Learning to Swim Read online

  EPILOGUE

  Steffie Rogers's all-time classic moments (in chronological order):

  1) When the doctor said Alice was going to be all right.

  2) When I found out that my mom had changed her mind about moving.

  3) When I went swimming by myself (for the first time).

  4) When I told my mom that I wanted to throw a party for Alice and she said (and I quote), “Sounds like fun.”

  5) When I got bit in the butt by a jellyfish and Keith had to put baking soda on my wound.

  6) When Keith and I watched four hours of Animal Planet on his big-screen TV while sharing a quart of strawberry ice cream (and eating right out of the container).

  7) When Keith and I ran into Mora and her new golf-pro boyfriend at the grocery store and we all made two minutes (it seemed like twenty) of polite conversation before going our separate ways.

  8) When I went over to Alice's house and we made a list (all the men she would like to kiss) while sitting in her white plastic chairs with our feet in the baby pool.

  9) When my mom and I went to get mother-daughter matching manicures (I figured I owed her) and I let her choose the color (red) and the pattern (starbursts).

  10) When (the night before he left for school) Keith told me he thought he had fallen in love with me.

  Overall, the next two weeks were really busy and happy. In fact, ever since I'd found out that Alice was going to be okay, life had been so good that I sometimes had to pinch myself (not too hard) just to make sure I wasn't having some crazy wonderful dream. A lot of my good fortune was due to my mom, who was on her ultra-best behavior even though she was feeling lousy. Normally, two weeks after a breakup, Barbie was pretty much back to normal, and I wasn't sure whether she had just really liked this guy more than the others or it was more difficult this time because she couldn't run away, but she hadn't stopped crying.

  But at the risk of sounding like Suzy Sunshine, I hadn't given up hope that maybe, just maybe, her decision to stay on Jones Island would force her to deal with her love lunacy once and for all. She'd never really had to deal with the repercussions of her disease before (like that Sunday when we ran into “the jackass” and his wife at the Red Lobster and he totally ignored us). Some unpleasant run-ins with the jackass might encourage her to think twice the next time a married man came on to her. (I said might.)

  But even if she didn't think twice, I had come to the realization that there was nothing I could do about it (honest). And, although I couldn't promise her that I'd turn the other cheek and ignore it, I did promise to at least attempt to keep my sentiments to myself. It would be a lot easier to do, considering that I had my own love life to think about. Which (according to Alice) had become the talk of the island. Everyone (according to Thelma) had been wondering if Keith and I had done it before he left for school. (I was sorry to disappoint everyone, but the answer was a big no.)

  I had the feeling that Barbie, however, didn't really believe me. She probably thought I had gone all the way and just didn't want to tell her. And weirdly enough, she seemed to like that. I guess it made me seem a little bad. Which to Barbie was good.

  I realized that not scoring a home run made me a candidate for virginal geekdom (at least a temporary one), but I had had enough excitement lately, thank you very much. How much trauma/drama could a girl take? Besides, every time I thought about giving it up, I heard my mom's voice in my head, describing how beautiful her first time was and how she would remember it for the rest of her life. And that alone was enough to make me think twice.

  As far as I was concerned, I figured it might be nice to save something for later…

  Published by Delacorte Press

  an imprint of Random House Children's Books

  a division of Random House, Inc.

  New York

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are

  the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance

  to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2007 by Cheryl Klam

  All rights reserved.

  Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks of

  Random House, Inc.

  www.randomhouse.com/teens

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools,

  visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Klam, Cheryl.

  Learning to swim / Cheryl Klam. —1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Seventeen-year-old Steffie and her single mom, Barbie, have

  moved yet again after a married boyfriend of Barbie's left her, so when Steffie starts

  falling for the lifeguard at the country club where she has a summer job, she

  worries that she is becoming too much like her mother.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-49642-3

  (Gibraltar lib. bdg.)

  [1. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Single-parent families—Fiction.

  3. Adultery—Fiction. 4. Lifeguards—Fiction. 5. Swimming—Fiction.

  6. Friendship—Fiction. 7. Maryland—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.K67677Lea 2007

  [Fic]—dc22

  2006004603

  v3.0