“Thanks, Mr. Lennox… uh, sorry. Rich. It’s great,” Reed said, taking another swallow and puckering a bit at the sourness.
I couldn’t even look at him. And here my dad was, trying to impress him with sour lemonade in our pokey mismatched glasses. I just stared at my lap and sighed. Suddenly, the swing was moving and I realized Reed had sat down next to me. I looked up and gave him a closed lip smile, shrugged and took a swig of my sour juice. My dad had gone back to tinkering in the carport – clearly the lemonade was a rouse to keep Reed out of my bedroom alone with me.
“This is actually pretty good, you know?” Reed said, holding up his glass. “I don’t think I’ve ever had fresh-squeezed anything! My dad picks out ready-made everything. Either that or Rose, who comes in to cook sometimes, leaves ready-to-heat leftovers stacked in the fridge.”
I smiled a little and then just took another drink, looking out down the dirt road. My mom couldn’t get here quick enough.
“So…” he started, then began swinging his legs back and forth like a child. “You kept my letter.” He was grinning and looking out into the distance, clearly ready to tease me. I had a choice, be embarrassed or just own it all.
“Yep,” I said, swinging my legs, too, and staring off at the same distance, taking another sip of my lemonade and wanting to crawl under the porch and die.
“That’s…” he started, then stopped turning to angle towards me a little. He tapped his forearm against my knee, forcing me to look up. “That’s really sweet.”
I just let my eyebrows raise and nodded, shrugging a little, clearly admitting how embarrassed I was. “Thanks, I guess,” that’s all I could say.
Like a gift, my mom’s car pulled around from the main road onto our stretch. I stood up and stepped down the stairs just a little, Reed joining me.
My mom pulled into the carport right behind my dad’s truck and got out of her car, my dad coming over to grab a few bags from her with some extra groceries. She walked up the path to the porch steps and smiled at Reed before leaning in to kiss my cheek. “Hi, Reed. So nice of you to join us,” she said reaching out to shake his hand. “Come on in, guys. Food will be served in just a few minutes.”
My mom was such a confident woman. I envied her and looked up to her for that. I hoped that my confidence would grow to be more like hers someday. I held the door for Reed as we walked inside, but he took it from my hand and gestured his hand forward, insisting I go inside first.
“Why thank you, sir,” I said, in a sort of British accent.
He laughed a little and then said, “Don’t expect me to call you lady, Noles.”
Dinner was amazingly good. My mom had picked up French bread and toasted it with garlic and butter for a side. Reed seemed to be in heaven as he had thirds. By the time I was walking him out the door at 6:30 he was rubbing his belly and complaining that he needed a nap.
“You should see us on Thanksgiving,” I said. “It’s quite the feast.”
He just smiled and then kicked a driveway stone at my feet. “I bet. I’d like to see that…tell your mom to save me a place. Or leftovers. Or leftovers of anything she makes. Like, uh…ever,” he joked, smiling and rubbing his satisfied belly one more time.
I walked him over to his Jeep and then waited while he opened the door and sat sideways on the seat, facing me, biting his bottom lip just a bit. Suddenly, I remembered something and ran back to the house.
“One minute,” I said.
“Uh, ok,” he said, puzzled by my bizarre behavior. Since when wasn’t I bizarre, I thought.
I ran back out seconds later, holding his hat that he let me wear for the ride home. “Here, can’t let you forget this. It’s a far superior school, you know,” I joked. ASU and UofA were rivals, and I had my heart set on ASU ever since I went to a Sun Devil football game with my dad and brother when I was in third grade. Of course, that’s before I knew about the Reed Johnson path. That might have me rethinking everything. Yeah, throw your life dreams away for a boy, I laughed inwardly.
“Hey, thanks. I have to keep it in the Jeep. Can’t let my dad see it,” he winked and flipped the hat on his head backwards, smooshing down the waves and curls of his hair, letting them poke out the sides and back just a bit.
