Motherish

by Laura Rock

  Too early for this. All night she had worried the sheets on Jill’s pullout sofa, where she’d landed after abandoning California. The dream of art school lost, and with it the money she’d saved working retail. Not only working, but hesitating, never feeling ready. Jill had raced through college on a scholarship while Marta floundered. And then she stayed too long, but the faith that California might yet have something vital to offer had pinned her in place.

  Marta closed her eyes and sank. Hugging herself, she felt in her element. How easily the water claimed her. She was still astonished at finding a welcoming space in this strange combination of sport and meditation. Soon after venturing into the pool at the Y, she’d advanced from floating half-laps to an hour, sometimes more, of steady movement. Swimming was the one thing that silenced now what?—her unwanted mantra. She could rinse her brain. And she expected that this was not only a California thing, but true of any pool. She lingered under water, slept for the span of a held breath, before rising again.

  Bouncing in her corner, warmer now, Marta surveyed the benches lining the walls. She’d expected Jill to beat her here. Perhaps her younger sister had been waylaid by a friend, one of the crowd that cheered whenever Jill leapt into a new adventure, this time as entrepreneur. Marta batted the still water. She hoped Jill hadn’t invited anyone. She’d agreed to test Jill’s prototype, but that didn’t mean she wanted an audience.

  As she stretched her shoulders, Jill appeared at the far doors, balanced on crutches. Wearing a sundress that grazed her calf-high cast, burdened by a backpack, she manoeuvred past girl lifeguards bumping hips, rounded the corner at a clip, and continued the length of the pool. Marta gasped. The tile was wet, the rubber crutch tips smooth, Jill’s expression determined. Safely reaching the bench closest to Marta, she sat. Shrugging off the backpack, she strewed the bench with possessions: a notepad, pen, laptop computer, phone, and several versions of the prototype swim mask, rubbery mounds she untangled and spread as though smoothing the frowns from children’s faces. The mask was her child. She’d distilled her passion for excellence into an irresistible product that would revolutionize the sporting goods market. That’s exactly how Jill had put it when she’d called from across the continent, startling Marta into a snorting laugh she tried to muffle, but Jill carried on, not hearing or choosing not to hear. Later, Marta read the same sentence on Jill’s website, hyping a future success she took for granted. Which somehow produced success, a circular, proven mystery. Marta didn’t doubt fortune would favour her sister once again.

  Perched on the bench, Jill made a cheerleader megaphone with her hands. “Hey-hey, what do you say?” She tilted her head toward the lifeguards, then toward Marta. “Represent, sistah!”

  “Really?” Marta mouthed. The lifeguards paid no attention to Jill’s contribution to the din.

  “It’s showtime.” Jill performed an air breaststroke, swaying her upper body in time with the music. Marta eased her goggles into place, pressing to ensure a good seal. Consulting the blackboard for instructions, she was pleased to see the Masters workout from last night’s practice had not yet been erased. A rest day was prescribed, but Marta needed laps. She’d do the whole workout again, by herself.

  Backstroke to start, following the pipes in the ceiling, meditating on the little flags, which had no choice but to endure the breeze. Calm, accepting strokes. Then 100 kick with flutterboard, 100 breast, 100 kick again: sixteen easy lengths.

  400 pull (3/5 breathing pattern x 100)

  Panting, she stood at the wall, squeezing water from her ponytail. She pushed the goggles to her forehead and met Jill’s frown.

  “What?”

  “Why are you using those? You’re wrecking your skin. The test won’t be accurate.”

  “Habit? I can’t swim without goggles; the chlorine is killer here.”

  Jill grabbed her phone and held it out, snapping photos. “We’ll document the damage then. Puffy pouches, unsightly lines. Don’t worry, not smiling is perfect—this is the ‘before’ picture.” She checked her shots, selected one, and typed with her thumbs.

  “Say goodbye to racoon eyes for-evah! Testing skin-like SKoggles today. Hashtag no wrinkles.” She looked at Marta. “What do you think?”

  “You’ve already posted, so why ask me? But you’re not supposed to take pictures in here.” Marta pointed at the sign behind Jill, a bulleted list of commands.

