Learning to Swim Read online

  For my mom,

  with love

  I would like to thank Esther Newberg,

  Beverly Horowitz, and Claudia Gabel

  for all their patience, insight, and expertise.

  I would also like to thank Sadie and Lily for

  allowing me to pull rank with the TV and the computer

  (even though it wasn't really fair).

  And finally, I would like to thank Brian

  for just about everything.

  PROLOGUE

  Some mothers are alcoholics, some are druggies, and some are compulsive shoppers, gamblers, and/or liars. Mine suffers from one of those types of emotional, addictive diseases as well (although definitely not as serious as the ones I just listed). It's a relatively undocumented condition that I, Steffie Rogers, refer to as love lunacy.

  In a nutshell: the victim of love lunacy goes from one bad affair to the next, hoping to find happiness, but usually finding the exact opposite. I've watched Barbie (Mom and I are so close—read: dysfunctional— that she insists I call her by her first name) suffer through so many heartbreaks, I could write a book on the subject. In order to help others (and myself) understand this annoying syndrome, I've mapped out the stages of the disease.

  Secret smile. A weird lopsided, plastic-looking grin becomes plastered on Barbie's face, like she just found a stash of blue M&M's.

  Forbidden phone call. A call that is so private Barbie must take it outside, away from me. Phone call is followed by a joyous mood.

  Barbie bliss. May last as little as a couple weeks or as long as several months. Demonstrated by secretive movements, the humming of sappy love songs, and an almost manic burst of energy. During this period, Barbie will hint at positive things to come: “Maybe we should buy a place here and settle down,” or “How would you feel if I remarried?”

  Hot-potato phone. Barbie suddenly becomes neurotic about her cell phone, constantly checking for messages and jumping every time it rings. This sudden obsession indicates that all is not right in Neverland.

  Schizoid mom. Relationship is clearly on the rocks. Barbie's moods swing from ecstatic to dismal, good to bad, white to black.

  The map. Fed up or simply dumped, Barbie pulls out her map of Maryland, closes her eyes, and drops her finger.

  The finger move. Wherever the finger lands— we move.

  Remission. Barbie promises to never even look at another (ahem—married!) man again.

  Numbers six, seven, and eight have happened to Barbie fourteen times. As a result, I've lived in fourteen towns—and I've only been alive for seventeen years. I do the math in my head on a regular basis. The end product is always the same, and it can be easily described with the following made-up adjective: sucktastic.

  In all fairness, though, Barbie's not a total lunatic. Unlike most alcoholics and druggies and compulsive whatevers, she has a handle on the basics. She puts a roof over our heads, earns a decent living, and contributes to the betterment of our household, and with a genuinely, if not freakishly, upbeat attitude, I might add. Consistent exposure to her sunshiny disposition can really affect a regular person's state of mind. Case in point: When school ended in mid-June, Barbie used her love-lunacy-influenced, mind-powered tractor beam (when used on men, it's boob-powered) and convinced me to work at her office over the summer so I could learn “fiscal responsibility” and save up for tuition at the crummy community college I assume I'll be attending.

  Only, Barbie's office isn't an office. It's the bar at the Tippecanoe Country Club, where she's a cocktail waitress who stuffs tips in her bra. And what do I do at this giant, fancy rich-people hangout on Jones Island?

  I'm a maid. A polyester-uniform-wearing, plungertoting maid.

  Okay, considering that Barbie thought this idea would also lead to some wacky brand of mother-daughter “fun,” it's pretty obvious that she is a total lunatic. And to be honest, even though I love her, I don't want to be anything like her when I grow up. Especially when it comes to that hairy-chested testosterone-producing species that scientists and laypeople like to call men.

  Right now, there's just one thing that stands in the way of my life's mission, which is to avoid love lunacy at all costs.

  His name is Keith McKnight.

  In fact, I can feel a secret smile forming on my face already….

  1

  The day started off like every other Monday. I was hunched over a vacuum cleaner, tidying up the carpet of the ornately decorated club room at Tippecanoe (which was designed many years ago by the same people who built the glamorous Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York). The manager, Mr. Warzog, handed me a plunger and informed me that the toilet in the boys’ bathroom at the pool had overflowed. How typically sucktastic.

  I would have to walk around the pool in my maid outfit, right past potential love lunacy candidate Keith, and every girl in my school. Yes, every girl in my school. Mora Cooper and her popular cheerleader crowd. Amy Fitz and her jocky soccer group. Even Rafaela Berkenstein and her punky friends with the dyed black hair who go around quoting obscure poets and talking about the meaning of life. They were all there, soaking up rays in their bikinis while I was walking around in my baby blue maid outfit and cleaning up stinky bathroom messes. This was not something I wanted to write about in my Good Times journal (which hadn't seen fresh ink since the fourth grade).

  It was a hot, sticky afternoon in late July and the pool was jammed. I held on tight to my plunger as I maneuvered through the crowd. As I rounded the deep end, steering around the long line for the high dive, I saw Keith. Clad only in his red swim trunks and wearing his trademark Ray-Bans, he looked like a head lifeguard should: tan, tall, and totally wow. Keith had already graduated by the time I started at Brucker's High, but Jones Island was so tiny, everyone knew each other's business. And being a maid who was practically invisible to Tippecanoe's young and fabulous patrons, I was able to eavesdrop and get some good tidbits on Keith.

