessing he takes a piss. While I wait for him to finish, or be arrested by the cop who saw him go back there—but appears not to care—I turn back to my phone.

  I Google “Serbia” and discover it’s in southeastern Europe, near Hungry and Romania. (So yeah, I was a little ways off.)

  Then I resume my Tinder swiping.

  Like.

  Nope.

  Like.

  Nope.

  Like.

  Like.

  Nope.

  Nope.

  Nope.

  Nope.

  Nope.

  Nope.

  Like.

  Nope.

  Nope.

  Nope.

  Oh, my God.

  I must say these last words out loud because Alex, back from his whiz, repeats, “Oh, my God, what?”

  I turn the phone toward Alex.

  His eyebrows jump.

  “Oh, my God,” he says.

  On the phone.

  On Tinder.


  It’s my mother.

  ~

  “Your mom is on Tinder?”

  “Uhh.” I can’t speak.

  I can feel the five beers I drank churning in my stomach.

  Alex takes the phone from me and says, “Says here that Betsy is forty-four years old? So let’s see here, if my math is correct,” he begins to laugh uncontrollably, “Betsy had you when she was nine-years-old.”

  I can see his eyes begin to water and I say, “I’m glad you think this is funny.”

  He begins scrolling through my mother’s pictures and I reach out for the phone, “Give me that.” I’m going to delete my Tinder account and then throw the phone in the lake.

  Alex is about to hand me the phone when he darts it into his other hand and swipes right. The green “Like” icon flashes.

  “You LIKED my mother!” I scream.

  I punch him in the shoulder as hard as I can.

  Alex covers his mouth with his hands. At first I think it’s to cover his scream from my punch, but it isn’t. It’s to cover his scream from what he sees on my phone.

  I glance down to my phone. My picture is on one side of the screen. My mother’s picture is on the other.

  We Matched.

  I matched on Tinder with my mother.

  ~

  “You okay, bro?” Alex asks, still obviously delighted by my having matched with my mother on Tinder.

  I shake my head.

  In fact, I am not okay.

  I toggle to my matches. There are six. I highlight my mother and am about to delete our match when a bar flashes at the top of the screen indicating I have a new Tinder message.

  Please, please, please don’t be what I think it is.

  Holding my breath, I click on it.

  Hi Honey!

  My stomach wrenches and I turn the phone toward Alex and show him. He shakes his head in awe. This is even too much for him. He claps me on the shoulder and says, “I’m sorry, bro,” then walks away.