by Julie Murphy
Adam glances down at his phone. “My break is over.” He groans dramatically and drops his board to the ground, rolling around the corner to the front of the car wash.
“I’ve still got a few minutes left,” says Freddie.
My favorite part about visiting Freddie at the car wash is watching all the brightly colored soap drain in the alley. Between the smell and the rainbow suds, this might be the nicest alley in all of Eulogy.
“What’s the deal with swimming?” I finally ask. “Why’d you stop?”
He groans and leans back on the sidewalk with his arms stretched out behind him, holding him up. “Every season, scouts show up to our meets, right? Like, college scouts.”
I nod. “To recruit?”
“Yeah. Around the time you’re a junior, you start to get a good idea of who’s looking at you and who’s not.”
“Okay?”
“And well, no one was really looking at me.”
“So you quit?” I ask. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them.
He prickles with irritation. “It’s not that simple. Viv and all my friends were getting calls and offers from all sorts of places.” He shakes his head. “Every time I got in that pool, I knew I was doing the best I could. I trained hard. I even broke it off with Viv for a while to concentrate on improving my times. And every day I felt like such a failure.”
“But even if you don’t get scholarship money or specific offers or whatever, you can still walk on at the beginning of the year and try out, right?”
He shakes his head. “You know how sports announcers are always talking about athletes quitting when they’re at the top of their game?”
I nod. “Vaguely.”
“Well, I get why they say that. Sucking at something you love to do really messes with you. The truth is I decided that I’d apply to all the schools where Viv got scholarship offers and that I’d go wherever she went.”
“Are you serious?” I ask. I like Grace. I think I love her. But I can’t imagine what it must be like to be in Freddie’s position with limitless options and then to leave my fate to be decided by someone else.
When he looks at me, I can see all the heaviness that he’s been carrying over the last few years. His grandfather’s death. His on-again, off-again relationship with Vivienne. Uprooting his entire life so Agnes can live out her years here in Eulogy. Coming up short with swimming.
“Anyway,” he says, “Gram thinks I should keep swimming even if it’s just for the exercise, and she won’t get off my back about it. She’s got this theory that if I’m only competing against myself, I have nothing to lose.”
I puff my cheeks and let the air hiss out slowly. “Well, I guess I can give it a go,” I tell him. “But I’m pretty sure I’m going to be super slow and sucky.”
“Well, at the very least, it’ll be a short-lived ego boost for me.”
I smile halfheartedly. “What about Viv?” I ask. “Have you guys talked since that fight?” A few days after school started, the two of them got into a fight because she hadn’t called him back in three days.
He sighs. “We FaceTimed last night.”
“Ooh, FaceTime sex?” I joke.
He doesn’t say anything.
“What is it?”
Freddie shakes his head. “I need to go see her, ya know? She needs to see me.” He finishes the rest of the shaved ice and sets the cup down on the gravel. “You call Grace?”
“Texting is easier. Talking on the phone requires privacy and, well, actually talking on the phone. Who even talks on the phone anymore?” I ask, trying to goad him.
“Excuses,” he says. “And you know my feelings on that.”
Freddie and I have different ideas of how to maintain a long-distance relationship. I’m scared to push too hard, and he’s scared he’s not pushing hard enough. I stand up and take the empty cup. “I’m supposed to go to my mom’s with Hattie.”
He reaches out a hand for me to pull him up. “Tomorrow. YMCA. Right after your route. Cool?”
I swing one leg over my bike and toss the cup in the Dumpster behind him. “What if my hair turns the water blue?” Hattie touched me up right before school started.
“Ramona Blue,” he says. “Everything she touched turned a hue.”
Tyler drops Hattie and me off at the Ocean Springs apartment complex in Biloxi. It’s not a far drive from Eulogy, but our mom lives farther inland than we do. According to her, she’s lived through too many hurricanes to plant herself right on the coast like the rest of us fools. But Harrah’s, the casino where she works, is right there on the water.
