by Callie West
“Don’t let her get to you,” Chris urged, as I waited with him at the bus stop. My bus always came about ten minutes after his.
“I can’t help it,” I said. “She made me so self-conscious today, I couldn’t do one decent turn. Which is not the way I want to feel the day before a meet.” Even as I was saying it, I knew Jill wasn’t really the one to blame. I was.
Chris’s bus roared as it turned the corner onto Central. It was rush hour, and through the windows I could see that all the seats were filled with downtown workers, people who I imagined were going home to pretty houses with heated swimming pools.
“Amy, come home with me,” Chris said as the bus pulled to a stop at the curb. “We can grab a bite to eat and study, and you can practice your turn in our pool.”
I thought fleetingly of the health project that was due at the end of the week. Blythe had done a survey in the Thunder of students’ views on everything from love to marriage to romantic movies. She’d already collected responses from two hundred kids and tallied the results. All I had to do, she kept reminding me, was read the books she’d checked out of the library and write up an analysis of the survey.
I knew by then that studying with Chris was asking for academic disaster. After the night of the carnival, we’d gone to the library a few times together after school, and he’d do things like write love notes in the margins of my composition book or try to kiss me while I was trying to read. I could just imagine what he’d do when he learned the topic of my homework was intimacy!
But on the other hand, I did need to practice swimming. Otherwise, I’d probably try to turn in the lane tomorrow and end up somewhere near Timbuktu.
“You kids on or off?” barked the bus driver.
“On,” I said suddenly, skipping up the metal stairs. In the end, it wasn’t worry about my flip turn that tipped the scales toward going home with Chris. To be honest, I just wanted to spend time with him, to feel his arms around me, his cheek brush against mine, the gentle searching of his lips.
Of course, I didn’t tell him I was grounded—I didn’t want Chris to think I was a little kid.
“Don’t worry, Amy, everything’ll work out,” he said, smiling.
“Practice makes perfect,” I said with a shrug.
The Shepherds lived in a neighborhood of grand, expensive houses. Their home was a two-story, Tudor-style stucco, with a Bermuda-grass lawn twice the size of the courtyard in our apartment complex, and a giant, three-car garage. I couldn’t help admiring this easy abundance, but it also made me kind of mad. I thought about how my mom had to work two jobs just to pay the bills.
“It’s very nice,” I said as we stood in the cavernous entryway. Chris deprogrammed the burglar alarm and hung up his house key.
“Thanks. I liked our old house better,” he said, leading me through an immaculate white kitchen, which was the same size as our living room. He slid open a glass door that led onto the patio. “But this house does have a pretty good pool.”
He wasn’t kidding. The pool was incredible: Olympic-sized and heated, with wisps of fog rising from its surface. I bent down to test the water with my fingertips and found it warmer than the early-evening air. “If I didn’t know you had a burglar alarm,” I teased Chris, “I might just climb your fence and hop your pool.”
“Be my guest,” Chris said, grinning. Then he grabbed my hand and started pulling me toward the deep end with him.
“Chris, don’t even think about it,” I warned him as he dragged me along. “Chris, you better not—Chris—”
Splash! He threw me into the water, fully clothed and shrieking.
“Just think how light you’ll feel when you race tomorrow if you practice tonight wearing twenty pounds of wet clothes,” he said, laughing from the side of the pool as I flailed around heavily in the water.
He was trying to be funny, but he was making me mad. It was more than the fact that he’d ruined my outfit, a hand-knit sweater and black jeans whose labels screamed DRY CLEAN ONLY and NO BLEACH. And it was more than the fact that I was going to have to wear my soggy black sneakers home.
It had suddenly occurred to me that before we were a couple, he’d taken my flip-turn problem seriously. Now he was making fun of me. Maybe it was because he suspected I hadn’t come home with him to rehearse my turn for tomorrow but to practice the delicate art of the kiss. Even if it was true, which it partly was, I didn’t want him thinking that.
