Saving Ruth (4 page)

“I'm not gonna tell yer mama about last night, but you need to be careful, darlin',” she had said over Krispy Kremes. “You ain't cut out for that mess.”

Before M.K. plopped herself down in her back porch swing, she pulled a pack of Marlboro Lights from her back pocket. We lit up in silence, the smoke hanging around us like a curtain.

“I can't believe it's really summer,” I murmured. “This year flew by.”

“It really did. Do you feel different, Wass, since you were so far away and all?”

“I can't tell yet. A lot is different, I guess.” I exhaled. “But still the same, you know?”

“I know.”

“Miss Ruth, you ain't gon' come in and say hello to me? Your mama raised you better than that, girl!”

“Sheila!” I squealed. I handed M.K. my cigarette and ran to hug her.

“Hey, Ruthie!” She patted my back. “How's the Midwest treatin' you?” She always looked so deeply into my eyes when she spoke to me that it felt like she was burrowing through my brain.

“Good, good. Happy to be home, though.”

“I know it. M.K.'s been dyin' to see you and Jill. The Three Mouseketeers.” She smiled, revealing newly whitened teeth.

“Sheila, your teeth are so white!” I exclaimed.

“I know, right? Isn't it somethin'? I went in for one o' those professional jobbies. I feel like Jessica Simpson!”

“Yeah, now Shelia's mouth looks bigger than her head,” said M.K., swinging behind us.

“The only mouth I see that needs work is yours, honey. It could use a good smack.” She stuck her tongue out at her daughter. “Well, gotta get back to
Judy
, but I jes' wanted to say hey and I'm glad you're home, Ruth.” She turned around to go in and then abruptly stopped in her tracks. She leaned in close, her tangerine perfume singeing the hairs in my nostrils.

“Honey, you ain't throwin' your food up, are you? 'Cuz that's just nasty.”

“No, ma'am,” I answered.

“Okay, just checkin'. You let me know if you want to talk about anything.”

I watched her go and then turned back to M.K. “I better get goin'.”

“Aw, what happened, did she freak you out?”

I laughed. “No, not at all. I just should get home.”

“All right, baby, I'll call you tomorrow.” She got off the swing and gave me a hug.

“ 'Kay,” I answered. “Smell ya later.”

“Nerd!” she yelled after me.

4

“S
hould we at least talk about what we're going to say to the kids?” I asked David. I was eating a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table when he breezed past me without a hello. Cereal was one of my food groups. Some would have said that candy was my second, and raw vegetables my third and fourth food groups. They were pretty much right. Calorically, this didn't make much sense—I knew that—but I figured that sugar was easier to burn off than, say, protein. Also, the energy boost was immediate.

David's back was to me as he reached into the refrigerator.

“What's there to say? It's the same shit we say every year. Show up for practice, swim like hell, and don't get disqualified.” He pulled out the cream cheese. “This we have to rehearse?”

“I mean, I dunno, I'm talking to kids who can barely read. I wonder if I shouldn't be a little softer in my welcome approach this year.”

“That's your problem. You're the guppy master. If you want to pull them aside for some sort of private baby talk, be my guest. And by the way, all of the kids on this team can barely read. It's Alabama.”

“Derrrrrr, very funny.” I fished through the milk with my spoon, hoping for a drowned flake.

“Where the hell are the bagels?” David snarled at me. Whenever he was hungry he turned into The Incredible Hulk. I wondered how long he would last in my shoes before ripping someone's head off with his bare hands.

“You know where they are.” I rolled my eyes. “A hundred bucks says they're in the freezer.”

He opened it, and there they were—like an inflated roll of quarters. He grabbed them. “What is with her? Every piece of bread in this house has to be frozen?”

“No carbohydrate is safe.”

“Well, I hate it. If you nuke one of these, it shrivels up into a weird little sponge. Shit.” He pulled one out and tossed it into the microwave, where it landed with a thud.

“I'm out,” I said, sliding my chair back from the table. “Are you going to the meeting straight from home, or no?”

“No.”

“Oh, you'll be coming from Hillary's?”

“Hillary and I broke up.”

“Really?” David and Hillary had been together on and off since their freshman year of high school. She was the kind of pretty that always put her in the running for Miss Teen Something.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Damn, Ruth, you are so nosy. Who cares why?” He took his bagel out of the microwave and pried it open before throwing it in the toaster.
Toss, throw, slam, shut.
All of his movements were so forcefully deliberate.
You're too rough,
my parents would say to us when we were toddlers—biting, kicking, and pinching at whim.

“And how would you understand, anyway? You've never even had a boyfriend.” His insult stung. Technically, Tony had been my boyfriend. We had spent two months and seventeen days together. We had sex regularly, he told me I was pretty, and sometimes he bought me a drink when we were out. That had fulfilled my boyfriend requirements. I'd found out later (on day eighteen) that he'd been flirting and sometimes sleeping with various other girls the whole time, but still.

