Caroline Beuley: TOUCH POOL • Cleaver Magazine

Fiction by Caroline Beuley
TOUCH POOL

The visitors grab, stroke, and poke, slipping their hands beneath the water’s surface. They touch the creatures, hoping touch will bring knowledge or understanding. When they leave, they bat their damp hands against their jeans, trying to wipe away the filtered water that smells like pennies.

The anemones curl, optimistically, around each finger that pokes them, their tentacles grasping at skin, hopeful that this time it’s food. The hermit crabs hide, tucking themselves inside their shells, between rocks, under the water. The pencil urchins play dead, unmoving, unresponsive, resigned to the impossibility of escape.

I sit on a rickety stool behind the pool and answer questions with as little enthusiasm and detail as I can, hoping, like the creatures, to dissuade interaction. This is my first day working the touch pool.

A fanny-packed woman in compression socks is grilling me about the missing stingrays, her red-faced child hanging from her thigh like a barnacle.

“They got aggressive, from being touched all the time,” I say.

“Are you ever bringing them back?”

I sigh, a long, shoulder-slumping thing that bends me towards the murky water. I repeat the line my manager told me. “The Fort Fisher Aquarium is currently undergoing an exciting renovation, and a focal point of our updated facilities will be a new and expanded touch pool.”

“With the stingrays?”

“I think so.”

“This is lame,” says the kid, poking a graying anemone.

The pair leave. I don’t blame them. This is lame. The water of the touch pool is a questionable beige, stagnant but for the half-hearted flutter of wilting anemone tentacles.

“How you holding up, Touch Pool?”

I straighten. “Alright.”

Jake grins at me from across the carpeted aisle between our exhibits. Jake. The only bright spot about this new assignment. The tip of his incisor protrudes just below his top lip when he smiles.

“Come on, you’ve got it better than me.” He points at the single baby turtle in his exhibit. “Look at him. Swimming straight into the wall again.”

Jake and I both started at the aquarium a few months ago. He blew into Kure Beach with hurricane season, here for the surfing. At new employee training he’d told me the aquarium gig was just to pay the bills, until he could go pro.

“What about you?” he’d asked.

“It’s close to my dad’s place,” I’d said.

Since then, I’d seen Jake around, but we’d never been on the same work assignment. I’d heard rumors about him, though. That he’d slept with a girl in husbandry. Or horticulture? Maybe both.

I walk out from behind the touch pool and over to his exhibit. “Yeah, what’s his deal,” I ask, stopping in front of the open tank.

“Pika,” Jake says, pointing at the turtle. His hands rest on either side of the container. His arms flex, muscles rolling as he leans towards the water. “Oi! Wrong way!”

“He’s cute at least.”

“If that’s what you’re into,” says Jake, looking up, winking.

I redden, not sure what to say. I tug the hem of my staff shirt down over my thighs.

“Chill, Touch Pool. I’m kidding.” He takes a step around the tank towards me. “What are you into?”

“Star!” Maggie calls, voice reedy and urgent. “I am not authorized to supervise the touch pool independently! Remember? It’s a liability!”

Maggie is the high school volunteer they assigned to the touch pool with me. Me, a youth mentor. The concept is laughable.

“Coming.”

“See ya, Touch Pool.”

I can still feel his eyes on me when I sit down beside Maggie. Something skitters beneath my skin, like shaking blood back into a limb that’s fallen asleep.

At the end of the day, Jake waves bye from the back of his motorcycle in the employee parking lot. I kick up my kickstand and pedal down the road after him. Being able to bike home is the only good part about this job. And now Jake. The otter exhibit is pretty cool too.

When I get home, my brother is sitting on the sloped porch of our old yellow beach cottage. He’s tapping his foot. He’s always tapping his foot.

I take a long time locking up my bike. I’m so sick of these visits. Always the same thing. When will he give up?

“Star.”

“Blue. What are you doing here?”