“How am I supposed to practice turning?” I asked irritably, struggling with arms and legs as heavy as tree trunks. “I can barely move!”
He was still laughing, and I was getting madder and madder.
“Chris, stop it!” I finally exploded. “It’s not a joke. This is a good sweater—and now it’s ruined. And I really do need to practice!”
When Chris saw the anger in my face, his smile disappeared. “I’m sorry,” he said. He took off his shirt and jumped in. “I only wanted to make you laugh. I’ll buy you another sweater,” he offered as he paddled awkwardly toward me.
But the longer I treaded there in my waterlogged clothes, the angrier I felt. “It really isn’t funny, Chris. What do my clothes matter? If I blow my flip turns tomorrow, I might not get to swim at regionals. And if I don’t swim at regionals, there’s no way I’ll be considered for a swimming scholarship next year.” I felt tears filling my eyes. “Maybe if I had plenty of money for college the way you do, it wouldn’t matter so much,” I said quietly. “But I don’t.”
“Come on, Amy,” he pleaded as I swam-dragged myself away from him and toward the pool edge. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
When I got to the metal stepladder, I began to pull myself up and out. But that’s when I realized the air outside was about twenty degrees colder than the water in the pool. “How am I going to get home now?” I asked in a voice fringed with tears, collapsing back in the water. “I—I can’t take the bus in these clothes—I’ll freeze to death.”
“I’ll drive you there when my parents get home,” Chris promised. “In the meantime, wait here.” I didn’t exactly have a choice, so I kept on treading water while he hoisted himself out of the pool and hurried across the patio, tracking water into the house.
He hurried back out a moment later carrying a big towel and an armload of dry clothes. “You can change into these in the pool house,” he said, unfurling a pair of Dolphins sweatpants, dry athletic socks, and a plaid flannel shirt. He put the clothes on a lounge chair and held the towel out to me like a blanket, welcoming me into its warmth.
“Amy, I really am sorry,” he whispered a few minutes later when I came out of the pool house, dry and dressed in his clothes. He had changed too in the meantime, and was dressed in a nearly identical outfit.
“Forget it,” I said, although I couldn’t forget it. The plunge into the pool was like a slap in the face that brought me back to reality. I moved away from him. “I really do have to go home now,” I told him, glancing at my luckily waterproof watch. “I’ve got a lot of homework.”
“Okay.” He put his arms around me and kissed my forehead. “Let me just grab the keys from my mom, and I’ll take you.”
I gulped. “You mean your mom is home?” I spun around and saw Mrs. Shepherd standing there on the patio, elegant and perfectly groomed in a beige suit.
“Hello. You must be Amy,” she said warmly. I could tell by her fixed smile how hard she was trying not to notice that Chris and I had just been embracing. Not to mention the fact that I was dressed head to toe in her son’s clothes.
“Uh, h-hi, Mrs. Shepherd. It’s nice to meet you,” I stammered. I’d seen her at swim meets a few times, but we’d never been introduced. “Chris and I were going to practice flip turns, but then he pushed me in.…” I stopped myself just short of a full confession. I didn’t like the way I sounded.
Mrs. Shepherd laughed, but I had this sinking feeling that she didn’t believe me.
Chris, the real culprit, seemed totally unfazed. I waited in silen
ce for him to explain to her what had really happened, but he didn’t.
“I’m taking Amy home now” was all he said, holding out his palm to receive her car keys.
“Don’t bother—I’m getting my things, and I’ll take the bus,” I said quietly. I stormed back to the pool house, stuffed my wet clothes into my gym bag, put on my soggy sneakers, then stormed out. I half expected him to be waiting, but he was nowhere in sight.
As I walked to the bus stop, I kept thinking Chris would follow and try to stop me, but he didn’t. Even though I’d refused a ride from him, I couldn’t help but feel that he’d abandoned me.
As I stood waiting at the bus stop, looking out into the lonely street, I wondered if I had overreacted. Maybe I’d blown it with Chris the same way I’d blown my flip turn. Fear made me pull away from him and turn too early, the way it did when I reached the pool wall.
