Swimming (5 page)

Six Feet High and Rising

It’s family night across the state of Kansas. All the pizza parlors and bowling alleys are muggy with the steam of human breath, the streets full of family cars stuffed with square-headed family members eating freshly baked prune kolaches. Leonard passes them with a curse. I hang on to the strap of the door. Mom is doing something to her face she didn’t have time to do at home. Roxanne is stoned, eyes lit from within, speaking when spoken to in monotones as though her tongue has been dipped in thick cream. No one else notices she’s a big pothead except Bron, Dot, the nuns, June, all the kids at school, me. Father Tim’s opting to believe her heart is having trouble hunting for her soul; sometimes I catch him blessing her twice. Leonard and Mom don’t notice; they’ve got other things on their minds. Bron’s looking out the window, absently braiding the fringe on the scarf that covers her head as though it were hair. Dot’s staring straight ahead, knees pressed together to conserve space for those who need it more. We’re on our way to the movies five minutes late. The trees bond with the wind, sending their leaves swirling into the gray sky before falling into slick puddles of rain that I ran through this afternoon with a heady satisfaction and the wrong shoes.

When I see Dr. Bob for my annual. I’m six feet tall. I take my socks off and slouch. Six feet tall. I remove my ponytail and slouch. Six feet tall. I turn dramatic:
This is just all I need right now, Dr. Bob
.

You’ll stop growing soon
.

You said that last year
.

Well, it’s true. You’ll stop growing soon
.

Leonard has to special-order his pants. I’ll have to special-order my pants
.

He ignores me.
How are your periods?

My gut wrenches with lie-inspired terror.
Very good, great really
.

He looks at me over his bifocals.
No pain?

Ohhh yes, pain. Some pain. But … not a lot. Of pain
.

You can take an anti-inflammatory if it gets too bad
.

Okay
.

Are you on a twenty-eight or thirty-day cycle?

My gut re-wrenches with lie-inspired terror.
Thirty
.

Regular?

Oh yes
.

He changes tones, grinds his voice down:
How’s everyone holding up?

I sigh, relief sifting out my pores.
Fine. Okay
.

But that’s a lie. Most weekends Lilly Cocoplat and I go to Wool-worth’s with premeditated sin on our minds. We dress in layers; T-shirts covered with bulky cardigan, thick-ribbed tights under our loosest jeans, so when we stuff something down, it remains hidden. Lilly is curvy, got her period when she was eleven in a dramatic to-do that lasted a week, can get away with stuffing a couple of synthetic nightgowns in shades of lemon and turquoise, rainbow socks with toes, T-shirts with glued-on sparkles, but I have to stick to flat unobtrusive things: sheer polyester underwear, powder compacts, thin flacons of synthetic perfume.

Lilly has shoplifting theories she feels strongly about: know what you want, steal as though you were buying, be quick, don’t be greedy. The apple-shaped guard stalks us, his brown eyeballs blaring out from underneath his Groucho Marx eyebrows, standing at the end of the feminine protection aisle as unobtrusively as an ape. We feign ignorance, grab a raspberry lip gloss, hold it up for all to see, and pay for it with much flourishing of dollar, then go down to the cafeteria and have our French fries and ice cream, our booty clanking in our jeans. He sits behind us on break, frowning as he slices his Salisbury steak with his fork before attacking the mounds of potatoes he’s covered in muddy gravy, ignoring us as we fall over ourselves laughing.

Leonard and Mom are in a double bad mood that doesn’t heal with the passage of time. They yell about nothing. Mom cries if I leave a wet towel on the carpet, or slaps me hard on the arm, leaving a red hand that takes time to go away.

The thought of telling Dr. Bob about the sinning to make amends for my lying heart crosses my mind, then disappears. There is something priesty to him without the God. He is president of an association for the protection of the Shawnees, wants them to get some of their land back, which makes him unpopular with the local yokels, whom he refers to, affectionately, as the local yokels.

