“See, we’re cool, right?” Ayden asks.
“We’re cool,” I say.
“Chill.” Ayden reaches across the table and in for a fist bump. Before we make contact, the front of his hoodie somehow catches the straw of Jas’s drink, tipping it over. Saucy, half-melted coffee frappé and whipped cream shoot across the table in my direction.
Socks jumps back, but I don’t have enough time to get clear of the danger zone. The cup lands on the ground between us. Upon impact, whipped cream splatters.
“Aww man, not on Sprinkle,” I lament. A big hunk of whipped cream has landed on her front wheel, just out of my reach.
“Sprinkles? Where?” Socks asks. I noticed that she’d run out of pocket M&M’s a while ago.
“Oh, that’s just my chair.” Have I really not told Socks that’s what she’s called? “I’m going to go clean up. Excuse me.”
Thus begins the clunky process of reversing Sprinkle away from the giant table. I get caught on Socks’s chair for a second before I’m free. Only once my back is turned and I’m en route to the restroom do I hear the conversation resume.
When I return from the bathroom, I don’t have much else to occupy myself with. My drink is empty. I check my phone in case Cady or Kaytee texted (they didn’t). Lilly whispers with her two friends and Kisa plays on her phone. Jas and Socks bicker, Ayden flicks a sugar packet through a makeshift field goal EJ makes with his hands. Juan Carlos is gone. I’m surrounded by multiple conversations I’m in no way a part of. I hang for a few minutes, not sure where to look, where to listen, or what to do. I check my phone again. Still nothing to look at there. Explaining my aquatic skills to Ayden and company really took it out of me. Or maybe it was something else that wiped me out.
I text Lucy: Weird.
A minute later I feel a tug on the back of my ponytail.
“Ready, KT Lady?”
I give my sister a thumbs-up and tap Socks on the shoulder. She’s scrounging for the remains of whipped cream in her empty drink while listening to EJ tell a story in his typical monotone that I can’t quite hear.
“I have to go,” I say.
“Oh no, are you sure?” Socks asks.
“Yeah, my parents need the car,” I lie. “This is my sister, Lucy, by the way.”
Socks blushes the way Cady and Kaytee would if they were here. “Hi! I’m Socks! It’s not a nickname, it’s a lifestyle!” Then, back to me, Socks says, “So glad you could hang for a little!” To top it off, she gives me a strange little side hug.
“Yeah. Good times,” I say, mustering as much energy in my voice as possible.
Socks starts to turn back to EJ when she says, “Oh! Selfie!”
“Meet you outside,” Lucy says.
Socks digs her phone out of her mini backpack and holds it high above us for the optimal angle. I think of the girls on the sidewalk after the first day of school. I desperately wish they were here to witness this moment. Socks makes a silly face, and I smile so big my molars are on full display. “One more, fully crazy!” Instinctively, I catch a bubble in my mouth and flutter my lashes. Socks pretends to pick her nose, which is a very strong choice, in my opinion. We both burst out laughing.
Socks hands me her phone. “Here, type in your number. I’ll text it to you.”
I bid the rest of the table farewell and I’m out. I’m at the back door, about to begin the slightly tricky maneuver of pushing it forward, when, like magic, it opens. Before me stands Juan Carlos.
“Whoa,” I say.
“Yo,” he replies.
Behind him, Lucy gently honks Beluga’s horn.
Neither one of us moves. He holds the door, I stay in the doorway.
“That’s my ride,” I say, pointing to the enormous dented minivan.
Juan Carlos looks over his shoulder. “Tight.”
“Yeah. Tight,” I repeat.
“Well, see ya.” Juan Carlos takes a step back so I can pass.
“Have a great night!” Ugh. What a stupid thing to say. I’m not a cashier.
I’m halfway to the car when he calls, “Yo, KT.” I turn my head. His floppy hair is just the floppiest in the early evening light. “Lilly’s bat mitzvah wasn’t that great, FYI.” Lucy honks again, a little louder this time. Of all the times for her to be impatient. “See ya at school.”
“See ya there!” I belt with the actual enthusiasm of a professional dolphin trainer, then head for Beluga.
