Learning to Swim

by Cheryl Klam

  “I feel the same way,” Barbie said.

  All of a sudden, the phone rang and we both jumped. Jumped. She scrambled for her cell, me for the landline. Mother-and-daughter hot-potato phone.

  Although it was for me (obvious, since we were not being serenaded by Beethoven), I didn't pick up. Instead, I hovered over the answering machine, listening as Keith said something had “come up” and he couldn't make our lesson that night.

  Afterward, Barbie said, “You would've gone to him if he'd asked you, wouldn't you? Even after seeing him with his girlfriend.”

  I wasn't sure. I knew one thing for certain, though: I would've traded anything to go back in time and relive the previous night.

  Barbie shook her head. “See, Stef? It's not always easy to walk away.”

  That was when it occurred to me: once upon a time, my mom was just like me. She probably fell for a guy with a girlfriend, and before she knew it, it was neither the guy nor the girlfriend who was consuming her, but the disease of love lunacy. And if I wasn't careful, I would end up like her, sitting on an old couch in a crappy apartment, next to my fatherless daughter, who was showing signs of inheriting the family illness.

  But I was not my mother. And I wanted to prove it to myself somehow.

  First I went into her room and dumped all her lingerie back in her drawer. Next I went back into my room and put my swimsuit on under my clothes. And then I told my mom I needed to get some fresh air.

  I rode my bike to Crab Beach, took off my clothes, and waded in until the warm water was up to my waist.

  I wished that at that moment I had plunged in and glided gracefully out to sea, but the truth of the matter was, I was too scared to try to swim by myself. So I backed up and sat down, the water rising to my shoulders. I stayed there until the sun set and I thought I felt something slimy touch my arm. And then I jumped up, put my clothes back on, and rode home, thinking, I'm not my mother.

  At least not yet.

  14

  Ways to handle a cheating man:

  Toss a drink in his face and walk away. (From the way Barbie described it, the merlot debacle was the harshest thing anyone had ever done to her, which is why I thought it was cool.)

  Make a big public scene in which you accuse him of infidelity at the top of your lungs. (Which will pretty much assure that you'll never see him again.)

  Cheat on him. (What's good for the goose is good for the gander, whatever that means.)

  Drop him.

  If someone had forced me to choose, I would have preferred number one followed by number two. But unfortunately, none of these options really fitted my predicament. Because technically, Keith wasn't cheating on me. He was cheating on Mora. And even that was a huge leap in logic because we hadn't done anything but swim (sort of) and hold hands.

  So I really didn't know what I was going to do when, the very next morning, he walked right up to me (when I was polishing the brass railing in the main lobby) with a big smile on his face as if everything was totally cool and nothing weird had happened whatsoever.

  “Hey,” he said cheerfully.

  Even though he was looking amazing as per usual (red swim trunks + white T-shirt + flip-flops + shiny whistle dangling around the neck = very, very sexy), his entire demeanor unnerved me. Wasn't he supposed to feel the slightest bit guilty for leading me on?

  “Sorry I had to cancel yesterday. Do you want to get together tonight?” he asked.

  I could feel my willpower fading, but I shook my head and continued polishing. “I can't.”

  “Oh.” He scratched his head. “All right. How about tomorrow?”

  Suddenly, a little voice in my head started talking and it was saying things like: Maybe he wasn't really making out with Mora. Maybe you didn't see what you thought you saw. Maybe he was giving her CPR or something.

  “Sorry, Keith, I'm busy,” I forced myself to say. No way. I was not going to believe any of the ridiculous excuses I was so willing to provide. Why would Mora need CPR in the woods?

  “What do you mean ‘busy’?” He sounded annoyed.

  “I mean I can't, so just… leave me alone,” I said quickly, before turning away and sprinting into the girls’ locker room, where Alice was more than ready to give me a big bear hug.

  “Well, I did it,” I whispered. “I dropped him.” And then I burst into tears, because getting over love lunacy hurts really, really bad.

