All Faculty Excerpts

Pool Fishing: Stories

This is an excerpt from "The Water Holds You Still," a story in Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's recent short story collection, Pool Fishing.

***

The Water Holds You Still

The landline rang after midnight. It had to be my mother down in Palm Springs. She was the reason I kept that line.

I picked up. “Hi, Mom.”

“I heard a noise,” she said.

I stood my brush in a jar of water. Red paint escaped the bristles, a blood cloud. I took the phone outside, the curly black cord stretched taut as a tightrope. Ferns along the patio beaded up with night mist, common here in coastal Orange County.

“Houses settle at night and make noises,” I said.

A few months ago, she began calling me about noises at night, and the calls came more often.

A puff of breath and the faint strain of music—Sinatra. “Mood Indigo.” She’d become obsessed with him, more so since my stepfather, Jerry, died.

“A coyote was outside by the pool, sniffing the water.” “Maybe it’s bored,” I said. “No little dogs around to eat.” “Greta, that’s not funny,” she said.

“You’re keeping Joey Bishop in, right?” She loved red Pomeranians. When one died, she adopted another.

“He’s in.” Her voice dropped an octave. “My sapphire ring is missing. Every time your brother stops by, something else goes missing.”

“Are you sure?” Out on Pacific Coast Highway, red and blue lights whirled by.

“Last week it was my diamond earrings. I planned to give those to you.”

I took it personally. My brother knew I had dibs on those.

“Has anyone other than Ben been around?”

“Repair people. Pool cleaner. Gardener. I can’t keep track.”

“So, it could be anyone.”

“Do you think your brother’s gambling again?” she asked. “People go to those pawn shops up on Palm Canyon and over in Cathedral City to sell things they steal. Or they sell them on

Clubslist.”

“You mean Craigslist.”

“Make fun.”

“Look, Mom,” I said. “If Ben’s stealing from you, call the police. Turn him in.”

“I can’t. He’s my son.”

“It will only get worse.” I feared for my mother, brother, and me. Families weren’t supposed to be like this. Sons didn’t steal from their mothers. She’d complained before, so there must have been some truth to his thieving. “You’d be doing him a favor.”

“He won’t come and see me. Then who will I have?”

“You have me.” I felt like that little girl again, competing with my brother for her love. Ours was a complicated relationship. Mothers and daughters and sons—oh my. She had that old-world Italian thing going: sons were gods; daughters were—what?

“You’re so far away,” she said.

“I’m not that far away, only a couple hours. Come stay with me for a while. There’s a pool here. It’s not like your pool, but it’s something.”

“I don’t drive anymore. My eyes.”

“Then I’ll come there.”

We made plans for me to drive to the desert in three days and hung up. Back in the studio, I studied my many unfinished canvases propped against the walls. I’d never get another gallery show if I didn’t finish already. I had done well at my first show, but how could it ever happen like that again? What if I became a one-hit wonder? And was that better than becoming a follow-up failure? When Andrew and I broke up—I found out via Instagram, of all things, he’d cheated on me with an ex-girlfriend—my confidence plummeted. Faulty female intuition. The dickhead. I lost my motivation, and my creative ideas turned to mush.

***

Reprinted with permission from Kelp Books, LLC. You can find out more about Barbara and her writing here.