“So, see you in the morning I guess,” I said, trying to break the uncomfortable silence that kept creeping in between us. He was back to biting his bottom lip.
“Yep, I’ll be here at 5. You better be ready, I know how you like to sleep in late,” he said sarcastically.
“Ha, that’s a good one, Mr. Johnson. Say, maybe tomorrow you can take a shower before you crawl out of bed,” I winked right back.
Reed just laughed a little and looked down, quietly speaking. “I had to rescue some damsel in distress,” he smiled.
“Yeah, you did. Sorry about that. But she’s REALLLLLY grateful,” I said.
“Anytime,” he said, swinging his hand into mine for just the briefest touch. It was like it sent fire through my fingers and veins.
He pulled his door closed and leaned his arm out the window some, starting up his engine. I just waved and turned on my feet to head back inside. I was only a few steps away when he called my name.
“Hey, Nolan?” he spoke. I turned to look him in the eyes.
“Yeah, what’s up? Need some leftovers to take home,” I said, trying to be clever. Always trying to be clever.
He curled his left side of his lip up and shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. Probably for hours,” he smiled, then dropped his face into a more serious expression. “No, I just wanted to say sorry again. I know you’re sick of hearing it, but I am so very sorry. I shouldn’t have been with someone like that. Someone that could do that to someone like you.”
I was, frankly, starting to dread his constant apologies. But despite that, I always continued to wonder how he could have been with someone like Tatum. Been so very intimate with someone like her, for that matter. As part of my new promise to be honest, I mustered up the courage to ask Reed the question that had been burning on my mind for days.
“It’s really not your fault, Reed. I promise. Please stop worrying about it,” I said, smiling genuinely. “But… you know? I sort of was wondering. A couple weeks ago you mentioned that it was over between you and Tatum a long time ago. When did you know it was over?”
I waited. Reed smirked again, pulling his hat off and running his hands through his hair, putting the hat back on his head and then looking down for a few seconds. He patted his hand on the side of the Jeep a few times while he stared off at the sunset, squinting a little and taking in a deep breath. Finally, he turned to look at me and gave me a faint, but honest, smile. “The moment I danced with you,” he said. “See you in the morning.”
And like that, he drove away.
14. Time
I was pretty tired while I tried to force down the toast and eggs my dad made for me before he left in the morning. It would be being generous guessing that I slept for an hour last night. I replayed Reed’s words in my mind over and over, at first a bit dazed, not sure I heard him correctly. When I finally had to admit to myself that perhaps I did hear him right, I couldn’t slow the speeding beats of my heart down long enough to let my body fall into sleep.
I started to type Reed a text at least a dozen times throughout the night, completely oblivious to the idea that sending him a text at 1 a.m. was probably not the best idea. Deleting paragraphs on a tiny keyboard was hard as I restarted my words time and again. I was ready to confess everything from the moment I first saw him drinking from that fountain in the gym to the way he made me feel when his warm hands touched my bare shoulders at the dance. I knew I was reacting a bit much, but in my wildest dreams did I ever think the door would open for this chance. The slightest crack. I had to be thoughtful about everything. I was not going to mess this up.
I picked an outfit from the me side of the closet this morning. Knowing we would be swimming a lot, I pulled out my black Speedo racing suit,
which fortunately made my body look like it belonged to an Olympic swimmer. The snug fit sucked in all the right places and the open back and shoulder straps made my upper body look broad and strong. I pulled a pair of cut-off sweat shorts that were a bit big over the suit and rolled the top down to keep them up. I slid my flip flops on by the kitchen door and sat on the chair by the window where I could easily watch the road for Reed’s Jeep when it approached.
I could hear the clock ticking slowly and took in every sound of our house. The whishing sound of my blood rushing over my ears as my heart beat was starting to drown out everything else when I saw the front of his Jeep round the corner and head for my house. I grabbed my backpack stocked with towel, sunscreen, extra clothes, granola bars and water and headed out the door, locking it behind me. I ran down the steps to the front gate so he wouldn’t have to pull completely into our driveway.
