Vacation

The water at her chin. Inches away from covering her mouth.

Where are her parents? Christie wondered.

She looked up and down the beach, trying to match the remaining people with the girl who, Christie thought, was now too far out in the lake.

She didn’t catch any worried eyes locked on the little girl. No parent standing up to issue a command to come back in.

She looked to the lifeguard. Amazingly, his eyes were also averted as he laughed and talked to two girls in bikinis posing to his right.

No one was watching the girl.

Except for Christie.

Should I tell her to come in a bit?

No. That would seem crazy.

Still …

The girl flailed at the water with her ineffective crawl, then landed. To Christie it seemed that she must have been on her tiptoes to stay above the water. There were no real waves here, just a light, gentle ripple. The tiniest of wakes made by the wind off the mountains.

Tiny water movements.

But perhaps strong enough to push someone a few inches one way or the other.

She gave Simon a quick glance, perfectly fine in his foot or so of water, still in sea-snake mode.

To the girl.

The water closer to her lips.

The girl pushed up a bit, toes probably stretched to their limit, Christie’s eyes completely locked on her. The girl attempted to swim. But whether from fatigue or fear, those arm movements seemed to do nothing.

Or worse, they seemed to take the girl those precious few inches into deeper water. The feet, the toes going down again.

Only now they didn’t touch sand. The head went under water. The lips covered.

Christie stood up.

She yelled.

One word.

“Help!” She spared a second yell toward the lifeguard, expecting to see him racing into the lake, reaching with those strong, muscled adolescent legs into the water before the sound of Christie’s scream faded.

A blurry look, actually, since she could see the guard was still locked in his chat.

Christie started running.

Not sensing anyone else with her. Though surely the parents had looked up, had seen the girl bobbing, her long hair held with a scrunchie that made it look like seaweed on the surface as her head went down.

The girl’s hands were above the water.

Then they weren’t.

Christie stormed past her son. She didn’t remove her sunglasses, her beach coverup.

The sprint—the fastest she had ever run.

Water churning under her legs, slowing her as it got calf high, then a dive, to find the exact spot the girl had disappeared.

A hunt because by now, the girl had indeed vanished.

Christie under the water.

Trying to open her eyes. But the silt, the sediment, made it impossible to see.

She didn’t surface. How long can someone be under? How much water could someone gulp before they’d die?

Kicking madly in the four feet of water until she felt something. The feel of skin, and Christie locked her arms around the girl’s body. She used her legs to shoot to the surface.

She held the girl like a sack of groceries, racing back to the shore.

The lifeguard was finally there, taking the girl from Christie, who for a second didn’t want to release the girl to such an idiot.

But she let the girl go, and the lifeguard moved fast, getting the girl to the shore, pumping her chest with his hands.

Christie’s joined the other onlookers.

The girl coughed. She spit out water. Her eyes opened wide as if waking up from a nightmare.

A few in the crowd applauded.

Applauded.

A woman that Christie hadn’t seen before. Nondescript, with a doughy belly that matched the roundness of her face.

“Thank you,” the woman said.

Christie squinted in the sun.

Lost my sunglasses, she thought.

“Er, it’s okay. I was glad … um…”

She wanted to say:

Where the hell were you? Why the hell weren’t you watching?

Instead, she said nothing.

She turned back to the girl, to the circle of people around her. The lifeguard grinning as if he had pulled her out of the water.

Even the girl was smiling. So much attention. Such a big adventure.

Eventually, she walked over to her dour-faced mother.

The lifeguard started back to his stand.

“Stay here,” she said to Simon. “Out of the water.”

She hurried to catch up to the lifeguard, still trailing the two teenagers.

“You weren’t watching,” she said at his back.

The boy stopped and turned to her.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. But he no longer smiled. Then:

“I was watching. I went into the water to save her.”

Christie stood her ground. “No. I went into the water. I was watching. I pulled her out.”

Then the smile returned.

And the lifeguard, shooting an extra display of grin and teeth at the girls, said, “Whatever.”

He turned and walked away.

Christie had only one very clear thought: the lifeguard wasn’t intimidated or scared at all.

As if he knew that what just happened didn’t affect him at all.

She turned and headed back to her beach towel, to Simon.

And felt—without really knowing—that people were now watching her.

*   *   *

Christie stood outside the small beachside shower, a wooden cabinet.

“Simon—you okay in there?”

She could hear him humming, playing in the streams of water.

“Si?”

“Yeah, Mom, I’m fine.”

From here, she could still see the beach. Now nearly empty, everyone hurrying to the dining room. The few people who remained must be on a diet, Christie thought.

A diet. Does anyone diet anymore?

But then, some people here did seem well-fed. Almost fat. Guess if you ate enough of the soy hybrids it would add some pounds.