Learning to Swim

by Cheryl Klam

  And her saying that, I decided, was the most annoying thing that had happened to me all day.

  7

  One of the things I adored about Alice was her unforgettable words of wisdom: “Even a dog knows the difference between being stumbled over and being kicked.” This was another one of her jewels: “Promises, like piecrusts, are easily broken.”

  Translation: even though I did kind of believe that Barbie loved me, the only reason she'd said that thing about not being able to imagine life without me was because she was feeling guilty. Because she knew that even though she had promised to stay home on Saturday night and help me get ready for my party, she would dump me in a flash if her boyfriend called. Which was where the piecrust proverb fit in.

  This was precisely why I found the whole sentiment thing annoying. If that made me mean, so be it. According to Alice, if you run with wolves, you have to howl. And like it or not, living with Barbie was like being chained to a wolf. But still, still, I was surprised at about three o'clock that afternoon, when Barbie and I were lying out in the sun (I usually didn't do this, but I wanted to get tan before my party) and her phone rang. I knew it was her boyfriend because after the Ludwig ring, she took it into the house.

  When she came back out, she said, “Steffie, I'm sorry. But I need to go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Out with a friend.”

  “Who?”

  “Look, Steffie. I'm sorry, I am. But I'll make it up to you. Okay?”

  But I didn't want her to make it up to me. I wanted her to do what she had promised.

  “Maybe Alice can take you to the party,” my mom said, which just made the whole thing even worse. I stormed into the house, went into my room, and began slamming my dresser drawers. I pulled out a T-shirt and tossed it over my head.

  Barbie followed me like a heat-seeking missile. “Look,” she said angrily. “It's not like I haven't done anything for you. I bought you new clothes and took you out to lunch. And this is the thanks I get? A temper tantrum? Grow up, Steffie.”

  Now she had gone too far. Grow up? And then I said it. “Emily Mills is a hundred and one years old.”

  My mom glanced at me.

  “You lied right to my face.” I waited for a response. At the very least, I thought I was owed an apology.

  “What do you want me to say?” Barbie asked. Then she shook her head and sat down on my bed as if defeated.

  Her surrender took me off guard. It wasn't like Barbie to throw in the towel so soon. “I want you to apologize,” I replied.

  “I'm sorry,” she said. “I know what you're thinking, Stef, and maybe this is unfair of me to ask of you, but you need to give me a chance here.”

  A chance? “What are you talking about?”

  “This situation may seem familiar, but it's not.”

  I rolled my eyes. “But he's married.”

  “Not happily. He's going to leave his wife. He hasn't been happy for a long time.”

  Information overload. I couldn't take it anymore, so I turned on my stereo, grabbed a copy of Us Weekly, and began looking for the “Stars: They're Just Like Us” section.

  And then she said the words I had been waiting for: “This guy is different, Steffie. He's not like the rest. He really loves me. He's even talking about giving me the money to open that store I've been talking about. Today we're going to look at potential sites for it.”

  I turned up the volume, ignoring her. Eventually my mom got the message and went into her room to get ready. When she came back out, she was decked out in full mistress gear: high heels along with the tight miniskirt and the asymmetrical boob-revealing shirt she'd bought today. She kissed my forehead and said, “Have fun at your party, okay?”

  “Spending the night?” I nodded toward the Adidas duffel in her hand.

  “No.”

  “What's in the bag, then?”

  She paused for a moment. “Don't wear those old flip-flops of yours tonight. Wear those cute pink ones of mine instead.”

  “No thanks,” I barked. I flipped another page in the magazine so hard I gave myself a paper cut.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her bite her lip. She looked like she was about to speak, and then she shook her head and walked out without saying goodbye. After she left, I turned off my stereo and started to get dressed.

  I did everything I could to not think about my mother. She had her life. If she was determined to ruin it, then so be it. What could I do?

