Anna Noyes - Goodnight, Beautiful Women

“Go fuck yourself,” said Valerie, quiet enough that Madge wouldn’t hear, and Collette got up, smoothed her shirt, and walked to the water’s edge. Far away a group of girls flailed around a raft, splashing each other. Up on the highest cliffs a crowd of men had parked their rusted-out pickups in a row. They set up lawn chairs to watch the girls swim. The seats of their chairs sagged from years of use.

“Lookin’ good, ladies!” one of them shouted to the swimmers below, tossing an empty beer can off the cliff. Collette wondered if the men were looking at her and Valerie too, but she couldn’t really tell. They were all wearing sunglasses.

Collette went back to Valerie, who had covered her face with her magazine.

“I can hear you breathing,” said Valerie from underneath the glossy cover. “Would you move? You’re blocking my sun.”

Collette lifted the page’s edge to kiss her sister on the forehead. Her hairline smelled like bananas from the sunscreen Madge had made them rub on before breakfast.

“I’m sorry I said that about your tooth,” Collette said.

Valerie threw the magazine off her face and shrugged. Her cheeks were flushed.

“Lookin’ good, girl,” said Collette.

She rolled her eyes, unsmiling. “Whatever, you’re forgiven. Give me your foot,” she said, shaking the bottle of nail polish. Her tongue poked from the corner of her mouth as she painted Collette’s nails. After one foot was done, she blew gently on each toe.

“Smelly feet,” she said. “I’ll paint your other foot tonight.” She laid her cheek to the rock and closed her eyes.

“We could skip stones,” said Collette.

“Nah,” said Valerie.

“Please? I’ll get them.” She could see three flat stones in the shallow water, far enough from the drop-off that it was safe to wade. She kept her toes splayed so the polish wouldn’t smudge and inched her feet into the cold. Her pink nails were like gems underwater. Her feet didn’t seem like her own anymore, and for a while she was lost staring at them.

She took the smooth stones back to Valerie and lined them beside her. At first it looked like she was sleeping, but then her eyes opened.

“One of them is a wishing rock too,” said Collette.

“I don’t want to skip rocks. I’ll try and teach you how later.”

Collette traced the white line that wrapped around the rock with her finger. It made a complete ring, no breaks.

“You can have the wishing rock. What would you wish on it?’

“I’d wish to be free.”

“Free to do what?”

“Free to lie here quietly.”

Collette rubbed the rock against her nose. The oil darkened it, so it still looked wet.

“Free to swim,” said Valerie.

“Well you can’t have the wish, anyway,” said Collette. “It doesn’t work if you actually tell me.”

“Like I care,” said Valerie.

Collette put the stone in her T-shirt pocket. It hung there heavily. She had a collection of rocks like it in a giant clamshell on her bureau. She lifted her T-shirt again to press her stomach against warm granite. They lay in silence. The day was starting to cool. Mosquitoes buzzed at Collette’s ears. The sun went behind clouds. Goose bumps cropped up over her body, she even felt them on the top of her head. She opened her eyes for a second to check that Valerie had them too.

“Come on inside,” said Madge. “I’ll make tuna sandwiches for dinner.” She came down the pathway, and put a palm to Collette’s neck, and then to Valerie’s. Her hands were cold from digging in the dirt.

“I’ll stay for a while,” Valerie mumbled. “I’m having a dream.”

“What are you dreaming about, baby?” said Madge. Collette stood and leaned on her mother’s shoulder. Madge brushed a strand of hair from Collette’s mouth.

“Underwater,” Valerie said. “I swallowed a hook.”

“Crazy talk,” Madge whispered into Collette’s ear.

“Mom, can’t we swim this year? Please?” asked Collette. She had asked her mother at the start of every summer, when they pined the most for water. “Valerie really wants to swim.”

“Do you want to catch a disease?”

Collette picked up a rock with her toes and threw it toward Madge’s sandbox.

“A girl could catch herself a yeast infection just from swimming in this damn quarry.” Collette looped her arms around Madge’s neck. One of the men on the cliffs stood and poised to dive.

“I hope he has a death wish,” Madge said. Collette knew about the dangers of diving, how old machinery or a jagged outcropping of rock could be hidden just out of view, and she knew about the dangers of disease, how homeless travelers came to bathe in the summer, how drunk men would unzip their flies and arc their piss into the water from high up on the embankment. Beyond the shallow ledge it was deep, fifty feet, maybe a hundred. She didn’t know for sure. So much snow melted each spring, and raised the water level, leaving the water icy below the surface warmth.

Later Collette licked her finger to pick up potato chip crumbs, and looked out the kitchen window as Valerie rose and stretched, touching one foot and then the other, like a superstitious pitcher with a ritual. She tested the stone’s weight in her hand before skipping it across the water. Collette fogged the window, counting the ten skips under her breath.

* * *

“Tell me the story,” said Collette. She flipped the pillow under her head to the cool side. Valerie was sitting up in the bed next to Collette’s, trying on her many rings. Outside their wide storm window the quarry lay in the darkness, flat as a rug against the granite shoreline. Collette could see a fissure of moonlight moving over the surface.

“Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but I saw something swimming under the water when we were sunbathing. It didn’t look human.”

“Don’t make fun,” said Collette. “I know the stories aren’t real. I just want to hear one tonight.” Valerie twisted her dark hair and anchored it in a bun at her neck, so it would curl in the morning.

“This is my story. Do you want to know what it looked like or not?”

Collette nodded, and moved closer to the wall so her back pressed against it.

“It came out of the darkness. I only saw it for a second. It had eyes that were clouded over, like marbles. Its skin was translucent. It was like a human, but with long thin feet and fingers, for swimming swiftly.” It was the same creature she always described, slimy and gray. Collette pulled the blanket up to her neck. “You were wading in the shallows when I saw it, but by the time I tried to warn you it was gone again. You’ve got nothing to worry about though. Everyone knows the creature can only climb out of the water at night, when the sky is clear and you can see the moon. Only on nights like tonight. And now it’s time for you to go to bed.”

“How does it move on land?” asked Collette, but she knew the answer. It slithered, like a snake.

“Do you see it?” Collette shouted out in the early morning. “Do you see it?”

“Jesus Christ, Collette,” said Valerie. “What’s your problem?” The room was empty and clean, lit with the cold light of early morning. Dawn was windless, and the water outside was smooth. “I thought someone was in here.” Collette couldn’t remember what she had dreamed.

The bathroom door stuck when Collette tried to open it. “Stay out!” Valerie shouted, but Collette went in anyway. The bubbles in Valerie’s bath had popped and the soap formed a skin on the surface of the water, the rounds of Valerie’s knees all that were visible of her body. As recently as that winter, Collette had been allowed to sit on the edge of the tub while Valerie lathered her hair, and they would talk about school. Collette would glance at her naked sister, trying to learn something about what her own woman’s body would someday look like. Valerie had shown Collette how she shaved, drawing the razor over her legs twice, holding it under the tap to rinse flecks of hair clean from the blade. Collette wasn’t allowed to shave yet, but Valerie would let her practice putting on shaving cream and running the backside of the razor up her legs, never above the knee. Madge always said there was no need for a girl to shave above the knee. Collette’s leg hair was blonde and thin. She didn’t want shaved legs, but she liked the minty-clean smell of the shaving cream, and the way it made her skin tingle afterward.