Paula DeBoard - The Drowning Girls

Myriam leaned across his body, alarmed. “What’s going on?”

Deanna called into the sedan, “I just saw a mountain lion on the trail!”

“My God.” Victor shifted the car into Park. Heat radiated from the engine.

“Well, we don’t actually know—” Phil tried.

Doug said, “The police are on their way. Actually, I need to call them back, give them an update.” He took a few steps away, redialing.

Myriam stepped out of the car, holding up the hem of a midnight blue dress, its fabric pooling near her ankles. “You must be so terrified,” she said. Deanna collapsed immediately against her shoulder.

“You don’t want to mess around with mountain lions,” Victor boomed in his too-loud voice, as if he were educating all of us, everyone in The Palms. “Have you ever seen a mountain lion going after something? They’re just stupendous creatures.”

“My God, yes,” Myriam said, patting Deanna’s head. “They can just tear something from limb to limb.”

No one seemed to be listening to Phil, but he kept talking. “We need to keep cool heads here. Deanna’s not sure what she saw, exactly.”

“Who’s that?” Deanna sniffed, pointing down the street.

It was the Jorgensens, dressed in dark jeans and white shirts. The hard soles of Sonia’s sandals smacked the asphalt. “Is everyone okay?” she called.

“Sonia! It was horrible, you wouldn’t believe—” Deanna began.

“So horrible,” Myriam echoed, as if she had been on the trail, too, taking a lap in her evening gown.

Tim Jorgensen shook hands with Victor and Phil and nodded at me. Deanna repeated her story, trembling when she got to the glowing eyes.

Doug was back, sliding his cell phone into his pocket. “They’re going to send out some kind of wild animal team in the morning.”

“In the morning!” Myriam scoffed. “What good will that do?”

“I don’t suppose there’s much they can do out there in the middle of the night,” Doug said. “And we hardly want them driving out on the golf course.”

Tim looked shocked. “No, of course not. They could do a lot of damage out there.”

“But we need to let people know,” Deanna protested. “I mean, think of all the people who jog first thing in the morning. The Browerses, for one. Sometimes Daisy’s out there, too. And then there’s the Berglands, with all those kids. You don’t think a mountain lion could hop one of those fences along the course, do you?”

“I don’t see why not,” Victor said. He clapped Phil on the shoulder. “What do you say, mate? I’ve got a handgun. If you give me a minute to change out of this monkey suit, we could head out there in my cart and chase down some mountain lions.”

I could feel Phil’s annoyance. He hated the Crocodile Dundee act, the assumption that all Australians were swashbuckling men in dungarees and a hat rimmed with jagged teeth. “Let’s keep a cool head here,” he repeated.

“But we want to be sure,” Victor said. “It’s about keeping our women safe, right?”

“A handgun, Victor? You’re not serious.” Myriam shook her head. “And I don’t think the cart is charged, even. When’s the last time you went golfing?”

“Rich has a .22,” Deanna offered. “He’s in the city tonight, but you could take it. And I know our cart is charged. Mac was on it earlier today. He’s too lazy to walk anywhere.”

“We could make some phone calls,” Myriam said. “I have the HOA directory.”

“What do you say?” Victor said. “Give me ten minutes?”

Phil’s eyes met mine, a swift glance that told me everything he was thinking—that this was a ridiculous idea and these were ridiculous people, but it was his job to cater to them even at their most ridiculous. He nodded slowly. “Okay, then. We’ll just take a look around. But watch that trigger finger, Victor.”

Victor guffawed, slapping him on the shoulder. Myriam picked her way back to the car in her heels, and a moment later their sedan passed us, the taillights winking around the curve and disappearing. “Well, good night, all,” Doug called over his shoulder.

“Mom?”

I whirled around. Danielle was on the lawn, dressed in the cargo shorts and T-shirt she’d been wearing earlier that day. Again, it took me a moment to recognize this version of her, the adult version with the cropped hair. Kelsey was behind her on the lawn, barefoot in her baby-doll dress. One of her spaghetti straps trailed down her arm.

“Did you get your hair cut?” Deanna squealed, her previous terror forgotten.

Danielle came forward, grinning, and Deanna ruffled fingers through her hair, first mussing it and then rearranging it before pronouncing it “smashing.”

“Kelsey, come on,” Tim said. “You’re walking home with us.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s a mountain lion out there, and I don’t want you walking home by yourself. That’s why.”

Kelsey dropped her sandals to the ground one by one and wiggled her feet into them.

“Faster,” Tim barked.

“We have things to do, Kelsey,” Sonia warned.

I watched as the three of them set off down the street, Kelsey trudging ten feet behind, as if she weren’t part of their group. I felt sorry for her, understanding suddenly why she preferred to be at our house.

“Doesn’t she look so grown up now?” Deanna was cooing. “You’ll have to beat off the boys with a stick.”

Danielle blushed.

Phil had loosened up a bit, maybe accepting the reality of the night ride with Victor. “Believe me, I have a big stick at the ready,” he said. There was a moment of embarrassed silence. “That came out wrong. I meant—”

But it was too late. Deanna had doubled over, laughing. “I bet you do. I bet you do...”

* * *

Later, I grabbed a broom and dustpan from the outdoor utility closet and swept up the remnants of my broken wineglass. Nothing bounded past me in the backyard, nothing bared its teeth, but I didn’t take any chances. It may have been nothing—I wouldn’t have put it past Deanna to exaggerate a house cat into a mountain lion—but I felt uneasy on our patio, as if I were being watched.

Upstairs, I puzzled over the mess on the floor of the master suite—jeans and skirts and complicated, sparkly tops—before remembering that Danielle and Kelsey had used the room for its full-length mirror. I scooped up the clothes and tossed them onto the floor of Danielle’s room. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, thumbs tapping her phone’s keypad.

“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I forgot about those.”

“I’m not your maid,” I said, kicking at the clothes I’d just dropped, which already blended in with the other clothes on the floor.

She looked up. “I never said you were my maid.”

“Well, this place is a mess,” I said, stalking through the room. “Half of these clothes are Kelsey’s, and there are wet beach towels...”

“I know. I’m going to clean it up, don’t worry.”

I nudged a pair of shoes to the side of the room with my bare foot. “Tonight, before you go to bed.”

“It’s almost eleven o’clock. I’ll do it in the morning.”

“Tonight,” I repeated, and something in my tone caused Danielle to finally put her phone down.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, bewildered. “Are you mad at me for something? Is it still the haircut?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. Everything, suddenly, felt wrong. Things were feeling more and more wrong from one moment to the next. “Just do what I said,” I told her—that parental cop-out, that all-purpose directive I’d hated when my parents used it on me.

I ran a bath and soaked in it, lights out, until the water ran cold. What was wrong with me? I closed my eyes, but I could still picture Phil’s hand on Deanna’s shoulder, the slow circling of his thumb. I wondered if there was a way I could turn it around, make a joke out of it. Poor Deanna. Thank goodness she had you to comfort her. No—it wasn’t even funny. Besides, Phil would be annoyed about his ride with Victor; he would be grumpy when he came upstairs. I waited until my skin was wrinkled and soft before toweling off and sliding, still damp, into my pajamas. I tossed the pile of throw pillows out of the way—a silly splurge, since neither of us could be bothered to make the bed properly in the morning—and that’s when I saw it: a tiny black strip of fabric, tucked along the bed skirt on Phil’s side. I stared at it for a long time before touching it with my toe, spreading it out to see what it was.