Swim to Me

by Betsy Carter

  Thelma heard the longing in Delores’s voice. She remembered that wanting something so badly and not getting it could shift a person’s point of view forever. Here she was with the power to give this girl the thing she probably wished for more than anything else. It was too late for her to rewrite her own history, but Delores was young: her history was still being written.

  “Let’s talk about this,” said Thelma, settling into her desk chair and pulling a pen and legal pad from her drawer. “For starters, we can get a cot and have him sleep in the dorm with you. While you’re working, he can be with some of the other girls. We’re going to have to ask Mr. Chatty to pitch in. How do you think he’ll feel about that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Delores, “but I know that Lester said he would help out, too.”

  Thelma went on: “Food: you’ll pay for his food and clothing. And you have to promise me this: if he gets homesick and wants to go home, you’ve got to let him go.”

  Delores paused. “I promise.”

  Thelma wrote everything down on her notepad. Fifteen minutes later, she put down her pen and groaned. “This is probably the worst decision I’ve ever made, but you can bring the damn kid down here on one condition. I’m going to tell the others. If they say no, then the party’s over. If they say yes, then we’ll try it for a little while and see. Just call your father and tell him about your harebrained scheme.”

  Delores flushed with relief. “Oh God, thank you. I’ll call Mr. Chatty tonight.”

  Lester gave her the thumbs-up. She made a mental note to leave her mother ten dollars for the long-distance phone calls. Lester sat on the floor with Westie, who was watching cartoons on television, while Delores went into Westie’s room, where her mother had already started packing up his belongings. “I’m sorry, but he doesn’t have a lot of summer clothes,” said her mother. “Don’t worry about it, Mom,” said Delores. “There’s plenty to choose from down there.”

  Her mother seemed not to hear her. She held up a red and blue striped T-shirt. “He’s so little,” she said, staring at the handkerchief-sized garment, then turned to Delores. “When you buy, buy big. He’s growing like nobody’s business.”

  “I know, I will,” she said, folding the last of his shorts. Her mother lowered the lid of the suitcase. “Wait, just one more thing,” said Delores, stepping over to the pile of dolls. She dug out Otto and straightened his skirt. She wrapped him in one of Westie’s pajama bottoms, then stuck him in one of the side pockets of the suitcase, alongside Westie’s favorite Tyrannosaurus, and snapped the latch shut.

  Delores knew her father got off work by five, so she waited an hour before calling him at Dave Hanratty’s office. Hanratty answered the phone crisply: “Hanratty’s Circus, Spectacular and Amazing. Hanratty speaking.” Thelma could certainly learn some phone etiquette from him.

  “Hi, Mr. Hanratty, this is Delores Taurus. I was hoping to speak to my father.”

  Hanratty couldn’t have sounded more delighted if it was P. T. Barnum roused from the dead.

  “Well, well. This is a special treat. How lovely to hear from you, Miss Taurus. Just one moment, I’ll go find him.”

  As she waited, she wondered how she would explain to her father about Westie. Maybe she’d start by saying that life was full of surprises, but here he was, living among elephants and chimps, so he probably knew that. She’d just have to figure it out as she went along. Seconds later, he picked up the phone.

  “Hello,” he said with no affect.

  “Oh hi, umm. It’s me. Well, I guess you know that. I have some news. My mother, umm, your not-really-wife-anymore, and I decided that it would be a good idea for me to bring Westie down to Weeki Wachee for a while. You know, for a change of pace for everyone.” She paused, waiting for him to speak, but he didn’t.

  “I just wanted to tell you so it won’t be a shock.”

  “Okay then.”

  “That’s it? Do you have anything to say about it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Okay then,” she said. “See you in a couple of days.”

  “Right.”

  She stared at the phone before returning it to its cradle. Mr. Chatty, she thought. Now there’s a man who should never have had children.

  THEY’D AGREED GAIL would not go with them to the airport. “It’s too hard,” she’d said, her eyes filmy with tears. So on the morning they were to leave, they got up at six to take the subway to Grand Central Station in Manhattan, where they would catch a bus to the airport. Delores was just taking the cereal from the cabinet when her mother came out of her bedroom wearing her favorite red and white checked blouse and a pair of white pants. Her hair was neatly combed and she’d put on lipstick and some dusty-blue eye shadow. She walked slowly to the kitchen table, never taking her eyes off the floor.

