Free Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard Page A

the wrong question, that our night was over.
    “If you don’t know, one day I’ll show you.” She reached down to unroll the cuffs of her jeans. Her long hair shrouded her face. “When I think of a way. But I don’t want to talk about it right now.” She righted herself and tossed her hair back, and I saw she was grinning. “I feel too good tonight. Too high. What a fucking gorgeous night!”
    She dropped her cigarette onto a boulder and stamped it out with her bare foot. I wanted to ask her how she did it, why it didn’t hurt. “Mandarin—” I began, then stopped as she unfastened her jeans.
    “I’m going in,” she announced.
    “In the canal? But … the water, it’s polluted. It’s runoff from all the farms. And it’s got to be cold.…”
    I scooted away from her as she stepped out of her jeans and pulled off her shirt. Her white bra was patterned with tiny daisies, her underwear lacy black.
    “But what if …” I tried to object.
    “If I drown? I guess you’ll have to save me.”
    With that, she stepped off the bank into the canal. I crawled closer to the edge to watch as she reappeared, pushing her wet hair out of her face.
    “Get in!” she shouted.
    She plunged below the surface a second time. Then she burst out, flipping back her hair with a razor of water. Her skin gleamed like wet brass. I could see her nipples through the fabric of her bra before she sank back in.
    “Is it freezing? Did it get in your mouth?”
    “Who cares? It’s only water. What’s the good of being alive if you don’t do anything?” She flicked a spout of water at me. “Other than surround yourself with lifeless things?”
    Lifeless things? I wondered, uncomprehending. Like taxidermy?
    Then I remembered our conversation in her room, when I’d told her I liked to wander the badlands, collect rocks and fossils. All lifeless things. Suddenly it seemed like such an empty, pathetic hobby. At the very least, I could spend my time collecting something alive.
    Like … what? Beetles?
    I knew that wasn’t what Mandarin meant. She was talking about experiences, not objects. I should be collecting life experiences.
    Which I had no experience in.
    I hesitated only a moment more. Then I began to undress, awkwardly, one foot getting stuck in my jeans when I tried to tug them off. In my pajama shorts and top, I knelt at the very rim of the bank. The water looked like liquid asphalt, hot and bottomless. I touched the surface with my hands as Mandarin sank back underwater.
    She burst out again—but this time, she grabbed my arm.
    With a great splash of black water, I tumbled in. Mouth open, eyes open, stinging shock and cold. At last my floundering feet found the bottom. It felt like cake batter, clotted with river gunk and rotten plants and who knew what else. I wiped the scum from my eyes and opened them. Mandarin swirled around me, laughing.
    “You didn’t have to do that,” I complained, the closest I could get to being angry. “I was coming in.”
    “It woulda taken hours! You got a tree branch up your ass, or what? Relax. Enjoy. It’s a fucking gorgeous night!”
    Without another word, she closed her eyes and fell into a back float.
    I watched the drops of water roll off her cheeks. Then I imitated her, falling back until the surface caught me. The sky was blue-black, cloudless, like a baker’s countertop smeared with sugary stars. I tried to relax, but every second I was aware of Mandarin’s presence, as if the water had a slope to it, tilting me in her direction. I held my arms at my sides to prevent the awkwardness of our limbs knocking together.
    “Want to hear something wild?”
    Her voice startled me. I had to calm my body again and recapture my float.
    “This water,” she said slowly. “Sure it’s dirty and cold and all that. But if you think about it, it’s really a little piece of ocean.”
    I held my tongue, because I didn’t want to be a know-it-all. But wasn’t that obvious? We learned about