“Do we have to do this?” I ask Hattie as Tyler pulls away. “And why doesn’t he have to stay?”
She takes my hand. “You’re here for me, remember?”
I nod. “Fine. But he’s the one who got you into this situation in the first place. Don’t forget that.”
Hattie has yet to tell my mom she’s pregnant. Her reaction shouldn’t matter. We see the woman once or maybe twice a month. But it does to Hattie. She had more time than I did with Mom and Dad together as a unit, and I think she still holds on to the memory of it. The memory of what it felt like to have a mother. Especially now.
According to the court mandate from when we were kids, we’re supposed to stay with Mom every other weekend, but once we got to middle school, the weekends sort of fizzled out, and now we’re down to a dinner or two a month. Our weekends here were always miserable anyway. Being this far from Eulogy, we were nowhere near any of our friends, and Mom has been working the noon-to-midnight Saturday shift since she took the job at Harrah’s.
Hattie knocks on the door of the third-story apartment twice before my mom swings the door open. “Hey, girls. Come on in.”
We’re greeted by the faint scent of cat piss courtesy of Wilson, Mom’s blind orange tabby.
Our mom wears the same clothes she wore twenty years ago, and seeing as she had Hattie at the age of fifteen, that can’t mean anything good. She’s too thin. Her hair is stringy. Short shorts show off her purple varicose veins and soft, lumpy thighs. She should wear a bra, but there’s not much room for one beneath her tiny tank top.
She hugs Hattie first and then me. Neither of our limbs knows where to go, and it’s like this every time. Two strangers embracing.
“Y’all kick off your shoes. I got the news on, but change it if you want. Making some cheesy noodles with hamburger meat.”
My eyes meet Hattie’s the second Mom turns her back. I nudge her on with my chin to get it over with, but she shakes me off.
“Have you talked to Aunt Peggy lately?” asks Hattie.
Mom responds from the kitchen. “Oh yeah. We talked the other day. She went on and on about that blood clot she had in her leg and her new compression socks.”
The two of us sit on the couch, which also pulls out to be Mom’s bed. The apartment is an efficiency, so it’s all one room basically. When we were little girls, we’d all sleep on the foldout with Mom, but as we got older, she’d set up sleeping bags on the floor. That was around the time our weekend visits petered out.
Hattie and Mom trade small bits of information from each of their lives while I flip through channels on the TV.
As we sit down to eat, Mom turns her attention toward me. “Well, Ramona, it’s your senior year. Soon enough you’ll be on your own.”
“Yep.” Even though I basically already am on my own.
She spoons noodles into three separate bowls and pours us each a glass of milk.
“I don’t drink milk with dinner anymore,” I tell her. “Neither does Hattie. We haven’t since we were kids.”
Mom opens her mouth to respond.
“It’s fine,” says Hattie as she drinks down a giant gulp.
I can already tell that all that dairy is going to have her puking her guts out in the morning.
“You datin’ anyone right now?”
I feel my sister’s eyes on me. “Sort of,” I say. “But she
’s not from here.”
Mom chuckles. “This too shall pass.” Without even pausing, she asks Hattie, “How’s Tyler?”
I may not be a loud person, but I’m not timid. And yet something about my mom makes me feel so completely unheard, because no matter how many times I tell her that this—my life—is not a phase, she never listens to me.
Hattie wiggles in her chair a little. “He’s good. We’re . . .”
I wait for it. Pregnant. Knocked up. Havin’ a baby.
“Good,” she finishes.
“Well, I’m glad,” Mom says. “You gotta find the good ones and nail ’em down quick, or else you’ll get stuck with the discards.”
I stifle a low groan.
We eat the rest of our dinner in near silence, talking back and forth about little things that mean nothing at all until Hattie breaks the quiet with a loud burp.
“Excuse—” Her face goes white as chalk. “Oh, I’m gonna be sick.” She runs around to the other side of the table and into the bathroom, barely making it, before I hear vomit splatter against the inside of the toilet.