  “You look real nice, Mom,” said Delores.

  “I don’t want him to remember me as some hag,” she whispered to Delores. “Look here, I’m going to make some pancakes. Hand me the milk, hon.” Her voice was flat, absent its timbre of anger. She seemed frail and wan against the colorless light.

  The four of them ate breakfast in silence. When it was time to go, Gail put her hands on Delores’s shoulders. “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she said. “When I spoke to Thelma Foote yesterday, she said we’d try it for a while. Just a while. And remember, if he gets homesick, home he comes.” Then she picked up Westie, and nuzzled her head into the softest part of his neck. She took deep breaths as if she were trying to ingest his smell. It embarrassed Delores to hear the creaking sounds coming from her mother’s throat. After a long while, she let Westie down. “You’ll like Florida,” she told him. She patted Lester on the back and smiled a pencil-thin smile.

  “Mommy,” cried Westie. “Mommy is coming with us.”

  “Mommy’s not coming now,” said Delores, leaving her sentence in midair.

  Her mother turned around and walked over to Westie. She knelt beside him and said, “Mommy’s staying here for now. But you’ll see Mommy very soon.”

  “No, Mommy, you come with us. We’ll stay in a hotel.” He began to cry.

  Gail managed to keep her voice steady: “Tell you what, when you get to Florida, Delores will buy you a big box of cupcakes. You can eat one cupcake a day, and by the time you finish the box, Mommy will come down.”

  “We’re going back to the turtles. Remember the turtles?” said Delores. “Remember how we talked about the elephants and how you would get to swim every day?”

  “No. No turtles. Mommy comes, too.”

  Gail stood up. It was important to her that Westie not see her cry. “You go now,” she said, turning away from them and walking back into her bedroom. She sat on her bed, trying not to hear Westie’s wails as Delores and Lester led him down the hall. Only a monster would let her child go motherless, she thought to herself. What kind of a person am I?

  Fifteen

  There’s a storm cloud system moving up the Gulf of Mexico. Expect torrential downpours and hurricane-force winds tomorrow. It’s going to be a wet one for President Nixon’s buddy Bebe Rebozo, who’ll be in town for a business meeting. Rebozo was born right here in Tampa on November 17, 1912.” Delores tilted her head and widened her eyes, staring directly into the camera as she spoke of Bebe Rebozo’s birthday.

  It was August, and she’d been on the air for four months. The show had been number one in the ratings, and, as a result, Alan Sommers had been asked to address the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in the spring. Soon after, local news programs around the country fell all over themselves to add gimmicks to their presentations and turn their reporters into personalities.

  For the past week, Delores had been on the phone with Wally, the meteorologist from Miami, more than usual. He’d been teaching her about weather systems and helping her identify cold fronts and other patterns. Today Delores and Wally were watching the satellite images of white storm clouds forming over the Gulf. The clouds spun in a
circle like a swirl of white angels. The photos were irresistibly beautiful, and Sommers put them on every night. With each shot, the clouds came closer and the dance got more frenetic until the sky turned the color of a sweat stain and the waves got higher and more turbulent, spitting out large puddles of foam at the shore.

  Wally had explained to her that there was no accurate way to predict when and where a storm might hit. After bullying its way through the Bahamas, less than one hundred miles from the U.S. mainland, the one they were calling Hurricane Claudia whooshed up the Gulf of Mexico at forty miles per hour. By the time she made landfall on the St. Petersburg coastline, the oomph had gone out of her gusts; tides were just five feet above normal and the winds were expected to get up to only thirty to forty miles per hour by morning.

  Delores was a quick study, and although someone else would write up her reports, they would use the information that she would receive from Wally. During the six o’clock news, reports started coming over the wire downgrading the storm from a Category 1 hurricane to just a rainstorm. Still, people by the coastline were advised to consider evacuating their homes should the winds pick up and the storm reverse itself.

