Джош Малерман - A House at the Bottom of a Lake

And then lost.

She turned off the television. She closed her eyes.

James.

How was James now?

James couldn’t sleep in his bedroom because it was still airing out from all the water damage. Two weeks later and it still smelled weird. Still smelled like a lake.

Dad was really on it, though. Really hell-bent on getting it back to normal. It had become a prideful project of his. James didn’t mind. He was kind of glad to see Dad so obsessed. Made him feel better about his own obsessions.

Sleeping in the living room wasn’t so bad. He had the TV for starters. But none of the movies were quite good enough. None of them matched the real-life adventure he’d had. Action didn’t thrill him like it used to. Like it was just a bunch of people dressed up as other people, pretending. Phony. The smell coming from his bedroom, though, that was real. It didn’t pretend. And the truth was, everything felt a little damp. His thoughts. His actions. The way everything rippled.

Even the shower smelled a bit like a lake. Like fish were swimming in the pipes.

James couldn’t stop thinking about it. Didn’t want to stop thinking about it. Kept recalling Amelia’s voice, her expressions, the way she was on the third lake and especially inside the house. She was happy down there.

Was it his fault that they lost it?

He believed it was. The trouble probably started when he tried to remove the pepper shaker. He’d alerted someone to something. Pressed the wrong button. Knocked on the wrong door. Asked how.

These thoughts circulated like spinning tops as he sat on the back porch and thought about Amelia. He’d needed to get away from the lake smell. It wasn’t that it was so bad, or so strong. In fact, it was because it was so faint, so far away, that it was close to driving him crazy.

The canoe was lying on its side in the grass. The way the dying sun hit it, he could really see how much paint had been chipped off. The thing was practically silver now.

He remembered the overwhelming excitement of their first date. How scared he was to ask her. How incredible it was that she’d said yes.

He smiled. Not the half smile of sadness, but the full, very real smile that comes with a good memory.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and called Amelia.

Could we…

It rang.

What do you think about…

And rang.

James wouldn’t let himself believe it was going to voicemail. It couldn’t. Not right now. Right now she had to pick up and they had to talk because, staring at the canoe, James was struck with a good idea. And because the idea was so good, and so true, Amelia must respond to it, must answer her phone, must sense that someone somewhere in the universe was trying to reach her with a good idea, must answer her phone and say

“Hello?”

“Amelia?”

“Yes.”

“Hey.”

“Hey, James.”

“I was thinking.”

“Me, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Constantly. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking we should go on a date.”

Silence.

Then not.

“A date?”

“Yes. Dinner and a movie. A real first date.”

Silence.

Then not.

“Okay.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. How could I say no?”

Both seventeen. Both afraid. Both saying yes.

“Tomorrow? Late afternoon? Downtown?”

“Yes. Tomorrow. And James?”

“Yes?”

“I love you. I’m sorry I ruined it for us. I love you.”

“What are you talking about? I ruined it for us!”

“No.”

“No. Yes. ”

“Wow,” Amelia said. “Sounds like we had a similar week.”

“Twelve days.”

Amelia laughed. It sounded so good to hear her laugh.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “A date.”

“I’ll pick you up and everything.”

They hung up.

James tucked his phone into his pocket.

He started crying. Not out of sadness. Not really from happiness, either. It came from somewhere deeper. Somewhere completely submerged.

He cried and his tears felt sluggish, thicker than any tears he had cried before. Thick like water.

Like water from a lake.

They ate at the Chinese place on Simmer Street. They laughed a lot when Amelia accidentally walked into the men’s room instead of the ladies’.

“They’re not labeled right!” she said.

It was incredible. A reason to laugh. A real flub. On a real date.

They swapped stories about other first dates and James told Amelia about the lake smell in his house. Amelia told him that she felt like she was still underwater. Like she hadn’t figured out how to be on land again. They talked about this a lot. Wondered aloud if that was how sailors felt, or the people who worked on cruise ships, once they finally came home after months at sea.

“Everything’s a little wobbly,” James said.

“I’m changed,” Amelia said.

Some of it was heavy. Some of it wasn’t. But it all felt good. Every syllable. Every beat. They were talking about things they’d wanted to talk about for days. Days. And doing it wasn’t as hard as they thought it would be.

They laughed again when Amelia’s fortune read: “You will visit mysterious places.”

“That one’s a little late,” James said.

Amelia shrugged.

“Or not.”

After they paid, on the way out, James smelled the same faint lake water smell from home. He brought his shirt to his nose.

Had to be that. But it wasn’t.

They went to a movie but walked out halfway. Everybody in the theater was laughing hard and having a great time but they just couldn’t get into it. Amelia used the word transparent and James thought that was a good word for it. And it wasn’t just that they couldn’t get into the story; it felt like they could see all the way through the story and there just wasn’t any real magic to it.

So instead they walked. And they talked. And their talk remained fixed on heavier subjects because, no matter how much they joked about it, they’d been through something. They’d seen something. And they’d seen it together.

They walked away from downtown, to the darkening streets of the nicer homes, nicer than either of them had ever lived in. People were out on their porches. Some drank beer. Some smoked cigars.

Amelia and James walked.

Deeper.

Eventually their talk reached a subterranean level, an impossible pool in the basement of an impossible house. The roots. The place where the inexplicable grew, with no light to support it.

James felt it. Felt the growing space. The space between them getting larger, despite what they were trying to do.

“James,” Amelia said as they made another left, heading toward darker streets yet.

“What is it?” But he knew what it was.

Amelia stopped and faced him. Her features were obscured in the murky light.

“I think we need to end this. I think we peaked early and I think that, if we don’t end it now, we’re going to spend the rest of our lives talking about something that happened when we first met. One day, all of this will be a dream, partially a nightmare, and we’ll feel bound to each other because of it. Because of something unreal that happened so long ago.”

The growing space.

“I don’t see why we have to end it, though,” James said. But he did. He understood what Amelia was saying. It hurt was all.

“You’ll be okay,” Amelia said. “And I’ll be okay.”

A car drove by. To James it sounded like the engine was gargling. Like it was wet.

The waning light distorted Amelia’s face just enough to make it appear as if she were wearing a plastic mask.