A Grander Voice
Schoenfeld’s Farm
Birch Island, New York
“When you talk to yourself,” Dane asks his friends, “when you think things through in your mind, is it a female or male voice?”
“Male,” Ethan says.
“Are you sure?”
Ethan goes still and quiet. A little smile around his mouth. “God, it’s weird when you pay attention to your inner monologue.”
Nomi tilts her chin as if listening to faraway music. “My everyday inner blather sounds like me,” she finally says. “But if I’m calming or reassuring myself, it’s kind of a different me. It’s an older voice. Like a grander voice.”
“A wise, witchy voice,” Dane says, and Nomi points at him with raised, approving eyebrows.
“Weird my mind never shuts up but I never really think about how it sounds inside my head,” Ethan says. “But it’s definitely male. What’s yours, Dane?”
“If I’m just going about business, making a to-do list or doing a math problem, it’s male.
If I’m reading, it’s male. If I’m talking myself off a ledge, it’s definitely female.
My male voice worries, my female voice reassures.
If I’m framing out a conversation in my head—you know how you mentally prepare a script? That’s always female.”
“Your phone voice,” Nomi says. “I hate making phone calls to anyone I don’t know personally. Someone once said to me, Be your own secretary. So now I have this whole other voice for the phone.”
“Exactly,” Dane says. “The voice that rehearses a conversation in my head is female. But the voice that rehashes the conversation later and agonizes over stupid things I said is male.”
“Huh,” Ethan says. “That’s so cool.”
Dane loves him.
“I’m going to be so self-conscious next time I make a phone call,” Nomi says.
“Does your secretary have a name?” Dane asks.
“You mean, do I dial and say, This is Katherine Jones calling to make an appointment for Ms. Misteria. M as in Mary…”
Dane laughs. “Just in your head. Does your phone voice or your wise witch voice have a name?”
“Katherine Jones.”
“Really?”
“No.” Nomi’s quiet a moment. She’s sitting on the pool steps, arms wrapped around her knees. Her hair slicked back from her face. She looks at Dane as if measuring him.
He looks back and loves her.
“Laugh at me and I will bury you,” she says.
Dane, who is the last person to laugh at anyone’s inner monologue, draws an X over his heart.
“So my witch voice,” Nomi says. “Her name is Ruta Skadi. It’s a character from a b—”
“His Dark Materials,” Dane says. “Philip Pullman.”
Nomi smiles in a way Dane’s never seen before. “You know that series?”
“Who doesn’t?” Ethan says.
“Hey, you’d be surprised, the number of people wandering around the earth, unaware those books exist.” She tilts her chin at Ethan, gaze skeptical. “Who’s Ruta Skadi?”
“Queen of the Latvian witch clan,” Ethan says.
Dane makes a buzzer noise. “So sorry, she was actually Queen of the Lake Lubana clan. Good try. Thanks for playing.”
Ethan gives a moan of defeat and sinks under the water, flailing.
“Holy shit,” Nomi says. “You guys are my pipple. Most times when I say the name Ruta Skadi, people think it’s some kind of potato casserole.”
Dane laughs as Ethan surfaces, flipping his hair out of his face.
Fuck, he’s gorgeous, Diane says.
Dane silently agrees, trying not to stare. Ethan’s so sleek and shiny. Droplets in his eyebrows, lashes separated in spikes. Wet all over, even his teeth. They gleam in a soaked smile as he says, “Well, Nome, in terms of inner monologues, you could do worse.”
“Hers is the voice that talks you off a ledge?” Dane asks.
“Ruta Skadi adopted me,” Nomi says. “We did a family tree unit in school, which of course put me in a weird spot. I didn’t want to trace my foster family’s ancestors, I didn’t want to do nothing, so I made myself into Ruta Skadi’s granddaughter and invented a whole family history.”
“Shut up.”
“I fucking love you,” Ethan says, floating on his back.
“I got an A,” Nomi says. She pushes off the steps and glides toward Ethan, rolling on her back as well, until the crowns of their heads touch. “Come over here, Strong.”
Dane does, floating on his back and putting his head with theirs.
“See, now we’re three hares,” Ethan says.
“Three is a magic number,” Nomi says.
Dane is quiet, floating on a raft of love, listening as the water ripples against his ears. He drifts and bumps into Ethan. Then bobs the other way and nestles against Nomi. Back and forth, one is volleyed against the other two.
“Dane?” Nomi says.
“Mm.”
Her hand finds his under the water. “Does your voice have a name?”
He squeezes his eyes shut. Squeezes her hand tight.
“Diane,” he says softly.
She takes in a little quick breath. “Oh wow.”
Ethan flips over and treads water. “Holy shit,” he breathes. “Diane. Of course. It’s Dane with an I.”
Dane and Nomi roll and tread too, three heads bobbing in the pool.
“No,” Ethan says. “Wait. Not Dane with an I. Dane with a…”
He moves closer and touches a finger to Dane’s left cheekbone.
“Dane with an eye.”
Dane laughs, tackles Ethan and they sink under the water. Nomi dives down into the bubbling tangle of limbs too. They come up gasping, splashing, grabbing, roaring with laughter. Not yet in love, but well on their way.