Learning to Swim Read online

  Alice got up and smoothed down the back of her pink clam diggers. “Stef, I know it's hard, but even if you're right about the phone call and your mother is on the verge of love lunacy—”

  “Not on the verge. I missed the verge. I also missed stage one and barely caught stage two. She's already on stage three.”

  “My point is that Barbie has done this… how many times before?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Exactly. There's not much you can do about it right now. Your mom needs to want to change her behavior, you can't make her.”

  She was right about that. God knew I had tried to make her before. I had done everything I could think of: reasoning with her calmly until I was blue in the face, yelling and screaming irrationally until I thought I was going to have a stroke, and once I even called her boyfriend and threatened to tell his wife. None of it worked. Barbie was pretty much a lost cause. That was the scariest thing about it.

  “I really wish there was more I could do,” Alice said. “But you can always come over here, any time you need to. Mi casa es su casa, and whatever.”

  I flashed a brave smile as I stood up and slipped my flip-flops back on. “Thanks.”

  She put her hands on my shoulders gently. “So do me a favor and stop beating yourself up about Barbie, okay?”

  The only thing I could do was muster up a shrug.

  For some reason, Alice seemed to think she had succeeded in getting me to see the light, because she shot me a very self-satisfied, pleased smile. “Do you want me to drive you home?” she asked.

  “No thanks,” I said. And then I dropped the bomb that wiped the smile right off her face. “I'm going to the club to see if my mom really had to work.”

  With that, Alice rolled her eyes and shook her head. She should've known me better than to think I'd throw in the towel so easily. For one, I was a little thickheaded, and for two, well, how could I have lived with myself if I hadn't at least tried to jump in and save my mother? If my grandfather hadn't gone in after my grandmother, he probably would have still been alive, but he would have had to spend the rest of his life knowing that he had just let his wife go.

  I took a deep breath as I approached Tippecanoe. Even though the parking lot was crowded, I was able to do a quick scan and surmise that Barbie's car wasn't there. The adrenaline surged through my veins and my heart stopped pounding as my indignation grew. I'd begun to march through the parking lot when Snap! the toe thingy popped out of my flip-flop.

  Unfortunately, these were no ordinary flip-flops. They were my pride and joy: gold gem-studded Michael Kors sandals; shoes that I had saved for a gazillion months to buy. But even a tragedy as significant as a broken shoe (one that was only a month old, thank you very much) could not deter me from my mission. So, like a true soldier, I tucked my flip-flop under my arm, walked around the enormous stone fountain with the water-spouting statue of Adonis, and stalked through Tippecanoe's heavy oak doors.

  It was Tuesday night and the place was unusually packed. As I stood in the entranceway wearing my Save the Bay T-shirt, oversize green shorts (I like my clothes big and comfortable), and only one flip-flop, I was suddenly aware of how much I didn't belong there. Without my polyester suit of invisibility, my true identity was exposed. I made my way through the bevy of polo-shirted men and pearl-clad sundress-wearing women and into the bar, where I found Warthog chatting up a waitress. He didn't look happy to see me, and I had a sneaking suspicion I knew why. For one, I had the feeling that he didn't like us maids hanging around the clubhouse unless we were on the clock and in uniform. For two, no one was allowed in without shoes.

  “Is my mom here?” I asked.

  “She's not on the schedule tonight,” he said.

  “Didn't you call her in to work?”

  He shook his head.

  “No one is sick?”

  “Nope,” he said.

  He was wrong about no one being sick. Because I was suddenly pretty certain that I was going to woof on club property for the second time in less than forty-eight hours. I spun around on my one good heel and made a beeline toward the bathroom, running smack into an innocent bystander off-duty lifeguard of my dreams, Keith McKnight.

  “Whoa!” he said, catching me and holding me up. He was obviously dressed for dinner, as was apparent by his bright green polo shirt. Mr. McKnight was a highly respected member of Tippecanoe, and therefore Keith usually had evening meals there with the rest of the Jones Island upper crust. I had learned this thirty-eight days before, when I was wiping up a vodka-tonic spill caused by some vapid gossiping socialites who included Mora Cooper's mother.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  My nausea miraculously evaporated when I looked into his dark brown eyes. “I'm fine. I just broke my shoe. The thingy popped out and I can't get it back in.”

