Erika said, You said yes?
Later, in bed, my fingers felt around for a good hole in my afghan. The goal was to find a crocheted loop my fingers could snug in, itchy and tight. I found a loop and relaxed and tried to think about swimming. I tried to get my body to remember what it felt like: the push-off and float. The reach. The arm pulling down and around through the water. Through? The little kicks that were supposed to make a motor.
THERE WAS SOMETHING lodged and solid about my friendship with Erika, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t see it disappearing overnight. Erika and her mom came over for Thanksgiving. They brought three kinds of vegetables. They remembered my Seattle cousins’ names from last year, asked and answered questions, seemed as comfortable as if they were in their own house. Erika’s mom wore a long flowered skirt with bells on the drawstring, like they sold at the River Market. She didn’t eat turkey, but she didn’t seem annoyed that the rest of us did. Erika was usually a vegetarian, except on Thanksgiving and when there was bacon available, as I’d heard her say more than once. If I’d been a vegetarian, I wouldn’t have advertised my cheating. It seemed rude to her mom, who I liked, who brought roasted broccoli because, she said, she’d remembered how much I’d liked it last year. I could see Erika and I like spools of gauze unwinding from each other. One of my cousins, who was the same age as my brother, brought his girlfriend. She didn’t have a lot to say. She worked for a vet, but didn’t seem to relate to Pledge in any special way. Erika said she seemed like a real Suzy Creamcheese. She said my cousin was cute and could do better. I told Erika I thought my cousin’s girlfriend seemed fine. If Erika and I stopped being friends, it might be sad for a moment, and then okay. It would be what got called growing apart, which sounded calming, a floating, a benign disintegration.
MS. TRULLI DREW triangles and arcs and straight lines on the board. I copied them into my notebook. I raised my hand for the pass and went out into the hallway. The locks on all the toilet stalls were broken. I held the door shut with one hand and squeezed out a few drops. Ms. Trulli wouldn’t miss me. I washed my hands and headed down the stairs, all the way to the sub-basement, a narrow, nestled corridor of music practice rooms and coaches’ offices. From behind closed doors came bleats and saws, a flute floating cleanly.
The door that said Swimming/Wrestling/Golf was propped halfway open. It was unclear whether to knock or walk in. A voice said, Someone looking for me?
I said, Are you the swim coach? It was obvious: blond hair a little spiky, track pants, the T-shirt version of Alexis’s sweatshirt.
Coach said, Sure am. I told him my name. He said, All right, Julie-Julie. Alexis told me about you.
I said, She did?
Coach said, Glad to see you, have a seat, can I get you anything? Nothing to offer except — a swim team pen? He handed me a blue-and-white ballpoint. He said, Excellent. So you’re a friend of Alexis’s?
I had no idea what the conversation between Alexis and Coach could have been. It was hard to believe that she’d used the word friend, but who knew, maybe that was the easiest way to describe it. I said, She asked me if I was interested in swimming.
Coach said, Any friend of Alexis’s. He said, How can I help you decide?
The cinder-block walls were covered in thick, sticky paint, and taped to the wall above and around Coach’s desk were cut outs I recognized as being from Poolside and the other swimming magazines and a few articles clipped from the newspaper.
I said, How long have you been the coach?
He said, Let’s see. Three? Four? This would be my fourth year. He said, If what you’re wondering is along the lines of Those Who Can’t Do, Teach, well— He flipped around a medal that hung off his desk lamp. He said, Go Beavers.
I said, That’s okay. Coach showing me his medal was embarrassing. And that wasn’t what I’d been asking.
He said, What else?
What kind of swimmer did I need to be, and if I wasn’t that kind of swimmer yet, how might I get there? What kind of swimmer was I now? Did Coach know my brother, or know of him? The newspaper photos on the wall were so grainy that it was hard to tell the difference between water and deck. A splash was a smudge. Anyone could have been in those photos. Where did the team practice? How did they get there, and what time did they usually get done? That logistical information was probably printed on a handout somewhere. I could walk out of the office with that handout and know almost everything I needed to know.
I said, What stroke would you want me to swim?
Coach said, That depends. What’s your specialty?
It had been years since I’d touched pool water. I said, Breaststroke?
His eyes skimmed my shoulders. He said, I could see that.
I said, I might be built for it.
Coach laughed. He said, Sure, I could see that.
I said, Or something else.
It had been years, and who knew how good I’d be. I didn’t want him to think I was trying to compete with Alexis.
Coach said, Well, we could put it like this. You come to practice next Monday, you show me what you can do, and we go from there. He handed me an information sheet and said, The bus leaves at 3:00 PM sharp.
In the hall outside Coach’s office the flute still played, or it could have been a different flute. It must have been a teacher’s flute, for how unwavering and round its tone was. In this part of the basement the empty halls narrowed like swim lanes. It was peaceful and gutted. If, in Yearbook, Alexis asked if I’d met with Coach, I would tell her. She’d be, I thought, happy to hear it. I wouldn’t tell her I’d asked about breaststroke, and I hoped Coach wouldn’t, because she’d told me how much she wanted All County this year, and I’d really meant it when I said I thought she’d get it.
I TOOK CRANBERRIES and roast broccoli and passed up turkey — there was only white meat left. My mom said I must miss chicken. I used my thumb to break the condensation on my water glass. Folded in my backpack, in my bedroom, was a permission slip. It had been attached to the instruction sheet. My dad asked how it was going with the camera.
I said, It’s good. I said, I’m going to do clubs. Help the Homeless, the benefit?
My dad said, Sounds serious.
I ate a bite of cranberries. I did miss chicken.
My mom said, She didn’t say serious.
My dad said, Are you thinking of taking a photography class?
My parents couldn’t let me do something without being something. I said, I already have all my classes.
My dad said, What about the JCC? Do they do photography?
My mom said she’d just tossed the latest catalog.
My dad said, I bet we can ask them to send another.
I said, It’s okay. I don’t need the catalog. The next time Alexis and I were alone in Yearbook, or if she asked me to leave the room with her on an errand she needed a helper for, I could ask her about how she’d decided what stroke was right for her. I could ask her about the pool, how deep it was, and was it clean? And why did we trek all the way to the east side? The JCC was closer and had a really nice pool.
I would tell my parents about swimming, but I would wait to tell them. I would wait until I knew if I was serious. I didn’t know how my parents thought of me now — as a photographer, as nothing — but I couldn’t tell them I was going to try swimming without having them think that that made me a swimmer. I would wait to tell them until I knew what kind of swimmer I was.