by Doty, M.
Yes, Emily thought. There’s a big problem: Dominique and I hate each other!
She smiled weakly.
“No problem at all, Coach.”
Five minutes later, Maria St. Claire had shaken the girls’ hands, introduced herself, and escorted them into an empty classroom, where she pulled three combination desk-and-chair sets together to form a group.
Up close, the overpowering citrus scent of the reporter’s perfume made Emily’s eyes water. There was something too neat about the woman that set Emily on edge. Miss St. Claire’s mascara seemed so carefully applied that Emily wondered if she’d done it one lash at a time, and her eyebrows were heavily plucked and redrawn in dark makeup, as if she’d gotten overzealous with a pair of tweezers and had to make up for it later.
Miss St. Claire whipped out her laptop and began to tap furiously at her keyboard as she asked them questions. The first few were pretty standard: How much time do you spend practicing? How’s your life different from a typical high school student’s? What gives you a leg up on all the other young swimmers out there?
Emily smiled and gave the same polite answers she’d rehearsed in her head. I practice every day. I’m just a normal high school kid. As far as winning goes, I just want it more.
“Okay,” said Miss St. Claire. “Now for the juicy stuff. As two of the top swimmers in your age group in the nation, do you ever find the rivalry spilling from the pool into the outside world?”
Dominique and Emily looked at each other nervously. Uh-oh. This story was no puff piece: Miss St. Claire was here to get some dirt. Emily imagined the headline now: POTENTIAL OLYMPIANS IN THE WATER, SPOILED BRATS ON DRY LAND.
“Outside the pool—” started Emily.
“We’re totally friends,” said Dominique. “I mean, not BFFs or anything, but we’re definitely—close.”
“Is that right?” asked Miss St. Claire, looking doubtful. “Several people I talked to seemed to think that—”
“I think it’s hard,” interrupted Dominique. “Er, for other people to understand the kind of competitive spirit that gets into you when you swim at the highest level. But if it comes off as anything but an in-the-pool rivalry, that’s just—wrong.”
Looking disappointed, Miss St. Claire hit the Delete key several times and scrolled down her list of notes, searching for a new line of questioning. As she got to something near the bottom, she looked at Emily and smiled.
“Dominique,” she said. “Thanks so much for your time. If you don’t mind, I’ve got a few more questions for your ‘friend.’ ”
Dominique got up, a strange mix of emotions on her face. She’s glad to be done with the interview, thought Emily, but worried about what I’ll say once she’s gone.
“Not a problem,” Dominique said. “Thanks so much for the questions.” She glared at Emily with a look that said Don’t screw this up. “See you later, Em.” She left the room, her blond ponytail swishing behind her.
As Dominique closed the door, Miss St. Claire turned back to Emily. Her eyes sparkled with something, but was it genuine concern or false sincerity?
“Emily, it’s clear to me that you’re the real story here.”
“Huh?”
“I’m talking about your motivations. Yes, clearly you and Dominique both want to win—but with you it goes deeper.”
What was Miss St. Claire getting at? Emily’s parents had tried to make her visit a counselor after Sara’s death to talk through her grieving, but she’d hated it and refused to speak during her sessions, and after a couple of unproductive months, they’d given up. She felt like she was back in that therapist’s office now.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.
“Fine,” said Miss St. Claire. “I should be more direct. Emily, you come from a family of successful swimmers…”
She trailed off, as if hoping Emily would get the hint. Emily ignored her and looked out the window, where the sun hung low in the sky.
Miss St. Claire continued. “Your father, Coach Kessler, is of course a former Olympian”—Emily refused to react—“and your sister, Sara, set a Juniors Nationals record at the age of sixteen, before her tragic death last spring. What’s it like trying to live up to such a legacy?”
Emily felt like she’d been punched in the gut. She tried to speak, but nothing came out.
“Emily?” asked Miss St. Claire.
Emily sat perfectly still, acting as if Miss St. Claire was some horrible dinosaur that could see its prey only when it moved. No such luck.
“Emily, help me out here. How does it feel to have that kind of fam—”
“How do you think it feels?”
