The strap caught against his chest. Cal pulled it over his head as he went down the steps. A hit the tread behind him. He passed Adrian with a shoulder, caught the rail and went off the low platform beside Juno.
The water took his breath. His feet found nothing. He came up with one arm striking the tender, reached again and caught the back of her shirt. Her face was still down. He pulled her toward him, got his other hand beneath her shoulder and turned her. Her head fell back against his upper arm. He kicked hard, choking on water that had gone into his own mouth.
“Here,” he tried to say.
The tender knocked against his shoulder. He pushed away from it, keeping her mouth above the water, and felt the weight of her pull his arm down. Her eyes were closed. He got his chin up and shouted.
An orange ring struck the water beside them. A rope dragged across his face. He grabbed the ring, missed, got it the second time and hooked his wrist through. Above him the crewman was paying out line. The captain had come onto the platform. Cal could see his shoes, then his face as he knelt.
“Keep her up. We've got you.”
Juno made a noise. Water came out of her mouth and she tried to turn toward it. Cal shifted his forearm, holding her face clear while she coughed. Her hand struck his neck, caught his shirt and held it. The strength in it frightened him more than the stillness had. He couldn't tell if she knew what she was holding.
“Don't,” he said, then stopped because there was nothing she shouldn't do except go under.
The line tightened. They moved toward the platform together, bumping the tender once more. Someone lowered the ladder. Cal found it with his knee and lost it, found a rung with his foot. The captain reached down, caught Juno beneath one arm and told him to wait. Another crewman joined him. They got her against the ladder, talking to each other over Cal's head.
“Not her wrist. Here.”
Cal kept his hand under her until they had her weight. Her shoe scraped his shin. Then she was above him, on her side on the platform, coughing into the dark grain of the deck. He clung to the rung. His arm shook so hard he couldn't make the next movement.
“You too,” the captain said.
He took Cal's forearm. Cal got one foot up, then the other, scraping his knee against the metal. He rolled onto the platform beside the ladder and lay with his cheek against wet wood. The light was much too bright. He could hear a phone conversation above him, a person giving the berth and asking how to get the medical crew down to them.
He lifted his head. Juno was still on her side. A crew member knelt beside her, holding a folded towel near her head without forcing her onto it. Her bag had caught between the tender and the platform. A long dark line of blood had come from somewhere in her hair and thinned across her temple. He couldn't see how badly she'd struck.
“Juno.”
She tried to lift her head. The crew member asked her to stay still. Her eyes moved toward Cal, unfocused at first, then fixed on his face.
“My arm,” she said.
He looked down and realized he'd reached for it again. He took his hand away.
“Okay.”
Adrian stood at the foot of the steps. The first crewman had an arm across him. Another man blocked the way up. Adrian wasn't trying to force past them now. He was staring at Juno, one hand half raised as though someone had asked him to come forward and then changed the instruction.
“She slipped,” he said.
“Stay there,” the captain told him.
“I didn't push her.”
The captain turned his back on him and spoke into the phone. Cal heard the word breathing. He couldn't hear the answer. A woman above them asked where Lena was. Someone else said to move back and keep the stair clear.
Cal got onto his knees. The movement made his stomach contract. He bent over the side and brought up salt water, then stayed there until he could breathe without coughing. A towel landed across his shoulders. He hadn't seen who put it there.
Juno had her eyes closed again. The crew member said her name and she answered, annoyed, a small sound that Cal would have known across a room full of drunk wedding guests. He sat down where he was. His right hand was empty. He opened it, closed it, watched it tremble against the wood.
Up on the second tread A lay on its side, strap in a loop beneath it. The little red light was still on. Its lens faced the inside of the stair, where shoes were passing in and out of the picture. Cal left it there.