Time passed. Jenny’s eyes closed, her mind went away. Grunting, like that of a pig in labor, enticed her to open them again. Nothing remained of her but eyes and mind. Her body was a quiet invisible thing she could not feel. Perhaps she was dead and watched, as spirits are said to, hovering above the operating table while the body dies, only to swoop back down when the body is shocked back to life.

Anna, clownish in the orange life vest and white face, bobbed back into the spotlight. Send in the clowns … Jenny heard Joni singing. No. Not Joni. It was from a Broadway musical.

Anna would like that.

As if Jenny’s thought were her cue, Anna floated across the watery stage until she bumped up against the rock. There she struggled, not like a woman, but like a fish on a line, then up she went. Like Lazarus from the tomb, Jenny’s mind said. Like an unlucky trout from a pool, like a woman lynched by a mob. And up. And gone.

Now only she and two corpses remained in the deep end, said the mind that had been Jenny’s, herself and the dead men who had tricked them into going for a swim in Ted Bundy’s backyard pool.

The sow in labor increased her grunting.

Jenny’s old body sent a message that the world was changing, and not for the better. The lungs she’d been using were squeezed so tightly air had little space for going in or coming out. Her head fell forward until she could see the faint light of the night sky on her breasts. They’d bobbed up out of the inky briny deeps. Good breasts. Buoyant boobs.

In a scattering of male voices, grunting redoubled. Jenny watched with disinterest as her belly and thighs, knees and feet rose out of the black water.

Hands closed on her upper arms, “Gently, gently,” someone was saying. “Very gently. We don’t want to shock her into a worse state. Easy does it. Got her? Okay, on three. One, two, three.” Jenny levitated, flying upward like magic; then strong arms were supporting her and hard light was striping across the rock, illuminating three pairs of feet, one in boat shoes, one bare, one in flip-flops.

“Jim?” Jenny asked.

“It’s Jim. I’m here. Let’s get you warm, okay? Don’t you worry about anything, Jenny. We’re going to warm you right up.”

“Anna.” Jenny tried to look around. Jim’s arms not only supported but imprisoned her.

“Anna’s fine,” Jim said. “That burrito over there is her.” He turned his body so Jenny could see what he was talking about.

Anna Pigeon was wrapped up in silver blankets. Nothing showed but her face. Jenny took comfort in the face. Had Anna been dead, the face would have been covered.

“Let’s get you out of those wet clothes,” Jim said.

“What clothes?” another man asked.

Regis. It was Regis. “Hey,” Jenny whispered.

“Martin, thanks a million. We’re going to need to get the boats out of here…”

“No problem, man. I’m moving the Jet Ski. Let me know how they do, okay?” The flip-flops flip-flopped out of the light.

Strong, warm, flesh-and-blood arms and warm night air restored Jenny sufficiently that she progressed from feeling nothing to shivering violently. Jim sat her down on a rock, unhooked her bra, and slid it off her arms. With a pair of scissors from his orange emergency medical pack he cut off her panties.

“A shame,” said Regis. “Nice outfit, Jenny.” She tried for a smile. Chattering teeth turned it into a grimace. Handling her as if she were made of glass, Jim wrapped her in a silver blanket designed to maximize body heat, then sat her on his lap, his arms around her while Regis lifted Anna and carried her to his speedboat.

“Hot drinks to come,” Jim promised. “Can you walk? I won’t let go of you.”

Jenny found she could walk, after a fashion, and with the support of Jim’s beefy left arm around her waist. Moving slowly, trailing silver like a fairy—or a snail—they got to the bottom of the giant steps, across her boat, still nosed in at the blockage, and into Regis’s red-red cigarette boat rafted off its stern. Jim’s patrol boat was third in line.

Anna, in her cocoon, was lying on the padded bench that spanned the stern of Regis’s boat. Jim settled Jenny next to her. Carefully lifting Anna’s head, he pillowed it on Jenny’s thigh. “Keep each other warm,” he said and, “Gently, gently.”

The trip back to Dangling Rope was a blur. Jenny held Anna, trying her best to protect her from jarring and wind. As Regis slowed at the NO WAKE sign marking the Rope’s docking area, Anna struggled to a sitting position, fighting to free herself from the bundling of the heat blanket. Jenny helped her up but pulled the blanket back around her bare shoulders. “Your skin is still cold to the touch,” she said.

“I’m hot,” Anna said.

“No, you’re not. You just feel hot.”

For a wonder Anna didn’t fight her. Jim Levitt pulled his boat in beside the red speedboat. Between him and Regis, the women were handed to the dock. Anna was buckled into the first ATV, and Regis drove it down the quay. Jim helped Jenny into the passenger side of the second and slid behind the wheel.

The ten feet from the ATVs to the duplex Anna managed on her own two feet, though Regis helped her keep her balance. Anna had progressed from numb to shivering, and both she and Jenny tottered like fragile crones afraid of slipping and falling.

Regis argued they should be taken to the hospital in Wahweap. Jim said no, the long boat ride would do more harm than the hospital would do good. He left the swamp cooler off and opened the door to the porch so warm night air could come into the duplex. Jenny knew she should be helping but couldn’t remember what she was supposed to do, so she held on to Anna as Jim escorted them to her room.

While Jenny sat on the edge of her bed watching, he helped Anna into a long-sleeved flannel shirt, a pair of her soft sweatpants, and socks. A man stripping her, a man manipulating her naked body: Jenny wanted to tell her it was okay, it wasn’t like the jar. Anna kept her eyes on Jenny’s face. “He’s taking the thorn out of my paw,” she said, and Jenny relaxed.

The cuts on Anna’s thigh were drained of color, the cold and blood aging them into scars at least until the blood returned. Jim saw them and looked over at Jenny, brows raised in a question.

She pretended she didn’t notice. Once Jim had settled Anna beneath the covers, sitting, back against the wall, he helped Jenny to put on her flannel pajamas and socks, then tucked her in beside Anna.

It was then Jenny remembered. “Jim, there are dead bodies where we were. Two. That’s why I went in. Men.”

“Men. Two. Dead,” Anna whispered a confirmation.

“You sure they were dead?” Jim asked Jenny, his voice low and pleasant. Gently, gently.

“Dead. Drowned probably, but way dead,” she said.

“I’ll deal with it. You just work on getting warm.”

Regis was standing in the door to the room holding mugs of warm weak tea with sugar. His face twitched at the news of the bodies. Tea slopped onto the floor.

“What’s this about bodies?” he asked in a strangled voice.

“Later,” Jim said warningly and left the room. Jenny heard him calling someone on the radio. A few minutes later he returned with four chemical heat packs and tucked them to either side of her and Anna’s stomachs.

They were finishing their second mugs of tea when a decidedly disgruntled Bethy arrived to insist Regis come home. He looked at his wet-hen spouse with shark eyes, carp eyes, eyes flat and dead.

Jenny shook off the mood that brought those images to mind. Anna was nodding off. Jenny yawned widely. Jim tucked the covers around them as if they were children, turned off the light, and left. Anna, no longer shivering, pressed close. Jenny curled around her back, spooning her with living, healing warmth.

Anna fell asleep first snoring softly, a sound as amiable as the purr of a cat.

For a while Jenny lay awake, just existing in the warmth and the flannel sheets.

As first dates went, this wasn’t the worst she’d had.

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