Be cool, Nolan. Be cool.
“Hey, morning person,” Reed said as he rolled down his window. “Ready to swim? I bet we’re gonna freeze our asses off!”
“No kidding,” I said, throwing my pack in the back of the Jeep and climbing into the passenger side. I buckled up as he was peeling out a bit on our driveway. He looked at me sideways and smiled.
“Hope your parents are gone. I always wanted to try that on your driveway,” he said.
“Typical boy,” I said, leaning into him. Oh my god.
We were on the highway in no time and Reed was cranking his stereo at full blast. The sun was barely up and it felt like we were disturbing the peace, but the truth was we were miles from anything but sage brush and rattlesnakes. He had a classic rock station on and it was playing “Wild Thing” and he started singing along, overacting to the lyrics and being freer than I had ever seen him. I giggled and tried to sing along with the chorus, completely blundering the words, which only made him laugh and sing louder, trying to help me.
When the song ended, he turned the radio down a little and silence set in for a few miles. I could tell we were both itching to talk, but holding back. We kept stealing glances and then smiling before looking away. As a rarity, I actually came up with small talk to keep us going for the rest of the trip.
“What do you think the test will be like?” I asked, honestly wondering as I’d never been through this process before.
“Well, Jason lifeguarded all the time. I remember he had to do some speed swimming, nothing fast, just to show you could get to someone in time. There were also a lot of strength drills, like holding the dummy’s head above water, CPR, treading water. Why, you nervous?” he asked.
I was actually a really good swimmer. I wasn’t fast, but I was strong, so I was pretty sure I could pull it off. I didn’t want to come off cocky though, so I just shrugged a bit and said “Nah, I think I’ll be ok. I’m going to be tired, though, that’s for sure.”
Out of nowhere, Reed reached over and touched the tip of his finger to the tip of my nose, crinkling his face a little into a cute new smile I’d never seen from him before. “You better sunscreen that face of yours up,” he said. “You’re still a little pink from yesterday.”
“Aye aye, captain,” I said, saluting him. What the hell? I did that same thing to his dad. I’m a loser.
I settled back into my seat and looked at my face in the right-side mirror, watching strands of my hair blow around as they came loose from the braid I worked up to keep my hair out of my way in the water. I studied myself for a while, and then it hit me. For the first time in my life, I looked at myself and I felt like a woman. I looked older. My cheeks were more defined, my lips fuller and my hair was in all the right places. If ever there was a day to feel confident about how I looked, this was it. I reached back behind the seat for my bag and dragged it through the middle of us onto my lap.
“Sunglasses,” I explained when Reed looked over, wondering what I was doing. I pulled them out and slid them on my face and leaned back to admire myself once more. Yes, I was hot today. And I was going to use it to my advantage.
We got to the facility with 15 minutes to spare. Reed speeds a bit, but he never makes me nervous. There were 10 or 12 other lifeguards there with sheets of paper and they started calling out names to gather us into groups for testing. I started in the deep end for treading while Reed’s group started at the lanes for timed swimming and rescue drills. I dropped my bag over in a shady corner and tucked my sunglasses inside. Reed jogged over to hand his to me for safe keeping as well.
“Where’s your purse?” I joked.
“Must’ve left it at home,” he threw right back at me. We were getting good at this type of back-and-forth with one another. It felt comfortable and just right.
I waited for Reed to turn before I slid my shorts down and kicked them to the side. I slipped out of my flip flops and headed to my group at the deep end. When I reached them, I stood at the edge and stretched my arms a bit, dangling them in front of me and relaxing the muscles in my back. When I pulled my head up, I looked at Reed who was looking right back at me with a bit of a wicked smile. I made out the slightest wink and blushed a little from his attention.
Head in the game, Nolan. You’re hot stuff, remember?
We all listened closely to the instructions and were soon jumping into the pool and spreading out to give one another space. We treaded for several minutes before the guards on duty stopped us and then handed us small weights and asked us to do it again. A few of the girls in my group couldn’t keep up and had to drop out then and there. I was breathing hard, but I wasn’t having any trouble holding my weight up.