As I wheel toward Beluga, Lucy steps out to help with Sprinkle. I get into the front seat and look over my shoulder for another glimpse of Juan Carlos. He stays in the lot taking photographs.
“Spill it,” Lucy commands as she pops back into the driver’s seat after loading Sprinkle into the back.
I don’t know where to begin. In the rearview mirror, I can see that Juan Carlos hasn’t gone back inside. He’s still standing outside, snapping pictures of something on the ground. I think it’s a puddle.
“Well?”
Balloon breath.
I tell Lucy everything that happened. How the people I’ve been eating lunch with every day of seventh grade all made plans and didn’t invite me. How Lilly can’t get over her bat mitzvah. How Ayden thought I couldn’t swim. I leave out the part about how Juan Carlos’s floppy hair makes my stomach flip.
“I’m proud of you for hanging, KT Lady.”
“Thanks,” I mutter. “This Friday night would be so much better back home. Home being Iowa City,” I clarify.
Lucy doesn’t speak again until we’re stopped at a red light.
“Sister Secret?” she asks, her eyes focused straight ahead.
“Duh, but I don’t know if I can handle Tommy’s,” I say. My stomach feels crazy after that frozen coffee swirl thing.
“Not Tommy’s. Just something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Fernbank is never going to feel like Iowa City. It’s different and it’s new. But new isn’t always bad. You can’t compare coffee and ice cream. They’re different things.”
I think about what she says for a second before my mind wanders once again to all the fun I’m missing while I’m stuck down here in overcaffeinated Florida.
“Yeah,” I say, managing a half smile. “I guess you’re right.”
I’m plugging my phone in to charge before bed when a text from Socks appears. It’s the selfie from La Bello’s. Beneath the photo, the text reads:
Cuuuuuuute. Fun hanging 4 realllzzzz.
I quickly type back the celebration emoji and a balloon emoji. When I lock the screen, a photo of Cady, Kaytee, and me appears. It was from earlier this past summer. We were all tan and laughing hysterically, though now that I think about it, I can’t exactly remember why.
Did Socks want the selfie as a way to ask for my number without drawing attention to the fact that she didn’t have my number, and that’s why she didn’t invite me to hang out in the first place? Or worse, did she just take the selfie because she didn’t want me to feel left out? Would that be so bad? I don’t want to be left out. Maybe Socks was really being nice. Maybe she means it.
But maybe not. I don’t know her well enough to be certain, I guess.
The truth is, though, I look happy in both pictures.
I spend the rest of the weekend texting with Cady and Kaytee, lazing with Sprinkle in the driveway while Dad tries to power-wash the outside of the house, and looking up scholarships for youth reporting programs. Oh, and basically obsessing about everything that happened at La Bello’s.
I want to believe what Socks said, that she was so glad I was there and she would have invited me if she had my number. I mean, there’s really no way she could have gotten it. Nobody at school had it.
I want to believe her. And I mostly do. Still, there’s no way around it. Being left out, even if it’s accidental, even if it has nothing to do with new classmates liking you or not, is a bummer no number of balloon breaths can easily fix.
When Monday morning comes around, I’m almost excited to have somewhere to go.
Hopefully math, at the very least, will distract me. Worst-case scenario, I can invent new ways to generate body heat. It’s almost October, and Fernbank Middle still has that AC on extra high. Brrr.
Socks isn’t in homeroom. When Ms. Vasquez takes attendance, one of Lilly’s friends from La Bello’s announces that Socks is “way sick.” I haven’t talked to her since she sent me the selfie Friday night, but she has my number now. We have basically every class together except for math. She could have texted me to tell our teachers.
5–6 balloon breaths in the AM or PM.
I take a gigantic inhale and a long exhale. I make it to a slow count of seven before all the air is out of my lungs.
“You sound like wind,” Lilly’s friend comments as Ms. Vasquez starts in on morning announcements.
I feel like a storm, I think.