Bluefish. Starfish. Our parents were such hippies. Mom grew out of it quickly. She decided to become a real adult, left us all at the beach when Blue and I were only babies. Dad was a beach bum until the day he died.

“I came to get you,” he says, tugging on his rumpled blazer as he stands. He must’ve come straight from work. Blue is a banker. He made it out. Sometimes I hate him for those four extra years he got with Dad. His life was already together when our family fell apart.

I push past him into the house, jamming the front door loose with a sharp kick to the baseboard.

He follows me, leaving the door hanging open. “You know what Monday is?”

“Of course I know,” I say, slamming the refrigerator shut and jamming the edge of my beer on the counter lip until the top pops off.

“You gonna offer me one?” Blue asks, hanging his work bag on his hook by the door. How many times had I watched him do the same with his backpack over the years? Something thuds in my chest—a wild longing for those nights we spent studying elbow-to-elbow at the kitchen counter.

“Get your own.” I flop on the couch, glare ahead at the blank TV screen.

“Tomorrow, it’ll be a year. A year, Star.” Blue picks up a framed photo from the coffee table. It’s us, ten years ago, each holding a rubber-banded crab. We used to love going crabbing with Dad on Figure Eight.

“What’s your point?”

“Come back to Charlotte with me. There’s a room for you. There are actual jobs. Grace says she’d love to have you.”

“Grace is a kiss-ass.”

He puts the picture down. “Come on. You’ve got to do something at some point.”

“I am doing something. I’m working at the aquarium.”

He walks to the kitchen. “That doesn’t count,” he calls from behind the fridge.

“That’s pretty elitist.”

Blue sits down next to me on the couch, a beer in his hand. “You know what I mean. What about writing? Queens has classes, you know. Grace looked it up.”

“You better pay me back for that beer. I’m not a rich finance bro.”

Blue groans, the same sound he used to make when he helped me with my math homework. “Dad would’ve hated this,” he says.

“Well Dad’s not here.” I sip my beer. I can feel Blue’s eyes on me, willing me to look at him. I stare at the opposite wall.

“The shrine,” he says, following my eyes.

I laugh, despite myself. Both of our framed high school diplomas hang on the wall. My acceptance letter to Chapel Hill. A picture of Blue at his graduation, on his first day of work. Something in the water at the Sorrell house, they used to say. What is he feeding those kids? Me and Blue, we were the ones everyone always knew would get out, would leave Kure Beach for bigger and better things. Potential out the ass, Dad called it.

Blue scoots closer, pats my hand on the section of couch between us. “He’s gone.”

I brush him off, stand up, walk towards the shrine and back, turn, face him. “I’m sorry I can’t just move on like nothing happened.”

Blue slams his beer on the table. “Damn it, Star. I’m sad too.”

I wander over to the fridge, open the freezer to consider the frozen dinner entrees.

“He’s not here anymore. I’m here. You’re here. That’s what we have left of him. Us. This house is not him.”

“I’m not just staying for the house,” I say. “I’ve got people here.” I think of Jake.

“Really? Do you?” Blue stares at me over the kitchen counter. I can feel him trying to solve me.

“I’ve got work early tomorrow. I need to eat and go to bed,” I say, grabbing a frozen homestyle lasagna.

Blue sighs. “Yeah, me too.”

He tries to broach the topic a few more times that night. I go to bed early. When I wake up for work, he’s gone. There’s a note on the kitchen counter.

Had to go to the office. Hope today isn’t too hard for you. Call me if you need to talk. You know there’s always a place for you with me and Grace. Love you, Blue.

His handwriting looks just like Dad’s.

I brush my hair into a high ponytail, even use a good scrunchie. I apply the mascara I bought a year ago for Dad’s funeral. Blue doesn’t know shit. There are good reasons I’m still here.

“Star,” Maggie pokes me like I’m part of the exhibit. “I think this group is interested in the horseshoe crab lesson.”