  I managed to avoid Keith for the rest of the day, which drained me of every single bit of energy and resolve. I wasn't sure if I had the strength to stay away from him. I hated to admit it, but I was starting to understand why my mother wanted to move every time a relationship ended. I didn't think I could handle seeing Keith with Mora again. If it hadn't been for Alice and the fact that Keith was leaving to go back to college soon, I would've yanked out the map of Maryland and done the finger drop myself.

  After work, I rode home. As I pedaled into our apartment parking lot, I caught sight of Keith's black Lexus. There he was, waiting for me on the steps, appearing very out of sorts. I tried to walk right by him, but he grabbed me by the wrist and I stopped in my tracks.

  “Can I talk to you?” he asked.

  I swallowed hard and kept quiet.

  Keith sighed in frustration. “Stef, what's going on?”

  “What do you mean?” I wasn't trying to be coy, really. But I was stuck in panic mode and I couldn't think of anything else to say.

  He glanced away. “You didn't strike me as the type to play games.”

  Excuuuuse me? Wasn't that the pot calling the kettle black? “Look,” I said. “I just can't do this.”

  Keith's eyes fixed on mine. “Do what?”

  “This,” I said with a shrug. “Talking to you and, well, being with you.”

  He crossed his arms in front of his chest, as if he was protecting himself or something. “Why?”

  “Because I don't want to be the other woman. It's not fair to me.”

  “I don't want you to be the other woman either.”

  “Oh,” I mumbled. I could feel my heart twisting into a fisherman's knot. Here I was, spending all this time thinking Keith was into me, when in actuality, he obviously thought of me as his first cousin. “I thought that when you held my hand last night, that meant you were, well, interested.”

  Keith's lips turned up into a smile. “But I am interested.”

  Whoa. This was huge. He'd just admitted to liking me-liking me. But wait, didn't he remember that other-woman thing?

  “Keith, I'm interested too, but I can't have all these heart-to-heart talks and stuff and then watch you make out with your girlfriend,” I said firmly. “It's just… weird.”

  His face became all pinched. “What are you talking about?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I saw you guys in the woods.”

  He squinted as if he was in deep thought. Apparently, there were so many times to choose from, he couldn't figure out when I had caught him.

  And then I could almost see the lightbulb turn on over his head. “So that's what this is all about,” he said, chuckling.

  I felt the need to be sarcastic. Like, Oh yeah—can you imagine? I had a problem with that!

  He put his hands on my shoulders. “Can I come in and explain?”

  I was tempted to leave everything as it was. How many excuses could a guy have? However, for the sake of curiosity, I invited him inside.

  When we sat down on the ghetto couch together, he said, “It wasn't what you think. Mora and I broke up.”

  The knot in my heart tightened, and for a split second I was pretty sure I was going to need some of that CPR Keith was so good at.

  Keith went on. “She's not handling this all that well. What you saw in the woods was nothing more than me comforting her.”

  I replayed the scene of him and Mora in the woods in my mind again. Huh. The truth was, I had not seen any real lip-to-lip contact. Actually, I had not even seen Mora's face. What I had seen was Mora nestling her head agains
t his shoulder while he held her tight. Wow, he was telling the truth.

  “Is that why you couldn't get together last night?” I asked. “Were you with Mora?”

  He sighed. “Like I said, this whole thing has hit her pretty hard. She knew I wasn't happy, but I guess she thought we'd work it out somehow. Her parents weren't around last night, and I felt funny about leaving her alone while she was so upset.”

  And then he took my hand again. This time his palm was kind of sweaty. He must have been nervous. I couldn't get over it. Keith was nervous around me? I was expecting the whole universe to cave in.

  “Look, Stef, I like you. I want to get to know you.” He paused, as if he was trying to reorganize his thoughts. “I'll be going back to school soon, but I'd like to spend as much time as possible with you before then.” He squeezed my hand gently as my whole body went almost limp. “How does that sound?”

  I couldn't speak. There were no words for how I was feeling just then.