When lunchtime comes along, I don’t have it in me to even approach Jas and Kisa. Not without Socks. I take a detour to the farthest corner of the cafeteria. En route, I notice Ayden and EJ talking to the girls. Ayden sits in Socks’s normal seat, while EJ stands at the end of the table where I usually park Sprinkle. The girls are busy flirting with the boys, and the boys are busy pretending they don’t know the girls are flirting with them. Juan Carlos joins them a beat later. He seems to listen to the conversation for a moment before putting on his headphones.
Fernbank Middle is a jigsaw puzzle. I feel like a piece that was accidentally packaged in the wrong box.
All those old teen movies were right. Eating lunch alone sucks. As I nibble on the soggy sandwich I’ve brought for lunch, I realize that I haven’t really talked to anyone else outside of the Socks, Jas, and Kisa squad. Now that I think about it, in the Iowa City version of my life, I really was a social avocado, keyword adaptable. I spent most my time with Cady and Kaytee, but I chatted with anyone and everyone over the course of a typical school day.
Yet another thing that’s changed.
A girl with clear-framed glasses sits down at the end of my table and cracks open a Tupperware of edamame beans.
“Iowa is the second-biggest producer of soybeans in the US,” I mumble. Mostly to myself, but in case she’s curious.
She appears genuinely confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”
I intend to respond, but the truth is I’m not really sure. I spend the rest of lunch staring at sandwich crumbs and blinking back tears.
After school on Tuesday I go with Dad again to Dolphina. I post up at the same picnic bench. There are two sessions in progress down at the lagoon: Tara works with Cola, and Natalia plays with Ginger.
It’s funny how on my first visit I couldn’t tell the dolphins apart. Now it seems pretty obvious. It’s not just the differences on the outside, like a nick in the tail or a cross-bite. They really do have personalities. Let’s put it this way: Cola’s a firework and the rest are birthday candles. Birthday candles are pleasantly festive, and wonderful in their own right. But few things compare to fireworks.
The deadline for my Fernbank Constitution article is starting to sneak up on me (I guess so is my birthday, but I try not to think about that). I’ve decided to go for the simple option. Sometimes simple is best. “A Day in the Life of an Iowa City Middle Schooler.”
Lucy’s latest Sister Secret words of wisdom tumble through my brain. Coffee and ice cream. At first, I’d planned to make my article read like a compare and contrast. But nobody likes to be spoon-fed. In other words, comparing coffee and ice cream isn’t even necessary. The differences are just so obvious. I’ll just describe ice cream in explicit detail. Ice cream being delicious Iowa City.
Dad likes to use metaphors in his poems. Maybe he’s rubbing off on me.
I start to make a list of my favorite parts of Iowa City. The farmers’ market. The haunted houses on Halloween. The Hawkeye flags proudly displayed on every other porch. Looking out from the top of the landing at Schaeffer Hall. The Iowa River. Jake’s Freeze. The vintage store with the wide aisles.
Still, I can’t figure out where or how to begin writing.
I look up from my mostly blank notebook page when I hear Tara whoop and clap her hands, followed by an extra-loud splash. Cola’s leaping out of the water again. I grab my phone and catch the tail end of his performance. I text the video to Cady and Kaytee.
Cady immediately responds. Your reality is insane.
Kaytee follows it up with an enthusiastic !!!!!!!
Is IC more boring than I think it is? I text back. I’m puzzled as to why my list isn’t writing itself into my article.
A few minutes later, Cady responds with a picture. Does this look boring?
I flinch when I look at the photo that follows. No. Not boring at all. Not in the slightest. It seems like they tried to take a picture with a self-timer, but they were a second too late landing their pose. They’re a whir of hair, jean jackets, and early fall foliage.
But yeah, more boring without you, Kaytee follows up.
I text them back three yellow hearts.
I stare at my list again. Measly. I close my notebook. So over it. May as well watch Cola’s training session instead. As far as homework alternatives go, this one can’t be beat.
From my view, Cola still appears rambunctious. I’m not certain of what behaviors they’re working on today. Tara bridges a lot and throws him fish after fish. A few minutes later, Tara dives from the dock into the water and continues the training from there. I wonder if it’s easier to bond when they’re both in the lagoon. I remember from my near swim a couple weeks ago that the lagoon water appeared thick and dense. Was Tara ever afraid of what a semi-trained dolphin would do while she bobbed up and down? Does she, too, sense Cola’s movements underwater, but find it terrifying that she can’t see where he is?