  “Whatever.” Jill twisted around to photograph the sign, narrating: “Making own rules to live by at hashtag SKoggles hashtag freedom.”

  “They’re watching you.” Two boys and a girl in red lifeguard shirts caucused by the defibrillator without appearing to take their eyes off the pool. “They’re a credit to their training.”

  “They’re just kids.”

  Marta replaced her goggles and reached into a bin by the side of the pool. She selected a foam wedge, placed it between her thighs, and pushed off the wall. When she made it to the end of the lane, she flip-turned and started back.

  Jill yelled something, but Marta ignored her. She could see her sister waving when she breathed on the right side. Her breaths deepened and slowed as she dug for strength.

  As Marta pulled, a bald and wiry young man wearing flippers slapped his way to the edge of the pool. Jordan, whose record times were etched on the plaque beneath the stop clock. His face grinned from a dozen photographs in Jill’s apartment, appraising Marta as she cracked an egg in the frying pan or pulled the covers up to her chin or stepped into the shower. He wasn’t grinning now, sitting with his feet hanging in the fast lane. He watched her progress for half a length before sliding in. He’d been dropping in to practise with Jill’s Masters team while his shoulder healed. Marta was temporary. Not a competitor. He hadn’t spoken to her yet, and if he’d stopped to speak to Jill on his way in, she’d missed it.

  He dunked himself and affixed his goggles. She dove beneath the rope and swam in the medium lane, farther from Jill. He spread his arms for a showy butterfly stroke, loud and powerful. She pulled against his residual waves, slowing.

  16 x 25 w/ :10 rest (1 fast, 1 EZ)

  Resting against the wall, she removed her goggles and left them poolside next to Jordan’s flippers. He was eating up the fast lane, lap after lap. She caught Jill watching Jordan with a haughty smile, as if she found his exertions amusing rather than impressive. She was following his progress too avidly for someone who claimed to be over him. Marta had to shout to get her attention.

  “Ready!”

  Jill hobbled to the edge of the pool without the crutches, holding one of the prototypes. Grabbing the ladder, she dangled the mask, preparing to toss it to Marta. Jordan powered in and executed a flip-turn that sprayed three lanes. Jill hopped backwards and cursed. He was halfway to the other end before she regained her balance. A stricken look flashed across her face, and Marta softened, wishing she could protect her younger sister, who so rarely needed protection. She ducked under the lane rope and came over, wincing at the sight of Jill’s purple toes beneath the plaster.

  “You should put a bag over that cast.”

  “I’ll take my chances.” She sounded upbeat.

  Willed optimism, was that her secret? True to form, Jill had mastered whatever pain came from seeing Jordan and was once again hyper-focussed on her creation.

  “Wish I could swim. I’m dying to test the mask myself.”

  “No more drunk breakdancing, then,” Marta said, quoting Jill’s defiant code phrase for her final date with Jordan, a night of dancing followed by a car accident that injured them both. “Hope you’ve learned your lesson.”

  “Ha, right.” Jill paused. “Marta,” she began, and fell silent. She focussed on the mural across the pool.

  “Yes?”

  “I just want you to know how glad I am that you’re here. I mean that. And even if I could swim right now, I’d still choose you to test my masks. Bec
ause this is a big moment, and I want to share it with you.”

  Marta tried to open her expression. She wanted to be grateful for a sisterly confidence, whether sincere or an act of charity. She wished she could say the right, loving thing in response, but all she could manage was to join Jill in studying the awful mural. The scale was wrong. A giant toddler poked his plastic shovel into a sandcastle taller than he was, a leaning tower about to collapse and asphyxiate him. A pigtailed girl snorkelled amidst unlikely fish, her nose bulbous beneath the mask. Marta mentally repainted the nose.

  “I don’t really know what I’m saying,” Jill said.

  “I get it. You don’t mind my couch-surfing. You want me to move in permanently.”

  “Ha.”

  Jill raised her prototype in both hands. “Here’s to a fabulous launch, a major milestone in my company’s success.”

  “Alright, give it to me.”