  “Let's see,” he said, plucking the shoe out of my grasp with his large hands.

  Perhaps he was going for another merit badge.

  As I watched him attempt to fix my flip-flop and he bit on his lower lip (so hot!), I racked my brain trying to think of something to say. And then it came to me.

  “Keith, I'd really like to learn how to swim.”

  “Great,” he said, snapping the strap back into place. “All better.” Then he gave me a soft, warm, chin-dimple-expanding smile that made me forget all about the reason why I was there.

  I slipped the shoe back on. “Thanks.”

  “Keith?” said a shrill voice behind me.

  I turned around and found myself staring down Mora Cooper. Honestly, Mora and I couldn't have looked less alike. She was somehow skinny and curvy at the same time, and she had this flawless skin that practically made its own moisturizer. She also had these fabulous hazel eyes and this cute blond bob that flipped up at the ends. I, on the other hand, was a pear girl: much smaller on top than I was on the bottom. I liked that my hair was long, but it was this very one-dimensional color that could be best described as medium brown blah. My eyes? Nothing special. Just blue. My eyelashes? They were quite full, but hey, who was going to notice them when one could stare into the angelic plasticness that was Mora's face?

  “Our table is ready,” she said, flashing him an enchanting, yet slightly crooked, smile.

  “Mora,” he said. “You know Steffie, right?”

  “Um… no,” she said, as if she'd just noticed I was standing there.

  Mora was not entirely correct. She might not have known me-known me, but she should've at least recognized me. We'd been in the same chemistry class and had even been assigned as partners until Mora had made it clear that she would rather bath in a vat of acid than use a Bunsen burner with me.

  “Oh… wait.” Mora's hazel eyes widened with recognition. “Of course. You're the maid who almost drowned yesterday. I didn't recognize you without your uniform and your… whatever it was you were holding on to.”

  “A plunger,” I said.

  She wrinkled her nose as if the mere memory was unpleasant. “Speaking of which,” she said, “you might want to check out the ladies’ room. There's a bit of a mess in the first stall.”

  “Mora,” Keith said, reprimanding her. “Who are you? The manager?”

  She smirked and then shrugged. “It is her job, isn't it?”

  He shook his head as if annoyed. Interesting. Keith turned back toward me and right in front of Mora he said, “All right, Stef. Stop by and see me tomorrow. We'll set up a time.”

  Mora's smirk turned into dismay as she looked quizzically at her boyfriend. She hooked her arm in his and led him away. “What was that about?” I heard her say to him.

  In an instant, my whole mood changed. Even though I hadn't found my mother and my flip-flop broke again as soon as I stepped outside, I felt as though I was drowning in bliss.

  4

  On Wednesday morning I almost keeled over from shock when I went into the kitchen and found Barbie (who's usually never awake before noon) sit
ting at the table, humming quietly as she sipped her coffee and read the paper.

  “Good morning,” she said cheerfully.

  “Morning,” I muttered as the glow from my Keith interaction evaporated. I opened the cupboard and pulled out the box of chocolate Pop-Tarts. “You're up early.”

  “Couldn't sleep,” she said with a shrug. “Plus, it's such a beautiful day. I thought I might go for a run this morning. Get some exercise.”

  On Jones Island, there were always women jogging around in their bras and spandex. Barbie wasn't one of them. In fact, Barbie and I liked to joke that our idea of exercise was opening the refrigerator. In other words, if I'd needed more proof that my mother was in the throes of love lunacy, this would've been it. “How was work last night?” I asked.

  She glanced at me. I could tell from the panicked look in her eyes that she knew I was on to her. So she said, “Actually, I didn't go to work.”

  I felt a surge of relief, as if my mom was going to come clean. How naïve of me.