  Keith took his other hand and brushed it down the side of my face, his fingers tracing the outline of my chin. He leaned forward and I inhaled as if I was about to snorkel or something. And then we were kissing. It was slow and soft, like we wanted to savor every second that it lasted. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer. He smelled like Irish Spring and tasted like peppermint patties, and he felt tender and strong at the same time.

  Finally, we both broke for air and we sat there together, breathing raggedly with our heads touching and our arms around each other. Keith's smile was enormous. And mine was so big my cheeks were hurting.

  “You and I should go out tonight,” he said.

  “An official date?”

  “Official,” he said.

  “Knock, knock.” My mother appeared in the doorway. “I hope I'm not interrupting anything.” She raised an eyebrow in my direction and winked, making it clear that she understood exactly what she had interrupted.

  “Actually, I was just leaving,” Keith said. He picked himself up off the couch, turned back toward me, and grinned. “I'll pick you up at eight-thirty.”

  I could only manage a nod.

  After he left, Barbie perched herself on the arm of the sofa and said smugly, “Well, well, well.”

  I grabbed a pillow and put it behind my neck. “It's not what you think.”

  “Really? Because I think you just accepted a date with the same boy who was lip-locked with Mora twenty-four hours ago.”

  “He broke up with her.”

  “Congratulations!” she said proudly. “And I have some wonderful news, too. Tom asked his wife for a divorce!” She held out her arms for a hug.

  “What?” I said as my mother smashed me up against her hard boobs.

  “He said our little tiff made him realize how much he truly loved me. He said he wants to spend as much time as possible just getting to know me.”

  “He said that?” The feeling of elation in my chest tightened into a feeling of pure anxiety. It was a coincidence, I reassured myself. Just because Keith had said practically the same thing to me didn't mean my relationship with him was anything like my mother's relationship with… the jackass.

  “Look at us,” my mother said, oblivious to my distress. “Last night we were both in a funk, thinking we had lost the guys we loved, and now tonight, here we are.” She grinned as she released me. “And I've got even better news for you. Tom is taking me away this weekend to celebrate. So you'll have the apartment to yourself. You know what that means?”

  I gave her a confused look. “I get to watch whatever I want on TV?”

  My mother laughed. I wasn't really joking, however.

  “Come with me.” She motioned toward the bathroom, and I followed her. She opened up the closet and reached into a cosmetics bag. “Here's where I keep the condoms.”

  Maybe there were some girls out there who would have appreciated knowing where their mothers kept their birth control, but I was not one of them.

  “If you want,” Barbie continued, “next week we can take you and get you fitted for a diaphragm or get you a prescription for the pill, whichever you prefer. The diaphragm can be a hassle because you have to insert it right before, and sometimes it's hard to stop after you've gotten started, but, well, if you don't, you get a Steffie or something that requires antibiotics.”

  Oh, ew.

  I pushed away the cosmetics bag in disgust. “I'm not going to need those, Barbie.”

  “This Keith of yours isn't as innocent as you'd like to think, Stef. He's been around and around and back again.” This sounded more like a warning and less like motherly advice, but I was going to stand my ground. Keith and I had a lot of bases to cover before we could even consider, as Alice would have put it, parking the pastrami.

  “I'm not having sex this weekend,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, if you do,” she said, as if certain I would, “you know where the protection is.”

  “Great,” I said through a heavy sigh. “I'm going to Alice's.”

  Barbie blew me an air kiss as I galloped to the front door. “Call me on my cell if you need anything!”

  I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but really, if I'd needed something, she would have been the last person I would have called.

  I hadn't made any plans to see Alice, but I was dying to tell her about the latest Keith developments, and I really couldn't stand to be in my mother's “I heart Planned Parenthood” company for another second. So I pedaled to her house as fast as I could. It was officially the second week in August. The heat was easing up once night fell, and the light breeze felt good on my skin. It felt even better knowing that because Keith and Mora weren't together anymore, I no longer needed to be concerned about love lunacy. He was free to be loved by anyone now, and that anyone was definitely me.