“You do it.”

Maggie hops with excitement as I pass her the plastic model of a horseshoe crab.

“This is actually its brain, and THIS is its nervous system and this…”

I stare at Jake, the fingers of his left hand curled over the edge of the turtle tank, the muscles of his right bicep flexed as he points at Pika. A strand of his long blond hair has escaped from his ponytail and moves as he talks.

“We picked this guy because he had a little failure to launch. We found him a few days after the hatch—stuck in his nest, all by his lonesome. So we’re letting him build up his strength before we send him back into the wild.”

I want to touch him, want him to curl around me, devour me. I want that prickling sensation again, that alive feeling in my limbs. I’m going to make it happen. I’m going to do something. Although I’m sure when my brother said that, he didn’t mean doing someone.

“Good job, Maggie,” I say, when the teenager finishes her speech.

“Really? I didn’t leave anything out?”

“Nah. It was good. Really.” I used to be like Maggie. “You really like this stuff?”

“I want to be a marine biologist! Did you study marine biology at Wilmington? I think that’s where I want to go, and I’ve heard their program—”

“I didn’t go to Wilmington.”

“Oh sorry. I thought—”

“Well, I guess, technically I graduated from there. I transferred my last year from Chapel Hill.”

“Wow. Chapel Hill’s a great school.”

“Yeah. I wasn’t trying to stay around here.”

Maggie hesitates. “So what brought you back then?”

“Shit luck and skin cancer.”

Maggie flips the plastic tail of the model hermit crab. Up, down. Up, down.

I save her from coming up with something to say. “I’m gonna go on my break, okay? I’ll be back in twenty.”

As I walk away, I make eye contact with Jake, holding his gaze until my face burns. He grins, pausing his presentation, the tendons of his neck flaring as his head turns to follow me. I wink at him. He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. Up, down. Up, down.

“Breaks are only fifteen minutes,” Maggie calls, as the sliding door swishes shut behind me.

I pull my employee quarter-zip off as I walk past the playground, tug a smashed pack of Marlboros out of the back pocket of my skinny jeans. Past the slide, over the scrubby dunes, there’s a narrow sliver of sand, curved and lonely as a crescent moon. I’ve seen Jake take his breaks here from the wide aquarium windows. I hope he got my hint, pray he’ll follow me out.

I kick off my flattened, graying Toms, dig my lighter out of my front pocket, and sink cross-legged onto the sand to wait.

Pursing my lips around two filters, I click the lighter and take a long drag. There’s that little burn high at the back of my throat, red as the cherry at the end of my cigarette. I take the second cigarette and stick it, filter down, in the sand by my feet—an offering for Dad. Smoke wisps curl from the burning tip, dancing like ghosts in the wind off the water.

Dad’s hair and fingertips always smelled of tobacco. Shift sticks, he called them, part of the restaurant life. He had smile lines and smoke lines around his mouth, little divots of a life well-lived. The vertical lines at the center of his lips would smooth and flatten when he smiled, which he did often, especially when he looked at me.

People always pitied me growing up, because I didn’t have a mom. But I never felt any lack. When I got my first period, Dad took me down to the pier and bought me king crab legs, warm, with Old Bay and drawn butter. This wasn’t anything to panic about, he said. He mopped a crab leg through the last of the butter. This is just life. Things happen, and you make the best of them. Then he took me to CVS for tampons.

I glance back at the dunes. Still no Jake. Maybe I didn’t hint hard enough. I take another drag of my cig, relishing the smell. Dad was always good for that—making a scary thing seem possible. Applying to college. Leaving home. Writing. He was happy where he was, loved his job as a cook, our little house. But he wanted more for us.

I wasn’t sure how to want things without him. All I wanted now was for him to come walking back through our front door. The house still smelled like him—tobacco and salt and grease from the fryer.

