Swimming for Sunlight

by Allie Larkin

  “I missed you,” he said, but he didn’t look at me either.

  “Yeah.” I nodded, knowing if I said any more, it would all come rushing out.

  * * *

  Later, when we went through the footage, Luca showed me how he caught Bark sneaking around the party, sniffing people when they weren’t looking. When Bark did accidentally trigger someone’s attention, he was polite about it. Like a little kid enduring a cheek pinch.

  “Hey, did you get anything good on your trip?” I asked when we’d finished dog surveillance.

  “No spoilers,” he said. “It’ll mess with your timeline.”

  “Nerd.”

  He smiled. “I don’t want anyone else to see Hannah and Woo Woo before they get here, so everything they say is a surprise when it should be.”

  “They did have some phone calls,” I said, and told him about the ridiculous FaceTime meeting.

  “Damn! I wish I’d gotten that!”

  “Maybe you could get them all on the FaceTime again to finalize plans,” I said.

  Luca shook his head. “I don’t want to manipulate the way it unfolds. Even little things. It adds up. It’ll start to feel false.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “But if you see them on FaceTime and I’m not there, you have to call me.”

  “Deal.” I put my hand out to shake his. As a joke. As an excuse to touch him.

  He slid his hand into mine, leaned in, and kissed me. Then he pulled away, checking to make sure I was okay.

  I kissed him back.

  And then I panicked. This was too real. Too soon.

  “I have to sew sequins,” I said as calmly as possible. I didn’t know how to stay in a moment with him without feeling flooded.

  Luca’s eyes flashed with disappointment.

  “I’m going to put on a movie and sew. Do you want to watch with me?” I asked as an offering.

  So he sat next to me on the couch while I stitched sequins and we watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Bark sprawled across Luca’s lap, demanding a belly rub. The storm in my brain began to shrink.

  Luca and Bark fell asleep, snoring, before I finished Nan’s tail. Luca looked worn out. I didn’t want to wake him, there wasn’t room for me to sleep on the couch too, so when I finished my work, I kissed them both on the forehead, tucked a blanket around them, and tiptoed off to bed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Nan and Bitsie went overboard getting the word out about poolside decorations, so Mo and I had a long list of houses to visit. Luca offered up his truck as long as we let him film. I’d hoped to be done before noon so I could get back to my sequins, but everyone wanted to feed us and share stories about the things we were borrowing, and Luca needed to capture all of it. By the time we made our last trip to Ruth’s house, it was four p.m.

  * * *

  “Oh, I think I’m a natural performer,” Ruth said, looking directly into Luca’s camera when he asked her why she’d joined the mermaid class. “My father was in the Marine Corps, and my mother was a dance teacher before she married him. So when he came home on furlough, she’d have us do a show for him. All seven of us. Wearing little blue shorts she made. Lined up in height order. I was first, until Tommy had a growth spurt.”

  Mo and I left Ruth and Luca to talk while we loaded chairs into the truck. Six chairs. Three trips. When we got back to the patio, Ruth was tap-dancing for the camera.

  “First to fight for right and freedom,” she sang, belting the words, waving her arms in the air as she stepped in an exaggerated march, Keds hitting concrete with a dull slap. “And to keep our honor clean!” She had a childlike certainty to her performance. It was a flashback, unfiltered through the lens of who she was now. She was still a little girl who wanted to impress her daddy. “We are proud to claim the tiii-tle of United States Marine! Ten-hut!” She snapped to attention, eyes bright as she saluted.

  I clapped. Mo joined me. Ruth smiled like a pageant winner, and I saw how much she needed that applause. Letting go of my need to have her like me, or pretend that I liked her, left me room to actually see her. She was brash because she’d had to be to get what she needed in a lineup of seven children. If she wasn’t the tallest, she could be the loudest. If she wasn’t right, she was wrong. That sad little girl never went away. It made me think that maybe everyone is just trying to figure out how to be a person. Maybe no one knows how to do it best. And maybe we don’t have to like someone to be kind.

