She rolled her eyes then smiled, her luscious lip gloss reminding me of my lips, eyes, all of me, sparkling like her. I felt like sparkling, tossing my hair and checking out cute guys—guys in the plural.
On Monday I drove my dad’s car to school after I picked up Flop.
As I stepped out of the car in my high heels, not too high since I didn’t want to fall over, I felt like a new person—someone with super long legs and a short skirt. I slammed my car door and that was it. I was at school wearing girly clothes like a girly person with Flop in her summer dress beside me. We kind of matched. Weird. But hey, I could do weird, had been doing it my whole life.
Tuba rode up on his bike panting with his tuba. I felt a wave of irritation at Junie for insisting that everyone think the same way she did. She didn’t have a tuba. Of course it might have been a reason that he lost so much weight.
“Hey,” I said waiting for him as I held a door open, letting other people go by.
“Hey,” a guy said that I hadn’t actually met, a guy who smiled at me in a way that made me stare at him before I blushed and looked away. Flop got smiles all the time. It was fine. I just had to smile while tallying up his hotness and then forget about him. That’s what she did, but since I was new at it, I just silently urged Tuba to come faster.
“Water…”
I cut him off before he said it. “It’s Gen, or Genevieve. So, how was your weekend, Aaron?”
Tuba, er Aaron stared at me and Flop snickered. She thought Tuba’s reaction was more interesting than the cute rocker guy who walked by and checked me out. I could practically feel him checking me out. I followed Tuba through the door, edging closer to him so that I was between him and the wall.
“Um, good?” He tried to twist around to talk to my face, but it was really better if he was slightly in front of me.
“Stay right there,” I said putting a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re trying to be visible,” Flop reminded me. “Come on,” she coaxed like I was a kitten she was trying to lure out from under the car.
I rolled my eyes and stepped away from Tuba, straightening up like I was proud of who I was. Well, I was.
“I’m fine,” I said and strangely enough, I actually was. The looks weren’t really worse than they’d always been, and without having to constantly look for Cole, I could focus on things like listening in class and talking to people. I wasn’t up to inviting anyone to sit with us at lunch, but when my pen ran out in class and I actually wanted to take notes, I asked a girl if she’d loan me one and she said yes like that was normal, and it was.
It was so weird being normal.
It was all fine until lunch when I was walking through the cafeteria on high alert. Not because I was on the lookout for Cole, but because I knew that Sharky or someone was not going to let me get away with my new outlook unchallenged. This was high school, after all.
I used to do martial arts with my dad and Cole. When some jerk said, ‘Hey, look, it’s Watergirl,’ and pulled the lid off his drink to dump it on my head I was already moving so my hand hit the bottom of the cup and it went into his face. Okay, it wasn’t exactly martial arts, but it turned out that my reflexes weren’t half bad when I wasn’t obsessing over someone.
I said, “It’s Gen, or Genevieve. Get a clue,” before I walked to my table as snotty as Sharky ever was. It kind of shut down the cafeteria for a few minutes. It was like, silence for the passing of Watergirl. Of course it wasn’t over, no, that would have been too easy, but the thing was, I kind of liked the challenge. I liked fighting back. The only reason I’d never done it before was because I was completely paralyzed by Cole not liking me.
“I thought we were all about nonviolence?” Junie said when I sat down.
I was all, “Really? Where have you been?” And she didn’t say anything else because that was the first time she noticed my shoes, hair, and skirt, and her mouth flapped while nothing came out.
Tuba snickered until I smiled at him, then he choked and Junie had to thump him on the back. That’s when Oliver showed up.
Okay. Oliver was nice and cute. But still. I wasn’t about to start crushing on any guy. Not happening.
“I’m sorry about the party. I didn’t realize it would be so…” he trailed off and winced.
“No problem. Hey, if you want to make up for it, I could use some swimming lessons.”
Okay, now the whole table was in shock, and I was a little freaked out too, but apparently I was doing more than turning over a new leaf. Anyway, he nodded his head and I told him to meet me at Stinky Lake at five, when choir was over.