I glance back at the aquarium, at the ridge of dunes, like any minute his mess of tousled hair will crest over the sea oats. I really thought Jake would come. My brother’s words echo. You’ve got to do something. Wishing something hard enough doesn’t count for shit. I wish it did.

I stub out my cigarette in the sand, leave it beside Dad’s.

“I love you, Dad,” I say. “If you’re up there, I could use a sign.”

At the end of the work day, there’s a message on the landline, from Blue. Today was a tough one. Hope you made it through okay, and I hope you’re not spending it alone. Love you.

On Tuesday, I take my break at the otter enclosure. I breathe through my mouth as I eat a Clif Bar. Otters emit a strong musk from the glands at the base of their tail, which means basically the whole exhibit smells like a wet dog’s ass. I sit on a concrete bench in front of the viewing window. A lump of Clif Bar sticks at the back of my throat like tears.

The otters play with each other, their bodies thrashing and rolling like a tangle of snakes beneath the water, so intertwined I can’t match tails to respective heads. Kids crowd the observation glass. A blue and white plastic sign reads, “Asian Small-clawed Otters.” Beneath a picture of four otters piled on top of each other, it says, “We Are Family. Otters live in highly social family groups. Family is essential for their survival.”

I wonder what Blue is having for lunch. Probably not a Clif Bar. He got the cooking gene from my Dad. I crumble the empty wrapper in my hand. Now, the otters fight over a floating section of plastic pipe, climbing over each other to claim the enclosed curve of the PVC. One otter smacks the other with his paw. Another shoves his sibling beneath the water, using their back to push off towards the tube. I smile, running my tongue over my teeth to check for food. This exhibit is the only part of this place that doesn’t totally suck.

Maggie’s mopping up the tiles around the touch pool when I get back, prepping for close. I kill the last hour of the day watching Jake. I wonder if he can cook? I imagine him standing in my dad’s kitchen, sleeves pushed back past his elbows, forearm flexed with the weight of a cast-iron skillet, sweat beading at his brow from the heat of the stove.

A little after five, the last of the visitors exit. Jake’s high school volunteer is in the back room with Pika. He’s putting on his backpack. This is it. No more hinting and hoping. I’m going to do something.

I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear, pull the belt loops of my jeans so they’re not falling down, tug the hem of my shirt over my waistband.

“Hey, Jake.”

“Yeah, Touch Pool?”

“Um, so they told me I have to close out the bathroom today.” The volunteers only have to close and clean their assigned station, but paid staff are given rotating assignments of common areas too.

“Ooo, rough one.”

“Yeah.” I tug my shirt down again, smoothing it flat over my stomach. “But um, I’ve never closed out the bathroom before, so do you think maybe you could come and help me?”

Jake hesitates, second backpack strap almost on his shoulder. “You want me to help you? In the bathroom?”

“Yeah.” I raise an eyebrow, breathing through the blush climbing my neck. “Is that something you’d be interested in?”

“Sure thing, Touch Pool.”

I turn away as his lip crooks over that pointy incisor. If I look at him too long, I’m going to chicken out. I speed-walk. I can feel him behind me as I pad down the carpeted wheelchair ramp to the women’s restroom. There’s a hesitation in the swinging door behind me as he catches it. His hands are on my shoulders, turning me around, pressing me to him. I can’t believe I did it. I can’t believe it worked. My whole body is awake, like a long-extinguished light has been switched back on. Everything’s going to be okay.

“Is this what you want, Touch Pool?” His voice is a growl just above my ear.

I nod into his chest. “Star,” I whisper.

He pushes me into the stall behind us, against the left wall.

My butt jams against the toilet paper dispenser. I try to reposition, slide sideways, but he’s already kissing me. His mouth is wet, tongue flailing fleshily around the inside of my mouth. There is spit on my chin. I try to pull back, control the depth of his tongue, but the stall wall is unforgiving. I plunge my fingers in his hair, knotting them in the blond strands, pull his head back slightly.