“Well, I don’t know, sweetie. That’s why I’m asking you.”
Emily’s face was getting hot with blood.
“It’s just—it’s just so stupid. I could sit here and explain how I can’t get into a pool without thinking of my older sister, or how I follow the exact same training regimen my dad designed for her, even her sleep schedule down to the minute. Or how before I ever check my times against Dominique’s, I check them against Sara’s.”
Miss St. Claire was typing furiously, trying to get every word.
“Sara—” said Emily. “She could have won medals, too. Way more than my dad ever did. But she didn’t get to. And if I don’t work just as hard as she would have—if I don’t live up to that—I mean, what was it all for? And now here you are asking all these questions about her, just trying to turn all this into some kind of—some kind of story.”
“You’ve got me all wrong,” said Miss St. Claire, stopping her typing for a moment to look Emily in the eye. “Of course I’m looking for the best story, but I’m on your side. I’m going to make you a hero. I’m going to make you a star.”
The Swimmer’s Monthly article came out three weeks later. Emily’s father flopped it down in front of her as she ate a bowl full of hard-boiled eggs, and she nearly choked on one when she saw the cover. It was her, tearing through the water, a wet spray hanging in the water beside her outstretched arms. The headline read: AMERICA’S BEST SHOT FOR GOLD: HOW ONE GIRL’S QUEST TO FULFILL HER SISTER’S LEGACY FUELS AN OLYMPIC DREAM.
“Congratulations,” said Emily’s father, beaming. “You’re famous.”
Emily felt sick.
“Dad,” she said, “the cover? Really? Now everyone in school is going to think I’m—that I’m—”
“A great swimmer,” he said. “And I don’t think too many kids at the high school read Swimmer’s Monthly.”
And he might have been right—
Except that the next Friday, both the school paper and the local one picked up the story and ran it on the front page.
And the next day, a local TV station requested an interview.
And the next morning, a reporter for Sports Illustrated called.
“This is awesome,” said Kimi as she flipped through Swimmer’s Monthly on Emily’s bed that Sunday. “She makes you sound like a frickin’ superhero, or a rock star, or LeBron James or something. And the best thing is Dominique! All she gets are, like, two lines in the final paragraph!”
Emily winced. “Great. So now Dominique is going to totally hate me.”
“Aw, don’t be so upset. She already hated you.”
“Why couldn’t that stupid reporter have just left me alone?” asked Emily as she reread the story on the Swimmer’s Monthly website. “I haven’t even won anything, not really. This is just too much—attention.”
Kimi sat up and laid down the magazine. “You’re joking, right? This is the best thing that’s ever happened to us. You’re going to be totally famous now. Forget sitting in the corner of the cafeteria. Forget boys completely ignoring us. Forget never getting invited to parties. We’re in!”
“Not to burst your bubble or anything,” said Emily, “but it’s just a stupid story. No one at school reads the newspaper. No one cares.”
Kimi flopped onto her stomach and groaned into one of Emily�
�s pillows, then turned her head to look at Emily, a pleading expression on her face. Emily closed the Swimmer’s Monthly website and opened a fresh window.
“Em, don’t do this. You always do this! Something good happens and you find a way to—”
“Kimi—”
“No! Don’t interrupt. What I’m saying is, you always find a way to take some awesome thing that just happened and make it look like a complete—”
“Kimi!”
“What?”
Emily carried her laptop over to the bed and turned the screen toward Kimi.
“I just logged onto Facebook.”
“Yeah. And?”
“And I have one hundred and sixty new friend requests.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The next day in homeroom, as the other students caught up on homework or sleep, Alicia walked over to Emily’s desk and laid down a copy of the school paper.
“I didn’t realize I was in the presence of greatness—or at least future greatness. Now, why, exactly, have you been hiding this from everyone?”
Emily shrugged. “I wasn’t hiding anything.”
“You’re not like most kids your age, you know,” said Alicia. “When I was a freshman, which wasn’t all that long ago, I would have given anything to be a celebrity—but mostly just because I wanted to date Justin Timberlake.”