“Sorry, you're wrong. Maybe if you had called me once this year, you'd know that.” I got up from the table, slammed my bowl in the sink, and headed toward my room. David said nothing. Of course.

My dad's frame filled my doorway. “You know, this is going to be a long summer if you two don't get along.” I could feel the tears coming. My lip trembled like a five-year-old.

“Hey, whatsa matter?”

“David is an asshole.”

“Language, Ruth,” he warned. “And go easy on him. Can you imagine playing soccer in this heat? My nerves would be shot.”

“Oh God, give me a break.” I flung myself on my bed dramatically. “He gets a personality pass because he kicks a ball around?”

It had always been like this. Whenever David and I had gotten into fights growing up, my parents always figured that I was the one who had started it.
Moody Ruth.
Even the time when they had left us alone to go to the movies and returned to find me pinned underneath him with his knee in my throat and choking me, I had taken most of the blame.

“I'm heading to the office, but what are you doing tonight?”

“I'm going to hang out with the girls.”

“I wish you would come to synagogue with me instead.”

“Yeah, not so much,” I replied. He pursed his lips in disapproval.

“I know, Dad. I'm sorry. Maybe later in the summer.” He went to Friday night services every week—usually alone. My mom wasn't exactly a fan of synagogue either. It wasn't the Jewish part—that was okay with me on a cultural level—but the whole synagogue experience was just not my bag. If I wanted to leave the entire time I was there, how did that make me a better Jew? Because I endured it?

“Well, David's coming with me.” Naturally. David: the golden Jew.

“Cool,” I replied. “I promise I'll go another time, okay?” He nodded. I put my pillow over my face. Not even twenty-four hours in and the summer stretched ahead of me like I–95.

I
closed the door behind me and crossed the garage to the workroom to find my bike. I dug the keys out of my backpack and unlocked it, immediately fighting the urge to lie down on the cool, concrete floor. Just for a little while.

When we were little, David had been obsessed with trains, and together he and my grandfather had built an elaborate, elevated train set atop a giant wooden table that filled more than half of the garage. Green felt-covered hills and valleys rose around an idyllic village complete with a post office and cars.

Now the table was piled with cardboard boxes of who knew what—clothes or baby crap, perhaps. I wondered if my old Barbies were hiding in there, with their botched haircuts and chewed-up feet. My appetite for those minuscule hunks of malleable plastic had been insatiable. By the time I had been done with a Barbie, she was hairless and crippled.

A bit wobbly at first, I pedaled past Mrs. Mayfield's house, checking for the J
ESUS
L
OVES
Y
OU
flag waving from her front porch. Still there. I made a right at the corner. There was poor, tortured Nancy Fink's house—her yard was crisscrossed with scraps of missing grass, the skid mark scars left from the giant trucks of the jackass jocks who tormented her at school. I plunged down the hill that led to the pool and saw the lot filled with cars I recognized.
Here we go.

“Coach Ruth, Coach Ruth!”

I pulled into the bike rack to a flurry of six- and seven-year-olds chanting my name. They burst from the picnic area like puppies—their mouths ringed in red, pink, and blue popsicle smear.

“Coach Ruth!” Tabitha exclaimed in a burst of sugar-fueled excitement. Oh Tabitha. Sweet, headed-for-teen-pregnancy Tabitha. Chubby, with an overbite that could shade a trailer, Tabitha always wore pink lipstick and jutted her hips just so when talking to any of the male lifeguards—especially David. She was six.

“Hi, sweetie,” I said as she hugged my knees. I patted her blond head and uttered a silent prayer that her parents would allow birth control when the time came. Tyler brought up the rear of the pack of ankle-biters. Round and solid, he was like a baby manatee when he swam.

“Hi, Ty.”

He blushed. “Hi, Coach Ruth.”

“Hey, Coach Ruth!” screeched Crystal as she made a beeline for me. All angles and sinuous muscle, she reminded me of a panther. Crystal may have been the first kid in her family to know how to swim in a body of water that did not come with the requisite rope swing. Her father Travis showed up at every swim meet in his cutoffs and T-shirts advertising his car shop with his long mullet pulled into a shoulder blade–skimming braid. He was her biggest fan, standing nervously by the side of the pool when she raced and cheering her on like she was part of the Indy 500.

“Hey, girly.” I smiled at her. She smiled back at me and revealed pink gums. Three of her front teeth were missing.

“Look at those missing teeth!”

“I know, I lost 'em all this week,” she explained.

“You must be rich!”

“I am,” she whispered solemnly.

David was perched on top of one of the picnic tables talking to Julie. She was probably our best swimmer and had placed in the top ten for her age group in the city last year. That had been her last summer before high school, though, and I could tell just by looking at her that things had changed. Gone was the sweet, slightly nerdy eighth-grader who was obsessed with
Twilight
. In its place stood a daisy dukes–wearing temptress—her eyes ringed with black and a brand-new nose ring twinkling in the sun.

