“Thank you,” I say as sincerely as I can.
He looks over at me and smiles; his whole face lights up. “I didn’t think you were going to say it, but look at that.”
“And now you ruined it,” I say, turning around to leave.
“See you,” he calls after me, even though I’m already outside.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Saturday morning, I get up with the sun and head over to the South Glenn Community Center, ready to decompress from my week with some mildly competitive laps against Harold. When I pull into the parking lot at 5:56 a.m., I’m a little surprised that his car isn’t already here. Usually he arrives before me, and since he’s friends with Clarence, he manages to get inside before the doors are supposed to unlock at six.
When I see Clarence wave from the entrance, I figure my showing up first and beating Harold to the water might be just the edge to start our competitive mood this morning. I quickly change in the locker room and savor the stillness and isolation of having the pool area to myself. It might only last for a couple more minutes, but still, it’s rare that I get to inhale the scent of chlorine in near silence. The fans in the ceiling make a low hum as they circulate the air, and the water laps against the edges of the pool, calling to me.
I get in, swim to the other end, and turn over to streamline as far as I can underwater before starting a few hundred meters freestyle. With each stroke I push the hardware store incident further out of my mind and focus on the swim meet next week. But the image of Kelvin’s face rises to the surface, the way he smiled at me fading into the way he smiled at Grace. I take a deep breath before sinking back under. I propel myself forward, faster. I focus on the win, and with the water passing over every inch of my skin, I work harder.
On my next push off the wall, I see a familiar set of pale legs covered in bushy white hair under the water in the edge lane. I swim a little faster until another set of legs appears. When the bubbles around the legs dissipate, I make out a pair of lime-green bikini bottoms. Instead of coming up for air, I keep my rhythm and hold my hands out farther as I pull myself toward the end of my lap. It isn’t until I open my mouth for air that I realize how out of breath I am.
“That was a minute and forty-nine seconds,” Harold tells me, beaming. “You’d better swim like that next week.”
“I know,” I admit, looking down the lane. I see Gladys come up for air at the other end of the pool. As she gets closer, I realize that her lime-green bikini has flamingos all over it.
“Ready to race?” he asks, pulling his new goggles down over his eyes. I feel a brief moment of pride that he finally took my advice and bought a pair. Even though, deep down, I think it was probably Gladys who got him to do it.
“Yeah,” I say, still watching Gladys as she does a small dive forward and disappears under the water. “You and Gladys, huh?”
Harold turns to me, surprised. He pushes his goggles back up onto his forehead and looks from me back down to the end of his lane, where Gladys had been. Finally he says, “Yes.” It comes out sounding more like a question than a statement.
“Has she been coming to the pool with you this week?”
“We actually took a couple of days off from swimming,” he says. Hearing him say “we” is odd, but also nice. I try to imagine him out at Starbucks for their first date, sitting across from Gladys, talking over steaming cortados. “She was moving in the rest of her things.”
“Moving?”
“She moved here from Pittsburgh,” Harold tells me. “Gladys’s son just graduated from college, and since she’s originally from this area, she decided it was time for her to come back home.” Harold smiles, obviously pleased by her decision. “I helped her unpack some of her stuff this past week. Her son seems like a great guy.”
“Right,” I say, noticing that Gladys is more than halfway back to us. “Ready?” I ask.
Harold quickly pulls his goggles back over his eyes. I set the timer on my watch, and we count down from three before pushing off. I realize we didn’t agree on what stroke to do. I go for the butterfly since it’s the closest chance Harold has at winning, and this way I won’t get too far ahead of him and be alone at the end of the lane with Gladys, waiting for him to finish.
When I’m done with my second lap, I find Gladys lifting Styrofoam weights over her head in the shallow end.
“Hello, dear,” she says, smiling. She puts the weights down on the surface of the water and starts stretching with one arm reaching over her head.
“Hey, Gladys,” I say, feeling a little awkward.
