Beneath the Surface

The hotel pool was empty at 2 AM, which was exactly what Mara needed. The water was still as glass, reflecting the fluorescent lights in distorted ripples that reminded her of how her life had been feeling lately—fractured, beautiful in a terrible way, and increasingly hard to recognize.

She kicked off her shoes and slid into the pool fully clothed. The shock of cold water against her skin was sharper than the moment David had said he needed space, clearer than the hollow look in his eyes when he'd explained about his coworkower, the one with the laugh like champagne and the collection of vintage hats.

Mara began swimming laps, her movements mechanical and precise. She'd been a competitive swimmer in college, before the world had demanded she become someone else—someone who wore sensible shoes to board meetings and smiled through presentations about quarterly projections. The water had always been the only place where she could breathe.

Her phone buzzed on the pool deck. David again, or maybe her mother wanting to know if she'd thought about annulment. She ignored it.

That morning, packing her suitcase for this impromptu business trip, she'd found one of David's hats in her closet—a battered fedora he'd worn ironically before irony became their relationship's foundation. She'd almost thrown it across the room. Instead, she'd placed it carefully on her pillow, like some sort of offering or warning.

The hotel's resident cat appeared at the water's edge, a ragged calico with one ear that refused to stand up straight. Mara had seen it earlier that evening, skulking around the conference room where she'd presented her division's catastrophic Q3 numbers. The cat had seemed more interested in the catered pastries than her impending professional doom.

Now the cat dipped one paw tentatively into the water, watching her with an expression that seemed almost judgmental. Or maybe that was just Mara projecting her own self-recrimination onto an animal that was primarily concerned with the complimentary shrimp puffs.

"You too, huh?" Mara tread water, facing the cat. "Everyone leaves eventually."

The cat withdrew its paw and sat, tail wrapped neatly around its feet, waiting for something Mara couldn't deliver.

She swam to the edge and rested her arms on the concrete, breathing hard. Water dripped from her hair onto the deck, each drop a tiny suicide. Her blouse was ruined. Her BlackBerry was probably fried. In the morning, she'd have to explain her soaked clothes and missed calls to her boss, a man who viewed emotional vulnerability as a performance issue.

But for now, there was only the water, the judgmental cat, and the terrible freedom of having absolutely nothing left to lose. Mara slid back under, letting the silence fill her ears, and wondered if David's new lover appreciated vintage hats, or if she even knew what irony was anymore.