  His mom died when he was twelve years old. (How could I not love someone with a dead mother? That would be unconscionable.)

  When he went to my school, he was captain of the football team and a leader of a Boy Scout troop. (Word on the street was he had twenty-five merit badges!)

  He was also homecoming king and thereby forced into dating the captain of the cheerleading squad, as per the International High School Social Code of Conduct. (But I never held that against him. All he was doing was obeying the law.)

  He had sex with said cheerleader girlfriend. (This I kind of held against him. He should have been saving himself for me.)

  He broke up with her during his freshman year at college after he started studying philosophy and registered with the Green Party. (This proved beyond a doubt that God exists.)

  Last summer he hooked up with Mora Cooper, his current girlfriend. She was the most popular girl in my class and the new captain of the cheerleading squad. It was rumored they also had sex. (Subsequently, I bought a book on atheism and read it cover to cover.)

  Naturally, like every other girl at the club, I couldn't take my eyes off his shaggy auburn hair, his long lanky limbs and toned muscles, his full lips, the dimple in his chin, his deep brown eyes…

  Suddenly, some little boy barreled into me and splash! I was submerged in a hundred gallons of chlorinated water. Most people started laughing at first. They must have assumed I could swim (um… wrong!) and thought it was funny to see a maid get tossed into the pool. But eventually they would realize that this was more of a 911 situation than an amateur attempt at slapstick comedy. Or at least, one person would.

  As soon as I stopped splashing, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I kept my eyes open and just stared up out of the water at all those blurry faces. My plunger filled with liquid a
nd it became an anchor, dragging me down to the bottom. Instead of letting go, I held on for dear life. I had this weird thought that I should just stay down there in the deep end until the pool closed and everyone left. Hey, it was a traumatic experience, and therefore I was entitled to a little irrational thinking.

  Before I knew it, Keith had jumped in and yanked the plunger out of my hand. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me up to the surface. All the other lifeguards helped hoist me out, and then Keith began pushing down on my stomach with his hands.

  For one brief moment, I thought, Oh my God! Keith McKnight is feeling me up! And then I got sick.

  “Back up, everyone!” Keith yelled, as if anyone wanted to get close to the spewing vomit. And then he wrapped a towel around my shoulders and led me into the lifeguard office, a small room between the bathrooms I was supposed to tend to in the first place. He sat me down on a chair and leaned over me.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I nodded, trying to avoid looking at him.

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded again.

  “What happened?” he asked. “Did you have a seizure or something?”

  A seizure? I wish. “I can't swim,” I said simply, even though the story behind this was anything but simple.

  “Do you want to call anyone?”

  “Not my mom,” I said quickly. Barbie was not known for being a pillar of strength when the chips were down. I could only imagine how she would handle the news of my near-death experience.

  “How about a friend?” he asked helpfully.

  I immediately thought of Alice, who is the closest thing to a best friend I've had in years. Because of the dreaded love lunacy and the equally dreaded finger moves, I never had enough time to build any good, solid, long-lasting friendships. But when I met Alice, it felt as though I'd known her forever. Maybe it was because she was a fellow maid who knew what a drag it was to clean up after people. Maybe it was because she was sweet and treated me like an adult instead of a child. Or maybe it was because she had the eyes of a wise sixty-year-old woman who had seen the world and truly experienced life. She had the body of a sixty-year-old woman too, because she was, well, sixty years old, give or take.

  Just as I was about to tell him to call Alice, the door flew open and the room filled with the smell of hair spray and L'Air du Temps. There stood my mother, breathing like she was going to have a heart attack, tears the size of golf balls rolling down her cheeks. She was wearing her cocktail waitress outfit, which consisted of a short black skirt and a tight white button-down shirt with a black bow tie. Her long blond hair was curled and expertly tousled, and despite the tears, her makeup was still impeccable.

  “OHMYGODohmygodohmygod!” Barbie said, practically shrieking.

  I held up a hand to ward her off. “I'm all right,” I said, marveling at how quickly my mom had appeared on the scene. Barbie had always loved drama.

  My mother grabbed me and pressed my face into her humongo boobs. (They were a gift from boyfriend number seven. Before that, she hadn't been much bigger than me, a fact that I did not find encouraging.)

  “You could've died.” She twisted around and gave Keith an angry look, as if it was his fault that (a) I had been accidentally bumped into the pool and (b) she hadn't been there to capitalize on the significant audience when it happened. But then she turned back to me, and suddenly her eyes were welling up with more tears. She was really, truly upset by this, and given her many neuroses, I could understand why. Still, I had to make an exit—and quick—before she broke out the ugly cry.

  I stood up. “I better get back to work,” I mumbled, heading toward the door. Believe it or not, although my undies were still soaking wet, my outfit was almost dry. Viva la polyester.

