Saving Ruth (7 page)

“When did you take off last night?” he asked.

“Oh, I dunno. Around twelve-thirty, I think? What about you?”

“Probably a lil' after. It was a decent party.”

“Yeah, it was good to see everyone.”

He rolled his eyes. “I see those clowns all the time. I liked seeing you, though. You leaving?” he asked. A blush began creeping up from my chest.

“Yeah. Shift's over.”

“What are you up to tonight?”

“Got plans with M.K.” That was a lie. Why was I lying?

“Listen, would you want to go out sometime?”

I gulped in disbelief, but tried to cover it with a cough.

“Yeah, definitely,” I replied, hoping to appear nonchalant if not a little bored by his invitation.

“Okay. Maybe Thursday night?”

“Oh yeah, sure.”

“Great, I'll call you.” What was I supposed to do now? If I let go of my bike, it would crash to the ground. Plus, he was still sitting in his Jeep. Was I supposed to hug him good-bye over the door frame? Shake hands? Wave?

“So, see ya, I guess,” I offered, opting for no physical contact.

“Sounds good. I'm gonna see if I can finally corner your brother.”

I jumped on my bike and wobbled off through the gravel and onto the street. Chris Fuller had just asked me out. Holy shit.

8

T
he early morning was my favorite time. No car engines or human bustle to drown out the birds and crickets chirping, the untouched grass glistening with dew. You couldn't help but feel hopeful when the world looked and sounded like that. I coasted down the hill on my bicycle, thinking about the drills I would run on my guppies. The first day of practice was always important. It set the tone for the rest of the summer. You had to be in charge, 100 percent. The minute you let their cuteness get the better of you, you were toast.

David was already in the water, winding the lanes through the pool. This was a tricky process that almost always involved some cursing and a little blood, especially if you did it alone. I hopped off my bike and made my way onto the deck to help.

The lane reel sat near the deep end like a giant's spool of blue and white thread. I unwound a bit of lane that had gotten caught on the edge of a diving block to give David more leeway.

“Thanks,” he called out. “The wrench is on the diving board.” I grabbed it to tighten the steel rope that ran through the plastic buoys and kept the lane in place.

David's head surfaced next to my hand. “G'morning, Ruthie.” He looked so sweet for a second, like a little boy. None of that too cool for school attitude—just my brother David with his apple cheeks and blue eyes, his wet hair matted to his perfectly round skull.

“Hi,” I replied, handing him the next lane. I'd just witnessed David's first non-scowl since I'd been home.

“Remember when we would play ‘Abyss'?”

“Of course.” We had seen that movie on TV when we were kids, and it had become the basis for that summer's obsession. David and I would swim out to the deep end with a handful of quarters and make ourselves at home by the diving blocks, pretending that we were ocean divers at risk of death by water monster. The quarters became the treasure we had to retrieve despite our horrible odds, and we would earnestly watch them plummet to the bottom in a shiny haze. Then, whoever's turn it was to dive would strap on goggles, give a stern nod to the other, and grab the block's handle before arching into a back dive.

“So did we just pretend that there was a monster lurking, or did one of us actually play the role?”

David shook his head with a smile. “You know, I'm not sure. I think we just pretended that we were in danger. We never played with anyone else, right?”

“No way. It was our own private geek-out game.”

“Do you think any of these kids have any imagination anymore? Or are they all just too computer-and-cell-phone-ed out to bother?” he asked.

I handed him a rope. “I wonder about that all the time.”

“I'm sure Mom and Dad worried about that with us. The next generation must always seem so out of touch with the world you grew up in, you know?” He dunked his head, and then resurfaced.

I couldn't remember the last time we had reminisced. The key was to not make a big fuss about it and scare him off. I wondered if I should tell him about Chris. Not now—this moment was too fragile. The smallest crack in the glass and it would shatter. Better to wait.

The gravel crunched in the parking lot as the parents rolled in to drop off their spawn. In a whirl of radio snippets and doors slamming, the perfect stillness of the morning was no more. David hooked the last lane, and I pushed the reel back against the wooden fence. It was time to put our coaching faces on.

I approached my huddle of guppies. They bounced around in their bathing suits like lottery ping-pong balls, some with their goggles already in place, the blue lenses fogged by the humidity.

“Good morning, team,” I greeted them.

“Good morning, Coach Ruth!” they shouted back in unison as they all looked up at me. I felt like a giant version of myself, taller than the Empire State Building.