“He’s a little old for me,” said Emily. “Maybe Justin Bieber?”
“Just don’t let it go to your head—you’ve got a good one on your shoulders,” said Alicia, “as this latest progress report indicates.” She pulled a piece of paper out of a binder and put it on Emily’s desk. “All A’s so far. Including the only one at the school in Honors History. Very impressive.”
“Thanks,” said Emily.
“Just remember me when you’re a megastar,” said Alicia. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go kick a few butts.” She patted the binder full of progress reports. “Not everyone can be an honor student.”
At lunch, Kimi wouldn’t let Emily sit in their usual corner spot.
“You’re a celebrity now,” Kimi insisted. “Act like it.”
She took Emily’s hand and dragged her toward the center table, each step forward filling Emily with increasing dread. She waited for the security alarms to go off and the guard dogs to attack. They were trespassing here. They didn’t belong.
This was just like last summer: Kimi had persuaded her to sneak out to Red Bear Lake after the park closed for the night, and they’d had to hide in the bushes from a park ranger for almost an hour. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except that the bushes turned out to be poison oak. Emily had the same feeling now, like she’d regret this intrusion for several itchy weeks to come.
The girls had been among the first to arrive at lunch, and the center table stood vacant. Emily looked down to find its surface heavily decorated in Sharpied graffiti, much of it consisting of hearts containing couples’ names. Several of the hearts, though, had been filled in with black.
Breakups, thought Emily. Ouch.
“Okay,” said Kimi, taking a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.”
She put one leg over the bench.
“Kimi!” said Emily in a loud whisper. “Have you completely lost it? You can’t just sit there. You don’t have—you know—permission.”
“That’s not how being popular works,” said Kimi, swinging the other leg over the bench. “No one gives you permission. You give it to yourself.”
“Kimi—” started Emily, but it was too late. Kimi sat.
No sirens blared. No flashing lights filled the room.
“Well?” Kimi said. “Come on. Don’t make me eat alone.”
Emily looked around the cafeteria, checking to make sure the coast was clear. No sign of Lindsay or Dominique anywhere. She tried to imagine Ben sitting at the table, the warmth of his body right next to her.
Okay, she thought. You can do this.
She took a deep breath, then put her backpack down and sat next to Kimi, who was already beaming.
“Look at us,” said Kimi. “Just two cool kids, sitting at the cool table, doing cool stuff. Maybe later we’ll head to the mall and buy clothes at the cool-kids store, and then after that we’ll go to a cool-kids party.”
“Okay,” said Emily, still nervous. “I get it, I get it. We’re very cool.”
“I knew it,” said a voice from behind her. “You have gone completely delusional.”
Emily looked over her shoulder to see Dominique settling in next to her. Dominique’s blond ponytail was pulled back especially tight, giving her face the pinched look of an actress with a fresh Botox injection, and her nose was wrinkled in displeasure like a wet cat’s. Dominique set down a massive tub of chicken wings before leaning over and speaking in an angry whisper. “Are you two lost or something? Your kind isn’t welcome here.”
“I don’t know,” said Kimi. She looked up at the big skylight. “I kind of like it here. It’s nice and sunny. Hey—don’t you think that cloud looks like a pterodactyl?”
Dominique refused to look up. She kept her eyes trained directly on Kimi’s throat as if planning ways to strangle her.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Kimi. “Did you get a chance to read that article about Emily in Swimmer’s Monthly? I think there were even a few sentences about you—somewhere near the end.”
Dominique pulled the top off her tub of wings, took one out, and brandished it at Emily and Kimi like a knife.
“If you think one stupid article means you’re suddenly qualified to sit at my table, you’d better think again. You may have fooled that stupid reporter into thinking you’re some kind of tragic hero, but I know exactly who you are. Swimbot, a little machine that eats and sleeps and does the butterfly stroke. And everyone else knows it, too.” She brought the chicken wing to her lips, consumed it in three bites, and set the bones down on the table before continuing her rant. “So take your little sidekick and get back to that sinkhole you call a table before someone sees me sitting with you.”
