Ben said, No way! I thought you were into it.
I said, I hate the coach. I said, He’s really judgmental. I said, I think he puts extra pressure on me, because of Jordan.
It hadn’t occurred to me until I said it. I said, It’s not like everyone’s trying to be in the Olympics.
Ben said, Of course.
I said, And my friend Alexis? She should totally be in Lane One. She’s basically the best breaststroker on the team. I said, Girls’ team. I took another sip of coffee. The cup wasn’t halfway empty.
Ben said, That coach sounds like a douche bag.
I said, He is.
Ben was touching the bead on his necklace. I could tell he was thinking about what to tell me to do. I would listen. He knew something, I could tell, about swimming.
He said, Well, how much do you like to swim?
I said, What do you mean?
He said, If you really love it, you shouldn’t let some asshole coach make you quit. Jordan’s coach was an asshole. He said, Not that Jordan thought so.
It was that thing he did, the loose way he threw around information about my brother. As if he were referencing things I was automatically supposed to know about.
The coffee was acid in my stomach. Ben’s hangover brew or whatever it was was making me dizzy. On the wall was a crazily blurred pink poster. I said, What’s that poster?
Ben said, Oh my god. Have you not heard Loveless? My Bloody Valentine? Of course you haven’t. Hold on. He went into the living room and fiddled with the stereo and a needle-dropping sound came on and then a thick swath of music. The singer sounded as if she were under layers of gauze, or maybe water, something thicker. It was impossible to tell if she was trapped or if she was there because she wanted to be.
Ben said, If you like it, I’ll tape it for you. And the R.E.M., too. It’ll be fun. He said, Oh my god, I was always trying to force my music on your brother.
Someone made a sound in the next apartment — a clanging pot. The Alderwood had thin walls. Ben must have driven the neighbors crazy with that choked-syrup music he played. The Alderwood was clearly a dump. I said, My brother wouldn’t live here. My coffee had little specks of grounds floating in it. I said, That metal pot you use doesn’t work very well. I said, I have to catch the bus. My jacket was still on. I said, That coffee was kind of strong. Three or four sips had turned me into a tin can rattling.
AT LUNCH THE day of the meet Erika showed me that she’d written 100 Back on the back of her hand. The night before she’d waited outside until the clouds cleared so she could wish on a star. I’d never known her to be so superstitious. She didn’t need all those charms. She was the best backstroker in Lane Four. I’d watched her. It was as if all she had to do was lie down on her back in the water and there it was, off she went, never swerving, never crashing into the wall.
She handed me the pen. She said, Do you want to write down a race?
I pressed the ballpoint into the skin on the back of my hand. I had to press hard to get a faint line of blue. I said, I don’t want to jinx it.
Erika said, Crap, you’re right. She wet her thumb and wiped at the writing.
We massed on the sidewalk, before the last bell, waiting to get on the bus. Alexis and Melanie stood near the curb, tented together. If Alexis looked over at me and waved and offered me something, some meet-day treat, I would wish her good luck when I took it. Greg walked over and Alexis put her arm around him and leaned against his shoulder, and he patted her head like there, there. The pat didn’t strike me as sincere. Coach stood at the entrance to the bus, clipboard in hand. Erika was so amped up that I let her get on ahead of me. Coach said, Erika, nice job with backstroke lately. He told her she’d swim the 100 Back and the 400 Free Relay. She high-fived the palm Coach offered. When I stepped up Coach angled his clipboard toward him and looked down at it. He said, Julie. Glad to see you. He kept looking at his clipboard. He said, We’ve got you in the 400 Free Relay. I said, Okay, waiting for more. He said, So you’ll be with Erika on that one. He said, We’ll try to work toward a solo event for next time, okay?
Because Erika had gotten on first, she sat in my window seat, forgetting or ignoring that I always got the window. I stood in the aisle until she saw me and slid over to let me in. Coach went down the rows, handing out swim team sweatshirts to the people who had ordered them. They were expensive, and I hadn’t wanted to ask my parents for the money. The bus was a heap of enthusiasm. People were waving their races in the air like flags, and nobody had won anything yet.
The meet was at Madison, they had their own pool, and the locker room was as clean as a hotel bathroom. The locker room buzzed. Girls were talking to girls they would never talk to. I changed quickly and went into the bathroom stall for a pube check. My new green-and-white competition suit was tighter and higher-cut than my regular suit. There were two pubes showing below the leg-line — a pain at the pulling, then a pop. I put them in the toilet and flushed. Alexis was at the sink pushing stray hairs into her bathing cap. I hadn’t thought before about how it would be harder for her to sweep her hair easily into a ponytail and cover it with a cap now that she’d gotten it cut. I saw her see me in the mirror.
She said, Oh my god, Julie, I’m so nervous.
I said, You’re going to do great. I meant it. It was hard not to look at the reflection of her and me in the mirror.
Alexis said, Hey Julie, can I ask you a weird question?
I said, Okay.
She said, Did your brother do anything before a race? For luck or something?
I wished I had something to give her, for luck. A clover or a disc on a chain. I said, Let me think for a second.
I’d read a spread in the latest Poolside about swimmers’ pre-meet rituals. Their answers had been pretty predictable — playing the Rocky song, calling their mothers. There was one I had liked. It had struck me as something my brother might do. I said, He went to sleep super early the night before, so he could get up and watch the sunrise.
Alexis said, That’s sweet. She said, That’s kind of romantic. But I missed the sunrise.
She was nervous, I could tell. I wanted to give her something else. I wanted it to be something she could use. I looked in the mirror and saw her nervous eyes blinking, her hands tapping against her crossed arms. I said, He also did a thing where he closed his eyes and breathed. Alexis nodded, and her tapping slowed. I said, Then he counted back slowly from ten.
Alexis said, Cool! She finished adjusting her cap. She said, That sounds easy.
THE MADISON POOL was cleaner and bigger than the pool at the Y. It may have just looked bigger because it was cleaner.
The Madison swimmers wore navy and gold.
The striver asked me if I was nervous.
The whistle the referee blew to start the meet wasn’t louder or different-sounding from a regular whistle. I’d thought he would use the starting gun.
Alexis swam the breaststroke leg of the Medley Relay. Coach was standing in front of me, blocking my view.
We were allowed to have our towels on the pool deck. I wrapped mine around my waist.
The referee blew the whistle. A Madison swimmer had dived in too soon.
The Madison swimmers were bigger than our swimmers. They looked stronger. Their coach probably cut people from the team.
Erika told me to wish her luck.
Erika came in fourth, beating out Madison’s B and C teams. PT came up and gave her a high five. When had she learned to do flip turns?
Someone tried to start We Will Rock You.
Someone tried to start a wave.
Coach, red-faced, yelled, Pull! Pull! He lunged close to the edge of the pool.
Alexis stepped up on the block for the 100 Breast. She swam stiff and stilted for the first length. I thought, I believe you can do this. I thought, Count back from ten. Midway through the second length, her stroke untensed. She smoothed the water. She took up and folded it. She touched the wall and the stands went crazy.