“Hey, Julie,” I said as I arrived at the table. She looked at me sideways with a blank stare for a second or two. Then it registered.

“Holy sh—— cow, Coach Ruth!” She stared, dumbfounded. “You lost like a million pounds!”

“Um, wow. Thanks. I didn't realize I had a million pounds to lose.”

“Oh no, no. That's not what I meant. It's just that you're like, way skinny now.”

“Yeah, sure that's what you meant,” I teased.

“No, really! I swear—”

“Okay, let's get this show on the road,” David interjected. “Ruth, you're late.”

“Am not!” I looked at the clock atop the concession stand. “It's one minute past three.” Julie took a seat with the rest of the parents and kids. Everyone stared at us expectantly.

“So, hi, everybody. Welcome back,” David began.

“Hiiiiiii.”

“There's really not a whole lot to say, except that I . . . ,” he paused and looked at me, “I mean, we, hope you had a nice year. We're excited for a new swim team season and hope you're all serious about this commitment.

“As you all know, the pool opens this weekend.” Everyone clapped and cheered in response. Derrick, perhaps the goofiest of the older bunch, let out a cat call. Stray mustache hairs marched haphazardly across his upper lip.

I decided it was my turn to say something. “We'll start practice on Monday. The guppies will be with me, at eight, and the big kids will be with David at nine. We're expecting the meet schedule this week, so we'll give it to you at our first practice.”

“Meets are on Thursdays for you new guys joining us,” said David. “They usually begin at five and last until around eight or nine.” He paused and looked at me, as if to say,
Are we done?

“I think we should break into two groups now,” I said. “All of the six- to ten-year-olds come with me. The rest of you can talk to David.”

I walked over to a picnic table in the back, and the little ones approached with their parents in tow. My favorite, Ali, hung back with her mom. Ali was like a miniature Audrey Hepburn, slight and sweet with a dark bob and bangs that marched across her forehead in a determined line.

“Ali!” I called as she ran shyly into my open arms. She smelled like bubble gum.

“Hi, Coach Ruth!” she replied excitedly.

“Did you have a nice year at school?” I asked. “How was kindergarten?”

“Fun. There was a boy who liked me, but I told him that I was too young to have a boyfriend.”

“Very smart of you, Ali.”

I continued greeting them until the last guppy/escort duo had flip-flopped away. David was holding court at his picnic table, speaking to his subjects in hushed tones about strategy. Somehow, he got them to take the season as seriously as he did, which was no small feat, especially considering our track record. We were lucky if we won one meet per summer.

“Hey there, sexy,” Jason greeted me, sneaking up from behind.

“Hey there, yourself,” I said. “You better have brought me a good schedule.” David and I had lifeguarded every summer since we were sixteen. There were two shifts per day, and two guards on per shift.

“Only the best,” he replied. “Is Kevin here yet?” Kevin was another member of our lifeguarding team. I liked him all right—he was cute in a kind of good ole boy, southern way with his shaggy brown hair and impossibly long eyelashes. He had gone to our rival high school and seemed to come from a relatively loaded family, as far as car and neighborhood went. The rumor was that his lifeguarding money was strictly for beer and weed purposes only. We never really spoke aside from the polite head-nod hello or heat commiseration. He seemed like the kind of guy who was into cheerleaders, deer hunting, and chewing tobacco.

“Haven't seen him,” I replied. “Is Dana coming back this year?”

“She is indeed. That whole Vegas thing didn't work out, I guess.” Dana had been the captain of the dance team at our high school back in the day. And by back in the day, I mean when I was a freshman. She was all hairspray, boobs, and French manicured nails. I had asked her once, on the stand, why she had taken the lifeguarding class, since it seemed so out of character for her, and she answered me like I was an idiot. “Um, hello, the tan?” She had moved out to Vegas last fall—visions of showgirl fame dancing in her head—but I guess that hadn't panned out like she had hoped.

As if on cue, she entered in a sea of perfume. “Hey, girl!” She hugged me. “You look good, Ruthie! Like a model!”

Kevin shuffled in behind her, offering Jason a complicated bro-handshake that involved a forearm bump and a hand clasp.

“So, losers, welcome back,” said Jason. “A summer of bratty kids, poops in the pool, and absent parents awaits you. The good news is, we're all getting a twenty-five-cent raise on the hour. The bad news is . . . well, look around you. That's the bad news.”

It was sort of a sad little spot, as far as neighborhood pools went. Weeds poked their heads through the cracks in the concrete deck, and half of the picnic tables in the snack bar area wobbled precariously. The blue carpeting on the starting blocks was worn thin, the white plastic deck chairs were all in various stages of disrepair, and the lifeguard stand's coat of electric blue paint was peeling off in ribbons. There was a basketball court behind the pool, but the blacktop was more like a graytop, and the hoops had no nets.