“Coach Ruth, somebody smells like cigarettes,” declared Ali.

“Well, Ali, cigarettes are disgusting, and they will kill you. And forget about being a good swimmer when you smoke.” Great, I was coaching The Bloodhound Gang.

“I know.” Something about her tone seemed to suggest that she knew I was full of shit. Being judged by a six-year-old was a drag.

I looked for David, wondering if he had taken off. The older kids practiced in the next hour, so he was free to roam. I liked it better when he took off. There was something about knowing he was watching me coach that made me nervous. I didn't see him.

“All right, guys, let's get this practice started already. To start, we'll have the six-year-olds in lane two, the seven- and eight-year-olds in lane three, and the nine- and ten-year-olds in lane five.”

“Coach Ruth, can you put my goggles back on me?” asked Ali.

I suctioned them back onto her face. “There you go.”

“Thanks!” She turned from me and jumped into her lane, barely able to contain her excitement.

“Okay, so we're going to start with kickboards.” I retrieved them from the storage closet and handed them off. They were almost bigger than the kids themselves. “I'm just going to give you a little refresher course, so you know what you're doing.”

I stripped down to my bathing suit and jumped in. As I demonstrated the art of holding on to a foam board and kicking one's legs, I noticed that none of them were actually paying attention to me. This was the hardest part about coaching the guppies. Nine times out of ten, when you were teaching them something important, they had their finger up their nose, their hand in their Speedo, or were running from an imaginary horsefly.

“Hey, let's go! Anyone that doesn't pay attention has ten extra laps at the end of practice.”

In minutes, I had them all perched on their boards, with a foam of spray fanning out behind them as they triumphantly drove down the lane like human go-carts, smiling at me with pride. I ran the rest of the practice as a kind of Swimming 101 course—seeing who knew what they were doing and who had just graduated from water wings. I had an army of freestylers, save for some woeful breathing techniques, but the remainder of the strokes seemed to be a mystery to most of them. It was going to be a long summer filled with dolphin kicks and two-hand touches. At the hour's end, they gathered around me in their towels, exhausted.

“You guys look great out there,” I said. They stared back, wide-eyed.

“Coach Ruth, how old are you?” asked Crystal.

“How old do you think I am?” They scrunched their foreheads in thought as they engaged their internal calculators.

“Twenty-four?” guessed Tyler.

“What?” I pouted in protest. “No way! I'm nineteen! How could I be twenty-four if I just graduated high school? Y'all know better than that.” They smiled up at me as if to say,
We know you're twenty-four, but it's okay if you want to be nineteen.

“Go on, get outta here! See you goobers tomorrow.”

“Goobers!” repeated Tyler, no doubt envisioning their chocolate equivalent. He giggled and lumbered off like a baby panda.

I collected my clothes and slipped them back on. The sun had thoroughly dried and baked me. The older kids were arriving, and David was sitting on top of one of the picnic tables.

“How'd it go?” he asked me.

“It's going to be a long-ass summer.” I sighed dramatically. “But they're pretty damn cute. What about you—you ready for the hormone horror of your crew?”

“I am, actually.” He hesitated and opened his mouth to say more, but then stopped. I knew that if I pressed, his mood pendulum would swing from open to defensive in seconds.

“Well, good luck. I'll see you later—I'm working the afternoon shift.”

“Cool. See ya.”

I walked my bike up the hill. Behind me I could hear him barking orders like a drill sergeant. I wondered about what he might have wanted to say to me just now.

Hey, Ruth, I'm sorry I was such a jerk this year and never called you.

Hey, Ruth, you really are a great coach.

Hey, Ruth, want to get a beer tonight?

The last one was a stretch. Open was one thing, but full-on buddy mode was another. I thought about my date with Chris. Would David be annoyed? I certainly had felt that way myself all of our lives as girlfriend after girlfriend of mine developed a crush on him. Yeah, excuse me, nineteen years of torture meant that he could deal for one summer.

I pulled into my driveway and put my bike away. M.K. and Jill were taking me rope swinging on the Escatawba in ten minutes. It had been a hard decision to agree to go because of the fact that it would give me no time to run. I could have gotten up before practice, but 7:00 AM had come and gone, and I hadn't been able to haul myself out of bed that early. As punishment for my laziness, I had skipped my cereal and planned on skipping lunch as well.

I unlocked the back door and entered the house. With no one in it, it felt so still and quiet—a giant, air-conditioned box of memories. Did it feel this way to my parents?