  Sommers stood in front of the AP machine as updates about Claudia clicked across the page. If only this storm would reach its potential and actually become a hurricane, this would be the kind of story that could put him on the map for good. The bigwigs in New York, the network guys, would be watching. They knew him as the guy who’d put a mermaid in a bathtub and watched his ratings go sky-high. Big deal—so he was a novelty act. This was the kind of story where you had to go with your gut, make split-second decisions in the heat of the moment, even when they flew in the face of logic.

  Words raced inside Sommers’s head, picking up the tempo of the news wire. Now or never. Now or never. Now or never. We need something with traction. Sizzle. Okay, we’ve got raging sea. Palm trees stooped by the wind. Good. Good. Work with that. Reporter’s hair whipping around in wind. Nice touch. Sea spray in the face. Right. Whose face? Pretty face. Good body wouldn’t hurt. A soaking wet, nice body. Brilliant. All my reporters are guys. Holy shit. I’ve got it. We send the water gal. Our mermaid. Jeee-zuss. Hello Walter Cronkite! Now all we need is a hurricane.

  Delores was still sitting on the edge of the bathtub, having just finished her segment, when she noticed Sommers lurking behind the cameraman. He stared at her hungrily. Not the way the other men stared at her—she’d gotten used to that. As she prepared to step out of the water and wrap herself in her robe, Sommers came forward. “Allow me,” he said, holding it for her. “You were fabuloso tonight, as always.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That’s some storm brewing out there. They say it could turn into a full-blown hurricane.” He crossed his fingers and held them up in front of her. “Look, I won’t beat around the bush. This could be a big story for me. For all of us. I need a top-notch talent to go out to Belleair Beach and cover that thing. I think you’re the ticket, Miss—or do you prefer Ms.?—Taurus. I mean it’s right up your alley: weather, water. Lots of water. What do you think? Big story, big chance. You get this one right, and you’re playing ball with the big boys. Everyone will be watching. This could be your ticket out of the fish-tank and into the fire. Catch my drift? Or should I say, catch my draft, as it were?”

  “What if I don’t catch either?” Delores immediately covered her mouth with her hand. It was the first time she had talked back to him. He threw back his head and went har-har-har, baring all of his ferrety teeth. “She’s beautiful and brainy, and on top of all that, she has a sense of humor. Fantastic.”

  Just as quickly, he stopped laughing. “So what do you say? You with me or not?”

  “Yeah. Okay, I’ll do it.”

  “Attagirl,” he said. “You’ve got real cojones. Here’s what you’re going to do . . .” He laid it out: the hair, the outfit, the windy setting. “Right now, we’re not exactly dealing with hurricane conditions, which is not to say that the situation can’t change just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “So you’re going to have to goose this one a little, if you know what I mean.” He called over the cameraman and the producer who would go with Delores, and Chuck Varne, the anchorman. “Use your imaginations out there. I want wind and rain and the works. Okay, guys? Let’s go get us a hurricane!”

  Delores changed her clothes and stepped out into the street with the others. She opened up her umbrella, expecting that the wind would eventually blow it inside out, but it didn’t. She got into the front of the van next to Armando, the intern, who was driving. Doug Perry, the young up-and-coming producer, and Bo Quince, the cameraman who had been at the station longer than anyone, sat behind them. Armando turned the windshield wipers on to the highest speed and they made a scraping noise against the glass. “It’s not so bad,” he said. “Yeah, maybe it’ll get worse,” said Delores. Bo gave one of those “I’ve seen it all before” shrugs.

  Through the crackle and static of the two-way radio on the dashboard, Sommers’s voice became another presence in the car. “Where are you now?” he said. “We’re just coming up onto the Watergate complex,” Doug cracked. “Need anything, boss?”

  “Very funny,” Sommers shot back. “I need your ETA so we know when to schedule your spot.”

  Old Bo got on the radio and spoke clearly. “Hey, Al, Bo here. It’s raining real hard, but I’d be hard-pressed to call this a hurricane. You sure you want to go live with this?”

  Sommers came back: “I don’t care if it’s drizzling. We’re looking at extreme storm conditions; that’s our story. Do you read me?”