  I only had control over me. Wasn't that what all the headshrinks said? I put on the sexpot outfit Barbie had so carefully chosen and brushed my hair. Then I flicked on some of Barbie's mascara and some sparkly strawberry lip gloss, and reluctantly put on her cute pink shoes. And then I went into the living room and turned on the TV. As I watched a preview for a show about circus animals that was airing that night, I felt a little sad. As in, I kind of wished I hadn't had anything going on that night so I could just stay home in my oversize clothes and watch the show.

  What was wrong with me?

  I should have been bouncing off the walls! I had been in love with Keith McKnight for forty-seven days! He was the coolest guy around and he had personally invited me to his party at his house. His girlfriend was out of town! And he had brushed the hair out of my eyes like he was into me or something. All of that mattered way more than Barbie's new case of love lunacy. Right?

  I willed myself off the couch and forced myself to turn off the TV. Then I stepped outside into the blistering ninety-five-degree heat and began walking. A half hour later, I was covered in sweat and my mascara was dripping down my face. But it didn't matter. Because I had reached my destination, and it wasn't Keith's house.

  Although Keith's house was only about a hundred yards away.

  “What are you doing here?” Alice asked as she sat in her gliding rocking chair, drinking a Mountain Dew and doing a Sudoko puzzle. Her black hair was wet and set in tiny rollers. She was wearing a pink sleeveless terry-cloth “housecoat” (which was just another term for bathrobe) and the fuzzy purple slippers I'd given her for her birthday.

  This was another drawback to having a best friend who was old enough to be my grandma. She couldn't go to Keith's party. If she'd been my age, I would've made her go with me. And then I would've gone. Really.

  8

  One of the great things about Alice was that she kept her kitchen stocked with the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. As she said, you just never knew when there might be an emergency. And me showing up on her doorstep in my new party outfit, ranting about my mother when I was supposed to be at Keith's party, was an emergency. So Alice responded accordingly, immediately turning on the silly circus TV show and whipping up a batch of raw cookie dough. We then grabbed the binoculars and planted ourselves on her lopsided sofa in front of the window so that we could have the best of both worlds: we could watch TV while experiencing Keith's party (without actually having to attend). As we took turns using the binoculars, I carefully explained to Alice why I hadn't gone. In a nutshell: I had no earthly idea.

  “You were just nervous,” Alice said, eating a spoonful of dough. “And having your mom leave you high and dry like that, well, it threw you for a loop. But it's okay. There'll be other parties.”

  “Tell that to Barbie. She's going to go nuts when she finds out I didn't go. She thinks this was my big break.”

  “Big break for what?”

  “To be popular.”

  “Oh, please.” Alice rolled her eyes. “It's a party. And from the looks of it,” she said, as she trained the binoculars on Keith's kitchen, “not a very good one.” She handed me the binoculars. “Pizza from Romero's? Yuck.”

  I twisted around to get a better view of the kitchen. We had been watching the house for the past hour, and with the setting of the sun and the turning on of lights (his), our view had improved dramatically. The back of Keith's house was almost all floor-to-ceiling windows, so Alice and I could see inside with all the clarity
of HDTV. Suddenly, I saw Keith walk into the kitchen. Although my heart skipped a beat at the sight of him, I was almost immediately distracted by the miniskirted big-busted girl hanging on his arm and looking at him like an affectionate puppy. As I watched the girl silently jabber away, Keith stopped in front of the window and turned toward the water. I focused the binoculars back on him, and for one brief, terrible moment, it looked as if he was staring right at me. I rolled off the couch and hit the floor.

  “What?” Alice asked, ducking down with me.

  “Keith,” I whispered. “It looked like he saw me.”

  Alice peeked over the couch. “Nah. The only way he could see you is if we were all lit up and he happened to have a pair of binoculars handy.”

  “Who's that girl with him?” I handed Alice the binoculars as I crawled back up onto the sofa.

  “I don't know,” Alice said, scanning the house. “I didn't get a chance to see her. They're not in the kitchen anymore and I don't know where they've gone.”

  “What are all those girls doing over there, anyway?” I was trying to ignore the jealousy that was sitting like a lump in my belly. “I thought I was going to be the girl minority.”