I stuffed a hotel towel into my backpack. My parents were big on those. Our bathroom had never seen a normal-size bottle of shampoo or bar of soap. Tiny toiletries were our specialty. A car honked in the driveway.

“What's up?” I slid into the backseat, and Jill backed out of my driveway.

“You ready to swang?” she asked with a twang.

“Sure as shit, ayam!”

“Are you hungry?” asked M.K.

“Girl, I've been up since the crack of dawn. I practically ate lunch already.”
What is more exhausting
, I wondered,
not eating, or the energy it takes to pretend I am?

“Well, too bad. We're going to Chick-fil-A for some breakfast biscuits.”

“And you're eating three, whether you like it or not,” added Jill.

“Forget it,” I mumbled as I gazed out the window.

As we pulled into the drive-thru, I lit a cigarette and counted to ten slowly in my head. This was my favorite fast-food restaurant once upon a time. I was going to have to dig deep.

“Dang, this is so good,” murmured Jill as she took a bite and the smell of fried chicken filled the car.

“Seriously,” agreed M.K. “Wass, you sure you don't even want a bite?”

“Yeah, I'm sure.” I pinched my stomach just above the waistband of my shorts.
No, Ruth. Not for you. Be strong.
In five minutes this would be over. I watched the clock on the dash. Seven minutes later exactly, the takeout bags were reopened and filled with empty wrappers.
Made it.

We turned left off the main road, and any semblance of civilization disappeared. The road was not really a road at all, but rather a precarious ribbon of red dirt surrounded by trailer homes and pine trees. A few bedraggled children played in plastic pools in their front yards. A dog with its rib cage on full display and what appeared to be a nasty case of mange darted in front of the car.

“Yuck!” yelled Jill, swerving to her right. “This is some
Deliverance
shit.”

“Ah, the Escatawba. As beautiful as the Riviera,” I remarked. Not that I had ever been to the Riviera. We turned off onto an even skinnier path and slowly made our way to a small clearing to park. Through the pine trees I could see the murky water.

“What if that big-ass biscuit sinks me right to the bottom?” asked Jill.

“Wass can save you!” answered M.K. “We got ourselves a certified lifeguard on-site.” She smiled at me. I put my arm around Jill's shoulder as we made our way to the river.

“You couldn't save a mosquito with your skinny ass.” She grabbed me around the waist. “I'm going to have you knee-deep in chicken biscuits before this summer is over. Mark my words.”

“Hey, does anyone have any weed?” I asked, willing the image of a chicken biscuit out of my head.

Jill pulled a packed bowl out of her jean shorts' pocket and smiled wickedly. “Shall we?”

She handed it to me, and I used my own lighter to ignite the bowl's green contents. As I inhaled, it turned orange and I felt the smoke fill my lungs. After we had passed it around three times, we nodded to signal its conclusion. Jill removed her shorts and set the warm bowl on top of them. She ripped off her tank top to reveal a neon-green bikini.

“Let's do this!” she yelled.

I opened my mouth to encourage her, but realized that my saliva had formed a preventative paste all around its inside. It was like speaking through glue. I motioned to M.K. to hand me her soda and took a giant swig.

“My mouth is a glue trap,” I announced. M.K. giggled and took it back from me.

“Me too.”

“But I'm high!” I clapped my hands.

“And so am I,” agreed Jill. “All right, I'll go first!”

We approached the rope, which dangled in front of us from a very large tree. Whoever had taken the time to scale its heights and affix this toy was a prince among men. As much as its surroundings lacked in ambiance, the rope swing made up for it tenfold.

“Okay, here we go, bitches.” Jill rubbed her palms together and grabbed the rope. A wolf whistle suddenly shattered our bubble of country bliss.

“What the—?” I asked and shaded my eyes to look out at the river below. Of course. Two rednecks in jean shorts leered up at us from the river. Upon closer inspection, it became clear that one of them had the Tasmanian Devil waving a Rebel flag tattooed over his heart. It also became clear as they began to yell various off-color remarks that they had maybe six teeth between the two of them.

“Shit.” M.K. sighed. “I hope they don't ruin this for us.”

“Go the fuck on!” yelled Jill. “Leave us alone.” One of them held up his right hand, made a hole with his fingers, and then proceeded to stick the ring finger of his left hand through it repeatedly.

“Classy,” I said.

“Okay, now's when we just ignore them and they go away,” said M.K. “Let's sit for a while where they can't see us. Sooner or later they'll get bored.”