I’m right behind her, hovering like a protector. “Are you okay?” I whisper as I pull her hair wavy hair into a ponytail.
She nods as she throws up some more.
The smell wafts past me, and I have to duck my nose under the collar of my shirt to stop myself from puking right alongside her.
Mom stands in the doorway, like a clueless bystander watching a car accident.
Me taking care of Hattie. Her taking of care of me. I feel my future in Eulogy falling securely into place. “We’re fine,” I tell her.
And we are. We’re going to be fine.
NINE
The next morning at the YMCA there’s only one car in the parking lot. Forget butterflies. I feel like I’ve got a handful of bees buzzing around in my stomach.
When I showed up earlier with the paper in hand, Agnes was waiting in her yellow swimsuit and terry-cloth zip-up cover-up with an old shoulder bag with the logo of an airline that no longer exists.
An older gentleman in a velour tracksuit sits at the front counter. His filmy white skin is covered in age spots while his long hair is gathered into a thin white ponytail at the back of his neck, and the name tag pinned to his jacket reads Carter. We each hand him our cards—Agnes added me as a guest to their membership—and he files them into a small recipe box for us to pick up on our way out.
Agnes, Freddie, and I visit the locker rooms, where we leave our bags before heading out to the pool. I brought my comfiest swimsuit, a navy-blue two-piece with a sports-bra-style top. Being over six feet tall can make swimwear shopping—or just shopping in general—a challenge. I think the last time I wore a one-piece was around the time Hattie and I stopped bathing together. A one-piece on a girl as tall as me . . . well, that kind of camel toe might be a threat to national security.
Agnes fits a swimming cap over her hair and then places goggles around her head as she takes the steps into the pool. Freddie is quick to dive in with his goggles already on. After shaking the water out of his hair, he looks up to find me standing there in front of my lane.
I’m actually a decent swimmer, but I’ve never gone to a pool and just swum laps. I’m scared I might somehow do it wrong. I’m embarrassed that it never even occurred to me to bring goggles.
Freddie laughs at the sight of me and tosses me a pair of goggles. “Figured I should bring an extra pair for you.”
“Thanks,” I say. I take my time adjusting the goggles to fit my head, but really I’m stalling so that both of them will start swimming and I won’t have an audience.
Freddie pulls himself up into a tight ball at the edge of the pool and springs backward into a backstroke. I take the elastic around my wrist and knot my hair into a quick braid before trying to mimic his dive off the block.
Mine feels more like a belly flop, but luckily, Agnes and Freddie are already in the zone, doing laps up and down the pool.
Halfway through my first lap, I’m already panting. I don’t know if what I’m doing is freestyle or what, but it feels like I’m flailing around more than anything.
But I keep going. There’s some kind of liberty in knowing that each of us has our eyes on our own lanes. I swim from the deep end to the shallow end, and I have to admit: I’m sort of impressed with myself. Not because I’m good, but because I don’t stop. The whole thing sort of feels like dancing. You don’t know that you’re doing it wrong until someone says so.
As I’m about to circle around for another lap, a hand grips my shoulder. I emerge, gasping for air, my heart humming in my chest.
Freddie hovers above me and holds out an arm to help hoist me up. “You got pretty into it, huh?”
I nod, because I haven’t quite caught my breath enough to speak.
As I follow him to the locker rooms, a cranky-looking older white woman in a black Speedo swimsuit sitting on the bleachers says, “You ain’t got technique, but ya got speed.”
I swallow back a smile and shrug. I decide to take it as a compliment.
TEN
When I pull my cell phone from my backpack after school, I find two missed calls from Grace and one voice mail. My heart jumps into my throat. I listen to her voice mail as me, Ruthie, Adam, and Freddie walk out to the bike rack.
“Hey,” she says. “It’s me. Grace. I—I was calling to say hi. Just wanted to catch up is all.” She’s quiet for a moment. “I miss you.” Her voice makes it sound like a question.