  Reaching for it, she brushed Jill’s fingers, transmitting a flash memory: cottage summers, shrieking girls on a madly tilting dock, pushing and pulling each other into the lake.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing.” Marta wrapped the mask around her head and probed the thin covering, like saran wrap but more durable. She pulled the mask toward her upper lip, and it snapped against her skin. “Ouch!” She tugged more carefully. “That doesn’t seem safe.”

  “So don’t do that.” Jill retreated to write in her notebook. Jordan approached in a storm of splashing. Marta shrank against the ladder to give him room.

  Although the mask felt strange, it kept the swimmer’s nose dry, and the skin-like profile offered no resistance. “Competitive swimmers shave their bodies to cut fractions of seconds off their times,” Jill had texted Marta while she was away at school. “They’ll be all over this.” Indeed, Jordan appeared to be completely hairless. Marta tried to picture him navigating the topography of ankles and knees with a razor. She herself had given it up as pointless.

  In the medium lane, she alternated fast and relaxed lengths. During rests, she noticed swimmers watching her. There was a palpable lull in the activity; even the music had faded to an acoustic ballad. As Jordan rose from his completed lap, water sheeting from his smooth back, he didn’t bother to hide his curiosity. In the seconds before he launched himself away, Marta fought an impulse to tear the mask from her head and hand it over the lane divider, the imprint of her features still fresh. Let a champion test the prototype. “You are the target market,” she might say, by way of introduction. She could approach him. Just because she never was first to approach didn’t mean it was impossible.

  But Jill’s plans for market domination went beyond competitive swimmers to aqua-fit ladies and anyone, really, who was concerned about appearances. Just yesterday she’d explained how this revelation came to her while she sat in the sauna, massaging the post-swim grooves around her eyes. Vacuum-sealing hard plastic to the delicate under-eye area had always bothered her. Ripping her goggles off time and again, she’d regretted the premature aging that would result.

  “We willingly damage that fragile skin,” she told Marta. “This product is a no-brainer. We can sell it with sporting goods and anti-aging products.”

  We? As the weeks of Marta’s stay edged toward a month, Jill seemed to be incorporating her into the business plan. Employee number one. Marta felt a spasm of negation. She remembered their mother’s admonition: When you visit your sister, don’t treat her like an Airbnb. “What does that even mean?” she’d replied, thinking, I’m the one you should be worried about. But she hadn’t shared any details of the depression that clawed her down, the anxious thoughts stalking her. Now what for Marta after her odd breakdown?

  Pausing to rest again, she said, “It feels a bit claustrophobic. Like those cut-off stockings Mom made us wear at the cottage to protect against blackflies, remember? Nose and eyes flattened. Is that how I look?”

  “You look fierce,” Jill said, taking another photo. She swiped the image. “Making history with hashtag SKoggles test—you saw it here first, people. Smooth skin forever.”

  The masks were made of latex exercise bands that Jill bought in bulk and repurposed with a glue gun and ingenuity. Each green, red, or purple band featured a translucent plastic eye-shield in the centre, a one-way ventilation membrane over the nose, and Velcro strips for an adjustable fit—handmade for now, but the search for a manufacturer was on. She’d applied for a patent and contacted angel investors.

  Jill had begun developing the mask last fall as a sideline, since her sales job wasn’t challenging. Marta had just left for the renowned San Jose art program, where she discovered that she was unable to produce anything but panic for studio courses in painting and sculpture. She perceived her lack of talent in brutal peer critiques; in the way her sculpture professor would

  rearrange his face before pronouncing his verdict on her attempts to make art: humdrum, not up to the San Jose standard. Whatever that was—she never figured it out. As she failed, Jill’s long-distance invention updates fell like paint splatters. Marta couldn’t think or eat or sleep. An interval exploring the ashrams and temples of the West Coast followed, during which Jill’s messages went unread, and then measured days of swimming and solitude. By the time Marta dragged herself east for a summer of recalibration, she found the prototype ready to launch, its creator in a cast but undaunted.

  Squinting, she saw that the lifeguards were transfixed by her head, as though a superhero had entered their midst. The chief lifeguard, surveying the pool from his tower, momentarily ceased his side-to-side scanning. Jordan glanced over between laps. She was a freakshow. Maybe she wouldn’t do the whole workout today; screw that.