  Alice leaned forward for a better look. “You mean the girls watching TV in the library? Tammy Cheskus and Michelle Ronsaville. They were in Keith's class at Brucker's. They haven't been around much this summer because they both did internships out of state. But they're no threat.” Alice handed me back the binoculars.

  “I wish you could've seen that girl with Keith,” I said, hoping at one point Alice would recognize her and tell me she was his long-lost sister.

  “Look, Steffie, are you sure you don't want me to take you over there? I could watch through my binoculars and you could give me a code or something if you wanted me to come and get you.”

  I turned back toward the TV. “I'd rather be here. If I was at Keith's, I never would've seen that dog jumping through the burning hoop.”

  “That was cute,” Alice admitted.

  “Besides, how can I go to a party when Barbie's in the third stage of love lunacy?”

  “So what? Why let your mom's love lunacy get in the way of you having a good time?”

  “My point is that I'm going to be moving soon anyway. So why bother expending all that effort to make new friends? It hardly seems worth the trouble.”

  “I think Keith is worth the trouble, don't you?”

  I picked some chocolate chips out of the dough and popped them into my mouth. “Let's face it. Keith wanting to hook up with me is about as unlikely as me winning the hot-dog-eating contest at the county fair. I mean, even if he wanted to cheat on Mora, he would do what all cheaters do: he would pick a girl like Barbie, a hot tamale who goes on dates armed with a duffel bag stuffed with lingerie.” Actually, a girl just like the big-boobed miniskirted one that had been hanging on his arm.

  I twisted around once again and focused the binoculars on his house. “I wish we could see his bedroom from here,” I said.

  “You don't think he took that girl you saw him with up to his room, do you?” Alice asked.

  “I don't know,” I said. “I hope not.”

  “I'm sure he didn't… but if it would make you feel better, I bet we could see his room from the Berken-steins’ dock,” Alice said. She stood up and grabbed another spoonful of the cookie dough. She swallowed it and grinned mischievously. “Come on.”

  “But what if someone sees us?” I asked. After all, the Berkensteins’ dock jutted so far out into the creek that a long jumper could make it to Keith's back door without getting wet.

  “He's not going to see us,” Alice said. “The dock is totally dark. And besides, Keith is inside.”

  I followed Alice out the door and around the side of the house. We went down to the dock and crept out to the end. I trained the binoculars on the second floor of his house. “Where's his room?” I whispered.

  “Over there.” Alice pointed to a dark window. Just then, I heard a door slam. “Let's go check out the boat,” I heard a girl giggle from Keith's backyard. I could only assume the boat she was referring to was the one directly in front of us, the one roped to the end of Keith's parents’ dock.

  “Oh, crap,” I heard Alice say. She stepped backward, inadvertently setting off the motion control on the dock lights. Suddenly, Alice and I were illuminated as if onstage.

  “Let's get out of here!” she exclaimed, and grabbed my arm. We both turned and ran as fast as we could (which was not very, thanks to Alice's slippers) back up the dock and into the darkness, practically diving behind a large bush in the corner of the Berkensteins’ yard. We crouched down as Alice peeked around the bush, scanning the perimeter with her binoculars.

  “Do you think they saw us?” I panted.

  “Nope,” Alice replied. She gave me the binoculars and I peered through the lens just in time to see Keith's hussy climb onto the back of his parents’ boat.

  “That's the girl,” I whispered, handing the binoculars back to Alice.

  “Rebecca Lipton,” Alice explained. “She's Keith's aunt.”

  “His aunt? She's kind of young to be his aunt.”

  “She's his mother's younger sister. She's only seven years older than Keith.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Weird.”

  “Yeah,” Alice agreed. She put the binoculars down and looked at me. And suddenly I was hit by the ridiculousness of it all: Alice in her curlers, robe, and slippers and me in my brand-new outfit, hiding behind a bush in the Berkensteins’ yard, spying on Keith McKnight while discussing the age of his aunt. And if that wasn't weird, I didn't know what was.