“Harold is excited for your meet next week,” she tells me. “He’s been keeping track of your times in this little black book. He really cares.”
Even though I already knew this, it makes me smile to hear it. Harold kept track of my lap times throughout the summer and measured my averages to track my steady progression. He predicted that I would be able to continue decreasing my lap times if I continued practicing every day, and he suggested that I’d see a more rapid improvement if I started conditioning outside the pool. I imagine that it’s what my dad would do if he was still a hard-ass when it came to high school sports.
Harold makes it back to our end of the lane, and he plants a kiss on Gladys’s cheek when she’s mid-lift. “Did you want to go over Mia’s times right now?” she asks him.
Harold explains to her that our plan is to get together to review my averages on the mornings of the meets, and that today he’s going to record some of my lap times so that he can give me the most up-to-date numbers.
We begin, Harold sitting on the edge of the pool. I decide to start with backstroke, and hold on to the wall while Harold readies his stopwatch. He almost always forgets his glasses at home, and without them he has a hard time reading the different buttons. Usually I help him, but Gladys wades over to him to set the lap timer. I watch her help Harold, noticing how their heads tilt together the same way my parents’ do when they’re trying to discuss something quietly—almost like they’re trying to think with one brain. Only, my parents have been together for nearly forty years; Harold and Gladys have been together for about a week.
So, maybe it’s not impossible to meet someone and immediately find a natural sense of familiarity with them. Maybe I can even do that by Sam’s wedding.
I hold on to my sense of hope much later as I leave the pool to get ready for the Davenports’ jam flavor launch.
* * *
“I feel like it’s not going to be that bad,” Abby tells me as we trail behind my parents into the Birch Tree hotel for brunch.
“You haven’t seen him in action,” I warn her, trying to hide behind the wall of my parents and Sam, keeping my eyes peeled for Geoffrey’s younger brother, Jasper.
“This is so exciting,” Abby says, distracted. We walk into the dining room of the hotel, which the Davenports have rented out for their Jazzy Jam brunch. Today is the release of their plum jam, the newest flavor in their line. Geoffrey told us that since they used a new method to make the jam smoother, they wanted to incorporate smooth jazz into the theme, really make the flavor memorable and distinct. I had to hold in my urge to laugh. Geoffrey really puts a lot of thought into every aspect of his jam.
All the tables are pushed together to form one long dining table down the center of the room. On opposite sides of the room, behind where people will be sitting, are two mirrored buffet tables where guests can line up for food. On the dining table is a long ongoing centerpiece littered with fake plums and vines and plum-scented candles spaced throughout. At the ends of the buffet tables are individual small tables set a few inches apart with all the flavors that the Davenports have produced since their founding. Of course the plum flavor is held up on a literal pedestal, with a small card talking about the origin of the flavor, from the conception of the idea to the jam’s manifestation in the sealed jar.
“Babe,” Geoffrey calls from the end of the buffet line. He pushes his glasses farther up on his nose. I watch as h
e and Sam share a kiss. They start whispering to each other as Sam centers his necktie, also plum printed, with gold detail leaves.
“This looks amazing,” I hear Sam say as she turns to face us again. “I’m so excited.”
Abby reaches for a plain bagel and takes the spoon from the open jar of plum jam. As she’s spreading it onto her bagel with care, she realizes that no one is talking and all of us are staring at her.
“May I?” she asks.
“Go right ahead,” Geoffrey says. “I’m interested to hear what you think. You’ll be the first person outside the focus group to try it. I mean, other than myself and my family, of course.”
“I haven’t even tried it yet,” Sam admits, scouring for a poppy seed bagel.
Abby doesn’t finish spreading. She immediately takes a bite and chews voraciously. Geoffrey leans in a little, watching her face as it goes through a range of expressions.
“Sweet, with a tang in the aftertaste. Rich. I’m sensing a little apricot?” Abby asks. Geoffrey nods. “Smooth, on purpose?” He nods again. “Excellent.”
“Thank you,” Geoffrey says, looking relieved.
