Learning to Swim (8 page)

“Tell that to Barbie. She's going to go nuts when she finds out I didn't go. She thinks this was my big break.”

“Big break for what?”

“To be popular.”

“Oh, please.” Alice rolled her eyes. “It's a party. And from the looks of it,” she said, as she trained the binoculars on Keith's kitchen, “not a very good one.” She handed me the binoculars. “Pizza from Romero's? Yuck.”

I twisted around to get a better view of the kitchen. We had been watching the house for the past hour, and with the setting of the sun and the turning on of lights (his), our view had improved dramatically. The back of Keith's house was almost all floor-to-ceiling windows, so Alice and I could see inside with all the clarity of HDTV. Suddenly, I saw Keith walk into the kitchen. Although my heart skipped a beat at the sight of him, I was almost immediately distracted by the miniskirted big-busted girl hanging on his arm and looking at him like an affectionate puppy. As I watched the girl silently jabber away, Keith stopped in front of the window and turned toward the water. I focused the binoculars back on him, and for one brief, terrible moment, it looked as if he was staring right at me. I rolled off the couch and hit the floor.

“What?” Alice asked, ducking down with me.

“Keith,” I whispered. “It looked like he saw me.”

Alice peeked over the couch. “Nah. The only way he could see you is if we were all lit up and he happened to have a pair of binoculars handy.”

“Who's that girl with him?” I handed Alice the binoculars as I crawled back up onto the sofa.

“I don't know,” Alice said, scanning the house. “I didn't get a chance to see her. They're not in the kitchen anymore and I don't know where they've gone.”

“What are all those girls doing over there, anyway?” I was trying to ignore the jealousy that was sitting like a lump in my belly. “I thought I was going to be the girl minority.”

Alice leaned forward for a better look. “You mean the girls watching TV in the library? Tammy Cheskus and Michelle Ronsaville. They were in Keith's class at Brucker's. They haven't been around much this summer because they both did internships out of state. But they're no threat.” Alice handed me back the binoculars.

“I wish you could've seen that girl with Keith,” I said, hoping at one point Alice would recognize her and tell me she was his long-lost sister.

“Look, Steffie, are you sure you don't want me to take you over there? I could watch through my binoculars and you could give me a code or something if you wanted me to come and get you.”

I turned back toward the TV. “I'd rather be here. If I
was at Keith's, I never would've seen that dog jumping through the burning hoop.”

“That
was
cute,” Alice admitted.

“Besides, how can I go to a party when Barbie's in the third stage of love lunacy?”

“So what? Why let your mom's love lunacy get in the way of you having a good time?”

“My point is that I'm going to be moving soon anyway. So why bother expending all that effort to make new friends? It hardly seems worth the trouble.”

“I think Keith is worth the trouble, don't you?”

I picked some chocolate chips out of the dough and popped them into my mouth. “Let's face it. Keith wanting to hook up with me is about as unlikely as me winning the hot-dog-eating contest at the county fair. I mean, even if he wanted to cheat on Mora, he would do what all cheaters do: he would pick a girl like Barbie, a hot tamale who goes on dates armed with a duffel bag stuffed with lingerie.” Actually, a girl just like the big-boobed miniskirted one that had been hanging on his arm.

I twisted around once again and focused the binoculars on his house. “I wish we could see his bedroom from here,” I said.

“You don't think he took that girl you saw him with up to his room, do you?” Alice asked.

“I don't know,” I said. “I hope not.”

“I'm sure he didn't… but if it would make you feel better, I bet we could see his room from the
Berken-steins’ dock,” Alice said. She stood up and grabbed another spoonful of the cookie dough. She swallowed it and grinned mischievously. “Come on.”

“But what if someone sees us?” I asked. After all, the Berkensteins’ dock jutted so far out into the creek that a long jumper could make it to Keith's back door without getting wet.

“He's not going to see us,” Alice said. “The dock is totally dark. And besides, Keith is inside.”

I followed Alice out the door and around the side of the house. We went down to the dock and crept out to the end. I trained the binoculars on the second floor of his house. “Where's his room?” I whispered.

