Tick Check and Other Stories Claire Beyette April 25th, 2019 Advised by Marylin Sides 2 For my family 3 4 Table of Contents Tick Check ………………………………………………………. 7 Magnolia Creek ………………………………………………… 12 Milk Weed …………………………………………………….... 25 The Triangular Man and The Circular Dog …………………….. 31 Three Memories of My Uncle the Fisherman …………….…..... 51 5 6 Tick Check My mother, sister and I stand naked in the Safford Campsite facilities cabin. Our bodies not hidden, but sheltered from the outside world by layers: these walls, the pine forest, the ocean. Beneath our toes, the boards are gritty. There is no toilet; just a long, wooden bench on one wall, a shower head, a sink. Not Potable— a red-barred sign warns. Outside, the sun hangs in the sky like a teabag seeping chamomile. Smell the floral scent on the salt breeze coming through the pine-slat walls. My sister raises one arm, letting it droop at the elbow to rest on the crown of her head. I stand behind her letting my eyes fall over her armpit; around the curve of one breast; across her waist, lightly dimpled with dusky purple lines where the band of her athletic shorts pressed into her skin. “Other side.” She turns and raises her other arm. A lizard sidles up between the slatted floorboards, then edges back into the shadows, careful not to draw our attention. This— the ritual of our daily tick check—is a simple enough precaution against Lyme disease. Stand still on one of the island’s interior paths and you will see them crawling through the pine needles. At night, by flash light, they are visible through the rayon tent floor, drawn to us like iron filings to a magnet. While I look over my sister, my mother rests one foot on the rough bench, smoothing a ragged nail with the edge of a quarter. The sunshine dripping through the skylight collects in the dimples on her back. In the past she has conducted the checks, but yesterday she dropped her bifocals off the back of her kayak, so today I take her place. On the other end of the bench, our clothes are quarantined in a pile. Now, after a few days spent on the island, they are mottled with sweat and other stains. It feels nice to be free of 7 them. My sister drops her hand to brush away the grains of sand pressed into her side by the edge of her bikini cup. Flecks of sea glass glitter blue and green among the other grains. “Wait. I’m not finished.” The arm flexes, snakes back over the head. Her skin is high thread count— like satin rippling over the divots between her ribs. It glows from beneath. I run my thumbs along her shoulders and down her back, feeling for tick-bumps. She has just crested her full height; the muscles along her spine are taunt and corded, as if they have been hauling her upwards. "Have you seen that picture where you try to spot the deer ticks in a poppy seed muffin?" "I'd probably just eat it." She swings her hair across her other shoulder. The hairs at the nape of her neck are pale gold and curly. I brush them aside to examine the dark speck at the base of her hairline— a skin tag— then move down her legs, pausing over freckles. Her calves hum with the effort of keeping still. “I found one. Wait—wait—no, just dirt.” Through the plank wall dividing the cabin, the groan of tired pipes, a burst of water, a shriek. We straighten, ears erect. "Paullywog?" Mom’s knee still rests bent on the bench; it is a revolutionary pose— that of Washington on the Delaware. "I c-can't t-t-talk Aunt J-Jill." A prepubescent voice, blue-lipped. "He's freezing his balls off." The word ‘balls’ announced gleefully. A wet smack. The splatter of water hitting the floor. "Hey!" "Make sure you check all over. Don't forget between your toes. Get your Dad to do your head." 8 "K- k- kay, Aunt Jill." In this cabin surrounded by sea and forest, our smiles are older than we are. I run my hands over the sandpaper wrinkles of my sister’s ankles. "All clear." She steps aside and bends to pick over our clothes, flicking the dirt between the floorboards. My mother steps into her place. “Top to bottom?” “Mhm.” She bends her head and flips her short hair up with two hands. Spinal ridges rise one by one between her shoulders. She is darker than my sister but she too runs blond at the base of her neck. I sort between the spikes and loops of hair that escape her grip. When I finish, she lifts her chin and runs two fingers under the curve of her jaw. “Is that one?” “No, just a mole.” We are all prone to moles. She stretches an arm up and all along her body curves shift upwards— the protean rolling of waves on the sand. A purple nipple swivels into view. I am fascinated by all the colors her skin contains: blue, and red, and green, and gold, traced in places by sparkling veins of quartz. I use my fingertips to separate freckles from the bumps along the underside of her arm. Her skin is softer than my sister’s; like linen, the wrinkles echo writing. Tracking my motion towards the floor, she shifts her weight and raises the other arm. I follow from wrist to ankle, studying the effortless stacking of her joints. She has taught her muscles the art of looseness— a peacefulness that allows settling. Three days ago, when I stepped off the plane and hugged her, I was surprised to feel my nose bump against her forehead. We were once the same height. 9 "Where are the tweezers? Thanks. You've got one behind your knee." Shiny black, with a red dot on its back, the tick releases under the the tweezers, its legs crushing in on itself. I drop it between the floorboards. It is the magic of this place that everything unwanted falls away beneath our feet. On the other side of the wall, the tussle bangs through the door and runs shrieking back towards the campsite. “Thank you.” She returns to the bench and I straighten where she stood. My sister steps up behind me. “Ready?” “Yeah.” I close my eyes and feel myself in hers. With each breath, I fill the corners of the cabin. I have gathered my first roundness in the bow of my stomach. The muscles of my legs that once ached with adolescent longing, are now steady under her fingertips. I both reach and settle, like a skipping stone that for an infinite moment hangs at the top of its arc. Know this— I too have been effaced in the bathroom mirror. It has used my fingernails to stretch and pinch and pop. I have shared dressing-room stalls where the lighting layered in my pores like sand and huddled my nakedness in the corner while I changed. I have watched my mother grasp two handfuls of herself over the top of her jeans in the locker-room mirror, and later copied that motion. I have left my shade in the half-reflective windows of subway cars and been the paler for it. In blank surfaces, I have found flaws so big they suffocate. But in this cabin seventy miles from everything, standing naked with my mother and my sister, I am echoed again and again. My ankles. My ears. My hands. My thighs. How they were, how they are, how they will be. Our eyes are mirrors that, turned towards each other, reflect into infinity. How boundless the beauty of existing in spectrum! Shining in a beam of light that raced 10 a hundred million miles from the center of the sun to burst through this skylight. Come stand here and feel it—the countless colors waiting to crystalize on the surface of your skin. 11 Magnolia Creek It is easy to sleep on the school bus. The driver leaves the lights off and there are only five of us on this route so we spread out, the empty like seats airbags cushioning us against each other. With so few bodies to heat it up, the bus never gets warm but the chilliness is clinically soporific, like a hospital waiting room. Tyler, who flirts by offering up trivia facts like they are flowers, once told me that almost everything hypnotic is found prenatal. Supposedly, the gentle swaying of the bus reminds me of my mother’s gait, the hum of the engine the shushing of blood through her veins. It also helps that I am tired— so un-fucking-believably tired. For the past few months my father and I have been locked in an exhausting game of leap-frog, him staying up later and later, listening for the sound of the bathroom door, and me staying up even later to fool him. At this point I’m too tired to care who wins. It has been feeling less like my life, than a TV show I’m only half paying attention to; I’m just waiting for the end of the season to see who caves first. Breakfasts, which are quiet and— for me— include disappointingly little caffeine, always begin the same way. When my alarm rings I gather my uniform under the covers with me and spend a few more blissful moments floating in a cloud of comforters as I wait for it to warm up.