  But my Keith McKnight high disappeared when I pulled into Alice's driveway. Usually when she was home, she'd leave her door wide open. Now, even though her car was in the driveway, her door was shut.

  “Alice!” I called out. I knocked on the door a few times and when she didn't respond, I walked around back to see if she was in her yard. I was just about to leave when I glanced inside. Alice was lying on the living room couch. I knocked on the window.

  “Steffie,” she said, waving me inside. “What a nice surprise.”

  “Are you all right?” I asked as I sat down next to her. After all, not only was the house dark and about a million degrees, but also, Alice was covered in a blanket.

  “Fine.” She pushed herself up to make more room for me. “I'm just tired, that's all.”

  She looked at me and tilted her head. “What's going on?” she asked. “Why do you look so flushed?”

  And then I did the most ridiculous teenybopper thing in the entire world. I started bouncing up and down on Alice's couch like I was professing my love on Oprah.

  Alice didn't look very amused, though. “Quit it, Stef. One more bounce and this thing is going to crumble like a cookie.”

  Then I began giggling like a maniac. “Keith broke up with Mora!” I shouted.

  Alice grinned widely. “Well, it's about time.”

  “Keith kissed me!” I screamed.

  She plugged her ears. “Are you going to yell again?”

  I smiled and sat down next to her. “No, I'm done.”

  “Good,” Alice replied. And then she threw her blanket up into the air, dragged herself off the couch, and did a little dance on her sunflower rug. “This is the Steffie-finally-got-some jig!” she exclaimed.

  “Can I join you?” I asked, reaching for the remote to her stereo.

  “You better,” she said, chuckling. “Before I dislocate my hip.”

  I blasted a cheesy Gwen Stefani song, and Alice and I got our boogie on like we were in the finals on Dancing with the Stars. After a few minutes of doing some oldies moves—including the swim—we collapsed on the floor, laughing like there was no tomorrow.

  “I don't see how it could get a
ny better,” Alice said simply as the music died down.

  And she was right. But it was about to get worse.

  15

  I have always loved a happy ending. And what could be better than the geeky girl hooking up with the most popular stud in town? Unfortunately for me, however, I was not living in a Disney movie. So instead of dressing in a ballroom gown and celebrating the grand finale by having dinner on some rooftop balcony overlooking the sparkling city lights, I wore one of my mother's Forever 21 sundresses and dined in a dingy-looking Ethiopian restaurant in a Stevensville strip mall. And instead of sipping bubbly while my prince fed me tiny bites of filet mignon, I gulped down my water as I tried my best to eat what appeared to be a platter of ground-up regurgitated baby food.

  But regardless of the odd scenery or the bizarre meal I was eating, I was still with Keith, the fabulous fantasy guy I had fallen for fifty-six days before. Only now, what we had was becoming so real, it was actually kind of freaking me out.

  “What do you think?” Keith asked after I had forced myself to taste all the dollops.

  What I thought was that this was not exactly the kind of wholesome all-American food one would get at the China Buffet. However, I gazed into his shining eyes and reminded myself how great it was that he wore a sport jacket and tie, so I peeled off a big piece of wet bread and went for another dunk. “I think it's great,” I said.

  He smiled and took a short sip of his water. “I knew you'd like it.”

  Obviously, I was not presenting my true self, but I didn't care. I could tell from the grin on his face that he seemed to like this Ethiopian-food-lover me. And as Alice would have said, “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.”

  Keith took a hunk of bread and swiped it across the plate. We were nearing the conclusion of the meal, and all the portions were beginning to run into each other, achieving the impossible: it looked even worse than it had when it arrived at the table. But besides the food, things had been going great. We had shared a couple of quick but supersweet pecks on the way over to dinner. He had bought me some really pretty daffodils and opened the car door for me. I was all about this Boy Scout vibe of Keith's. I felt so taken care of, like I was the priority. The one person in my life who was supposed to be doing that was too busy with love lunacy to oblige.