“That’s why I bring her,” I say jokingly, though I know that for Abby this is the number one reason why she’d get up before noon on a Saturday. She loves everything jelly and jam. For her, peanut butter and jelly is more like peanut butter and jelly.
“Why don’t you rehearse your speech,” Sam suggests before taking a bite out of her bagel.
“There’s a speech?” Abby asks through a mouthful of bagel.
“Yes,” Geoffrey says, smiling. “This is the official launch, after all.” He looks down at his notecards and flips through the first two. “That’s just the greeting and opening.” He skims the third and taps the card with the back of his hand. “This one. ‘What makes the plum jam special, perhaps our best flavor yet, is the complex measures we took to make it. You’ll note the hints of apricot and subtle but sour green grape flavor underneath that of the prominent plum. We started with our typical jam-making process by taking the pulp and skin from the plum to simmer into a coarser spread. Separately we took the juice from the apricot and the juice from winter-grown grapes and made a jelly.’ ”
Geoffrey pauses and peers at us over the top edge of his glasses.
Sam’s smile immediately widens, and Abby gives Geoffrey a thumbs-up. When he looks to me, I prompt him to go on.
“ ‘Then we mixed the two together. The abnormal smoothness to the spread comes from half of it being a jelly. The winter-grown grapes allow for a slight bite that is augmented when the jam is served chilled. We’re hoping to experiment more with winter-grown crops now that my soon-to-be-wife and I are collaborating on greenhouse architecture and the technology to help these fruits survive cold climates.’ ” Geoffrey blushes when he mentions Sam, and Sam blushes a little too. I try not to gag.
“I think the speech is great,” Sam says when he finishes.
“I do too, and I think jelly jam is genius,” Abby adds.
I reach down for a bagel and spread some of the jam across a piece. I take a bite and chew as slowly as I can while Geoffrey practically jumps out of the collar of his shirt in anticipation.
“Okay, so, fine, you did a good job,” I say, laughing a little.
More people start to arrive, and Geoffrey gets swept up in welcoming guests and buyers. The Davenports have been working on a contract with Whole Foods, and this brunch is the first one they’ve been invited to since starting negotiations. Geoffrey makes sure to give small introductions to the new flavor while not getting too far into discussion before his speech.
I cling to Abby, thankful that Geoffrey let me know that Jasper and their parents haven’t arrived yet. I scan the room from our seat at the table and note that a few of the local newspapers sent reporters to cover the event. Some of Geoffrey’s other family members who are involved in the family business are here. His father and grandfather are sitting at the end of the table closest to the podium, representing the generational succession of the company. Abby and I are situated toward the middle of the table. Even though my parents are supposed to sit next to us, the open seat gives me anxiety because I know Jasper could slip in at any moment, and my mom wouldn’t think anything of moving down a few seats so that he could sit and chat with us instead of having to make his way down to the far end of the table with the rest of the Davenports.
“Let’s walk around,” I suggest when the anticipation is too much.
We walk down to the podium and look at how the makeshift stage is decorated. Then we go by the jam table again so that Abby can make her ultimate bagel, where she organizes all her favorite Davenport Delicacies onto one large carb. Then, when I spot Geoffrey’s parents, I decide we should step out for some air.
“Again,” Abby says, “no idea what the big deal is.” She hugs her jean jacket around herself, and I tuck my ears inside my hat.
“I just can’t look at him right now.”
“He’s a little kid. You’re a junior in high school. Why are you so worried?” she asks impatiently.
“I’m worried that if I don’t find a date, I’m going to have to spend my sister’s wedding with him!” I remind her. “Instead of remembering it as this supposed beautiful ceremony and life-changing occasion that Sam keeps describing, the only thing I’ll remember is how I had to babysit Jasper all evening.”
“Mia,” Abby says, taking me by the shoulders and shaking me a little. “I promise on my soul that it’s not going to come to that, okay? You’ll go with him over my dead body.”