  “They didn't need me after all,” she continued. “I would've come home, but I knew I had already screwed up our board-game night. Since you were at Alice's, I decided to call a friend and see if she wanted to meet for a drink.”

  Once again, I found myself wanting to believe her. I really did. But my mom didn't have any friends. The closest thing she had to a confidante was a fellow cocktail waitress named Laura Bates. Every time she and Barbie got together, they smoked and drank and talked about how awful men were.

  “What friend?” I asked.

  “Emily Mills,” she said, without skipping a beat. “You don't know her. I met her at the club one night. It was her birthday yesterday, so I, well, helped her celebrate.”

  “Did Laura go to this Emily Mills birthday party?”

  “It wasn't really a party. And no. Laura doesn't really know her.” She stood up and said, “I better go get dressed so I can drive you to work.” I could hear her humming as she walked away.

  Oddly enough, even though I knew her excuse of having gotten together with a new friend was totally lame, I still wanted to believe her. After all, she was my mother. What kind of mother would look her daughter in the eye and lie?

  Barbie, that's who. As soon as I picked up the news-paper my mother had been reading, I realized what a sucker I was. Smack on the front page was a picture of a prune-faced little old lady. The caption said: Emily Mills, county's oldest woman, turns 101.

  “All right, honey,” my mom said, reappearing in spandex shorts and a running bra. “We should get going. Ready?”

  I set down the paper. My mom and I had gotten into fights before, and they were not pretty. They were the really messy Jerry Springer fights, with the screaming and yelling and what have you. Anything that hadn't been nailed down had been thrown (by her) in anger at least once.

  “Ready,” I said as enthusiastically as I could.

  This time I wasn't going to fight. I was just going to get even.

  Alice and I spent our lunch hour that day eating ham and Swiss sandwiches in the employee lounge, which was pretty much your typical hotel-conference-room type of venue. Alice loved brown-bagging it and made us virtually untradeable lunches. I never wanted to give away my sandwich because the crusts were usually cut off and whatever kind of meat was inside was slathered in Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise, my favorite condiment by far. The side dish was one of two things: mini tins of Herr's salted potato sticks or a super-size bag of Fritos corn chips. And to top it all off, Alice never forgot to include either a chocolate or a vanilla Hunt's Snack Pack pudding. Like I said, untradeable.

  “So did you talk to your mom about the swimming lessons?” Alice asked as she wiped a huge glob of mayo off her face with her sleeve.

  “Oh, they're a go,” I replied.

  “That's great! I'm so glad she changed her mind.”

  I hated the thought of lying to Alice. Therefore, I neither confirmed nor corrected her assumption that my mother had given her consent. Lying to Barbie was another matter. After all, if anyone ever had an undeniable right to go against her parent's wishes, it was me. Besides, it wasn't like I was deceiving her to do something bad. Like Alice and Keith had said, I should know how to swim.

  This is about safety, I reminded myself.

  “When is your first lesson?” Alice asked again.

  I looked down at my pudding so I wouldn't have to look her in the eye when I said this. “I don't know.”

  I could hear Alice chomping on some potato sticks. “What do you mean, you don't know?”

  “Well,” I said, swallowing hard. “As soon as I got to work, I walked straight toward the pool, determined to set up a time for a lesson. But I opened up the gate and then I…”

  I searched for the right words as I listened to more of Alice's loud chewing. “I just stopped dead in my tracks.”

  “What happened?” Alice couldn't hold back a heavy sigh.

  I finally looked up from my pudding. “Keith smiled at me.”

  Alice paused for a moment as if waiting for the clincher. “And?” she said finally.

  “And that's it.”

  “You didn't set up a time for swimming lessons because he smiled at you?”

  Truth be told, it was more than just a smile. It was a happy smile, like an “I'm so glad to see you” smile. And that threw me for a loop. Because then it wasn't just about swimming anymore. It was about him and me. Or me wanting to be with him. In fact, wanting it so bad, I felt my breath catch in my throat, and for one whole second my white plastic shoes melted into the pavement and I couldn't move. And then Keith got down from his chair and headed in my direction. So I did the only not-so-logical thing I could think of. I got out of there. Fast.