Finally, the bus pulled up. With tears in my eyes, I paid the driver, took a seat in the back, and stared out the window into the darkness all the way home.
chapter fourteen
Since mom usually works evenings, I was surprised to see the lights on in the apartment and the Honda parked out in front. “Where have you been?” she asked when I came in through the back door and dropped my gym bag and backpack on the floor. She stood in front of the dinner table, which was set for two. “It’s almost seven-thirty, young lady, and you’re supposed to be grounded.”
“I thought you were at El Rancho,” I said, caught completely off guard.
“I took the night off,” she answered, pouring herself some iced tea. “And what in the world are you wearing?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” I told her, arms crossed in front of me. “It’s too hard to explain.”
“I’m an intelligent person,” Mom said. “Why don’t you try me?”
She motioned for me to sit down. It would have been easier if she’d just yelled at me—at least then I could storm off to my room. Instead, she’d made this dinner as a peace offering, and had waited for hours for me to come home. It made me feel guilty, and feeling guilty always made me act defensively.
“Okay, I was at Chris’s,” I said, trying to provoke her. She just sat there quietly, waiting for me to go on. So I told her how Jill Renfrew had acted at practice and how important it was for me to do well in the next meet so I would make regionals.
“I didn’t mean to disobey you,” I said awkwardly. “It’s just that Chris offered to help with my flip turn.”
“So what’s with the boy’s clothes?” Mom interrupted.
“Chris pushed me into his pool,” I said, then quickly added, “He was trying to be funny. He didn’t mean anything bad.”
“Oh, Amy.” She sighed. I thought she would be angry at me all over again, but instead she put down her fork, reached out, and gently stroked my cheek. I realized when she touched me that what had seemed like meanness the night before was actually real concern. But then she ruined everything by saying, “I’m afraid this Chris is bad news.”
“No, he’s not,” I said defensively.
The problem seemed so obvious to me right then. If I lived my life the way I wanted to, I couldn’t please my mom. It was impossible. But if I did everything she wanted, then I’d be unhappy.
“Amy, I don’t want to argue,” Mom said, sounding weary.
“You wouldn’t say that,” I told her, “if you really knew him.”
Just then, to my relief, the phone rang.
“Has he called you yet?” Blythe blurted out as soon as I’d answered the phone. I assumed she was talking about Chris.
“Not yet,” I told her, keeping my voice low. “I mean, I was just over at his house.”
“You were?” Blythe asked, sounding disappointed. “Then you must have said yes.”
“Blythe, slow down,” I demanded. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Said yes to what?”
“What else?” she said, exasperated. “The junior-senior dance.”
“Oh, that,” I said. “I don’t think I’m going. I’m sort of mad at Chris right now.”
“Who said anything about Chris?” she said. “Rick told me today that he’s going to ask you.”
“Rick?” I said, surprised. I guess I was flattered—I mean, it was really sweet of him. But at the same time, it was kind of awkward. He’d hardly talked to me in the past couple of weeks—and I’d barely thought of him. “Thanks for warning me,” I said, trying to be funny. “I’ll stay away from him tomorrow and keep the phone off the hook.”
Blythe didn’t laugh. “If you don’t want to go with him, then you should tell him so. It’s not fair to him, and it’s not fair to me.”
I guess the weeks of sneaking out and staying up late really had caught up with me, because I snapped at Blythe in a way she didn’t deserve. “Who cares about that stupid dance!” I practically yelled at her, not caring if Mom heard. “Especially since I’m not even going.”
When I hung up, Mom just stared at me. “Amy, I’m surprised at you. Is that any way to speak to your best friend?”
I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk about Blythe or Chris or swimming or anything else. I quickly cleared my dishes and hurried off to my room. “I’ll apologize to her tomorrow,” I promised. “Right now, I’ve got too much homework to do.”
