Lane Six was still, a jewel, and empty.
Lane Six pulled at me. I eyed the girl again, and I could see her getting taller, her shoulders broadening, her triceps or biceps or whatever she needed tumoring up along her arms. My skin felt tight. I was built for the butterfly: tall, wide shoulders, long arms. Big hands.
I said, I don’t know anything about it.
I SAID, HEY Coach. Can I ask you something?
Coach said, Julie. His voice, its palms upturned. You know, nothing’s permanent.
I said, Actually. I said, I was wondering. Could someone swim in Lane Six if they wanted to?
Coach said, Julie-Julie! You’re just getting off to a slow start. It’s going to go great.
I said, If they wanted to.
A FINGERPRINT MARRED the shiny gold on my brother’s trophy for 100 Butterfly, 1985. In elementary school they’d lined us up in the gym to get fingerprinted, so our parents could find us if we ever got lost or kidnapped. I remembered a police officer, or just someone who worked with the police, mashing my fingertips into the wet purple ink pad. They must have given us something to clean our fingers with. I knew now from watching TV what fingerprints were really for. The print on the trophy looked like a thumb. Ben might have seen my brother win that race.
Alexis said, Hey Julie.
The hallway had been deserted and I’d assumed everyone had taken off, especially Alexis in her silver Taurus, with Greg in the passenger seat.
I said, Oh hey. I stood up quickly, as though she had caught me doing something.
Alexis said, Do you need a ride?
I said, Where’s Greg?
She said, He took off. He didn’t want to wait around for me while I went up to Yearbook. For five minutes, but whatever.
I had decided not to call my dad for a ride because I didn’t want all my calling to make him suspicious. Especially today, when I’d taken a two-second shower in order to get myself away from the pool and out of the Y as quickly as possible. I reeked of chlorine. I said, A ride would be great. I said, Is it okay if I just run up to my locker?
At my locker I put my math book into my backpack. I took it out and put it back into my locker. I needed a minute to arrange myself. I looked in my locker mirror. My hood was up and faint goggle prints still ringed my eyes. I combed my fingers through my chlorine-stiff hair and pulled it back into a low ponytail.
I walked slowly back down the stairs to Alexis. I pulled my hair out of its ponytail in case she thought it was weird that I’d changed my hair in the two minutes I was gone. Alexis was standing where I’d left her — with her puffy parka and long wet hair and her backpack on one shoulder. Her backpack looked so lightweight and neat, as if it didn’t hold any books. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she was a bit bent over, really looking into the trophy case. The look she gave my brother’s trophies was dreamy and deep.
She turned and I felt the hologram of my brother settle over me. She said, Ready to go?
Alexis’s car had a bunch of knickknacks in it, a little stuffed panda hanging from the rearview, a stack of CDs with cases lying in the ashtray area. The new U2 was on top. Alexis said, Greg said he’d throw the CD out the window if I made him listen to One one more time. But you don’t mind?
Alexis asked where my house was. The car was comfortable, the way a Taurus looked like it would be from the outside. The car might have been bought expressly for Alexis, or it could have been handed down. It might have been a rude question to ask. We really only had two topics. I said, How’s the yearbook coming?
Alexis said, Oh, it’s okay. Ms. C. gets pissed at me and Melanie for not putting all our time into it, but what does she want us to do? It’s not like anybody just does one thing.
I said, Right.
She said, Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the photo thing. We’re just a little behind.
It would have been a good moment to mention that I didn’t really care about photos, and that Erika was the one who really wanted to do them. I said, It’s okay. You can let me know.
Alexis put on the wipers to clear a few drops. It wasn’t raining hard. She said, So? How is it going?
I said, With swimming? knowing she meant with swimming. I owed her an answer. I wanted to know how much she knew, what she had seen of me. She had been on those bleachers and heard Coach slough me off to Lane Five. Part of me wanted to be so baringly honest with her — to say it was harder than I’d thought it would be and to have her tell me it was fine or how to make it better. I wanted to tell her how I couldn’t stop stopping and to have her understand, without explaining too much. But Alexis was the one who had brought me on. She had, obviously, seen something in me, and who was I to tell her she’d been wrong? The heater balmed the air and Bono sang One love on repeat.
The windshield had accumulated more specks of rain. I’d answer when Alexis flicked the wand to clear them.
I said, It’s going okay.
Alexis said, Someday you’ll have to share some of your tips with me. You must have some good ones.
I raked her voice for sarcasm. She wasn’t a sarcastic kind of person. My memory pressed back through all the swimming magazines I’d skimmed. I hadn’t been looking for tips. I’d only seen pictures of people who weren’t my brother, lists of names that weren’t his. There was one page I could almost remember. I said, Think of your arms more like a propeller than a paddle.
She said, Like an old-fashioned plane?
Now I could see the diagrams, like a page from a science textbook. I’d paused to read it because it reminded me of the way my brother swam. I said, Right. To help you get above the water.
Alexis said, I like that. That could be cool, to think of yourself as an airplane. She said, Thanks, Julie. That’s a cool tip. She glanced at me and smiled. My brother, racing, was a jet on water. He was a plane never touching the ground. Alexis arrowed the CD back to the beginning of the song. Alexis driving meant I could look at her without her seeing me looking. This was what it would be like to have a sister — driving around, listening to music, talking about swimming, whatever. I looked at her. She leaned her head a little to the left as she drove, as if she were not just looking at the road but noticing it. Being sisters meant an infinity of closeness. I pressed my legs together. Alexis said, There’s a party on Saturday. You should come. It’ll be mostly swimmers.
My house was coming up on the right. She said, Which one is it? She told me the details for the party. She said to bring a friend. She said, It should be fun? Who knows with these things. She said, Have a good night, Julie, and touched my arm on my way out the door.
IN THE SHOWER I smelled the chlorine steam off me. I worked the soap bar into a washcloth and scrubbed, starting at my ankles and working my way up. It wasn’t redundant to shower when I got home from practice — the locker room showers were five nozzles, no stalls, and everyone showered quickly, to save hot water and because we didn’t have much time. Some girls took what they called army showers, sharing a nozzle and taking turns soaping up, rinsing off. The girls who took army showers acted as comfortable as if they were showering at home, soaping their breasts, swiping their crotches, stepping out of the stream to rub swimmers’ two-in-one shampoo into their hair. Alexis added another conditioner. Agree. She shared the bottle with Melanie and its smell bloomed down the shower line. It smelled like its color, a rich, soft green, a part of the forest that got sun.
I wrung out my washcloth and turned up the temperature to scalding. My skin went pink. My body didn’t look any different yet, but it felt different. I picked up my bottle of conditioner, turned it upside down, and shook it hard to squeeze some out. Maybe when it ran out I should try Agree.