“Over there.” Alice pointed to a dark window. Just then, I heard a door slam. “Let's go check out the boat,” I heard a girl giggle from Keith's backyard. I could only assume the boat she was referring to was the one directly in front of us, the one roped to the end of Keith's parents’ dock.

“Oh, crap,” I heard Alice say. She stepped backward, inadvertently setting off the motion control on the dock lights. Suddenly, Alice and I were illuminated as if onstage.

“Let's get out of here!” she exclaimed, and grabbed my arm. We both turned and ran as fast as we could (which was not very, thanks to Alice's slippers) back up the dock and into the darkness, practically diving behind a large bush in the corner of the Berkensteins’
yard. We crouched down as Alice peeked around the bush, scanning the perimeter with her binoculars.

“Do you think they saw us?” I panted.

“Nope,” Alice replied. She gave me the binoculars and I peered through the lens just in time to see Keith's hussy climb onto the back of his parents’ boat.

“That's the girl,” I whispered, handing the binoculars back to Alice.

“Rebecca Lipton,” Alice explained. “She's Keith's aunt.”

“His aunt? She's kind of young to be his aunt.”

“She's his mother's younger sister. She's only seven years older than Keith.”

“Wow,” I said. “Weird.”

“Yeah,” Alice agreed. She put the binoculars down and looked at me. And suddenly I was hit by the ridiculousness of it all: Alice in her curlers, robe, and slippers and me in my brand-new outfit, hiding behind a bush in the Berkensteins’ yard, spying on Keith McKnight while discussing the age of his aunt. And if that wasn't weird, I didn't know what was.

I started to laugh, and Alice followed suit, guffawing so hard that I had to grab her to prevent her from falling over. “Oh, Steffie,” she said. “Even though you should've gone to that party, I'm really glad you didn't.”

Early Sunday morning, I woke up to my landline ringing. I didn't even bother checking the caller ID because
I was pretty sure it was Alice calling to ask me if I had any plans for the day and whether or not I was going to redeem myself with Keith for skipping out on his party. I was half-asleep when I picked up, so my “hello” sounded more like a “hur-mrph.”

“Steffie?”

Oh, crap. It wasn't Alice. It was…
Keith.

“Hi!” I managed to immediately perk myself up.

“I have some free time and was wondering if you wanted to come to the club for a quick lesson.”

He said it just like that. Like I had never canceled my second swim lesson or stood him up at his party.

“I'll be right there,” I said, hanging up the phone.

Then my mother walked into the room wearing her bathrobe and holding a large mug of piping hot coffee. She looked like she'd barely slept an hour.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“I have to go to the club,” I said.

“On your day off?”

I shrugged, determined not to lie. If push had come to shove, I would've told her the truth. Honest.

“They can wait until you have some breakfast,” my mom said coolly, as if she had a whole spread waiting for me in the kitchen, instead of the open box of Froot Loops I knew was sitting on the table.

“No,” I said, pulling my maid uniform out of the dirty clothes hamper.
“They
want me to come right over.” (Notice the flexible gender use.)

I put my maid uniform on (yes, this was a tad deceitful) and rode my bike to the club. The fresh morning air felt so good as it breezed by my face. The sun hadn't been out too long, but the temperature couldn't have been milder or more inviting. It was as if some higher power was trying to convince me that the day was about opportunity and second chances. All I had to do was make the most of it.

When I arrived at Tippecanoe, I saw Keith beside the pool and gave him a quick wave before going into the dressing room and changing into my suit. It was then that I realized I hadn't showered that morning. I took a whiff of my armpits and thanked the Masters of the Universe for giving me the ability to smell my own BO. I jumped into the shower and scrubbed myself with a teeny leftover bar of Ivory soap. Before I headed out to the pool, I checked myself out in the mirror. Surprisingly enough, the wet look didn't appear too bad on me. Then I took a deep breath and strode out of the locker room.

But when I reached the deck of the pool, it was not Keith waiting for me, but Mora.

She raised an eyebrow, obviously surprised to see me standing before her all wet and in my bikini.

I gasped and instinctively crossed my arms over my bare belly. What was she doing there, anyway? Wasn't she supposed to be out of town? And most important, weren't the gods supposed to be on my side?