Everyone stared at me while I focused on not hyperventilating. It had been way too easy to sign my own death warrant.
“Wow,” Tuba finally said while I exhaled shakily.
“Apparently,” I said.
Flop patted my shoulder encouragingly. “It’s going to be great. You can borrow one of my bikinis.”
I put my head on the table.
“Perfect. At least something’s going according to plan,” Junie said, sounding irritable.
I looked up. She should be doing a cheer. “What’s with you?” Her mouth got tight. “What happened at the lake, before the fight?”
“What fight?” Flop and Tuba both wanted to know, but I didn’t look away from Junie.
“Sean told me that I seem like a really smart girl, so he can’t understand what I’m doing acting like such an idiot about him.”
“He didn’t,” Flop said with a gasp while I stood up, shoving my chair back.
The Captain wasn’t sitting at his table anymore. When I looked around the cafeteria I saw him heading through a door into the hall. I avoided both idiots who tried to trip me as I walked, focused on Sean. My blood pounded in my head and I felt more alert, prepared to take him down however gorgeous/popular/whatever he was.
I caught up to him at his locker where he took his time spinning the dial.
“What is your problem?”
“Sorry?” he asked, looking up at me with piercing blue eyes that would have stopped a charging wild animal. Didn’t stop me though.
“You’re so good at apologies. Why don’t you teach everyone else here how to apologize so they can be just like you? Oh, right. You already have.”
“And here I thought you’d be ecstatic that Cole was acknowledging your existence. My mistake. The next time I have him in the lake, I’ll just drown him.”
“Oh, you saved him for me? How thoughtful. Why were you such a jerk to Junie?”
He smiled, and I had to keep myself from kicking him. “Tell me, judging by what you know of your friend, do you think she’s the type to take a subtle hint, a kind rejection?” I blinked at him. “What I’ve seen of her,” he continued, folding his arms across his chest, probably to show off his muscles, only no, because he didn’t do that. “Is that it takes serious force to change her trajectory. I don’t lead girls on.”
“No, you just leave them to drown whenever it’s convenient.”
“Do I? And here I thought that I dragged you out of the pool…”
“You told Oliver to let them throw me in. You have no idea how terrifying it was being…” My throat tightened and I swallowed shaking my head. “You have no sense of compassion.”
“And you have no sense of perspective.” He lifted up his shirt which left me blinking in confusion until I saw the bruise spreading across his ribs. I recognized that bruise. I’d had it twice before when I’d sparred with Cole.
“Cole kicked you. He has a really good kick.”
“Yes. That was before I dragged him into the lake. Personally, I enjoy fighting as a sport, but,” he said hiding his fascinating abdominals when he dropped his shirt. “My swimmers are my responsibility. Bernice has a sprained wrist. Not only is that tragic for our next competition, it’s pain that she has because I authorized violence on your behalf.” He stepped forward, shoving a finger in my face. His icy eyes burned into me. “Do you understand? When yo
u went there, you knew what would happen. You can’t challenge the status quo without backlash. You acted regardless of consequences, as usual. Maybe I should line up everyone injured fighting for you so that you can see and understand.”
“I understand,” I muttered, pulling away from him. “You’re still a jerk.” He was right though. When Oliver had asked me, I’d known it was a bad idea. When Junie had pushed me, I’d gone along with it. My dad had no idea what it was like for me on the outside. I should have made my own choice and stuck with it.
“And you’re an idiot.”
I glared at him, but then asked him because he seemed to have a really good sense of natural consequences. It was time to use his malicious intelligence for the greater good. “I asked Oliver to teach me how to swim. Do you think that’s a bad idea?”
“Don’t ask me what I think. You are perfectly capable of doing your own thinking.”
I rolled my eyes. He sounded like my dad only more of a jerk. “Thanks for that vote of confidence. And here I thought you saw me as a complete idiot. I wonder where I could have gotten that. I think that with the way I am with water, it’s stupid to not have some defense against it.” I made it sound like an enemy. I thought he’d mock me but he only shrugged.