Dr. Bob is probably the smartest person I’ll ever know, but like all really smart people, with the exception of Roxanne, he is often boring. He whips out his pencil and draws in the lymphatic system on a neutral body with no detailed body parts, using lines and asterisks where Bron’s been hit. I watch his papery skin, hairy knuckles, clean nails, and I nod, as solemn as he. Her body looks like it is sprouting flowers, but he leaves no space for commentary, so I keep quiet, nodding solemnly here, then there. I wonder if he is going to give me something; the paperweight with the scorpion in the middle, a rose rock from his vast collection, one of his narrow wooden men, but today nothing, not even M&M’s. He grasps my shoulder with one of his dry doctorly hands, his light gray eyes shining with a kindness so simple it makes me squirm, says:
Take care. I’m here if you have any questions
and my heart twitters in terror.
Does he know?

They’ve been checking her in and out of Glenwood Memorial. When she’s home, it’s hell. When she’s not home, it’s hell. Both hells have no gate. The hells are expanding like the universe—hot, boundless. When she’s less sick, she threatens to hang herself with a leather belt, which gives Mother thumping nervous breakdowns that include nosebleeds. I discover I have a vivid imagination. All I have to do is think
belt
and there’s Bron’s spooky hologram with one fist on her hip, Mother leaning her head back, holding a bloody Kleenex to her nose, June’s sea green eyes meeting mine, Leonard’s fist coming down hard on the table, his composure decomposing:
I said that’s enough, all of you! That’s enough
.

I take it upon myself to tell her to stop threatening to kill herself. I sit on the edge of her bed and speak to her back in reasonable tones as though now, due to extenuating circumstances, I am the senior.
You’re freaking everyone out
.

She turns, hissing like a snake.
And if I do kill myself asshole? What are you going to do about it? I can take this goddamn belt and hang myself from it if I want. Got it, Miss America? Look at me. Come on, both your
eyes. That’s a good girl. See this belt? People do it every day. So fuck off and don’t try to tell me what I can and can’t do. Got it?

I fuck off. She scares me.

Leonard and Mom think that if they fight silently, we won’t know. A mistake. They stopped using direct eye contact a couple of weeks ago, addressing each other with the voices they use when talking with various and sundry people who don’t understand anything. Leonard looks at Mom’s chair and says, as though to a waiter who’s not doing his job:
Would you mind passing the turkey, please
, each word graver than the next. Then he turns to Dot, clasps her eyes in a warm visual hug, his voice exploding with fake happiness:
How’s my bug-eyed flower face doing today?
as we all jump out of our skins.

The cure is taking longer than expected. They come home from appointments together as I sit on the kitchen counter eating doughnut holes. First Leonard then Bron then Mom, in a line like ducks. They come home from appointments together as Roxy, Dot, and I stand around the yard kicking up leaves and June smokes a minty cigarette behind the kitchen. Sometimes they get out of the car in the middle of a conversation our presence does not break. Sometimes they are quiet with a silence that momentary eye contact with them convinces us to maintain. June has taken over car-pool days, pulling up to the curb with a jerk, cranky.

The moon waxes, the moon wanes, Lake Shawnee’s vivid green deepens into brown, green leaves kaleidoscope into color, and Bron needs help getting out of the car. She’s pale and shaky. She’s angry and her mouth’s dry. What’s left of her hair falls, her freckles recede, her arms turn into branches of new trees, her eyes turn into angry pellets, her cello-playing fingers stop itching for the chords, French club becomes secondary, and the debaters stop waiting and plan their strategies without her. I ride my bike fast, careening down hills, rushing through rushing puddles, coasting past sleeping houses, on my feet under slate bridges, all the way across Glenwood then back again.

I walk into our dark room; she says:
I taste like rust
.

I squeeze toothpaste onto her finger; she swishes it in her mouth and swallows.

I hear some kids at school say,
Her sister’s contaminated
. I slam my locker, give them a look.

When she’s sick, I have to leave the room or I’m sick. When her mouth is dry, my mouth gets dry. When she starts to cry and tells me to fuck off and get out, I fuck off and get out. Our bedroom turns into a damp cave; the walls fold in; it smells like moss. I don’t like it and want it to be over. I sleep over at the Cocoplats anytime I can; we watch Adam Ant leap, fall to his knees, plead, both hands clasped under his chin. He’s part swashbuckling pirate, part American Indian, part British soldier. He’s wearing masculine boots, a fluffy jabot, three layers of mascara. When he sings, his hair vibrates. I’m so in love, I can’t stand it. Lilly’s in love too. But less. I’m the one who kisses the TV.