  “Oh, Steffie,” Alice said sadly. But she wasn't half as sad as I was. I had acted like a looney. And why? Because I obviously had some sort of chemical imbalance.

  Right as I was about to spoon the entire contents of my pudding cup into my mouth, Warthog came bursting into the employee lounge and informed the staff that there was an “emergency” in the men's pool bathroom and someone needed to take care of it. Unsurprisingly, not one person volunteered.

  And then I heard Alice say, “Steffie will do it.”

  I immediately kicked her foot. I knew exactly what she was up to.

  “Great,” Warthog said in relief, and then handed me a trusty plunger.

  I gave Alice an evil eye as I stood up. Then I walked out of the room, plotting to spike my best friend's Mountain Dew with a huge dose of Metamucil. After all, she was sixty-something and desperately needed the fiber.

  I made my way outside and down to the pool. Fortunately, it had rained that morning so the pool was pretty empty. The only lifeguard I recognized was the skinny brown-haired one who was attempting to prove his masculinity and hipness by sporting a soul patch.

  I knocked on the men's bathroom door and said, “Anyone in here?”

  The door opened and Keith poked his perfectly shaped head out. “Hey,” he said, as if he'd been expecting me.

  “Hey,” I said, as my heart catapulted into my throat. “I heard there was a mess.” And then I held up my plunger as if to prove my point and reassure him that I wasn't a psycho stalker or merely someone who had adored him for exactly forty-four days and watched him through binoculars on a regular basis.

  He held open the door for me gallantly and allowed me to enter. We walked inside the smelly men's room, and I followed Keith to the middle stall. In my quick, expert assessment I could tell the problem was confined to the toilet itself (thank God).

  Keith took the plunger out of my hands and began plunging the toilet for me. How nice was that? I could see his triceps flexing with each plunge. How sexy was that? I couldn't stop my knees from nervously knocking together. How pathetic was that?

  “So,” he said. “When do you want to begin your swimming lessons?”

  “Um, I don't know,” I heard myself mumble.

  He plunged the toilet
a couple more times and then flushed it. “You haven't changed your mind, have you?” he asked, handing me back the plunger and plucking me out of my trance. His hand accidentally touched mine and I honest to God quivered.

  “No,” I managed to blurt out.

  He smiled again. It was that same lopsided smile he had given me earlier that day.

  “How about tonight after the pool closes,” he said. “Nine o'clock?”

  “Are you sure we won't get in trouble?” I asked, hoping Keith didn't get the double meaning.

  “I wouldn't worry about it,” Keith replied. He crossed his arms over his chest and grinned at me. “I've snuck into the pool plenty of times.”

  I wanted to say, “That's pretty dangerous for a Boy Scout,” and wink at him.

  But what I actually did say was “Okay,” and then darted out of the bathroom.

  As I walked back to the clubhouse, I tried to ignore the sense of doom that had settled in my chest. Most girls would've been ecstatic to be in my position. Unfortunately for me, I was paying attention to this stupid thing called a conscience. And as much as I had wanted to take swimming lessons without my mother's permission, a little voice in my head was saying: Just because Barbie is being deceitful doesn't mean you have to be that way too… Two wrongs don't make a right… You're not responsible for Barbie's behavior but you are responsible for your own… blah, blah, blah.

  Therefore, for the sake of my sanity, I had no choice but to come clean. I was going to inform Barbie of my intention to take swim lessons, and hope for the best. But that evening, the minute I walked in the door from work, Barbie greeted me with open arms, which was weird, because we Rogerses had never been keen on PDA. Still, there Barbie was, all dressed up with arms outstretched.

  “Guess what?” she said, giving me a big squeeze. “My friend just called and said they had an extra ticket to the Washington symphony and wanted me to come along. Isn't that sweet?”

  Apparently this mysterious friend didn't have a gender. He had become the proverbial “they” because my mother felt too guilty to lie outright and say “she” when it was really a very married “he.”