I doubt it.
I remember what Tara said after the last session, how Cola’s stuck on his old habits. Hunting and socializing. I wonder who his new dolphin BFFs are. Maybe he misses his old friends from the ocean.
What a bummer.
I watch the remainder of the session. Dad calls to me from the deck outside the check-in office. He’s wrapping up, but I wait at the picnic tables until Tara’s on her way back from the dock. I’m curious for a Cola update.
“How are the old habits?” I ask. Tara carries an empty pail in each hand, and has a hydration tube thrown over her shoulder. “Seems like he’s still flipping on his own terms.” I know Tara is trying to bond with Cola, but a small part of me likes that Cola still insists on his old open-water moves.
“I think we’re making great progress. And Cola surprised me today!” Tara beams. “He’s a real bubble ring pro.”
I like that Tara not only talks to me like I’m a human, but also like I know a thing or two about dolphins, though bubble rings are outside of my dolphin-themed vocabulary.
“Bubble rings?” I inquire.
Tara tells me that bubble rings are exactly what they sound like. A dolphin will release air from their blowhole underwater and then use their rostrum (technical term for nose) or flukes (technical term for tail) or their pectoral fins (think: arms) to whip the air into a circular ring of bubbles. “Dolphins like to play with them until they eventually evaporate. What’s really cool is that it’s something dolphins do both in the wild and here.”
That is cool. Hashtag cool, even.
“He’s showing you his world,” I say in amazement.
“Yeah,” Tara says. “Actually, that’s a really awesome way to put it. I never quite thought of it that way.”
I wish I could tell Cola that I’m ready to listen.
I search for “dolphin bubble rings” on my phone while I wait for Dad to finish up in the office. My stomach growls. I’ll try to convince him we should stop at Tommy’s for a milkshake on the way home.
He’s chatting with Annie about something or other. They’re mostly out of earshot, but she’s giving him compliments on his work. I can tell. One, because Dad is a kick-butt electrician, and his customers a
lways love him because he can work really fast (he says it’s to get the job over with so he can get back to his writing, but still). And two, Dad always tugs at his chin hairs when people say nice things about him. Habits.
When the video finally loads, dozens of clips pop up. I didn’t expect bubble rings to actually look like literal circles of bubbles, but they do.
Dolphins are just the best.
Each video shows a dolphin creating a perfect circle of air underwater, shimmery round ropes composed of a gazillion tiny bubbles. The rings spin through the water like shiny tops. Some of the videos take place in man-made pools, some are clearly from the ocean, and I imagine at least some are of dolphins swimming in open-water lagoons like Dolphina Cove’s. The water in every picture is a clear, Windex blue.
The dolphins all look like they’re having so much fun. I can easily picture Cola making bubble rings now, both here and in his past life, before he arrived at Dolphina Cove.
My phone either freezes or loses service. Maybe both. I take a balloon breath and look out at the lagoon. The water is darker and more impenetrable than ever.
After nearly five days of the stomach flu, Socks is back in school, and I’ve regained the courage to sit with her squad at lunch. Socks talks extra fast, like her words will eat her if she doesn’t get them out, describing some soupy concoction she made that “fixed her stomach once and for all.” She seems a bit more jittery than usual. Maybe she went into sugar withdrawal while she was recovering. While doodling a (surprise, surprise) dolphin on the back of my hand, I notice Jas drawing with a fancy pink pen in her notebook. The margins are filled with designs for dresses, sneakers, and jumpsuits.
“I’d wear any of those,” I compliment.
Jas rolls her eyes. “They’re not nearly done yet.”
“Boom!” Kisa exclaims, dropping her phone on the table and lifting her hands in the air as if she’s won a race. She’s just beaten her high score at some game that she explains but I don’t totally follow. Something to do with surfing and farming.
I’m grateful, I really am, to have girls to hang with. I’m just not sure they’re my people. I don’t know much about video games, garlic-infused bone broth, or incomplete clothing design.
Swimming With Dolphins Page 9