  Mo and I ran a few crab traps out to the truck and when we got back, Marta had joined Ruth and Luca on the patio. She was talking to the camera, her arm around Ruth. “I’ve lived right over there”—she pointed to the blue house behind Ruth’s—“for the past . . . What is it, Ruthie? Thirty-five years now?”

  “Thirty-seven,” Ruth said. “Because, remember? You moved in right when my Joey was cutting his first tooth.”

  “Thirty-seven,” Marta agreed. “And every single time she goes to the grocery store, she calls to ask me if I need anything.” She looked at Ruth with overwhelming affection.

  “She’s always running out of bread,” Ruth said.

  “It gets moldy too fast,” Marta said. “The humidity. You buy the good stuff, and it only lasts a few days.”

  Ruth nodded. “Wonder Bread lasts forever.”

  Marta shook her head. It was an argument they’d probably had every single time Ruth went shopping. “I don’t need it. You’re always running to the store,” she said, smiling.

  I hurried to Luca’s truck with an armload of twinkle lights so I didn’t start crying. Ruth didn’t have to be perfect to be loved. What if I didn’t either?

  * * *

  “You’re ready to feed an army!” Nan said when I dumped the treats we’d acquired on the kitchen counter. “They’re not going to keep until the show.” She eyed Marta’s mini fruit tarts.

  “Oh, these are everyday treats,” I said, grinning. “The special mermaid show treats have yet to be made.” I handed her a list I’d compiled of the food the neighbors promised.

  “Well,” Nan said, trying to pinch at Luca’s waist, “this one looks like he never gets a real meal.” She pulled back the wax paper on Ruth’s rugelach. “But these are filled with saturated fat, so I don’t know what’s worse.”

  “Don’t you dare throw those out, Nannette,” Mo said. “I will fight you.”

  Nan raised her fists, throwing pretend punches at Mo. “I just want you all to be healthy.”

  “I’ll run it right off,” Mo said, grabbing a tiny pastry from the plate, jogging in place as she shoved it in her mouth.

  The front door opened. “Here she is!” Bitsie called to us, half singing, half shouting, “Miss America!” She sauntered into the kitchen. Her short spiky hair was Raggedy Ann red.

  “Bitsie Marie!” Nan shouted, laughing and laughing.

  Bitsie broke into hysterics too. Tears streamed down their faces as their sides shook.

  “You like?” Bitsie asked, her voice choked in giggles.

  “How did you . . .” I asked, not understanding how she knew about the wigs I hadn’t had time to procure.

  “I loved your Pinterest picture of Kate Pierson and her beautiful bright red hair,” she said, winking.

  Nan cupped Bitsie’s face in her hands and kissed her on the forehead. “Gorgeous,” she said. “And loud. Just like you.”

  They gazed at each other with tenderness, eyes flashing like they were exchanging secret thoughts. The magnitude of their friendship hit me hard. I could see it from an adult perspective. Nan and Bitsie had gone through most of their lives as friends. They’d experienced all the big moments together—the joy and pain and heartbreak—and also the repetitive ins and outs of everyday life. It was an epic love story, free of romantic entanglements, solid in the places where romances can falter.

  I stopped feeling sad for all the years Nan spent single after my grandfather died. From the time she met Bitsie, she’d always had someone in her corner.

>   “You are such a badass,” Mo said, brushing her hand over Bitsie’s head.

  Bitsie wiggled a shoulder, raising an eyebrow. “I know it. I know it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The next day when I came home from sewing at Bitsie’s, Nan was in the kitchen mixing something in one of her stainless steel bowls, talking at Luca and his camera.

  “I hope I’m getting this right,” she said cheerily in her company’s here voice.

  I missed having her all to myself. Documentary Nan made me long for the times I’d sit on the couch with Regular Nan to watch Wheel of Fortune and rest my head on her shoulder and feel like I was nine again in the good way.

  “Whatchya making?” I asked, hearing the weariness in my voice, trying to make up for it with a smile when I caught movement from Luca out of the corner of my eye.

  Nan tipped the bowl in my direction. It was filled with bright purple goo.