  Doug again: “We read every page of you.”

  When Sommers answered again, it was through a mouthful of food. He chewed and swallowed his words so that no one could understand him. “Fig Newtons,” said Bo and Doug simultaneously.

  “Can someone explode from eating too many Fig Newtons?” asked Delores.

  “If Sommers exploded, all that would be left of him would be his pointy little shoes,” said Doug. “Do you think his toes come to a point, too?”

  “Has anyone ever seen his feet?” asked Delores.

  “I have,” said Bo. “But I really can’t speak about them in mixed company.”

  They kept up the patter, all except Armando, who was driving at about twenty miles per hour, hugging the steering wheel so close that his chin nearly touched it. From time to time, Delores would lean over and whisper, “You’re doing great,” or “I think we’re almost there.”

  As they got closer to Belleair Beach, they came upon a policeman who held up his hand in front of the car and made them stop. He poked his head into the window and said to Armando, “We’re suggesting that people along this coastline evacuate, just in case.” Doug flashed their press credentials. “Sure thing, be my guest,” said the cop, waving them ahead. When they arrived at Belleair, the wind was blowing and the sand was shifting, and the beach was lined with curious onlookers eager to watch the storm make landfall. Bo wasted no time setting up his camera. Armando stood behind him with a strobe light, and Doug stood off to the side listening to instructions from Sommers. “Make sure you keep the camera on the girl,” he ordered. “Get her close up. I want to see hair blowing, palm trees swaying. I wanna feel a hurricane. Is that too much to ask?”

  Delores miked up, then looked to Doug for further cues. “Snap up your jacket,” he told her. “Toss your hair a little, mess it up.” Delores held her head upside down and shook it. It looked much more disheveled when she stood up. “Nice,” said Doug, who then shouted into his headphone to Sommers: “THE HAIR IS GOOD!” Next, he ordered Bo to keep the camera on Delores. “Make it seem as if she’s the only one here. Get the best weather shots you can.” Then he repeated to Sommers, “NICE FOAM OFF THE OCEAN, TREES ARE SWAYING. WE’RE GOOD TO GO.” As he listened to Sommers, he glanced at Bo and Delores and with his free index finger made a circling motion around the side of his head and tapped his temple. It was a relief to Delores that
she wasn’t the only person who thought Sommers was nuts.

  Doug had told her to say just what she saw. “Try to sound a little tense,” he said. “Make it as dramatic as you can. If you’re at a loss for words, look at me and I’ll give you some cues.” So this was real reporting, she thought. It was fun. Not that hard really; you just said what people told you to say. There were plenty of whitecaps, and the feverish water was beautiful, but it seemed to her like just another rainy day. But because Sommers decided it was a story, suddenly it was a story. Neat.

  “Doug,” she whispered, not wanting Sommers to hear. She shrugged her shoulders and held out her hands as if to say, “Now what?”

  “Tell them where you are and that all of West Florida is watching with bated breath to see the course that Hurricane Claudia will take,” whispered Doug. “Talk about the menacing winds and the raging sea. No, the gusting winds and the roiling sea, there you go. Don’t forget the possible shoreline evacuation. The cops are out in droves. Well, at least one cop is out, but I’m sure there are others. Go ahead. You’ll be great.”

  Back in the studio, Chuck Varne was seated at his anchor desk waiting to be cued up for the live report from Belleair Beach. Varne had been an anchorman since the early sixties and revered the masters of his craft: Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid, Charles Collingwood. Grudgingly, he gave into the antics of his contemporaries, but in small ways—the perfectly creased white linen pocket handkerchief he wore in his breast pocket each day, his wire-rimmed glasses (he drew the line at contact lenses)—he tried to carry the integrity of Murrow and his colleagues to the WGUP news desk. As he introduced Delores’s live feed, he said the following: “We are about to hear our own mermaid singing, live from Belleair Beach with an update on Hurricane Claudia.” The allusion to a mermaid singing came from T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Nobody would get this, nor would they care, thought Varne. But it was his little joke on all of them and having the last laugh was often what got him through the day.