Whenever I needed a distraction, I would shift my eyes to glance at the racing lanes where Reed stood dripping wet in dark red board shorts and nothing else. In the two years I’d known him, his body somehow filled out even more. His arms were defined and his chest was chiseled like a college football player. I knew he lifted and ran every day, but I never had so long to really take in what was going on underneath those T-shirts and sweatshirts.
Reed caught me staring at least twice, and each time he winked at me, making me laugh and almost lose my weight.
The rest of the testing was a breeze after the treading portion, and I was glad I had that part first. I was the fastest swimmer in my group for the timed sessions. I was getting ready to brag about it to Reed when I looked over the sheets posted on the board and realized I was the second fastest overall. Reed was first.
“I think you need to be tested for performance enhancers,” I joked behind him, snapping my towel at him a bit as he turned around.
“Hey, what’s this with you being this stud swimmer, huh?” he turned, his breath catching a bit when he looked at my full body in a swimsuit. Where I would normally feel embarrassed and want to wrap my towel around me and cover up, I instead felt empowered. I threw it on the bench and just kept talking.
“Yeah, I swam a lot with Mike when we were younger. He swims at the college for exercise all the time and I sometimes join him, but I haven’t gone in a while,” I said. I loved swimming. Would totally join the swim team if we had one at Coolidge High. We didn’t really have a pool in town, so that idea was out.
“Well, you’re a bad-ass,” he smiled. “I’m pretty sure we’re good for the summer gig.”
I sat on the bench and grabbed the towel to dry out my hair some. I pulled the braid out slowly to try to preserve some of the waves left behind. As my head was slung over, I heard one of the lead guards pop the bullhorn on and start talking.
“OK, listen up. If I call your name, stick around cuz we need to have you fill out your hiring paperwork. Not everyone will get hired, so I’m sorry for those of you who won’t be joining us this summer. But, thank you all for trying out.”
I held my breath for just a moment with a brief flash of fear. What if I don’t make it, or Reed doesn’t make it? But the worrying was for naught as our names were the first two they read off. Reed high-fived me and sat down next to me on the bench, our legs touching. He didn’t move and I wouldn’t da
re move.
Once the paperwork was done, I pulled out my shorts and slid them back up over my now dry suit. I fished out Reed’s glasses and put mine on, too. We waited at the counter for Penny to work out schedules. I leaned against the counter and Reed stood right next to me, casually slinging his arm around my shoulder, holding his hat over my shoulder in his right hand. I didn’t dare look at him, but I saw Penny chuckle a little at the surprised look on my face.
“OK, you two kids, here are the slots we have open. How you wanna work it? You can sign up together or work splits, whatever works best for you, but grab your spots quick if you want them,” Penny said, sliding over a large clipboard with two months of squares on the papers.
“Together works for me, you?” Reed said, almost sounding hopeful.
“Sure,” I shrugged, playing it off while my insides were doing cartwheels.
We signed our names for mostly Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, the 1-5 p.m. shift. We threw a few Fridays in, too. I let Reed pick because he had places he needed to be, and I was already at the only place I wanted to be this summer.
The next day was a mandatory work day for everyone. It was camp day, so groups of kids were going to come in every hour to use the facility. It wouldn’t be as crowded as normal and would provide some great training, Todd said.
Penny handed us two shirts each and a pair of trunks to Reed and a one-piece suit to me. I went into the ladies locker room to try it on because you never know how those things are going to fit. The center’s colors were dark purple and silver, so all staff members had to wear logo shirts and the right kind of suits. Penny explained that the cost of our uniforms would just come out of our first paycheck.
I stuffed mine into the bag I brought and Reed slung his over his shoulder as we headed out. Always the charmer, Reed winked at Penny and told her he’d be sure to bring her a coffee when we reported for duty tomorrow.
Waiting on the Sidelines Page 14