I started out with the best of intentions. I opened my notebook, sharpened three pencils, and dragged Blythe’s stack of student surveys from the floor up to my desk. But it was already nine o’clock by the time I was ready to actually read them, and I was yawning so much I could barely see the pages through my watery eyes. My eyelids started drooping before I’d finished the first survey.
Finally, I gave up and turned out my desk light, telling myself I’d finish later, after I’d had just a few hours’ sleep. I set my alarm clock for midnight and collapsed across my bed, with Chris’s clothes still on.
When Mom woke me at a quarter to seven the next morning, I realized with horror that I must have turned off my alarm and gone back to sleep. And I was still exhausted. And there was absolutely no way I was going to get the project done.
Mom eyed my strange, rumpled outfit as I stumbled into the bathroom to brush my teeth. “Amy, don’t skip breakfast,” she reminded me. “Eat something substantial, please, since today’s your qualifying meet.”
“Oh, yeah,” I grumbled around my toothbrush. “I forgot.” Mouth foaming with toothpaste, I grabbed my drying bathing suit from the shower rack where I’d hung it the night before, and stuffed it into my Dolphins bag. I went back to brushing my teeth.
I must have looked pretty pitiful, because Mom came up behind me and planted a kiss on the top of my head. “Just ignore that Renfrew girl,” she advised me, “because when you think about it, the only person you’re competing against is yourself.”
“Ummm-mmm,” I mumbled. I didn’t have the heart to tell Mom that I wasn’t even thinking about the qualifying meet. I had a much bigger problem. In all my years of school, I had never missed the deadline for an assignment. But that day, for the first time, I was going to have to tell Blythe and Ms. Hutchinson that the health project would be late.
Just to give you an idea of how terrible my day was, telling Ms. Hutchinson I’d been delinquent with my project was the high point. I decided to talk to her in the morning, even before I spoke to Blythe. Her response surprised me. “As you know, I’m reluctant to give extensions,” she told me, studying me with her intelligent brown eyes. “But Amy, you’re such a good student, and up to this point you’ve done such stellar work, that I’m going to give you an extra week.”
“Thank you, Ms. Hutchinson,” I said gratefully. “It’ll be a much better project.” Even though I got exactly what I wanted, I couldn’t help but feel like an impostor as I turned and left the room. I knew Ms. Hutchinson had been lenient because of the “good student” label I’d worn proudly since grade school. Would she have been so forgiving if she knew about all the late hours I’
d been putting in for the Astronomy Club?
The first terrible shock came in physics. We’d had another test at the beginning of the week, and Mr. Tayerle handed it back today. To my horror, I got a D. Next to the red-penned, circled letter, Mr. Tayerle had written, “Amy, what happened?”
I couldn’t answer that question, not for Mr. Tayerle or for myself. I wasn’t going to admit to anyone that love might have something to do with it. This won’t happen again, I promised myself, and I turned the paper over and buried it in the back of my book.
When I walked out of physics class, Chris was waiting for me. “Did you get home okay last night?” he asked.
I couldn’t believe it. He was acting as if nothing were wrong. “Fine,” I said and turned toward my locker.
Like a friendly puppy, Chris followed after me. “So how’d you do on the physics test?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, banging my locker open with such force that Chris jumped. I threw my physics book in the locker, grabbed my books for English, then slammed the door shut. “I suppose you aced it,” I snapped.
Chris scratched his head and gave me a puzzled look. “Well, yeah, I did, as a matter of fact. Listen, if you didn’t do so well, maybe I could help you before the next exam.”
I stormed away from him. “No, thanks,” I called over my shoulder. “I’ve had about all the help from you I can take!”
When I got to the pool that afternoon, I had the second terrible shock: Coach August had benched me for my poor performance the day before and was letting Jill swim in my place. I rode the bus to the meet in stunned silence. This was the first time in over a year that I wouldn’t be competing.
Chris tried his best to console me, but at that moment he was the last person I wanted to listen to. “Coach is just teaching you a lesson,” he advised me. “Jill won’t swim as well as you can, and you’ll still make regionals.”
But in the next breath, he was trying to coax me into a midnight meeting.