“It sounds like you’ve made your choice, Watergirl.”
“Please,” I said, curling my lip. “It’s Gen or Genevieve.”
“Really?” he asked, looking thoughtful. “Which one, Gen or Genevieve?”
I shook my head. “Either one.”
“Maybe both? GenGenevieve? Or GenevieveGen.”
I rolled my eyes and turned away from him wondering why he sounded amused. “Gen. Call me Gen unless you find a sexy foreign accent somewhere, then you can call me whatever you want.”
I blushed as I walked away when I realized that had sounded like flirting. I didn’t flirt at all, certainly not with The Captain.
After school I borrowed one of Flop’s many bikinis and headed to stinky lake with her in tow. She had her chair in the back of the car, and we got set up on the muddy bank where I tried to stay cool. You know, not run screaming at the lap, lap sound of the water kicked up by a motorboat out there on the lake. For some reason as I sat on the edge in my borrowed bikini, challenging the lake, I did not feel relaxed. I knew it was no big deal to swim. Other people did it all the time. Flop started giving me some instructions, like, keep your eyes open and relax, it’s all about breathing, that kind of thing, but talking about breathing made me want to hyperventilate.
It was five and I was all ready to pack up and go, but then I heard the sound of a car and then the top of Oliver’s curly black hair was visible, then his eyes and smile as he climbed the embankment. He really was cute, and he wasn’t wearing his jammers, instead he had some flowery trunks on and his shirt while he urged me into the water.
I nodded but it took me ten minutes to move from the water’s edge to knee deep.
“Good,” he said putting his warm hands on my arms. I nodded like I agreed, but suddenly I wasn’t just worried about the water but about fish hooks in the mud that I was probably going to step on. He had his sandals on, and I wore flip flops, but still, one of those things could go right through the sole, and then I’d be in a hospital gown getting a tetanus shot in my butt.
He smiled at me, kind of close up, and I forced myself to follow him into the water past my knees, then to my hips until I was up to my ribs. At that point I stopped and blinked, wondering how I’d gotten that far without freaking out. He moved his hands to demonstrate cupping the water, and I got to do that and feel like a two year old. He demonstrated floating, kicking, and blowing bubbles, but it seemed like getting me in that far was all he wanted for that day. After an hour or so he said it was time to get out. I felt, well, kind of disappointed. I hadn’t gotten any water up my nose or fallen and had him rescue me or anything. Huh.
Chapter 13
I hated to admit it, but The Captain’s harshness was exactly what Junie needed to give up on the whole relationship with Sean thing. As far as I could tell, Flop still wasn’t interested in any footwear requiring socks, but me, I was different. It wasn’t only my swimming efforts either. I felt the difference every day in everything I did. Whether it was getting dressed for school, refusing to work Sheila’s schedule, or driving my dad’s car to school on days I didn’t feel like biking, it was different. I still recycled and stuff, but I didn’t feel like I had to do what Junie told me to do. At first she didn’t get it, but then everything was fine. Best of all, she got over the Sean thing with hardly any bump to her awesome self-esteem.
I met Oliver at the lake every day that week besides Tuesday and Thursday when I had to work until dark, and by Friday I actually swam. It was kind of pathetic, pretty much dog paddling, but I kept my head above water, and Oliver didn’t have to grab me or anything. He was actually a great teacher, not the flirty foreigner, but someone quiet and watchful, paying attention to every detail while at the same time smiling his approval when I did something right. I couldn’t imagine The Captain ever giving approval to anyone.
He soothed me almost as much as the sounds of the lake. At the end of the next week I kicked without splashing every time. Pretty amazing, I know. Anyway, by then it was getting cold for swimming outdoors and Oliver said we should meet early at school.