  A group of kids and mothers in bathing suits and towels trooped hand-in-hand from the family change room, heading for the wading pool. As they passed, a small boy pulled free, pointing at Marta. His mother stopped, sending a ripple through the chain. The boy’s older brother yelled, “Voldemort!” as the younger child wailed.

  “Shoo,” Jill said, although Marta couldn’t tell whether Jill meant her or the kids.

  “Here goes,” Marta said, and began a fast front crawl.

  4 x 125 w/ :30 rest (25 sprint, 100 smooth)

  Marta gained speed, a surge of energy propelling her wall to wall. Had she ever swum this powerfully? There was little difference between the first length, sprinting, and the four smooth ones that followed.

  After two sets, she switched into the fast lane with Jordan. A ripple of irritation flowed between them, but maybe she was projecting. During Masters practices, swimmers shared lanes by staggering themselves. Jordan should be able to tolerate a single swimmer who took up less space than the average guy. He passed her, steaming ahead with ultra-productive strokes and kicks. He didn’t seem to be favouring the shoulder. So unfair, the lightness of his injury compared with Jill’s cast. He’d been driving that night.

  She fell back, momentarily increasing the distance between them, but then caught herself. This was false courtesy, habitual deference that no longer served her. She had a right to be here. She tasked herself with catching him and almost did it. As he pushed off the wall, she glimpsed his face, startled at finding her in the shadow of his flip-turn. She swam the rest of the set trailing close behind.

  On the last length, he opened a gap and then stood at the wall, waiting for her. As she glided in, he looked her over, not just the mask, but up and down. She held the edge of the pool, breathing hard.

  “What the fuck, did I miss Halloween?” he said.

  She turned away and shook her head to release drops from her ears.

  From the sidelines, Jill wanted in. “How does it feel?” she called. Marta imagined the two of them together: on the dance floor, in bed, on the roadside after the accident, which they blamed each other for. He had been around while Jill was developing the masks. She refused to believe this was his first time seeing on
e—anyone in Jill’s orbit would have seen them. He was just being a dick. Unwrapping the back with a rip of Velcro, she pulled it tighter and gave Jill a thumbs-up public vote of confidence.

  “Awesome.”

  Jordan, squinting at the diving board, said to no one, “Awesome. Fucking A.”

  Jill clapped. “Yay! Keep going—stretch it, test it. We need to find the weaknesses.”

  Jordan lowered his head, tucked his legs against the wall, and pushed into a backstroke that carried him away.

  The chief lifeguard stared at Marta and Jill, whistle clamped in his teeth, and then resumed sweeping the pool for a life-saving opportunity.

  4 x 75 pull w/ :15 rest (all strong)

  Jordan kicked behind a flutterboard; Marta, pulling, managed to tail him. She surged, came close enough to touch his feet, and faded back. After several lengths like this, without making a decision to do so, her knees parted to release the foam wedge, which bobbed to the surface. She left it behind and was able to pass Jordan, noisily and laboriously stroking past him and his kickboard. He paused, treading water for a few seconds, before resuming his lap.

  Pool etiquette dictated restraint, but she pressed onward, unable to stop herself. Never before had she harassed a person, much less someone she’d heard praised so much, until the breakup. It was like swimming was her drug, her oxygen. She forgot about Jill.

  Jordan threw the kickboard onto the deck, where it landed with a thunderous clap. The lifeguards swivelled toward the sound in unison. He began a mechanized, brutally efficient front crawl. It took her three lengths to catch him, and then it was possible only with careful timing of her departure: waiting for him to push off and immediately throwing herself into his wake. When she was in range, she extended a hand, brushed his leg, and recoiled at the strength of his kick. What if he struck her head? Her fingers tingled. When she reached the wall, a snap decision sent her back the way she had come instead of rounding to the other side of the lane. She swam against the pattern, and nobody died. She had to row herself sideways when Jordan showed up, almost hitting her head-on, but she kept going and he kept going, swimmers with different destinies.