Roxanne goes out with friends, has sleepovers, disappears. If Mom and Leonard say no, she begs until they break down—signs of future trouble left ignored.

Dot excels in all matters: prudence, caring, quietude, studiousness, beauty, cleanliness, invisibility, and the absence of need—signs of future saintliness much admired.

Leonard plays chess with Bron until eleven at night, walks down the stairs like a tall kid with no self-confidence.

Mother says:
Eat, Leonard
, pushing the potato dishes he likes into his general vicinity. No direct contact.

He pushes them back.
I had something at the office
.

I’m giddy.
What did you have at the office, Dad, bat food?

He’s tired.
No, smarty winks. Kathy Stupek made some kind of health thing. I had the health thing
.

But he doesn’t eat. And Mother starts lurking like a thief, walking in her stockinged feet on the boards that creak, slipping her head into the doorway of our bedroom when Bron comes home as we hold our breath and stop moving until she goes away.

Bron turns onto her back and stares at the ceiling.
She’s starting to drive me nuts
.

I flip on my side and stare at the wall.
She’s just worried
.

Bron turns onto her stomach and sighs into her pillow.
Like I need her worry
.

A couple of weeks ago, Mom stood by the window begging, bribing, pleading. Leonard was sitting on the edge of Bron’s bed, his legs folded under him like the lawn chairs in the basement. He was using all his paternal power of persuasion in a discussion that started weeks ago and still isn’t done. I was getting dressed for school, tucking my big shirt into the waistband of my big skirt.

Bron’s voice was the same one she used in her triumphant argument against Uganda.
I’m not going to Southwestern College. I’ll wait until I’m better, then I’ll go to Columbia as planned
.

Leonard was being rational, but his fingers were jangling his keys.
Yes. But. It’s. We’re talking about your future here. You have a four point; let’s not jeopardize your fu—

I’m waiting until I can go where I planned to go, Dad. I’m not changing my plans now
. She stared him down.

Mom adjusted the folds in the curtains.
You should be in school. What are you going to do all day long?

Leonard stood up like a bent man. His eyes, when they glanced over and caught mine, had started their transformation into stone. I ran after him, standing next to the car panting as he rolled down the window.
I need to double up my practices, swim all year long, Dad. Stan thinks I can go places
.

He lifted up both his hands as if caught in the middle of a Western, sighed, and said:
Swim, then
, driving away until he was gone.

Swimming twice a day turns me into an extremely calm person. When Mom grabs my upper arm with her fangs and squeezes, leaving a series of raised welts, I don’t say anything, just hold my arm and leave for school. When Bron wakes me up in the middle of the night, I listen to her, say:
I know what you mean
, then go back to sleep. When Father Tim asks me to try and make friends with the swimming tennis players, I say:
Okay, Father Tim
. I even tell a disappointed Lilly Cocoplat standing at the doorstep in a pair of jeans with a pair of red tights underneath:
This isn’t a good day for me to be taking risks
.

The nuns are busy forging character; they pass me in the hall, their eyes straight ahead, their skirts slapping my legs in a heavy
swoosh
that I’ve seen knock some of the skinnier junior Catholics into their lockers, but I’m strong enough to hold steady. I prepare my face, remove my slouch, knock on the office door, and hand myself over to their metaphysical furnace to be molded. I’m as close to being a mini-nun as I’ll ever be in my life. I work hard on weekly book reports that never get anything higher than a B, sitting in a chair with a pen in my mouth trying to formulate strong enough thought in the kitchen while June peels potatoes and distracts me with catchy humming. I am considered
flitty
, a deep disappointment from Bron’s intellectual stillness. That’s what the nuns say when I hand myself over to them.

They say:
What’s wrong with you? Stop that infernal flitting
.

I clean out the attic using so much lemon polish the fumes make me woozy. I volunteer for story time with the second graders without changing any words in the book even when no one else is around. When the snows hit hard, I help Leonard put the snow tires on. Roxanne and I make a snowman who wears a hunting cap, looks cute from afar, but has a hidden penis with two chestnut balls. We laugh hard at our masterpiece under a canopy of cold dwarf stars, our breath leaving our lungs in wispy puffs that hang between us before disappearing.