My body can’t move fast enough. I need to talk to her. Or text her. Or go somewhere I can actually call her in private. My fingers and toes tingle like they’ve been asleep for days and are just now feeling a rush of blood.
I open up a new text message. I got your voice mail. I should be home in about ten minutes. Call me whenever you want. It takes all my self-restraint not to type in all caps littered with emojis and exclamation marks.
“Hey, this morning wasn’t so bad, right?” Freddie asks.
“What’d you guys do?” asks Ruthie.
Still staring down at my phone, I say, “We, uh, went to the Y. Swam a few laps.”
Ruth turns to Freddie. “Wait, you actually got her to work out with you?” She whips her head back to me. “You never go running with me in the morning.”
“Running is the worst,” I tell her. “And it’s so hot and sticky and gross. And where are you even running to?”
She shakes her head. “It’s better than swimming into a wall.”
“I gotta go,” I tell them. “I’ll see y’all in the morning.”
“You don’t want to ride home together?” asks Freddie.
“Can’t,” I say as I’m unlocking my bike.
He nods and waves as I swing my leg over the seat, and he and Adam veer off toward the car wash.
Ruth runs to catch up to me. “I’ve got the Jeep. I’ll give you a ride.”
I bite down on my lip, thinking. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”
My bike hangs out the back of the Jeep as Ruth pulls out slowly into the street at the pace of a snail.
I moan. “School zones.”
Both of Ruth’s hands are perfectly placed on the wheel and her eyes dart across the road, constantly surveying her surroundings. It must be exhausting to be so responsible. “What’s the hurry anyway? Today’s your off day, isn’t it?”
“You’re going, like, eight miles an hour. I can bike faster than that.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“I want to get home so I can call Grace.”
“Ahhhh,” she says. “Still pining for summer love?”
“Come on. Don’t give me shit about this.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“You’ve never even really been in a relationship,” I tell her. “Someday you’ll see how much love can suck, and you’ll feel like crap for giving me a hard time.”
She shakes her head. “Doubt it. And I’ve avoided getting involved with anyone for good r
easons.”
“Yeah, like what?” I ask.
We reach the end of the school zone, and she hits the gas so hard her tires squeal. I can see that this conversation is pushing Ruth to the edge of her comfort zone. She’ll gladly talk about her future or Saul or their rocky relationship with their parents, but love? Not on her agenda. “Well, first off,” she says, “my options here are limited.”
“I’m hurt,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “Secondly, I have enough to worry about. I don’t want anything to distract me from my goals. I’m not getting caught up with someone who might expect me to stay here.”
Someone like me or Saul or even Hattie? We will probably live and die here. I tell myself not to take it personally, but the idea that life here—my life—isn’t good enough for her still bruises.
We pull up to my house as my dad is unlocking the front door. Today was his early shift. His blue pants are covered in permanent stains, and his freckled arms are slick with sweat.
“Hey, Mr. Leroux!” calls Ruth.
Ruth has a little soft spot for my dad. Maybe because he’s pretty much the opposite of her parents.
He turns. “Oh, hey there, girls. Ruth, I guess Saul trusts you quite a bit to let you drive that thing around?”
She smiles. “He’s off with some new guy.”
Dad nods knowingly. “No greater distraction than love.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it love,” she comments drily.
Dad winks at her and ducks through the door.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I just—maybe it isn’t the craziest thing to think Grace and I could figure it out.” I shake my head. “I’m not stupid, though. I know she’s not moving here or something, but our options here are limited,” I say, mimicking her.
She scoffs at that. “That’s not what I meant.”
I sigh. “I know, I know. And hey, we always have Vermont.”
A small laugh bubbles up from her chest. “There’s always that.” She reaches behind me and pulls a paper bag from the backseat. “Give these to Hattie. They’re prenatal vitamins. Has she been going to regular doctor visits?”