The Unraveling of Mercy Louis by Keija Parssinen Page B

summer showers, the warm bath of rain, the loamy scent of the washed earth afterward. As a child, I relied on the parents of friends to take me to the beach, since Maw Maw found the sight of women in bathing suits to be vulgar. Because of this, the shore has always held the special magic of something rationed, even now that I can drive myself whenever I like.
    This early in the morning, the peninsula road is empty. We pass dozens of brightly painted vacation homes, all built up on stilts. At a gas station we stop to buy supplies. Annie grabs Cheetos and Funyuns, Dr Pepper and Skittles. Trying to stick to the meal plan, I pick cold-cut sandwiches in triangles of plastic, a package of peanuts, bottled water.
    â€œOh, oh, hold up,” Annie says before the guy can ring us up. He watches us from eyes like black beads pressed into the smooth white egg of his face. She takes a pair of pink-rimmed cat’s-eye sunglasses from the rack on the counter and slips them on. “I’m so getting these for you,” she says, tossing the glasses onto the counter. “Remember my tenth birthday? At the roller rink? The sock-hop theme? My mom got those glasses for everyone, remember? Man, we looked cute as fuck.”

    She pays for everything—when we’re together, she always pays, says she needs help wasting her daddy’s money. She hands the sunglasses to me, then breezes out the door. I follow her, sliding the glasses over my nose. They pinch a little, but I’ll wear them in honor of Mrs. Putnam, back when she was happy. Annie used to be, too. Here come Miss Silly and Mademoiselle Serious , Mrs. Putnam used to say.
    Eventually, Annie parks on the shoulder and scrambles out of the car. After making sure no one’s coming, I struggle into my bathing suit, a ragged black one-piece I’ve had for ages, then pull my shorts back on. Once outside the car, I can hear the sighing of the waves, the call of gulls as they ride the updraft of wind off the water. From the sandbank, tall grass blows silver-green, changing direction with the snaking breeze.
    Racing to crest the dune that separates the road from the beach, Annie squeals like a child. I follow behind, heart wild with blood, feet sinking deep into the warm sand. My flip-flops slip off along the way, but the sand feels so good against my toes that I don’t care. At the top, we pause to take in the view, the water a muted blue, broken only by a few orange buoys that mark the end of the swimming area. The beach is empty but for a fisherman casting off a distant jetty.
    â€œLast one in has to do a hundred clean-and-jerks!” Annie shouts, barreling down the dune, all legs and arms. I’m right behind her, and when she pauses to strip off shorts and T-shirt at the water’s edge, I overtake her, running full-throttle into the surf. “No fair!” she shrieks.

    â€œPrude’s advantage!” I holler over my shoulder. I keep running, legs churning up foam, until the tug of the water gets to be too much. Then I throw my arms out and dive, and there it is, the beautiful quiet of losing gravity and all the sharp sounds that travel by air. I go limp and let the current carry me. When I run out of air, I surface with a gasp. Annie joins me and we swim out as far as we dare, then float on our backs for a while. In earth science, we learned that the sky isn’t actually blue, its color a trick of light scattering as it passes through the atmosphere. Sometimes science ruins things. I wish I could unlearn this, but once a mystery is gone, it’s gone.
    While we’re toweling off, I notice a red stripe stretching from Annie’s right shoulder blade to her middle back, a belt-wide welt. I’ve seen these wounds on her before, in the locker room. I walk up behind her and ever so lightly kiss the outer ridge of the mark by her shoulder, then pull her into a hug. In my arms I feel her stiffen and then go soft, a sigh escaping to mingle