Rundown by Michael Cadnum Page B

Jenny,” he sang out. “They do their best.”
    This had been Mom’s plan: a couple days out of town, and maybe the cops wouldn’t need me after all.
    The back of the van was a jumble of blue diving fins and Aqua Lung cylinders, heavy tanks of air. The diving masks were night-glow yellow, the Scubapro buoyancy compensator vests and wet suits perfect black. It looked like a squad of sea monsters had run afoul of the Emmits and paid a terrible price.
    All the way down Highway 101 the Emmits were especially sensitive, asking me if I needed the window up, or maybe down a little more, and did I mind the radio on, KCBS jabbering the news. They finally turned the radio to some easy listening station at Mrs. Emmit’s whispered prompting, the music you hear in the dentist’s office, jazz musicians without any blood in their bodies.
    During this drive it was never, “Is anyone hungry?” or “Anyone have to use the ladies’?” meaning did we need to pee. It was always, “How do you feel, Jennifer?” “Jennifer, need a soda?” They usually traveled along in a happy uproar, caught up in one of Mr. Emmit’s anecdotes, actresses with laryngitis, actors with elevator shoes. Mrs. Emmit usually tossed the lunch into the farthest corner of the van and then had the passengers pass food forward all the way to Monterey, two or three hours, depending on traffic.
    Today they were like hospital workers taking a celebrity madwoman out to see the scenery. I had never seen them so considerate, asking me if I was hungry, offering me a pillow for my head, as though I could not hold myself upright.
    The drive to Monterey goes in three distinct stages as you head south from San Francisco Bay. First, there is urban damage, freeway construction and stucco houses, Fremont, San Jose.
    Then, hills. They were dry now, in the middle of July, cows looking up-slope or downhill over yellow pasture-land. The Emmit family always grew calm as they left this landscape behind, because they were finally reaching the point of it all, the gentle descent into a new countryside, rolling past the sand dunes toward the curve of Monterey Bay.
    Their weekend house is in Pacific Grove, right at the Monterey city limit. It overlooks the heavy seaweed and sluggish surf of the Pacific, down a short, sandstone bluff blanketed with ice plants.
    Because they visit only every few weeks, the front gravel always needs to be raked, and the back yard needs to be mowed. The Emmits immediately tore into every challenge the place offered, a cute wood-frame house, green with white trim. They aired out the garage, unlocked the basement, laid gardening tools in the driveway, a hoe and shears on a long handle.
    Mrs. Emmit was a round, pretty woman, with red hair cut short. Mr. Emmit used to be an active stick-figure, all hurry, cursing with every step. Now he was mostly peaceful, on the latest nerve medication. He wanted to see me happy, turning the living room light off and on and off again as I unwound the vacuum sweeper cord. “Or leave it on,” he asked me, hand on the switch.
    â€œI’m all right,” I said.
    I never could get impatient with the Emmits. Besides, today I came to think that they saw something in me, a pallor in my skin, a weakness in my gaze, that I was only half aware of.
    Marta asked, “Do you want to dive this afternoon, or wait?” She phrased it a couple of different ways, “We could suit up and head down there now. We could do it in the morning.”
    â€œLet’s wait,” I said.
    â€œSure,” said Marta, as though I had guessed the winning answer.
    Her family unpacked, saying I could have the back bedroom all to myself, the one with the brand-new mattress and a digital clock I could unplug if it made me nervous. “I hate waking at night and seeing the little dot blinking off and on,” said Mr. Emmit, as though I would take comfort in hearing that other people