“She's your swim lesson?” Mora said, her voice heavy with displeasure.

“Yep,” Keith said from behind me.

“How long will you be?” she asked Keith.“’ Cause I can wait.”

“If this is a bad time,” I said, turning around to meet Keith's amazing gaze, “we can reschedule.”

He glared at Mora. “You go on ahead,” he said. “I'll meet up with you when I'm finished.”

“I don't mind waiting,” she whined. It was weird, hearing Mora sound desperate. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

“We can do this another time,” I repeated to Keith.

“Get in the water, Stef,” Keith said, handing me a kickboard. “Start doing laps across the shallow end.”

He then took Mora gently by the arm and led her toward the gate.

This was one of those moments in which bionic hearing would have been useful. As it was, with all my splashing and what have you, I couldn't hear a word. But from what I could see, Mora looked really upset. This was definitely not something I wanted to admit to myself at that moment, but I knew more than anyone how love lunacy could tear at the fabric of happiness. Here was some more evidence slapping me in the face.

After a brief discussion, Mora finally left and Keith dove into the water. It was one of those perfect dives, nice and sleek, with the legs together and toes pointed.
He swam the length of the pool underwater and popped up beside me, his hair slicked back and his eyes wide.

I stood up and handed him my kickboard. He gave me a little smile. “Sorry about that,” he said, with a glance in Mora's direction.

“It's okay,” I said.

He looked at me really intensely, as if I had just spoken a different language and he was trying to interpret what I had said. Finally, he said, “Why don't you turn on your back and we'll practice floating again.”

I leaned backward until I felt his hands supporting me from underneath. He was staring down at me and his face looked incredible, even when it was inverted. Maybe it was the light (the sun was still rising in the sky), but there was some sort of sparkle in his eyes. Whatever the look was, I liked it, much more than I should have. Just like I liked the way his skin felt against mine and the way he said my name.

“So what happened to you last night, Steffie?” he asked.

I froze and my feet sank to the bottom like dead weight as I stood up again. “Well, something came up.”

He gave a curt nod, as if he thought I was blowing him off or something. “Let's try it again.”

For a moment, I thought he was talking about his party. As in, “Let's try it again. I'll invite you, and this time you show up.” But then I realized he just wanted me to float again, and my stomach began to cramp.

“This time I'm going to take my hands away,” Keith said. “Just relax and keep your arms spread out.”

The wind picked up and a chill raced over me. “I'll sink.”

“Not if you relax,” he said. I leaned backward until I felt his strong hands. “It's all mental, Stef,” he was saying. “You need to believe you can do it. You need to conquer your fear.”

I closed my eyes and kept repeating those words in my head.

He took away one hand and then the other. I felt a surge of pride as I realized I was on top of the water, floating all by myself. And then I thought,
What if I drown?

And then I sank.

Keith scooped me back up and said, “You all right?”

I coughed up the water I had swallowed. Who (besides me) drowned in the shallow end? “I'm fine,” I said.

“You lost your concentration,” he said. “This time I'll hold you up until I think you're ready.”

I tried really hard to relax. I tried to pretend that the hottest guy in the world was not standing beside me, staring down at me with those gorgeous brown eyes while his hands practically caressed my bare skin. Instead I imagined myself at Alice's house, sitting on her slightly lopsided IKEA couch, covered up in the afghan she'd made herself, watching reality TV.

And after a while, I realized that Keith had removed
his hands and I was not only breathing rhythmically, I was floating. I bobbed away, just lying there, looking up at the brightening sky.

“You did it,” he said excitedly.

I stood up and grinned. As he looked at me, I felt as though he could see right through me.

Keith looked at his waterproof sports watch and scowled. “Sorry, Stef. I have to go.”

I could feel my face tighten as I tried to hold my smile. But it didn't work. I knew I was frowning. I knew he was going to meet Mora.

“Can we meet again tomorrow?” he asked.

“I'd love to,” I said meekly. “But I can't. I told Alice I'd help her mow her lawn. Her back is out or something like that.”

“Really? Well, I'll come by after work and do it.” His eyes were glowing again.

“You don't h-have to do that,” I stammered. “I can handle it.”