“You like that, Touch Pool?” he says, moving his hand from my back to my zipper.

I run one hand down his perfect arm as he unzips my pants. This is Jake—beautiful, sexy Jake. I take a deep, shuddering breath. He smells like Banana Boat and boy. This is what I wanted.

His fingers push inside me, jabbing at my insides like an anemone in the touch pool. I cling to him, wrapping my arms around his broad shoulders, optimistic, desperate for nourishment.

“Yeah,” he growls. “You like when I touch you like that.”

He pulls his pants down to his thighs with his free hand.

There’s a sign over Jake’s shoulder that reads, “Know Your W’s: Wear a mask, Wait 6 feet apart, Wash your hands.” I stare at it as he finishes, ramming me into the toilet paper dispenser with each groan, one of my legs perched on tiptoe for balance, the other hoisted at a right angle up by his arm as he thrusts in and out of me one last time.

“Did you come?” he asks.

I nod into his damp neck. It’s good enough just to be with someone, not to be alone.

The muscles of his shoulders move back and forth beneath his shirt as he washes his hands.

I button my jeans, tug my shirt down. Blood throbs in my ears, my vagina.

“That was nice.” My voice sounds too loud over the thrumming in my ears.

He lifts his eyes from his hands to look at me in the mirror. “It was hot.”

Something swoops in my abdomen. Hot. He thinks I’m hot.

He turns to me, grinning, shaking droplets of water from his huge hands, hands that had just been inside me. My arms prickle.

“Are you doing anything after work today?” I ask, but the hand dryer howls over my words.

“What?” he shouts, squinting at me.

I raise my voice to repeat the question just as the hand dryer cuts off. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TODAY?”

Jake winces, batting the back of his hands against his jeans. “Sorry, Touch Pool, I’m busy tonight. But hey, if you ever want help closing out the bathroom again.” His fingers make air quotes around the last six words. “Then I’m your man.”

“Oh yeah, okay. Cool.” I retract, a hermit crab into its shell.

“Catch ya later, Touch Pool,” he says, giving me a mock salute as he shoulders out of the restroom’s swing door.

When I follow him out of the bathroom three minutes later, I don’t head for the exit. I pad along the wall-to-wall carpet to the otter exhibit. I sit on my usual bench, enjoying a rare unobstructed view of the enclosure. Someone will eventually see I’m still here and kick me out. But I can at least delay returning home.

An otter stands, paws clasped, on the edge of the pool. He chitters into the air before scuttling up the embankment. The other otters slip, slick and soaking, one after the other, to follow him. In a line they trot up the faux wood log to the upper pool. One otter is left behind. He is so busy spinning in dizzying circles under the water that he doesn’t notice the departure of his family.

I want to warn him. I approach the glass, tap it twice. But he doesn’t look up. He’s too busy spinning and spinning. There’s a flash of white, something clutched in his paws. My phone buzzes. Probably another text from Blue. I flip it to silent, watch the abandoned otter. Finally, he stops spinning. His whiskered nose pokes out of the water, swishing back and forth. He has realized he’s alone. He lets out a shriek.

Over the answering chitters of the other otters from above, there’s a clattering of plastic on brick. One of the janitors, coming to close up the exhibit. The lone otter scuttles up the bank toward the raised heads of his family.

The janitor’s blue trash can rattles around the corner.

“Hey, you gotta leave.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say, pulling out my phone, “I’m going.”

The last otter dives in the upper pool. His family piles on top of him.

Caroline Beuley is an alumna of the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference and the Oxford Advanced Creative Writing Seminars and is currently pursuing an MFA in Fiction Writing at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington where she works as a publication assistant for Lookout Books. Her writing is published or forthcoming in The Chestnut Review, Fractured, F(r)iction, and Ghost Parachute, among others. In her free time she loves to take her dachshund, Dumbledore, on walks and throw bits of paper around for her cat, Eloise.