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through the door, opening the door against the weight
of black water and gravity that door so strangely where it should not have
been, overhead, directly over their heads, as if the very earth had tilted
insanely on its axis and the sky now invisible was lost in the black muck
beneath—how long, in her terror and confusion Kelly Kelleher could not have
said. She was fighting to escape the water, she was clutching at a man's
muscular forearm even as he shoved her away, she was clutching at his trousered leg, his foot, his foot in its crepe-soled canvas
shoe heavy and crushing upon her striking the side of her head, her left temple
so now she did cry out in pain and hurt grabbing at his leg frantically, her
fingernails tearing, then at his ankle, his foot, his shoe, the crepe-soled
canvas shoe that came off in her hand so she was left behind crying, begging,
"Don't leave me!—help me! Wait!"
    Having
no name to call him as the black water rushed upon her to fill her lungs.

 

 

    He was gone but
would come back to save her.
    He was gone having swum to shore to cry
for help... or was he lying on the weedy embankment vomiting water in helpless
spasms drawing his breath deep, deep to summon his strength and manly courage
preparatory to returning to the black water to dive down to the submerged car
like a capsized beetle helpless and precariously balanced on its side in the
soft muck of the riverbed where his trapped and terrified passenger waited for
him to save her, waited for him to return to open the door to pull her out to
save her: was that the way it would happen?
    I'm
here. I'm here. Here.

 

    At the fourth of july gathering at buffy st . John's that day there were guests arriving
all afternoon and into the evening, some of whom Kelly Kelleher did not know
but she did know and was known by Ray Annick and Felicia Ch'en a glossy-black-haired strikingly beautiful new friend of Buffy's who had a
degree in mathematics and wrote freelance science articles for the Boston Globe and Ed Murphy the finance economist at
B.U. who was a consultant for a Boston brokerage house and Stacey Miles of
course who'd been a suitemate at Brown and Randy
    Post
the architect with whom Stacey lived in Cambridge and there was an ex-lover of
Buffy's named Fritz with whom Buffy remained good friends and who had in fact
taken Kelly Kelleher out a few times amicably, casually, he'd hoped to make
love to her Kelly had surmised as revenge of sorts upon Buffy who would not in
any case have cared in the slightest, and there was that tall big-shouldered
balding light-skinned black man of about thirty-five a fellow of some kind at
M.I.T. whom Kelly had met before, his first name was unusual, exotic, was it
Lucius?— a Trinidadian and not an American black and Kelly remembered liking
him and knew that he liked her, was attracted to her, so Kelly felt good about
that, she had dreaded this weekend having become increasingly uncomfortable at
parties like this where so much drinking so much repartee so much gaiety so
much frank sexual appraisal put her at a disadvantage, she was vulnerable as if
the outer layer of her skin had been peeled away since G----- and if men looked
at her she stiffened feeling her jaws tighten her blood beat with dread and if
men did not look at her, if their glances slipped past her as if she were
invisible, she felt a yet deeper dread: a conviction of not merely female but
human failure.
    But
there was Lucius. A research fellow in plasma physics. A subscriber to Citizens' Inquiry and an admirer of Carl Spader, or what he knew of Carl Spader.
    There
was Lucius, and Kelly was grateful for his presence, and had not shortly past
two o'clock a black Toyota turned into Buffy's drive and the murmur went up Is it him?—is it ?— Jesus! the two might have become, in time, very good friends.

 

    She did not believe in astrology, in
the breath- less
admonitions and Ben Franklin-pep talks of the magazine horoscopes, nor did she believe
in