  “Frosting?” I asked, not allowing myself to get too excited. My guess was it involved tofu and one of Nan’s other strange staple ingredients, like the liquid from a can of chickpeas or the gelatinous horror that was soaked chia seeds.

  “Hair dye,” Nan said. “Can you believe it?”

  “For who?”

  “Me,” Nan said, patting at her hair. “Bitsie dared me.”

  I laughed. “You two are nuts.”

  “We’re a couple of cashews.” She was elated. Supercharged. “Wanna help?” She gestured to the back of her head. “I don’t want to miss a spot.”

  “Now?”

  Nan nodded. “It’s ready to go.” She gave the purple goo one more firm mix.

  “We don’t have to shoot this,” I said. “Right?”

  I could see the need in Luca’s eyes. He wanted the footage. He wanted to be included. It was the same feeling I always had. Invite me to your birthday party. Don’t pick me last for your kickball team. But all three of us in that damp little bathroom while I tried to dye Nan’s hair would be sensory overload. It would be too hard to act normal.

  “Kaitlyn! For posterity!” Nan said.

  “I think maybe—” I said. “Maybe I could shoot this? It’s a small bathroom and, you know, girl stuff.” It made more sense than Luca having to perch on the lid of the toilet with his camera.

  “I’ll set up the tripod,” he said, a hint of pouting in his voice.

  “I’ll get good footage,” I said. “Promise.”

  Nan stood on her tiptoes and grabbed a stack of old towels from the top shelf of the linen closet. Luca came back with the tripod. “There’s going to be echo. I should run out to get foam for the walls.”

  “Oh, no,” Nan said. “We’re doing this now! Before I lose my nerve. Bitsie would never let me live it down!”

  Luca sighed. “Well, let’s get the mics closer to your mouths, at least,” he said.

  “Tape it,” Nan said, pointing to her chest. “I’m not going to keep my top on.”

  “Nan!” I shouted.

  “Get creative with the angles, Kay. I don’t want to get my shirt all dirty.”

  Twenty minutes later, Nan was wired up, wearing one of my theatre t-shirts inside out, to keep the Western Annie Get Your Gun lettering from mucking up the shot.

  We lined the floor with towels and Nan sat on the edge of the bathtub. I took a look through the viewfinder and nudged the camera a little to cover where I thought we’d be.

  Then, with sandwich bags on my hands, I used a paintbrush to slather her hair with purple goo.

  When I was in high school, there was a girl a few grades ahead of me who had long black hair with a hidden rainbow underneath. When she put it in a ponytail, you could see all the colors. I longed for hair like that. Mine was baby fine, caught in an awkward state between curl and wave. Even if I’d had the guts to do the same, at the slightest hint of humidity, my rainbow would have frizzed to a jumble, like too many Play-Doh colors blended together. But I could have been happy with one crazy color. Blue or purple or hot pink. The chance to feel like someone else.

  “You know,” I said, painting the last section of Nan’s hair, “I wanted to do this in high school.” I wasn’t used to sharing my inner life with Nan. I tried to keep my wants from becoming her problem.

  “You did?” Nan said. “I never would have guessed! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It was silly.” I wrapped Nan’s hair with Saran wrap, like a turban. “How long do we wait?” I asked.

  “Half hour,” she said, grabbing her phone from the sink and setting the timer. “Now you. We have leftover dye.”

  “I think with darker hair you’re supposed to bleach it first and I don’t want to—”

  “You just told me you always wanted purple hair. Now is the time.” She grabbed the brush and swabbed at my head.

  “Hey!” I said, ducking out of the way.

  “We’ll only do the ends. You can cut them off if you hate it. They’re sun-bleached anyway.”

  I sat on the side of the tub, closing my eyes as Nan came at me with the brush.

  “You don’t have to make that face. It doesn’t hurt!” Nan laughed, dye dripping on the tile.

  When she finished painting my hair, I adjusted the camera, and we sat on towels on the bathroom floor with our backs against the tub.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted purple hair?” she asked again.

  “I didn’t want to be a pain in the butt.”

