The
Bridgeby
Julia Katz, Wenham, Massachusetts, USA, Age 15
The
grass-wet sneakers swung beneath Sarah, and below them lay the river,
and streaks of jumping sunlight. Natalie, Delia, Melissa, Jo, and
Sarah were sitting on the bridge, hip-to-hip, laughing as a chain,
savoring the freest hours of the summer with suspended care. The
wind scrambled Sarah's tank top, which flapped against her bare
arms and back, and her hair, restrained in a loose barrette. Then
Melissa launched herself high in the air, clothes and all, and a
blast of water sprayed the girls, now at their feet, leaning over
to see Melissa triumphantly arise from the river. Her fist shot
up- a challenge.
Delia came next. She didn't
jump so much as fell, arrow-tight and shrieking, her hair lifted
like a flame, which was received with clapping, and an oh my god,
this is crazy! Natalie staggered at the edge, bucking forward, and
then, seeing the full fifteen-feet distance to the water, back again
(Should I do it? Just do it!), until Jo thrust Natalie over, propelling
them both kicking and fluttering into one volatile splash.
" Thanks a lot!" Natalie
slapped the water so that it burst out and hit Jo. Screaming, Melissa
failed her arms to splash back. Somehow the joke already seemed
old, even while they were laughing at it. It was then that Sarah
turned, and saw the man sitting on the bench.
He was in his fifties maybe,
with a fishing hat and boxers than out-spanned his shorts. He legs
were crossed, and he held a newspaper, which he was not reading.
Instead, his green sunglasses pointed steadily through the bushes
and at the girls.
It was her turn to jump.
She ran down the planks, and
in one motion leapt through her hesitance, her left leg meeting
up with the right, tucking, and then contact with the surface, dragged
into a plunge, the current streaming over her eyes, wide open. Sarah
sank into the smooth, ethereal depths, her clothes buoyant, above
her, a puddle of light. The silence filled her nostrils.
Sarah Elisabeth Kailing, fourteen
years old with brittle brown hair and a toe ring, settled into a
pocket of fluid gravity, before being pulled to surface, dizzy voices
emerging. Where she appeared the man's shaded gaze was waiting,
and she swam a few strokes to the shore, suddenly cold. A towel,
Sarah demanded, somebody give me a towel.
"Did you see that guy?"
she asked Melissa, when she got to the bank under the bridge.
Melissa kept a brush in her
purse and was working at her hair, like she did each morning in
the school bathroom, the silky, copper locks filled with intolerable
knots only she could see in the filmy mirror, as she frowned and
pulled at every crease in her scalp.
"What guy?" And pulled
harder, in preparation. "Is he cute?"
"No! Over there."
Sarah averted her eyes, too
late. He saw them seeing him, the acidic way Melissa mouthed the
word "sketchy", and crossed her arms over the tube top.
Below the green sunglasses a sleeper's smile glinted, and carved
into Sarah's gut.
"Let's get out of here."
Delia's mother, who had been
chosen for her confidence, the frivolous brush of her hand, and
oh you girls have fun, was up the road, probably distracted by a
vigorous cell phone conservation. The truck was parked at the top
of the valley's incline, and Delia, Natalie, and Jo were back on
top of the bridge, running around, playing oblivious. Natalie dived
in, just to prove she didn't need anyone to push her.
The man stood, and the newspaper
fell against the bench. Swatting through the bracken and climbing
over, he cleaved a trail, white kneecaps visible.
Melissa clamped tight on Sarah's
wrist, like she did during sleepover parties whenever soft, cutting
words were exchanged. Together they went up the stairs to warn the
other girls, trying to appear casual as they hurried, breathing
aloud.
"We have to go now,"
Sarah said, reaching the top stair. But Delia crossed her arms,
and shrugged. She turned to Jo to deliver an expression of annoyance,
and Jo tossed her hair, laughing.
"No, really." Melissa
said quietly.
"We're being watched."
Sarah said.
In defiance Jo yelled, "Good!"
and she and Delia began to dance, spontaneously belting out the
chorus of a song they had heard on the ride up. Back-to-back they
swung, but then caught the eye the man approaching under the bridge
and became hushed, Natalie lying still in the water.
The man stood beside the bridge,
and rested his arm on the stairs. The glare of the sun, then setting
over the river, blotched out one side of his face and neck.
He lifted his chin up to the
horizon, sighed, and walked away.
"That was stupid!"
Delia said. Jo burst into giggles.
"I can't believe you were
actually scared." said Natalie, as she sped out of the water,
and rushed up the stairs.
Faded blue was swept across
Melissa's eyelids, glistening with the few specks of shimmer had
not been washed away by the river, beneath that, smeared strokes
of mascara, beneath that, pupils that aimed at Sarah, and a stub
nose and furious lips.
"This is getting lame.
Let's call Jeremy, see if he wants to drive us to that concert in
Knoxlyn."
"Oh my God. That would
be awesome."
Natalie, Jo, and Delia tucked
their towels around their waists, and trounced of, still reenacting
Melissa's warnings with theatrics and hullabaloo. Then their flighty
voices became distant from Melissa, who remained on the bridge,
and Sarah, who shuddered and avoided Melissa's eyes.
Sarah stood a few boards down
the bridge from Melissa, and Melissa charged, cornering Sarah at
the edge, and then catching her balance as Sarah plummeted at backwards
slant.
Help. Sarah screamed. My ankle
just snapped. I think I hit something.
Melissa peered over the edge
with a blank expression that was familiar to Sarah. It was an expression
often used as Melissa lounged through the hallways, one that Sarah
had sometimes figured for guarded loneliness, sometimes for snobbishness,
distant now, obscured by rising water, a small face towering over
Sarah from the highest hump of the bridge.
Then Melissa turned away, her
hair swinging behind her, her back draped in wet pink, leaving Sarah
like one of the jettisoned boys Melissa kissed and taunted until
she got bored.
Straightening the creases in
her outfit, Melissa pulled her tube top firmly over her stomach.
She separated the bushes so that she could climb over, making her
way up to the road. Wait up!" Melissa yelled, "Wait for
me!"
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