  “We're going to get you home,” Barbie said, composing herself. “You're going to take the rest of the day off. Put on some comfy clothes, curl up on the couch, and watch TV.” Barbie turned back toward Keith. She shrugged and said, “She just loves America's Funniest Home Videos. Whenever she's upset or depressed, she watches that show. She just loves it when guys get hit in the crotch.”

  At which point I picked up my pace, anxious to get away from Keith before Barbie could say the word “crotch” again or reveal any more of my secrets, like how old I was when I got my period. Needless to say, my mom definitely had boundary issues, and countless other issues, at that.

  Thankfully, Alice had only one issue so far. She wasn't there to rescue me from all the humiliation.

  Later that night, while my mom was back at work, I decided to do just what she'd suggested—curl up on the couch in my sweats and watch TV. There were times when I wished I could be like those girls who found solace in a beloved copy of a classic book, but the truth of the matter was that I liked my TV, especially videos of people falling at weddings and cats with their heads stuck in pails. In my defense, it wasn't like Jones Island was a mecca for culture. The island was a craggy piece of land about three miles long and two miles wide. Besides the country club, two overpriced convenience stores, a gas station, a coffee shop, and a lousy restaurant, there really wasn't much to do. In any case, I was in the middle of watching a kid get hit in the head with a softball when the doorbell rang. I straightened my sweats, ran my fingers through my hair, and answered it.

  Gulp.

  Keith McKnight was standing in front of me. Keith McKnight!

  “Hi,” he said, flashing me his famous grin.

  “Hi,” I croaked. Thankfully, I had had the common sense to turn off the TV before I answered the door.

  “Alice told me where you lived. I just wanted to stop by to see how you were feeling. I hope you don't mind.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “I'm fine, thanks.” I immediately reinstated Alice to flawless status.

  A lock of thick brown hair fell over his eye and he swiped it back. He was wearing a black T-shirt that showed off his muscular arms, and an old, faded pair of jeans. He was the definition of picturesque.

  “Can I come in?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said, glancing around nervously. Suddenly I became very aware of my surroundings. Before the bridge was built attaching Jones Island to the rest of the Eastern shore, it was just a bunch of run-down dumpy cottages built by the fishermen who lived there. Although most of the original cottages had since been torn down and replaced with perfectly landscaped McMansions, a few holdouts remained. Alice lived in one of them, and Barbie and I rented a second-floor furnished apartment in another. (Barbie was no Suze Orman, hence she'd hatched the brilliant “Let's work at the country club together” plan.)

  Keith walked into the living/dining/TV room and I caught a glimpse of the Lexus he had parked outside our building. I didn't need this piece of evidence to remind me that Keith was, like, seventh-generation dripping-in-diamonds kind of wealthy. Everyone at Tippecanoe gossiped about how much life insurance money he and his dad got when his mother died. And now Keith was staring at our nasty ghetto-fied sofa, probably wondering if it was safe to park his rear end on it.

  “Would you like to sit down?” I asked.

  “No thanks,” he said. “I can't stay.” He hesitated a beat and then said, “I just wanted to ask if you would like to learn how to swim.”

  Everything stopped. It was so quiet I could hear my heart thumping against my chest.

  “As a former Boy Scout, I'm qualified to teach you.” He deepened his voice as if to counter the squeaky-clean Boy Scout image. “There'd be no charge or anything.”

  This had to be a dream. There was no way Keith McKnight, the hottest guy in a million-mile radius, would be standing in my living/dining/TV room offering to teach me to swim. Alice was never going to believe this one.

  “So,” he said, with a hint of a smile. “What do you think?”

  Think? I think YES! Yes, I would love you to teach me how to swim. I would love to spend time with you, I would love to do anything at all with you!

  I envisioned us in the moonligh
t, standing in waist-deep water. My hair would be perfectly slicked back, and I would suddenly have breasts and a really great BCBG bikini. His strong arms would be wrapped around me, holding me so close our chests would be pressed together. I would stare into his eyes and he would lean down toward me, pressing his lips against mine.

  But I did not say or insinuate any of the above. Instead I said: “No thanks.”

  No thanks?

  Say what?

  How could I have said ‘no thanks’? Oh yeah, Barbie. It always came back to Barbie…

  He nodded, walked back toward the door, and stopped. “It's not safe,” he said. “You live on an island, you work by a pool. You should at least know how to stay afloat.” Then he turned back toward me and said, “What are you afraid of?”

  Well, if that wasn't the most loaded question of the century. Love lunacy runs in my family. I had lusted after him for the last forty-two days, knowing full well he had a girlfriend and was therefore off-limits. I was already tempted to give in to the symptoms of Barbie's full-blown condition, and that was when he and I had barely had any contact at all. Even if I could explain everything to him, he still wouldn't understand what we'd be up against.

  I stood still for a moment, trying to say something, anything, but nothing came out.

  “Think about it,” he said softly. And then he left, politely shutting the door behind him.

  2

  The next day, Alice and I gabbed away about Keith's swimming lessons offer as we scrubbed the floors in the Tippecanoe dining room. Even though we'd only met six weeks ago, I was very comfortable about telling her everything. When we talked, the time went a lot faster, and to be honest, I just liked how she carried herself. She was confident and funny. I looked at her and saw what I'd be like fifty years from now.