“Sidekick?!” asked Kimi, her face flushed. “I’ll show you a ‘sidekick.’ ” She swung her foot through the space beneath the table and just missed Dominique’s knee.
“Hey!” interrupted a male voice. “You’re that girl from the article, right?”
A boy with slicked-back brown hair and a polo shirt with an upturned collar settled in beside Kimi. He reeked of Axe Bodyspray.
“I’m Phil Ramirez,” he said, holding out a hand. Emily took it and gave it a soft squeeze.
No way! she thought. Phil! The guy from Kimi’s spreadsheet! Not really my type, but to each her own.
Kimi went silent. She stared at Phil and inhaled deeply. Emily almost laughed. Never once had she seen Kimi so tongue-tied.
“Nice to meet you,” said Emily. “Uh, this is—”
“Kimi Single,” said Kimi. “Er—I mean, Kimi Chen. But I am single. Not that it matters. Just letting you know. It’s my first time sitting at the center table, and I saw a cloud shaped like a—okay, um, I’m going to shut up now.”
Phil smiled and looked her in the eye.
“Nice to meet you, Kimi Single. It’s good to see a couple of new faces around here. And not bad-looking ones, either,” he said, half joking, half flirting.
“Unfortunately, Emily and Kimi were just leaving. Isn’t that right?” asked Dominique, staring daggers at Emily.
Emily looked back at the empty table in the corner of the cafeteria where she and Kimi usually sat. From here, it looked as dark and abandoned as a city street corner at night. Next to her, she noticed Kimi stealing quick glances at Phil and trying not to stare as he waved to a few friends across the cafeteria. If she and Kimi left now, would they ever have the guts to sit here again?
“Actually,” said Emily, “I kind of agree with Kimi. I do like it here. We’ll go ahead and eat with you guys, as long as that’s cool with you, Phil.”
“Sure thing,” he said, smiling. “It’s not every day I get
to eat with a future Olympian. And her cute friend.”
Dominique grimaced and whispered to Emily, “You’re playing a dangerous game, Swimbot. Enjoy sitting here while you can. Trust me—it won’t last long.” Then she leaned away, smiled, and told Phil, “I’m so glad Emily’s finally sitting with us. I keep saying we need more swimmers around here!”
“I’ve actually been meaning to say hi,” said Phil. “I knew your sister.”
“Oh, huh,” said Emily. “She, uh, never mentioned you.”
Phil laughed. “Yeah, I bet she didn’t. I was sort of a geek back then. Plus I was in my reggae phase. Not that Sara was a music snob or anything.…”
As Phil spoke, Emily felt her shoulders clenching involuntarily. She hated how anything to do with Sara—even a kind word from a relative stranger—seemed to trigger an immediate flood of stress and involuntary muscle spasms.
“I only talked to her a handful of times,” Phil continued, “but she seemed like a genuinely nice person. Honestly, I wish I’d known her better. Only a few people really got to. Samantha and Cam—”
“Knew who?” asked Cameron Clark as he sat between his sister and Emily. She had never seen him so up close. Like most swimmers, he smelled deeply of chlorine, and the roots of his blond hair looked wet, as if he’d recently gotten out of the pool. He seemed oddly out of place at the table; his layers of ropey muscles gave him the look of an older guy, a college student, maybe, a man among boys. Kimi couldn’t stop looking at him, and even Emily had to make a conscious effort not to stare.
“Sara,” said Phil. “You guys hung out all the time, right?”
“We trained together,” said Cameron. “But knowing someone? That’s entirely different.”
“Sure,” said Phil. He seemed almost scared of Cameron. “That’s all I meant.”
Cameron turned to Emily. “Sara was—exceptional. I hope you know that.” He stared at her intensely for a moment, as if he could read her every thought with his eyes. Then he looked away.
All Emily could respond with was a muffled “Yeah.”
Luckily for her, Phil seemed more socially aware than most. Reading the discomfort on Emily’s face, he quickly segued to a new topic. “Uh, so has anyone heard that new mashup of Lady Gaga and Mozart? Totally sick.” Maybe he was smarter than Kimi’s spreadsheet gave him credit for.