  I started to laugh, and Alice followed suit, guffawing so hard that I had to grab her to prevent her from falling over. “Oh, Steffie,” she said. “Even though you should've gone to that party, I'm really glad you didn't.”

  Early Sunday morning, I woke up to my landline ringing. I didn't even bother checking the caller ID because I was pretty sure it was Alice calling to ask me if I had any plans for the day and whether or not I was going to redeem myself with Keith for skipping out on his party. I was half-asleep when I picked up, so my “hello” sounded more like a “hur-mrph.”

  “Steffie?”

  Oh, crap. It wasn't Alice. It was… Keith.

  “Hi!” I managed to immediately perk myself up.

  “I have some free time and was wondering if you wanted to come to the club for a quick lesson.”

  He said it just like that. Like I had never canceled my second swim lesson or stood him up at his party.

  “I'll be right there,” I said, hanging up the phone.

  Then my mother walked into the room wearing her bathrobe and holding a large mug of piping hot coffee. She looked like she'd barely slept an hour.

  “Who was that?” she asked.

  “I have to go to the club,” I said.

  “On your day off?”

  I shrugged, determined not to lie. If push had come to shove, I would've told her the truth. Honest.

  “They can wait until you have some breakfast,” my mom said coolly, as if she had a whole spread waiting for me in the kitchen, instead of the open box of Froot Loops I knew was sitting on the table.

  “No,” I said, pulling my maid uniform out of the dirty clothes hamper. “They want me to come right over.” (Notice the flexible gender use.)

  I put my maid uniform on (yes, this was a tad deceitful) and rode my bike to the club. The fresh morning air felt so good as it breezed by my face. The sun hadn't been out too long, but the temperature couldn't have been milder or more inviting. It was as if some higher power was trying to convince me that the day was about opportunity and second chances. All I had to do was make the most of it.

  When I arrived at Tippecanoe, I saw Keith beside the pool and gave him a quick wave before going into the dressing room and changing into my suit. It was then that I realized I hadn't showered that morning. I took a whiff of my armpits and thanked the Masters of the Universe f
or giving me the ability to smell my own BO. I jumped into the shower and scrubbed myself with a teeny leftover bar of Ivory soap. Before I headed out to the pool, I checked myself out in the mirror. Surprisingly enough, the wet look didn't appear too bad on me. Then I took a deep breath and strode out of the locker room.

  But when I reached the deck of the pool, it was not Keith waiting for me, but Mora.

  She raised an eyebrow, obviously surprised to see me standing before her all wet and in my bikini.

  I gasped and instinctively crossed my arms over my bare belly. What was she doing there, anyway? Wasn't she supposed to be out of town? And most important, weren't the gods supposed to be on my side?

  “She's your swim lesson?” Mora said, her voice heavy with displeasure.

  “Yep,” Keith said from behind me.

  “How long will you be?” she asked Keith.“’ Cause I can wait.”

  “If this is a bad time,” I said, turning around to meet Keith's amazing gaze, “we can reschedule.”

  He glared at Mora. “You go on ahead,” he said. “I'll meet up with you when I'm finished.”

  “I don't mind waiting,” she whined. It was weird, hearing Mora sound desperate. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

  “We can do this another time,” I repeated to Keith.

  “Get in the water, Stef,” Keith said, handing me a kickboard. “Start doing laps across the shallow end.”

  He then took Mora gently by the arm and led her toward the gate.

  This was one of those moments in which bionic hearing would have been useful. As it was, with all my splashing and what have you, I couldn't hear a word. But from what I could see, Mora looked really upset. This was definitely not something I wanted to admit to myself at that moment, but I knew more than anyone how love lunacy could tear at the fabric of happiness. Here was some more evidence slapping me in the face.

  After a brief discussion, Mora finally left and Keith dove into the water. It was one of those perfect dives, nice and sleek, with the legs together and toes pointed. He swam the length of the pool underwater and popped up beside me, his hair slicked back and his eyes wide.