“Go with who?” a familiar high-pitched voice asks. “And where are we going?” Jasper asks, bumping my hip with his, even though his hip falls slightly below mine.
“We aren’t going anywhere,” I say.
“Except to the wedding,” he says, smiling. “I heard about your predicament from your sweet sister just moments ago. I had to come let you know not to fear any longer, because your knight in shining armor is here.” Jasper gives a theatrical bow. When he straightens up and bobs his eyebrows, he looks like Franklin from My Wife and Kids. Cute, but too young to date, and equally annoying.
“Like I said, we aren’t going anywhere together,” I repeat, bending down to meet his eye.
“I feel like you’re just fighting destiny,” Jasper says. His Nintendo makes a sound, and he immediately lifts it back up so that it’s nearly touching his nose. He starts pressing the buttons. “Just let it happen,” he mumbles over the chimes of his game.
I start walking away, but the sounds of static explosions and rapid gunfire follow me across the lobby of the hotel.
“Are you really going to play that during the party?” I ask, stopping outside the banquet hall. I look around and realize that Abby slipped back inside when I wasn’t looking, completely shirking her responsibilities.
“I’ll turn the volume down,” he says, not looking up.
“Why don’t you turn it off while your brother is talking, since he worked so hard on his speech?” I ask, waving my hand to try to get Abby’s attention.
“Why don’t you unbutton the top button of your dress?” Jasper asks.
I barely believe what I hear, until I look back at him and catch him staring at me instead of his Nintendo.
“You wish.”
“Oh, I do, very much,” he agrees, leaning against the doorway.
I turn to look at the banquet room just in time to catch Abby gliding through the doorway. While Jasper is distracted, she snatches his Nintendo, flashes me a wink, and takes off down one of the hotel hallways.
“What are we playing today?” she asks, and giggles as Jasper tries to jump high enough to get his Nintendo back.
As I watch them, I reimagine the scene, only with Abby in her dress for the wedding and Jasper in whatever expensive designer suit he’s convinced his parents to buy. Is this what Sam’s reception is going to be like? The thought makes me cringe. Like Abby said, over my dead body am I going t
o the wedding with Jasper.
CHAPTER EIGHT
At swim practice on Monday, Abby tells Victor about the jam event. She also tells him about Jasper, and I’m relieved when she doesn’t mention that he might be my date to the wedding.
“Who are they?” I interrupt when a group of boys I’ve never seen before comes out of the boys’ locker room. “Don’t they know we have practice today?”
“Boys’ tryouts are coming up,” Victor tells me. “We’ve been doing a lot of recruiting.”
Right. After the girls’ season starts, boys will bring their recruits to our practices to give them a sense of how the practices are run, and sometimes the boys will even do conditioning when our practices are winding down.
I pull myself over the edge of the pool so that I am sitting with my feet dangling in the water and push my goggles up onto my forehead. “Are any of them actually going to make it?” I ask, letting some of the water out of my swim cap. I hate that it never seals perfectly.
“A few,” Victor tells me. He stands to go join the boys in the bleachers, kissing Abby on the cheek first.
The boys’ team always has more recruits than the girls’. It’s harder to find new talent over the summer, when school’s not in session and half the people you meet at the community pools go to different schools. The boys wait until school starts, and they make announcements, join their table with ours at the activity fair, and use our swim meets as recruiting grounds. It also helps that a good amount of the boy swimmers date the girl swimmers. That definitely increases their numbers. However, there are always fewer boys than girls that actually make the team and stick with it.
Coach blows the whistle and tells us to line up for partner relays. Abby and I go back to our split lane, and she slips into the water, ready to kick us off. She always leaps from the start with fire, getting her lead early so that she can slow down toward the end. I, on the other hand, start off slower—allowing one or two swimmers to get ahead of me before I give my all and push ahead at the end, after my opponents have tired themselves out. When we can do partner relays for drills, we’re virtually unbeatable.
The Meet-Cute Project Page 7