“Let’s go, big brother,” Chris said. “The world won’t wait.”
My brother jumped, and if I had let my mind think for a second about anything else, I would have missed the dive. It was that fast. And it produced little splash. In my mind Chris was already giving my brother a variety of high fives. In real life my brother came out of the water wearing his humble face. He swam over to the ladder and stepped out like an Olympic swimmer, so far in first he couldn’t care less about the judge’s score. Chris watched my brother wipe the water dripping off his body, pull the trunks away from his waist, so they didn’t stick.
“You, sir, nailed it,” Chris said. “You really nailed it, didn’t you?” My brother looked up, but didn’t even give a thank-you smile. Chris turned to me, still in the shallow water. “Hey, little man, look at this guy: Joe Cool.”
I acted unimpressed.
“All right, Mr. Cool, let’s step it up.”
They moved on to the front flip, and Chris taught my brother all he needed to know to master the move. How before you jump, you have to tell yourself I won’t jump until I’m committed. How after you jump, you have to throw your arms forward like you’re inbounding a basketball. You have to let your arms take your body where your body wants to go, Chris said. Do that, and the rest will follow.
Just before my brother was about to flip, however, a car door slid shut. My brother jumped off the board, but not into the pool.
“Mom?” I said.
“No,” my brother said, tilting his head toward the sound. “Just someone with a van, I think.”
Chris swung his legs out of the water and ran over to the front fence. “Mom?” he said. “Who’s this Mom character?”
The closeness of our apartment hit me in the head. I looked away from the pool to see if I could see the window from where we were.
“Is this Mom person someone we need to worry about?” Chris asked. “She’s not a spy, is she?”
“No,” my brother said, staring at the water. “She’s not here. She doesn’t matter.”
He stepped on the board again, ready to get back to the flip, but Chris held his hands up. “Whoa. Pump the brakes, sir. What do you mean she doesn’t matter? All moms matter.”
My brother’s face said he wanted to change the subject. “She doesn’t know anything,” he said. “That’s all I meant.”
He tried to step to the edge of the board, but Chris grabbed him by the trunks.
“Hey, not so fast. I want to hear more about your mom. I mean, we’re friends, right?”
My brother looked down at Chris’s hand, holding the butt of his trunks. I knew for a fact he didn’t like when other people touched him. He hated shaking strangers’ hands, didn’t even like hugs from the people he was supposed to love.
“So tell me what’s she like. Is she awesome? I bet she’s awesome.”
My brother tried to pull away from Chris. He twisted around, but Chris had a Rick-like grip. “She’s OK. Please let me go.”
“Just OK?” Chris said. He pulled him closer, and my brother almost fell off the board, but Chris steadied him, his hand on my brother’s naked side. “No way, this is your mom we’re taking about. She’s what made you, and you’re something special, right?”
My brother grabbed Chris’s wrist. “Let me go. I want to get in the pool.”
“Hold on,” Chris said. He scratched at the bites below his waist, spreading the red around. “So you live with your mom?”
“Yes.”
“What about your dad?”
“No.”
“No dad?”
“No.”
“You don’t have a dad?”
“No, I do. He just … he—”
“Left?”
“Yes.”
“Is he coming back?”
“No. I don’t know—”
“So she’s by herself? What about suitors?” Chris said. A coy smile wiggled across his face. “Any love interests?”
My brother opened his mouth, stopped, and for a second, nothing came out. “I’m cold,” he said. “Let me in the pool.”
“You didn’t answer me,” Chris said.
“Yes I did. Let me go.”
“Why won’t you tell me? Is it a secret?”
“No,” my brother said, raising his voice and squirming more violently. “Let go of me!”
For a flash, faster than my brother’s dive, I saw Chris’s face go angry. His eyes spiked down in a way we hadn’t seen before. But like the dive’s splash, the anger quickly disappeared, and Chris’s face returned to its calm.
“Oh yeah,” he said, releasing my brother’s trunks. “Of course. Sorry.”
My brother stepped off the diving board. He grabbed his towel from the pool chair and went to the shallow end to dry off.
“Get out of the pool,” he said to me.
“What’s wrong?” Chris said. “All right, all right. So you don’t want to talk about your parents. I get it. But what about what I want? I’ve got a mom and dad too. C’mon, we can swap war stories.”
“Hurry up,” my brother told me. “Get your flip-flops.”
“Oh, where are you going?” Chris said. “Don’t be a couple of babies. The baby bros, everyone!” It was something Rick would have said.
“We have to go,” my brother said, and pushed me toward the gate. “There’s a lady watching us. We shouldn’t be out here.”
Chris ran ahead of us and blocked the entrance. “Guys, I apologize. I get it now. I went too far too fast.” He stood with his arms crossed. “But I can’t let you leave until you forgive me. It wouldn’t be right.”
“It’s fine,” my brother said, looking past Chris, to where we wanted to be. “We need to go.”
Chris’s face twitched, like a bug flew in his ear. He slapped at the side of his head. “I don’t know. That didn’t feel right to me. That seem real to you, little man?”
“Don’t ask him,” my brother said. “He doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“And what is going on?” Chris said.
“You were showing us pool moves.”
“But then I ruined it, didn’t I? I’m sorry.” Chris put his head down. “What about this? What if next time we see each other, I share another secret? It can be anything you want. Another pool move. Something about my mom. Anything. I’ll even take you somewhere, if that’s what you want. Some cool place you’ve never been.”
My brother draped his towel over his head, so I couldn’t see his face, so I couldn’t tell if he was thinking this last offer through.
“It’s fine,” he eventually said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. You said sorry.”
“So we’re square?” Chris said. We nodded. “Good.”
He stepped aside and I followed my brother out the gate. Chris stayed behind the fence, and I was glad that he did. Though as we made our way around the corner to our building, we heard him call from the pool.
“Think about my offer, Mr. Cool!” Then, “I like that you stood up for yourself. You’re on your way!”
I thought that my brother might smile at this, but he didn’t. On his face I could still see a hint of blue.
five
THE QUEEN WAS almost late to her own party. The register at work broke and our mother was the only one who knew how to fix it. Ten minutes before people were supposed to show, she burst in the door, ink smudged on her fingers and face. Here she is, I thought, our majesty. Except she didn’t look like any of the royal people I’d seen in books or on TV. Her work shirt was untucked and dirty, and instead of a crown, there was the large mound of her yellow hair, frizzled from the summer’s humidity. She quickly surveyed the apartment, chewing nervously on a greasy lock. This was our queen.