I agreed but I hadn’t realized how different it would be. It was fine at first, I mean, I felt kind of lame in Flop’s bikini in school, and it took me a few minutes to get over the no clothes at school nightmare feeling while the smell of chlorine made me miss Stinky Lake. The weird part was actually Oliver. We had been going over strokes and stuff for a half hour or so, when the rest of the swim team came in. Oliver wrapped up our lesson in a rush, and then he ripped off his shirt and shorts to join his team. He moved too fast for me say good-bye much less check out his near nudity. He was an unidentifiable fish, one with the team.
The Captain walked in, late, but no doubt he had a good reason. He saw me in the pool and frowned at me. I don’t know why I’d hoped for something like a nod or a smile from him. He’d given me his approval though, to learn to swim, so why the glare?
He started giving orders while I climbed out, tugging Flop’s suit in place to make sure nothing was going to fall out. I kept wanting to turn around as I walked to the dressing room, to see if Oliver would wave or something, but the way he left me at the edge made me pretty sure he wouldn’t.
I washed my hair for a long time to get the chlorine out. It reminded me of Cole, the way Oliver had left as soon as the team showed up, like he didn’t want to be seen with me. It made me realize that while we had been spending lots of time together for the last week or two, he still acted the same around me at school, I mean, as friendly and nice to me as he was to everyone else. I felt glum as I walk through the halls to class. I didn’t even see Cole until he bumped into me. He stopped to apologize, like I want another apology from him. I shrugged and walked on. I got to my locker and Flop was there, looking like a beach girl.
“So, Cole was watching you.”
“What an idiot,” I said as I fished in my locker for my books.
She stared at me until I stood up, waiting.
“I guess you’re really over him. Usually people go through a stage of anger, but you seem kind of okay.”
I leaned against my locker. “Yeah. It’s about time, don’t you think? This morning I did swimming with Oliver here and it was weird.”
“Oliver? Is the sexy foreigner helping with transition?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think The Captain likes me.” I hadn’t meant to say that. Why had Sean looked at me like that, like I was invading his pool with my non swimmer ways that might rub off on his team?
She blinked losing the smile she reserved for thoughts about sexy foreigners. “He doesn’t like anyone,” she said dismissively, munching on the edge of her muffin.
“I don’t mean likes me likes me, I mean likes me to breathe in the sa
me school as he does.”
“Oh, Captain Hotness probably doesn’t really care, he’s just thinking about something deep, like semi-finals or something. You should talk to Oliver about it if it’s worrying you.”
I shrugged. No way I was going to ask Oliver about anything not related to swimming. He’d pretty clearly defined the boundaries of our relationship.
The next morning I met Oliver at the pool fifteen minutes earlier than the day before, which made it an ungodly, 5:30 a.m., but apparently I was truly dedicated. Anyway, we were by the edge. I was concentrating on keeping my hands cupped and my feet pointed while Oliver floated on his back beside me, murmuring every now and then about my technique which he couldn’t possibly know because he wasn’t actually looking at me.
“How can you tell my feet aren’t pointed?” I asked then choked when I forgot to cup my hands. I should know better than to talk and swim at the same time.
“The sound is wrong,” he said flipping down so he could demonstrate the difference, which I didn’t get, but whatever.
I took the opportunity to rest on the edge of the pool. “So, does Sean hate everyone who doesn’t swim very well?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Where did that come from?” He had no problems with talking and swimming at the same time.
I felt jealous for a second.
“Why else would he hate me so much?”
“Sean?” He smiled like I’d said something hilarious. “Sean does not hate people. Even people who can’t swim.”
“If you say so,” I muttered.
“Sean doesn’t like dating in school. He thinks it’s a waste of time and energy to focus on one person when you should be worried about your life goals.” That sounded like Junie but it made no sense. I wasn’t trying to date Sean; I was learning how to swim the way he’d suggested to my dad.
“I’m not dating anyone. He should like that I’m learning to swim even if I am encroaching on the sanctity of his precious pool.”
He glanced at me with a slight frown. “Maybe he thinks that my teaching you to swim is a little bit like dating.”
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