  “I would have loved to do stuff like this with you,” Nan said.

  “Really?”

  “I never knew what to do with you. I had a boy. In the seventies. I knew I was supposed to do things differently, but I didn’t know how. You never asked for anything. You were always so agreeable. I felt like I was doing something wrong. Aren’t teenage girls supposed to rebel?”

  “It was never you,” I said.

  “But it was something?”

  I nodded.

  Nan watched me, waiting for an answer, her face full of concern.

  I didn’t want to say it, especially not on camera, but it bubbled up. “I worried you’d realize I was too much trouble. Like my mom did.”

  “Kaitlyn!” Nan said, her face blanching. “That was actually a worry you had?”

  I nodded, choked with tears.

  “Oh, honey.” Nan pulled me to her chest, my plastic-wrapped hair sticking to my cheek. “That’s ridiculous!” She kissed my forehead and I could feel the lipstick mark she left behind. “You can’t get rid of me. Even if you try.”

  Nan wiped my face with the edge of her shirt. “What else did you want?” she asked when the worst of my tears had passed.

  “I wanted a dog,” I said.

  “Done!” She pointed to Bark’s paw, shoved through the gap between the door and the floor, like he was offering us a lifeline to the outside world. “Next!”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “There wasn’t much else.” I couldn’t bear to work through all the things I wanted. Most of them were impossible.

  “You need a better bucket list,” Nan said.

  “What yours?” I asked.

  “Well, I wanted to fall madly in love,” Nan said. “That Hepburn and Tracy friendship kind of love.”

  “Done?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said breathlessly. “When I was married to your grandfather, I spent so much energy trying to be the wife and mother he expected me to be. I loved him. I know he loved me. But our marriage didn’t have room for friendship. Isaac is good at being my friend. He loves me right where I’m standing.”

  I squeezed her hand.

  “And someday I’d like to ride in a hot air balloon,” she said.

  The alarm chimed, I unwrapped Nan’s head. She sat on the edge of the tub again. I stood in the tub and used the showerhead to rinse the goo from her hair.

  “Alright,” I said when the deed was done. “I think we got it all!”

  “This shirt is soaked!” Nan said, pulling it over her head.

  “Nan!” I yelled. �
��Stop!” I pointed to the tripod, but it was too late, she’d flashed the camera. “I think you just made a nudie film!” I scrambled to wrap a towel around her.

  “Oh, who cares?” she said, only blushing a little.

  We dried her hair. Her pixie cut was a shock of bright purple. I positioned the camera to catch her reaction when she looked in the mirror.

  “Look at me!” she said, turning her head from one side to the other. “Oooh, your grandfather would have hated this.” She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she grinned at herself, nodding.

  She rinsed my hair for me, testing the water on her arm first to make sure it wasn’t too hot, like she had when I was a little kid. The purple fringe at the ends looked like feathers from an exotic bird.

  When we were done, the tub and the floor and Nan’s towels were stained purple, but she was thrilled.

  * * *

  Later, when Isaac came over for dinner, Luca had the camera set up at the door to capture his reaction.

  “Oh,” he said, face flushing. “Oh my goodness, Nannette!”

  Nan touched her head. “Too crazy?”

  “I love it,” he said, touching her hair. “You are stunning.” And then he kissed her. Right there in front of us. Without hesitation.

  Behind the camera, Luca looked up and smiled at me.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The next morning, Bitsie came over at seven on the dot to get ready to pick up Woo Woo at the airport.

  “Hey, buy a girl dinner first,” she said when Luca used an elastic bandage to strap a microphone pack to her thigh.

  “Yeah,” Luca said, grinning. “As if a girl like you would ever go out with a guy like me!”

  Bitsie tousled his hair. “You’re a good one, you know that?” She winked at me.

  Nan snaked a mic wire up her pink polo shirt and I clipped it in place, just under the edge of her collar.

  “Your turn!” Nan said.

  I was wearing a sundress I’d made with Bunny’s fabric. Yellow flowered cotton that skimmed my curves. There was no good place to hide the battery pack.

  “I don’t think I need a mic,” I said.