Excerpt from Trapped Under the Sea by Neil Swidey, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

1
DJ
SIX YEARS EARLIER

DJ pulled into the driveway, got out of his Ford Bronco, and stepped into what felt like a 1980s music video. Straight ahead was a sun-tanned brunette washing her car while wearing ripped jean shorts and a wet half-shirt. As he trained his eyes on her, DJ could practically hear the thumping hair-metal-band soundtrack playing in his head. Actually, it wasn't all in his head. There was music coming from around the back of the house, where someone had placed a speaker facing out of a first-floor window.

At a picnic table, three attractive women in their early twenties sat in Daisy Duke cutoffs and tight tops, drinking wine coolers and taking in the sun on a late summer afternoon. It was a Friday in August 1993, and DJ, a month shy of his twenty-fourth birthday, had just returned to Massachusetts after more than two years working as an offshore diver in the Gulf of Mexico. During his time away, his mother and younger brother had moved into the upstairs apartment of this two-family house in Waltham, a former mill city west of Boston. They were away on vacation now, so DJ was on his own as he saw the new place for the first time.

A guy around his age approached him, explaining that he lived in the downstairs apartment with his girlfriend, the dark-haired car washer. He invited DJ to grab a beer and join the party that was just getting started. DJ didn't need much convincing and plopped himself down at the picnic table. Given his muscular build, broad smile, and easy conversational skills, he never had much trouble getting noticed by girls, even if he was shier than he let on.

A blonde named Lisa, in between drags on her cigarette, began chatting him up. She had a big laugh to match a big personality. When she told a story, she used her chin, not just her hands, for emphasis. DJ immediately liked her. But his eyes were more drawn to the black-haired woman sitting next to her, who introduced herself as Donna. At least that's what it sounded like to DJ's ears. But when he called her that a few minutes later, she quickly corrected him. It may have sounded like Donna, but her name was actually spelled Dana. To nail the correct pronunciation--DAH-nah--you needed to contort your mouth into a horizontal line as exaggerated as a mailbox slot. Seems like a lot of trouble for a name, DJ thought to himself. But he was so smitten that he didn't mind. Dana had bronze skin, big alluring eyes, and milky teeth that lit up her face when she smiled.

DJ could sense that all the girls were fascinated by his tales of adventure as a diver in the Gulf. He explained how he would get helicoptered way out to sea, onto a giant oil platform the size of a village, so he could do complicated work hundreds of feet underwater. When he'd left Waltham a few years earlier, he'd been just another construction worker hanging out at the bar. Now, having turned his childhood love of the water into a thrilling career, he could claim a deep well of true stories. He knew to prune from his anecdotes all the unglamorous realities of life as an offshore diver--the smelly sleeping quarters and grunt work bordering on hazing--and stick to the exciting stuff.

The party grew as the night wore on. When DJ noticed at one point that Dana had disappeared, he turned his attention to blond-haired Lisa. As night turned to morning, they made their way upstairs to his mother's apartment, where they hooked up. She took off early the next morning, explaining that she had to head out of town.

It didn't take long for day two of the party to get going. Once again Dana was there, and this time DJ didn't let her out of his sight. She told him she was a hairstylist at a high-end Boston salon. She clearly liked to have a good time, but DJ detected something classy and almost exotic about her, with her dark hair falling around her face, hiding one of her eyes.

Late that night, after most of the partyers had cleared out, DJ realized he had lost the key to his mother's apartment. "Don't worry," his downstairs neighbor told him. "You can crash on our couch."

Excerpted from Trapped Under the Sea by Neil Swidey. Copyright © 2014 by Neil Swidey. Excerpted by permission of Crown, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.